Moosenuts

Once Upon a Time.........

2011-01-07T07:08:00.001-08:00

Once Upon a Time…………..

Almost without fail, when we pick up a book and the first thing we see are those words, we know in our heart that what we are about to read is a work of fiction, a dream, and something that, in the real world, would never actually happen. We see “once upon a time” and we know that what we are seeing is the open door to the land of fantasy and imagining. I’m going to start this entry out with those words, but first I’m going to assure you that what you’ll discover here isn’t a work of fiction, is not a tale of fantasy, and most certainly can and did happen. I’m going to give you a little glimpse into the world of a true love story that I was blessed and privileged to share in a very small but powerful way.

Once upon a time I knew a lovely married couple. They were the parents of my very best friend in the world. They were tremendously successful and enjoyed their exclusive and special place within our community, him a retired and highly respected surgeon, and she his regal and beautiful wife of many many years. Everyone has known a couple of that type of standing who were more than particular about the company they kept. Not them. They were kind, generous, gracious, funny, at times irreverent, and they welcomed me into their extended family with open arms and a kindness that warmed my heart. She became a dear friend and a sort of second mom and to me, while he was the man who always had a smile, a kind word, a warm pat on my arm and all the fatherly advice I could absorb. The only thing that exceeded their humble and generous spirits was their love for each other. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have witnessed that kind of endless love story and partnership.

But we lost one half of that partnership this week. After a long struggle with that bitch Alzheimer’s and a failing heart, and while in the arms of the woman he had loved all his life, he left us Tuesday, and though we will miss him tremendously, he leaves behind a legacy of honor, dignity, spirit and love that few will ever match.

Every little girl dreams of growing up and meeting and marrying her prince, of finding the man who will treat her with care, will hold her heart in his hands as though it were a precious and fragile thing and who will move heaven and earth to see that she is happy and safe. Every little boy hopes that he will be lucky enough to one day capture the heart of a beautiful, intelligent, funny and caring young woman who will spend her life showing him respect, love, acceptance and appreciation for all he tries to give to her. Seldom does life cooperate with those hopes and dreams but sometimes miracles happen. Barbara and Nick were one of those miracles and a love story for the ages. I managed to watch that love story unfold for the last 11 years of his life and I am blessed and privileged to have called him my friend.

I will miss him but I thank him and I thank her for teaching me something so very very vital. That this kind of love, this kind of partnership IS out there. That a magnificent relationship borne of respect, compassion, understanding and love can happen, is possible, is not out of reach. The fairytale isn’t necessarily fiction. That once upon a time can also be right now. That a real man is the one who treasures his wife beyond all others all the days of his life, values what she so willingly offers to him, loves his children more than he loves himself, and understands that a gentle and graceful spirit is the true measure of the man. I love you Dr. Nick. And I’ll miss you very very much. Thank you for the lessons I learned from you, even if you didn’t realize you were teaching me.

And I’ll keep an eye on things for you. You didn’t call me “The Chairman” for nothing.

Dude, I am BACK.

2010-11-05T11:59:00.001-07:00

A couple of days ago, I heard from an old friend who was concerned about me given the tenor of my last post to this blog. I thought "now it wasn't THAT bad was it?" and went back to take a little peek at what I said since my brain resembles a fairly small kitchen collander these days and retains nothing but the biggest chunks that won't slide through the holes.

I just got done reading and had to sit and think for a while. I remember when I wrote that. I remember struggling to get the words out because that stuff was hard to write. And then I stopped again and compared where I was then to where I am now and thought "hot damn what a difference a few months make!"

So let's put this puppy back on track, the track upon which I belong, get into the frame of mind that suits me best, and take a look around the present.

"When God takes something from your grasp, He's not punishing you, but merely opening your hands to receive something better." My mommy sent me that. She's a smart lady.

When God DOES answer a prayer, he simply does not dick around. When He finally decides to act, He does so with a bang like nothing you've ever seen. When He tosses you a gift, you'd better have both hands out and be ready to hang on for dear life cause it's gonna be a doozy. And it's gonna ROCK.

You can use a dinner knife as a screwdriver if you try hard enough.

There really is no law that says a female operating a television remote control is punishable by death.

And when a female operates a television remote control, the television will magically stay on one channel for the entire duration of a movie.

Curling up on the sofa and reading a fantastic book for as long as you want to doesn't make you a lazy bad person. It can, however, give you one crazyass cramp in your neck and make you realize that blinking is good.

It's really cool setting your own schedule, your own priorities, and making your own rules.

Having a pack of your friends over to your house for a girl bonding weekend is something I should have done YEARS ago, damn the fall-out.

My daughter is the most amazing person I've ever known, bar none. That kid makes me laugh every single day, teaches me something at least every other day, and has the kind of spirit, strength and integrity that could change the world if more people were like her. And she plays a mean Guitar Hero.

They say great things come in small packages, but I'm here to tell that you that sometimes incredible things come in really big forms too; things like humor, wit, kindness, generosity, brilliance, compassion, love and the best smile in the world, all in quantities so rich that they nearly don't quite fit into a six foot seven package. Like I said. God doesn't mess around.

Hindsight really is 20 / 20. Thank God for that.

I spend my time nowadays smiling, being thankful, looking ahead without cringing, looking back less and less, laughing, and knowing that while I'm thankful to be moving onto a new chapter of my life, it was the old chapter that made me who I am, shaped who I have become, gave me the best gift of my life in the form of a beautiful daughter, and will always be something that while I will never miss it, will always treasure. It's a part of my life. It always will be.

The future is bright because of all I have been through, all I have experienced and all that I have become as a result.

Thank you to my daughter for your never ending love and support. You are truly a one in a million special child.

Thank you to my sis for her scathing and hysterical commentary, complete lack of judgment, and open ear.

Thank you to my friends who never once left me alone, let me down, let me wallow, and who were there night and day, every night and day. The daily e-mails. The weekly cards. The constant love. You people are the best.

Thank you to my Mom. What in the world would I do without you?

Thank you to the six foot seven gift. There simply are no words.

So bring on the chocolate.

Stepping Outside my Comfort Zone

2010-08-05T10:19:00.000-07:00

I know that when I originally crafted this blog, it was ostensibly for the purpose of posting the silly and zany events of my life. While it probably will return to that in the future, I find that my life has taken a dramatic but not completely unanticipated turn. On some level, I understood that it was inevitable. But in my heart, I refused to accept that continued self-sacrifice and an iron will couldn't derail the train that has threatened to run me down for a very very long time.

The train caught me a few months back. The train ran me down. But that train didn't destroy me. It's going to take more than that because what I learned is that no matter how low you sink, no matter hard you're hit, no matter how outrageously you are betrayed, lied to and hurt, if you stop long enough to search deep within your soul, if you allow the people who love you to take your hand and help you in that search, you will find a tiny little glimmer of the light that once shone so brightly. I found that light. It was still there and it was just waiting for me to come and breathe gently breathe life back into it.

It's a slow, tedious and sometimes incredibly painful process. It requires hard work to shed the coping skills developed over the course of years that have taken up the space where your life should have been. It is hard and it hurts but the rewards are steady and never ending. Along the way, you learn:

You learn that not everyone deserves your love and devotion and that it's OK to figure that out long after everyone else has already done so.

You learn that even after you have learned the previous lesson, it's OK to have loved them and there is never any shame in having given your love, loyalty, devotion and care.

You learn that your capacity for forgiveness can sometimes be your greatest downfall - that every transgression can be forgiven, but not every transgression deserves a second or third chance. As the old song goes, "ya gotta know when to fold 'em".

You learn that the inability of another to accept you as you are is not a good enough reason to alter your very being. You learn that the inability of another to accept you as you are is good enough reason to instead surround yourself with people who can and do so freely.

It's OK to be smart.

You learn that if it looks like a lie and it smells like a lie, then it's a lie. Whether you like it or not.

You learn that life goes on. Maybe not in the fashion you anticipated and probably not along the path you had charted out ahead of time, but it goes on.

You learn that love can be blind but hindsight is 20/20.

You learn that although you were never really much of a Garth Brooks fan, you can still thank God for unanswered prayers, and that while John Lennon really did evolve from a really cute little fella to someone who looked like he had only a nodding acquaintence with a bar of soap there at the end, he had it right when he said "life is what happens while you're busy making other plans."

You learn you can survive that which you didn't think was survivable. You learn you can move forward when you didn't think you had to strength to even stand. You learn that you can do it scared. You learn that you don't leave behind the love that another squandered but instead, you take it with you for more sensible distribution in the future.

You learn. You simply keep learning. You keep loving. You never quit. Ever. Because you know that if you quit, everything you love loses and the assholes win.

Never. Ever. Quit. Just know when to stop playing the same old, endless and unwinable game.

Keep your chin up. Keep your dignity intact. Keep your friends close to your heart. Hold your family dear. Never stop trying. Never stop loving. And never ever stop reminding yourself that you are precious, valuable, worthwhile, and special - even if you've been told you're not.

Let go of regret. Wish people well. Hope for the happiness of others and mean it. Laugh often. Cry less.

Just get on about the business of living the life you were meant to have.

And eat lots of chocolate.

If You See a Big Fat Fly

2010-06-15T05:23:00.001-07:00

If you should happen to notice a large, hairy, discombobulated fly buzzing around the lamp next to where you're sitting some evening, quietly reading, having a wonderful cup of coffee and minding your own business, do not ignore the fly.

Kill the fly.

Kill the barstid immediately.

Otherwise, you may find yourself, having just returned from wandering to the kitchen and back, taking a big gulp of the fresh coffee sitting at your side, under the lamp, feeling something in your mouth that doesn't belong there, and spewing that gulp of coffee back into the cup. Where you will see the now dead fly floating around in your drink, having just been forcefully ejected from your yap. And you will not be able to shed that gacky feeling for at least 6 hours.

Trust me on this. There isn't enough spitting, hacking, tougue scraping or Listerine in the world to shake that experience.

Have I Known Peace?

2010-05-20T06:35:00.000-07:00

My mom asked me yesterday whether or not I’d given up contributing to this blog. The answer was “I haven’t had anything to say.” The problem with that particular response is that it’s not necessarily true. I haven’t had anything funny to say and for some reason, I was, for the most part, limiting my posts here to the ridiculous, the funny and the outlandish episodes in my life. Since not a lot of ridiculous, outlandish or, God knows, funny things have been happening in my life here of late, I felt I had nothing to say where this blog was concerned.

It occurred to me this morning that this attitude was somewhat narrow minded and stupid. Hardly the first time, won’t be the last. As it turns out, I do have something to say, and those of you who know me well will now be thinking “We knew the peace and quiet simply couldn’t last. Here we go. Somebody either break that woman’s fingers or knock me the hell out right now.”

Someone very dear to me is going through a remarkably difficult time in what appears to me to be the culmination of a lifetime of never considering himself to be either good enough or worthy finally rearing its ugly head and making one hell of a good attempt at ripping him apart from the inside out once and for all. It’s a struggle we all have to eventually tackle, like it or not, and for some of us, the struggle is difficult. For others, that struggle takes on biblical proportions. I’d call this one semi-biblical. He asked me last night “have you ever known peace?” Well, me being me, I had an answer right out of the gate, but he asked me not to give my first thoughts. To stop. To think. To really consider the question. So I did, for all of about 60 seconds, which for me is taking some serious time to think about something before shooting off my mouth. But the question stayed with me, even after my stupid top of the brain answer. It stayed with me through the evening, right through a miserable and painful episode of American Idol, and was still there when I drifted off to sleep. I woke up this morning with an entirely different response.

When asked “have you ever known peace”, I immediately interpreted that question as “have I known peace in my life?” Well, yeah. Now and then. When the stars and planets align and everything goes right for maybe a day or so, I’ve known peace. When I’ve had enough money to pay my bills with something left over, when the scale is cooperating and I’m seeing the number I want to see without placing a hand on the bathroom counter and applying just enough pressure, when the sun is shining, and I have fun stuff to either do or look forward to, I know peace. When everybody I care about is reasonably healthy, I’m pooping on a fairly regular basis, and I’m in the middle of a really good book, yes - I’ve known peace. But upon waking, after giving my other brain, the smart one, time to really mull this over, I came up with not only an entirely different answer, but an entirely different answer to a completely different question. Perspective is truly everything.

Have I known peace? Why yes. Yes, I have. I know peace now. At a time in my life when just about all I hold dear is spinning in circles, when the outcome isn’t clear, and when I have no control over the finale, I know peace. I know that true peace isn’t all that other stuff I said just a paragraph ago. I don’t find true peace in absolute control. True peace is knowing a quiet calm within your own heart and being at rest with who you are, what you are and what that means. While my ego is clearly vying for space with just about every other function necessary for life, like breathing, it’s not enormous enough for me to presume I have the one-size-fits-all answer to this inner peace thing. I don’t know the meaning of life, I don’t know why we’re all here, I don’t know where that second sock goes when only one comes out of the dryer when you know damned well you put two in there, and I don’t know how to show the world how to attain inner peace.

But I know how I found it, how I maintain it and what it means to me. If it helps you, dandy. If not, thanks for reading anyway.

I once said to this same someone that my most urgent need in life wasn’t attention. It wasn’t being center stage, being looked up to, being catered to or being made to feel as though I was sitting up on some marble pedestal in the midst of my adoring public. My most urgent need in life is to find acceptance wherever I may be. Now please don’t misunderstand. I do not expect everybody to like me. I don’t like everybody else so naturally, everybody isn’t going to like me. That bothers me, yeah, but I can’t do much about it nor am I willing to do what is necessary to change their opinion of me, so it’s something I simply have to accept.

Acceptance. Yes. I crave and require acceptance from those around me but even more importantly, I understand that I must first and foremost accept and make peace with all that I am. Before I can ask for acceptance from a single soul, I have to first assess myself, come to terms with my limitations, my successes, my shortcomings, and everything that makes me me, and accept that the sum of all those parts is fine. Really and absolutely enough. On some days, it’s more than enough. One some days, it’s not quite up to par, but in the long run, when all the scores are tallied up and somebody other than me (because math is not my friend) runs the numbers, I average out to not half bad. Yes, I hate my legs. I fixed another part of my body I hated. I wish my feet were a little smaller, I wish I made a better income, I wish I had a little more self-discipline, I wish my memory were sharper, I’d like to not wake every morning with back pain and I’d like a lot of things in my life to be other than what they are.

But I like my eyes, my stomach is still flat at 50, I can pay my bills, I have some really cool stuff and could actually get by very comfortably on a lot less stuff, so clearly I have enough. I eventually get done the things I have to do, and I have become accustomed to setting up reminders for everything from dinner with friends to scooping the cat box on a regular basis within my handy dandy cell phone. While I’d like a lot of things within my life to be different, I wouldn’t trade most of what I am and what I have for the world.

I can’t. I won’t. It took me a very very long time and it took surviving some tremendously difficult life altering episodes to discover that I can’t be all things to all people. I can’t stop hurt from finding me by changing who I am. I can’t control the behavior of another. I can’t manipulate my future by manipulating my very being. I have to be content with myself, accepting all my warts and shortcomings right along with all the things about me that I proudly list on the “plus” side of my own personal spreadsheet. I try to keep that side of the sheet a little longer than the “you suck” side. And as long as I’m doing that, I’m ok.

Acceptance. Not from those around me – not at first. Acceptance from within. Acceptance that I’m doing the very best I can and that the best I can do will always have to be enough. Acceptance that not everybody will be enamored of the end result. Acceptance that I can’t change that inevitability. Acceptance that there isn’t anything I could do or would want to do to change that. Acceptance that embracing that philosophy could be costly and painful at times. Knowing that in order to be true to myself, I really have no choice. Understanding that for those who truly love and accept me, that will be enough.

So yes. I know peace.

Dear "Anonymous":

2009-08-13T08:44:00.001-07:00

Yes, I am.
Actually, they do.
And you smell funny.

Smooches

Because You Can't Fix Stupid

2009-08-12T13:51:00.000-07:00

Some of my best moments occur in the most unexpected of locations and situations. Take today for example.

I was sitting in the chair at my new dentist's office having my teeth cleaned and doing that chatting you do with your hygienist when you are trying to talk around a mouth full of hand. The girl from the front desk came bopping into the room. She is probably in her mid 20's and a pleasant if somewhat vacant girl. She asked the hygienist "Are you a vegetarian?" The hygienist, who for the sake of brevity I'll call "J", said "no, I'm not." Our hero, the receptionist, said "Oh. OK. I had a question." J told her to ask it because she could probably answer it.

So Miss Mensa says "can vegetarians eat animal crackers?"

I am not kidding here.

OK, some of you know me well enough to know that having two hands, a mirror and a sharp object in my mouth at this particular moment was probably for the best. I froze. J paused. And giving the biggest benefit of the doubt I've ever seen in my life, J proceeded to tell her about the different kinds of vegetarians and how different kinds of foods, depending on how they're made, are ok for some and not for others. By this time, she had her hands out of my mouth and clenched in her lap so what the hell, I joined in too. And when we were done, Einstein utters the following words, and I shit you not, this verbatim:

"Oh. OK. So the shape of the food doesn't have anything to do with it?"

J tried her best, but I could see the muscles in her jaw twitching behind her mask. I dropped my head. I gnawed the inside of face off trying to keep it in. And J quietly said "No. Honey, no. The shape of the food doesn't matter."

As soon as the room was clear, I lost it. I turned to J and said "Holy Jesus and little fishes, tell me you don't let her play with any of the sharp shit around here, OK?" J fell apart. I said "you should tell her that if you order chicken nuggets in the shape of tiny dinosaurs, it's still not OK to eat them just because dinosaurs are extinct, but first tell her what extinct means, and that even though dinosaurs aren't real any more and the food is SHAPED like dinosaurs doesn't change anything and that it's still friggin chicken, OK?" J had to take off her mask. She had to wipe her eyes and blow her nose and change her gloves.

I said is she for REAL? Really?

J choked out "Girl, this is every single day around here."

I told her I have a blog and we need to chat because I'm going to start an entire chapter on "crap I heard while in the dentist's chair that you are not gonna believe."

Can vegetarians eat animal crackers.

That is right up there with "Did Jesus have a dog?"

I swear to you if I had money falling out of my ass, I'd go call a basket company, have them fill it with animal crackers and send it to J with a note that said "I've hated the dentist all my life and I must thank you because never have I laughed that hard within 100 yards of the chair of pain. You have my thanks and my sympathies."

More Life Lessons With the Ringlet

2009-05-11T07:04:00.000-07:00

More Life Lessons with the Ringlet

When I was in the third grade, my gym teacher took a special interest in me because I was a very fast runner. I was just naturally and tremendously fast. Not a single person in that school could touch me – boy, girl, didn’t matter – nobody could keep up. He thought it would be a good idea to have a chat with my parents and then shuttle me into town to see a man who was, at that time, already at 2 time women’s Olympic track coach. He ran a private team, separate and apart from high school teams, and would now and again recruit kids from the outlying areas to try out for his team. I was taken to him and given an opportunity to give it my best shot.

Up to this point, my best shot was always enough. Usually, whatever I felt like giving was enough. I was all of 8 years old and baby, as far as I was concerned, I was IT. At least that’s what I thought until about five minutes after arriving at my tryout. I went from being all that to “how do you like your view of my back ” in the space of about 10 seconds, which is about all it took for his runners to dust the floor with my lagging-behind little rear end. But in spite of it all, he took me on and I made the team.

I then spent the better part of the next year running and training and getting carted all over the east coast for AAU track events and coming home from each and every one of them with my tail between my legs, having at times been beaten so badly I doubt that anybody even knew I was there.

The long and short of it is that I was just as stubborn then as I am now, and I just kept working harder, trying harder, learning more and busting my gut to climb back up to the top of a mountain that had suddenly tripled in size in my little eyes. Eventually, I did. Eventually, I made it out the heats and into the finals just to get beaten in a quite glorious and tremendous fashion all over again. Then I started placing. Then I started winning. Then I was the one to beat again, but it took two years to get there. Eventually, I was probably the fastest sprinter in my age group on the east coast. In fact, I still have the trophy to prove it.

The big fish/little pond vs. little fish/big pond lesson is one of the most important lessons of my life and one that Ringlet learned the hard way this past weekend. I took her to an out of state tournament, in a state where they take their karate about as seriously as Snarks takes her politics. The level of competition was like nothing Ringlet had seen to date, and while I warned her about it, she really didn’t pay me any mind. She had already decided that she knew her kata well enough, didn’t really need to sharpen it up, didn’t need to really do much of anything. She walked in there with her eyes firmly planted on the enormous first place trophy.

She walked out of there a different kid.

To her credit, she realized early on in the day that this was a different world. and rather than crumple or find an excuse to get into the car and just RUN, she rose to the challenge and her performance was just about the best I’ve ever seen out of her. But she was from out of state, unknown and just a bit unprepared for what she was facing. She held it together until we got to the car and then she burst into tears. She was furious at having come four hours, stayed overnight and then spent a day in a hot stuffy gym for “a stinking medal”.

I told her we hadn’t come all that way for a medal. I told her that when she pulled it together, we’d head for the Sonic we spotted on the way there, get a couple of Blasts and have a chat about why we HAD come all that way.

And we did. And she listened. And after a while she got it, especially after listening with rapt attention to the story of my two year asskicking in track. But she got it. She wasn’t even mad at me for dragging her all that way for her very own asskicking. She realized that the second you think you know it all, the second you think you’re the best, when you think you don’t have to work harder or reach for more, that’s the time when somebody’s gonna come up to you and show you, usually in the most humbling manner possible, just how very wrong your assumptions have been.

She’ll head for practice tomorrow night with a new view on things. She’ll sit down with her Master to discuss her short term game plan and goals and she’ll up her game and her training to accomplish them. That alone made it worth my setting her up for a fall to teach her a lesson. Because I’m still not sure even this morning who had the hardest time with this particular lesson: her or me.

Right now I’m thinking probably me.

This One is for The Peanut

2009-04-27T11:46:00.001-07:00

Today is one of those days when I can still remember the second I laid eyes on my good friend's beautiful adopted son, to whom we affectionately refer as the Peanut. Mostly I can remember it because at Ringlet’s karate tournament yesterday, there was this itty, bitty, teeny, tiny, wee itsy bitsy little brown boy-critter in a white uniform way too big for his little body, with a white belt wrapped around his waist about 3 times about to stand up in front of a couple of big scary black belt judges and perform his little kata and that kid looked just like the Peanut did way back when. I chit you not, this kid couldn’t have been more than 10 inches tall. OK, maybe a little more than that, but by God not much.

He got up there and with eyes about as big as saucers, he stood before the judges and whispered what information he could remember from Clarence, his ENORMOUS instructor (who is actually quite a teddy bear if you can get past the wicked-scary front he likes to present) and started. When the time came for him to do his little karate screams at various parts of his kata, he would pause, think for a second and then turn to the judges, grit his teeth and growl at them.

I was almost wetting myself from trying not to laugh.

And when this little adorable thing got done and bowed, the whole crowd stood up and clapped, whistled and cheered louder than they had all day long.

And THAT’s what made him cry.

Tales from the Big Boat - Time to Throw Down

2009-04-13T11:22:00.000-07:00

Our captain decided not to attempt to enter one of our ports of call due to high winds combined with big rocks in the entrance channel and, in response to the outcry of some passengers about missing a port of call, the ship was diverted to arrive in the Keys the following day. As a result, we found ourselves back in the States and required to go through immigration procedures before leaving the ship, which caused a bit of a backup on the staircases leading off the ship. People were hot, stuffy and getting more than a little cranky after half an hour of just standing on the stairs, waiting to make the most of their day.

Ringlet was standing at the bottom of the first staircase down, right before the landing that turns to head down the second set of stairs to the next deck level. I was right behind her and Mr. Ringie was bringing up the rear. There were lots of people around, just sullenly waiting it out. Quite suddenly, a man a little older than me and wearing sunglasses and a hat, who was situated past the landing and down a few stairs, looked directly up at Ringlet, clapped his hands and said “Come here L. Come to daddy honey.” By “L”, I mean called her by name.

I stopped breathing, turned and glared at him. Ringlet backed up a step toward me.

He did it again. He said “Come on L, my sweetie, come to your daddy.”

By now, he was speaking loudly enough for the half deaf Mr. Ringie to hear him as well, and I felt him stiffen from head to toe behind me, calculating how badly it would hurt his knees to launch himself at this guy who seeminly had a well developed death wish.

I said, out loud, “Who is that guy?” and a lady on the landing looked at me and, pointing to Ringlet, said “Why it’s HER father.” I said “the HELL it is. THAT’s her father” and pointed behind me. She looked up, spied Mr. Ringie and quietly murmured “uh oh.”

Just as I was about to turn to this guy and unload, he clapped his hands again, made a bunch of loud sloppy kissy noises and said “Come ON L. Come ON my sweetie. Come to your Daddy.”

And I snapped.

I whirled on the guy and bellowed “Who ARE you and why are you speaking to my child.”

He stopped and got this confused look on his face. He took off his sunglasses and looked at me, looked at Ringlet and then his eyes got rilly rilly wide as he held up his hands and said “no no nononononono” and pointing at Ringlet, said “beHIND her.”

Right behind Ringlet, same age, same hair, same everything was HIS daughter. Also named L. When he realized what was happening, he turned back to me and EVERYbody was holding their breath as he said “Oh My God. How much longer did I have to live?”

And me being me, smiled and said “Dude, you had approximately 5 seconds until I vaulted this rail, landed on you and force fed you those sunglasses by way of your a$$.”

The whole staircase broke up, and for the rest of the long shuffle out of the ship, you could hear people from all over piping up with “COME TO YOUR DADDY!!!!!”

Tales from the Big Boat #1: Ringlet Meets a Boy

2009-04-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

Carnival Valor – pretty big ship. Lots of kids. Lots of kids Ringlet’s age. Lots of boys Ringlet’s age. Lots and lots and lots. Hysterically, this was our first full day on the ship, and we were relaxing in the lounge chairs on the level up above the pool where we could watch the ocean go by on one side and keep an eye on the pool in which Ringlet was splashing with the other. We had fruity drinks. We had nice people around us and the sun was pouring out 85 degree heat. It was great.

Until I felt Mr. Ringie poking me in the arm. I ignored him for the first 10 pokes or so and finally turned and hissed, “WHAT?” He was sitting there, waggling his arm in the direction of the pool with a panicky look on his face, telling me to “Go look. She’s talking to boys. Make it stop.” The people to my left started giggling behind their hands. I told him to just sit down and relax and leave her alone.

Not 10 minutes later, I saw her coming up the stairs to our level and right behind her was a nice looking young boy, around her age. They were kind of talking back and forth. Looked like a plot to me, but fortunately, Mr. Ringie was fretting and facing in an entirely different direction.

Ringlet parked herself in front of her father and one look at the shiteatin' grin on her face should have been enough to know what was coming, but she pulled the boy around her, placed him directly in front of her and this young boy looked Mr. Ringie right in the face, stuck out his right hand, and loudly blurted “Hello Mr. Ringie. My name is Casey. I’m 12 years old. I’m from Martinsburg, West Virginia and I’d like to ask you if it’s OK with you if I go with Ringlet to get some pizza.”

Mr. Ringie just sat there. I held my breath. I had to or I was gonna laugh out loud. The people next to us started snorting and giggling. Mr. Ringie stammered. Mr. Ringie struggled mightily to come up with something to say that was both stern and fatherly. What he managed to pinch out was “Uhhhh…….” I quickly told them to go get some pizza and have fun. When they were about 50 feet away, Mr. Ringie came out of his stroke and howled “Get some WHAT and have some WHAT?”

We quickly found a waiter and a big fruity drink.

Reason #1 to Dropkick My Boss

2009-03-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

OK. You people know me. Some of you know me better than my sister. Some of you know me maybe even better than that. Lots of you know me well enough to be fully aware of my greatest phobia in this life of mine. Hopefully, some of you know and care for me well enough to be willing to cough up some cash for bail money when I'm arrested and slammed into jail for drop kicking my boss all over this office for about half an hour or so.

He finally got me back for the mind-bendingly maddening repeated loop of “It’s a Small World” coming from a mysterious location in his office after he spent a week with his wife’s entire family in Disney. He got me back for re-wallpapering his entire office with post-it notes. He got me back for replacing his law school diploma with a photo of Alex Karras as Mongo in Blazing Saddles. If he knew that I planned to come in here with three rolls of plastic wrap and a hairdryer and shrink wrap his entire office when he next goes on vacation, I suppose it might have been worse. As it was, it was bad enough. In any case, this is how my morning went.

I was cranky and I was tired. It's tax season and while that is seldom a good season for much of anybody who owns their own business, this year in particular, the knowledge that April 15 was rapidly approaching has been keeping me up nights. I would have liked to have spent my evening chain smoking, eating pizza and drinking straight tequila, however, none of those activities were acceptable. On a Monday night that is. So instead, I came schlepping in here to work this morning and made a direct line to the little Keurig coffee maker my boss and I have on my desk. Anybody familiar with the mechanics of the Keurig? Let’s leave it at this. When you push the silver button that says “press to open” the front part springs up and open, revealing the place where you insert the little single serving coffee cups. It springs open pretty hard and damned fast.

This morning, as I groggily pressed the silver button, the coffee machine sprang open to reveal a huge, wriggly, hairy, moving, attacking, vicious, lethal blood dripping off it’s fangs ready to spring, got my name written all over it man eating..................…………………….black plastic Halloween spider.

Oh shut UP.

I screamed. Out loud. I actually almost threw up. I know I peed a little. I doubled over and put my hands on my knees to keep from passing out and that was my position when my evil young, no-sense-of-his-own-mortality boss came staggering out of his office, holding his stomach and howling with tears streaming down his face.

I’m shrink wrapping his office. Twice.

I’m replacing his keyboard with an old one and whiting out all the keys.

I’m going to collect packing peanuts and rig them over his door.

I’m going to open his mini blinds all the way and then steal the little controller.

I’m going to do all this and a lot more just as soon as I’m sure I’m not having a heart attack.

I might have to throw the stupid coffee machine away unless I can figure out how to smack that button and open it from 3 feet away, which may or may not be a safe distance, but in any case sure as hell beats standing right on top of the beast when he pounces.

How Not to Navigate a Crowded Parking Deck

2009-03-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

I park on the top floor of our parking deck. It’s where most of the tenants park because the spaces are wider, there aren’t any parking restrictions and you can see your car from the windows of your office. When you're bored, you can hit the alarm button on your keyfob and totally freak out people who get a little too close. But on days like this, I have to wonder if metered parking on the street and the risk of a parking ticket isn’t almost worth it. Days when I follow someone who prompts me to write the following rules and regulations of parking deck use:

1. Do not pull in, realize you didn’t read the instructions, and then attempt to back up with four cars in line behind you.

2. Your window rolls down. Really. It does. It is not necessary to take off your seat belt, open your car, get out of your car, peer at the admission ticket, read it, then get back in your car, put your seat belt back ON and then and only then move out of the damned way.

3. The speed limit through the deck is not one mile per hour.

4. The speed limit through the deck most certainly does not include “reverse”.

5. Do not come to a dead stop to examine every single parking space you see.

6. Do not back up to get a second look at that parking space you just passed.

7. Do not turn left where the big red sign says “exit left” instead of continuing through the deck, realize your mistake and once again, throw that sucker in reverse and back up into the now 8 cars lined up behind you.

8. At the end of each row, you can only turn left. You don’t need to stop, look right where there IS no oncoming traffic because it’s a CEMENT WALL and put on your blinker.

9. When there are five spaces available, do not stop and wait for the person walking through the deck to get to their car to see if they are going to vacate a different spot.

10. Once you have done so, and the person strolling to their car DOES get into the car and leave, do NOT then decide you don’t like that spot after all.

11. Do not just once again stop and ponder.

12. Parking your car does not require that you get out and physically examine the space.

13. All those hands extending from the driver’s side windows of the cars behind you are NOT waving at you.

"Tradition" Doesn't Equate to "Right"

2009-01-26T06:35:00.000-08:00

Just because something's tradition doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right.

Some of you know me outside just reading my nonsense on this blog and, therefore, some of you know of the struggle I endured a few months back in pulling my daughter out of the karate dojo at which she had trained for over 3 years. In a nutshell, I had to decide between leaving her in a situation where the level of what I considered emotional abuse had risen to the point where she became physically ill at the idea of going to class, for the sake of being able to say she trained with one of the most highly respected 10th degree black belts in the country, or pulling her out and finding her a new trainer before she was emotionally compromised and quit the martial arts all together.

I had to choose between loyalties. I chose my daughter. I pulled her from the class and to be fair, I didn’t handle it well. I had wanted to approach him for months about my concerns. I was pissed, but I allowed myself to be intimidated, and convinced myself that his methods hadn’t really changed and that those same methods had brought her to where she was. Eventually, I had to step back and admit that what I was seeing was different and that under no circumstances was it healthy. Then I had to wait until I was in a foul enough mood that I could go in there and do what had to be done. Yeah, he’s that intimidating.

I’ve spent the past couple of months convinced that my issue was with her instructor as an individual. While I still believe that his methods are still very much a part of my problem with that situation, a conversation I had with another friend, another high ranking black belt, gave me a new perspective.

He asked about what had happened and I told him. His reply to me set me back on my heels. His reply to me essentially stated that in the old school Japanese style of teaching, most black belts of his level and her old instructor’s level only teach other black belts. That the student essentially has absolutely no say. That anything an instructor of their rank chooses to do in order to teach his students is not only acceptable, but above reproach. That while he was happy that my daughter had found a martial arts environment and instructor that nurtured her and brought her back to being in love with the martial arts, he was all about dojo loyalty and clearly took issue with changing instructors and dojos. That the old instructor wasn’t arrogant, and my believing that he was was simply me not understanding the Japanese culture. That he was ex-military and because of that, I probably misunderstood his true intentions.

I sat there and I read those words about half a dozen times and realized that if I got much angrier, I was going to lose the ability to learn from what he was telling me. What he was telling me wasn’t personal. What he was telling me was important because it was right about then that I realized my problem wasn't merely with the methods of an individual, but extended to a culture and tradition thousands of years old. And only then did I reply to him that while I understood what he said, the day I sacrificed my loyalty to my daughter’s well-being for loyalty to some dojo and the tradition behind it was the day that social services could come to my home, at my invitation, and take her away.

I started thinking about the few other young women who had trained with him and thought carefully about whether or not I wanted my child to emulate what they had become after years of exposure to his methods of teaching. I realized I had probably dodged one bigass bullet.

After all this time and up until this morning, I was still struggling with the idea that I had taken her away from what could potentially be the best instructor she’d ever know even if he was a complete jackass because I was annoyed and over-protective. I quit struggling this morning after reading that reply because:

1. Just because something is tradition, doesn’t make it right, healthy or necessary.

2. Falling back on “tradition” to justify treating somebody else, especially a child, like dirt is chickenshit. It sullies what might otherwise be an honorable and respected tradition.

3. Choosing loyalty based on tradition as opposed to what is right and proper is equally chickenshit.

4. If a child is working hard to excel and yet has difficulty mastering a concept and feels lousy about it, then that’s OK. But if that same child consistently walks away from instruction feeling worthless and less valuable than they did when they walked in, that’s not.

5. An age-old tradition that is based upon respect should not require that in order to show respect, one loses their dignity and respect for self. Respect is a two way street.

6. Discipline and respect can be achieved without breaking down the essential part of the student being taught.

7. I did the right thing. He believed in his heart that any method he chose to utilize in interacting with his students was justified based on tradition and that it was perfectly acceptable to treat 10 year old kids as though they were bootcamp soldiers. The act of claiming immunity based on a centuries old tradition isn’t going to change because I don’t approve. The only way I could ever have changed that situation was to remove her from it.

8. I'm finally at the point where I think I can stop being pissed off about it.

Peg Bundy Lives!!!!!

2008-12-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

We were invited to a lovely costume party in honor of a good friend's 60th birthday this past Friday night.

I hate costume parties. I suck at picking a costume. I never come up with anything creative and I always wait until the last minute, throw a sheet on my head and call it good. Not this time. I planned ahead and I went for it.

I went as Peg "White Trash Queen of the Century" Bundy. I can attest to why Peg walked the way she did. Those heels were killer - I could feel my pulse in my feet by the end of the night. They hurt so badly, I forgot about trying to keep my head up with five pounds of hair extensions clipped in my normally short hair.

But the party was fun and for your amusement, this is my very first photo posted to my Blog ever. Because yanking off a Peg deserves something.

The Ringlet Learns a Lesson on Slang. And Cats.

2008-12-12T05:57:00.000-08:00

Oh the joys of middle school. New classes, new teachers, new friends, new experiences and delightful, completely inappropriate slang phrases. And the occasional curse word, designed to test the boundaries and see just how much slack I’m giving her these days. The Ringlet’s school is very large and incredibly diverse, so she tends to be exposed to every single possible walk of life. On this particular day, the Ringlet and I were texting back and forth, me at work and her home doing her homework. We were joking around, picking at each other – an afternoon ritual for us – and I fired off a zinger in her direction, to which she replied, and I’m quoting here: “Hey. M’Dog. I’ma gone bust a cat in yo ass.”

Cat.

Cat???

In my WHAT????

So rather than text back, I picked up the phone and called her said “You’re going to do WHAT?” She tentatively repeated “Um. I’m gonna bust a cat in your…..ass?”

Me: Do you have even the slightest idea of what you just said?

Her: Well yeah. I’m gonna bust you in the butt with a cat.

Me: Um…no. First off it’s not CAT. It’s CAP.

Her: Well THAT doesn’t make any sense.

Me: (thinking oh my God she’s never gonna get into a good college) Hon, that phrase means “I am going to take a gun and shoot you.”

Her: Oh GOD that’s BAD. I said THAT?

Me: Yupper.

Her: Oh no.

Me: Actually what you said was more like you were going to bust somebody in the ass with your cat, but as long as we’re talking about things that don’t make sense . . . .

Her: Oh I can’t SAY that anymore!!!

Me: Most definitely not.

Her: I LIKE cats.

Me: Wait…….

Her: No no no no, I get it. I guess I should come home and ask you what things means before I say ‘em out loud next time, right?

Me: Absolutely.

Dear Lord: Please do your best to see that she doesn’t come home and ask me what “MILF” means. Thank you. Amen.

Overachiever

2008-11-11T09:36:00.000-08:00

**ring ring ring**

Me: Good morning. Litigation Department.

Confused Male Voice: Oh......I'm sorry.....I have the wrong number.

Me: Maybe not. Who were you attempting to reach?

Male Voice: I'm calling for Ringlet (insert her real name here)

Me: Really? Well I'm Ringlet's mother. What can I do for you??

Male Voice: I'm so-and-so from such-and-such organization. We're private headhunters engaged in the business of locating colleges that match up with the educational requirements of students based upon their chosen profession and field of study.

Me: You don't say?

Eager Male Voice: Yes and it is at no cost to the student. We were contacted on line by Ringlet regarding her interest in becoming a forensic scientist.

Me: Really?

Confident Male Voice: Yes ma'am. Can I please inquire whether the Ringlet is graduating from high school this year?

Me: Yes you may and no she is not.

Male Voice: Could you please tell me when she will be graduating so that I can better assess her scholastic opportunities.

Me: 2015

Completely Lost Male Voice: <>

Me: Hello?

Baffled Guy: She's..........11 years old?

Me: Yup.

Laughing Baffled Guy: Would you say she's a bit of an over-achiever?

Me: Yup. And I'm sorry that she has wasted your time.

Clearly Shaking His Head Baffled Guy: Not at all. Ya know, most kids her age are spending their time time messing around on sites where they don't belong, putting stuff they shouldn't on websites, and getting in trouble in chat rooms or porn sites and your 11 year old daughter is contacting college recruitment companies and giving them her mother's contact information.

Me: Apparently so.

Dude: Bravo.

Me: Maybe, but I'm still going to be chatting with her about giving out Mommy's phone number to people without talking to Mommy first. But thank you for your inquiry.

Nice Dude: No problem. Have her call me in about 5 or 6 years.

Me: Will do.

The Ringlet Throws!!!! She Scores!!!! The Crowd Goes Wild!!!

2008-09-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

Finding myself exceedingly bored and discovering Mr. Ringie down for the count with a migraine thanks to an overindulgence in Chinese food the night before, Ringlet and I decided to trek down the road a bit to the annual renaissance festival. It had been some years since I had been there and Ringlet had never been there as a grown up kid, so, since she was bored as well, and in light of the prospect of scoring some cool stuff at the vendor's tents, off we went.We wandered around looking at things, checking out some of the shows, snagging and horking down steak on a stake and eventually came upon a relatively bawdy dunk tank. I believe the word "wench" was used in the description somewhere. There was a pretty fair sized crowd watching the fun and gathered around the throwing area was the usual group of young men of varying ages ranging from about 17 to 24, all of whom were paying their dollar and winging softball sized leather sandbags at the target for all they were worth. Seldom, if ever, did they hit anything other than wall and dirt, but they didn't quit. Ringlet watched for a minute or two and then turned to me and requested a dollar. Not being the kind of mom to discourage her from trying anything within the confines of the law and within my ability to remain sane, I forked over the dollar and leaned against a tree to watch her calmly take her place in line behind all these big guys.

She's a pretty tall kid for her age and not a small or petite child by anybody's standards, but standing there amid all those young men in her karate t-shirt, baggy shorts and John Force Racing cap, she looked positively tiny. But she stood there, blond hair cascading down her back from under her cap, calmly clutching her dollar and waiting her turn. Eventually, as the young men gave up and one by one peeled off to the side, she moved up to the front of the line, reached up and waved her dollar in the face of the guy running the game who didn't even see her there, and got her three leather bean bags. All the young men had faded back to congregate off to the left of my tree and were smirking at the sight of a little girl trying to dunk the wench when they had all so miserably failed. Ringlet tossed the first bag in her hand a few times, getting a feel for the thing, peered over her shoulder to grin at me, turned, took a step back and launched that sucker in a wicked-hard over hand (nobody will ever accuse her of throwing like a girl) and BAM....down went the wench. The game-guy whirled around at the sound, spun back around, stared at her for a brief moment, leaned down to say something to the Ringlet and then stood up, placed both hands on the counter and bellowed at the now silent group of men: “YOU. Yes YOU, you so-called men there. Didja SEE that? Did you? That was a ten.year.old.girl. Ten. A girl. Each of you stand up here and turn in your man cards." One of the young men had enough presence of mind to yell back "yeah, a ten year old girl.........with a fricken CANNON for an arm!" She was so flustered and pleased that as the crowd howled in amusement and approval, she missed the next two shots. But she was so tickled and I laughed the rest of the day.

Now and then through the course of the afternoon, we'd pass by those young men and, invariably, one of them would strike a boxing pose and say "Hey, look out. If she can throw, she can probably punch too."

"Probably punch"

Right. I guess maybe I’d failed to tell them that little girl not only has an arm like a cannon, but that she also kicks like a mule, and has a brown belt.

My bad.

I am the Goddess of Guitar Hero

2008-08-14T10:31:00.000-07:00

As we all well know, there is nothing more predictable in this world than the outcome of a match between Michael Phelps and anybody else in the pool, the Redskins and just about any other team you can name, or a video game challenge between a 13 year old boy and a middle aged mother. Or so you would think.

Ringlet ended up not attending an annual karate banquet because of the weather forecast in the Outer Banks, the destination of her and her father the following day. They were leaving for vacation several days before me, affording me about 4 days of peace and quiet and complete and total possession of the remote control before I too left to join them. She ended up not attending the banquet because they decided to leave early to beat the tropical storm that was about to make an appearance in the Carolinas and there isn’t a lot in this world more frightening than driving a 40 foot long moving billboard over the Oregon Inlet bridge in high wind. So they left early, as in that very afternoon.

That left me with the predicament of entertaining her 13 year old friend who was to be attending the banquet with us. We had 4 hours to kill between the time he got to the house and the time we were to arrive at the banquet so he headed downstairs to check out the gaming options. He and the Ringlet had been playing Guitar Hero up until the time she had to leave and he had been soundly and easily thrashing her on every single song. He came trotting back upstairs to make the suggestion, very innocently, that maybe we could kill some time playing Guitar Hero.

Ben: Mrs. Ringie, do you wanna try to play Guitar Hero with me for a while?

Me: Sure. Let’s go.

Ben: Do you know HOW to play Guitar Hero, ‘cause if you don’t, I can show you.

Me: I’ve played. I think I can muddle my way through. It’s like playing piano, right?

Ben: (smiling) A little. Come on, I’ll take it easy on you at first.

Me: Dandy

And down the stairs we went.

He let me pick my guitar first. Such a gentleman. Such a nice boy. Such a sucker.

I held the guitar upsidedown for a while. He corrected me. I held it properly. He set up the game and he selected his playing level as “hard”. So I chose hard as well.

Ben: You might want to start on the easy setting at first. This can be pretty tough.

Me: Oh it’s all in good fun. I don’t care. We’re just having fun. It’s just a game. I don’t care if I lose. We're not actually playing for money or anything. Hey, do you wanna play for money?

Ben: I don't think that would be fair.

Me: Damn.

Ben: Oooooookay. You choose the song.

Me: SWEET! What are the songs……..keep going……..scroll down some more………THERE. That one. That Disturbed song, “Stricken.”

Ben: Are you sure?

Me: I LOVE that song.

Ben: OK, but it’s hard and I haven’t even made it through on hard yet.

Me: Let that sucker fly. Let’s go.

I strapped on, set my hands and he grinned the grin of the lamb being guided to the slaughter, provided, of course, that lambs can actually smile, and smacked the song and settled back to kick the old lady’s ass.

I suppose I should have given him a few details before we started. Details like Guitar Hero has become my chosen form of relaxation and meditation over the past year. That when I’m stressed or upset, I go downstairs when everything is calm and play Guitar Hero, sometimes for hours. That at this point, I’ve gotten through a few songs on the Expert setting. That "Stricken" is the song I work on the hardest, sometimes playing it dozens of times in a row. That I regularly and routinely kick Ringlet’s tail and glory in it because it is the absolute only video game I can really play well. That if I’m concentrating on something, I can go for nearly 90 seconds without blinking. That I’ve played keyboards since I was 4, type about 150 words a minute and have this really freaky ability to look at something and have the correct signals in my fingers before the conscious thinking part of my brain really ever registers it. I forgot to tell him all this.

Oooops.

My bad.

I completely kicked his cocky, 13 year old, video playing, brown belt ass. TOTALLY.

The song ended. He looked at his stats, grinned and looked over at mine and the grin sort of just melted from his face.

Ben: You’ve played this before.

Me: (imagine perfectly innocent blank expression). A few times. Yeah.

Ben: Mrs. Ringie, you LIED to me!!!!!

Me: I most certainly did not lie. YOU didn’t ask the right question. You asked if I had played. You didn't ask if I was any good. Face it. Age and treachery will overcome youth and enthusiasm every single time.

Ben: But…….but……..

Me: You lose. Pick a song. Loser buys the first soda later. I hope you brought some money.

You want my evaluation? HERE's my evaluation.

2008-08-12T13:10:00.000-07:00

Self Evaluation for the Ages in honor of my buddy and she knows exactly who she is.

Employee Name: As if you didn’t know

Appraisal Date: Should have been a year ago you dumbass

Period Covered: When I started to: Probably when Hell freezes over

Position: Your Job

Rate Range: As much as I can squeeze out of your penny pinching ass

Current Rate: Not nearly enough

Department: Any one I want

Dear Employee:

You have asked us to finally give you the salary increase we promised you when we hired you, never realizing you'd actually expect us to follow through with that promise. We will be unable to grant your request without your input regarding your job performance. Therefore, kindly carefully read the following categories and give us the benefit of your thoughts with regard to your job performance in each category. We will then carefully examine your responses and, in all likelihood, continue to screw you royally with regard to said imaginary salary increase.

Category: Interacts with others in an effective and appropriate manner; develops relationships (inside and outside the Company) that enhance understanding, communication

Employee Comments: Employee believes in the old adage of “do unto others before they wise up and stop giving you decent openings.” Employee is adept at the use of simple, if somewhat abrupt, language that clearly demonstrates her meaning, centers the majority of her communications around well chosen four letter, one syllable words that even the morons selected to supervise her daily activities are able to understand. Employee has mastered the art of communication through easy to remember hand signals.

Category: Teamwork/Cooperation - Works well with team members to accomplish the goals of the department. Works well with management to achieve Company goals. Flexible in accepting new or additional assignments.

Employee Comments: Team members have learned to by God do as they’re told and that’s really all that matters. Management is nothing more than toady mouthpieces and are best avoided. Employee’s flexibility has absolutely nothing to do with work assignments, but is impressive nonetheless.

Category: Dependability - Follows through on job responsibilities with thoroughness and accuracy. Reliable and consistent.

Employee Comments: Employee follow through on all threats, whether or not carrying out those threats is her responsibility. Employee can be counted on to accurately state her position (see “interpersonal skills”) in a clear and concise manner and is reliable and consistent in this endeavor.

Category: Time Management - Plans and manages own work to accomplish critical tasks on time. Adapts to changing conditions and situation.

Employee Comments: Employee must manage and plan her work with precision and accuracy as it seems that there is no clear criteria as to when assignments that should be the responsibility of others will suddenly show up on her desk with little or no warning. She adapts to these ever-changing conditions well and has learned how to use lighter fluid and a Zippo proficiently so as to negate the constant calls to the fire department to extinguish flaming heaps of paperwork.

Category: Problem Solving/Decision Making - Determines and obtains the information needed to solve a problem; draws appropriate conclusions. Weighs alternatives and selects the best solution; make decisions on a timely basis.

Employee Comments: Well of freaking COURSE. What are you? Blind? Stupid? Oh yeah. That’s right. You’re management. Never mind.

Category: Supervision - Ensures that subordinate positions are filled with qualified personnel. Monitors subordinate performance and resolves problems. Works toward increasing subordinates skills and competencies.

Employee Comments: Employee has performed admirably in this category when faced with a choice of a three armed monkey and the valedictorian of the short bus brigade as office support. The monkey eats too much, but sacrifices must be made and the monkey’s skills are much improved and potty training is on course.

Category: Management - Supports and enforces Company policies and objectives; sets example through personal conduct and performance.

Employee Comments: Employee is the epitome of class, self-control and professionalism. Really. No, I’m serious. And any other employees who claim additional prowess in the field of creative swearing due to Employee’s example are fucking liars.

Category: Expense Management - Works to establish appropriate reporting and control mechanisms; operates efficiently at lowest cost; stays within established targets.

Employee Comments: Employee doesn’t spend a damned dime and probably should. Employee requests that a fully stocked bar and a Spot Bot be incorporated into the annual budget for 2008/2009. See “Supervision”.

Category: Goal Setting - Sets objectives consistent with Company and department goals and follows action plans to achieve them.

Employee Comments: Employee consistently establishes and achieves lofty goals, be they her goals or those of the company and, really, aren’t they all the same anyway? Employee follows action plans to achieve these goals and, to date, has avoided perpetrating any colossal acts of fuckery that would otherwise derail said plans or get her ass sued off.

Category: Overall Evaluation

Employee Comments: Give the bitch a big fat raise already. Christ. What is it gonna TAKE?

Career Development Plans

Comments: Do it now. Retroactive to like a year ago or something. Just get off your over-fed, over-paid corporate keister and give the woman some money.

Additional Employee Comments: If you need me to discuss this evaluation, I’ll be packing up my office.

Friday Morning Life Lessons

2008-08-08T07:53:00.001-07:00

1. When they told you in school that certain metals are excellent conductors of heat, I hope they remembered to tell you that silver should be at the top of the list. Therefore, when blow drying your now neck skimming hair, take OFF your sterling silver necklace unless you want a chain link burn mark.

2. Beware of women in mini-vans, talking on their cell phones while driving too quickly through the drop off zone of summer camp because they WILL then slam on the brakes and pull a u-turn in front of you AND the oncoming car in the middle of the next intersection.

3. Crossing your eyes repeatedly might not cause them to some day “stick that way”, but picking at scabs will create a freakin’ scar.

4. Write down the brand name of the shoes you love beyond reason BEFORE you’ve worn them out and can no longer read the stupid name that is only written where you’ve completely rubbed it off with your heel over the past two years.

5. If falling asleep with your really wide cuffed watch caused a rash once, it will cause a rash the second time you do it as well.

6. Blasting Seether out the windows of a Cadillac will scare old people on the sidewalk who were probably expecting to hear Perry Como.

7. Don’t underestimate how much shredded paper it takes to fill up file cabinet and desk drawers.

8. Check the status of the toilet paper supply in a bathroom stall before you sit down.

9. Fathers who answer their daughter’s question “Can we go to HobbyTown USA” with “No, we’re not going to HobbyTown USA because you don’t need anything and we just got back from vacation.” while in your presence, seldom give the same answer to that same question when you’re not there.

It’s been a long morning.

SPIDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG SPIDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-08-06T10:50:00.000-07:00

When I got to the beach, my friend, who was already there because the wench is retired and I hate her for that, was practically performing the pee pee dance in her desire to tell me what had happened to her the day before. She knows completely about my …… “issues” with spiders and to be perfectly honest, she isn’t far from my level of phobia herself.

I’ll refer to her as J as opposed to “that ridiculously short woman friend of mine.” Because she IS short – we’re talking barely over 5 feet tall short. As I tell this story, remember also that this woman, whose legs are all of maybe 2 feet long, drives a Jeep Liberty. She has to get a running start to jump into the thing.

She was preparing to leave the campground and do a little shopping since she also has skin the color of a marshmallow and avoids the sun like a white hot plague, and had just opened the door to the Jeep and hopped in, started it up and got ready to back out. She said she couldn’t explain it but somehow she just knew something had jumped on her. She couldn’t feel it. She heard it. Always a bad sign.

She froze, looked down and perched on the crotch of her pants was one of those big, hairy, boxy, horrifying wolf spider things. She said it was absolutely enormous. She stopped breathing, thanked God for leather seats, slowly reached over to open the car door, slowly slid from the driver’s seat and then launched herself out of the car while whacking at her crotch to get the evil beast off. She stood there with her head down, trying not to pass out when she noticed something.

The car was moving. With no one in it.

In her panic, she forgot she’d already put the car in reverse. She reached for the door (like THAT was gonna stop it) and hopped on one foot, trying to get her other foot on the brake. She did, but because she's so damned short and car was moving, she couldn’t get any pressure on the brake. About 6 inches before the Jeep rolled into the front of their motor home, she managed to wrench herself into the car and slam both feet down on the brake and throw it into park.

She swears to God that she’d have managed to stop the car sooner if not for the fact that, even in the face of ramming their new Jeep into the front of their rather amazing motor home, she was still looking around for that damned spider.

I fully appreciate the conflicting priorities. And you will fully appreciate the fact that I didn't go anywhere with her in that spider warren for the entire time I was with them. I would have preferred to be strapped to the luggage rack than suddenly find myself forced to decide between riding with a spider on my shoulder and throwing myself from a moving vehicle.

I'm figuring I'd bounce.

They Called Him Whitey

2008-04-18T04:16:00.000-07:00

They dubbed him "Whitey" during the years when nobody cared about such racial distinctions or made any incorrect associations. They called him Whitey because by the time he actually grew some hair on his little bald head, it was pure white blond and stayed that way for a very long time.

He was one of 9 children born to people who could ill afford to raise 2, and he made his living by working and succeeding on the dairy farm on which his parents had floundered and nearly run into the ground for the early part of his life. He grew up under the cloud of alcoholism and abuse and spent many a night in the hay mow, secreted there in the dead of the evening by his older sister in order to protect him from a drunken father's rampages. He grew up under that cloud and while he eventually succumbed to the booze, he never laid a hand on his own children in anger. How do I know?

I know because he was my dad. I tell this story in his honor because he died two days ago, in terrible health, but quickly, suddenly and with little or no fanfare. He just went and in doing so, gave me my final birthday present of three days off, with pay, during three of the most beautiful days we've had so far this year. Thank you Dad.

I tell this story to make it real. I tell it so that I can wrap my head around the fact that a man I alternatively loved, hated, resented, missed terribly, even while he lived, a man I never really understood. is actually gone from my life - not just for a week or a month or several - but really and for all time gone. It's hard. I've spent so much time away from him, I don't really know how to spend time away and understand that this time it's an infinite separation. I think I miss him. I think I'll miss him a little more every single day.

I think that as time goes by, I'll remember more the man he used to be than I will the man he became. I'll remember the man I loved beyond measure and not the man who drove me out of my mind on a regular basis. I'll start to forget the life time of hurt and disappointment and I'll more and more remember the man who contributed enormously to who I am today. Like it or not, in more ways than I can say, I'm my father's daughter. And I'll remember that.

I'll remember the man who spent an entire week at the beach pissing my mother off by bellowing out "look! Horten Turds!" at every opportunity after taking us to see the wild horses.

I'll remember the man who bet my uncles a pile of cash that I, at the age of about 10, could not only shoot one of his rifles and not let the recoil kick me on my ass, but that I could hit the target as well and then splitting the money with me.

I'll remember the guy who used to wake me up at 5:00 a.m., tell me dig worms, wait for him, and then blow of the remainder of the morning milking to walk me down into the meadow and teach me how to fish.

I'll remember the first time I let fly with "Son of a BITCH" in front of him and he laughed until he nearly fell into the creek, which is what caused my sudden and risky outburst in the first place.

I'll remember that he always used to sing "Pretty Baby" and only knew the first line or two and he never ONCE started that damned song right. But he could sing and he passed that on to me, along with these fucking shoulders of mine. God knows I didn't get his 5'5" stature.

I'll remember him trying to teach me to drive a stick shift in a 1960 International Scout and me performing so terrifyingly that my sister bailed, the dog bailed, but he held on and never flinched as he screamed at me to "FIND THE GOD DAMNED BRAKE BEFORE YOU RUN THIS BITCH INTO THE CREEK!" Again with the creek.

I'll remember that he didn't come to many of my events, but one of the times he did, I was running in the invitational portion of the USA Olympic Trials against my nemesis, a tall, inner city chick who had beaten me soundly every time I faced her. I'll remember my country father, red neck and all, purposely placing himself in the bleachers among HER crowd, and then standing on his seat, raising his fists and screaming "That's MY daughter" over and over when I finally beat that bitch for the first time ever.

I'll remember him riding me around on the fender of his tractor that entire day before the race, talking me down from the ledge, telling me I could do it and quit being a pussy. Well, maybe he didn't use that exact phrase, but you know what I mean.

I'll remember the man who never liked a single boy I dated because "he's worthless", "he's ugly enough to knock a buzzard off a shit wagon" or because "he looks like he left his ass in his other pants."

I'll remember the story of him wanting to buy me a train set for my 4th birthday and there not being any money for train sets and how he kept going back to the farm store day after day until it finally went on sale on Christmas Eve and how he snapped it up with the last of the money in his pocket and had it set up and ready to go for me when I woke up Christmas morning. I've seen the pictures. It rocked.

I'll remember him as the man who tried to feed me, at the age of about 8 months, the most ginormous turkey leg you ever saw in your life. It was as big as my whole head. I've seen the pictures. By the time I graduated from high school, so had everybody else in my class. Bastard.

I'll remember the man who took me to buy my very first car with my very own money telling me "never let them see how much you like the car" and then, upon seeing the car I treasured, and in the presence of the salesman, whistling low and saying "Now that's a pretty son of a bitch". Nice work, Dad.

I'll remember the man who confronted me on the morning of my very first hangover, apparently having been told by my furious mother to "get in there and talk to your daughter", who strolled into the living room, took one look at my haggard face and green complexion, smirked and commented "hot pipes?" and then turned on his heel, only to return seconds later with two ice cold Cokes, a bag of chips and wordlessly sat with me and watched baseball until I was able to get up and move. It was one of the first and most memorable "been there, done that, how did the toilet treat you" moments.

I'll remember the man who liked to wait until my sister and I had carefully decorated the entire Christmas tree and were in the process of hanging the tinsel strand by strand and would then burst into the room with his own box of tinsel and begin throwing it onto the tree in great handfulls, chorteling all the while because he KNEW he was pissing us off.

I'll also remember the man who treated every gift of an ugly tie, Old Spice or soap-on-a rope like the first one he ever saw.

I'll remember the look on his face the day he bought me my horse. I'll remember the look on his face the day we finally sold that stubborn, ornery creature.

I'll remember the day he finally let me hang out in the barn during a visit by the artificial breeder, looking at me and asking if I was sure I was ready for this, and then grinning at me after I nearly screamed and saying "I told you so." Bastard.

I'll remember the man that forgave me anything and everything.
I'll remember a man that often didn't think to think of others, but did the very best he could.
I'll remember the hardest working man I ever knew.
I'll remember a man that used to tell people that as long as I was alive, he would never die.

But he did.

And now it's up to me to return that one last gift to him and remember him as he would want to be remembered.

I loved you Daddy. I still love you. I'll always love you and I really really miss you.

Merry Cussin' Christmas

2007-12-03T10:09:00.000-08:00

It’s Christmas, that time of year when we spend money on people who don’t need a single damned thing, drag box after box of decorations out of the attic until our house literally pukes Christmas, and, most importantly of all, when the more insane among us indulge in our once-a-year foray into exterior illumination. Usually that exterior illumination thing is the job of my husband. He’s more creative, better at it, possesses a better grasp of the concept of electrocution, and finally doesn’t effin hate it as much as I do. I find it to be an exercise in creative cussing.

This year, due to his impending knee surgery, rather than turn our house into a homing beacon for the shuttle, my husband chose to reorganize the inside of our house, i.e., throw out the old shit from our cabinets and closets. I, being the good and dutiful wife, stepped up to the plate, took one for the team and tackled the outside Christmas lights.

I’m here to tell you that if you should decide at any point in your life that you could use a refresher course in loud, creative, inventive, spontaneous cursing, here’s the plan for you. It works. I swear. It works and I have the scars to prove it all over my forearms and the backs of my hands. Give it a whirl.

Your step by step instructions to world class potty mouth are as follows:
1. Look out your back door and decide that the 12 foot wall of holly trees lining the left side of your patio behind your brick and slate bar and behind your honkin huge Weber gas grill would look really pretty with twinkle lights poked all through them.

2. Look at the sky and decide that it's not THAT cold and what's a little rain.

3. Tote all the outdoor lights in your possession outdoors.

4. Notch the end of a yard stick because you've gotten this brilliant idea, your second one of the day, that you can merely "poke" the lights into the branches with the yard stick.

5. Bundle up and turn on the outdoor speakers so you can listen to Christmas music, drink coffee with one hand, poke lights with the other, and be festive.

6. Plug in the first strand of lights to test them. Look at em all funny like when they don't work, like you weren't actually expecting that to happen. Check each bulb. Plug them in again.

7. Chuck them out into the yard and get another set. Test them. Grin when they work.

8. Approach carnivorous holly row, plug lights in to THAT outlet and begin poking wires into branches. Try again. And again. Cut notch bigger. Try again. Cuss.

9. Set down coffee and climb your butt up on top of the bar and start poking again. Cuss. Shove lights into branches with your bare hands. Remember you should have gotten gloves and cuss again.

10. Cuss some more when your hand comes out with 3 holly leaves clinging to your skin because the pointy ends are embedded in your hand.

11. Continue looping and poking. And cussing.

12. Get second strand of lights and sigh when you realize you've really only moved about 12 inches down the row of bushes.

13. Plug in lights. Glare at them like you mean it. Consider checking each bulb. Unplug them and chuck them out into the yard. Plug in another set.

14. Continue poking lights into branches and removing holly spears from your skin and scream as the lights that worked 10 seconds ago alllll go out.

15. Shake light strand vigorously until lights come back on again. Gingerly continue shoving lights into bushes.

16. Pinwheel arms and clutch holly bush in arms as you realize you've come to the absolute no-more-room end of the bar. Balance, look right and realize there is still a 6 foot stretch of holly bushes yet to be completed.

17. Remove pointy holly things from neck and forehead.

18. Slither off edge of bar and schlep out to shed and get the really tall ladder.

19. Drag 500 pound grill out of the way, climb up ladder you swore you’d never ever climb again as long as you lived, steel yourself, grab a hand full of lights and cram them into the holly. Scream and THEN cuss when you realize you were just IN the shed where the leather work gloves are located and left them there. Shove in another hand full of wires.

20. Get to edge of patio and realize holly bushes continue 3 more feet out into flower bed.

21. Wonder if you can electrocute your stupid self because it's started to rain, cuss, realize you'll ever finish if you stop now, and try to balance ladder in a combination of stone pavers, mulch and grass.

22. Climb gingerly up ladder and leap off to the right because you know it’s nothing but pavers to your left when ladder starts to be uncooperative.

23. SLAM ladder down into the mulch and grass and climb back up, rapidly poking, screaming, bleeding, cussing and balancing before leaping off ladder again.

24. Kick ladder.

25. Wish desperately that you'd worn heavier shoes.

26. Suck on hand wounds while standing back to admire your handiwork.

27. Drag grill back in place, throw ladder back into shed, find tweezers.

28. Walk into house and bellow at family to get the hell out there and admire the beautiful thing you've done for them for the holiday.

29. Find the vodka.

Merry Christmas.

Me and the Great Big Horsey

2007-09-10T06:45:00.000-07:00

I’d like you to close your eyes and picture this.

A horse trailer. Not tremendously long, but large enough to hold two horses in the back, side by side, and saddles and other equipment in the front. Picture standing behind it, gazing into the open trailer. No horses at the moment, but room for a horse on both the left and the right sides. Focus on the left side and see the large pile of hay at the front with a large hanging leather hay bag reaching from one side of that stall to the other, hanging about waist high and a large padded bar directly in front of it to keep the horsey from moseying on out the side door. See the open side door directly to the left of the bag of hay. Picture straw scattered throughout the trailer. Now picture the massive pile of horse dookey at the very top of the ramp as you enter the trailer from the back.

Got it? Good.

OK. Now picture me, standing out in the sun on a 100 degree day, sweating my you-know-what’s off, in a tank top, shorts and flip-flops (that flip-flop thing is gonna be key here in a minute or two), holding onto my buddy, a wonderful but very feisty 16 hand jumper named Chris, who belongs to my friend and neighbor and who would rather have me give him cheek noogies, nibble on my belly pack, my cell phone, my hipbone, my shoulder and put his head against my chest so I can scritch his ears, than stand quietly while the nice sweaty lady behind him curses under her breath while she braids his tail and his mane. Why am I standing there slowly melting and playing babysitter for Chris? Because my friend is at one of the rings with the Ringlet watching her daughter, Ringlet’s friend’s, jumping round. For nearly half an hour.

OK. Switch back to the horse trailer and see me, with the halter lead in my hand, mincing my way up the ramp of the trailer in my flip-flops, dodging the dookey, and asking Chris very politely to get his big furry can back up in the trailer please. See Chris saying no. See Chris giving me the “Listen, I’ve been in that stupid trailer all day and if you think you’re getting me back up in there now that I’ve been set free, you’re out of your puney human mind” stare. See me getting jerked back out of the trailer with barely time to leap over the dookey before I fly back down the ramp. See me settle myself and set my shoulders. See me lecture a horse. See the other lady get behind Chris and push while I coax him back up the ramp. See Chris dodge the ramp and try to run around the SIDE of the trailer while still hooked to the lead line clutched in my hands and see me once again leap the load.

OK. Picture this happening about four times. Now. See us line that horse back up with the trailer, me count to three and yell GO and the lady give a tremendous push and me coax and pull for all I’m worth and see the surprised look on my face when the horse comes up the ramp and into the trailer. Fast.

See me with absolutely nowhere to go as this horse finally does what I ask him to do and is heading straight for me and my nearly naked feet. I did the only thing I could do. I got a nice, tight death grip on his lead, dropped under the bag, rolled back into the hay, rolled to the inside, checked where his hooves were and rolled back the other way, rolled right out the open side door and came up on my feet with the lead line still in my hand.

Ten feet away were three women in chairs in front of their trailer watching the whole thing with gaping mouths and wide eyes. I did the only thing I could think to do.

I took a bow.

They applauded and said “Man, my body won’t MOVE like that.”

I said, “Neither will mine until you give it a da#$ned good reason to.”

Mission accomplished.

The 11th Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Be Surprised When Men are Stupid

2007-06-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

The 12th Commandment: Thou Shalt Gather Rocks Suitable for Throwing

It’s pretty clear to me that during the course of this commentary, possibly already, many men who read this are going to be offended and insulted. To them, I say “Fox smells his own hole.” Or something like that because it’s been my experience that when an observation is made on the human condition, the people most offended are the ones most guilty of being a prime example of the very comments that set them off in the first place.

Women pretty much already know about all of this, so for us, it’s just going to be a head nodding, knowing smile kind of bonding session that could possibly lead to the kind of one-upsmanship only found in circles of women discussing their husbands.

OK. We know for a fact that in the male of our species, the common head cold is fatal. We know that although almost ALL ailments are fatal in men, the fact that they are almost certainly dying and can’t seem to remind us of that fact too many times, will still not be enough of a motivating factor for them to shuck their fevered asses to a physician. We know, and have commented at length on the fact, that if procreation were up to men, dinosaurs would still rule the earth. Yet even so, even in the face of their well-advertised pain and rapidly declining life span, they are still capable of acts they consider manly and heroic and women rightly label dumb as shit.

Take my husband as an example why don’t you? Not quite three days ago, while attending his twice-weekly karate class, he managed to absorb a kick from a second degree black belt that was perfectly timed, perfectly placed and perfectly excruciating in that it broke three of my husband’s ribs and detached the supporting musculature, thereby creating pressure against his lungs, making it not only painful, but impossible to breathe deeply. I know it had to hurt like a mad bastard because he drove himSELF to the emergency room. (Yes, I know. That’s an entirely different blog entry, thank you.) He’s been moaning, crying and doped up ever since. Night of the living dead doped up. Squinty eyed, shuffling, speaking barely above a whisper, chewing his food like a 90 year old man, not quite passed out doped up. Yet this morning, he calls me and he says to me “OK. I know you’re going to be angry, but I’m doing it anyway. I’m taking a pill and I’m doing it anyway.” I asked him to please explain just what the hell he was talking about. It appears that he was taking advantage of our neighbor, the mighty and infinitely snoopy Medusa, being out of town and adding another section to our six foot high, solid board on board fence in her absence. By himself.

Translated, this means he was going to be running power tools, digging a three foot deep hole, mixing and dumping concrete, and building an 8 foot section of solid board fence with three broken ribs and torn muscles, jacked to the gills on pain killers.

I said “are you completely insane?” He said “maybe, but the fence’ll be done by the time you get home.”

Frankly, I’d like to start the wagering right now. I’ve got 10 bucks riding on the fence being partially done, and him face down in the dewy lawn, snoring, while the power saw skips madly across the yard. Any takers?

The Things We Do For Love

2007-06-11T08:03:00.000-07:00

“Like walkin’ in the rain and the snow and there’s nowhere to go . . .”

Sorry. Everything’s a friggin song cue for me and I loved that stupid song way back when.

Let me preface this by saying that I know I indulge my daughter. I know her father indulges her to an even more outrageous degree, but I also know that my daughter is pretty level headed, responsible, appreciative and an all around good and funny kid, as well as great, if not expensive, company in a shoe store. I know she has too much and is it because I had too little? I doubt it. I have no reasons and I don’t think I need any so let’s just get that out there, shall we? I know.

Secondly, we have more gaming systems between my house and the land yacht than Paris Hilton has boyfriends that used to be her most recent BFF’s boyfriend. Nevertheless, the Ringlet decided when the Nintendo Wii came out that possessing one was necessary for her survival. I thought it was merely redundant, but I looked into it anyway and found that it was something new, something fairly revolutionary in gaming and it was a gaming system that would get you up off your kiester and could actually cause you to break a sweat. Now I was interested.

But I wasn’t tremendously interested in shelling out the money for yet another box upon which to play games. So I made a deal. She saves enough money for the entire system, extras and all, and I’ll then split the cost with her 50/50. She agreed quickly. I showed her what it was gonna cost her. She paled considerably, but didn’t back down. A deal was a deal. We shook on it and I promptly forgot about the whole business. I know my child, you see. There was no way in the world she was gonna save that kind of money when there were cool useless things at the school store to be had, nifty new games for her Gameboy just calling her name, and a new stuffed animal that she had a name for before it even made it through our front door. I had apparently forgotten about the money she managed to save for her first pair of heelies, but still, that was a lot less than the kind of cash it was going to take to pull this off. I relaxed. I was safe.

Months came and went and she saved her allowance, pestered for chores, baked muffins to sell to me for her dad’s lunch, helped her father, saved, saved, saved, fished around for loose change, and in general did all the things kids do when they need money and can’t get a job at 7-11 at the age of 9. They mooch, but at least it’s productive mooching. Closer and closer she came to the required amount and as she got closer, she asked me to start checking on where we could buy one and what they cost now (like it was going to get better). I checked and I found out prices and I also found out that there wasn’t a Wii to be had outside of getting hacked into tiny little financial chunks by the scam artists on line. She would have to wait.

And she saved and she scrimped and she mooched and she didn’t spend a cent of her vacation cruise money she had been given and she came to me a week ago and said “I have the money. I have more than enough so can I get the Wii now?” I gulped. I started making calls.

Not a Wii in town. Nothing. Anywhere.

But.

Toys R Us was getting a shipment in a week. They would be getting no more than 39 total Wii systems, no you couldn’t reserve one and it would be first come, first served and if you didn’t get one, it would be back to waiting for another undetermined length of the time for the next shipment, tough chit.

I mulled it over. I talked to her Mr. Ringie. I made my decision. Please keep in mind that I have never waited in line for concert tickets. I have never gotten somewhere the night before, armed with a sleeping bag and a flashlight and a cooler in order that I might get a ticket, any ticket, so that I might be in attendance at a sold out show. I’ve never even gone to the mall for the midnight madness shopping that now and then crops up around the holidays. I never punched out anybody over a cabbage patch doll. Ever. I thought it was stupid. I still do.

But I had spent the last year watching a nine year old kid slowly but surely build up a fund in her little piggy bank with an eye toward something she wanted. She was looking ahead and she was resisting impulse, keeping that eye directed firmly toward the ultimate goal and I was bound and determined that a kid that young who had tried that hard to earn money to buy something that expensive all by herself and had not once asked me to “just go on and get it for me” was not going to be disappointed if there was something I could do about it, short of holding the Wii delivery guy at gunpoint.

So when the alarm clock went off at 5:00 a.m. Sunday morning, I quietly crawled out of bed, quickly got dressed, made a thermos of coffee, grabbed the iPod, a bag chair and a book and out the door I went.

I was first in line at the Toys-R-Us and I am here to tell you that the look on my daughter’s face when she met me at the door (hours later, thank you) with her share of the cost of the Wii clutched in her hand, when she happily handed it over to me, was well worth the 4-plus hours spent in a canvas chair in front of the Toys-R-Us front doors not drinking all my coffee because I realized only after the fact that there was no bathroom available and I would have peeed down my own leg before losing my place in line.

But I can also tell you that the next time she gets a wild hair and saves up all her money for something you just can’t pick up off any old shelf, it’s going to be HER alarm clock that goes off at 5:00 a.m.

Duck Duck Goose

2007-06-01T06:07:00.001-07:00

In my town, we have this large, man-made lake in the center of the town park which borders my neighborhood. Since time out of mind, the ducks have been a fixture at that lake (more like a big cement pond if you will), and much like other countries who worship their cows and such, it's considered a cardinal sin not to just about total your car avoiding the ducks who choose the exact moment of your approach to waddle their feathered asses across the street, usually with about a dozen little fuzzy youngins trailing along behind them. Geese are fair game, but you run down a duck at the risk of punishment by crucifixion if you so choose.

I'm pretty good about missing the ducks. Had a lot of practice. Usually get some warning of their approach too, but not this morning. The daughter and I were tooling along on our way to drop her off at school and had just rounded the far corner of the lake to head down the long stretch of street bordering the east edge of the water. She was whipping up on me in "punch buggy" as usual and I happened to glance to the left at a woman walking her dog on the sidewalk. What I didn't realize was that her dog was about to scare up a whole flock of those crap on your car creatures who, when frightened, make a bee-line for the lake and they most definitely do not look both ways before crossing. I saw one duck heading for the street and thought "I can beat him", when out of nowhere, no less than 15 of the big bastards came flapping and crapping across the street. Directly in front of my car.

Everything flew off the back seat. Our seatbelts locked up, the iPod flew off the console and anti-lock brakes took hold with that "THDTHDTHDTHDTHD" racket and we came to a screeching halt just in time for them to blow over the hood of the car and across the grill on their frantic bolt for the lake. A veritable wave of feathers was flying past my windshield. People on their morning walks had stopped to see and of course to make sure no ducks were injured because that's paramount - screw the car-make sure the ducks are OK - and one guy hollered at me "Hey lady. Hold up. You got one under your car and he's almost out!" At least four other people were bent over, supporting themselves with their hands on their knees, laughing and wiping their eyes. My daughter was busy rooting around on the floor looking for the iPod and the gum that had flown out of her yap. I was just sitting there, glaring at the GD ducks and thanking God for having the foresight not to place another person who was late for work in a car immediately behind me. Ducks. I hate ducks. I have this friend with a chipmunk problem that she’s handling with a very creative use of antifreeze. Maybe I'll ship all the damned ducks up to her pool to play with the chipmunks and then upgrade my first class ticket to hell so I can sit next to someone from PETA.

Sometimes, Women Confuse the Hell Out of Me

2007-05-24T06:26:00.002-07:00

Other Women Confuse Me.

The way I see it, if I, a woman, can’t figure out how some women think, then men are hopelessly doomed when it comes to trying to read the signals, understand the talk, and figure out whether or not their next comment is going to earn them a hug or a swift kick in the dick.

Recently, I was talking with a girlfriend of mine and the subject invariably turned to the customary litany of man complaints, affectionately known as man bashing by the female persuasion, and indignantly referred to as “you women are never happy” by that other gang. It’s almost a rule of nature that no matter who you’re hanging with, when conversation runs thin and you’re almost out of things to say, switching the topic to men will afford you with at least another 10 hours of lively chit chat. On this particular day, my friend was bitching about how men stare at her. Naturally, I became interested and quickly formulated some commentary in my noodle, in preparation for the bash fest to follow, and sat back to hear the story. Seems she had purchased a new bathing suit, one of those suits where you pay approximately $20.00 per square inch of material and the total price of the suit was about $80.00 which should give you at least some idea of just how big this suit wasn’t. She had worn it to her local public pool and quickly found herself the center of attention, with the wives glaring balefully and the men either snatching quick, surreptitious looks or trying to simultaneously stare while sucking in their guts and not get busted by the glaring wife at his side. Many failed. At this point I began to feel the confusion. There was no complaint of rude commentary, no stories of being hit on, no grab-assing, and not a single “Hey baby woo woo!!!” howl anywhere to be found. Not a single person said a single word to her, offensive or otherwise, during the entire pool excursion. She was stared at to differing degrees. She was noticed and, if her story is to be entirely believed, she was envied and probably the target for an all-female lynching party involving Nair and Sharpies had she strayed too far from the herd, but that was about it.

I sat there a minute and puzzled it out. And because I’m a woman and I don’t HAVE a dick and am therefore not hampered by the fear of a quick or any other kind of kick in it, I asked her. I asked her the obvious question (at least pretty effing obvious to me), and the question was “If you didn’t want people to look at you, why did you wear that concoction of dental floss and tea doilies?” She proclaimed “Because I wanted to. I liked the suit and I should be able to wear it if I want to.” I replied, “OK. Fair enough. But you look me square in the eye and tell me that on some level, you didn’t buy that suit and then turn around and wear that suit around approximately a couple of hunnert strangers IN public because it looked damned fine on you, you knew it did, you knew it would attract attention and you would be noticed, because you will never convince me you bought it and wore it to a public pool because it was just so comfortable you couldn’t resist because the day comfort is defined by being slowly sawed in half from the bottom up will, that will also be the day I go to that same pool, hand my kid a video camera and do a hand stand naked and you KNOW damned well I can’t do a hand stand.”

Do you understand my confusion because she didn’t. I know for a fact, and am perfectly willing to admit, that I am fully aware of what kind of attention I’m expecting or anticipating when I don a particular outfit. If I throw on old baggy jeans and a sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up, yank my not quite clean hair back in a rough ponytail, root around under the bed for some flip-flops that actually match, and pat my make-up bag affectionately on my way out the door, I’m figuring I’m going to be able to pretty effectively fly under the general population’s radar at the very least. If I added a guitar case to the mix, I could probably do well, financially speaking, parking my ass in front of the local Safeway and singing a few tunes while people chucked their spare change into the case.

BUT if I stand in my closet, eyeball up those Seven jeans that by most people’s standards are just a wee bit too tight, snatch up a low cut tank top, gel up my hair and get it curly and shaggy out to HERE, match up the jewelry, actually open the make-up case, and head out, wobbling only slightly on a pair of 3-1/2 inch semi-slutty woven leather slides, I know what I’m doing. I’m dressing for attention. I do it, you do it, we all do it. Now that’s not to say I’m not going to have a snappy, equally offensive come-back at the ready for the Neanderthal that can’t help but vocalize, but I’m not going to be offended if somebody notices, looks at or even stares at me. Actually, I’ll be offended if I take that kind of time to go out and nobody notices me at all.

So you’ll pardon me if I’m a little confused that a grown woman could dress in what could be considered band aids and string at a public pool and then be offended that people had the audacity to look at her.

And to all the men in the world who might be reading this, you have my apologies, my sympathies, and may rest assured that for now, my “Things to Bitch About Where Men are Concerned” list just got a little bit shorter.

When it's Time to Let Go (a Little)

2007-04-24T11:15:00.000-07:00

There comes a time in the life of every parent, whether they like it or not, when they discover that you can only do so much for your child, can only push so hard and help so much, and then you have to cut them loose and hope and pray that they were listening at least part of the time. I’d have to assume that this particular watershed moment arrives far too quickly in the life any parent whose child is enrolled in any kind of athletic program that offers the opportunity to go to any sort of competition, i.e., afternoon of nauseating, nail biting, gastrointestinal catastrophe. For the parent. The kid’s having an effing blast.

I faced this moment a few days ago when my 9 year old daughter entered her very first ever karate tournament on a weekend when her instructor couldn’t come along and I toted along the child of another parent just to make things that much more interesting. Fortunately for me, a third child entered and brought along both of his parental units who turned out to be just as freaked out as us and seriously nice to boot. The fact that they got my rather unusual sense of humor was another plus since we ended up spending the entire day together, trying desperately not to clutch one another as a result of repeated nervous meltdowns. To add to my gradual downward emotional spiral, my video camera batteries were tragically as old as the video camera itself and held a charge for all of maybe 10 minutes, so I was constantly running back and forth to the gymnasium wall where I had plugged in the charger and swapping batteries.

Check in began at 9:00 a.m. and ran until 11:00 when the tournament was scheduled to start and don’t ask me what I was thinking to insist that we had to be there right at 9:00. I suppose I was thinking “hey get there early and have more practice time!”

I am stupid. What it was turned out to be “get there early and have two more hours during which you can completely lose your mind.” Actually, it DID work out because it DID give the kids another couple of hours to run through the katas they were going to perform. What I didn’t realize was that when the tournament started, they would call all 150+ kids out to the floor, never to return to their parents until their event had concluded. WHAT!!! They can’t DO that!!! I need to be with her!! She NEEDS ME! I need to continue to work this kata with her my God she’ll forget everything we’ve worked on for the past month if I can’t have her still working on it during the hour or so before she’s to compete what in the name of GOD are you people THINKING!!! Yes, I know she can rattle off over 16 katas but she'll forget THIS one if I'm not driving her crazy practicing it over and over right up to the very second she needs to perform. I watched her walk away and I thought “This is it. This is just IT. All that work. Over.”

Right about that time, one of the judges approached me to score in his judging ring and, figuring it would be a reasonable distraction, agreed to keep score even though I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I kept score with minimal hand palsy until I looked over to another judging ring and saw my youngin’ in the yer up next area, at which point, the head judge saw me go white and told me to go on over and watch her round. I managed to get out my chair with no assistance, snatched the video camera out of my husband’s hands and positioned myself (braced myself) in the best possible vantage point. Took in a huge gasp of air. Let out. And waited.

She’s a double stripe green belt and currently anticipating the test for her brown belt. She was in a group of two brown belts, one of which was one step below his black belt, and one other green belt. That made her group one of the few groups who had four or more kids in it. They gave trophies only to the top three. I think I might have stopped breathing for a while. It was then that it occurred to me that her ring was also the main ring, with the three highest ranking judges and positioned right smack dab in front of the bleachers and the entire crowd. DAMN. I started thinking about how her natural method of dealing with stress is to begin to leak from the eyes. She cried all the way through her last belt test and I could just see it happening again here. I watched her as she watched the other kids' katas and she calmly sat there. And then it happened. They called her name and I nearly barfed and peed myself at the same time. It was at this moment that my schooling on letting go began.

She rose to her feet with a loud “oo-ah”, bowed, faced forward and marched to the center of the ring where she whirled to face the panel of judges, brought herself to attention, bowed and rather than choke up, freeze and start to cry, my child bellowed out her name, her rank, her instructor, her style of karate and the kata she was going to perform. Her eyes never wavered, her chin never dipped and her expression never broke. She bowed, she took four giant steps backward, bowed, turned around to face away and gave the top of her uniform one hard yank and her belt an even harder yank, spun back around to again face the judges, bowed and when she stood up, her face had changed. Somewhere in that head of hers, the instruction from her teacher to get ugly, get mean, perform, sell it and make them think they can actually see the person you’re pretending to fight had taken root. She was glowering and she was on fire. From the first second she moved and screamed out her first kia, I knew all my fears were for nothing. She blazed through the kata, smooth, strong, powerful and sharp. Under pressure, in the face of three heavy hitting black belt judges and at least 200 people in the crowd, she nailed it like she’d never nailed it before and finished as powerfully as she’d begun. She bowed. She had a seat. I did NOT cry. I swear. Then she lined back up for the scoring. And my stomach rolled over at least five times.

She had faced two kids doing very complicated brown belt katas, one of which was done beautifully and the other done in a rather unenthusiastic manner and I know she was remembering her instructor telling them that flash isn’t everything. A marvelously, perfectly performed middle level kata will blow away a harder kata that isn’t performed as well provided the judging is fair. The other green belt was pretty good and I was terrified. I had never faced having to deal with my child’s disappointment and I was convinced I was going to have to see her face crumple now. I was so incredibly proud of her, so amazed at her control, a control I'd never seen before, that it tore me up to think that she could do so very very well and end up disappointed anyway. I didn't want that for her. Cause I'm a Mom.

The scoring came down. My heart stopped but at least the camera battery was holding out. She walked away with the second place trophy wearing the biggest smile you ever saw in your life.

I could breathe again.

In conclusion I’ll tell you that she didn’t enter sparring. She wasn’t too keen on fighting kids with whom she wasn’t familiar but on the way out that night, after having watched all the sparring rounds, she clutched her trophy to her, turned to me and said “I should have sparred.” I asked her why, and she grinned at me and said “Cause I could have kicked the crap out of most of those kids and gotten ANOTHER trophy.”

I guess I’ll be buying some headgear this week.

Why I Beat My Head on My Desk

2007-04-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

Idiot: Good morning. Thank you for calling _________. How can I help you.

Me: Hello. I’m looking for an adapter for a Presario 2100 Laptop computer.

Idiot: What’s it for?

Me: It’s an adapter for a laptop.

Idiot: What do you use it with?

Me: A Laptop. A computer?

Idiot: That might be specific.

Me: What might be specific?

Idiot: That might be a specific part.

Me: Yes, it is a specific part. It’s an adapter for my laptop computer so it will turn ON and STAY on.

Idiot: That sounds like you need an adapter.

Me: Yes. That’s what I said. I need a Presario 2100 Laptop computer adapter. Not a universal one. I had one. It’s broken and I want THIS one.

Idiot: It might be the connector on your computer.

Me: No. My laptop is at this very moment sitting on the desk of my computer repair guy who has already looked at it and said the computer’s fine. I need the adapter. The adapter is bad.

Idiot. You know, your adapter might be bad.

Me: No shit. I know that. That’s why I need the ADAPTER.

Idiot: You might have a short in your adapter.

Me: Yes. Whatever. Here’s the exact model number.

Idiot: That’s the model number?

Me: Yes

Idiot: That’s a part number for an adapter.

Me: YES. I know that. Do you have it?

Idiot: It doesn’t match my model numbers so I can’t guarantee that part will work.

Me: What model are you looking at?

Idiot: It’s a different brand and model.

Me: I told you that I need THIS brand and model.

Idiot: Oh! But I don’t carry that.

Me: Are you serious? How long during the course of our conversation have you known that.

Idiot: I thought you wanted to buy a computer.

Somebody just wander on out to the local office supply warehouse for me and find the guy with head stuck up his own ass and cram a computer adapter up there to keep his head company please and thank you.

When Little Girls Grow Up

2007-03-15T12:59:00.001-07:00

When Little Girls Grow Up

My husband has a difficult time, more difficult that most (think: insane neurotic opinions) when it comes to the concept of his little girl becoming something other than a little girl. He insists that she’ll be allowed to date when she’s 36. He’s praying that the locating chip that is being developed for human use is perfected and on the market before she’s 18. When she talks about boys in a manner other than to describe what idiots they are, he gets white in the face and insists that that kind of talk just needs to end right now.

Imagine his shock and horror last night. Our back-yard neighbors who live on the other side of the hedge are some of our closest friends and one of their daughters is Ringlet’s close friend and almost her exact age. I’ve been talking with P (my neighbor) about the things we’ve noticed start to change in our daughters, physical changes, impending puberty, and other kinds of things and naturally, if one of us speaks to one our kids about it, the other one better do it too before the discussion begins between the kids without the benefit of our input. So I sat down the Ringlet a day or two ago and explained what those belly cramps she’s been getting every couple of weeks that never lead to a big ol’ pooo might be signaling and even though she knows what a “period” is, I wanted her to be aware that she’s rapidly approaching the age where it could become a reality for her. Her response was nothing I didn’t expect. “Really? EWWW. OK. I can handle that, but I am NOT wearing a bra.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that with her genetics, that might not be something she should be too terribly concerned about.

The neighbors and their kids were over for dinner last night and while the adults were out back enjoying a warm evening around the patio table, the girls were downstairs watching a movie. Mr. Ringie headed down to the basement for a bottle of water and when he came back upstairs, I heard his voice ringing through the back window at us, ordering us to go DOWN those stairs and tell those GIRLS that they didn’t have ANY business discussing the thing about which they were speaking. We said “You do it”. He said “NO!” We said “Well, at least tell us what they’re talking about.” and he said “They are TALKING about getting their PERIODS.”

It was all we could do to get our fists into our mouths in time to keep from braying right in his poor face.

“But honey, why can’t they talk about that?”

“They’re not OLD enough to talk about that.”

“OK, how old is old enough? I mean, saying it’s not going to happen isn’t going to stop it from happening and we think it’s GOOD they can talk to each other about it. When do you think they’ll be old enough to discuss it?”

“When they’re older.”

“How old?”

“I dunno. FORTY would be good.”

“Great. We can talk about periods AND menopause and kill two birds with one stone.”

That poor guy.

But I will say that there IS something terribly cute and simultaneously weird about your child talking about her period and losing a baby tooth all in one evening.

Crying my Way Through Terabithia

2007-03-02T18:49:00.000-08:00

First of all, if you have yet to see this movie and intend to, especially if you're not familiar with the ending of this story, and if you hate a spoiler, stop right friggin now cause I'm gonna give away the ending. Don't say you weren't warned.

We took my 9 year old daughter to see The Bridge to Terabithia tonight. I wasn't particularly looking forward to it because there comes a time when you'd really like to get out of the house, buy some greasy popcorn and see a movie with something higher than a PG-13 rating, a few F-bombs and possibly a little skin. I'd seen the previews and figured I was headed into another cute little fantasy movie. I was wrong.

As the movie went on, I leaned to my daughter and said "OK. I'm confused." I figured it was my turn and just as I would have done to her had our roles been reversed into the usual place, she whispered back "Just watch the movie." Where were the mythical creatures? Where were the dragons and fairies? How effing long IS this movie? But as it went on, I found myself becoming more and more immersed in the lives and struggles of these children and came to realize that Terabithia was truly their place, the place that came to life because of the fertility of their imaginations and understood the strength that their friendship and the world they created together changed their lives.

Then came the dreaded ending and we found that Leslie had died and my little one fell apart, I fell apart, and in a theatre that was unusually full of teenage girls and young adults for a movie that had been showing for a while, the resounding snorting of snotty noses and rustling napkins doing double duty as Kleenex filled the space. Everybody was losing it, openly crying. Then we'd laugh and cry at the same time. Then we'd just flat out cry some more.

The whole movie was just wonderful, even if it did completely fuck up my makeup.

On the way out, under the harsh glare of the lights, we ran into people we knew who looked at us, smiled and said "You guys look like hell." And we did.

What I wasn't expecting was my daughter's eventual reaction to the bright idea of killing off Leslie. We got home and while I was upstairs getting into my jammies, my husband came into the bedroom and said "do you have any idea what your daughter is doing?" (He said "my" daughter, meaning not HIS daughter, so I knew it had to be good.) I said "Uh oh." He said "Go see for yourself."

I trotted down the stairs and found her in the big chair, with both the Terabithia book AND the phone book on her lap, cordless phone in hand. She looked up and said "I'm gonna call the people who made this movie and open up a can of whoop-butt about killing Leslie." I said "Hon, those people don't live around here and they're not in that phone book." She replied with "Fine. Give me a BIG phone book and I'll find them that way." Thank God she doesn't yet quite know how to use Google or there would be about 50 people with the last name of Patterson seriously pissed off by now.

The Bridge to Terabithia might be Disney and it might be marketed for kids, but it's a movie for all ages to enjoy and one guaranteed to test your inner strength and your waterproof mascara.

Go.

When You Throw the Gag on Mama Bear

2007-02-28T06:03:00.000-08:00

When you gag a mama bear, it ain’t pretty. In fact, it’s downright scary for those unfortunate enough to be standing around viewing the metamorphosis. And for better or worse, this mama bear is struggling mightily against the self-imposed gag order currently in place.

My mother told me something when I was little. She said “if you get into a fight, a scrape or a problem at school, don’t expect me to come running to fix it for you. You’ll have to handle it on your own. I’m not going to fight your fights for you.” The inspiration for this speech was the mother of a childhood friend who would, at the drop of a hat, launch herself into every single scrape, argument or perceived slight perpetrated against her own children and it drove my mother crazy. She believed in fighting your own battles and cleaning up your own messes. At the time, I didn’t quite get it. I also didn’t understand the amount of restraint required to sustain that particular decree. Now I do, because I've adopted it and made it a part of my own parenting regulations.

The things you learn when you have children of your own.

Those of you who know me know that I’ll take a lot of shit if it’s my shit. Throw anything you want my way and I’ll field it and handle it and usually I’ll do it without an abundance of anger or self-righteousness (OK, long lasting anger, no. Short term fury, yeah, probably). But if you shit on my friends, my family and especially my child, just stand back, get out of the frigging way and strap up because then it’s game on. Those of you who know me might also remember the beach vacation from hell this past summer when we took my daughter’s best friend since kindergarten with us to the Outer Banks.

They’re both now in the fourth grade and have been fast friends up until a day or two ago when the Ringlet came home to tell me that her friend (hereinafter referred to as “E” because otherwise I’ll make up another name for her that simply isn’t appropriate for a 9 year old) had been ignoring her and she didn’t know why. My back went. She continued with “I’ll try to talk to her or play with her and she won’t speak to me and ignores me.” The hair on the back of my neck started doing that little dance it does sometimes. We chatted and I talked to her a bit and while she seemed troubled, she wasn’t overly upset about it. I was the one who was steadily developing what my father likes to call “a serious case of the ass.”

Yesterday, Ringlet came home from school and I asked how the day went. She said fine. It was a good day. Except for the fact that E told me she’s not my friend any more. I screeched to a halt, turned around and demanded details. It seems that at a play date a E’s house over a week ago, E’s little sister, who resents Ringlet’s presence because it detracts from her time with her sister, informed E that Ringlet had said “bad” words to her and E’s comment to Ringlet yesterday was that “I’m not your friend any more because you said bad words to my sister.”

OK, I’m not the mother who automatically believes that my daughter can do no wrong. I know she can, I know she does and, on some level, I expect it. But in the bad word department, I know my kid. I’ve heard her correct the neighbor’s child who thinks cussing is cool. I’ve heard her tell her that if she talks that way, she has to go home. I mean, my God, she’s called ME down at times and she still won’t actually say a bad word in front of me, even if it's just to tell me what someone else said, without spelling it rather than say it. This kid doesn’t cuss. This I know because I know her, I'm the subject of her correction on the topic, and because I eavesdrop on her play dates at my house.

People, the flames were coming out of the top of my head. I told her that under no circumstances was she to even attempt to speak to this kid until she had a full apology. I told her that if she did, she should make it clear to E that she did no such thing (because she really was vehemently denying it and she's a pretty terrible liar) and that she didn’t need friends who would just cut her off like that, and I said a lot of things I can’t quite remember right now, but bottom line was that she was to ignore this little . . . . . ignore E right back and not give her the satisfaction of being courted or begged back into a friendship.

From my reaction, you would have thought that somebody had put Ringlet on stage in front of the whole school and shamed her naked. It was overkill at its very very finest.

All I know is that I’d better get a grip on this because if I don’t, it’s going to be a long long long hellish long miserable long traumatizing road through middle school and high school. For me.

Mr. Ringie’s reaction in the face of my overwhelming desire to get in my car, drive over there, bang down the door and go after her, her parents, her grandparents and the godamned dog? “They’ll work it out.”

**sigh**

He's right of course. I know that. I know I have to let her slog her way through these things because I know that children, especially girls, can be incredibly cruel and hurtful at times. But I hate being gagged, thwarted and forced to let somebody else handle their own issues. I hate it. Put it third on the list below spiders and dentists.

I dunno if I can do this. Somebody start the Bail Ringie Out of Jail Repeatedly for Crimes Perpetrated Against Minors Who Upset Her Kid Fund right fucking now. Because I'm gonna need it. That and a whole pile of little blue pills.

SNAKE!!!!!!

2006-12-13T10:08:00.000-08:00

Some of you know about my issues (i.e., phobia) where spiders are concerned. My husband gets a kick out of my panicky flights from rooms where dust bunnies posing as spiders have been spotted, but tends to simultaneously and conveniently forget about his own little problem regarding another creature, namely, his irrational and all-encompassing fear of snakes. He doesn’t call it fear. He refuses to acknowledge it as fear. He prefers to simply say he hates snakes. I know better. I don’t hate spiders. I’m scared to death of the friggin things and it has nothing to do with hate. I’m just scared shitless of ‘em. What my husband doesn’t know that I know is that I know the big secret, that secret being that you don’t scream like a little bitch when you are confronted with something you hate. You scream like a girl when you are confronted with something that scares the everlovin pants offa ya. So I’ll tell you the story of how I first realized that he didn’t actually hate snakes, but instead hated how badly they scared him. I got permission to tell it too but I’ll admit, I didn’t run this past him for editorial comments before publishing it so he’ll have to live with that little oversight and the resulting embarrassment.

Many years ago, back in the days when we were childless, if you don’t count the fact that having a husband should almost always count as having a child, I was relaxing in our family room, reading a book that didn’t have illustrations, and enjoying the early evening solitude, when I heard the garage door fly open and a voice I didn’t at first recognize scream “SNAAAAAKE!!!!! SNAKE IN THE GARAGE!!!!!”. I sat there a second and wondered if that had, in fact, been my husband, and debated as to whether or not I was supposed to actually do anything, and before the decision of “screw it” had fully formed in my head, the shriek of “SNAKE” came again, followed by “GET THE HELL OUT HERE AND DO SOMETHING!!!”. So much for the book, peace, quiet or solitude, and out the door I padded in my jammies and stocking feet.

There he stood, white faced and trembling on the opposite side of the garage and, being the kind, ever thoughtful, understanding and sympathetic wife that I am, I barked “WHAT?” He whispered, “There’s a snake in here.” “Where? Where is the snake?” said I. He pointed an unsteady finger at the big red toolbox tower immediately to my left, the same toolbox he bought one Christmas and tried to pass off as my gift and guess how long that idea lasted, so I got down on my hands and knees to take a peek under it. He immediately wailed “DON’T put your face down there, it’s gonna BITE you!” Ignoring him, I grabbed a flashlight and kept looking around and just as I was about to tell him that he was on crack and there was no snake under there, I saw it. I saw the beastie, the demon, the horror that had caused him to completely crack and abandon all pretense of control.

It was horrible! It was terrifying and beyond imagination. Oh, for the love of God, it was an 8 inch long baby garter snake, curled up in the corner and scared out of it’s head-of-a-pin sized mind. It wasn’t a snake. It was a glorified worm with eyes.

I snatched a pair of work gloves, hit the garage door button and as I reached under the toolbox to retrieve little Anaconda, Jr., my husband went bolting out into the yard in case I missed it and it tried to swallow him whole for having ratted him out. I grabbed Jr. and hauled him out from under the tool box and, to his credit, he did take a few jabs at my fingers with his itty bitty teeny tiny itsy bitsy widdle teeth. I shuffled to the yard and heard my husband say “Are ya gonna KILL it?” NO. I’m not gonna kill it. I’m gonna toss it down to the edge of the yard so it can go on home or where ever it is that giant man eating snakes go, and against his most strenuous protests, I got a firm grip on Jr.’s tail and underhanded him toward the end of the yard.

Or, better put, I TRIED to.

Because as I released him, he took another bite at my glove.

This time his teeth caught.

And rather than fly off into the night, he flew straight up into the air about 20 feet and landed right on my husband’s head.

And that is the night I realized beyond the shadow of a doubt that he didn’t hate snakes.

Both the snake and my husband made full recoveries.

If Everyone Shared . . .

2006-10-05T07:43:00.000-07:00

Taking a break from the usual nonsense that spews from my fingers, and presuming that there is anybody out there who reads this other than close friends, I'd like to take a minute to direct your attention to something that is near and dear to my heart.

Every year, I join hands with a special group of women to choose and then assist a family in crisis so that we might ease their burden somewhat through the holiday season. This year we've chosen a young boy and his mother. This little guy is only 7 years old and has been dealing with the loss of his father not much more than two years ago. He and his mom have been struggling along on their own.

He was just diagnosed with Leukemia.

If you have a moment, if you have a little something to spare, please consider helping this boy and his Mom. For more information, please visit www.davidsangels.org, our website for spreading the word about David and raising funds for his family.

Thank you for taking the time to read this plea for your help. Thank you for considering a contribution, and, if you made a contribution, thank you even more for performing such a kindness.

One Flush. One Flush Only Please.

2006-09-07T08:18:00.000-07:00

Should you ever find yourself in the unfortunate situation of arguing with someone over whether or not it is possible for an 8 year old girl to completely stop up a toilet without utilizing the assistance of huge wads of toilet paper, merely through her own “doing”, and should they argue to you that it is NOT possible, not without using at least a couple of fist-fulls of TP, you have my express and explicit permission to thwap them over the head and bugle “HAA!!!! WROOONG!!!!” right in their shocked and suddenly-wishing-they-were-some-place-any-place-else faces.

Cause I now have proof that they are so very very wrong. If you need proof, come see. Apparently, I live with elephant girl.

I was running late again this morning and was freaking out a little because my blow dryer was barely whispering at my hair, much less blowing at it, it was one of those mornings where Ringlet needed both breakfast before we left and lunch packed for later and none of that had been done and I hadn’t been anywhere near my make-up and it was only 15 minutes before we had to run out the door to get her to school on time and I was already wondering how the hell I was gonna pull that off, when I heard the words “Mom!!! The toilet is plugged up!.”

OK. Good enough. You only have to trot in there, grab the toilet un-plugger-upper-thingie, work it loose and get going. 20 seconds. Tops. I came bolting from my room, button hooked into the hall bathroom and suddenly went skidding through the water that was standing about half an inch deep all over the bathroom floor. I had my arms out, I was sideways and it looked like I was hangin’ ten across the bathroom. The only thing that stopped me from plowing into the wall was the now soaking wet bath mat. I went splishing out of the bathroom, down the hall, snagged 3 bath towels and crawled my way back up the hall, soaking up the stream that was now running down the hall and proceeded to frantically mop up the water that appeared to be everyfrigginwhere. When I was convinced I had it all, I addressed the toilet head on, broke a sweat with that plunger thingie, shut one eye, reached for the shut off value with one hand, and flushed with the other. All good. All gone.

Looked at my watch, yelped at Ringlet to get on her shoes and get down stairs and get her stuff together already, snatched up what I needed and followed her down, doing that half-slide, half-run thing down the carpeted steps. I had my purse in one hand, bottle of water in the other, when I heard “Mom. There’s water dripping in here.”

WHERE!?!?

In here. In the living room. And yes. There was. A steady **drip drip drip** coming from the A/C hole/vent/thing in the ceiling. Snagged cereal bowl. Set it under the drip. Snagged Ringlet and OUT the door we went with my make-up bag now tucked firmly under one arm as well.

In the car, UP with the garage door, no need to look behind car - it’s still too warm for a snow blower, and careened out of the garage, down the driveway, and into the street where I turned to her and said “Hon, just how many times DID you flush that potty after it didn’t work on the first flush?”

Three. Three flushes after the first flush and even my math-challenged bud, Lisa, can figure out, no matter what color she uses to divide, that that’s a lot of water.

Yes, I told Mr. Moosenuts. No, I don’t wanna go home.

New Rule: No Poopin’ in My House in the Mornin’ No More.

Corndog Anyone?

2006-08-29T11:39:00.000-07:00

You guys have some idea how often I visit truck stops. I've talked about the joy of finding yourself in a South of the Border truckstop after midnight, searching for directions because someone doesn't trust his state of the art satellite navigational device. When you travel in a motor home, truck stops are a required short little spin through hell. You can't just yank that land yacht into any little mom and pop gas station and hope to ever get back out again, so we tend to frequent truck stops when we travel because we know we have room to maneuver, the fuel tends to be cheaper there and you can't buy entertainment like you find at a Route 95 South truckstop for any price. And if you get lucky, sometimes they have a Burger King.

But there's another price to pay for everything that's good.

I was standing in the check out line, my "Bubba" radar on full alert, having given the clerk my credit card, and was waiting for the fuel pump to for the love of God STOP already, when a little fella with a shock of greasy black hair, big fat belly, and the most impish expression you ever saw on his face, came sidling up to me. He grinned. I cringed. He looked at the clerk, grinned a little wider, scooched over a little more my way, and said (get ready, here it comes):

"Gimme one of them there corndogs to go and hey little lady, you wanna come join me while I burp this thing up for an hour or two?"

I stopped cold.

I looked down at him.

He grinned back.

I thought, possibly out loud, but I'm not sure, "Jesus Christ on a cracker."

Then my traitorous lip twitched.

And I friggin cracked up.

Then we proceeded to get into an argument over whether "I'm the Happiest Girl in the Whole USA" was performed by Donna Summer.

I won.

Last Call, Asshole

2006-08-29T10:54:00.000-07:00

I have this great friend. Her name is Julie, but for reasons I won't get into, I refer to her as Flipper. She recently started a part time job bartending at her local American Legion. Because she has the same warped sense of humor as me, and in large part due to her scathing wit that she likes to claim is "in direct proportion to her bra size" and to which I replied, "Thank God mine's not because you can't friggin buy wit", I decided to ask, and she graciously agreed, that we post some of her better . . . encounters . . . . behind the bar here on the blog.

So whenever you see an entry with this title, you'll know that Flipper has had another busy week.

Names have been changed to protect the drunk as I can pretty much guarantee you that innocence has no place here.

AAAAAAAAAND, she's OFF!

Take it Flipper.

Things I Learned on my First Night Bartending:

“Hey honey, shake those up for me so I can hit the jackpot” - doesn’t necessarily mean they’re talking about pull-tab lottery tickets.

Bengals vs. Packers on Monday Night Football means some guy thinks he can say to me I’ll bet I can “Pack” your “Kitty”, but it also means I can reply, "honey I’ve coughed up hair balls bigger than you…".

Last call normally means one more drink and ya gotta go – not that you can be my last call of the night.

Things They Learned on my First Night Bartending:

If you’re gonna tell me your name is Donnie, don’t come in wearing a shirt with the name "Troy" scrawled across it, 'cause: a) I’ll assume you can’t read or b) ask you if you grabbed your boyfriend’s shirt off the floor instead of your own.

When I ask what you want, don’t think asking for my number will result in you receiving the number you’re looking for – what he got was one number that I happened to show him using my middle finger.

Just cause I’m new to you doesn’t mean I’m new…these boys have no idea who they’re dealing with…

Thus endeth the first installation of the Flipper Chronicals.

Red Rover, Red Rover

2006-07-05T06:15:00.000-07:00

Happy Fourth of July to one and all and I hope your celebrations were safe, enjoyable and somewhat legal. I, for one, spent my fourth with several other families and their multitudes of children. It was safe and enjoyable, and tragically legal, but it was also frantic and loud and distracting and I now remember why I only have one child.

After four days of camping together (in air conditioned, multi-televisioned motor homes with microwaves, refrigerators and running water do you think I’m insane no way I’m leaving my house to go sleep in the dirt), somebody (me) had the bright idea that at the conclusion of the camping trip, the 4th of July, they should all come over to my house in order to clean out the refrigerators in our motor homes and get rid of the left overs. By this time, the kids, ranging in ages from 2 to 9, had just about had enough of each other, were exhausted, and my daughter in particular, went into solitary mode and wanted nothing to do with anyone. She's her mother's guts sometimes. But eventually, we cleaned up dinner, grabbed some chairs and blankets and headed the few blocks down to the park to get a good spot for the fireworks.

My town, while growing and much larger than I ever imagined it would be, still, on occasion, has that home-town gomery, Mayberry feel to it, and Independence Day is one of those days where everybody comes out, spends the day at the park playing games, throwing Frisbees, listening to the bands and standing in line for home made ice cream. In the evening, everybody settles in with their coolers and picnic baskets on blankets for the fireworks and we got there in plenty of time to grab up some prime real estate close enough to see, but still some distance from the bulk of the crowd. It was still light and the kids were getting restless, so the five of them old enough to do so started a game of tag that eventually developed into the black hole that most children's games become and attracted other children from all around us. Growing bored with that, the self-designated social coordinator known as my kid organized a game of Red Rover. Remember that game? Where the kids divide into two teams, lock arms and dare someone from the other team to get up a big enough head of steam to break through a set of locked arms? Yeah, that game. It would have been just an ordinary kid's game had it stayed a kid's game, which it didn't, and that’s where it got funny as hell.

Most of the families around us were watching the game since most of their kids were involved in it and just as it was getting a little boring, I heard a male voice behind me announce "OK, you've had enough time to warm up. Let's do this thing." Yup. One of the men from our group was strutting across the grass, leading the other two (one of whom was my husband) into the Red Rover fray.

Did I tell you about Doc? No? Lemme tell you about our friend Doc. He is the father of three, a law enforcement officer, completely wonderful, and a totally terrifying sight to behold. He is about 6' 10" inches tall, unabashedly bald, and completely enormous. He was wearing the biggest white T-shirt you ever saw and by God he was gonna play Red Rover with a bunch of little humans that looked like scampering puppies next to him.

They all lined up. They locked arms. Big, little, little, little, friggin HUGE, little, little and I heard a young voice, full of impish glee, bellow "RED ROVER RED ROVER WE DARE DOC TO COME OVER!!!!" My kid really needs to learn her limitations.

And the earth shook and here came Doc. It looked like a snow covered mountain had gone into motion and was slowly picking up speed as it rolled across the grass. Every single adult head turned. Those who had been relaxing suddenly were sitting up. Every little young arm tensed around the other young arm firmly in it's grip and little knees bent to improve balance and heads dipped and here came Doc. Every single kid in that line screamed with fear, excitement and glee but nobody let go. They hung on for dear life and here came Doc. All of him. And God bless than big bear of a man's soul, because as he hit the line of children, he threw up his hands in a mock display of hitting the wall, staggered back, tipped to one side, tipped to the other and, arms flailing, collapsed under the weight of 10 small children attempting to tackle him anywhere above his knees.

As they fell into a pile, the kids from the other side decided that it was more fun being on the other team and THEY piled on and eventually Doc clambered to his feet with about half a dozen children hanging off him like the world's filthiest animated Christmas tree ornaments and the entire section of the park watching this display burst into cheering appreciation. Not a few mothers breathed a hugh sigh of relief at the sight of their child having landed on TOP of the pile as opposed to UNDER the pile.

Doc stood tall, took a bow, shook off the flock of kids, grabbed a couple of hands, turned and rumbled "Red Rover, Red Rover, I DARE (insert my 5’8” tall husband’s name right friggin here) to come over."

I thanked God our wills were in place, the insurance was paid, and then turned to see the first explosion of color as it lit up the night sky.

Happy Independence Day.

Sleeping with a Greyhound 101

2006-06-22T06:47:00.000-07:00

1. If you don't have to, don't do it in the first friggin' place.
2. Sneak quietly up stairs, avoiding creaky one.
3. Slip quietly into bed. Avoid rustling sheets at all costs. Buy flannel.
4. Turn off light and get comfy.
5. Close eyes.
6. Swallow own tongue when cold wet needlenose goes up your butt.
7. Tell hound to go lay down in his own bed.
8. Repeat.
9. Repeat louder.
10. Shift quickly to avoid greyhound claws.
11. Tell hound to get the HELL down!!!
12. Move legs left to accommodate circling greyhound.
13. Try moving them to the right.
14. Keep one leg left and one leg right.
15. Call Denise Austin to tell her about the straddle split you've mastered.
16. Big sigh and close eyes.
17. Ignore shooting pains in legs.
18. Deep breath. Wait. Bad idea.
19. Wave hands to dissipate green greyhound fart induced cloud.
20. Decide shooting pains running up legs aren't getting better.
21. Sit up, reach down, wrap arms around hound and haul 350 pounds of pretend-sleep dog up and out of the circle of agony he has created and in which he's chosen to sleep.
22. Situate greyhound next to you with his head on your arm. Wrap arms around hound.
23. Ask husband where the hell he thinks HE's going.
24. Close eyes
25. Deep cleansing brea . . . (God yer dumb)
26. Relax
27. Try to move completely numb fingers on right hand.
28. Realize that awake-hound-head weighs about 5 pounds and sleeping-hound-head weighs about 50.
29. Wipe spit off face placed there by snoring, flapping greyhound lips.
30. Look at ceiling.
31. Look at clock.
32. Look at ceiling again.
33. Deep sigh. Yer gettin' used to the funk by now.
34. Wrap arm that still works tightly around hound.
35. Give hound big fat kissero right between the eyes.
36. Remember to bring vodka to bed with you next time.

My Spider, George

2006-06-22T06:34:00.000-07:00

I dunno if I’ve told you how I feel about spiders. If not, I’ll do it now. I hate spiders. I loathe spiders. I respect them, but I respect them in the same way I respect a psychotic madman wielding a hypodermic needle full of Ebola or some such shit. I’m also scared to friggin death of them. It all goes back to my childhood (don’t you hate it when people say that? You might as well crack a beer and pull up a chair when you hear those words. Those words, and the words “to make a long story short . . .”)

I was a kid, just a little kid, and I was sacked out on the floor of my living room, watching TV. It was evening and the TV was black and white if that gives you any idea of how long ago this occurred, and the comforting sounds of some stupid-ass show were filling the room when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. It was small. But it was there. Any of you live out in the country? Any of you recall those wolfy looking spiders? The ones with the boxy hairy bodies and the legs about four fucking feet long? Yeah. Those. Slowly I turned, bit by bit, inch by inch and there he stood, just outside the edge of the shadow cast by the sofa. Slowly he turned, bit by bit, inch by inch (talk about an I Love Lucy rip-off) and after a slight pause, he SHOT across the room straight at me.

I shit you not, I came up off that floor as though my ass had become an ejection seat and OUT of the room I went, screaming the entire way.

Later in life, as I stood in line at the pet store to purchase food for my snake (yes I said snake), one of the employees was cleaning out an aquarium looking thingy next to me. Thank God it was winter and I was wearing a heavy coat, because the tarantula housed inside that aquarium looking thingy made a break for it. Did you know tarantulas can jump like a million feet and that when they do, they will ALWAYS land on the arm of somebody who will immediately feel all the air rush out of their lungs and be unable to scream for help while they watch the Volvo sized spider slowly climb up their arm? Well they do. And it did. I ain’t been right since.

At this point in my life you would have think I’d have gotten over the worst of it and, to be honest, I’ve come a long way. I can stomp on em now if I’m wearing heavy shoes and long pants. Used to be I wouldn’t even do that fear that they would dodge my foot, jump on my pants and climb up the inside on my leg. I still won’t stomp em if I’m wearing shorts. Sandals are out too. Just can’t do it.

So imagine me last night, on my back deck, cleaning up after a father's day cookout. I looked up and saw what appeared to be a spider leap from a bush to the hanging plant right beside me. I froze and the words "WOULD SOMEBODY FOR GOD’S SAKE COME OVER HERE AND KILL THIS GODDAMNED THING ALREADY" were almost out of my mouth when I saw Mr. Spider then fly back in the opposite direction. I still don’t know why, but I shut my mouth and got a little closer. And I watched. Back and forth, back and forth, and then up and down and across he went, the busiest and most intense little furry monster I’d ever seen. Eventually, he hopped into the center of the shape he'd formed and began to circle around and around in an ever widening pattern. He was building his web and it was fascinating.

I'd never had an encounter with a spider web short of ripping them down with a broom with a very long handle, or running into one with my face as I walked through bushes and trees and erupted into ear piercing screams, so I watched him for as long as it took him to construct his web.

And NO I did NOT wait until he was finished and then bash him and his web all to shit and back. I let him live. I actually let a visible spider live and reside on my property with full knowledge of his evil little presence, and this morning when I went out to water the flowers on that deck, I edged over to see if he and his web were still there. They were and he was sleepin'. So I killed a fly and chucked it in.

I will name him George.
I will not hug him and I will not pet him.
But I will call him George.

And provided he stays the hell out of my house, I’ll keep on chucking flies in there.

How Many Women Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?

2006-04-01T07:14:00.000-08:00

Again.

Only me.

Went to my Mom's to help her figure out the remote control for her new TV set, her first new set in like a hunnert years or something, but if your mother is like my mother, then you know that it's never just one thing. There's always another task just quietly lurking around the corner. It's never just a simple task. Oh, it SEEMS like a simple thing when they ask, but in the end, it takes an hour instead of five minutes and in my case, usually involves the risk of bodily injury.

So as I sat there fiddling with the remote control, I told myself "wait for it" and eventually it came.

"Could you change a lightbulb for me in my bedroom closet and you might want to take that stool with you and let me get the flashlight cause it's dark in there."

***sigh****

Snagged the stool and trotted up the stairs with a fresh light bulb in my paw. Felt my way into the depths of her walk-in closet, let my eyes adjust to the gloom and climbed up the stool. Reached up and after a couple of rounds of "righty tighty, lefty loosey", loosened those aggravating little screws that hold the globey thing over the light bulb and gently pulled down the globe . . . and heard an ominous rattling sound inside Mr. Globe.

Peeked inside, squinted and said "shit."

Looked up. Squinted at the now lightbulbless fixture. Peeked inside globe again. Said that word again. Looked at my mother and said, "The light bulb fell out of the socket." She said "Well, that's handy here's the new one." I said "No, you don't understand. The screwey part that you put into the actual socket in the ceiling, you know, the metal thingy (sorry to get so technical) is still IN the socket thing and the light bulb fell OUT all by itself and I can't get the screwey metal thing out of the socket thing."

My mom said the same thing I'd said.

Down to the basement we went, flashlight in hand.

Next thing you know, there I am, standing in front of the fuse box. Me. With the electrical knowledge of a two year old, standing there in the webby darkness with my spider phobia firmly in command of my brain, getting ready to start flipping switches to turn off the correct breakers so I can go mess around with a piece of metal stuck in an electrical socket.

Eff me runnin.

Handed Mom the flashlight, reached in and flipped switches until the light in the basement went out, at which point Mom said "let me check upstairs" and went trotting out, leaving me standing in a pitch black room with questionable webby things all around my head . I quite calmly screamed at her to kindly get the hell back here.

Eventually, we got the right lights turned off (i.e., every stinkin' light in the house) and I grabbed a potato because I'd heard you could use a potato to address situations such as this, but, sadly, learned that there must be broken glass for the potato to get a grip and of all times for me to have the rotten luck of not having broken glass.

Clambered back up on the stool and peered at the problem. There was absolutely no way that thing was coming out of there short of utilizing drastic measures. Asked my mother for some tweezers. She inquired, "WHAT?!" I said, "tweezers, I need some tweezers." You have thought I asked her to go stick a fork in the toaster. I told her to just get 'em and I closed my eyes, held my breath, and braced myself as I gripped the edge of the metal part that used to be part of the light bulb with the tweezers and started twisting it out.

I'll have you know, there is a fresh light bulb in that socket, I don't have flash burns anywhere, I did most assuredly NOT give myself a bad home perm, and I didn't even fall off the stool.

Yes, I turned the breakers back on but I shoulda made HER go back into that spider warren and do it herself, but I wuv my mummy no matter what messed up project she ropes me into.

Next time, I'm taking my husband with me.

Anti-Camel Humps a/k/a The Gap Loves Me Now

2006-04-01T06:02:00.000-08:00

Let me preface this by directing you to another story (if you haven't already read it) and letting you in on a little age old lie of mine.

First, if you haven't read "camel humps" you can't appreciate the glory of this experience (yes, I'm exaggerating) and as for the lie, let's just say that I haven't shopped at the Gap in, oh, I guess it's been about 4 years - ever since I started dumping the massive quantities of fat that had found its way to my ass and everywhere else. Why? Because (here it comes) "their clothes run too small to fit adult women." Get up. It's not that funny you hookers. Actually, it's more pathetic than it is funny.

On this particular day, the Hubby wanted some of those "destroyed" jeans (and trust me, he looked beyond good in those things cuz they wuz snug in all the right places and they wuz ripped up and . . . OK. Stopping now.) So I thought why let him have all the fun but then remembered where we were.

The Gap. ((insert overly dramatic B rated movie music here and throw in a few good **gasps!** for good measure while yer at it.)

First thought in my head - "Well SHIT, I can't shop HERE! **sniff sniff**" And then the demon in me decided to live a little dangerously, told myself I was at the lowest weight of my adult life, grabbed the youngin' and headed for the "girl" section.

Doodle: What size do you need Mom?

Me: Screw it . . . um . . . whoops . . . . um Mommy wants a 10 (figuring I'd need at least either a 14 or a two man tent in that place).

Doodle: OK. Here.

Me: What does the tag say? (cause you gotta be careful that she ain't lookin' at the price instead of the size but of course nothing costs $10 in the jeans section at the Gap so I suppose I was relatively safe but it seemed like a reasonably good stalling tactic at the time.)

Doodle: (Squinting) Um . . Size 10, Long and Lean, Low Rise. Here. Go put 'em on.

Me: Oh fuckfuckfuck. They were fulla holes n junk and they had a zipper like mebbe 2 inches long if that and all I could think was "camel humps".

So, while the hubby was otherwise occupied with his own jeans issues, I hustled into the dressing room, stood there a second, crossed myself as only an ignorant non-Catholic can, and hauled them up and stopped. Twisted around and looked. Nope. Nothing camel back there. Buttoned 'em. !!!!! Zipped 'em. !!!!!!!! Stood there and puzzled it out a bit. Strolled out to a husband who's eyes went the size of fifty cent pieces. Frowned cause I was confused at his reaction thinking "Oh there is no WAY I missed the camel humps, oh shit where are the camel humps, and spun around a few time like a dog chasing it's own tail. Walked over to the dreaded 3 way mirror and paused again. Took a deeeeep breath and turned. Turned so you could see your backside full on and I shit you not I squealed.

Dear Man who Might Be Reading this: OK. I know you don't get it cause y'all suck in yer gut and turn sideways to see what you look like in the mirror but for your information, we women have yet to figure out how to suck in our ass and most us avoid a clear and unobstructed view of our ass like the rest of you avoid lunch with Paris Hilton or a dentist who's novocaine supplier just cut him off.

Continuing . . . .

Cause my big, honking, 45 year old butt was flat out gone. Oh trust me, there was a butt there, but just a butt. Not a BUTT.

I danced.

I jigged.

I did that little run in place with yer arms pumping while you giggle thing.

I jumped up and down and I slipped in my socky feet and decided I'd pushed the celebration quite far enough thank you.

AND I BOUGHT TWO, COUNT 'EM, TWO DAMNED PAIRS - one ripped up and ankle length and another dark blue, long to wear with boots pair and I did NOT fucking care WHAT they cost cause I repeat: I DID NOT HAVE CAMEL HUMPS AND THEY FIT AND THEY WUZ SIZE 10 AND I WAS IN THE GOD DAMNED GAP!!!!! ((breathe)) I'm a very very happy person this morning so you'll have to excuse me.

Fall Down Go Boom

2006-03-07T03:23:00.000-08:00

There's a certain kind of thought process that occurs when one faces the reality of being back up on a pair of roller skates after twenty fiv . . . . one hell of a long time. That thought process could correctly be named "ridiculous sense of false confidence", or the "It's Like Riding a Bike" disease. Cause trust me. Getting back up on slick-as-shit-through-a-goose roller skates after any length of time is the folly of fools or old people who think they're still in some kind of decent shape. Or people like me who think that once ya got it, ya always got it. What I got was hardly attractive.

Daughter invited to friend's birthday party at a roller rink that we had to drive over 45 minutes just to find. Once there, we were asked if the "adults" would like to skate as well. ??? Well, SHIT yeah!!! Of course, at this point, the good natured ribbing and poking between husband and wife, the ribbing that usually starts out with "Watch me kick your ass" begins. The only thing that kicked my ass was the floor.

Skate counter: Young man with knowing smile on his face asks if we would like regular skates or "blades". Blank stare from me. Light bulb blinks on and I blurt "regular skates for God's sake." Subtle, huh? Now me, coming from the era when men's skates were always black and women's skates were always grey, pretending to be white, pinched the puke green skates that were handed to me between my fingers and confidently trotted over to the seating area to don said skates. My husband, having measurably more good sense than me, took his fire engine red ones in hand and schlumped despondently over to sit next to me and spend the next couple of minutes cussing mildly under his breath. Not me. I was perky! I was anticipating the air blowing through my hair as I glided effortlessly around the rink as in days of old. Old. Are you hearing me? Old is the operative word throughout here. OLD.

And stupid.

And the thought proess started:

"OK. Get up. Stand up. Quit bein' a weinie, people are watching you so stand the hell up. OK. Up. Put your arms down. It's carpet and anybody can stay upright ***whoops*** on carpet. Shuffle step, pause. Shuffle step, pause. Grab rail. Look for opening on the floor ok ok ok ok GO no wait. Wait. Wait for it. OK GO!!!! Oh Christ! OK. Don't move your feet yet. Glide. Shit. Put yer arms up! Balance balance. OK. okokokokokokokok. Move the right foot a little. Move the left foot a little and gliiiiiide. Arms up, arms down, wave arms. Circle arms. SHIT! OK. Got it. Fuck. A corner. How the hell do you turn these things. Move right foot move right foot move right foot damdamdamdam move right foot move right foot. Wheeeewww! OK. Push off with right. Push off with left. HEY! I'm getting it bac . . . . JESUS kid! . . . . OK. Dam. Another corner. OK. Around again. Around around around. Good good good. OK. Let's pick up a little speed, shall we? (let's have a lobotomy, shall we?) Good so far. Feelin' a little air there. OK. Arms down. Swing arms gently and push off push off, corner. OK Corner and aroooooound the corner and head back toward your friends. They're right up there standing at the rail and watching you in awe, admiring how quickly it all came back to you . . . . fuck. Kid. Tiny kid coming my way. Gotta stop. STOP! How the hell do you STOP. Toe thingy. Big rubber toe thingy on front. OK. Balance on left and drag rubber thingy with right. Shit. He's coming too damned fast. Slow down MORE.

Toe thingy catches. Hard. Hard enough to cause other foot to tilt forward that THAT rubber toe thingy catches and my entire weight comes crashing down on to my right knee. All of it. And of course there's that little thing we like to call momentum that continues to carry me forward, skidding across a hard rubber rink on my knee, arms out, right leg trailing gracefully behind me. Came to a stop in this lovely position directly in front of my now cheering and clapping friends.

I missed the kid.

And we rolled up my pants leg, the knee of which was surprisingly undamaged as I thought I might have BURNED the friggin thing right off my knee, to find a gorgeous red and purple floor burn covering the entire surface of my knee.

"That doesn't hurt" and off I went, made a few more circles, actually DID get some of the old rhythm back, got cocky, fell on my ass, nobody saw me, got back up again. And when the call for CAKE! went up, I hustled my bleeding and broken ass off the floor.

But. I missed the kid.

A Few Random Thoughts

2006-02-28T03:41:00.000-08:00

OK. This one isn't exactly funny. If you were expecting funny, keep going.

It's been a rough month, and even though God and I have had a few conversations over the sheer size of the sledge hammer he used to get my husband and me to open our eyes, I have to trust that he knows his hammers. And during the course of the bludgeoning, I have learned this about us and suspect it can apply to everyone. Except for one person, and that bitch knows who she is. Ooops. That one just kinda slipped out. Continuing:

1. If he loved the sound of your voice telling him you loved him 20 years ago, he still loves it today.

2. If the touch of your hand comforted him 20 years ago, it comforts him even more now that he's older.

3. There are women out there who will call you friend, look you in the eye and smile as they reach behind you to steal your world. Learn to recognize them.

4. It's seldom all his fault. It really DOES take two.

5. It's seldom all your fault. Because it really DOES take two.

6. You love your kids. They love you. Now get a sitter and go out with your man and take him to a place lit only by candles. Or the bowling alley. Depends on your guy.

7. Praise him.

8. Tell him you love him. Mean it. Do it regularly. Don't roll your eyes when you do it.

9. Talk to him. Don't yell or whine. Sit down, take his hand and TALK to him. If you don't know how to do that, learn. You're an intelligent woman. Learn one of the most important lessons of your life - communication.

10. If you're a guy reading this, flip all these gender tags around accordingly because this applies to you guys too. All of it.

11. Just as you want to know that those pants don't make you look fat, he wants to know that you still find him attractive. If you want to be told that you're still hot, still desirable, so does he. So tell him. Pat that butt and tell him. MORE than once every month or so.

12. Continue to be on the look-out for the thieving bitches. Carry roach spray for when you see 'em. **hint** You can usually find them schlepping around overpriced retail clothing establishments who have decided that high price tags makes clothing that would otherwise be considered crap worth buying, yanking down minimum wage, wearing a plastic name tag, and trying not to look as though she's so old that the rest of the kids working there could easily be her children, which of course, she is. So sorry. I'm doing it again.

13. Repeat steps 1 through 12. Buy more roach spray.

It was a Cold and Windy Day

2006-02-28T03:17:00.000-08:00

And on cold and windy days, I don't do my hair. It's a waste of time. Completely. So instead of washing, gooing, drying, brushing, gooing and styling, I yank that crap back into a big old ugly clip and call it good.

What makes that hair-fixing-up thing totally pointless is that the building where I am imprisoned for . . . . um . . . . the building where I gleefully and cheerfully scamper to work Monday through Friday, sits on the corner of a street that, in an earlier life, was a wind tunnel testing ground for NASA. I shit you not, on a day when there isn't even a breath of air anywhere else, on my street, you can't wear a wrap around skirt unless you have your bail money for that indecency rap that's sure to follow stuck somewhere out of the wind. It was that kind of day. And it was cold. AND it was raining. And I couldn't con anybody else to deliver a few documents for me, not even with my bail money. So I went.

Going was OK. The wind was at my back and my umbrella was shielding me from the worst of it from behind. But it's like that "what goes up" theory. At some point, you gotta turn around come back, no matter how many bars you pass on your way. You gotta come back. It's a law or something. So I came back.

I dunno about your town, but in mine we have the holdovers from an earlier era evident on our sidewalks. Bug ugly drainage grates and those metal cellar door looking things that are flush to the sidewalk that some establishments still use for their deliveries. Those bitches are slippery. And it's raining. And the wind is blowing. And they don't call me a dancing moose for nuthin. I tip over for lesser reasons than this.

As I came trudging up the street into the wind, I kept tucking my umbrella down lower and lower to my face to keep my eyelashes from blowing off (my real ones - I ain't kidding about that wind) and I was almost there, baby, I was mere yards from the front door when my shoe hit one of those slippery metal cellar door things and --- WHHOOOOPS! -- and I felt myself going down. But I am woman, hear me roar, and I caught myself. I stood there for a second to gather up my thoughts and round up my dignity and as I went to carefully step away, I attempted to lift my umbrella a little. And couldn't. And I yanked again and it HURT so naturally I yanked harder and hollered a little. Little metal rods inside umbrella were now entangled firmly in the ugly hair clip. So what does any rational person do when they're stuck inside an umbrella? You spin damnit, you spin. So I spun, and I yanked and I realized I hadn't quite moved off the cellar door, so I slipped and I spun again and I reached up there to try to loosen up the stupid thing and naturally my hand hit the button that releases the umbrella, which promptly collapsed over my head and around my shoulders. So there I stood. Feet spread like Bambi on the ice, soaked to the bone, hands dangling at my side with a catastrophically ugly umbrella collapsed down around my shoulders. And what did I hear?

I heard the voices of my pals as they passed me by, giggling madly, saying "Hey G, gimme yer hand" and like a bumbershoot challenged child, I allowed myself to be lead off the street, to the elevator and shuttled back off to my dark, sheltered cell where I'm kept for reasons which should be painfully obvious by now.

Took me half an hour to get that friggin thing off my head.

Real Men Don't Ask for Directions

2006-02-10T11:23:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have spent any significant time around a man, be it your brother, your boyfriend, husband or father, newborn male child in diapers, you know all about a man’s obsession with gadgetry. It doesn’t seem to matter if he really needs, wants or even understands how to use it: a gadget he doesn’t possess is an abomination to his sensibilities, regardless of it’s obscure and totally useless purpose. A man without his gadgets is like a woman without her tweezers: You really don’t need either of them to survive, but nobody’s happy without ‘em either, ya know?

My hubby once got a new gadget, just in time for our sojourn to the Outer Banks for Thanksgiving. In his eyes, it was perfect. It was glorious. It was made just for him. It was also something one of his buddies had that he didn’t have, which made it that much more necessary. It was a Garmin Street Pilot III GPS system for the motor home. Yes, folks, a device that tells you where you’re going and how to get there via satellite tracking. Even talks to ya. I’m thinking at this point: Cool. No more arguments about which exit to take, no more barfing in the car from trying to read a map with a flashlight at night, and best of all, no pulling in to half deserted service stations in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere at midnight to ask for directions resulting from our being lost due to a “short-cut” somebody told him about and telling ME to ask for directions, which invariably led to my having conversations with some marginally inbred fella named Bubba that always start out something like “Well howdee thar little lady, just what kin I do fer a cute little thang like you this late at night {{{sluuurp}}? You alone?”

Maybe this could be a good thing, just maybe. Probably not, but maybe.

Needless to say, the day the UPS guy pulled up in front of our house with this surprisingly small box, there was the hubby, hopping from foot to foot doing his version of the peepee dance. Naïve, yes, but I’m still figuring that we just pop this baby out of the box, pop it into the motor home and say “show me the right road”. No no no no no. This thing comes with SOFTWARE, people, and cables and all kinds of nifty instructions, none of which hubby knows how to do. After peering at all the parts, poking at all the buttons, he very ceremoniously turned to me, handed it all over and said “Here. Make it work. I’ll get you the laptop.” At least an hour later I hand it back, after which he promptly disappears into the motor home for the next two hours to play. I sit back and wait, knowing eventually I’ll hear the words “how does this thing work?”

Eventually the day comes when we’re heading out on the road for our first big trip with the new toy and expectations are high. We pull out of our driveway and it tells us to turn right. REALLY!!! God, it knows where we are!!!! It then gives us rights and lefts and exits and all kinds of interesting information and it makes nifty little beeps, whistles, and the voice politely tell us our turn is in 200 feet and I’m thinking that maybe this was a fabulous idea after all. This trip is gonna be a breeze! No stress, no confusion, piece of cake. We are now members of the 21st century, we are techno-wizards, we are Mr. and Mrs. Buck Freakin’ Rogers baby!!!!! Those of you who are laughing at me right now, go right ahead. Chuckle at my expense. Those of you who are NOT laughing yet have not spent enough time on the road with a man to understand what is obviously coming.

All went well until his beloved toy gave an instruction he didn’t agree with. That’s right, he wanted to ARGUE with the instructions given by the state of the art Garmin Street Pilot III GPS system. He said “That’s not the way we’re supposed to go”. I said, but honey, that’s what it says right here on the fully readable, color screen and that’s what the nice lady said.” He said, but it’s not right.” I said “define right”. He said “my way”. I said “Oh God”. So instead of consulting and trusting his state of the art toy, he starts calling his buddies on his cell phone to ask them which way they went when the drove to the Outer Banks because “this just don’t look right, man”. He would get other directions, go that way and then I’d have to re-program the trusty ol’ Garmin to tell me where I was and how to get where I was going based on the turn he had just made, contrary to the Garmin’s instructions in the FIRST PLACE. Is there a sick irony hidden in there somewhere, or was it just really really late at night?

In other words: He loves his Garmin Street Pilot III. He paid a lot of money for it, he thinks it’s cool and he’ll listen to it – as long as it’s telling him what he wants to hear. And I know just how his beloved Street Pilot feels, because he’s been ignoring my directions for 16 years now.

How to Walk More than One Greyhound

2006-02-10T10:37:00.000-08:00

1. Gather up doggy coats.
2. Quietly gather leashes so they can't hear you gathering leashes.
3. Pick self up off floor after having been mowed down by greyhounds who heard you gathering leashes.
4. Get dogs off coats.
5. Put coats on dogs.
6. Take off coats and put big coat on big dog, etc.
7. Snap on leashes.
8. Try to open door.
9. Try again.
10. Smack face on edge of door as dogs pull you through before it's actually open.
11. Hit garage door opener with hand not currently pressed to rapidly swelling face.
12. Smack face on garage door that isn't actually up yet as dogs rocket out garage.
13. Stagger into driveway.
14. Yell to nosey neighbor that, no damnit it, you haven't been into the vodka . . . yet.
15. Off we go.
16. Switch leashes to line up with dog.
17. Switch.
18. Switch.
19. Switch.
20. Switch.
21. Screw it.
22. Try to trot.
23. Examine bleeding knee and decide that's a really stupid idea.
24. Stop so doggy can smell bush.
25. Stop so doggy can smell grass.
26. Stop so doggy can smell birdpoop on sidewalk.
27. Stop so doggy can smell things that aren't even freaking THERE.
28. See squirrel a split second too late to save rotator cuff.
29. Get completely spun around while one dog goes one way, and the other dog goes in the opposite direction.
30. Walk walk walk.
31. See dog about to take crap in rilly rilly mean neighbor's yard.
32. Stop dog and make him crab walk to other side of sidewalk and poop there.
33. Put hand in pocket to find you have no poop bags.
34. Stare at kleenex and seriously consider it.
35. Decide kleenex is about as good an idea as the trotting nonsense.
36. Stoop down, make rustly picky uppy motions and "pretend".
37. After reaching half way point of walk, turn around so you can see lazy ass dogs as you drag them along.
38. Call, cajole, make promises you have no intention of keeping.
39. Give up.
40. Creep along as we smell more invisible stuff.
41. Jump over leash as it tangles around your legs.
42. Look around to see who saw you go down.
43. Spy your house.
44. Race for house. Hell with that trotting shit.
45. Open garage door.
46. Smack entire upper body on garage door as dogs shoot under.
47. Thank God the door to house opens in the OTHER direction on the way back in.
48. Cut loose demons from hell.
49. NOW open vodka.

Race ya!!!

2006-02-10T10:16:00.000-08:00

You can't share your life with a bunch of greyhounds and not, at some point, have some pretty good stories. Sometimes they're touching. Sometimes they're hysterical, but sometimes the magic of these creatures will leave you breathless. This story is from a time last year when I only had two of them. They were still getting used to each other, and it was the first time I ever saw them actually interact in the manner to which they were born. It still gives me goosebumples.

Moses is my big male, and Lilo is our little female. Before that night, I honestly believed that I had seen Moses run. Really run. Then I watched the tapes of his races and wondered if I had, in fact, actually seen the boy at full bore. Somehow I doubted it. On this particular night, we took Lilo, who was brand spanky new to our house and dealing with a bunch of issues of her own, most of which caused her to pee on the floor and eat tables, with us to the ball field for our weekly play date. Lilo, having been off the track for a much shorter time than Moses, was ready to roll and as soon as I let them off lead, she started trotting with Moses down the first base line all the way to the outfield fence. The further along the baseline they went, the more they were messing with each other, bumping, pushing, egging each other on like a couple of kids. It was so obvious what was happening that it was funny: They were trying to psych each other out on the way to the starting line. It was amazing. It got a lot more amazing real soon.

Those two got to the outfield fence and suddenly, Lilo zigged left and was off and running like she’d been shot out of a cannon. In the blink of an eye, Moses was off as well. It’s one thing to see them break from a dead stop to a flat out sprint on tape. It’s another thing entirely to see it happen right before your very eyes. 0 to 45 in under 6 strides has a way of humbling you. And yes, that's 0 to 45 mph. Being much smaller and lighter, Lilo quickly got about 9 lengths out on him in no time flat, but if you watched Moses, you could see an incredible thing happening. You could see him literally flitting through the gears: peeling rubber off the start, getting his bearings, and then snap shifting into higher gears, effortlessly, one after the other. And he was catching her. Stride by stride he was catching her. When Lilo felt him coming on, she snapped it into a higher gear, and back and forth it went until mere seconds later, Moses was with her and I was on my ass because my legs had simply turned to noodles.

They messed around like this for about 15 minutes or so (or until Moses keeled over and gave up and all the doggy “come ON is that all you got” in the world couldn’t convince him to do more than trot). I’ve never seen two happier dogs in all my life. Smiles lighting up their faces, ears pinned back and doggy lips and tongues flapping everywhere. Once Moses quit, Lilo started messing with my little girl, letting her run away from her and get about ¾ of the way across the ball field, and then blazing off to catch her at the fence. All you could hear in the dead silence of the early evening was Lilo’s pounding paws and my little girl’s giggling. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the first time I really saw my hounds do what they were born to do: cut the air like a hot knife. Put Animal Planet to shame.

Doggie Dump

2006-02-10T03:10:00.000-08:00

I'm one of those idiot people who shares her home with a pile of critters. It's interesting to note that the first dog, a stupid Shi-Tzu named Rags, was the bright idea of both my husband and me. The second dog, a giraffe/holstein cow posing as a greyhound, whose name is Moses, was entirely my idea and entirely against my husband's will. Nevertheless, within 24 hours someone was smitten and shortly thereafter, he marched his ass straight up to Philadelphia to bring home HIS dog, a little female my daughter named, in completely original fashion, Lilo. Finally, he said "I'd like a brindle" and about six months later, Dominic came home to live with us. For the mathematically challenged, that's one retarded fluff ball and three leggy, lazy, farting greyhounds. As an aside, I think it's interesting to note that somewhere along the line, they have all become MY dogs. Don't get me started.

Even though Rags was first, he's hardly alpha, but fortunately for him, Moses ignores him and Lilo wrestles with him and has become his best friend. Dominic was a different story. Dominic had lived out his previous three years with a miserable, overbearing chiuaua . . . chiwowa . . . cheewowwa . . . . overgrown sewer rat. When he saw Rags for the first time, you could his expression just dropped as if he were thinking "Crap. Another one." And for the first several days, things around here were a wee bit tense, with Dom growling and snapping every time Rags came within five feet of him.

But things settled down after about a week and I started to drop my guard. Came the afternoon of the big dump. I'll explain. Rags is under the impression that taking a shit is cause for celebrating with wild abandon, usually at top speed and in a circular pattern. He'll squat down, hunch all up, crap like a large rabbit and come straight for the house, fly through the back door and begin racing around the entire house like someone blew bees up his ass. When he's feeling particularly proud of himself, he'll jump onto Lilo and they'll celebrate together for a little while. On this particular day, he was in rare form and took off around the coffee table, made circles around Lilo, and in general was moving so damned fast his back end tried to pass his front end and he was rolling, baby, he was the KING and he was about to make one hell of a huge mistake and he just FLEW through the house and like the world's furriest rocket, he launched himself . . . . straight into Dominic.

Oh. My. God. Y'all. You could see it on his face, the look in his eyes, the sudden horror, the abrupt realization of what he'd just done and if a dog could have come to a screeching halt in mid-air, that's just what he would have done, and if he could have screamed, you would have heard the words "AWWWWW SHIT! WRONG DOG!!!!!!!" ringing in the afternoon air. Dominic, to his credit, simply stood there, rolled up his lips to show shockingly big teeth, and let asshole just bounce right off him. Which is something Rags does a lot, considering this is a dog who had to go flying up the motor home stairs and rebound off the screen door three times before it occurred to him that there was some sort of barrier blocking his progress.

Although the post-shit celebrations have abated not one iota, he has most certainly grown slightly more cautious about his route. A day with no dog blood is a GOOD day.

Twofer on the Sauna Belt

2006-02-09T19:17:00.000-08:00

I'm dialing right now. I'm spending $80 for an ugly blue plastic hot belt thingy cause I get a second one for half price. I'm gonna drop five inches off my waist by doing nuthin. I'm gonna sit on my butt watching Days of Our Lives and feel the inches just melt off. I'm gonna "sweat off excess calories" doing nothing because exercise does the same thing, but it's messy and takes a LOT of effort and who wants that? I'm gonna look just like those models and gym rats on the TV and I ain't never even gonna get outta my barcalounger. Except to hose it off from all the sweat. And apparently I can never drink water again for the rest of my life or all that weight I lost on the couch will come screamin right back. I can do THAT! I think we need to actually START a website with a name my buddy created, www.Iamaflockingmoron.com, where we can stick all the profoundly stupid gimmicky snake oil garbage products that people are conned into buying every single morning on these friggin horrid infomercials. I would personally like to model the Velform Sauna Belt while slumped on my couch, eating chicken wings and throwing the bones at the TV screen with a six pack of Bud at my side. Cans. That is all.

The Lady in the Purple Minivan

2006-02-09T19:01:00.000-08:00

It's the kind of Friday I dread most of all. It's the Friday where my work mate and pal, Rosie, who normally stops top pick up doughnuts for the office on Fridays, takes a Friday off and when she comes skulking down the hall looking for some unsuspecting fool to do the infamous doughnut run for her, it seems that everybody else got the head's up and rapidly beat feet to the toilet. Everybody but me and so there I usually sit, a completely stationary and clueless target. Therefore, I had to schlep my way into Dunkin Donuts this morning with the Ringlett (my youngin) in tow so she could get a special treat before school. I hate doing this. The people behind the counter never seem to understand why a full grown woman would come in, refuse to take her eyes off her own feet and in a barely audible manner, mutter out the side of her mouth "OrderforRosieandonedoublechocolateonthesideplease". Cause if I look up at the doughnuts, I'm just flat out screwed and will end up ordering 2 or 3 for myself and scarf 'em before I ever hit the door of my office. Anyway.

You might ask, and rightly so, just what the hell all that has to do with a woman in a purple mini-van, and I'd tell you absolutely nothing except for the fact that it DOES tell you how we ended up where we ended up in the first place and confirms the fact that I tend to babble and make stories much longer than they need be. So we're in the car and we're tooling to her school and she's happily beside me trying to eat a double chocolate doughnut without making a mess because her distracted mother forgot the napkins ,and I happen to look over while we're stopped at a red light and see some wild haired woman in a purple minivan idling next to the passenger side of my car, staring intently INTO my car and of course me being me, I stare back. She meets my eyes, which are covered by my trusty sunglasses, doesn't even flinch and smiles. I tentatively smile back, smack the lock button, make sure I have a clear shot at the emergency button on the OnStar panel, and look forward and carefully, without moving my mouth, say "Doodle, what is that woman looking at" and around a yap full of chocolate, she says "wudwumn?" and now I've drawn her attention to crazy lady, so of course, being 8, she sits there and chews and stares. When I look back, there she is, scribbling on a pad of paper and looking at one of us, danged if I can tell who, and this just continues and yes it's a very long light with all those different little arrows and shit, and finally, I've had about enough of this and I slip my glasses down on my nose, lean forward and give her the look. If you're a mother, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's the look that says "OK lady just whatthefuck are you doing?" She smiles at me (??), holds up the scribble pad and shows me a sketch of my daughter's eyes. Lindsey hollers "Hey daasme!" (cause she's managed to cram a full 1/4 of the doughnut into her yap) and damned if it isn't. A beautiful little sketch of a child's eyes. Clearly my child's eyes. And I grinned. And she grinned. And Ringlett smiled and waved. And the light turned green.

"Your Daughter Called"

2006-02-09T18:45:00.000-08:00

Recently, my mother had a run-in with breast cancer. She was understandably scared and nervous and after a whole shitload of tests, she was told that she could call the doctor's office the following Monday afternoon for her results. So she did but first she managed to screw herself into a tight little ball of nerves. She asked for her test results and was casually told that they hadn't come in. Call tomorrow.

I think she would have gladly reached through the phone and strangled someone.

So the very next day, she called again. And was told they weren't there. Call back later in the afternoon. And I think she actually DID try to worm her fingers through the little holes in the phone to poke the bitch in the eye.

So she waited as long as she could stand it and called again. And was told that she couldn't HAVE the results over the phone and would have to see the doctor. On Friday. Five days away. And what else would my Mom do in such a situation other than call me. Her Viper Bitch From Hell daughter. I said four words. "Who Is Your Doctor?" I picked up the phone and roared through them like shit through a goose about stringing along a 70 something year old lady who was scared to death only to scare her even worse by then refusing to even talk to her and making her wait ANOTHER 5 days for some answers. Made it clear that the doctor would be making a phone call that day or I'd be showing up in their office the next day, primed to embarrass not only myself, but them as well.

I think I skeered someone.

The doctor called my mother that very evening from his home. Giggling madly, my mother relayed the entire conversation to me immediately thereafter.

The doctor said "your daughter called". He said that the tumor is cancerous. And "by the way, your daughter called". And they don't like to call people with this kind of news because one time he told a lady her results over the phone and she fainted flat out on the floor. But "your daughter called, so . . . We will have to go in and do a lumpectomy and you'll have to have some radiation, but no chemo. Did I mention your daughter called? And nobody's ever died of this particular type of cancer and it's an in and out procedure so we wanted to tell you that because your daughter called."

As it turns out, I fell in love with the old critter the second I met him and I made nice with the poor receptionist and everything turned out just dandy, just like he said it would.

Did I mention that I called the doctor's office?

Gonna Git Me a Boober Job

2006-02-09T18:30:00.000-08:00

Ya know, you go along, all dumb and happy and shit. Your I-quit-smoking weight gain is almost all gone and your pants are getting loser like they should be. You figure it's time to finally bite the bullet and buy yourself a new bra that fits. It's been a long time. Go get some new ones. Live a little. So you do. And you haul that 36C that always used to fit you into the dressing room, put it on and wonder how fast you'd get busted if you used all the unused room in the cups to shoplift throughout the other stores for the rest of the afternoon. I could have spent about two hours in fucking Ikea and not run out of room. You are baffled. You pick up the old one you took off and yup, it's the right size. But obviously, it's NOT the right size. Smaller cup size. B cup. Check. Rats. Put it on. OK. That works. Buy two. DAMN.

Now, let's just say you're sitting at your desk at work the very next day, about an hour into your day, and you look down to scratch sumthin and notice something doesn't look right. In fact, something looks decidedly, well, wrong. So you poke the wrongness with your finger and the wrongness that turns out to be the cup of your spanky new bra just sorta . . . . caves in at the top. Nothing there. Empty. Well, genius, it's empty because the sweat socks filled with sand that YOU call hooters have done gone and settled in down at the bottom of the cup and the only way to get them back up is to reach in there and HAUL them back up, or bend over and do that shoulder shake-em-back-where-they-belong move which, of course, will either get you fired or asked out to dinner if you're caught mid shake.

***sigh**

That's it. I'm asking Santa for some boobies for Christmas. Nothing huge. Nothing terribly gaudy or gravity defying. Just something that stays where it belongs. The shame.

The Not So Subtle Man

2006-02-09T18:15:00.000-08:00

Hidey. Me again.

All I did was try to get a simple hair cut and I swear that's all. I did not head out that afternoon with the intention of doing anything other than getting an inch or two lopped off. My itinerary most definitely did not include a line item such as "1. Scare the shit out of a total stranger."

Now, I dunno about you, but the days when I'm scheduled to head up to the salon for my haircut are glorious cause I don't wash my hair that day and I don't do nuthin to it at all and junk and I just haul it back into a pony tail and suck it up until my appointment. In short I'm just flat out HOT. So I went whole hog and didn't put on any make up either, figuring it would just get washed off and messed up anyway. Me and my justifications for being a lazy hog.

Got my hair cut. Loved my hair cut. I'd better love my hair cut considering what I just paid for. In fact, I'm surprised I didn't walk away with a coupon for sexual favors after spending that kind of money on a friggin hair cut. Digressing again. So sorry. Anyway. I'm just bopping back down the street to go back to my office and I see a painter up ahead on a ladder, painting the metal awning that hangs out over the sidewalk from one of the shops that clutter the entire downtown area. He's listening to the radio. The Stones. "It's Only Rock n Roll" and he's singing a little. Looks up and sees me coming just as the chorus hits and sings "I like it!". I thought "Oh Christ, and me with PMS". I get a closer and he gets a little louder with "I like it!!" I get underneath the awning and he's now at shouting volume with "I SAID I LIKE IT!" and I'm picking up the pace cause I KNOW my limits, and damned near in the clear when leans down toward me, precariously balanced on his little metal ladder and literally bellows down at me "CAN'T YA SEE THIS OL BOY'S BEEN LONELY" and I couldn't stand it anymore and whirled around and screamed "WOULD YOU PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SHUT THE FUCK UP?"

The ol' boy slid a full two rungs down that ladder before he finally regained his balance and caught himself. I gotta find myself a 12 step program or somethin'.

Bathroom Escapades: Lock the Door Please

2006-02-09T18:03:00.000-08:00

My God here we go again. Me and my friggin bathroom issues. Once again, I waited a little too long and ended up with a potential dribbly crisis on my hands and ended up doing that shuffle/run for the potty before it became far far too late and I raced down the hall, button hooked around the filing cabinet, thanked God I had on comfy slides instead of ankle breaking heels and roared into the ladies room, made a bee line for the BIG stall, hit the stall door full speed with a perfect straight arm and as did so, what sight should meet my poor, abused eyes but a lady of about 80 or so, perched on the toilet, EVERYthing down around her ankles, and getting ready to . . . well . . . you know . . . clean up. She hadn’t shut and latched the stall door. It was hanging open several inches when I came blazing in, in far too big a hurry to tap politely and whisper "Anybody there?" I shrieked, skidded a little, spun on my heel, and ran for it, apologizing and babbling the entire time. Dodged into the next stall where I plopped down on the can and put my face in my hands. Then she forfuckssake wants to start a conversation with me. I’m so mortified I can’t even speak and she wants to talk about the time she went into the men’s room by mistake and thought that they had changed over the toilets into “them there funny lookin’ things on the wall that the men use.”

I would very very much like to just start this WHOLE day over please. Oh my eyes. Oh my heart. Oh my God.

Boys are Stupid #1

2006-02-09T17:52:00.000-08:00

It seems that very little has changed since I was a kid. Boys were stupid then and boys are apparently still very stupid. The youngin's in the third grade and discovering rapidly that boys do things that can't be explained, wouldn't make sense if it could be explained and frankly, probably shouldn't be explained lest it lose all it's questionable charm. If a boy likes a girl, he picks on her and hits her. That confounds her as well it should. I resisted informing her that in the third grade, it's annoying but later in life it's a jail cell and a roomie named Bubba and some interesting night time activity. But other than that slight omission, I most certainly wasn't going to lie to my little girl.

You see, some of the boys in her class are apparently just discovering that if they talk about boobies and pretend that they have boobies, they can embarrass the girls who, at this point in their lives, couldn't care less about boobies. The boys use pencils to pretend they HAVE boobies and they use high voices telling people to LOOK at their boobies and she is at the point where she considers them all to be pointless wastes of good oxygen and far be it for me to inform her otherwise. Sadly, again refusing to mislead her with a lie, I explained to her that with other than a few exceptions, boys don't change much as they get older. Boys, no matter what the age, will always do things girls don't like, appreciate or understand and girls will almost always simply sigh deeply and go along for the ride, resigned to the knowledge that boys are just plain flat out damned stupid.

She thought about it and said "all boys except Daddy, right?"

At which point I lied.

Is THAT the dead guy?

2006-02-09T13:16:00.000-08:00

Old family friend kicked off and I ended up in a situation where I had no choice but to take my 7 year old daughter with to the viewing at a local funeral home. I mean, I hate those damned things anyway. She and I had this big question and answer/explanation session before going. She was cool. She had it all together. I told her that we wouldn't have to go right up to the casket. To say she seemed disappointed is the understatement of the day:

Me: Honey, we won't go right up to him or anything.
Her: NO! I want to. I've never SEEN a dead guy before.
Me: **muttering** F me.

We got home after work and school, she dressed herself all up in a cute little dress and off we went with Grandma in tow. She always comes with to things like this just to hear what’s gonna come out my kid’s mouth. Fruit didn’t fall far from the tree there. Got there and were talking to all the old friends we'd known for years and she was behaving like a perfectly polite little kid and I should have known something was up right then and there, but off and into the funeral home we went. Got in line.

Her: Why are we standing in line.
Me: We're waiting our turn to pay our respects.
Her: This costs money?
Me: No hon. Paying your respects means telling his family that your sorry he's gone and saying goodbye.
Her: <> oh okaaaaay. That doesn’t make sense.
Me: Yes. I know. Don’t ask.

As we progressed through the line, we eventually turned the corner into the main room where the family and the casket were located. Lindsey freezes in place, her eyes flew open wide and I don't think she blinked or breathed until I kicked her.
Me: **half hissing/half whispering** Honey, try not to stare.
Her: **still not blinking** At what?
Me: Mr. . . . oh hell, the dead guy. Don’t stare at the dead guy.
Huh? What? Oh. OK Um . . . .Mom?
Me: yes
Her: **pointing and whispering** Is that the dead guy?
Me: **whispering** Jeez, Linds, who do you think it is?
Her: **giggling** I thought so.

And the staring and subtle ankle thwapping continued until we reached the widow. Lindsey was polite and friendly and said she was sorry he was dead and all. The widow showed her the little cow, the mini green tractor and other agricultural type stuff hooked to the funeral flowers (he was a farmer) and up to the casket we went. She took it all in, we looked at the other flowers and out the door we went.

As we exited the funeral home onto the porch, Lindsey looked around, looked at me and said:

Her: Is that IT?
Me: Yup
Her: Yer kidding.
Me: Nope.
Her: You mean I got all dressed up for that?

Christ

Loaded her into the car and asked her if she had any questions or concerns and she said yes.

Her: He didn't look like I expected him to look.
Me: Honey, how did you expect him to look? You didn't even know him.
Her: He was all dressed up. He wasn’t even all gooey or anything.
Me: brief explanation about undertaking and presenting and that gooey thing.
Her: But he was wearing glasses.
Me: Uh huh.
Her: Why was he wearing glasses?

You see it coming, don't you. I didn't.

Me: Because he wore glasses in life.
Her: But MOM. He's DEAD. He can't SEE even WITH his glasses.

I floored it and got the hell out of there. My mother saw fit to cackle out loud half the way home until I threatened to stand the car up on two wheels if she didn't just pipe the hell down.

Everybody Loves a Wedding

2006-02-09T06:46:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, one of my sicko friends who probably doesn't want to be named (Beth) with nothing better to do on the company dime than go web-surfing, found this ridiculous website dedicated to the wedding announcement and plans of some stuck-up, high-end bitch who was seen posing with the ugliest polkie-dot hat you ever clapped an eye on. The narrative was nauseating, self-absorbed and the constant name dropping was leaving a mark on my retinas. As I continued to read, it occurred to me that friends of mine were getting hitched pretty soon and DAMN they didn't have ANYthing like this to give to their friends!! How in the hell were they supposed to impress the crap out of people and shame them into buying really expensive wedding presents if they didn't have a complete dialogue of their entire courtship!!!

WE CAN'T HAVE THAT!!!!

So I done one up fer 'em. Goes sumthin like this.

Names have been changed to protect the people from whom I forgot to get permission to do this in the first place.

The Engagement of Olive and Popeye

FROM A BOTCHED GENETIC EXPERIMENT……TO A LIFETIME OF LUUUUV….

Imagine the scene…..a crowded trailer park eviction auction, the handsome, successful attorney/sometime tattoo artist/grave digger/child porn editor glances up and peers through the dust. He picks up his beer can in his burned and peeling hand (the one without the mysterious open sore). He’s just arrived home from a squirrel hunting trip in Arkansas. As he struggles to see through the constantly swirling dirt, his eyes rivet upon what a stunning blonde. He is entranced by this woman, who is not only beautiful, but carries an aura that just seems to magnetically draw flies and stray un-neutered dogs. He cannot stop staring at her. She is busy screaming at her bowling team captain on her cell phone. She is tall, and more than a little scary, with finely chiseled teeth and fuzzy hair, long hair, tumbling around her clammy shoulders. Almost as if he has called her name she looks up. Their eyes meet. They exchange a leer……….Sounds like a movie? No, not quite. This is exactly how Popeye, our hero, met his ex-carnival side-show, dental hygienist, attorney fee-ooon-say, Olive. Little did either know the true identities of their own parents, much less that this chance encounter would lead to a whirlwind romance, relocation to a double-wide, and eventually a proposal of marriage neither of them expected and over which their families were just frantic.

Olive and Popeye began a long distance love affair. With Olive living in a shack on a far away mountain, and Popeye being on work release from a federal prison, not to mention completely homeless, they used their mutual passion for road kill, skee-ball, line dancing and beer bongs to court each other in the most bizarre ways imaginable. However, it soon became obvious that nights of drunken carousing and home made gopher pot pie were just not enough, and Olive soon took the brave step of seducing Popeye's parole officer so that he could relocate to a "differ'ent mountain", start a questionable law practice representing other low life criminals, so they could spend more time together.

Popeye proposed to Olive this past Spring, and the wedding is planned for September. The wedding will take place in the poolroom of the local Elks Club at the top of yet another mountain, next door to the nearly condemned, but newly painted, row home on the south end of town not quite out of the local airport flight path, which the lovely couple will call their first home. The dress is designed by our bride-to-be and it's just dumb freakin luck that just enough feed sacks were lying around to finish this monstros . . . foamy creation. The reception will be hosted at the bar who is lucky enough to not have a dress code or picky enough to check ID. Olive and Popeye feel very fortunate that they have friends who are brave enough to attend this function without having to be paid to do so, and include some of the most influential and highly sought after models of post-office photo galleries on the guest list. We are anticipating a glittering, whiskey laden affair and HELL it wouldn't be a PARTY without a couple of secret surprises and pop police raids!

In the tradition of these two adventurers, the couple will honeymoon with a visit to the World's Biggest Ball of String, and an attempt at placing their names in the Guiness Book of World Records for most frightening breeding potential.

Popeye enjoys coon huntin’, clothing made from sheets with little pointy hoods, waving that old Rebel flag, films with questionable artistic value and is an excellent harmonica player, beer chugger, arm farter and an all around dandy catch that any little lady’d be damned proud of.

Olive has many credits to her name, few of which are acceptable in mixed company.

We know they'll be very happy together.

Camel Humps

2006-02-09T06:03:00.000-08:00

If ever there were a poster child for embarrassing moments in the ladies bathroom, I would most certainly have to at least be presented with honorable mention, a shiny medal and a reasonably noticeable chest upon which to pin it. Today, a lovely lady here at my office came to me, grocery bag in hand, and said "Here's a pair of low rise Ralph Lauren jeans I can't wear. If you can wear them, you can have them." COOL! I peeked at the tag when there weren't no one a lookin', spied the size "13/14" and smugly took off for the ladies room, practicing my "Oh I'm SO very sorry, but they're a few sizes too big, such a shame, but thank you for thinking of me" speech. Got to the ladies, looked again at the tag and realized that they weren't just a size 13/14. They were a size 13/14 JUNIORS. Oh so effing WHAT? How much difference can THAT possibly make? Size is size, right? Jesus, I'm stupid. Off went the shoes and off came my pants and let the wild rumpus begin.

**ahem**

"Ladies and gentlemen, reporting to you LIVE from the ladies restroom and yes, we're in the BIG stall and the fun is about to start and do we have . . . yes we do, yes yes here we go. She shakes out the jeans with a practiced **snap** and we have the . . . the right foot is in, the right foot IS in and she wiggles the pants up and lessee here . . . . she standing on her right foot, gets her balance, WHOA! tips over, and she rebalances and . . . and . . . yes the left foot, the LEFT foot IS in. And she pauses. And she breaths and she PULLS them up and we're at the calves!! We're at the knees!!! We're at the thighs, we're AT the thighs, and we're still at the thighs and we're pausing, ladies and gentlemen. Time out. Regrouping. Obviously thinking out her strategy and . . .OKOKOKOK time IN and she gets two fists-full of denim, one on each side and, OK. Oh my GOD folks, we've seen this before but never quite like what we're witnessing today. It's the pulling, jumping, spinning jean jerk maneuver. And they're UP. Yes indeed, they're UP and THAT's the half.

Get your hotdogs, your beer and your nachos and come scooting right on back because for your halftime viewing pleasure we present Aaron Neville and Aretha Franklin beating Mic Jaggar bloody with his own microphone stand. Back in a few."

*thwap thwap thwap*

(Insert theme song from Jeopardy here)

"OK folks, we ARE back and what have we here. We have our star player positioned with her knees and ankles pressed together hard enough to leave bruises and permanent dents and, apparently, the reason behind every vein in her face bulging prominently is that she's managed to get the button hole side within touching distance of the actual button and . . . .and . . . THEY'RE CLOSED YES OH MY GOD THEY'RE CLOSED!!!!! **zip*** Ladies and gentlemen success. They ARE on and she's leaving the stall to show her friends, who are brushing themselves off after having landed on the floor several times, proving yet again that you cannot laugh, pee your pants and stand erect simultaneously. Lovely. Just lovely. Look at her spin, look at her pose. Stare at her longingly in all her glory! Look at her just GLOW! Look at the attractive camel humps midway down her back. CAMEL HUMPS? Wait. Those aren't camel humps. What the hell ARE those things!!!??!! Oh my. Oh. Those two bulbous growths protruding from her lower back are her ass cheeks which clearly were shoved up and OUT of the jeans in order to actually pull them up and close them. Oh My. We need some assistance here!!! The friends are DOWN, I repeat WE HAVE PEOPLE DOWN HERE!!! MOVE IT MOVE IT!!! MEDIC!!! Oh My. Um. . . "

And there you have it. 45 year old women CAN wear jeans from the junior department. It ain't pretty. But it CAN be done.

Welcome and howdy!

2006-02-09T03:17:00.000-08:00

Well looky here! I did it. Frankly, it's going to take a miracle for me not to screw this up but you crazy people asked for it and God knows I live to do as I'm told. For those of you who aren't technically one of the aforementioned crazy people, here's the poop behind this blog and my God that didn't sound good at all. Anyway . . . .

A while back, let's say August of 2002, I took a look in the mirror and said to myself, out loud mind you, "who the fuck is that fat person and what is she doing in my house?" I did that turn-around-really-really-fast-and-look thing. Nope. Nobody there. Whipped back around and noticed that the fat person was wearing my clothes. Had my eyes. My hair. Wearing the same appalled expression on her face. Oh go on and guess! Go on. I'll wait. . . . . YES! Yes, it was me. Big, fat, miserable, lumbering me who used to be an athlete, body builder and all around skinny kind of person had become . . . This. One thought ran through my head, that thought being "nope nope nope nope nope!"

Fast forward a few days. After quietly asking around to all the other formerly fat folks I knew, I wound up at weightwatchers.com, forked over some cash, signed up and got about the business of getting this nonsense under control. I entered my starting weight and if you think I'm telling you THAT, you can just bend over and . . . and . . . well, you know what you can do. Doesn't matter anyway. I started posting to the support boards there and shortly thereafter found myself doing what I always seem to do, that being sharing every sordid and embarrassing moment of my life and believe me, there are plenty. I wanted to name this blog, "Life at the Eye of the Shit Happens Hurricane" but that seemed a little wordy. Moosenuts. Yeah, that works. I dance like a moose and since I have an impressionable eight year old child with a memory like an elephant, most of my favorite expletives have turned into "shi . . . nuts." Moosenuts. Digressing again. A thousand pardons.

Anyway, as time went by and the number of stories grew and grew, people started telling me that I needed to start saving them, publishing them in some fashion and that I owed them underwear, keyboards and monitors that had been soiled by their distinct lack of control over their own bodily functions. Now that I've forgotten most of what I've told, I decided it was time to act on their suggestions. Nobody ever accused me of being organized.

So here we are. Moosenuts. At times, names have been changed to protect the unfortunate souls who have been unlucky enough to have been sucked up into the storm, usually completely against their will. I would like to thank the following for their contributions and perhaps unwilling participation: Onstar, ladies bathrooms everywhere, the VBFH and my mother for not selling me to the gypsies when she had the chance.

Welcome.