Boudicca's Voice

Boudicca Has Left the Building

2005-03-09T22:19:00.000-05:00

Blogger ate my first post. That is fitting since I'm outta here.

Want to continue reading the stuff in my head? Go HERE. That's right folks, Boudicca's Voice has moved. Change your blogrolls, change your faves, change it all and make it www.boudiccasvoice.mu.nu.

And when you see my awesome banner and all the cool stuff... just think to yourself, Pam is truly the most gifted girl in the world... she did it ALL.

On a lighter note...

2005-03-08T21:30:00.000-05:00

On a much lighter note today… in particular, My BLOOD family, READ THESE LINKS!!!

If you missed this at Tammi’s, you really missed out. In my heyday, I definitely could see myself doing THIS. Although I have to confess, I would have probably still been clueless as to what type of establishment I was really visiting and then I would have been horrified, making me even MORE angry at the situation. Cracks me up.

I can definitely see my sister, Morrigan, doing THIS.

And I can most assuredly see something like THIS happening to me… but fortunately, my boys don’t sleep in footy jammies. We live in S. Florida. They prefer just their underwear.

Help! It's Closed and She Can't Get OUT!

2005-03-08T20:18:00.000-05:00

I think I blogged I had a funeral to go to on Friday, the second in the week. I go to a lot of funerals, probably averaging one a month to every other month. Trust me, I don’t sit down at the obits every morning and say, “Babe! I think I’ll take myself to a funeral this morning!” I don’t LIKE going to them, but I’m in some organizations that have a lot of elderly women in them, women I care about, so when they die or their spouses die, I give my respects. It is the right thing to do.

Now my reactions to these funerals vary. The first few years, I was a mess, turning into a small salty puddle in the church pews. One time I ran out of tissues and I had women passing me a box from the other end. That was lovely. We still joke about that funeral, even though that one hit too close to home and my throat still closes off when I think about it. Now, however, as horrible as it is, I don’t cry anymore… even if I truly cared for the women.

I don’t know when it started, this not crying thing, but I think it may have been last year when I was in hospice holding the hand of a friend of mine who was dying. I cried for her at her bed, as she lay unconscious and unable to speak to me. This vivacious woman who had done so much for me, brought me so much laughter, laying in a bed struggling to die as hospice did their thing and kept her out of pain. I did not cry at her funeral. I was relieved for her.

Or it may have been the funeral I went to a couple years ago… the funeral of a husband. It began with the wife, who I know well, being 15 minutes late to his funeral, el-flake-o that she is, and ended to our great surprise when we realized her husband had been a Narcotics Anonymous member and the funeral turned into an NA meeting. Wow, that’s a blogworthy funeral. I didn’t cry at that one either… perhaps that one started the trend.

So over the years I’ve helped the living grieve, I’ve held their hands, assisted them in standing as they received people and found they no longer had the strength, but had the will. I’ve helped plan the funerals, brought food to the survivors, and pretty much have done what I can to help them through their transition. I’m not an expert on funerals, but trust me, at 39, there’s nobody around who’s got more experience than me… unless of course if they work in the funeral field.

Back to Friday, I knew I had to leave early as it was a half day of school for my boys and the service started at 11:00 and I had to get my boys at 11:50. So I expressed my condolences to the daughters and told them I could not stay for the service, as much as I wanted to, as I’d have to leave early. They said to me, “NO, please stay. Just sit in the back and slip out when you have to.” So that is what I did.

The church was oddly shaped and does not have a large congregation, so it’s only 6 aisles deep, BUT the aisles wrap around in an enormous semi-circle to the pulpit. Very cool. I sat in the 4th aisle, right behind one of my best friends, who happens to be 73 and her neighbor, who is probably around 80. (I state their age to give you an idea that they have also done many funerals.)

The deceased was lying in an open casket in the front of the pulpit. So to look at the preacher meant you had to look over her body. I’ve been to a ceremony similar to this, but I must admit, most I attend are open in a funeral home or closed in the church. Not open in the church. The one I did attend that was open in the church, we all shuffled past him at the end of the service, then after we were all gone, they closed the casket, loaded it up and we went to the burial.

Not this time. We’re sitting there, the organist stops, the funeral home folks walk up, they fold in that liner thing around her body (probably a 4 inch overlap onto her body) making sure it doesn’t touch her face… then… THEY CLOSE THE LID! WITH US WATCHING! I sat there for a minute as I watched the lid close down upon this woman’s body… then I quietly leaned forward and said in hushed whisper to the ladies in front of me (who I have now noticed each have an eyebrow raised), “Is it just me, or is that not a common thing? I do believe I have never been to a funeral where they closed up the body in front of everyone.” They both said, “We have never seen this done before.” Then I said, one last comment, “I’m sorry, but that was creepy” and I leaned back in my seat.

It was very creepy. I don’t know why. It is psychological for sure, but just seeing her body closed up… Blech.

That creeped out feeling wore off though because soon we were singing all my favorite hymns. I do not dance, but I love to sing in church… and I love to sing at funerals even though I can’t carry a tune in a bucket. I find it soothing to the soul.

Those Tricky 'M' Words will Get you Every Time

2005-03-07T20:12:00.000-05:00

The boys had soccer this evening. Bones (Son#3) has his at 5:30 and the older two at 6:30. My husband took my oldest to grab something to eat, my middle son is under the weather so he stayed with me at Bones's practice as he wasn’t going to his own.

Water break time, and Bones runs up to me and says, “Mom! I know the name of our team! It’s The Maggots.”

Me: The Maggots? Are you sure?
Bones: Yup.
Me: REeeeeaaally. The Maggots.
Bones: Yup, The Maggots.

Off he bounds to the field, hippety skippety, not a care in the world. I look at my 8 year old and he raises and eyebrow and says, “The Maggots?” to which I reply, “Heh. Evidently.”

Son#2: Mom… do you REALLY think it’s the Maggots?

Me: No, I don’t. It’s going to be interesting to see what it really is, isn’t it?

Son#2 proceeds to do little ‘Go Maggot’ cheers while sitting next to me.

I’m looking at Bones’ soccer coach, and she’s this tall athletic cuter ‘nallgetout blonde… she reminds me a lot of Teresa of Technicalities. I can tell that all the Dads are going to REALLY REALLY WANT to go to these games. She’s really cheerful and great with the kids. She’s divided them into two teams, giving every kid some Disney character name… which is fitting… because…

When I got the flyer at the end of practice, it said the name of the team was The 'insert city here' MAGIC. Yup. Magic.

Magic, maggots, maggots, magic... I guess I get it. Magic to one person is nothing but Maggots to another. I think he’d be happier to be the Maggots.

Clean and Clear

2005-03-07T20:05:00.000-05:00

I went to the dermatologist today. I finally found a GREAT guy. Awesome, awesome, awesome guy. The doctor I went to last year… where she was nice, her priorities and mine were not in the same order.

For instance, I have what I call Karate feet. For 3 years I trained Karate, just recently quitting when our dojo closed, and my feet are heavily calloused. It does not bother me in the least. I go to see her about some SERIOUS issues and she kept focusing on my feet and how I need to moisturize them. Please. I looked at her and said, “They’re FEET. They are functional tools. I’m doing nothing to them.” End of story.

Did she catch the fact I have rosacea? No. And to those who know this skin disorder, it is obvious. She should have frickin’ caught it. (No, I do not have a red bulbous nose! I just have no real need for blush.)

So flash forward to today. New GREAT and Awesome dermatologist walks in, shakes my hand and says, “So, tell me, how long have you had rosacea?” and my reply was, “I don’t know, but I was diagnosed with it by my MOM in July.”

That’s right. My frickin’ MOM diagnosed me with it this past summer and gave me some of her extra gel for it until I got in with a doctor to get my own. Did I say my Mom isn’t a doctor? She isn’t. So why is it that she catches it as soon as I walk in the door to visit last year and my then dermatologist has me in her office no less than 3 times in 2 weeks and she NEVER catches it?

But, it’s officially diagnosed now and he gave me good stuff to clear it up. My skin should be clear and pink within the next few weeks and I’m very excited. I kept saying, “Now, you’re sure that this skin problem I have is NOT a factor of age… that I’m 39, about to turn 40 and it’s not some hormonal issue I have to deal with like being 16?” and he said, ‘NO, I assure you, all of this (he ran his hands over my face) is rosacea. All of it.”

Thank heavens for my Mom… who is the one who figured it out first… and pushed me to see someone else.

And the other positive thing is he carried on about how great my skin is (other than my face)… no visible skin damage yet, considering I spent my entire growing up years in the tropics… Hawaii, Taipei, Taiwan, California, Florida… courtesy of the United States Navy, and with that came a lot of serious ‘sun time’. I tan, unlike a lot of those of Celtic heritage, and this is in part due to the fact my Mom has some French and German thrown in. (I'm brown haired, blue eyed, white skinned... but I tan.) So we can withstand some sun… we don’t readily burn as, for instance, The Great Omnipotent One who is 100% Scottish with a wee bit of Irish heritage.

It appears I got blessed with her good skin genes. My Mom looks great. A couple years ago, I was in the car with my husband and we were talking about someone I thought looked rather old and my husband said this person was my Mom’s age. I said, “NO.WAY. She doesn’t look anywhere like my Mom. My Mom doesn’t look anything like that!” to which my husband in turn said, “Babe, don’t ever use YOUR Mom as a yard stick to measuring others. That’s not fair to everyone else. Your Mom looks frickin’ awesome.”

So good news all around. The damage I did to my skin isn’t appearing yet and my face should be clearing up. We’ll check again next year…

Work in Progress

2005-03-06T20:20:00.000-05:00

Yeah, if you have a blog and you check your sitemeter, you may have seen my other site come up. I'm working on it. I'm not blogging from there. I have started to put my links up and I've been testing them. So if you see it, ignore it. I'll announce the move when it happens.

As of now, I tweak some things, get frustrated, cuss at my computer, throw up my hands, and move on to something else. I hate this. I really do. I don't have the time to learn anything new, I don't.

So it will happen... it's just taking awhile. I will announce when it's ready. Until then, no breath holding please.

Vultures or No Vultures... That is the Question

2005-03-06T20:10:00.000-05:00

Are those big ass turkey vultures all over or is this a S. Florida thing? We get these big black vultures that are just scary looking as they hop around the carcass of which they are feeding. Let me tell you… there is nothing quite like coming home and finding 30-50 big black turkey vultures in your front yard as a possum, armadillo, or raccoon went feet up in your front yard over night. Your yard looks like something out of Halloween. Nothing quite screams “SOMETHING IS DEAD IN MY YARD” like a flock of vultures covering every square inch of grass, hanging out in your trees and leering from your roof.

Then you’re stuck. Do you shoe them all off, grab a shovel and scoop up the half eaten dead smelly bug and fly infested carcass only to then wonder where in the hell you’re going to put it? You sure as heck can’t throw it in the neighbor’s yard…although there are a few neighbors I’ve been tempted to do that to. And you can’t put it in your garbage can. Blech. Think 90 degrees, black garbage can with 3 days before garbage pick up. No.thank.you. Not only could I NOT do that to my garbage man, but I can’t frickin’ do that to ME! Ack. The permanent smell of decomposition…

OR do you just let the vultures do their job and deal with 2 days of your front lawn being covered in row upon row of big black hopping ugly nasty birds as well as 20 in your trees and another 20 lining the roof of your home?

I let the vultures do their thing. It’s a nature thing. Plus… I’m not sure where I’d put that nasty carcass… and there is of course… a vomit factor. I might puke having to shovel up a half eaten, rotten, swollen dead mammal body. Best let the vultures do their thing and let my house look like Halloween.

It IS a Need

2005-03-06T20:08:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite bloggers, Jack of Random Fate has an interesting post on why he blogs HERE. I liked all of it, but this caught my eye, “I write because I NEED to write. Those who write, understand, those who do not, will not understand.”

Yup. I get it. That’s the nice thing about blogging. I’m not the great American novel kinda gal. I’ll never write fiction. I’ll never do the research for non-fiction. I could do a newspaper column, perhaps, but that’s not happening. One of the many reasons I blog… “I write because I NEED to write.”

I was writing before I was blogging and when I stop blogging, I will continue to write. It isn’t uncommon for me to open a word document and just write for an hour, stream of consciousness about anything and everything… and then hit delete.

I write because I NEED to write. Jack nailed it.

I'm Not Sure What They Don't Get

2005-03-06T20:00:00.000-05:00

So tell me, is it the sole purpose in an extroverted person’s life to make those of us who are NOT miserable? I’m thinking so.

I was at a dinner last night, one with a lot of dancing, drinking, and carrying on. I don’t dance nor do I drink. And for the record, I did not want to go, but it was for my husband’s job, so I went and I made sure I had a nice time so he wouldn’t have to deal with the whole bitchy wife thing. I found people I could talk to while he did his thing, I made sure I found people who could make me laugh a lot so he woudn’t feel like he dragged me out and I was miserable. It was important for him that I have a nice time, so I did what I could.

The older I get, the more withdrawn I become. It is what it is… I like me, I have no desire to change. For anyone.

People seem to be cool with the fact I don’t drink, but they have real issues with the fact that I won’t dance. I used to dance, but for 14 years, we would be places and I would say to my husband, “Ohhh! Let’s dance” and I would get, “No. I don’t like this song.” He didn’t like any of them. Ever. Weddings, family parties, anywhere, he never liked the song. I never got to dance. Within the last 2 years, my husband has started hanging out with a lot of people who dance… a lot. Salsa, ballroom, whatever, they all dance. We go places now and he’ll say, “Let’s dance” and I flat out tell him no. I haven’t danced in so long, that now I feel self conscious and really, I just don’t want to. So I don’t.

I take so much crap for it. People won’t leave me alone. I had this tall sultry woman my spouse knew come up to me last night and say something about dancing with my husband. I misunderstood her and said, “Oh! You can go dance with him! Have at it!” and I cheerfully waved them towards the dance floor and she said, “No, no, no, I wanted to know why you aren’t dancing with your gorgeous husband.” I found that to be pretty damn nervy. I went stone cold and said, “I don’t dance. Feel free to dance with him if you’d like. I think he’d like to be out there.” She walked away.

It is not as if I would get angry if he danced with other women. It doesn’t bother me in the least. He can dance with any and every woman in the room. I don’t care. I really don’t. I’m not the jealous type. I know ultimately he goes home with ME and sleeps in MY bed. There was a tall beautiful metropolitan exotic Asian woman who flew in from NYC with some of my husband’s colleagues. All the men were dancing with her… some of them dirty dancing with her. If he had wanted to be so bold… I would have said, “Go for it!”. Doesn’t phase me.

I’m not punishing him. I just don’t feel like I should have to do something I just really really don’t want to do. To me, it’s a big enough compromise on MY part that I attend these events. I mean for years he didn’t want to dance, and I didn’t force the issue. And he IS NOT forcing the issue. He only asks once, he doesn’t harass me, he’s not a jerk. I always tell him there are a lot of lovely women out there, he can dance with anyone he wants, it just won’t be me. He’s cool with it. It’s the other people who aren’t cool with it and it’s really starting to piss me off. They need to back the hell off.

And I don’t get this whole obligatory spouse crap. I have to do this social crap with him far more than I like. People give him SO MUCH crap if I don’t go. If I’m not there, he immediately gets, “Where’s your wife? Are you REALLY married? Why doesn’t she come with you?” and… here’s the kicker that gets to me… it’s even when he’s out of town. Like I can just drop what I’m doing, abandon my kids and fly with him to all these places he goes so I can hang with people I don’t really know, don’t want to know, and have dinner with them to boot. We have children, not dogs. If one of us is traveling the other must be home with them. You don’t kennel children.

I would make a terrible wife of a politician. I can’t do this stuff. I’m not cut out for it and it really does make me miserable. If he ever decided that his calling was a public life, like in politics, I’d have to leave him on the grounds I didn’t sign up for that. Seriously. Some people are extroverted party, love to be around other people, feed off the energy of the room, kind of folks and some people just aren’t. And for some reason, those of us who just aren’t, are considered freaks by those who are. I don’t get it.

And this isn’t a rant about my spouse. He’s not a jerk. It’s about all these folks I encounter… Blech. From the people who won’t leave me alone about dancing (men and women alike) to the folks who carry on about how I don’t join them in New York or I missed the last cocktail party or whatever. I want to tell them to back off, butt out, and get a clue. I have three kids. I don’t globe trot and party. I have responsibilities. I'm on the verge of cutting them off at the knees.

I Think I KNEW This Answer

2005-03-04T23:10:00.000-05:00

This explains a lot. I think. It just kinda confirms what I already knew… even though it’s a quiz. HMMM.

Your Brain is 40.00% Female, 60.00% Male

You have a total boy brain

Logical and detailed, you tend to look at the facts

And while your emotions do sway you sometimes...

You never like to get feelings too involved

What Gender Is Your Brain?

Hat tip to Blog Sis Tammi.

Carnival of Recipes is UP!

2005-03-04T23:05:00.000-05:00

Ted of Rocket Jones has the next Carnival of Recipes up and let me tell you, he's a funny guy. I've been going through his blog. I like him. And not just because we share the same birthday...

Go HERE to see his story and the recipes...

One More Week

2005-03-04T22:44:00.000-05:00

I’ve been in charge of seating for a Fashion Show Benefit to be held tomorrow (Saturday). What a pain in my neck. The show benefits veterans and children. I’ve been entrenched in it for coming up on eight years. I chaired it for 2 years, I’ve done seating for nearly 8, and I’ve had to model a few times. Now before any of you who don’t know me get any ideas of what I look like, I’m not some tall skinny model type. I just happen to be younger than everyone else by about 20-40 years. They see young they think, “model” and it doesn’t matter that my body is now gross, overstretched and flat out icky… because it looks better than theirs.

This happens to be an election year for our State organization so anyone who is running for office is coming to this Benefit, to be seen, to garner votes. We’re upwards of 200 women coming as of now. Well… as in any organization, not everyone gets along with everyone else. Over the years, bridges have been burned, things said that should not have been, and feelings have been hurt. Unfortunately, because I’m so involved, and because I spend a lot of time observing, I am fully aware of who gets along with who. It’s one of the reasons they like having me in the job. I don’t talk about it… nobody knows who likes who… except me.

Now, it is probably irrelevant, and I should probably just sit anyone where ever I want, screw them all, but I can’t do that. It’s just not right. When I invite someone into my home, I want everyone to be comfortable. (It is my chapter hosting this.) Yes, I do expect everyone will have their manners and they would… trust me, there would be NO catfights, but why in the world make someone feel uncomfortable if you don’t have to.

So for 3 days, I’ve been cutting and pasting, dropping and dragging, and as people have been calling in and canceling due to the flu, I’ve been rearranging tables to maximize space in the room as the place we’re having it completely screwed us over and we’re pressed for space. Meanwhile… I have the whole issue of someone has to have the tables that just aren’t quite as desirable as others and since *I’M* the one doing the seating, *I’M* the one that will have to deal with their crap. As I do every year.

I’m pretty much over it and if anyone complains, I’m shoving the seating chart in their faces and saying, “Oh! It is so nice that you volunteered to do this next year. Give me your e-mail address so I can send you the files.”

And I still have 1 more week until the big cocktail party that I’ve been putting together. One more week… and the big stuff is over. I cannot frickin’ wait.

Menage a Trois... Why Don't I Remember THIS?

2005-03-04T09:51:00.000-05:00

So I get this e-mail yesterday… a sort of confession. A confession… that I am a blogmama again. Nothing quite like having someone knock on your door and say, “Mom?” Heh. You’d think I’d have had AT LEAST some inkling of the gestational period. Some Earthly idea. None. No morning sickness, no headaches, no food aversions, no nuthin’. On the plus side… there was no weight gain either. Thank God for small favors.

So as we’re e-mailing and I’m trying to piece how he was conceived, I find out he was waiting to see who discovered him first in their sitemeter. Now since he already has a website, I had seen the prefix in my sitemeter, but never bothered to notice the suffix was different… but SOMEBODY did. Yeah, he was discovered by his Aunt Tammi.

Now this is where it gets kinda sticky… because… well… because… this is once again a case of where our family tree doesn’t fork. I want to know who the father is afterall… I mean, there has to be a father, afterall I have TWO. And… then I find out… his father is… MY FATHERS. Holy Guacamole… yet another incestuous relationship in the Bad Example family… but this time, we add my blog father Grau in the mix too. So it’s me, Grau, and Harv… with our new spawn… Contagion.

Now a couple questions are in my mind… first… how much child support do I get here? The kid was born in December… I mean, I get something right? This is America afterall…

And, wait, did I enjoy this tryst because I am most certainly enjoying the fruit of it…

With that… my new blog offspring, courtesy of what must’ve been some blogospheric drunken threesome, which is just oh so very appropriate given the nature of my blogson and his sense of humor… Contagion… And it is HERE. Add him to your blogrolls folks.

He’s a re-enactor, best real life buddy of Grau, Packers fan, husband and father of two… funny guy… a good guy. He’s one of the reasons I kept going back to Grau’s… Grau has great friends.

And Grau and Harv, HEH! Are you surprised? Nothin' quite like a woman showing up on your blogospheric doorstep with her hand out saying, "I do believe he's YOURS and pay up, chump!" Heh heh heh!

As for Tammi... we're waiting to see this newest family tree. Oh Yeah, babeeee!

10 Years of Happy Birthdays

2005-03-03T21:42:00.000-05:00

Today is my eldest’s birthday… he is 10. My nickname for him, when I do bother to call him by one, is Brown Bear. Of my three, he is the darkest, the one that looks the most like my husband’s Italian heritage. Deep brown eyes, dark hair, and skin that browns a beautiful bronze in the sun, kind heart, infectious belly laugh, and a voracious appetite for books… that is my oldest boy. He doesn't like the girls now, but in time, he will be fighting them off... he will be 5'6", broad shouldered, lean muscled and will have a deep throaty laugh.

It is hard to believe he is 10 today. 10 years ago at 9PM I became a parent. I won’t go into the whole birth thing as it wasn’t easy and rather miserable to be honest; you know you’re body has been through hell when the first thing the doctor says when the baby’s head pops out is, “Whoa. Big Head.”

And… from there… most of his nicknames his first year dealt with the fact he had a big head. “HEED!” from So I Married an Axe Murderer was frequent. My brother took to calling him Pangea at one point… as you could see this ridge on top of his big round head and it's just what if looked like. He still has the ridge. He had so many nicknames, that by his first birthday, he wasn’t sure what his real name was in fact. Two stuck: Little G (as he is named for his father and their name starts with ‘G’) and Brown Bear, as he is brown skinned and has this sweet fuzz on his back.

So… since he is 10… I will list 10 things I love about my boy. Not the top 10, just 10.

· I love how he belly laughs to the point he nearly cries.
· I love how he already sees the absurdity of things and is able to laugh at it.
· I love how he loves to read.
· I love how he smells all mosty toasty when he wakes up in the morning.
· I love how he has a little swirly patch of fuzz on his cheek and wonder how his beard will grow there one day.
· I love how he still can’t stand girls, but shyly admitted to me that there is one he talks to… because he can.
· I love how he knows about ‘things’ but still believes in Santa.
· I love when I ask him to stick with his 8 year old brother for a minute while I run into a restroom with the youngest, he puts his arm protectively around his brother’s shoulders.
· I love how he doesn’t hesitate to hold his brothers’ hand when he’s in a store… he will take their hand to guide and protect them.
· I love that he’ll still curl up next to me on the couch and snuggle for kisses.

My heart aches with the love I have for my boy. Happy Birthday to my Brown Bear.

Books and Announcements

2005-03-03T21:28:00.000-05:00

I gotta update my blogroll folks and for those of you wondering... I am slowly getting my act together for moving outta this joint. Patience is a virtue. I'm just trying to stay sane.

Big announcement coming tomorrow... I just didn't want it overshadowed by my son's birthday. It deserves a spot of it's own. Heh!

OK, from Mike The Librarian HERE, who I AM adding to my blogroll next update, we have this book meme. I guess this is a meme. I think it's easy for any of you bloggers who read... which would be... ALLLLL of you!

Grab the nearest book
Open the book to page 123
Find the fifth sentence
Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog, along with these instructions.
Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it. Just grab what is closest!

OK, from my myriad books strewn all over my desk, I closed my eyes and grabbed "The Loop" by Nicholas Evans. (The author of the Horse Whisperer.) Not a great book, but not a bad one either and it kept me satiated one weekend.

"The two of them rode out before dawn under a mottled November moon that lit the breath of the horses and made shadows of them on the sequined snow. An hour later they were up in the forest, standing silent with the horses on a high crag while they looked back to see the sun scale th world's rim and turn the snow-swept plains to a sea of crimson.

His father always knew wher they were most likely to find elk."

I keep this book on my desk as there is a quote in the front from a Sioux Indian that I find relevant in my life. One day I'll throw it out there for everyone to see.

Carnival of the Recipes

2005-03-03T21:06:00.000-05:00

My life has been too hectic to enter into the Carnival, but today, I will enter the recipe requested by my eldest for his birthday. Salmon.

Sante Fe Salmon

1 1/2 lbs salmon fillets (ask for the skin to be removed)
salt and pepper
1 (10 ounce) can of diced tomatoes with basil, oregano, and garlic (it comes this way), DRAINED WELL
1/2 Cup Mayo (light mayo works too)

Cut salmon into 4 servings and season with salt and pepper.

Preheat large skillet for 2-3 minutes. Combine the mayo and tomatoes in a good sized bowl.

Coat both sides of Salmon with tomato mixture and place in skillet. Add remaining tomato mixture to pan and cover. Cook 3-5 min on each side until internal temp gets to 145 deg. Cook time varies depending on thickness of the fillets.

I serve this with wild rice.

Inside Joke...

2005-03-02T20:59:00.000-05:00

OK, I have to blog an inside joke to my blood family... that would be Morrigan, Toluca Nole, The Great Omnipotent One and Mom, for those of you not in the know. To any new readers, yes, my family reads my blog... awful language and all. It's an easy way to keep the pulse on the funny stories of my 3 boys.

Anyway... Fam... Go HERE and any one of y'all that this does NOT apply to, please step forward. Uh... Mom... not so fast. *grin* And maybe Morrigan... you might should step back too... heh heh heh.

Thai Poetry

2005-03-02T20:44:00.000-05:00

Blog Father Harvey is guest blogging for my sweet blogbro That1Guy and he is posting on his R&R in Thailand HERE. Picture and all, folks. Over at his own site, he posted he was guest poster and the topic came up of Thailand and adult entertainment… which reminded me of a story... of course.

And yes, I am fully aware that my friend and I could have gotten fired for this… sexual harassment and all that jazz.

I was 22 at my old place of work, so this was 17 years ago. I hung around with a group of guys my age that hired in about a year before me. We did defense work for the Thai military too and one of my best guy friends was slated to go there on a business trip.

Well, MY group was comprised of mostly retired military men, so every time my buddy would walk down the aisle, they would go into great detail as to what he would ‘find’ over in Thailand for his trip… in the adult entertainment industry. The more I heard, the more I got concerned for my buddy’s ‘safety’ and well being, because afterall, I am a 'safety girl'. So the day before his trip, I went to the area drugstore and bought this enormous assortment of condoms, every color, texture, style you can imagine. I put them in a big bag with lots of fluffy tissue paper and when he came to my desk that next day, I said, “Here. It’s for your trip.”

He cracked up, thanked me and his parting words to me were, “I’m going to get even. You know that don’t you?”

Sure enough, 2 weeks later upon arriving home from his trip, he has with him a really fun watch he bought for me from some cheap street vendor and a big T-shirt with BIG pink bubble letters. Except… they weren’t bubbles. They were cartoon p-enis’s with arms and their hat was a condom they had on the tip of their ‘heads’ (oh, I hated putting it like that… but it is what it is) and they spelled out (you know... like using your arms to spell out YMCA during the song, except they used their 'bodies'), “Aids kills, don’t be silly, put a condom on that willy”. The guys in my aisle were dying. I was laughing so hard, I was crying. Of course I was 3 shades of pink... matching my new t-shirt.

I think I still have that t-shirt.

I'm a Moron... Part II

2005-03-02T20:38:00.000-05:00

OK, before I continue with yesterday’s post… yes there was more… I will tell you that I passed the corporate communications part of my company compliance training. (I don't know who developed our software, but I gather national requirments for this are the same everywhere.) I hated every minute of it and still didn’t get 100%, but that’s because they have me all freaked out about anti-trust, corporate monopolies, and a range of other crap, so I still put I’d 'seek counsel' once when they said I didn’t need to.

Anyway… more from yesterday.

In an absolute self loathing snit, I called one of my good friends that works for the same company I work for now, and who also worked with me at my old company. He’s known me for about… 17 years I guess. The way back years… So, I get in my car, going to pick up the kids and I ring him at the office and it went something like this:

Me: Have you taken that frickin’ compliance training?
Him: Yeahhhhhh, pretty dry stuff. Six of the 10 modules.
Me: Did you pass all it all?
Him: (silence) Yessss…
Me: I f---ing failed one. Can you f---ing believe it? I failed the f---ing corporate communication.
Him: Really?
Me: yes. I don’t belong working anymore. I should just go back home and do what I was doing before. The computer system password system is whacking me out and I can’t pass the f---ing compliance test. This sucks. I suck. I hate this. I shouldn’t be working.
Him: (silence… again) Ummm, we aren’t prone to over reacting much, are we?

Heh.

While on the phone with my sister, it went something like this:

Morrigan: did you print out the answers?
Me: What?
Morrigan: Did you print out the answers after you failed it. You know, hit print.
Me: NO! Why would I do that?
Morrigan: Beeeeeecaaaausssse, it will be the same questions next time you take it.
Me: (quiet for a minute) Are you serious? It’s not some random generated question thing where they’ll now give me 20 new legal questions?
Morrigan: No. Next time print them out.

Can you believe it?

So I take the test today and I’m talking to Mr. Magoo (remember, I have that co-worker that looks like him) and he says, “Damn test. I failed that one 3 times. You know what the problem is? We don’t give a crap about that stuff. All that legal mumbo jumbo. What a bunch of crap. I finally figured it out… print out the answers… so when you take it the next time, they just reorder them, throw in a few extra and you’ll pass.”

Now I know.

I took the Sexual Harassment part and passed. I missed one. It was on whether someone gets fired immediately if they flagrantly harass someone and I said that no, they got a warning. I guess not always. I didn’t think it through. Just because it seemed like at my old company someone could get molested in the hallways and nothing would happen, doesn’t mean that’s the norm. Anyway, I’ve been the victim of some pretty nasty harassment and what they say to do and what you have the guts to do are two different things… especially when your boss is harassing you and he’s best buddies with your Manager… who is the company golden boy. Brought back lots of bad bad memories, but one of the scenarios reinforced that I handled it the best way for me. They shouldn’t make blanket statements on what you SHOULD do. They can recommend, but that is all.

It's Official... I'm a Moron

2005-03-01T22:35:00.000-05:00

It was a horrible day on so many fronts, I considered not blogging. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. So I guess I’ll start by something that really pissed me off, but now I’m laughing about.

I failed the corporate communications part of our Compliance Training. There I said it. I cannot frickin’ believe it. My boss is horrified. I get another 2 chances. He told me it took him an hour to take it… and he took notes. It took me 30 minutes… and I fell asleep. It was web based. Bah. It was the end of the day and I just didn’t want to be there! GRRR. So when it got into all this legal jargon of what you can say and can not say and what you stamp on items and the wickets you have to go through so everyone understands what is proprietary as well as what you can put in e-mail vs. what you can’t and on and on and on… my eyes glazed over and I made a mental note, “Do not get yourself in a position where you have to deal with competitors or have to look for business.” Then I mentally checked out because it was all this legalize and I would make a horrible lawyer.

Of all the things I’ve wanted to do with my life… lawyer fits right there at the dead bottom. No kidding. No offense to the lawyers, but all that stuff bores me to tears. The words just drone on and on and mean nothing to me. Hand me a blueprint and I’m golden. Don’t hand me a legal document.

I remember my first Counsel meeting at our old job. The head of compliance, talking to us about granting government employees favors, stood up and said, “If you drive by and see USAF personnel on the side of the road, in a broken down car, in the pouring rain, and his leg is broken, do you stop to help?” Hunh. I got scared that somewhere along the way we were supposed to check our humanity at the door. Luckily, she was proving an extreme point that yes we should stop, but no, we don’t offer government employees a ride to work from the airport.

Anyway, back to today's idiocy, top it all off with the fact I was looking at everything as a puzzle, because… that is what I do… and the fact I didn’t take notes and was drifting in and out of sleep, I missed passing the test. Forget the fact I Aced the first test, this one I didn’t.

For instance, the questions were things like (I’m making some of this up, but it is similar in situation): Can anyone apply to the government to receive a copy of your government proprietary information? And I put yes BECAUSE anyone CAN apply for it… they just won’t be able to obtain it! GRR. The answer was no.

Then they had something about writing down some weird situation that occurred and how to write it out so it doesn’t inflame the situation and I opted for Option D which was “None of the Above” meaning… just don’t put it in writing.

And then anytime it gave the option of seeking advice of Legal Counsel, which sounds pretty frickin’ ominous… I put “yes”. I told my boss… if I’m in a situation where ANY warning bells are going off that I should seek Counsel… I’m gonna do it. Anyway, that was not always the case. I guess Counsel doesn’t want minions like me always at their door.

So I’m kinda pissed, even though I am to blame, because there is nobody more trustworthy than me that works for our company. I keep to myself, I am very loyal, I never gossip, I don’t talk about things that shouldn’t be talked about, I don’t send inflammatory e-mail, I’m loyal to the folks who contracted out to us, I’m loyal to my country… yet… I can’t seem to get right the definition of apply vs. receive… and when to get the lawyers involved…. Ugh.

I retake it tomorrow and will now take copious notes in the legal jargon and I’ll spend an hour and I’ll take my caffeine deficient body and hop it up with coffee so I’ll stay awake… because trust me… it is dry stuff. All legal stuff is dry…

Meanwhile, while feeling humiliated, stupid, and completely worthless, I called my sister who is a trainer, and she informed me that people fail these tests all the time. I think she was humoring me. Oh, and after I finish passing this test, I have to take the one on sexual harassment. I am so NOT looking forward to that one. I hate this crap.

And… the day only got worse.. ending in YET ANOTHER funeral I have to attend this week, the second one this week I might add. Not a good day. I suspect tomorrow will be better.

I Want What He's Having...

2005-02-28T20:46:00.000-05:00

So Eric at Straight White Guy posted THIS yesterday. I think it may not be deemed worksafe… or rather… there are no pictures, but I’d hate for the boss to walk up behind you while you’re reading it. Wow. The title is “From a Dream…”

Good Lord.

Now folks, whether it is from one dream, a conglomeration of many dreams, or a conglomeration of many dreams with a little fiction thrown in is COMPLETELY irrelevant, because… I don’t dream like this, unfortunately. Let me tell you about last night’s dream… and this is 100% real.

I dreamt last night that the mob was after my husband and also me and it had to do with his car. They were bound and determined that he would not only NOT rebuild his car, but they would take him out and me along the way. They went to every shop where any remnants of his car were being held and blew the place up. It was vivid enough of a dream that I remember being on the phone talking to Mary, our sports car mechanic, and she was saying how her entire garage got blown up… the bomb was placed in his engine. From there, after blowing up the body shop, all the places that sold parts we needed… they came after us…

But see… this is the kicker. My husband had no clue. Only I knew and I knew they were coming to either blow me up or kill me execution style… So I was scrambling to get hold of my husband and get us all hidden until we could plan our next move.

Lovely, huh? All my dreams consist of things such as: I am under water and have a choice, I can come up for air and get exposed to nuclear fallout and die or drown OR something along the lines of the above dream…. The whole chase running for my life scenario. OK, maybe not all of them, but it is safe to say it’s 80-90% of them.

Freud would have a frickin’ field day. Hell, there are some days *I* have a frickin’ field day.

But as I told Tammi today, if I don’t write my dreams down within 48 hours, they’re gone. I can only remember themes and feelings, usually horrifying.

I feel certain if I took a conglomeration of my dreams it would be along the lines of a Mafioso boss coming after me and shooting at me as I fell off a bridge in my husband’s car, landing in the water and not being able to escape, but somehow instead of worrying about dying, I am worried about the fact I had a final exam coming up in a class I forgot to attend all semester long.

Yeah, the school dreams still haunt me. That makes up the other 10-20%... having taken the place of my childhood dream of having gone to school and forgotten to wear underwear while wearing a skirt.

So… what I want to know is… this difference between Eric's and my dreams… if it dietary in nature, as in diet makes your dreams, I will GLADLY change my diet. Yup Yup. I want what he’s having!

Mom of Boys Code Talk

2005-02-28T20:44:00.000-05:00

Blog Daughter VW talks about a scare she had with her youngest yesterday. He got into a poisonous plant.

I have to tell you, I have not met one mother of a boy, NOT ONE, that has never had to call Poison Control. This is a very standard conversation between mothers of boys and unfortunately VW was indoctrinated into it today when we went to breakfast with her smoochy boys:

Mom1: My boy ate ‘insert some potentially poisonous thing here’.

Mom2: Did you call Poison Control?

Mom1: Yes.

Mom2: Aren’t they nice?

Sometimes it’s a short version and goes like this:

Mom1: My boy ate ‘insert some potentially poisonous thing here’.

Mom2: Aren’t they nice at Poison Control?

Heh. They’re nice in the ER too, by the way.

Rubbing Salt in a Wound...

2005-02-28T20:40:00.000-05:00

I feel kinda bad doing this, but not so bad that I’m NOT doing it. I feel bad because I read THIS post. Blog sister Teresa is sick of winter in The Great White North. Manomanoman, I DO NOT blame her. Not one bit.

Meanwhile, in Florida, as I was driving my elder boys to soccer practice tonight, I popped open my sunroof on my mini-van, the first time I have been happy I had one, cranked up the tunes and felt the cool wind rush in my van.

Happy doesn’t begin to describe it.

I have Spring Fever.

Evidently... I get around...

2005-02-28T20:31:00.000-05:00

From blog daughter Sissy I got this:

bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state you're in now...

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /

Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.

Sissy got 33 states she has either lived in or visited... and I would say... that is courtesy of the United States Marine Corps.

Me? I only got 29. As for mine? Courtesy of the United States Navy, my old job and family living in the South and the Midwest... If I had my druthers... Georgia would be in italics... N. Georgia to be specific.

Update: Make that 30 States for me. My sister reminded me I've been in Kentucky. Heh. Obviously it was not memorable...

Unable to Return the Fire

2005-02-27T21:56:00.000-05:00

Conversations vary in our household. Last night we were going out for pizza and the conversation in the back of the truck started out with Son#3 carrying on about how revolting the kids are in his class that pick their boogers and eat them… and it got very gross and graphic and I finally had to hush him up lest I lose my appetite for dinner.

Blech. I think he damaged me.

Later at dinner there was a great discussion with regard to justified use of force. “Hey Mom, if a bad guy steals something, can a policeman just shoot him?” I promise you, this conversation lasted a draining half hour. Over and over we went on how a policeman can only shoot someone if his life or the life of someone else’s is threatened… and over and over we got scenario after scenario.

It’s enough to make one lose one’s mind. They make me nuts sometimes… this 100 questions, rapid fire, every day on any topic. They make me tired.

Feelin' Spiiiiicey!!!!

2005-02-27T21:34:00.000-05:00

I had to go shopping yesterday. Y’all know how much I love that. LOVVVE IT. I have too many events to attend and it was finally time for me to do the inevitable. Blech. I was cursing my girlfriends, my Mom and my sister for not being in town to help me with this crap. I can’t pick anything out. I go to a little boutique where the women have excellent taste and they ACTUALLY help you. I had a new salesperson today and introduced myself as, “Mother of three boys, engineer, and fashion disaster.” That is how she refers to me now.

I had a fashion show to shop for and a cocktail party… the one that I am chairing for a philanthropy in town… the one that is very important that I look nice because I’m chairing it WITH my gorgeous husband, the invitation has my husband’s name written all over it, and it is also expected I will be arm candy... you know, the perfect corporate wife crap. (It pisses me off, but it is what it is.) So there has been some stress in my life… above and beyond the other junk.

Right out of the gate we get the fashion show outfit taken care of. That leaves me to deal with this cocktail party. She pulls this little number out and says, “What about this?” First thought in my head, that fortunately did NOT come out of my mouth was, “I don’t want to look like anyone’s bad acid trip.” Ugh. White outfit with weird multi-colored big dots over it and no shoulders or sleeves… kind of halter toppish. I tactfully said instead, “ooooh, it is nice, but that’s a bit bold for me.”

We have decided I’m wearing black pants (she picked some out that make me look very long and slim… LOVE THOSE!), and so we were on a ‘top’ hunt. She finds this pink little silky number… that looked like I should wear it with a pair of pink panties to sleep in. It had this little choker, bead thing goin’ on with it. I didn’t know what to say.

Finally I said, “Wow. I like the color. Umm. But what kind of bra do I wear with that?” It looked like a frickin’ camisole. There was no way I could go braless without it screaming, “Bright light! Bright light! Turn off the headlights!”

She was collected and replied, “Oh, we have those special boobies to wear.”

Special boobies? Heh. Always the inquisitive one I said, “REeeeeeallly? Can I see a pair?”

As I’m trying on various tops she comes in and brings me these two silicone breast shaped… things. I don’t know what in the hell to call them. They had sticky stuff in the inside and I was supposed to stick them on my breasts. On the center corner of each one was a little hook and latch gizmo so you could hook them together… you know… to create cleavage.

They were basically fake silicone breasts that you paste onto your real breasts. I had to touch them. I looked at her while poking them and said, “Hey, my mammogram radiologist has a pair of these in his office, but they have beads inserted in them so you can feel what a breast lump feels like.”

She looked at me like I had 3 heads. Then she said, “Would you like to try the boobies?”

I wanted to laugh and say, “Hell no!” but instead I said, “You know, I can’t. But thank you. If I wear those, with that pink little top… I’m going to spend all night worrying about a wardrobe malfunction.”

She laughed and put them away. Blech. I wonder how many breasts had been in her boobies. And how many wearings can one get out of these stick on boobies? Inquiring minds want to know…

She brought me this gorgeous black lace long sleeved top… sheer. I fell in love. So much for conservative. She told me to go out and get a black lace bra and that would be that. I have a black lace bra. No camisole, no nothing… I’ll be livin’ on the edge. Lotsa lotsa skin… but I’m OK with it. I felt sexy in it. I felt like my husband would want to be next to me… among other things.

The sales lady said, “Unbutton that top button.” I did and it fell open nicely. I said, “Y’all have to tell me these things. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

So she stepped up to the plate and said, “Do you have to wear the glasses?” I told her I did not. I’m not blind, I just like the crispness that glasses provide...and I have this thing about liking to be able to read street signs. She said, “Lose the glasses. Wear your hair down. You have pretty hair. Curl it slightly under. You have a cute figure and should show it off more. You will be to die for.”

Heh. I left in a very very good mood. I’m actually looking forward to our little cocktail party now. And that little boutique? I liked them before, but now… they have a lifetime customer. A little customer service goes a long damn way.

Life with Three Boys

2005-02-27T09:50:00.000-05:00

I spent part of my morning blowing up bike tires, fixing scooters, and putting bells and horns on bikes. It’s my Saturday routine… bike and scooter stuff.

As of 7:00 tonight, amongst the three boys we have one skinned knee, one nearly broken finger (verdict is still out, but it is looking good that it’s just really bruised up and not broken), one elbow so skinned that if any more skin comes off we’ll be down to muscle (no kidding, it is starting to make me nauseous looking at it… it looks like it needs a skin graft), and one beat up and skinned forearm… and then we have one boy on massive steroids to keep his upper airways open.

Yeah, it’s been an exciting weekend… and it’s only Saturday. I need a nap. Or drugs. Or both.

Bad Parenting Pisses Me Off

2005-02-27T08:01:00.000-05:00

When you start reading this, it isn’t going to seem so bad. It’s the end that was the kicker.

Today was Son#2’s First Holy Communion pictures. Girls wear white dresses, veils and white gloves. Boys can wear all white suits and white shoes, white pants with white shirt and tie and white shoes OR white shirts and ties with dark pants and dress shoes. Thank heavens for the third choice. I couldn’t see myself buying an all white suit for my kid… and making him wear white shoes. He would have just looked like dork. Blech. Besides that, the functionality in an all white suit for a little boy is exactly… zero. So we’re doing the white shirt, white tie, dark pants route.

Last night at SIX O’CLOCK!!!, I get a phone call from a Mom I have never heard of, asking me questions about the pictures. She apologizes and says she got my number from the quilting paper (I’m making the Communion Quilt and each kid made a square for it), but she has some questions. I’m cool with it, but I tell her right off that I’m not Catholic, I don’t know the big answers, and by the way, if she has girl questions, I can’t answer. She pushes on, not hearing me or not caring, or both.

I say to her, “Do your children go to St. Insert-name-of-our-school-here or just attend CCD there?” She replies they go to school there and she has twins… a boy and a girl.

Now I KNOW of every kid in 2nd grade and I had never heard of these people. I was puzzled and then decided that I’ve been so overwhelmed, they must be new and I didn’t meet them.

So I say, “Do they have Mrs. T or Mrs. V?” and she replies.... “Yes.” That was her answer. “Yes”. Well, because of the policy our school has that twins are always separated, I figured “Ok, she is saying that they have each”.

She proceeds to ask me girl questions. I proceed to tell her again I don’t have girls. She asks, I try to answer, I give her the phone number of someone who WOULD know and then… I realize… she has bought NOTHING for her kids to wear yet. Nothing. It is 6:00, pictures are the next day and she hasn’t done jack. I tell her where I bought my son's clothes and tell her I’m going to let her go so she can find out who is still open.

This morning my son and I get there for pictures. There is a Mom dressed in a funky green suit, waiting… waiting because she forgot her money to pay for the pictures and her husband is bringing it. I think nothing of it. When everyone is gone I start talking to the woman who is the head of CCD and Holy Communion. I have gotten to know her well over the years and really like her… in particular because she has NEVER once tried to convert me.

I ask her if a Mom of twins came in and she informs me it was the woman in the funky green suit. She says, “Something is not right there” to which I replied, “You’re telling me…” and I told her the story.

The CCD teacher says, “Mrs. L, that woman’s kids DO NOT go to school here. They are in my CCD. She has NO IDEA what the names of her kids' teachers are. She said ‘Yes’ to you because she DOESN’T KNOW.”

I don’t know why, but that really frickin’ pissed me off. She has two 2nd graders… and she doesn’t know the names of their teachers? There is so much wrong with that on so many fronts. She hadn’t planned for their pictures, she hasn’t shown up to half the CCD meetings, her kids haven’t done their quilt squares… and she doesn’t know the names of their teachers.

I’m sure that is just the tip of the iceberg. She probably isn’t involved in their lives at all and they may be better for it. They’re Kodak moments.

She sucks.

Funny Linky Stuff

2005-02-26T09:55:00.000-05:00

From Blog Daughter Sissy we have links to this hysterical page of movies reenacted by bunnies. My fave is THIS one. Heh. (I think TN sent me this once... It made me laugh then too.)

From Blog Father Grau, we have THIS post which completely cracked me up. I know he is currently looking for a job, but I’m thinking maybe he SHOULD go into advertising... for male products, of course. Heh. (Post not for the faint of heart, but funny as hell.)

Girly Post...

2005-02-26T08:22:00.000-05:00

Really, you men don’t know how good you've got it in some aspects… OK, not some. Just one.

I just do not see how it is feasibly possible that someone can literally gain 4 lbs in 2 days and then 3 days later it’s gone. I know, I know, it’s that whole water retention thing, but every time it happens I’m stunned by how icky it is. Seriously, you big men are thinking “yeah, yeah, yeah, what’s 4 lbs, who cares. I can gain 4 lbs in my right big toe.”

Yeah, well, to us short woman, 4 lbs is a lot. It’s just… blechy. It’s been going on for 25 years and STILL, I STILL TO THIS DAY, am completely horrified when I step on the scale one morning and it’s up 4 lbs from two days before. I shriek to myself, “Ack! What have I been eating?!!!” and then normalcy comes about and I start doing mental date calculations and I think, “Oh. Water. Blech.”

And let me tell you… it kinda sorta sucks to work around men during those 2 days. You know… THOSE two days. I’m not one to carry a purse around and now that my Mom got me this really big blue flowered and fun purse, if I pick it up to go to the restroom, it’s kinda obvious what is going on. Blech. And I tend to wear short sleeves, so it’s not like I can hide the article in need up my sleeve. What a pain.

I forgot about that little inconvenience of working.

And can you believe that on MSN search, I’m listed as one of the top searches for… tampon m-ishap. (I put the – so I don’t end up #1.) Crap. I know it was because of THIS post, but it’s not like I post on girly stuff very often and it sure as heck wasn't a 'mis-hap'. This is only the 2nd time in 9 months of posting that I posted a true icky girly post. Geez.

If it Walks Like a Duck...

2005-02-26T08:17:00.000-05:00

My 2nd son has a project to do… an interview with an immigrant. What a pain in the neck. I called a friend of mine and said, “What does this say about me that I don’t know any immigrants?” She said something about my being insular. Hey, it’s not intentional.

Well, it isn’t that I don’t KNOW any immigrants, it’s just some of them I can’t ask to help or it’s not a good selection. For instance, our two priests, one is from Ireland and one is from Italy. Both get asked by every kid. Pass on that one, thank you.

Then there is of course my sister in law who is from Syria, but doesn’t consider herself from Syria. We’re not interviewing her again because when my first son interviewed her it dredged up all sorts of pain and I can’t do that to her again. But, it was interesting doing the interview… it went something like this:

Me: Hey, Son#1 has to do an interview of an immigrant. Can he interview you?

SiL: I’m not an immigrant.

Me: Yes you are.

SiL: No I’m not.

Me: Hon, listen to me. Where were you born?

SiL: Syria

Me: Where were your parents born?

SiL: Egypt and Syria.

Me: So were you considered a citizen of Syria when you were a child.

SiL (looking at me thoughtfully): Yup.

Me: And where are you a citizen now, since you were 12?

SiL: Here.

Me: Well, by my reasoning and the definition of an immigrant, you, my friend, are an immigrant.

SiL: I have never thought of myself as an immigrant. Wow. I just think of myself as an American.

Then she is in the kitchen cooking and I can here her saying, “*I* am an immigrant” “I AM an immigrant” “I am an IMMIGRANT”, putting the stress on different words. Finally she says to me, “No matter how I say it, it doesn’t fit. I don’t feel like an immigrant.” Made me want to ask what it was supposed to feel like to be an immigrant, but I let is slide, in particular as the interview dredged up bad things of her past she just as soon forget.

So we’ve been thinking and thinking and I almost e-mailed Eric and asked if his Straight White Wife would be receptive to a phone interview with some 2nd grader she doesn’t know, but then I remembered one my of best friends from high school is an immigrant from Viet Nam. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me as I speak to her still once a week or so. Perhaps it is because she doesn’t “Seem” like an immigrant, although I’m not sure what an immigrant is supposed to “Seem” like.

I called her two days ago. She lives in Hawaii right now, so I have to make sure that we get this whole time thing coordinated when I call since she’s 6 hours behind us. I called her and said, “We have to do an immigrant interview and I was wondering if you would do it.” She’s game. But once again, it kind of threw her for a loop. See… all these people I know are fully assimilated Americans. They don’t view themselves as immigrants. They view themselves as Americans. They came over as children, schooled with us, adopted many of our customs, and went to college with us. They married American men, have American children, and… are American.

It’s just interesting, this whole immigrant thing. Her interview is going to be very cool and she’s not emotionally tortured by her past. Her Dad was a Captain in the S. Vietnamese Army and they had to leave or be killed during the Fall of Saigon. They were brought over by a Christian church in what I consider my home town. It was scary, the small boats, leaving their lives behind, the threat of death, but she is very open about her story and I am looking forward to my son hearing it.

How he translates it on paper will be another story.

Ying and Yang

2005-02-24T21:43:00.000-05:00

I love it when I make a meal that everyone loves… that the kids ask for seconds and my husband says, ‘Yeah, you need to make this again. This was good.”

I hate it when I’m driving down the street and my low gas indicator light comes on and I look at the indicator that tells me how many miles I have left before I’m SOL and it says… 7. At that point I do the big mental scramble trying to remember where the closest gas station is since I live out in the sticks. I hate it when that happens.

Again...

2005-02-24T21:34:00.000-05:00

One of the women helping me on this fashion show... she is collecting money while I do seating... she was just diagnosed with Breast Cancer.

When I first found out a few weeks ago, I was a mess. I know too many women who have been afflicted with this disease. My grandmother was an original survivor. Every time a woman I know gets diagnosed, its as if someone has sucker punched me in the stomach. I want to fall over and vomit. Every time.

She and I e-mail every night... we e-mail data back to each other, making sure our numbers jive. I like to tease her, keep it light... and we have a good time e-mailing back and forth. When she told me she had the Big C, I told her about some events I'm involved with that are assisting in finding the cure and I told her some things I had heard she might want to look into for her treatment. I deal with illness a lot... death too much... it is not that it does not phase me, but does it do any good to be a mess about it 24/7 when you have no control? No.

But that is not to say it doesn't have it's own effects upon me... I just try to be rather stoic about it. Tonights e-mail from her... I have yet to reply. She is losing he hair. She said she opened her car window and the hair blew off her head and into the backseat. She's having it shaved on Saturday.

She is keeping it light and making jokes as this is how she is dealing with it, but I'm sitting here... reeling I guess. I have to answer... but find myself incapable... which is NOT what she needs...

The good news is she says this will not kill her... the cancer I mean. I just worry about the poison.

Blunt and Insensitive

2005-02-24T21:25:00.000-05:00

Here’s a good example. And yes, I fully expect the Bad Karma Gods to come bite me in the butt for this one.

I’m a consultant on a big fashion show thrown down here every year… benefitting Veterans. I ran the show for 2 years and have been a major consultant since. I think this is the 8th year. I do seating, go with the new chairman (we get a new one every two years) to the caterers, and this year I’m modeling and running the models. So I zip down I-95, running into this meeting late as I had a previous engagement, I blow in, tell them what I need for the models, run through all the rooms telling them what I see could be potential problems, people are scribbling furiously, and when I’m finished I take a deep breath and say, “OK, any questions?”

Now, before I go further, the woman who works for the place we are having the event also works for the Breakers Hotel on Palm Beach... the corporation. Tall, elegant, class… a couple years younger than I, I’ve worked with her in the past. She says she likes working with us because we’re organized and we know what we want. There are no games when you work with me. She also oozes feminine beauty and elegance. I.do.not. I tend to blow in and blow out of places, speaking quickly and efficiently, and although I was dressed in nice slacks today, I would really really prefer to be in jeans.

The first thing the new fashion show chairman from my organization says to me is something like, “Well, do you think we can do ‘this’?”

I said, “Sweetheart, YOU can do ANYTHING you WANT. Nobody is going to stop you are give you hell… because all the women who would have in the past are now… dead. Do what you want.”

The woman from the Breakers looks at me in shock.

I continued, “No really. For years and years, if you changed ANYTHING, ANYTHING AT ALL, they were nasty to you. And they didn’t let it die. They picked at you, sent you nasty notes… it was horrible and demoralizing and they’re all gone now. Dead. And although it’s sad, it has really lightened the burden.” I turned back to the chairman and said, “So you do whatever you want. They’re dead. Nobody is going to say anything.”

And the woman from the Breaker’s… her eyes are wide open and she plugs her ears and says, “Oh my! I shouldn’t be hearing this…”

I rolled my eyes. Whatever. It’s true. That nasty ones are gone. They were a big help, but hey were also nasty. I have no room for that in my life.

Just Stick a Knife in my Heart… And Twist

2005-02-24T21:17:00.000-05:00

We were on our way home tonight from a soccer meeting. From the back of the car I hear Son#3 (Bones) say… “Mom… sometimes in my head, I cry for you.”

Me: What? Why do you cry for me?

Bones: Because I love you so much, I don’t want you to ever die.

Me: Oh. So when do you do this crying in your head thing?

Bones: At snack and play. (That would be in school.)

Well the whole conversation went downhill from there. I am just NOT the person they should be coming to when they are having some sort of spiritual crisis. I don’t know the answers. At all. I wing it and I do OK, but its going to come back to haunt me.

There were questions about how my grandmother died 2 years ago. Then questions on how THEIR grandmother died 5 years ago. Then what is a stroke? What is old age? Why doesn’t God protect us from disease? And on and on it went… and I just answered all the questions very matter of factly, but then… but then… I had two little sobbing boys in the back of my car. Son#1 was just listening, but Sons2 and 3 were now melting into two small salty puddles.

I was aghast.

I pulled in the garage and when I got out of the car, Bones hung around my neck, as if I were going to spontaneously combust right then and there and leave this earthly existence. Son#2 wasn’t doing much better. Imagine my husband’s surprise when in we walk and two of them are crying messes.

Blech. Sometimes the questions they ask are too deep for me. What fits right in my head would not fit in theirs. I need to just defer all these questions to their Dad.

And from where did this come? I wasn't thinking about death. Sometimes when I think real hard about something, they'll start asking about the same topic. For instance, one time I was reading and thinking about Judas and whether he was really a bad guy or just doing God's will, and my then 4 year old eldest looks at me and out of the blue says, "Mom, who is Judas?" See, that did NOT happen tonight. No thoughts of death. This just came out of frickin' nowhere.

They are fine now. When I went to kiss Son#2 goodnight his last words to me were, “Mom, I think I decided I want to die of old age. Maybe I could just be sitting there at my plate of syrup at breakfast and fall over.” And he imitated his face hitting a plate of syrup. (He eats waffles for breakfast.)

How did we get from crying mass hysteria “please don’t die and leave us Mom!” to “I want to die and have my face fall in a plate of syrup”?

Another Post on Marines

2005-02-23T21:41:00.000-05:00

Eric, a former Marine, and the mighty fine blogger of Straight White Guy, has this GREAT post on the Marines HERE. (Read it!)

I won't go into how much I love the Marines. I've blogged on it before. I will again. But here are a couple stories, personal stories, to add to his.

One of his quotes is from Lt.Col Oliver North (USMC ret.): 'The only people I like beside my wife and kids are Marines.'

There was this guy I worked with at my old job. He was a former Marine. He did a few tours in 'Nam. He was a tunnel rat at one point. I used to tell people that when the sh-- went down, I wanted to be beside him. When lay offs were going on and the supervisors were raking each other's employees over the coals, behind closed doors, trying to save their own, I wanted to be on his team. He was safe to me. Others thought he was a nut. Not me. I'd go walking or running in the morning at work, and a couple times he met up with me (he used to run at home), and here I'd be in my running clothes, feeling like I was going to vomit... but there was no way in hell I was going to vomit next to this man running shirtless with shrapnel wounds, a couple stab wounds, and healed broken back from a 'Nam chopper crash. Nope. I gladly ran next to him and managed to stay contained.

Now go over to Eric's HERE and read the quote on what a wife thinks of a Marine. This reminded me of my best friend from college. She married a Marine fighter pilot. Great guy. He ends up on shore duty and he's supposed to go to some civilian schooling... I think it was FAA crash investigation now that I think about it. Anyway, he's freaking out because he has to wear civies the entire time. My friend, quite the fashionable girl, looks at the clothes her Marine husband has packed and she yells, 'YOU CANNOT wear your Marine Corps green t-shirts with your white dress shirts! You MUST OWN A WHITE T-SHIRT SOMEWHERE!" Heh. He didn't. She had to run out and buy him some.

Finally she goes through his clothes, mixing and matching ties and pants and shirts and jackets and he is exasperated (they did some heavy duty clothes shopping for this schooling) and she says, "Fine. I will put Geranimal tags on all your clothes so you know what to wear with what."

That cracked me up.

Did I tell you I love the Marines?

The Career Counseling Tests Never Said: Be a Diplomat

2005-02-23T18:20:00.000-05:00

Remember when I started my job and a few of you wrote, "Oh Good! Blog fodder!" You know the adage be careful what you wish for? Yeah, well think that one. Blog fodder... full force this week.

My buddy who hired me, my friend who was laughing at me "Off with their heads!" from yesterday's post, is not only a really smart guy, but he is very diplomatic in his approach to just about everything. He could probably look you in the face, "Call you an ass" and you'd feel like it was a compliment. He's just a sincerely really good guy. Not a mean bone in his body.

In the beginning, we used to carpool together... when we were both new engineers at my old company. Then I ended up sitting behind him for about 4 years. He told me I needed diplomacy training and set it out as his mission to 'tone me down'. The words blunt and insensitive have been used more than once to describe me. Someone would be at my desk and I'd be ready to go at it and he would turn around and give me 'the eyebrow raise'. I think I posted once that my then boss thought I must surely have failed the Assertiveness Training he sent me to... I realized later to 'tone me down'... because I was too Aggressive still. Whatever. I've mellowed.

So you can imagine how I felt today when I got to work and I got this e-mail from my buddy and it says, "Hey. Want something else to do? I have another job that might not be so aggravating."

Great. Know what that smacked of to me? That smacked of, "I'm being nice. You suck. Let's try something else."

So... that's what I told him. Heh. I sent him a note back and said, "I suck that bad at this, huh?"

And then I waited. Five minutes...tops. I hear the door to my cube farm open and close and I hear his voice answering questions to others who work for him and then... he's standing in my cube.

No good morning, no nothing. What I got was, "No. You don't suck. I'm just in a bind and I have a deadline and I need someone to help me or I'm going to miss it. Can you help me? I have a family. I have no desire to be here 6 days a week to make this deadline."

How could I refuse? Actually, put like that I felt kind of honored. And to think I thought he was just being diplomatic.

Bow to Me… I Rule… Or so I Thought…

2005-02-22T21:16:00.000-05:00

They’re calling me the Queen at work. I know, it sounds ugly, but I started it and it’s become a joke. (It is very fitting, come to think of it, knowing who Boudicca was and all...) When someone disagreed with me today I could hear some cube rat say, “Off with their heads!”

It’s because I hate training. And I hate people making me do things I don’t want to do. I get this attitude where I glare them down, cross my arms, dig my heels in and say, “No. I don’t want to. And YOU can’t MAKE me.” Nice, eh? You’d think I’d grow up. But at some point in time, I just got tired of the proverbial corporate crap I was constantly having to take and developed ‘attitude’.

It happened during the pregnancy of my 3rd child, although it may have been before I just don’t remember it. Perhaps it was a “I’m creating life, dammit, hear me ROAR!” thing. Who the hell knows? All I know, is suddenly I didn’t want to play by anyone’s rules anymore. I had kids, a husband, a house, a job, someone was always wanting something from me and I was sick of giving… giving up, giving in… all of the above. I was sick of not being the Mistress of her own Ship on all aspects of my life… tired of it all.

At my old company, they said we all HAD TO HAVE 40 hours of training a year. I called BS on them. I only worked 20 hours a week and they wanted 2 weeks of my time for training? I had a job to do and quite frankly, I no longer wanted to expand my horizons or anything else, my hips and abs had been expanded enough. I wanted nothing new in my life. Leave me the hell alone, let me do my job. Dammit. So somehow I seemed to fly under the radar, doing just enough training to get by… and not really being noticed as they were in the midst of constant lay offs and preparing to close the plant.

So now, for the last four years, not being monetarily employed, I have been ruling my roost. I make the rules in this house, my husband isn’t home enough to create the structure, and I do it all… doctors appointments, food shopping, cooking, nuturing, tutoring, carpooling, signing them up for extra curricular activities… and… I listen to no one. Nope. Nobody. Sure, major things I talk to my spouse about when he’s at home, like whether or not it is time to buy a car, but for the most part, I just run the house by myself. (Except for the damn social crap he keeps making me attend, but we won’t go there.)

But… but… but… now I am working FOR someone again. And I get an e-mail from my company and it says something about ‘Compliance training software issues’ and I think, ‘I’m part time, forget that’ and… I blow it away. About two hours later, something is nagging me in the back of my mind and I walk down the hall to the freezing cube farm and say to my boss, ‘Uhhh, does that compliance training crap apply to me?’ to which he laughs and says,

“Oh yes it does, my dear. You must have the first 3 completed by 10 March or you lose your job.”

And so it goes:

Me: Me? I have to?

Boss: Yup.

Me: Are you sure because last I looked, I only worked 10 hours a week and that is barely part time. I mean, me?

Boss: Yup. You’ll be terminated if you don’t do it.

My friend who hired me: (laughing)

Boss: there is a password…

Me: A password? Oh crap.

Friend: You blew that e-mail away didn’t you.

Me: Umm. Probably. Me? ARE YOU SURE *I* have to take this training?

Boss and Friend almost simultaneously: YES!

Me: But… I’ve been the Queen for the last 4 years, running my own castle with three kids… Crap. You’re serious. I have to do this, don’t I?

Boss: Yup. If you have to, e-mail HQ and they’ll send you a new password.

Friend: Do that as a last resort. I don’t think it’s cool to call HQ and tell them you blew away the e-mail for mandatory training for all employees because you didn’t think it applied to you.

Me: This sucks. I can’t believe *I'm* being MADE to do something.

Friend: Off with their heads!!!

I found my compliance training password. For some reason I hadn’t blown that e-mail away. Thank you to the Gods of Boudicca’s Universe… I didn’t have to call HQ in shame.

This sucks. I really really want to dig my heels in and say, “You can’t make me!”… but they can. They have the upper hand. This sucks.

It's Not a Glamorous Job

2005-02-22T20:40:00.000-05:00

For all you folks out there that have never worked anything classified or top secret and think it sounds cool, think again. It’s a pain in the neck. Fortunately, I’m not doing that in this job. You can’t talk about your job when you work a project like that. It’s best just not to talk at all in case you slip up, so you just.don’t. Not that I ever talked with my spouse about what I did when it wasn't classified. It’s called… compartmentalizing. I may have brought home personnel issues, but never the real meat of my job. Once I got home, I didn’t want to deal anymore. Plus, he couldn’t identify. (He never really knew what I did.) I’d talk about my job more with The Great Omnipotent One than anyone else… he was a pilot. He knew how all this stuff worked. Otherwise, I left it at work.

OK, back to security. I don’t work classified stuff, Thank God, but I do work in a secure facility. Getting in and out of the building, although more of a hassle than my old company, has been NO adjustment to me at all. Others violate security all the time, but for me, it’s a routine and no biggy.

It’s the IT crap that is making me bonkers. All the damn passwords. I have no less than 6 systems... and every damn week I'm introduced to another… and there seems to be this weird crap you have to do when it is time to change your passwords… stand on your head, tap your feet together and yell, “There’s NO Place Like Home!” and the computer Gods then just MIGHT shine upon you granting you a password change without having to call the two DIFFERENT help desks located in two DIFFERENT states. Did I tell you it was a pain in my ass?

First month of work, 30 days pass, I get a notice, time to change my password. But because it took so frickin’ long to cut through all the red tape and get access to ALL the systems, they don’t all come due at the same time. Lovely. I’ve been in the engineering business since 1988. I’ve had more passwords than you can shake a stick at. I was on computers at work when PCs only had those 5” floppies and they held something like ONE spreadsheet. So I think to myself when I see I have to change my password, “No biggy. I can do this.” Little did I know, that inside all that paperwork I got my first day was a BOOK, YES, A BOOK, on how to change your password. Because I am a secured subcontractor working for a secured contractor in the defense industry, we have all these firewalls and there is this sequence of events you MUST do or you get locked out of every system. All of them. Boom, you’re hosed.

Needless to say, I got locked out. Feh.

That was December. I learned my lesson.

Flash forward to last Tuesday. I have a FRICKIN’ keyboard failure and EVERY single system I went into, I got locked out of… OK, it was worse than that. I got in my main system. Once. Then I tried to get in my other systems, one at a time, and you have 2 tries before you get the ‘You’re a big fat loser’ message locking you out and telling you that you’re SOL. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. So I walk away from my desk to see if anyone else is having troubles and my screen goes into lock since I was gone for more than 2 minutes… and I CAN’T GET BACK ON!

Hours… I’m telling you HOURS, I spent with people from every help desk. What a frickin’ waste of my time. Hours. And Hours. And my boss kept telling me, “Don’t sweat it. You’re still getting paid” and I want to scream, “I’m paid to work!!! If I can’t work, I have a life at home I could live!!! Don't make me be idle! I HATE being idle!”

They get me up and running. Today, I walk in, I type the password into the most important system I work in and I forget to hit the shift key, because God forbid should you be able to pick any password, instead it has to be a certain length, and have a certain amount of frickin’ weird characters, and capitals, and all sorts of protective bull shit, that you as tax payers sitting in the safeness of your cozy American home should take comfort in knowing, but me as the employee wants to scream at the top my lungs and say, “I can’t F----ing Take it No MORE!”

*ahem*

So I screw it up first go round and even though I’m SUPPOSED to have TWO tries, I get the “You’re a Big Fat Loser” message and I get locked out.

Four help desk guys and 5 hours later, I’m still a big fat loser, but now I’m a really seriously pissed big fat loser.

Every time they reset it, they would say, “Now you have to wait an hour for the system to reset itself” and every time, it wouldn’t work.

Finally the last guy got on and I said, “Look, be truthful with me. When you look at the coding does it say it hates me?” I get, “Computers have no emotions… it can’t hate you.” I replied, “Yes. Yes, this computer system hates me. You can’t tell me it doesn’t, because after 5 hours I STILL CAN’T get in and NOBODY has been able to figure out why.”

Come to find out, they were resetting the wrong damn system. GRR.

Luckily I had Compliance Training to think about. (Above post.) Unluckily, once you mandatorily reset your password (yes, another frickin' password), you must WAIT 24 hours before you're allowed to take the test. GRRR.

Clown Pants... They Come in Jeans Now...

2005-02-21T21:23:00.000-05:00

I had to take the boys shopping today. They’ve hit growth spurts and they need shorts, shirts, and jeans. I hate shopping. Shopping with them was going to prove to be a nightmare, I was sure.

It flat wiped me out. I came home dragging ass. Literally. The problem is that my children are short and thin, yet their torsos are not of a small person. My eldest is going to be 10, and he wears a size 9-10 shirt, but a size 7 pants. He’s going to have a washboard stomach like his Dad. His Dad, at age 45, still has a 30 inch waist, so you can imagine how small my son’s waist is. They do not look disproportioned, as a matter of fact, women are going to love my broad shouldered boys. But forget them… as their Mom, it’s a real pain in the neck to buy them clothes.

The first store we went to, we were able to find a few things for Son#1. We made it to the second store and I’ve had it. There are three of them, one of me, and everything… I mean e-ver-y-th-ing always seems like a battle to me. “Don’t touch your brother” “Inside voice please” “Stay out of his face” “What part of ‘stay with me’ did you not understand?” “We just went to the bathroom… you have to hold it” “Quit stepping on his feet” “I know you’re bored. Trust me. I am too” and on and on it went.

So by the time we go to the last store, I just wanted my personal hell to be over. I had a headache, I was tired and… I needed chocolate. Or something. Anything. But no more shopping.

Son#3 (Bones) finds a pair of jeans he likes. He puts them on, a size 4 (we were living on the edge picking them out as he’s JUST NOW in a size 4 at almost 6 years of age) and he is swimming in them. SWWWWIIIIMMMMINNNGGG in them. And the following is as best I can recollect:

Bones: I like these, Mom.

Me: They’re too big. Look at them. You can look down the waist and see your feet.

Bones: Not if I wear my shirt tucked out. I like these.

Me: You can’t have them. You look like a dork.

Bones, looking at me incredulously: I do not!

Me: You do. Look. I want you to look in the mirror.

He looks in the mirror, staring at himself long and hard, the incredibly vain little man that he is.

Bones: I like these.

Me, getting eye level and looking at him in the mirror: Son, listen to me, they are too big. What do you see:?

Bones: I need a different shirt.

Wha???? He needs a different shirt? I was soo very over this at this point.

Me: Little Buddy, the shirt, is not, the problem. (I grab the crotch which is hanging around his knees) Look, the crotch is around your knees.

Bones: I don’t care. I like them.

Me: THEY LOOK LIKE CLOWN PANTS!!!

Bones: I don’t care. I like them.

Me: Don’t come cryin’ to me when you’re outside running around and you fall over because they are around your ankles.

So we bought them. There must be some radar kids have… “Mom is caving. She’s on the edge. She can’t take no more. Push this button ‘right here’ and I can get what I want.”

As we walk out I hear this little voice behind me, "I like the crotch at my knees. I don't care if the crotch is at my knees. crotch, crotch, crotch" and I tune him out.

And so it went. He looks like a dork. He owns jeans clown pants. It just needs a cool shirt. He’s not allowed to wear them with me. I’ll let him wear them with his fashionable Father. Oh, that’ll go over like a brick.

You say 'Car', I say 'Clifford'

2005-02-21T21:13:00.000-05:00

I was out and about yesterday when I noticed an SUV I hadn’t really paid attention to before. It was an FX35. Red. It looked like the head of Clifford the Big Red Dog.

I called my husband from my cell, my husband is THE car guy… he knows every car that has been out there, is out there now, or is prototyped, and said, “Who makes this FX 35?”

Husband: Infiniti. I think it’s a sharp looking SUV.

Me: Oh, I see one here. It’s red. It looks like the head of Clifford the Big Red Dog.

Husband: Well… I wouldn’t get it in red.

Me: Good. It has a big nose.

I’ve never been a car kinda gal. Cars are a functional tool for me. They get me from Point A to Point B and the higher the gas mileage and the bigger the herd of kids I can fit into it the better. I’ve never needed flash although I often tell people if money was no issue, the Lexus convertible looks like it would be fun to drive. Can’t fit car seats in the back of one of those suckers. And yes, my ego did take a bit of a hit when I started to drive my mini-van… nothing screams Asexual Mom more than a damn mini-van. Honestly… I’d rather drive a truck. A pick up truck to be exact. But that’s just me.

He’s always known this. This is something we don’t understand about each other… although it is not an issue. He carries on about the new sports car so-and-so is making and I listen, but don’t file any of the data away. I can honestly say my eyes have never glazed over. I’d personally rather learn how to tear one apart, rebuild an engine, than get into driving any of the cars he talks about. But… that’s just me.

One of the favorite stories highlighting our differences in vehicles happened about 12 years ago. We were at a convention for his profession in Orlando. A bunch of us were going out to dinner and sitting in the parking lot was some new fangled BMW 850ci with some woman just sitting in the driver’s seat.

My husband says, “So what do you think of THAT car?” To which I replied, “What is that? A Saturn?” Dumbfounded he laughed out loud and said, “NO! Babe! That is NOT a Saturn. That’s a BMW 850ci. It goes…” and on and on he went on speed and specs. Finally he said, “Man. I wonder what that woman would think if she knew that someone mistook her $60,000+ vehicle for a Saturn. Geez.”

Heh. And just to let you know what an impression this story made upon him… I can never remember what kind of car it was that I mistook for a Saturn, only remembering it was a BMW. As I was writing this post, I walked into the family room and said, “Hunhead, what was the name of the car I mistook for a Saturn” and without EVEN TURNING from the TV he says, “BMW 850ci”.

Winged Conspiracy

2005-02-21T21:06:00.000-05:00

There appears to be some type of vast ‘winged’ conspiracy. Neither right nor left, just a ‘winged’ one. First there was THIS then there was THIS and I just wanna say, “Girls, protect your men!” Perhaps they need to wear one of THESE 24/7. Steel and Kevlar, folks. Steel and Kevlar. (By the way, I'm not sure that last link is work safe.... )

Smiling Dynamite

2005-02-20T21:33:00.000-05:00

Harvey introduced a new blog to us today... Smiling Dynamite. And... this is the blog of Beloved Wife! She was inspired by our Bad Example Family Reunion and has now taken the step towards blogdom... or rather... I think assisting Harvey in his evil plan for Blogosphere domination! Muwahahahaha!

With that, I updated my BE blogroll and added all those I had not gotten to, including _Jon's new off-spring (A Peek Inside My Mind and Ramblings of an Ordinary), and more adoptees (There's One Only! and Oh-Dark-Thirty). Our blog tree is growing, but with the addition of Beloved Wife, our tree ain't forkin' so much no more. Heh. It appears she may have been spawned by an incestuous gang bang, although the verdict is still out on that. (Damn, I hate to see what I'm going to get googled on for that one... Blech.)

So welcome to Smiling Dynamite. If you look at her first posts, you'll see she held the 'mighty quote pen' at the BEFR. Take a look, you won't be disappointed.

The Big O

2005-02-20T20:52:00.000-05:00

We went to my husband's bros house for dinner last night. He has a little girl whose name begins with an O. For some reason, I was the person of the day. I was all she wanted. From the time we arrived, the two year old was in my arms or leading me all over her house, "Come. Come", she would say.

We played play-doh. We played outside. I played in her big plastic Barbie house. We sang songs. She insisted on sitting in my lap while she ate dinner, which means she ate my dinner, since my food was better. It was just really funny how I was her big toy. In the middle of dinner, she even insisted I take her potty.

Hmmm.

You would think being a woman with the same body parts, this would be no big deal to me. It actually wasn't, as I was being led into the bathroom, "Come. Come." my sister in law is yelling after me, "Are you OK with this?" What am I going to say? I had three boys. I've done the potty training thing. How bad could it be?

Heh. With a boy, it's easy. You sit them down, point it down, and it's over. A girl... Blech. The problem was that I got her on the potty and as she insisted she had to watch herself pee. Well, with a boy, that's easy, they just look between their legs. With a girl, she contorts her spine, twists around, and... pees all over the seat!!! Then there is this whole wiping thing... Geez. What a pain. Boys are so easy.

OK, so now for the title of this post. In my family, when we all get together, we get a plastic cup and a sharpie, and The Great Omnipotent One puts everyone's name on their cup and that's what you use for the day. My youngest has a nickname. We call him 'Bones'. So a skull and crossbones are drawn with 'bones' written under it.

We get to my bro in law's house and there are cups and a sharpie. They've taken on this tradition from my parent's and my houses. It just makes life easier. I pick up the Sharpie and write, "the Big "T"' for Son#2, "The little 'g'" for Son#1 (named for his father), and I write Bones on the third cup with the traditional skull and crossbones.

I look at my bro in law who is carrying on about how proud he is of himself that he didn't teach his daughter to call me by the nickname he gave me "rat" (reference to Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and I said, "Good thing. I'd hate to start writing on her cup, "The Big O"'.

He didn't think it was funny. He best not tempt me.

Telling Tales Outside of Church

2005-02-20T20:41:00.000-05:00

My second son's First Reconciliation was Saturday. This translates to First Confession. His First Holy Communion is coming up.

So last week I said to Father, when I saw him in the office as I was picking up bills for the school, "Father, I joke a lot about what a 7 year old can confess. They can't confess the big ticket items, they're too young. It's not like they can say, 'I coveted someone else's wife' or ' I committed adultery'." He said, "Hmm. I wonder what I would say if I had a 7 year old tell me he had committed adultry..." We laughed.

But Son#2's reconciliation has been a big topic. We get to the church and Father says to him in his thick brogue, "Are you nervous?" and my son says, "Yup" and Father says, "Me too." I wonder if he was thinking, "Did his Mom put him up to saying, "Bless me Father for I have sinned... I committed adultry..." Trust me, I was tempted. But I'm on Father's good side, and decided you don't play games with the sacraments and I left well enough alone.

I didn't ask what he confessed. It's not my business. But he did tell me; he just flat out told me. I'm actually not going to blog it, just say that with three boys there is lots of fighting. Anyway, he got off with 1 Our Father. I remember when Son#1 had his, he got off with 1 Our Father too. There was a kid in his class that had to do 5. I often wondered what that kid did.

But I am sure we will find out with time what it is like to have a child that has to recite 5 Our Fathers during his First Reconciliation because... afterall... I do have ONE MORE son. The running joke in the house is that when Son#3 has his reconciliation it is going to be looooonnnngggg. Son#2 told me, "When Son#3 goes, he's gonna have to do 10 Our Fathers, 20 Hail Mary's and 10 Glory Be's". I'm sure it won't be like that, but I'll be really surprised if he gets off with 1 Our Father... unless of course he lies... to a priest... which I wouldn't put past him.

The Birthday

2005-02-20T20:23:00.000-05:00

I just have to blog on this, although I think watching/hearing me tell it probably lends more to the story as I get thoroughly pissed off and demonstrative with language, voice inflection, and hands.

My husband’s birthday was on Wednesday and as I stated in the post, my father in law, Pop, invited two strangers to come for dinner at our home. Let me explain… when I say strangers, I mean not only did I NOT know them, but my husband did not either. Having two extra people is not a big deal typically, but it was a day I worked, which meant I was up at 6AM, got the kids to school, worked, picked them up, ran errands, then had to CLEAN my house as strangers were coming, help them with their homework, and fix dinner… and since there were two extra, we could now no longer sit at the kitchen table, but had to eat in the formal dining room.

They were slated to come at 6:30. They showed at 5:45. I had baked the potatoes, but not stuffed them. I had baked the cake, but NOT made the icing. The steaks were on the counter, but were not ready. The salad was not made. The table was not set. Now I have 3 80 year old New York/New Jersey Italians sitting in my family room with the TV blaring (did I say I don’t watch TV?) and I’m freaking out in my kitchen.

My husband strolls in at 6 and is horrified. He immediately sets the table. By this time I have the twice baked potatoes stuffed, the icing is kinda sorta started, but the steaks are still sitting on the counter and the salad is sitting in my refrigerator… unmade. He then makes the salad while I get the steaks started.

Now, let me also tell you that when there is a birthday in this house, I go ALL OUT. All out. I pull out all stops. Cake, special dinner, special gifts, a lot of pictures and love love love… it’s all about the birthday recipient. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it only has to be enjoyable and special. So this dinner was salad, twice baked potatoes, filet mignon, homemade cake with VW’s chocolate icing, and the kids were to decorate the cake. (They created a white sports car on the cake with the decorating icing in honor of his wrecked now being painfully rebuilt Supra.)

Dinner is ready at 6:40. I call the kids in, get them washed up and we go sit in my formal dining room at this enormous spread. Five minutes into dinner, Pop’s cell phone rings. Loudly. I am horrified. I hate the fact that when we are at dinner in a restaurant, he will hold an entire phone conversation. Loudly. It irks the stew out of me. So now he is at his son’s birthday, talking on his cell, at MY table. But oh, it gets so much better, because the phone call was NOT for him, but rather for this woman/stranger/wife that is sitting next to him.

Just to clear the picture here… picture Good Fellas or Sopranos. The older people in the movie. The accents, the loud voices, the way they move… it was in my house. I am a quiet person. The more noise there is, the quieter I get.

She proceeds to have a cell phone conversation at my dinner table. It lasts 2 minutes before she excuses herself into the other room. No, “let me call you back”, she HAD to have this conversation RIGHT THEN. After another 2 minutes, her husband gets up and joins her.

Five minutes go by, I’m staring at my husband incredulously that these two boorish people have come to my home to eat a celebratory dinner with my family, at the invitation of my boorish clod father in law, and they leave my table and take a cell call.

She comes back, apologizing profusely saying it was her daughter; her 48 year old daughter. My husband, always the gentleman says, ‘Oh, it’s your daughter. You know, you’re always a Mom, no matter how old your kids get.’ I say nothing. She continues and the next thing I know, we’re listening to the sob tale of her daughter whose husband is asking for a divorce.

No offense, but I don’t give a shit. I’ve cooked a special dinner for my family to celebrate my husband’s birthday. I don’t give a shit if the husband is leaving her daughter and she is now stuck with 5 kids under the age of 3, 2 dogs and 3 cats. It’s not MY world. My world is here and now with MY family and she was in MY house at the invitation of someone ELSE.

After dinner, and dessert, the kids are going bananas, as kids do, to have their Dad open their gifts. And of course they are more excited than usual since they picked out the gifts. (The new controller so he can play the gamecube with them, a new race car game, and a book to help him with his old race car game. THEY picked this stuff out.)

Meanwhile, the man/stranger/husband proceeds to explain to me why he thinks his son in law is REALLY asking for a divorce… and I look over and my kids are hovering all around my husband and he’s starting to open his gifts and I’m not seeing ANY OF IT! I stop the man, look over at my family and say, “Can y’all move over to the dining room table to do this so I can get pictures?”, to which they all come over and sit across from me, so I have a good vantage point.

This is where I get really pissed.

Pop looks at me and says, “D. You are being rude. He was telling you a story.” I flip out. I said very sternly, “Pop, it is my husband’s birthday. I am watching him open his presents and taking pictures. I CANNOT be everyone to everybody” and I turned away.

After gift opening was finished, I turned to the man and said politely, “Now, as you were saying, your daughter in law has this flat on Park Avenue…” and he proceeded with his story.

I’m still boiling at how f---ing rude everyone was in my home. But why in the hell should I be surprised? Why at dinner, they were all laughing at how were at the beach the day before when Keith Hernandez’s wedding party showed up... and the three of them stayed for the wedding. I finally said to Pop, “Wait, are you telling me you CRASHED Keith Hernandez’s wedding?” to which he replied, “No, it was just there when we were there and we saw Joe Namath, and Frank Gifford.” And I practically yelled, “Pop! If you SAW these people at the wedding, YOU CRASHED their wedding!” I was appalled.

My husband told me later that the woman/stranger/wife, actually went into the reception, walked up to the bar, and got herself a couple drinks. I was speechless. Where in the hell were these people raised? My husband said, “Hey, if they had no problem crashing my birthday and talking on their cell during dinner, what makes you think they would care about crashing Keith Hernandez’ wedding?”

I got a thank you note the other day, which kind of sort of offsets the rudeness. A little. I wonder if they sent one to Keith Hernandez.

A New Blog Daughter... Sissy!

2005-02-18T12:24:00.000-05:00

My announcement, while not as big to the blogosphere as FrankJ’s, is big to me. And it’s my blog. So I’m the only one who matters. Meh.

I have a blogdaughter!!! Another! Whooo hooo! Her name is Sissy and her blog is And What’s Next… So how did Sissy become my blogdaughter? She worked for my sister when they worked at the same company and my sister introduced her to Boudicca’s Voice, where she then started to peruse blogs… and got bitten by the Blogger Bug and started her blog two days ago.

She’s written on Kiki her Pootie Pooch (Kiki needs to meet my 2nd Son who is the King of Passing Green Gas), the phenomena of getting better sleep on our couch as opposed to our beds, and Girl Scout Cookies!!

So welcome Sissy. She has a great writing style. She is Marine Brat… gotta love those military brats… and is just a whole lotta fun.

Tammi is adding her to our Bad Example Family tree… which seems like it’s branching out like crazy! Whew... at least our family tree forks... no rednecks here...

He's a GREAT Guy, I Don't Care WHAT He Tells You

2005-02-18T12:17:00.000-05:00

Blog Bro _Jon spent the night with us last night. He stopped by VWs and played with her two boys and her horse dog, met Pony, and then traveled even further into the sticks and visited with me and my boys. Actually, my boys and I met _Jon at VW’s first, and then he rejoined us later at our home. The first thing out of my eldest son’s mouth was, “Mom, does _Jon play games? Video games?” Ummm… Yeah. We’re talking about _Jon, the gaming King. *grin*

_Jon gets to our house and all during dinner the boys are saying, “_Jon, come play with us. _Jon, come try our new game. _Jon, we have four controllers now. _Jon…” Finally at 8:10 I said, “_Jon, they go to bed at 8:30, so you have 20 minutes you have to spend with them.” So off he went to play.

OK, here’s the deal. If you are a man and you come to my house, you are a toy. You did not come to see me or my husband… you came to see THEM because THEY are the center of the universe… not the sun. My kids are not introverted, in particular not in their own home. They will get in your space, they will climb on you, they will play with you. Period. I just sorta forgot to tell _Jon that.

So I’m cleaning the kitchen, I look over and _Jon is on the couch with the boys playing the Gamecube. I turn my back, turn back around, and now my two eldest are sitting next to him, but my 3rd son, the imp child, the 5 year old who truly believes the world stops for him, is SITTING ON _JON’S SHOULDERS, controller in hand, playing this game. _Jon hasn’t skipped a beat. He’s sitting there like this is a common occurrence. Sure,he always has a 5 year old on his shoulders when he plays video games.

There the four of them sat, _Jon next to my two eldest and my youngest on his shoulders, all of them with controllers in hand, and my three kids yelling and screaming at the TV and each other… like they normally do.

Did I tell you how much I like _Jon? He’s the best.

Who Are You?

2005-02-18T12:12:00.000-05:00

I’ve not been sleeping well the last week. It’s the stress. I’ve been trying to go to bed earlier to get more sleep, but when you are up and disoriented, it is irrelevant what time you went to bed.

Each night I have awakened every couple hours, completely lost. I look at my clock and try to figure out if it is time to get up. My husband was on the computer one night at midnight and I woke up freaking out that I had overslept. I woke him up before his alarm went off the other morning thinking he had overslept. (Oh he loved that one.)

But the one he hates most is what happened last night… this has happened once before.

I woke up in the wee hours… around 3AM, and looked at him… and could.not.figure.out.who.he.was. I was staring at him thinking “Who is this man in my bed?” It’s a very creepy feeling.

He hates it when that happens.

Carnival of the Recipes is UP!

2005-02-18T11:54:00.000-05:00

I am such a damn slacker. I haven't posted a recipe or been posting the Carnival. No excuses. I'm a dope.

OK, so this week, the Carnival was hosted by... Allan of Inside Allan's Mind!

And for my blogbro That1Guy... we have THIS recipe. Heh heh heh!

Birthday Wishes

2005-02-16T17:27:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to my husband!!! He is the big Forty – Five today.

Of course I could strangle my father in law who invited people we DON’T KNOW to come to our home for dinner tonight… forcing me to clean my house after I worked today. Yup, not happy. But what’re you going to do?

Yesterday I took the three boys to the mall to shop for him. I knew I wanted to get him a shirt… my husband has a damn FINE body and with his broad shoulders...just yum… so I wanted to get him something I wanted to see him in. Nothing he’d wear to work. We bought him a nice black shirt… oh it is going to look so good… and then the boys decided they wanted to get him something from EB Games. He’s into race cars, so they wanted to get him a racing game. But more importantly, they wanted to get him his own controller for their Gamecube so he could play all the games they have WITH THEM. (We have three controllers.) Heh. So that’s what the bulk of his birthday gift is, things he can play with the boys. I had to laugh. OH! And they had me buy him the guide for his racing game so he can be better at it.

I think he is going to be very very happy.

So… Happy Birthday, Hunhead! I Love YOU!

On the same note…

2005-02-16T17:24:00.000-05:00

A happy late birthday to my sister, Morrigan, who turned Thirty Four. I loved typing that. Heh. (Yes, I called her on her bday and my boys sang to her on her voice mail. I just forgot to post it...)

She is my younger sister by almost 6 years. She was accidentally born in the house, while The Great Omnipotent One was stationed in Mayport, Florida, and he delivered her. We loved to joke with her that he dropped her on her head.

She was of course the brunt of relentless teasing being the youngest. We, my brother and I, blindfolded her once while my folks were out, and played a “Guess what food this is” game. It ended with us feeding her coffee grounds and dog food. She was so trusting…

Now as an adult, she is a beautiful, smart, and vibrant woman. (Remarkably undamaged considering how we teased her.) Men stare when she walks in. Auburn hair, green eyes, and an infectious laugh… she is tiny but big energy. When God was doling out body, personality, and hair, she stepped in line twice. (I got the analytical mind.)

One way or another, we intend to grow old together. That is our plan. The men in our lives have no say… they’ll just come along for the ride.

So Happy Late Birthday, Morrigan. I Love You.

Cold? I Got Your Stinkin’ Cold…

2005-02-16T17:22:00.000-05:00

Where I work, there are multiple rooms with cubes in them. It’s a long hallway with doors on either side… the doors taking you into various size rooms with cubes. My room happens to be a large room, housing probably 30 or so cube rats such as myself. (For those of you who think engineers work in private offices… think again. A cube is a step up for us. We’re used to working in what we called ‘bull pens’. Row after row of engineers.) Across the hall from me sits my boss and my buddy who hired me. It is a smaller room and only holds 8 cubes.

The small room is frickin’ freezing! Cold. Holy crap. I walk in there and look for a jacket. One of the guys keeps a little heater under his desk. I like hanging in his cube. Most of the others wear their jackets or have one draped over the corner of their cube just in case they can’t take it anymore.

Yesterday, one of my co-workers who I swear looks like Mr. Magoo, called facilities and complained. He wore his jacket inside, then when he went out for a smoke, he would shed his jacket. Yes, he was jacketless outside to smoke, but wearing it INSIDE to work.

Facilities sent someone down and she opened the box and punched in a code (you have to know the special code to change the thermostat, they don’t let we engineers do stuff like that… it’s probably a union job) and said she raised it.

An hour later we were all still cold. I took to avoiding their room. I looked at the reading on the thermostat and said, “Guys, she lied to you. She looked like she was working some voodoo magic, but it was a psychological trick. She figured if she looked like she was making it warmer, you would think it was warmer.” The thermostat never changed. It stayed the same. Today it was just as damn cold. I hate that room.

They really need to raise it above 73 degrees. That’s just too damn cold. *grin*

Big Announcement…

2005-02-16T17:19:00.000-05:00

Coming tomorrow….

(No, I’m not pregnant. Bite your tongue. Well… at least not in THIS world… hint hint!!!)

Best V-day Post

2005-02-14T19:44:00.000-05:00

I had no intention of blogging again tonight, but I had to as this is the greatest V-Day post yet. I have a feeling that the top one is going to become a quote of mine... What a damn riot. Those boys need smooches from me.

Visitors from FrankJ and SarahK

2005-02-14T17:14:00.000-05:00

Ack! I am looking at my sitemeter and realize I’ve had a combination IMAOalanche and Mountaineer Musingsalanche! Well, loyal readers of The Lovely and Talented FrankJ and Great SarahK, it was a real pleasure in meeting them.

Keep in mind, I did not engage FrankJ in conversation. First, FrankJ was in the limelight. Second, I wasn’t sure what to say to him. And that is not Frank's fault, but rather my own issues. We don’t have much in common except probably a small career thing, but I felt odd and wondered what he had in common with a 39 year old mother of three who has been married for nearly 14 years, who is old enough to be his Mom in a 3rd world country or an American ghetto? Not much. I felt certain I would bore him to tears, in particular because he is very funny and I’m… well, I’m just not.

I will tell you that he is very nice and respectful. He is very much like his blog. In fact, when he had accidentally had too much to drink, he was never boorish or obnoxious. He was louder, which was funny, more extroverted, which was very funny, but not nasty nor mean. What you read in his blog… I don’t get the impression he has to work at being funny. (Sure blogging can be tedious, but he has a natural talent for satire.) Maybe I am wrong, but while he is speaking, stuff just pops into his head. He is spontaneously funny and very demonstrative. That is probably what makes him even funnier… the facial expressions and voice inflection. The guy really has talent. And you can tell he’s smart. It’s not just from his blog. If I were to engage him in conversation on the street, I would know instantly he is intelligent.

And for the readers of the wonderfully delightfully sweet and talented SarahK… read her blog and I promise you, she is every bit as sweet, considerate, and pretty as what she writes and the pictures she posts. She too has much facial expression when speaking with great voice inflection. It makes her even more funny, as it does Frank. She is engaging. When you speak to her, she is speaking only to you.

SarahK had me laughing and I felt so comfortable speaking with her. She is open and honest and what you see is what you get and that is so refreshing in people. It really is. And also like Frank, you can tell she has a lot going on upstairs. She’s a people person and smart.

You can tell they love each other very much. It is not a blog trick. It is real. They are good to each other and they respect one another. They tease and joke like you would expect, but they are good people.

I guess that’s the bottom like. Frank and Sarah are just flat out good people. Their blogs do not lie.

He's ONLY EIGHT!

2005-02-14T17:11:00.000-05:00

Well, in case you live under a rock or in a cave, today is Valentine’s Day. The kids are excited about it. Son#3 came home wearing some dopey hat with antennae hearts. It was worth it just for the hat.

Of course I have been relentless on the teasing. Today’s car conversation went something like this (Son#3 was in art class making his dopey hat):

Me: Soooooooooo, did you get any Valentines that say ‘smoochy smoochy, I am so in love with you?” *big grin*

Son#1: No. Mom. Blech. Thank God.

Son#2: Grace is in love with me. (rolling his eyes as he does not feel the same way)

Me: She is? How do you know that. You’re 8.

Son#2: Don’t you remember in 1st grade when she had Sidney and Meagan pin me down at recess so she could kiss me on the lips?

Me: Oh yeah. But that was last year and by the way, that wasn’t nice.

Son#2: She’s still in love with me. She wants to marry me.

Me: Marry you? You are 8. She wants to marry you? How do you know this?

Son#2 now rolling his eyes: Because, Mom, she WROTE it on the dumpster.

Me: Wha???

Son#2: Yeah. She had chalk at recess and went behind the dumpster and wrote, “I want to marey Son#2 and I want to kiss him on the lips.” (I asked about the spelling of marry since I know she is not one of the better students in class. Being a Catholic school, I just assumed she would spell it ‘Mary’.)

Me, shaking my finger at him in my rearview mirror, where it appears all our important mother/ child conversations take place: You stay away from that little girl! Do you hear me?

Geezoweez. ‘I want to kiss him on the lips’. That girls going to get to high school and it’s going to get vulgar. Thank God she’s moving. To Missouri. At the end of the school year. I wish it were tomorrow.

What is the Probability?

2005-02-14T16:56:00.000-05:00

We needed our screen fixed from the serious hurricane damage. Our original screen installers never call us back. I’ve put word out… nothing. So my husband comes home a week ago and tells me that the son of one of his employees is in the screen/pressure cleaning business and we should try him. I told him if the kid would come out, then he could have the job.

I heard nothing.

I was talking on the phone the other day to a friend of mine, who lives out in Wellington, as in Florida, and she says, “I have the GREATEST screen guys repairing my hurricane damage. Let me give you their number.” And she e-mails me their information.

Today I decide since the thing with my husband’s employee’s son may not work out, he's been just a LITTLE busy resolving this whole car accident issue, I would take the initiative to call this screen company.

I get home and there is a message on my machine from my husband saying the original young man was coming to the house; the son of his employee. Sure enough, he showed up exactly at the time he said he would. And what was there not to like? He was on time, amazingly polite, which scores BIG BIG points with me, and… he’s a former Marine. BINGO! I give him the down payment and he hands me his card. It says “Wellington”. I thought, “HMMMM”.

After he leaves, I check my e-mail and it is THE SAME GUY! Yes, of the hundreds and hundreds of screen company’s this young man was the young man I was going to call anyway… the guy who did my friend’s home last week.

And just for Johnny Oh, since this young man came at lunch time, I tried to feed him. I offered to make him sandwich so he could eat on his way to get his supplies. He politely declined. I was accused this weekend of trying to fatten up certain young men. Heh. It’s a Mom thing.

BE Reunion

2005-02-13T22:21:00.000-05:00

What a weekend. A whirlwind weekend. I’m beat. Going to bed at 2AM, even though you sleep until 9-9:30, still feels like you went to bed soooo late!

So… I’ll give you scoopage on who was there and what they’re like. Let me say up front, that they were truly some of the nicest people I have ever met. All expectations were met and surpassed… respectful, intelligent, and funny people. I can be rather aloof, having to adjust to ‘crowds’, but by Saturday afternoon, I was more relaxed and felt like I could partake without disappointing anyone.

Harvey, our blogfather, and the reason we were all gathered, is so incredibly kind and respectful. I can see how he comes up with the Love Notes to Beloved Wife as he truly loves her and has no problems conveying it. It was such a pleasure to meet him. A gift. Really. It was cool knowing that we were all there BECAUSE OF HIM and meeting him made me happy that I had chosen to blog eight months ago.

Harvey’s wife, Beloved Wife, was in attendance too. She is hysterical. She fit right in with all of us; you would think she was a Blogger, especially with her ‘quote pen’. She is cute and funny and all that Harvey claims her to be. I felt like I knew her when I met her. And if nobody has stated it yet, she’s in awesome shape.

Tammi, hostess extraordinaire, I knew her already as we probably speak once a day on our cells anyway, after she met me during my infamous Sea World adventure with my boys. I had no problems taking over her kitchen! Tammi is like a sister and she made this weekend so comfortable for everyone. Wow, and she’s a damn good cook. We had the BEST prime rib last night. The night before we had pulled pork BBQ sandwiches. And she served us the sweetest corn last night… the sweetest corn I had ever tasted. I think she said it was fresh Indiana corn she had blanched, frozen and saved for us. There are some foods you never forget… that corn is forever burned in my fond food memories.

Teresa of Technicalities, is a smart and funny woman. I’m not sure if she realizes how witty she is. She told us some stories and with her facial expressions and the tone of her voice… the way she phrased things, it cracked me up. The frustrations of being a Mom don’t seem to go away when you kids grow up. She’s a peach. She’s a keeper. I'm hoping to hang with her again.

_Jon of We Swear, I was unsure what to expect, although I had spoken to him on the phone before. He pretty much saved my ass. I left my directions at home. I had put them in my car the night before so I wouldn’t forget, and then in a quick “Gotta clean my car one more time before I leave”, I pulled them out with my Son’s school papers. Lovely. I happened to know what time his flight came in and having his cell plugged in mine, as good fortune would have it, I was driving by the airport right after his flight landed. So I called him, found out what rental car company he was using, and met him there. I followed him in.

I have posted about _Jon’s other blog before. He lost his wife to lung cancer a year ago. It is heartbreaking to me, knowing he is grieving so. I was unsure if he would be sullen, introspective… I just wasn’t sure... because I don’t really know him. I have so much hope for him… for his making it through all he has endured although I know it may take years and years… meeting him renewed my hope and faith that with his family and friends, he will be OK, although I know he must question it. He is a wonderful man. A caring man. And I have the utmost respect for him. It was good to hear him laugh. I was afraid it was a sound I would not hear. I need fear no more.

Johnny Oh of Closet Extremist, who I will now forever tease as the man boy, even though I did assure him I know he’s a man, at the ripe age of 32. I think one of the first things I asked him was, “So, Johnny, exactly how old ARE you?” He looks so young. I told him if he didn’t have a mustache, I would question if he shaved. *Big Grin* If _Jon doesn’t kill him before the next family reunion, I look forward to meeting him again. He is a sweetie. Some girl’s gonna snap that boy up.

Lee Ann of Lee Ann’s view… I love this woman. Her laughter, her being… she is infectious. Kind. It doesn’t even begin to describe her. She is only a few hours away, so I am hoping I get to see her again. Meeting her in person made me laugh even harder at some of her posts… I could picture her facial expressions when she saw all those damn Christmas decorations as the Decoration War was occurring between her neighbors. She’s the kind of girl that you hug… and then you want to turn around and hug her just one more time.

Lee Ann’s non-blogger darling husband. OK, there were two things that made me look at this man twice and think, I really like being around him… 1) he makes his hamburgers with the same ingredients I do and 2) I peeled potatoes with him. I walked in the kitchen two hours before we were going to eat dinner and I said, “We’re having mashed potatoes. That’s a lot of potatoes to peel.” And he replied something like, “OK! Let’s do it!” and with that, he grabbed two big ass bowls of Tammi’s and two potato peelers, and we rejoined the group on the porch and peeled potatoes. It was like being with family and snapping snap beans. I think we had that bag peeled in 5 minutes flat. He has a big heart and I can see how he and Lee Ann fit so well together. They are wonderful people.

Boo-Hahn, Lee Ann’s and non-blogger darling husband’s dog, rocks. My heart NEVER pulls to have another baby, but it does pull to get a big dog. What a sweetie.

The Great SarahK, is as sweet as her blog. Read her blog and you know SarahK. Her laugh is infectious too and she stole my heart when she accidentally called me ‘Bou’. It made me laugh. She keeps FrankJ grounded and the two of them are funny together… how they play off each other like in their blogs. It was nice to hear that a big Blogger like her gets as bummed out about nasty commenters as I do. I thought I was the only one who gets so bothered by it… now I feel like my skin is not so thin.

The Lovely and Talented FrankJ, is a riot, drunk or sober. I have no idea how he thinks of some of the things that come into that man’s brain. I’ve quoted him a couple times already… and yes, it was beyond the “Do I look more sober in a Ninja stance?” quote. I have to say that I was a bit worried about their 2 hour drive home and it was so very late (the very sober SarahK was driving), but that’s the Mom in me and I had to keep saying to myself, “They’re adults… they’ll be fine.”

That wraps it up. I had a wonderful time and on my way home I got that empty feeling I get when I leave a relative’s house after a good family reunion. You don’t want it to end.

Chillin' on a Saturday Night

2005-02-12T21:50:00.000-05:00

It's Saturday night, Tammi's prime rib was phenomenal, everyone is either sitting around talking or cleaning the kitchen (LeeAnn and Harvey's Beloved Wife are cleaning) and FrankJ is pretty daggum drunk. Funny stuff. Seriously.

We've hijacked Tammi's site a couple times. Go HERE to see some of the goings on, including a post from me.

Many many quotes will be appearing, but I think one of my favorite's today is "Do I look more sober in a Ninja stance?" Heh.

Bad Example Family Reunion

2005-02-11T22:57:00.000-05:00

I'm over here at Tammi's at our Blog Family Reunion. We're having a great time even though it's too damn cold.

I'm taking some serious abuse here, folks. Just remember, there is a reason for everything and don't believe everything you read... even if there is a damn picture.

A New Kindred Spirit

2005-02-09T22:51:00.000-05:00

Do you ever just lose it? I mean really frickin’ lose it. It can appear to be nothing, but it’s just that damn proverbial straw and you just can’t take it anymore. Well… it happened tonight. Those who know me are probably laughing or are horrified. I can get a good rant going. Cussing, hollering, arms flailing, pacing… it’s not pretty.

I get home from karate and I hear Son#1 say, “Mom, we gotta run to the store and buy me some boots. Lace up boots.”

Wha?

Come to find out, there is a field trip tomorrow to ‘The Little Red School House’ located at Phipps Park it dates back to 1865, and the kids are supposed to dress in period clothing. Sure, they sent home a packet of stuff a couple weeks ago. At the top was the permission slip. I signed it and sent it back in. The next two pages were history of The Little Red School House and at that point, my eyes glazed over and I tossed it aside.

Like I really give a rat’s ass about the history of The Little Red School House (hereby known as TLRSH). Don’t get me wrong. It’s cool. It really is. But I have too much crap going on in my life to sit down and read about stuff that is completely irrelevant to my here and now and TLRSH fits right in there as far as irrelevancy.

Flash forward to now, I call a fellow Mom in a fit. I’ve known her for 5 years. She is sweet. Really sweet. She runs Bible studies for Catholic women. She’s also the Mother of my son’s best friend from school and the mother of two boys. The conversation went something like this… almost exclusively one sided:

Me: Did you know they have to f----ing dress up for this f----ing field trip?

Mom: Yeah, he told me and there was this packet of papers.

Me, wigging out big big big: A packet of papers?! What packet of papers is this? (I am now scrounging around my counters at the piles of school papers we have. Don’t ask. I have a clear mind, but the clutter has to go somewhere. It goes on my counters.)

Mom: It came with the permission slip…

Me: You.have.got.to.be.f---ing.kidding.me. That packet of papers?! There was relevant sh— in there? I tossed it aside. I can’t f---ing believe this. I read the cover and thought, “I don’t have time for this sh—“ and I tossed it.

Mom: This dressing thing is supposed to be kind of important…

Me, cutting her off: If it’s so f---ing important you’d think they’d send a damn note home saying something like, “And remember, period costumes”. And WTF is this about Boots? Boots?! He’s wearing his f---ing tennis shoes.

Mom: He doesn’t own any other shoes that tennis shoes?

Me: Hell No. He’s a BOY! I’m lucky he WEARS SHOES!

Mom: Whew. I thought I was the only one whose kids only wore tennis shoes…

Me: Hell NO. This sucks. You know, this really sucks. I can’t believe this…

And on it went. Heh.

I get off the phone and my husband says, ‘You shouldn’t have talked like that to her. She’s a nice woman.”

Evidently I’m not. Surprise.

My reply was something like, “I’ve known her for 5 years. I’m not changing for anyone. If she can’t handle it, screw it.” And I walked off to put the costume together. We improvised and he is wearing trousers tucked into black soccer socks so they look like knickers. He has a corduroy long sleeved shirt with a collar. And a belt. There you go. He is happy. I’m happ…ier. Still kind of pissed.

An hour later my phone rings. I’m taking home Mom’s son from school tomorrow, just dropping him off. She said to me, “You do not know how you made my day.”

Me: How in the world could I make your day? I completely freaked.

Mom: Because you showed me I’m not the only one who completely loses it. I’m not the only Mom out there who finally can take no more and just f---ing freaks out.

She actually said the F word.

So much for worrying. We then talked for another hour, commiserating about the things that go on in our lives and how sometimes we just want to scream. And… some days we do.

A Mild Case of Deja Vu

2005-02-08T22:44:00.000-05:00

Yesterday in the car, while driving home from Karate, my eldest son says to me, “Mom, what’s a hooker?” I nearly choked on my hamburger. (We did quick take out for dinner. I know, I’m a bad Mom.)

I could tell. It was going to be one of these ‘rear view mirror’ conversations again.

After asking him where he heard it, in what context, etc., etc., I decided it was time to tell him. (I never did get a real straight answer on where he heard it, but I couldn’t very well let him wander around using the word. God only knows if he thought it might deal with helping someone get naked in a restaurant.) We need to start carrying his dictionary in the car. Coincidentally, just 5 minutes before he had asked me what the word solicit meant. I think it was from the drive through… there is a sign that says ‘No soliciting’.

So I finally tell him what a hooker is, a woman who sells her body for sex to a man. Period. Then I started thinking, “Wow. Where do I stop with this? Should I tell him about turning tricks and Johns?” But I used restraint and refrained.

At the end though, I could not help myself. I said, “Hey, remember when you asked me a couple minutes ago what the word solicits meant? Well, if we were going to use that in a sentence we might say, ‘the hooker solicits sex for a living.’.” He was quiet. I may have emotionally scarred him… I don’t know.

Bet I wouldn’t win any big points with his language arts teacher for that one.

By the way, my sister is completely appalled that my son now knows about sex AND hookers… but… still believes in the Easter Bunny. I seem to be OK with that.

Bet You Won’t Hear Your Daughter Say This

2005-02-08T22:39:00.000-05:00

On Saturday I had the air pump and wrenches out and I was filling up bicycle tires and making adjustments. With three kids, three bikes, this can take some time. I was on the last bike, leaning down adding air to the tires, I worked on Son#1’s first, and he comes riding up and says to me, “Mom, can you adjust my seat? It’s crushing my balls.”

Heh.

I looked up at him blank faced. He cocked an eyebrow at me and said, “No. Really. It is.” And I in turn cocked an eyebrow back at him and said, “No. Really. I believe you.”

They just say exactly what is on their mind.

The Aftermath

2005-02-08T22:37:00.000-05:00

So we’re feeling enormously blessed still. The insurance adjuster came today and did verify the car is totaled. My husband is to be examined by a doctor in the next week to make sure he’s OK. He’s sore as hell and can really feel it at work.

Me? I’m still a little freaky. Usually come 5:00, I’m cooking dinner in one hand, answering the phone with the other, yelling at some kid to quit jumping on the couch, helping yet another with their homework, and trying to get another kid to quit whining. All at once.

On a typical day, my husband walks in and I give this half wave, while still cooking dinner, pulling down dinner dishes, pulling two kids off each other who seem intent on drawing blood, and convincing yet the 3rd child that he really does need to get his backpack from my car once and for all. And the phone is ringing.

Now, he walks in the door, I put everything down and hang on him.

I suspect that the Aliens will come back and return my natural life force to me shortly. I give it a week. But for now, I can’t quit just being thankful every time he walks in that damn door.

Time Stands Still

2005-02-06T21:53:00.000-05:00

I got a call at 12:31 AM. I don’t like calls at that time. They mean something bad has happened and this was no exception. My husband teaches with a group, continuing ed for his profession, and after yesterday’s course got out at 7PM, they all went out for dinner. They ended up not eating until more like 9 and it was a long evening, relaxing I’m sure, all the guys. Some decided to go to another place after to dance and party some more, but he begged out. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t like keeping late hours and as he put it to me, all he could think about was crawling into bed with his wife.

He was in the middle lane of I-95, going with the flow of traffic, which was probably about 60MPH, when in his rear view mirror, he just saw headlights. Within a fraction of a second, the car had hit him in the back rear right quarter panel and was pushing him down I-95. The kid was doing over 85MPH, the Florida Highway Patrol suspects. As the cars started to slow, the kid’s car disengaged from my husband’s, throwing him into a spin until he slammed into the wall of the bridge.

My husband drives a very well made, but low to the ground sports car. 1994 Twin Turbo Supra, loaded. He has that baby cranked at well over 450 HP on the block. It’s in pristine condition. The leather inside always treated just so. The white paint job looks like it just rolled off the factory floor. People stop to admire his car and he spends hours on it. It is his catharsis. If he is having a bad day, you’ll find him waxing his car or tinkering with it. In my garage I have the old exhaust system, the old wheels (he went bigger) and old stereo. He’s a motor head, which surprises people when they find out what he does for a living. He KNOWS cars and he loves them. But he is careful and doesn’t go all out on dangerous places like I-95. He has no death wish and has a good head on his shoulders. Thankfully.

But for the grace of God the man is still alive. When he called me, I misunderstood. I thought he was on the side of the road having witnessed a wreck. He was so calm. But that is him, Mr. Calm, Cool and Collected. His brother calls him the Iceman. I am his wife. I know better. Even as calm as he was, he was not thinking 100%. I was the first he called after the FHP and when I said, “Wait. YOU were in a wreck? I need to come get you,” his reply was a quiet, “No, I don’t think so. I don’t want you to wake the boys.” Finally I said, “Babe, how are you going to get home? Don’t worry about the boys. We’re on our way” and with that, I managed to get my boys dressed and into the van, with blankets to keep them warm, hoping they would stay asleep.

I got to the accident scene probably about 1:15 AM. The tow trucks were there, the cops, the road rangers had closed off two lanes of I-95. It was cool and windy out and a light rain had started. Cool, dark and rainy, I felt sick inside, not knowing what to expect. When I pulled in front of the lead tow truck, they had loaded his car up already. I don’t know where the punk was that hit him; I gather his family had already taken him away. It was not a hit and run as the punk’s car had a wheel shorn off during the wreck.

I know my husband was numb. I kept trying to give him a jacket as he was standing out in his lecture clothes in the cool rain and the tow truck guys and the cops were all wearing rain slickers and wind breakers. He refused and said he was fine. He went through the motions and the cops listed his car as totaled.

I have to tell you, the FHP were wonderful. I could tell they felt bad for him. As much as he looked unaffected, they would put a hand on his shoulder. The tow truck guy… wow. I was surprised when I saw the kid driving the lead truck. I said to my husband, “Since when did they let 16 year olds drive tow trucks?” He couldn’t have been a day over 21. But his boss… the lead, he was awesome. The windows are blown out of the car and they were towing it to a salvage yard and he promised my husband he would tarp it so as not to ruin the interior. (When we called the salvage yard today, they had my husband’s car inside AND tarped.) He told my husband if he really wants it fixed, he knows the guys who can do it. Luckily, we do too. He gave us great insight on how to deal with the insurance company and how to buy the car back with clear title so we can fix it. He was a plethora of information, obviously garnered from years of experience in his profession. He’s a motorhead too… a Vietnam vet that still has his 1966 GTO he bought right before he went to ‘Nam. He loves his car and knew my husband loved his.

So now goes the hassle of dealing with insurance and the fact the kid may NOT have had insurance. We’ll have it towed to our garage and I think he’s having it rebuilt. His mechanic races at Moroso and wrecked his Supra going 110MPH slamming into a wall. I know if his mech was able to have his car put back, they can surely do something for a car that spun into a wall at 60, although his mech’s car only hit a wall… my husband’s car was hit and THEN spun into the wall.

We just need to save and figure out when to do it. Until then, my husband’s car will sit in our garage, a reminder of how lucky we are. He walked away from this wreck unscathed, just a bit sore. He could be dead. I could be a widow. My children could be fatherless. I am dwelling on how blessed we are, but the alternatives cannot help but creep into my thoughts, the prospects that I could have been doomed to walk this Earth alone without my soul mate, the potential of having to raise our children without their father.

As I was sitting on the side of the interstate, watching my husband pace back and forth, talking to the FHP and the tow truck drivers, deciding on where they were going to take his car and what to do next, all I kept thinking was, “I don’t want to be here. I want my babies in their beds. I want my husband in bed next to me.” I just wanted him lying next to me in our bed. Warm and safe.

Blog Noir

2005-02-05T22:02:00.000-05:00

Christina at Feisty Repartee has a Blog Noir going. Jim at Parkway Rest Stop started chapter one... a feisty cajun female detective... very very fun read! Take a look HERE. Next chapter is next week. Christina has a different week assigned to a different blogger. I'll keep you posted on when it's up...

Jim did a great job. Big big shoes to step into... I don't envy Key, but I am sure she is up to the task!

Scabs are Cool, Cartoons... Not So Much

2005-02-05T21:40:00.000-05:00

Son#2 fell off his razor scooter yesterday and turned his knee into hamburger meat. Of course the new word in the house now is… pus. I’m just waiting for them to start calling each other wonderful names like ‘pus bucket’ or ‘pus face’. It’s coming. I’m no fool.

After I cleaned his knee off, I was searching for band aids. For the first time I can remember, we were out. For the longest time, band aids were THE thing to buy. If everyone wanted to buy something at Publix, picking out their own box of band-aids seemed to satisfy them. Go figure. Harry Potter, Veggie Tales, Winnie the Pooh, Sponge Bob, Sesame Street, just to name a few. If there is a cartoon character, they have a band aid. (The Harry Potter band aids have stars that glow in the dark. We went through more of those damn band aids. I found a kid hiding in a closet once with band aids stuck all over him just so he could see himself glow stars.)

Now, however, we are getting older, and we have to be particular about the band aids we have lest we not look cool. Whereas I could not care less and will just as soon walk around town with an Ernie band aid with the ABCs listed at the bottom, the boys would just as soon die. I remember being at work once and one of the engineers I was working with had daughters. He cut his finger and the only band aid in the house he could find was Barbie. Here is this cute manly man with a Barbie band aid. But when you have kids, and you are really secure in yourself, you really don’t care. You really don’t.

As for the boys, band aids are almost out. They love to show off their scabs and my eldest loves to have blood oozing from his knee. It’s cool. Of course the teachers hate it, surprise, and always send him down to get it covered in the make shift clinic we have at our temporary school. So scabs, blood and pus are cool. Veggie Tale band aids are not.

Which brings me to yesterday when Son#2’s knee turned to hamburger meat. Off we went to Publix to buy more band aids. Son#3 has not outgrown them. We now own Fairly Odd Parent band aids as well as some sort of patriotic red white and blue with stripes, that he thought were too cool. His older brothers, however… things have changed.

We are now into size because… they are boys… and at this early age they have come to learn that bigger.is.better. I have band aids in this house now that will cover an entire knee. Or better yet, I now have a box that contains some that would probably cover the entire side of your face.

And we’ve very much into how they operate. The big question is “Mom… will these stick to my boo boo?” as in, will the pus dry causing the band aid to adhere? We’re all about nothing sticking. Then there are these really cool silver ones Son#1 had to have because they had ‘natural anti-bacterial’ ointment or something like that on them. So we have a pack of those too.

We have another pack that has something for every size cut or scrape. Round, square, rectangular… we’re missing only star or triangle.

How many does that make? Something like 6 boxes? Yup. And Thank God we bought them all because as of this afternoon there is not a major joint on Son#2 that is not covered in a nasty pusy bloody scrape. His knees, his elbows, all four. He’s a mess. He loves gimping around the house. He loves his cool flesh colored, but BIG band aids… until the scabs form of course. Scabs beat out band aids any day.

Man Food, It Starts Early

2005-02-05T21:39:00.000-05:00

We’re in Publix today and my boys are insisting on buying Slim Jims. This is all they want. We walk through the aisle searching for Slim Jims and find something similar made by another company.

In the car they inform me that this ‘imitation’ Slim Jim tastes like junk. I asked them, “What does a Slim Jim taste like?” and the reply was, “Like these, but good.”

I haven’t had a Slim Jim since I was a kid. I don’t remember thinking they were great food. I put them up there with Spam.

I was informed by Son#2 that Slim Jims are like hotdogs, but portable. Heh. Not to my recollection.

Language Skills...

2005-02-05T21:31:00.000-05:00

Son#3, who is FIVE, got in trouble Thursday for telling some kid in his PE class to “Keep his friggin’ hands off him”. Nice.

I said to the teacher, “Wait, he said, friggin’?”
Teacher, “Well, it was friggin’ or freakin’”
Me: “OK, I just wanted to make sure.”

What she doesn’t know is I was breathing a sigh of relief thinking, “Thank you dear God, that he did not drop the F-Bomb in PE.” This kid is going to drive me around the bend. He loves to say to his brothers, “You are an ass!” and when they tell he says, “But Mom, I meant like in the donkey”. And if any of you are wondering… the three of them have figured out that female dog has another name and they are testing the waters with me. They’re running on that hairy edge…

Stiff Spoofy Hair

2005-02-03T19:53:00.000-05:00

I was driving through town today and passed my hair salon. I was thinking about tomorrow being Friday and how my hair stylist hates Fridays because it’s all ‘blow outs’. I guess all the elderly women come in to have their hair blown out for the weekend.

I’ve seen it. Out they come with their hair all spoofed out and sprayed in place. I gather they don’t wash it until the next time they come in or at least not through the weekend. I don’t identify. I wash my hair all the time. The most I can skip is every other day. The thought of waiting 3 or more days to wash my hair… Blech.

Anyway, that is not what this post is about.

So I saw this elderly lady drive out of the parking lot with her newly blown out hair, all stiff and spoofed out and I wondered… “Do their husbands still run their hands through their wives’ hair?”

They can’t. It would be like putting a hair pick in their hair. It would get stuck. Putting their fingers at the nape of their neck and then running upward, “Bloink!” their fingers would get stuck there.

Ick. I’m never going to have stiff spoofy hair.

One of Those Days

2005-02-03T19:45:00.000-05:00

Do you ever have one of those days where you just cannot quit kissing on someone? Today has been that way with me and Son#3. I cannot quit kissing his little cheeks. Since he’s been home from school I’ve been snuggling with him. This happens with all my kids. Who knows? There is no rhyme or reason. Perhaps I am sensing something… they need more Motherly love.

It is evenly doled out. I love all my kids equal. But today, Son#3 just seems like a big squish and I’ve been smooching all over his sweet little cheeks. And for those who know him, you know he’s been eating it up. He does this puppy thing where he runs his face over my face and then snuggles under an arm. Cracks me up.

I Don't Think He Signed Up For This...

2005-02-02T22:02:00.000-05:00

The question of the day from my 5 year old was, “Mom, why doesn’t Father ever change his clothes? He wears the same thing every day.”

He thinks our priest wears the same clothes every day. Blech. That cracked me up. I can’t wait to tell Father next time I see him. The last big quote was when Father came into the Kindergarten to eat lunch with them and my son said to the teacher, “I saw Father’s wife in Publix!” We had to laugh. Father said, “Oh really? Wonder who she was…” I have to wonder what the woman looked like that he thought she was his wife.

And the poor guy… evidently he told my son he would ride the ferris wheel with him at the Carnival. All week I’ve been waiting to say to Father, “Watch out. My son is going to hold your feet to the fire on that one!”, but I never saw him. Lo and behold, the day of the Carnival came, I’m busy working in the money room and I see Son#3’s teacher. I said, “Oh! I have to find Father. Son#3 said he was going to have him go on the ferris wheel with him!” and his teacher replied, “Too late. They already did.”

Evidently most of the weekend people would say, “Has anyone see Father” and the standard reply would be “He’s up in the Ferris wheel with Son#3 and his family.” Poor man. I don’t know how many times he had to ride that ride. Every time my son saw him he tagged him to ride it again. The big exclaimation at the end of the day to me was, "And Mom! Father doesn't even need tickets to ride the ride! He gets to ride for free!"

On the last night I finally said to Father, “The deal is that Son#3 does not see you as a priest. He doesn’t understand your job and what you do for the people of the parish. He sees you as a grandfatherly figure that can do things, unlike his grandfather here in town.” He thought that was funny.

And to the people who are giving the lovely and funny SarahK of Mountaineer Musings a load of garbage because of what she said about going to Mass with FrankJ and wondering if she could shake the priests hand (funny stuff), I say, “Get a damn sense of humor”. That was great stuff. As I was reading it I kept picturing the priest melting into a pool of water and yelling, “I’m meeeelllltinggg!!!” Heh. People who are not Catholic don’t understand all the rituals and what you can and cannot do. (I’m not Catholic, I’m married to one, and I still don’t get all the rules.) So her wondering if she needed to do the Holy Water thing before shaking the priest's hand was absolutely undestandable and... classic. I can't wait to meet her at our blogmeet!

Calvin's Dad Award

2005-02-02T21:56:00.000-05:00

I am starting an award. It is the ‘Calvin’s Dad Award’. I will give this award sometimes, when I see a need. Who is eligible? Someone who gives their kid bogus information or plays with their kid's mind. Remember the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes? Calvin would ask some serious question about gravity or why the sky is blue, and his Dad would come up with some horribly ridiculous answer, getting Calvin to believe it. Yeah, well, I am getting to know Dads like that. I would say, on a day to day basis, Contagion probably gets the award. Today I give it to Jim at Snooze Button Dreams.

It is not that he gave out bogus info, the whole thing was just so damn funny and gross that he just seems to deserve it. Now if you don’t think THIS isn’t going to come back and bite him in the arse, you are so very very wrong. I have decided it is going to bite him when Bear is in 1st grade. That is when my kids started learning about punctuation. I picture something like this:

Teacher: OK, now at the end of the sentence, we put this little dot. It is called a period.

Bear: Oh! I know that!

Teacher: You do?

Bear: Yeah yeah yeah! My Dad told me about them! They flow like a river!

Heh. The real story will be if his teacher bothers to tell Jim and Lovely wife, or if she chooses to keep the incident to herself… or keep as one of those stories she tells other teachers. “Well, I had this little boy once who said the following when we were studying punctuation…” I’m laughing just thinking about it.

It’s gonna happen. Mark.My.Words.

Music Meme Answered

2005-02-01T22:28:00.000-05:00

I got tagged for a Music Meme by TWO bloggers. One was from Dash at The Boiling Point, who I am adding tonight to my blogroll and the other was Blog sister Tammi from Road Warrior Survival. It took me awhile because as I told Dash, I don’t remember words or titles or artists. I remember themes… I remember how they make me feel inside. So I might remember one lyric about Trashy Women, remembering that the song cracks me up, but I won’t remember anything else. Not any real specifics except “Ain’t She Cool?!!!” and the horror of the parents when the kid shows up with the cocktail waitress in the Dolly Parton wig for prom.

There was a discussion about classical music over at Eric’s of Straight White Guy and I was saying in his comments that what I liked about classical is nobody was interpreting. There are not artist’s words; nobody is telling you what the song is about. It is open to everyone’s individual interpretation, and I can only guess that it is my love of instrumental music from classical to bagpipe, and how I just listen and feel, that makes me the way I am towards music.

That said I had to do some serious thinking and research to do this Meme. I had to look up words and titles and artists and some links. So… this is my single post for the night.

And as I told Dash, I am not a Hip Hop Mama! Sorry to disappoint. Take my list from below, throw in some Simon and Garfunkel, mixed with the Police, a bit of Opera, Bagpipes, and a bunch of classical… and you have me.

Random Ten Albums: I just went through my CD collection in my car and came up with these (Links where I have them are to Amazon where if you go to the bottom you can click on any song for a sample):

Maroon 5, Songs about Jane. Given to me by my bro from Xmas. I love this CD. I like the first song… “Is there anyone out there cause it’s getting harder and harder to breathe”. I run to this CD a lot.

The Cars, Complete Greatest Hits. I love this CD with the windows down on a beautiful day.

Across the Celtic Moors

They Might Be Giants, I can’t figure out what CD I have. I think it must be Greatest Hits or something because it has EVERYTHING from Birdhouse to Your Soul to Ana Ng. Like The Cars, this is just fun happy music. It always puts me in a good mood. My kids LOVE to sing to this stuff.

Wallflowers, Bringing Down the Horse. I just like it.

Enya, A Day Without Rain. I like a lot of Celtic type music.

Sinead O’Connor, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. The beginning of my angry chick music collection. I still run to her sometimes.

Alanis Morrisette, Under Rug Swept. I run to this one. I listen to this when I’m in an odd funk, which is more frequent than I like to readily admit.

Soundtrack to Oh Brother Where Are Thou. It’s bluegrass. Good stuff. Down to the River to Pray is my favorite.

BoDeans, Outside Looking In. Gift from my first serious boyfriend. Almost married him. Wonder where he is. Classic case of “Thank God for Unanswered Prayers”, but I have very good memories.

1. What is the total amount of music files on your computer?
For me personally? None. My husband has a ton since he has an Ipod.

2. The last CD you bought is: Blink 182, Take Off Your Jacket and Pants
.
3. What is the song you last listened to before this message? The first time I received it from Dash, I was listening to the Soundtrack to “The Waking of Ned Devine”, a frickin’ hysterical movie with a great soundtrack.

4. Five songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you. First, I made this six songs. Too bad, it's my blog. I’m picking 6 songs that when I hear them, I remember something. And because this is my blog, I’m going to tell you where they take me... in my memories.

American Pie by Don McLean. Heh, wonder if The Great Omnipotent One remembers this one. When I was a little kid and my Mom had to run into the store, TGOO used to sit with us kids in the car and tell us stories or jokes or sing. He used to sing us this song. Sometimes with his own words.

Caught Up In You by .38 Special. High school. Summer between my Junior and Senior year. The Beach. First 'longer' term boyfriend, as in dated for more than a month without wanting to kill each other. Tim the Preacher's son. Sweet boy. Too sweet. The kind of boy that Dad's are GLAD their daughter's are dating! Good memories though. I could still pick out his cologne.

Delta Dawn sung by Helen Reddy. Well, I know, those who know me are thinking, “no kidding”. Seriously, though, it takes me back to my senior year in college when a bunch of drunk extroverted Naval Aviators I hung out with, serenaded me in a steak house. I was dating one of them and I think it was me, one girlfriend, and all these guys. Kind of embarrassing. Kind of funny. If I were to walk in that steak house right now, I could tell you exactly what table we were sitting at and which seat was mine. Completely burned in my memory.

Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison. College. Junior and Senior year. Same group of guys. We listened to a lot of Buffet and James Taylor. For some reason, we all LOVED that song, and we’d sing along in the bar when it would come on. Very good and happy time in my life.

It Had to be You, written in 1924 by Gus Kahn and Isham Jones. Performed by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra, Frank Sinatra, and Harry Connick Jr., I like them all. This is ‘our’ song. My husband and I. We always dance to it. It was also my grandmother and grandfather’s song. I love big band music and music from this era.

In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel. It’s on my wedding video and I would say it is our other song… our modern music song. It’s still one of my favorites.

5. Who are you gonna pass this stick to (five persons and why)?
I’m stopping it here as I’ve seen it done and it is a lot of work. HOWEVER, that said, if blogdaughter VW wants to have a whack at it… the ball is in HER court. *wink*

No Carnies For Me...

2005-01-31T13:00:00.000-05:00

I got home from the first day of the school Mardi Gras/Carnival at 11:30 PM Saturday thoroughly beat to hell, HAD to jump in the shower and wash the grime off the bod, so I didn’t climb into bed until just about midnight. I woke up at 7:30 to get ready to go back… shower again, see the kids, get things in order and pick up doughnuts and bagels for my workers. As treasurer of the school, I appear to be Queen of the Money Room/Prison. It has been reiterated to me a number of times… Blech.

So I roll out of bed, I’m fighting a cold, I’m tired, I’m over it, it’s only Saturday morning and I have 2 days to go, and I sit down at my desk to check my e-mail. My husband is lying in bed watching me and he says, “So… Babe, I think as of now, it is safe to say, that you will never leave me to run away and join the Circus. I feel very secure in the fact you’ll never leave me for the carnies.”

I had to laugh. I looked over my shoulder and said, “Yup. That’s a sure bet.”

They'll Never be Post it Notes to Me

2005-01-31T11:58:00.000-05:00

Friday morning I had to go to the bank and get the money for the ticket booths, a money counter, and make some deposits. The school told me exactly what branch to go to this time, as they’d arranged all the equipment. I’ve just been going to random branches. This branch, however, I will stay with. What a great group of people. First, one of them is a Mom at the school. Second, they KNEW everyone who walked in the door. “Hi, Mr. Smith. Where’s Mrs. Smith this morning?” or “Good Morning, Mrs. White, we haven’t seen you in awhile, how have you been?”

It was friendly banter amongst the customers and the tellers… they knew each other. The elderly men kind of flirted with them, there was a lot of joking, and it was just a great bank to be in. So I’m sticking there. And I told them so.

Anyway, so the Mom/teller says to me, “D., we have a lot of money to give you. Do you have something you want to put it in?”

I looked at her strangely and said, ‘Why?’

And onto the counter she hoists this big canvas bag, the kind like you see the big money trucks with armed guards guarding or carrying. My eyes got big and she said, “Because this canvas bag is screaming, “I’M CARRYING A LOT OF MONEY!!!!””.

Holy crap, Lions Tours.

So I went to my car to see if I had a beach bag or a backpack. Nothing. All I had was a suit jacket I had to wear to a meeting later in the day. So I came inside, they had me walk into a damn vault to pick it up (and it was heavy as it had $250 in quarters), and covered it with a jacket. It just felt… creepy. They walked me to my car and I had a 1 mile drive to the school to drop it off.

I walk in a little on edge. The women in the back that are on my money crew are laughing at me saying, “By the end of the day, the money won’t bother you. It’ll be like handling post it notes.”

Wrong. All three days… it bothered me. Ick.

A Giant in my Own Mind No More!!!

2005-01-31T11:19:00.000-05:00

I had a chairman’s meeting Friday for this other not-for-profit organization I’m helping out. I’m chairing their annual cocktail party. I know, I know, I took on too much. I can hear Grau now yelling at me through his computer screen! No more. I learned my lesson. Too little sleep, too little food, too much stress… even my superior immune system could not fight off the bad germs and I sit here now typing this with some sort of nasty respiratory infection.

I digress. Stick with me here, because this is funny.

The photographer shows up to take our picture for the local paper. He looks around the room of the 20 or so women and 3 of them are 5’6” or over and the rest are very small women. He says, “OK, tall people at the top of the stairs” and he looks at me and tells me to join them. Wait. Did I tell y’all I’m 5’2”? Did I tell you that all these ladies are over the age of 65? Most are probably in their 70s and 80s. And I, ME, “Miss, I’m going to need a booster chair to sit at 6’1” blog sister Tammi’s table at our Bad Example reunion”, I AM TALL!

One of the past chairmen says, “No, she has to be in front. She’s our chairman.” This caused a problem with the photographer who had to move people around since I was blocking people with my great height.

So this makes me wonder. Were all these women once much taller and they all shrunk? And if so, does this mean I’m destined to be 4’8”? Just please don’t let me weigh what I weigh now if I become 4’8”. I’ll look like a tiny Stay Puff Marshmallow woman. Blech.

Out on Temporary Leave

2005-01-27T21:32:00.000-05:00

I’m on temporary hiatus from blogging. You know that fine line they talk about between genius and insanity? Well, that’s where I’m hovering, except there is no genius involved. I expect to be back as early as Sunday, but it could be Monday. You may find me lurking in comments on various blogs as I de-stress at the end of the night, but the probability of my putting words to blog is relatively remote.

To end this, some brief random thoughts and observations from my week.

While watching my best friend from high school with her first born, who has been visiting this week, I remember the euphoria that your first child brings. The love, the amazement at how they are growing and how wonderfully cute and cuddly they are… but I do not want another child. As a matter of fact, I’d rather poke my eye out with a pencil than have another child. Three is enough.

Working a carnival was not on my list of 'The Top 100 Things I Want to do Before I Die". It wouldn't make my top 1000 list either... if I had one.

The bank tellers develop a nervous twitch when they think you might want to deposit $10,000 cash… something about government forms and money laundering.

Some bank tellers get really really annoyed when you walk in with 19 deposits… no matter how polite and organized you are and even if all the cash is in the right order facing the same direction.

I can’t think of anything much more hellish right now than the next 72 hours I will be spending with loud carnival music, greasy carnival food, and massive throngs of people I do not know.

My kids are so excited the kindergarten teacher has told me she may need a valium to get through tomorrow. Considering I actually have to work the damn thing for the next three days my reply to her was, “If you find that in drip form, bring it by my locked cash room where I’ll be holed up. I’m sure I can find someone to hook me up. Hell, I’ll hook myself up.”

I look pretty bad right now. I’m getting concerned looks from other parents. I walked in the main office today and it was like the parting of the red sea. I said not a word, just walked in and people parted to let me pass and then inquired about my mental health. I stayed silent. That probably didn’t help my cause.

I don’t like the fact I am going to have a uniformed police officer with me for a lot of the time this weekend. I know how I joked that if I went to visit Little Joe and Grau, how they are so big compared to me, that they would LOOK like my personal bodyguards… but I really never wanted one. Seriously.

On the list that went home today showing all the parents in the 4th grade class what times they are working their class carnival booth (to which I am thankfully exempt), up in the tippy top one of the Moms wrote, “Mrs. L, Treasurer, 24/7”. Funny lady. Wonder who it was.

The people who run the national philanthropic organization that I am running their fundraiser for in mid-March are a bunch of pin heads.

Nobody in the Bad Example family and annoying neighbors is looking forward to that weekend more than I.

Saved... By the USDA...

2005-01-25T22:49:00.000-05:00

When you live in Florida and you have a citrus tree in your yard, you get used to having the Department of Agriculture come to your home. Tree inspections. For Canker.

Canker is a bad bad disease that our citrus crops get and it damages the trees resulting in no fruit production. It spreads. For the longest time, Canker had never been north of Boca Raton, but after the hurricane… all that wind spread that bad disease north. Now if you happen to live in a home that has a tree in the yard and it has been diagnosed with Canker, that bad boy has to be removed as well as any tree within something like 1900 feet which means, it could be your in your neighbor’s yard. Yeah, there are lawsuits and the works. Canker is a hot topic down here and it can get very ‘cantankerous’.

Anyway, I have an orange tree and I promise you, it puts out the most sour and foul tasting fruit you have ever tasted. It could be used by poison control to induce vomiting. Sour. Bitter. Awful. The first time we tried it, I thought it was an age thing. My thinking was, perhaps a more mature tree had better fruit. Wrong. This is just a bad tree. I threaten to chop it down, but here is my problem. I have issues with cutting down trees in my yard. We don’t have many of them and I think they’re too pretty. So the tree has stayed.

Flash forward to September, two hurricanes that piece of crap orange tree survived. My neighbor came by with the chain saw to chop up our other trees and my spouse looked at me and said, “OK, here’s your chance. Let’s get rid of it once and for all.” But. I. Could. Not. GRRR. That stupid crappy tree had endured two hurricanes and then we were going to take a chain saw to it? So it stayed.

October came and the Department of Agriculture showed up to inspect it. I walked over and said, “Look, that tree produces the worst fruit. If it has canker, take it away, I don’t care. As a matter of fact, feel free to say it has canker even if it DOESN’T!” Alas, it was canker free. Again. I have no issues with it dying a natural death… canker, hurricane, 40 day flood, but it can’t come at my hands. They laughed, gave me suggestions on who to call to see if it is missing nutrients and they were on their way.

So today, I get a letter from the Department of Agriculture saying they want to use my tree as a sentinel. My best friend from high school is visiting and happened to answer the door, so she passed me this info via phone (I was at work). The whole way home I was thinking, “What in the hell is a sentinel tree?” I called my Mom. I’m laughing saying, “Surely they are not so desperate that they are looking to use my POS orange tree to help create new crops?!!” She’s been here when we’ve pulled an orange off that tree; she KNOWS how bad they taste. She’s saying, “No way!” and she’s doing a search for me on the computer trying to help me decipher what in the hell a sentinel tree is. We knew it was guarding... but how does a tree guard? It is bringing visions of The Wizard of Oz and those mean apple trees.

Well, I read my letter when I got home. You may all breathe a sigh of relief. They aren’t using my POS orange tree to spawn any other foul fruit producing trees. My tree is going to be monitored every 60 days… it is being used as part of their ‘early warning system’.

“Should Citrus Canker ever be introduced into your area, the Sentinel program would aid in identifying the infection in its earliest states and steps could be taken to eliminate or prevent further spread.”

Of course I’m going to say yes. (There’s this little permission slip thingy you have to fill out to be part of the program.) Citrus is vital to our economy. If this is what it takes to help, I’m all for it.

But all I keep thinking now is, “Damn. Now I REALLY can’t cut it down. It is serving a purpose.” In the spring I’ll be off to find out how to make it produce better fruit.

1 Week and Counting...

2005-01-25T22:24:00.000-05:00

I was over at LeeAnn's of The Cheese Stands Alone and I found this Quiz, 20 Questions to a Better Personality. Whether it is true or not, who knows, but I think the last sentence might be...

Wackiness: 34/100
Rationality: 70/100
Constructiveness: 36/100
Leadership: 40/100

You are a SRDF--Sober Rational Destructive Follower. This makes you a Fountain of Knowledge.
You are cool, analytical, intelligent and completely unfunny.
Sometimes you slice through conversation with a cutting observation that causes silence and sidelong glances. You make a strong and lasting impression on everyone you meet, the quality of which depends more on their personality than yours.
You may feel persecuted, as you can become a target for fun. Still, you are focused enough on your work and secure enough in your abilities not to worry overly.
You are productive and invaluable to those you work for. You are loyal, steadfast, and conscientious. Your grooming is impeccable. You are in good shape.
You are kind of a tool, but you get things done. You are probably a week away from snapping.

You Learn Something New Every Day...

2005-01-24T22:09:00.000-05:00

Wow. We don't know a lot about Harvey. We know he works in a bank. He lives in Wisconsin. He was in the Navy having gone through Nuke Power School. He has a horse dog named Jake. Actually, he has a regular menagerie. And... most importantly, he is married to a smart and beautiful woman named 'Beloved Wife'.

In today's Birthday Post to Beloved Wife, we find out what she does for a living! He says she has kept her girlish figure all these 37 years.... via all the "trapeze work". Geez! Who woulda thunkit, she works for a circus or something. She's a trapeze artist. That is what he means... right???

Happy Birthday to Harvey's Beloved Wife. If you haven't had a chance to wish her a belated, please do. Go HERE for the post and for good wishes!

Boxer Boy

2005-01-23T21:59:00.000-05:00

We were at dinner last night and my 5 year old leaned over and put his head in my lap. We were in a booth and he was tired. I did what I always do. My hand goes down to his bottom and pats it, then up to his back where I rub his back. It’s a habit from when he was a baby. This time, as I’m rubbing his back he lifts his head and says, “Mom, I’m going commando.”

Heh. Nice. So what do I do? Stupid me. I ask… why. He replies, “Because my undies make my weenie feel squished.” Lovely. This is definitely something I DO NOT identify with.

So I said, “Well, we can fix that. We have some boxers you can try. You might like those better.” Today was his first day of wearing boxers and I do believe we have claimed a victory in the squishy weenie battle. I will be going to K-Mart to shop for new underwear for him tomorrow… and out will go the 30 pairs of Sponge Bob, Spiderman, Hulk, Race Car, Mickey, and Elmo underwear. Well, maybe not the Hulk underwear. Those are still his fave. And the Elmo underwear got relegated to the back of the drawer after THIS incident.

Fun to One is Hell to Another

2005-01-23T21:37:00.000-05:00

Our big school fundraiser is next weekend. We call it Mardi Gras. It’s a carnival complete with rides, games and carnies. I hate it. It’s dirty, crowded, and loud. It is run 100% by pure parental volunteer hours, every class being assigned a game booth or food court. This is my 5th year. This is my 5th year hating it. It has no redeeming qualities. Not one.

I worry about the rides. I spend all my time looking at the Ferris Wheels and the rides that spin fast as hell, the big kid rides that my three children want to ride, and I think, “how well have these rides been maintained?” or “how much stress has been put on these rides and are there any stress fractures?”. Other parents don’t think that way… unless they work for engineering companies. You know us when you see us… we’re typically huddled under the Ferris Wheel talking about physics and structures and maintainability and then we typically say something like, “These rides make me nuts” and we walk away.

I worry about the people. These are strangers, people we do not know coming to our school. The carnies… oh my Lord, if they aren’t the dirtiest people I have ever seen. Just writing about them makes my skin crawl. Missing teeth, dirty to the point of slovenly, and looking like they’re stoned out of their minds half the time, although I’m sure there are some rules that stipulate they can’t drink and run the rides. Some of them are super nice. Some of them are not. By the 3rd day, fewer of them are nice than there were on the 1st day. I watch my kids like a hawk. My stomach is in a knot the entire time I am there. I hate it.

And to make it worse… now that I’m Treasurer of the school, I have to work it… the.entire.time. From the minute it opens, until the minute it closes plus some, I have to be there. I’m in charge of the money. I’ll be working in a back room on the computers, inputting and counting, under lock and key. Yes, that is right, I have security. And I’ll have security when I go to the ticket booths to change out drawers. For three days, this will be my personal hell. I suspect I will be on a first name basis with half the police department when this is finished.

OH! But this is not bad enough! Because also School Treasurer, my job has been to find the parents to WORK the ticket booths. I got lucky. Last year’s treasurer was nice enough to take half the list and help me out. That left me with 56 2 hour shifts to fill, which means, I have been on the phone, calling people, to help. I am frickin’ miserable. Did I tell you I’m NOT really that extroverted? This is soooooo far out of my comfort zone it’s not even funny. And for me to have to listen to all the damn excuses people have as to why they cannot help, knowing I HAVE TO BE THERE for THREE FRICKIN’ DAYS, just completely galls me.

So. Needless to say. I’m not so cheery. To my male readers… be very very happy you’re not married to me right now. Bitch isn’t even the half of it.

Yum! Yum!

2005-01-21T21:18:00.000-05:00

Carnival of the Recipes is UP and Caltechgirl did a GREAT job… the A-Z’s of recipes… literally. Take a look. Good stuff.

Thoughts from the Kindergarten

2005-01-21T21:17:00.000-05:00

From Son#3 today in my car he asked, “Mom, in our car, what makes the gas go away? What is the car doing that it burns up this gas?”

I answered, but geez, I'm sleepy still at 7:00 AM. I'm not up for my 5 year old asking me to describe how a car engine works.

From Son#3’s classroom, going to a small private Catholic school, they were praying and when the teacher asked if there was anyone else they should pray for, one of the kids piped up, “We need to pray for all the families that had people die in the Salami”.

Heh.

Ouch?

2005-01-21T21:14:00.000-05:00

I saw THIS in our paper the other day and I know y’all did to. I just have to ask… how in the hell do you shoot a nail through the roof of your mouth and not feel it?

How is that possible?

I get a pizza burn and it hurts not only immediately, but for days. So how is it someone can drive a nail into their skull and.not.know.

If you have a clue… feel free to explain ‘cause quite frankly, I’m at a total loss…

More 'Fiction' from my 1st Son

2005-01-21T21:00:00.000-05:00

There appears to be a fine line between reality and fiction in my 1st son’s head. Remember the paper he wrote on his hero (HERE), and how it was true that my father in law’s ship got hit by a kamikaze that bounced off and exploded next to the DE, and the ship then took on water, everyone abandoned ship and was saved, but how Son#1 had the ship sinking, people getting eaten by sharks and my father in law floating unconscious up to a beach where he was rescued? Yeah, well reality stitched with fiction struck again.

This paper was supposed to be on their favorite holiday. Now a little background… my brother, who is 2 years younger than I, lives in Los ANGELES, and loves to play with my kids. When we all get together, when they are sleeping, he is known to do things like fill their beds with egg noodles,toilet paper the room, or pester them while thye're trying to sleep with the hidden Fart Machine. He works funky hours so he sleeps late and keeps late hours, so he’ll sometimes draw and leave them little cartoons on the kitchen table for them to find at breakfast. Now there is this running joke that he is going to give them a swirly… which is stick their head in a toilet and flush. But he has NEVER done it, he only teases them.

So now for this month’s essay, which is exactly as he wrote it, and when you’ll read it you’ll understand why he got a 51% on his standardized testing for capitalization, although he scored in the 98% overall… he and I are working on this capitalization thing.

Aunt! Uncle! Grampa! Grandma! BEACH!!!! Fun!!!! It’s almost here…. Christmass, My favorite holiday.

Christmass in pensacola is always fun. I can’t wait to see my aunt and uncle. My aunt is alot of fun. My uncle is like an owl he sleeps till lunch and is from vegas. He also stays up past 3:00 am. If I'm lucky He’ll do stuff to us while we’re sleeping. One time he put my head in the trash, He gave my brother a swirly, and the other he put in the closet. He’s decorated our room with toilet paper. I can go much farther but I have a limit amount of paper. I can understand toilet paper but he gave out swirleys. You pretty much just imagine getting swirleys. Still you gotta admit, he is alot of fun.

I also want to go to The beach. Its so much fun. I bring gogles, a shuvle, and sandwich. I’ll ocassionally bring plastic bags to catch fish. I like places to stand that go down like a pool and go up on all sides. I go down and choose wich fish I like most.

Well 23 more days and its here.

OK, so we have some spelling issues too. He and I are going over all of it. But here’s the deal, his teacher who was slated to leave on maternity leave TODAY, now in her head has this enormous story that sounds like something out of a Robert Ludlum novel about my father in law and she thinks my brother sticks my kid’s heads in toilets. While I was in school today paying the bills, I saw his teacher from last year and told her, “PLEASE when you see Mrs. D tell her, that none of this is true…” and I explained the stories.

The really funny part however, is we are very accustomed to the reality of my father in law’s WWII story and as I started to tell the REAL story, which is amazing, the teacher I was talking to stopped me and said, “Wait. Are you telling me the real story now or the fictional story?”, to which I replied, “No, this part is the REAL story and if you think it’s incredible, wait until you hear the one Son#1 gave his teacher!”

Reminiscing and A Love Note About My 2nd Son

2005-01-20T21:15:00.000-05:00

Today is the day we celebrate the birth of my 2nd son, who turned 8 today. I find it so utterly amazing as it feels like I can reach into my memory and touch it all as if it were yesterday.

Calling my Mom in a panic… I wasn’t ready for a 2nd child, I loved my 1st one so much, how in the world could I love another? Her answer being, “D., love does not divide, it multiplies.” And she was right.

I was made for breeding. Flat out, my body takes to it well. My pregnancies are easy, I never gain too much weight, and I feel good. (Well, other than becoming mildly gestationally diabetic, but that was no big deal for me.) I look good too when I’m pregnant. I’m happy, people want to be around me, and I have a glow according to TGOO.

My first labor had been a bad labor and I felt I made some mistakes, one of which was going to the hospital too early. I was determined that this one, I would stick it out as long as possible. I realized I was in the early stages of labor while I was at work, so I quietly folded up my work, told everyone I was tired, hugged them all and said I didn’t think I would be coming back, and I left. It was 10:00. I picked up my eldest and came home. I called my Mom and told her I thought it would be the next day, but they got in the car and started their 9 hour drive immediately. I called my in-laws and told them not to worry, but that I thought I might be in labor and I would be calling. They showed up 30 minutes later. Geez. I was calm. All these people seemed so freaky, but they weren't... I was in denial, they were steeped in reality. I think it was Noon by then.

I called my doctor. We had a big argument. I was calling to inform him that I felt certain my baby and I would be ruining his dinner plans. He wanted me in the hospital and I said no. So we compromised. He had me come to the office, but was very short with me and told me I BETTER have my bags in the car. So my husband came home as I was vacuuming the entire house and off we went.

I have to admit. I felt kinda crappy.

We got to the office, they hooked me up to a baby monitor, and I was in full labor and within an hour of delivering. We were told not to pass go and not to collect $200, but to go DIRECTLY to the hospital. We got there at 2. My son was born at 3. The doctor got there just in time, doing a Kramer type entrance. Piece of cake birth.

And then there he was, eight pounds of wonderfully sweet baby boy. He has a wonderful name… fitting for a Knight at King Arthur’s Round Table.

He is my white boy. Whereas my eldest looks like he should be playing stick ball in the streets of Italy, my middle boy is my wee lad; he is my Celt. Blonde haired, blue eyed, and skin so white we called him Casper for the longest time, he has settled into a light brown hair, with the most amazing blue eyes.

He is sweet. Teachers and girls love him and boys want to be his friend. Affectionate doesn’t begin to describe him. At 8, he is the boy who will still crawl in the nook of my arm and snuggle or who will quietly creep into my bed at 4AM, thinking I don’t hear him, so he can sleep between his Dad and me.

A smart boy, he is very analytical and quick with numbers. He has amazing fine and gross motor skills. He’s my soccer player and the kid who loves arts and crafts. Reading has not come as easy since we struggled early with a speech apraxia, but he caught up and is now doing very well.

But he is my boy with the tender heart. My boy who I worry for the most. My boy who is sometimes filled with more sorrow than I think of for most children his age. A death of someone close very early on in his childhood, and the events surrounding that death, have made him very in tune with his mortality, definitely more so than the average 8 year old. I am angry at myself that I did not protect him more from what he witnessed, but I was unaware and dealing with my own grief. So I am very protective of him, although I cannot right a wrong. I worry a girl will break his heart... and he won’t move on. I am worried for his teenage years, the sullen years and how he will deal. I worry for him constantly, more so than for my other two, although I am good at not showing it.

I take some comfort, however, that I made it through all those tough times, teenage years and the opposite sex, for of my 3… he may be the most like me.

I do not post pictures of my children… but today, I could not resist. Every year I create a collage of each child commemorating the previous year. This is my 2nd son, age 6.

Thanks to ImageShack for [URL=http://www.imageshack.us]Free Image Hosting[/URL]

So to my middle son, I tell the blogosphere, “I love you, my son, more than you will ever know.”

Carnival of the Recipes, Chicken Pot Pie.

2005-01-20T20:50:00.000-05:00

In keeping with the theme of the night, my son's birthday, I give you my family's secret recipe for Chicken Pot Pie. (OK, it's not exactly secret, but I thought maybe it sounded even better that way... plus I know my folks are reading saying "Secret?!!! What's she talkin' about?") This is a favorite of ANYONE who has ever had it at my home. When my nephew's come visit, they request it. It is tradition in my home that the birthday boy gets to pick dinner and every year, all of them pick this dish. Obviously, this is what we had for dinner tonight.

(Side note: I used blog daughter VW's chocolate icing recipe for tonight's birthday cake and it was FABULOUS. In google if you put Chocolate Icing Carnival of the Recipes, you get that Carnival entry with her link.)

This week's hostess is Caltech Girl of Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Chicken Pot Pie

3 lbs. chicken breasts (This is good for turkey leftovers too)
4 (14 oz or 396 grams) cans chicken broth (I use canned Fat Free)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
1 stalk celery cut into 2" pieces
1 medium onion, quartered
1 bay leaf
1 (16oz) pkg. frozen mixed vegetables
2 lg. potatoes, peeled and cubed
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
1 cup milk (I use skim)
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp dried thyme
2 boiled eggs, sliced
2 9" refrigerated pie crusts (Pillsbury, comes in the red box in the refrigerator section of Publix)

Combine first 7 ingredients in large Dutch oven; bring to a boil and cook until chicken is tender. If chicken has already been cooked, just allow it to simmer a few minutes for the chicken to pick up some of the flavor and get really tender. Remove chicken. Throw out vegetables and bay leaf. Keep the broth. Cut chicken into bite sized pieces.

Bring broth to a boil again and add frozen vegetables and potatoes. Bring to a boil again and simmer eight minutes or until tender. Remove these veggies from the broth and set aside, then measure out three cups of broth and set it aside too.

Melt butter in Dutch oven over low heat, add flour, stirring constantly. Gradually add three cups of broth and milk, cook over medium heat stirring constantly until mixture is thickened and bubbly. Stir in 1/2 tsp salt and 1 1/4 tsp pepper, and thyme. Add vegetables, chicken and boiled eggs; stir gently. (NOTE: The extra pepper can make this dish spicy, so if you are serving to children or those who do not like spice, leave out the last 1 1/4 tsp pepper. I never include it and it tastes fine.)

Unfold the piecrusts: cut and paste one of them so it fits the bottom of the a 13X9" baking dish and brown it in the oven (about 10 minutes at 400deg.). Spoon the chicken & vegetable mixture on top of the crust and cut and paste the other crust so it covers the top. Cut slits in the top and bake at 400 deg for 20 minutes.
6-8 servings.

I Hate it When This Happens

2005-01-19T22:55:00.000-05:00

I haven’t made any secrets about the fact I curse. And I do so in front of my children when frustrated although I have tried to curb it. Really. I have.

So today I took Son#3 to his tutor’s house. I hired her after I was afraid he was not doing well and needed him evaluated. (He is fine, he just LOVES to see her now, so I still take him.) Anyway, she is a friend of mine and lives down the street from me, is about 50 years old, has two kids, one is a senior in college and the other is 24 year old man/boy I talk about sometimes.

They are the nicest family. REEEEALLLY nice people from Wisconsin. When I came to pick him up today she told me this mortifying story.

Evidently Son#3 and she were going over some words and the word ‘as’ came up. Son#3 looks at her and says, “You know there is another word that is bad. A-s-s.” (Yeah, I’m frickin’ LOVIN’ the fact, LOVING IT, that my 5 year old can spell ass, but barely write his name. That’s what happens when you have older brothers.)

She says, “Why yes, you are right.”
Son#3 says emphatically, “It is a cuss word.”
She replies, “Yes it is.”
Son#3, “Do you cuss?”
She, “No, I don’t.”
Son#3, “My Mom cusses. And so does my Dad.”

Lovely. She said to me later, ‘I can’t curse. I teach little kids. Can you imagine if I slipped up?’ and then she laughed.

But little kids or not, she never cursed. But I do. And now she knows if she didn’t before…

January 20th... it is Signifcant to Me

2005-01-19T22:53:00.000-05:00

Big mushy post tomorrow with a special surprise. *grin*

Blog Families...

2005-01-19T22:45:00.000-05:00

I have to tell you, whenever I think my life is stressful, I think of THIS girl. Her version of her day is HERE. Good Lord. I know I cause my own problems. She does not. This stuff just happens to her, yet her attitude is so... good. I was on the way for my karate class and got on the phone with her today, and the conversation went something like this… not exact quotes:

Tammi: Hunh. Something is wrong with my car. My RPMs are going crazy.
Me: Where are you?
Tammi: On I-4. Stuck in rush hour traffic. It would suck to break down here. (Conversation continues to some other topic.)
Tammi: Uh oh. Wait. It may be oil. My car is shaking.
Me: (quietly freaking on the other end… it is not as if I can help, I’m THREE hours away) Oil? You know, Machelle will know the answer to what is wrong with your car. (Thinking this is not imminent, but rather something she will deal with tomorrow.)
Tammi: Oh shit. My car is breaking down. Right now. I have to go now. I have to quietly freak out.

I called her back a couple seconds later with a suggestion on who to call, and it didn’t pan out, but she had good friends who got her and one of those Road Rangers blocked off the interstate since her car being broken down in the middle of I-4 is a BAD THING, and got her off to the side.

I called our blog bro _Jon right after I got off the phone with her (I had a Bad Example weekend question for him), so he called her after. It just made me feel better that someone was on her cell with her while she was stranded.

Funny thing, isn’t it. Tammi breaks down while on the phone with a girl she met through her blog. It is suggested she call another girl for car advice, a girl she met through blogs. Then she waits in her car while a guy she met through her blog, keeps her company on the phone.

And it’s really all because of Harvey. Is it any wonder we're all trying so hard to make this weekend happen?

Karate a Week in Review

2005-01-19T22:43:00.000-05:00

I thought I was crashing and burning for sure in Karate tonight. The first hour, I was counting the minutes in my head. I’m not getting enough sleep and I’ve been wrapped a bit too tight lately. The second hour went much better, thankfully.

There is a big tournament coming up that I have been asked to compete in, which is no big deal since I was going to be there with my eldest anyway. There is a chance he could make Nationals and in the event that I make them too, I’ll compete at Nationals also. I’m not doing any extra training than I already was, but am working on more things… trying to perfect my kata more… the subtle nuances. I told my husband tonight that when my Sensei was working with me tonight, going over my competition kata, I felt very good that I was finally past the ‘your stances are too high, your foot movements are wrong, your hips should be square’ and have moved more into ‘when you turn your head, take it an extra 5 degrees and on that attack, push a little harder’. We are fine tuning and even though it is even more difficult to fine tune than work on the BIG problems, it is a good feeling.

I will not be sparring in competition. I don’t fight. I don’t like watching women’s boxing. I don’t want to be part of anything that resembles that. I like my face, I like my teeth, and I like my hands. I don’t need anything broken, although I do think it is an inevitability that I will break a rib in training. I just hope it isn’t before mid-March.

Eenie Meenie Minie Mo

2005-01-18T19:51:00.000-05:00

Due to contract issues, I hadn’t been to work since right before Christmas. On my day back today, I saw my buddy, father of two, who hired me. He was walking with a strange gait. Almost limping. Knowing he is somewhat athletic and plays games similar to soccer, as I’m walking behind him I said, “What’s up? Tear your Achilles?” He looks at me kind of sheepishly and I am unsure how to interpret. I gather the answer is no. “Pull your calf?” Same look, although now his face is a bit pink, so this time I guess he did something really stupid.

Now I’m not saying anything, but standing there giving him the “What gives look, confess to your stupid mistake” when he says in a low murmur, “It is the after effect of a ‘procedure’ I had done last week.” OH! And because he was slightly embarrassed, I was too.

I’ve known him for 17 years, so it didn’t take long for me to not be so embarrassed about it for him, although the fact the guys in the office were giving him holy hell helped immensely. Things like… I was sitting at his desk going over some tasks and our boss came up with a handful of peanuts, walked over to him smirking and said, “Want some NUTS?” Heh.

My buddy and I had talked about this procedure before Christmas and I made mention of the name of my husband’s urologist. I know doctors in the area. I don’t know why he didn’t listen. INSTEAD, he went to the yellow pages and picked one.

Now color me odd, but when it comes to things like my reproductive/sex/’whatever you want to call it’ parts, I am p-r-e-t-t-y picky about what doctor takes care of them. Well, I’m that way about all body parts, but I just do not see myself picking a guy out of a phone book and I sure as hell wouldn’t let my husband pick a urologist out of a phone book. Heh, I have too much at stake there too. So, I was a bit horrified. And it appears that this guy may have done something wrong, especially since my buddy FELT the ENTIRE procedure. Damn, it makes my stomach tie up in a knot just thinking about that. Blech.

I'll Never be a Limo Driver in England

2005-01-18T19:38:00.000-05:00

Harvey had a post today on bad drivers and he professes to being somewhat driving impaired. Actually the quote was, "I drive like crap." I will tell you, I am not a bad driver. I learned from The Great Omnipotent One, a Naval Aviator, and while I am not as aggressive as he (not possible really), I took his lessons to heart and am a defensive driver, paying attention to my gauges, my mirrors, my surroundings. Yes, I have made errors in judgment, but for the most part, I am a safe driver, paying attention to speed, weather conditions and what not.

But I have a confession to make. I cannot parallel park. I.can.not. It is somewhat of a family joke. I’m not great at parking in general. A pull in spot, I’m slightly too close to one of the lines. I can be at a cock-eyed angle. It is what it is and I find it just as annoying. I won’t leave my car in a poorly parked position, however, I will actually correct it. I have been known to jump out, keys in hand, be halfway down the lot, look at my car and be horrified at the job I’ve done at parking, walk BACK to my car and fix it.

About 5 years ago, I was at home visiting my folks. I was driving TGOO and I to the grocery story. We pulled in, TGOO opened the door, looked out, then looked back at me and said, “GD, D., how long have you been driving and you still can’t park worth a damn.” It was so damn funny it stuck in my brain.

But parallel parking… it is the bane of my existence. If there is one thing keeping me from traveling to Europe, besides money, it is the parallel parking. I.just.cannot.do.it.

Yes, I know all the tricks. I know you’re supposed to cut it here, straighten there, cut it there. I know it. But I forget and I am evidently not good under parking stress as I can tell you exactly what I have to do whilst driving, but once I have the car in position to start, I freeze and cannot do it. Call it a strange case of performance anxiety.

During my driver’s test when I was 16, I took it in my folk’s big ass 1970 LeMans Pontiac. (I loved that car… it was fast as hell.) I somehow got the car parked for the parallel section, but I was in and out, in and out, in and out, inching it in there, hitting the curb over and over, that when I finally got it in, the tester said something like, “I don’t even have to look. I know you’re close enough to the curb.”

One year while in she was in college, my sister came to visit me. I decided to take her down to Palm Beach to look around. It’s a fun place to stroll on a leisurely afternoon. I can’t afford to buy even one shoe there, but it’s fun. All over Palm Beach is parallel parking. I’m driving down Worth Avenue and I’m freaking. Finally my sister says, “Look! Just park RIGHT HERE!” I stopped the car, looked at the two cars that I would be parking between and said, “NO! I AM NOT PARKING between TWO Rolls Royces!” And I drove around the block numerous times until I found a pull in spot off some obscure street.

It is what it is. I had to parallel park this weekend. I nearly stroked out from the stress. OK, I exaggerate, but not much. My husband had to talk me through it as he was in the passenger side. I think he was stunned it was so difficult for me.

It just isn’t going to happen. If I make it to Europe, I better have the big damn bucks for a limo.

The Difference of Three

2005-01-18T19:21:00.000-05:00

I cannot believe how incredibly different all my boys are from each other. I view most of my world as black and white, yes or no… binary. So when I had three, stupid me, thought “Oh, he’ll be like one of the other two… or perhaps a combination thereof.”

Wrong.

All of them. Completely different. Night and Day and Something Else. And I now know, if I had twelve, they would all be different… although I would not be around to see it as I would have probably hung myself in the shower.

When people ask me about my three kids and what types of people they are, I put it in aircraft terms. So here you have it, my description of my three boys in terms of jets.

Son#1 would come up with the conceptual design for the latest and greatest fighter/attack aircraft.

Son#2 would engineer it and make it happen.

Son#3… would fly it.

Gators and I Don't Mean Football

2005-01-16T22:22:00.000-05:00

My loyal reader, George, pointed an article out to me the other day about an 8 foot gator living in a yard not far from me. (George and I live in the same county and read the same newspaper.)

So this chicky girl, who hails from New York, comes home and finds an 8 foot gator living in the pond in her backyard... and she freaks out and calls Fish and Wildlife or whatever they're called to come get it, but they won't do anything unless it's in her yard or up close to her home.

Yup. That about sums it up. We live in swampland down here, reclaimed Everglades. There are gators all over. I had a neighbor with a 5 foot gator in her yard a couple years back and if you don't think a 5 foot gator is big, I beg to differ. I'd just as soon not tangle with one of those. It's only 2 inches shorter than I, and far stronger and faster. It took a day for them to come out and it was IN HER YARD CLOSE TO HER HOUSE!

I've had a gator in my back yard, but it was only a 3 footer. When I worked at my last place of work, we'd get them in the parking lot all the time. Sometimes someone would hit one with their car or there would be a near miss.

It's really bad when we've had heavy rain... the canals and lakes merge into the streets and then the gators don't really know where home is... it all looks the same!

We have rules in our house. No kids by the lake. Our lake is a couple hundred yards from the house and kids by the lake is serious trouble. Big Big Serious Trouble and I have put the fear of God into them. But that's a whole other blog story about how that happened... my kids, a lake and a gator.

Can't Get it Out of my Head

2005-01-16T21:53:00.000-05:00

This song has been in my head and has been making me laugh.

It started with a conversation with VW at breakfast one morning. We were talking about someone we knew that liked women that dressed kinda trashy. I told her there was a song about that, but all I could remember was “Prom Date and Dolly Parton Wig”. She didn’t remember.

Then today, I was talking to TGOO about some folks we know and he says to me, “Didn’t he marry a stripper?” and then that dang song came back into my head. I replied, “Do you know that song about that kid who loves Trashy Women?” and he said nope, he didn’t recall. Which made me google.

Sure enough, I found my favorite paragraph:

Shoulda seen the looks on the faces of my Dad and Mom,When I showed up at the door with a date for the senior prom.They said: "Well, pardon us son, she ain't no kid."That's a cocktail waitress in a Dolly Parton wig.I said: "I know it dad, ain't she cool, that's the kind I dig."

You gotta hear him say “Ain’t she cool” heh. Funny stuff. Country Western, I don’t listen to much of it, but sometimes they come up with some lyrics I just cannot get out of my head.

So now, in case you’re wondering… the song is “Trashy Women”, by Confederate Railroad and you can see all the lyrics HERE. Sorry, I couldn't find an MP3 I didn't have to pay for.

I know quite a few guys that fell in this category...