Month: November 2011

When our cute, little Beamer went to meet his Maker, we decided we were going to take our time finding the next family cat.  When barely a month had gone by, The Teacher Girl informed us that the shelter that she adopted Butters from was having a sale on adoptions.  HALF PRICE YOU GUYS!!!  YOU’VE GOT TO MOVE ON THIS!!

And move we did, because she has a way of getting the show on the road.  That is how we ended up with The Brothers…..Frank and Pip.  Not only was it half price adoptions, but it was also Buy One Get One Free.  How could you turn down a sale like that?

My aunt once told me that she’s a real sucker for a sale.  Goes right to the sign, and dammit she’ll find something even if she doesn’t need it.  Oh, I know all about that, I told her.  I’ve got a closet full of good deals that have been worn once.  “I swear,” she said, “if they put a turd on sale I’d probably buy it.”

The Brothers have each been diagnosed with a kidney infection.  Urine sample.  Overnight stay.  Medication.  $150.00.  Next week is round two.  More medication.  Another urine sample.  $$$.

We’re off to a stellar start with this great deal we got, and The Two Turds we acquired hang in the closet next to the leopard pencil skirt that makes me look like a fat, middle-aged hooker.

Many years ago, The Big Daddy and I traveled to my parents’ house for Christmas from our apartment two hours away.  When we arrived, my dad pulled me aside to tell me they invited a nice, young couple for dinner that couldn’t make it home to Minnesota to spend the holidays with their family.  Since they were about our age, Dad wanted me to make a special effort to make them feel welcome.  Sure can do, Dad, and who is this couple you befriended?

From the kitchen Mom yelled, “It’s the cable man.”  What???  “Well, we’ve had so much trouble with the gull damn cable.  We kept calling and every time they’d send out some idiot that would get it working for a day and then we’d be right back where we started.  This kid came the last couple of times and finally fixed it, and well, we couldn’t have him and his wife celebrating Christmas by themselves.”

The Big Daddy and I moved further away and haven’t made it home for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner in many years.  We fill our table with a different kind of family on the holidays, and everything I know about welcoming strangers to your home I learned from Bill and Gerry.

I walk every day in the park, along with some other regulars.  Through the years and in the neighborhood, I’ve met many people along the way, mostly retired men puttering in their yard looking for some distraction for a few minutes.

The Public Works Department is often in the park, mowing, trimming, emptying trash.  My girlfriend got to be chatty with one of the guys who took an interest in her dog.  He really, really liked her dog.  Loved her dog.  After months of conversing whenever they would see each other, he stopped to pet her dog and casually said, “We should go out for a drink some time.”  She was a flustered mess, totally taken off guard and said, “Ummm, no, no, that’s not a good idea.  I’m married.”  To which he said………..

“Oh, that’s o.k. so am I.”   Ya think he was faking the dog liking thing?

I never paid any attention to him, and have walked daily without being asked out by a city employee.  I take a different route home than she does and pass the home of Barbie & Ken every day.  I did not make that up.  Ken’s been a friendly guy over the years, especially since the time his dog was running loose and tried to bite me in the leg.

Today when I walked by, he was in the backyard and called me over to the fence.  Can I ask you a question?  Sure.  Does it bother you that I stop you on your walk to visit?  No, not at all.  Well, I just wanted to make sure because you’ve been coming at different times lately and I thought maybe you were trying to avoid me.  No, some mornings I get out earlier than others.  Well, good because I really have enjoyed getting to know you and I wouldn’t want to do anything to offend you.  Other than your dog leaving teeth marks in my thigh, we’re fine.  To which he said……..

“Sometimes I get lonely.  That’s why I look for you in the morning.  So we can talk.” 

Sheesh. 

My mom at her top height was about 4’10”, and it would be a mistake to think her size made her anything but mighty.  Corralling six kids on a daily basis gave her nerves of steel, and each one of us can tell you stories of Mom going C.R.A.Z.Y when we were misbehaving.  And I use that term loosely because my three older brothers tended to swim in and out of the delinquent pool on a regular basis. 

Growing up, they all played hockey.  In the burbs of Chicago, hockey is King.  Most hockey games can get out of hand, even for the amateurs, and we were watching one rough match when a player from the opposing team shoved the butt end of the stick into my brother’s face.  First, that is a low class, dirty move.  Second, he broke my brother’s front tooth.  We witnessed all this from the stands and my parents were mad as hell.  Fortunately, it happened near the end of the game before a major brawl started.

My mom was worried there might be a fight near the locker rooms, so she told my dad they should head that way just in case.  As the opposing team started filing down the hall, my mom spotted the tooth-breaking, butt-end-of-a-stick-player, grabbed him by the jersey, threw him against the wall, and went C.R.A.Z.Y.  To the point, where my dad had to pull her off and get her out of there before a major brawl started. 

The ride home was especially quiet, and the Thought Bubble that hung over every head in the car was some  version of, HOLY SHIT!!!  WHAT HAPPENED IN THERE???  After a very long time, The Little Boxer spoke with a cracking voice, “It’s just that of all you damn kids, he had the best teeth.”

That was the night I learned the value Mom put on our choppers, and that if you dared to mess up one of her kids, you were going to answer to her.

I know about OCD.  When my brother was getting some counseling while going through a divorce, the  Perfection Gene we all inherited was discussed.  The therapist suggested that he let some things go, starting with the checkbook.  Don’t worry about the color pen you’re using, just write down your entry in whatever is available.  He told me this like it was some kind of breakthrough for the entire family.  No, no, no.  Neat.  Perfect slant to the handwriting.  Same color pen.  Every entry.  It’s the anal foundation this family was built on.  She says it will set us free.   What would Dad say?  Dad who taught us how to line up baby food jars of screws on his bench like North Korean soldiers, and semi-annually scrubbed the garden hose.  You need to try it.

I never did.  It was too much to ask.

I also know about thumb sucking.  My mom was under the impression that she shamed me into stopping at the age of 12, but it was closer to 13.  I spent a year hiding in the closet taking a thumb hit every day after school.  Which explains the overbite. 

I read in the paper about a guy who had an extreme case of OCD.  He was 34.  He sucked his thumb every day, but first wrapped it in Saran Wrap to avoid the germs.

This is a mingling of mental disorders which can never lead to a good outcome, for there is no comfort to be had in sucking a thumb wrapped in plastic.  It has to be skin to mouth.  Alone.  In the closet.   Anxiously waiting every day for the mosquito bites to blossom right out of that training bra.  And praying for the boys to notice the quiet, freckled-face girl that was on the verge of some kind of wonderful.

I think Herman Cain is an experienced, habitual groper.  I think everybody around him has probably been aware of this for years.  Oh, that’s just Herman being Herman.  I think there’s too many women to name who have been a victim of his, likely since middle school when he tried it, got away with it, and emboldened him.

This week, we have a stay-at-home mom who has had experience with Herman being Herman.  In the detailed account she gave in front of dozens of news cameras, did it matter that her kids were also hearing the graphic description of her encounter?  I’m all for nailing this guy for the farce he is, but this will sure make the next PTA meeting awkward.

Behind her during this accounting was Gloria Allred, who made a legitimate career of defending women until her train jumped the track and she started chasing every ambulance in town.  Now she calls more press conferences than the President, and I wonder what’s in it for her.

There’s all kinds of Five Minutes of Fame Pie to slice in this year before the election, and the list of characters sending The Skank Meter into overdrive goes on and on and on.

It makes me miss Joe The Plumber.

Kim K. and her Forever Love are calling it quits after 72 days.  Well, she is, anyways.  He doesn’t seem to know much about it.  Does a husband ever know when anything is wrong? 

It was a fast courtship she had, not like The Big Daddy and I who dated for five years before we got married.  I knew EVERY SINGLE THING about him.  A day after we promised to love, honor and obey tolerate, we went to the beaches of South Carolina, where we rented a condo for a week.  And EVERY SINGLE THING he did drove me nuts.  The way he held a knife.  The way he chopped.  The way he’d cook with a flame so high I thought he was going to burn the place down.   The way he left every utensil he used on the counter instead of putting it in the dishwasher.  The amount of dressing he’d douse on a salad.  The wet towels on the floor.  The exhaust fan in the bathroom that droned on and on.  The way he ate his cereal.

Because it made me nuts, I had to comment on all of it.  Back home, we cut on an angle.  Back home, we simmer.  Back home, we clean as we go.   Back home we put our towels in the hamper.  Back home, back home, back home.   After the third day, he looked at me with stone cold eyes and said, “Well, you’re not back home any more, are you?”  And those dead peepers of his kind of scared me.

That’s when I understood that this marriage thing was more like legalized kidnapping.  Of course I knew at times that I could escape, but Stockholm Syndrome set in and I learned to love and depend on this man who took me away from everything in my life that made any sense.

Every now and then, though, I’ll watch The Big Daddy out in the yard, throwing clods of dirt and cussing at the squirrels and think………

I should make a run for it.