Month: December 2011

Precocious Pets

I’m a dog person.  I can tolerate cats, and I loved Beamer, but I’d much rather have a dog around.

The Big Daddy loves cats and and would much rather have them around than a dog.

Mars, Venus, kids, dog, cats, and fish all living under one roof.

The Big Daddy was in the kitchen when Henry decided he wanted a taste of some kitten milk, and you’d have thought the dog was holding the old man up in an armed robbery the way he tore into him.  He needed to wash down the snack from the garbage can.  I got mad at The BD for yelling at my dog, and who should come around to investigate, but Frank and Pip, and aren’t they so fun, he says.  Oh yeah, they’re precocious, I said.  Mallie Bee heard all of this and asked what that meant.  Little shits is what it means.  No, The Big Daddy said, they’re mischievous.

The Mischievous Ones still have kidney issues and peed on our bed the other day.  The bed of the people who saved them from a shelter that may have been No Kill, but it wasn’t a lifetime guarantee.  Who does that sort of thing?   Well, me that time I took Nyquil and was dreaming I was going to the bathroom and I was………..in the bed.  

When they’re not getting into trouble, they’re fast asleep, but don’t let the innocent, sleeping baby pic fool you.  These two are a couple of Gang Bangers.

A Wine-oscopy

You might be interested in knowing that small doses of a chemical used in laxatives has been approved for use in beverages to stabilize and thicken them.

Specifically, this kind of beverage……………..

Source: bing.com via Amanda on Pinterest

WHAT THE WHAT??????

Is it not enough that when you’re out having a good time and you don’t want to get up to go pee, but you really have to, so you get up and OMG you have to go bad except you have no idea where the bathroom is so you search frantically like a mother who’s misplaced her infant, and there’s a line, and you can’t even make small talk because now it’s starting to hurt, and when you finally get into a stall, your pee starter thinks it’s a go and starts to come out before you even unzip your Party Pants????

It wasn’t enough.

Now a laxative additive has been included in our Wine Slushy, and have these people no mercy for those of us who have pushed out a couple of kids???   Who just by standing for a couple of decades have caused a gravitational pull that can only be reversed with some kind of sling up in Ladyland?

No, they have no mercy and beware the pitfalls of drinking.  DUI, roofies, a hangover and now the possibility of some added weight in your going-out-on-the-town underpants.

Lexus Shmexus

Could it be that it is only one week into December and I am already sick of seeing this………

With this attached……………

Source: amazon.com via Xixi on Pinterest

Yep.

I’ve grown used to seeing the rich sitting around the tree in their designer jammies on Christmas morn and Dad saying, “Hey, everybody let’s go out in the snow and see something.”  And the little lemmings all follow because of the trust fund and Mom never gets bitchy and says, “What the hell?  In my new Tory Burch boots?”  She doesn’t even look tired from running her ass off all month and she still has to put a Honeybaked Ham in the oven.

The newest commercial in Fantasy Gift Christmas features a couple about 30 years old in an elevator that plays the Lexus theme song.  When the door opens, there sits a new $50K car for the Mister and they must not have student loans to pay off.  Please go away.

Give me this lady any every day of the week.

She can hardly contain herself when the blenders go on sale, and with that jogging suit and pearls…….she’s C.L.A.S.S.Y.  With a capital “T”…….for the store that the Real Santa shops to make Christmas dreams come true.

Cheerleaders

This weekend Mallie Bee and I made a fast trip to Chicago.  She had an audition for Fordham University/Alvin Ailey School of Dance.  Be still our hearts.  We arrived on Friday, the audition was all afternoon Saturday and we left Sunday morning.

Whew.

This is our dancer’s ideal school.  It is so expensive it’s not even funny, but she dreams big and we need more of those kind in the world.  We have, however, told her on a daily basis that we cannot afford it, and true to her nature, she hasn’t let that stop her one bit.

While she was doing that, my sister and her husband and I hopped a bus to the fun part of town, ate lunch and did a little shopping amongst the crowds in the city I will always miss.

When we got back we had a bit of a wait for her to finish so we took a look at the church next door.  This church…………….

It was an absolute stunner inside.  Old world Europe kind of a feel.  We went back to wait, and I answered a whole lot of texts from everybody wondering how it was going.

When we had gone inside the church, I asked God to assist in what was going on next door, and significant financial aid sure would be nice.  That last part was a little half-hearted since there are too many people in dire straits in this world for me to be greedy.  What wasn’t half-hearted, though, was my gratitude for my family who went above and beyond to encourage her and get her where she needed to be all weekend long, and our friends here in Kansas City who cheered for her from many miles away.

She thought it went o.k. and come March we’ll find out what they thought.  I’m hopeful about all of it and how could I not be?   She may have performed a solo, but those ballet shoes she danced in carried the grace and blessings of everyone she knows.

Reserved Parking Only

I may have mentioned a time or twenty that The Big Daddy and I are from the Chicago area.   As you know, they get some mighty wintry winters.  What you may not know is that if you are a Chicagoan, and you shovel a space for your car, say in front of your house, and say you set up some 2 x 4s propped on some webbed lawn chairs, say in January, it means that you have reserved that area and are the rightful owner.   The law may say that it is public property, but street law says it belongs to the shoveler.  Messing with it and thinking you can park in a space you did not clear could get you one of those 2 x 4s upside the head.

When the kids were little, there was a new store opening in town called HQ.  It was like Home Depot, but more designery.  The Big Daddy offered it up for the team and agreed to take the kids and I there for a fun family outing.  On opening weekend.  With thousands of other people.  We circled the lot forever and finally found someone who was leaving.  The BD turned his blinker on and we patiently waited for them to pull out.  As they did, another driver whipped around the corner and beat us to the spot.  “SON OF A BITCH”, The Big Daddy yelled.  “DID YOU SEE WHAT THAT BASTARD JUST DID?”  Oh my God, he stole his space.  With his blinker on.  He totally ignored Blinker Etiquette.  The Big Daddy was crazy, and I had his back.  This was Parking Space War and we waited patiently for the thief to get out of his car so we could lay down some ef bombs. 

With three young children in the backseat.

After a few minutes and off in the distance, we could hear sirens.  And The Little Boy Child said, “That’s the police.  They’re coming to get that guy and they’re going to poke both his eyes out until they bleed and put him in jail for taking our space.”    I’d like to thank the Academy on behalf of The Big Daddy and I for naming us Parents of the Year.  Again.  

A few years later, again with all the kids in the car, I was meeting a friend at a festive holiday shopping center for lunch.  We were running late, the parking lot was jammed and I was circling and circling until I finally found a space near the door.  I got the kids out and an older couple stopped and said, “Didn’t you see the sign?  It says compact cars only.”  Well, no, I didn’t see the sign and there was my minivan and geez, it wasn’t even a tight fit.  Kids, I said, we’re just gonna leave it there.  The Teacher Girl was in a Mother Theresa phase and said, “No, Mom, you can’t.  We’ll get in trouble for not following the rules.”  Oh, for God’s sake.  I put all the kids back in the car and looked for a regular space.  A minivan space.  Which is how I scraped the entire driver’s side when I pulled in too close to a concrete pole.

We got into the shopping center and I was so rattled and stressed and pissed that I needed a drink or three.  Instead I sat with my friend and six kids with a paper engineer hat on my head waiting for my burger and fries to be delivered by a choo choo train.  That I thought about punching.  I told her about my mishap with the pole and my encounter with the Parking Lot PoPo.  This is the kind of stuff I can’t let go.  Gotta let it fester.  Build up. 

When we were leaving, I happened to spot Deputy Fife and The Mrs. and stopped them for “a moment of their time.”  That’s when I told them that when I moved my car the entire side was hit and maybe they should mind their own beeswax when it comes to people parking their car.  I did leave out the fact that it was me pulling in too close to a pole that caused this crime against my car because I like to blame other people when I mess up.   “Oh my, oh dear,” the Mrs. said,  “Are the children o.k.?”

What are you talking about lady???  What children???  Oh, ya mean those three watching Mom get her crazy on.

As we enter the hap-happiest time of the year, it’s all about parking, parking lots, parking etiquette.  For The Big Daddy and I, it means working hard to suppress that Chicago thing that’s in our DNA.  Oh, but our hearts sure would be glowing with holiday greetings if only we could bring our lawn chairs and 2 x 4s to those gay happy meetings at the mall.

 
 
 

The First Noel

When The Big Daddy and I married, we lived about two hours from our parents.  He was in graduate school, I worked in a bank.  That year, Christmas Eve was on a Saturday.  The bank kept regular Saturday hours, 9 – 12, and I offered to work since we didn’t have much of a drive.

It started snowing early in the a.m.and was a swirling, blizzardy mess as the morning wore on.  There was stories of accidents and bad driving conditions from customers, and one of my coworkers who was going in the same general vicinity as me heard that the interstate was closed.  Puhleez.  There wasn’t all that much snow that could have accumulated in such a short time.

While that may have been true, in central Illinois there is nothing to stop the snow, and with the right wind conditions it certainly can close a highway.  So there we were, The Big Daddy and The Loan Processor spending Christmas alone in the dreary basement apartment.  With the roaches.

Because we had planned on being with the family, we had no tree.  Nor a Christmas dinner or gifts to open because we were broke.  Ho. To. The. Ho.  We dug in the fridge and came up with some cube steaks and a couple of beers.  Nothing celebrates the joy of Jesus’ birth like chewing on some gristle off of t.v. trays while watching MTV.   I was DEEpressed.

Finally, The Big Daddy said, “Enough.  We are getting out and going to the movies.. Your pick.”   That’s how we ended up at “Terms Of Endearment” and I had no idea Debra Winger was going to die.  I boo hooed and it was a miserable 1st married Christmas except for this…………..

In the movie, Jack Nicholson offers Shirley MacLaine a drink which she declines.  He tells her she should consider it “to kill the bug that crawled up your ass.”  I believe it’s one of the finest movie lines of all time and I have used it over and over.  In my head.  To people who make me nuts.

We went back to our place, killed some Christmas roaches in the bathroom and called it a night.  We eventually made it home to celebrate New Years with our families and we drank plenty.

Just to make sure.

Source: google.com via Sally on Pinterest

Curb Your Enthusiasm

When The Boy Child came home for Thanksgiving break, I ran some errands and brought us home some lunch.  On the way back, I passed a desk on the curb with a free sign, so I slowed down for a look-see.  And was there anything on top of that desk, you ask????   Well, I’ll tell you.  It was this……………

Oh dear God of Vintage Roadkill.  I couldn’t believe it.  And it wasn’t just this one, there was another.  I backed up the car and loaded ’em up along with that stinkin’ cute typewriter table.  Let me tell you, they were FILTHY.  I put them in the back of my car and about ten pounds of dust settled into the crevices.

I came home with lunch and showed The Boy Child my finds.  Cuz he gets excited.  Not like the girls who say, “Why do you bring home this crap and then get mad when we don’t love it?”  Because I am your mother, that’s why.  Which has nothing to do with the conversation, but I like to throw down some discipline once in awhile.

Anyhow, I told him about the desk and asked if he wanted to go back and look at it for his apartment.  And he did, which seriously gets me so excited I can’t even tell you.  We go back to shop and it was kind of rickety and not so cool so we passed on it.  However, up by the garage was the garbage can and a bunch of bags next to it.  Hmmmm……what could be in those bags?  And that is how I ended up digging through some trash on private property with the dog next door barking like a damn, furry fool.  Hey, Lassie, Timmy didn’t fall down the well after all so no need to alert the authorities.

I told The Big Daddy about our Excellent Adventure and he said, “Jeezus, are you trying to get yourself shot?”  Negatory, BD.  Just shopping.  “Well, you can’t go up to people’s houses or they’ll think you’re robbing them.”    Robbing them of potentially lucrative garbage that just may land me on Antiques Roadshow, thus securing our retirement at the mobile home park.  And that’s the part where he’s supposed to say “thank you” but never does.
 
A few days later, Black Friday comes along and it is a crazy nightmare with mobs and trampling and pepper spray in the midnight hour.  Pepper spray?   For an X-box.  I didn’t participate in that madness.  I’ve got my own kind of madness to manage, and taking it into the crowds for a crappy two dollar waffle iron is not for me.  You know, standards and all.