Month: July 2012

The Boy Child has not exactly had the summer he planned.  Last year he went to London and that put him on a high for months to follow.

This year he was hoping to get an internship but those were mighty hard to come by, and so for the fifth summer in a row he was back at the bagel shop.  It is one thing to go back after you’ve had an awesome overseas adventure, it’s another when it’s your only option.  Most days he’s there before the sun comes up  to wait on customers, put bagels in the oven, wash dishes and mop the floors for an eight hour shift.

The other day, a guy came in and said, “HEY YOU GUYS!!!  HOW’S IT GOIN?  WORKING HARD?  LIVING THE DREAM???

When you are wearing a ball cap and tshirt that says, “Ask me about the poppers”, and standing all day smelling like bagels, you are not living the dream.   That is impossible at $7.50 an hour.  They got his bagels and and when he couldn’t decide on a drink he said, “HEY YOU GUYS???  WHAT GETS YOU GOING IN THE MORNING???”  Vodka and cigarettes.

For the 2nd time in a few short minutes they looked at him like the gigantic ass that he was, and as much as this summer has sucked, at least The A.M. Bagel Crew doesn’t have to go through life in that guy’s skin.

On a lovely fall afternoon, three cop cars pulled up in front of the house.  Each of the cops had their hand on their holster and slowly made their way down the street to Steve The Neighbor’s house.

They knocked on his door and talked to him on his front porch.  They left awhile later and he remained behind with no handcuffs, no walk of shame, no booking at the station.

A few days later I heard the story of the Popo’s visit.

Steve the neighbor had been getting repeated telemarketer calls.  One day he said to one of them…………. “You……people…..make…..me……..so……crazy……..with……all……..this………calling I…….could….kill  ….myself.”

Steve, that’s a little dramatic.

The Telemarketer feared he really was going to kill himself and called the local cops to check on him.  When the intervention was over and all was fine, Steve The Neighbor had a unique opportunity to take advantage of a limited-time offer for a time-share in the Ozarks if he acted now.

Across the street, lived a lovely, elderly couple for years.  Dorothy suffered numerous health problems that resulted in her going into a nursing home.  Her husband, Steve, got cancer and died a year later.  With both parents gone from the house, Steve the Son moved in.

Steve will wave when he drives by, but mostly keeps to himself.  He’s a slow talker and when he actually does have a conversation, he will say that the goddamn taxes on the house are killing him and he’s putting the place up for sale.  He has been saying that for eight years.

One day when there wasn’t anyone else around, I needed to enlist Steve the Son’s help.

Our street was getting sealed and all the cars had to be off by the time the crew came.  The job had been postponed due to weather four different times and so I’d forgotten about it.  On that day, I noticed that there weren’t any cars on the street except The Big Daddy’s with the stickshift that I don’t know how to drive so I knocked on Steve’s door to see if he could move it for me.

Oh, and one other thing………..The Big Daddy’s car had a back tire with a slow leak that he would inflate with his bicycle pump on the rare occasion that he drove it.  I kid you not.

“Well……I……can’t…….move……it……with…….a…….flat.”   

Oh, but it’s o.k.  Here, Steve, watch.  Just go up and down with the bike pump.  See?  If you keep doing that, Steve, it will inflate and then you can move it.  Steve.

And he looked at me like I was crazy. 

“I…….think……..you……..better……call………..Mark……..for…………this.”

Well, I’ve been trying but he’s in a meeting and I can’t get a hold of him.

“Call……..his……secretary.”

His what?

“Tell……her…….you’ve…….got…….a……9…….1……..1…….emergency.”

Sheesh, Steve, it’s a car that needs to be moved not a dead body.

“Then……..tell……the…..secretary……..it’s………urgent.”

He doesn’t even have a secretary.

“He……should………get………one…….for…….when…….there’s……an…….emergency.”

We went back and forth like that for awhile until I sent him home because he was yanking on my last nerve.  Since that day he keeps even more to himself when I’m around and avoids me like I’m the the tax collector.

All because I asked for a little favor.

I have a long post to write about the first friend I made when we moved to Maryland, but that is for another time.  The short version is that we were both far from family with newborns and husbands that worked a whole lot.  One day, Carla asked me if I wanted to make a trek with her and our babies to some store called Ikea.  It was an all day affair, and it was the first of many, many trips we would take to the Land of Swedish Meatballs, including a midnight one for the Solstice Sale.  We were serious Ikea shoppers.

When we moved to Kansas my Ikea days came to an end.  A few years after we arrived here, a new job candidate was being wined and dined for a possible position with The Big Daddy’s department.  Over the course of the dinner, the guy mentioned that he “loathes Ikea and that cheap shit they sell.”

Pssst……….somebody needs to inform Donald Trump that the job he’s after is working for the state. 

I’m not saying he didn’t get the job because some of the spouses who happen to love Ikea thought he was a flaming douche, but we may have mentioned our thoughts about him a time or thirty.

On our trip home last week, we went to the new Ikea that is only twenty minutes from my mom’s house.  Thank ya Jeezus.   Another generation has fallen under the spell of the Swedes as the New Mr. & Mrs. stocked up, and looking at the receipts on the way home we admired how much we got for so little, except we had no idea what any of it meant.

I’ve got nothing in my reserve tank this week as we just came home from five days with the family to celebrate my nephew’s wedding.  He and his honey threw a great party and oh, what a family I have.  Stories to come soon……………

We have an independent bookstore in town that packs a wallop in literary circles.  Over the years, they have been able to get every major author to come to Kansas City and do a book signing.  For the cost of a hardback book, you get two tickets to see the author and I’ve been to a few.

Here’s some snippets………..

Anna Quindlen (I’ve seen her twice.)
She spoke of giving a commencement address and told her audience that they wouldn’t remember anything she talked about as her speaker when she graduated was Margaret Mead, and all she wanted to do was get the ceremony over with and onto the parties afterwards.  While sitting on stage as graduates came up to receive their diplomas, a girl passed her a note written in lipstick that said, “I’ll remember everything you said.”

Kathryn Stockett
After 60 rejections for “The Help”, her publisher called to say they had a problem with the title.  She had titled it “Help” and well, they really thought “The Help” sounded better.  After a long pause she said, “I don’t give a shit what you call it just get it in a bookstore.”  She is hilariously funny.

Calvin Trillin
He is a Kansas City native, author of many books and columnist for the New Yorker.  He wrote often of his wife and when she died published a book called “About Alice.”  A young woman wrote to him thanking him for all the times he wrote about the wife he so clearly loved and said, “When my boyfriend asked me to marry him I asked him if he would love me like you loved Alice.”

John McCain
The senator came to promote and sell his book “Faith Of My Fathers.”  It was packed and at the Q & A an elderly black man shuffled his way to the microphone and told him that he served in the Navy with his father.  When the war was over he didn’t have anywhere to go and so his father brought him to his home.  “Your mother taught me how to read and helped me obtain my college degree.  Since they’re no longer alive, I’ve come here tonight to thank you.  They were the finest people I’ve ever known.”  Everyone was rather stunned and then started applauding.  John McCain began to cry, came off the stage and hugged him for a very long time. 

Anne Lamott (I’ve seen her twice, too.)
She decided that she would wing it and not read from her book.  After arriving at a mediocre turnout in New York for her latest book, she read a chapter to the audience and stumbled so much it was as if she had never seen the words before in her life.  She went back to her hotel room and ate an entire cake that was sent to her from her publicist for her birthday and vowed not to read her words aloud for the rest of the tour.

Dave Eggers
He wrote “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” which is one of my favorite books.  It is the true story of  the sudden deaths of both his parents in a very short time leaving him to raise his younger brother at the age of 19.  He made it up as he went.  He came to town shortly before an election and noted that we may be polite in Kansas City but we know how to fight when it came to the size of the political signs posted in our yards.

Jon Krakauer
I loved “Into Thin Air” and remember throwing more blankets on me because the way he writes of the bitter cold the climbers endured trying to get to the top of Everest felt so real.   He did a power point presentation that was really good, plus he’s a very smart guy.

There were a couple of talks that were bad enough to wish I’d stayed in that night……….

Gretchen Rubin
She wrote “The Happiness Project” and is native to Kansas City.  She spoke to a packed audience and gave out tidbits for happiness such as…….make your bed every day, pick up after yourself, look out the window.  It was one of the shortest talks I’d ever been to and when it was over the woman next to me said, “That’s it?  That’s what I came here for?  That was bizarre.”  Agreed.  It took me longer to find a parking space and I never read the book.

Greg Mortenson
The author of “Stones Into Schools” presented a power point presentation that was nearly identical to the one he did for “Three Cups of Tea.”  Every person that entered the talk was given an envelope to contribute to the Central Asia Institute and plenty of checks were being written for this charismatic man.  A year later, it had become very questionable whether most of it actually happened, courtesy of some digging by Jon Krakauer.

If you ever have a chance to go to one of these DO NOT turn it down.  I’ve gone when a friend has had an extra ticket and sometimes don’t even know who the author is or what the book is about, but I always learn something.

My walking has been curtailed this summer due to the heat and my walking partner being on the disabled list.  He is suffering the affliction of big dogs with bad hips causing his back legs to give out from under him often.  This is what he does most of the day.

I know where this is going.  🙁

When we adopted him from the shelter he was on his way to being a full-grown 40# sheltie.  In reality, he was on his way to being an 85# chow/retriever mix.  I felt more than a little duped, when in the confines of my small house, he kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.  Over his nearly thirteen years, I have come to accept his girth.  And he mine.  These days we spend a lot of time together and when I ask him what I should write about, he looks like he’s giving it some thought.

In the meantime, I have The Turd Brothers to keep me company.

Turd Two has taken a liking to napping here…………..

…………and even when I yell at him to get his furry ass off my table, he takes no offense.

Or no action to leave.

And what I write about?  He looks at me like I’m dragging him into my drama.

When The Boy Child was a wee one, he slept in a cozy little built-in bed that he would climb into and go off to La-La Land.  It was on numerous occasions that he barfed in his cozy, little bed.  There was a gap of about an inch between his bed and the wall and that kid always managed to barf in that direction, so you would have to get a wet rag wrapped around a yardstick to try to get in there and clean it up.

Make that The Big Daddy since I get the dry heaves when I’m anywhere near barf.

When The Boy Child was about eight, he said he didn’t feel good and I had him run into the bathroom to get sick.  Our teeny, little bathroom that was made for The Seven Dwarfs and that kid stood in the middle of the room and barfed everywhere.

It. Did. Me. In.

I went Mommy Dearest on him and instead of asking him if his poor tummy was upset said, “FOR CHRISSAKES, IF YOU’D HAVE LEANED IN ANY DIRECTION, YOU WOULD HAVE HIT A SINK, A TUB OR A TOILET!!!”

He got the message and we never had to clean up barf from that kid again.

This………………

………….needs to go away.  The idea that people compete in cramming hot dogs down their throat (that are first dipped in a glass of water for easy sliding) is disgusting and I’ve never met a single person who wondered out loud who won the Annual Hot Dog Eating Contest.

This calls for an intervention, and since I’ve proven that I’m good at the bat-shit-mom-gone-crazy stuff, I elect myself.  And I’m a result getter.

Except for that time when The Big Daddy and I went to a party.  When we got home I crawled into bed but when I let go of the headboard cuz the room was spinning so bad, I puked everywhere.  That time the result wasn’t so good.