Author: Kathleen Fisher

I’ve got big hair.  When it’s summer, I’ve got really big hair.  The humidity is like an inflatable device pumping my hair follicles.  I hardly ever wash it because it gets so excited that it blows up even bigger.  When I paint anything, it gets in my big fat hair because I don’t allow for clearance, and it would be helpful to have a beeper like garbage trucks to warn me when my hair is backing into something.

I was making the bed and heard a buzzing in my head.  Mother Ship.  I hit myself in the head and it stopped for a second, but then started up again.  I shook my head a couple of times, but that seemed to make it worse.  Maybe I was having a stroke.  I think I’m having a stroke about once a day.  More when the Visa bill comes.

Turns out, all that buzzing was due to a fly being stuck in my hair. A fly that had probably cruised every pile of dog crap in the neighborhood was now in my hair.  Oh, I  know, it’s disgusting.  Once I figured that out I really went crazy, hopping around, screaming like a little girl and hitting my head.  The varmint finally found the way out, but sheesh, I was sweating and hyperventilating and my head hurt from hitting it so much.  I had to sit down and rest after that and then the damn Visa bill showed up in the mail and I should have called 911 as soon as the day started.

Mallie Bee has been slow to learn how to drive.  It’s fine by me because teaching a Fisher how to drive is MY LEAST FAVORITE THING TO DO.  However, she’s about to be a senior and needs to get crack-a-lackin.  Her friend is taking a driver’s ed class which has lit a fire under her, so she’s been studying the driver’s handbook in order to get her permit.

At dinner she asked us to start quizzing her.  I started with the easy stuff about two cars getting to a stop sign at the same time and who has the right-of-way.  The one not yapping on a cell phone.  When merging, should you slow down, speed up or maintain your speed?  Correct answer: Maintain your speed, but I slow down due to crippling merge anxiety.  Orange signs signify what?  Two lanes are closed, nobody’s working and you’re sitting in the front row for the movie.

Then the Boy Child asked how you identify someone blind in a crosswalk.  Hmmmm……thinking caps everyone.  And he says “by their white neckerchief.”  White neckerchief?  I never heard of that.  Oh yes, he says.  It’s in the handbook.  Seriously?  Yes, old mom who hasn’t looked at the handbook in forty years, a white neckerchief means a blind person is crossing.  Who the heck wears a neckerchief?  Blind people, he says.  How do they know which is the white one?  Big Daddy weighed in on that one saying he’s pretty sure it’s a white cane and not a fashion accessory that identifies a blind person.

And the Boy Child thought it over and said oh yeah, maybe it is a white cane and not a white neckerchief after all.   Miss Daisy looked at us like we have no idea what the hell we’re talking about and it’s no wonder she’s in no hurry to take her driving test.

The Boy Child returned from his Excellent European Adventure, and driving to the airport I was about to jump out of my dry, crinkly skin I was so excited to see him.  Out he comes into the terminal with his big ‘ol smile and I swear he looks older, like a guy who’s got a lot more confidence cuz he’s gotten a taste of the fabulous world out there.

We stayed up until midnight while he passed out gifts and showed us the snaps he’d taken.  How very British.  In between I asked the mom questions.  How did you sleep?  Did you like the food?  Did everybody get along?  And then I asked this………. were you constipated?

Big Daddy and Little Big Daddy were like WHAT THE WHAT?  Why would you ask that?  Geez, oh man, are you kidding me?  Har, har, har, that’s so dumb, Mom.

Ten years ago, we went to the beach in South Carolina for a week.  I’ve got a whole album of snaps where I have a forced smile that is more like a highly-controlled grimace.  My memories of that trip are of laying in the sun, day after day, trying to relax while being so constipated that I was more likely baking my bowels like a birthday bundt cake, making any movement of them impossible.

This is a picture of Big Daddy back in the day.  Whoooooeeeeeee, I thought he was so cute.

Today is BD’s birthday.  He was born on the first day of summer which is fitting since he packs a whole lot of light into every day.  He was a teeny weeny three pounds when he was born prematurely and ever since goes all out no matter what he does.  It’s what I love about him and what makes me crazy at the same time.  Either way, going on that blind date date way back when was one of my smarter moves.

So to Mr. BD…………Happy birthday.  Happy year.  Happy first day of summer.

About ten years ago, we did some landscaping.  I told Big Daddy that we should hire a landscape architect to draw the plans for us and we could do the work.  Landscape architect?  Little woman, he says, do you lay in bed at night and think of ways to spend money.  Sometimes it’s the only thing that takes my mind off my nighttime hotties.

When I have an idea to do something that involves BD’s cooperation, I float it out there like a balloon.  If he has an absolute fit, I don’t do it.  If he has a mild fit with muttering about how he needs another bike, I do it.   How many bikes do you need, I mutter back.  Lordy, don’t ever let him decide to count my jeans.  Ankle, skinny, cropped, wide, stretch, not stretch, dressy, not dressy……..

When the landscaper came, I had a table full of pictures from magazines.  I took her around my house.  See, I said, it’s cottagey and not perfect and my landscaping has to be like that.  So you want a controlled chaos look, she says.  Yes, yes, just like my hair.  She drew us a plan and it took six years to finish.  The first time we went to the nursery to buy bushes we had $300.00.  In Nurseryville, that’s really funny.  We moved dirt until we couldn’t lift our arms to even drink the beer we desperately wanted.  If you want to know why landscaping is so expensive, try doing it yourself because it will beat you until all you can say in an itty-bitty voice is, “Mama, mama……..help me.”.

Was it worth it?  Every time I walk out the door, I can’t believe I get to live in this house.

You might not know this, but Branson doesn’t have a real book store.  I wanted to buy a book while we were there and couldn’t find one on the shopping center directory so I asked somebody working in one of the stores.  She told me they have a Books A Million at one of the outlet malls and a Christian bookstore, but not a regular book store. 

I went into the 5 & 10 that’s been in business for fifty years.  I’ve never seen such a selection of hairnets in one place.  Light brown, medium brown, dark brown, blonde, red, black, auburn.  You name the color and there’s a hairnet for it.  I did not even know that you could buy hairnets anymore.

But no books. 

I saw my little ballerina doing this and bummed a book off somebody to make the time pass and someday I’ll probably regret not buying myself a couple dozen of those hairnets.

There’s this fancy shmancy thing you can do to post on your blog when you’re gone.  You set it up for the day and time you want it to post and it automatically does it.  Oh, technology.  Is so techie for me.  It works like a charm unless you save it as a draft instead of publish and then your little plan goes poof.

This learning curve is way too curvy for my wee little brain.

Mallie Bee and I are going to Branson for a few days with her dance team for a national competition.  Branson?  Seriously?   A few years ago when she got big into the dance thing, Big Daddy and I went to her first competition.  Oh sweet Jesus in a leotard.  It was like watching Toddlers and Tiaras and Tramps.   

Big Daddy looked like he was either having an out-of-body experience or going to explode as we watched some of the most godawful dancing you can imagine.  The highlight was when a couple of dads wheeled out a cage.  With a kid inside.  The music starts and she comes roaring out of the cage and her mom is behind us yelling, “WORK IT GIRL!!!!”

At the awards ceremony, Caged Animal Girl won a Sophisticated Gold.  Nicely done pole dance routine.  The sponsors of this dance cluster explained that some of the trophies were damaged in transit and replacement ones would be mailed.  Big Mama with the tats says, “That’s so ghetto.”   And I believe she would know what does and does not qualify as ghetto.

Big Daddy hasn’t sat through an entire competition since so he won’t be accompanying me.  Too bad for him that he’ll miss out on all the fun and what’s sure to be an exciting evening when I go see Andy Williams and Yakov Smirnoff.

I have a white slip-covered sofa.   People always tell me that they’d never have a white sofa, but once a month I throw that baby in the wash and problem solved.  It’s taken a hit from a glass of red wine and blueberry pie and came out just as purty as ever.  I love when it comes out of the wash and is back on.  Clean, white, perfect.  I like it so much that I prefer nobody sit on it.  Seriously.  Could ya not sit on the big white thing in the living room that’s meant to be sat in?  Over the years, I’ve recognized this as obsessive-compulsive behavior.  My dad one time scrubbed the hose because it was dirty, so amongst my people this is called weekend chores.

One day, I said to Big Daddy that this sofa smoothing was making me question my sanity.   Do you think it’s time for me to take the bus to Crazy Town?  Nah, he says, I’m a little kooky with the water thing.  True that, as the youngins say.  Our back yard looks like we’re operating a commercial bucket farm with all the containers to catch water and that’s with a rain barrel.  I have no idea why he collects water.  Or drops his undies by the front door.  Or puts fish in the Cialis tub.

I’m a little concerned for the Big Daddy and he may score high on the Nut Chart, but the cat just walked across the sofa and I’ve got to smooth the paw prints he just put in the thing or I will have some sort of anxiety attack that will require a pill.  Some days nursing my own mental illness leaves me no time to nurse anyone else.

When it’s like this, I don’t have any of my spells.

Big Daddy goes biking every Saturday and Sunday morning in the wee hours with his buddies.  They ride fast.  Big Daddy likes fast.  Makes him feel like he’s not a geezer.  Like he’s got some gas in the tank and some man in the manhood.  When  he comes home, he thumps his chest and says “Did 42 miles today.”  Wow, I say back.  I doubled that at Target.

I rarely hear him leave as I’m still dreaming away about distributing my Lotto win.  When I get up, though, the coffee is made and ready for some sippin’ along with some newspaper reading.  When I went to let the cat in this morning, this was by the front door.

Those would be Big Daddy’s underpants.  Either he was in a hurry to get into his bike gear and out the door or Jesus has called him home.