Pool Days

For at least ten years, I spent nearly every summer afternoon at the community pool with the kids.  It was the cheapest entertainment in town with an annual pass for the entire family a whopping $120.00.  The kids loved to go and while they played shark and Marco Polo, I’d have some desperately needed adult conversation with other moms.

At the time, there was a baby/toddler pool, the main pool, a diving pool and adult pool.  The baby pool sat up higher with steps that went down to the toddler pool.  Wet steps that water constantly ran down.  And what does a toddler like to do more than anything?  Climb steps.  And what happens when a wobbly toddler climbs up and down wet steps?  They smack their face.

For most of those years, I was with one toddler or another on those steps and even if you were mere inches away, if you took your eye off of them for a second, they’d do a face plant onto the concrete stairs.  Some face plants required lifeguard intervention when the screaming wee one was bleeding from a fat lip.

It. Was. A. Design. Cluster. Of. The. Greatest. Magnitude.

A fence separated that pool from the main pool, and I’d look through the chain link with such envy.  One time, I saw a kid go up to his mom who was laying on her chaise lounge smoking a cigarette and she yelled, “WHADDYA WANT????” when he was still ten feet away.  Snack bar, he said, and she threw some dollars his way and told him to leave her alone.

Sigh.

One more summer and I could join those lazy slackers who actually relaxed at the pool and left it up to God and the lifeguards to make sure their kid didn’t drown.

That fall I got pregnant.  It would be four more years before I finally had my Shawshank Redemption.

Anderson

A few years ago, The Big Daddy and I were at a Christmas party and the subject of the news came up.  It was the year of Anna Nicole Smith’s overdose and I wondered if journalism could get any lamer when that was the lead story of so many newscasts.  Then I said, “Even Anderson Cooper, who I happen to love, is spending too much time on that crap.”

An acquaintance of ours said, “Well, that’s because he’s gay.”

Whoa.  Back up.  What did you just say?

The Big Daddy has never been one to walk away or ignore an offensive comment, so he and the offender heatedly went back and forth for a few minutes, neither one willing to back down.  She finally said, “Lighten up, it was a joke.”  He told her it lacked the essentials of a joke – humor.

This week Anderson Cooper did confirm that he is gay, and even though we’ve come a long way, it is a courageous leap of faith to tell the world that you love and share your life with another man.  It is also courageous to go to New Orleans and Mississippi after Katrina, Iraq, Afghanistan, Joplin, Virginia Tech, Ground Zero, Haiti, Indonesia and Japan……………and do the painful job of looking at survivors who have lost everything they value in life and ask them to describe what happened so that the rest of the world can stay informed.

Some people make a living telling humorless jokes about others, but the kind of guy with the guts to go where most of us would dare not venture is another thing.  
In the telling of the stories of our times, does it matter who he goes home to at night?

The Visitor

While Maggie and Nate went on their honeymoon, we were the guardians of Butters…….the Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disordered dog.

Butters has an affinity for underwear, garbage, toilet paper, cat food, and sleeping on my white sofa.  She barked at everything that walked by the front of the house and phantom sounds at 1:00 in the morning.  She harassed the cats, the dog and Mallie Bee.

I walked her twice a day and took her for play dates down the street.  You would think 100+ temps would do her in.  Instead it slowed her down until she got a second wind.

She wore on our nerves and wore us out, but in the end we prevailed.  On the last day of her visit, The Little Shit finally rested.

Tomkat

Soooooo…………….Tom Cruise got kicked to the curb by Katie Holmes.

Wow.  Never saw that one coming.  Said no one ever.

When he yanked that young one off the street and decided she was his fresh, new “love interest”, all I could think of were her parents……..normal, low-key, average people who sent all their kids to Catholic schools.  Along comes Mr. Celebrity married twice before for all of five years each time and a Scientologist to boot.

The conversations those two must have had lying in bed and wondering how to come to terms with their daughter’s new manfriend.  Before long, he was visiting Oprah and jumping up and down on her custom leather sofa declaring his love for this woman nearly twenty years his junior.

Oprah said she could tell this one was someone special.

Go figure.

Through the magic of television and hundreds of miles away in front of my Samsung in Kansas, I thought it all seemed bat-shit crazy. 

Momzilla

In the planning of this wedding, it was my thought that I would be the hit girl for stress so that Maggie wouldn’t feel overwhelmed and worn out by the time the big day came.

As someone who gets anxious when I have to go to a different ATM or gas pump, who was I kidding?

In reality, the coolest girl in the room was always the bride.  I, on the other hand, was freaking out daily.  I was not sleeping or eating very well worrying about the details, and repeatedly asked about the logistics like I had short-term amnesia.  When any of those details got changed, which by the way happens constantly in Weddingville, I got the vapors.

The night before the wedding the kids were chatting and Will mentioned that he was meeting Nate in the morning.  MEETING NATE?  YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE HELPING DAD SET UP!  NO.  ABSOLUTELY NOT.  NO, YOU TELL HIM YOU CAN’T BE THERE.

The Bride said the groomsmen were going to Panera for breakfast.  Panera?  Seriously?  I’ll buy Panera for all of you, but nobody AND I MEAN NOBODY can leave this house.  To which I was told that there are certain responsibilities involved in standing up in a wedding and apparently danish is one of them.

I paced.  I called The Big Daddy into a consult behind closed doors and he agreed with everything I said.  I might have been shrieking.

Later on, Will came in to tell me that Nate wanted the groomsmen to deliver roses to Maggie in the morning, and so they were going to meet at his apartment, get the roses, bring them by the house and then go about the rest of their day.

Oh.

When you act like an idiot, sooner or later you will look like one.

Zzzzzzzzz………………

Every friend I have that has had a son or daughter get married has told me I would be knocked flat when it was over.  They were right.  I’m exhausted, my house is trashed, I’m not sure if I paid all the bills, and today wandered down the street looking for room in my neighbor’s recycling bins as mine runneth over.

This wedding was beyond our expectations.  Maggie and Nathan know how to throw one awesome party.  I will write when I can gather my many, many thoughts.  While our BELOVED hairdresser came to our house to do the girls hair, Nate arranged for the groomsmen to come one by one to deliver roses to his soon-to-be bride.  He’s a keeper.  For sure.

Done And Done

There’s nothing like having a WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE AT YOUR HOUSE to light a fire under you to accomplish something instead of just yakking about it.  For instance……………………..

Ripping the gross carpet off the stairs and painting them.   Cream w/a faux runner up the middle.  The green paint is called Granny Smith.  It is my favorite apple which is why I picked it. 

When those were finished, I came across this turquoise tin ceiling panel for $22.00.  Yep.

I finally got around to repainting the front door.  The red wasn’t doing it any more.  Or ever.

I have had plans for this project for years and it was in Martha Stewart’s magazine this month.  Why does she keep copying me?  I have/or have had friends collect sand for me wherever they’ve been.  This is my collection, bottled and labeled.  Even though there’s no beach in the forecast for us this summer (or for many more years until the last tuition payment is made), I get to look at sand every single day.

The clock is fixed and not near the couch so Turd One and Turd Two can’t get close and bat at the hands with their naughty paws.

Ready or not, here comes a wedding, and Mallie Bee knows what one of her cats is going to wear.