Reflections of a Highbrow Hillbilly

2013-11-22T19:05:00.002-05:00

The picture above of Senator Kennedy was taken on October 16th, 1960 at the airport in Wilmington Delaware. He was campaigning for the election he was just about to win that would make him the 35th President of the United States.

Years before I knew the man in the picture was a Senator, a President, a Father a Husband or that he had been assassinated and certainly before I knew enough about him to decide whether I would have voted for him had I ever been given the chance, I only knew that he was what I considered to be a handsome man that for some reason would occasionally show up on magazines and in newspapers. I asked my mother who he was and she told me. She also told me his story in OUR history and made information readily available so that I might learn more about him on my own. Like so many others, I became completely fascinated with him and all things Kennedy. Not because I agreed or disagreed with his politics(I was far to young for any of this and not even studying Presidents in school) but because his family seemed to be the closest thing to royalty that we Americans had. Charismatic, wealthy and attractive people that seem to have it all are often times people we admire and this family seemed to have it all. I learned about his huge family, his rise into politics and his beautifully young and vibrant wife. I also fell into fascination with her and their children. Over the years I would read anything and everything I could get my hands on about the Kennedy family, their Camelot, their politics and the assassination of the 35th President of the United States. Whether you agree with him, his politics or anything about him really, you should agree that the assassination of a President is a sad thing, a terrible thing and a failure for a country. I remember being devastated at the thought of someone hating a person or their beliefs SO badly that they would be willing to kill them. It just did not add up for me. Maybe I was to young to comprehend but, this is when I first remember realizing that the world in which we lived was not always a wonderful place.

The story behind the picture

I was working for a Chemical company in research and development of Polymers. I was traveling to visit chemical plants to watch the product I made go into scale up. After a long morning in the plant I was to have a meeting with the plant manager. I arrived early and he was not there so I sat and talked with his secretary for what was one of the most interesting conversations of my life. I was walking around her office drinking a cup of chemical plant coffee (left ALOT to be desired) when I began to notice pictures of John Kennedy all over her wall. She had pictures from so many different places and times in his life that it was like I was in a library or inside a book itself. I came to a picture of a girl shaking the hand of Senator Kennedy. She came up behind me and said, "That young girl is me." I knew this was a story I wanted to hear. We sat down at her desk and she pulled a folder out of her bottom drawer and we started to talk. Together we riffled through pictures and newspaper clippings for well over an hour. She looked at me and started telling me that she was the girl in the picture with him because she and several other girls from her class were chosen to present a globe to Senator Kennedy right before he made his speech. She said they presented it to him on behalf of themselves, their school and the State of Delaware. He thanked them and began his speech.

The girls went to their seats and listened to him make his speech. When he was finished he thanked and shook the hands of the necessary people and then walked over to the girls. Her face lit up as she explained the rest. She said, "He walked over to me, bent down and asked me if he could interview me back on the airplane." "I was so shy and could not figure out why he would want to interview me but I was so excited that I do not remember the walk to the airplane." She told me then that once they got to the airplane that Senator Kennedy told his staff, the press core and everyone else that he was going to interview this young lady and that he did not want to be interrupted. They explained to him that if he took the time to speak with her that the remainder of the day would be thrown off and something would have to be moved. He said, be that as it may, I am going to interview this young woman and I do not wish to be interrupted. At this point in her story her eyes began to well up with tears. She said, "He sat me down and asked me if I would like anything to drink." "I told him no thank you." She then said that he asked her questions about herself, her town, her school, what it was like to grow up there and wanted to know all about her family. He asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up and if she had given any thoughts to college. This is when she began to actually cry. She said, "He sat with me for over 30 minutes and we just talked, we were the only ones in the room and I felt like the only person on the planet." "This man, Senator Kennedy that was the husband of Jacqueline Kennedy and a busy father and politician who was running for President. Her voice weak and cracking, she said, "He took his time to interview me, without interruption or concern for anything else and I was not even old enough to vote for him." Now we are both crying. She then told me that he walked her back to where her class and the other girls were waiting, he shook her hand and told her it was a great pleasure to meet her and thanked her for taking time out of her day to speak with him. He thanked the girls again and he turned and headed towards the airplane. She said, "That was the greatest memory of my life and something I will never forget." "It was 1960, I was 13 years old and he was elected President the next month."

Her story continues, "I was in school three years later on November 22nd when he was killed and so many things for me stood still that day and have not yet moved." "Like everyone else I cried." "I cried for what felt like the loss of my moment, the loss of the President that I met before he was President, the loss of a husband, a father and the terrible loss for a country." The next thing she said broke my heart and is something I think of each and every time I vote. She said, "A piece of me stopped being an American that day and as a result of that, I have never voted and I never will." I had tears rolling down my face and I was shaking from how spellbound I was at her story and how shaken she was at telling it 38 years later. For her it was as if it was new and I was so touched by this. I did not agree with her decision not to vote but I respected it. The story finished with her telling me that many people over the years have disagreed with her regarding her decision not to vote. She said, "I have never told anyone other than my husband, my children and now you why I made that decision." She said, "I guess you CAN say that it is not only my right but my civic duty to vote, but there is nothing civic about the assassination of a President and he was my President and I still want no part of any of it."

I asked her why she decided to tell me the story when she barley knew me. She said, "Because when I saw you looking at those pictures I could see the wonder and the fascination in your eyes and in your body language and it reminded me of how I felt." "I thought you would be interested to know and I guess I sort of felt like talking about it." She then reached into the folder and handed me the picture above. "Would you like to have this, it is an actual picture taken from that day?" I was so touched that all I could do was take a deep breath and try to push back tears as I nodded yes. I have this picture in a frame in a small room like a library inside my house. It sits on a shelf with books by passed Presidents, books about Presidents and countless books about The Kennedy family and Jacqueline Kennedy. To date, I still am not sure what kind of President I think he was or would have been but I know he should not have been taken from this earth in the time or the manner in which he was.

“Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.”

2013-10-16T12:04:00.000-04:00

OK bitches, I retired early

I am no longer working

Maybe now....

I can take up twerking?

A needed break in my career

I am a stay at home mom

I can finally sleep late

It is gonna be THA BOMB

Its gonna be G R E A T! I’ll bake cookies

And volunteer in their class

Then a friend reminds me

Other kids are a pain in the ass.

Quickly learning rest is for the wicked

And the righteous don’t need it

my yard needs work….

Maybe I will try to seed it?!?!

So I gave up my job

And fired my maid

I am going to clean, work out and diet

Be a shadow of what I once weighed

Hmmm mmmm free time for me

That ain’t right

It takes more than one mommy

To keep a house tight!

I have never worked harder

Or worked for less dollars

But they tell me it is rewarding

To be raising a couple of scholars.

Who the hell are THEY

Sister wives no doubt

Cause there is no other way

To bust all this shit OUT!

Rewarding it is

So not to be lessened or diminished

But nothing ever seems

To be completed. Done. Finished.

The clock goes off

Let the whining begin

Boom! I am on trial

I feel like Ann Boleyn

They go for the jugular

Fresh out of bed

No visions of sugarplums

Up in THEIR heads!

Turn off the lights NOW mommy

It is just too bright

Who made them vampires

In the middle of the night!

My cereal is soggy

Make me pancakes instead!!

It is only soggy cause you’ve been bitching

Since you crawled out of bed!?!?!

I have nothing to wear

Can you PLEASE wash some clothes???

If I don’t get these czars out of my house

It’s gon come to blows.

It is STILL TOO bright mommy

SWEETIE, I need the light to make lunches

Yea well you SHOULD make them at night

Damn girl child is throwing low punches!

Really? Starting tomorrow

You can make them yourself!

Cause my ass is TIRED

Of playing the lunch elf!

Great start to the day

Hugs and kisses at the door

Can y'all get the hell out please?

I gotta mop the floor!

Why do we bother?

Because once they come back

They whole entire house

Will be a dirt track.

I sit to have coffee

Maybe it will warm my black heart

Damn this morning was awful

Can I get a fresh start?

Speaking of start

I have a date with the laundry

Wash clothes or clean bathrooms

My my, what a quandary!

(what people think we look like)

(what we actually look like)

I feel like Cinderella

But look more like Maxine

There is a pile on the island

Containing 4 new magazines

Who has time to read?

This place is a mess

I go to the pantry

And begin to assess

The damage done there

By the pillage and plunder

Of kids after school

Who roll in like thunder.

When they come home they are starving

And grunt like cavemen

Sigh, I could use a wife like me

Every now and then.

I sit for a second

In my chair that rocks

What is that smell??

Damn, the litter box!

Clean that box of nasty

So it’s fresh for the cat

I can tell you right NOW

Ain’t nobody got time for that!

Off to the store

Then back to pay bills

I am organizing this hizzle

With all my mad skillz!

In a flurry of activity

The school calls, how nice

Stop what you are doing

We have a breakout of LICE!

Oh hell NO…!

We had those last year!!

If everyone THERE has them

Why bring them HERE?!?!?!

Oh yea, damn they are mine

I gotta go pick um up.

still drinking coffee

but now there is scotch in my cup!

Nothing strikes fear

In the heart of a mommy

Like the words HEAD LICE!!!

Seriously, I would prefer a tsunami!

The things you must do now

Make you cry, cuss and frown

I swear it would be easier

To just burn your house down!

Now washing blankets, stuffed animals

Bedding, pillows and hair

I find myself sniveling, catatonic

And babbling the Lords prayer.

My poor kids are clean now

But have been put through the ringer

I think they finally understand

Why mommy is a drinker.

I am tired and hungry

Bedraggled and wet

My knuckles are bleeding

Is this day over yet?

Now chance! onto dinner

Can we please just eat cake?

Seriously?? With all this drama??

Do you think I had time to bake?

This is all in a day

And it doesn’t come close

To being anywhere near over

And it is just one fifth of the dose.

There are five of these suckers

A whole damn week

Being a stay at home mom

Is not for the meek.

This shit is serious

Always something to do

I need to find another job

Before I become a shrew.

The worst of the story

And much to my horror

I have to wake up

And do it again tomorrow.

You will get into your groove

That is what my friends say

What I NEED is a friend

With cigarettes and an ashtray!

I don’t even smoke

But I swear it sounds good

I would smoke one as long as my arm

Right now if I could!

After dinner its bath time

Then books and to bed

Would y’all stop messing around

And just do as I said?

please go to sleep

because tomorrow comes early

Don’t you want mommy happy

Instead of surly?

Some time before dawn

My husband arrives

Says how was your day dear?

Looks like you survived.

I start from the beginning

Imma tell him the whole story

Wait, what is that noise??

Hhmmff that motha fucka is snoring!

I will follow my own damn advice

And just go to sleep

Then in the morning start on the laundry

That is still in a heap.

SAHM for a few days

And my ass is ready to drop

To all stay at home moms…

You got it, props!

The next one to ask “What do y'all do all day,

Meet friends and have lunch”??????

Gets a kick in the nads

And a massive throat punch!

2013-07-11T16:40:00.000-04:00

The shitter is full Clark!

Watching TV late one Sunday night my daughter comes downstairs and into the den. She points to her tummy and says, “mommy my tummy hurts right here!” Figuring it was an attempt to stay up and read I told her to just go get into my bed and when I came to bed I would move her back to her room. Satisfied because sleeping in mommy and daddy’s bed is always a win, she scampered off to my bed. Approximately 30 minutes later I went into the kitchen for some water. I leaned over to the left to look around the refrigerator because I could see into my room and I wanted to check on her without bothering her.

I heard her cough.

Now, as a mommy you KNOW to well the sounds your child makes in the night and you know the distinction between all of them. Enter the part where I kind of wish I could sleep like the daddy sleeps. You know, that kind of sleep where a bomb could go off next to his head and he would never be the wiser? I swear the hate I feel towards my husband because of how hard he sleeps is purely unnatural. I could change the sheets around him and redecorate the entire room with him sleeping and he would have no clue until morning. Not the most comforting of feelings but as his wife this is just one of the crosses I bear. J

So this cough did not sound like a normal cough. It sounding like a holy shit she is holding something down cough. I walked to the bedroom and floundering for the light on the wall while my eyes were also adjusting, I could see that she was sitting up. Right before I found the light she said, mommy I think I am going to, so I moved to the light by the bed and as I touched it she puked, Linda Blair style.

Trying faster to turn the light on she puked again, and again. At this point I only needed to turn the light on so I could see where NOT to walk when I moved her to the bathroom. When I did turn the light on, OH MY DAMN! Poor little thing looked like a human blueberry pie sitting in the middle of my bed! Why is it that every time my house gets sick, the adults have had something with meat sauce and the children have overdosed on blueberries?!?!?!?! This child, my girl child does nothing that is just sufficient, she is the mistress of all she surveys. When she does something it is 110%. Poor thing had thrown up all over herself, the sheets (white sheets) the down comforter (white comforter) and the duvet folded at the foot of the bed. (White with red flowers that now had a bit of a patriotic look to it). She hit the nightstand, the lamp, the side of the bed, the wall beside the bed, my favorite rug on the floor and she had covered me from lip to knees. The look on her face was a cross between motherfuckingsonofabitch and mommy please make it stop! I picked her up and carried her to the bathroom while screaming my husbands name at the top of my lungs. Even though he sleeps like a daddy, when he is awake and I scream like a crazed Indian he hears like a mommy. He came flying in, quickly assessed the situation and started cleaning it up. I was in the bathroom with the girl child reenacting scenes from the Exorcist but with blueberries. Daddy got the bed changed and the room all clean just in time for round 2. Another set of 1000 thread count sheets bites the dust. This is pretty much how the rest of the night went. We washed load upon load of bedding, sheets and towels. She was sick a few times the next day but seemed to have the worst of it out of her and rested somewhat peacefully. I as the nurse maid and mommy did not sleep AT ALL. Also as a mommy I would not have it any other way for reasons all mommies know without explanation. The next morning my husband came in, looked at me and asked the words equivalent to him taking the bullet for the day. I told him no, go to work I got this and it will all pass soon. The look that went between us next was one much like the scene in Indiana Jones when the bridge was about to be cut down and the kid said, “hold on lady, we goin for a ride!!!” The feeling we both had was like being at the top of a roller coaster you were scared shitless to get on anyway and knowing you were about to plunge down the drop and there was nothing you could do to reverse it. You had to just ride it out. See, in our family the girl child is the bulletproof one. We can all be sick with the plague of biblical proportions, locusts and frogs flying about and ALL and she will breeze through unscathed and never suffer the first symptom. We can be puking our heads off and she is just eyeballing us with disdain, pondering the joys of living with another family, one that actually has good intestinal fortitude. Her being the first one to go down is a game changer. It means the rest of us are screwed and it is just a matter of time! Yep we were officially in the eye of the hurricane.

The Calm

Before

The Storm

Monday was hell. Tuesday was better with some symptoms (but no real sleep yet for the mommy) and the girl decided she felt well enough to go to school on Wednesday. We all woke up Wednesday morning and were easing through the morning rituals as normal. Just then the boy comes up to me and says, “mommy my tummy hurts right here.” My husband looked at me but this time offered no bullet taking words. I almost started to cry out of shear exhaustion! I quickly put him in my bed and started preparing the house for the next onslaught of pukefest 2013! I knew I had about a half an hour before all hell broke loose. The range of emotion was off the charts. I was tired, happy the girl felt better, irritated that having a uterus meant I had to be the one to take care of all this, worried about the boy getting sick, wondering when it was going to hit me, feverishly making sure all the sheets and towels were clean because God knows I was going to need them and checking the pantry for supplies that would ultimately not matter anyway because none of them stayed down!

5 minutes before 8am, my husband left for work and at 2 minutes after 8am the boy started puking. It was much the same as his sister did for about 3 hours and then HE raised the bar. Sweet Mary Mother of God he raised the bar and I helped. I changed the first set of sheets and settled in beside him. I was tired and feeling weak from lack of sleep and he seemed like he may have a break in the action so maybe we could both rest. WRONG. He sat up in the bed and in a tired and sickly voice said, MOMMYYY it is coming and I don’t think I am going to be able to trust my farts anymore.” I was SO shocked that this, coming from a 7 year old did not even make me giggle. I got up, scooped him up and headed for the bathroom. Half way there he started exploding and I mean EXPLODING from both ends of his body. He threw up and it looked like a fountain…tasted like stomach acid (for any who were wondering if it hit me in the face) and what came out of the business end of this kid was thick, hot and smelled like major sickness and was all over him and running down my arms and legs. I mean that shit did not even smell normal. What could be IN this beautiful child causing THAT??? The rest of what happened that day was none other than epic!

Holding a child in my arms spewing nastiness out of both ends of his body and quickly trying to make it to the bathroom to clean both of us up, I slip up in the slimy mess and fall with him. Not a good moment as a mommy let me tell you. I finally get there and sit down on the edge of the tub with him in my arms. I lean over to turn on the water so I can clean him/us up and when I do…. NO WATER!!! It spits and sputters like a smoker with bronchitis and then there was dead silence. Screaming, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FRICKIN KIDDING ME???? I set him down on the toilet. He poops and throws up all over himself (and the bathroom) while I try to figure out what is wrong. I know my bills are paid so let me go call the water company and figure out what the hell is going on. I do so and am immediately given the particulars of a water main break in my area with a 6-hour window of when it will be fixed!! OMG you are kidding me. Feeling flush I sit on the edge of the bed and as I am looking around the war zone I realize…oh holy hell, mommies tummy doesn’t feel so good right hererererererere! I make a mad dash to the bathroom and proceed to destroy the tub because the boy is still sitting on the toilet!

LAVA!!!

Yep you guessed it! It is coming out of both ends now and the only way I can accommodate this level of hell is by getting into the tub! The pain was unbelievable and I was pretty sure my ass was on fire!!! I look over at my son still sitting on the toilet with his head in his hands, now I start to laugh, HARD! Through tears he asks me what I am laughing about because clearly this shit is no laughing matter. I tell him that sometimes the kind of luck we have just makes me laugh and that no one is going to believe this is actually happening to us. He, 7 years old, through tears, shitting and puking his little brains out says, well knock it off MOMMY because it IS happening and it IS NOT funny. I agree and continue on with the episodes until there is a break in which I can get up and get some towels. I flush the toilet but have nothing to clean him up with. What the HELL am I going to do??? I start smuggling towels out of the closet like a Colombian drug lord! I grab a towel and run upstairs to the other bathroom. I was going to put the towel into the tank of the toilet and suck up as much of that water as I could. Nice try home fly because all the jostling around made me sick and I destroyed that toilet twice and used up all the water in the tank to get rid of it!

When I was able to move I crawled downstairs to remove my son from the toilet. I wiped him down as best I could and placed him in bed and laid down beside him for a little bit. My sweet mom was texting because she was worried and felt terrible that she was in another city while I was home dealing with this. She got sick of texting so she called. When she heard my voice she began to cry and said, oh honey please throw that baby in the car and come here so I can help you. I did not even have the energy to lift my head and she was asking me to move him, clean us up with no water and drive for 1 hour and 45 minutes?!?!?!? The only thing I could muster to say that would let her know how dire the situation was that I was in was, “Mother, how do you want me to drive...FOR GOD SAKE, WE ARE NOT WEARING PANTS!!!!!!” She quietly said, “oh” and that pretty much summed it up!! We spent the next hour racing each other to the bathroom turned Turkish prison. Think escape tunnel used by Andy Dufresne in The shawshank Redemption! When you crash landed into this bathroom IF all you had to do was shit, the appearance and the shear volume of puke and excrement combined with the smell would drive you to puking! Turrible just turrible!! Let me just tell you that the competitive edge I developed due to having to race my son to the shitter for part of an afternoon and losing to him still haunts me today. But worse, what also haunts me is that the images he saw what he considers to be his perfect mother doing that day, will cause him to need extensive therapy at some point in his life when the flashbacks arrive!

This bullshit continued for a couple of hours and in the process I threw away no less than 15 towels, 3 sets of sheets and boiled down the only two bags of ice I had just to have enough water to clean up self and child (and that clean up job would win me a visit from social services for sure). At this point we were lying on beach towels draped over plastic mattress covers. No energy, keeping nothing in and every toilet in the house was full and gross, every trash can was full and I was saving 5 towels just in case we got sick again or so we would have something to clean up with if the fucking water ever came back on. I am not kidding at all when I say that the sick bay section of my house would have given a Turkish prison a run for its money.

At exactly 4pm I went into the bathroom and prayed as I turned on the faucet. The water came on it actually came on!!! I cleaned the tub and then scooped up my son and took a shower with him so that we could both be clean..Best shower EVER!!! After putting him back to bed, it took me 30 minutes to clean the bathroom from top to bottom. It took me equally as long to clean the bedroom and in an additional 15 minutes we had clean sheets. I am pretty sure that I ruined all my taste buds and the possibility to ever smell properly because I used two bottles of Clorox. I think I also rid myself of fingerprints but who the hell cares, at least the house smelled like something other than shit and puke. I crawled back into bed with my son and fell immediately to sleep. We were so sick and there was so much going on that I didn’t even think to call my husband for help for several hours. When I did think of calling for help I decided against it because I knew if I called him he would rush home and that would put him at risk of getting sick also and dammit I needed him to take care of me tonight. He also runs the risk of infecting a ton of people that also have kids given his job..so I left him alone. No sleep since Sunday night at 11:30, no food or drink and I was worn OUT. I did not need another wounded soldier on my hands. Not to mention that I DID NOT want him to see what the house looked like because Jesus Mary and Joseph it was something I have never seen in a movie!

He got home shortly after 6pm and brought us a coke then kissed me on the forehead, closed the door and left us alone. I had posted a bit onto Facebook in the beginning of this debacle but then had only communicated with my mother via text and phone. He read Facebook and then called my mother who filled him in of all the happenings. He came in and with tears in his eyes said, “OH MY GOD, I had no idea what you were going through…why didn’t you call me honey I could have at least brought you some damn water????” I leaned up and looked at him and whispered, “I needed you well and wanted to spare you the disgusting way this house looked…trust me if you don't get this, you will thank me.” He shook his head and left the room.

We woke up the next morning with high fevers and stayed in bed all day and night. By Friday we were able to eat toast and realized that not only would we live, we actually wanted to. My daughter was well, my husband never got sick and my son and I still shiver and shake when we talk about that day.

So now when my friends talk tongue in cheek about winning the mommy of the year award I just think to myself, look bitches here is what it takes to win that prestigious award. Puke on yourself, puke on your sons head, puke in the tub, shit in the tub, shit in the bed. Shit in the floor getting out of bed on the way to the tub. Race your son to the bathroom because neither of you can trust a fart, shit in the floor, slip and fall in the shit and still lose to your 7 year old son. Wipe your face with the same towel you have wiped your ass with. Do the same to your son. Crawl on your hands and knees cleaning up after your son who not only has watched YOU his mother do all the things listed above but done them himself and with more grace than YOU his mother did. Live without water for 5 hours during the stomach virus of all viruses. When you can say you have done all this then you can say you have won the mommy of the year award. Until then, quit fucking whining cause I shored that sucker up in one week!

2012-12-19T01:27:00.001-05:00

Not your typical post. Those are likely to continue when my heart heals.

For now, I found some solace in this but only after many tears.

I feel the pain

but can only imagine the sorrow

in knowing for 20 1st grade moms

there will be no tomorrow.

No more good night kisses

no more drinking in their smell

no more "can't I stay up later mommy?"

"Don't you have one more story you can tell?"

One place at the table

that will never be filled

by a sleepy eyed child

who was senselessly killed.

A future snuffed out

like a candles bright glow

no more birthdays or laughter

no more years to grow.

The pain weighs hard

in the center of my chest

yet I am so far removed

a bystander at best.

Still I am connected

by the bond of a mother

it is a blessing that compares

with simply none other.

You can't understand

until you have your own

how they change life forever

the moment you bring them home.

We are charged to protect them

and we do at all cost

then with the blink of an eye

a precious angel is lost.

So senseless and evil

I cannot comprehend

What made this person

bring these lives to an end.

I imagine their parents

pacing and wringing their hands

distraught over losses

of their babies, their plans.

A tree full of presents

never to be received

no visit from Santa

for a child who believed.

Brothers and sisters who miss them

and wonder WHY?

It is Christmas but Mommy and Daddy

can only cry.

Are there messes of toys

they didn't have time to clean up?

a half eaten breakfast

milk standing in a cup?

I think of my normal

and then start to cry

their normal forever changed

with the last kiss goodbye.

I run to my children

and squeeze them while they sleep

as I stare at their faces

pain, fear and guilt begin to creep.

Creep into my mind

until I start to sob

I am so frightened I can literally

feel my heart throb.

I can't lose these babies

please don't take mine away

I promise I will change

I will do it today.

I will be the best mother

I promise, you will see

just please don't take

my sweet children from me.

I drop to my knees

with my thoughts running wild

I pray to my Lord

and give thanks for this child.

Thank you God it is them

Thank you God it is not me

Thank you for sparing my babies

from this horrible tragedy.

But now comes the guilt

because what I see instead

are sweet peaceful darlings

sound asleep in their bed.

My heart breaks again

and down flow the tears

for the lives that were lost

after only a few precious years.

I can't understand

God I need your assistance

How could you let this happen

with such passive resistance?

Please help me make sense

How is this your plan?

I beg you for a message

God as soon as you can.

Then in the quiet of the night

through the empathy and fear

A message comes through to me

loud and clear.

It says we must stop

all the violence and hate

and love one another

before it is to late.

It says united we stand

but divided we fall

so come to the father through me

Come one and come all!

Stop living your days

as if you have millions more

and on Sunday take time

and walk through my door.

Talk to me, live with me

come daily in prayer

I promise my child

when its darkest I am there.

Be good to each other

and as a parent just be your best

I know life is hard

but believe me, I'll handle the rest.

Those children that were lost

from your world are with me

they are not feeling pain

they are peaceful and happy.

When you look at your children

please feel my love

for they are a gift from your heavenly

father above.

See, your children are my angels

gifted from my stash and on loan

your job is to cherish and love them

until I call them home.

2012-04-24T09:00:00.001-04:00

Today is the day I have chosen to pay bills. I guess I should have learned by now to do this after my third drink of some substance a bit stronger than coffee. Preferably something for which you get carded or have to go to AA about.

I noticed a bill that was sent to me in the form of a credit. Don't worry, I asked myself the same question, "If it is a credit then is it really a bill and why am I getting this?" Apparently I have paid to much and they want to let me know but do not want to send me my money...they just want to mail me correspondence telling me that I don't owe them. Did they think I wouldn't notice? Did they think I would not want MY money? Really, in this busted ass economy how many people overpay their doctor bills (my dumb ass fault but will explain that in a minute) and then just say screw it I don't need the money and never call to claim it?

Ok, so I got the bill, thought I had already paid it, called about it but the billing office was closed. Knowing that I am busy and may miss the bill for a few days to weeks AND knowing that a doctor will send you to the credit bureau for a late payment before you even have your children strapped into their car seats after your appointment, I went ahead and paid it. Also figuring I would get a check back if my account showed a credit. Aren't most billing programs and systems set up to kick those things back to someone? Seems to me that it would have made more monetary sense to just mail me a check and be done with it. Instead they wasted the paper and the postage only to have to turn around and do it again when I ask for a check. Whatever, here is the conversation I had today with a billing clerk. Might I also mention that I was caller number 39 in the cue so.. I had the opportunity to run/walk for 3 miles through my neighborhood WHILE ON HOLD before I made it to caller numero uno!!!!

Clerk: Thank you for holding, how can I help you?

Me: I need to get a check mailed to me for an over payment on my daughters account please.

Clerk: Ok, what is the name on the account.

Me: My daughter's name is the name on the account.

Clerk: Ok. Can I have that please? so I give her my daughters name.

Clerk: Mam I need YOUR name.

Me: Ok but you said..um....never mind... so I give her my name.

Then I sit for a minute while she looks for me in the system...think she will find me? NO Ready? Here it comes....

Clerk: Mam I am sorry I am not finding you in our system.

Me: I know, my daughter is the patient.

Clerk: But I need your name for look up. sooooo I gave it to her again

Clerk: I am not finding your name.

Me: And you won't because it has been 30 years since I have personally seen a pediatrician. I told you in the beginning of the call that my daughter's name is on the account. You asked for my name for "look up purposes" or I don't know...because I am her MOTHER so I gave it to you.

****uncomfortable pause****

Clerk: What is your daughter's name.

so I give it to her AGAIN

BIG SIGH from the mommy!

Clerk: Mam I am going to need to speak with her.

Me: Who, my daughter?

Clerk: Yes mam.

Me: Well that is not going to happen, she is FIVE

Clerk: I can't talk to you about an account that is in someone Else's name.

Me: I told you in the beginning that IT WAS IN MY DAUGHTER'S NAME. Why didn't you stop me then? Is this fun for you???

Clerk: Mam I cannot talk to you about a bill that is in someone Else's name.

Me: Well good because this isn't a bill, you actually owe me. I WANT A CHECK FOR THE CREDIT ON MY DAUGHTER'S ACCOUNT...please

Clerk: OH its a credit, hold on let me change screens.

Me: ......ooooook????

Clerk: What is your name again mam.

SO I GIVE IT TO HER AGAIN....by now even I would have written it down! But whatever...

Clerk: I am sorry I can't find you in our system.

Me: Are you serious????

Clerk: Yes

Me: Oh my god am I in some parallel universe or being punked??? you all are recording these calls for quality assurance right? Well this is one for the books! I am going to hold on for a minute while you go back and listen to this call and then come back and admit that you don't know what you are doing!!! I want a credit for overpaying on my daughters account!!!

Clerk: Mam I will need to speak to your daughter.

Me: Well....when I pick her up from KINDERGARTEN today... I will see if she can speak with you..but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were YOU. Can I please speak with yo

Clerk: OH She a minor!?!? tsk..You didn't tell me that!

Me: Yes I did I just used the word daughter instead of minor not thinking I would trip you up! Are you not a pediatricians office?

Clerk: Tsk..Yes mam we are

Me: Then I can't be the first person who has called about their CHILD and don't pediatricians usually see minors? Do you know many minors that pay their own bills and call Doctor offices and ask for credits on bills they have overpaid????

Clerk: No mam, can you please give me your daughter's name again and I will get this taken care of?

Me: NO, Give me your supervisor please, you cannot help me because you are an idiot who should not be answering the phone!!!

Supervisor must have been listening somehow....because when she came to the phone...she magically knew my( and my daughter the minors) name!!!! Is overnighting me a check too, can you imagine that?

Yes this really happened to ME...so don't ask.

over paying a bill= $84.37

Having a daughter that is a minor= REALLY expensive! Got a son that is a minor too.

Getting a customer service agent that is a dill weed who works for a doctor I don't like anyway= cost me more time than money.

Driving my kids back to our home town to see our doctor's from now on= The opportunity cost of avoiding all the crap listed above!

2012-02-28T15:45:00.000-05:00

Some of my favorite little nuggets to live by are:

1. Know who you are.
2. Swagger is for boys, class is for men.
3. Ladies do not chew gum.
4. Savor it, today they are 5. Blink and they are 25

These three things will be found in the very LONG post below. At this point I have no idea what order they will fall into or if I will even be able to bring my point home but if I worried about that I would not be able to write. That would just take the fun out of it and give all the grammar and edit Nazi’s nothing to bitch about. See below.

The divides that tie us.

The one thing we are divided in that can sometimes cause a storm of tears, screaming, popping of blood vessels or at the very least, dissension in the ranks is a really bad one but it is also one that garners major props. Far WORSE than anything listed above! Our humble abode has two people who are NOT morning people (husband and boy child) and two “others” (girl child and mommy)! I knew from the early stages of dating the man I married that this could very well be the one difference that could break us up if he didn’t climb on board. His mother, god rest her soul was not a morning person either so turns out he already had a well oiled play book. As a matter of fact, no one in my life has ever been able to handle it but this man! GOD I love him!!! The husband and the boy child are morning people tis true and they wake up happy on even 15 minutes of sleep. We often look at them as if they are from another planet. What in the hell can anyone have to be SO happy about at 7am??? The girl child and the mother are just not of that persuasion. We wake up surly and just plain ugly no matter how much sleep we have had. We don’t like ourselves and no one even looks at us in the morning for fear that we bite! The formula for dealing with us is SO simple that it is funny. IGNORE US unless we speak directly to you and if we do, it would behoove you to answer us!!!!! It is simply perplexing to me how only two people in this world have figured it out without bloodshed and they are the 45 year old and the 5 year old that live with us. There have actually been people who have broken themselves against me like twigs by trying to change it. They have suffered greatly for their sins. If left alone it goes away on its own in a couple of hours but if poked at it is either like a sleeping bear or a pit viper, you choose your punishment. I make no excuses for it other than it is what it is and it has been in place for 44 years so deal with it or stay the hell away. I don’t jump into anyone’s shit unless provoked so I make no apologies for it either. I am however, using a bit of a softer approach with my daughter but I am not trying to change her, just help her accept who she is and embrace it without cutting teeth on anyone. Lord Jesus that is a delicate balance. Sometimes she wonders and will ask me why she feels so much different in the morning than she does the rest of the day. Amazed that she is only 5 years old and can verbalize that she feels different and try to understand it I answer her like this. Because my darling girl you are smart, fabulous and so loaded with awesome and you rise to meet the world on your terms. You are busy and you are strong and you will accomplish great things today so it takes you longer to be ready for all that fabulousness (myok but don’t try to hurt anyone because of it. Cut other people a little bit more slack you need people to cut you and always be fair because we all have feelings. Kind of heavy for a kindergartner but she gets it. Sometimes she still has rough mornings and in the true fashion of an anti morning person will occasionally opt to snack on one of us for breakfast but she always apologizes, says I love you and KNOWS we love her too. I just can’t ask for more than that!

Dress for happiness but please JUST GET DRESSED!!

One of the major things that mom’s battle with in the mornings is dressing the kiddo’s for school. Sometimes I find myself cowering in a corner with a cup of hot, black coffee screeching...dammit will you guys zip your pie holes and just get dressed. I don't care what you wear just get dressed!!!! When you are dealing with surly people in the morning it is just plain best to go with a combination of not giving a shit and picking out clothes at night. If you can do this, it can make the morning go much more smoothly and help everyone leave the house with dignity and tears intact. We pick out the clothes for my daughter at night. She and I do this together but it is still a crap shoot as to what she will come downstairs dressed in! More on that later….. My children are very different on their dress styles. My son is the quintessential prep. My daughter believes if it matches I don’t want anything to do with it! The only thing I have to say to my son in the morning with regard to dressing is, “Son go pick out your clothes and get dressed.” He smiles, hugs and kisses me, tells me I am beautiful and goes to get dressed.

and he happens to be my son!

He emerges from his bedroom soaked in little boy charm but worldly husband and father material. My sweet son is so happy and so in love with being alive, he makes me almost want to be a morning person. He is the only person that I am drawn to in the morning. I want to smell him, touch him and be as close to him as possible so that some of his out of this world aura will rub off on me. I am like a moth to a flame with this child. He is the epitome of swagger is for boys and class is for men. He just gets it! He professes that pictures and words do not belong on clothes. He wears only kahki’s, jeans, white t-shirts and polo style shirts. Sear sucker in the summer, stripes, plaids and solid colors only. He lives in flip flops but refuses to go near sandal's. They are not for boys either. I feel this way too but he came up with all this on his own. He knows how he wants to look and he says that he likes to dress like his daddy. He will be far more expensive to dress than his sister. He once received a spider man muscle t-shirt for his birthday.

Why in the name of all things fashion???

He was three years old. Thank the lord we opted that year to open gifts from the birthday party after the guests had gone home. He pulled this t-shirt out of the bag, held it between his fingers like it was on fire. Looked at it, and ran to the trash can with it. Enter the teachable moment. I walked with him to the trash can and got it out. He said, “Mommy I AM NOT wearing that!” I told him I understood but that just because he didn’t want it didn’t mean it had no worth. I explained to him (while starring wide eyed at me) that good will was the place for things that we no longer wanted and that although he did not want it, someone else would love to have it. He found this hard to believe but walked it to the good will bag and brushed his hands back and forth together like he was brushing off dirt. I giggled but knew he was serious. I said a quiet prayer of thanks that I would never have to put my son in a shirt with a dinosaur on it that said ROOOOAAAAARRRR! I also said a silent goodbye to my extra cash because boy clothes are so much more expensive!!! Just to make sure I am not raising a snob…or another highbrow hillbilly, I asked him recently what he thinks about boys who wear the kinds of clothes that he doesn’t like. He responded with, “I don’t care what other people wear, everyone is different and likes different things” “I wear what I like and what looks good on me mommy and that is all that matters right?” I swallowed heavily, pushed back tears answered him with yes buddy you are right and thanked God for giving my son such a solid sweet and moral compass.

The force that is the girl child.

She has the best of me and the worst of me but she handles with grit and grace. Unlike me, she cares what other people think of her clothing choices but like me, she moves to the beat of the music in her own head and sometimes that music is so loud it drowns out everyone else. She is a force. I usually drop them off at school in my pajamas because the carpool line is forgiving but last night in her sleep she whispered, “Mommy will you walk us in tomorrow?” So this morning, I had to get dressed. I looked at myself in the car and thought DAYUM! Oh well, not much I can do about it now. Just then my son says from the backseat, “Mommy you look beautiful and you smell so good too.” Hell to the yeah, love that child. We pull into a parking place and start walking to the building. Oh yeah, my outfit if you will, Uggs (the really old and smelly ones) leggings, a RED Foo Fighters t-shirt, a hoodie, hair in a pony tail and dark sunglasses! I look like the friggin Unabomber! One mom looks at me like, holly shit, have you had your sprinkle today! Remember that jingle from the 70’s? Shower to shower each day helps keep odor away….have you had your sprinkle today? I look like I smell even though I don’t.

You are welcome for making you sing this tune in your head all day.

Anyway, this mom always looks fabulous. She is a pharmaceutical sales rep and sports 4 inch heels every day. Little does she know that back in the day I too would sport 4 inch heels but it would have been with this Foo Fighters t-shirt on and NOT at 8:14am…and screw her..cause I like the way I look even though I make fun of myself! We walk on. Inside one of the teachers says, “Great t-shirt!” Hahaha, my point is, some girls do and some girls don’t so by all means fly your own flag! Just as I am kissing my daughter goodbye at her door she notices that I am committing a cardinal sin and calls me on it by whispering in my ear, “Ladies don’t chew gum.” And snarl’s her lip at me. It is early and most bets are off so I respond, “I know sweetie but right now, I am no lady.” She looks up as if to say, fair enough and runs off to command her day. I only tell her that ladies don’t chew gum because, well it is true and because I know her! She doesn’t just do things, she DOES them all them all the way. She is the reason “how to” books are written. Now I know gum comes out of things but hair is another story and if I let her chew gum I would have to shave her bald because she sleeps all over and would sneak gum to bed. So it is easier to tell her that ladies don’t chew gum. Even if she uses it on me in school or in Target on a really redneck woman who is chewing and snapping gum like it is her JOB!

Today when she went to school she matched for some reason, so I am guessing that she was a bit off kilter in such a way that will bite me in the ass when I pick her up. I learned the hard way not to fight her on her clothes by doing things this way. Pick out clothes at night and let her dress any way she wants. Now there are limits to this. Before I figured it out, we would battle in the morning like enemies over clothing and one day it hit me. WHY fight like this and isn’t making her wear what I want her to wear not allowing her to express herself? I don’t want to break that little fabulous spirit or make her not feel her own sense of dignity so I stopped. I think this is a great way to start her on the ability to make her own decisions because right now, this is one of the most important decisions of her day (in her mind) so why NOT let her command it? During the week, she can wear anything she wants. At night and on the weekends I do still dent her spirit just a hair. She must match and wear one out of two of the outfits I choose. This has proven to be a wonderful compromise. I must admit though, even though I pick out the clothes for parties, church etc. She looks so much better in the Uggs, the Christmas tights (in February) the pink and silver tutu and the sweater with the cupcake on it. She flops downstairs, twirls and says, “How do I look?” Rhetorical question of course because she already knows the answer! You know, somehow it works. It looks better on her than any smocked dress or high fashion, expensive catalog item ever could because it is her, totally her. Because she is loaded UP with fabulous and sweet and piss and vinegar and her own little fashion sense and it is as it should be! Everyone is dressed and we are off like a herd of angry turtles.

I look in the rear view mirror while driving and I am so sad to lose these little people for the day. I find myself jealous of their friends and teachers because they get all that awesome for 7 hours. What I see when I look in that rear view mirror is an explosion of color on the left, looking out the window. Penny for her thoughts I think, just as she looks up at me with her long blond hair and her big blueberry eyes and says,” I love you mommy” Then I look to the right at my perfectly matched little man, sitting with one leg crossed over the other like he is reading the Wall Street Journal. He feels my eyes on him so he looks up with his chocolate brown eyes and fluttering eye lashes and says, “I am going to miss you today mommy.” I say, “me too little man but you guys have to conquer the world today so have so much fun doing it”! He asks me what that means. Before I can answer, his sister does. “I don’t know what that word meant but she means we have a lot to do at school today and she wants us to have fun.” They look at each other and shrug their shoulders. Nothing else is said until we get to school.

Walking back to the car after I drop them off I am glad I walked them in instead of dropping them off. The extra 20 minutes it took out of my morning made the next 7 hours of their day. I am soaking in and savoring every moment because they go so fast. One minute they are 5 and you are wishing they were self sustaining so can have your life. Blink and they are 25 and you wish they wanted you around more. I am dreading getting home to the quiet that I have so longed for but I realize that I am so blessed to have it both ways. I can roll my eyes and beg for quiet alone time and still wish it was tempered with the noise and chaos of one morning person and one that is not without being a walking contradiction. I am a mommy and I am 100% in love with my job.

2012-02-28T13:36:00.001-05:00

The divides that tie us.

Dress for happiness but please JUST GET DRESSED!!

One of the major things that mom’s battle with in the mornings is dressing the kiddo’s for school. Sometimes I find myself cowering in a corner with a cup of hot, black coffee screeching...dammit will you guys zip your pie wholes and just get dressed. I don't care what you wear just get dressed!!!! When you are dealing with surly people in the morning it is just plain best to go with a combination of not giving a shit and picking out clothes at night. If you can do this, it can make the morning go much more smoothly and help everyone leave the house with dignity and tears intact. We pick out the clothes for my daughter at night. She and I do this together but it is still a crap shoot as to what she will come downstairs dressed in! More on that later….. My children are very different on their dress styles. My son is the quintessential prep. My daughter believes if it matches I don’t want anything to do with it! The only thing I have to say to my son in the morning with regard to dressing is, “Son go pick out your clothes and get dressed.” He smiles, hugs and kisses me, tells me I am beautiful and goes to get dressed.

and he happens to be my son!

Why in the name of all things fashion???

The force that is the girl child.

You are welcome for making you sing this tune in your head all day.

2012-02-28T13:34:00.000-05:00

The divides that tie us.

Dress for happiness but please JUST GET DRESSED!!

One of the major things that mom’s battle with in the mornings is dressing the kiddo’s for school. Sometimes I find myself cowering in a corner with a cup of hot, black coffee screeching...dammit will you guys zip your pie wholes and just get dressed. I don't care what you wear just get dressed!!!! When you are dealing with surly people in the morning it is just plain best to go with a combination of not giving a shit and picking out clothes at night. If you can do this, it can make the morning go much more smoothly and help everyone leave the house with dignity and tears intact. We pick out the clothes for my daughter at night. She and I do this together but it is still a crap shoot as to what she will come downstairs dressed in! More on that later….. My children are very different on their dress styles. My son is the quintessential prep. My daughter believes if it matches I don’t want anything to do with it! The only thing I have to say to my son in the morning with regard to dressing is, “Son go pick out your clothes and get dressed.” He smiles, hugs and kisses me, tells me I am beautiful and goes to get dressed.

and he happens to be my son!

Why in the name of all things fashion???

The force that is the girl child.

You are welcome for making you sing this tune in your head all day.

Anyway, this mom always looks fabulous. She is a pharmaceutical sales rep and sports 4 inch heels every day. Little does she know that back in the day I too would sport 4 inch heels but it would have been with this Foo Fighters t-shirt on and NOT at 8:14am…and screw her..cause I like the way I look even though I make fun of myself! We walk on. Inside one of the teachers says, “Great t-shirt!” Hahaha, my point is, some girls do and some girls don’t so by all means fly your own flag! Just as I am kissing my daughter goodbye at her door she notices that I am committing a cardinal sin and calls me on it by whispering in my ear, “Ladies don’t chew gum.” And snarl’s her lip at me. It is early and most bets are off so I respond, “I know sweetie but right now, I am no lady.” She looks up as if to say, fair enough and runs off to command her day. I only tell her that ladies don’t chew gum because, well it is true and because I know her! She doesn’t just do things, she DOES them all them all the way. She is the reason “how to” books are written. Now I know gum comes out of things but hair is another story and if I let her chew gum I would have to shave her bald because she sleeps all over and would sneak gum to bed. So it is easier to tell her that ladies don’t chew gum. Even if she uses it on me in school or in Target on a really redneck woman who is chewing and snapping gum like it is her JOB! Today when she went to school she matched for some reason, so I am guessing that she was a bit off kilter in such a way that will bite me in the ass when I pick her up. I learned the hard way not to fight her on her clothes by doing things this way. Pick out clothes at night and let her dress any way she wants. Now there are limits to this. Before I figured it out, we would battle in the morning like enemies over clothing and one day it hit me. WHY fight like this and isn’t making her wear what I want her to wear not allowing her to express herself? I don’t want to break that little fabulous spirit or make her not feel her own sense of dignity so I stopped. I think this is a great way to start her on the ability to make her own decisions because right now, this is one of the most important decisions of her day (in her mind) so why NOT let her command it? During the week, she can wear anything she wants. At night and on the weekends I do still dent her spirit just a hair. She must match and wear one out of two of the outfits I choose. This has proven to be a wonderful compromise. I must admit though, even though I pick out the clothes for parties, church etc. She looks so much better in the Uggs, the Christmas tights (in February) the pink and silver tutu and the sweater with the cupcake on it. She flops downstairs, twirls and says, “How do I look?” Rhetorical question of course because she already knows the answer! You know, somehow it works. It looks better on her than any smocked dress or high fashion, expensive catalog item ever could because it is her, totally her. Because she is loaded UP with fabulous and sweet and piss and vinegar and her own little fashion sense and it is as it should be! Everyone is dressed and we are off like a herd of angry turtles.

2012-02-28T13:28:00.000-05:00

The divides that tie us.

Our house is a house divided. We are divided with regard to sports teams, politics and religious denominations (denominations, NOT beliefs, God is King up in this shizzle). I am sure THAT statement just made most everyone reading this swallow hard because in the south, damn these are some major division (AND it is almost March Madness…OMG… I still don’t understand….Boston College in the ACC..really? Jesse Helms flipped in his grave again but I digress)! I am also sure my southern friends (who don’t already know) are thinking State? Carolina?, just please Lord not Duke! Which one is Baptist? And which one is the Republican??? Probably the same one that is Baptist, duh! We don’t argue about these things because there is no point, we know who we are and we believe what we believe. We also respect each other for these divisions and don’t feel the need to change one another, this a good marriage makes. This doesn’t mean that we are short on heated, meaty discussions but we just know how far to take them ,which is just shy of the couch or guest bedroom. We are NOT, however divided on the really important things like sweet tea, salty, buttery grits, fried chicken in grandmother’s cast iron skillet, thank you notes, everything tastes better with bacon, Dukes mayonnaise only, there is a place for everything and everything has its place, flush and wash, pay all your bills first, chunk some into savings, THEN live on the rest. If you have these as house rules…you can run just about any house in the south smoothly, maybe anywhere else in the world also but that just doesn’t concern a southerner.

The one thing we are divided in that can sometimes cause a storm of tears, screaming, popping of blood vessels or at the very least, dissension in the ranks is a really bad one but it is also one that garners major props. Far WORSE than anything listed above! Our humble abode has two people who are NOT morning people (husband and boy child) and two “others” (girl child and mommy)! I knew from the early stages of dating the man I married that this could very well be the one difference that could break us up if he didn’t climb on board. His mother, god rest her soul was not a morning person either so turns out he already had a well oiled play book. As a matter of fact, no one in my life has ever been able to handle it but this man! GOD I love him!!! The husband and the boy child are morning people tis true and they wake up happy on even 15 minutes of sleep. We often look at them as if they are from another planet. What in the hell can anyone have to be SO happy about at 7am??? The girl child and the mother are just not of that persuasion. We wake up surly and just plain ugly no matter how much sleep we have had. We don’t like ourselves and no one even looks at us in the morning for fear that we bite! The formula for dealing with us is SO simple that it is funny. IGNORE US unless we speak directly to you and if we do, it would behoove you to answer us!!!!! It is simply perplexing to me how only two people in this world have figured it out without bloodshed and they are the 45 year old and the 5 year old that live with us. There have actually been people who have broken themselves against me like twigs by trying to change it. They have suffered greatly for their sins. If left alone it goes away on its own in a couple of hours but if poked at it is either like a sleeping bear or a pit viper, you choose your punishment. I make no excuses for it other than it is what it is and it has been in place for 44 years so deal with it or stay the hell away. I don’t jump into anyone’s shit unless provoked so I make no apologies for it either. I am however, using a bit of a softer approach with my daughter but I am not trying to change her, just help her accept who she is and embrace it without cutting teeth on anyone. Lord Jesus that is a delicate balance. Sometimes she wonders and will ask me why she feels so much different in the morning than she does the rest of the day. Amazed that she is only 5 years old and can verbalize that she feels different and try to understand it I answer her like this. Because my darling girl you are smart, fabulous and so loaded with awesome and you rise to meet the world on your terms. You are busy and you are strong and you will accomplish great things today so it takes you longer to be ready for all that fabulousness (myok but don’t try to hurt anyone because of it. Cut other people a little bit more slack you need people to cut you and always be fair because we all have feelings. Kind of heavy for a kindergartner but she gets it. Sometimes she still has rough mornings and in the true fashion of an anti morning person will occasionally opt to snack on one of us for breakfast but she always apologizes, says I love you and KNOWS we love her too. I just can’t ask for more than that!

Dress for happiness but please JUST GET DRESSED!!

One of the major things that mom’s battle with in the mornings is dressing the kiddo’s for school. Sometimes I find myself cowering in a corner with a cup of hot, black coffee screeching...dammit will you guys zip your pie wholes and just get dressed. I don't care what you wear just get dressed!!!! When you are dealing with surly people in the morning it is just plain best to go with a combination of not giving a shit and picking out clothes at night. If you can do this, it can make the morning go much more smoothly and help everyone leave the house with dignity and tears intact. We pick out the clothes for my daughter at night. She and I do this together but it is still a crap shoot as to what she will come downstairs dressed in! More on that later….. My children are very different on their dress styles. My son is the quintessential prep. My daughter believes if it matches I don’t want anything to do with it! The only thing I have to say to my son in the morning with regard to dressing is, “Son go pick out your clothes and get dressed.” He smiles, hugs and kisses me, tells me I am beautiful and goes to get dressed.

and he happens to be my son!

Why in the name of all things fashion???

The force that is the girl child.

You are welcome for making you sing this tune in your head all day.

Anyway, this mom always looks fabulous. She is a pharmaceutical sales rep and sports 4 inch heels every day. Little does she know that back in the day I too would sport 4 inch heels but it would have been with this Foo Fighters t-shirt on and NOT at 8:14am…and screw her..cause I like the way I look even though I make fun of myself! We walk on. Inside one of the teachers says, “Great t-shirt!” Hahaha, my point is, some girls do and some girls don’t so by all means fly your own flag! Just as I am kissing my daughter goodbye at her door she notices that I am committing a cardinal sin and calls me on it by whispering in my ear, “Ladies don’t chew gum.” And snarl’s her lip at me. It is early and most bets are off so I respond, “I know sweetie but right now, I am no lady.” She looks up as if to say, fair enough and runs off to command her day. I only tell her that ladies don’t chew gum because, well it is true and because I know her! She doesn’t just do things, she DOES them all them all the way. She is the reason “how to” books are written. Now I know gum comes out of things but hair is another story and if I let her chew gum I would have to shave her bald because she sleeps all over and would sneak gum to bed. So it is easier to tell her that ladies don’t chew gum. Even if she uses it on me in school or in Target on a really redneck woman who is chewing and snapping gum like it is her JOB! Today when she went to school she matched for some reason, so I am guessing that she was a bit off kilter in such a way that will bite me in the ass when I pick her up. I learned the hard way not to fight her on her clothes by doing things this way. Pick out clothes at night and let her dress any way she wants. Now there are limits to this. Before I figured it out, we would battle in the morning like enemies over clothing and one day it hit me. WHY fight like this and isn’t making her wear what I want her to wear not allowing her to express herself? I don’t want to break that little fabulous spirit or make her not feel her own sense of dignity so I stopped. I think this is a great way to start her on the ability to make her own decisions because right now, this is one of the most important decisions of her day (in her mind) so why NOT let her command it? During the week, she can wear anything she wants. At night and on the weekends I do still dent her spirit just a hair. She must match and wear one out of two of the outfits I choose. This has proven to be a wonderful compromise. I must admit though, even though I pick out the clothes for parties, church etc. She looks so much better in the Uggs, the Christmas tights (in February) the pink and silver tutu and the sweater with the cupcake on it. She flops downstairs, twirls and says, “How do I look?” Rhetorical question of course because she already knows the answer! You know, somehow it works. It looks better on her than any smocked dress or high fashion, expensive catalog item ever could because it is her, totally her. Because she is loaded UP with fabulous and sweet and piss and vinegar and her own little fashion sense and it is as it should be! Everyone is dressed and we are off like a herd of angry turtles.

2012-02-01T20:03:00.000-05:00

Contributing to the delinquency of a fat ass!

Seriously? Is there any reason under God's green earth that any grocery store should sell this much damn ice cream for this cheap? You could set up a canasta board on my ass as it is and then I go into my favorite grocery store and see this. Do you think I bought any?

Hell to the yeah!!!

I crammed this stuff in my cart like a thief in a bank vault. What I didn't take a picture of was the additional sherbet and low fat yogurt I also slid in along side it. I also will not even mention the cookie,cracker, dairy and candy aisle that I perused and piled into the cart either. When I got to the frozen foods and can goods, I had no room. Healthy lost out on this go round let me tell you. This damn cart would kill a diabetic in less than 5 minutes! In my own defense,as if I need anyone to come to my defense, I did just have a child have his tonsils and adenoids taken out so it just happens to be real convenient that I need all the ice cream in the free world. The boy child is not as big as a fart in a hurricane so he can eat ice cream for 3 squares and 24/7 for 10 years and not gain weight. He may have cholesterol numbers in the 1600's but he probably won't gain very much weight. I must admit that I did look over my shoulder prepared to give anyone stink eye or possibly

I didn't to this, instead I walked on feeling guilty and like a bad mommy. It was obvious from all the other things in my cart that I have small children at home. SO I doubt anyone really noticed the 5 FREAKIN GALLONS of ice cream I had placed ever so tucked away on the bottom rack where the crazy cat women usually shove 5 big ass bags of cat litter. I must admit though that the kudos I got from my pediatrician for not having obese children did ring in my ears. BUT no need t look over my shoulder for him because he doesn't live in the same town I live in anymore so I guess I can set that bag of bricks down. To make matters worse when I got to the checkout lane I could see the cashiers all looking for something sharp to stab in their eyes so they could take a break and not have to check me and my 5 million items out. Bite me bitches and don't piss me off or I will go to the 12 items or less aisle and limp, cross my eyes, drool on myself and act like I don't know what the fuck is going on so I can tie that lane up for an hour! Finally someone said, "mam I can help you on 3" so I roll over there and begin the countdown to the rape of my wallet. She gets finished, asks me for my VIC card and watches as it scans down lower, lower and a bit lower. It stops and the girl bagging says in a very smart ass, young girl kind of way, "GOD when is the last time you came shopping?" I glare at her like I am about to smack the snark off her badly pitted face! When the silence gets uncomfortable for her she says, "well look on the bright side....you are the customer with the highest grocery bill so far today." I said, "oh great, as my door prize for such an awesome victory I would like someone to load all this stuff in my car for me(I NEVER get them to do this)...and then come home with me to put it all away, no seriously how do you know I am the highest?" She says, "oh we keep a tally between us just to pass the time because this job is SO boring... so congratulations, hahaha." When she calls out to another clerk to walk me out to my car with my haul, apparently her manager was there to distribute breaks and shift changes SO the guy she asked me to walk out was sent on break and SHE was told to "help" me to my car. I looked at her and said in a smart ass older woman kind of way, "congratulations, hahaha." When we got to my car I opened the trunk, unlocked the car, got in and just waited for her to load it all up. Came home and made a big ass bowl of ice cream! To the victor go the spoils...AND the big ass. Yeah me!

2012-01-12T13:55:00.000-05:00

More WTF???

Same drug store, different day….. I walk up on these two conversations.

I think the folks who work in my drug store are dipping their pen in the company ink, if you know what I mea, but in case you don’t…they must be taking downers from the shelf and eating them like skittles because they are SSLLLLOOOOWWWW as hell! In an effort to give them plenty of time to fill my prescription, I park (as a matter of fact, in the same parking spot I apparently stole from the crazy old lady the other day) and decide to take the opportunity to organize some of the twin paraphernalia that always seems to be sprinkled about the mommy mobile. I hear someone say, “Well hello there.” I think to myself, you have GOT to be kidding me, is this the old woman that has dropped her basket talking to me again?? Yep, it is her but I am not the huckleberry today, it would appear that I am off the hook because she is now talking to a homeless man perched against the drug store glass, sign in his hand and all. Below is the conversation. Keeping in mind..all his sign said was this

NOT THIS....

Or even this???

No bells and whistles, just this!

Crazy: HOMELESS, need help hmmmm? If you are homeless, where do you stay?

Homeless: Under the bridge.

Crazy: WHY in the world would you stay under a bridge?

Homeless: No place else to stay.

Crazy: It is so cold, can’t you go someplace else?

Homeless: Lady I am homeless, where else you want me to go?

Crazy: Where do you take a bath?

Homeless: I don't.

Crazy: Do you get the paper there, how do you get coupons or find out what is going on in the world?

WTF??? She really said that.

Homeless man: (blank stare)

Crazy: How much to you have to pay to stay there?

Homeless: Lady, I am homeless, it’s free and it is cold!

Crazy: Do you have a blanket, because if you are cold you should have a blanket.

Homeless: Are you going to help me or not?

Crazy: Now, I will NOT give you money…you people only use it for liquor and women

~~~~WTF??? this man has not had a shower since 1992, lives under a bridge and has 3 teeth in his head, I would wager guess that spending his money on women was not on his top 10~~~~

Crazy: But I will go get you something to eat if you want it, if you are cold well then you must be hungry?

Don’t know about you but I often get hungry when I get cold, don’t you????? WTF???

Homeless: Yes Mam I could eat.

Crazy: I will be right back, don’t you go nowhere you hear? Under the bridge really? I just would never think someone would want to live under the bridge. Walks off toward Panera bread. (lucky them)

Homeless: (blank stare until she walks off) Shakes his head then he says, Crazy bitch ain’t comin back wit food, stops and talks to me twice a week and it’s the same shit each time! I might stay unda a bridge but she crazy!

I handed him my only 4 bucks on the way out. I don't give a shit what he uses it for, he lives under a bridge!!

Conversation between two customers waiting for meds….

The slow pokes behind the counter still are not ready for me so I move to the side and wait amongst the other patrons.

Oh how I wish I had a picture of these lovely ladies!

Client #1: Hey hooka what chew doin here?

Client #2: Hey gurl, pickin up some meds, you?

Client #:1 Same, what chew pickin up?

Client #2 Don’t know, it got a long ass name, it’s a an ti-bi otic. What chew getting?

Client #1: I been havin some test run and this mownin docta dun tol me I got the sugar.

Client#2: Damn gurl, you got the sugah, is is cause you so big?

Client #1: I ont know, my momma got it too but I gotta buy all this shit start stickin my finger erry few hours, go learn how to use needles, just mo money ya know, its always sompum. Gotta start eatin right too. (WTF, she is eating a reeses cup and drinking a coke) What’s wrong wit chew gurl?

Client #2: Damn girl, the sugah?? Mm mm mm. I got a bad toof(WTF?? I only see 2), gotta come out but he gotta kill the infection first.

Client #1: He gih you sompmm fa pain?

Client #2: Naw gurl I'm still on the methadone(WTF?? Do they still prescribe that??), he ain’t giv me nothing but a dirty look, say if he give me anything fa pain I be right back in na same boat again. Tell me I got to suffa. I said damn doc you spose to tell me sompmn I don’t know!

They both laugh…I guess misery really does love company.

How do I always end up in these conversations.

WTF????

2012-01-09T14:24:00.000-05:00

I wish I had a dollar for every time this pops into my head or out of my mouth daily.

So far today...and its barely noon.

Parked at the drug store. Got out of my car to a lady screaming at me.
Lady: YOU STOLE MY PARKING SPOT
Me: How do you figure? There was no one in front of me Mam?
Lady: I know that! I was behind you!
Me: Then.....how did I steal YOUR spot?
Lady: Because I wanted it!! I saw it when I pulled in here and you took it!
Me: K, Imma go into the drug store now, have a good day.
~car pulls up, honks horn, lady gets into back seat of car and sticks tongue out at me, car drives away.

Waiting in line in the drug store.

A Lady in front of me: Wow you have beautiful skin!
Me: Thank you, how sweet of you.
Lady: Who did all your work?

Kids are playing on the porch. Come flying inside and promptly ask me
Twins: Mommy what does fuck my life mean?
Me: OMG, where did you hear that?
Twins: From the next door neighbor.
Me: If just means we have to go remind her that sponges live here, that's all.

Conversation with Pharmacist

Me: I need to get this prescription filled.
Pharm: I'm sorry that prescription is expired..you will need to call your doctor.
Me: Ok

4 days later the doctor calls the scrip into the pharmacy and I go to get it
Me: Hi I need to get this prescription filled please
Pharm: ok, the doctor called it in for you this morning so let me work it up for you.
Me: great thanks.
~~10 minutes later~~
Pharm: We are out of this medication can you refill it another day?

2011-11-15T14:19:00.002-05:00

Being a mommy is never easy. It is usually hard and sometimes it just plain sucks! You never have a day off, you are always being watched by little eyes and you are always on the clock for shaping and molding little lives into becoming responsible adults who do and say the right things when you are not looking. These lovely little curtain climbers see, hear and repeat everything and are always willing to quote you…whether it is correct or not. One of my biggest fears was that one of my children (probably the girl) was going to drop the word cocksucker in church and have us excommunicated! The bad there is that it is my husband’s bad word of choice but he is so even tempered and nice that no one would believe it, thus assuming they learned it from me. I am the one in the family with the gate mouth, the one who says what comes up, speaks her mind and doesn’t sugar coat anything so I must say that bad press and stink eye is an acquired taste.

I am also the unconventional one. I have never, nor will I ever claimed to be mommy of the year. I do things my way. I read the books, take the courses but I raise my children in the way that works for me. You can read all the self help books and take all the courses in the world and I am not knocking any of them, but when you are down in the trenches with your children all day, you simply reach the point of doing what works and anyone who makes you feel badly for it…well folks, it’s all fun and games until someone loses a eye! Talking with someone about how they are raising their kids is a sticky business and even a mild mannered individual will rip you a new asshole if they think you are criticizing them. I see people in stores, at parks, restaurants and parties doing things that I think to myself, oh yeah, I would do THAT differently. Realizing of course that I have the benefit of judgment and the time to think because I am not the parent everyone is putting through ocular intrusion! To date, my husband and I have missed so many meals at restaurants (or eaten dinner out of the Styrofoam to go box) that we are now in the habit of eating like prisoners when we are in one just so we can finish before someone shows their ass. When this happens we just remove them as a way of paying it forward I guess, hoping everyone would do that instead of ruin the experience of other paying customers. We don’t hit, spank, pop, drag or doggie door them (although, we do dream of doing this sometimes)…we just briskly walk to the car without words. We mainly do this because it teaches them that they must leave a place they do not deserve to be. Acting up in a restaurant is unacceptable and if you can’t “act like you aughta” then you can leave and miss dinner. Yes, this also means going to bed with nothing when we get home.

Since I am not a parent that can spank or hit, I have to teach with words and actions, lessons if you will. I cannot lie sometimes I have wanted to smack the crap out of my children for doing something I told them 15 times not to do. There is a difference in thinking it and doing it, thoughts are free. I have learned from my husband that in almost everything, there is a teachable moment and I try to look for those. I still approach them differently than he does but I hope that he and I together, with all our training, opinions, hopes and desires can teach our children to become good, honest and self reliant, productive members of society.

When you don’t listen, you have to feel.

When my dad used this line on me, it meant that I was just about to feel a spanking by his hand or something else. I use this line on my twins also but for me it means something different. It means that they are going to feel the pang of responsibility and the slap of accountability. It will come in the feeling of embarrassment, sadness or knowing they have disappointed me. I readily admit that it may be easier to spank them and get it over with but teaching them why instead of ouch goes a lot farther. Enter the meanest mommy in the world. Grocery shopping with twins has been like being pecked to death my ducks since they were old enough to push that damn customer in training cart all by themselves.

cute huh, hell NO

My ankles may never be the same. I have learned to wear my Chuck Taylor’s when shopping with them because at least I am covered well passed my ankle in those!

Actually, mine are blue

One day in Harris Teeter I had told them both so many times to knock it off, stop it, don’t touch it and leave alone that my son got so tired of hearing it that he asked to sit in cart. I obliged. The girl child would never choose to be restrained in that way so she continues to walk. Coming down the aisle where the candles are I reminded her that this aisle has breakables and if she touches or breaks anything, she will deal with the consequences. Just so she knows what said consequences are, she asks “what will happen if I break something?” I told her that we may have to buy it. She answered with, “well I don’t have any money.” I said, “well then you had better be careful.” To her, not having any money meant she was off the hook. Once we reached the point where you could smell the candles we stopped to look. I thought of buying one only to remember that $24.99 for a candle is ridiculous! I was looking away when she headed toward the peach, soy candle. She picked it up by the lid and the candle flew out of the lid and crashed to the floor. Glass few everywhere! All over the floor and up into the air cutting her brother on the foot in two places. Not a bad cut (he had not even noticed yet) but his foot was hanging down from the seat so it bled more than normal. I decided I would let the two of them figure out he was cut at their own speed and go from there. I picked up the candle and all the big pieces and handed her the lid which was not broken. I looked at her and said, “come with me.” In an elevated and nervous voice she asked me where we were going. I told her to see the manager and the tears began to flow. “whhhhhhyyyyyyyy mooommmmyyyy” “I aammmm sooorrrryyyyy.” Her brother said “hmmm mmmm, now you are in trouble” but I shot him stink eye and told him to zip it and he did. I got down on the floor so she and I were face to face and told her I knew it was only an accident but we had to do the right thing. Explained to her that she had broken something that cost money and she needed to do her part to fix it so we were going to talk to the manager about it. I did the best I could to push the cart with one hand and lovingly hold her little hand with the other. We got to the front desk and she looked up at her brother for support only to see that his foot was bleeding. She burst into tears even more upon the realization that it too was her fault. She said, “mommy please don’t make me do this!!!” I said, “honey it is ok, we will do it together.” Bless her little heart, when the two managers walked over to us. I sat her up on the counter. She was crying, her brother had tears in his eyes and so did I. The two managers did not know whether to shit or go blind! One of them looked at me and asked if she could help. I looked at my daughter and she looked at me then looked at the manager and said through tears, “I broke this candle (pushing the lid over to the manager) and cut my brother.” She then looked back at me as I was brushing away a tear. I said, “What else do you need to tell her honey?” She looked at the manager, took a deep breath and said, “I am sorry, I didn’t mean to, do you want me to pay for it because my mommy says I may have to?” This particular manager must have had children and knew what I was going through so she had a really kind look in her eye. The other one looked like he wanted to run to aisle 7, grab one of the steak knives and ram it through my black heart then grab a spool of turkey twine and hog tie me until DSS could get there! The female manager said, “honey thank you for telling me about the candle, I know how hard it was for you and no you don’t have to buy it but I am so proud of you for telling me.” She reached into the hand of the other manager and took a band aid and an alcohol pad then she gave it to my daughter. My daughter opened it and began to wipe her brother’s toe and then put the band aid on his toe with my help. In a whisper she looked up at him and said, “I’m sorry.” He told her it was ok. We then walked back to the candle aisle with the manager and stood with her while she swept up the mess, walked it to the trash can and once again told her we were sorry. She hugged my daughter and patted me on the back and said, “take it easy, you are a good mommy, most would just walk away.” I felt like the devil and I may very well be but I bet my daughter keeps her hands in her pockets and looks with her eyes the next time we go grocery shopping, at least on the candle aisle anyway.

On the way home.

On the way home my daughter said nothing. She looked out the window with a very pensive look on her face the entire ride home. My son asked me a question that made me cry and proud of him at the same time. Side Note: When I was 5 years old my mother made me face down a manager at K-mart for stealing a Barbie shoe. Once we were home and she discovered I had it, she marched me back to the store and sent me in alone to tell the manager what I had done. It is one of the memories that stuck with me and I have never again taken anything that did not belong to me. I told my children about this at some point. My son asked me about this memory and if I will remember it forever because Grammy did it to teach me. He did it because he understood the magnitude of what I had done. In his own way he was letting his sister know that although what I did seemed cruel, it was done to teach her a lesson and he was also letting me know that he understood I did it out of love. After he said it, she turned and looked at him and smiled a tiny smile then looked back out the window. He looked at me in the rear view mirror and said, “I love you mommy!” I couldn’t speak so I reached back and grabbed his foot with my hand. He knew what I meant. When we pulled into the driveway I went to help them unbuckle their car seats. She was still shaking but she looked at me and whispered, “I love you mommy.” I said, “Honey I love you to the moon and back.” She said, “I know.”

That night at bedtime she talked to her daddy about what happened. She explained to him that she caused the accident and told him what happened. He asked her how it made her feel. She told him that what mommy made her do was hard but she knew it was right. She is only 5 years old and there will be many more accidents and broken candles but if I remember the memory of what happened to me at 5 then chances are she will also. I hope she will also remember me with love and respect for loving and respecting her enough to give her the power to do what is right.

Old, Not that there is anything wrong with old.

2011-08-25T13:48:00.002-04:00

1^st Day of school for the twins and mommy is off to a winning start. I am a Loser with a capital L! Sometimes when I do it all right, or things go well (off without a hitch so to speak) I have to sit for a second in utter amazement that I didn’t actually kill anyone or anything. I can’t always say that since the Lexus has been known to take out small creatures such as Canada Geese and squirrels (in the double digits) but I can say that I haven’t taken out any adults or small children YET.

For someone that seems secure, organized and confident on the outside I seem to say to myself “you can do this” over and over again. I really am in shock sometimes when I crawl into bed at night that I (and the people I take care of) have made it safely through a day. If you really stop and think of how your family looks up to you, expects you to be there, knows you are the glue that keeps it all together and also the wind that keeps all the balls in the air…it will flat scare the living shit out of you! Holy responsibility batman! I actually remember thinking when I was pregnant, man if I can just get these babies OUT of my body life will be so much easier and it will slow down. (Insert wild, loud, snorting laughter here.) That is not even a naive thought it is simply the dumbest thought in the free world. I really thought things would “slow down” and “go back to normal”. Little did I know that things never slow down again and back to normal just becomes a new normal. But from there on in, life is a complete and utter train wreck and you are running around like a raped ape all the time. I also now believe what all the people I thought were crazy as hell used to say to me. “You will soon embrace it and not know how to act when everything isn’t going crazy all the time.” Sad but true just as it is that prisoners become accustom to life behind bars so much that they can’t make it on the outside. How is that for a positive outlook on it? (insert sarcastic smiley face here) I say, whatever helps.

We moved to Winston Salem and everything is new. It is new for us but there sure isn’t much new here. Everything and everyone is pretty old. Even the man who cuts my grass is old.

He looks JUST like Henry Fonda did in On Golden Pond until you get right up on him. He is really tall and has sleeves of tattoo's. All the tattoo's are brightly colored and man he has both arms full! He will not let me give him water or anything but he will talk to me as long as I will talk to him. He may be old but he is in serious shape. Not only does he do our yard but the yards of everyone in our neighborhood who does not do their own. I felt so guilty sitting in my house watching him cut the grass until I started to talk to him. Then I realized he was just like my grandfather and cutting the grass is therapy for him, he loves it and it shows because it looks wonderful when he is finished. He arrives at 8am and he is with me until 2pm and he uses a push mover...yes a friggin push mower. He does not have an ounce of fat on him! It is August and he wears overalls and a t-shirt with boots! I love him.

Trust me I don't say this old thing like it is bad..it just is what it is. I am no spring chicken but I guess I am just used to home where I see more of a mixture of things and people of all ages. We live in the “country” so I am told that the closer I get to “town” the younger things get. Suddenly I feel like Wyatt Earp’s wife heading for Tombstone, where is my covered wagon and my laudanum? The quote I get from most folks I talk to must be on a bumper sticker somewhere but I have yet to see it. “Welcome to Winston, things here are slow, very old and very safe”. It is like they pull people aside once social security kicks in and teach them that this is the thing to say to a newcomer. Even the man at the Verizon store said this and then followed it up with, “If you want gangs and fast pace with new stuff then 919 is still there but if you like slow and safe honey 336 is for you!” The other thing they tell me is that Winston is simply beautiful and they are also right about that (with exception of that Peters Creek area..it is creepy). Only having been here for a few weeks I must admit I am getting very used to the fact that Winston is slow, very old and very safe. The people are also very nice and welcoming. I am used to a certain snobby attitude from my home town. The people are often times judgmental, difficult, unfriendly and just plain snarky and you can tell by looking at them which ones will be the worst. Raleigh has that reputation with people here as well and many have asked me about what it was like to live there because of it. I love it, I miss it and all these things about it are true but it is also a wonderful place to live and when it is all you really know you tend to be accepting, well that and some people rich or poor are just assholes. The people here could not be further from the words listed above in fact they are the antithesis. The ones you look at and think would be unfriendly or snarky are the nicest of all. People speak, smile and talk to you. They genuinely care about the answer to the question. Not just hey, how are you while flying past you. Seriously everyone I have encountered here has been beaming with quiet, southern charm and overwhelmingly welcoming. So much so that it has brought me to a place where I tread in unfamiliar waters, this place is called, at a loss for words and folks it is quiet and lonely there, thank GOD I am not there very often!

This brings me to my new neighbor. He is however not new. He moved here in 1964 when he was 34 years old. The tree in his front yard is a LARGE and looming but beautiful maple tree and it is what I look at each morning when I have my coffee. His wife planted the tree as a seedling in 1965. His roots here are as deep as the maple. He is adorable and has his fair share of sad stories to add to his years but he is here and I am thankful for him to add to my list of people to care for because this man is learning how to live alone for the first time in over 62 years. I am not alone but I feel certain symmetry with him at the present time.

On this, the first day of school for my twins at their new Montessori School I did not do all things right. I got them lunch packed, clothed and out the door for school and arrived on time. I came home to my daunting list of to do’s and knocked out quite a bit. I even suffered a minor myocardial infarction as I got a little jiggy wit my new elliptical machine cause this girl is also old and slow! As the day progressed and I prepared to be back at school on time as promised, I started numbering things in my head that needed to happen and also numbering the items I would need in my hands when I walked out the door(OCD I know but not quite far enough to be licking light plates). I needed three things. Keys, phone and wallet, not hard to remember right? Keys, phone and wallet! I rushed around the house, picked up three things and headed out the front door. As the door closed behind me and hitting me in the ass, something felt wrong, very wrong.

SHIT SHIT SHIT

I looked at my hands and I did in fact have three things. Phone (always), wallet (usually) and a letter (not my keys). Shit, I am locked out and I have little idea of where I am. I have 10 minutes to get to school to be on time and my drive is about 13 minutes. Screwed, not good mommy, not good. What is that noise I hear?? It is the sound of my mommy of the year trophy falling off a shelf inside my locked house and right into the cheesecake that is in the oven! First day of school and I have to make the total ass hat move of locking my keys inside the house. Springing into action I call the owner of the home to see if she has a key hidden outside. Nope. So I call my husband to tell him what I have done and to please get our twins to after school care until I can get there…oh yeah and to see if he can come get me if my attempts to commandeer a key are unsuccessful. He says yes but try first and then let me know. So I run across the street, under the maple tree and to the front door of my neighbor. He opens, invites me in and I ask if he has a key. He says, “I think so, at least I used to so come on in and let me look.” He goes through what seems like 100 keys only to say, “I don’t have one but I know who does so come on and I will drive you there”. He has been here since 1964 so I don’t question this logic at all..I just assume we are going elsewhere in this good size neighborhood to someone’s house, until we turn out of our neighborhood. It is now that I am beginning to wonder where we are going. He drives like a bat out of hell (I turn around to make sure we are not being chased because he is flying), he does not use turn signals and his left arm shakes like a paint shaker at home depot so I feel like I am in a blender. We go a bit further and are now going away from town so I sit for a second until I have mustered the courage to ask him where we are going. He says, “To the police department.” I say, “really, why?” He answers, “They will be able to let you into your house.” Skeptical and puzzled I ask him in a very small voice, “Do they keep keys to some people’s homes at the police department here in Winston?” His answer made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. He says, “well no but they have one of those jimmy things they use on your car so I sure they can use it on your house”!!!!!!!!!!! I think to myself, yeah no this is not gonna work we are getting into a ranch not a sentra… so self, what are you gonna do now? I start to imagine us pulling up at the police station and going in. I try to explain to the desk officers that he brought me here for a key to my house (because you can always get a key to your house from the police station??? IN SEASAME STREET) and they do not believe me. Instead they think I have kidnapped him (a much more likely story) and at gunpoint am making him drive me to his bank so he can take out all his money and give it to me! I am new here and well, a blonde so how am I to know the police station is right next to his bank??? They think I am the first bad element to hit Winston Salem and lock me up! My husband has to leave his new job to bust his wife out of the clink and that will not look good then we have to work with local DSS offices to get our children back! Back to reality…how do I stop him from taking me to the police station? I text my husband in all caps. PLEASE LEAVE WORK AND COME LET ME IN…NEIGHBOR IS NOT, I REPEAT NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO HELP ME! I then decide to say, oh…I have just received a text from my husband and he is on the way so we can just turn around and head home! He says, “Well ok if you say so.” We get back home, I thank him and I sit on my front porch for about 30 minutes freaking out at the cheesecake that I have in the oven and the fact that I did not get to school to pick up my twins on time. This is not something they will take kindly to because they are mine and they do not like to be inconvenienced OR for the mommy to not hold up her end of the bargain! Great, this is going to cost me a trip to Build a Bear or Toys R Us! I would rather face down a rabid bear than face down the girl child when she aint happy or the boy child when he is disappointed. There has GOT to be sword I can fall on out here somewhere???

Husband arrives and lets me in the house, cheesecake is awesome and by the way if you want to keep a cheesecake from cracking on top….cook it in a water bath! I pee, grab a coke, bag of chips and thank the husband for letting me in. I follow him back to school because I am the one with car seats and he has to go back to work, it is only 4pm. I walk in, look for my twins and they are of course happy to see me. Hugs, kisses, stories about friends made, artwork completed and a successful first day. Whew, seems like I dodged a bullet and maybe they are not pissed at me and are willing to cut me some slack on being way late!

I had to mention it, it was killing me I guess so… I shit in my own well! I said, “So guys, did daddy tell you what happened to mommy and why I am late?” My sweet son looks at me through the rear view mirror rolls his big brown eyes, bats his 10,000 brown eyelashes and in a very sarcastic voice says,

“Why yes he did mommy, he said YOU locked yourself out of the house, is THAT true?” I felt like I all of a sudden needed a booster seat so I could see over the steering wheel. Man kids know how to make you feel like a stupid asshole! I answered, “Yes darling, I had so much on my mind and I missed you guys so much and wanted to hear all about your day that I rushed out and slammed the door behind me without my keys, can you believe that?

My daughter, without looking up but managing to get the eye roll in followed by the sigh of an irritated 5 year old who is rapidly approaching OVER IT says, “Mommy what kind of person locks themselves OUT of their OWN house?” You know, I cannot argue with that kind of logic since I know exactly where she got it.

Old, Not that there is anything wrong with old.

2011-08-25T13:46:00.000-04:00

We moved to Winston Salem and everything is new. It is new for us but there sure isn’t much new here. Everything and everyone is pretty old. Even the man who cuts my grass is old.

SHIT SHIT SHIT

I had to mention it, it was killing me I guess so… I shit in my own well! I said, “So guys, did daddy tell you what happened to mommy and why I am late?” My sweet son looks at me through the rear view mirror rolls his big brown eyes, bats his 10,000 brown eyelashes and in a very sarcastic voice says, “Why yes he did mommy, he said YOU locked yourself out of the house, is THAT true?” I felt like I all of a sudden needed a booster seat so I could see over the steering wheel. Man kids know how to make you feel like a stupid asshole! I answered, “Yes darling, I had so much on my mind and I missed you guys so much and wanted to hear all about your day that I rushed out and slammed the door behind me without my keys, can you believe that? My daughter, without looking up but managing to get the eye roll in followed by the sigh of an irritated 5 year old who is rapidly approaching OVER IT says, “Mommy what kind of person locks themselves OUT of their OWN house?” You know, I cannot argue with that kind of logic since I know exactly where she got it.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

2011-06-25T15:49:00.005-04:00

You know the tune right???

Supercalifragilisticexpealidoshus in order to forget this song I may require hypnosis!

If I hear it anymore I will be in psychosis!! supercalifragilisticexpealidoshus.

Hum diddle diddle diddle dum diddle die

Since my mom taught my twins this, it’s all they now are singing

In my house and everywhere, my ears, they are a-ringing!

Thank you mom now from the ceiling by your heels

I’m stringing

Please don’t teach them more show tunes

Or else your neck I’m wringing!

Hum diddle diddle diddle dum diddle die

I drank so much last night! Today I feel I need a casket

I love my kids to pieces but they’ve made me drop my basket

If they don’t stop this fucking song I’m going to blow a gasket

Supercali OMG a nap would be fantastic!

Hum diddle diddle diddle dum diddle die

Supercalifragilisticexpealidoshus NOW the very sound of it is making me ferocious.

Anybody have good meds that I could use to dose us?

I must avoid a frantic bout of hysterical neurosis.

Hum diddle diddle diddle dum diddle die

So you get the point right? Well just in case...

I begged and pleaded for their help because my ears were bleeding

hearing this damn song so much, my mood had turned to seething

They replied that's FINE with us..now we'll just sing it backwards

OMG another version! Now I must be leaving!!

Mommy OUT!

2011-04-07T22:52:00.000-04:00

Colds and fevers, infections and the flu

I love being a mommy but tonight I am just through!

The kids devoured my nerves and daddy is home late

I’m so tired I can’t remember the last time I ate???

This dirty house needs a priest or a referee

Oh God will you send me a wife like me?

I cook and I clean and constantly wipe a nose

While someone throws a tantrum for what? God only knows.

Gimme my doll, not till you give me my book

Well mommy I punched him cause he gave me a mean look!

Well she hit me first, NO I DID NOT!

Sleep? Are you kidding me? HA what a crock!

Fixing dinner and lunches, preparing afternoon snacks

A mommy just never has time to relax!

Bathe, brush teeth and administer bedtime story

Goodnight I love you!…now for inventory

Of the rubble left behind that resembles a house

Great, a note from school…another breakout of head louse!

While surveying the mess I decide to wash clothes

HOLY SHIT I stepped on something…WHAT do you suppose?

A Lego? a Polly pocket or the littlest pet shop?

To move through this house I need a traffic cop!

I crash to the floor, cursing with pain

Jesus these toy makers are all inhumane!

Finish the dishes then empty the hamper

Wait, its late but do I hear a scamper?

Mommy my ears hurt and so does my tummy

Me too mommy my throat burns, I feel kinda crummy.

My tummy is choking (oh shit he’s gonna puke)

Oh thee infections and sickness I strongly rebuke.

I love them I do, with all my heart

But this mommy strongly needs to depart!

For just a few days and I swear I’ll come back.

I don’t need a white horse, hell I’ll take a yak.

I just don’t want to drive or cook or clean

Or hear it’s not fair or mommy you are mean.

Just take me away from the whining and diarrhea

Someplace I can rest, yeah that’s the idea.

I will go to my parents house or maybe a hotel

If I don’t get time to myself, it will be a padded cell!

But the catch 22 is, as much as we complain

When you’re a mommy you can’t shut off your brain.

You feel guilty for being tired and for leaving a mess

For someone else to clean up, who ALSO needs rest.

You worry they miss you and that they feel betrayed

Because you went out when maybe you should have stayed.

You feel it’s your job to handle all the stuff

But sometimes enough is simply enough!

You just want to sleep or shop or eat

But your mind won’t let you enjoy your retreat.

Ridiculous! You can’t even enjoy a little break

Guess it’s true you can’t eat it AND have cake???

You feel self imposed anger and guilt

And it’s weighing on top of you like a soaking wet quilt.

You pack up and go home and even though still tired

When you look at them sleeping, you feel so inspired.

Some day they will grow up and leave your nest

And then your house will look its best.

But it will be void of childish laughter and all the toys

Belonging to your little girls and boys.

You will wish for the fingerprints to wipe off the door

And for messes to clean up after them, just once more.

They will still need you but you will really need them

Without them underfoot, it’s like missing a limb.

So you leave their room and silently pray

And thank god for every single day.

At some point in the middle of the night

You realize what you feel is alright.

Mommies get tired, angry and drained

And a host of other feelings but firmly ingrained

Are the blessings that come with a charge like no other

That can only be felt when you become a mother.

2011-03-26T11:53:00.000-04:00

What is your

I have recently decided that I no longer want to have an ass that looks like it has been socked with a bag of hot nickles. So that means getting off said ass and doing something about it. God I hate exercise, I mean hate it like I hate snakes, liver and onions and the circus. I am not one to use the word hate but son of a bitch I HATE to exercise! It means that I have to wake up early (which pisses me off, ruins the morning of anyone around me and throws my day into a tailspin) OR take time away from my children (which I do not get much of these days) and lastly it means that I have to seriously put myself out! I prefer to put other people out so when I have to do it to myself, it just makes me more mean and nasty. I developed this wonderful idea because I cannot fit into much of anything in my closet and that presents a problem that brings my loving husband on board. He kind of takes issue with me spending exorbitant amounts of money on clothes and I kind of take issue with that SO I have to lie to him. I am not proud of this but I am also not above doing it. At the risk of outing myself I will admit that I do what lots of other wives do....shop and shop and shop but ask the sales clerk at the last store I over indulge myself in to give me one really big ass bag. I then combine all my purchases into that bag, throw all the other bags away and then put that bag in the trunk. Same goes with shoes. I have not come home with a shoe box since moses was in short pants! For the next week or so I go to the trunk (on a completely covert, reconnaissance mission) to retrieve a new article of clothing, head upstairs with it and assimilate it into the closet until the morning. He is usually asleep in his chair so he is none the wiser. When this man is asleep I could have an affair with George Clooney on the couch across from him and he would never know it. Yep, he sleeps like a dead man. The next morning IF and I do mean IF he has the nerve to speak to me while I am getting ready, he will simply say, "that is pretty, is it new?" to which I reply, "God no, I have had this for a while!" Not a lie because it has been residing in my trunk so technically it is not new. Once it crosses the 24 hour thresh hold it no longer classifies as new. That is my story and I am sticking to it! If he should read this post which will more than likely not happen I will simply say, "No honey I just wrote that for effect." Which is another lie because one of the reasons I write a blog is because it is all TRUE! All the shit I talk about really happens! Such a strange existence I lead. Writing a blog makes me realize that I am not strange but most everyone else IS!

So in my closet I tried on a shirt that was so tight I was actually scared of being trapped while trying to get it off! How the hell have I gained SO much weight that my upper body is this uncooperative? I have big boobs (large brown eyes as we refer to them in front of our children) but the boobs were not the problem here. I felt like a damn hunchback trying to get this shirt off. I quickly realized that getting this shirt off was not going to end well and it was going to become one of our many garage rags. Sucks because my mom gave this to me for mothers day 2 years ago. I continued to try to no avail. If I was being filmed I would have looked like Janice Vanmeter from Steel Magnolias while she was dancing at a wedding in a dress that was way to tight for a woman in her 60's. Two pigs fighting under a blanket. This damn thing felt like a straight jacket. All of a sudden it happened, I heard a rip! That was it, I had an incredible hulk moment and tore that sucker into shreds getting it off. This was a new low because only two years ago I was in a size 2! I don't ever want to be a size 2 again and this was not a healthy size 2 because of some major stress I was going through. My dad died and I was working for the dick of all dicks. A young man who was as dumb as a box of rocks but carried more drama with him than a group of high school cheerleaders and he made the life of everyone around him a living hell, including MINE. Once the situation with my dad was over I moved onto the next thing which was quitting that jive ass job and obviously the weight started piling back on!

So here I am having to exercise and watch what I eat again. I prefer to watch what I eat as I eat it but we all have our crosses to bear and this is one of mine so here I go....into the world of dieters, walkers and runners. I used to run alot. Now I would only run if someone was chasing me! I don't understand what the hell is wrong with all these runners and triathletes these days. I hate over achievers. I do however take solace in the fact that when they are in their 50's and 60's they will be facing knee replacements. Running is an excellent way to burn fat and stress but it is really just plain stupid because long term it wreaks havoc on our bodies. How is THAT for justification for remaining a sloth. God I love denial.

Ok so what motivates you? As much as I whole heatedly believe the diatribe above I still need to lose a few lbs and I need to be healthy. I no longer smoke and I do not drink nearly as much as I would like to so my only real vice is FOOD. SON OF A BITCH I love to eat! When I am exercising on a regular basis I can literally eat anything I want but right now I am not exercising on a regular basis. When I get to the top of a flight of stairs I sound like fatty fatterson, huffing and puffing and looking for the oxygen machine. I am walking with some girls from work. We are in all stages of shape and size. On one of our daily 40 minute lunch walks, one of the girls shared that she had already done her bit for the day so this one was just a bonus walk. I sneered at her and considered calling her an over achiever but she has recently had a baby so I cut her some slack and simply said " good for you!" I also asked her what what time she walked, since we have to be at work at the crack of ASS! She told me she got up and walked at 5am, I repeat 5AM!!! She also said she does that 4 times a week. If I am awake at 5am it damn well better be because someone needs to go to the hospital or worse so I asked her, "what is your motivation for that sort of ridiculousness." She told me that she has a picture of herself from about 10 years ago that is blown up and posted several places in her house. So torture is her motivation. whatever works for you I guess. She said, "you are watching what you eat and walking every day so what is YOUR motivation?" That made me think. I have this wonderful eating plan that can safely make me lose 2-5 pounds a week because it is a plan that combines foods that create the perfect chemical balance so you lose the weight very quickly. When I want to lose the weight I follow that plan. It helps if you exercise but it is not a must. So why then am I taking my lunch hour to walk with a group of chatting women?

Not us but damn it feels like it!

Yeah baby, THIS is us. Piss off yall, its my denial so leave me alone!

Simply put, its my children. We were out of town one weekend and they acted in such a manner that I needed to chase them down. I looked out of a window of the 2nd floor of the house in which we were staying (which made getting to them mean I had to go 3 floors..because they were in the back yard). My son was wielding a damn tomato stake at my daughter like Luke Skywalker with a light saber! She was screaming and he was chasing her. My thoughts were, where the hell is my husband and is he DEAF because they are SCREAMING and other people are gawking at them! I am a mommy so I can hear what they think but dammit he is sitting on the deck right above them so when is HE going to get involved, when they bring in a gun? I was straightening my hair in front of the mirror and heard them screaming. The house was full of children but as a mom, no matter how many kids are around you know the sound of yours! Like Oprah from the color purple I thought to myself, Lord dats my own baby crying so I sprung into action. When I looked out the window, I was ready to jerk a knot into my twins AND my husband. So anyway by the time I got down to them they were now punching each other. Here comes the motivation part. I opened the door, went downstairs, pushed through the crowd, went outside, down another flight of stairs and then chased them through the yard. The look on my face was one of anger and they know this face so they finally stopped. I picked up my daughter and told my son to STAND STILL. I carried her under my arms like a sack of potatoes up the deck stairs, gave my husband major stink eye, inside through the crowd, upstairs to the bedroom. I set her down and started my diatribe on her. Holy crap, I can't talk! She is looking at me and I am out of breath. It went something like this, "y y y you, (huff, puff, ) si si si sit still, you can can cannot act like that (huff huff puff puff)! Oh my GOD I am out of breath.....! She is looking at me as if to say, "come on chubby, spit it out." She has a grin on her face. I stop trying to speak and try to breathe! When I can get my words together I tell her to SIT STILL, I will be right back. I carry it one step further with the, IF YOU MOVE, YOU WILL BE SORRY. She looks back at me like, yeah fatty, if I move the only thing that will really happen is you will need a damned ambulance to catch me! I slowly walk down to get her brother. I am dizzy, sweating and I think I may even puke.

I get down to him and he is standing there just like I told him to. I carry him upstairs in the same fashion, again passing my husband and giving him stink eye. I hate him right now, sitting peacefully with his beer and talking to the other dads. I get upstairs and plop him down on the bed with his sister. I scold them about how they were acting and tell them to sit still until they can act like the aught to act! They know what this means just as I did when my parents said it to me when I was their age. In the south that statement carries an enormous amount of responsibility because it puts our actions right back on us! Act like you aught to is really act like you aughta! When you here that it means, ok no more bull shit, do the right thing! I told them they could come out when they were ready to act like they aughta! I went downstairs and drank a glass of water, sat down and waited for my ticker to beat like it should. I looked like an old fat southern woman who had been out in the heat for to long. Paper towel swabbing my face, newspaper fanning myself and drinking water like it was going out of style!

My thought process was, damn this is ridiculous! I cannot be this out of shape, how did this happen? I may have told them to sit still and reminded them of why how they were acting made them look more like urchin little yard apes than the sweet children I know but in all actuality, they won. I was completely shadoobie shattered! If the house caught fire I could no more run out than a woman who weighed 500lbs! I decided that it had to change. My twins need me around and I need to be able to play with them, not just chase them down when they are not acting like the aughta! I stopped smoking because I want to be around and not cough up a lung so I need to get off my lazy ass and take better care of myself. As a mommy we worry more about our families health than our own. We make sure our husbands eat right and keep their cholesterol down, make sure they go get their yearly checkups so they stay healthy, keep on them to buy more life insurance so if their tickers do jump ship we are well taken care of. Hahahaha had to throw that in there, I was sounding to much like a supportive wife. Seriously though we make sure our children do not eat to much sugar, get the proper amount of sleep and exercise but we neglect ourselves. SO my motivation is to be around for my children and my husband. These are the people I love most in the world so it benefits me to think about what their lives would be like without me. Although I am sure they would be happier without me bitching about the messes they make and how tired I am and how all I do is take care of other people, they would not like a world that does not include me. To quote my husband when I almost died during the birth of our twins, "Buck up baby, this life we have doesn't work without you." Serious pressure huh?

So I am now exercising and watching what I eat. I am walking 40 minutes, 5 days a week and doing floor exercises that make me hate myself and just about everyone else. My abdominal muscles hurt like hell and I am hungry! But I look at my sweet children and I don't care! They are my motivation to keep myself healthy and young acting. I hope and pray that I can be around for their children as my mom is for them! So off I go, into the wild blue yonder...well not really but into my neighborhood to walk off some of the fat that surrounds my heart and my thighs. But dammit I don't have to like it!

2011-03-20T09:09:00.000-04:00

What are you having?

Normal question or boneheaded intrusive question? Well, that all depends on whether you are ordering a meal or having a baby.

I was ordering lunch the other day (of course I was at the downtown chic-fil-a AGAIN...lately I see some pretty interesting things while trying to do something as simple as ordering daily sustenance) when a person in front of me that was a cross between a girl and a woman turned to the side to look out the window. I thought to myself, wow wonder when she is due? She had a considerable sized tummy on her and was holding her back the way a woman does when she has a bun in the oven that is pulling on ligaments and straining her back and making her just overall uncomfortable. She looked like breathing was no easy task at the moment either. Having been both pregnant and asked 5 million questions about said pregnancy as well as having the S H I T embarrassed out of myself for asking a boneheaded intrusive question, I knew better than to ask her when she was due. However, the middle aged woman in line behind me did not know better. Not only did she say something but she reached out her hand to touch the girl. Leave it to a nosey, poorly educated, dumb ass to take it over the limit. I learned A LONG time ago that unless you see a friggin baby CROWNING, you simply DO NOT ask questions! Folks, there is always that outside chance that she is not pregnant, she is just as fat as a pig! Thoughts are free, keep your pie hole shut, look at the ground and if you absolutely have to be jovial and say something, for God’s sake just comment on what a lovely day we are having, YES even if you are standing in the eye of a damn hurricane or its 20 below outside!

When this girl turned to the side, therefore exposing her swollen belly the lady behind me stepped out of line, reached her hand out (OMG I still have trouble believing that happens) and placed it on the tummy of the girl and said, “Oh honey what are you having?” I stiffened my back, clinched my teeth together and just waited, knowing this could go either way. The girl looked at this woman in utter amazement! Her eyes were wide, her mouth was open and she was obviously SO embarrassed. She did not know what to say or do. ( Holy Shit where is my magic wand..I need to make her disappear and turn this old woman into a newt) There were about 4 or 5 people in line that were looking at this poor girl like she was E. F Hutton! I was so embarrassed for her that I was struggling for something to say or for a hole to open up in the floor and suck me down into it! She looked at our faces for what seemed like an eternity, it was like everything switched to slow motion. Her eyes welled up with big ole crazy tears, she dropped her arms and shoulders then took off! It happened so fast I must have made that Chester Cheetos sound when I shook my head, she turned on her heels and was outta there! Fine by me, that just meant I was one person closer to the front. I see strange shit all the time, bummer for the chubby girl but time to move on, I am starving! The woman actually looked at the man beside me and said, “Do you think what I said made her leave?” He just shrugged his shoulders, so she looked at me. I wanted to call her an insensitive idiot and tell her to shut up until it was her turn to order but I decided to refrain from that. In a very sarcastic voice I said, “Come on now are you serious?” “Unless you are completely new, you are aware that you should NEVER ask someone if they are pregnant unless you can see a head hanging out!” “But I suppose now you know she wasn’t pregnant right?” To which she replied, “Well I guess, but she sure looked pregnant to me.” There was no comment immediately available for that level of logic.

The last straw

I will never, and I repeat never ask anyone if they are pregnant. I don’t care if I am giving her a ride to the hospital while she is screaming her head off with contraction pain starting to deliver in my car, I am not going to do it and here is why! I was at a party years back and although I had been somewhat over served by a handsome and heavy handed bartender, I still did not exercise good judgment when I asked someone that incredibly piss poor etiquette, none of my business and totally all up in your grill question of, “So you have been married forever, when are you all going to have a baby?” I think I was the last straw, the one that broke the proverbial camels back! She looked at me and said, “I can’t have children, I was born without reproductive organs.” She offered no other words, nothing to make me more comfortable or to make me feel like less of an asshole! She just left it hanging out there with me looking at her as if to say, “well aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” She then looked at me like I was the biggest

And trust me I felt like one! She walked away and so did I. I don’t know where she went but I went straight to the bar, ordered another scotch and water and tried to drown in it! I thought about it for a while and really, I was not trying to offend her, I really didn't care whether she had children or not so why did I ask? Why does anyone ask? It just seems like the thing to do right? Boy I picked a good one to bug! How the hell could I have known she was born without plumbing? It’s not as if it were flashing on her forehead like the ticker at the bottom of the TV screen. Hell at the time, I thought all married people were asked that once they got hitched, adding more people to the world is the next logical step right? We crossed paths several more times that night and one of them made me feel compelled to stick my foot in my mouth again. I said, “I am so sorry if I offended you, I really meant no harm I was just wondering when you were going to have kids, and I had no idea you couldn’t” “I hope I was not insensitive, I am very sorry.” She broke a tiny smile. (whew, something from her to make me feel better….thank GOD) she then said, “No I am sorry, I should have been a bit nicer about it, you were not doing anything that anyone else hasn’t done it’s just that I am SO tired of that question and I guess you were the last straw.” “I should not have been so hard on you and then just walked away so I am sorry.” Great, so I offended her and now she is going to try to make ME feel better. Yep, I am an incorrigible asshole or is that she is just really nice? She told me that she and several of the women in her family were born without reproductive organs and that some had opted for adoption but others had not and they were very sad not to have any children yet. She again said, “I am sorry to have been rude to you, after all, it is not something you would just know unless I told you.” I said, “Hey, I appreciate your apology but you do not owe me one, I actually should thank you because you just taught me a valuable lesson.” I have seen her a handful of times over the years and have no idea if she has ever adopted children or not. You bet your ass I am not going to ask either.

The lesson I learned was that it is none of my or any one's business when a couple is going to have children, what is taking them so long or why they have not started! Just because the answer was not obvious did not give me a right to ask. We do not know the circumstances around such a decision and the question can often times be a very painful one. Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing wrong with choosing NOT to have children. Society just refuses to get that one! Lord knows I got what was coming to me because when I got marred the barrage of questions started and continued until I was about to pop with twins. Then it continued with what are you having and how many? Another thing, I had so many women AND men walk up and attempt to touch my stomach or ask me if they could. What is that all about??? I finally snapped one day and said, “Hell no you can’t touch my stomach, can I touch your bald spot???” “NO” I started looking like Mr. Miagi doing the wax on wax off stance to idiots trying to touch me. I still don’t know why people want to touch a pregnant woman’s belly. For God’s sake we are carrying ordinary babies not the Messiah and we are not Buddha’s!

I will end with a funny that happened to me when I was pregnant. It is also proof that I don’t notice pregnant people unless they fall on me and I preferred to not be noticed when I was pregnant. Not noticing me as a pregnant person was next to impossible because I was such a little troll. I was miserable, in pain and hated being pregnant every single second! I was lucky enough to only gain weight in my tummy but this also made moving around a bit of a challenge because my belly was HUGE. I went on bed rest the last 9 weeks and when I left the house it was with help to a wheel chair. Troll City man, it was horrible. When I hear someone say “Oh I looovvvved being pregnant.” It makes me want to snap their neck! I love my twins more than anything in this world but I hated being pregnant with them. They were parasites that tried to kill me and almost did. That Duggar woman that has had something like 18 babies, wow...I don't think she will be happy until her uterus falls out while shopping for groceries to feed her army but she says she loves being pregnant.

OMG can you imagine? Gratuitous use of the uterus!

Anyway....we were at the hospital for our tour of the Maternity ward. Big snooze fest and not something I enjoyed at all. Honestly I was scared to death and cannot remember much about it at all except that it was sterile, cold and everyone in there was rushing around or breathing heavy with pained looks on their faces. All the dads looked beat tired and the moms looked worse! YIKES, are we in Hotel California??? Get me out of here!! The entire time I was in the hospital when I had my twins my husband would ask me, “do you remember seeing this?” “Do you remember seeing that?” I have often wished he could have been the pregnant one, he would have done it with much more grace and dignity than I did. Anyway, after the tour we went to the cafeteria for one of my favorite meals. This hospital has the best cafeteria food, seriously it is the bomb! They have the best grilled cheese and French fries in the world and believe me, when I was pregnant I was there enough to know! My husband wheeled me over to the sneeze guard at the buffet so I could look at all the food I was not going to order. I already knew what I wanted. I was peering in looking at all the food and I heard a female voice beside me say something to me. It took a minute to register that she was talking to me. My husband said, “Honey, she asked you a question.” I looked up from my wheelchair at her and she said, “what are you having?” I then looked at her like she had a snake on her head and said, “a grilled cheese and French fries WHY?” She and my husband started laughing and she pointed to my belly and said, “No I mean” I said, “Oh, I am hungry and that was not on my radar, twins a boy and a girl.” She had a hard time believing it was not on my radar when you could have set up a canasta board on my stomach but she let it go. I went on to ignore her and waited impatiently for my grilled cheese and fries, we ate it and went home and one month later I was back there having twins and more grilled cheese and fries. Good times!

2011-03-12T16:59:00.000-05:00

I’m just sayin…..

While waiting in line at Chic-fil-a, I was shocked by what I saw. There was a girl in line a few people ahead of me. She had a great and colorful tattoo of a butterfly on the back of her neck. It was very pretty and tastefully done. When she gets older and enters the work force she can simply wear her hair down if she so chooses and no one will know its there. I am not a fan of ink (for myself) but I have always said if I were to get a tattoo, it would be either on the back of my neck or on my backside and it would probably be a butterfly. The woman with the tattoo was not the shocking thing. It was the lady directly in front of me that was taking serious issue with the girl with the butterfly tattoo. She went on and on about how tacky it was to get a tattoo and how young people today were all just “trashy”. I agree that there is a lot of trashy out there but this girl was not trashy, just young and expressing herself with a beautiful tattoo of a butterfly. The woman went on for about 5 minutes with the person she was standing in line with. She had one of the southern accents that even southerners talk about being horrible. The kind that makes you scratch your head at why SHE is talking about trashy because you KNOW when the chips are down, she KNOWS trashy very well. I'm talkin crawls into bed with dirty feet trashy, my baby daddy trashy (although not in her case, she was old), paints over chipped toenail polish trashy, meth lab in her neighborhood kind of trashy. You know, the accent that says I come from circus people from the wrong side of the tracks. She sounded like she could not hardly wait to get through line so she could go outside and burn a cigarette. People around us were getting a little irritated with her diatribe. Believe it or not, I kept my mouth shut although I was secretly dreaming of jumping the counter, grabbing a piece of piping hot chicken and shoving it down the hatch of her big ass mouth in an effort to take one for the team and shut her up! I cleared my throat the way folks do when they are irritated and I was all ready to give her stink eye when she turned to look at me. Enter the shocking part. When she turned around to look at me I almost turned to stone. She had the biggest, brightest eyebrows in all the free world, and guess what? THEY WERE TATTOOED ON!!!!!! This old bitch, complaining about a tattoo and she had two of um...on her damn face!!!! First of all, what hit me was the ugly face of this woman, instead of wasting her money on tattooed eyebrows she should have had them tattoo the face of Cindy Crawford on her to cover up hers. All I could focus on were the reddish brown arches she had inked into her face. She looked like a walking representative for McDonald's! The audacity of this woman to talk smack about the girl with the tattoo when she had two of them on her forehead! I would have gladly taken the butterfly over the auburn arches. You be the judge.

This?

Or this?

Should make you think of burgers NOT eyebrows

I simply do not understand the concept of tattooing your eyebrows. I know as we age or have health complications things like eyebrows falling out becomes a reality. Our eyebrows are one of the few things that actually thin as we age..isn't it ironic, don't cha think? Is there something wrong with using an eyebrow pencil to fill them in to give them definition? Or is filling them in with a pencil the pre-cursor to tattooing? I think its ugly as hell when they are colored in to heavily also but my god at least you can wash that off at night! Tattooing eyebrows may look good on women of color but white women with pasty white skin, NO NO NO! I have never seen this done on a woman where it looks natural.

Case and Point

But also wrong on many levels

I am sorry but it just looks like a toddler got hold of a sharpie and went to work on the forehead of a woman scared to get old. My eyebrows are thin also and I am now a blond so I take blond eyeliner pencil and color them a tad bit just so they do not look so thin, well and to cover up the gray ones that creep in. I DO NOT use that eyeliner to draw a line further than the eyebrow actually exists. I find myself looking in a mirror several times before I leave the house JUST to make sure my eyebrows are not so prominent that they enter a room 30 seconds before I do. People should notice the entire face, not just one item on the face. I cannot look anyone in the eye that has tattooed eyebrows. I feel like its all I am looking at and it honestly makes me feel like I am going to turn into a pillar of salt. I am not saying that every set of tattooed eyebrows is unattractive, I am just saying I have never seen any that were attractive enough to look normal or make me rush out and spend $450 to get a set. If you think I am lying, ask a man what he thinks (not that it really matters, we don't do it for them anyway). If you can find one that will talk about it, good luck getting him to tell you the truth until you get a few beers in him. The ones I have asked (didn't want to be named of course) say they do not understand why we pluck the shit out of them and then color them on, honestly neither do I. Men do stupid stuff too, especially when they are going through a midlife crisis. They buy sports cars, wear all black clothing, turtlenecks and douse themselves in tons of cologne. They hang out at bars again, comb their hair over a growing bald spot, cavort with younger women and eat Viagra like candy until their ticker jumps ship or they realize they are just old and settle down before the next heart attack. Anyway, back to women... The way we decorate our faces should enhance our beauty not detract from it. I am the first to admit that when you see me without make up you KNOW God invented it for a reason but damn people, its make up, not war paint!

Speaking of getting old, one of the reason’s I am a bit scared to get old is because beauty will eventually betray us all as wrinkles and oldness set in. Society doesn’t really teach us how to age gracefully, but rather how to go see a surgeon to delay it with ink, nips and tucks. Once women start having “work done” they seem to lose perspective on when enough is enough. Its like they are stuck in this parallel universe where they think no one is aware they are having procedures done and they somehow think they look normal to us. Really? Is this normal?

This was normal

Damn

Sweet Jesus

THIS may be the one that made her daughter beg her to STOP!

She had so much surgery her husband split because

her looks made him physically ILL!

I think she wants to be a cat.

Men do it too!

Not scared of getting old. Scared of getting black.

When the gambler had a good hand.

FOLD

I digress but seriously, WTF?

foam AND sausage fingers!

I have always said that I will do just about anything to my face such as, spend an exorbitant amount of money on creams, serums, oxygen blasts, botox and peels but it stops there. NO surgery. Partly because I am chicken shit and do not have a high threshold for pain but also because I am scared I will look like a sad woman afraid to get old.

Used to be adorable

Now the joker from Batman

Used to be gorgeous

Now old and overly injected

There are those eyebrows again

Hi, I could suck a golf ball through

a garden hose!

Its not just Hollywood that has lost their mind and gone surgery crazy. We have women here that have done it also. I would love to put pictures of them in here because damn all I would have to do is scan through my face book pages but I have to live here so I will not sell anyone out. I am just sayin at some point we need to just allow ourselves to get old and stop trying to cover it up by injecting fat from other parts of our body into our face. We see you and we remember what you looked like one or two husbands ago and we think you just look silly now, well and old but its ok it happens to all of us. Back to the eyebrows, I guess that is a live and let live thing but you KNOW I have an opinion on it..and in the grand scheme of what folks do to their faces it could probably be worse.

I'm just sayin.....

2011-03-05T10:44:00.006-05:00

Oh Charlie welcome aboard the crazy train, please take your seat beside Mel. Your server's Lindsay and Christina will be right by with your in flight beverage. The debacle that is Charlie Sheen is really just typical Hollywood bullshit. Self absorbed and overpaid narcissistic blowholes that have more money than brain cells and can’t seem to hold themselves to the simple standards that are required by the rest of us. You know, nothing major just show up for work everyday SOBER, don’t diddle or hang out with hookers and porn stars if you are married and go home every night to take care of the family that YOU created (I think I would take issue with an ex model and ex porn star "being there" to take care of my twins when "I can't be there")!!! Let's add that you should TRY not to chase your wife around Aspen with a butcher knife and put the homemade crack pipe down while your kids are even in the same zip code with you. I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I had decided he was out of his tree long before he said, “They picked a fight with a warlock!”

Warlock? Sure

Warlock? No Crazy? Sure thing. WTF is on his arm?

But even I can admit the warlock comment was pretty damn funny. More funny, were the jokes the radio hosts were making along with the folks calling in. It made for a nice 30 minute commute from home to work. He has no clue what a joke he has become but I guess that is one of the beautiful benefits of being as crazy as a shit house rat. I really liked the Tiger blood part also.

This Tiger?

Or this Tiger?

There are things about the Sheen machine that shock me. It is not so shocking that he is being called a marketing genius, I mean some of the best and funniest products and material come out of crazy diatribes. If I owned a business and could come up with a funny commercial or something to make some money and sell my product by bastardizing his situation I would do it. I think that falls in line with riding that pony till the buzzer goes off. Use him up!

Nectar of the Goddess

What REALLY shocks me are the dudes that are calling him their HERO? WTF? Hero, really? These comments are coming from men that I have previously considered intelligent. I have actually seen it written on Facebook (paraphrasing a bit) in reference to this ass hat. I feel so sorry for you Charlie, praying for you Sheen, you are still my hero, sending you a fist pump man. Funniest man alive, I love you man, you are a dudes hero. Seriously W T F? Being in the Heidi Fleiss black book, making a few good movies, staring in a sit-com and screwing porn stars makes you a hero? I got nothin. I think like a dude on lots of occasions, more than I think like a woman actually but Angelina is not my hero because she boinks Brad Pitt and I don’t think there was ever a chick who gave a fist pump to another chick for banging John Holmes like a screen door in a hurricane! When the brotha came down with the HIV I am willing to bet folks dropped off his pecker train just about as fast as they will Charlie once the news stops helping his career by talking about him.

HERO'S

TV Show about Hero's

Superhero's

Depending on how you pronounce it.

Dead porn star who thought he was a hero

Lucky bitch but not my hero

Does your hero have a mug shot?

Family man leaving a lot to be desired.

This is where I think like a woman. Guess I should say here that I would feel the same way if a woman were acting the way Mr. Sheen is acting and in Hollywood right now, there are a couple of them.

Carry on you wayward daughter.... not a wife or a mommy.

No longer a wife but still a mommy.

If you are going to get married and start a family then it is time you pull you head out of your ass and take care of your responsibilities! Get and keep a job, one that has insurance and enables you to pay your bills. If one job doesn’t do it, get two. Once you have obtained gainful employment, try not to get fired. To my knowledge Hollywood has not had the same problem with lower salaries and filings for unemployment that most of the rest of the country has right? My point, there are a lot of us hungry with bills piling up and kids growing up needing things so if you have a family that loves you, needs you and a sweet job grossing millions then WTF is your problem with holding it together??? As usual I digress, someone should remind him, he chose to get married and chose to have kids (whether she talked him into it or not) now lay off the drugs, crack whores and porn stars and take care of them. Hell I don’t know, maybe someone did remind him of that but he doesn’t want any help from his friends or family because he doesn’t want to be treated like a 12 year old…..SO STOP ACTING LIKE A 12 YEAR OLD. In my book he is just a selfish little rich boy that has been given way to much credit that doesn’t see any need for change so he is just going to continue being that way until the rest of us climb on board. He is really giving a new definition to the word selfish. Webster should put an entry in when you look up selfish that says See Charlie Sheen. How gallant of him to start to care about his co-stars now (with little to no mention of his family or his parenting skills). I got a kick out of the snakes in the head jibber jabber he says in one of the interviews. “I am going to win, it’s not about me right now, I am not going to stop until everyone on my team is paid for the full season, and it’s not about me right now.” Really? When during the course of your career has it not been about you? In fact, it is SO not about you right now that you have decided when your sit-com starts up again (HA) that you should be paid 3 million per episode instead of 1.8. I guess hospitals and hookers ain't as cheap as they used to be. I would love to see the look on my bosses face if I lost her millions in revenue and then spattered some anti Semitic shit about her RIGHT before I told her I wanted a raise, a 1.2 million dollar raise. It is a good thing Charlie is as nutty as a Christmas fruitcake because if he wasn’t…. he would have to be rocking down a pair of nuts the size of basketballs.

Ride that pony till the buzzer goes off.

The part of me that thinks like a dude (live and let live) but reacts like a woman (mess with my money and my family and I will shank you) says, buddy you are making me rich with your famous name and your reputation for being a dick head so I don’t care if you do so much cocaine that you can run a tissue between one nostril and the other or drink until you puke up chunks of your liver. You can pork porn starts until your dick falls off and screw your nanny while your children watch, do lines off their high chair tray and drink vodka out of their Sippy cups. You can shake a butcher knife at your wife or cut her damn head off for all I care UNTIL you start screwing up the lifestyle that I have become accustom to because I have been riding your fame and fortune pony. Yep once I hear the buzzer go off, I’m hoping off that pony and onto another gravy train. As far as his wife, there are some things that prevent me from being a stand by your man kind of woman. Embarrassing me to the level that he has embarrassed his family, calling me a bad mommy when you have been known for drugs and women, mmmm hmmmm beat it asshole, I will find someone else! Yeah, yeah I know she is a crack head also but I'm just sayin... From the perspective of his co-stars, I hope they have already been dogging their agents to find them a new gig. Again, I am no mental genius but after his first stint in rehab I would have realized Bruh Rabbit was gonna go right back to that briar patch. Most of them, with exception of the ½ man part of the sit-com, have been famous on some level for at least 20 years so shame on them if they have not saved or invested well. But like I said, I will be damned if I would show him any support. They have writers and funny people on the payroll, there must be somebody that can write him out and someone more attractive and more funny into his place. Is he so popular because of his life on the show or because of how he lives his actual life? If it is a combination of the two they could always replace him with George Clooney. I don’t know about hero but he comes pretty damn close to rock star status as far as I am concerned! All these dumb asses get married over and over again but not him. He is good looking and an admitted womanizer that was so bad at marriage the only vow he is willing to take is to never do it again. I remember thinking, when Tiger Woods had his stir in the media for sleeping with everyone BUT his wife, why don’t all men who love to sleep with a lot of women just stay single? I.E George Clooney, now there is a smart man. Loves um and leaves um without the drawn out Hollywood legal battles and all the drama. I mean I cannot find a lot wrong with dating someone and treating them amazingly well until you are just not into them anymore. When that time comes just move on. Babe it’s been real and it’s been fun but it hasn’t been real fun so now Imma have to drop you like a bad habit. That is certainly the way I would do it if I ever found myself single again. We can date forevah if all goes well but don’t be bringing your toothbrush to my house and don’t ask to stay longer than the shelf life of the average cold cut. I will consider you like black forest ham, three days after you are sliced from the bone, if there is any left I will have to throw you out for something fresher. Yep I would consider Charlie a washed up loser, deadbeat dad, piss poor employee, total embarrassment of a son and a worthless husband. With any luck, the fat lady is singing for him and his buzzer is going off because I KNOW I am tired of seeing is ass on my TV.

Kissing his career goodbye? Only time will tell.

Things happen for a reason

2011-02-19T19:24:00.000-05:00

The other morning started out as many of mine do, me in my typical surly mood and my children poking the bear. I have learned to TRY to overlook the drama that comes out of a certain little girl and boy in my house and am rounding the corner into not letting it screw up my entire morning (work in progress, work in progress). Shaking like a paint shaker at Home Depot is a shit way to start a morning but it just seems to be the way it will go for me. SO when the going got tough this particular morning, the tough got her ass in her car early and headed downtown to work. I was out of the house about 10 minutes ahead of schedule so I was in no particular hurry. I was not speeding, not bitching at the mini vans in front of me or cussing at the yanks eating my bumper behind me. Just trolling along and happy to have left the team with daddy to finish preparing for school. SO, I am driving on one of our major thoroughfares into downtown when I got in line behind an old blue head in a Lincoln. She was going 12 mph. Until her lack of speed made me catch up behind her it was not bothering me but then it started to bug me so I passed her. I did not brake, I did not give a signal (mistake number 1) and I did not really speed up when I got on the other side of her. I then got right in front of her. I did not give a signal then either (mistake number 2) and I sped up just a hair (apparently mistake number 3). When I say I sped up, I mean that I increased my speed by about 5 mph. I was doing 20 when I came up on granny so by the time I passed her I MAY have rounded out a speed of 25 mph. The speed limit on this part of the road is only 35 mph so no biggie. I got just about to my favorite hot dog stand that resides on this road (snoopy’s) for those of you that live in my town and I saw blue lights behind me. I kept on driving because I was not speeding so he could not be there for me. Well he was and I figured that out quickly. So I pulled over to the right, up the next residential street passed Snoopy’s.

Oh yeah, this is SO not me in the morning.

Now to set this up just a bit, if you have read any of my blog posts then you are aware that mornings are not my cup of tea. I am, at the best a sparkling bitch with major attitude if you mess with me before I am ready to be messed with. It does not matter to me who you are, I do not want any contact with you that is not utterly necessary for AT LEAST several hours after I have crawled out of bed and made an attempt to be human. A police officer is no different, probably should be but I make no distinction between living things in the morning. I was now getting pissed because he was throwing a turd in the punchbowl of my 10-minute jump on traffic and my day. What IN THE HELL could I have been doing wrong???? So when he pulled me, did he get out of his cruiser..Oh wait, I mean vehicle and come to see me immediately? NO, he sat in his car, ran my plates, looked up what ever it is they look up and sipped his coffee for about 3 more minutes that seemed more like 10! I DO NOT like to wait OR be made late and at this point I am about to be late because I have not reached the bottleneck section of my drive that is the gateway into downtown. Damn him! He finally gets out of his cruiser (vehicle) and WOW what a portly little fella he is. I am surprised his ass didn’t bang on the running board of his vehicle as he crawled out. His measurements must have been 40 waist with a 28 inseam. A tailor’s nightmare for sure and what is up with police officers (some but not all) wearing uniforms so tight that if they fart they will discharge their weapon in self-defense??? He comes to the window and slows down at my back seat. Why? I am a small blond in a mommy style Lexus with stuffed animals and car seats in the back, how dangerous can I be? Maybe he wanted a ride in the car seat; it was after all just his size. He walks up to the window and taps on it for me to roll it down. I roll it down half way (some of our police officers are doing strange stuff to female drivers now so I am not giving him a chance) and hand him my license and registration without speaking. I do give him a half smile with a my right eyebrow raised. I think the eyebrow raise is why my husband married me. I did not speak to him, why should I? When I gave him my information I turned my head and looked straight ahead. Sure are some cute houses on this street now, the neighborhood sure has changed, wow. He could not leave well enough alone and just give me the damn ticket so he starts in with the small talk. “ MAM (of course Shorty had to add that now didn’t he) do you want to know why I stopped you?” I look up at him and say, “no sir, not really” and I continue looking at him until he speaks. He has inconvenienced me this morning so why should I make conversation easy for him. He has the upper hand so screw him. I am going to get the damn ticket no matter what I say so I choose to say nothing. I know my husband wishes he were here because it is RARE that I choose to say nothing. He says, “fair enough” then walks back to his car and does whatever it is he does. He could be running my information or calling his mother for all I know but what I do know is that now it is to late for me to get to work and then hit the chic-fil-a for a snickity snack so just damn him! I turn the CD player on to Eminem, nothing like a little fuel for the hatred fire I have going on…and Rhianna is currently enjoying being lied to so why don’t I just sit there and watch her burn right along with Eminem???

I sit there about 5 minutes and he comes back with my papers. I look up at the window to see what he has to offer and get my left hand ready to embrace the ticket I am about to receive. He says, “ you established that you have no interest in why I stopped you so are you concerned with the fact that I am going to issue you a citation, because I am required to explain why?” I look up and say, “well sir, I care, but I am not concerned”. “See I was not speeding, as a matter of fact I was going well under the speed limit, the only thing I did was pass an old woman who was traveling at an unsafe speed that was even slower than the one at which I was traveling, so I figure that it doesn’t really matter what I think or feel, you have your reasons and you are not afraid to use them so you are going to issue me a citation no matter what I say, am I correct?” He smiled at me with a smile that told me he knew that I had a relationship with an attorney and I was going to call him as soon as I drove away, therefore he would not be seeing me sitting in court on his administrative day when he goes to defend his ticket righting. He says, “you are correct in that you were not speeding but you did however pass the vehicle traveling in front of you without giving a signal when you passed on the right or when you moved back in front of the vehicle”. I said, “ok sir, I can live with that, EVEN though you, me and her were the only cars on the road at the time.” He said, “You didn’t let me finish mam.” Damn him, throwing the word mam around like its no biggie. Mam should fall in the category for women my age, (you know when you can’t tell if we are old and well preserved or young but well seasoned) as asking a woman when she is due when you can’t tell if she is just fat or if she is really knocked up! Now I AM pissed and I wouldn’t pee on this little troll if he caught fire right by my window! So, “mam you didn’t let me finish, you are correct, you were not speeding and you were in fact traveling under the posted speed limit but can you tell me why you passed her in an unsafe manner and why you did not give a signal?” I said, “Well if my reason is good enough, will you let me go without a ticket, cause I am already late?” He said, “Well lets hear your answer”. See now he is just flirting and trying to be cute. He has already decided and did so before he left his cruiser that he is not going to give me a ticket so NOW he is just wasting my time because he can! I looked at him and said, “well sir, I was not speeding because I don’t speed I well, I am a mom in case the car seats in the back did not give that away. I was also traveling slowly because until you stopped me I was not in a hurry and I was just enjoying my drive. Then I came up on a car going really slowly so without thinking of a signal or using my brakes (why should I, I was creeping) I just decided to go around her, why? Because sometimes it’s not about speed, its just about not wanting to follow anyone, surely you understand that”. He said, “well, that is honest and I do appreciate it so you travel safely and please use your signal from now on OK MAM?” I said, “You got it sir.” We chatted for a few more minutes with pleasantries such as where are you headed, where do you work, for how long and how many kids do you have? It was all I could do not to turn into the back and say, car seats…count them 1, 2 so that means I have two children quickie quickerson, but even I know when to quit while I am ahead. I asked him some of the same questions; I knew where he worked so I started with children. He had 3 and was recently separated, we chatted for a few minutes and it ended up being a nice conversation with a very nice person and by the time I pulled away I was actually very glad that he stopped me. He worked me out of my morning bad mood and folks that ain't easy to do! I had no wedding rings on so maybe that was really why I didn’t get the citation…who knows but what I do know is that it ended up being a nice conversation with a nice person and as I continued on my route to work I passed a pretty nasty accident. Made me wonder if maybe being stopped by the police officer and detained long enough to make me late also made me miss out on being part of that nasty accident. No way to tell but just solidified my belief that people are placed in our path for a reason and if he was not placed in my path to keep me from an accident, then at the bare minimum he was placed in my path to give me someone to have a nice conversation with and ease into a good mood for the remainder of my day. I can certainly live with that!

2011-02-17T22:31:00.001-05:00

I love the cookies but hate the aggravating sales campaign used to make us purchase them. A mommy, usually dressed in mommy jeans and some form of a sweatshirt, white socks and keds tennis shoes comes to the door with one or more scraggly teeth little girls ( who by the way could not look more disinterested in selling friggin cookies) and knocks at THE MOST inopportune time. If no one responds, do they go away? Oh heavens no, just like the Jehovah Witness people, they ring the door bell. I am a loyal shopper so I only buy them from one person, who by the way has two of the cutest little girls in the world and I would buy anything they sell. This mommy is not a girl scout cookie nazi, she is a good egg! She sends an email or message via facebook and boom, she is done. Several weeks later she comes with her adorable daughter to bring you your cookies. Love her! My husband and I are not smart enough to coordinate our purchases so about two weeks after they hit our house, he comes home with about 5 boxes of thin mints, ginning like a goof ball.

My freezer is full of the foul little peppermint patty wannabe's until summer. I did not buy any this year because I did not get an email from my friend who sells them. So I have sworn off answering the door or shopping at places that allow these mommies and their daughters to stand out front and sell them. Why is it almost always a table with 4 or more moms drinking coffee and yelling at the patrons to "get your girl scout cookies here!" But there are only 1 or 2 little girls in attendance and they are always talking to each other or playing some video game? Isn't this designed to teach your daughters something? Anyway...I stay away from grocery stores and shops until night fall so that I do not have to defend my NO to these people. It is not that I think the girl scouts are bad, I know they are great but I do not like the bum rush I get before going into the store! For the record, I do not take the tootsie roll or stick money in the red caldron for the bell ringers either but I do give to that organization also. Again, its the bum rush I hate. I am sure I have verbalized my disdain for the cookie campaign in front of my children at some point but it is not something I regularly do. What happened today is proof that I do talk about it and that our children are sponges.

We had a birthday party to attend and my daughter wanted to pick the gift out herself. Only fair right? So we headed to K-Mart. We pulled into the parking lot and I saw the standard table, over run with moms and lacking in the little girl department. I gave a sigh and shook my head but my daughter was reading in the back seat so she did not see me. We got out and headed to the door. The moms were yelling at people about buying cookies and talking loudly to each other as if they were the only people in the world. I was all prepared to shoot them a "don't bother me, I am with my daughter" their way and so far, I was doing a VERY good job of looking down at the street (ignoring them) and keeping pace with my daughter when she grabs my hand, takes a deep breath, screams and points at the table. "OMG MOMMY LOOK OVER THERE, ITS THE COOKIE PUSHERS" Just to make sure I heard her...she repeated the COOKIE PUSHER part. I started to laugh, literally OUT LOUD, I swallowed my gum and choked on my own saliva I was laughing so hard. I picked her up and hugged her while I was laughing and we walked past the cookie table and the moms who were giving me serious stink eye. Needless to say, the table is now quiet. We went inside, picked out our gift and went home without purchasing cookies OR being asked again if we wanted any.

Got home and was home long enough to set our purchase down, fix the twins some lunch and had started cleaning the house when on the front porch there arose such a clatter....ding dong...avon? Jehovah Witness? Encyclopedia salesman? NOPE..a mommy dressed in an outfit that screamed 1980 called and they want their clothes back! She was selling guess what? Girl Scout cookies. My husband answered it because I answer neither the door nor the phone. He left her on the front porch while HE searched for MY checkbook. It was cold but yet she stood there with the door WIDE open. WTF? Were you raised in a barn??? Hi, welcome to our front porch you inconsiderate cookie person, oh no don't bother to come in or stay completely out just keep standing there with the damn door open! We are paying to heat the outside today and appreciate your contribution! I just kept vacuuming and never looked up. Thirty minutes later I go for something to drink and when I open the freezer for ice, guess what I see.

Why is this taking SO long

2011-01-23T12:27:00.003-05:00

We are almost at the two-week cut off for the sleep schedule thingy. Why is this taking so long! I am tired, they are tired and I have landed both feet into frustration. Completely disgusted is gaining on me and I am sure to feel beaten when that hits. I did this when they were 2 years old and it was easier. They were less mobile and less able to fight the process. When all else failed then, we had the dreaded doorknob. I love the doorknob; it was acceptable where a pad lock is not. It is designed to keep kids out of a room but we totally used it to keep kids IN a room. Worked like a charm. Years after the doorknob was removed, it still struck a cord with the twins when we mentioned it. "You had better stay in your room tonight and sleep, I would hate to use dum dum dummmmm, THE DOOR KNOB." They would look at us with wide eyes, like the OMG I just saw Santa coming out of the chimney, eyes and magically they would settle right down.

The Doorknob

Story behind the doorknob.

Daddy was out of town and I thought it was time to move the twins out of their cribs. The next two nights that I went through were hell and doing it while daddy was out of town was the only way to get er done! He would never have survived it and would have stopped me cold in my tracks. See Below.

They were climbing out of the cribs (once this starts it is time to do away with the cribs. The challenge is over AND its all fun and games until someone breaks an arm) and playing in their room until that got boring, then they migrated out into the hall and made their way downstairs. Back in this day I was less worried about them coming down stairs and aggravating me and more worried about them falling down the steps. I started taking the cribs apart and OH MY GOD! I was wicked pregnant when he put them together but I swear I do not remember him using titanium, a sauter gun and super glue. I tried using screwdriver after screwdriver and nothing was budging! I even used a hammer and a chisel and got a little movement. This told me I needed the big guns so I went into the garage and summoned the axe. I made the twins sit on the guest bed, which is across the hall, and in no way close to the scene of the crime that was about to take place. I will never forget the look on their faces.... oh yeah, this bitch is crazy and daddy left us here with HER. I went to work with the axe and after not to terribly long, I had the makings of a good fire. Chips and pieces everywhere! There is more than one way to skin a cat and I was pretty sure that now I did not need to bother with eBay or good will for these cribs...they were toothpicks now! I cleaned up the mess and redecorated their rooms. They were now going to sleep on the crib mattresses on the floor until I decided what kind of bedroom suites I wanted for them. Dark was on its way and I was going to need help with bedtime. Our toddler whisperer had given me some advice, I had formulated a plan and I was ready to go. I was getting nervous and thought, I can't do this alone, and I need a friend with a Quaalude and a blindfold! SO daddy being out of town, I enlisted another wing man, my best friend. Not just for moral support but also for a witness that my children went unharmed. She got here, we all had dinner, read books and time for bed. We administered good night kisses and explained that if they got out of bed and left their room that I would first close the door. Took about 10 minutes and I had to mommy up and close the door. I explained then that the next step was to use the new doorknob. I didn't explain the level of difficulty with said doorknob; I was going to let them figure that out for themselves. Again, 10 minutes later.... I had to use the doorknob. My friend and I went upstairs, turned on the light and put the doorknob on. I pinched my fingers 3 times trying to get that sucker on! Finally it snapped into place and it was on! We stood outside the door and waited. We were both sweating like thieves for what was about to happen. All of a sudden plop plop, we heard little feet hit the floor and whispering going on. 30 seconds later, the doorknob started trying to turn. Nothing, then the other twin tried, and again...nothing. They started talking to each other. "Help me, help me get this door open." "I am trying, I can't get it." It escalated from there and suddenly the screaming started.

AND

We paced the floor waiting. I was crying, best friend was crying, twins were screaming. I went downstairs and took a shot of tequila and went out onto the deck to smoke a cigarette! This sucks! Came back upstairs and looked at my friend, it was now her turn to go downstairs for a couple shots of courage. What happened next made us both laugh and cry. The door knob stopped rattling but the screaming got worse...." MOMMY MOMMY PLEASE LET US OUT, MOMMY MOMMY PLEAAASSSSEEEE"!!!!!" We heard something at the bottom of the door and looked down to find twenty little fingers feverishly trying to break free and find mommy. OMG, now I know how the people working for Hitler must have felt. I decided right then that if I ever wrote a book, the chapter that covered sleeping would be called Nights in concentration camping! It seriously looked like the gas chamber in Auschwitz! Fingers under the door and screams for freedom. My friend said, "Just go downstairs...this is bothering me but it’s killing you." She was right. I went downstairs and took another shot. Went back upstairs and stood with her for a few minutes (we were 45 minutes into this process now) the screaming stopped and it got silent. We waited a few more minutes and then decided to go in. The twins were both on their mattresses sound asleep. The boy child was all the way on his and the girl was half on and half off when she gave it up. We loved on them both and came downstairs to recover.

My husband called that night and said, "Hey honey how are you? How are the twins?" He also added, "you sound tired." Shit he had no idea. I knew none of the above could have been done with him in residence (he can't handle the tough love parenting thing) but I also figured he would hit the roof when I told him how it went down. I started my story. I was sure to tell him that I had gotten advice on how to do this from our source. I wanted him to blame her or at least hate us both but more than anything understand that I was not evil just determined to keep them in bed and proceed with a good schedule for sleep. He went silent for the most part when I told him I enlisted an axe. I think he imagined this......

I also went in even further to ask him who the hell he put those cribs together for, King Kong? Those things would have survived if our house blew away! He laughed at his handy work but was still silent. I went on to tell him about the doorknob, fingers under the door, shots, and the 45 minutes in hell and then softened the blows by telling him how we found the twins when we entered the room. To my shock he said he was proud of me for doing it and that he could never had survived it without going in while they were screaming. Did he mean this or was he just trying not to poke a sleeping bear? I didn't say much other than, "well, thank you honey but we will see how tomorrow goes."

The next night was a piece of cake, 20 minutes with the door closed of them talking and playing around and boom! Sound asleep and I never had to use the dreaded doorknob. These are bright children.

Back to Current Day......

Fast forward 2 years and we are trying sleep schedule revamping. I think we are on night number 4 now. My husband and I look like two people who are coming down from a 6-week drunk. We are tired, irritable and frustrated with the nights. We have one good one and one bad one. They sleep one night and act like the flying monkeys the next, compete with the music! Make no mistake about it, we know the nights they sleep are not because of our mad parenting skills but because they are EXHAUSTED. So last night we tried dum dum duummmmm...THE DOOR KNOB again. Hell why not, worked WELL the first time so why shouldn't it work this time. The twins are still pixie small and that doorknob is a bitch so lets give it a shot. My husband dug through the hall closet until he found it. Ahhhh, sleep cometh! Well you CAN read our poker faces and we are stoked, hard to hide it. Our twins say nothing and we tell them nothing about our plans. We put the doorknob on and close the door then come downstairs and settle in watching TV.

We hear the feet hit the floor and the twins begin playing around. No big deal as long as they stay in their room I don't care if they fall asleep on the dresser or in the closet. Pretty soon they will figure out the door knob is back and we will embrace trauma as she pays us a visit. You never know. Maybe we will even get a Passover on this visit? NOPE, not this time. It is different though, they start to wiggle the doorknob but there is no screaming or yelling. It is silent. We look at each other and think SAWEEEET! We won this one, thank god for the doorknob.

Then, our happiness was crushed and we both felt like we had a big "L" on our foreheads. We both have several college degrees between us and a combined 40 years of work experience under our belts and we have been outsmarted by two 4 year olds. There was no noise from upstairs at all but you know.... as a parent, you sense when something is going on. You just know they are up to something....primarily it is the quiet that gives it away right? My husband and I were watching the door to the foyer and waiting to see little faces come through it. Right on the other side of that door is the staircase. Our eyes were glued to the doorway for twins when all of a sudden, THE DOOR KNOB slams up against the front door and rolls into the den. No words, no laughing, no anything. Nothing was needed, they won and they knew it.

They went into their room and both went to bed and went right to sleep. The next time I go in there I am going to look at the wall to see if they are keeping score.

Sleep Chronicles Day 2

2011-01-21T21:05:00.001-05:00

Snafu Day 2

Day two was much less of a snafu, so maybe we are making progress? I was worried in the beginning of the night because I was going to be by myself (daddy had a meeting) and I have PMS(partial hysterectomy so yes I still have PMS) so I am just plain bitchy and need to be where people are not.

Raising children really IS like being pecked to death by chickens and when you need some space, the only thing you can count on is not getting it. Bad mood in full swing, I am thinking how the hell can we expect to get them back on schedule if our schedule is different all the time? Meetings, late dinners, grocery store visits, prescription pick ups, etc. While in the throws of being mad at the world and uncomfortable in my own skin I realized something very important. A household full of people (no matter who you are) is a powder keg of schedules and activity that can BLOW at any given moment causing a snafu. My point is that there will always be something tossed into the mix to screw things up, thus making retaining a schedule even more important. K, stop the pre panic and get on with the program! Daddy had to leave around 7ish for a meeting, this is bad because I don’t want to lose my wing man and it’s yet another change when we are trying to regain a schedule but actually good for attempting bedtime. When you do not have the two parent dichotomy, things go much more smoothly. Not sure why this is but this beggar ain't about to be a chooser. The twins were EXHAUSTED from their actions on night # 1 so that should help and the boy child had some what of a toxic melt down just prior to bed so he successfully wore himself out.

Game on

Daddy gave me the much needed time I was bitching about not having earlier by taking the twins up to get ready for bed while I cleaned the downstairs. It is amazing how after a meal, the hard wood and rug under the dinner table look like the floor of a circus tent. Hans Christian Andersen must have lived with twins because he was onto something with The Princess and the pea! One little pea can mess up A LOT and when you get a bevy of them on the floor you have a crash liability. I have literally thrown my back out by slipping on ONE of those little suckers! I swear I should lobby Insurance Companies to start allowing us to cover our homes with collision and liability insurance. Anyway, I digress.

I finished clean up and arrived upstairs to a screaming boy. It seems he had “acted up” and disrupted book time so daddy excommunicated him from the reading. Pissed off and tear ridden, he went into their room to find all their “friends” and books had been removed. He asked me, “WHHHHHYYY” and he sounded much like Nettie from the Color Purple. Pitiful just pitiful but I just looked at him and said, “I think you know why.” He screamed and cried and told me how unfair it was of us. He even threw in a “well if you loved us, you WOULD NEVER take our BOOKS.” Even I had to give him an A for effort on that one…way to go dude, notice, point out and crucify me for taking the educational material but don’t even think of mentioning the missing Scooby Doo crew and Mystery Machine. Yep, I am common as dog shit for taking the books. I thought to myself because thoughts are free, I too am tired so do I feel a trace of sorry or guilt over it? Nope, Nada, zilch! You two will sleep tonight if I have to make this damn bedroom look as stark and institutional as a bedroom in a homeless shelter! “Hey don’t we have cots out in the garage…boy that would really make an impact! OK now I AM being evil. I don’t want to disturb them into years of therapy, I am sure that will come when they are teenagers, right now I just get them back into good sleeping habits. I sat down in the chair for a few minutes because he was crying about not being able have a book read to him. I explained that he was removed from the book reading because he was being disruptive so why should he get to come in here and be read a book? He didn’t like it but he understood and came to sit in my lap and get some hugs and kisses. “Will you at least give me some love love mommy, is that ok?” OK, now he is really pushing that knife in DEEP. We snuggle in the chair until his sister enters the room.

She comes in with her daddy and is ready for bed about 15 minutes later and daddy exits to go to his meeting. I give them each a few books and 10 minutes to read with the light on. Ten minutes later I come back up to turn out the light, take the books and administer last hugs and kisses for the night. I get downstairs and they begin to chatter. I also hear them (well her) sneaking again into other regions of the house looking for all the toys that had been removed. THIS is where it’s hard for me to not go up and bust them cold and make them get back into bed. I also hear that it is just her so I know it won’t be long before she settles because without her partner is crime she won’t hang on for long. I turn the TV louder and keep my seat. Mantra: It doesn’t matter where in the house they fall asleep, as long as they fall asleep. House is a safe zone, house is a safe zone, just let it be mommy you can’t control everything! I repeat this over and over and over until my daughter is standing right in front of my face. She says in a very angry voice, “I WANT TO GO SLEEP IN THE GUEST BEDROOM!” I ignore her until she pushed the computer closed and repeats it AGAIN but louder. I want to laugh but instead I look at her and shake my head no and point to the stairs. She is steaming mad and I can see it. I think she wanted to spit green pea soup at me. Her reaction was probably one that I would have done and probably did do a few times. She rolled her eyes, shook her 4 year old head and grabbed HER Hello Kitty blanket that I was comfortably wrapped up in. Damn that is one warm blanket! She wrapped it around her neck, (with a little help from me so she wouldn’t fall) she snubbed her nose at me as if to say, screw you bitch the blanket is MINE! She turned on her heels and headed for the steps and disappeared around the corner.

Approximately 30 minutes later I went upstairs to make sure they were not asleep on top of the dresser or hanging from any light fixtures. They were once again sound asleep in their own beds. Hell to the yeah this one is a full on victory! He was on his side, breathing quietly with all his friends, looked as though he had not moved since I gave him the military tuck in. She was buck naked, face down with one arm and one leg hanging off the bed like a drunk that had wandered in and crashed! With her right hand, she was gripping one of her stuffed animals by the neck, HARD. The Hello Kitty blanket she lifted from me was on the floor just inside the door. I laughed SO hard then I re-dressed her and covered her up with her comforter, gave them both kisses and left the room. I stopped at the door and picked up the Hello Kitty blanket and took that sucker back downstairs with me! It is one warm damn blanket. Sometimes mommy’s DO get the last word!

Reflections of a Highbrow Hillbilly

WTF????

Old, Not that there is anything wrong with old.

Old, Not that there is anything wrong with old.

~~Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious~~

I'm just sayin.....

Things happen for a reason

Why is this taking SO long

Sleep Chronicles Day 2

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious