Benjamins, Yeah!

I may not have mentioned this in virtually every post I have ever posted, but I am poor. Not, like, poverty poor; I live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood in a nice town, there is always enough to eat and the electricity service is never interrupted. I have a stable job with pay that is kind of meh, but benefits that are out of this world. Our Honda Civic is paid for, Husband’s student loan balance is slowly decreasing and the payments are low, and we have very little credit card debt. We can afford to go out on dinner and movie dates a few times a month, and even a small trip here and there. But I’m poor in the sense that No. 1 has tuition to be paid, No. 3 needs braces, No. 2 has announced that she wants to take up dance again, and I have not had a vehicle I could call my own for more than three months since moving to New York five years ago. We’re not living beyond our means at all, but we are dancing at the edge of them and while costs increase, income has been kind of fixed. An unpleasant side effect of a lousy economy and state employment, but it is what it is.

Lately I have been feeling blue about my finances, and have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out ways to make more money without actually having to work that hard for it. I have considered a second job, but with a full time one, aging parents to care for, and a family I see little enough as it is, it’s just not an appealing possibility. Not to mention that if I worked at Target or The Gap I would spend as much as I earned, just like that time I worked at Pacific Linen and had lovely, fabulous linens and very little money left over. I could go back to teaching dance and am planning on working on something in that direction this fall, but it could take months to set something like that up. I could write dirty Twilight fanfic under a pseudonym like Roxxy Wilde and sell a million eBooks, but then I would have to explain where all that money came from, and how embarrassing would that be? (I’m just assuming people would buy something I wrote - they would, wouldn’t they?)

Today I drove No. 1 to the airport for her summer visit with her dad and as I was driving back, flipping through the radio stations, I realized something: popular songs make no sense whatsoever. All you need is some random rhyming words, references to designer clothing or a party, and you are good to go.  They can even be full of outright lies, like telling people it doesn’t matter if you are homeless or broke as long as you have love. (Really, Justin Beiber? Really?) So I came up with my latest get-rich-quick idea: songwriting.

Most people don’t realize that very few recording artists write their own songs, and that the songwriter is the one who makes most of the money from album and single sales. (Along with the producer, the record company, the agent, the publicist, the studio… the list goes on and on, and by the time all is said and done the singer gets, like, a nickel and is forced to tour constantly to support their rock ‘n roll lifestyle. It’s true, I read all about it in People.) How hard can it be to write a hit song? I watched that season of American Idol with Kara DioGuardi, and that lady is no Einstein, and it seems like it would take a lot less time than writing my own romance novel. So, here is my attempt at popular song writing. Let me know what you think.

Flowers blue and flowers red

I got daisies on my head

Ought to clean my flower bed

Gonna go to math instead

Count my money

Oo-ooo count my money

Count my money

Oo-ooo count my money

Benjamins, yeah

Purses, glasses, sandals, check

Where’s my iPhone, what the heck?

Hot tub outside on my deck

Golden chains around my neck

Count my money

Oo-ooo count my money

Count my money

Oo-ooo count my money

Benjamins, yeah

Baby, baby, please come home

Take my private jet to Rome

Let’s live underneath a dome

Call Armani on the phone

Count my money

Oo-ooo count my money

Count my money

Oo-ooo count my money

Benjamins, yeah

Now all I need is a good beat (I'm thinking a sample of Copacabana), a singer, and an up-and-coming rapper to provide some filler material and I, too, can afford my very own gold-plated wheelchair.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Many people look forward to their birthdays. Presents, cake, adoration from the general public...what's not to like? My theory is that these people had magical childhoods and parents who actually gave a crap. As a child, my birthdays were a crushing disappointment. I figured out at the ripe old age of nine that if I didn't plan my own birthday party, it wasn't going to happen. Even then,  my mother rarely showed up, much less got me anything. More often than not, my parents forgot my birthday or simply failed to acknowledge it, and this was long before Mom had the excuse of dementia and forgot everything except that one time last October I asked to borrow her three hole punch. (Seriously, 40% of the time she sees me I am greeted with, "did you need that three hole punch?")

Each year, May 29 became more and more depressing. There was that time my cousin stole my boyfriend; that other time my "friend" forgot to pick me up and everyone went out without me while I sat at home; the year my parents bought my sister a microwave, a TV, and a gorgeous winter coat (she lives in Atlanta...go figure) and gave me a plastic raincoat I didn't even need; I could go on and on. As the years have passed, my birthday has gotten even worse. Not only is it always a lousy day (maybe because I expect it to be) but I am getting older. Last year I passed the big 4-0 and the delusional child in me held on to the vain hope that my husband would throw me an amazing surprise party and make up for a lifetime of letdowns, but no. This year I had no such aspirations and yet still managed to end up disappointed.

The day dawned like any other; my alarm went off and I snoozed it, wishing it were a Saturday. I got up, got dressed, and went to work, where I performed my usual boring administrative tasks. We had a division luncheon at noon, a combination of a reward for winning a contest and goodbye for our departing VP. I needed to leave early because I had an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon for the tendinitis that has been lingering in my left elbow for over a year. I planned to snag a seat near the door so I could escape unnoticed, but I should have known better. Sure, I ended up sort of close to the door, but somehow managed to end up sitting next to the guest of honor. I finished my veggie wrap and as I was going to the dessert table to get some fruit, the server look my plate AND my silverware. There were no extra forks to be found. I'm not kidding, if the survival of the human race had depended on my finding a utensil, we would be dead right now. So my fruit sat, staring at me, mocking me, long after I gave up on finding anything to eat it with.

Somehow our admin figured out it was my birthday and made everyone sing to me so the people who didn't know me or notice I was there sure did after that. I missed my opportunity to sneak out before the speeches started and to make matters worse, the room had only one exit and the speakers were standing right in front of it. Needless to say, my exit was not nearly as subtle as I had hoped.

I arrived at the doctor's office and stood in line forever. All the other patients were ancient and moved like snails. When I finally got to the window, the receptionist tapped around on her keyboard and said, "you got the day wrong, your appointment was on April 29." I produced my referral form, which clearly listed the date as MAY 29, and she just shrugged and said my primary care doctor's office must have gotten it wrong. I knew they didn't because I had had a specific conversation with the lady who was making the appointment where she asked if I was sure scheduling it on my birthday was OK and I assured her it was fine. Getting my elbow prodded would have been small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. Most doctor's offices would have just squeezed a patient in, but not this one. Never mind that fact that each end every person in the waiting room was old enough that they were likely to expire before their joints could be fixed.  Never mind that I was actually there and it clearly wasn't MY error, they sent me away.

From there, I had to go to the DMV because I forgot to renew my license by mail, where I got the worst license picture in the history of humanity. I don't know what happened or where I went wrong to deserve being the least photogenic person ever, but alas, it is true. The technician asked if I wanted to retake it, but I knew it would be an exercise in futility.

I arrived at home and Dad announced he was making spaghetti for dinner, which happens to be my favorite meal, so I was actually pretty excited. I went upstairs, took a nap, and woke up for dinner, only to find that one of my snot-nosed children had pitched a fit about not wanting spaghetti so instead I was presented with one of Dad's creative casseroles, which was OK but not at all what I had hoped for. As the meal went on, I gradually came to realize that my parents had no idea it was my birthday. I shouldn't have been surprised, but no matter how low my expectations are the universe still lets me down.

Later that evening, my dad and the girls decided to take me to Sweet Frog and I convinced my husband to meet us there. I stood in front, waiting for him for ages instead of eating delicious frozen yogurt because the Southside Sweet Frog is a total dead zone for cell phones and my husband thought we were meeting at the house. By the time he got there he was angry and frustrated because he couldn't get in touch with me, and by the time we sat down with our frozen treats, he and my dad had befriended the token scary homeless guy and invited him to join us at our table. Normally, when Husband and my Dad are friendly and kind to people who are less fortunate its endearing, but this was a situation where I was hoping something, just one thing, would go my way and I could be happy for just a moment, but no, I was hanging out with a smelly guy instead.

I got home, ready to go to bed and get yet another crappy birthday behind me, but Mom called me into her office. While I was gone, my sister had called and reminded her it was my birthday so she insisted on singing to me and presented me with an exciting gift: a three hole punch.

Happy Birthday to me, indeed.

For more on my mother's present buying skills or lack thereof, click here

An Actual, Unedited Text Conversation Between Me and my Sister

You will learn two things from this post:

1) I am a really terrible person
2) So is my sister

Our story begins on Saturday, July 28, 2012 at 7:29PM

I asked Mom if she had some extra note cards No. 1 could use for thank yous and, no lie, this is what she gave her

BWAWAWAWAWAWAWA! This is a blog post.

I am crying I am laughing so hard.

Seriously. She tried to give those to me, too. I don't know what's worse: mom trying to give those cards to No. 1, or XXXXX for making them as cards in the first place!!

I am picking out the good ones from this giant box of weirdness

Pick out the worst, too, and send them to me on special occasions

What I love is how they are filed by topic, yet some have been written in

This one's got your name on it. And no, its not blurry.

Lmao!!!

We MUST come up with captions and send them to No. 1!

I could make a whole blog entry of that but it would be kind of rude.
Please call mom to entice her out of my basement. Thanks.
You're the best.

You owe me $7000

Did you get that lecture too?

Yes. Thanks for that opportunity.

She came down to tell me what to do with the money when she dies, because nothings says "financial planning time" like the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.

I know. She has impeccable timing.

Did she tell you how she is doing to thank everyone when she gets to heaven?

Nope. "I have to go get on the treadmill". I figured my job was done since she was so worn out from coming upstairs.

...we don't have a treadmill

I have 2. Come get one. Then you can watch her break a hip on it.

As she was trotting up the stairs to get the phone I was trying to decide how guilty we should feel if she fell and broke a hip

You've suffered enough to be absolved of even full on laughter.

I'm saving that for when she falls off our theoretical treadmill.

Ha!

Do you think you could come down here for a visit sometime?

I'd like to, but she might try to come with me and that would be no fun.

Tru dat.

I could tell her I'm going on another cruise. You know how she disapproves of cruises.

Yes!

Better yet we should go on a cruise together

Yes. It shall come to pass.

*begins to Google*

You can get a 5 day cruise to the Bahamas from charleston for $269 per person.

Wow!! I could do that!!

I could probably swing it myself. We would have to take Husband, but its always good to have muscle.

Right. To fend off the people trying to budge in my buffet line.

LOL. You'd be surprised how aggressive those old people can get.

I AM one of the old people now...

Oh no you're not. I've been on a cruise.

Ha! I don't know if I can go 5 days yet but I could do 3...

It would be a bit before I could come up with the cash. I have some tuition to pay.

I think I'm going to let you spend your $7000 on one for all of us, and we can spread mom's ashes off the bow of a carnival cruise!

You have the best ideas EVER.

Wearing bikinis!

And chewing gum!

Said ashes will, of course, be contained in a martini shaker

A plastic martini shaker, And so said ashes don't fly back on us, we'll actually mix them with martini. Shaken. Not stirred.

Perfect. And as they fly through the air, Husband will swear a blue streak.

And we shall sing a bastardized version of Amazing Grace.

No, we shall sing how Great Thou Art because she hates that song.

Oh, right!!!

We will ask the steel drum band to back us up.

YES!!!!!

And I bet some drunk people will be on hand to sing the chorus off key

I should hope so.

You can wrap it all up by flirting with an athiest Arab

Oh, why stop there? He could be a staunch republican athiest uneducated porn star.

Who is Arab.

With illegitimate children? Please?

AND WEARING CALVIN KLEIN!!!!

Oh, all right. For you. Since you're paying and everything.

He's going to have to smoke, of course... Pot.

The whole experience will be much more meaningful if it occurs while we should be at church

Yes. Or at her actual funeral.

Oh! And we could shoot skeet WITH HER DISHES!

Using her tablecloths as Sunbathing blankets...

This keeps getting more and more awesome. We could alo have a bonfire of all her seminary files, using vodka as an accelerant.

And we will lay on top of those tablecloths reading 50 shades of gray even though we don't want to

Should we give her shoe collection to ungrateful pregnant high school drop-outs before or after we set sail?

Before. And we can let No. 3 eat all her Breyers ice cream, straight from the carton, with the Spanish spoon

Awww!

And we will soak up all the excess water from the hot tub with her oriental rugs

I actually like the oriental rugs when they're not in her house.

There was one rolled up under the piano for three years. I laid it out in front of the turtle tank and she noticed within 12 hours.

They have homing devices in them

They must. Or else she is a rug psychic.

Pfft. She Loves them like they are her children. Or instead of.

We better watch out or she will bequeath her estate to her beloved carpets.

I still have power of attorney. we're okay

How to Write Your Own Romance Novel

You'll have to excuse my lack of blogging lately. To be honest, I've kind of spiraled into depression because my life is no longer funny. My mother has gone completely haywire, engaging is such shocking behaviors as forgetting about her self-diagnosed plastic allergy, wandering outside in her bathrobe, and watching reruns of King of Queens on TV Land. (If you know my mother, you are perfectly aware that she has never watched anything but PBS. Ever.) No. 1 is graduating from high school and will soon leave the nest. Its become abundantly clear that the only way I'm going to stay afloat financially for the next few years is to sell one of my kidneys on eBay. And, worst of all, I have turned 40.

See, I told you it wasn't funny.

My traditional coping mechanism of denial is highly effective, but exhausting to maintain so I have taken to escapism. I watch a lot of Netflix and read a lot, and have found that the more fluffy the subject matter, the more enjoyable my escapism can be. For example, watching the first three seasons of Sons of Anarchy didn't help. The characters who had moral compasses to begin with either lost them or died in knife fights, and then my husband just HAD to have a motorcycle. I have always loved historical fiction and spy novels, but they tend to be full of death, suffering, and betrayal which make for compelling fiction but at the end up the day don't do much to perk me up. But if I watch something like, say, A Cinderella Story, I feel like a million bucks afterwords. Everyone lives happily after, and Hilary Duff isn't even on crack. I love books by Marian Keyes and Meg Cabot but I am too poor to buy them and don't have a car any more (add that little item to my list of reasons to be depressed), and one can only borrow one's teenage daughter's car so often before one feels pathetic, plus I would have to change out of my sweatpants to go to the library (despite four years in upstate New York, I still adhere to my personal standards about wearing sweats in public).

So I did what any other broke, depressed person with a Kindle would do and started reading a lot of free downloads, which made me realize there's a whole lot of bad writing out there being passed off and even sometimes appreciated is if it is Dickens. This got me thinking: Maybe instead of selling one of my kidneys, I should just write romance novels. It can't be that hard, can it? You just have to include the following:

A Generic Plot

90% of romance novels have the same basic plot.

Plot #1: Two people meet in high school (or college, if you're trying to shake things up) and it isn't just love, its true love. They are separated by tragic circumstances, usually an interfering relative, and neither one has been able to find happiness, fulfillment, or any meaning in their lives ever since. The hero has coped with this by sleeping with everyone he meets; the heroine has thrown herself into her career and has pretty much not left the house otherwise. Our lovers are reunited and overcome their bitterness, hurt, and tragic circumstances/interfering relatives to live happily ever after.

Plot #2: Two people enter into an engagement or marriage as part of a bet, deal, or other bargain in order to keep their inheritance, save their small business, or keep custody of their adorable and precocious love child. This plot works best if one of them is very rich. They overcome tragic circumstances/interfering relatives and discover true love, making their marriage real and living happily ever after.

Plot #3: Any combination of plots one and two.

Somebody Has to Have a Ridiculous Name

You can use a popular name with an odd spelling, like KarrLeigh, or a name that is unpopular for a good reason, like Sybil. You can also make a variation on a popular name, like Zavid or Pennifer. Another option is to mash names together, like Renesmee, and people won't think its ridiculous at all. No, really, they won't. If all else fails, just make something up. Berznat isn't any worse than some of the names that are already out there. Traditional names are perfectly acceptable as long as they are offset by something totally silly, like having a couple named Elizabeth and Blaze.

The Hero Must be Physically Perfect

Your heroine can have physical flaws - although its better for her to possess debilitating insecurity and a complete lack of awareness of her own charm and beauty - but the man can't. His six pack should be so defined you can clearly see the delineation of his muscles even when he is wearing a shirt. I don't believe I have ever seen such a thing in real life, but let's not allow that to bother us. Be sure to use the following adjectives as often as possible: bulging, taut, corded, and sinewy.

Superlative Use of Superlatives

Use the words "never" and "ever" at least once a paragraph. Also, you can never have too many exclamation points. Remember, this book is exciting! Its the best book ever written! And your readers have never read anything better! They want to hear all about how no one has ever known love and tenderness like this, never ever, in the history of all mankind!

Bad Metaphors

Example: An irate Reginald swept through the house, spewing fury like a shopaholic denied the last pair of Louboutins at a sample sale.
*or*
Kelly gazed at Shad longingly and lovingly over the burger bar, the aroma of guacamole filling the air and permeating every fiber of her being like a bomb of tear gas. (Apparently, I am such a great writer I can't even come up with good bad metaphors. I'll have to work on that.)

So there you have it: Everything you need to write your own romance novel. You can thank me later, after your story has been picked up by Harlequin and is being sold at Wal-Marts everywhere for $1.99.

Conversations With My Mother

Long time, no blog! We can blame it on a number of factors, really. Crazy busy schedule, kids broke my laptop, my mom's insanity has become more disturbing than funny, etc. But we won't dwell on excuses, let's jump right into the fun!

My mother is easily distracted and her mind wanders all over the place. She physically wanders, too, but that's another story altogether. I pretty much dread talking to her because I can never get a straight answer anymore. But on occasion, it is necessary to converse and here is what happens:

I call the house to find out if the scheduled road construction will interfere with my getting home for lunch. Mom answers the phone.

Mom: Hello!

Me: Hi, I was wondering if-

Mom: Hello unidentified caller! You are an unidentified caller!

Me: Yeah. Hey, how is the road construction? Will I be able to get to the house for lunch?

This question has two desirable answers. Yes, which means I can get home to eat a free but unappealing meal and No, which means I have an excuse to go to Wendy's and get a mood-altering frosty that will be, sadly, not free. One can never, ever get a desirable or even marginally simple answer out of my mother.

Mom: Well, I don't know. Let me see, I will have to go outside. I would ask the dog, because he's been outside, but he never answers me. Of course your father is nowhere to be found. I'm standing up, I'm heading - oh, did I tell you I got a wedding invitation from Hoosity McGoosity*? - I'm heading to the door, I'm almost to the door - I took your laundry out of the dryer, by the way, and I put it on the Danish coffee table. There were blonde hairs all over the Danish Coffee table. Someone has been cutting their hair in front of the TV, but I don't know who, no one in this house has hair that blonde - I'm opening the front door, I'm on the front porch and - Whoosits Whatsis* found out that she has psoriasis. Whoosits is such as special person and I just breaks my heart to see her suffer (gets weepy and sniffles) - Someone really needs to sweep this front porch, that storm last night got leaves and mud everywhere. Maybe I will do that after take my nap and watch my tape of the Lehrer Report - can you beleive what is happening in Norway? Its terrible, just terrible, they say - I'm walking down the driveway, I can see the street and they have it torn up - Did I tell you I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about a new method of manufacturing chewing gum and Horace Norris* works in a chewing gum factory and I am so worried about his job being cut and then they would move and I just love his wife Doris* and I couldn't stand to see them leave - and I'm at the end of the driveway, and they have the road closed up the hill but not down, so you should be able to get home just fine - by the way...

Me: That'swhatIneededtoknowhthanksbye! {click}

And that's how every conversation with my mom goes these days.

*Bear in mind that I don't know any of these people.

The Hazards of Vintage Apparel

This past weekend, No. 1 went to the Junior Prom. She looked fabulous:



My mother wore this dress to the Military Ball at the University of Illinois in the late fifties. Obviously, she kept it all these years. My sister and I both dreamed of wearing it, but it didn't fit her and Mom staunchly refused to take up the hem for me. She gave it to my cousin to wear at one point, but her parents deemed it too revealing so she gave it back. Let us fast forward to 2011, where No. 1 announced her intentions to go to prom, and I told her she should try on Grandma's red dress. Mom went along with the idea because I pointed out that SOMEONE should wear it. It certainly wasn't doing anyone any good hanging in her closet.

It needed pressing, there was a peice of elastic on the inside that needed replacing, and the straps needed shortening. But it fit her perfectly, despite her genetically inherited lack of height, and she loved it. Who wouldn't? Mom still insisted that it not be shortened (Why? Its not like she's ever going to wear it again...) but fortunately in these modern times 5" platform heels are readily available. It was decided that No. 1 would wear the fabulous red dress to the prom.

From this point I made several errors in judgment.

First, I procrastinated. I figured I had 20 minutes of work to do on the dress and I put it off until the day of the prom. I know, I know, but No. 2 went to the prom also and I made her dress, 24 yards of fabric in all, with linings, overlays, tucks, darts, bands, and gathers. It turned out beautifully, of course, but it took A LOT of time.

I also failed to fully inspect the dress and assumed that because everything looked good, everything was good. Not so. We should have had a dry run sometime before the actual prom, where we would have noticed that the entire lining was not properly attached. (This also could have prevented incident where the entire hem came undone at the restaurant.) As such, I had to sew the entire lining back in by hand which took a good hour I didn't really have and severely cut in to my ironing time.

My next mistake was not having the dress professionally cleaned and pressed. Do not try to remove 50 year old wrinkles on your own. It simply will not work. Actually, you can get the wrinkles out but they come right back. It was the most frustrating ironing experience of my entire life, and I owned a tuxedo-style shirt with a million little ruffles on the front in the 80's. Which I wore all the time with hot pink corduroy pants tucked into slouchy teal suede boots because I was so stylish.

The biggest mistake of all was rushing. The rushing, of course, was a direct result of all my other grevious errors. No matter how little time you have, you should ALWAYS sew the straps on securely. I would recommend going over them twice because, well, once isn't enough because your kid could end up falling apart at the prom. Probably not, though, because apparently these kind of things only happen to me.

Job Posting

*WANTED*

Mature and responsible adult to transport cranky, difficult, and defiant patient to occasional doctor's appointments. Driver's License and endless patience required. Must be immune to public embarassment and all expletives in the English language. The ideal candidate will be able to communicate doctor's questions and instructions calmly and clearly to hysterical and irrational patient, then ascertain the patient's answers and convey back them back all while maintaining a pleasant countenance in order to prevent the doctor from questioning said patient's mental stability. Ability to wrestle full-grown adult to the ground without incurring injuries on either participant's part a plus.

Salary: Unlimited Appreciation

Benefits: Chocolate Chip Cookies

Opportunities for Advancement: Do a good job with my husband, and I will let you start taking my Mom too.

The Great Nun Brawl of '84

Sixth grade was drawing to a close. I twelve years old and nearing the height of my unfortunate seven-year awkward phase. My music teacher, Miss Jones, was energetic, optimistic, and just delusional enough to think that mounting a full scale cabaret-style show of Broadway's greatest hits with a cast of fifth and sixth graders was a good idea.

I was featured in several numbers, one of which was "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria" from The Sound of Music. There were seven of us cast as nuns: Tamara, the tallest and the best singer, stood in the middle with Debbie, Holly, and Jill on her right and Rachel A., me, and Rachel B. were on her left. We had all practiced our little hearts out. We had learned that song forward and backward. We had it down: the phrasing, the inflections, the facial expressions. We were going to rock the Vestal Hills Cafetorium, and we were going to rock it hard.

We were all amped up on preteen energy. (Remember, these were the good old days when we kids had to work up a highly respectable spaz without any help from Red Bull, Sour Patch Kids, or 5 Hour Energy drinks.) The lights were hot and the audience was huge. The music started and we began to sing:

She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee
Her dress has got a tear
She waltzes on her way to mass
And whistles on the stair
And underneath her wimple
She has curlers in her hair
I've even heard her singing in the Abbey!

(I didn't look that up. To this day I still know all the words to this song.)

On we sang, growing more confident as the song progressed. By the time we got to the transition, we were on fire.

"I'd like to say a word on her behalf," sang Tamara.

"Yes, Sister Margaretta?" We asked, looking appropriately interested, self-righteous, and holy.

"Maria makes me laugh. Ha ha ha ha!" Tamara did a funny little giggle she had rehearsed a thousand times. Here was where we took a breath before launching into the chorus. As we inhaled, the audience burst into hysterical laughter.

From my current perspective, I can see how a group of twelve year old girls dressed as nuns and taking themselves way too seriously could be hilarious. But at the time, it was very unexpected. Nothing in our hours of rehearsal had prepared us for this. People were rolling in the aisles, clutching at their aching sides, and wiping away tears. We were taken aback, and unsure of how to respond. Our confidence was shaken. We tried to sing but were overtaken by nervous giggles.

There has been some debate as to what happened next, but I was right there in the middle of it and I can tell you: It was Rachel B.'s fault. Had she not begun to snort with laughter, I would not have been forced to apply my left elbow sharply to her solar plexus. I was only trying to get her focus on the performance, but she took some degree of offense at having the wind knocked out of her and elbowed me back. A minor struggle ensued, which eventually sucked Rachel A. in who, like myself, believed that the best way to to regain our bearings was to throw elbows. ( And maybe punches, kicks, and everything short of full-body slams.) Our fixed smiles transformed into grimaces as we doled out violence in a misguided attempt to restore order.

This, naturally, did nothing to calm the audience down. Debbie, Holly, and Jill didn't fare much better. They were laughing uncontrollably, occasionally pausing to spurt out random lyrics. "How do you... HAHAHAHAHA...catch a cloud and - ow! How *snort* problem like Maria ... HAHAHAHAHAHA! A CLOWN!!!!"

Tamara, a natural born superstar, simply carried on as if nothing had happened. She didn't break character or even break a sweat.

The next day in school, Miss Jones simply said, "My, the audience really went bananas, didn't they?"

I swear she avoided eye contact with me for the rest of grade school. Really, can you blame her?

A Little Dad-ism

Dad doesn't hear so well these days. Mom finds it highly irritating; the rest of us find it highly entertaining.

Last night we had spaghetti for dinner. At some point in the meal my mother asked for the cheese in the green can. I reminded her that she prefers Romano Cheese, and she insisted that the green can was Romano Cheese. A brief argument ensued over what kind of cheese comes in what color can (because why just read the labels and eat the cheese you want when you can argue about it?) and then No. 2 asked what the difference was between Parmesan and Romano.

I told her, "Parmesan tastes better."

This answer did not satisfy my mother, who of course knows everything. She launched into a long explanation about the history of Romano cheese and Italy in general. After what seemed like an eternity, she segued into, "Now, Parmesan cheese comes from Parma..."

At this point, Dad had had enough. He pounded his fist on the table and bellowed, "PARMESAN CHEESE DOES NOT COME FROM CHINA!!!"

Excuses, Excuses

As you can see, my New Year's Resolution to do a blog entry every week is coming along just swimmingly. I was going to try to do one tonight but then, as usual, my plans went awry.

It all started when my Dad called me at to work to tell me that my rear tire looked low. He said the Hess station on the Parkway had air so I headed there after work. Now driving on the Parkway at 5PM is the equivalent of descending into the seventh circle of hell as far as I am concerned, but I did it anyway in the interest of not having a flat tire. I arrived at Hess with my sanity barely intact after getting stuck behind a moron in a Hummer to find that the air was out of order.

I took a brief moment to reflect on the fact that if the good Lord didn't want me to swear He should not provide me with car trouble in the winter when my husband is out of town and calmly headed home, where I could fill up the tire using the air compressor before dark if I hurried. It was still light when I got there and I found the nozzle thingy you have to attach to the hose to blow up tires without any trouble, so I erroneously assumed this operation would go smoothly. (There is probably some technical term for the nozzle thingy that but heck if I know what it is.)

I dragged the compressor hose through the garage and out into the driveway still in my dress pants and heels. I didn't want to lose precious daylight changing my clothes. The compressor was on and full of air but nothing was happening. When I tried to put air in the tire it just kept getting flatter. My mood, which was none to rosy to begin with, took a sharp turn south. It took me, my dad, a flashlight, and a bike pump - in 16 degree temperatures - to get my tire to an acceptable level of air. I trudged back through the garage with my useless compressor hose seething with rage.

For most people, here is where the bad day would end with the aid of copious amounts of chocolate. But not for me! When you are me, when you try to put everything away the compressor hose, as a result of, um, maybe not being attached properly, shoots off at 150+ psi and nails you in the ear. You then spend your evening alternating between googling traumatic brain injuries, applying ice packs to your swelling cranium, and worrying obsessively that you will end up with cauliflower ear like a boxer gone to seed.

And that is why I suck at blogging.

The Chicken Incident: A Schnauzer's Tale

My Sam is the bestest dog in the whole world. He is everything a dog should be: cute, smart, furry, housebroken, cuddly, non-shedding, and awesome in every way. He is perfectly behaved 99% of the time.

This story is about the other 1%.

We had just moved in to a new (to us) house and met our delightful next-door neighbors, their lovely daughters, and their chickens. Upon being introduced to Mr. Cheeps, we had the following thoughts:

No. 1: Um...

No. 2: &%$#@! (See "The Happiest Place on Earth" post)

No. 3: Cool!

Husband: Er...

Me: Ew.

Sam: Yum!

At this time, we had just started letting the girls be home alone for short periods of time with No. 1 in charge. Every time before we left, we delivered the same lecture: Keep the doors shut and locked, stay inside, don't let Sam out no matter what. One fateful day, I ran to the store. I was literally gone for 12 minutes and came home to find the front door open, the back door open, both gates unlatched, and pieces of Mr. Cheeps all over the front lawn. I found my sweet Sam in the back yard, blissfully happy, covered in chicken blood.

I snapped in to angry mother mode. I gathered the girls together, supplied them with latex gloves, and told them to clean up the mess. After much whining, crying, and dry heaving the evidence of the massacre had been cleaned up, conveniently at the same time Mr. B arrived home. We walked next door and I made the girls tell him that Sam had done Mr. Cheeps in.

No. 2: We're sorry we let Sam out and he ate Mr. Cheeps.

No 1: (Sobbing)

Mr. B: Well, thank you for telling me.

No. 3, ever tactful: There was blood spurting out of his neck.

Mr. B: I didn't need to know that...

No. 1: (Sobbing)

Mr. B: Don't worry about it, I never liked him anyway. Mrs. B and the girls will get over it. Did you at least give him a proper burial?

Me, lying through my teeth: Of course!

What was left of Mr. Cheeps was in my trash can.

That evening at 11:00, Husband and I went out and dug a grave for a chicken in our back yard, without the benefit of a flashlight, so the neighbors wouldn't find out what a liar I was.

Ho Ho Noooo...

Last night we had our family Christmas party. Mom thought it would be fun to play that game where one person opens a present and the next person can steal it and then the first person has to open another present. The next person can then steal either present and so on. This can be a lot of fun when the gifts are good.

My brother went first and opened up a purple t-shirt with a torch on it. Hmmm. My sister-in-law was next and, taking a pass on the snazzy t-shirt, opened a cube of note paper. Niece the Second opened an Eddie Bauer flashlight/alarm clock which was marginally desirable. Niece the First opened a t-shirt from Speidiefest 2008, child size small. (Please bear in mind that no one present is child sized.) No. 1 opened a pair of purple tights, size large. (Please bear in mind that no one present is a size large either.) When Nephew the Second opened up a Tortenplatte (cake plate) my Mom had purchased at WMF in Stuttgart when we were there in 1983, I was overcome with a wave of hysterical laughter so severe I couldn't breathe.

My mother had come up with 21 presents nobody wanted.

Mom considers herself a great shopper and prides herself on buying people fantastic presents they absolutely love at bargain prices.

In reality, Mom buys the worst presents ever, shopping with an utter disregard for the tastes, wants, and preferences of the recipient. One of her favorite things to do is buy items on extreme clearance and leave the tag on, so the recipient can enjoy the gift more knowing what a good deal she got.

What follows is a completely factual and true list, in no particular order, of items my mother has given as Christmas gifts:

Top sheets and bottom sheets that do not match, but are name brand and very high quality

BandAids

A book the author had signed "To Grace, Best Wishes!"

Hot pink placemats*

A t-shirt with a squirrel on it that said, "All The People Who Drive Me Nuts Are In My Family", purchased at Cracker Barrel (Given to me 3 years ago)

Silver utensils inscribed with someone elses initials; very high quality, of course

Hideous clothing containing shoulder ruffles well after 1980

Bright orange placemats*

Tennis player oven mitts, given to people who do not play tennis

A staple remover*

A bright turquoise sweatshirt, size XXL, for a 6'4" tall man

A collapsible gardening hat

Pink velvet couches (very high quality)

*items given to my brother-in-law

Needless to say, as a child I found the holidays somewhat disappointing. Each year on Christmas morning, my friends would call and we would have a conversation that went something like this:

Friend: I got a Guess sweater, five pairs of jeans, a juke box, a pinball machine, an Atari, and a gold necklace. What did you get?

Me: Uh... Irregular sweatpants.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I formed my excellent sense of humor.

Merry Christmas to you all!

***UPDATE***

This is what Mom gave my brother for Christmas this year:



Yep, that's a jar of Orange Marmalade.

The Happiest Place on Earth

No. 2 is a good kid. She is helpful and clean, friendly and hardworking. She is pretty, athletic and gets decent grades. How lucky Emily is, you may think with a twinge of jealousy as you read my blog, to have such a perfect child. But let me tell you, every girl must go through the awkward, horrible, traumatizing pre-teen years and I have been through them three times. (Four times if I count myself, which I don't because my preteen years were not at all the armpit of my life. Nope. Not at all.)

All my girls were unbearable in their own way between the ages of 12 and 14 - just recently we have been able to withstand prolonged periods of exposure to No. 3 - but No. 2, wow, her pre-teen years were rough. See, where No. 1 cried and No. 3 chattered and shrieked like a rabid squirrel on a sugar high, No. 2 was angry. Really, really angry.

We were worried about her. We met with doctors, teachers, even a psychiatrist. ADHD, they all said. She is just angry because she can't concentrate. Lets put her on Adderall and she will be able to focus.

She was able to focus, all right. Adderall gave her the ability to focus, with laser beam intensity, on her rage. She kicked, bit, clawed, and punched; threw temper tantrums for hours at a time; and peeled off the outer layer of finish on the bathtub with her bare hands just for spite. She was an absolute nightmare.

Right around this time the family was taking a trip to Disneyland for Spring Break. Husband and I debated amongst ourselves about even taking her on the trip with the way she was behaving, but ultimately decided if we didn't. we would always be the parents who left her home and took everyone else to see Mickey Mouse. Off to California we went, to Disneyland, California Adventure, and the beach. Everyone had the time of their lives.

Everyone except No. 2.

She was absolutely miserable. She hurled insults at the Pacific Ocean like a Republican at a Healthcare Reform Support Rally*. She growled at Jasmine, sneered at Snow White, and stared down the deformed bird-things from Chicken Little until they slowly backed away. She screamed and sobbed as we, the most horrible parents on planet earth, made her ride through the Haunted Mansion. She laid down on the ground inside the entrance to Monsters Inc, rolled her way through the line, and didn't get up until we physically picked her up and stuffed her in a seat. She screeched, "I HATE MONSTERS, INC!!!" for the entire ride. As any one of you who has gone to a Disney park can attest, there are more temper tantrums per capita than mouse ears, but very few of them are thrown by 12-year-old girls. Needless to say, it was a little embarrassing.

Husband and I eventually figured out that the medication was making her worse and took her off it. She was still mad, but we no longer feared that she would kill us in our sleep or poison our mouthwash. And we have four rolls of photos from our family trip to Disneyland to help us remember the good times that were had by all. Well maybe not "all"... See, No. 2 was so toxic she spread misery to all the passengers on board The Columbia. I like to call this one, "Take the &#$#@ picture already!"

My original intent was for this to be a picture essay - there are plenty of hilarious pictures from this trip - but I realized that it would be a little unfair to post dozens of embarrassing pictures of No. 2 when I haven't posted any of the other two. So you will have to settle for just this one.

* Happy Election Day! Go Vote!

This Moment in Bad Parenting is Brought to You by Walt Disney

No. 1 is brilliant. I'm not just saying that because I am her mother, I'm saying it because its true.
She absolutely loves to read. In third grade, they had to dress a soup can up as a character from a book. We glued tree bark to the can, covered the top with spanish moss, and chopped the legs off an old Happy Meal toy to create Old Man Willow from The Fellowship of the Ring, complete with Hobbit feet sticking out of the bottom. She was absolutely adamant that her project represent a character that was not in the movie so her teacher and fellow students would know she actually read the book.

When she was eleven, they sent home standardized test results for reading comprehension which included a helpful list of books approriate for your child's reading level. No. 1's results put her on the level of a sophomore in college, and the books suggested for her were by Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Shakespeare.

Last year, she read the entire unabridged version of Moby Dick partly for ten points of extra English credit, but mostly out of sheer spite.

So when her sixth grade Social Studies class required her to read a historical novel and sent home a list of books to choose from, and she (still a Disney Princess junkie) chose The Hunchback of Notre Dame, I made her read the unabridged version. I figured she was up to the challenge. With the help of a French-English dictionary, she plowed her way through Victor Hugo.

It was a little rough at first, but after the first hundred pages or so she really got into it. Every night at dinner she would update me on the book and compare what was happening against the beloved Disney classic. One evening, she informed me that she only had 40 pages left and that she was going to finish the book that very night. She finished her food and disappeared to her room.

I was in the kitchen when the screaming began. I didn't remember until that very second the Disney-fication of the ending.

No. 1 was inconsolable. "Why, Mom, WHY?!?!? How could Phoebus marry someone else? They hung Esmerelda!!!! And Quasimodo lies down next to her corpse and starves to death? WHY DID YOU MAKE ME READ THIS BOOK?!?!?!?"

My bad.

*NOTE: In all her brilliance, No. 1 pointed out my typos and now they are fixed.*

No. 3: Please Don't Eat the Berries

I have been awful at posting lately. I got a new job, which I start on Monday, and have been spending the past few weeks at the old one training my boss's son to take over for me. It is not going well. These people can't even function when I take the afternoon off to go to the dentist, so I fully expect this place to implode when I am gone.

Between work, the kids' sports and my mother's rampant insanity, I have been rather short on down time lately. I have actually started about ten entries (I'm not exaggerating) but I keep getting interrupted - usually by my mom, and usually when I am writing about her - and then its hard to get back in to the flow of things. So today I am starting from scratch and not letting myself have lunch (Fries, the lunch of champions!) until I finish.

I thought a good child story was in order to cleanse your palate. So let me present daughter number three, who is a brilliant child with many fine qualities, but like all other children has some moments of, shall we say, questionable judgment.

She was seven years old when Husband and I got married and moved into a large old house. The first time we brought her over to see the house, I pointed out the bushes clustered around the front porch.

"See those little red berries?" I said. "They are poisonous, DO NOT eat them." When we moved in, I repeated the warning on a daily basis for at least the first week. Regardless, No. 1 came rushing in the house a month or so later to tell me No. 3 was eating the berries.

To say I became hysterical is an understatement. I had visions of my sweet child vomiting, Excorcist-style, then dying in my arms.

I was going to call the Poison Control hotline, but realized they were going to ask me what kind of berries they were and I had no idea, I just knew they were the kind you weren't supposed to eat. I decided to call my dad, since he knows everything, but I couldn't dial the phone because my hands were shaking so badly. No. 1 had to call him for me while I sobbed in the background, convinced that No. 3 was going to start convulsing at any second.

Dad wasn't sure what kind of bush it was and suggested I ask my next door neighbor. We had not known each other long and my only interaction with her had been The Chicken Incident*, so I was a little afraid to ask, but this was a matter of life and death so I sprinted next door. I was not by any means calm or rational so the fact that she helped me so kindly, especially after The Chicken Incident*, is a testament to her fabulosity. She was pretty sure it was a Pyracantha** bush, and being a hoarder of course she had a book about bushes and berries and we were able to make a positive ID.

I called Poison Control, still nowhere near a state of calmness and emotional control, and reported that my child had eaten an undetermined number of Pyracantha** berries. The dispatcher informed me that they were not fatally poisonous and that they would just make her sick. It was at this point that I quickly transitioned from blind panic to relief to murderous rage. All that worry and stress, which undoubtedly would take years off my life, and she wasn't dying?

Dispatcher: How old is the child?

Me, through clenched teeth: Old enough to know better!

Dispatcher: How old is that?

Me, still clenched: Seven

Dispatcher: Oh my, that is old enough to know better. Well, she may have some cramping, vomiting, diarrhea...

Me: She deserves it.

And thus, after much puking and stomach discomfort and very little sympathy, No. 3 did not die.

* An excellent topic for a future entry!

** I have no idea if the spelling is accurate and am far too lazy to google it.

If I Didn't Exist: A Scientific Study

We all have moments when we would wish ourselves out of our lives if we could. For me, this most often occurs between the hours of 8AM and 5PM on weekdays, or in other instances, such as trying to pick up my mother on a busy street corner in heavy traffic. She sees someone she knows and instead of saying, "lovely to see you! My daughter is waiting so we'll have to chat later!" she engages in a full blown conversation. Twenty minutes, three trips around the block and numerous angry horn-honkings later, she is still chatting away, oblivious to the fact that I am about to become the victim of murderous road rage because there is nowhere to park without blocking traffic. At this point I snap and shriek, "MOTHER! GET IN THE CAR!" which is clearly audible to everyone in a 500 yard radius except the one person I am actually talking to.

But I digress. My point is that we all have these moments. And if we did actually wish ourselves out of our lives, maybe an angel would come visit and we would have a heartwarming, Jimmy-Stewart-esque moment where we realize how much we mean to the people in our lives, how much they mean to us, and how important we really are. The problem with this theory is timing.

Even if said angel were to appear and closely resemble Mark Wahlberg, you can't count on these things to happen when you really need them, as I have learned from waiting for the money tree in my backyard to bloom. So why not take the bull by the horns and figure the answers out on my own? I took it upon myself to execute a highly professional and accurate study using the very exact sciences of Guesstimation and Makingitup.

Here are the results:

My mom would be a whole lot more crazy - 317% to be exact - without my calming presence and constant voice of reason. (You may think it wouldn't be so hard to get a person to see reason if you haven't met my mother, who maintains that potato peels are toxic because some whack job proclaimed them to be so on a radio show in Milwaukee in 1957.) Her increased craziness would have far reaching effects. For Example:

There is a 71.8% chance that my dad would have faked his own death within the past two years and taken refuge in the Brazilian jungle.

My brother would be 67% more passive aggressive, driving my sister-in-law to be 209% more aggressive. As a result, 20% of their children would grow up to be criminal masterminds and/or megalomaniacs (I'm looking at you, Michael).

My sister is a tossup: There is a 43% chance that she would have run off and joined the circus, a 40% chance she would have become a blousy alcoholic, and a 17% chance she would have gone catatonic in 1984 and never recovered.

If I didn't exist, it is likely that my husband and I wouldn't have met. As a result, he would have forgotten every single parent-teacher conference ever and No. 2 would never have learned how to properly read. No. 3 would be a career criminal, specializing in forgery and identity theft, and would be featured in the "Stupid Criminals" column after trying to convince a bank teller she was Oprah.

No. 1 would have been born to a less conscientious mother who didn't think twice about pimping her out to the "agents" who wanted to put her in commercials when she was a baby. She would have shot to stardom and had her own show on the Disney Channel, sinking in to a crippling depression after its cancellation and the end of her high-profile romance with Chace Crawford. After three trips through rehab, she would spend the rest of her career making dreadful Lifetime movies with titles like, "Love Me, Love My Hip Displaysia: The Shirley Snively Story."

The disastrous consequences of my non-existence would stretch far beyond my family. Without my hard core Diet Coke addiction, the Coca-Cola company would have smaller profits and none of their employees would have gotten raises last year. Their entire production staff would have gone on strike and a worldwide shortage of Diet Coke would ensue, leading to a 91% drop in worker productivity at A Plus Benefits and any other place where employees get free Coke products. Thousands of businesses would go under, unemployment and homelessness would increase exponentially, and the USA would become classified as a third world country. Maybe fourth.

So, I'm pretty much the glue that holds the universe together.

Caught Red-Handed

We have previously discussed how sometimes things that seem like good ideas, like making your own potato chips, are really not very good ideas at all. I am a parent and although my children are perfect angels, they will occasionally try to get away with things they know they should not do, like watch "Jersey Shore" or wear ridiculously short shorts. The combination of these two thoughts reminded me of why I never rebelled: I always got caught.

Example #1

My friend Mary lived about an hour away and would come to my house on the weekends for a variety of reasons, the two most obvious being my extreme coolness and the fact that my parents let us do pretty much whatever we wanted. During one of our many escapades Mary met Derrick, and she was instantly attracted to him the way you are always instantly attracted to things that are bad for you, like chocolate mousse pie and chili cheese fries. Mary's parents were dead-set against her dating so theirs was a forbidden love. Things went pretty well for quite a while until my dad met Derrick and (rightfully) deemed him to be questionable. Dad forbade me - well, us - from associating with Derrick and his friends.

But Mary and I weren't going to let that stop us. We came up with a plan - a perfect and excellent plan - for her to spend an extended amount of time with Derrick. I would tell my parents I was going to Mary's house for the day and come home that evening. In reality, I would pick up Derrick and his friend Scott, go get Mary, and we would go to Watkins Glen for the day where we would have a highly romantic picnic. I would return home in the evening and no one would have a clue.

To be honest, I don't remember a thing about what we did that day. All I know is we drove home listening to AC DC and to this day I know all the words to "You Shook Me All Night Long." I dropped off Derrick and Scott and headed home, satisfied that we had not aroused any suspicions. When I got upstairs, my dad put down his book, stared at me meaningfully, and said, "Derrick's mom called looking for him."

Oops.

Example #2

My senior year I had French class the last period of the day. Our teacher was hugely pregnant and missed our class every Thursday to go to her doctor's appointment. We had the same sub every time, a clueless old lady who would collect our homework and did not take attendance. As a resourceful young person with top-notch forgery skills, I saw this as an opportunity. I would provide some friends in class with notes from their mothers excusing them for dentist's appointments at times of their choosing, and they would hand in homework for me and my friend Heather while we skipped class. It was the perfect plan.

Thursday came and Heather and I turned over our homework to our partners in crime. My parking spot in the Student Government lot allowed us to escape from school grounds without being confronted by one of the Teacher's Aides. We hopped in my Toyota Tercel and headed out on the Parkway. We had done it. We had pulled off the impossible, skipping class and leaving the school without getting caught. We were so cool. We knew we were cool because someone was honking and waving at us at a stoplight. It was our French teacher.

Example #3

Sometimes, when you are highly skilled like me, you can get caught and publicly blamed even when you aren't the one doing anything wrong. The summer I graduated from High School one of my friends came up with the brilliant idea for us to take an overnight camping trip before we all left for college. I'm not one for the outdoors or any other activity that involves insects, sweat, and/or dirt, so I was not too jazzed about the idea. I'd rather have a root canal and invasive abdominal surgery than go camping; at least the hospital has cable and a flushing toilet. Naturally, this activity was supposed to be free of adult supervision and full of the type of hijinks one would normally expect from marginally nerdy high schoolers who think they are rebels (i.e., three cans of beer and making out). We were all supposed to tell our parents we were sleeping over at each other's houses and they would never know.

Everyone was looking forward to the trip and thought it was going to be the best thing ever. Except me. I really did not want to go and was conflicted about how to broach the subject with my boyfriend, who I assumed was just as excited as everyone else. I agonized for a few days over what to say, and then we had this deep conversation:

Me, with angst: About that camping trip -

Boyfriend, interrupting : I don't think its a good idea.

Me, surprised: So you don't want to go?

Boyfriend, with decisiveness: No.

Me, relieved: Cool.

Thus, we removed ourselves from the process and the flurry of preparations went on without us. The night of the fateful trip arrived and I was working a shift at the grocery store when my friend Jen's mom came through my line buying a pound of butter. Jen and I had been friends since 7th grade, I had spent a lot of time at her house, and I knew Mrs. G well. Well enough to know that she, normally a kind and sweet tempered lady, was not at all happy. I could practically see rage emanating from her in waves.

Mrs G, in her scariest mean-mother voice, yelled,"I know what you are up to. And you are not going to get away with it!" By this point, everyone in the front end of the store was staring at me. "But I'm not going!" I protested. Mrs G. narrowed her eyes and hissed, "well, if you see Jennifer, you tell her if she doesn't come home by ten o'clock she will never leave the house again!" She then stomped off without her butter, and the bag boys fought over who had to chase her down because they were all terrified.

So you see why I didn't bother trying to get away with anything.

Irrational Hatred

Do you ever find yourself utterly hating, loathing, or despising something - or someone - for no good reason? Do you feel guilty for having these strongly negative feelings about persons, places, or things that have done nothing to wrong you other than exist? Do you try really hard to like this person/place/thing and fail utterly? No? Maybe its just me.

Paulo

Let me introduce Paulo. I CAN'T STAND PAULO!!!! Let me list the reasons why:

1) His name is Paulo
2) He has a stupid accent
3) Every time he calls me, which is a few times a month due to our unfortunate professional association, he introduces himself to me as if we have never spoken to each other before. "Hello, my name is Paulo and I am calling from my stupid company and checking status on..."

Its not his fault his name is Paulo. Its also not his fault that English is not his native language and that even though he speaks it quite well he still has a slight accent. And he has to earn a living, so its not his fault that earning said living involves communication with me, and he is probably just trying to be polite and exercise good phone manners. Paulo is probably a really good person who does a lot of charity work and nurses injured animals back to health. No matter how many times I remind myself of these things, I still hate Paulo. I hate him so much I want to reach through the phone and whack him with a stapler. I want to meet him in person so I can punch him in the face and kick him in the knee. And I am not a violent person.

Birds, And More Specifically, Pet Birds

Birds are evil, wicked creatures who live only to poop on my car. And my house. And my driveway. And the fondest wish of their little black hearts is to poop on my person. I know this, because I can see it in their beady little eyes. Who in their right mind would want such a creature as a pet? People say how smart and cute birds are, but why are they utterly unable to be housebroken, hmmm? And why is it every time I have approached someone's "friendly" and "totally tame" pet bird out of a sense of obligation said bird has bitten me with its sharp little beak? And why are they so stupid that if you cover their cage they think you magically made it night time? You could never get a dog to fall for that. Plus, when you get close, birds are kind of ugly and creepy.

You may classify my feelings for birds as an irrational fear. I will cop to having an irrational fear of horses. I like to look at horses, but I won't go near them because I am afraid they will step on me or bite me. Also because they can smell fear, which makes me worry that if they can sense my fear they are more likely to step on me or bite me, which makes me more afraid, which makes them even more likely to step on me or bite me. That, my friends, is an irrational fear. And I really, really hate birds.

Mom + Carrots + Celery

For some reason, my mother was genetically gifted with a jaw which magnifies the sound of whatever she is eating by 300 times. When she eats carrots and celery, I am fairly confident they can hear her in the next county. She might even be breaking the sound barrier, its that loud. And my mom LOVES carrots and celery. She eats them, literally, all day every day. Again, its not Mom's fault that she has an amplifying mandible; its not her fault she was born with an innate love for carrots and celery. Yet every time she eats them, I feel like baby kittens are dying and Santa Claus isn't real. I have to leave the room before my irrational rage takes over and I yank the offending veggies from her hands shrieking, "WOULD YOU JUST EAT SOME FREAKING APPLESAUCE!!"

People Who Don't Love My Dog

It stands to reason that not everyone is a dog person, or a cat person, or even a bird person (ha!). It also stands to reason that even if you like dogs, you will not like every dog you meet, much like you don't like every person you know. I don't even like every dog I meet. But Sam is the greatest dog ever. Better than Snoopy and Benji combined. He is sweet, friendly, smart, cute, and all kinds of awesome. I may devote an entire blog entry to his greatness. I know it is totally illogical, but when people fail to be impressed by my little buddy, or worse, express open disdain for him, it makes me crazy with rage. Crazy, I tell you.


How can you not love this face?

People Who Promise Me Cheesecake And Don't Deliver

. . . Never mind. I am completely justified in my hatred of these people.

The To-Don't List

We have recently been doing home improvements to my parents' old house. They decided to sell it after the renters moved out. Like any home improvement situation, it has been endless, frustrating, and time consuming. At first, I was deeply sentimental about their putting the old homestead up for sale. Now, I'm starting to hate it and probably wouldn't even care if it got swallowed by a sinkhole or taken out by a F5 tornado.

The other night during a particularly arduous linoleum removal operation, Husband and I discussed how the helpful home shows you watch on TV are always giving you to-dos, when really they should be giving you to-don'ts. So with the help of my handsome assistant, I am providing a handy list for your reference:

1) DON'T sand and restain cabinets. Its a lot of effort for very little return. In fact, they will look so crappy you will just end up painting them, then realize it would have been 300% easier if you had done it in the first place, which will lead to self-loathing

2) DON'T let your 13 year old and her friends do anything, even extremely simple tasks such as painting the front door or pulling weeds, without close adult supervision when there is a cute boy living across the street. You may as well make a poster for counterproductivity.

3) DON'T think that if you start peeling up a corner of linoleum that was installed in 1967 (and hasn't been attractive since 1970) that the whole thing will just come off. It won't. Arm yourself with screwdrivers, scrapers, flat headed shovels, back-support braces, and hand grenades.

4) DON'T let family members who are not home-improvement savvy work in your absence without very specific instructions, or else they might spend an entire day vacuuming cobwebs out of the far corners of the attic and think they actually accomplished something helpful.

5) DON'T let your children pick out colors for interior decor. Royal blue trim is one of those things may seem like a good idea at the time and it might even look pretty good, but painting over it is a serious pain in the butt. Choose your paint colors in accordance with how easy they will be to paint over. Blaming said child for the color choice 20+ years after the fact is pointless.

6) DON'T let your sweet little dog run free in the house when the freshly painted cabinet doors are laid out to dry on the floor. You may find little footprints all over them. I'm speaking hypothetically, of course. My Sam would never do such a thing.

7) DON'T set an unrealistic timeline like, say, two weeks to paint an entire house, totally rehab a kitchen and bathroom, polish 1000 square feet of hardwood floors, and clean top to bottom. You can only fail, and failure is discouraging.

8) DON'T buy cheap painter's tape. When you remove it, some of the paint will come with it regardless of how soon you pull it off or how long you wait. This time around I accidentally bought the blue tape that cost twice as much; worth every penny, I tell you. Even after a few days, it came up easily and didn't pull any paint off with it. Best erroneous purchase I ever made.

9) Likewise, DON'T buy cheap paint. You will end up having to paint extra coats to get even coverage, and then as you paint your extra coats the coats beneath will get mushy and you will have to paint yet another coat on top of that. Buy the Valspar stuff with the primer in it. It costs, literally, five times as much but is soooo worth it.

10) DON'T try to mix your own paint. Leave that to the creepy friendly guy with a random extra "e" in his name at the Home Depot paint counter. You may think that adding white to brown will make tan, but it will actually be pink. Then you will have wasted a ton of paint. Again, this one is purely hypothetical.

If you follow our helpful to-dont's, perhaps you will emerge from your home improvement projects with a shred of your sanity intact. Or, if you are like my parents, you will just ignore any and all home improvements until the last second, when you can just make your children worry about it.

Church Magazines + An Evil Child = Disaster

When I was a kid, I loved The Friend Magazine. I couldn't wait until I got my next issue. I loved the stories where they used a picture of an eye instead of the word "I", a picture of Planet Earth instead of the word "world", etc. and the Friends in the News. I wanted to be a Friend in the News so bad, but apparently I wasn't cute enough or diverse enough or whatever it was you had to be to get chosen. I would read the whole issue front to back and then I would read it again. I still loved it when I got older and begged my parents to renew my subscription, even though by 1984 I should have been more interested in the teen-friendly New Era. They got me that too, but the articles in the New Era were all words and there were no puzzles, so I left it in its plastic package and read The Friend. My parents encouraged this. They figured that reading a magazine in which most of the articles were about Jesus would encourage me to develop strong moral convictions and stuff.

It occurred to me sometime in college that I could not recall being babysat or being left home alone very often as a child. At the time, I decided that it was because my parents were either very devoted or very boring. I realize now that it was because I was such a turd that no one in their right mind would want to babysit me and/or they were afraid of what I would do if I was home alone. This turned out to be a completely valid concern. (Note: Foreshadowing)

There I was, home alone on a very rare occasion on a summer afternoon, when the Mailman pulled up and delivered The Friend. Yippee! The last article was awesome. Not about Jesus, but about one if His greatest creations - potato chips! - and how they were made. "Hmmm," thought I, "all it takes to make potato chips is oil, salt and potatoes. I have oil, salt, and potatoes. I will make my own potato chips!" Like all my childhood ambitions, i.e. the second grade talent show, doing cartwheels in the choir seats during church to make Kenny Klingler love me, being a successful adult, etc., this one was doomed to be a spectacular failure.

My experiences with cooking had been limited to opening cans of Spaghettios for my dad to heat up, but I didn't let that put a damper on my enthusiasm. I pulled out a five gallon jug of imported Italian olive oil and filled a large pot to the top. I turned the burner on high and sliced up a potato. This was going to be awesome. It took forever for the pot to come to a boil. I figured the little bubbles didn't count so I waited patiently for the big ones. I speared my first chip with a fork and stuck it in the oil, which bubbled ominously. I was oblivious to impending doom because my chip was perfect and delicious. I speared my second chip and stuck it in the oil, which reacted by blowing up and spurting flames all over the kitchen. The force of the heat knocked me over, probably saving me from some vicious burns.

Fortunately, I also had a subscription to Ranger Rick and had read its numerous articles on fire safety. And although I may lack a certain degree of common sense, I am a quick thinker. I knew that water would not put out an oil fire but baking soda would. I grabbed the baking soda out of the cabinet and quickly doused the fire. Unfortunately, quick thinking and fast action can not hide the effects of a column of flames on kitchen cabinets. The heat made the stain bubble and crack on the cabinets above and below the stove and there was a gigantic scorch mark on the ceiling. There was no hiding this one.

I was debating whether or not to call the fire department to make sure the fire was actually out when my parents arrived. My mother, who has a way of being positive about selected tragedies (meaning, a tremendous capacity for denial) praised my quick thinking and was glad I was OK. My dad didn't say anything and cleaned up the grease spattered walls. I didn't touch the stove again until college, when my roommates had to teach me how to cook pasta and brown ground beef .

The moral of the story is, letting your children read church magazines can be more harmful than you think.