Thursday, March 31, 2011

"Say ahhhhhhh........"

My poor darling Daddio has been complaining about...well, about everything.

Everything from a sore finger to a racing heartbeat.

My crazy advice...?

"It's time for your physical dude"....

You would have thought I asked him to put his index finger into the garbage disposal (while running) had you seen the look of pure terror that remark brought to his handsome face.

"I don't need nooo doc-ter"

"There is nuttin wrong with me"

"I just went for a physical"

(Actually, It's been a couple of years, dear ...)

Now don't be a hater (and write me silly emails about how I should let my husband be a grown up and all...it ain't gonna happen) when I tell you that I had to call and make the appointment for him.

Once I jumped that hurdle and made the call Daddio had every excuse in the book why he couldn't make it.

Like a good tennis match, we back and forth-ed it (for days) until I won....(tee-hee).

And he agreed to go.

The morning of the appointment Daddio was in (not so) rare form.

"What are you going to tell him is wrong with you...?" I gently coached.

"Nuttin.." Daddio replied, "I'm not telling him a damn thing, if he is a good doctor, he can figure it out".

"He can guess what is wrong with me..."

"COME ON!!!" I say, starting to feel like I need to meet my boy in the waiting room... "you gotta give him SOMETHING to work with".

"Nah" said Daddio "it's on him to figure this out"

Ohhh brother
...

(Maybe you could say hot or cold as he nears your symptoms and issues...? just a thought.)

While eating his Corn Flakes, Daddio continued to express his feelings of unadulterated panic...

"Plan on me coming home and finding a quiet corner" Daddio said

"Where I can suck my thumb and go to my happy place"..

"After a half hour in the cell with BIG BUBBA...I'm gonna be in some serious pain"...

I finally figured out he was talking about his prostrate exam.

I wanted sooo much to compare his exam to the duck billed gyno tear apart or the boob in a cold steel vice squeeze we women have to endure...

I could have gone the childbirth route too...but I do have a heart..and so I patted his back and told him I'd clean out one of the corners and toss him an afghan and a Jimmy Beam/ Diet Pepsi when he came back from the war from his appointment.

He called on the way home.

"They want to hospitalize me immediately" Daddio said

My breath caught in my throat, and my heart pounded...

He came clean a second later and said he was "fine" and on his way home.

He sounded good... real good.

"How did IT go?" I asked, referring to the internal probe.

Well, somehow he managed to dodge that bullet...he has to go back for THAT and some fasting blood work in two weeks..

Which gives him some time to locate a petite female doctor with fingers the size of shoestring french fries.

To be continued......


Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Hello...? Hello, is anyone there..???

If you're reading this I appreciate that you've come back... nothing like checking in on a blog you (may) read (daily or a couple of times a week) and seeing nothing new..arrgh!

I hate that.

I'm sorry I did THAT to YOU...

We good?

Alrighty then...lets move on.

It has been onehellofa week ten days..

Last week I had a rogue mole chopped off... into the tender skin above my knee cap the sawbones plunged a 6 inch (yes, yes it was, okay..maybe it wasn't) needle filled with some kind of numbing medicine. The nurse hovered over the surgery site, pliers in hand as the doctor carved underneath the gigantic (obviously) diseased mass with (what felt like) a machete.

Not so carefully,  the doctor sawed the many tentacles that anchored the mole in place... once he freed a good sized portion of the hideous creature, the nurse held it up by the pliers and the doctor severed the blood supply.

Then the monster blob was dropped into a specimen container and shipped to a nearby lab for an evaluation. 

"It doesn't look good" the doctor said (he didn't actually say that, but he looked like he was going to).

I also had blood taken.... something I do every three months to make sure some meds I take aren't hurting my kidneys.

I should have been surprised (but I wasn't) when the nurse called a couple of days later and said "doc wants to see you" and "he can talk to you when he removes the stitches"... (it was a long week people)

For kicks my sister Susan (the one who doesn't read this blog) came with me to the appointment.. (well, I called her nearly hysterical with worry what else could she do but agree to accompany me...?)

We waited for almost an hour and a half in a jam packed waiting room and when we were finally called in Susan looked a tad shell shocked when I stepped toward the scale and started stripping.

In her arms she held my clothes, my shoes, my purse (I'd stuffed my lucky coin in my butt crack) while I stepped around the corner to be weighed.

"I never saw anyone get buck naked to get weighed...?" Susan observed.

"WOW" I said ( VERY loudly) to the nurse "110, AS USUAL".

"Ohhh my gawd YOU are soooo full of shit" I heard a voice from around the corner whisper.

"I WEIGH one hundred eleven" the voice continued.

In the room Susan nerves got the best of her, causing her to do odd things, like pocket a pair of gloves.

She said next she was going to steal the blood pressure cuff....

When she jumped up and started opening the cupboard drawers I had to draw the line...

(She doesn't read this blog, so I can accuse her of anything...tee-hee)

(Okay, so in all fairness, she opened the cupboard door to free a cord that was stuck inside..."it was bugging me" she said.)

While we waited she tried to get my mind off things by talking about how I couldn't weigh 110 pounds...but I wouldn't budge.

"Yes I DO..."

"No YOU DON'T"

"I DO"

"YOU DON'T"

"I DO SO"

"I HEARD YOU AND YOU DON'T"....

I was just about to slug her when the door opened and the dr walked in.

"You're mole..." he said, "was a..... then continued with a big long word that I didn't understand.

"What does THAT mean?" I asked, beginning to panic.

"I don't want to say IT in front of your sister..." doctor said.

Well it wasn't some kind of vaginal wart...it was a mole on my kneecap.

"You can go ahead and say IT" I said... feeling suddenly courageous. 

He said the big word again and then he explained.

"Your mole was a funny skin growth that old people get... like REALLY OLD PEOPLE"

Susan didn't hear the rest... "Kind of unusual in people your age"...

She was cackling wayyyyy too loud and pounding her hand on the arm of the chair  

I swear to god one of these days I'm gonna shank that hootch. 


*Note.... I am not making fun of skin cancer or people who receive sad and devastating news at dr appointments... I'm making fun of oddballs like myself who nearly go nuts worrying about moles (about the size of a pencil eraser) and everything other little ache and pain that they think is going to result in a terminal diagnosis...living life as a raging hypochondriac sucks..

Thank you for your visit...please come again.

xoxo

Thursday, March 24, 2011

GET IN MY BELLY................

I know, yes deep in my heart I know, that everything happens for a reason...

For example....

I took a lot of pictures, enough pictures to wallpaper every studio apartment in New York of my children, when they were babies.

And people there WAS a reason for this...

I keep these adorable baby pictures out where I can see them and be reminded of the small people my now big people once were.


Pictures such as these are an insurance policy of sorts.

Bear: "Mom, I want to buy a truck"

Mom: "You can't afford the gas"

Bear: "A truck won't eat as much gas as The White Dragon"

Mom: "It will be worse, trust me"

Bear bought a truck.

Bear: "Mom, this truck really takes a lot of gas"

Mom: "Really?"

Bear: "I shouldn't have gotten a truck"

Bear: (looking serious) "Why didn't you or Dad warn me"

Mom: (an inaudible whisper) "Lord Jesus grant me strength and a good strong jaw"

Seeing as this kind of crap is EXACTLY why animals eat their young...

And exactly why my child should thank his lucky stars that all things happen for a reason...

"Smile kid" one day you're gonna be happy that mommy has all these pictures".

GET IN MY BELLY YOU DUMB KID!!!!

Have a delightful Thursday... xoxo

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Ruff.....

I had to write a post about the full moon this past weekend.

And all the crazies the bubbled to the surface because of it.

The largest moon in 19 years, the damn thing was so big they named it The SUPERMOON.

Did you see it? It was spectacular.... really it was.

Did you notice anything else this past weekend?

Like maybe that the whole world had temporarily gone totally nuts..

SUPERMOON came complete with SUPERMADNESS...

Yes it did...

Kroger's seemed unusually annoying, it was overrun with irritable agitated inpatients waiting in line behind slow poke check writers in the 15 items or less aisle.

The bimbo behind me sucked up my personal space while we waited in line.

So much so she had me feeling a bit like the front bug...




When I finally shook her off I was accosted in the exit way by a couple of three foot tall hardcore saleswomen...who wouldn't let up no matter what I said.

"Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?" they asked..

"No thanks" I answer politely "I already bought some".

(Honestly I did buy some...from my great niece who threatened Daddio with her fist when he looked like he may only buy one or two boxes...)

(seriously, the kid is so freakin cute she could sell Daddio anything)

"Well you can buy more and freeze em" they counter.

"No thanks, our refrigerator is broken and currently we are using a cooler..so no, they wouldn't fit" I fib...

"They keep in the pantry for weeks" they say.

"ummm, no thanks. I'm on a diet".... I lie.

"I'm gluten free"...

"I'm a recovering chocoholic"..

" No can do... stomach issues" ...

"I gave them up for Lent"...

"I only have a debit card"....

No digo el inglés....

When I growl and bare my fangs they finally let me pass, empty handed.

A man who is "of sound mind" is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key.  ~Paul Valéry, Mauvaises pensées et autres, 1942

Come on admit it...you too barked at the moon...the SUPERMOON, didn't you?

Saturday, March 19, 2011

A love like no other....

This post is a themed writing project challenge taken from Jenny Matlock over at off on my tangent. Jenny says we can use UP to 100 words to tell a story. It can be fact or fiction. Jenny posts a few words, a prompt that we work from. This weeks prompt is in bold italics.

The curtain parted, marking the official start to the most embarrassing hour of Morgan Clark’s young life.

The event leading up to this moment began about a week before when her annoying brother remarked “I think its time for an over the shoulder boulder holder for the former President of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee” loud enough for their mother to overhear.

Their mother-daughter bonding trip to the JCPenny bra fitter was pure torture.

BUT her brother’s trip to the ER probably trumped that….

The IcyHot she’d rubbed into his Mini Marble Holder had caused quite a (hilarious) stir.

Paybacks are a "b".

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Perfect...

So a dear friend of mine told me a story.

In the story was a little girl that was less than fuc*ing perfect.

In all the best little girl things she fell short.

A butterfly trapped in a dusty brown cocoon.

There were moments as she grew that she felt like more than perfect.

Times and moments she climbed huge mountains.

And danced on the moon.

And fiercely and bravely fought battles much larger and greater than she.

There were times she was fuc*ing perfect.

Lots and lots and lots and lots of times she was perfect, fuc*ing perfect.

But then something happens, out of the blue, something happens that takes her back to the times she was less than fuc*ing perfect.

And an old, many layered scab rubs off...

SHE IS less than... fuc*ing perfect....

less than fuc*ing perfect

she is less than...

less than

NO!

You are nothing short of fuc*ing perfect to me.


Pretty, pretty please
Don’t you ever, ever feel
Like your less than
Fuc*in’ perfect

Pretty, pretty please
If you ever, ever feel
Like your nothing

You’re fuc*in’ perfect to me ~ Pink


Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Slippery (even) when (not) wet...

At least one night of our weekend I've dubbed "date-night".

Date night can be many things...but it's usually "kick the kids out, I want to eat, drink, be merry and watch some really foul mouthed comedians on TV."

(all those years of Daddio playing heavy metal music has his hearing a bit compromised so he/we normally listen to those filthy dirty cussin comedians on BLAST)

Date night can also include other things, which I won't go into graphic detail about since a kid or two of mine regularly reads this blog...

This past weekend's date night was but a mere memory (it was about 10pm Saturday night) when Googie called.

We started talking furniture.

Furniture for her and Trouble's new home.

Right away Googie expressed her disdain for leather furniture..." I hate it" she said "all you do is slip and slide all over it".

Thinking about the lovely brown leather couch in our basement and all the times I sat on it to watch television had me agreeing with her.

"Well" I said "you could always lay a blanket or an afghan on it first, that way you wouldn't slide off".

"Or, I guess you could be naked on it, you wouldn't shift around on it if you were naked"

"OhhhhMyGawd" Googie screamed "how do you know that!!??"

"Muuuuuther..how do know that? You talk like a woman with experience"

"OhhhMyGawd, you and dad didn't!!!!!?????"

Reading her mind, I knew she was picturing that brown leather couch in our basement, the one she and Trouble (try to) sit on many nights each week...

"OhhhMyGawd" Googie yelled into the phone "I gotta go".

Googie and Trouble have been spending lots of time at his house...where they have a regular couch.

While searching for a picture of a leather couch I stumbled upon this one...


Rendezvous Sofa

Sorry Googie, I just couldn't resist ;-)

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Gosh, golly, dernet....

This post is a themed writing project challenge taken from Jenny Matlock over at off on my tangent.
Jenny says we can use UP to 100 words to tell a story.
It can be fact or fiction. Jenny posts a few words, a prompt that we work from. This weeks prompt is in bold italics.



He had never been accused of being intelligent...,

so when Private Gomer Pyle momentarily paused before gently and thoroughly wrapping the perfectly ripened banana with the rubber gadget he’d just removed from the Trojan package,

Lou-Ann Poovie his girlfriend breathed a sigh of relief thinking “Gee, he remembered everything he’d been taught by the Planned Parenthood rep about correct application. Doing it exactly like she said. Start at the top and roll down."

“He’s not such a dummy after all.”

 Lou-Ann gave Gomer lots of credit and much more that particular day.

Ten months down the road, she learned she’d been far too generous all the way around.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

My square....

The original title of this post was going to be Calling in dead...(or homicidal)...

All day (last) Sunday had me thinking that I was getting some kind of deadly illness.

And the more I thought about "it" the worse I felt.

If I think about The Secret...I have asked (by my obsessing over it) The Universe for a virus.

It always seems to listen to (and grant me) my negative "wishes" (not technically wishes, but hey what does a universe know about differentiating...?)

So where is The Secret of The Universe when I'm playing a slot machine...

or the Lottery?

I don't play either much...just sayin.

I don't like being sick...I don't have time to be sick (who does..?)

By Monday, I wasn't just thinking I was getting a virus... it had officially arrived.

And I was miserable.

Daddio accuses me of having a "man cold".

He likes to make jokes about how seriously I take my cold viruses.

I could possibly deliver vaginally a 15 pound child with horns for ears more easily than I can navigate a three day long cold virus.... (yeah, he thinks up some good ones).

You may remember me writing that he has absolutely no (nada, zilch) sympathy gene..

You can read about his badassness here...

Monday night, found me laying in bed, wearing a flowing white gown, a red rose between my praying hands.

While nearing (what felt like the end of my life) taking my last earthly breath I asked Daddio to rub my aching head.

"Why can't I just rub where I can reach?" he asked.

"Because those body parts don't hurt" I answer.

He rubs my forehead and instead of dying, I fall asleep.

After a fitful night I wake to face Tuesday.

Working with a cold virus sucks...especially when you work mostly with wild animals who are known to smell weakness (in any form).

These past few days have been hard.

The loveable dynamic has shifted yet again.

We are overtaxed with tall boys who's shoe size possibly equal, or may even be greater than their IQ score.

Wednesday, in the jungle forest where I hang 9-5, I am small, a tiny wilted flower surrounded by sequoias.

Big tall trees that suck up all the light and the air.

I've been offered back up by staff who aren't with our program.

"Remember, I got yer back" ... says the man who cares for our building.

He walks out of his office when he hears a commotion in the hallway.

And his evil eye sends a message to the loveables ordering them to obey my command.

I'm feeling much stronger this Thursday morning.

"You back on your square*?" I will be asked as I pass by the man who cares for our building, the one who has my back.

"I'm soooo back on my square I'm ready to play hopscotch." I'll answer.

And I'll try hard all day long to believe it.






*Off your square: out of you're usual routine; doing things you wouldn't normally do. Source Urban Dictionary

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

A prisoner of sorts....

When I was a freshman in high school a kid named Moses White sat behind me in English class.

Besides the hour I spent as a Library Aide, English class was the only class I liked.

That is until Moses White decided to harass me.

He'd inch his chair up close to the back of mine.

And talk no louder than a whisper.

The crap he said to me makes my face redden, even now.

Filthy, sexually explicit shit.

At first I'd nervously giggle.

And move my chair forward.

Later when I would quietly complain to the teacher she'd say "just move up and don't listen to him".

One time when Moses was on good behavior (and I had momentarily forgiven him for talking so bad to me) he asked to see a bracelet that I wore.

It was a MIA- POW bracelet.

Which held the engraved name of a man who was missing in action or presumed to be a prisoner of war.

So I let Moses see my bracelet...

and then he wouldn't give it back.

This went on for about a week.

Then I told Daddio about it.

He had a little talk with Moses and got my bracelet back.

I didn't ever tell Daddio about the stuff Moses used to whisper to me....I'm pretty sure  Daddio would have kicked his ass but good.

I'm also pretty sure that (the young) Daddio would have asked me what I did to make him think he could talk to me like that...

The same question my English teacher asked.

Yesterday in my class one of the new (male) loveables said something (derogatory) to one of the new (female) loveables.

I jumped in his shit.

(But not as much as I should have)

And then I talked to the female loveable in the hall.

And we staff members wondered between us what she did to make him think he could talk to her that way.

And we told her to let it slide off her back.

And not to own it.

I was bothered all night thinking about how I let this girl down.

And how it wouldn't happen again, not on my watch, anyway.

I also thought about that creep Moses White...

And how much I'd love to stumble upon his rotten, no good ass, today.

Thank you for listening.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Preparing for take-off....

Trouble made an offer on a house yesterday.

Making it almost official (and also making it soooo totally gonna happen) that my little blue birdy will soon be flying the coop and beginning the process of making a nest of her own.

"Mom" she said last night "every time I talk to you lately you are somewhere else"

"You are expressionless."



"MOM!!!" Googie waves her hand up and down in front of my face "are you in there?" she asks.

I'm in here alright...

But Googie, I'm not in a good place right now...

I'm getting all involved with bad thoughts of being replaced...



Wait, weren't you already a bride...?


My rational mind tells me what a picture that hangs in my house says "the greatest gift one can give a child is roots and then wings"..

Another part of me that has an opinion says...

How bout we just keep working on those roots...?

Your wings are not done yet.

They are much too wimpy...

too droopy...

too frail.

Okay, no!

Truthfully, you are good to go...

you know it,

I know it,

..it's just a bit hard to face that reality sometimes.

I don't much like wallowing in Funkytown, and I am sure that all that frowning is counterproductive to my anti wrinkle campaign.

I... must.... force.... myself.... to.... think.... positive..... about Googie's timely departure.



She'll be taking her closet full of hoodies.

and....she'll be spraying her own bathroom door with this pink hair product.





Ohhh and one other thing...Googie's house is 4 minutes by car from my place.

My girl will be living only minutes away....



 Why, we'll practically be neighbors...



And seriously, it can't get much better than that.



And really when I think in terms of sitting at her (and Trouble's) kitchen table and shooting the bull...well I think I can and I WILL come to terms with that.

Googie, buy some tea.

Mama's on her way to visit.

Thank you ever so kindly for listening....

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Looks like Trouble has arrived....

Googie has dated Trouble for years... five now, I think.

My initial impression of him had me thinking one word "sweet".

Now here is a sweet guy.

I'm using the old fashioned "sweet" (by the way).. the wow, what a nice, good mannered person, kind of sweet.

I could also be using the current "sweet"... which is described as describing something "cool", which also fits Trouble.

As days became weeks and months became years and Trouble became a permanent fixture in my house and in my heart my opinion of him never changed much.

Oh, I liked (then loved) him more...but other than that, he still was "sweet".

When a couple of years ago Trouble accepted a position with AmeriCorps and was placed in my department at work, I worried.

How would this "sweet" guy get along with the most unlovable loveables...?

Just how would that work?

I figured they'd eat him alive.

Well, even the most unlovable loveables tolerate sweet...

and so Trouble made it out alive and no worse for the wear.

This May Googie's young man will be graduating from college...he'll be a music teacher.

During his Practicum , which he completed last year, Trouble was placed with elementary aged children, and aside from the 32 colds and flu viruses he contracted that semester, he loved it.

I figured that that is where he'd make his mark.

With the young ones, they love "sweet".

Now this semester, he's been student teaching a huge group of high schoolers.

The school where he's been placed has one of the nation's largest choirs.

The kid is positively in his glory.

And most days, while he comes in draggin butt, it's a happy butt he's draggin.

Trouble delights us with tales of his students.

Trouble scares the crap outta us with tales of his students.

How, I used to wonder, will Trouble fair being so sweet...?

Well, sweet certainly doesn't always equal meek...and so the other day when Trouble described breaking up a testosterone fueled fisticuff..I frankly was TOTALLY impressed.

And I was even more impressed later in the week when Googie told me that Trouble had had some trouble at school...

"He got mad mom" she said "real mad.  And he had to holler at the kids".

In the middle of his tirade he was able to read the lips of one of his students...

"ASSHOLE" she mouthed to her friend.

Trouble was never so proud as he recounted the event later.

He had an ear to ear grin as he talked about it.

I never had any doubt that Trouble was going to be anything less that a totally wonderful teacher.... I just figured he may have a hard way to go being so sweet and all... I never guessed that he'd turn into an asshole.

I'm proud of you Trouble...it looks like you've MADE it!!!