I guess it's all in how you look at it....

Today could be called the happiest day ever.... one I never thought would get here.

I've had nearly 26 years to think about it and now that it's here I'm feeling a bit like a deer caught in a beam of headlights...

DOH....!!!!

Now what?

Slide across the kitchen floor in my underwear?

Blast my radio and do some 1970's fancy footwork?

Look at old pictures and pine for days gone by...?

It is time to reinvent myself...

Decide what it is I want to do, to be...?

I'm already impatient waiting for an answer.

DOH....!!!!

My house is so quiet a hair falling from my scalp could create a noise when it hit the carpet...

I don't like it... I don't like it at all.

Googie and Trouble came home from New York last night, if it were a "regular" day and Googie was asleep in her room I would bust in and declare her "pretty enough" after all that beauty sleep and I would offer up my checkbook for us to shop or go to lunch... something, anything... I don't much like boredom.

I used to think I did... but that was before I was.

I could call Daddio at work and tell him of my troubles...but usually when I do that he makes lame suggestions that I do some housework or take some junk to the Salvation Army...

Not my idea of a whimsical day...

It's funny how a person's perspective can change... had you asked me anytime during the past 26 years what a "perfect" day would be like I certainly would have said.."a quiet house where I can hear myself think"...

Today, I'd give anything to have my old job back, snotty noses and all.

I miss my babies.

However.... my new world is full of possibilities.

Not all the lyrics apply, but hot damn, what a beat..

Did Googie get married last week?

You may be wondering exactly the same thing.

If you are a regular reader/follower of this blog you may be wondering what exactly is "up" with the dingbat that authors said blog.

You could possibly be thinking to yourself, that blabber mouth has run on with mouth diarrhea for over a year now about her kid's damn wedding..and here it is almost a full week later and we've heard squat.

Well there are a couple of things going on....

1. I'm working on a novel about the wedding, and those things take time.
2. I just sent Marmie back to sunny Cal yesterday (at 4:30 am)
3. I don't have ONE picture to share with you... my camera was left at home, it totally clashed with my dress

Googie and Trouble did  (really, they did) get married last Friday evening... currently they are in New York honeymooning, where they have a hotel room in the middle of Times Square. It's on the 42nd floor and the view is amazing.  Googie's met Joan Rivers, Brian Williams and she and Trouble's hero Jimmy Fallon...last night they went to see the show Book of Mormon...

I've asked them to bring me home a cool souvenir... like a baby in utero.

In the meantime, please allow me to gather my thoughts (and a couple of pictures) and I'll be posting details, details, details as I've still got the worst ever case of logorrhea

(Logorrhoea.... From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Logorrhea (psychology) a communication disorder resulting in incoherent talkativeness.)

Sure of you....

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh," he whispered.

"Yes, Piglet?"

"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw, "I just wanted to be sure of you."”

Tomorrow is Googie and Trouble's wedding day...

All the preparations are set.

              I want to thank those
              whose presence in my 
              life I am always sure of.

The ones who always seem to know exactly what it is that is needed.

And see to it that it gets done, taken care of, tended to.

Those who shorten the road, lighten the load, and always always always always (and forever) make me sure of you.

In all I do, I AM sure of you.

You know who you are.

I love you (deeper than the deepest ocean), I thank you, and I owe you (big time).

Peace out... see you on the flip side,

I've got a *MOB gig to tend to.

PS... you know that horribly goofy face one makes when they sob weep cry  tear up in public...? Yeah, that one.... send me some "cute no matter how emotional you may get watching your baby girl become a married woman" vibes, Lord knows I'm gonna need em.  I seriously don't want to look stupid in all her wedding photos...thanks (for reading, for commenting, just for being YOU...xoxoxox)

*mutha of da bride, yo

Hoarders....

So in a matter of hours I will have Marmie's tiny body wrapped in my big ol arms.... bear hug fashion.

I get so excited driving to the airport.... I run, OJ Simpson style, toward her arrival gate.

N'ver mind that ladies of my advancing age shouldn't (attempt to) run that fast anywhere... (jiggly-midsections and chins, piddles in your porkies, gasping for breath and all that jazz).

I'm just so damned excited to see my mom.

My plan always is to have her all to myself... but you know, Goog is getting married this trip which means we have lots of weddingly festivities and details to attend to.

Adding insult to the injury that is this situation, Susan (my sister, the one who doesn't read this blog) informed me on the phone yesterday that she prepared Marmie a Chicken Parmesan feast (of course this is all in an attempt to swoon (yes, swoon) our mother into thinking that ....

A. She may be a good cook
B. She may be a good planner
C. She could possibly become Marmie's favorite daughter by tending to all her needs

and this week, while Marmie is in town, Susan, that no good sister of mine will surely whip up a homemade banana cream pie, a cherry pie and whatever else Marmie may even think of craving)

 So Marmie is going to somehow have to make time for that all that smoozing and butt kissing.

Marmie mentioned that she planned to see her brother (who will be out of town for Goog's wedding) on the day she arrives...

Frankly, I really don't appreciate Marmie getting pulled in lots of different directions.

With all this brother, other daughter(s), weddings and such going on... exactly when! WHEN!!! WHEN!!!??? am I going to get a piece of my mother..?

Last night on the phone Marmie said, ever soooo gently, to me "Are you okay with my plans for tomorrow?"

"Umm, sure mom, why not?" I answered..

"Well Lizzie, you aren't very good at sharing"...

"Mu-ther..., seriously...I've outgrown that..duh"

Eat, drink and be merry (sitting RIGHT HERE, dammit) !!......

Making a seating chart isn't for the faint of heart...

With Googie and Trouble's wedding date closing in fast we've begun to do the last minute crap.

The dreaded seating chart was on the agenda for last evening.

I'd rather eat a dog turd smothered in tapeworms than make an organized seating charts for our guests.

Who in the hell am I to judge who should sit with whom...?

Where the best (dining) time will be had...??

Where the most awesome of social connections may occur....???

The whole concept is sick sick sick...

and really dumb.

When Googie mentioned that it was time to do the anxiety provoking seating chart I wanted to run to the closest corner, curl into the fetal position and suck my thumb...

Or poke out my eyes with a meat thermometer so I'd have a valid excuse to not help.

(she'd certainly go all Bridzilla on me if I messed up her chart with dripping blood..)

So while Googie sat trying to figure things out I stood near and pulled out my eyelashes and said at least 17 Hail Mary's (silently, of course, I'm not a total Loony Tune)

"It's like doing a puzzle mom" she said when I complimented her astounding accomplishment.

Daddio leaned in and took a look at the almost finished chart...

He put in his two cents and the pair of them studied the chart and made appropriate additions and subtractions...

Running out of eyelashes to pluck, I started on my brows...

Before long the seating chart was proclaimed "as done as its gonna get"....

Googie and her dad make a great team.

And I need a good eyebrow pencil and a set of false eyelashes.

Sound the trumpets.....

Bear surprised us with a visit home on Sunday.

It sure was good to see him (after one whole week... sigh)

I laid out the red carpet (and the homemade chicken pot pies, the double chocolate Hershey brownies, the groceries, some hard cold gas money and whatever else he appeared to be interested in)....

I did cartwheels in the kitchen

and spit nickles outta my ass...

Chased my tail and did the rumba.

MY BAAAAAAYYYY-BEEEE WAS HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!

Googie was happy to see her brother... but she was understandably "put out" when the whole day was a total Bearfest....

Complete with fireworks and homemade spaghetti.

And really, who can blame her?

Poor kid.

When a hug is really a strangle
(...this is a very old picture of Bear,
The Princess of Quite A Lot and ol whats-her-name....

PS. Kitten... Mama Cat is only kidding, you know you are the cat's meow, capito?

Learn by your examples....

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 (and this week we can also add a picture).

It can be fact or fiction. Jenny posts a few words, a prompt that we work from.

As always the prompt is in bold italics.

 

 

Mother may I……

 

Take a page from your book on how best to mother a grown up married daughter?

 

Like you, I hope to never critique her life…

 

Or the tidiness (or not) of her bathroom floor.

I plan to continue being her biggest fan and most staunch supporter.

I’ll often say what a wonderful man she picked and how proud I am of her.

 

I’ll stay out of her bedroom, her wallet, and her squabbles.

When she has children I’ll love them like they were my own.

 

I hope and pray Marmie, that I do as good as you.

 

 



Marmie and Me on my wedding day
( 29 years ago next month)

                                                                                                

Holy Animal House, Daddio!!!!

Right before we got to Bear's apartment on Sunday he phoned me.

"Uhhh Ma, " he said "I wanted to let you know there is a keg of beer in the kitchen and a kid sleeping on a chair in my living room that I don't know"...

Geeze.. call me weird.... but for some strange reason I figured that someone would yell "a mother is on her way"... "get rid of the beer" ..... "wake up the sleeping drunk and let him sleep it off at his own place"...

"MY MUTHER IS COMING............!!!!!!"

"Everybody EVERYBODY!!!! Gather at attention a parental unit is on it's way in....."

"CODE BLUE RASPBERRY.... PARENTS ARE HERE!!! NARCS! SQUARES!!! HIDE THE BOOZE, BANISH THE WOMEN, FLIP THE PEED UPON COUCH CUSHIONS !!!! MY MOM IS HERE!!!!!!!!!"

The appearance of me (and Daddio) did none of those things...

It appeared to be risky business as usual at Bear's place on Sunday.

I had only one question upon entering the living room... "has anyone checked to see if that kid is breathing...?"

What did I expect...?

(Two of the four people that live in Bear's apartment are of legal drinking age and he swears the kegger is not his, he also swears that he doesn't know Snoozy (the couch dweller)... he did say that he didn't know any of the Party Bus inhabitants that showed up uninvited at his place last week... speaking of swearing, he did do a bit of that too....)

To be continued......

A peeing customer .....

Daddio and I took to the highway Sunday to visit our favorite college student, Bear.

It's a two and a half hour trip to Bear's school.

We hadn't gotten very far when Daddio proclaimed himself starving half to death so we took a short detour to MickyD's.

Just wanting a small snack he ordered a couple of burgers minus onions, and a diet Coke.

I ordered salt-less (I agree, why bother?...) fries.

I sucked on my bottled water and snitched sips of Daddio's diet coke until my bladder cried "you wait much longer you ain't gonna make it sista"...

Not wanting to yellow up the seats of the gas efficient car Daddio borrowed from work I bit the big one and asked him to stop at the very first big bush he saw...

He would have none of that so it was off the beaten path to find a loo.

We exited the freeway and drove toward a town called Parma.

I pointed to a gas station located at the end of our exit...

Daddio wouldn't agree to me hovering over a potty in a place that looked filthier than a college dorm room.... so deeper off the exit we searched.

An Arby's was the first clean looking place we came upon.

"Get me a ham and cheese" Daddio instructed.

"A ham and cheese..?" I asked "you just ate".

"You can't just go in there and pee!!!!" he said "you have to be a paying customer"...

Ahhhh...yes,  one of the rules in "The World According to Daddio".... War and Peace sized reference manual handbook.

I hustled my can into the first open stall I saw, which happened to be a handicap one.

I slammed the swinging door, latched the lock, and got my pants down just in the nick of time...

In mid steam, SOMEONE opened the stall door...

"HEY" I screamed and lunged the ten feet toward it to slap it shut.

It opened again....

and again...

Damn door latch was broken.

Normally, it is a personal policy to not take up things that are designated for handicapped people....

Because it was an emergency I didn't stop to think of the possible ramifications...

Mopping a "dribbled" floor with a blob of cheap paper towels on my hands and knees in a handicap bathroom stall at an Arby's restaurant in a town called Parma suddenly brought one word to mind..

karma.

To be continued.....

Are you with me darling.....?

 The 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.

As always the prompt is in bold italics.

Their freshly delivered dinner sat on the counter getting cold as Ed and Sara worked on their communication issues…

“ You don’t listen to a word I say !!!” Sara cried. “ I talk, you don’t listen”

“ Like Charlie Brown’s teacher talking !!! “

“ Whah whah whah….!!!!”

“Whah, whah....”

“Whah!!!”

“ A woman needs to feel heard, understood.”

“Her conversation partner should be invested, engaged!”

Sara imagined the wheels in Ed’s head turning.

He was getting it…  was tuned in, engaged.

Ed lifted the box top…

“What kind of pizza is this?

Sara’s glass of root beer answered the question when it fell on his head.

Dear Googie....

I should be writing this to you privately..... but you know I have absolutely no common sense.


Dear Googie...

Did you ever know that you're my hero...?

You're everything I wish I could be.

Seriously, you've suffered so many health related issues and yet you've managed to complete your education, complete your AmeriCorps obligations, plan a wedding, secure a good job, buy a house, act on stage... the list seems endless, all those things you managed to do while feeling like crap.

YOU, my lovely, are something special.

It breaks my heart that life has to be so tough for you sometimes most of the time...

So when you feel like hope is gone,

Look inside you and be strong,

And you finally see the truth...

That a hero lies in you.

Yes Googie, you are my hero and everything I wish I could be.

Love you.

PS... we will continue, you and I, to cause all kinds of trouble (and to fight) with any doctor, pharmacist, bitchy nurse, or stomach aliment that may try and stop us.

Googie and her most devoted fan.... 1
Gastroparesis.....................................0

PSS... THEY really have NO idea just exactly WHO they are up against.

xoxxooxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxo,

Mom

Psss... call me when you wake up.

Our load of loveables has been steadily declining for a few weeks now.

As of this writing, we have three male youth and one female.

The pretty blond girl loveable is quiet and keeps to herself (or hangs with the adults and pretends to be staff) which means the boys pay her little or no attention which is nice..

No boy/girl drama to contend with.

The boy loveables are cooperative and eager to do what they are asked to do.

The ebb and flow of our program is what keeps me going... a bad day lasts about as long as a super horrible loveable.... just long enough to make you realize when you got it good.

Lately, it's been pretty much all good.

Except for last Wednesday, which started out bad, turned okay, went sour again and stayed that way (mostly)...

Wednesdays are normally a cluster fu*k where I work.... a Thug High reunion each and every Wednesday afternoon in the hallway just outside our "class room" door.

So this past Wednesday things were going surprisingly well as staff had managed to connect an invisible fence (sans the shocking component.. darn-it) and keep the Day Treatment Loveables in one spot (they scatter like cockroaches when they are able to escape through the cafeteria doors and join the "gang")...

The loveables had satisfied their responsibilities in culinary class and we were chillin.

Wednesday was turning into a beautiful day,

so we allowed the loveables to move out into the hallway where the drug screens are held.

When all the testing was done the screeners (the pee experts from the county) were gathering their things and moving toward the door.

As we shot the bull in the hallway I decided that all this pee activity had me thinking that I needed to take a pee too.

When I entered the small bathroom I smelled cigarette smoke.

Not an unusual occurrence in our smoke free building.

Our building has a good sized staff and a large population of quirky visitors daily.

Many of those quirky visitors apparently don't read and/or are disregardful of picture signs telling them NO SMOKING or THIS IS A SMOKE FREE BUILDING.

At the same moment I was entering the bathroom staff began gathering loveables to go back to their classroom to finish some computer work.

They began calling for one male youth who was nowhere in sight.

When I entered the little girls room I said (to the quirky smokestack who's feet I could see planted on the floor in one of the two stalls in the small room) "HEY A(sswipe) you had better not be smoking in the girls bathroom"....

(Just to clarify things, in case your bloomers have just made their way into a bunch... I called out the missing loveable's  real name, which starts with A... I would tell you what that name was and that I didn't really refer to him as Asswipe, I would tell you that information if I didn't have to respect the confidentiality statement I signed when I got my position...)

Carrying on...

My passive/aggressive tactic in calling out the loveable's name was to give a heads up to my bathroom mate Puff the Magic Dragon that there was a non smoking posse waiting on the other side of the door...waiting for the sole purpose of seeing the nervy rule breaking quirk-ster in person.

I wanted to say "LADY!!!! THERE IS NO SMOKING IN THIS BUILDING"...but I had to pee really bad and didn't want to be trapped in a stall next to a quirky lady who I'd just called out on her boorish behavior.

As I peed and gave the silent treatment (other than my tinkling pee) to the quirky rule breaker I could hear staff searching for the missing loveable.


Loveables don't go missing much so when they do we take it seriously...

We take it especially seriously when our Big Boss Bossman comes down to the drug screen hallway right at the very moment that that the staff is beginning to panic (and get really pissed off) that we've lost a teenage criminal in our building.

Big Boss Bossman takes a seat and observes our search team in action.

Meanwhile, I am tidying up my hands after my lengthy pee and still... STILL Puff, my stall neighbor hasn't made a move toward evacuating herself from the privacy of her stall.

It was obvious the wench was laying low...waiting for us to leave the hallway before she made a move.

We staff were beginning to feel the heat of a missing loveable...

The situation, made hotter when the Big Boss Bossman continues to sit at the drug screen table waiting for Puff to make her move and we still haven't located the AWOL loveable.

When I finished with my bathroom business another staff member went into the restroom.

Smokestack had raised her feet and was perched on the toilet seat.

The staff member said she peeked through the large crack that all stalls have and could see Puff teetering on the pot.

"WAIT A MINUTE" the staff member said when she came out of the bathroom..."WHAT COLOR SHIRT WAS Apeman wearing?"

Everyone thought a minute and came up with "red"....

Well if you're as fine a detective as I think you are then you figured out that the male loveable was the one hiding in the stall and smoking in the girls room.

An ingenious plan, if you ask me.

Since our intimate encounter last Wednesday I find it hard to look the kid in the eye...


I temper that by thinking of being more prepared should something like this ever happen again.

Ohhh the fun I can imagine myself having...

Straight from the "things to do to freak out your bathroom stall-mate" vault...

1. Say, "Uh oh, I knew I shouldn't have put my lips on that."

2. Say, "Damn, this water's cold."

3. Drop a marble and say, "Oh shit! My glass eye!"

4. Say, "Hmmm, I've never seen that color before."

5. Grunt and strain real loud for 30 seconds and then drop a cantaloupe into the toilet bowl from a height of 6 feet. Sigh relaxingly.

6. Say, "Now how did that get there?"

7. Say, "Humus. Reminds me of humus."

8.  Fill up a large flask with Mountain Dew. Squirt it erratically under the stall walls of your neighbors while yelling, "Whoa! Easy girl!"

9. Say, "Interesting... more floaters than sinkers."

10. Using a small squeeze tube, spread peanut butter on a wad of toilet paper and drop the wad under the stall wall of your neighbor. Then say, "Whoops, could you kick that back over here please?"

11. Fill a balloon with creamed corn. Rush into the stall with your hand over your mouth and let out a lengthy vomit impression while you squeeze the balloon and splatter cream corn all about. Apologize profusely and blame it on the fettucine alfredo you had for breakfast.

12. Say, "Boy, that sure looks like a maggot."

13. Say, "Damn, I knew that drain hole was a little too small. Now what am I gonna do?"

14. Play a well known drum cadence over and over again on your butt cheeks.

15. Before you unroll toilet paper, conspicuously lay down your "Cross-Dressers Anonymous" newsletter on the floor visible to the adjacent stall.

16. Lower a small mirror underneath the stall wall, adjust it so you can see your neighbor and say, "Peek-a-boo!"

hahahahahahahahh..... I'll get that sucka (or one just like him) next time.