Exquisite Drivel

The 11th Annual Boring Mitchell Holiday Letter

2011-12-09T08:12:00.000-06:00

When the rapture didn’t happen back in May, I began to dread gathering material for this annual update. Unfortunately, no major illness, injury, or humiliation befell any of us this year, so this letter will no doubt leave a gaping hole in your otherwise joyous holiday season. Feel free to send it back for a full refund. First, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the late Amy Winehouse for making a mockery of her blood-heroin content in my 2008 letter and to express my regret to those who were offended by last year’s inclusion of the words douche and testicles. Won’t happen again.

As a nation, we witnessed the last space shuttle mission, the death of Bin Laden, and Oprah’s final show (only to have her turn up on an entire network). Our country endured disasters like earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, wildfires, and heat waves, not to mention Weinergate and the Kardashians. As a family, we survived a road trip to Colorado where the age-old mayonnaise/Miracle Whip debate threatened to cut the vacation short. (The only casualty occurred when a slingshot-wielding Luke accidentally killed a bird. Then our dog, in a dazzling display of the circle of life, ate it.) For us, 2011 would have been embarrassingly uneventful if our dishwasher hadn’t broken and forced us to hand-wash and dry dishes for a harrowing three weeks. This low point left us feeling uncomfortably Amish. Rather than make the best of the tragedy and enjoy the extra family togetherness while teaching the kids about responsibility, we simply engaged in a bulk purchase of Solo cups and Chinet. The high point of our year occurred when the government shutdown was averted the same day the IRS cashed our tax payment check. You’re welcome, America.

In terms of providing me with useful material, the kids have been a colossal disappointment. Frankly, they’re getting older, less cute, and (in spite or because of my usually good-natured insults) more sensitive to what I say about them. (The public school system’s anti-bullying campaigns have really worked to my disadvantage around the house.) They have allowed me to tell you that their race to puberty continues to heat up. In fact, Luke laments: “Katy has more armpit hair than I do.” For a spring break trip to Dallas, they took their first flight without parents. For them, a Southwest Airlines ticket was just as effective as (and much cheaper than) a trip to Disney World. They spent the summer suffering sporadic bouts of catastrophic boredom between attending as many camps as we could afford to send them to. After a week at a Christian camp, Katy couldn’t wait to play some AC/DC on her iPod for the drive home, and Luke’s first movie choice when he hit his room was Blazing Saddles. Could be worse.

Luke started high school this year and recently turned 15. He had a wisdom tooth pulled and was disappointed the tooth fairy didn’t leave him a big payoff. He’s over six feet tall and weighs all of 120 pounds. Kind of like a supermodel. His grocery consumption has forced us to petition the government for a bailout, and what little spare time I have is spent replenishing his school lunch account. He can put away a large deep-dish four-meat pizza on his own in under half an hour. Then have a tureen of ice cream for dessert. After a group of girls started sitting with him in the cafeteria, he complained, “Now it takes me forever to eat lunch because I have to focus on using manners.” He helped his track team win district again this year after spending six weeks in physical therapy for Osgood-Schlatter disease (a scary term for growing pains). He has managed to stay out of trouble except for the time he and some other track team members went for a run off campus down the highway to a nearby taco stand. He’s still active in Boy Scouts and was surprised to be elected patrol leader even though he ran unopposed. After scout camp this summer, he said, “Dude, forestry class made me feel like such a hippie. I was like, one with the trees.” He spends his free time working on the 1971 Chevy truck he got last year. One highlight was finding almost two dollars in change when he pulled the seat out. His advanced creative writing skills are only matched by his sharp wit. He suggested that I color my hair blonde so I’ll have a good excuse when I do dumb stuff. When Mike told Katy not to be friends with adults on Facebook because they might say inappropriate things, Luke said, “Then she probably shouldn’t be friends with Mom.”

Katy started middle school and turned 12 last month. Her tweens have hit us even harder than her toddlerhood did. My heart swelled with pride when the first week of school brought a dress code violation and necessitated a marathon fitting room session the likes of which I had not seen since The Exorcist. We wear the same shoe size, and she wonders why I won’t let her borrow my high heels. She wants to wear make-up, and hasn’t yet learned to apply it after she gets on the morning bus like I did at her age. We made the mistake of getting her an iPhone. In less than three days, she maxed out her data plan, and within a month, let the phone get stolen. Her recent birthday gave her another chance, and we are pleased to report that phone probation has not yet led to any bloodshed. In the spring, she played basketball and was glad she was finally old enough for a league that keeps score. She was named school district student of the month and received a bumper sticker to advertise it. She didn’t even seem to mind that I refused to put the sticker on the car. She dabbled in Girl Scouts and has continued to sing with the band at church. At scout camp this summer, she got her wish for air-conditioning when she had to move to safety after her cabin was attacked by wild hogs. She’s a first chair trumpet player and can already play Taps, the Star Wars theme, and Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. Growing up has not been without its disillusionments for Katy. She discovered that her American Girl dolls were made in China. I told her it doesn’t get more American than that. And at seeing Elton John on a magazine cover with his partner, she said (loud enough for everyone in the checkout line to hear): “Wait…Elton John is gay?” Her quote of the year: “The word jugular isn’t really about boobs.”

Mike’s year included trips to Knoxville, Tucson, Seattle, and Nashville as well as Dover for another NASCAR fly-by. He also spent yet another spring break weekend of drudgery at the coast for the Confederate Air Force airshow. He started playing guitar with the church band and at his debut performance, entertained the congregation with some Stairway to Heaven. His high point was a promotion to 149th Fighter Wing Operations Group Commander. Advancement to Colonel is pending congressional approval. (Maybe they’ll do something right for a change.) Mike managed to destroy his truck’s grille when he met up with one of our neighborhood’s more suicidal deer. Such a waste of good meat. Speaking of killing animals, Mike took Luke out of school for opening day of dove season. Skipping school to hunt? It just doesn’t get any better than that for a teenage Texas boy. While Mike will be celebrating another birthday later this month, he still shows no signs of slowing down. His only speed bumps occur when he has to stop and look for his reading glasses. This is why he went to Costco for a multi-pack and has them scattered within arm’s reach in places like his tool box, barn, RV, motorcycle, vehicles, desk, living room, kitchen, and of course, bathroom. Mike and I spent a week in the Dominican Republic for our 20th anniversary. I made him proud when I won a poker tournament, and he impressed me by not snoring too loudly during our couples massage. In an amazing show of restraint, he only commented once on the number of pairs of shoes I packed. In return, I agreed to try to keep my closet from looking like an episode of Hoarders.

I was nearly electrocuted in January when we painted the kids’ rooms. Turns out, those switch plates are there for a good reason. For my birthday, I carelessly invested in a lighted magnifying mirror that Bed, Bath & Beyond wouldn’t let me return without a better excuse than I just didn’t like what I saw. Mike was kind enough to tell me, “You’re not a spring chicken anymore.” I told him neither are people who use the term “spring chicken.” Not to be outdone, Luke asked if he could take me to school for show and tell on 80s day and Katy quoted something from what she referred to as, “this old show called Friends.” Business took me to Dallas, Indianapolis, Austin, and New Orleans, as well as St. Pete Beach, Florida, where I was re-elected (without resorting to bribery that anyone can prove) to another three-year term on the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Veterans’ Advocates. After speaking at a few seminars, I found out that a good handful of tasteless references goes a long way to entertain a crowd and disguise a lack of knowledge. (Perhaps Rick Perry should try that at his next debate.) In other news, because one road kill per year for this family isn’t enough, I ran over another one of the stupid deer that wander our streets like drunken overgrown squirrels. The only damage was some blood on my license plate, but I did almost spill my drink and drop my phone. The rest of my year was wasted trying to figure out what the big deal was about that royal wedding.

For next year, we have high hopes that Luke will learn to turn lights off when he leaves a room and that Katy will stop leaving wet towels on the floor. We plan to teach them better bathing and deodorant-application techniques so they don’t smell like Occupy Wall Street protesters when they get home from school. I will try to finish writing my book before I get too old to take it on tour, and stop buying Groupons that expire before I get around to using them. And Mike vows to improve his relationship with Siri on his new iPhone. Luke will spend the holidays shooting his new rifle while Katy busies herself with music downloads and friend requests. Mike and I look forward to taking full advantage of the new water heater we were forced to get each other for Christmas.

May you all spend the holidays and 2012 happy, healthy, safe, and strong. And if the Mayan calendar is right, you won’t have to sit through a letter like this again. Life is short, so don’t let it be shallow.

Love, Jill, Mike, Luke, Katy & Buzz

The View From 45

2011-07-16T15:14:00.000-05:00

I’ll never forget (for as long as I’m young enough to remember) a conversation I had with some girlfriends over 10 years ago. Most of them were about five to seven years younger than I was. One was lamenting her upcoming 29th birthday. In all of my sage wisdom, I replied, “Try 34.” Oh to be a nubile 34 again.

Last summer, at an overpriced concert concession stand, a 50-ish guy at the register was giving me my change. He counted it out: “five, six, seven, eight . . . .” Then he goes, “Schlemiel, shlimazel, hasenpfeffer incorporated . . . .” I laughed as I had not heard that song since probably 1983. The guy nodded at me with a wink and said, “Yeah, you know that song, don’t you?” I smiled knowingly and sang back, “Give us any chance, we’ll take it. Give us any rule, we’ll break it . . . .” Then we shared a good laugh like old folks do when they get all nostalgic. As I walked away, I thought, What an Asshole.

One dark day not long ago, Margaritaville came on the radio and I mindlessly told my kids, “I had the 45 of this song.” Both, in unison, asked, “What’s a 45?” (Now it happens to be my age.) Soon after the Margaritaville incident, I watched my daughter open an envelope of disposable camera pictures. I told her to be careful with the negatives. I knew before the words had left my mouth that I would hear her ask, “What are negatives?” I then realized what my grandmother must have felt like when I asked her what a milkman was, or why she called the refrigerator an ice box. While I wasn’t looking, a whole shitload of time had been passing and leaving a dead vocabulary in its wake.

Why are we so afraid of aging? Because, as a friend once told me on my birthday, “I hope you enjoy it. You don’t have that many left.” Now I’m beginning to understand those “middle-age crazies” I heard about when I was a kid. I wouldn’t necessarily refer to this “midlife” feeling as a “crisis,” but it is a sort of second adolescence. Again, I feel uncomfortable in my body. Not so much awkward as unwieldy. When I was awkward, I knew I would eventually catch up with myself and get it. Now (in this body that is out of sync with its brain), when I try to turn flips on a trampoline or roller skate too fast, for example, my body tells me that I’ve lost it (and not just mentally). My chiropractor says, “Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should.” For those who are unfortunate enough to examine their advancing lives, there is a sort of cognitive dissonance that hits at around age 40. According to the results of my one-minute Internet search, the Swiss psychologist and philosopher Jean Piaget (not sure if he's related to the watchmaker, but if he were, that would be somewhat ironic) coined the term cognitive disequilibrium to describe the experience of feeling a discrepancy between something new and something already believed or known. I think that applies to people in their 40s. We believe we can still hula hoop, for example, but our new (older) bodies rebel. I remember when my parents were my age. I thought they were so mature. Now that I'm there, unless I am an aberration (which is a distinct possibility) I realize that most 40-year-olds are just “extreme” teenagers. There’s nothing like having the ability to make a sophomoric sexual reference against a backdrop of a post-graduate education and a little extra life experience. There’s nothing more satisfying than being old enough to have the money to buy something completely impractical and frivolous. What sucks is wholeheartedly thinking you are still capable of that round-off/back handspring, and then your body betrays you when your bones don’t cooperate. What sucks is having an advanced case of hypochondria. Now the conditions I used to dream up could really happen. What sucks is treading that fine line between cougar and pedophile. Now that I’m old enough to use my age as birth control, I see that it’s a good thing I never became a high school teacher. Otherwise, I might have ended up in prison and pregnant. They (whoever “they” are—average pathetic people my age, I imagine) say 40 is the new 30. Does that make gray the new blonde?

At various points in our lives, we take steps from wondering to forgetting. In college, we wonder who we are. After college, marriage and children make us wonder where the hell we (and our keys) are. In our 40s, we’re afraid we have forgotten (or will soon forget) who we are (or were). What do we have to look forward to? Diets, arthritis, prescriptions, mammograms, colonoscopies, college expenses, grandchildren? Not to mention tending to aging parents (who will no doubt be difficult and noncompliant with their medications). At a certain age, do we realize that it’s too late to live the dream we gladly set aside 20 years earlier for kids and family? Sometimes I feel a mix of guilt and envy when I look at those I saw as selfish back then. The ones who went their own way and ignored the plan society expected of them. Are they happier? Probably not. I imagine they regret some things they didn’t do as much as others regret some things they did. This is not to say by any means that I think a person’s 40s are filled with misery and regret. I don’t know anyone who would trade their family for a chance at a do-over. Maybe the midlife crisis is a myth and most 40-year-olds never experience a fleeting, disconcerting, who-is-that-person-in-the-mirror? feeling. I submit that those who never wonder what happened to them while they were going about their lives are lucky, blissfully ignorant bastards.

They (whoever “they” are—people who have never had an STD, I guess) say it’s better to regret things you’ve done than things you didn’t do. I generally agree (except when it comes to things that could give you an STD) but when the opportunity to do what you didn’t do has passed you by, somehow, the fact that you can’t do it now hurts much worse than the fact that you could have chosen not to. I could do that round-off/back handspring. I just choose not to. Because my bladder might fall out.

If 50 is the new 40, does that mean another decade of looking at a stranger in the mirror? Or does some form of acceptance come in our 50s? Does something shift from “where are my dreams?” to “where are my glasses?” The disequilibrium of the 40s must subside after it scars our psyches and gives us early dementia. Do we really need those 10 years to prepare for the second half of an average lifespan? I think so. Otherwise we would see more 50- and 60-year-olds trying to hula hoop. And that is just dangerous.

Period Piece: Three Charming Menstruation-Related Anecdotes

2011-07-09T16:58:00.001-05:00

One day not long after my daughter learned to read, I took her to a movie at a rather old theater. Because that’s probably where they were showing the bargain-priced matinee of whatever boring animated kid movie it was that she had been nagging me about. When the movie was over, Katy woke me up and then followed me to the restroom. After we washed our hands, we realized there were no paper towels, and the hand dryer, useless as they always are, was broken. As I used her shirt to dry my hands, she asked me for a quarter. I thought she wanted to play a video game in the theater’s arcade, so I told her I didn’t have any. Then she pointed at the rusted, vintage maxi-pad machine on the wall and said, “That’s too bad, Mama, ‘cause we can buy napkins from that thing for just 25 cents.” I had to explain that those were not napkins for your hands. She looked at me disapprovingly as if I were talking down to her, which I was. As I searched my mind for an appropriate response to the questions neither of us was ready for, she let me off the hook with, “Let’s go get ice cream.”

Going out in public with my daughter did not get easier. A couple of years later, I made the mistake of taking her to Walmart. I try to avoid that place, but I think I needed to stock up on WD-40 and duct tape. I also try to avoid Walmart restrooms. I live by very few rules, but one of them is: Don’t go potty in public if you can help it, especially at places with questionable clientele. But on this particular day of marathon shopping, I had to bend the rule. So I took Katy with me into a handicapped stall. (The stall itself was not handicapped, but you know what I mean.) I used that one, not only because there was more room for me and a kid, but because one toilet was occupied and another was occupied with a full bowl of a man-sized dump. While we were luxuriating in there with the dirty hand rails, I heard some other women enter the restroom. I hoped none of them was actually handicapped. Then I might feel a little guilty about hogging a toilet. When I realized people were waiting, I tried to hurry. Hurrying is not easy when you have to hover. I’ll admit, I am not such a germophobe that I won’t sit my bare ass down on a public toilet, but I do have standards. And this Walmart restroom did not quite meet my rather low criteria for seatability. So as I hovered over the seat, Katy craned her head down to witness the tampon string I had hanging out of my vajayjay. In front of God and everybody in that Walmart restroom, Katy yelled, “MOM!! There’s a string in your butt! There’s a string in your butt! Get it out!!” I shushed her as I pulled up my pants. “Why didn’t you get it out?” She demanded. “Don’t you feel that string in there?” Again, I scanned my thoughts for an acceptable answer. I couldn’t say that is was not a string, because it was. So I said, “It wasn’t in my butt.” Then I’m sure she figured it was coming out of my pee-hole, and I couldn’t let her go on thinking that, so I said, “It’s in my Tinkerbell. I’ll explain later.” The restroom’s audience seemed less than impressed with the way I handled it. Not even a golf clap. Perhaps they expected a more graphic explanation with proper terminology. Sorry, but I have standards.

Fortunately for Katy, she is not the only one who has tried to embarrass me with this uncomfortable topic. A few years ago, on a business trip to Washington, D.C., I found myself in a hotel gift shop stocking up on two-dollar bottles of water to keep me from drinking the five-dollar ones tempting me in my room. I also tried to discreetly purchase a small box of tampons. [I realize I just split an infinitive there. Poetic license.] As I stood at the register with a few people in line behind me, the clerk (a pretty Indian girl named something like Gupta), held the tampon box up and said (in an unnecessarily loud voice), “I always jus’ use de pads, de Stay-Free, d’jou know?” I nodded politely and hoped she would leave it at that. But NO. As a small crowd gathered in line behind me, she shook the tampon box like a curious child with a wrapped gift and asked, “How do dese work?” I was mortified. I glanced at the folks within earshot, smiled uncomfortably, and quietly said, “Well, you just take the wrapper off and use the applicator and stick it up in there.” (I'm sure I was even gesturing rather lewdly.) I heard some chuckles from those who had been pretending to study the souvenir shot glasses nearby. The clerk huffed with a half-smile and said, “No, no, no. I mean, how good are dey for de job?” At that point I realized she was asking for a quality rating rather than a how-to lesson. “Oh, you meant, how well do they work? Fine, I guess. This isn’t my usual brand, but they get the job done.” She apologized and said that maybe her English “weren’t too good.” (Neither was her command of English grammar.) I reassured her that it was my mistake. Then we shared a brief moment of international female bonding when we both smiled and rolled our eyes as if to say, “Well aren't we just a couple of idiots?” Especially her.

Sometimes I think the only thing regular about me is my period. I’ll cling to that until menopause hits, then find some other bodily function to embarrass myself about.

Landscaping the Nether Regions

2011-05-29T18:00:00.002-05:00

Ever since I first had to deal with pubes, I always wanted to keep them under control. I think every woman owes it to herself and her significant (or even insignificant) other(s) to keep the shrubbery from going all disco and hanging down to her knees. With all the nastiness that goes on down there, topping it with a curly bouffant or a puffy ‘fro or even a feathered shag just magnifies any unpleasant poontang activity. Contrary to what the douche commercials used to advertise, it’s not always a fresh summer’s eve in a gardenia garden down there.

This vagina monologue has reminded me of a cute little anecdote borne out of a scrapbooking retreat for only the most mature of women. I thought about sharing this story for possible publication in Chicken Soup for the Scrapbooker’s Soul, but soon realized that (1) They rarely publish stories about pubic hair, and (2) I would give away one of scrapbooking’s most treasured secrets: When otherwise mild-mannered creative women get together, they can seriously talk some trash. About, inter alia, genitalia.

So my girlfriends and I went to this bed and breakfast for a weekend of drinking, er, I mean, crafting family heirlooms. Having arrived first, our group garnered the choice spot on the third floor. A private area with lots of natural light and better chairs. We had no idea that by staking our claim to that area we would engender animosity the likes of which we had not seen since Tom Selleck talked about guns on the Rosie O’Donnell show.

After we got settled, a group of small-town schoolteachers arrived. They were, for the most part, a good 10 to 20 years older than our group. A couple of them clambered up the stairs in hopes of snagging the best room in the house. The look of disappointment on their wrinkled and winded faces portended the crass disrespect we would soon fall victim to. Their clan was stuck on the main floor with poor lighting and rickety chairs. “Snooze you lose, bitches!” We cheered as we high-fived each other.

The main floor housed the common area where we would often be forced to interact with these hags if we needed to use a certain paper cutter or shop for the perfect accent piece for our likely-to-be-wine-stained books of family treasures. On one particular occasion, my friend Kathy was there minding her own business cutting some no doubt lovely textured card stock. I descended the stairs to get something and overheard one of the bitches tell the others, “No not this bleached blonde, one of the others.” Kathy overheard this and thought, “Oh noooo she did-n’t. This lady has no idea who she is dealing with.” I turned to the perpetrator and asked, “Can I help you?” She lowered her glasses down her nose to get a better look at me and said, “Tell me somethin’ hon, when you bleach your hair, do you do a little batch for the snatch?” I did not hesitate to respond, “Of course. With all the videos and photo shoots I do, I need my snatch to match. You should have noticed last night when you were doing my bikini wax. Is there anything I can get y’all from upstairs, like some manners?” The ringleader’s gal pals laughed as she said, “I like her.”

So that’s my near-legendary Batch for the Snatch scrapbooking story. It’s also a perfect example of how I like to win friends and influence new admirers. Sometimes a good insult is pure tension-relieving gold.

Anyway, speaking of bikini waxes, I think a good genital-waxing should replace waterboarding as the military’s controversial torture of choice. Of course, being the one forced to smear hot wax on some terrorist’s tangled greasy infested man mound would no doubt be a new cause for any average soldier’s PTSD. Torturer’s mental trauma be damned. Wax those fuckers, I say.

A few years ago, I decided that shaving the nether regions was taking too much valuable time from my otherwise busy and generally productive day. I had always had my eyebrows waxed with little to no pain, so I thought I could handle putting my dainty vulva through the same process. I made an appointment with a stocky German woman a friend had recommended. She asked me what kind of wax job I wanted. Since “Brazilian” was the only kind I had heard of, that’s what I made the mistake of asking for. She guided me into the procedure chamber that was cleverly disguised as a peaceful spa enclave with a massage table in it. I assumed she would leave me alone to undress, but no. She proceeded to take a seat in the rattan chair in the corner and wait for me to get naked. I felt not a little awkward disrobing as Helga watched in bored exasperation. She then ordered me up on the table. I felt like I was starring in a fetish film. (Not that I have ever seen any, mind you. Really.) Before I knew it, my lady parts were being bathed in hot wax. My pubes were then ripped from my crotch with all the grace of a rugby scrum. Every last pube. Every single hint of a pube. Even future pubes were aborted. I knew that my stuff would never be the same and that naked I would look like an overgown six-year-old for at least a month.

I decided to try to keep the Brazilian a secret at least until the redness subsided. Father’s Day was coming up so I thought if I were stealthy enough, I could surprise my husband with it as a gift in case I forgot to get him a card. The day after the bush brutality, I went with the family to look at land. We had been planning to buy a lot in the country and build a house on it, so our weekends had been taken over with nature walks on for-sale properties all over the county. My husband searched for a good homesite area while our kids scouted the best treehouse trees. As my poor fortune would have it, I found myself needing to pee so bad I was crying yellow tears. With my family scattered across three acres, I saw fit to squat behind a bush (no pun intended) to relieve a little pressure. Of course, as soon as I exposed myself in broad daylight, my husband’s naked-wife-radar started chirping its alert siren that only he can hear. Sort of like a dog whistle for deprived men. As I broke the seal on my bladder and wondered if I could get it completely emptied in one sitting, there he stood. I did not realize how flexible he was until that day. He folded himself in half at the hips and craned his head unnaturally to see what was left of my hoo-ha. “Are you . . . BALD?!” he asked. From my weak squat, I looked up guiltily and muttered, “This isn’t exactly the big reveal I had in mind.” Before I could pull up my shorts, he had the kids buckled into the truck and ready to go home. As if the physical pain wasn’t bad enough, now I had mental anguish to deal with as well.

And it only got worse. A few days later, my daughter (who was probably five years old at the time) wandered into the bathroom as I bathed in our open shower. Before I could turn away, she yelled, “Mama! What happened? Your Tinkerbell looks just like mine!” Never again, I thought. Bring back the bush, I begged. A few weeks later, I found myself in be-careful-what-you-wish-for mode. The only thing as uncomfortable as the hairs being ripped out was the experience of the timid and traumatized hairs attempting to re-emerge. For the first time, I think I may have had some understanding of jock itch. Maybe I’m too sensitive down there, but that waxing and all the trouble it brought was more painful than childbirth. I would only do it again with an epidural.

One might think that the Brazilian experience would make me swear off removal of unsightly hair, but one would be mistaken. After the bravest pubes grew back, I was ready to try a new deforestation measure. That’s when I decided to see what laser could do for my nether regions. I made an appointment at the local laser hair removal “salon.” These places are like a hybrid hair studio/doctor’s office. Like a medical clinic with aromatherapy. A spa with needles. I signed in and filled out all this paperwork and these medical history questionnaires as if I were preparing to donate a kidney. Then as I waited for my name to be called, I perused a three-ring binder of drawings meant to depict their various service offerings. Of course, I could have had my armpits or upper lip done, but shaving my pits has never been much of a burden, and I don’t have a mustache yet. I considered having my legs done, but thought I would use my beaver as guinea pig first. In the tastefully-titled “Bikini Area” section of the menu book, there were diagrams of assorted shapes one might have their hedges trimmed into. There was, for example, the Wedge, the Mini-Wedge, the Heart, the Landing Strip, the Hitler, the Soul Patch, the Cabbage Patch, the Groucho, the Fu Manchu, the Cornrows, the Dreadlocks, the Smiley Face, the “Your Boyfriend Was Here,” and of course “Slippery When Wet.” Words cost extra, obviously. I decided to go with the tasteful yet trendy Landing Strip for my maiden voyage.

My name was called and I nervously approached the perky young assistant who would guide me to a “treatment room” where I would wait for an “aesthetician” to “prep” me. I was instructed to undress from the waist down and cover up with a giant paper cocktail napkin. I sat on the cold vinyl table and tried to decide if I had time to run to the restroom after I had told the guide girl that I didn’t need to go. My mind raced with philosophical thoughts such as: Why am I here? Why do we want to remove a naturally-occurring phenomenon? Why is genital hair a naturally-occurring phenomenon? Is it really a phenomenon or was it one of God’s little jokes? He probably thought, I’ll make these parts really ugly and then cover them up with . . . HAIR! Mmmwahahahahahaaaa! How much am I paying for this? Why didn’t I use the Internet coupon? Now it’s really too late for me to find the restroom. . . .

My philosophy session was interrupted by a rattle at the door. In barged a woman in a white lab coat and another in festive scrubs. I thought, Wow, this is more serious than I thought. Then Lab Coat introduced Festive Scrubs as a student/tech and would I mind if she “observed”? What was I supposed to say? “Sorry, Festive Scrubs, I want to be alone with Lab Coat if you know what I mean.” Having been born without a modesty chip, and having had my ability to feign modesty stripped of me completely after giving birth in a military teaching hospital to an audience the size of a community college, I said, “No problem.”

Lab Coat then had me recline on the table as she pulled what looked to be a purple Sharpie from her pocket. She glanced at my chart’s “Landing Strip” choice and verified that it was indeed my intention to have that shape lasered onto my vulnerable vulva. She took the Sharpie and marked the outer boundaries of the areas to be “treated.” I had no idea that “Bikini Area” encompassed such a vast range of real estate. From the navel to the upper and inner thighs, I was a marked woman. She then instructed Festive Scrubs to “prep” me. “Prepping,” it turns out, is a rough dry shave with a cheap disposable razor. As Festive Scrubs began to insult what was left of my dignity, Lab Coat said, “Wait a minute, her hair is pretty light. I need to see if we should increase the settings.” I was all like, “Excuse me?” Lab Coat took off to get a supervisor. In the meantime, Festive Scrubs explained that the laser zeroes in on the pigment, so the darker the hair, the more effective the laser will be. Great, I thought. Now they’ll have to crank up the zapper so it can see my unwanted hair. I could hear God cackling at me as he rolled his big eyes: “This is what you get for messing with nature, you doofus!” Just as God was about to mock me again, in walked Lab Coat with her supervisor, Badge Ribbon. Badge Ribbon’s nametag sported a red flag with gold lettering that proclaimed her to be an “Aesthetician Supervisor.” As I reclined with a purple perimeter drawn on my abdomen and thighs, half-shaved, Badge Ribbon bent over to get a closer look at my pube pigment. She shook her head at Lab Coat and Festive Scrubs, “This is a tough one. She has some light hair. We should probably set it pretty high, but I want to confirm the numbers. I’ll be right back.” At that, Badge Ribbon left me alone with Lab Coat and Festive Scrubs. We made small talk about the weather and our children while we waited awkwardly for Badge Ribbon to return. After ten minutes that seemed more like an hour and a half, here comes Badge Ribbon with another supervisor. Mind you, my bladder was about to burst at that point. This other supervisor, Sensible Shoes, had to take a look. I never actually saw her shoes as my being splayed out on the table left me no good footwear vantage point, but she looked like the type that would wear sensible shoes. You know, a husky woman with no make-up who might have been described as “handsome” back in the pioneer days. She just looked like a gal who would never waste her time with cute shoes. So anyway, Sensible Shoes examined my beav and concurred with Badge Ribbon. But since Festive Scrubs and Lab Coat were in there too, Sensible Shoes went the extra mile and used me as a teaching opportunity. She manhandled my muff as she showed the three poon gazers what she was talking about. “See,” she offered, “This is what we call an extra light brown. Not as dark as we usually see. The lighter the hair, the harder the machine has to work. Let’s use the highest setting for best results. It may be a little more painful, but we have no choice.” Sensible Shoes gave my pubic bone a reassuring pat as she bid farewell to the party. Badge Ribbon made sure that Lab Coat knew what to do, then took her leave as well. Lab Coat probably enjoyed a bathroom break while Festive Scrubs finished shaving me clean.

After the shave and before the procedure, I finally had a chance to relieve myself. I passed another client in the hall as I scampered barefoot toward the ladies’ room wrapped in the napkin skirt. She must have seen the angst on my face. She said, “The first time is always the worst. You’ll get used to it.” Get used to it? I thought. Was this some sort of cult? As I sat on the toilet and relaxed for a minute, I wished I was anywhere but there. I hadn’t even been lasered yet and I was already discouraged. My pubes were not the right color; I was marked with a purple Sharpie; and my nether region was shaved bald. I was wearing a paper sarong. My purse and keys were in another room. There was no turning back. Suck it up, I told myself. Maybe the worst is over.

I returned to the prep room where Festive (we were on a first-name basis by now) led me to the procedure area. I was placed in something not unlike a dentist’s chair. Oh how I wish I was just getting a root canal with no novocaine, I thought. Lab Coat arrived shortly, clearly anxious to try the machine on its highest setting. We donned the little goggles to protect our eyes from any errant laser beams. I felt like I was in some sort of futuristic porn film. Like Festive was going to put on some mood music and pour me a glass of Champagne before taking off her scrubs to reveal six-inch stilettos and a black leather bustier. Lab Coat would of course tear her eponymous starched white jacket off to show us that she was really an android nymphomaniac with robot laser-guided nipples. These are the kinds of thoughts that plagued me as I was about to be violated. Lab Coat gelled me up and explained that I would feel a tiny sting followed by puffs of cold air to numb the area. She turned on the machine that clattered as loud as a riding lawnmower. (Which ironically, is kind of what it was doing.) Festive watched intently through goggled eyes and, much to my relief, never made a move on me. The pain was soul-scraping, but still not as bad as the wax job that had scarred my psyche a few months earlier. I thought for sure she was about to wrap it up when she announced, “Now I just need to finish your labia.” “Labia?!” I thought. Did she really have to use such a technical term while performing such a barbaric act? It was like kicking a guy in the balls with a steel-toed boot while gently saying, “I’m almost finished sculpting your testes.” So incongruous. Then again, the whole experience was an out-of-body affair.

Festive helped wipe me up as I took the goggles off to see Lab Coat’s handiwork. I beheld the aforementioned Landing Strip surrounded by reddened skin and wondered why I paid so much for the pleasure. Lab Coat handed me an ice pack and explained that the hair might grow back sooner because of the nature of it and that I may need to come back more often for more treatments. I thanked her for her patience with my recalcitrant and inappropriately-colored hair. Sure enough, before long, the fearless fluff began to reappear. Are you kidding me? I asked my defiant crotch. Seriously? But I paid a lot of money and went through pure hell for this. Even a full-body epidural could not have numbed the pain.

So I traded laser for razor and never looked back. But if I ever decide to brave the laser, at least now I know to do a dark little batch for the snatch first.

I Made a C!

2011-04-03T15:26:00.003-05:00

Poet John Greenleaf Whittier said: “And a nameless longing filled her breast, - A wish, that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known.” Who would have thought he was talking about my breasts?

I’m not real big in the tits department. Bigger than mosquito bites or golf balls, but not quite more than a handful. I liken them to medium oranges without the texture or firmness. They’re small enough not to sag, though, so they give the illusion that they’re still perky. And they are fairly far apart. Like neighbors with an empty lot in between. When I lie on my back they’re closer to my armpits than they are to each other. Cosmetic surgery inquiries confirm that no natural looking implants would give me cleavage. That’s how far apart they are. Not that it looks freakish. My chest isn’t that wide to begin with.

Now, I could go into detail about my perfectly-proportioned nipples, lament the fact that I didn’t breastfeed my kids long enough, and go on about why mammograms are more uncomfortable for me than for anyone else, but I won’t. This is not a story about my tits so much as it is about appropriately padding them for display. I can go braless and no one notices unless I get cold. That’s why I need to dress them up.

After years of torturing my titties with ill-fitting bras, usually irregulars I found on the clearance rack at Ross, I decided one day to treat myself to a retail-priced bra or two from a real mall department store. So I gathered up an armload of cute bras I thought might fit. I had always thought I wore a 34B or 36A, so that’s what I was going to try. A salesgirl asked if I needed any help, and as I always do, I said no thanks. No matter where I am or what I need, my first response is always a stupid “No thanks, just looking” even though I am indeed looking for something specific. And even if I’m in a hurry. In fact, especially if I am in a hurry. I don’t need some salesperson slowing me down. Like a man who won’t ask for directions, my pride as a shopper won’t allow me to ask for help. I want the challenge of finding it on my own. I want the uneasiness of continuing to search for something that isn’t there like staring into a refrigerator hoping a meal will materialize. I have to get really desperate or pissed before I’ll ask someone for help and even then, they are rarely all that helpful except maybe after I chase down someone in an orange apron at Home Depot and ask what aisle the A/C filters are on. (Then I can’t ever find the filter size I need or even remember what size I need, but that’s another story.)

Anyway, there I was in the dressing room wishing I was trying on shoes or sunglasses or even swimsuits instead. Each bra was as expensive and uncomfortable as the other. Then I heard a little tap at the dressing room door. It wasn’t the polite knock I might have expected from the twentysomething salesgirl. It sounded more like a weak peck from a bird who wasn’t sure he wanted what he was pecking at. It was only a decibel or two louder than a fingernail scratch on a Formica countertop. Somehow I knew that an old lady had to be behind that sound. Sure enough, I heard the voice of somebody’s leathery grandmother ask, “You all right in there, hon?” While I was far from all right, I was not about to ask for help. I made the mistake of cracking the door open to recite my no-thanks-I’m-just-looking. As I said, my boobs aren’t that big, so that one-inch crack in the door was all grandma needed to see that I had no business trying on bras without her help. Before I knew it, this formerly meek door-scratcher had her gnarled arthritic fingers all over my torso. Mind you, this was not a modesty problem on my part, for I have very little of that. It was simply a personal space issue. When I reject salesperson’s help, it is usually from a safe distance. This gal had bullied her way right into my dressing room and insisted that I accept her help because she was an expert. Indeed, I no longer felt violated when I glanced at her name tag with an official-looking ribbon on it proclaiming Edna to be a Certified Bra Fitter. Show me a badge or buy me a drink, and you are free to fondle my breasts.

She shook her head disapprovingly and said, “Oh honey, these need some help.” Her sharp nails scraped my armpits as she cupped my bare breasts in her veiny wrinkled hands and pulled them toward each other, saying, “You’ve got a lot of good breast tissue here that you’re not making any use of.” I immediately drifted into an out-of-body experience as soon as I felt this strange elderly woman’s paws on my mammaries. “You’re a good C-cup, little lady,” she announced. I then felt like I had won the lottery. I went from creeped out to awestruck in less than 30 seconds. She was my fairy godmother. Her teeth clacked unnaturally as she ordered me to wait right there. Then she ambled off to get me the perfect bra.

While I waited, I gathered up all that breast tissue that I had theretofore thought was just chest fat, and realized that she might very well be right. I could indeed put all that into a bra and call it boobs. She reappeared much sooner than I thought humanly possible, even for someone half her age. I was entranced by the array of C cups hanging from her claws, and could not wait to fill them up with all this newfound breast tissue.

I thought she would leave me alone so I could start trying them on, but no. Another thing I learned about bras is that you have to know how to put one on. After she released the first bra from its hanger like a magician pulling a dove out from under a scarf, I hesitantly took it from her and began to hook it around my waist. Not since giving my last urine specimen had I experienced such performance anxiety. As I twisted it around me and pulled it up, I looked at her like a child taking his first steps. “Is this OK?” I asked. That was all it took for her roll her good eye and manhandle me some more. “Honey, you gotta lean forward and pour that breast tissue into the cups. It ain’t gonna find its way in there on its own.” I did as I was told. As I stood up and looked in the mirror, I felt tears of joy begin to well up in my eyes. Like Dorothy chanting, “There’s no place like home,” I could hear my inner voice shout, “I do have big boobs; I do have big boobs!” Edna looked at me like Michaelangelo must have looked at David and said, “Well, I think my work here is done.”

Mr. Whittier would be glad to know that I probably spent a few hundred dollars on bras that day. Not counting the hefty tip I left in the dressing room.

Thirty-Seven

2011-03-22T20:32:00.002-05:00

I wrote this not long after my 37th birthday. Some people have a hard time with 30 or 35 or 40. Those didn’t bother me like 37 did. Thirty-seven was my wake up call. In fact I think I look and feel better now at almost 45 than I did then. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that by the time I hit 37, both of my kids could finally wipe themselves.

I’ve never been good with numbers. When a doctor recently asked my age, the number escaped my mouth just in time to see a betrayed spirit stage a walkout on its body. My inner self is still a “10” in a size five. But on the outside, I’ve become more like a “5” in a size ten. While I was busy clipping coupons or sorting Legos from Lincoln Logs, my chronological age began to exceed the age of my inner hottie. This condition gives me delusions that I’m better looking, thinner, and cooler than I actually am. (Is cool still the word for it?) When did this 22-year-old, 115-pound sex object morph into a flabby, elastic-waistband-wearing ma’am? A girlfriend contracted hers somewhere between mortgage and minivan. I think mine sneaked up on me in an SUV at a Home Depot parking lot. There is no known cure for this insidious disorder, and alcohol intensifies its effects. While it has been known to masquerade as confidence, it can progress to something pathetic if left untreated.

After a trip to Home Depot for a toilet ballcock (that’s what they’re called), where a pierced-eyelidded clerk told me I look like his mom, I headed for more torture at the mall. In the Juniors department, oblivious to the whispered jeers of cheerleaders and sorority girls, clueless that the saleswoman must have hoped I was shopping for my daughter, I tried on a size ‘M’ dress only to find that I’m an ‘S.’ Apparently for Sausage. The dress would’ve been perfect for a Jerry Springer appearance, but unfortunately, my suburban life doesn’t allow for that much deviant behavior. Then I boldly considered thong underwear when I knew full well that I (and my cellulite) would be much safer in a girdle. Who am I to think I can get away with butt floss? I wondered. Why not just move the pantyline down to my thighs with a sturdy foundation apparatus instead? I then decided to go somewhere that made me feel pretty. Like Wal-Mart.

They say the success of Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives made 40 the new 30. (Right. And chartreuse is the new black.) They don’t know desperate. Desperate is struggling over wardrobe choices in hopes that your kids’ babysitter will approve of your outfit. Desperate is when you think you take up a relatively small amount of space until your butt brushes against something you thought you could clear by a good six inches. (Does that mean I need bifocals? Now the marketers call them progressive lenses. Sounds like the kind of folk music I listen to.) Desperate is singing along with Muzak versions of ‘80’s dance hits while browsing the Wal-Mart shoe department. After scoring a pair of slippers from a clearance rack and using a coupon on a new pore-defying skin renewal system, I treated myself to a carwash.

My self-image (positive though it may be) serves me well until I pass my reflection. I’ll catch my face in the window of my SUV and think, Dang, where do I get off thinking I could even approach hotness anymore? Did I just flirt with that cute carwash boy? He knows I’m driving a Suburban with two carseats in it. I’m sure he’s noticed the radio set to my favorite a.m. talk show. Did he see the Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons next to the antidepressant prescription I left in the front seat? Did he see the REM’s Greatest Hits and Sarah McLachlan CDs? He wouldn’t care to know that when I was his age I was sexy and cool and wild and that if he were to meet the 20-year-old me in a bar, he would flirt with me and try to ply me with a sufficient number of drinks before offering me a ride home. The sad thing is, I’m having an erotic daydream about someone who could technically be my son while he’s vacuuming french fries from sticky floormats.

Did I forget to mention the short-term memory loss? Is it some age-related obsessive compulsive disorder? I smell my armpits to make sure I put on deodorant. Okay, I did that like two minutes ago. Did I take my vitamin this morning? Did I take my gingko biloba? Apparently not. Have I already had lunch today? If so, what was it? After eating a second lunch at around 2:00, I remember the first one I had at 11:00. Did I turn on the dryer after putting wet clothes in it? That one is embarrassingly verifiable. Did I put my kids in the car? Though I hear them screaming, I have to turn and check.

Is it already too late for me to age gracefully with dignity and class? I might as well prepare my kids now for the kicking and screaming that will ensue when they strongarm me (as they feign assistance with my hesitant gait) through the nursing home doors. I hope to reject any injections or plastic surgery that would no doubt leave me with that Picasso-esque Joan Rivers-drag queen quality that just adds insult to agery. But don’t quote me on that one.

George Bernard Shaw said that youth is wasted on the young. It took me 37 years to get that. No one told me back when I spent hours doing my hair and make-up that I could really use that extra time now. No one told me that one day my body would need more for breakfast than Pepsi, Tic-Tacs, and cigarettes. Or that Ramen noodles and beer for dinner every night could one day destroy my metabolism. No one told me that all that sunbathing would make my neck look more wrinkled and droopy than your average scrotum. No one warned me that all the drugs I did in college would damage brain cells I would so desperately need now. No wait, I think I was warned about that one. Yes, youth was indeed wasted on me. And, ironically, I think I was wasted during a good bit of that youth.

How did this happen? Fourteen years of marriage, two kids, three dress sizes, and I'm still trying to do the math.

Smooth Operator

2011-03-20T19:56:00.004-05:00

My grandmother would have called it “female problems.” (Ovarian cyst, really, I think it was.) That’s why I had to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound. It’s not like the standard ultrasound you get when you’re pregnant or have something else growing inside you. It’s a little more invasive and intimate than that.

Do men appreciate the fact that all of their genitalia are on the outside? Absolutely. In fact, “appreciate” is an understatement. It’s a matter of pride. Sure, women have external stuff. When my daughter was a pre-schooler, she called it her Tinkerbell. I found that moniker adorable until, in the middle of a long check-out line at SuperTarget, she grabbed her crotch and screamed like a banshee, “My Tinkerbell is itchy!” Better than vagina, or vulva or for Christ’s sake, labia coming out of a four-year-old’s mouth. I’m all about euphemisms. Kids just don’t need to say words like testicles or clitoris. That’s just inappropriate. I was taught twat and tallywhacker and I turned out okay. For the most part. It’s not like I didn’t know the real words. In fact, I still prefer the slang.

This one time? At a junior high dance? A boy pressed himself against me and for years after that I thought that they were always hard. If they aren’t, I think they always want to be. (They being their peckers.) Unless it would call attention to itself, like while exchanging vows or while getting a legitimate massage or pedicure. I remember thanking God that I wasn’t a boy. How could a person be comfortable carrying something with a mind of its own between their legs all the time?

The problem with female stuff is that at least half of it (or more) is on the inside. And that’s always where the doctors and technicians and boys like to poke around. Seems like there’s always something that wants to get in there. If it’s not a man or a doctor or a tampon, it’s a yeast infection. So anyway, I went in for this procedure. I won’t tell you where this happened so as not to get anyone’s license suspended, but it was a few years ago, and I’m sure the perpetrators are successful upstanding medical professionals today.

I found myself sitting on a paper-covered vinyl examining table in a pathetic excuse for a robe. Not the nice high-thread-count cotton ones with the snaps and the softness of an old sheet. No, this one was made of something akin to a paper towel. I felt like a two-stick Popsicle in a cheap napkin. It came with a sassy so-called belt that I tied in a fashionable knot that I then tilted at a rakish angle. Of course I was cold and nervous, so my shaking rattled this crumply gown. Not since a taffeta bow-butted prom dress had my attire made such a racket. They always give you a good half-hour to change. It took only a few seconds to get out of my clothes, but I was glad to have the remainder of the time to figure out how to unfold and don the glorified Handi-Wipe. I have shopped with kids long enough to be able to grab an outfit, find a dressing room, undress, try it on, and purchase it in less than a fraction of the time they gave me for the luxury of this gowning.

So the cute technician did the little courtesy knock before entering. His name was something like Chad or Justin or some other name popular for boys born around the time I graduated from high school. It was the first time I had been semi-nude and alone with a younger man since my son was a toddler in the shower with me. Because my pregnancies sucked away what little sense of modesty I started with, and because the ensuing childbirths at teaching hospitals managed to destroy my ability to even pretend to be modest, I found myself harboring only an odd sense of this is probably inappropriate and a normal woman might feel uncomfortable. Then the lawyer in me woke up and said, “Dude, isn’t someone else supposed to be in here?” (Yes, I was like 40 and yes, I said Dude. For emphasis, of course.) Then, in a perfect Homer Simpson, he blurted, “D’oh!” and said, “Hang on, Ma’am. I’ll get us a chaperone.” That sounded all kinds of wrong. Ma’am? That really pissed me off. Is that what I amounted to? And chaperone? Like I might molest him? (I bet I could have.) As he left the cold room, I left my feet in the stirrups to be ready for the ride. I tried to relax as I listened to the soft rock of the 80’s, 90’s, and today, that they pipe in all over this unnamed medical facility. I was in the middle of singing along with Chicago’s You’re the Inspiration and remembering my high school sweetheart when I heard another courtesy tap on the door. As if I might have been in the middle of something that I needed to finish up immediately. So in came cute Chad with his adorable supervisor who looked all of 24. He said, “This is Hunter. He’ll be our chaperone for the day.” No amount of eye-rolling or sighing could have communicated my bemused chagrin. Either they really were clueless, or they thought I was. I let it go. As I said, any modesty on my part is predominantly false.

Finally, the procedure could begin. I knew this kind of exam involved some sort of insertion, but no one told me that it would be the insertion of something not unlike an industrial size and strength vibrator. With gloved hands, they lubed me up and shoved it in about as gently as a mechanic handles a dipstick. I could sense their discomfort and I tried to avoid eye contact with either of them, but, in my misguided effort to ease the tension, I joked, “I think this is the first time I’ve been alone and half-naked with two guys probably since college.” They chuckled politely as they eyed each other probably thinking either, What a skank or We should pray for her or both.

As Chad swirled the vibrator in every possible uncomfortable direction at every possible painful angle around my humiliated vagina, the soft rock station began playing Sade’s Smooth Operator. “No need to ask, he’s a smooth operator, smoooooth operator, smooth operator, smoooooth operator. Coast to coast, L.A. to Chicago, western male. Across the north and south to Key Largo, love for sale.” I looked at my new boyfriends and smiled. “Perfect background music, right?” I watched them stifle laughter as they probably thought about what they would do when I asked for their numbers. That, and how glad they were to have all their junk on the outside.

So Your Truck has Balls? Well my Car has a Vagina. So There.

2011-03-06T09:37:00.020-06:00

One day on my way to work, I saw a vehicle I've noticed a few times before. Each day, both morning and evening, I travel the same highway at the same time with most of the same drivers. But I only recognize as familiar the cars that stand out. You know, the unique luxury models or the vintage Subaru Brat or the hoopty with former windows covered with duct tape and plastic, or the 1984 Honda Prelude with a spoiler to keep it aerodynamic. I notice the ones with personalized or out-of-state plates, those with an overabundance of Jesus fish, rainbow stickers, or entreaties that we “coexist” or something like that. Not to mention the other weirdos who like to advertise how crazy they are. Of course, at Christmas time, I always thoroughly enjoy the vehicles (commonly minivans) adorned with festive wreaths, Rudolph noses, and antlers (that are only useful for donning a single jingle bell or a tiny bow and could never win a fight with a real buck over some hot doe poon).

My exhaustive (and exhausting) internet research (yes, I choose not to capitalize “internet” even though someone somewhere decided that it deserves capitalization) yielded pictures of a car wearing a party hat (not sure if it was on its way to a party, home from a party, or if the party was actually in the car), a car wearing a thong (they wear bras, so why not panties?), a car wearing what looks to be a full-body hazmat or leisure suit, and a car with a big ugly butt. I’d like to see a Mercedes SLS AMG in my driveway wearing a big red ribbon, but enough about my fantasy life.

Anyway, the particular car that inspired this post was a Toyota Sequoia with a big brass nutsack.
I have seen them on big trucks that are obviously dealing with masculinity issues, but I had never seen them on an SUV. “Come on, kids, time for soccer practice. Watch out for the Sexquoia’s scrotum when you load the back end.” (You will notice I had the courtesy to redact the license plate number from this picture so as not to embarrass this car owner (any further than he has on his own) by plastering his vehicle’s big partial genitals all over the internet. It’s one thing to show your stuff in your hometown, but I’ll leave it up to them if they want to be identified with it worldwide.)

I am deeply troubled by this invention. This automotive scrotum. “Truck Nutz,” they call them. According to one very serious website, “BullsBalls.com” was the original creator of this gift to the road, and don’t you dare accept any substitute scrote for your ride. After some cursory research, I can tell you that prices range from about $15.99 to $36.99, plus shipping. And handling, of course. These wizards of American capitalism also make Biker Ballz for your castrated Harley or Harley wannabe. I discovered that these nuts are already illegal in Florida, which tells me that they were a big hit with the rednecks there. I think offenders get hit with a whopping $60 fine, which is well worth the risk, I say. Someone, probably inspired by his wife’s dildo, invented these and no doubt created a prototype to entice investors. I can see him in his workshop jacking with his hardware to fashion just the right dimensions and dangle. I see him working his tools to create the perfect strap-on method. He thoughtfully tested various metallics and festive colors and certainly thought that brass or blue would be extra funny. He surely had his creative juices flowing when he came up with the natural-looking wrinkles and veins, and when he had the courtesy to offer them up so majestically manscaped. No one wants an unsightly hairy sack defiling their bumper, for Christ’s sake.

I look forward to Golf Cart Gonads, Taxicab Testicles, Winnebago Huevos, and School Bus Rocks. I want to see Jeep Junk, Civic Stones, Corolla Cojones, Taurus Teabags, Mercedes Marbles, and Family (Car) Jewels. (By the way, I have copyrighted, patented, and trademarked the preceding terms and will assert my rights to any royalties from the unauthorized use of them.) Can a hybrid or a crossover wear these or would such hermaphrodites be prohibited by false advertising regulations? Can Bicycle Berries be far behind? Mini versions for your kids’ Power Wheels? Little Tikes Testes, perhaps?

There is no better way to alert other drivers to your car’s sexual side (and relative power) than by displaying its genitalia. Every Pontiac Vibe or Dodge Ram needs an appropriate accessory. Now that the trucks have nuts, they just need a big Pickup Pecker to match. I could dazzle you with my list of assorted car cock monikers, but I don’t want to be vulgar here.

Because I am all about equal rights, I plan to invent a Vehicular Vagina. I have also trademarked these names: Volvo Vulva, Beemer Beaver, and Cadillac Clitoris. I’m still working on the ins and outs of how one might safely drill an opening into a standard rear bumper.

Additionally, prototypes are in the works for Toyota Tits, Nissan Nipples, Beetle Boobies, Minivan Melons, Jaguar Jugs (perfect for the cougar in you), and my favorite, Hummer Hooters. The breasts are to be worn on the headlights, obviously, and should soon be more popular than those silly false eyelashes some cars have tried to get our attention with. Eyelashes. How lame. What car needs eyelashes when it has big tits? We all know that once a woman has some nice sweater puppets, eye contact goes out the proverbial automatic window. In addition to the purely ornamental Car Cans, I plan to create a Range Rover Rack that might actually serve as a rack for equipment such as beer coolers and barbecue grills. Again, all these names and ideas are copyrighted, trademarked, and have patents pending. And let me take this opportunity to remind you that I am a lawyer who is not afraid to use such slang in fancy notarized legal documents.

For the drivers who are a little more modest or want to keep their car’s gender a mystery, I am working on a universal exhaust pipe Automotive Asshole. A Bumper Butthole, if you will. It would come in handy to alert other drivers that there is another asshole on the road. And honestly, the only thing prettier than a dangling scrotum is a nice tight anal sphincter giving you the evil eye as you sit at a red light. Again, don’t steal this idea without paying me a substantial bribe to not make your life a living hell when you have some Chinese sweatshop children start making and packaging these highlights of the highway.

After I transform every Explorer, Expedition, Excursion, Escalade, Escape, and Xterra into Sexplorers, Sexpeditions, Sexcursions, Sexcalades, Sexcapes, and SeXterras, my next project will be piercing and tattooing all these vehicles’ naughty bits. Pretty soon, I’ll be able to buy myself that Mercedes and dress it up any way I want.

The Backstory Makes This Nasty Letter Even Funnier

2011-01-25T05:35:00.007-06:00

So, I just paid a few bills we got in December. The one from the kind folks who pick up our garbage showed a one-week credit of $4.55 which just about covered the tax charges on that bill. I thought, "Hmmm...I wonder why they gave us a credit?" The holidays, and the fact that I had, as they say, slept since then, caused me to forget one of my most awesome "D'oh!" moments of the past few years.

See, back in November, we had some trouble getting our trash picked up. I had called the customer "service" number, but after sitting on hold a little bit longer than it takes to cook regular oatmeal (which is as long as my patience will allow on my best day), I decided to send them a friendly, grammatically-adequate e-mail instead.

Here's what it said:

To Whom It May Concern:

Our trash usually gets picked up on Fridays. I left town this past Wednesday for Thanksgiving and left our trash can at the curb so it would be there for Friday's pick up. It was windy that morning, and since I knew the container would be sitting there for two days, I put a couple of rocks on top of the lid to keep it from blowing open and to keep animals out. I came home that Friday evening only to see that everyone else's trash had been picked up, including that of our neighbor right next to us whose trash can was maybe three feet away from ours.

Apparently, your pick-up crew thinks that rocks on top of a lid means "We want to keep our trash. Don't pick it up!" If this is what that means, let me know and next time I will post a sign with an explanatory drawing that makes it clear that we would indeed like to have our trash picked up.

Anyway, my husband called your office on Monday and someone told him the trash would be picked up the following day (which was this past Tuesday). It is now Thursday, and still no one has picked it up and, bonus for us, animals did get into it.

I left a voicemail with your office this morning. I assume that now that pick up day is rolling back around for tomorrow, you won't bother to come get it all until then. That is fine, but we are not going to pay for last week. Please adjust our bill to reflect that we will not be charged for that week.

We switched to your company because the other service in our neighborhood did such a crappy job. We have been extremely satisfied with your service for a long time, and I hope that this was just one unfortunate incident. Please respond to this message, or you can call me at [...].

So, after I hit the "send" button, I got a call in response to my voicemail. No one had read my friendly e-mail yet. The most helpful Bangladeshi girl (probably calling herself "Courtney") proceeded to inform me, quite politely, that the reason our trash was not picked up had something to do with the fact that I had neglected to pay our bill. I immediately checked the prior month's elaborate accounting spreadsheet (in my case "spreadsheet" literally means "sheets (of paper such as bills) spread about my desk in no particular order.") Sure enough, she was right. I paid the bill by credit card over the phone immediately as I tried to dream up a good story to tell my husband when he asked what they said after I gave them a piece of my mind.

I wanted to retract the nasty e-mail and follow it up with one called "My Bad," but never got around to it. How embarrassing to think that my sarcastic lecture is probably posted on their break room bulletin board with a handwritten Post-It note that says: "This one didn't pay her bill. Stupid bitch!"

BUT the joke was on them, apparently. Because we got our discount anyway. That $4.55 credit really took the sting out of any remorse I may have been carrying.

The moral to this story is: If you want to write a nasty letter, be sure your account isn't delinquent. But if it is, the perceived incompetence you complain about may indeed become a self-fulfilling prophecy and you may yet get that discount after all.

The 10th Annual Boring Mitchell Holiday Letter--Special Aluminum Anniversary Edition

2010-12-17T17:25:00.002-06:00

To those who have been blessed with the misfortune of receiving one of these letters every year since 2001, welcome to the beginning of the end of the most delightful decade of holiday seasons you’ve ever endured. For the rest of you who joined this elite group at any time after the initial insult, back issues are available for a nominal fee. As a gift to our longsuffering friends, family, supporters, and stalkers, plans are in the works for a director’s cut unrated version commemorative box set including ten years’ worth of bonus features with outtakes, bloopers, and options to enjoy it subtitled and dubbed in broken French, Texican, pig Latin, and/or braille. Look for it on Amazon soon. Use coupon code “sucker” for free shipping.

The year wasn’t as great for us as it was for the team that beat the Texas Rangers, but at least it didn’t treat us like a Charlie Sheen escort. Aside from my heroic performance in a highway emergency, Katy’s (unrelated) ambulance ride, Mike’s meal with a football legend, and Luke’s canoeing face plant, our 2010 was relatively uneventful, so let go of any unreasonable entertainment expectations right now. While the world dealt with earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, floods, inept terrorists, illegal immigrants, the BP oil spill, a depressed economy, vuvuzela noise, WikiLeaks, Sarah Palin’s kid on Dancing with the Stars, and the embarrassment that is Lindsay Lohan, the Mitchell family went about the business of living the model upper-middle-class life which has become the envy of even the most casual observer.

Katy won the family contest for the year’s highest health care expense. In addition to her allergies and a weak gag reflex that put me on a first-name basis with the school nurse, our daughter’s other cries for attention kept us busy. In June, after I humored her with an eye doctor visit to quell the relentless “everything is blurry” melodrama, she spited us with a legitimate need for glasses. The first pair was lost within a week, but was found just as the replacement emerged in pieces from the dryer. In July, she jumped into a river and managed to sustain a brutal to-the-bone gash across her leg. She lost a lot of blood, but proved how tough she was when I arrived on the scene. With an IV in her arm and a bloody bandage around her leg, she yelled, “Mom, are you okay?” In October, she had her braces taken off and was entrusted with two hot pink retainers which have already seen more of a car’s back seat than any respectable orthodontic hardware ever should. She turned 11 last month and has tackled 5th grade handily with little help from her parents. In the spring, due to a ballot tabulation error or bribery, her basketball team voted her “Most Christlike.” No doubt fueled by this honor, she took it upon herself to join the church worship team and became its youngest singer. She later exhibited more Christlikeness when, upon seeing a news story about Mel Gibson, noted, “He’s a douche.” In the summer, she attended as many camps as the calendar and the bank account would allow, and spent the rest of the year perfecting her singing and acting skills with drama classes. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, drawing, and not cleaning her room. In other news, she reportedly passed a piece of gum she swallowed when she was three.

Luke turned 14 and is surprisingly much less awkward than his appearance would suggest. Despite inheriting my disorganizational skills, he has maintained straight A’s and perfect attendance in 8th grade so far. And in October, he was named school district student of the month. We’re also proud to say that he’s only missed the afternoon bus twice, and only once did he mistakenly wear my jeans to school. He spent the summer with scout camp, basketball camp, and two church youth group trips: one an urban clean-up mission, the other, apparently, a vacation with naps perfectly-timed for Bible study. The summer also marked Luke’s triumphant breaking of last year’s record for time spent not touching a toothbrush. This fall, he helped his track team win district, sold a disappointing amount of Boy Scout popcorn, and then banged up his entire face riding some rapids on the wrong side of a canoe. He bagged his first buck opening weekend, and during the butchering process, Mike identified all the deer innards for Katy and their cousins. They thoroughly enjoyed the anatomy lesson, especially when Luke tossed the deer’s junk into the woods and its testicles got hung up in a tree. What a special memory for the kids to cherish. Luke is a good inch-and-a-half taller than I am and wears the same size shoe as his dad, so I’m taking suggestions for safe and effective growth-stunting techniques. The kids are still in a race to hit puberty, and I hope that explains Katy’s appetite for peanut butter and pickle sandwiches and Luke’s newfound rebellious attitude. In a recent act of defiance, he took over the car stereo to interrupt my Eminem with his iPod’s Beethoven. This year brought a joyous milestone we’d all been eagerly anticipating. We can finally leave the kids home alone without fear of child protective services or law enforcement intervention. We’ve been richly rewarded for all the years spent training them not to put silverware in the microwave, only to order pre-authorized movies-on-demand, and not to call 911 unless it’s a real emergency. With the luxury of legal child neglect, the babysitter money savings has allowed for later nights and better wine.

Our family suffered a great loss one hot June afternoon when, after 15 years of loyal service, the beer fridge in our garage peacefully passed away. Casualties included three pizzas and a bag of fish sticks. Fortunately, the local Home Depot came through with a replacement before any beverages were harmed. In holiday news, we celebrated July 4th by eating tamales while sporting American flag T-shirts with tags that say “Hecho en Guatemala.” Katy’s quote of the year came in on October 31. She lamented, “Halloween is the only time that I can really express myself.” I wanted to go as Lady Gaga, but our dog ate my meat dress before I could squeeze into it. We had planned to go to the local Baptist church fall festival that night, but after taking another look at Katy, I decided we might not be welcome.

I turned fortysomething in April, and Katy gently suggested that I might now be too old to use the expression “Dude.” I came to the conclusion that the older I get, the more grateful I am for my awesome personality. I spent most of the year at work, on my way to or from work, thinking about work, or wishing I could throw a flight attendant temper tantrum and pull an escape chute from work. Business took me to Phoenix, Seattle, and DC as well as Dallas and a little hot spot known as Waco. I also went to Austin to do a webcast for the State Bar. After watching the video of it, I realized that the camera didn’t add ten pounds. On me, it added ten years. In July, I drove the RV by myself for the first time. During rush-hour traffic, as if it were a Toyota, the vehicle’s brakes suddenly stopped working. I kept my cool and skillfully maneuvered the speeding beast between countless defenseless cars to a safe stop. For the first time since driver’s ed, I felt the exhilaration of having cheated death. Sort of like those Chilean miners, or maybe Bret Michaels. Katy and her friend loved riding in the monster tow truck while I scraped the bottom of my purse for a tranquilizer. We ended up camping in a mechanic’s parking lot on I-35 in Pflugerville that night. Bonus RV decorating tip: Generally speaking, a dust ruffle is not worth the trouble. Finally, I’m thrilled to announce that I have now twice been able to find my car in the Target parking lot without resorting to the alarm’s panic button.

Mike’s year included trips to Tucson, Reno, and Angel Fire, New Mexico, as well as another Confederate Air Force airshow always conveniently scheduled at the coast during spring break. When he went to Green Bay for another Lambeau Field flyover, he had breakfast with Bart Starr, who, we had to explain to the kids, was kind of a big deal. Mike discovered Ancestry.com and was able to trace his roots back to Alamo heroes, Scottish royalty, and some caveman named Thrond. So far, my notable ancestors include only Danish peasants and Wild West outlaws. We are pleased to report that our family trees don’t overlap until at least five generations back. Now that he works four days a week, he spends a lot of his Mondays going on Harley rides or shopping online for investment property that we can’t afford. We took a trip to Las Vegas where he employed his Rainman-style card-counting techniques while I disregarded his warnings about the slots and found gambling to be a profitable investment strategy. In October, we celebrated our 19th anniversary and thanked each other for sharing three or four of the best years of our lives. He decided not to question why I need 23 pairs of black shoes and I feigned excitement about the new gun safe that has taken over a good quarter of my available closet space. He also purchased a big box trailer for hauling all of our motorized toys, so I countered with a new washing machine. After discovering he couldn’t keep up with Luke on his old mountain bike, he bought himself a new one in hopes that it would improve his speed. No luck yet. He’ll turn thirty-seventeen later this month, and shows no signs of testosterone loss except when I catch him watching a movie on the Hallmark channel or drinking flavored coffee.

For 2011, Katy looks forward to joining the school band so she can play her instrument of choice, the cymbals. Luke will be working with his dad restoring the vintage truck he’s getting for Christmas while I train the kids to go the extra mile and turn the dryer on after putting wet clothes in it. I hope to understand why we have a universal remote when we still need three others, purge my closet of accumulated wire hangers, finish my book, and maybe see Avatar. In addition to spending more time with his guitar, Mike will continue trying in vain to teach me how to drive. If you’ll be flying over the holidays, we wish you safe travels and gentle, non-invasive TSA molestations. Thanks for being such a gracious audience over the past ten years. The more time passes, the more valuable it becomes. May you spend what’s left of yours only on things that matter.

Love, Jill, Mike, Luke, Katy & Buzz

Hallo-tween Whorrors

2010-10-16T17:34:00.052-05:00

It's not even October 31, and I have already been terrified.

It takes a lot to shock me. On a scale of Amish to Pole Dancer, my imagination is Porn Star. In spite of my advanced education and professional ability, I struggle with the sense of humor of a 14-year-old boy. (I have also been told that I have the ass of a 14-year-old boy, but that’s another story.) I pride myself on being deftly able to cross the line between tacky and downright appalling. I was born without an internal censor chip. If a “so to speak” or “that’s what he/she said” opportunity arises, I’m on top of it, so to speak. I was born without the ability to bite my tongue, at least when given the chance to inject a good (or bad) joke or insult. I can make fighter pilots blush. I have been known to embarrass inanimate objects.

So I was not a little surprised when my visit to the local costume store found me in an angst-filled philosophical and emotional state the likes of which I have not experienced since the time I found myself drunk in a swimming pool, wearing Bubba-teeth, sitting on my husband's shoulders, cupping my wet wife-beater-clad tits, and competing in a chicken fight with my pastor. (I think I won, by the way.)

I have been a mother for almost 14 years. This means that my kids are now old enough to understand how immature I am. It also means that they have reached the ages at which they need their mother to provide a positive role model, guidance in proper social behavior, and clear instruction with regard to effective personal hygiene. I'm pretty good at reminding them to use deodorant and brush their teeth and cut their nails, but otherwise I suck at pretending to be a grown-up.

The other day at the costume store, in spite of myself and much to my dismay, I grew up a little bit. I took the kids there last year as well, and either it didn't register with me then, or something has changed drastically in the world of children's costumes. I blame the Chinese.

My daughter is 10 years old. She is about 4 foot 10 and weighs a good 100 pounds or so. Like her mother, she wears a women's size 8 shoe and a 36-inch bra. She is really too big to shop in the children's department, and when it comes to the juniors’ section, she may be big enough, but she's not necessarily old enough. She’s what they call a “tween.” She does not shave her legs yet, though she has tried. She certainly does not wear make-up yet. She has glasses and braces and a blissful, enviable lack of self-consciousness. She is not (nor is she supposed to be) sexy.

I assume most of these outfits are made in China. The sizes on the “tween” labels look like this: S/M (12-14), M/L (14/16). Keep in mind that the Chinese are generally very small people. A Chinese “Small/Medium” is equivalent to an American size 3T. (For those of you who have never dressed children, that's a toddler size.) A Chinese “Medium/Large” is equivalent to the size of an American supermodel. (Also known as a size zero, or perhaps a size 1 if she's premenstrual.) The sizes alone were not the problem. It was the fact that certain styles were actually made in such small sizes. Here are some examples from the tween collection: Devil Delight, Dark Angel, Falling Angel, Devil in da Hood, Mobsta Girl, Rebel Fairy, Punky Pirate, Gothic Witch, Convict Cutie, and Major Trouble. Cute names, right? Honestly, these could also be titles of the new releases on my adult pay-per-view channel. Here are a few pictures from the costume store’s website to help you understand what I'm going through. Bear in mind, these are labeled as “tween” costumes. Some of them also come in teen sizes, which, while also somewhat inappropriate, is at least understandable. I refuse to let my daughter dress like a tramp until she is old enough. I want my daughter to wait until college to become a slut. Just like I did. There's nothing better than the basic good girl/bad girl theme. Trick-or-treating tip #1: Bad girls get more candy.

Then there are the good old stand-by fairy-tale characters. I remember when Little Red Riding Hood was an innocent young girl.

Apparently, she has started her period.
How about Goldilocks? Yep, she's grown up juuussst riiight. Trick-or-treating tip #2: Dressing up as a little girl alone in the woods is always a good idea.

If your 10-year-old daughter doesn't want to go with one of the traditional themes, she has these adorable options. You may think there are no sex offenders living in your neighborhood, but that's all going to change after this Halloween. Trick-or-treating tip #3: Remember, it's "Trick or Treat" not "Turn a Trick."

Be sure your daughter gets a good bikini wax before wearing this costume. Oh wait ... she hasn't hit puberty yet. I am not kidding, people. This is labeled for "tweens."

Or perhaps you would like for your pre-teen daughter to show her support for the military. You don't have to ask for it, and she won't tell.
This one could not be found on their website. Lucky for you, I took a picture of it. Look at the label. This is a French maid costume. For tweens.

Trick-or-treating tip #4: Don't be surprised if you come home with a bag full of condoms and flavored massage oils.

As Katy and I searched for something she could wear without being arrested for public lewdness, Luke was on the other side of the store being mesmerized by the pornographic labels on the adult costumes. In the store's defense, they did have one warning sign posted near one of the most obscene.

Speaking of bikini waxes, while the kids weren't looking, I took pictures of these two. Anita Waxin and her favorite gynecologist, Dr. Seymour Bush.
Seeing as how Luke became a man in the store that day, I thought it would be fitting to dress him in this "Supa Mac Daddy" pimp suit. But they didn't have one big enough for him.

At the end of our educational field trip, we got Katy a standard adult-size full-length witch costume. Because of course Halloween for a kid is not about being sexy. For children, Halloween is really all about the joyous laughter and lighthearted fun they can find in the occult and paganism and witchcraft and communicating with evil spirits. And oh yeah, the candy.

What I Did This Summer

2010-09-02T17:37:00.043-05:00

Apparently, my law practice has really started to take off, which is a good thing, but it has left me with very little in the way of large blocks of time to write. Not that I necessarily would if I could. Lately, when I get a large block of time, I waste it with sleep or devote it to the important business of watching one episode after another of Hoarders or Mystery Diagnosis on a Saturday afternoon. I complain that there is never enough time for all the things I want to do. I whine that there are just not enough hours in the day and that I need to learn how to get by on less than six hours of sleep each night.

Today, with about 73 things on my To Do list, I stayed home with a supposedly sick kid who, it turns out, is just fine except for maybe a touch of strep throat that has yet to make its presence fully known. This morning I thought, well, it’s good that I brought my laptop home from the office so I can get some work done. Did I? Not really. And when the cleaning people got here, well, we had to get out of the house, right? I capitulated. Threw up my hands and had to laugh at the thought of even scratching the surface of my Everest of obligations. What’s one more day of getting behind? Oh, and we have Labor Day coming up. Great. Another 24 hours I can’t spend working. I feel like I’m swallowing the ocean while trying to keep my head above water. And all I can do is talk myself down off the ledge every day and tell myself I can do this. Am I biting off more than I can chew? Wait, do I really have to chew? Can I truly fake it till I make it? So many people depend on me. So many clients have put their hope and faith in me, and I can’t let anyone down. Failure is not an option. Fear is not an option. I always say that fear is failure. I know I’m capable, but the idea of implosion is always brewing, especially when my ADD starts acting up. But I digress.

So, rather than deal with the cleaning people under my feet, I took Katy to Justice and bought her some new clothes, including bras and boots that are about my size. She’s 10. Oh and didn’t that make me feel better.

My point is, with all the ocean-swallowing and A&E watching, I get only occasional snippets of time to be creative and express myself. And, fortunately for all my Wastebook friends, I pop in fairly regularly, albeit for a few fleeting yet quite magical moments, to make my presence known in the form of delightful status updates, well-constructed and good-natured insults, and as many sexual innuendoes as I can scatter about like sparkling glitter confetti in my readers’ otherwise humdrum lives. So, because I have spent the whole summer not blogging, I thought I would reprint here all the things I did write. I’m all about recycling. And getting as much mileage out of my mediocre material as I can. So I apologize to my loyal Facebook friends who may feel a little déjà vu. Just consider it a free second helping of dessert.
. . . . . . . .
I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: “God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.” . . .

My dinner. Mt. Fuji roll at Sake Cafe. . . .

My friend Keith. Obnoxious Texan. Gotta love it. . . .

Saw a red Mercedes with personalized plates that say “RED BNZ.” Oh, I get it. Your car is a Mercedes Benz and it’s red. . . .

Just pigged out @ Hard 8 BBQ, Stephenville, TX. Good meat!

When you ask a 13-year-old boy to take the stuff from the washer and put it in the dryer, you might want to specify, “Then turn the dryer ON.” . . .

My new favorite shirt that I spent too much money on. . . .

My kids and I are wearing our American flag T-shirts from Wal-Mart with tags that say “Hecho en Guatemala.” God Bless America. . . .

This is what my computer looked like this morning when I tried to get busy working on a brief. Like I told the I.T. guy, I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue. But he fixed it remotely in very little time so I could get back to the business of saving our veterans from the evil V.A. Thanks again, Dwayne!! . . .

My 10-year-old daughter took it upon herself to borrow my razor and shave her legs for the first time. I told her, “You’ll be sorry. Now that you started shaving, you’ll have to keep doing it.” She said, “Why? You don’t.” . . .

One of the best American novels ever written. Even though some say Truman Capote actually wrote it, I love Harper Lee. Had to buy the anniversary copy because it made my heart pound when I saw it. (Yes, I’m still a geek English major.) The quote (by Charles Lamb) at the beginning says, “Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.” Atticus, Scout, and Boo Radley are my heroes. . . .

In my relentless effort to make myself more appealing, my “muffin-top” shall henceforth be known as a “cupcake-top.” . . .

The older I get, the more often I thank God for my awesome personality. . . .

At Cracker Barrel with my daughter and her friend. The girls order chocolate cake without the ice cream. Confused waitress: “It automatically comes with ice cream.” Katy’s friend: “Then can we get it on the side?” Challenged waitress: “Well...I guess so.” Me: “How ‘bout you just leave it in the kitchen?” It was a Cracker Barrel miracle. . . .

My daughter just hurt her leg really bad jumping into a river. I’m following an ambulance right now. . . . Thanks for being here, folks. I pity the fools who don’t have FB to be able to get info out to so many so fast, and get instant support, thoughts, prayers, and smiles. I’d have otherwise felt very alone. Katy’s on her way home with no broken bones and just a hellaciously ugly deep bloody gash across her leg. Can’t wait to see what kind of drama she milks out of this one. . . .

Trinity University’s cleverly-titled “Tiger Sculpture.”

Finally figured out how to tell the difference between Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez, then realized I didn’t care. . . .

Any SA friends want to go with me to see Mat Kearney on 8/15 @ White Rabbit? This song has one of the best lines ever: “I guess we’re all one phone call from our knees.” . . .

Walt Wilkins. One of the very best songwriters ever. If it weren’t for Walt Wilkins, there would be no Pat Green. My favorite line in this song is, “I crossed too many lines trying to crawl out of God’s hands.” Good stuff. . . .

Watched Clash of the Titans with the kids. When Perseus cut off Hades’ hands, Katy said, “Look, mom! No hands!!” I don’t know where she got that sick sense of humor. . . .

I’m not a big country music fan, but this video is so good. [Kenny Chesney’s The Boys of Fall]. See how many famous players and coaches you can name. Come on football season!

Yet another priceless photo of my son at his church youth group retreat. All that Bible learnin’ just got him plum tuckered out.

Today I heard two of the most mispronounced words in the English language. Take note, folks: “Mischievous” is NOT pronounced “miss-chee-vee-us.” It is simply “miss-chiv-us.” And “sherbet” has only ONE “R.” It is NOT “sher-bert.” Say it wrong to others, but if you talk to me, say it right, or you will get a mental “F” in English from me. . . .

I wish my office had an emergency chute and an intercom so I could make my temper tantrums more dramatic and share them with a wider audience. Good thing I’m not a flight attendant. Or for that matter, a nurse, waitress, child care worker, or postal clerk. The general public is much safer when I limit my human contact to drive-through windows and nail salons. . . .

My sister just lost her two-and-a-half-year-old dog to a heat stroke in a matter of hours. He had plenty of shade and cool water, but the heat (in Oklahoma) must have been too much for this big teddy bear. Pay extra attention to your dogs when they are outside and just know that it can happen without much warning. RIP, sweet Gringo. . . .

Today’s lesson: Do NOT utter or write the so-called word “irregardless” anywhere near me or I will unleash a fit of rage the likes you have not seen since The Exorcist. Webster’s says: “Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use ‘regardless’ instead.” Save yourself a syllable, and quite possibly our shaky friendship. . . . And while we are on my favorite subject, “Your” is a possessive pronoun and “You’re” means “You are.” And “Its” is the possessive form of the word “it.” Notice the lack of apostrophe. “It’s” is short for “It is.” Read it. Know it. Live it. Have intercourse with it. Eat it like a vitamin. It’s good for you. . . .

Heard “Don’t Stop ‘til You Get Enough” yesterday. I told the kids, “This is the good Michael Jackson music from before he was white.” Katy replied, “Oh, you mean when he was still a dude?” My heart swells with pride to see that I’ve instilled such cultural literacy in my children. . . .

Got my son a new Call of Duty Wii game, then noticed it had an M rating when his other CoD games were rated T. I asked him what was different. Katy said, “More blood.” Luke said, “Mom, it’s just animated blood; it doesn’t even look real.” Lesson: Real blood=Bad, Fake blood=Good. . . .

I guess it’s a little late now to get my kids into a so-called routine before school starts on Monday. Slacker moms, unite.

A friend said I reminded him of this. That’s good, right? . . .

Need to clone myself to get some work done, but I’m afraid the other me would really get on my nerves. She’d always be one-upping me and insulting me in her clever yet caustic way. Plus she’d want to borrow my clothes, my kids would like her more because she’d play with them, and my husband would want to sleep with her. Bitch.
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So that was my boring summer. Glad it's over. Bet you are, too.

Blogged Down: There's a Method to my Sadness

2010-06-04T20:12:00.002-05:00

When I spend too much time not writing, I get unbearably irritable. My head aches, my heart feels heavy, my mind races, my gut burns. And when I get that unbearably irritable, I want to curl up and try to sleep it off. That doesn't help, because if I do sleep, I wake up still having not written a word. And even more irritable. This is beyond writer's block. It's more like mental constipation. Too much stuff all backed up and trying to come out all at once, so it goes nowhere. Sorry if the gross analogy offends you. (If so, read no further.) And the fact that analogy has the word anal in it is pure coincidence. (Or is it?)

Never in my adult life have I gone so long without writing anything more creative than a grocery list. Sure, I've written some letters and memos and briefs at work over the past few months, and sometimes I do have to use some creative reasoning and wordplay there, but none of that satisfies my right hemisphere. Too many thoughts and words get crowded and commingled and just want out. But they don't like to exit fire-drill style in a single-file line. Much less in coherent sentences and paragraphs. I can see why so many writers ended up insane suicidal alcoholics. They didn't let themselves write enough. Then the self-destructive masochistic behavior feeds on itself and before you know it, you're filling your overcoat's pockets with stones and walking into a river.

Ernest Hemingway, one of the most famous suicidal alcoholic writers, said, "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." As I shuffled through my folder stuffed with idea scraps in my lame effort to come up with something to write about, I found these poetic scribbles: "I will write until all my pens run out of blood;" and "Tears fall from my fingertips" (onto my keyboard of pathetic and endless despair, apparently). Oh the sad clown is wallowing in her imaginary sorrows. Setting up housekeeping in her corner unit of the persecution complex. My pens are all still full of blood, and my fingertips are figuratively shriveled from the tears that are aching to crash and splash against the keys.

Maybe I haven't written lately because I haven't felt strongly enough about anything. Too numb and apathetic for reasons unknown. I had a plan to write about how people can achieve a sort of creepy immortality through Facebook, and I intend to do that sometime. Just like I have been meaning to finish off my celebrity death trios of 2009. These are two incredibly serious writing projects. About dead people. Works that could quite possibly Change the World or at least Your Life as You Know it, but I'm just too underwhelmed to put enough effort into them. There are lots of things I've been gonna do. And the sad thing is, You, Dear Reader, must suffer in the vast wasteland that is the Blogosphere, without any good new crap from me. Because, oooh, the tormented and tortured artist is going through a slump. An extended bout of psychic indigestion and verbal intussusception. I guess you could say I'm irregular. In fact, the only thing regular about me is my period. But that's another bodily function (and punctuation mark) just crying out to be analogized, so I won't go there.

So why have I been absent? Why have I hoarded my words until they paralyzed me? Why haven't I followed my gut and stayed up all night to write it all out? Whatever IT is? Some people have to work it out or hug it out or cry it out. I just need to write it out of me. The IT was my creativity, my lighthearted nonsense, my good-natured insults, my boisterous laughter in the face of fear, my alchemistic skill at artfully blending vulgarity with obscenity, my uncanny ability to make poetry out of pure bullshit, my quiet humility. Somehow, at some point, IT all solidified into Angst. Don't the Germans capitalize their nouns? That one really deserves it. Why the Angst? I blame everyone and everything but myself because that's the way I roll.

Whatever the reason for this Angst, don't give up on me yet. I haven't. Too stubborn and spiteful to let it win. I'll be back soon with more stellar material the likes of which you have not seen since Dude, Where's My Car?

Hey, I think I have managed to write some of it out. (Isn't it ironic?) Not quite a primal scream catharsis, not even as relieving as one of those Fleet enemas they give you in preparation for childbirth or a colonoscopy, but at least as good as a cheap deep massage where they tell you to drink a lot of water afterward because it will help flush out the toxins. I'm tempted to describe my words as turds here, but that would be too scatological, even for me.

Reprinted Without Permission

2010-02-27T12:56:00.013-06:00

I promised myself I would post something at least once a month to keep my (handful of) fan(s) entertained, but this is all I could come up with. I've been going through a serious slump lately, and when I'm not fighting off this funk (and not the George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic kind), I'm frittering away perfectly good hours watching American Idol or staring into the refrigerator or drinking red wine until my teeth turn purple (which doesn't take long) or making lists of things I need to be doing, or any combination of the above. What I should be doing, of course, is researching for the long-awaited year-end supplement to my 2009 celebrity-death-trio post, but that will take some time that frankly, what with all the refrigerator-gazing, I just don't have.

Speaking of wasted time, I still have a good bit of remorse for losing 15 or more minutes of my life watching Tiger Woods' well-rehearsed and insincere apology speech. Of course he's sorry. Sorry he got caught with too many irons in the fire, so to speak. Sorry for being so stupid and sloppy. Sorry for the millions of dollars he's lost. So he used several willing women as human blow-up dolls. Cut him some slack, people. No one can believe he would do that to his hot wife. His situation just goes to prove that no matter how hot a woman is, there's some guy who is sick of her shit. She may have had her own stable of Sanchos, for all we know. Then again, she probably had very little to do with it. Selfishness is easy. Weakness is human. The id loves to swim in sin. A happy ego masks frailty. And power corrupts. Sex addiction? Duh. He's a dude. Doesn't make what he did right; I'm just saying. That's my take on it. Oh, look at that. I just wasted another good 15 minutes on the topic.

I have been spending a little quality time working on my book every now and then, but not enough. I know that it's just an abject and quite rational fear of monumental worldwide success that's holding me back, so I need to get over it before I become old and ugly and won't be able to go on book tours because of my hideous decrepitude. My anonymous friend noted below (let's call him "Joe") was kind enough to warn me that my expiration date is dangerously close. (With friends like that, who needs friends?)

Anyway, on to the title track. My dear friend "Joe" sent this to me a couple of weeks ago, and it is just way too funny not to share. Sure, had I written it, it would be a lot more hilarious, but I was sufficiently impressed with his talent to broadcast it to my loyal reader(s) here. And in his defense, he did mention that had he intended for this to go public, he would have put more effort into the humor. I believe that. I know from personal harrowing experience with his merciless (yet highly entertaining) ridicule that he can do much better, and I have faith that he will next time.

A caveat here: For the sake of sparing the girl (let's call her "Christine") some lifelong embarrassment, I thoughtfully redacted her unflattering photo. I also deleted it to protect my readers from being involuntarily subjected to said image. Plus, I prefer to post only the most aesthetically-pleasing images here, such as the dead armadillo and the CAT-a-pult I included in my tribute to my friend Heather a few months ago.

I was also kind enough to delete the names of "Christine's" hometown and high school, for obvious reasons (to protect their reputations, if any).

So here it is, now that you're on the edge(s) of your seat(s).

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Joe
To: Jill
Sent: Wed, February 17, 2010 1:02:02 PM
Subject: completely real exchange with potential babysitter who responded to my Craigslist ad

My Original Craigslist Ad:

We have 3 children, aged 7, 4, and 1. We are looking for someone with their own transportation who can babysit regularly one night each weekend and hopefully travel with us as well (we are looking to go to Florida for a week in late March and potentially a few weeks in France and maybe another in the OBX this summer). The ideal person would be a local college or grad student with a flexible schedule.

Please, we are only interested in native-English speakers who are U.S. citizens.

We pay $20/hour for weekend babysitting. For the trips, we generally work it out on a case by case basis.

Our kids are pains in the neck, but we have grown quite attached to them anyway. So we are hoping you have references or you have local ties or something like that, and we also hope you actually like children and would enjoy playing with ours.

If you are interested, please send us an e-mail with any information you think is relevant.

Thank you!
________________________________________
From: Christine
Sent: Monday, February 15, 2010 2:18 PM
To: Joe
Subject: Nanny needed to travel

Is this really a family?

Why would you write that your kids are pains in the neck?

Just curious

Christine
______________________________________
From: Joe
To: Christine
Sent: Mon, February 15, 2010 2:40:43 PM
Subject: RE: Nanny needed to travel

Wait until you have 2 or 3 kids later on in life, then revisit this question. I am guessing the answer will come to you fairly easily.
________________________________________
From: Christine
To: Joe
Sent: Mon, February 15, 2010 3:10:15 PM
Subject: Re: Nanny needed to travel

Hello,

I am a nanny who is looking for work. I am also willing to travel with a family.

I didn't write it in a very long or kind way- so I apologize. I was trying to see if you were really a family. There are many ads that are not really families.
Also, since I have read many, many ads I have never seen a parent write this.

I am just pointing out to you- that as a nanny looking for work-
native english speakers might think you are not a real family and nannies who are not fluent in English will not know what you mean.

It is odd that you assume I have not had children.

Perhaps i was right, and this is not a family.
________________________________________

At this point I Googled her and found this info out about her:

Christine [Imagine a photo of a rather homely athletic girl here]
Hometown: [Deleted so as not to humiliate her hometown]
High School: [Deleted so as not to get any of her teachers fired]
Major: Engineering
________________________________________
From: Joe
To: Christine
Sent: Mon, February 15, 2010 3:32:45 PM
Subject: Re: Nanny needed to travel

We are definitely a family. No one else has questioned that. I'm not sure why it is puzzling to you. You sound like an engineer. Have you ever been told you lack social skills? Do you watch "The Big Bang Theory" and wonder why everyone laughs at what Sheldon says because he seems completely reasonable to you?

Parents make self-deprecating remarks regarding their children all the time--it doesn't mean they don't love their kids, it just means they don't feel the need to prove to everyone how much they love their children at every turn.

Clearly you don't appreciate the attempt at humor, but I guarantee your parents said worse about you (as mine did about me) when you were young. All kids are pains in the neck.
________________________________________
From: Christine
To: Joe
Sent: Mon, February 15, 2010 3:42:28 PM
Subject: Re: Nanny needed to travel

What a kind human being you are, really.

How would you know if you did not get responses?

If nannies ignore you.

Not to hard to figure that concept out.
________________________________________
From: Joe
To: Christine
Sent: Mon, February 15, 2010 4:17:31 PM
Subject: Re: Nanny needed to travel

Thank you for saying I am kind. I appreciate that.

As for the risk of being ignored by potential nannies, I will have to get back to you on that one because I have been responding to e-mails from applicants for about an hour but I still have about 25 e-mails from qualified nannies to respond to.

If you don't mind a bit of advice, I don't think you would want to nanny for someone who does not have a sense of humor about their children. People who cannot laugh at their own kids are people who probably will yell at you if you try to prevent their 2 year old from drawing on you with permanent markers because to do so would stifle their Perfect Little Snowflake's creativity.

Take care, and good luck finding a position that works for you.
________________________________________
From: Christine
To: Joe
Sent: Mon, February 15, 2010 4:37:43 PM
Subject: Re: Nanny needed to travel

i was being sarcastic.

your email was not kind.

You are judgemental, unprofessional and acting as if it was such a rare question to ask why you said your children were pain in the necks.
________________________________________
From: Joe
To: Christine
Sent: Tue, February 16, 2010 4:59:26 AM
Subject: Re: Nanny needed to travel

I was acting like it was a rare question because it IS a rare question--and that is not just my opinion, but it is a fact: 100s of people saw my ad and over 50 applied for the position but you are the only one to have asked that question.

You seem to be a bit "judgmental" yourself (I cleaned up your spelling--I know engineers can't spell). I realize that people need to be wary when dealing through Craigslist, but asking "are you even a family?" is kind of insulting and silly, don't you think? Do you really expect that a criminal or perv would answer that question honestly anyway? Should I be asking you if you are a cognitively disabled child abuser because of your poor spelling and obvious lack of social skills? Would you tell me if you were?

BTW you can't take a compliment back. You said I am kind and I am going to hold onto that and ignore anything negative you write. Thank you again for being so complimentary. It means a lot to me.
________________________________________
From: Christine
To: Joe
Sent: Tue, February 16, 2010 11:46:41 AM
Subject: Re: Nanny needed to travel

I am sharing your email with the nanny agencies I am involved with, and with the 32 email groups (in 4 states) that I am involved with relating to nannying.
________________________________________
From: Joe
To: Christine
Sent: Tue, February 16, 2010 4:38:27 PM
Subject: Re: Nanny needed to travel

That is very nice of you! I appreciate you recommending us to others even though we have never met. I assume it must be because of my kindness. Thank you!

***************************************************************

I trust you enjoyed this at least more than having to look at my incredibly lame and embarrassingly super-cheesy New Year's post (I maintain that I was still drunk when I wrote it) for the thousandth time as you go to your Favorites and cross your fingers and hope against hope that I have posted something new. If (any of) my reader(s) want(s) to offer some additional filler material for me to use during such dry spells, feel free to submit it for consideration. I won't pay you for it, as having your work on display here is reward enough. Bask in the glory, Joe.

Shifting Years

2010-01-01T16:35:00.002-06:00

New Year's Day 2010. I woke up this afternoon with my mouth as dry as peanut shells and my eyes as red as a Coca-Cola can. Apparently, someone pounded my head with an iron skillet last night. I must have run a marathon, too. Did I sleep through a savage beating? Is that why my internal organs are staging a mutiny? Why does my hair smell like an overflowing ashtray? And who deep-fried my brain? Did it taste like chicken?

What a lovely, refreshing way to start a new year. Nothing like the mother of all hangovers to set the tone for the next 365 opportunities to exercise my free will in the direction of better choices. Today I have chosen to make up for last night's behavior by acting like a grown-up and spilling my guts here rather than into the toilet--which, by the way, I'm proud to say, I didn't do last night.

New Year's Day is unique because it's the only holiday that carries with it a greeting that at least appears to apply to the entire year. Each January, people tell each other "Happy New Year." I'm not sure when the exact cut-off date is. Like, when does it become a social faux pas to say "Happy New Year?" January 31st? I think that's stretching it. I'd give it a week or so. Two weeks, tops. And is that sentiment really meant to last all year? Or is it more like saying "bless you" when someone sneezes? I remember people wishing me a happy new year in January of last year, but never wondered whether I was actually having a happy new year in, say, early August. And if I had a bad day in late April, I never thought, "Hey, what happened to all those happy new year wishes? What a load of crap that was."

Anyway, I look forward to New Year's Day more than I look forward to any other holiday. Sure, Christmas is special, but there's always too much stuff muffling its meaning. Thanksgiving is better--more stuffing than stuff. You just have to remember to be grateful for more than the free pass to binge and then sleep it off. And I like President's Day, of course, what with all the great sales.

But New Year's Day gives you a clean slate. You have this (actually rather arbitrary) starting line. A gate closes off the past and opens to the future in one tick of the clock. I try not to think about what a new year will bring. For me, thinking leads to worry, and worry paralyzes. I like to hope, though. Contrary to popular lore, I'm not always an Eeyore. Of course, I'll never be a Tigger, either. I carry hope in my soul, where it really hurts. I'm reminded of one of my favorite lines in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. I can hear John Cusack's voice saying, "I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues."

Today we leap or tumble or stumble off the edge of a calendar square and into a fresh new set of boxes to fill with as yet undetermined (or maybe predetermined) highs and lows and in-betweens. Today we shed and shred last year's aches and fears. We treasure last year's laughs and pleasures. Today we can choose to dread what lies ahead or choose to drive and strive and thrive, or simply hope to survive.

(Looks like over-indulging brings out a bit of the rapper in me.)

Strap in, folks. Do you hear the roller coaster's gears? Get ready to gasp and grasp. Get ready to let go and scream. Fill the smooth moments with anticipation and inspiration. Bear the rough turns with faith and aplomb.

So what's the point I'm trying to make here? I have no clue. Maybe it will all make sense after I dust off and rehydrate what's left of my brain.

The Ninth Annual Boring Mitchell Holiday Letter

2009-12-05T14:41:00.014-06:00

Special Celebrity-Scandal-Free Edition!!!

First, I should retract my 2002 remark about the late Michael Jackson's nose and my 2007 insult about his whiteness, but I can't. Now, to those fortunate enough to get a hard copy of this irreplaceable and highly anticipated staple of the season, it may arrive in one of my old letterhead envelopes. Just doing my part for the environment. If you're reading this on your computer and prefer to have it on paper to read aloud as your anxious family gathers around the tree, just right click and hit print. Again this year my few blog fans must tolerate a re-release of some of the better drivel here. This way, not only do I get more mileage out of admittedly great material, but I also avoid putting extra effort into this daunting annual chore.

Our 2009 wasn't as newsworthy as the Beer Summit or as violent as a health care reform town hall, but it wasn't as ho-hum as Chastity Bono's sex change or as insignificant as Jay Leno's so-called farewell, either. The low point was a short family bout of (what I diagnosed as) E. coli. We hope the high point will be keeping swine flu away from our unvaccinated kids. Thanks to a 10-day flu-scare holiday in May (San Antonio rescheduled Cinco de Mayo), Luke and Katy now suffer from hand-sanitizer-induced OCD. They no longer mind the nightly choice between a bleach bath or a Silkwood shower, and they have grown accustomed to my misting them with Lysol as they get off the bus.

Luke, after trying basketball and soccer again with marginal success or enjoyment, started 7th grade and began running cross-country for the track team. It's the first sport our little Forrest Gump has really excelled at since he's built for it and loves being outside. I like it because it's not a contact sport. Unless he runs into a tree. His closet smells like a sporting goods store, his gym bag smells like sweaty mildew, and he now smells like Axe men's body wash. He's still racking up merit badges in Boy Scouts and has camped so much that he can pitch a four-man tent in record time at night in freezing rain blindfolded with both hands tied behind his back. He turned 13 and still coasts through life never letting anything get him down, except when we don't let him order the triple enchilada platter at our favorite Mexican restaurant. He's perfected the art of uttering non sequiturs, and we often have to remind him that we're not in his busy head. Then he makes more sense than the rest of us combined. He's learned that illegible handwriting works to his advantage because, apparently, teachers give him the benefit of the doubt. He'll be starting his second round of braces soon, so it'll be another disappointing Christmas morning at our house this year. And we're proud to report that Luke has finally mastered using a telephone, setting his alarm clock, and peeing in the shower.

Luke's quotes of the year: During his baptism when our pastor asked if he understood what he was doing, "Could you repeat the question?" He got a Bible and was thrilled to discover verses about excrement disposal (Deut. 23:12-13), "This is great advice for Boy Scouts. Scouts are supposed to be reverent." Then he told a friend that it's probably in most Bibles. One windy day, I saw Luke grabbing his crotch (as many males do). I asked, "Afraid it's gonna blow away?" He answered, "No, I got a good hold of it." As Katy choked on a sip of water, "Watch out--that water's got a bit of a kick to it." To an RV salesman, "How tall is this, you know, for clearance purposes at Sonic?" After throwing up at school, "I guess that was a waste of lunch money." And one of my favorites, "I just saw a mutant dragonfly that looked like two in one."

Katy started 4th grade, and thanks to last year's introduction to deodorant, she smells like Teen Spirit. Next year, don't be shocked to hear that both kids had the courtesy to hit puberty at the same time. The first part of the year, she played basketball and soccer, and then decided those involved too much running. So the fall was filled with gymnastics and drama. (A drama class, I mean.) It proved to be both the best outlet and the worst encouragement ever for her still annoyingly (yet always endearing) effervescent personality. She got braces and crossed over from Brownie to Girl Scout on the same day, and in the summer, spent a couple of weeks at different Girl Scout camps. She then made it abundantly clear that she won't go back to camp until they get air conditioning and nicer counselors. Mike and Luke were somewhat envious when her troop went on an overnight field trip to Houston for a NASA tour. I told them I'll take them next year if they'll sell cookies for me. Because Katy fancies herself bilingual, she's taken to addressing me as Madre. She was excited to discover a birthmark on her leg until I wiped it off. I had to explain to her that people don't buy handicapped license plates to use as a show of support. One dreadful afternoon, we endured a traumatic stuffed-animal-purge of her closet after agreeing that the Webkinz could stay, but all the rest were at risk. Finally, we're pleased to announce that our 10-year-old daughter can display a complete repertoire of bar tricks including her newly-discovered hereditary ability to tie a cherry stem with her tongue.

Her quotes of the year: "Luke's body language hurt my feelings!" "If I grew up in the olden days and had slaves, I'd be nice to them. I'd make them do all my chores, but I'd be nice to them." Advice to me for a job interview: "Don’t tell any jokes; don’t embarrass yourself; and don’t say anything unless they ask you a question." After she found a penny, I said, "So? I found a dime." She replied, "There's nothing lucky about dimes." I heard a song on the radio and told the kids I used to have the 45 of it. Both, in unison, asked, "What's a 45?" When Katy opened an envelope of disposable camera pictures, I told her to be careful with the negatives. Sure enough, she asked, "What are negatives?" To the cop after I was stopped for speeding, "I told her she was going too fast." And my favorite, "I wish I could hug you as much as I love you but I'm just not that strong."

Buzz, our erstwhile semi-perfect dog, had the best day of his life last month when he took advantage of our absence to steal a package of raw pork chops from the kitchen counter and proceed to eat them in our unmade bed. (On my new 1000-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, no less.) Then it became the worst day of his life. And just when we thought he could be a legitimate contender for next year's Nobel Peace Prize.

For me, 2009 will be known as The Year I Started Living Someone Else's Life. In January, not long after I had decided to give up law practice, run away to Paris, and be a writer, I was recruited by a statewide law firm to start up their veterans' law department. With some trepidation, I started the job in June. I'm still adjusting to letting others do my clerical work, but I love going to an office every day--except the wearing heels and supportive undergarments part. I took another giant step away from the old me when I devoted my ample spare time to working out with a perky little trainer three times a week. In April I turned 40-ish and Mike and I celebrated at a Bruce Springsteen concert with an arena full of other white geezers. Katy was kind enough to convince me that I'm officially too old to wear short shorts or mini-skirts anymore, so I handed down to her all of my age-inappropriate clothing. I was also forbidden from roller skating or turning flips on the trampoline. My chiropractor said, "Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should." I took an amazing flight in a tanker to watch Mike refuel his jet. (There's a video on my Facebook wall if you want to see how cool he is.) I went with some girlfriends to Austin to see my favorite band and to Houston to see U2. And I took my usual twice-yearly try-to-act-smart-and-serious business trips to conferences--this time Chicago in May and Charlotte in November. The year also presented me with a unique opportunity to start my new hobby of documenting celebrity deaths to see if they really do come in threes. (They do.) In case you're interested, they're listed in a July entry on my blog. Look for the year-end supplement soon. And after almost four years of living in the country, I finally hit my first deer. Luckily, the accident didn't cause much body damage. To the vehicle anyway.

Mike had a fairly uneventful year seeing as how he only had one overseas deployment and only one rock-star treatment weekend. Aside from his two-week beerfest vacation (with a little air-to-air dogfighting) in the Czech Republic, he and three buddies went to Green Bay for a fly-by at the Vikings game (followed by a limo ride, box seats, and probably a lot of autograph signing). There's a link to the YouTube video of the fly-by on my wall, in case you're still not sure about how cool he is. His other TDYs included trips to Tucson and New Orleans, as well as a month in Laredo one weekend. In November, he was named Commander of the Lone Star Gunfighters 182nd Fighter Squadron. (Again, kind of a big deal.) He'll turn 46 later this month, and has warned me that I'll be eternally sorry if I try to trade him in on two 23-year-olds.

In June, we went on a road trip to spend a week on a houseboat with Mike's family. With a beyond-max-legal-capacity SUV pulling a ski boat, we only had to fill up the gas tank every three or four miles. As the result of a tragic packing error, five kids were stuck with one DVD to watch—Sands of Iwo Jima. They all now know it by heart. The only real mishap occurred when Mike almost put Luke's eye out in a freak stone-skipping accident. I bravely thwarted a snake's attempt to swim onto the boat, then I never got into the water again. Our drive home after a fun and relaxing vacation on what we dubbed Redneck Island was only interrupted when a trailer tire blowout necessitated a somewhat unpleasant two-hour layover in an Arkansas combo beer/bait/ammo/ jewelry and book store. The remainder of our summer included a spur-of-the-moment RV purchase and the installation of a flat screen TV it doesn't deserve. We took the RV to the coast for a family weekend and to a state park for Thanksgiving, and soon decided it was the ideal second home. At least for tax purposes. For our anniversary, we celebrated with a trip to Austin again to watch UT beat OU (again). I got Mike a shirt and he got me a .357 Magnum.

Helpful tips I learned this year: check kids' pockets before doing post-Halloween laundry; water plants more often than quarterly; and don’t cook on a gas stove while wearing a Snuggie. Next year, Mike will spend all of his spare time training me to follow his system and remember which crisper drawer is for fruit and which is for vegetables. Luke will stay busy in the treehouse shooting varmints with his new pellet gun while Katy plays Octomom to her collection of American Girl dolls. I'll have a full schedule all year as I plan to write more and Facebook less, continue to shun Twitter, anticipate Crocs going out of style, understand the attraction of competitive cooking shows, keep Taylor Swift songs out of my head, and teach Mike to change the A/C filters. And I resolve to expend more energy keeping it all together than I do pretending to have it all together.

Several of our relatives and friends had to say some very sad goodbyes this year. While no words can make your holidays feel the same, I hope mine at least could make you smile. And may all of us always remember to stay grateful.

Peace,
Jill, Mike, Luke, & Katy

Happy Birthday, Chris!

2009-11-19T09:39:00.002-06:00

I can't believe I have been neglecting this blog for almost two months. Thank God you had a birthday so I could drop in and add a few words. And I do mean few. I have given up on offering "tributes" to friends and fans because I can hardly even call or email them, much less dwell on the positive impact they have had on my otherwise miserable life. If anyone wants to read about Chris, look in the archives for this date last year. I'm sure I could supplement it with more, but then everyone else would start hounding me for their own accolades. And frankly, I'm too busy trying to build up my own self-esteem. Be sure to look for a tribute to myself in April. Chris, I hope you have a year that's way better than you probably deserve. I love you, man.

Forgive me Heather, for I have Sinned.

2009-09-24T23:48:00.022-05:00

When tardiness is inexcusable, there's no point in mentioning excuses; valid as they may be. This is unfortunate, because I have some really good ones. Not excuses so much as actual reasons. Really, really good reasons, but that's neither here nor there.

Not since I accidentally made the kids' cinnamon toast with cayenne pepper have I felt so guilty. As one of my favorite Tori Amos songs says, "I've got enough guilt to start my own religion." It has finally started keeping me up at night. Even though I tell people that I lost my conscience in law school, every once in awhile, it comes back to remind me that I'm not all bad.

See, almost a year ago, I made the mistake of offering up special birthday blog posts to honor the handful of my oldest and dearest friends who made the dangerous lifestyle choice to maintain contact with me. The first post was actually on time. The second one was eight days late. The third one was 12 days late. Well, this is the fourth and (thank God I don't have any more long-suffering friends) last. It comes 21 grueling days late. (And yes, I have had to keep changing that number for every day that passes without my finishing this tribute. And even as I type, it's almost midnight.) Now, I know that these past 21 days have been difficult, nay, harrowing for everyone involved. I can only hope that this offering will be so stellar that it will only be seen as well worth the wait--like a fine wine, or perhaps a clean rest stop on a long road trip.

One reason it has taken me so long to complete this is that I couldn't stop adding to my list of things I remember and things I love about Heather. Then there are all the things I learned from her. All of them good.

I met Heather in our 10th grade French class. She was the new girl from California. She wore bright blue mascara and a permanent gold chain around her waist. Immediately, I didn't just want to be her friend. I wanted to be her. We loved our French teacher, but I'm not sure the teacher knew that, seeing as how we were so disrespectful in class. I'm not quite sure why, but it had something to do with the way the sound of the language mixed with the two of us making eye contact. One day we laughed ourselves into tears in the middle of class at the simple question, "Quelle heure est-il?" We can still laugh at that and not really know why. It has no possible alternative dirty meaning that I can think of (believe me, I've tried), and nothing in it rhymes with the name of any part of human genitalia (even when you use colloquialisms or obscenities). I guess we just found that asking what time it is in French was one of the most hilarious things we had ever heard in the first 16 years of our lives.

In high school, Heather and I were known for a little book of pictures we put together. Some might have thought we were somewhat morbid, others may have said we were crying out for attention, but the rest probably described us as serial killers in the making. (God knows that kind of behavior would warrant some kind of official investigation these days.) See, it all started like this: I got my driver's license before Heather did, so I would pick her up on the way to school. One morning, on what was normally a virtually empty residential street, I found myself at the end of a long line of cars. There were no flashing lights up ahead; there were no cars pulled over to the side of the road; nor was there any construction or detour sign. As I approached, I noticed that drivers were steering around something to get by. I then discovered that the reason they were moving so slowly was not just to get by, but also to gawk in awe at a vision that would certainly haunt them the rest of the day, if not the rest of their lives. Like it has mine and probably Heather's. It was a hellaciously gigantic, cracked-open, on-its-back, dead armadillo.

Priceless. When I got to Heather's house I couldn't wait to tell her about it. We knew what we had to do. And that was, of course, to preserve it on film for eternity (or at least for the lifetime of a Polaroid picture.) I can't remember whether I just (ever-so-serendipitously) happened to have the camera in the back seat of my Volvo, or if we picked one up from Heather's house. After having read the previous sentence, I do hope it was Heather's camera, because there's just something not right about a 16-year-old girl with a Polaroid in the back seat of her car. (Maybe I wanted to be prepared in case of a UFO sighting. It could happen.) So anyway, that first picture led to a series of masterfully-photographed, multi-species roadkill in various stages of decomposition. I could spend another few paragraphs on the book that made us popular for all the wrong reasons, but I really need to move on.

Now, here are just a few of the favorite things I remember from our time in high school:

Her stepmonster who kept a carton of Marlboro Reds in the refrigerator; her Mickey Mouse phone we used to dial *69 on; smoking Swisher Sweets on our way to the gym in her red convertible VW beetle;
drinking lemonade and Southern Comfort
on our way to school while we sang Tom Petty songs at the tops of our lungs; and making a chocolate mousse for French class that turned out more like brownie batter because we overspiked it.

A few years ago when we got together, she pulled out a box of cards she has kept. She showed me a birthday card I gave her when she turned 16. I wrote something like, "We have at least ten more years of partying left in us!!!" When you're 16, ten years seems like a lot. Little did I know that we actually had more than 20 years of it left in us--depending upon your definition of "partying" of course.

This posting would not be complete without my mentioning that I have always harassed her about being a bit of a cat person. As some of you may know, I'm not fond of felines. I'm really not much of a canine person either, come to think of it. I thought about buying these items as birthday gifts for her, but frankly, even on clearance, they were too expensive.
Plus, she would have received them so late that she really wouldn't have appreciated them anyway. However, I'd like to show them here just to say that, it's really the thought that counts. Heather, if you would like to order these items, let me know and I can send you a link to the reputable catalogs I found them in.

I have also always given Heather a hard time about carrying the tiniest purse ever. Apparently, they call them "wristlets." (I actually know this, but I'm feigning ignorance so as to give the impression that I'm too cool to understand something so gay.) In fact, I like to refer to her "wristlet" as a "fanny pack." She doesn't see the humor in that at all. I'm really a little bit jealous of the fact that she can get by with only a wristlet. She's a minimalist. She needs no make-up. She carries maybe a driver's license, a credit card, a key, or a little cash. She has no need for the things I have to carry in my purse, like lipstick, a mirror, Altoids, and at least four bottles of prescription drugs.

She is beautiful inside and out. Especially on the outside, which really makes me sick. She never had any kids to tear up her body or wear out her mind or suck the very spirit out of her soul. She's a vegetarian. One of those healthy things I envy, but could never emulate. She makes the best guacamole I have ever tasted. And she taught me how to accept compliments. Before I learned from her how to be gracious, I would reject compliments because I felt that they were usually insincere and always undeserved. To this day, when someone offers a compliment, I simply say, "thank you," believe that it is sincere and deserved, and think of Heather. She is an amazing conversationalist, too. When you talk to her, you know she is listening, and not busy thinking about what she is going to say next. She will not only ask questions, but then she will ask follow-up questions. And she makes you think. Sometimes I feel like I'm being interviewed, and I like that. She's also great at stumping you with "would you rather..." type questions that other people could never dream up.

She makes amazing pieces of pottery. She gave these to me as birthday presents. And I received them right on time. Her thoughtfulness makes me feel even more unworthy and selfish and careless. And what really upsets me is that I bet she'll even forgive me, just like Jesus would.

Heather, I promise I'll never go so long without showing you how much I love and appreciate you. Unless of course you have already written me off.

Chi-Wa-Wa's, Doxens, Dollar Store Steaks, and so much more

2009-08-08T22:41:00.005-05:00

These little gems have been taking up valuable real estate in my head, so to ease overcrowding in the lobby for all the new garbage clamoring for a seat beyond the velvet ropes, I offer up the following in hopes that it will not only relieve some pressure for me, but also satisfy your ravenous hunger for more of my priceless crap (if only for a precious moment).

Here they are in the order that they fell out of my mind or out of my file folder full of scribbled scraps:

First, just for the record, to carry on with the celebrity-death-trio thing I started last month, let me say that my money is on Patrick Swayze to be one of the next three.

Now on to more pressing matters.

Katy choked on a sip of water, and as she coughed, Luke said, "Watch out, Katy, that water's got a bit of a kick to it."

Katy was leisurely washing her hands in a public restroom when we were in a hurry to leave. I said, "Come on, it's not like you're going to perform surgery." She looked at me with the backs of her hands raised toward me like a surgeon and said, in all seriousness, "You never know."

Tonight Mike and I overheard Katy and a friend talking about how much they miss their bus driver and that they hope he'll be driving their bus again this year. We thought "Oh how sweet…" Then we heard Katy say, "Yeah, he was nice except for all that foul language…" So I asked what she was talking about, but she didn't want to say the words. I said, "It can't be any worse than what y'all have heard your dad and his friends say." She said, "Right, but hello? he's a bus driver." So she told us that one day he had yelled at them to get their "S-H-I-T" out of the aisle after he pulled the bus over to get up and check on a kid who he thought had been hurt. Good for him, I say.

During some light chatter after a serious conversation with a potential client and another attorney I work with, I noticed in the client's file that he had played clarinet in the Army band. I told him that I was a really bad clarinet player in junior high. Then my associate said, "I was a tromboner." I had to turn my head as he said, "Er… trombonist?"

In San Antonio (and I'm sure a lot of other big cities full of under-educated and irresponsible people) too many animals are having unprotected sex. This leads to signs like this: "4-Sell: Brown Chi-Wa-Wa's" and "Free Doxen puppy's." I swear I saw these signs in two different parts of town within the past few months. I would have taken pictures of them, but that's just the sort of obscenity I can't abide. I'll have porn on my phone before I'll carry around misspelled and mispunctuated words.

Not long ago, I noticed a sign in the window of an Academy store that warned of a recall on a certain brand of athletic cup. I wondered what was defective about them and what happened to the unfortunate athlete who discovered it. Luke asked me what I was chuckling about, and when I told him…well, he didn't think it was all that funny.

A sign in the window of a local Dollar General store proudly announced a special sale on steaks. I'm sorry. Call me a snob, but I would think twice before buying "sale" steak at a dollar store. Now if it were for sale at regular price, I might consider it, but "On Special"? No way.

When Margaritaville came on the radio, I mindlessly told the kids, "I had the 45 of this." Both, in unison, asked, "What's a 45?"

When Katy opened an envelope of disposable camera pictures, I told her to be careful with the negatives. I knew before the words had left my mouth that I would hear her ask, "What are negatives?"

Ethics question: Is it wrong to secretly borrow from a kid's allowance money to cover a tooth fairy visit?

This is how sweet my daughter is: "If I grew up in the olden days and I had slaves, I would be nice to them. Sure, I'd make them do all my chores, but I'd be nice to them."

This is what a dork I am: I heard music as Mike and I were leaving a restaurant. I said, "Oh, they're playing my favorite song." Then I noticed that the song was getting louder and coming from my purse. Mike goes, "It's your phone, you idiot!"

Actual voicemail I got from a veteran: "Miss Jill, I really need your help with my VA claim…Long story short, ma'am, they just kinda shitted on me real good. Now you have a blessed day."

That last one is one of my favorites.

This is all I can toss at you for now. Working full time at a real job along with working out with a trainer three days a week has not only made me feel like I'm living someone else's life, but it has also sucked out a lot of my blogging time. Sure, I still find time for facebook, but only because I don't have to think when I go there. As you can see from this latest oeuvre, I put a lot of thought into it.

News Flash--Correction to Last Post

2009-07-18T08:26:00.004-05:00

Under Excuse Number Four, item (6) of the post below, I listed three famous people who died within a short time of one another. When I chose football player Steve McNair to round out my last list, it was only because he was the closest thing to a recently dead "famous" person. At that time I suggested that if a more famous person died within the next few weeks, McNair would have to be replaced. Well, as luck would have it, the list will look much better now with Walter Cronkite's name on it instead.

"The Most Trusted Man in America" has died within 19 days of Karl Malden and The OxiClean Guy. For Mr. OxiClean, this is quite an honor. On the other hand, were Walter or Karl to hear that the third member of their death cluster is a guy named Billy Mays who was a modern day snake oil salesman, they may feel a little slighted. Sorry Walter and Karl, I can't just go back and re-order my whole list now. Too much thought and effort and math went into it.

I'm not sure why I cried when I watched the news this morning and saw clips of Cronkite's broadcasts. I think it was his announcement of President Kennedy's death that really hit me. (I wonder who the other two in Kennedy's death trio were. I bet no one ever thought about that. And if they did, they had some serious issues.)

Sorry this is late, Ginger, but I have some great excuses.

2009-07-07T23:54:00.006-05:00

First, some background. Back in November of last year, I made the mistake of posting a sort of happy birthday "eulogy" about my friend Chris. Well, it didn't take long for my three best girlfriends to make it clear that they expect equal time. So in March, I wrote one for my friend Kate. It was eight days late, mainly because it took me the first three days to remember the best highlights and lowlights from a friendship that is almost 30 years old, and the last five days to cut out all the stuff that might put our law licenses in jeopardy.

Now it's Ginger's turn, and her special birthday post is 12 days late. But like I said, I have some great excuses. So before we turn to the few Ginger stories that are fit for public consumption, let me digress:

Excuse number one: Ginger will be the first to tell you that my ability to keep in touch with friends is what she might describe as "heinous." (She likes that word, and I can't blame her. The fact that it rhymes with "anus" just makes it all the more, well, heinous.) I have lost count of the times she has accused me of being physically unable to dial a phone. (Not really. I never started counting.) She is also well aware that I am challenged when it comes to picking out the perfect card, scribbling some clever remark about getting old on it, putting it into the correct envelope, finding an address, writing the address on the envelope, affixing a return address label from the free sheet of them that I got from the cystic fibrosis society, finding a stamp with the appropriate amount of postage on it (I almost went online to see how much those "forever" stamps were worth), then transporting all that effort to a mailbox.

Excuse number two: Much to my utter dismay and unmitigated chagrin, Ginger did not acknowledge me whatsoever on any day on or around my birthday back in April. However, she did offer up a lame apology later, which I have yet to fully accept. So you may be asking yourselves if the tardiness of this most unique and special greeting is a sign of some sort of vengeful, passive-aggressive character flaw on my part. The answer, my friends, is: absolutely not. My faithful readers (Ginger included), know full well that my only flaw is abject and baseless narcissism.

Excuse number three: I started a new job that very day and was a little preoccupied. If Ginger would ever deign to join Facebook (which she won't now, just out of spite) she would have seen my updated status, and certainly would have understood that I was far too busy that day to acknowledge anyone but myself. (And my Facebook "friends.")

Excuse number four: I was also quite disturbed and distracted by all the recent celebrity deaths-- especially the two big ones that occurred on Ginger's birthday. After Farrah Fawcett ruined my morning and Michael Jackson put a damper on my afternoon, I started wondering who would be the third, or if Ed McMahon was the first of that trio. Then I thought what if Farrah was actually the third and Michael was starting up a new one? Then I wondered how big a celebrity they need to be to have the dubious honor of being included in this little pop culture superstition game. (For the most part, I am relying on my voice-activated software. If it knows who I'm talking about, then they're in.)

According to my past few minutes of exhaustive research, a lot of so-called celebrities have died so far this year. But I'm only counting the ones I'm familiar with or interested in. I intend no offense to the memory of any B, C, or D-list "stars" nor do I mean to show disrespect toward any 100-year-old silent film actors or any sports figures from the 1940's to the 1960's. So here are my unofficial results:

(1) Ricardo Montalban, Clint Ritchie (Clint Buchanan on One Life to Live), and Phil Carey (Asa Buchanan on One Life to Live)—I include these last two because I was addicted to that soap opera from 1984 to 1991 and again from 1996 to 1999. I can't remember whether Ginger watched it. (Not that that matters.) The other interesting thing I found was that Phil Carey was only 13 years older than the man who played his son. These three died within 23 days of each other. (Is there a time-frame we are shooting for?)

(2) James Whitmore, Paul Harvey, and Ron Silver. Now this is an odd mix. Their deaths cover a 37-day time span, so if we are going for a one-month window, I may need to relegate Whitmore and re-order this list.

(3) Natasha Richardson, porn star Marilyn Chambers, and Bea Arthur. While they are spread out (so to speak) over 38 days, I think I'll carve out an exemption simply because I like to see the name of a porn star next to Bea Arthur's. Sorry you have the misfortune of their company, Natasha. As if dying from a bump on the head wasn't bad enough.

(4) Jack Kemp, Dom DeLuise, and David Carradine. Here we have 34-day coverage. I'm starting to think the 30-day goal is a little too tight. Speaking of too tight, they find Grasshopper mysteriously bound and hanged in a Bangkok hotel room. Trust me folks, there's a Thai hooker out there who knows exactly what happened and how much he paid for it.

(5) Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. Yes, it was those three within three days just as we all figured. If Farrah had started a new set, she and MJ would have been in the Billy Mays group, and I'm sorry, the OxiClean guy's "celebrity" status would only add insult to injury. Or in this case, insult to death.

(6) Billy Mays, Karl Malden, and Steve McNair. How's that for a trio? (Only six days apart.) First, I thought Karl Malden was already dead. When I found out he wasn't, I couldn't believe he was 97. Ninety frickin' seven? No wonder I thought he was dead. As for McNair, I'm not sure he belongs on the list, bless his heart. If a more famous person dies within the next few weeks, they may have to take his place.

(By the way, for the record, my mom thinks Warren Beatty's number will be up soon.)

So those are my excuses. Now, back to the reason for my post.

Ginger and I met in 8th grade. (I just stared at that sentence in horror.) We were 13 or 14. That was 30 years ago. What? Honestly, she probably didn't really know who I was until a year or so later because, unbeknownst to her, she was chipping away at my soul daily as she shamelessly flirted with a boy named Dan Kuykendall. (Almost 20 years ago, I heard that he had been killed in a car accident, but that's neither here nor there. Other than to make me even more sad.) He was my reason for living, and she could not have cared less. I was too shy to even look at him, much less talk, or (God forbid) flirt. The hell of it is, they were just friends. She didn't love him madly like I did, but I didn't know that at the time, and I could not have been more jealous.

So ... one day, just to get all my feelings about her out, I took a purple marker and spewed the most vitriolic diatribe that a 14-year-old could write. I'm not sure which expletives I was able to muster, but you can bet that they were spelled correctly. I never intended for anyone to read that horrible note. (I've always done that. I scribble all kinds of things simply to clear them out of my head.) But this time, my parents found the note. And they grounded me for it. I can't remember how long I was grounded, or what exactly I was grounded from. I just remember that being grounded was not a good thing. The only time I remember actually missing something important because I was grounded was when I couldn't go to see The Who's "farewell" concert back in 1982. Little did I know they'd still be around (pretty much) almost 30 years later. Anyway, there I was in big trouble all because of her.

Once I figured out that she wasn't out to get me, we became friends. I think we connected because she was the rescuer type and I was always the one who needed rescuing. In high school, one of the many times that my smart mouth almost got me beat up, she appeared like Wonder Woman and wrapped her cape around my skinny ass as she pulled me to safety.

One of my favorite vague memories of a Ginger rescue comes from our college days when I was working for an attorney friend of my dad's. My boss took everyone from the office and several of his friends to the Fort Worth stock show and rodeo for an all-day outing. This must've been around 1985 or '86. So I was about 19 or 20. I remember my boss's friend showing off his "mobile" phone. It came in a briefcase that probably weighed a good 10 pounds or so. I think it had a coiled cord and a big honking antenna. He was Mr. Big Shot with that thing, and boy were we impressed. (There I go digressing again.) Anyway, I started drinking that morning and didn't stop until late that afternoon when I threw up in Mr. Big Shot's cowboy hat. They got me back to the office where I promptly passed out on my boss's couch. I awoke to Ginger's Gumby keychain swinging before my eyes. I can't remember whether I told them to call her for me, or whether I had already listed her as my emergency contact. I had a date that night at a Delt mixer with an unfortunate boy named Shawn. (I think that was his name.) Ginger took me to her house, cleaned me up, dressed me, put makeup on me to the point that I looked just like her, and propped me up at the front door just in time for him to pick me up. I think I ended up having a pretty good time that night.

Ginger and I were roommates for a brief time in college. We did have some good times, but let's just say that it wasn't always easy sharing an apartment. I have a vivid memory of her banging on my bedroom door and then slamming me in the face with a package of toilet paper. I can't remember why she did that, but probably because she was a real bitch back then.

I didn't want Ginger to marry her first husband and I made that pretty clear to her at the time. But she let me be her maid of honor anyway. I'm not sure if I ever said I told you so when it didn't work out. If I didn't, well, Ginger, I told you so.

She used to collect rhinos (rhinoceroses, rhinoceri?) so I always think of her when I see one. Not that I see them very often. Just like at the zoo or on Animal Planet or something. She used to be called Peaches. I think her dad gave her that nickname. She went by "Gini" in high school. One time a guy (who shall remain nameless because he knows who he is and I'm sure he's sorry now) wrote a sort of note/petition that slammed her mercilessly. I didn't know how to come to her rescue. In fact, I'm sure I stood by and did nothing. I don't think a person ever really gets over having their feelings hurt that badly during those teenage years.

Ginger and I have shared some of the wildest and saddest and scariest and happiest times of our lives. She has been remarried now for several years. I remember driving up from San Antonio in pouring down rain to get to her wedding. I was so happy for her, and I still am.

When I saw her daughter's high school graduation picture, I cried. I held that baby not long ago, and then there she was. Memories flooded my eyes. She looks so much like her mother.

Happy Fathers' Day

2009-06-21T12:05:00.003-05:00

Today is another stupid Hallmark card-selling holiday like Valentine's Day, Grandparents' Day, Bosses' Day, Administrative Professionals' Day, and Christmas. These earmarked days do provide a chance for us to reflect a bit and thank those who matter to us, but I resent having a calendar tell me when to express my love or appreciation to anyone. Then again, were it not for the calendar or a brightly-colored display in the card section of Target, I might forget to share any sentiments at all. While I don't much care for the so-called "holidays," I've felt a bit left out on this one since 2006. Like being rejected by a club I didn't really want to join in the first place.

But Fathers' Day now gives me a chance to watch my happy kids pick out, sign, and hand-deliver cards to their dad. (Well worth the cost of a couple of $6.00 cards.) Katy called him this morning from my in-laws' house to tell him she loves him and misses him. Her sweet voice on the phone is priceless. She's nine, but on the phone she still sounds like a four-year-old. I guess it's OK to give in to this calendar-scheduled love-offering just for that.

This morning I overheard Mike talking to his dad and telling him how fortunate he is to have such a supportive, generous, and loving father. (I did get lucky in the in-laws department.) I sat there wishing I had at least picked out a card for us to send.

I think of my dad and miss him every day. I can't tell him I love him like I used to no matter what day it is.

But hey, one less card to buy.

Bits of Quick Wit From my Kids

2009-06-04T08:29:00.003-05:00

I may have mentioned this one somewhere before, but it bears repeating:

As the kids and I were walking from the carwash to a nearby restaurant, Katy got all excited when she found a penny. A few steps later, I found a dime. (Lots of change falls out of cars, I guess, and I say finders = keepers.) I sort of taunted her and said, "So what? I found a dime." She did not miss a beat. She replied, "There's nothing lucky about dimes."

And this will become a family classic, I'm afraid:

On a windy day not long ago, Luke was grabbing his package (as all males do--and apparently never outgrow). I pointed and asked, "You afraid it's gonna blow away?" "Nope," he said, "I've got a pretty good hold of it." When I told him he doesn't need to grab it all the time, he said, "Oh, I get it. Kind of like, 'If you love something, set it free.'"

Dang, they crack me up.

My Apologies to my Facebook Readers

2009-05-28T12:00:00.002-05:00

Sorry folks, this is the only bone I can throw right now. I again realized that this blog's pulse/ox is rapidly dropping, so I thought I'd publish something here that was meant to go here a long time ago, but I treated my few Facebook "friends" to it instead while neglecting, you, my loyal and more diverse group of friends, fans, and freaks who return to this address or stumble upon it by sheer good fortune.

So here it is. Don't get your hopes up. It is indeed pure drivel. Yet exquisite, nevertheless:

TWENTY THINGS I WONDER ABOUT

1. Why do people say "literally" when they don't mean it? Don't they know what "literally" means? "He was so mad; he literally bit my head off." Oh really?

2. How can certain leg hairs escape my razor so many times that they grow up to an inch long before I notice them?

3. What is it about an elevator that causes people to avoid eye contact or conversation?

4. Who has the job of putting the one square of pork in the top of the pork 'n' beans can?

5. Why are some people so interested and upset to know that one consenting person's body part may be touching another consenting person's body part in private? And how many closeted gay people do they know and like?

6. Why do I wait for the gas pump to thank me before I go?

7. Why am I not someone else? Or am I?

8. Where did God come from? I just can't buy the "He was always there" answer. And as someone asked, why did he let a snake cause such grief?

9. How many Bed Bath & Beyond coupons are in my house and in my car? And why do I never bring one with me when I go there?

10. How many pairs of black shoes is it OK to have before it becomes a problem?

11. When I drive across a bridge, why am I always afraid that a little voice will tell me to drive off?

12. How and why do some moms home-school their children? Good for them, but I just can't even wrap my mind around it.

13. Why do I get constipated every time I go on vacation?

14. Will I ever understand daylight savings time? Do I need to?

15. Why do I buy stationery when I can never seem to write a thank you note?

16. Why does my cleaning lady always rearrange my nightstand and replace the novel I'm reading with my Bible?

17. Why do I sometimes have trouble distinguishing the dancers from the "stars"?

18. Why am I polite to telemarketers?

19. Why can I never find a pen when I need one? And why is my purse full of them when I don't?

20. Why does my snooze button give me nine minutes? Why not a more even number like 10? Why not 30? If I set the alarm for 5:30, I might get up at 5:40, but 5:39, no way. At 5:39, I tell myself, "one more minute" but then two minutes go by and it's 5:41 and I don't think I can stare at the clock until 5:45, so I go for another 9 minutes. Then it's 5:50 and I know I have to get up right then because otherwise, I'll snooze till 5:59 and start the cycle all over again. Should I discuss this with my psychiatrist?

If any of you can give me some answers (even to the rhetorical ones), feel free to share. I may reject your answers as hogwash, but I will still take them under consideration--or at least let you think I did.

Waking up From Lost Time

2009-04-30T00:34:00.002-05:00

Some epileptics have what's called "absence seizures" where they just sort of space out for a few seconds. Some people with mental illness suffer from bouts of "lost time." Some alcoholics have blackouts.

I recently discovered that I could very well be an epileptic mentally ill alcoholic. I haven't been diagnosed with any form of epilepsy, but I'm knocking real hard on the door of the other two.

I rarely know what the date is without looking at a calendar. Now, it's not at all uncommon for a perfectly sane person to be off by one day or so. But lately, I have not even been able to pin it down somewhere within a good seven to 10 day timeframe. I'm a little better at knowing what month it is, maybe because the month boxes on my "year-at-a-glance" wall calendar are good bit bigger than the day boxes. While I have trouble with dates, I do a little better with knowing what day it is, only because Tuesday is recycling day, Wednesday is American Idol, Thursday is The Office, and Friday is trash day. But bear in mind that this doesn't mean I will actually drop off the recycling on Tuesday, or have the trash out in time on Friday. I do know that the year is 2009, however.

Anyone who knows me is aware that I'm a slacker who cannot afford to be a slacker. I end up putting more effort into looking like I keep it all together rather than just keeping it all together in the first place. So I must not be a true slacker, seeing as how I actually care about keeping it all together. Real slackers don't give a shit about things like recycling day.

All this to say, I recently realized that a good month of my life has gone by without my attention or appreciation. Not that this hasn't happened several times before. It just seems that now, time is more valuable. It's that perspective you grow into the older you get.

When you're a child, you're on the floor with no sense of time and no horizon in sight. As a teenager, you're in the car with no sense of anything and no end in sight. In college, you can see the world from a 4th floor dorm room or from the roof of a fraternity house. It's all books and booze, love and lust, then probably just more booze and lust. Too busy living from one high to the other to notice the shrinking world below. Then comes career. Suddenly, you are supposed to act like a grown-up and take an elevator to a high-rise office or supervise young employees below you. Too busy working to hear the clock ticking minutes of your life away or to see the once endless sea of opportunity beginning to dry up. You settle into marriage and before you're ready (because no one ever is) along come the babies with all the crying and diapers and bottles and equipment. Sleepless, cranky, no-longer-just-a-couple parents hop on that roller coaster and stay on it until the last one starts school. With all the carseats and potty training and paraphernalia, you don't have much time to sit back and reflect on creating a new generation, much less on preparing to shift upward one day and take the place of your parents.

Now that my kids are a little older and for the most part, capable of bathing, feeding, and wiping themselves, I recently had the pleasure of stopping (just once for a fleeting moment) to take a breath and think. I see them looking up at me and I remember how my parents always seemed so tall. I see them looking up to me with wide eyes at a big world and I can only hope they'll see me as the smart, successful, and secure woman I sometimes so deftly can pretend to be.

The mirror and my aching bones are beginning to convince me that even though I may not think or act in accordance with some standard (of mysterious origin) as to how someone my age should think or act, I am nevertheless as young as I can possibly be at this very moment. Time flies when you're getting old, and I really don't want to lose any more of it. Not that I really missed anything over the past month or so. That I know of.

The only thing everyone on earth has in common is that we are all still alive. It's just that most are either too young to notice it or too busy to appreciate it. I'm now getting old enough to notice. I just wish I weren't always too busy to appreciate it, what with all my TV shows and household chores to keep up with.

43 on 4/3. Does that mean anything?

2009-04-03T10:28:00.002-05:00

I think it means "Grow up and get real!"

I went to wake Katy up this morning and as I hugged her, her first words were: "Happy Birthday, Mama . . . 43." I'm always impressed by the way she is so on top of things. But this time, I could have done without her wise-ass grin.

I once wrote an essay called "37." Apparently that was some sort of milestone for me. Now I'm reminded that I'm still old enough to be a grandmother. Sure glad I'm not.

I'll never forget a conversation I had with some of the squadron wives when we were at Cannon Air Force Base about 10 years ago. Most of those women were about five to seven years younger than I was. One of them was lamenting her upcoming 29th birthday. In all of my sage wisdom, I replied, "Try 34."

I'm understanding now those middle-age crazies I heard about when I was a kid. I wouldn't necessarily refer to this "midlife" feeling as a "crisis," but it is this sort of second adolescence. Again, I feel uncomfortable in my body. Not so much awkward as unwieldy. When I was awkward, I knew I would eventually catch up with myself and get it. Now (in this unwieldy body that is out-of-sync with my brain), when I try to turn flips on a trampoline or roller skate too fast, for example, my body tells me that I've lost it (and not just mentally). My chiropractor says, "Jill, just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should."

Why am I so afraid of aging? A friend (who shall remain nameless lest he get more publicity than he deserves) posted this on my Facebook wall: "I sure hope you enjoy your birthday. You don't have that many left." Pretty funny, unless I end up dead soon. Then who will they suspect, huh?

First, I'll count my blessings about this aging shell my soul is stuck with. I don't have much of a gray hair problem seeing as how I just try to stay bleached blonde. Sure, those wiry grays tend to stand up and make themselves known, but I just weigh them down with some product or other, or pluck them if they don't behave. I don't really have any crows' feet around my eyes yet. At least not that I can see. I don't have saggy boobs, but only because they are too small to sag. So that gives the illusion that they are still somewhat perky. I'm not overweight, and cellulite has yet to replace every square inch of my thighs. So I still have all those things to look forward to.

Now, I may look healthy and in shape, but I can't even fold a basket of laundry without getting winded. My heart rate only rises to a calorie-burning level when I look at my bank account to see how much I pay for my unused gym membership every month. When I do go to the gym, I'm always afraid the buff youngsters parading themselves at the front desk can tell when my last visit was when they scan my membership tag. Then they scoff at me after seeing how old I am and think, "Oh, give it up lady," when really they probably don't give me another thought. Other than maybe, "Hmm, my mom was born in 1966, too."

And just yesterday afternoon as I sat in the sunlight (bad idea), I started noticing—for the first time—spider veins in my ankles and thinning skin on my already bony hands. I swear that these conditions arose right before my trifocal-wearing eyes. But the most troubling thing for me is my neck. If any of you got a copy of our family Christmas picture and still have it, look at my neck. I wish I had had the photographer airbrush some of that tree-trunk look out of it. Age often shows in the neck—especially on women who have had their faces all pinned up and stretched out and Restylaned and Botoxed. I haven't gone to that extreme, and I won't because I think looking naturally old is more attractive than looking freakishly pathetic. Who do they think they're fooling? And why? But my neck has really aged out of proportion to the rest of me. And it's long, so that just doubles the attention it gets. I guess I'll start wearing some smart-looking Talbot's turtlenecks and sassy scarves from Chico's. Remember ladies, sunscreen that neck. I must have neglected mine for years.

Anyway, all this to say: Vanity sucks. Sucks your spirit dry. Michael J. Fox recently said that vanity is the first thing to go. The first thing you gladly and even unknowingly toss out the window when you find yourself in a life or death situation. English writer Anthony Powell (whom I have never heard of before) said, "Self-love seems so often unrequited." How true. And French philosopher Henri Bergson (whom I had also never heard of) said, "The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that's laughable is vanity." I say: Vanity pretends to run deep but it's shallow. It can fill us up, but it's hollow.

I'm just glad to know that when the last drop of my incredible hotness is all gone, I'll still be able to rely on my vastly superior intelligence and unparalleled sense of humor to keep me in the spotlight. What a relief.

Happy Birthday Kate, Eight Days Late

2009-03-22T13:05:00.005-05:00

Every January, I'm reminded of how old I'll be that year, because apparently, the first Super Bowl was in 1967—a year after I was born. Then, between February and March, I start noticing April expiration dates on things like my whole-wheat high-fiber English muffins and my light vanilla soy milk. But the most ominous annual sign of my impending AARP eligibility is when my friend Kate's birthday comes around every March 14. It always tells me that mine is (God willing) right around the corner in two weeks.

I've been trying to formulate a little birthday tribute to Kate without making it sound like a eulogy. This hasn't been easy. So as you read this, just keep in mind that she's not dead yet.

My very first memory of Kate is a random one, and it may not even be accurate as far as time and place, but regardless, it's what sticks in my head. I was sitting at my desk and Mrs. Glaze's 7th grade Texas history class. (I can't even remember whether Kate was in that class with me. I tend to think so.) We sat in those old-fashioned desks with the metal-footed box platforms and the particle board/faux woodgrain Formica veneer curved tops. Most were for right-handers, but there were always a few for the lefties. Anyway, I was leaning over to put my books under the desk when I saw her foot. She's tall, so of course her feet are not out of proportion, but it was the sandals (and not necessarily the size of them) that caught my eye. They were these gold strappy things that I had never seen before. I envied those sandals. For some reason, the brand name Bernardo sticks in my head. I don't think I've told her this. Probably because it sounds insane.

I can't remember exactly how we became such good friends, or exactly when it was. I do remember feeling so comfortable at her house, and with her family. I'm the oldest child in my family while she's the youngest in hers. I thought it was so cool that she had two older brothers and an older sister. I think they were a little protective of her and sometimes I somehow felt or wished a little bit of that rubbed off on me.

Spending nights at her house had some advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes I would end up sleeping on the floor because she had a water bed and would always flop in her sleep like a freshly-caught fish. I'd always wake up nauseous and wonder if I could find some Dramamine in their medicine cabinet. But then I would wonder how it might interact with whatever illegal drugs I may have taken earlier that night.

She used to collect heart-shaped boxes. To this day, I think of her when I see one and I'm tempted to buy it for her. But I don't, because I think that would be kind of gay.

As far as I know, she has never been able to write in cursive. She prints in capital letters. I've always wondered what a handwriting analyst would say about that.

She was always the honor student, while I felt like her goofy sidekick. Like she could wear one of those "I'm with stupid" T-shirts. When I went to law school before she did, I felt smarter for the first time. But that didn't last long. She followed in my footsteps, but she had smaller shoes to fill. I floated through law school on my daddy's dime, using the gas card he gave me to buy beer and overpriced convenience store groceries. She worked her ass off on school loans that took her years to pay off. I remember a time when she could barely pay her bills and couldn't even afford the stamp it took to mail a check. And this was back in the days when postage for one first-class letter was about 13 cents. (No, we're not really that old.)

When we were in college (or was it high school?) she drove this maroon convertible Fiat Spyder. I always felt so cool riding with her as she zoomed in and out of traffic like a guy would drive. And I was always so impressed that she knew how to drive a standard and step on the clutch and shift gears so smoothly. When I got my parents' 280ZX and had to learn how to drive it, Kate would just laugh at my total lack of coordination.

When I look back, I'm sure we were careful in our own way, but I still believe it's a miracle that we survived college together. We did a lot of stupid and dangerous things, any one of which could have landed us in the hospital, in rehab, in the grave, or even in a Mexican prison. Because we emerged virtually unscathed, I think we both figure the universe had some better plans for us. There are a million vaguely-remembered stories I could tell, but because Kate and I are both lawyers, not only will I plead the fifth for both her and myself, but I will also invoke a sort of mutual attorney-attorney privilege and refrain from sharing some of our very best material.

When I was 20, I had jaw surgery and lost about 10 pounds when I had my jaw wired shut. (I seem to recall that that's when my boyfriend Jimmy tried to break up with me. That's it. Wait till she has her jaw wired shut and can't talk. I remember writing him a nasty note with a red Sharpie on a yellow legal pad as I growled and groaned at him through my clenched pathetic face. He decided not to break up with me, and instead brought me a teddy bear to make up for his cruelty. I ended up dumping him later once I regained my ability to speak.) But I digress. Anyway, after losing that much weight, I was a somewhat emaciated 95 or so pounds. I think Kate was living in a duplex in Fort Worth at this time. We were getting ready to go out to some fraternity party, I think. That was back in the days when we spent hours "getting ready." Now that I'm older and really should spend more time on my appearance, I wish I could get some of those unnecessary hours back. Then again, it took a lot of time and hair products in those days to give me that Flock of Seagulls look I was always shooting for. Kate was trying to help me find something to wear that didn't make me look like the big-shoulder-pad-suited David Byrne in that Talking Heads video ("same as it ever was…"). No matter what I put on, I was swimming in it. I'll never forget seeing her flop down on her black and white couch laughing at me and saying, "This is like trying to dress a Q-tip." I can't remember what I wore that night, but it was probably black. So we went to this party at some fraternity house. We climbed some steep wooden stairs in this old house and probably proceeded to partake in some 200-proof Kool-Aid flavored beverages. For whatever reason (like maybe the restroom was so nasty, I decided it would be cleaner and more ladylike to go pee in the front yard) I attempted to descend the stairs. I got to the bottom in one step. My bony tumble must've made a good bit of noise, as I'm sure the stereo was blaring The Cure or maybe Psychedelic Furs. On cassette, of course. So a handful of the more alert partiers scrambled to the top of the stairs to see what had caused such a clatter. Kate, once she realized I was okay, laughed and said that it sounded like someone had thrown a chair down the steps.

We share an affinity for mocking the less intelligent. Just like with my friend Chris, I love it when I can exercise my superiority complex with someone who understands. She told me about this professor she had who was acting all smart and said something about someone having "an inkling or an inclination." We still laugh about that and use it at every opportunity.

And we always loved listening to Steve Martin. Especially Wild and Crazy Guy. I'm sure we can still repeat all of our favorite lines.

When I was at school in Paris, she and her sister came to visit me. I remember we went to see Versailles together. I'll always love it that we shared some time together there.

For a long time, it looked like Kate wasn't going to have kids. (Not that she was trying to get pregnant, mind you.) In a way, I wanted her to because I had children and I wanted her to know what it felt like. (Not what it felt like to give birth to them, necessarily, but just what it felt like to be responsible for them later.) And just like everyone who gets married wants all their single friends to get married. She never really struck me as the most maternal type anyway. Of course, neither am I. She finally did have two beautiful little boys who are already making her pay for some of her sins.

Kate became a very successful attorney in Dallas. She talks about all these big-money deals and transactions and stuff that are so far over my head that I again feel like the "I'm with stupid" sidekick. She goes to all these fancy parties and often has drinks at some high-class place like the Ritz. She pays retail for designer clothes and doesn't think twice about it. I remember when we used to shop at Ross together. She wears Manolo Blahniks while I have Montego Bay shoes from Payless. She has a nanny. I have a neighbor I dump my kids on every once in a while. But no matter how different our lifestyles have become, when we get together, just like every time any old friends get together, it's like no time has passed. Except for all the immoral and illegal stuff.

Unexcused Absence

2009-02-20T17:01:00.012-06:00

I owe my loyal reader(s) an apology. When my plants started dying, when I ran out of clean clothes, when the newspapers started piling up, and when I realized it had been almost a month since I had shaved my legs, I thought there might be a problem.

When my kids took it upon themselves to learn how to cook on the gas stove, when they threatened to start driving themselves to school, and when I noticed that they had grown about three inches since I last laid eyes on them, I knew something was wrong.

But I really didn't get the wake-up call I needed until I paid a visit to my blog only to find it gasping for breath and begging for a sip of water.

You see, I was brutally victimized by a sort of home invasion. The perpetrator? Something we addicts refer to as FB. Yes, I'm ashamed to admit that I have been sucked in to this ever-expanding vortex of social masturbation. I posted a handful of semi-flattering pictures, splattered some clever profile information, and picked out a few select pieces of "flair." Not long after I had my little "wall" all set up, in came a small deluge of friend requests. (I had not felt this popular since this one time?...at a fraternity party?….)

I'm proud to say that I have yet to participate in any of the little virtual pokes, tickles, sensual massages, quizzes, games, tests, anal probes, drinks, clubs, food-fights, calendars, plants, root canals, fish, flowers, pillow fights, pap smears, bumper cars, hayrides, or whatever other fun-filled, right-at-your-desk fake activities one might find available for the low, low price of several minutes to several hours out of an otherwise real life.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have been able to get back in touch with several friends from as far back as elementary school. We are at that sort of midlife crisis age where we realize that sometimes nostalgia is all we have to look forward to. I also use it to keep up with current local friends when I can't seem to pick up a phone and call or just send them a simple text or e-mail. Why bother with clicking to other forms of communication when I'm already on Facebook?

I like reading friends' profiles and notes and getting to know them better--but only when they have something interesting to say. I'm sorry, but I could not care less what your favorite color is. (Btw, most people say, "I could care less" but that makes no sense and it is WRONG. Take note. But I digress.) I don't care to hear how perfectly perfect your family is or how much you love your cat. Unless the cat is a clone, then that might pique my interest. Otherwise, I'm sorry but that's just plain downright Boring. When I wrote my "25 things" list after far-too-many friends "tagged" me, I tried to make it interesting. Tell me something I don't know, I say. Tell me something sad or scary or crazy or funny. I'm busy wasting time here, so please, make it worth my while.

Sometimes, I'll make sure I'm alone, or make sure no one's looking before I go to my favorites and open Facebook. Like it's porn or something. (Another real time waster.) After I check my inbox and "notifications" and distribute responses appropriately (or in my case, inappropriately), I check status reports for anything the least bit entertaining or interesting. But what do I see? Someone I went to junior high with is going to sleep. The brother of someone I used to work with has a sick kid. An old neighbor's granddaughter's ex-boyfriend is buying groceries. A total stranger who became my friend because we both thought the other was someone else is having dinner.

And what do I do? Stare at the screen like some undead/cyborg hybrid not unlike the way I stare into a refrigerator full of food hoping to find something worth eating. Sure, I could pretend it's just a bad TV show and change the channel, or click on "hear less about this person," but I might miss something redeeming. Or, better yet, I might miss something that I could insult in a "comment." And we know how much I love to hurl (always well-intentioned and good-natured yet tastelessly cruel) insults. It's my superiority complex. That's really my only personality flaw.

Am I going to alienate any of my 152 friends? Honestly, I hope this makes them like me (even) more. I hope this makes them examine their (seemingly hum-drum) lives or (apparently lackluster) days and look for something a little more worth the priceless value of my wasted time than what color socks they are wearing.

Do I think my friends are boring? No, not at all. What about my friends of friends? Well, I'm not sure. What about my acquaintances? Who are you, again? I just don't want to read about any mundane details of their lives. I have spent 20 years or more having no idea at what hour of the day so many of these people had dinner or went to bed. I have lived the majority of my life never wondering, worrying, or giving a flying rat's ass about whether someone I may only vaguely remember is having diarrhea. (If you're that sick, get your damn laptop out of the bathroom.)

Verbal Abuse (New & Improved)

2009-01-30T15:22:00.004-06:00

Yesterday morning, Luke told me, "I play this Nintendo game good." I said, "No. You play it well. Well is an adverb, adverbs modify verbs, and to play is a verb. Good (in this instance) is an adjective. Adjectives modify nouns." After I realized (again) that I sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher to him, he looked at me and asked, "Why aren't they called adnouns? Shouldn't adjectives modify jectives?" He totally missed the point.

The majority of my friends, acquaintances, blog reader(s), and healthcare providers are well-aware that I am a bit of a stickler when it comes to proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Hell, spelling ability was one of the top five reasons I married my husband or even dated him in the first place. And I'm proud to say that both of my children know the difference between "your" and "you're" and the difference between "its" and "it's," which is a lot more than I can say for most adults I know. I have convinced my family that the only thing worse than misplacing my keys is misplacing a modifier. They pretend to know what a gerund is so as not to upset my fragile psyche. And they know all-too-well that dangling a participle in front of me is an open invitation for my unbridled wrath to rain down upon them.

I don't care what you say, as long as you say it correctly. If someone were to write me a note that says, "go to hell bitch." I would return it to them with red marks showing that the word "go" should be capitalized, the word "hell" needs a comma after it, and the word "bitch" needs a capital "B" (because it refers to Me). I might also suggest that the statement end with an exclamation mark instead of a period.

Now, I don't pretend or profess to be the world's greatest expert on the English language. (Well, sometimes I do pretend to be.) I only got a bachelor's degree in English. It's not as if I did something crazy like get a Ph.D. in grammar:

"Oh, you have a Ph.D.? So you're a 'doctor.' Doctor of what, may I ask?"

"Thanks for asking. I have a Ph.D. in English grammar. I'm a grammar doctor. Can I edit something for you?"

I believe my linguistic superiority, whether it is real or imagined, can be somewhat off-putting to anyone who wants to speak in my presence. I wonder if they bite their tongues lest I mentally edit each word they utter. This, of course, works to my advantage because (1) I don't have to listen to other people talk and (2) I get to talk more. And let's face it; wouldn't most of you rather listen to me?

Because I don't trust my children's teachers, I take advantage of every opportunity to train my kids to respect, revere, and regularly employ basic grammar rules. If any other children (or adults for that matter) are within earshot, all the better for them. One of my biggest challenges over the past few years has been drilling it into the kids' heads that "me" cannot be the subject of a standard sentence. Here are some examples:

Luke: "Me and him were making up jokes about our nuts."
Me: "Me was doing what? . . . Him was doing what?"
Luke: "Making up jokes about our nuts."
Me: "You should say, 'He and I were making up jokes about our nuts.'"

Katy: "Me and Lily and Maddie are so hot for Brance." (Their real names, by the way.)
Me: "Me is so hot for whom?"
Katy: "I don't know whom you're hot for, Mom, but we're hot for Brance."

Likewise, "I" cannot be the object of a sentence:

Katy: "Take a picture of Brooke and I."
Me: "Take a picture of I?"
Katy: "No, she and I."
Me: "Take a picture of she and take a picture of I?"
Katy: "No, of me and Brooke."
Me: "Thank you."

As I have stated before, any so-called errors I may have made (or may make) in any blog posts are actually intentional examples of the poetic license I am entitled to by virtue of my obvious genius in this unpopular and endangered arena.

I know what you're thinking:

(1) How pathetic is she that this is her only talent?
(2) Why must she try to make herself feel important by mocking and looking down on those less grammatically fortunate?
(3) Why does she abuse her children this way?

The answers:

(1) I have other talents that I am not as proud of,
(2) Therefore, I need to boost my self-esteem at the expense of others, and
(3) My kids will make me look good later when I can tell people they have Ph.D.s.

Today is the First Day of the Next Four Years

2009-01-20T08:36:00.002-06:00

How did it get to be January 20 already? I was supposed to be more on top of my new life plan by now. Instead here I am either Facebooking or blogging. Not big moneymakers for a work-from-home lawyer. So this will be short. Mainly so I can go watch the inauguration ceremony. I love it that Obama will be sworn in with his hand on the same Bible Lincoln used. I don't care what your political views are, you have to admit it's a nice touch, and would be a good smack in the face for racists and white supremacists, were they capable of understanding.

I have an old Vietnam vet client who used to tell me a lot of the old classic southern racist jokes -- not because he thought I was racist, but simply because he knew I was white, and because he knew I liked to laugh. I did laugh, but mostly at his audacity and at the realization that when I was a kid, that stuff was common and no real harm was meant by it. We didn't know what "hate speech" was. The "N" word was a mere descriptive term that my grandparents used. They never uttered it in a pejorative way. Anyway, don't want to go off on that tangent.

My client told me that he recently discovered that he has some "half-breed" grand-nieces. He said, "And I'll be damned if they ain't the purtiest things you ever did see." So proud of them and so struck by the young girls' beauty.

Then he proceeds to tell me, "You know, I've been thinkin' 'bout it, and all them white presidents ain't never done us a damn bit o' good, so maybe with this one we have a chance."

It's not the skin color itself that makes it different. Never should be in any case. But I think it's the life experience or empathy or symbolism behind it that makes it different. Not that that alone would make a person a good (or bad) president.

I wonder how many of us are not so much glad to see a new president as they are just glad to see the old one go.

High Resolutions

2009-01-09T08:42:00.002-06:00

When I was working on my English degree, I preferred world literature over English or American. But I always did like some snippets from English poet Alexander Pope.

Every January, I am reminded of this:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blessed.
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

(I think he's really referring to Heaven there, but for our purposes, let's pretend he's talking about our materialistic Earth.)

Sure, I don't have much breast from which hope could spring, but no matter how negative I seem, I am always hopeful that the next day, week, month, year will be better (or even better as the case may be). Is hope a bad thing? Does it mean you're not satisfied with today? I think it just means you always hope for the best, you hope for blue skies and rainbows and butterflies and a magic invisible leprechaun to hand you a million dollars every time you ask for it. You hope for your family's health and safety and happiness and that they don't kill you in your sleep.

Might I add that Pope also said Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. So maybe I'm a fool to rush in to such hope—especially when I seem to have all I need, and especially when hope has no power over fate or destiny or cellulite. I imagine angels take things as they come and rest as the discontent keep searching for something they think might be better.

My favorite Pope quote (Americanized here) is probably: True wit is nature to advantage dressed; What often was thought, but never so well expressed. This really has no relevance here other than to point out how witty I am.

All this to say, a new year always gives me a feeling of a do-over. A mulligan. A chance to be more successful, patient, grateful, sensitive, and spiritual. Basically, a new chance to be more better. A chance to become someone I'll never be without a lobotomy, but I'll keep hope alive--at least for that leprechaun.

We'll see how it goes.

Free Preview Below. Enjoy.

2008-12-17T16:10:00.005-06:00

I just took the first batch to the post office. About 100 covered the first half of the alphabet. Such shameless self-promotion, I know. You will be getting your hard copy with pictures soon (if you're lucky enough to make the cut). Once you read it, let me know if you'd like me to unsubscribe you for next year. There's a waiting list. And if you're just some random stranger who has stumbled upon this page after Googling something like "dog puke" then this is all you get.

And I must apologize to those A-M's who received the bad font copies. They are very hard to read, even for me with my new trifocals. I blame Kinko's. If you need a new copy, just ask, and I'll tell you how to print from this screen.

Eighth Annual Boring Mitchell Holiday Letter

2008-12-17T15:45:00.003-06:00

I apologize in advance to my blog's regular readers (both of them) as much of this garbage was previously published there. But it's been modified to conform to the highest standards of propriety I endeavor to adhere to during the holidays. This yearly breath of hot air you've come to live for won't ease any mental instability, emotional malaise, or gastrointestinal difficulties 2008 may have caused, but it should at least serve as a temporary painkiller. Our year wasn't nearly as cool as Michael Phelps' or as crappy as Sarah Palin's, so don't expect much. In a nutshell, Mike went to war, I almost killed our dog, Luke disposed of another carcass, and Katy subjected us to her steady bout of premature PMS.

Luke started 6th grade and maintains a biohazard backpack and scores commensurate with his lackadaisical attitude. His penmanship tells us he may have been Japanese in a past life. He stands up to bullies with his clever wit, and I'm glad to suggest comebacks that may one day get his butt kicked. He's 12 and has already had braces, but still loses baby teeth and expects tooth fairy visits. His milestones include: moving up to the front seat without my blessing; getting his first hunting license; and surviving a weeklong Boy Scout camp without the helmet, bubble wrap, and clean boxers I packed for him to wear. We hope he'll make Eagle Scout and get a scholarship since we can't afford college now. Scouting has prepared him for: 10-mile hikes; shoveling up a pecked-over fox carcass as I dry-heave; and selling popcorn.

His quotes of the year: "Well, I guess we're all floating in the same toilet." "We need to get a real Christmas tree so we can blow it up in the back yard in January." When I tried to pick his nose before a basketball game, "Mom, it's not picture day." Katy said, "With credit cards, buy now, pay later." Luke: "Or buy now, move to Kentucky." And . . . "Katy, now that you're in 3rd grade, don't rush it. These are good times. Before you know it, it'll all be over."

Katy still exhibits energy and temper levels that would outweigh Amy Winehouse's blood-heroin content multiplied exponentially by the number of Brangelina's children. This explains why we introduced her to deodorant. ("I don't need a shower. Can't I just rub soap in my armpits?" At least she's not high-maintenance.) Katy's not only a back seat driver; she has back seat road rage. Gymnastics class doesn't take the edge off, and basketball only fuels her competitive spirit ("We don't keep score, but we won.") I envy her in-your-face enthusiasm, but it doesn't always agree with my inner Goth. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed her 2 weeks of summer Brownie sleep-away camp. She's a wizard with electronics, the coffee maker, belching, and the microwave. ("Mom, try the 'popcorn' button next time.") We replaced a lost retainer with one that glows in the dark. If she loses this one, it'll be easier to find. At night. Her alertness continues to amaze us. As I drove through Starbucks, she said, "$4.76 for a drink??" Then it hit me: She's far too aware of my poor judgment. Her lowest grade so far is a 97, but her spelling skills are somewhat lacking. She tattled, "Luke called me an a-s-s-w-h-o-l-e." She read a sign on a grocery store sample tray and said, "Ewww, 'use tongues to pick up food?'" I had to explain the subtle difference between tongues and tongs. She's 9 and already taller than any underage Chinese gymnast. For her birthday, we consented to ear-piercing after she signed a contract agreeing to a pre-set limit on future unnatural holes to be punched in her body.

Her quotes of the year: "When I was little, I thought phone calls went through wires. Now I know they go through satellites." "Our bus driver is a Washington Rednecks fan." "I love the smell of french fries in the afternoon!" "It's National Night Out. Can we go camping?" And for a spelling-word sentence, "I don't want to go to juvenile." She asked, "Isn't that kid jail?"

As for me, if not for my family, the presidential campaign and election onslaught would've sent me straight to a polygamist compound for relief. I did find some solace in watching the debates. On Saturday Night Live. In spite or because of my giving out too much free legal advice, my veterans' law practice has made me a part-time mom with adult-onset ADD. (I hope to add some hyperactivity so I can get something done.) I spent the year volunteering at various veterans' benefits events and tried (with marginal success) to appear professional at conferences. My income isn't yet enough for me to fly first-class, but I've been known to splurge on extra fees for an aisle seat, lavatory privileges, and an armrest. I finally got a website; now I just need a real office to improve the chances I'll shave my legs and wear a bra more often.

My midlife crisis took an unwelcome turn one morning in April when I woke up 42. I invested in "progressive" (edgy word for "trifocal") lenses with my tattoo money and set up a page on Facebook (too old for MySpace, too young for real life). At least my American Idol obsession still gave me something to talk to our babysitter about. Before he went to Iraq, Mike briefed me on the outdoor man-activities (besides peeing) that I'd need to do. Now I can operate all our gas-powered tools, tell the difference between the propane and septic tanks, and try to keep from killing the garden. I also discovered we have a sprinkler system. In his absence: I tried sleeping in the middle of the bed, but gave up when I couldn't reach the snooze button; I almost killed our dog after he ate 4 huge chocolate bars (the vet said his puke smelled like brownies); and I ran out of gas looking for it 2 cents a gallon cheaper than $3.98. I also found out that Cuban cigars aren't so easily replaced after serious humidor neglect.

The rest of my year's highlights included some girlfriend weekends, a scrapbooking retreat, and an occasional workout when I take the trash uphill to the curb. At Halloween, since this small town's trick-or-treating options left a lot to be desired, I took the costumed kids to the grocery store and let them pick out all the candy they wanted. Next year, maybe we'll skip the costumes, too. Last month, I spent the extra time-change hour learning how to reset our thermostat's clock. At Thanksgiving, I gave thanks for my many blessings, including a life-changing GPS that lets me watch myself make U-turns, and for stretchy low-rise jeans that allow for yet restrain holiday abdominal distension.

Mike spent 2 months in Iraq between April and June. I kept his return a secret from the kids, and they almost didn't recognize him when he came off the flight line. With a lot of exercise time and no drinking, he lost 15 pounds. (He's since caught up on all the Mexican food he missed.) We think the C-5 that brought him home via Germany imported more beer than passengers. The best part of his tour was flying combat with his life-long best friend, Drew. The worst was crouching at the sound of incoming mortar fire and fearing a round would hit a nearby port-a-john. His less glamorous trips included TDYs to Phoenix, Des Moines, Las Vegas, Panama City, and Midland for the Confederate Air Force airshow. For July 4th we went to Lake Charles, Louisiana. He took a jet for his fly-by while I had the pleasure of driving a carload of children.

On a family trip to Lake Murray, Oklahoma, he was stopped for speeding. He told the cop, "I haven't driven much since my tour in Iraq . . . ." The kids were impressed with his ability to escape with just a warning. They're much more familiar with the sexual harassment and police brutality I endure every time I get pulled over. In October, he went on a Wild Hogs Harley trip with his dad and uncle. Aside from losing a saddlebag with his wallet and a wad of cash on the highway somewhere in the southwest Texas desert, he had a great time.

We marked another year of putting up with each other by spending a weekend in Austin and celebrating on 6th street after Texas beat OU. He came to terms with my inability to hear any odd car noises or to park in the garage to his specifications. In return, I abandoned all hope that he'd overcome his complete and total lack of interest in learning which towels go in which bathroom. We're still working on 2002's deal to stay in the same room when we talk. He'll turn 45 soon, and only acts his age when he's snoozing on the couch in front of the History Channel.

In our abundant free time, we home-school the kids in musical literacy with "Name that Band." Mike challenges them with classic rock and country while I quiz them on pop hits of the 80's, 90's, and today. They may not master algebra or history, but they'll be a lot more fun at parties. We've also instituted a rigorous training program using our floor plan to show them where to put dirty dishes or clothes, flush toilets, hang wet towels, turn off lights, and shut doors. We're saving table manners for 2010.

For next year, I resolve to rely on more than my eBay feedback for a self-esteem boost, stop buying vegetables only to store them till they rot, and check my head before looking for my sunglasses. Mike plans to race his dirt bike and play guitar more often, as well as get comfortable wearing reading glasses in public. The kids should resolve to stop nagging me to do laundry, stop taking so long to order at a drive-thru, and learn to cut their own dang nails.

We hope you weren't hit too hard by this year's economic enema. At least we can take comfort knowing that all the AIG executives' children will still get their new ponies for Christmas. But seriously, amidst all the commercialism and stress, keep in mind the most important gift we received this particular holiday season: O.J. is finally going to prison.

We wish you true joy for the holidays and lasting happiness for the new year. And remember that we're not here to gain God's love. We're here to give it.

Love,

Jill, Mike, Luke, Katy & Buzz the chocoholic dog

Faking a Break

2008-12-03T07:40:00.003-06:00

By that I mean -- this is not a real break, as I will still be writing. Just not here.

It is the first week of December and we have already begun receiving Christmas cards. This means:

a. All of the below.

b. Other people have more time on their hands than I do.

c. Other people are more thoughtful and organized than I am.

d. Other people handle the demands of daily life and the calendar better than I do.

e. I am a slacker who better get busy so my annual letter goes out before the 25th.

If you return to this site within the next few weeks hoping for a new tidbit to get you through yet another humdrum day in your otherwise dreary, lackluster lives, I regret to inform you that you will be SOL until I finish my infamously notorious/notoriously infamous yearly holiday missive.

The demands are already rolling in. At least this time I can draw from the blog. I'm sure you few readers would love a rehash, or at least a refresher on the more intriguing adventures of our 2008.

So, stay on the edge of your seats, but don't hold your breath just yet. Chomp at the bit if you must, but don't camp by the mailbox until I give you the go-ahead. And don't expect a lot. As you well know, every past issue leaves me with bigger shoes to fill each year. At some point I will reach my zenith. In fact, I may have already jumped the shark in the direction of my nadir. For all our sakes, and the sake of the betterment of all humankind, let's hope not.

Stay tuned.

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-25T08:56:00.002-06:00

Top Ten Things I'm Thankful For In No Particular Order

1. Mike's cooking, and the nurture it represents. And when he laughs really hard at my jokes.

2. My son's happy smile, so pure that it makes the rest of the world disappear. And his skinny arms around me.

3. My daughter's belly laugh that hasn't changed since she was a baby. And her energetic spunk.

4. My Mom's busy life and her subtly sophomoric sense of humor. And her quiet strength.

5. My sister's sick, oddball, and superficial yet deep sense of humor. And her friendship.

6. My brother's low-brow yet high-minded twisted sense of humor. And listening to him sing and play guitar.

7. Friends who appreciate or overlook my crude jokes and well-meaning insults. And so many to share laughs with. Till we cry and forget what we were laughing about. And so many shoulders to cry on.

8. Good wine, good margaritas, mediocre wine, mediocre margaritas.

9. Being old enough to have plenty of sweet things to look back on and being young enough to look back.

10. Having this place to heal my heart, mend my mind, gust my guts, and sigh my soul.

What I'm Not Thankful For:

It just doesn't matter.

Happy Birthday to my Blog's Biggest Fan

2008-11-19T06:26:00.002-06:00

I'm putting this here for several reasons, but mainly because I couldn't find the perfect card for him, and even if I had, I would not have sent it on time, because I'm not as good a friend as most of mine are.

I gave a brief history about Chris a while back. Check the archives. We met when we went to school together in Paris in 1988. TWENTY YEARS AGO. As I have said before, we became instant friends when we found a common interest in cutting others down or mocking them not only for our entertainment, but also to make ourselves feel superior. Of course, that was 20 years ago. We're way more mature now. (NOT!) He has been like a little brother to me since then.

He is the world traveler friend who always takes the time to send a postcard to our family, no matter where he is. Even from brief business trips. Now, one might think he sends these out of friendliness, but I know him well enough that he's not using them to say "Wish you were here;" he's saying, "Look where I am!" That's just the kind of guy he is. He is also the kind of friend who emails links to picture albums, mostly pictures of his adorable little kids, but also pictures of himself standing in front of or next to million-dollar cars, supposedly famous hockey players, or one of the seven wonders of the world.

I know him to spend outrageous amounts of money on things like ink pens and watches and pottery and cravats and jodhpurs. I have never understood his penchant for such things, and I must admit, I've sometimes questioned his sexuality because of it, especially with his attraction to (and I'll say his/her name here just once for you, Chris) Ann Coulter (whom I maintain is really a dude).

After we returned from Paris, I eventually lost track of all the American friends I made there. But Chris. Even though he was in upstate New York and I was in Texas, he made sure to stay in touch. I think he knew that I might be of value to him someday (namely, improving his overall stature in society). No offense there, Chris, on the "stature" remark. (He's about 5 foot 3, I think.) He has always been great about sending cards and calling and giving me a hard time about not reciprocating.

He puts effort into things that matter to him: his family, his traveling (and wanting to fill up every inch of every page of every passport with stamps even from countries you've never heard of), his (fanatical right wing) political views, and his friendships. A lot of people (myself, to name one) have lots of things that "matter" to them, but they aren't nearly so dedicated.

I knew he was a kind and thoughtful and generous friend all those years, but I never knew how kind and thoughtful and generous until early May of 2006. I think he was living in Pennsylvania at the time, or maybe he was already in Boston, I can't remember. Anyway, there I was in my parents' house at the reception after my dad's funeral service. I looked at all the familiar faces, some I hadn't seen since I was a child. My best girlfriends were there, my in-laws were there. I felt at peace and comforted to be surrounded by so much love. And just as I was feeling all grateful and somehow even joyful at such a sad time, I suddenly thought I had lost my mind. There was Chris. He had figured out where and when, made the trip on short notice, rented a car, and showed up just for that afternoon. I was being pulled in every direction that day. He understood. Told me he just came to give me a hug and before I knew it he was gone. I honestly don't know if I could do something like that for a friend who lived so far away.

So, sorry I didn't get a card in the mail, Chris. I know you'll not be surprised at that. I hope this makes up for it. I'll "try" to call today. Thanks for having the guts and patience to be my friend for so long. (Most drop off after a decade or so.) And thanks for being not only the one who inspires me to maintain a superiority complex with grace, but also for being my political nemesis, and this blog's number one (and perhaps only) fan. Give Erin and the babies hugs and kisses from me.

Happy Birthday.

Happy Veterans' Day

2008-11-10T16:51:00.004-06:00

{First, be sure to catch my post from yesterday below this one. I rarely treat my reader(s) to two posts in a row, so I don't want anyone to miss out on something that might certainly make your whole week.}

Today as I was updating my work website (fight4veteransrights.com), I thought that seeing as how one of my passions is helping veterans, I might also acknowledge them here. My hate for war is in direct proportion to the respect I feel for those who fought and fight. My hate for war is in direct proportion to the compassion I feel for its victims. Every time I go to BAMC (the military hospital here) for my own medical care, it is inevitable that I see at least 5 (and usually more) returning Iraq or Afghanistan war veterans. They are easy to spot because their faces are melted, their ears and hair have been burned off, their legs have been amputated. They are young. They usually have a young wife pushing their wheelchair. Sometimes they try to hold a baby with a damaged arm. All I can do is try not to cry. Sure, they are proud warriors. If you were to ask them, 99% would say they would go back and do it again. Do they say that and suck it up because they are proud warriors? Do they cry when they are alone? Don't they punch what used to be a fist at the sky and curse their fate? At least sometimes? Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox.

Wait, not yet... I will say that I'm glad these guys are welcomed home. I'm glad they seem to have the military taking better care of them. They seem to have good transition teams getting them from military health care into the VA health care system. And these guys are supposedly being screened at discharge for PTSD and other mental disorders. If they need treatment, they get it sooner rather than later. (High suicide rates don't look good for the VA.)

In contrast, the Vietnam vets were welcomed home with protests and spit. They self-medicated with drugs and alcohol for 20, 30, 40 years. Daily I see the extensive, ripple-effect damage all that government incompetence and neglect has left a lot of those vets with. Now, instead of mentally damaged veterans, we will see more who are physically damaged. Neither is better or worse. Loss is loss and pain is pain. Most war vets have been there or at least seen it with their own eyes.

After fighting for this government, not a single one of them should ever have to fight against this government to get the compensation they deserve. (I'll explain later why I believe there are very few freeloaders in the VA system.)

Here are the lyrics to a song I found:

A Veteran's Song by Nazareth

The bars are crowded with wasted youth
You just went, you didn't know the truth
You don't know that kid when you look back
You remember the music, Paint it Black

You had a brother in the movement and he burned his card
He's got a job in the white house, ain't life hard
You came back a hero on a stolen horse
You say you don't fit in, you can't stay the course

I may be right, don't care if I'm wrong
It's a veteran's song

The band paraded playing Oh gung ho
Your country needs you, you've got to go
When you came over they said "Soldier go back"
When you came home they put you on the rack

Between agent orange and the jungle and fear
You're just surviving to get out of here
You smoke some more herb and you keep your head down
Could be your number is on the next round.
© 1986 Nazareth

If you can't thank a veteran in person today, do it anytime. And if you don't know what to say or do, pay attention to what our elected officials are doing (or not doing) and support those who fight for the ones who fought for us.

Keep Reading; it Gets Better

2008-11-09T18:07:00.004-06:00

So here's my excuse for the blog-lag this time:

Aside from the brutal mental and emotional malaise brought on by election saturation and its attendant gastrointestinal difficulties . . . .

I have been trying to get on top of my workload and that's not easy to do when you have no organizational or time-management skills, no secretary, and no away-from-home office. Plus I have to be a part-time mom, de-clutter in time for the housekeeper's visits, sometimes feed the dog, and keep the pantry and fridge alphabetized.

Then there's all the household paperwork management. Does anyone else go insane about paper? I know I've bitched about this before, but I need to do it again. I get stuff from everywhere daily and let it overwhelm me. Daily. Sure, the junk mail goes right into the trash, and magazines and catalogs are set aside to read at my leisure (which is why that stack is 4 feet high and the clothes advertised in the ones at the bottom are already out of style).

Then there are birthday invitations to respond to (and get a gift for), bills (to pay or dispute), insurance forms (to get the new liability card from then file away somewhere), health care questionnaires (to consider filling out only to trash them later), receipts (some to keep, some to throw away, some to record in a register somewhere, some to look up online so as to figure out which account that money came out of and what the hell it was for even though it is dated yesterday), septic maintenance notices, post office "package to pick up" slips, Amazon packing slips (for things I may need to return but most likely not), kids' school notices to read and calendar, order forms to fill out and write a check for, assignment sheets to review and sign, progress reports, report cards, Boy Scout and Girl Scout forms to fill out and emails I printed out to use as reminders that I never look at again or lose, permission slips, reminder notes to myself (that I always forget to look at), blog ideas on scraps, songs to remember to download scribbled on Starbucks napkins, songs to remember to delete from my iPod scribbled on business cards, oh, and business cards (either mine or someone else's), work ideas on post-its, certified mail receipts from work, letters from the VA, copies of letters to the VA, letters from clients, client-related paperwork, potential-client paperwork, my board-member paperwork, legal research copies or printouts, ads for summer camps, forms for basketball sign-ups, salon or spa brochures, coupons, coupons, coupons, phone message notes, to-do lists, grocery lists, newspapers, newsletters, quasi-newspapers or newsletters . . . these are just the things that dropped out of the side of my head in the past 5 minutes.

Sure, I can pretty much keep the work papers separate from the home papers. But they all just keep pressing in on me. Where to put this or that so I can prioritize and be efficient --- I get emails from this "Get Organized Now" website, but do I even open them? Who has the time??? And don't even ask about how disorganized and overloaded my 3 different email accounts are. At least those are virtual.

Anyway . . .

Here are a few important tidbits I needed to purge:

More irritating old-person words and phrases: whippersnapper (not that any of them actually say that anymore), on the fritz (who is Fritz and why is he the bad guy?), get your goat (what does this mean? What goat? You want my goat? Take it. Didn't even know I had one.), lickety-split (is it just me, or does that just sound incredibly nasty?)

A phrase I hear a lot that makes no sense: "I miss not seeing you!" What? You miss not seeing me? Gee, thanks. I could say that to a lot of people who are up in my face far too often, "Hey, you who won't leave me alone, I really miss your absence." This is similar to when people say "I could care less." You mean you could not care less. Why do I waste my efforts on these technicalities?

From the Mind of Luke:

After I told Luke I would help him get his backpack organized and he laughed at me, Mike, Luke, Katy and I started discussing our similarities. The kids realized that with parents like us, they really have no chance at being even-tempered, focused, manageable, organized individuals. Luke said: "Well, I guess we're all floating in the same toilet."

Cutting Out the Middleman:

So the kids got dressed up for Halloween, but we weren't sure where we were going. We used to go to our old neighborhood where the houses are close together and where they have sidewalks. But this time we thought we'd just go to the neighborhood next door where there are no sidewalks, but the houses are somewhat closer to one another. Well, the kids were met with nothing but unopened doors even at the houses with Halloween decorations. Guess you could say they were giving out tricks instead of treats. "Hey kids, come see our cool scary Halloween decorations . . . Oh, you want candy??? Psych!" So we go to the Baptist church where they are having this little "Fall Festival." At first I was scared (get it, scared?) that the kids' costumes were inappropriate for the Baptists. Katy was a trampy pirate wench and Luke went as her prisoner with a big fake chain and shackles around his neck and wrists. But they weren't frowned on too much, even though they seemed to be surrounded by princesses and football players and angels and cowboys. Whatever, kids. Halloween is for being scary, if you ask me. They didn't seem to have much candy flowing at this festival, but Luke and Katy still had fun with the games and bouncy stuff—until they realized they had no candy. A friend told me that the local grocery store strip center was the place to go to trick-or-treating with the various merchants. So we hop in the car to get some candy there, only to discover we were late. They were wrapping it up at like 7:30. On a Friday night. Are you kidding me? That's a podunk town for you. The kids were none too pleased. So I took them straight into the grocery store and told them to pick out 2 big bags each of any kind of candy they wanted. They were all over that, and everyone went home happy. Next year, maybe we'll skip the costumes, too.

Election Hangover

I'll sign off by saying that I can't wait to see who President Obama puts on his cabinet. Here are my predictions:

Of course his secret gay Muslim husband will come out of the closet and be named Secretary of the Interior because he's a great decorator.

Rosie O'Donnell will be Secretary of Agriculture, for obvious reasons.

Condoleezza Rice will remain Secretary of State, for obvious reasons.

Satan will be assigned the post of Secretary of Energy in hopes that we can harness the flames of hell to solve the energy crisis.

The Ghost of the All-Powerful Saddam Hussein, also known to his nephew Barack as "Uncle Saddy" will be tapped to act as Secretary of Homeland Security. This way, he'll be able to tell the difference between Egyptian or Saudi terrorists and those from Iraq.

The Secretary of Labor will be Sisyphus. (Google it if you must.) By the way, he was a Muslim.

Secretary of Commerce, my sister Kelly -- because she loves to shop. He will include her even though she is neither gay nor Muslim. Sometimes he's fairly tolerant of mainstream hetero Christians.

Health and Human Services -- Dr. Kevorkian, of course. And if he dies (or is already dead) then his spirit will do.

Housing and Urban Development —- maybe one of Barack's old Muslim slumlord buddies he used to shoot heroin with in Chicago back in the day.

The Secretary of Education will be replaced by the Secretary of Misinformation who will make sure all school children get a good dose of the gay leftist liberal Marxist/Socialist agenda. This will of course include required subjects such as Women's Rights, Constitutional Law, Religious Tolerance, and Ebonics.

The Transportation Secretary will be the river Styx ferryboat driver, Charon, who, by the way, is gay.

The Justice Department will be headed by a well-regulated team of sado-masochistic fetishists ready to spank or tickle any malfeasants into submission. Then put them in pink boas on a parade float in San Francisco. That'll teach 'em. A slap on the wrist may be in order as well. And for the really bad guys, they get to spend a weekend at the newly-renovated Trump Club Gitmo locked in a hot tub with Dick Cheney.

Alec Baldwin will act as Secretary of Defense because he can be a real asshole.

The Treasury Secretary will be unnecessary as no one will have any more money. All of it will go to a charity for gay atheist Muslim dope smokers so they can live in a commune and teach that cockamamie theory of evolution. The rest of us will have to rely on the higher power of our choice as we stand in line at vegetarian soup kitchens before going to the government voucher office to reload our Universal Big Brother Health & I.D. card to get authorization and funds to buy a few squares of environmentally-approved single-ply toilet paper to use before we go get treated at the mobile clinic for the ass-reaming we have only begun to endure.

And I get to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs so at least one important part of this messed-up government might finally get fixed.

No Time for a Nervous Breakdown

2008-10-23T09:24:00.002-05:00

Ever have one of those days when you have a plan and everything turns to (crap) and gets out of your control? Then the (crap) hits the oscillating fan? The days that you feel pulled in 73 different directions, and you only want to go back to bed until you desperately need to pee? Juggling candles that are burning at both ends? Too much on your plate and no dog under the table willing to eat it? Driving with no steering wheel? In reverse? Well, I feel like I've had one of those months. Maybe I should have consulted an astrologist to help me plan a Thelma and Louise escape.

No single thing has been daunting on its own. It's just the cumulative effect. Overwhelmed, exhausted, spent. You get weaker the more you need to get strong.

All this venting to say, blogging became pretty low on my totem pole of doom. I was forced to put it on the back burner while I slammed my forehead on the front burner.

I can usually go with the flow even though I abhor roller coasters. But not lately. Maybe it's hormones. Maybe it's my meds or lack thereof. Maybe it's my midlife crisis. There must be something to blame it on.

Anyway, enough about my inability to control my reactions to life happening. Enough about my being acted upon. No more Poor Me. My character is building.

Now for some quick snippets I've collected even during my inexcusable and unexpected hiatus:

Katy's Quotes

Katy: "Mom, it's National Night Out. Can we go camping?"

Mike and I were drinking a bottle of wine, as we are wont (and want) to do. Katy says: "Ewwww, Mom! This wine is from 2006! Shouldn't it be rotten by now?" Reminded me of Steve Martin in the Jerk, "No more 1966. Let's splurge! Bring us some fresh wine! The freshest you've got - this year! No more of this old stuff."

Some Good Ones From Luke

Katy: "Mom, you can really work magic with the computer."
Luke: "And sometimes with the microwave."

I didn't know whether the dog was in the house or outside. (He tends to hide.) I knew I had let Buzz out, but honestly couldn't remember whether I let him back in. (Such activity being one of those automatic things that don't always register, kind of like when I put on deodorant or take my medicine.) I asked the kids if Buzz was in the house or not. They thought I asked if they knew whether he was in or out. They said "No." So, I open the back door and call outside for Buzz. Buzz comes running from one of his hideouts in the house. I say to the kids, "Thanks, you made me look like an idiot to the dog." Luke says, "Buzz already knew you were."

This is Me

When I look at wet clothes in the washing machine and see something pink, I hope it started out that way.

I got all excited when I found a $5 bill in the dryer, then I realized it was mine to begin with.

Does putting a fake tree by a window make it look more real?

I got a plastic silver-colored pirate sword for Katy's slutty pirate-wench Halloween costume. The Dollar-Store tag on it describes it as "Chrome Sword." Wow, chrome.

I got an email with a subject line that said, "RE: {SPAM} REPLY URGENTLY." Those Nigerians were kind enough to tell me right off that it was spam. That was nice.

I told my sister, "For some reason, I'm afraid I have breast cancer. Like God is sending me a message to get a mammogram." She responded, "Jill…this may be because it's breast cancer awareness month." Oh….

A Few Of My Favorite Quotes

"Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy things that make you happy."

"There are no stupid questions, just stupid people who ask questions."

One I need to keep in mind and apply much more often: "It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."

I like to think I made this one up while discussing my communication problems with an unnamed person: "We're not on the same page. In fact, we're not even in the same library."

A Few Words For You

Some old-person words/phrases that irritate me: gussied-up, Jim-Dandy (a contribution from Mike), Hot-Diggity-Dog (from Katy), and Cooter Brown (who, apparently was some famous old drunkard). Another is a word I have mentioned before, but it took on a most bothersome significance during the last debate: John McCain said cockamamie. Sure, what he was referring to (Biden suggesting dividing up Iraq) might have been a whack idea, but come on, cockamie??

Extras

I'll rant later about the obscene amount of money drug companies must spend on advertising, but I just need to mention this one. In the restroom at my doctor's office, the soap dispenser is provided by Cymbalta. (The "Where does depression hurt?" drug.) After I washed my hands, I told the receptionist that I liked that soap because not only were my hands clean, they were less painful and less depressed.

I was looking at a Party City catalog for "Spooktacular" (what a trite seasonal word, along with "Howl-O-Ween") costumes and I ran across this: A pimp costume called "Big Daddy" on sale for $17.49. The model is a white guy. Right next to it is a black guy modeling the full retail priced $49.99 "Super Mac Daddy" costume. Which pimp do you think will get more poon on Halloween night?

Luke has been enduring the humiliating torment of selling Boy Scout popcorn, so we have a garage full of boxes of it. The boxes are printed "FRAGILE" and list care instructions such as, keep from water, heat, etc. That's fine, but one of the notes I found funny. Even though it already says "FRAGILE," the instruction list reminds you: "DO NOT HANDLE PRODUCT IN A ROUGH MANNER." Don't rough up the popcorn, folks. Keep that in mind.

That's all for now. Who knew that blogging was all I needed to pull me off the ledge? I'm off for a girls' weekend tomorrow, so that should seal the deal on keeping me sane. At least until the stars line up against me again.

A Quickie

2008-10-05T17:57:00.010-05:00

Due to popular demand, and in an effort to cling to all three of my diehard fans, I submit this lame offering.

More Quotes From Katy

Today, after church I asked the kids where they wanted to go for lunch. Katy suggested McDonald's. I said, "No, I don't want any unhealthy fast food." Her response? "Then how about Jack-in-the-Box?" So we went to Chili's.

At lunch, we were watching a football game. She said, "Our bus driver doesn't like it when we wear Dallas Cowboys shirts, because he's a Washington Rednecks fan."

From The Is It Just Me? Department

After lunch, we went to Target. Katy told me she was outgrowing her underwear, so I had her select a couple of packages of panties. When I unwrapped them to put them in the laundry, I was confronted with one pair that said "Absolutely Purrrfect" under an adorable silkscreened photograph of a kitten. Another pair depicts a cartoon monkey eating a lollipop and saying, simply, "Yummy!" Do pedophiles make these panties or do I just have a sick mind?

Great Show

Last night we took the kids to a concert at the Verizon Amphitheater. We went to see Switchfoot and Third Day, without much care to see the opening acts (Jars of Clay--which I don't much like, and some dude named Robert Randolph). Well, they bring out Robert Randolph later in the show and we realize who he is. The most amazing pedal steel guitarist ever. Dave Matthews and Eric Clapton appear on his latest album. In fact, Clapton pretty much discovered him and then took him on tour. Here he is with Rob Thomas on VH-1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kORLhZ7XO-Y&feature=related (Sorry, I still can't figure out how to do hypertext links in here, so you have to cut and paste if you're even interested.) So this is who we get to see with Switchfoot and Third Day. Awesome.

The Agony of Aging

While we're at the concert, I go to one of the many overpriced concession stands. The 55-ish guy at the register is giving me my change. He counts it out: "five, six, seven, eight..." Then he goes, "Schlemiel, shlimazel, hasenpfeffer incorporated..." I laughed as I had not heard that song since I was like ten years old. The guy nods and goes, "Yeah, you know that song, don't you?" I smiled and sang back, "Give us any chance, we’ll take it. Give us any rule, we’ll break it..." Then we shared a good laugh like old folks do when they get all nostalgic. As I walked away, I jokingly thought, Asshole.

Random Questions

Why do so many people pronounce asterisk as asterick? Does it have anything to do with the reason that certain people mispronounce the word ask as aks?

I know I've brought this one up in the past, but it bears repeating: Do most people mispronounce sherbet as sherbert just because it's easier to say it that way, or do they really not know the difference?

Why is it okay for President Bush knowingly to mispronounce nuclear as nucular? I've noticed that Sarah Palin pronounces it that way, too. Probably because that was the way it was programmed when they made the microchip they implanted in the earpiece of her glasses.

Does anyone else care about these things? Or is it just me? Should this go under the Is It Just Me category?

There is one mispronunciation I heard recently that I love and will appropriate forthwith. Instead of anecdote, it was pronounced anticdote. I think that pronunciation might be more apt when the anecdote involves antics of some sort. I don't care for anecdotes without antics, ergo, I prefer anticdotes and will henceforth pronounce anecdote that way. Any dull anecdotes I hear will not be referred to as anticdotes, but rather, antidotes. As in: "That story was a real buzzkill, the ultimate party-mood antidote."

One More Thing

Since I brought her up, bless her heart, just let me say that if the Democrats came up with a potential VP who came across as such a pageant-contestant/android/cheerleader with a diaper bag full of more homespun, folksy (both verbal and facial) expressions than you can shake a hockey stick at, you can doggone betcha the Republicans would be having a field day. I love watching them coddle her and prop her up, knowing full well deep inside their guts that McCain could have and should have done better. Having said all this, at this point, I still remain undecided, ambivalent, apathetic, and disgusted with our choices, each for different reasons.

My time is up and I need to go watch the rest of the Dallas game with Mike. I hope he has a glass of wine waiting for me. And some nachos would be nice, too. I know, keep dreaming.

Lightening Up

2008-09-21T17:19:00.002-05:00

After my last post, I thought I better get back to showing my lighter side, lest anyone think I was planning to fill my pockets with rocks and drown myself in the Guadalupe River.

I was also compelled to throw you a bone here because I will be leaving town on Thursday for one of my act-like-a-lawyer trips. This one is in San Francisco, so I've already looked at the seminar schedule to determine which lectures to skip. Otherwise, I will find myself sitting in a generic hotel ballroom that could just as well be in Cleveland or Waco or anywhere in Oklahoma.

So here are a few of my latest scraps of crap, in no particular order, but I think I saved the best for last:

Just a Word or Two

First, I know that I have put the brakes on the whole "words I like/words I hate" thing, but I just have two words I need to add. After rambling on in a recent e-mail about her lackluster life, my mom sarcastically suggested that I must be "agog" at the level of excitement she has to manage on a daily basis. I was surprised that agog had not already made the list. I intend to make an effort to employ that handy word at every opportunity from now on. It's just so descriptive. Don't you just see the wide-eyed, drop-jawed shocked stare of it? The other word I need to add is "hunker" as in "hunker down." It's a word that blows in with hurricane season. It's kind of an old person word, so I don't much like it. I think the people at the Weather Channel should come up with something a little more festive-sounding, you know, just to make hurricanes and tornadoes seem less threatening.

Shop Talk

The other day, as I was comforting my fragile psyche with some shoe-shopping (which is what I do when I can't afford to go to a spa or an opium den), I overheard the woman next to me answer her cell phone in a very professional-sounding voice. This is of course not unusual. But then I heard her say (as she tried on a nice pair of peep-toe pumps), "Yes sir. In fact I'm at my desk working on it right now. I should be able to e-mail it to you by the end of the day . . ." I glanced over at her and smiled. She gave me a wink, put her finger to her lips, and said, "Shhhh." I had to laugh because I should have been at home working myself. It's nice being your own boss.

If I leave the house during office hours, I forward my work number to my cell phone just in case I need to conduct any business in the Taco Cabana drive-thru line. I've been known to have consultations with potential clients while shopping. And I can sound completely professional, unless or until the person on the other end hears something like, "Attention Ross shoppers . . ." I once even settled a case from the Nordstrom dressing room. How's that for multitasking?

On another of my recent self-nurturing shopping excursions (this time on a quest for the perfect brown skirt), I walked out of the store empty-handed. As I left, a clerk asked me, "Did you find what you needed?" I looked at her quizzically, held out my empty hands, and said, "Well . . . NO, but thanks." As the door shut behind me, I thought, "Duh!"

By the way, I think it's cruel when stores arrange their women's clothing department such that the larger "Women" sizes are right next to the "Petites."

I keep forgetting to share this little gem. When she was pregnant, a friend of mine went shopping at one of those stores like Lane Bryant. A saleslady asked if she needed any help. My friend held up a dress and said, "Yeah . . . do you have this in a 14 Wide?" The woman promptly corrected her with, "The W is for Women."

Katy's Quotes

Katy had to write sentences with her spelling words last week. One of the words was "juvenile." Her sentence: "I don't want to go to juvenile." When I read that, Katy asked what was so funny. I wasn't sure how to answer. Then she asked, "Isn't that kid jail?" Now I have another tool in my arsenal of punishment threats.

The Price of Country Living

Now that so many people followed our lead and moved north of town, the traffic into San Antonio in the mornings and out of San Antonio in the afternoons has become a disastrous joke. For one thing, the stoplights are not synchronized at all. (Typical San Antonio.) And green lights allow two-and-a-half cars to get through, while the red lights stay red for about 45 minutes. And don't get me started on the wimps in front of me when a yellow light hits. I can't tell you how many times I've almost rear-ended someone when they didn't have the balls to floor it so I could get that split second before the light turned completely red.

When we lived in Clovis, New Mexico, we always said that the town was so small, even when you were running late you could still be on time. That was no joke.

A Sign From the Department of Redundancy Department

So the kids and I went to Mike's church softball game last Friday night. As we entered the ballpark, I could not help but notice a large warning sign for all the park's patrons. It said, (I kid you not): "No Animals Permitted Including Cats And Dogs." What prompted this wording? Did someone try to bring a llama or an emu into the park? I took a picture of the sign with my phone, so as soon as can I post it for your entertainment, I will.

'Shrooms

When I see mushrooms in my fridge, I wonder whether I bought them or they grew there. I'm afraid I'm really becoming my mother. She pulled an old jar of those little sliced mushrooms from the back of her fridge, opened it, and saw something she said looked like a liver fluke. Now I'm not sure what that is, but my mom and I came up with a pretty good definition. When she e-mailed me about this highlight of her day, the subject line read only "fluke?" I thought I was going to read about some random, unexpected event. We decided that whatever it was that she saw in that jar was indeed random and unexpected. Hence, fluke.

That's My Boy

I overheard big brother Luke advising little sister Katy, "Now that you're in third grade, don't rush it. These are good times for you. Before you know it, it'll be over." Tell me more, O wise sixth-grader.

This really could be one of my School of Rock stories. Let me start by saying that I iron only on an as-needed basis. I would almost rather pay to take something to the cleaners than to iron it. But because I'm a lazy cheapskate, I just don't iron, and never wear a lot of my clothes for that reason. Mike is the same way about ironing, but he has been known to wear wrinkled clothes. I hate it when he does that, because it makes me look like a bad housewife. (Which I am, but that's beside the point.) So last weekend, Mike got a wild hair (I think it's actually hare, but hair is way funnier) and decided to iron some of his shirts. As Mike set up the ironing board and iron, Luke started singing Black Sabbath's Iron Man: "I AM IRON MAN! Nah-nah, Nah-nah-nah, Nanah, Nanah, Nanah, Nah, Nah-nah-nah, Has he lost his mind? Can he see or is he blind? . . . " Again we see the pure genius in our ever-so-well-rounded sixth-grader. Not only can he sing a song from 1970 as he imitates Ozzy Osbourne's voice, but he can create such an apt and clever (and dare I say, beautiful) reference. Wish I had thought of it. Mike and I were so proud. Ironically, (get it? ironically?) it was probably too much Black Sabbath that robbed my mind of such quick wit.

Who am I kidding? I'm still witty. Just not as quick.

Carrying the Weight of the Word

2008-09-14T15:53:00.001-05:00

Sportswriter Red Smith said, "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."

One of my favorite writers, David Foster Wallace found it necessary to hang himself last week. I admired his insight and ability to express his view of the world, but I found his writing somewhat verbose and dense. While I would read his essays and mentally edit some of his paragraph-length sentences, I still savored each word--until the weight of the words (and of the book itself) would tip out of my sleepy hands. In fact, I don't think I ever finished one of his books. He was one of those writers I read not necessarily for the pleasure of reading but for the pleasure of his writing. I think he was often drunk on his own swirling thoughts and swam self-indulgently in his philosophical musings. I can identify with that, but it's really too deep for me. I prefer shallow.

The news called his death "an apparent suicide." Usually hangings are, I guess. Unless he was strangled to death, then someone hoisted his limp, heavy corpse up into a noose. It could happen. I could see it in a dark comedy. Maybe I have. Funny stuff.

Why do so many writers and artists kill themselves? Is it creativity overload that drives them to death? Some sort of tortured genius that the body can't sustain? I think most writers struggle with a sense of apartness. A heightened self-consciousness. Trying to answer Why am I me? Good writers are observers who can choose words well, even effortlessly, and put them in a certain order such that readers respond with emotion, thought, adrenalin, comfort, or connection. Creative people can take in too much. More than the mind can manage. A sensory burden. They carry so many sights and sounds that simmer and stew until they boil over onto scraps of paper, or a computer screen, and into a book if they make the cut.

How can artists who have such skill at relating life let life kill them? It must be the unwritten words, the ones they hold inside. The words that stick in the throat and strangle, the words that cut off blood to the heavy head. Words left hanging.

How do you like my morose side? Not pretty, I know.

Is It Just Me?

2008-09-10T16:46:00.006-05:00

Do I just have a dirty mind? Here's what I forgot to mention in my last post of various and sundry miscellany:

Katy went to two different weeks of Brownie/Girl Scout camp over the summer. At the end of the week, when the parents come to pick them up, the girls put on skits and sing songs while we have a little picnic. It's all very sweet. Flag ceremony, recitation of the Girl Scout Oath and Girl Scout Motto (I will never know which is which), the singing of the Girl Scout signature song "Make new friends/but keep the old/one is silver and the other gold…," blah, blah, blah, then a nice tape-recorded playing of Taps as the flag is lowered at the end, etc. It really is fun to see so many little girls all happy and dirty in mismatched clothes, laughing with their friends and performing for their parents. (I'd say it is as American as apple pie, but that concept was tainted –in my dirty mind- by American Pie.) Anyway, at some point in the show, the girls line up to sing and act out a certain song. This is where (for me) it suddenly becomes awkward and inappropriate. The cuteness comes to a screeching halt and I giggle like Wayne and Garth or Beavis and Butthead:

THE BEAVER SONG

Beaver one, beaver all,
Let's all do the beaver crawl (pretend to crawl)

Beaver two, beaver three,
Let's all eat a beaver tree (pretend to climb)

Beaver four, beaver five,
Let's all do the beaver dive (pretend to dive)

Beaver six, beaver seven,
Let's all go to beaver heaven (sway with hands in prayer)

Beaver eight, beaver nine STOP
It's beaver time, go beaver, go beaver (rapper/hip-hop moves)

Beaver ten, beaver ten
Let's all do the beaver again!

I then pictured a burlesque team of the grown-up scout leaders (most of them rather burly women) taking it one step further, and I wanted to poke my eyes out. Am I just immature? Do I have an adult chip missing? Do I need to exorcise this teenage boy who has taken up residence in the basement of my mind? I kind of like him.

Sorry if this offended anyone. Wait…not really.

Clearing and Rearing my Head

2008-09-05T22:12:00.008-05:00

WARNING: This is the most random assortment of useless information I have fed you in a long time. So, bon appétit!

I've had one of those weeks where I work a lot but still get nothing done. I'm glad tomorrow is Saturday so I won't feel quite as guilty about getting nothing done. So I'm topping off my do-nothing week with a glass of wine and this damn computer that I've been staring at all week long. I find myself more comfortable here in the office, seeing as how my kids have some friends over and they have all taken over the kitchen, living room, and especially the TV. God forbid they stay in the movie room and play the quiet game. Speaking of God…

Jesus H. Christ

A couple of weeks ago, I saw another story on the news about one of those apparently naturally-occurring phenomena where the image of Jesus or the Virgin Mary appears in a most unlikely place. Here in San Antonio, about once a week we get a local news story about Mary appearing in, e.g., a tortilla, a quesadilla, a grilled cheese sandwich, or some driveway oil stains. This time, the national news showed us the face of Jesus discovered on a moth. First, no one really knows what Jesus looked like. So really, the image on that moth could have been that of the bearded white hippie dude who modeled for all the pictures we are so familiar with. When I saw the face on that moth, I thought it could just as easily be the face of the devil. He has a goatee, right? Just before the moth story, I remember seeing something about someone finding Jesus on a cross-shaped Cheeto. Do these stories really make the news because of the alleged Jesus sightings, or is it more about pointing out the depths of stupidity hidden in so many pockets of future Darwin victims all across this fruited plain?

I think I saw Jesus in my dryer's lint screen one time. I probably could have sold it on eBay, but I was afraid it would get damaged in shipping, and how do you insure something so priceless? So I hand-delivered it to a local Catholic church in exchange for a few dispensations. What if it really was Jesus trying to send me a message? Like maybe I need to engage my good/bad filter, or maybe I need to shed some unnecessary "fuzz" from my life. Or maybe he was just trying to tell me that I should clean that thing out more often. Speaking of eBay…

Sometimes when I'm feeling really down on myself, I'll go look at the feedback people have left me. A while back, I got this one: "This eBay Superstar may be proof that the Second Coming has already happened!!!" Now that right there is some high praise.

Confession:

I didn't learn to tell time until they came out with a digital clocks.

Something I hope will soon to be a new feature here:

Funny lines found in veterans' medical records. For example, one guy sported a "narcissistic moustache" and another "cheerfully admitted to excessive smoking."

And don't miss the new "Katy's Quotes" feature:

She saw a little food sample tray at the grocery store and looked at the sign next to it. "Ewww, Mom, that says, 'use tongues to pick up food.'" I had to explain the difference between tongues and tongs.

"When I was little, I thought phone calls went through the wires, but now I know they go through satellites."

Katy cries when she hears the Blue Bell ice cream commercials that say, "Blue Bell tastes just like the good old days," because, she says, it reminds her of when she was a kid. She doesn't realize she's only 8.

A few School of Rock additions:

Is it okay for the kids to sing along to Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar on Me? How can anyone not sing along to that?

Has anyone noticed the three-word band-name thing lately? Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Plain White T's, Fall Out Boy, Gym Class Heroes, All-American Rejects, Boys Like Girls, My Morning Jacket. I think Stone Temple Pilots, 3 Doors Down, and Third Eye Blind were ahead of their time.

Proposals for the anthem list: Cheap Trick's I Want You to Want Me, Mellencamp's Jack and Diane (or did I already add that one?), Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer, Prince's Purple Rain (sorry, I think he's underrated), and Bob Seger's Turn the Page.

I still need anthems from Frampton, The Who, and The Eagles, but I haven't put any thought into what they should be. Help me out folks, this is urgent business.

Things I love about hotels:

That bleach/mildew smell on the towels and wondering if they ever wash that blanket that's between the bedspread and sheets. You know, the blanket everyone sits on when they pull the dirty bedspread back? I usually don't think much about what could be on the remote or the phone or in the coffee maker. If I did, I wouldn't have room in my head to enjoy the fact that I'm in a hotel, which usually means I'm on some sort of vacation or a least a break from reality. I can put up with a lot of nastiness. I'm a flea market shopper for Christ's sake. I stayed in tons of skanky youth hostels in Europe. I don't mind getting dirty. BUT, if I find an unidentifiable pube in my hotel bathroom, you can bet I'll be calling the front desk.

The Darndest Things

My 3-year-old nephew told me and my mom, "I was going to say fucking hell, but I didn't." We kept asking him, "What did you say???" And he kept repeating it, with a straight face, in his sweet soft little toddler voice. I swear, the Q & A went back and forth a good 7 or 8 times. We realized that indeed that was what he was saying. What do you do with that?

That reminded me of a time the son of a friend of mine (I think he was 6 then) got in trouble for saying something like "butthole." His mom put Tabasco on his tongue and made him stand in the corner. His response from that corner, "I guess I can't say shit either."

Leftovers

I think BFE is my generation's common parlance for "far away." The E is for Egypt. Didn't this come from an Eddie Murphy movie? When I tell someone that we had to park way out in BFE, and they don't know what I mean, depending upon whom I'm talking to, I either feel young or old. Usually old. (Or have I just been smoking crack and BFE is my own little expression?)

Last time we were in Hico, Katy got this heinous candy marshmallow burger. Its label touted it as fat-free, cholesterol-free, and low-sodium. It was called Giant All-American Fun Burger. Get this: Calories--343, Carbs--81g, of that, 59g sugar, Ingredients—sugar, glucose syrup, gelatin, artificial flavors, yellow #5, yellow #6, red #4, and blue #1. And the best part of all: Made in China. It just doesn't get any more All-American than that.

I'm done purging for now. I hope this was a nice binge for you.

One Suspicious Mole Away

2008-08-31T20:28:00.003-05:00

Let me preface all of this by saying: With few exceptions, and regardless of party affiliation, I hate politicians.

I really don't like to discuss or argue about politics, because inevitably, my opponent knows more than I do about statistics, history, geography, and how the Electoral College works. I didn't even want to post anything about this, but it just keeps nagging at me and I'm hoping to find some others out there who feel the way I do.

I couldn't wait to register to vote when I turned 18. I have voted in every major election since then. I am a responsible tax-paying citizen. I say the Pledge of Allegiance at every Boy Scout meeting, Girl Scout meeting, military event, and ball game. I tear up when I sing the National Anthem. I went to law school and learned about our Constitution. I took an oath to support it when I was admitted to the bar. I work hard to help our nation's veterans. I would like to feel good about casting a ballot this year, but I don't see that happening. I truly want to abstain from voting in this election, and that is not a small matter to me.

I have a few strong political opinions, but the rest range from ambivalent to weak. Most of them cover a spectrum somewhere between Bohemian, Birkenstock-wearing, granola-eating, tree-hugging vegans and upper-middle-class, churchgoing, gun-toting, politically-incorrect meat-eaters. I've always been a little left of center, and that goes for my political views as well.

I have always considered myself a Democrat. I was born that way, and no, I don't think it was a birth defect. But I must confess: I do not have Obama fever. All other issues aside, I don't think he has the experience to be the President of the United States, not to mention the Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces. If my liberal friends want to disown me for making that statement, I ask only that they first show me something on his resume that could sway my opinion. The only thing I can say about Joe Biden is that at least he has some experience and would probably make a decent puppeteer.

I don't think the current president had much qualifying experience and look where that got us. Then again, he's a Republican.

As for McCain, I always thought he was fairly rational and moderate as Republicans go. I feel the same way about Lieberman. I think a lot of right-wingers see moderates as namby-pamby panderers, while the left-wingers see them as sellouts. I guess I see them as namby-pamby sellouts. I think a moderate Republican is akin to a guy who is kind enough to cuddle after taking advantage of you. I don't think anyone doubts that McCain has the experience (whether you like him or not) to hold the office of President. But let's face it, he is 72 years old, and if he lives out a four-year term, my calculator tells me that he would be 76. Sure, 76 is not nearly as old as it used to be. But when you look at who he chose for a running mate, 72 matters. Some 72-year-olds could be knocked off by a good scare. And with McCain's sketchy skin cancer history, I am incredibly uneasy. I have seen with my own eyes how fast melanoma can take a person down.

Then again, mean old men keep living out of spite. I don't think Dick Cheney is much younger than McCain, and look at how many times his so-called heart has tried to fail him. I've heard McCain has a temper problem. I say all former POWs are entitled to be as quick to anger as they want to. They just better let a clear head prevail before they decide (for example) to bomb Libya for something the Saudis do. Or the Indonesians for that matter. So maybe if he gets sick, or if PTSD flashbacks start to creep in--as they tend to do as vets get older--he'll keep living out of pure meanness. Call me a pessimistic alarmist.

Before and during Dan Quayle's Vice-Presidency, his youth, qualifications, and questionable intellect gave rise to the horrifying phrase, "One Heartbeat Away." And at that time, the first President Bush was only about 65-ish I think.

I don't know how (what's her name again? Excuse me while I Google it… Oh yeah) Sarah Palin's statistics would stack up to those of Dan Quayle, but I do know that this woman would be just one good scare away, or as my sister said, one suspicious mole away from the presidency.

And that right there scares the holy living crap out of me.

Remember the outcry when Bush tried to appoint his buddy Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court? Experience? Dallas Bar President? Texas State Bar President? She was crucified.

Experience matters. Age matters. Logic tells me I should vote for McCain and hope he doesn't die. But if he won and lived, I would also spend those four years kicking myself for contributing to a lot of policies I strongly disagree with. If I vote for Obama and he wins, I will spend those four years hoping he doesn't do more harm than good.

I'm disappointed that this country did not come up with some better choices. Then again, maybe we deserve what we get.

Is Valium Approved to Treat Déjà Vu?

2008-08-29T00:25:00.012-05:00

When I wrote the date on a letter yesterday, part of me wondered why I felt so uneasy. But my gut knew why immediately. We almost lost our son that day three years ago. He was eight years old and had completed his first week of third grade at a new school. Katy's eight now, and was fortunate enough to get the same teacher Luke had. At Meet the Teacher Night, the teacher reminded us about how Luke became the mystery boy who disappeared after the first week of school. His classmates (who didn't even know him) wanted to visit him in the hospital, but when they found out he was in Houston, they had to settle for making him the biggest package of get well cards I hope I will ever see. Of course, when he finally got back to school, he was known as the cool motorcycle wreck boy with the big long scar.

Before the accident, when I would see an ambulance or an Air Life helicopter, I would do what I have done since I was a child and offer up a little prayer. Now when I see one of those copters, the pit of my stomach burns and I pretend that I'm not dizzy. My lungs take a deep breath for me before I know it. Then I remind myself that he survived. When we experience extreme panic, shock, or helpless fear, a defense mechanism puts us into a surreal out-of-body mode. I think that opens us up to feel an improbable sense of peace during such times. It's the same sort of thing that gets us through deaths and funerals. We hold ourselves up to take care of business and save the breakdown for later. Because Luke eventually healed and came home, I never had any sort of "breakdown" or even thought I had one in me. For one thing, I didn't deserve to indulge in any emotional release that I may or may not have needed. I was simply truly grateful.

The problem with memories and flashbacks of those out-of-body times is that now you're back in your body and no longer cocooned. You are free to look back with a clear head and realize just how terrifying it all was. You are shocked at the truth of it--that your family came within minutes of a heartbreaking and devastating tragedy. I am often haunted by the words of a thoughtless E/R doctor. As soon as I reached Luke's bedside after a long drive to the Houston hospital, the first thing that doctor said to me was, "Your son has sustained some very serious internal injuries, and there is nothing we can do." I can still feel myself spinning backward upon hearing those words, then screaming, "What do you mean there's nothing you can do?" Then he kindly replied, "Oh, I meant surgically, there's nothing we can do surgically right now." Sometimes the whole thing seems like a movie or an episode of E/R (but without the cute doctors). Now I seem to do quite well keeping a lid on my random mild panic attacks (as long as those helicopters stay away). That close-call, near-miss, dodged-a-bullet feeling stays on the inside where it belongs, otherwise I could come up with a thousand reasons (both good and bad) to cry.

While we were stuck at that hospital, we heard the news about hurricane Katrina. Every once in awhile we would catch something on one of the TVs, but we weren't able to absorb anything about the extent of the devastation. I remember a feeling I can't really name. There we were so focused on and concerned and worried about our one child while such a violent and dreadful act of God continued to threaten and drown and destroy thousands. We were too exhausted and distracted to worry about the outside world. Every ounce of energy we spent in a place that became our world for a boy who meant more than the world to us. Sometimes I wish I could have brought that cocoon home.

Maybe my flashbacks are stronger this year because it seems we have another hurricane headed toward New Orleans. I've never cared for déjà vu.

Some Notes from the Road

2008-08-22T22:49:00.012-05:00

We left on Thursday the 14th for our last little summer road trip. Not far out of town, after stopping at our favorite fruit stand for some Fredericksburg peaches, we see a cop's flashing lights in the rearview mirror. My first thought was, Great. Mike's getting another ticket for me to help him with. My second thought was, Glad I'm not driving. My third thought was, He's such a good B.S. artist that he usually talks his way out of these things much better than I ever can. So we pull over and realize that we have been stopped by the Blanco County Sheriff. Mike starts in with his ever-so-apologetic and cordial refrain as he makes sure his military I.D. garners maximum exposure while he fumbles for his license in his George Costanza wallet. I think Mike mumbled something like, "I haven't driven much since I got back from my tour in Iraq..."

Right after the sheriff asked, "Do you know how fast you were going?" he proceeded to query us about my "4 VETS" license plates. I straightened my halo and leaned forward from the passenger seat to tell him that I'm an attorney who helps veterans get their benefits from the VA. He then told us that he has nothing against lawyers and that in fact, people complain about them until they need one. He explained that he needed an attorney to help him keep his job as sheriff. Apparently, because he was the only Jew in town (and probably the entire county) he was subjected to some discrimination.

{By the way, why do I feel uneasy referring to a Jewish person as a Jew? It would be fine to refer to him as Jewish, but somehow, the phrase "a Jew" carries some sort of pejorative connotation. Similarly, for some reason, it is inappropriate to refer to a Mexican as a Mexican. Yet it is perfectly fine to use that word in reference to food. Now I understand why we should not refer to Americans of Mexican descent as Mexicans, but when you see a construction truck barreling down a South Texas highway with a bed full of 20 or so Hispanic-looking gentlemen, I believe I am within my rights to say, "Look at how many Mexicans they could fit in that truck!" Call me a racial profiler, but I'm just saying.}

Now back to my story. This sheriff then proceeds to tell us about his 20-year military history in Korea and Vietnam. He tells us about his buddies at the VFW hall and some of the problems they have had with the VA. At this point, I'm realizing that there is no way Mike's going to get a ticket. Always on the lookout for an opportunity to drum up some business, I reach toward the officer and say, "I guess it would be inappropriate for me to offer you some of these business cards?" "Oh no, not at all. I appreciate it," he said as he handed us his card in return.

We then sat and chatted with this man about his life history and how he came to live in Blanco, Texas after growing up in New Jersey. The kids started getting restless and couldn't figure out how or why we were making friends with a policeman who had stopped us for speeding. This is because the kids don't usually witness Mike's finesse in such situations. They are much more familiar with the sexual harassment and police brutality that I endure every time I get pulled over.

As we got closer to Dallas, we stopped at a convenience store for a restroom break. As Mike pumped gas, I took the kids into the single restroom. Now that he's 11, Luke doesn't think he needs to go into a restroom with his mom and sister. While I can understand and appreciate that, I also know that he is prone to wander off. Not that I'm afraid he would get lost in the woods somewhere or be abducted, I just know that he would lose his place in line for the restroom and/or forget he needs to pee and thereby slow us down or set us up for another stop down the road.

So, there I am in this one-toilet restroom with my kids. Fortunately, the walls don't sport too many obscene vocabulary words they want me to define. Unfortunately, one wall proudly displayed a row of condom machines that I daresay would rival anything found in the powder rooms of the best gay bars across our fine country. The kids didn't ask many questions, probably because they were as mesmerized as I was. They had grown accustomed to seeing tampon machines, so I just hoped they considered these items to be yet another mysterious adult hygiene product. (Which I guess they kind of are.)

There were neon glow-in-the-dark condoms (useful for the more hard-to-find-in-the-dark sizes). There were tropical scented condoms (just throw some sand on the bed, close your eyes, and suddenly you are being boned on an island paradise). There were flavored condoms (I guess for those times when a popsicle, or a banana, or a corn dog just don't do it for you). There were condoms with tips, ticklers, tinglers, tentacles, and teeth. Condoms with ribs and ridges, knobs and nubs, fringe and fur.

But the best by far was a black one covered from head to scro with something that looked like beefy rounded tire treads. These had their own special dispenser and I'm sure they cost extra. NO, I didn't buy any. (I was out of quarters.) They were offered only in sizes marked XL, XXL, and XXXL. These bad boys were called "Rugged 'n' Ready." For some reason, I found that funny. But it got WAY funnier when Katy looked at it and mispronounced rugged as a one-syllable word, rugg'd. "Mom, what does rugg'd mean? 'Rugg'd 'n' Ready?'" I would have peed my pants laughing if I hadn't already been on the toilet.

Flying Solo

2008-08-10T18:28:00.004-05:00

Don't get too excited about this post. It's pretty long and boring. Bear with me, or just skip it. I'm cleaning out my folder full of scribbled notes before I move on to a much more important Sunday afternoon project: ripping CDs and organizing my music files. A lot of my thoughts end up in the wastebasket, and for better or worse, never see a reader's glazed eyes. For some reason, I deemed this junk postworthy, so take it or leave it.

While I always carry a pen and notepad with me, I use them much more often when I travel. Most people read, work, or talk on the phone as they wait for their flights. I do those things too, but I also take a lot of notes.

I love my solitude. Maybe it's the writer in me. Maybe it's the mom in me. Maybe it's just me. So I love everything about traveling alone. I love early-morning flights. I watch the sunrise as I drive to the airport. Because I'm not a morning person, I seldom get to enjoy a sunrise. I rarely get to see the highway without much traffic. Aside from girls wearing last night's clothes making that drive of shame, the other drivers may be on their way to the airport as well, or already going to work. The women wear fresh makeup, even mascara still wet after being applied at the last stop light. They smell of perfume or spit-up from the baby they just dropped off at daycare. The men all smell like soap and aftershave and mouthwash. When I worked in an office, I always loved that morning elevator scent. Before everyone started smelling like coffee and lunch and perspiration and anticipation or worry or dread.

I like the quiet echo and the semi-creepy feeling I get in a parking garage. As I approach the airport's entrance, I take a deep breath of bus exhaust. I love the smell of diesel fuel in the morning. I really do. It reminds me of Europe. Especially Paris. I like the life that I see in airports. Everyone trying to get where they need or want to be so they can do what they need or want to do. People go somewhere when they can't be replaced by someone else who is already there.

I don't mind all the procedures involved in getting to the gate. I watch all of us go through the motions. One gray bin after another rolling through. The taking off of belts and shoes. The keys clanking in the scratched white plastic bowls. The latex-gloved TSA agent impressed with how many three-ounce bottles of vodka I was able to squeeze into a one-quart Ziploc bag.

My only real problem when I travel is overpacking and still having nothing to wear. That's why I once found myself sitting in the Newark airport in sweltering heat wearing a hot pink bra under a tight white T-shirt. That's why I once wore heels with shorts because otherwise my colors wouldn’t match. I must say, I looked pretty hot in both outfits, but that's beside the point.

If I had been smarter, I may have become a social anthropologist or an anthropological socialist or whatever those people who study human interaction are called. I don't study it, but I can write about it if I want to. Unless you're in New Orleans at Mardi Gras, or in San Francisco at a gay pride parade, there's no better place than an airport for people-watching.

I absolutely love exchanging banter and laughing with total strangers or overhearing everything from mundane conversation to good-natured bickering to full-up verbal brawls. I smile at them in recognition, because they always know when someone is listening. And I think we all identify with each other. (Except for the occasional weirdo.) I drink in the shared experience-of-life stuff, those moments of time when you connect with fellow human beings you've never met and will never see again. Even if you did see them again, you wouldn't know it because you never even got a chance to register their faces.

The Jamaican-sounding woman at the deli who sold me a sandwich wore a nametag that said "Comfort." One might think that would be a good stripper or hooker name, but to me it sounded like childhood and home. It made me smile.

I was in an airport a few months ago in line at a Chili's takeout counter. I stood behind this little blonde (not that I'm stereotyping, I'm just saying) spinner of a sorority girl as she ordered a Diet Coke. The brunette clerk handed her the cup and apologized that they were out of regular lids and explained that she used a coffee cup lid instead. (It was the kind like Starbucks uses with a little sippy hole.) So the blonde, all confused and irritated, goes, "So, like, how am I supposed to put a straw in there?" I shared an eye-rolling look with the clerk over the girl's shoulder as if to agree, What an idiot. So the clerk got a straw and, with the flair of an infomercial spokesmodel, demonstrated. She looked at the girl with eyes that said, "Watch carefully." She slowly and methodically pulled the paper wrapper off the straw and then rather brutally shoved the end of it into the hole. She then held out her hands like Vanna White after someone buys a vowel and showed her best "Voila!" face. By this time, I realized the women in line behind me had been watching this display and were as pleased with it as I was. After blissfully ignorant Blondie floated away, I told the clerk, "Yeah. I was smarter too before I went blonde."

From my seat at the gate, I just watch and imagine. I don't stare. Unless it's someone really hot, or really heavy on the body décor, or both (which would be rare).

I see:

A brooding teenage girl in her logoed shirt frantically texting her boyfriend, worried he'll cheat on her while she's gone. (He will.) A gay couple discreetly touching hands as they walk side-by-side, wishing people understood them. (But knowing most won't.) A frazzled mom with an overflowing diaper bag, a baby in an umbrella stroller, trailed by two busy, excited children wheeling their Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob suitcases. She wonders why she didn't listen to her parents, why she didn’t get her tubes tied, and when he'll find her. (Too soon.) A businessman with his BlackBerry, looking like he's doing something important, but is really just waiting for a message from his mistress. ("Room 725" is all it says.)

I hear so many different languages and try to identify them. Is that Dutch? Do I hear Greek? Can that be Farsi? What if it is? I try to understand the French I hear and have little luck. They were saying something about history or art or philosophy, I'm sure. The French are big on chatting about cultural crap. I sat with three German guys on a flight one time. I couldn't understand anything they said until I heard "Chewbacca" and "Han Solo" and "Skywalker." I smiled at the one next to me and said, "Finally, I understood what y'all were talking about." The quite masculine (I'm just saying) black (just to give you a realistic picture) male (because if I didn't say "male" you'd assume a masculine female) flight attendant spoke to the German guys and said that he went to Germany one time. He said, "I stayed in that hotel . . . Oh, I can't remember what it's called . . . it was that one that Michael Jackson shook his baby off of. Which hotel was that?" The Germans and I shared a good laugh at the whole Michael Jackson baby-shaking thing.

I could never be a flight attendant. I get too claustrophobic for one thing. But what must really suck for them is all the repeating. I'm sure it's automatic and they don't even have to think about it. "Something to drink? Something to drink? Drink? Excuse the cart, Watch your elbows, Tray tables and seatbacks, Tray tables and seatbacks, Upright and locked position, Upright and locked position, B'bye, B'bye, B'bye." If I weren't already, I would go insane in a job like that. Especially now when people will have to buy their little plastic cup of Coke that is mostly ice, or pay for their little sack of nuts. I might have to make change, and that is just not gonna happen with me. I'd be repeating, "Exact change please, Exact change please."

One time I got a same-day reservation, so I was stuck in a middle seat. I hate middle seats. Especially when the person in the window seat lops over into the space I paid for, and the aisle person won't give up their seat to let the loppage go into the aisle. Not that aisle loppage would be allowed anyway, for safety reasons. I have nothing against overweight people, but when they are so big that a fire department crane had to pull them from the bed they have been living in for the last 12 years just so they can get into a seat on a plane next to me, forgive me for feeling a little imposed upon. This woman somehow, without any lubrication, managed to work herself into that seat, then proceeded to raise the armrest I was using (and had intentionally, in advance, made sure I had first dibs on) to make extra room for her entire left butt cheek. No apology, no "Excuse me for being a fat-ass and taking your armrest without asking." Nothing. If she had been polite, I may have cut her some slack, but I still wouldn't have been happy about it. Hey maybe I don't love everything about traveling.

I find my baggage carousel by recognizing flightmates. Some look different standing up. Most seem relaxed and glad to have arrived. Cell phones on every ear. Strangers helping grab suitcases for those who couldn't reach theirs. So many black bags, most with a different colored identifying tag or ribbon. I see my overstuffed suitcase and feel reunited with my only travel companion. Well, that and my notepad.

I don't particularly like take-offs, but I tolerate them because they mean I'm probably going to have a happy landing somewhere. And see a lot of life in between.

My Four Cents

2008-08-05T16:09:00.016-05:00

Let me apologize in advance for the brevity of this post. I know it won't hold you for long, but too much time has passed since my last entry and I started feeling like I was neglecting my legions of loyal readers. Not that I felt guilty about it, mind you. More like sorry for you. So here's a bone:

I have never pretended to be a numbers whiz. Or even a person capable of rudimentary math. As you can see, I'm more of a language arts person. In college, I took basic math. Math for English majors. We learned about sets and about how to write a check. I even tried to master balancing a checkbook. I think that was our final exam. It was an 8:00 class, so I made a D.

I get an upset stomach every time I have to figure out a tip. That's why I always hope someone else will pay. Or, I may say something stupid like, "Let me at least get the tip." (Just the tip.) Then I take an hour and a half writing the numbers on a napkin--doing math in public. I can't do percentages on a calculator. I carry one to help me when I'm shopping and find something that's "half off." I can divide by 2. To figure a tip, I round up, move the decimal to the left, divide that amount in half, and then add that amount to the first one. People say to just double the tax. I guess that would be about right here where tax is about 8-something percent. I can handle tax-doubling (if I round it down of course) as long as I have my trusty calculator. Bad math has caused me to tip as little as $2.50 on a $50 check and as much as $30 on a $15 check. So I guess it evens out.

Aside from bussing tables and supervising the games area at Chuck E. Cheese, I never had a job in food service or retail. The reason? First, I was a spoiled brat. But aside from that, I could never make change. Even with the help of a cash register, I would still need to count the money out. Sure, I can identify all the coins and bills; it was just the quick gathering of them that I could never master. I liked those old registers that would spit the coins down a little chute on the side. I guess that was back in the days of wheat pennies and buffalo nickels. And no, I'm not old enough to remember those days. I'm just imagining. The days when everything was in black and white and when people never noticed the smell of cigarette smoke because it was pretty much the same as the air.

While I love shopping at garage sales and flea markets, I dread the whole exchange of cash thing. The vendor will fork over some coins and ask, "Did I count that right?" "Sure," I say. Not wanting to appear less intelligent than the toothless sucker who just sold me a highly sought-after, authentic, vintage, mint-condition Gucci bag for $4.50. (Look for it on eBay soon.)

As much as I dislike making change, I do love finding coins. I even wrote a super cheesy story about it called Lucky Pennies. It's in A Second Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul (Page 293). That was 10 years ago. I like to think my writing has improved since then. Or at least become less cheesy. In college and even law school, I used to casually check pay phones and vending machines for change. Like a homeless person. One time, in high school (this one time...in high school...) I was in line at McDonald's with a friend. We were waiting to ask for medium Cokes in large cups so we could add our Jack Daniel's to it when we got back to the car. These were the days before it became "socially inappropriate" for 16-year-olds to drink and drive, and to do so without even a passing thought about using a seat belt. Goood times… (My amazement at our survival must wait for another post.) So anyway, there we are in the line, probably already buzzed, and I spot a nickel on the floor. Well, I of course bend down to pick it up as my friend draws my attention to the puddle of pee the coin is swimming in thanks to an unattended and incontinent toddler. Can't remember whether I went for it anyway.

One time I took our change jar to one of those Coinstar machines at the grocery store. I dumped the jar and enjoyed watching it do its thing. It spit out a voucher for like $94, which I thought was great until I decided to read the sign on the machine that says it withholds like 9%. I didn't know how much 9% would have added up to as I think I would have had to employ some impossible algebraic equation. I was pretty sure that 10% of $100 was $10. But I'm not sure how that related to my exact circumstances. I don't do as well with numbers other than 10. I just felt ripped off and wondered how much I really had in that dang jar. How much would the bank have given me? I'll know better next time.

Now to the reason for the title. When I go to Sonic (which is one of the most unhealthy fast food places ever, so the kids love it) I always act like a generous big spender and tell the carhop kid to keep the change (unless I use my debit card, in which case they are SOL). I never think about how much the change might be, so I have probably tipped up to 99 cents sometimes. Today I pulled a fairly recent Sonic receipt out of my purse. I paid $9.00 in cash on a total bill of $8.96.

A Tale of Two Siblings

2008-07-25T10:22:00.009-05:00

My parents were always amazed at how different their three children were. We still question my sister's paternity, but then she is quick to remind us that she has the upper thighs of our maternal grandmother's side of the family. Bless her heart. Besides, I don't think thigh size is necessarily genetic. Big bones, maybe.

Growing up, Kelly and I could not be more different. I was the wild child, and as the oldest, I got away with everything (well, a lot) since my parents had no idea what I was getting into. (It blows my mind to think that when I was 16, my parents were a little younger than I am now. Terrifying, really.) Kelly was the popular one. I became known as Kelly's big sister. As she progressed through high school, she went from homecoming duchess to princess to queen. She is three years younger. I'm sure my teachers would dread getting Jill's little sister in their classes, but then would have been pleasantly surprised. I was more like the Ally Sheedy character (without the dandruff) in The Breakfast Club while Kelly was Molly Ringwald. Kelly and I fought mercilessly for years. Mostly about the phone. We had those mod, donut-shaped, coil-corded phones, just heavy enough to throw and leave a good size hole in the sheetrock, with receivers perfect for a good headlock/forehead pounding or punch in the eye. There was all kinds of hair pulling, biting, spitting, door slamming, and clothes stealing. All taking place as I cowered in a corner. She was mean. All I ever did to her was try to steal her boyfriends. Even when we sold that house a couple of years ago, a splintered hole remained in the door of our shared bathroom. I think I was the one who kicked it in. She was probably taking too long in the shower, and I needed to get in there to check on my hydroponic pot plants. We often laughed at that hole later, along with all the boys' names we had carved into the door's latex-painted trim. Goood times.

We didn't really become friends until we both had husbands and kids. Finally we had similar things to commiserate about. We also discovered the shared blissful joy of junk shopping. I think I have my flea market addiction fairly well under control, but she is wheels-off insane. I pity the grandchildren who will be stuck cleaning out her garage. We often talk about teaming up to write a decorating book that encourages novice home decorators to avoid objects of mass production.

Even though we don't look alike, there is no question that Kelly and I are sisters when you hear us laugh. We have the exact same rhythm to the breaths and the ha-ha-ha's. When we laugh together, we have to laugh again at how we are perfectly synchronized. Or maybe one echoes the other, depending on who was a little bit behind on their latest margarita swallow.

My brother and I seem to be a little more alike, seeing as how he's a philosopher and I fancy myself a connoisseur of logic, law, literature, and apparently alliteration. He studies consciousness; I work on my conscience. He's an intellectual academic; I'm an ineffectual apathetic. He's a member of Mensa; I can spell Mensa.

But this story is really about the vast differences (not vas deferens) between Kelly and Kenny, well beyond the minor variations in their names.

Kenny is hosting a "Self-Awareness Workshop" next week in Hico. Several brilliant and scholarly minds from around the world will converge on this tiny podunk town to discuss the theory of consciousness. Picture Einstein meets Green Acres, Stephen Hawking vs. The Beverly Hillbillies, or Marilyn vos Savant in any Will Ferrell movie. That town will have more brain cells in it than the number of Brangelina's children multiplied exponentially by Amy Winehouse's blood heroin content.

So here's a brief synopsis of what Kenny's workshop will cover (these are quotes lifted directly from his brochure):

Self-Awareness Workshop

[P]henomenology of self-awareness, its computational and neurobiological modeling, the philosophical problems surrounding it, and its role in the formulation of a general theory of consciousness with particular emphasis on formulating ways of empirically testing the self-awareness that all consciousness involves some form of self-awareness.

[T]he computational, functional, and mathematical modeling of self-representing systems; various forms of incompleteness and computational irreducibility and their relation to the phenomenology of cognition, to self-knowledge, and to the opacity of sensory qualities; and virtualization (the computational process whereby the complexity of the "hardware" is systematically hidden from the "user" through the construction of virtual interfaces) as a possible paradigm for understanding the relationship between consciousness, the subject, sensory qualities, and the brain.

After agreeing on the theme, participants will be invited by the chair to propose views about the theme in the form of succinct statements. The statements will be listed and briefly reviewed for their salient logical and probabilistic connections. . . .

Kelly and I agreed that our reaction to that was exactly the same as the Geico caveman's in the commercial where he's on a news show: "Yeah, I have a response. ... Uh, What?" (here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zssp5RlxnM&feature=related)

Seeing as how Kelly is more of a shopper and decorator than a writer or speller, much less blogger, I'm the gatekeeper of her humor. I'm reluctant to post her reply here because sometimes she is so much funnier than I could ever be. Damn funny. I mean laugh till-you-cry, pee yourself funny. But this was just too good not to share with my devoted readers. I'm sure it will improve your day, if not your life. And we sincerely hope it will give you pause to reflect on the aesthetics of your dwelling and perhaps prompt you to incorporate some American Feng Shui by replacing all fake plants with real ones, as a start.

Kelly's E-Mailed Response to Kenny (a direct quote, with only some participants' names redacted to protect their reputations):

Cannot help but notice that I was NOT listed as a participant.

I thought I could bring some of my decorating books and present a lecture, complete with a PowerPoint, on how self-awareness is expressed through decorating your environment. Some of the self-representing systems I would touch on, but not limit myself to are as follows:

* Creative use of fabrics & textiles

* Exploring the limits of self-expression with a can of Mod Podge

* Using an array of differing textures to promote sensory awareness through touch & sight

* Function and aesthetics: the ability to forgo function when aesthetics is being compromised

* The computational process of hiding the - what I like to call "necessary evils" of a dwelling – i.e., light switches, door bell speakers, thermostat boxes, trash cans and construction and design flaws. The "hardware," if you will, is hidden from the "user" by creative placement of home decorative items. Leaving us with the question, is one capable of learning this application of virtual interfacing in the realm of interior design, or is it inherently born in the consciousness?

* Various forms of in-completion in the mind and rooms of those who are handicapped in creativity and decorating in all of its manifestations

* How to gain a self-representing system through a collection of material objects that stimulate cognitive and sensory qualities upon entering a dwelling

* Being conscious of the role of accessories in a dwelling and their role in inspiring self awareness - with that said, also being aware of the role that poor choices in home interior design and decorating play in sucking the very life OUT of the dwellers and their visitors

* The philosophic problems created by surrounding oneself with mass-produced, resin material, and big box home store accessories lacking in quality, character, and design

* I would like to close the PowerPoint with a field trip to a local flea market. This would (in theory) allow the participants to apply their newfound knowledge by selecting discarded items and giving them new life in their respective dwellings. Hence, allowing the participants to experience self-awareness through creativity and application of decoration.

I was thinking you could slip me in (so to speak) somewhere between [L]'s and [U]'s lectures. Or maybe my material would be a better fit (so to speak, again) with [N]'s lecture material. My lecture could serve as a trailer - "Persons, Shelves, and the Decorative Brain."

Watch, Kelly will end up on Comedy Central while I remain all pasty and pathetic flagellating myself for yet another poor life choice.

Pieces & Bits (Now With More Crude References!)

2008-07-23T18:43:00.006-05:00

Sounds nastier that way, doesn't it? Like twig & berries or something. Sorry.

Important pet-feeding warning: If you are chewing a mouthful of cashews (or probably anything else of similar texture), don't inhale as you scoop up dry dog food. Creates a little sensory confusion. Try it.

So I see that Estelle Getty died. Supposedly she was only 84. You know that's a lie. She was 84 twenty years ago when she was on that lame geriatric sitcom. In fact, I thought she was already long dead. Bless her heart. I always hated The Golden Girls. If anyone wants to torture me, lock me in a room with a TV that only shows Golden Girls reruns, black and white war movies, or anything starring Tom Cruise.

A few weeks ago, while I was neglecting her (as I am wont to do), Katy strolled into my office with a fresh batch of perfectly-cooked microwave popcorn. I said, "How did you do that? I always burn it." She said (with air-quotes), "Mom, you should try the button that says 'popcorn' next time." I honestly had never thought of that. I just considered the breakfast or beverage or frozen dinner kind of buttons as merely decorative. I have always applied the old Thermos question to those: "How do it know?"

Laundry tip: Try to prevent cigars or DVDs from going through your washer and dryer. I'm just saying. This is why I usually let all the dirty clothes pile up until the cleaning people come. They are professionals who pay more attention.

So Jamie Lee Curtis is now doing ads for some kind of yogurt for your bowels. Remember when she was hot? Halloween? Trading Places? John McEnroe is doing commercials for All Bran. Remember when he was such a temper-tantrum-throwing badass? (For a tennis player, anyway.) When I see George Clooney touting Viagra, just take me out back and shoot me. And if Heather Locklear starts advertising Polident or Depends, please slash my throat, push my wheelchair into traffic, and put me out of my misery.

Sorry, can't quit this:

British word I love: Wanker. I guess the American equivalents might be tool or douche, as in "My college roommate was such a tool," or "She's going out with him? That douche?"

Old-timey old-person words: newfangled, contraption, (those two words often travel together), braggadocious, fiddlesticks (I'm going to try to revive that one. Who's with me?), gol-durn, dag-nabbit, dad-burnit, dad-blasted, dad-gummit (These words are mostly found in old westerns from back before the Indians taught the cowboys how to curse). When I was little, I heard my dad say "dammit" so I started repeating it. Well, he then switched to "dad-gummit." So I proceeded to repeat, "dammit gummit."

That reminds me of a couple of simply adorable things Luke did when he was a toddler. He had watched the John Wayne movie The Cowboys with Mike. There's a great line in there where one of the boys calls John Wayne a son of a bitch. We didn’t think Luke caught that (seeing as how he was like three) but later when he was mad at me, he goes, "Mama, you son of a bitch!"

{Side story: Years ago, this teenage friend of my brother said his mom was yelling at him and called him a son of a bitch. He looked her up and down and responded, "You got that right!" Ouch. I wonder how long he was grounded.}

Back to Luke. First, you need to know that Luke was such a little cowboy from the time he could crawl. Even when he was running around in just a diaper, he would always accessorize it with his hat and boots. My mother-in-law was watching him one day when he was about four years old. He was looking for his boots and matter-of-factly said to her in all his naiveté, "Gabba, where are my f@ckin' boots?" Somehow, he had learned that that's how you describe something you're looking for.

Speaking of the toddler cowboy, there's a scene in the first Toy Story movie where one angry character says to the other, "You want a piece of me?" Well, Luke didn't hear it quite right. I was scolding him (probably for spilling my drink) and he looked at me, all serious and mad and said, "You want a piece of meat?"

How will I ever discipline my kids when all I can do is laugh at them? Perhaps that's punishment enough--feeling ridiculed by a ranting, unstable authority figure. Hey, I grew up that way, and I can still function fairly properly in most social settings.

More words that feel good on my tongue: acrimonious, besmirch, sinister, chow-chow, pygmy, gerrymander, jerry-rig, filibuster, wherewithal, jinx, tibia, fibula, femur, shard (but not chard, don't care for unusual supposedly edible greens), perplex, heathen, miscreant, phallic, calypso, foible.

Words I don't like: snatch (especially as a noun), cunnilingus (why does it sound like a taxonomy word, like it's a phylum or species or genus? As in, "Cunnilingus erotica, a species of southern hemisphere fruit"), smidgen (or worse, smidge), sliver (especially when people refer to pie), compote (reminds me of marmalade made from compost), chutney (I don't care for strange fancy food terms like this—especially when they don't sound appetizing.), fellatio (This word has a musical connotation to me. Like it's related to piccolo, adagio, and arpeggio. Can't you see a band director saying, "I need you to play that flute with more fellatio!")

Reminds me of one of my favorite pop culture quotes: "This one time...at band camp..." Comes in handy, especially when a "so to speak" or a "that's what he said" doesn't quite work.

Is this a mondegreen? I have heard people say, "take it for granite" as in, "I just feel like he takes me for granite." Well at least he doesn't take you for Formica.

Best book title ever: Are You There Vodka? It's Me Chelsea. It's Chelsea Handler's latest book. Can't wait to put in on top of my 4-foot tall "books to read" stack. Men might not get this. Every female from my generation has read Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me Margaret. It was a book all about some girl starting her period. How she wrote an entire book about it is beyond me. It may be that there's only one paragraph about the period, but that's the only part we all remember. I'll have to read it again. My title might be, Are You There Prozac? or Are You There Ritalin?

I saw a comic strip recently about inventions this guy was working on. One was brilliant: A car that runs on human rage. Wish I had thought of that.

That's it for today. Time to forage in the freezer for the kids' dinner. I hope Katy will cook it for me.

It's Juicy. Why Wait?

2008-07-20T13:46:00.009-05:00

Why is it no one calls till I'm on the phone? Is there some sort of telepathic kinesis going on? Does this phenomenon strike anyone else?

Why do well-meaning friends keep forwarding me cheesy animated kitten-angels, urban legends they failed to check on Snopes, and bad PowerPoint movies with misspelled yet heartfelt words? The forwards I can't stand, and seem to get the most of, are the superstitious prayers. Jesus loves you, and if you don't forward this to 23 friends in the next 8 minutes, God will smite you. If you do send it, you will get a miracle. As if some parent of a critically ill child could scour the internet for as many different magic God-powered e-mail forwards to store up as many "blessings" as they could to save their child. Jesus Christ, people. Don't you know it's bad luck to be superstitious?

Katy wanted to bake something and the recipe called for cream of tartar. I will never understand why it's called cream as it is a powdery substance, but anyway, I told her we didn't have any. She looked in the fridge and said, "Well, we have tartar sauce. It's creamy. Can't we use that?"

I told Katy to take a shower. Her response: "Can't I just rub some soap in my armpits?" At least she's not high-maintenance.

I was at Schlitterbahn with a friend and her 13-year old daughter. My friend and I were doing the usual people-watching that you can't help but do at a place where there is so much exposed human flesh on display. Very little of the viewing is pleasant. Most of it is of the morbid-curiosity type. So we see this, let's say, nubile (a word which has taken on a special nuance somewhat contrary to its original, more puritanical meaning) late-teenish young lady (and I use that term loosely). She is offering free (and highly visible) advertising for the Juicy Couture brand with the word Juicy spread daintily across her jiggly butt. My friend says to me, "Who would let their daughter out in public with a bikini that says 'Juicy' on the butt?" My friend's daughter goes, "Well, at least it doesn't say that on the front." Priceless humor right there.

This same friend had been going to a gym called "Why Weight?" At the same time, her daughter was in some abstinence class called "Worth the Wait." Well, my friend was talking to me and understandably got them mixed up. She started telling me about her daughter's sex education class called "Why Wait?" I'm afraid that's the way we learned it when I was in school.

Now back to my favorite hobby. Sorry, folks. I'll just start putting these at the end so you can skip them if you want to. But remember, if you don't read everything on each visit, you will not only have unimaginable tragedy befall you within 17 days, but you will also be unfulfilled, incomplete, and suffer an intractable case of chronic irritable bowel syndrome until you are either impaled by a splintery fencepost or spontaneously combust, whichever comes first.

Words I was surprised had not made the list before:

cataclysm, catapult, egregious, gregarious, lascivious, perdition, talisman, cortex, corona, bicker, squabble, finagle, frenzy (one of my new favorite bands: A Fine Frenzy), sacrosanct, salvage, platitude, vague, ingratiate, bastard, dastardly, Viagra, Niagara, Lycra, epigram, argot, shaft (mostly just the noun form, but also the 70s TV show), spasm, benevolent, belligerent, harelip (old-person word now politically-incorrect to say), bizarre, bazaar, oxymoron, idiot (one of our favorite road-rage words we don't like our kids to say), nuance, nubile, puerile, clique, metropolis, blurb, opaque, dysfunctional, symbiotic, Ikea, lunatic, maxim (not necessarily the magazine), mythical, obsolete, panacea, Dulcinea, dulcimer, hurdy-gurdy, jibber-jabber (did y'all ever see that weird sheep-boy Skittles commercial? Here's a link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKkZ3hkDF4w), mandolin, mandarin, Rorschach, surreal, toupee, meningitis, fury, Bedouin, poignant, pantomime, verbatim, nomad, jive, jargon.

A lot of parents forbid their children from using what they call the "S" word: Stupid. In our house, the "S" word is something more expressive. We have so many other words worse than stupid to contend with, we tend to let that one slip by. We've told the kids it's not so bad to refer to a thing as stupid, but you shouldn't call a person that. Unless it's true.

Words that seem related, but definitely aren't: carouse & carousel, philander & philanthropy, organism & orgasm, flagellate & flatulate, plateau & platitude, latitude & platitude, (plateau & latitude might go together, but that's not how this game is played), antidote & anecdote, oblique & oblong, salacious & saliva. Wait ... I can see how salacious & saliva might go together. Orgasm & organism, too, for that matter.

Word that sounds like a bad breakfast: milquetoast

Words or phrases I prefer not to hear: co-dependent, tiff, in a dither (another old-person phrase), namby-pamby, priggish, vas deferens, rectal, rectum, vulva, dicker, okie-dokie (or okie-doke), gelatinous, enema.

Now, just remember, God loves you more if you gunk up your friends' in-boxes!!! Spread the Good News, you know. But throw in some threats for good measure.

From the Dustpan of my Mind

2008-07-16T00:12:00.007-05:00

Today at his press conference, President Bush was talking about the terrorists and he said, "They have no disregard for human life." I wonder if anyone else caught that. Bless his heart.

So everyone is all "up in arms" over the New Yorker cover. Hello? It's called satire. Has anyone heard of it? It's a liberal magazine. They are making a point. Satire, especially the political kind, used to be funny to smart people. Political cartoons have been making statements for at least 200 years in this country. Suddenly, everyone gets this politically-correct bug up their ass and can't see hyperbole and get the message. Now if a conservative rag published that cartoon, they wouldn't mean it as satire. They would just mean it.

Guilty pleasure confession: I love listening to Rush and Hannity. It makes me feel angry and smart and inadequate at the same time. Nice cocktail. I do have to agree with some of their points, and the parodies are usually pretty funny. What I can't stand are the idol-worshipping suck-ups who call in and bow down and tell them how they have changed their lives just like Jesus did.

This morning, I found a lovely torn up and pecked-over fox carcass off our back porch. I had Luke shovel it up and throw it over the fence onto a neighbor's property. When Luke looked at the remains, he said, "He's smiling. Or maybe he's gritting his teeth." I voted for the latter.

After the fox incident, I did something I have never done before. I actually flipped off another driver. It was an 18-wheeler. And I had Luke and his friend in the car with me. Real impressive move on my part, huh? Maybe they weren't paying attention. Luke never does. But his friend has probably already broken the news to his appalled parents. I have never let idiots on the road get to me, but this one intentionally and with great effort made sure I missed my exit. May he rot in hell.

On the recurring road trip to my mom's, somewhere in the middle of Nowhere, TX on highway 281, I always see this run-down, white and red cinderblock motel with a dimly-lit sign that says, "American Owned." As if its hourly visitors care.

On that drive, near the cutoff to go to Austin, there's a restaurant that has been there forever. Its sign boasts "Texas' Best Chicken Fried Steak…Nearly Three Dozen Sold!" I need to take a picture of that one.

Hico, Texas has been predicted to become "The Next Fredericksburg." This means that the antique prices will go up by 300% and the Billy the Kid Museum better get some authentic stuff to display. The town might also consider adding a hotel or two. American-owned, of course. Maybe they could tear down one of their hundred or so churches. My mom told me about this crotchety old gal who is always raising hell there. In fact, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting her. Apparently, someone witnessed her yelling at some construction workers who were building yet another church. She said, "This town don't need another f*ing church!!" As if they could understand anything more than her F word. Hico also boasts a new "Waterpark." It's a postage-stamp sized concrete slab with holes in it that spray water. I haven't seen it yet, but my niece and nephew had a good time there, in spite of all the rules. My mom took a picture of the sign. I'll have to share it here soon. She said it's about the size of a refrigerator, and pretty much bigger than the "park" itself. The sign looks something like this:

SPRAY PARK RULES:

No lifeguard
No unaccompanied children
No alcohol
No tobacco
No firearms
No littering
No loitering
No trespassing
No bottles or cans
No food or gum
No horseplay or rough-housing
No street clothes or cut-offs
No skates or skateboards
No graffiti or vandalism
No loud music
No rap or hip-hop
No running or fast walking
No jumping or skipping
No boisterous behavior
No smiling or laughter

HAVE FUN!!!!

Mom said reading the sign was the most fun part of the outing for her.

With the gas prices such a big deal—especially since I've been burning so much of it lately, I was reminded of a quote from the liner notes in one of Eva Cassidy's CDs. It says something like, "I don't know why everyone is complaining about the price of gas…I just always get five dollars' worth."

I drove through Starbucks on one of my trips recently, as my car goes there sort of on autopilot. After I ordered my grande mocha light frappuccino with a shot and drove toward the window, Katy said, "$4.76 for a drink??" That's when it really hit me. Katy is far too aware of my poor judgment.

So my nephew Ben, who is like 5, I think, is obsessed with his mother's bosoms as my sister likes to call them. I think it's because he was a bottle-fed baby. He said to Kelly, "Mom, your boobs are big." Then he pointed at my mother and said, "Yours are kind of medium." Then of course, Kelly had to push it and ask, "How big are Aunt Jill's?" The little sh!t responded with a sort of brush-off gesture and one word, "Tiny." Thanks, kid. Sure, he was right, but that's beside the point. I'm sure his interest makes his father proud. This is my family. A little boy evaluating the breast sizes of his adult female family members.

Mike's bachelor cousin in Houston is so rich, he has what he calls a "dog nanny."

Katy is not only a back seat driver, she has back seat road rage.

Anthems I need to add: Cheap Trick's I Want You to Want Me, Queen's We Will Rock You, and Aerosmith's Sweet Emotion.

Latest movies I loved: Superbad and Walk Hard—The Dewey Cox Story. Real high-quality low-brow humor, those.

Now more fodder for the word mill:

fisticuffs, fistula, tardive dyskinesia, delirium tremens, zenith, nadir, apex, vortex, antipathy, centaur, minotaur, amygdala, medulla oblongata (reminds me of Adam Sandler's Waterboy), vitreous, cerebrum, cerebellum, antebellum, umbrage, dirigible, ramshackle, slovenly, interloper, Visigoth, harbinger, augury, auger, odyssey, serendipity, maelstrom, glum, glib (Tom Cruise: "You're glib, Matt. You're glib!"), tantric (Sting's yoga of choice, and one I will never master), erudite, crudite, chagrin, swarthy, smarmy, skeevy (not really a word, but should be), skanky.

A word I don't like, for obvious reasons: chancre. One time my sister said she had a chancre sore on her mouth. I told her, "I think you mean canker sore."

I went into the little Bulverde post office the other day with Katy. Mind you, this is Mayberry without all the interesting characters. Well, maybe a few Barney Fifes, but that's it. No Gomers that I'm aware of. So I of course exchange pleasantries with the ladies who work there. They have come to know me quite well what with all the certified mail I have to send and then all the eBay packages I ship out. As Katy and I walked back to the car, she said, "I like the people here. They're like townsfolk." Townsfolk. Good old-person word there, Katy.

Other old people words that I am uneasy about: hankering (or hankerin'), and, as noted above on the park rules, horseplay and rough-housing. What is the difference between horseplay and rough-housing? I think horseplay is the milder form. I picture scampering in a meadow and perhaps flapping your arms at your target in a playful yet somewhat threatening manner. Rough-housing, on the other hand, is like when a bully ties your arms behind your back and shakes the crap out of you by boxing your head and giving you a mild concussion.

This should hold you for a while. It's after midnight, and I will become a big loser if I start blogging into the wee hours. Wee hours. Another phrase that gets on my nerves, just so you know.

Strawberry Whoppers

2008-07-07T18:44:00.006-05:00

I survived the million-mile-road-trip-alone-with-kids weekend. It really wasn't bad. Even when I brought 3 extra kids home from Lake Charles yesterday. We stayed at L'Auberge du Lac. Beautiful place. It has this lazy river for floating and a swim-up bar. The casino was too high-dollar for the Saturday night we were there. Not like the low-rent off-the-strip Vegas spots I like to frequent.

The only drawback on the drive was sharing music time. Suddenly these kids have opinions. I don't like to pacify them with DVDs on road trips, just because I think it takes away from the whole experience. I want them to play the alphabet game or find out-of-state plates or count blue cars or play slug-bug or fight and pull hair and spit like I did with my siblings back in the 70s when we didn't have seat belts keeping us on our separate sides, or even in a seat for that matter. Gooood times, those days. I really thought the kids would be fine with their MP3s and Nintendos and even something I like to call books. But nooooo, they had music requests. That's what I get for training them. I can only tolerate a certain amount of Miley Cyrus and maybe a little bit more of the Jonas Brothers, but Katy's other "music" includes these horribly cheesy versions of popular songs sung by what sound like those goofy-looking Barney kids. The CDs have names like Kid's Rockin' Dance Party. You really haven't lived until you hear Santana or the Goo Goo Dolls or Matchbox Twenty butchered all to hell by the voices of spoiled pre-teen wannabe-celebrities who botched their Barney auditions. There's only so much bubble gum or cotton candy music I can stand before I go into a diabetic coma. The other thing about kids singing adult songs is that they have no idea what the lyrics mean. Like the Goo Goo Dolls' Slide. Or YMCA. Of course, when I was a kid, I thought the Village People were just a bunch of dudes in costumes. I had no idea that was what they actually wore in real life. Or why. And I loved singing Cher's Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves with never a clue as to what it was about. Much less Half Breed. Or remember The Who's Squeeze Box? I always thought it was about an accordion. I did get the kids some CDs with real musicians singing songs for kids. Those are called For the Kids (one, two, & three). They have a lot of Barenaked Ladies, and some of my other favorites: Matt Nathanson, Jason Mraz, Sarah McLachlan, Dar Williams, Rosie Thomas, John Ondrasik, Guster, Chantal Kreviazuk, and Sixpence None the Richer. Some of those songs are at least tolerable. I said some. But they were much more palatable than the other crap these kids demanded like Who Let the Dogs Out, Mambo #5, and Pump Up The Jam, which is still stuck in my head.

On our way there, the kids amused themselves (and me) with the things they said. Katy was explaining to Luke about credit cards. She said, "You buy something now, then pay for it later." Luke's response: "Or you buy something now, then move to Kentucky."

They had this box of nasty strawberry Whoppers (a new taste sensation, I guess). Well, the Whoppers' candy coating had melted, so the kids were licking them. Then they say, "Mom, we're licking these balls. We call 'em 'Licky-Balls!'" I tried not to laugh as I suggested they find a more appropriate-sounding name.

As we approached the resort, Katy only saw a big-box store on the corner. She goes, "That better not be our hotel. It looks like a Costco." I said, "Worse, Katy. It's a Sam's." When she saw the place, she looked at Luke and with her evil laugh said, "OOooohhh Yeahhhh…. You know we're gonna get some roooom service here!!" I made a mental note to unplug the phone when we got to the room. These kids must not get out much because a hotel to them might as well be Disneyland. Especially one like that with all the shopping and food. We could take them on vacation to the Holiday Inn Express downtown and they'd be beside themselves with glee. Poor deprived children.

Mike and two other guys in his squadron did a fly-by for this little July 4th event there. We were out at my friend's pool waiting for them to fly over when we decided to go in for more drinks. Soon as we headed back out, we caught their tails. Katy had been lounging in the house. I said, "You missed the fly-by." Nintendo in hand, she goes, "I've seen 'em before." That was pretty much my sentiment, too. Funny that in our world, seeing some loud, fast F-16s zooming overhead in formation is really no biggie. I bet astronauts' wives don't see the big whoop, either.

The fireworks show over the lake was spectacular. Like nothing I have seen in years. People always ooh and ahh over them (as do I), but I always get all patriotic and emotional. I wonder how many people just see lights in the sky and don't consider what they mean. There you go. That was my softer side.

--------

Now back to my addiction. Hey, it's an addictionary! (Sorry, that was gay. Not in the homosexual sense, but its second definition which is, of course, lame.)

It just figures that as soon as I try to shake off the wordsmith fixation, Webster's comes out with its list of new words worthy of a dictionary entry. The AP says there are like 100 of them, but I can't find the complete list. Most of the ones I saw are boring anyway. I was surprised that edamame and soju weren't already in there. Love edamame. Not so big on soju. I think soju is something like grappa, which tastes like turpentine to me. Well, tastes like the smell of turpentine. Or maybe formaldehyde. Now there's a good word. Formaldehyde. Can you hear or read that word without picturing a big jar with something dead floating in it? I do like sake though. I mean the Japanese wine there. I had never heard of prosecco, probably because I don't like sparkling wine. When I saw the word, I thought of prosciutto and figured it was some sort of strange Italian raw pork product. Pescatarian is interesting. "Vegetarians" who eat fish. Because fish isn't meat? Because fish can count as fruit or vegetables? Do they include shellfish? What about amphibians? Do they eat frog legs, or is it a walking on land issue? I wouldn't mind being a pescatarian. Chicken and pig and cow meat really do sort of creep me out if I think about it. So I don't. All the grease and gristle, blood and bones and hormones. But I'm an unrepentant Texan carnivore. You just can't beat a good grilled medium rare ribeye. Of course fish have all the mercury and stink and eyeballs and scales. Not to mention they swim in their pee. I'd be a vegetarian if I could tolerate tofu, but who knows what the heck that stuff really is?

My favorite new Webster's word is mondegreen. It describes words mistaken for other words, like in phrases or lyrics. The examples they used are the classic ones; what I have always called Chronic Lyricosis: Like "There's a bathroom on the right" and "'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy." Then there's the word douche in Blinded by the Light which I have previously addressed perhaps ad nauseam here. I assume other frequently misspoken phrases fit the definition. Like: "At your beckon call," or "for all intensive purposes." Maybe I should start a list of mondegreens, or start inventing them.

That's it for now. I need to go get ready to watch the most dramatic (or is it romantic?) rose ceremony ever on the Bachelorette. I'm pulling for Jason. God help me.

Loose Ends

2008-07-02T12:51:00.004-05:00

I thought I'd better go ahead and post something before I leave town for the weekend. I'm taking the kids up to my mom's this afternoon. Then tomorrow morning we're going up to Fort Worth for a funeral. After that, we're driving to Houston. The next morning, we go to Lake Charles, Louisiana. I'm glad to know my OnStar works, but I don't intend to run out of gas again on this trip. I'm thinking this time, maybe it'll be a flat tire instead. Mike gets to take his jet directly to Louisiana. Bless his heart.

Don't you hate it when someone says they are going to funeral and just leave it at that? You start wondering, Who was it? What happened? Were you close? This is not unlike the situation when someone mentions that they had "minor surgery." You just know that when they don't elaborate, you probably don't want to hear about it. So the funeral is for my aunt Bonnie. She was my grandmother's sister. She was also my third grade teacher. I think she was in her late 90s. She was one of those who lived a nice long good life, never lost her mind, and never had any major physical problems. For someone who was almost 100. A few years ago, I caught her reading the obituaries. She said that's what old people do to keep up with their friends. She made me promise that if no one comes to her funeral, I have to announce that the low turnout is because all of her friends are dead.

I am looking forward to this little break. Work has been burning me out. Back in February or March, I posted a story about my experience with this pro bono veterans' event I went to and pretty much supervised. Well, because I am a moron and a masochist, and because no good deed goes unpunished, I took on several pro bono cases. Just out of the kindness of my heart, to put some good karma back out there in the world, and in hopes, of course, of signing up the good cases later for a fee. Since I lost my conscience in law school, you can bet that any philanthropic act on my part will someday benefit me one way or another, and I mean financially. One of my new pro bono clients had the nerve, the absolute gall (after I had put in a good four or five hours reviewing his file and writing an important letter for him for free) to ask me for an advance. As if: (1) I would ever do that, (2) I have the spare money to do that, (3) his direct deposit from the VA was coming in next week, or (4) if I am a sucker to give him free legal advice, I must just be a sucker in general. Needless to say, that file is now on my very back burner.

My new favorite song the past few weeks is Kid Rock's All Summer Long. It is this cool mixture of Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London and Lynyrd Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama. I like it even though he has some seriously lame lyric problems. Like he got high and drunk and scribbled some words down and recorded it before anyone sat him down and said hey, we can make this better. He rhymes the word things with the word things. But the worst offense is rhyming bottle with tomorrow. Regardless, I think it's a fun song.

I saw this painted on the side of the truck the other day: "Quality at it's best!" I had to sigh and roll my eyes. All I could think was, punctuation at its worst. I guess not everyone can care about apostrophe misuse the way I do.

I have a question. Why does everyone say "sherbert" when it is spelled and pronounced sherbet? There is only one R in it. I don't much care for sherbet anyway, but when people mispronounce it, I really have no use for that stuff at all.

A couple of French words that Americans can never say correctly: armoire and coup de grace. I don't mean that they should be pronounced with a French accent. That would be pompous. (No offense, Chris.) They should just be pronounced the French way, but in American. Armoire is not "Arm-wah" and coup de grace is not "Coo day Grah." The French do say the endings of some of their words. The bottom line with me is if you can't pronounce coup de grace, use some other phrase. I even saw it spelled somewhere like this: cou de gras, which I think kind of means neck of fat. Not really the meaning they were going for.

Ever since I started this silly word business, I get recommendations from friends and I'm always pulling out my little notepad to add words I hear everywhere. One day not long ago at an awards ceremony at Luke's school, this albino kid stood up to receive an award. I immediately pulled out my notepad and scribbled the word albino. Nothing against melanin-challenged people, I just like the word albino. Hey, there's one, melanin. Just like if I saw a little person, I might jot down midget. I wish I could stop this, because some of the good words have started repeating themselves. And I'm not about to keep track or start alphabetizing. I have a hard enough time keeping my spices in alphabetical order. So if any of you have any suggestions of things I might shift my focus to, I will be glad to consider them. In the meantime, here you go:

tryst, brandish, rakish, rancid, putrid, heinous, esperanza, Esperanto, myriad, grandiose, palindrome, rebus, anagram, algorithm, thwart, zilch, squelch, nada, akimbo, charisma, chimera, alchemy, adrenalin, albumin, acumen, geode, obsidian, abyssinian, onyx, minx, manx, calamity, squander.

My friend Kathy recommended crotchety. That word is both descriptive and nasty. It has the word crotch in it, and it usually refers to an old person. And that's just wrong. As in, "The octogenarian pole dancer was crotchety."

Words that irritate me for no particular reason: scrumptious, copasetic, simpatico, kibosh.

That's all for now. My cleaning people are here, so I need to get out of their way. Maybe I'll get the oil changed, have the tires checked, fill up with gas, and of course, get some cash to blow at the casino.

More School of Rock?

2008-06-21T21:12:00.004-05:00

But first, revenge of the words:

taxidermy, juxtapose, kabuki, sumo, torso, swami, patina, guru, diorama, rubbish, lackadaisical, typhoon, tsunami, czar, libation, scavenger, cryptic, Argonaut, Minerva, Agamemnon, and most other names from Greek and Roman mythology. I especially like Sisyphus because I know how he felt. That's not to be confused with syphilis, which is also a fun word to say, but I'm proud to say I don't know how that feels. And while we're on the subject, the same goes for gonorrhea and chlamydia—fun to say, but probably not fun to have.

Another old-person word that bothers me: whatnot.

I had to go ahead and post something new so I could start to bury the political stuff which I find less amusing than mindlessness.

Here's a smattering of band names I ran across recently in the San Antonio newspaper: Religious Vomit, Pain Filled Silence, Brass Knuckle Betties, Anal Blast, Blood Stain Carpet, Ballgag, Cancer Whore, Engaged In Mutilating, Psychiatric Regurgitation, Eviscerated, Our Corpse Destroyed, Liferuiner, A Well Thought Tragedy, Malefactor, Drowning Mona, and Chemical Warfare. My favorite is definitely Pain Filled Silence because I can understand that one. The others make me feel pretty good about myself and my mental health. Religious Vomit has a nice ring to it, though. Anal Blast reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live commercial Phil Hartman did for Colon Blow cereal. I can't wait till my kids start driving and take off in the car at midnight with a bunch of androgynous Goth friends to go catch some wholesome undead entertainment. Anal Blast opening for Blood Stain Carpet. Gives you quite a visual there, huh? I remember when Texas' own Butthole Surfers started out back in the early 80s. Apparently, they are still touring. And why wouldn't they, with a classic name like that? There is also a band called the Tex Pistols. Now there's one I may actually go see. It sounds like they might go easy on the performance-art bloodletting and maybe offer up a slightly less intense fear of being disemboweled and tossed into a dumpster in the dive bar's back alley. Does this mean I'm old? Maybe bands with scary names existed back when I was in high school and college, but all I remember are words like sunshine, furs, bunnymen, seagulls, buggles, and bangles. I guess we had Megadeth, Slayer, and Poison, to name a few. Maybe the underground bands of the 80s and early 90s probably with names like Ecstasy Hosebag, Bonesucker, Sorority Gangbang, or Gag Me With a Trailer Hitch just didn't make it. (I bet those could be real band names. I should Google them just to see, but I have to draw the line somewhere in my quest for better time management. That, and the quest for meaning in my so-called life.)

Speaking of time management, I have just been summoned to our neighbors' hot tub. Probably because they ran out of wine and need me to bring some over. And what kind of neighbor would I be if I didn't oblige?

More fun crap later.

Soapboxing

2008-06-20T10:54:00.004-05:00

If you want to see what a flaming liberal I can be, don't miss my take on gay marriage in the comments to my last post. My friend Chris -- ever the thorn in my side, the gnat in my ear, the yapping Chihuahua at my feet, and the turd in my punchbowl -- forced me to offer a vitriolic and vehement response to one of his well-researched yet highly disingenuous diatribes. Now I need to get back to making a gay pride banner and applying a rainbow sticker to my car before I go get myself a butch haircut and some new flannel shirts, a big man watch, and hiking boots. Maybe then I can more readily find a partner to help me destroy the fabric of this apple-pie Leave-it-to-Beaver (no pun intended) society. I don't want to start any big brouhaha here, but if someone can change my mind with a reasoned, non-religious answer, I will eat ... my words.

Scraps of Crap, Chunks of Junk & Bits of Wit from the Sea of Debris

2008-06-17T23:43:00.005-05:00

"I love the smell of french fries in the afternoon!" Katy said that today after we drove through Chick-Fil-A. She must've heard a similar quote in some kids' TV show or movie. She was serious and had no idea why I thought it was funny. I thought about explaining the original "Napalm in the morning" quote from Apocalypse Now, but blew it off.

****

I'm having a hard time with Tim Russert's death. I won't bother saying everything everyone else has already said about him. I knew this election was going to suck, but in his absence it will suck without enthusiasm. I hate curveballs like this. When Harvey Korman died a few weeks ago, I observed a personal moment of silence, and then moved on after making a mental note to watch Blazing Saddles again soon. Harvey was old. He was supposed to die. We all know that God can push his smite button at any time, but we never cease to be shocked and feel cheated when it happens to someone we come to depend on, someone who really wasn't done with all the things they (and we) thought they needed to do. This reminds me, I should really get my affairs in order.

****

Here's a quote from an E-mail I just received from my sister:

Okay, better go get on with another great dog day of summer and oh the joy it brings me to hear my children with soft voices of angels chirping in my ear almost in unison, "Mom, I'm bored." It is music to my worn out, beat down, frazzled ears. It lifts me up and gives me a second wind to keep going, keep trudging on in the vast jungle of motherhood. Oh the rewards of being a mother. Just knowing that in all my sacrifice, all the debt we go into, just to provide them with another Webkin, every ounce of weight I have packed on to this tired and weary body, every varicose vein, stretch mark and C-section scar, my dark roots from not having a minute to make a hair appointment, my crooked back, my permanent cricked neck, my unshaved legs, and unflossed teeth. All so I can see these sweet, adorable faces look at me and say with heartfelt emotion, "I'm bored." I must say, these are the little gems I never bargained for that dreadful night of conception.

I hope she'll continue to allow me to quote her. She has such a poetic way of summing everything up. In fact, anything original that anyone sends me will be showcased here if it makes me laugh out loud. Sure, I'm easily amused. But that will just increase your chances of publication.

****

I haven't been able to remember most of my dreams lately, and the ones I do remember are not often appropriate for sharing. But last night I dreamt I saved Luke from a bear. This is no doubt because on Sunday, he left for Boy Scout camp for a week. He has never been away from home this long. He's only 11. It's just Tuesday and I can already feel my anxiety mounting. I forgot to put a helmet on him and cover him with bubble wrap before he left. Who will put sunscreen on him? Who will cut his fingernails? Who will tell him to brush his teeth, comb his hair, blow his nose, and change his underwear?

In my dream, this huge black bear tackled me from behind. His paws left puncture wounds in my shoulders. I then made sure to show the scars to everyone I encountered. I love how dreams can gather such a random assortment of people in one place. I saw friends from high school, a college boyfriend, James Carville (or someone equally scary-looking, like Alan Colmes), Haley Joel Osment (the "I see dead people" kid), and the professor from Gilligan's Island. I think Mary Ann may have been there, too. Did I expose my injuries so people would see how brave I was? So people would feel sorry for me? Is this a symptom of my open-book life? Sharing too much in my ongoing effort to feel connected and force that connection upon others? If I found myself interesting enough, I might delve further into this topic. Fortunately for both of us, I find self-introspection somewhat counterproductive, and in my case, paradoxically, both scary and slumber-inducing.

****

Another event to add to the list of deployment-related mishaps: Katy managed to lose her $800 neon-pink retainer. We know that it went missing at a friend's house. I'm sure it will turn up now that it has been replaced at the discounted cost of $350. The new, improved retainer glows in the dark. This will make it easy to find next time it gets lost. At night. I am a little nervous about my daughter going around with something glow-in-the-dark in her mouth. Have they tested these retainers on mice? If the old retainer does show up, it better be in their dog's poop, mangled in the garbage disposal, run over in the driveway, or in some other nasty place that would have still demanded replacement.

****

Some more words that are fun to say: mausoleum, vanquish, parabola, trapezoid, rhombus, parallelogram, albino, sycophant, tureen, ratatouille, bouillabaisse, gazpacho, Tigris, Euphrates, Madagascar, Burma, Persia, Polynesia, Micronesia, amnesia, Saskatchewan, Timbuktu.

A couple of old-people words that bother me: high-falutin' and malarkey. Malarkey is kind of like cockamamie which is already on the list. I think malarkey can be cockamamie, but not vice versa. And high-falutin' -- what is falutin' anyway? Did it start out as faluting before those mispronouncin' low-faluters got a hold of it? I'm sure I could look into the etymology (not to be confused with entomology) of this word, but contrary to what my readers might think, I do have a life here.

****

So gay people can get married now in California. Can someone please give me a satisfactory explanation as to how this threatens every heterosexual marriage? Haven't the straight people screwed up the institution well enough? I wouldn't be surprised if the gays set a good example of monogamy and fidelity for the rest of us. Hell, they are the ones who want to make their monogamy official. Sure, this may hurt an intolerant person's sensibilities, but isn't that the bigot's problem? What if all blue-eyed people got to eat spaghetti, but it was illegal for all brown-eyed people to eat it? What if all diabetics could go to the bowling alley, but it was illegal for all hypoglycemics? What if people with freckles could drive cars, but people with birth defects had to use tricycles? What if men could vote, but women couldn't? What if people with white skin could sit at the front of the bus, but people born with brown skin had to sit at the back?

****

One quick gardening tip: Don't use a big Weed-Eater in a small garden.

****

Sometimes I forget that this dictation software I use tries to pick up everything that comes out of my mouth. I have been listening to the Counting Crows radio station I created with Pandora. I just found myself singing one of my favorite songs, Train's Meet Virginia. I just had to delete an entire paragraph of gibberish and put the microphone on pause while I sang the rest of the song.

****

One more quick story before I go to bed. First, you have to understand that one of my missions in life is to irritate and/or embarrass my father-in-law at every opportunity. Like the time he picked me up at the airport one pre-9/11 October 31. I think it must have been in 2000. He had been waiting at the gate, bragging to a friend about his intelligent and attractive daughter-in-law, looking forward to introducing me. So here I come with my perennial Halloween Bubba teeth protruding from my mouth. He was sufficiently humiliated, and we all got a good laugh out of it. Now, as you may be aware, I have a reputation for taking any inappropriate or crude reference that someone might make and pushing it right over the edge. I pride myself on my ability to take something that is merely in poor taste and turn it into something obscenely vulgar. It is the only form of one upmanship that I have ever been able to engage in successfully. So my in-laws were in town a couple of weeks ago. They took me and the kids out to dinner. We were planning the yard work for the next day. My father-in-law asked, "Who is going to hoe the garden?" When he said the word hoe, he looked at me as if to say, "Please don't make any references." Katy helpfully reminded us that there was already a hose in the garden. He explained to her what a hoe was, and again gave me that look. So of course I said, "I'll be the hoer. I'm a little out of practice, but I used to be pretty good at it." He shook his head, thinking, "I knew it, there she goes…" So he said to me, "Jill … I'm gonna have to spank you when we get home." Poor choice of words on his part. He had to leave the table momentarily after I responded, "I charge $20 extra for that."

Mental Floss

2008-06-09T01:32:00.011-05:00

I didn't come up with that phrase. I saw it somewhere, but I don't know who to give the credit to.

It's 11:45 on a Sunday night. I should be asleep or working on the reply brief I need to finish by Friday. I have the brief in my head; I just need to put it on paper. As my boss back in West Texas used to say, I have 'em by the short hairs. But I can't really say it that way in the brief. I've had a long, busy weekend, and I'm not about to start working now. So I'm giving myself 30 minutes to offload some mental clutter.

I took the kids up to see my mom in Hico. On the way, I spent way too much money on flea market junk, but I figure I was making up for lost time. I love to see my mother so busy and so happy with her life as it is now. But that town ... I could (and should) write a screenplay. I need to tell you some stories about that place, but it deserves an entirely separate post. We met a friend of my mom's for dinner Friday night at this little Mexican restaurant. I was mesmerized by a "family" that took over a couple of tables next to us. It included two sweaty, morbidly obese, braless women in threadbare NASCAR T-shirts with their toothless meth/mullet-headed husbands/boyfriends along with a brood of unfortunate children who were obviously not fathered by the Caucasian cretins who were ignoring them. These folks proceeded to light up cigarettes and smoke as they ate their nachos and bitched at each other. (Who smokes and eats at the same time?) Hey, far be it from me to judge, but I'm just saying. I'm certainly not the most classy person, but I just can't help but stare at small-town trash and pity all their babies.

Last night, my mom asked me if I had ever seen the movie Elizabeth- town. She was mortified when I told her that I had not. After she recovered from the shocking disbelief, she said, "Well then you have to watch it." So she pulled it out of her DVD library. I think it was stuck somewhere between Breakfast at Tiffany's and Saving Silverman. Elizabethtown came out in 2005. That was kind of a bad year for me. And 2006 was worse. 2007 was spent recovering from the previous two years, and I don't think I had yet realized that it is now 2008. So that's why I missed Elizabethtown. It is now my new favorite movie. And Orlando Bloom has officially kicked Matthew McConaughey out of my list of five. What's really scary now is -- I'm afraid Orlando is also on my mom's list, and that she may have a better shot at him than I do.

Today, I ran out of gas on my drive home. That OnStar account comes in handy every once in a while. So that took a good hour and a half out of my afternoon. The guy who came to give me some gas didn't take credit cards, and I of course had no more cash. After he poured a few dollars' worth into my tank and then had to jump my battery, he followed me to a gas station so I could fill up his truck with diesel as payment. Sure, I should've known better and stopped for gas before the low fuel alarm started beeping at me. But I kept looking at the "fuel used" numbers along with the trip odometer, and then relied on my own bad math. I figured I could make it to Johnson City, and there perhaps, find gas that was maybe two cents per gallon cheaper. This is what happens when you are both a cheapskate and a moron with two grumpy children and a thirsty dog on a road trip in June in Texas when it is 98° at 3:30 in the afternoon. Needless to say, we were all glad when we finally got home.

I didn't mind waiting almost an hour for my automotive savior to arrive. We had just picked up a healthy late lunch at Taco Bell. There is really nothing better than eating tacos in a hot car on the shoulder of a busy highway. And both kids had an opportunity to pee outside, which is always quite an adventure for them. I needed to go too, but I didn't, as I was afraid that the gas can guy would show up just as I got comfortable squatting over the weeds with my two giggling children shielding me from late afternoon traffic. Besides, I had something to distract me while we waited. You see, the new David Sedaris book came out last week. Had I not pre-ordered it on Amazon, I would have had to camp out at Barnes & Noble the night before. I picked up my mail before we left town on Friday. As fate would have it, there amongst the junk mail, the bills, and various meaningless envelopes from the VA, was the package I had been waiting for. His latest book is called When You are Engulfed in Flames. Normally, it takes me a good year and a half to read a 200-page book. Well, I'll have you know, in less than two days, I am already on page 202. As the kids and I (along with our healthy dog Buzz) sat waiting in the hot SUV, I immersed myself in the book I had been anticipating since last fall when the object of my literary obsession came to town to read selections from this latest oeuvre. The kids finally stopped asking what I was laughing at and went about their bickering without my interference.

More about Sedaris later. I only have about 100 pages to go. Look for my review in late 2009.

A few years ago, I used to get fluoroscopic steroid injections in my lower back in hopes of relieving my constant left-butt-cheek sciatic pain. Part of this process involved intravenous Fentanyl. Afterward, I would always feel like my brain had been to a spa. Like they took it and shook it out and pressure-washed all the creases and cleared out all the debris. I'd get a clean slate. A good kind of amnesia. It was as if my brain had been treated to an aromatherapy massage and bathed in a mineral water whirlpool. Yep, that Fentanyl was some good stuff. It worked great. Too bad the steroid shots never did. Now that I can't get a good Fent fix every few months, I have to clean the dirt from my mind manually from the outside, pulling stuff through the tips of my fingers to the keyboard, not unlike the way Chopin would create a musical masterpiece. Except my stuff isn't musical, and masterpiece would be a bit of a stretch.

So ... I just now got to the point where I was going to list all my latest random thoughts, all the snippets too small to build a story around, but too big to dump or to keep in my head. This blog has become not only a public diary, but the closest thing to Fentanyl that I can find without risking a drug trafficking charge.

Here are just two of the bits and pieces from the lost and found in my cluttered mind:

I recently found out that Peter Cottontail and the Easter Bunny are one in the same, thanks to my sister-in-law. We were at my in-laws' for Easter. Joellen told the kids that Peter Cottontail had been there. I was all like, "What? Don't you mean the Easter Bunny was here?" She practically grabbed me by the shoulders like I was someone who needed an intervention, and said, "Jill, 'Here comes Peter Cottontail, hoppin' down the bunny trail, hippity, hoppity, Easter's on its way.' Does this ring a bell with you?" I wanted to say that I didn't think Beatrix Potter saw her Peter Cottontail as the Easter Bunny, but who was I to argue when it says it right there in that song?

The following is a conversation I had with my daughter just yesterday:

Katy: "What's that?"
Me: (In one of my rare attempts at being discreet) "It's a feminine product."
Katy: "Oh... like, 'I'm not a chick; I'm a woman.' That kind of feminist product?"

God, I love that girl.

"Smells Like Brownies" or How to Spend $600 After Almost Killing Your Dog

2008-06-05T10:56:00.010-05:00

First, a little bit of background. Our dog Buzz is a 50 pound Australian Shepherd mix. We think he's about Katy's age, so that would make him 7 or 8. He was named after Buzz Lightyear, but we didn't do that. He came with that name when we adopted him 6 years ago from the local no-kill animal shelter. We decided to go for a mutt this time, seeing as how Buzz's two predecessors (one disobedient inbred AKC-papered Lab after another) brought us nothing but grief.

Our first dog, Boo Radley, was a 100-plus pound black Lab, who found it necessary to bust through our fence and get hit by a truck on the highway before he reached the age of two. His remains are supposedly resting comfortably in a pet cemetery in Lubbock, Texas.

Our second dog was a yellow Lab named Rex. Soon after we brought him home, at the age of about eight weeks (even though his parents were what they call "hip-certified"), one of his hips popped out of joint. The vet said it was the worst case of hip dysplasia he had ever seen. After losing Boo, we were not about to give up on another dog. (Mind you, this was before we had kids, so we had no perspective about how the value of an animal's life declines once you have a human child's life to value.) So of course we took Rex to an orthopedic vet in Austin who charged us about $3500 to fashion and install some new and improved titanium bionic hips. Not long after Rex healed up, he used those damn hips to run away from us at every opportunity. As soon as we would let him out of the house, he did nothing but try to dig under the 6-foot fence, climb over it, gnaw his way through the wood, or tear away enough boards to squeeze through. The puppy Prozac we dosed him with did nothing to make him realize that he owed his powers of locomotion to us, not to mention his life. The electric fence wire we installed acted as more of a challenge than a deterrent. Then he would simply howl as he gnawed at the fence with a mouth full of splinters, leaving his signature bloodstains behind. Anyway, after the kids came along, Rex took a back seat and was none too pleased with the lack of attention. When Katy was a baby, right before we left New Mexico, I had occasion to meet quite a few of our neighbors when they would return Rex to our door thinking they were doing us a favor. Most of them would say, "You missing a dog?" "Not really," I would always say, "but thanks anyway." After we moved, I tried to give Rex away, but I forgot to include a no return policy. It wasn't long before they brought him back. The next time I gave him away, I did it while the kids and I were staying at my parents' house. I removed his tags, left no forwarding address, and promptly took off. If Rex were still alive, which he surely isn't, he would be almost 14 years old. I only know this because he was born the night that O.J. Simpson got away with murder. I'm sure Rex's remains amount to nothing more than a couple of titanium hips that some Boy Scouts will find one day while hiking through the woods of East Texas.

This brings us to dog number three. Katy was two years old when we went to pick out a dog. She was terrified of every one we put it in front of her. We were about to give up when they told us, "Well...there is one more dog you might consider." They told us Buzz had been there for about two years and no one wanted him because he was so standoffish. (And I think also because he has one brown eye and one blue eye, so people thought he was either defective, vicious, or just hard to make eye contact -- and therefore communicate -- with.) As soon as we put Katy on the ground, she ran up to him, put her arms around his neck, and said, "This is my dog." Mike and I looked at each other uneasily, asked if there was a return policy, and decided to give him a try. When we brought home, he was terrified. He acted as if he had never set foot on carpet before. He rejected treats as if he felt unworthy of them. It was obvious that he had been abused. (To this day, he trembles at the sound of gunshots or fireworks, and at the sight of -- of all things -- fishing poles.) So it took a while for him to warm up to people. But since then, he has been the perfect pet. He rarely barks; he's not a crotch-sniffer; he doesn't chew on things; and he's too smart to run away. He usually curls up in a corner and sleeps most of the day. The only problems we have had (aside from the time he brought me a bloody headless rabbit carcass), have been his odd habit of throwing up in Katy's bed, and the few times he has found it necessary to leave a big dump in Luke's floor. We have solved that problem simply by shutting the kids' doors every time we leave the house.

So here's the story of how I almost killed Buzz.

In accordance with the obscure Murphy's Law for military wives, Uniform Code of Military Injustice § 13.666, events such as this are required to take place during every deployment of any duration. This code section mandates the following:

(a) Each child must suffer from a stomach bug or flulike symptoms over the course of at least two consecutive weeks;

(b) Some sort of kitchen mishap is required to occur; (In my case it was a dripping faucet and replacement thereof.);

(c) At least one large appliance must malfunction; (Here, it was a water-heater-overflow incident and its attendant $100-extra water bill.); and

(d) One more dramatic and costly event caused by any seemingly innocuous act that in hindsight appears to be quite negligent must occur.

My military-wife friends can rest assured that I will now be working tirelessly to repeal this archaic law just as soon as I return from an extended spa vacation that I plan on taking not long after Mike's jet lands anywhere in the contiguous United States.

At the end of every school year, I put together these big plastic bins with goodies for teacher gifts. So there were four open bins sitting on our dining room floor. They were filled with things like beach towels, bath products, lotion, candles, sunscreen, cookies, notepads, pens, and anything else a hard-working teacher might enjoy for the summer, including an oversize bar of expensive dark chocolate.

Last Tuesday night at about 5:30, I took Luke to his Boy Scout meeting. He was going to ride home with a friend. Katy and I came home at about 7:00. I went about my business, watering plants and tending to the garden like the dutiful, longsuffering military wife that I am. Katy soon noticed some wrappers in the guest room floor. My first thought, of course, was that one of the kids must have left some food trash out and Buzz got into it. When I took a closer look and saw that these were wrappers from the chocolate bars, I freaked out. The bins looked untouched. It was as if someone had broken in and handed the bars to him, or he grew thumbs and found a way to dig those out and pick them up (all four of them) while leaving everything else undisturbed. I never in a million years would have imagined that he would (much less could) do such a thing. He did not seem the least bit ill, and if Katy had not found the wrappers, we may not have realized that this had happened that night until he probably would have tossed it up in Katy's bed or left a pile of chocolatey diarrhea in Luke's floor.

I immediately called the emergency vet. They gave me an 800 number for a pet poison control advice line and told me I needed to follow their instructions first before bringing him in. After sitting on hold with them a little bit longer than forever, a veterinarian answered the phone, and, after asking what the problem was, told me that there was a $60 charge for their service. So of course I gave her my credit card number so I could get information that I probably could have Googled myself if I hadn't been in such a panic. She told me that the amount of chocolate he ate for his weight was probably less than half the dose that definitely would be lethal. But I certainly wasn't going to take any chances. She told me to give him three tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide to induce vomiting. She said that he should vomit in about 10 to 15 minutes. Well, Katy and I got tired of waiting for him to throw up. I even gave him more peroxide, and stuck my finger down his throat. After all the vomiting this dog has done, I never dreamed that I would want to see him hurl as much as I wanted to see him hurl that night. I even went so far as to consider guiding him to Katy's bed where he would feel most comfortable about puking -- but I didn't. I decided to go ahead and start heading for the emergency vet hospital. Katy and I lined the back seat with towels and hit the road. (Now that I know how much he threw up, I'm glad he waited until we got to the hospital.)

We got there at about 8:30. The clerk and the technicians seemed pretty nonchalant about the whole thing, as if dogs overdose on chocolate all the time and they always see overreacting owners. Well, as I checked him in, they informed me that there was a $300 charge just for walking in the door. What was I going to do? Say "Oh, well then, nevermind," and leave? They took him to the back to check his vitals and do whatever they needed to do. I was shaking and terrified. I was kicking myself and feeling a horrible mixture of guilt and fear, not unlike what I felt when Luke had his motorcycle accident. I was getting that anxiety attack sort of post-traumatic stress feeling that I get every time I see an air-evac helicopter. My head was spinning, and I thought I would be the one to throw up first. I kept it together for Katy's sake, but she was absolutely amazing. This girl is an incredible little human being. Right at first, when we discovered what had happened, she panicked and started crying, but as we rode to the hospital, and as we sat in the waiting room, she was all smiles, perfectly calm, and reassuring me. She said, "Mom, I know he's going to be fine. I feel it in my soul. Buzz and I are like this." She held up her twisted fingers then gave me a big hug. I wasn't sure I believed it at the time, but turns out she was absolutely right.

After we had waited for about an hour, they said he still hadn't thrown up. I started raising hell when I realized that they hadn't given him anything else to induce vomiting, and had just been observing him all that time. I insisted that they make him throw up immediately, because obviously I had not given him enough peroxide, and the caffeine and toxins had been in his system now for probably about three hours. The vet told me that chocolate camps out in their stomach for a long time and does not travel into their intestines and into their systems for several hours. I said, "I don't care; I paid $300 to walk through the frickin' door. The least you can do is make my dog puke!" After another half hour or so, I sent the receptionist back to check on him. Apparently, as soon as they gave him some injection, he barfed all over his kennel. They said it looked like gallons of chocolate syrup. The receptionist came back smiling and laughing. I thought, well that's a good sign. She said that somebody came in there without seeing what had happened and said, "Smells like brownies. Who brought the brownies? Where are they?" The vet and another tech confirmed this story later and said that it indeed smelled like someone had just baked a fresh batch.

So at this point, they told me they needed to give Buzz some IV fluids, some activated charcoal, and monitor his heart rate. Overnight. The vet said that his heart rate was a little elevated (about 140 when 100 is normal) when we first came in. I told her that his heart rate always goes up when we bring him to a vet or kennel or even to the groomer. I explained that he's a bit skittish and shaky even in non-emergent situations. After he vomited, she said his heart rate had gone to 180. I said "Well, maybe that's because he just upchucked. Or is it because y'all let the caffeine and toxins stay in his system for an hour longer than they should have?" She said that in terms of absorption time, we brought him in very early, and considering how much he threw up, and that he hadn't had any diarrhea, the majority of it had not hit his intestines and spread to his system. I said, "Then it should be safe to bring him home, right?" She said that there was no way we would be able to replace his fluids with just water at home, and that she would be uneasy about letting him go without monitoring his heart rate for a few more hours. Of course she said that if it were her dog, she would leave him there. (I thought, well yeah, you work here, hello?) So she brought him in to the little examining room to see us, where he seemed perfectly fine, wagging his little nub of a tail, a little bit shaky, because of course he was in a veterinary hospital. Katy and I gave him lots of hugs and kisses and told him we would be back early in the morning.

So Katy and I got home at about 11:30 that night. Luke ended up spending the night with his friend and wearing his friend's clothes to school the next day. We had to pick Buzz up before 8:00 the next morning, so Katy and I got up and left a little bit after 6:00 a.m. Wednesday. Of course, they said he did fine all night, his heart rate got back to normal and he didn't have any diarrhea, which was a great sign. The only problem was that he would not urinate for them even though they knew he was full of fluid. I told them that he could hold it for days and that he doesn't like to pee when he's nervous or on a leash or when anyone is watching. The final bill for the pet E/R came to about $400. Honestly, I thought it would've been a lot more. They had faxed his records to our vet, and told me that he needed to finish his IV bag there. I wanted to just bring him on home, but then again, there I was with this IV bag and thinking well, I really would like for our own vet to make sure he's okay. Plus he still had the IV cath port in his leg that I wasn't about to try to pull out at home.

So I took Buzz directly to our vet's office. When I left him there, I thought it would just be for a few hours so he could finish the fluids and for the doctor to look at him. I took Katy on to school, got her there on time, then ran by Luke's school to bring him his yearbook for signing that day and to reassure him that Buzz was okay. Then I went home and tried to pretend it was a normal day.

Buzz ended up spending most of the day at the vet under "observation." The doctor did some sort of test and decided to flush him with one more IV bag. He said it took that dog forever to finally pee, but when he did he peed forever. They were able to get him to eat and then make sure that he didn't have any diarrhea. So I guess that extra day of vet care was worth the $130 I was popped with. Doesn't everyone want to pay $130 to know that their dog doesn't have diarrhea? Really, a bargain at twice the price.

So other than a shaved ankle, Buzz appears none the worse for wear. I just recently emerged from self-flagellation mode. Katy just smiles and says, "I told you so, Mama. He's fine." I can't wait to get a flashback when the bill comes so I can pay the $600 those damn candy bars cost me. If Mike had been here, one of us probably would have been home and this never would have happened. So really, I should blame him for being off in Iraq. Come to think of it, this is really George Bush's fault. Good thing he's sending us that tax rebate.

Sorry About the Impromptu Sabbatical

2008-05-31T22:03:00.004-05:00

Like how I employed two more words for our list there? Guess which ones they are.

To make up for my extended absence, I am offering the following two posts to fill the aching void that I carelessly created in your fragile souls. Far be it from me to continue to allow the threat of irreparable harm to your flailing spirits. It's a Saturday night. Luke is at Boy Scout camp for the weekend; Katy is at a sleepover; and Mike is out of the continent. I should be out with girlfriends tonight watching the Sex and the City movie, and maybe later getting free drinks at a bar when we make up a story that we're having a combination divorce/bachelorette party without ever telling who the lucky/unlucky girls are. I honestly have never tried this idea, but I have no doubt that it would serve its intended purpose quite well. But what am I doing on this Saturday night? Reveling in my solitude. Doing what I want to do most. Enjoying a glass of wine and writing without interruption. Do I need to get a life? Nope. This is my life. So sit back and relax because you are in for a treat the likes of which you probably have not seen since Nightmare on Elm Street.

First, here are some more words for you to chew on or spit out:

eschew, colloquy, excoriate (those are recent suggestions from my friend Chris --much more acceptable than his usual prissy offerings),

scofflaw, dilettante, peccadillo, quandary, wombat, wallaby, pandemonium, nebulous, paltry, pablum, hyoid, clavicle, patella, scapula, spatula, bellicose, obsequious,--

obsequious reminds me of a very special song from Steve Martin's Let's Get Small. He calls it Grandmother's Song. I've mentioned it here before. It is just so heartfelt and poignant, especially in these stressful times. I could just offer you a link to these lyrics and let you know that you can actually download this song from iTunes, but in my effort to both improve your life as well as contribute to the betterment of the universe as a whole, I am reprinting most of the lyrics right here:

Be courteous, kind and forgiving, Be gentle and peaceful each day, Be warm and human and grateful, And have a good thing to say.

Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike, Be witty and happy and wise, Be honest and love all your neighbors, Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant.

Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus, Be dull, and boring, and omnipresent, Criticize things you don't know about, Be oblong and have your knees removed.

Be tasteless, rude, and offensive, Live in a swamp and be three dimensional, Put a live chicken in your underwear, Get all excited and go to a yawning festival.

I know, it's silly. And it did seem a lot funnier back when I was doing more drugs than I do now. My favorite line of course is "Criticize things you don't know about." I certainly never do that, but I know a lot of people who do.

Here are a few of my favorite Spanish words which are pretty much an integral part of San Antonio parlance: cojones, loco, mijo, mija, and corazon. There are a bunch more, but most of them can be found on any good Mexican restaurant menu. (That reminds me, I think I'll have a margarita.) In this town where every other radio station is either Spanish or Tejano, I cannot escape earshot of the word corazon. Trust me, in this town you are destined to hear that word somewhere. Either at a restaurant, a car repair shop, a convenience store, when the hotel cleaning people come around, or most likely, at a construction site. I am doubly cursed because when I'm in the car and not out in public where I am subjected to other people's preferences, I can change the station from the steering wheel, so I'm constantly looking for the next good song. Even though the radio is set to go only to my favorite stations, somehow corazon still hits me, one way or another, at least once a day. They sure like to sing about their hearts. I guess we gringos do too.

Stay tuned for my next post about how I almost killed our dog. I can laugh about it now.