The Bigger They Get

This was yesterday.  You should SEE the pile now.

The movers are coming at 8 a.m. on Tuesday.  I still have to pack my office, the kitchen, and my bedroom, but I had to take tonight off.  The need for a break became embarrassingly apparent when I asked for a box of “chocolate nuggets” at the Dunkin Donuts drivethru and then, at home, wandered aimlessly around for 45 minutes mumbling where’s my tape gun over and over and over.  It was in my hand.

Speaking of over, this can’t be over soon enough.

Also, you find some weird stuff when you move.  After Son One moved out the other day, I began loading a box of stuff he forgot.  It looked like this:

Yes, that’s a sword.  I’m going to have to take it to him because taking it home on the bus might be problematic for him.  And since we’re just about to buy a house, bailing him out would be out of the question.

Wish us luck finishing up tomorrow.  We’re going to need it!

We got the house.  Yay!

4 Shopping Days Left.  Have not started.

24 Packing Days Left.  Have not started.

0 time left until panic sets in.

I’m one for three…

Lately there’s an awful lot of signaling going on.  The Fed signals this, the Treasury signals that.  The President signals something or other and I’m all like, for pete’s sake, if you have something to say, just come out and say it, will ya?

And then our house signaled.  The holding tank on the heater said pfffffttttt, SPLASH.  Then the porch light committed suicide.  Just fell right off the wall.  No wind, no rain, nothing.  Just PLUNK, like the house knows we’re trying to sell it and it’s MAD.  And NOW I’m all like, jeez, just keep it to yourself, will ya?

Because if the house were to “come right out and say it”, I have a feeling things could get UGLY.

It was the best most aggravating of times, it was the worst of times.

The feast was good if I do say so myself.  Maybe that’s because I’ve had so much practice cooking it. Each and every year.  Forever and ever, amen.

Our house guest, who arrived last Monday, left this morning.

House Guest, my nearly 70 year old bachelor uncle, comes every year for a week at Thanksgiving.  House Guest was married for a short time during the 1960′s (I’m not sure how much of it he remembers, not because he’s old but because it was, well, the ’60′s and he was, after all, a hippie).  He pretty much stayed in school until he was forty, at which time he got a real job.  He retired six years ago.  When he retired, he bought his first home out west.  Prior to that, House Guest had rented a small apartment, so home ownership has been a real eye opener for him.  He never had children.  He is socially awkward.  He is curmudgeonly.  He is highly intelligent and WAY educated which he feels obligates him to impart wisdom, little of which is based on real life experience, ALL. THE. DAMN. TIME.

He tells me how to raise my kids.

He demands to see my electric bill so he can evaluate our kilowatt usage (we squander electricity).

He teases the kids.  He gives them advice.

He teases the dogs.  He gives them a bowl of wine.

He tries to give the dogs peppercorns.  I stop him just in time.

He tells me that reading fiction is a waste of time because “it’s all made up”.  I should be reading HISTORY and learning something, he says.  He is also intellectually snobby about movies.  Entertainment for the sake of entertainment is a waste of time.

He doesn’t own a TV, yet he spends quite a bit of time in front of ours, watching avidly while complaining about how insipid and uninspiring TV is to the point where he DOTH protest TOO MUCH, you know?

After Yes,Dear strips the turkey and refrigerates the leftovers, House Guest attacks the carcass muttering about “wasting perfectly good food”.  He strips off another pound or so of what he calls “meat” and what I would refer to as OFFAL.  I freeze it to discard after he leaves.

He complains about my driving.  Constantly.  In an annoying, passive-aggressive way.

He is a reformed smoker who keeps telling me that cigarettes are going to kill me.  What he doesn’t know is that I’m smoking like crazy, praying they’ll kill me before he tells me that again.

Yet I love him.  He’s family.  So we grin and bear it as I’m sure he does, being that he lives alone all year with the exception of this one week, which I’m sure probably makes him very glad to go home and live alone for another year.

I try to plan ahead for his visits.  We schedule some entertaining (but not time wasting) outings.  Sometimes it’s a movie, always it’s a trip to a local museum, and usually an afternoon in a book store.

This year, we went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art where we saw a beautiful exhibit of quilts from Gee’s Bend, GA, an exhibit of soot and spit art that was really interesting, a landscape exhibit that was disappointing although if you’re partial to Elvis on Velvet you might enjoy it.  We visited the Modern & Contemporary Art exhibit hall.  Meh.

I did learn something interesting though, which made the trip totally worthwhile:

Apparently a few hundred years and several lives ago, my mother in law was a child model.  The resemblance is uncanny, as is the disapproving expression:

Hey, Steenky Bee, are you behind this or was it Dooce?

“A pole dancing studio in Salt Lake City has become part of a worldwide movement to get pole dancing considered as an Olympic sport for the 2012 Games in London, KUTV reported Friday.”

I’d totally think it was Dooce, but she’s preggers which will soon make practicing difficult (not to mention unattractive) and, honestly, it sounds totally like something you would do…

Measurable snow before Thanksgiving?

Crap.

And I just have to say something about this:  According to People.com, Ashlee Simpson-Wentz had an Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland-themed wedding, a Winnie the Pooh-themed baby shower, and has now given birth to a baby boy she has named Bronx Mowgli.  Is her life being brought to us by Disney?  For a deal like that, I would totally have agreed to name my kids Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum, and Jabberwock.

Our Realtor just called.  I’m going out to buy a gun and then I’m going to shoot this freaking economy in the ass.

I spent some time today enjoying the beautifl fall day and plucking bits of randomness from the blog I kept from 2005 until sometime last year.

Why? You ask.

The answer is procrastination. And avoidance.

I have other things I should be doing, but it’s Friday.  Nuff said, right?

Here goes:

*******

Son One called today to have me bring his medicine to school (a painkiller the dentist prescribed when his wisdom teeth were pulled last Friday).  I grabbed a pill bottle and met him in the school nurse’s office where, in front of the nurse and several students, I tried to give him one of the dog’s pills. Oops.

*******

Response (Jesus C.) – 12/27/2005 08:10 PM
Dear Christina,

We are contacting you regarding the credit request submitted for order number 3142409.

A credit of $11.99 has been applied to your credit card as a result of the incorrect and moldy items from your Acmemarkets.com order. This credit will appear on your next one to two credit card statements. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

If we can provide any information or be of service to you in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us by e-mail or by calling 1-877-932-7948.

Sincerely,

Jesus C.
Acmemarkets.com Customer Care Representative

So that’s where he’s been…

*******

Strange goings on – the spiky fish hanging from the shower curtain in the flamingo room is suddenly sporting a big pink bow on top of its head that I did not put there. I don’t know how long it has been there, but I can’t imagine it has been very long or I would have noticed it sooner.  Fish fairies? (Don’t ask…)

*******

I ran out of my cholesterol medicine about 3 days ago and I had a bacon cheeseburger and mozzarella sticks for dinner so if you can’t find me, call the local hospital and have them look in the cath lab.

*******

I’m reading a lovely novel set in a tiny village on the Atlantic coast of Ireland, full of pleasant people who spend all their free time in the pub.  I going to concentrate really hard and try to fold myself up small enough to squeeze myself into the story and ESCAPE THE MADNESS.  If you don’t see me around, you’ll know where I am.  Just leave a few quid between the pages of the book on my nightstand to fund my pub crawling.  I’ll miss you all, but I’ll be too drunk and happy to think much about it, so don’t worry.

*******

Daughter writes to Son Two:  “I’m officially putting you in charge of getting mom out of the house for at least an hour today (not running errands!).  When she goes over the edge, you’ll be directly in the line of fire, so I’d take this assignment seriously if I were you. love, me.”

Thank you for the thought but, jeez, do you really think getting me out of the house for an hour is going to solve my problems?  How naive.  Taking a fussy baby for a car ride might help get her to sleep, but I’m a little beyond that kind of coddling at this point.  Especially since I’d be the one driving.

*******

Freudian slip of the week:

Speaking with Miz Scarlett (aka MIL) today, she inadvertently referred to her fellow nursing home residents as “inmates”.

*******

Son One:  “Mom?”
Me:  “No.”
Son One:   “You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
Me:  “Yes I do.”
Son One:  “Okay, what am I going to say?”
Me:  “You want money.  For bowling, or Wawa, or the pool hall.”
Son One:  “Am I that predictable?”
Me:  “Yes.  Especially after you’ve eaten.  Before then it’s anyone’s guess whether you’re looking for food or money.”

*******

(During a particularly difficult time…)  So far I’ve purchased only necessary items on my retail therapy trips like a rug and curtains for the kitchen and a new pillow and mattress pad and sheets and a few candles and a new window shade and a wicker flamingo and some potholders and dishtowels and trivets and dusting mitts and an Arby’s Beef and Cheddar, but now it’s starting to get out of hand. I am seriously thinking digital camera.

*******

Traditionally over the Thanksgiving holiday, Daughter, Uncle and I spend a day downtown visiting museums, etc.  Nobody else ever wants to go with us.  This year, we decided to do something different, so the day after Thanksgiving we are going to tour Eastern State Penitentiary.  All of a sudden, everybody wants to go.  I fear this says something deeply disturbing about my family.

*******

So, yes, I do get excited about amazing Dyson vacuums, washing driveways, finding radiator covers at yard sales, getting wheel sparkle at the carwash…

*******

We did indeed spend a lot of time in graveyards.  It didn’t occur to me just how strange others might consider that until I went to pick up the pictures at the drugstore yesterday and the girl at the One Hour booth gave me a really funny, slightly frightened look.  About 80% of the pictures were of headstones.

*******

So maybe I did say “daht coke” at the Sonic drive thru.  It was totally inadvertent.  However, Southerners do have a much more relaxed way of speaking that discourages the use of extraneous syllables.  Why waste time enunciating?  Their slushy manner of speech must save them a ridiculous amount of time every year.

*******

My desk looks worse than the boys’ room, I haven’t washed a dish in two days, the dog emptied the kitchen trash can onto the dining room floor sometime yesterday and I haven’t cleaned it up, I’ve eaten my last 6 meals sitting at this *&^*% computer and my stomach hurts.

*******

He kept standing there staring at me.  That’s when the negotiations began, because I couldn’t concentrate on my book with him hovering and staring.  I told him if he’d let me read in peace for 15 minutes, I’d go to Wawa and get milk and chocolate chips so he could make pancakes.  First he pulled a Miz Scarlett and told me I make pancakes much better than he does.  Nice try.  Not going to work.  Then he told me he’d let me read for a half hour instead of just 15 minutes if I’d make the pancakes.  I said no.  Then he said I could read for a half hour and he’d clean up the mess if I’d make the pancakes.

Now we were getting somewhere.  And I was getting hungry, so I agreed.

I went to Wawa, got the milk and the chips, came home and cooked up a pound of bacon that came out of the package like a Mobius strip and made the pancakes.

He’d just finished eating when he asked, What’s for dinner?

*******

Son Two borrowed my cell phone yesterday and promptly lost it.  A few minutes ago he came inside and handed me my cell phone, wet, but in working condition.  “I just remembered,” he says.  “Yesterday I decided to see what it would feel to fall backwards into the snow from the bench in the front yard.  It fell out of my pocket and landed in a drift.”  (The boy was 17.)

This morning Yes,Dear’s alarm clock rings. It does this seven days a week because he doesn’t know how to turn it off, but he sets it for a different time each day depending on when he has to get up, so it’s ringing is meaningless to me except to indicate that it’s past sunrise on a new day.

Me, groggy: What time is it?

Yes Dear: 10:01, but I didn’t reset the clock yet.

Inside my head: Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, it’s ten of one? That means it’s ten of 12….the dogs are gonna to burst, Son One is going to be late for work, ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod.

Me, flying out of bed: HOW THE HELL DID WE SLEEP THIS LATE? Can you drive Son One to work? I’ve got to get moving on stuff.

I run down the hallway and pound on Son One’s door. Get up. get up, get up!!! We overslept!

Son One, unconvincingly: I’m up, I’m up.

I run down the stairs and rush the dogs out the back door before they can make a mess I don’t want to clean up.

Then I glance at the kitchen clock. It says 10:15.

Huh?

I check my cell phone. It says 9:15.

I check the computer. It says 9:15.

Then I take the kitchen clock off the wall, go upstairs, and beat Yes,Dear to death with it.

He must learn to enunciate.

This has been a good week. Chicago last weekend was full of all kinds of girl fun with all kinds of fun girls and Italian and Greek food (Flaming Cheese!! Yum) and whatever you do, go see The Secret Life of Bees because we did and we all cried and we all loved it. I SO love my girls.

Then the Phillies won on Wednesday night which was SPECTACULAR and LONG IN COMING and made Yes,Dear and me cry tears of joy and reminisce about how the last time this happened we’d just started dating and look at us now, and how back in 1980 Yes,Dear ran over the foot of a Phillie’s fan who was dancing in the street and the guy was too drunk to feel it. GO PHILLIES!!!

And then Friday I spent the afternoon shopping for souvenir Championship memorabilia because I have a husband and two sons and the stores were packed but the crowds were all happy and friendly because they hadn’t tried to get downtown for the parade which was wall to wall people and you couldn’t get near the stadiums even if you had tickets which our boys did but Son One couldn’t get off work and Son Two got as far as City Hall before SEPTA was completely overwhelmed by spirited mobs hordes of Phillies Phans.

And Friday evening, as per tradition, we set up the firepit in the front yard and greeted mobs hordes of trick or treaters who ended up taking all of the candy which was a good thing but not a great thing as it would have been nice to have a couple pieces left over, and three trick or treaters wearing sandwich boards with circles on them made me feel old when I asked them what they were and they said IPods. Crap. Then we sat up around the fire until three a.m. trying to lure a 22 year old staunch conservative (can you say Alex Keaton?) over to the side of puppies and rainbows and glitter and Democrats. It didn’t work but it was an excellent debate and I hope in 10 years or so he will look back on the experience and say, Okay, now that I have some LIFE under my belt, I can see where those smart people were coming from…And the fire and the debate kept us warm except for my ass which was, of course, pointed AWAY from the fire and perched in a metal chair and I had to get up and take a hot shower at 4 a.m. because I couldn’t sleep because my ass was FREEZING.

And then yesterday I slept and slept and ate and then slept some more.

And today I got more than an extra hour thanks to Yes,Dear.

Life is good. At least until 2 p.m. when a friend is coming over to help me straighten out the medical bills which I cannot face alone. Thank God for friends.

How was your week?

Son One told me about a conversation he had today with a man who came to the bakery where he works to order a cake:

Customer:  I’d like to order a cake with a purple border and fuschia roses.

Son One:  Sir, I don’t know what fuschia is.

Customer:  Well, okay, just make them pink.

This reminded me of the time I taught this boy how to do his taxes and then took him to the post office to mail them.  Mom, he says, what are all those boxes in the wall?

He was eighteen years old and had no idea what a post office box was.

What else have I failed to teach my kids?

It’s a worry.

Just what is broasted chicken anyway?

That four+ pounds I lost last week?  I think it was all from my feet because I’m having trouble keeping my sandals on.

Son One works in a grocery store bakery and the other day a customer’s little girl called him “The Bakist”  How cute is that?

We have two different parties interested in maybe buying our house and another showing scheduled for Sunday.  Just this week I found a great house for us to buy.  Have the stars finally aligned or is this just the Fates getting me all excited once again so they can crap on my head for giggles?

I burned one of my acrylic nails lighting a cigarette in a breeze the other day and don’t have time to get it repaired anytime soon.  I guess that’ll be my Halloween costume.  You guessed it – I’m dressing up as an IDIOT.

Sebastian was standing on the back steps the other day waiting to be let in when all of a sudden there was a loud noise behind him and he bolted in fear.  The noise?  His own tail whapping against the back door.

That is all.