tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69870122297815791392024-02-18T21:13:41.993-08:00That's Enough About YouThat’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-64370928712679414312016-05-20T17:03:00.000-07:002016-05-20T17:03:31.923-07:00It's Not Ok Cupid<div style="text-align: left;">
As of this week I am - finally - legally divorced, which means I'm able to do lots of things I couldn't for a long time, like officially claim all the closet space, have actual good sex and update my blog. Not that I will be updating my blog about any sex I am or am not having, nor will I ever talk about any details of the divorce other than to advise that if you're going to have a midlife crisis please be the tiniest bit original about it. Put a little thought into it; steal a 747 or syphon funds from a drug cartel, just don't be a cliché. I can't respect that sort of unoriginality and will kick your sorry ass out each and every time. Impress me, won't you? Anyway, as I was going through the divorce process it occurred to me that it might not be the best idea in the world to publicly document all the stupid shit I do, which is, let's be honest, a lot. It's going to take me a while to get both of you devoted readers up to speed, I fear. Let's work backwards and tackle my recent fun and games.</div>
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I've already told you about my best friend, known as John Stamos because she was the best roommate ever, but I don't believe I've introduced you to one of my other best friends. We'll call him Rachel because in addition to being an excellent roommate, he is terribly attractive and always has very good hair. If anyone's taking applications for iconic men's haircuts, I'm submitting Rachel's because his is really top drawer. But I digress...Rachel is single and living in DC and has had some considerable success with internet dating, so he suggested I should try it. I suppose I forgot that Monica is the sensible one in most scenarios, not that flighty Rachel!, so I agreed. I'd snooped around on Match.com a few years ago and was not impressed, but I figured certainly it's all gotten so much better since that's the way everyone meets people these days, right? </div>
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Hold please while I pour myself a drink. </div>
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No, it's not any better. It's awful. It's so awful...that it's kind of excellent. I've had my profile up for a week and I can honestly say it's been both the best and worst thing that I've ever done; an internet Janus. I was super careful with my profile - my dear friend E helped me pick out the pictures (nothing ridiculous or at all suggestive) and write my bio ("not interested in a hookup", "looking for someone in town - smart, independent and not crazy") but apparently I inadvertently included a code word for "especially looking for deviant felons". My first messages were harmless and pretty amusing - one from a guy who wrote "your nickname must be Google because you've got all I'm searching for", another one from TotallyToenails asking for a picture of my shoes and three others who inexplicably all incorporated "taco" into their profile names. Then I get this guy</div>
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and I was all "oh! Ha! That's hilarious and a bit odd!" In retrospect I should have become Mrs. bassblaster on the spot. Because it was on.</div>
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No sir, it's your poly blend sheets that are beautiful.</div>
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Are we using dog years? Because if that guy is 46 then I'm 6.</div>
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No, Ned Flanders in a SmartCar, urnotmytype.</div>
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My favorite thing about our next contestant is how he sort of sidles up the pillow princess point. Like he's working up the courage to address it. He can't even work up enough courage to look directly at the camera. Total sidler.</div>
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This one actually made me want to throw my phone at the wall. Lloyd Christmas needs to shut the hell up and stop criticizing.</div>
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Then the tide turned marginally. How can you not appreciate this kind of talent?</div>
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And this guy and I could be friends - who wouldn't want to be friends with someone who has a holding wiener t-shirt?</div>
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But I was only in the eye of the hurricane; the worst was yet to come.</div>
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This is one of legion stomach shots I was fortunate to receive. I sent this guy back a picture of my own tummy (let's just be honest, tummy is a better word for me. It's kind of just stomach-ish) with the note "can you see the C-section scars through the holes in my granny panties?" I should totally include all that in my profile, right?</div>
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Speaking of babies. This woman must totally hate her husband if she wants to gift him a 45 year old who's birthed two 9 pound kids</div>
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I'm not even bothering to protect this guy's identity. If someone finds me chopped up in 48 individual Mason jars, the police are going to need all the help they can get. He's saying "You're very pretty." But what he's actually saying is "You'll be very pretty on a serving platter, slow roasted with an apple and my dead mother's locket and big toe in your mouth."</div>
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this is also not okay. Welding and smoking probably shouldn't go hand in hand. I forgive him though because, woo hoo, 69!</div>
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a PSA from Boomsicle on the dangers of smoking whilst welding!</div>
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TallPaleNerdy1. He sent me several pictures.</div>
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like this one, taken in his grandmother's basement. Where all things beautiful go to watch a tv from 1989 and get molested.</div>
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He also sent me a photo, that is, um, intimate. Because I love my readers John Stamos and Rachel I won't post it. There are just some things that you can't un-see. But let me sign off by letting you know that I'm deleting my profile as we speak. And that TallPaleNerdy offered something like this.</div>
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-11998266180477699072014-05-30T18:37:00.002-07:002014-05-30T18:37:46.504-07:00I'll be back soonhonest.That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-41948938358952866562014-04-24T19:38:00.000-07:002014-04-24T20:11:48.511-07:00I've Let It GoI've been shitty about writing; my sincere apologies to my devoted readers - both of you. I've had a lot going on, stuff that is simultaneously overwhelming and yet way too boring to talk about (if you doubt this then just get me going on how annoying it is to get a new Herbie Curbie from the City of Atlanta, for starters) while attempting to keep two short people alive and somewhat fed, educated and non-felonious. This is all par for the course, really, except I'm also feverishly grieving my mother which throws a real fucking wrench into things. It makes things tougher, I won't lie. I'm tired. Is everyone else just tired, or is it just me? I've said it before - I'm feeling increasingly rooked by this whole "adulthood" bullshit...I was led to believe it would be more fun than this. I was expecting something that more closely resembled tennis camp, but with more Hendrick's, sunscreen and free will. Not these days. And it doesn't help that I'm completely stupid. <br />
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Since I've long known that my idiocy is not indeed an accident, rather a gift that makes others feel better about themselves, I'll let you know that a couple of weeks ago I rear-ended someone with my car. My new car. And because I believe in putting my full effort into things, I really went for it and smacked into someone in a jacked-up Suburban. Which meant his back bumper was aligned directly with my front grill and subsequently crumpled it like a piece of tinfoil, without leaving a scratch anywhere on his vehicle. In my defense, I hit him because my public (that would be AD and the RM) were clamoring for my really excellent musical interpretation of "Let It Go". Just as I was letting them know all about how HERE I'll stand (fling left arm out!), and HERE I'll stay (fling right arm out!), the guy slams on his brakes. I didn't hit him hard enough to deploy the airbag, but since my arms are outspread like Jim Bakker instead of on the steering wheel (see above reference to: fling) my head bounces into the steering wheel. Kind of hard. Not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough, as it turns out, to leave a really nice palm-sized bruise on my head. A bruise that in fact looks just like my steering wheel, right down to the leather stitch marks. Needless to say, when we got out to exchange insurance information I was more than happy to take the blame, turn the Disney volume down and hustle on home. My rental car has been punishment enough. It's a Toyota Avalon, which is really nice but it stinks. Literally. Someone smoked in it, a lot. As in maybe someone sneaks in our driveway every night and breaks in that thing and sucks on Camels (not literally with that reference...lord I hope not) til the sun comes up. Also it has one of those fancy-schmancy push button ignitions which just fucking does me in, especially in my current state. I'm fine remembering how to start the car and all that, I just keep forgetting to turn the damn thing off. I can't tell you how many times I've come home, gone inside and then come out hours later and thought, why how nice that the car just KNOWS I'm ready to leave! I'm told it's supposed to turn off on its own, but like everyone in my house it apparently came without an off button.<br />
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Speaking of my children. I fear we're walking AD's innocence to the Lido deck and preparing to toss it flowers and wave bon voyage. Last week she finally figured out the Easter Bunny wasn't real (thanks to some serious basket mis-management on my part) and she also admitted that she Googled the word "fucking". Let me clarify and add insult to serious childhood psychological injury, she Google IMAGED the word "fucking". I found this out one evening when she came running into my room (after sneaking onto the computer without permission I must add), sobbing "remember that <em>woooooord </em>I asked you about! and you! you wouldn't really <em>teeeellllll </em>me what it meant! I LOOKED IT UP! I don't understand! What's all those pointy hurting things! And there's elbows but not really? And the wrinkling and the brown! And a LITTLE LADY WIENER! WHY does anyone DO those things!" Instead of instinctively commiserating (oh I'm kidding - I'm not that grouchy), I explained to her that first of all, the reason we she wasn't allowed on the internet without our supervision is because there are all sorts of untrue, hurtful lady wieners on there that might mislead or scare her, and that I was so sorry I hadn't answered all her questions to her satisfaction. Without question, she's nine years old now and deserves an honest answer to whatever she wants to ask, we will always be forthcoming, sweetheart. Then I told her to go find her dad and talk to him. <br />
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The Red Menace, for her part, continues to try on new names and personalities as if she's shopping for a new outfit. Earlier this week she was Berle - that's been with us for a while - and informed me "Berle knows how to snap." She then turned her back to me, pulled her jeans down and put both hands down the back of her underwear and snapped her fingers. Not sure why in the world the snapping involves such proximity to her crack, but it seems to be so. Yesterday however, a new kid came to town. Her name is Burrita and she's not taking any of your shit, not for one second. She came home from school today with a huge scab on her leg and told me "Some kid. He tells me this. He doesn't like my shoes." <br />
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Me: "Oh. Well, that's silly. Your shoes are great. We picked those out together, remember that? And oh my goodness, your leg! Are you okay?"<br />
B: "...."<br />
Me: "Were you sad? Because it's okay if you were but you shouldn't be, it's just shoes. And your leg, honey, what happened? "<br />
B: "...."<br />
Me: "So, okay. What? What did you do? And how did you hurt your leg?"<br />
B: "I put that little man in the dirt. The dirt. That's what I did." <br />
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So. <br />
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I don't know where to go with that. I realize at this point that this is, I think, my first blog post without any pictures. Since I don't have any of my steering wheel head, or Burrita (and Google image "fucking" for yourselves, you lazy bastards, I'm not enabling you camel-suckers), here's a nice one of Cslos and me from a '70's party. Let's take a time out from whatever is troubling us, throw on some polyester, and have a Mai Tai with your favorite person, how about it?<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Nice posture, among other things. Complain about it and risk the wrath of Burrita. And all the beloved and missed residents of 113 E Spring and 1010 Queen - you know who you are</span></div>
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-28205208359459435672014-03-05T17:18:00.003-08:002014-03-06T04:34:49.857-08:00Dispatches From The FrontNot to dwell on the negative (which I should probably point out I don't usually do. I'm a bit of an asshole in this forum but normally I actually am a very happy, positive person. Really! I swear on the pile of rainbow-farting baby unicorns I just shived) but we've had us a time over here these past few months, which is why I haven't been writing much. The grandparents have been dropping like flies; I don't know if I mentioned this, but not only are we down a Joanna but JHP's sweet, beloved father passed away as well. Yeah. And in much less serious but still annoying news, the week after Mom's memorial service our ice maker flooded the kitchen and leaked down into the playroom, ruining floors and ceilings with reckless abandon but not before it leaked into the freezer and froze the contents in entirety. I opened up the freezer door and was met with a giant block of ice; everything in there was perfectly preserved in situ as if I'd been tasked to create a Smithsonian exhibit of "how bad mothers saved mediocre food in the two thousands". There should have been a nude wax caveman tableau next to it or something. Our water heater then decided to get in on the fun and rusted out in a really slow, sneaky way that made the biggest mess ever possible in the history of water heaters and did a bunch of damage as well. At first I was really pissed off about it but after I thought about it for a while I had to admit I really admired that strategy. If I was an appliance with neglectful homeowners like us I'd do the same damn thing; now that I finally have a chance at vengeance I'm not going to be all type-A, exploding in the basement with the "I'M BROKEN! MAINTENANT! C'EST URGENT!" I'd hide out in a corner of the laundry room and proceed to quietly ruin as many things as I could. But still be French. So State Farm came on over, took a look around and gave us a check. Thus, we're renovating.<br />
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We're only about a fourth of the way into the sausage making, but I'm already thinking that instead of trying to fix this place up we might have been better off tossing a lit match inside and driving away. This shit sucks. And it's not like we're gutting the place and getting all fancy, we're just repairing floors, ceilings and a bathroom that was undamaged by all of this but is so offensively ugly that it simply must be done to keep the neighborhood, and perhaps world, peace. Part of the problem is that we're dealing with a bit of a damaged product in the first place. JHP and I weren't exactly seasoned homeowners when we bought this house - we'd moved from DC where we'd both rented for years and years on account of the fact that you'd have to sell an organ (or play one <em>really</em> <em>well</em>, if you know what I mean..wink wink, nudge nudge) to buy a place there, so needless to say we didn't exactly know what to look for when it came time to own something. Our solution to house problems was to call the landlord and then leave while it got fixed...talk about rubes. The previous owners of our current home - we'll call them the Smiths because that's their name and I am speaking truth to power, children! - saw us coming from a country mile away. That pretty hall mirror? Covering up a giant hole in the plaster. And isn't that bathroom lovely until you turn on the shower and realize the tub was "reglazed" with house paint that bubbled up the minute it got wet. The gas stove in the kitchen had to be lit by hand which made cooking an activity you had a 30% chance of dying from. We caught none of this until we were all moved in. In a way it ended up being good that the Smiths were so half-assed; because they didn't insulate the kitchen floor/basement ceiling when they renovated the playroom, it didn't collapse when the ice machine flooded. No heavy, wet fiberglass insulation = nothing to pull the drywall down. Let's forget for a moment that the lack of insulation also means that it's so cold you can hang meat down there and for once just thank the Smiths for being all Smithy McSmitherson about it. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">I have dreamt lo these many years of having a kitchen island in my dining room. In unrelated news I rule at Mastermind</span></div>
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It's been really annoying. At least for me; as usual JHP has been traveling so he's missed most of the fun, and the girls think all of this is just great. AD loves the novelty of having the refrigerator in the hallway and the RM just loves having the renovation guys around. I worry, as always, about her taste because that is one sketchy crew; I don't even know how to describe them, but I probably don't need to because we've all seen "Deliverance". They seem quite nice but a bit rough around the edges. Tooth deficient, one might say. One of them only has part of an arm so it's been an almost uncontrollable compulsion of AD to refer to him as our "non-handy man"; the RM just calls them "the fixers", and she stalks them all. "The fixers have NEVER seen an outfit as princess as the one I have on now, have they? NO! It is true that they have not. I must go show." To their credit they're very patient with her, if not perhaps too indulgent - I caught Lloyd teaching her how to use a ball-peen hammer, and Saturday morning I found her sitting on the front steps with Curtis while he simultaneously chain smoked, ate a hot dog and told her all about Vietnam. These poor men have had the misfortune of their work here falling on the RM's birthday so they've also had to endlessly assure her that yes, she's suuuuch a big girl. "Terry. Let's you listen to me. Today I opened that straw wrap BY. MYSELF. Babies can't do that, only big girls can do that, right? You know this? I couldn't do that when I was three but now I'm four so I'm very big also call me Berle today. I will help you PAINT." I also heard through a third party that she was trying to get Levon to teach her how to drive the trailer and dip Skoal Wintergreen. </div>
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Because this process isn't irritating enough, we decided that next week we'll flee the scene and take the girls to the one place on earth that has more noise, trans fats and rednecks (and I'm only referring to my immediate family) than our house - Disney World. I've gotten to the point where I am willing to leave all this work unsupervised and risk exposing myself to the possibility of one of the fixers rifling through my stuff as long as I can just get out of here. Hell, if they promise to come in on budget I'll even personally pick out the underwear they can sniff and go ahead and pack up the televisions for theft. I'm actually really excited for Disney World, and not just because we'll be away from this dustbowl - it's one of AD's favorite spots, and there's no question of how the RM will feel about it. Plus Dad and Cslos are joining us, which adds a whole different level of excitement. The RM's never been, at least not out of captivity. The last time we went I was five months pregnant with her and the temperatures were over 100 degrees every day. Heavy sweating was in order, and we <span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">even saw one poor girl faint dead away which AD attributed to the fact that "she probably couldn't believe</span> how cute I am." What an idiot - it was totally <span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">because</span> of how cute <u>I</u> am. She was pretty damn cute though.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-small;">So, do you think you made the right move, leaving your appreciative and supportive gay roommates to move in with a shallow, impulsive necrophiliac? I'm just asking.</span></div>
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The RM has been talking about the trip nonstop, and I'm a bit concerned about how her behavior will be, um, interpreted. Yesterday morning for example I was dressing her for school, and as we're putting on her princess print underwear she tells me "Mom. Mom. Mom. I can't wait to tell Cinderella I'm wearing her panties. She'll be so happy at me that I'm IN her PANTIES!" Let's hope Cinderella speaks Menace. Aside from that I think it's going to be fantastic, if not a little melancholy; this will be our first big family trip without Mom. On the upside, she never did like going to Disney World all that much - Cslos and I were joking about how damn if that woman really would, clearly, do anything to get out of going back. </div>
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She will be dearly missed but we're looking forward to making good new memories. I'm just glad I won't be here to somehow stumble upon the memory of Curtis and his eight teeth wearing my bra. I don't judge - just get the tile down already.</div>
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-68544147725083940092014-02-12T11:49:00.001-08:002014-02-12T11:59:29.160-08:00Ice, Ice, MurrayThanks to the weather we're housebound yet again. JHP is in Seattle, so I am on my own with the children which just seems terribly irresponsible on someone's part even during the best of times. JHP isn't really any help during inclement winter weather - to the contrary he's a bit of a disaster. He grew up in Houston and went to college in the South as well (Duke. Can you even imagine a more obnoxious combo, a Texan who went to Duke? If he was a Yankees fan the odiousness of it all would be a jailable offense) so he's kind of a moron about snow. The first winter he lived in DC, for example, his car windows iced over so what does he do? Boil a pot of water and take it out to the car. He slipped in the driveway and dumped it all over himself, but not being one to let a clear sign from above deter him from an idiotic pursuit, he boiled another pot and poured it on his windshield. Which promptly exploded. I'm not exactly a pro myself, having grown up in Memphis - during my first DC snowstorm I stole my roommate's golf shoes so I could walk to the Metro without breaking a hip (I'm sure I looked more than a little insane stomping my way down the street in men's size 11 shoes, and I'm equally sure said roommate really appreciated what that did to his spikes) but I'm not an active menace. Anyway, all this is to say that I don't need him here for weather issues as much as I need someone to help contain the threat to the homeland. <br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">I have more words for "my children are driving me to the Betty" than the Eskimos do for ice</span></div>
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The girls do not do well in captivity. Even my eminently responsible AD - who started the morning by making biscuits from scratch and doing all the laundry (no shit. I know, right?) was chafing by noon. Both of them have been especially frustrated that this storm didn't bring fun, fluffy snow - in our neck of the woods it's just sleet. They refused to believe that this wasn't the kind of thing you wanted to play in so I let them go outside and figure it out for themselves; after about 45 seconds of heaving drippy ice at one another they gave up and came back in. I'm hoping that was a small enough window of outside exposure that the neighbors couldn't tell that I was too lazy to find the RM's gloves so I just shoved oven mitts on her, which she demanded AD put away for her the minute she got inside. Poor AD tries so hard to be helpful and sweet and entertain her sister, but it's tough to do when there's only so much you can do with a three-year-old. Especially this one - the RM has been going through a terribly tedious helpless phase lately and has "I can't DOOOO it!" running on a loop. You name it, it is simply outside her skillset. Open a banana? Oh good heavens, no. Fold that piece of paper? The hell with that. Forget anything as sophisticated as Chutes and Ladders with her big sister, never mind the fact that she was the Gary Kasparov of that shit two weeks ago. All the RM wants lately is for people to do things for her, and with a smile on your face too - "be HAPPY at me that you're zipping this pant!". She's the welfare queen of Birchwood Drive, as if I need that.</div>
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I should also let you know that the RM recently informed us that she's now "Murray"; we don't know why but since it makes no less sense than anything else she does we're rolling with it. I do know we don't care for Murray. In spite of her evident helplessness, Murray woke me up this morning by trying to stick my hair in a glass of orange juice she somehow poured herself; she then woke her sister when she tried to insert her big toe into her nostril. When I scolded her, she said "oh fucks! Fine, homie." because Murray has a poorly developed potty mouth, and then proceeded to paint the shower floor with an entire tube of toothpaste, flush 2 of AD's biscuits and cut the tops off of my papyrus plant. I know you're probably thinking I should keep a better eye on her but let's be honest, I have obligations - that candy certainly isn't going to crush itself. I could plant her in front of some sort of electronic and let her zone out, but part of me feels that Sofia the First is just a crutch and if the iPad comes out then the terrorists have won. Plus I really should endeavor to mold Murray into a productive child with appropriate creative outlets and skills to help contribute to the family, right? Let's just say Murray is not entirely on board with this philosophy. This was a real-time reaction to "take the Christmas tree ornament and bottle of nail polish out of your panties and clean up your room" this morning.</div>
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"I can't DOOOOO it!" Murray has issues. I really should have AD figure out how to deal with that; we should have plenty of time as I just received an email telling us that school is closed again tomorrow. Oh fucks.</div>
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-56819511179300466392014-01-27T11:55:00.001-08:002014-01-28T10:30:07.504-08:00GrandmothersIt's been a rough couple of months over here. For one thing (if you can use a throwaway term like "for one thing" on something so major) my mother died a few weeks ago. I may or may not write about that once I decide if it actually happened, but I can say it has been terrible and wonderful and all over the place. Losing her has been gutting - although I need to think of a better word than "lost" when it comes to Mom since that makes me feel like if I just pull up the couch cushions I'll find her; I did that yesterday (for unrelated reasons. I'm not a total idiot.) and only came up with a Barbie shoe, a dry marker and the X from the RM's alphabet puzzle. Anyway I think this must be somewhat how it feels to lose a limb because in a lot of ways I have to figure out how to live differently. Learn to do basic things without her here. Mom was sick for a while and we knew full well it would suck when she died, but of course we really only got that in the abstract. Sort of like when you hear "war is hell" and you're all, you bet, sure is, but then you actually go to war and then it's "wait just a second...war IS hell! Get me out of here!" Yes, this is fucking awful! You weren't kidding! On the other side of it, the many kindnesses my family and I have received from friends and even people we barely know has been staggering. I simply don't deserve it so I know it's nothing but a tribute to Mom.<br />
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So we were in the red there for a bit when it comes to grandmothers but we're even again. This is because the Red Menace has been shopping around for personalities and has finally settled on grouchy old granny. This child is three going on ninety. AD was such an easy, sunny kid so it's been an adjustment; of course we know all children are different, but I thought my girls would be separated by eye color or sense of humor, not four generations. I half expect her to start reminiscing about WWII rationing, or yelling at me to get off her lawn. The kid gripes about EVERYTHING. And forget about trying to get her to leave the house. It doesn't matter where we are, she'd rather be home. We were at the beach this fall, unpacking after a long drive and looking forward to hitting the sand and all she can say is "it's time to go back home now. I want to go to my house." We'd been there an hour. JHP and I were discussing this and we think we can pinpoint the day her new persona settled in for good. We'd seen glimpses, sure, but I think the day she decided to own it was when we took the girls to Stone Mountain. You can say it was JV of us to go to Stone Mountain in the first place, but you'd only be half right because AD loved it. Loved it. Nerded out about it all and told us all kinds of stats about what kind of mountain it is, how big, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, I give you our younger one<br />
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The whole time. And then when we finally gave in to her demands and came home, she tried to eat a pen.</div>
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Which is actually kind of good news, because normally that kid won't eat a damn thing; we suspect she survives on photosynthesis and pollution. Food is another area that she's just been a Russian nesting doll of unpleasant about. "No. That, I don't like. All day I don't like that." about everything. Stuff she's never seen or tried before, stuff she loves - you name it, you'll have to hear about how much she doesn't like it, and for how long. She doesn't even like macaroni and cheese. What kid doesn't like macaroni and cheese? I'll tell you: none. Ergo, old lady. I should see if she'll try tomato aspic or jello salad with pineapple rings, that might be right up her alley. AD at this point was eating everything - sushi, Thai, salsa - stuff that the mere mention of will send the RM into a horrified fugue state. You'd cause less offense by serving ribs at a Bar Mitzvah. </div>
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There are few things that do not bring this child consternation. We took her to the Children's Museum in Memphis recently, for example, and did she play on the climbing tower or dress up or do an art project or anything normal? No. She went directly to this guy </div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">I don't know who in the hell okayed this for a CHILDREN'S museum. This would not be okay in a Jeffrey Dahmer museum.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">and berated him for "doing a very bad job brushing your theeth-es. Very bad!" She worked on him for over 30 minutes and then wanted to split. Just this weekend I took her to the Georgia Aquarium thinking surely she'd enjoy that, but almost immediately she started to bitch about this thing </span></span></div>
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for having a mean face at her. Then she yelled at the jellyfish to "PUT ON YOUR PANTIES, YOU" but that might have been kind of my fault because I'd seen the underside of a particularly alarming sawfish and may have said something similar. But still. <br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">she has a point</span></span></span></div>
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</span><span style="font-size: small;">She didn't exactly come away from the experience with a greater appreciation of life's wonders.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Even with her friends, this kid is a grump. We have afternoon carpool with her best friend, a precious little girl named Kate who is just the sweetest, happiest girl you'll ever know. I can't understand how Kate tolerates her because the RM just works her poor ass like you wouldn't believe. A typical conversation goes as follows:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">RM: "Let's play I Spy. My turn MY TURN first. I spy something pink."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Me: "No ma'am, let Kate go first. Let's have nice manners."<br />RM: "Fine. Kate go."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">K: "I spy something pink."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">RM: "My pants. I win!"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">K: "no, that's not it. Another pink."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">RM: "MY PANTS ARE TOO PINK. I WIN."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">K: "No, sweetie, it's something else that's pink. In the front seat."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">RM: "that front seat there is not pink. My PANTS are pink. MY TURN. Give me your Dora ring."</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">It's like listening to the Snuggle bear argue with Ellen Corby, if they were both recent immigrants and had yet to fully master sentence structure. </span><br />
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MY DRESS IS TOO BLUE. I WIN, John Boy.</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">She is exhausting. I guess it's nice to know that the universe always somehow balances out; when God shuts the door on one grandmother, he opens the window on another. Too bad I kind of want to toss this one out. I'm about to go pick her up from school...I'll let you know if she greets my radio selections with a "that's not music, that's just noise!" </span></div>
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-77082829492417709452013-12-04T12:28:00.000-08:002013-12-04T12:28:58.028-08:00Holiday IssuesI don't know if it's the abbreviated holiday schedule or what, but I am really off lately. I've been incredibly absent-minded and seem to have almost completely lost my short-term memory - I should probably start smoking a lot of pot because I already have the bad side effects down like a Rastafarian surfer. Just today for example I couldn't remember where I'd left my iPad until I went to mail the water bill, and there it was in the mailbox. Sure. Anyway a lot of it, I think, comes from the fact that I'm just not a very good adult and nothing hammers that point home like the holidays. I LOVE the holidays - make no mistake; normally you won't find me in a better mood than during that Halloween-Christmas window. It's just that I realize now that I'm much better at doing all that stuff as a kid than I am as a parent. I can KILL it at trick-or-treating, for example, but trying to organize a fancy Halloween for my kids makes me feel as if I'm under siege. Fortunately they've made the costume part pretty easy on me which is something I can almost never say about them. AD always wants to be some version of a cat - a cat witch, a cat devil, a cat ghost, etc. - and the Red Menace has wanted to be the same thing for the past two years in a row which works because she's grown not one bit since last year so the costume still fits fine. The costume of choice is a pink octopus which was terribly cute last year but a source of a good bit of stress for me this year as she told everyone "I have eight testicles. EIGHT of them. And I will SPANK you with them all." 95% of the time she said this she was out of costume, so it was more alarming than humorous. We got some seriously panicky looks at the grocery store, especially because she has as of late begun to address me as either "Friend" or "Cedric". Lots of "Cedric! CEDRIC. Buy me those Little Bites there or I will spank you with my testicles! ALL EIGHT TESTICLES WILL BE SPANKING YOU HERE. Little Bites!"<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Octopi love pizza. It's very good for their testicles.</span></div>
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I've gotten a bit lucky with the candy part too - our house is off the main drag of the neighborhood that's super-popular with trick-or-treaters, so I can usually get away with leaving the porch light on and putting a salad bowl filled with candy on the steps. One of the biggest adjustments about moving here was how this absentee Halloween landlord approach is actually acceptable; try that in DC and someone would take all the candy and drop a deuce in the bowl, at the very least. Of course, we did live in a part of town where 18 year olds would trick-or-treat at 11pm and ask you for cigarettes instead of candy, but still, it's been a big leap of faith.</div>
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Thanksgiving is usually pretty easy, but that's been tricky of late too; I think that started two years ago when we were at my parents' in Memphis. We were eating breakfast when my dad said "look at me and smile". I did, or tried to, anyway, and he says "kid, you've got Bell's Palsy." Half of my face had become almost entirely paralyzed, literally overnight. It wasn't painful or anything (and it certainly did wonders for my Sylvester Stallone impersonation) but one of the main symptoms is that you lose your sense of taste - something I didn't fully realize until JHP took me out to get sushi. If there's a more unpleasant sensation than eating raw fish without being able to discern any flavor, I don't want to know about it; it verged on the pornographic. Fortunately Bell and her palsy got the hell out of dodge after a few weeks, but Thanksgiving began to look snakebit nonetheless. Mom was on chemo the following year and not able to be around my little germboxes, so we stayed in Atlanta and I had to COOK. Can you believe how selfish that woman is? This year brought more chemo and another depressed immune system...and worst of all, a full week of school vacation. Apparently the trend is for schools to give the kids the whole week instead of just the Wed-Fri deal, which also means the trend is for me to day drink. By Tuesday afternoon I was ready to sell the kids for parts. I got some respite after finding ice skating on tv - both girls were all over it - but that bit me in the ass when the RM started canvassing strangers on their skating abilities. "YOU. Can you ice skate? I'M the best skater. That twisting I can do, in my Cinderella dress." It should be noted she's never, ever been ice skating. She tried to bring me in on it, too: "Friend, you tell that lady I am a great ice skater. Friend! I should be in a CONTEST." Exhausting. As if the endless public humiliation wasn't enough, my cooking didn't turn out that well this year either. I made the mistake of trying to make the potato dish a little healthier, which in retrospect is just flat un-Christian. The girls helped me make all the desserts so they all ended up tasting like hands, which turned out to be fitting since the turkey tasted like feet. I fled to Houston's on Friday and self-medicated with two orders of spinach dip. </div>
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With this under my belt I'm getting a little nervous about Christmas. Traditionally that's been the easiest holiday, which I guess is ironic considering how much more prep goes into it, but we've had a few hiccups that lead me to believe I've got to shake my recent incompetence (not to mention incontinence...I got sucked into "Damn You Autocorrect" last week and laughed so hard I tinkled a little bit, but that's neither here nor there) and man up. A few years ago, for example, I was home for Christmas in Memphis and found this </div>
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You will be forgiven for not immediately being able to wrap your mind around the fact that this is an entire fingernail in a stick of butter. And a disco metallic one, at that; Donna Summer left the cake out in the rain, and someone left a nail in the butter. After a very confusing week we finally figured out that my parents' housekeeper was the culprit, in spite of the smart money being on Dad. That cast a weird pall over the holiday for me. I kind of felt like I was being filmed. Of course, Christmas is more about children - those damned children! - so recent years have been more focused on the girls. Specifically, scaring them as best as I could. AD has never really had a Santa issue, but imagine how thrilled we were to discover the RM certainly did. We got this<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiytDS55zuus4Rfe7Gymzi6MsD1AHC7u508CiHAgyETvY-9KPn6_cnSETwLf5FhYfX6120qZQ9VsQiMf-WAtuQRM9D6Vi7CsQ5FIlHohcN5EPfS6HQ47iVlIo72tSuSUZX81soZLf1AVC8/s1600/Christmas11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiytDS55zuus4Rfe7Gymzi6MsD1AHC7u508CiHAgyETvY-9KPn6_cnSETwLf5FhYfX6120qZQ9VsQiMf-WAtuQRM9D6Vi7CsQ5FIlHohcN5EPfS6HQ47iVlIo72tSuSUZX81soZLf1AVC8/s320/Christmas11.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
and the following year brought this bit of holiday joy<br />
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This year's photo session began with great promise, too. Here she is catching a glimpse of her tormentor<br />
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but out of nowhere, something went terribly, terribly awry because then this happened</div>
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which makes me think this might be a really shitty Christmas. In an effort to counterbalance this, I've gone a bit cliché and had AD's Elf on the Shelf do some really awful things. Nothing cute and relatively harmless like spilling food on the counter, I'm aiming for inducing night terrors; so far he's stolen both her bike and her allowance money, and drew a bloody knife and REDRUM on her dresser mirror. <br />
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If I'm going to screw up the holiday season for my children I should at least do it with a sense of purpose rather out of plain old stupidity. Now I've got to go fetch my car keys out of the silverware drawer and go pick them up from school. <br />
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-83703161576689212272013-11-18T11:57:00.000-08:002013-11-18T12:21:47.997-08:00CrushedSo I haven't written anything in a while. To be perfectly honest, I'm coming out of a painful breakup and haven't really felt up to it. It was a pretty intense relationship that ended quite abruptly so I've been a little unmoored. It started innocently and unexpectedly - at the gym, of all places. I was on the treadmill, distracting myself from the naked shittiness of running by watching HGTV...and there he was, ripping out drywall with his bare hands. I'd stumbled upon one of those home improvement show marathons and found the man of my dreams. Our connection was immediate, deep and sacred. Granted, the television was on closed captioning mode so we didn't get in to a lot of details - I'm not certain of the name of the show, for one thing - Property Brothers, Cousins Properties, Undercover Cousins, something - or of his name (I know it's not Anthony, that was the other guy, the duskier fellow), but some things just don't need to be said. We didn't need all that noise to know that our love was real. Not Anthony wasn't just good for my exercise regimen and terribly handy around the house (a huge plus considering JHP isn't even capable of looking a hammer in the eye), but sensitive, thoughtful and deliberate. He drove all the way to Newark (I'm pretty sure) to pick up the exact chandelier a client wanted, and who could forget that time he hand-cured that dining room table until 2am? With a hair dryer? At least I think that's what he was doing. Child, please - you couldn't split us up with a crowbar, not Not Anthony and me. Things were going really well...too well. In retrospect I think he got too comfortable, yes, maybe I even let him take my love for granted, because his judgment started slipping. I have to be honest, he started making some choices that I was flat-out not okay with. Pickled cabinetry? You might as well spray-paint "1991" across them and tack up a Nelson poster. I can't work with that. And then came the death knell - the moment I knew we were broken not bent, we couldn't learn to love again, no!<br />
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I cannot - WILL not - abide a pre-molded hot pink wall. This is not RuPaul's Airstream trailer fiberglass bathroom, this is a kitchen. A <em>kitchen, </em>Not Anthony. <br />
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It was over.<br />
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More than anything I feel very disappointed in myself; I usually have better judgment when it comes to my love life. Even at young age I had things pretty well in hand. When Shaun Cassidy and I first got together in 3rd grade, for example, I saved my allowance money for dog years so I could bribe Claire Jones a whole dollar to let me wear her white satin jacket with the giant iron-on of his face on the back. I knew that's what he would want. We had some happy years, too, Shaun and me; sure, there was a little bit of tension with Will Marshall from "Land of the Lost", and okay, maybe a couple of weekend flings with Randolph Mantooth and Lt. Starbuck, but really, that only made us stronger as a couple. While my friends were snowed by Chachi's charm or going the intellectually lazy route with Vinnie Barbarino (one spectacularly misguided friend of Cslos' even had a thing for Geoge Burns, which just feels fetishy), I stuck with Shaun.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">I took this picture on our anniversary trip to Catalina. He gave me an Easy Bake Oven...I gave him the best night of his life, and a hickey that made the papers</span></div>
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Unfortunately, even true love can be tested when a grueling tour schedule just doesn't work with middle school; inevitably, we parted. It was time and we both knew it. Shaun was too consumed with the rock and roll lifestyle while I craved stability. The uncertain challenges of eyeliner and 7th grade cotillion - not to mention the pounding stress of trying to talk my mother into letting me get a perm - was too much as it was. And, as if on cue, who strolls into my life but my rock, Abe Carver. We met shortly after he investigated Anna Brady's claims of being sold into white slavery and I was immediately taken with his quiet confidence. </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">don't EVEN</span></div>
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It was an enriching relationship for both of us; he knew I wasn't going to get caught up in any Aremid wedding drama or steal Bo and Hope's baby like that roundheels wife of his, and I knew with his background he could probably help me with math, and eventually traffic laws. Abe wasn't much for nonsense, and that was just what I needed. He and I ended up staying together for quite some time. To be honest what kept us together wasn't passion as much as it was comfort; I think it's precisely our lack of sexual heat that has enabled us to stay close to this day. JHP isn't at all threatened - to the contrary, I think he's pleased to have someone that will keep me occupied while he watches basketball. That being said, I can only get so much out of an imaginary platonic relationship - I want more. I want imaginary <u>fire</u>; someone to really pine for, with or without the volume on, who may or may not even be heterosexual. I have <em>needs, </em>folks. Real, imaginary needs.<br />
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I don't know where that leads me; all I can do is soldier on and keep an open heart. I suppose I'm lucky because I did leave my relationship with Not Anthony knowing one thing for sure, and that thing is never try to do electrical repair work without the help of a professional. And also: fuck running. Two incredibly valuable life lessons! Anyway, keep me in mind if you come across anyone. I have a lot of pretend love to give.<br />
<br />That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-74073563610088471582013-10-17T17:24:00.001-07:002013-10-21T17:43:29.983-07:00Some ID, PleaseOver the course of the last few months my children have developed full-on alternate personalities. AD waffles between being her sweet, innocent eight-year-old self and a teenage stoner who says shit like "chill out, Elise. Man! YOLO, ya know? YOLO." The RM meanwhile looked into my soul to find what would most hurt me and thus decided that she would now like to be addressed as "Surfin' Barbie" ("surFIN! NO ING!"), have pink hair and get rescued by a "prinztle" who will kill aaaaall the bugs. She's informed me that in her secret life she eats her green beans, so she doesn't have to do it for me. I have had some experience with alternate realities so while I don't like it, I get it. For most of my high school career, for example, I was known to attendees at Memphis Pyramid events as "Elsie Higned" thanks to the misspelled commemorative brick in front of the entrance. I decided that Elsie started an underground newspaper in Johannesburg, drove a Karmann Ghia just like the one in "Pretty In Pink" and had a boyfriend named Ned who wasn't afraid to cry and sent her flowers every week. Cslos, for her part, was evidently a black dude as she was at one point recruited by the African-American men's school Benjamin Banneker School of Technology; this is too much to swallow because in no universe is she technologically inclined. Coincidentally I've also been thinking lately about what my true identity must be; going through my old stuff in the attic has made me question a few things.<br />
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In an effort to regain some sort of control over life, I've been cleaning out the house. We've gotten to the tipping point - we now have more stuff than places to put it all, so things are going. Initially I was selling some of it on a neighborhood exchange board, but that became so consuming that I had to stop. I was turning into an asshole anti-Oskar Schindler, snatching toys out of my children's hands and wailing "two dollars! I could get TWO DOLLARS for this!" as I staggered to the computer, so I've started donating the good stuff and tossing the not-so-good like a more decent human being. Anyway, during this process I've discovered that we have a clutter problem because - spoiler alert! - none of us seem capable of throwing away a single damn thing. I get that we'd want to hang on to favorite books or old letters, but why have I felt the need to hang on to a Northwest Airlines paper luggage tag listing an address I haven't even visited since 1998? That's not exactly a valuable piece of my personal narrative. And the clothes are just terrible - even if I could ever again fit into my circa 1991 Adrienne Vittadini turquoise dress emblazoned with giant fleur-du-lis, should I? Should anyone? That just seems irresponsible. Unfortunately, my housecleaning efforts have also turned up a lot of old pictures chronicling some of my more unwise choices; apparently, for example, I was someone who wore overalls. With Chuck Taylor low-tops. I guess I felt the need to be ready to go should Dexie's Midnight Runners need an extra for one of their music videos. Even this relatively recent picture is just so terribly damning<br />
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White hose? <em>White </em>fucking hose? Well, they may be awful looking, but at least they're terribly unflattering. Why not just go full frontal ugly and get the Downtown Brown Baloney Legs look? I don't want to be this person. This whole walk down memory lane makes me feel like I need to reach out to everyone I ever met and just apologize. Especially to this bit of canned heat</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. Rrrrrowwwww!</span></div>
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He's my absolute favorite cabinet member of all time (and yes, I realize how incredibly dorky that sounds, believe me) and finding this picture in an attic box made me remember that I used to treat this man like shit. Yes, I know I was young and irresponsible, but that doesn't change the fact that hurtful things were said! Yes! I never should have let him take me to Cabo, that didn't help anything! Actually the truth is that I was always seriously enamored with Secretary Reich, but once I met him and realized how terribly serious he is - not to mention the size of a medium cactus - I gave him an alternate reality too. In my world, since he was the size of a child he behaved as such. My friend J and I got endless amounts of amusement out of this; you were late to work? It was probably because you got stuck on Connecticut Ave. behind Itty Bitty Baby Bobby Reich on his Big Wheel. I heard Itty Bitty's coming to the Hill today for the budget hearings - do you think he'll wear his hard-soled shoes with his big boy pants, or will his mom make him wear a John-John? Questioning better be to his liking or he'll throw applesauce at Sen. Exon! And did you see the Sesame Street hand puppet he wore to his swearing-in? Really respectful. </div>
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The only thing that's made me feel better about how heinous I am is that JHP is evidently almost as unappealing; the attic has yielded an awful cache indeed. He's had his own share of fashion missteps for sure; I've seen physical and photographic evidence of an intense sweater vest phase, for one thing, and found a karate uniform that made me feel as if he and I had never actually been introduced. If JHP actually at some point knew karate then Cslos is getting a freaking full ride to Benjamin Banneker. And don't get me started on the (blessedly small) collection of fraternity mock turtlenecks I stumbled upon. Do you know why they're called mock turtlenecks? Because they mock you for marrying a jackass. You are publicly labeled by three Greek letters your spouse wore that translate roughly to "I'm With Stupid". What has to take the cake though is a power ballad he wrote in high school - I found a sheet of paper with a full set of lyrics and the title "Why Must It Come To This?" Oh to be so cursed to be a child of privilege ensconced in a private school in Houston! On the subject of music I also found a case full of cassette tapes that would stand alone as Exhibit A in any divorce court in the country. Vangelis? "Your honor, we hereby grant full custody of the two minors to their mother. Ahh, ahem, strike that, she wants neither Surfin' Barbie nor Paulie Shore."</div>
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To be honest all this makes me thankful that JHP and I somehow found each other, overalls, karate, bad taste and worse behavior be damned. And it also makes me weep for the children - our children - of such a sketchy union. They don't have any reasonable hope of being normal human beings, which I guess means they're right where they should be. Surfin' Barbie's going to hop on her Big Wheel, throw applesauce and be on her way while AD finds some kine bud. Why must it come to this? I think we know.</div>
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-91724461619605439242013-10-09T09:05:00.001-07:002013-10-09T18:20:56.602-07:00Hilarity Did Not EnsueAs you may have picked up from recent posts, the Red Menace has been a touch of a handful as of late. For the last 3 1/2 years, actually, but she's really doubled down these past few months. Monday was a career highlight for her; we were getting ready to go to school and she somehow managed to take a header out of her car seat into the driveway. I still don't know exactly what happened - I was moving a case of Trader Joe's wine (shut up) out of the back seat to make room for carpool when all of a sudden I hear shrieking. Fortunately she mostly landed in the yard but the poor kid still banged her noggin up pretty good on the concrete and was bleeding like a stuck pig; she and I both looked like something out of "Carrie" by the time I got her inside the house. Because my children tend to handle big stuff well and save the serious dramatics for things that don't at all matter ("that is the WRONG PLATE!", "this shirt has a <em>tag</em>!", that sort of thing) she calmed down pretty quickly, so I checked her out, got the bleeding to stop and cleaned both of us up. This was no mean feat given that the blood had soaked all the way through my bra, but we still made it out the door and to school on time. I get a phone call maybe 15 minutes later - or however long it takes to report someone to DFCS, I'm assuming - from the RM's teacher: "um, no, you need to take this child to the hospital...." so I very shamefacedly headed back to school and picked her up.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">oh my heavens, you shouldn't have! No, really...well, <em>alright. </em>Gosh. Thanks!</span></div>
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In my defense, I come by this failure to panic honestly - both my parents are known far and wide (or at least to my sister and me) as truly pitiless creatures. Cslos and I learned early on that if we went to my father with a cut or bruise his immediate response would not be to check it out and make sure that we were okay, but to instead feign sympathy until he could get close enough to really mash on it and then run away laughing. And this man is a physician. Mom is even worse. I remember one time when Cslos was two years old and fell off of her bed; Mom gave her a quick once-over, decided she was fine and went about her day. When Dad came home later that evening Mom casually mentioned "oh, the little one cut her head this morning...". Dad took one look at Cslos's scalp and said "you've been letting this child walk around all day with her skull exposed." So yeah, by those standards I'm damn Florence Nightingale. </div>
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Anyway, off to the Emergency Room we went. The RM was confused and concerned about why she had to leave school but perked right on up when she realized she was going to get to meet a bunch of new people. This wasn't a hospital, it was a fresh crowd - the Catskills to her Shecky Greene. Plus she got to play with my iPad - what's not to love? As soon as the doctor came in to check her out, the RM starts "first of all, I'm a girl, not a boy. I don't really like boys. Although Daddy's a boy, and I like him mostly, and also Papa and there's also a mister man at Publix I like who gives me some balloon." "Aha," says the doctor, "and how do you feel?" "Well, I will tell you I had a tummy ache yesterday but I had a poo-poo and I felt better. A big poo-poo. A POND of poo-poo. Frogs don't live in a pond of poo-poo, that would be gross." And so on. Throughout the course of our significant stay, she also informed the staff that her father has lots of gas (TRUE), I am in a circus (NOT TRUE, technically) and she has a dog named Sweet Cherry Pie (NOT TRUE and KIND OF GROSS).</div>
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She was fine. No concussion, no stitches - just a little bit of skin glue and she was good to go.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">she went ahead and got a little Botox while she was there. Never too early to start with the fillers if you want to avoid the Like Perry forehead, I say</span></div>
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I was enormously relieved that she was fine and that I wasn't going to have to explain to her teachers why I'd tried to dump a kid with a fractured skull at school - merely a flesh wound. That can't be worthy of criminal charges. She was nonplussed. The only time she got even remotely upset was when her hospital bracelet became a bit unwound. Typical RM. She stopped fussing when I told her we could go to Publix and get some balloon from a mister man. I stopped fussing when I got home and got into that case of TJ's wine. Shut up.</div>
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-3925753200101469012013-09-30T16:23:00.001-07:002014-03-06T05:13:22.588-08:00EssentialLately I've been thinking a lot about the mess in D.C. and the looming government shutdown. Not just because the whole situation is ludicrous, but also because I was there the last time it happened. I was working on the House side then, for a wee little wisp of a congressman who tried to make up with his lack of stature by acting as if he were quite the lady killer; a travel-sized Good Time Charlie Wilson. Very handsy, only called me "Valentine" and liked to try to impress us with stories of the time he valiantly and against all odds co-sponsored legislation to establish a National Postal Service Workers Day. In spite of the very satisfying electric letter opener and the nice lady who worked in the Longworth carry-out and tried to find me boyfriends, I wasn't keen on the House side; it was too big, unorganized and uncivil, and there really isn't a lot of payout in sleeping your way to becoming Mrs. Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife. I loathed my job. I distinctly remember getting ready for work one morning and hearing that someone had been stabbed in Old Town but that they were in the hospital and expected to recover fully; I was actually jealous - what's a a little hole in the gut, <em>he didn't have to go to work</em>. Imagine how thrilled I was to hear that when the shutdown came, all nonessential personnel would be furloughed. Surely I was nothing if not completely nonessential, yes? My boss didn't even know my real name! My chief responsibilities were operating the aforementioned letter opener and tormenting our press secretary; I was pretty sure someone could come up with a way to open the mail in my absence, and since the press secretary was (and is) one of my closest friends, I could do as I do now and torment her electronically. Sadly, I was proven wrong; I was somehow deemed essential. In the end, the shutdown was a bit of a tempest in a teapot. My workload was actually considerably lightened due to the fact that so many other agencies were closed, so the only serious inconvenience turned out to be that Willie Ann wasn't around to further my romantic efforts.<br />
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I am therefore owed a furlough. Sadly, I think these days I am actually considered essential to my current short bosses because lately I am convinced they don't have the sense to come in out of the rain. I am truly amazed at some of the things I have to tell these two; I can't count how many times I've thought to myself "how is it possible I have to be verbalizing this? Surely this is the first time in history this particular combination of words has been strung together." A few things I've had to mandate in the last week or so:<br />
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stop putting your tongue on the toilet <br />
you may not sleep in the herbie curbie<br />
you may not sleep in the dryer<br />
stop putting your tongue on the dog<br />
do not try to write with your buttcheeks<br />
I will not sleep in the herbie curbie, or the dryer<br />
you may not put your toenails in the deli slicer at Publix <br />
ice does not count as dinner<br />
stop putting your tongue in the air vent<br />
you may not shave your eyebrows<br />
stop trying to eat through your belly button<br />
stop putting your tongue in the pencil sharpener<br />
we will not change your sister's name to Roy Alabama, Hotdog Hotdog or Crispick<br />
getting really sweaty does not count the same as taking a shower<br />
you may not live in the garden shed at Home Depot (Ed. note: unfortunately)<br />
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I have a headache in my eyeball. Then on top of it all, I had to go to Kinko's this afternoon and the RM wouldn't stop manhandling the Hello Kittae<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Hello Kitty, honey, please point to the spot on the doll where the bad girl touched you</span></div>
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so in accordance with my new parenting policy, I was forced to disciplinarily sing "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" almost in it's entirety, both Babs' and Neil's parts (which I don't mind telling you I NAILED) until she knocked it off. "Nooooow after lovin' me late at niiiiight/when it's GOOD FOR YOU, babe, and you're feelin' alriiiight/weh-heelll you juuuust turn over and turn out the light...." At least I was able to bring a little joy into the world; everybody except my severely put-upon kids clapped, and the guy at the jumbo printer asked if I did weddings. Unfortunately, the dubious behavior picked right on up again once we got home - AD threw the Candyland box top at her sister's head, who retreated to her room in tears. I finally got her calmed down and playing with her bristle blocks, but then she built this</div>
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and immediately started sobbing, yelling "I DON'T LIKE THIS IT SCARES ME LOOK IT'S RUNNING TO GET ME." Obviously! I don't know what to do with this. I'm done shepherding them through the painfully obvious for today.</div>
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It's both good and bad that the girls actually come by this quality honestly - JHP has been known to make some very questionable, hilarious and completely clueless observations that I've greatly enjoyed mocking him for. One of my favorites is in regards to a photograph Cslos gave me of a random guy walking into Sun Studios in Memphis.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">it's haunted by the ghost of a stunningly beautiful woman with a cell phone camera</span></div>
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I love this picture. I love it even more since JHP recently asked me "so, do you think that was taken the very first time Elvis visited Sun Studios?" I let that hang in the air for a bit and then said "Probably. Good call." Didn't even have the energy for that one. Just don't try to stick your tongue on it.</div>
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I am at the mercy of the ignorant. Shit, aren't we all.</div>
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<br />That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-22955356728291715412013-09-26T09:42:00.000-07:002013-09-27T17:28:52.088-07:00Customer ServiceFor some weeks there's been an audio clip going around on the internet. I've tried to link to it below but since I am clearly pretty inept when it comes to computers I'm certain it won't work<br />
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<a href="http://gawker.com/youve-never-heard-a-customer-service-call-meltdown-qui-1299857467">http://gawker.com/youve-never-heard-a-customer-service-call-meltdown-qui-1299857467</a><br />
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so I'll just tell you that it's a really pissed off guy calling a customer service line. It's been on several different websites and is usually accompanied with a title like "WORST call EVER!" or "You've never heard ANYTHING like this!". I beg to differ. The first job I had out of college was answering phones for one of Tennessee's finest, U.S. Senator Jim Sasser, and I can tell you I've heard this shit plenty. One other girl and I were responsible for greeting visitors in the front office as well as answering six phone lines, which on the surface doesn't exactly sound like challenging stuff but I assure you it was hell on earth. Even all these years later I'm still amazed at the things people would call us about "the trailer can't get a cable connection? This is a job for Jim Sasser!" "I'd like to move my mailbox...better call Congress.", and how vicious they'd be when we couldn't magically solve their issues right there on the spot. Throw in the fact that he was the Chairman of the Budget Committee which was handling Bill Clinton's new (and wildly unpopular in Tennessee) budget, and there were days when I'd be covered in flop sweat by 10:00am. I couldn't expect any collegial support either, as the other receptionist - who insisted on calling herself the Senior Receptionist because she started a full month before I did - was a complete twat. She apparently thought her impressive tenure entitled her to hop up from her desk whenever she wanted and go flirt with the hot guy in Sen. Bryan's office across the hall. I get it, but still, what a bitch. Good thing for her shitinabox.com folded.<br />
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The official rule for the phones was that you had to be as cordial and receptive as possible, no matter what the issue; we were to take the caller's name and address, document their issue and assure them that the senator or an appropriate staff member would get back to them right away. However, if the caller either threatened the life of the president (a felony!) or used profanity (an art form!), then we were told to end the call. The beauty of this rule is that we weren't specifically told HOW to end the call. The presidential threat one was easy - we would just tell the caller that we were under a legal obligation to report them to the FBI, which always got a good response. I suppose it was just assumed that we'd just hang up if the profanity thing arose, but I generally chose to take that as an opportunity to work on a few issues on behalf of these folks. "You do realize," I would say, as pitifully as possible, "that you're speaking to someone's daughter. I have absolutely zero influence or power here and yet you treat me so shamefully. I can only assume you'd be horrified for someone to talk to your child in such a manner." That would usually elicit an immediate apology, but the real assholes would double down and throw out a "you listen here, I pay your salary you work for ME." which would get them back an "I make $18,000 a year. If I refund your teeny-tiny cut up piece of a penny, will you promise to NEVER FUCKING CALL BACK AGAIN?" The most satisfying outcome was when it turned out that you actually KNEW the person. I'll never forget sitting through an especially rude tirade about how that perverted hillbilly Clinton and his lesbian wife were going to drive this country straight to hell and how could I look in the mirror knowing my heathen hand was right there on the steering wheel with theirs, I should just be ashamed of myself; when the woman finally finished her spiel, I got her name and realized immediately it was the mother of a friend of mine from high school. "Oh, Mrs. X! It's you! This is Elise! Dennis and Joanna's daughter!" Mortified silence on her end. To this day she can't run into my mother without apologizing. Excellent. <br />
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While 99% of the calls were just angry and mean, we did have a couple of people I really looked forward to hearing from. One was an older guy named John Wayne Boyd who lived in (no kidding) Finger, TN and thought that Jim Sasser was the finest person to ever walk the earth. John Wayne never really gave me any specifics, he just wanted us to know that if he had his way then Jim Sasser would be the Vice President of the United States. Our governor, Ned Ray McWherter, would be at the top of the ticket but ONLY because he was older, not because he was in any way superior to Sasser, "I don't have to like it, but it's only fair.". I appreciated John Wayne's enthusiasm but slightly doubted his mental state because he also had a habit of mailing me letters written on paper Burger King tray liners. He was a paragon of the community compared to my other favorite frequent flier, Mr. Ray Martinez of the Atascadero Forensic State Hospital of California. He would call every Monday and Wednesday at 3:00pm, like clockwork (during what I can only assume was the hour or so he was allowed out of his cell) and demand we make public the list of the "TOP TEN MAFIA BANKERS!" Initially I made the mistake of correcting him, no, sir, we actually don't have that list and to be honest I'm not certain one actually exists, but pretty soon I learned it was so much better just to let him go. If you got Ray on a good day and asked the right questions not only would he fill you in on the bankers, but he'd explain exactly how Jay Rockefeller, Anita Bryant and Amtrak were conspiring to control all American firearms production. That one didn't make a lot of sense at first, but I have to hand it to him because he brought it home strong and sold it well. Ray made conspiracy nuts look rational - he once told me that he knew exactly what happened to President Kennedy, because he was the grassy knoll. Not was at the grassy knoll, no, Ray was the actual hill. I told him that must make it difficult to find pants that fit well, or to travel, and after a moment or two of silence he said "why, yes. Yes it does." <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">looking good, Ray Ray</span></div>
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His first love, however, was always the mafia bankers. He called every member of the Budget Committee about them and we'd compare stories. Every now and then, for some reason, Ray would try to call under a fake name, disguise his voice and speak super-rationally, but we always knew it was him and it was so easy to flush him out "....ok, so I'll send you a copy of SR-380. While I have you on the phone, Mr. Smith, do you have any banking questions? Or concerns about the mafia, by chance?" and off he'd go. I miss that man.<br />
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As awful as that job was, I've always been glad I did it. For one thing I am exceedingly polite to people who are in customer or public service of any kind; it was a great lesson, and one I hope my children understand as well. It also taught me the deep satisfaction of fucking with my other friends who worked on the Hill or in reception; I can't count how many times I would transfer some pissed-off redneck to the direct line of Phil Gramm's legislative director, or call Don Reigle's press secretary and ask about the rumors concerning the 12 year old in the crawl space. It was the most fun to crank call Cslos, though. While she didn't work on the Hill, she worked in the medical records department of a hospital and had to answer the phone "Discharges". I would call at least once a day and request a quart of lymph, or some semen. I'm certain my efforts at entertainment were not at all appreciated, but I enjoyed it. I hope anyone who's ever suffered the indignity of taking abuse from a faceless stranger gets to turn it around with as much satisfaction as I've had. I'm going to call Saxby Chambliss now and let him know that my tires are low.<br />
<br />That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-87801168371300009832013-09-19T08:32:00.002-07:002013-09-19T14:59:51.398-07:00Crime and PunishmentOne of the best things about having the girls back in school is that I get to offload discipline somewhat. Sure, I have to put up with their shit during civilian hours, but for a solid block of time during the day they are not on my watch; should I wish I can choose to believe that they are all "yes ma'am"s and sunshine at school instead of acting like the surly guerilla pre-teens who live here. JHP and I suspect that they may be violating the laws of both evolution and common sense because they seem impervious to all our efforts towards getting them to behave. AD talks back like she gets paid by the word, and the Red Menace feels that it is her personal responsibility to daily remove every single article of clothing from her person and dresser and throw it around her room. Nothing we've done as of yet has broken either of them of these unsavory habits. The Red M treats any whiff of criticism with the greatest of offense and most dramatic protest - she's not allowed to sleep with a knife and a bar of soap? She'll trot out the nomination footage for "Best Performance By A Homeless Three Year Old Whose Puppy Has Just Been Slaughtered Before Her Very Eyes" for you. It's always Emmy season with that one. AD, on the other hand, quietly seethes. Skulks away to her room and closes the door, no doubt planning my imminent disappearance if not death. <br>
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It's not as if I'm not really good at punishment. At the risk of sounding immodest, let me say that I am probably one of the more gifted people you'll ever meet when it comes to that sort of thing. I forget nothing; I don't carry a grudge as much as I nurture, feed and groom it until the time comes to let it unfurl its little black wings and take a giant dump on your head. I do have an exceptionally long fuse when it comes to people I didn't build so rarely do I feel called to action, but things may or may not have been known to happen in the past. On a wildly unrelated note, you should know that many farm supply stores will deliver a bale of hay almost anywhere for $50. And college magazines seem to be notoriously lax when checking the veracity of updates that alums send in; they don't even verify "your" identity before printing the news that "you've" taken the job of Assistant Fluffer on the latest Peter North film. Also, there used to be a fantastically efficient website called shitinabox.com that would generate and handle specific deliveries; sadly that was shut down for reasons that are probably obvious. In its absence, I'm told that there's nothing at all wrong with anonymously mailing someone an actual douchebag<br>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">not this guy. But wouldn't that fuck a brother up having him show up on their doorstep</span></div>
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preferably from outside your normal postal code. These are just things I've heard.</div>
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I've not - yet - been driven to such drastic measures with my children. So far we've done the traditional non-spanking stuff - timeouts, taking away privileges, etc. We briefly did the no television thing but that really punished us more than them, so we've quietly forgotten that one. The No-No Shelf still works somewhat with AD; just today I had to confiscate her favorite pillow, a horrible hairy turquoise peace sign thing that I think dates from her days as a Vietnam conscientious objector.</div>
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s<span style="font-size: x-small;">peaking of punishment...that white piece of paper on the refrigerator are - honest to God - directions that JHP wrote out when he was teaching himself the Spiderman gif dance for no reason. We all suffered mightily.</span></div>
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The RM gives the No-No Shelf the finger - if I put anything of hers up there she just climbs up and grabs it. We've also tried making AD write sentences a la Bart Simpson when she does something wrong, but I suspect she has Teutonic tendencies because she seems to actually enjoy that.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">this is a list of lies</span></div>
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Lately I've had some success with public humiliation. I discovered quite by accident that the girls absolutely hate it when I draw attention to myself. I realized this when we went to a football game and I started dancing with the marching band at the tailgate beforehand - you would have thought I'd run down the street nude shooting b-b's out of my behind from the way they acted. Since I, obviously, have no sense of pride I have been able to turn this to my advantage. For example, we were in Publix last week and AD started mouthing off to me so I immediately burst into "Mandy" by Barry Manilow; that shut her up, but good. Then yesterday the RM tried to palm a packet of gum at the gas station while I was getting my emissions checked - that called for an operatic reinterpretation of Jane's Addiction's "Been Caught Stealing". I'm thinking of making a list of their offenses and then taking them public through song. So if you're in the grocery store and suddenly hear "noooooow HERE'S a little story I gots to TELL about three bad brothers you know so well..." in a bad soprano, please do not be alarmed - my kid just probably threw a pickle jar or spit on the grapes. I'm molding young minds, people.</div>
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If that doesn't work they better watch their backs. And mailbox.</div>
That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-8164682177036641602013-09-14T08:14:00.001-07:002013-09-14T08:14:54.272-07:00Smell My BottomSchool is back in full swing, and I am happily adjusting to having both girls at the same place, every day. It's basically glorious having a small sliver of my pre-motherhood life back, minus a flat stomach. To be honest, I'm still pretty shocked that a certain short houseguest of ours was let in school in the first place; the admissions process was dicey, to say the very least. Since the RM's only 3 (that's dog years. She has actually aged all of us by 21, easily.) there wasn't an interview per se - the school instead has professional evaluators check the itty ones out and see if they'd be a good fit. As a parent, your job is to take the kid to school and hang back. Don't introduce yourself to the evaluator, don't talk to them, don't do anything to acknowledge their existence - the whole point is to see how the kid interacts with them and separates from you. I get this, I've done it before. So I give the RM a good scrubdown, slap some church clothes on her and head over.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">objects in the mirror are stranger than they appear</span></div>
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Things went fine. Initially. She's been there so often with her sister and me she thinks she owns the place, so when we walked in the front office she threw her hands up and yelled "I AM HERE!" as if everyone had been tapping their fingers waiting on her to show up and buy the next round of Jager shots. She immediately showed herself back to the Head of School's office to check on Miss Gennie and swipe a few paper clips, then headed to reception to help Miss Emily buzz people inside and get some scribbling under her belt. We don't worry about her comfort level here. She was playing with blocks in the front lobby when the evaluator came out to introduce herself, "Hi! Would you like to come back to my classroom with me and play some games?" The RM looks at her, smiles ever so sweetly and says "Well hello. My name is Shantay Squanto and I'm funky fresh. I have my own gorilla and hot dog cart!" Zero percent of this is true and I have no idea where she got any of it; I didn't see this coming, not at all. I start to sweat. "Oh." says the evaluator. Unsatisfied with the lack of enthusiasm from the audience, the RM then turns around, pulls her dress up and says "smell my bottom. I don't go potty in my panties." At this point I realize breaking the parent rules are probably pretty far down on my list of concerns so I say "ah. Sorry, no. Um. No. All of it." thereby dazzling her with my own verbal skills. I told the woman that perhaps the RM and I should just go sit in the car and let her find a better way to fill the next half hour because clearly this wasn't going to work. Somehow she took pity on us and led the RM away for the evaluation; I sat in the lobby and began researching boarding elementary school programs.<br />
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30 minutes later they're done, with nary a glance my way from the evaluator as she walks the RM out. We get in the car and head home. I asked the RM how it had gone, was it fun, what did they do? She told me they'd played and read stories - all good. I'm starting to feel like perhaps it hadn't been a complete train wreck when she tells me she also sang a song. "Oh, that's nice, what song, sweetheart?" "WeeeeeeEEEEEEE are NEVER EVER EVER getting BACK TOGETHER!" Aces. Because a little "Jesus Loves Me" would have killed her.<br />
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So, yes, we were pretty shocked to get her letter of acceptance a couple of months later. The only explanation I can come up with is that the school's running an affirmative action program for budding sociopaths, because it sure wasn't that new library we didn't donate. And by the way, lest you judge us for putting a three-year-old in private school just reread that second paragraph and tell me that kid doesn't need some specialized attention. Someone has to teach her how to run that hot dog cart.<br />
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-12934739498248027172013-09-11T12:17:00.002-07:002013-10-21T18:09:54.103-07:009/11<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">I was not drunk when I took this picture</span></div>
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Twelve years ago I was working for Tom Daschle in the Senate Democratic Leader's Office, room S-221 of the U.S. Capitol. It's a beautiful office suite directly across from the Senate floor with gorgeous hand-painted ceilings and antique Minton tile floors. The best part of the office, though, is easily the view - even though only eight of us worked there (including the senator), we had the entire balcony on the right Mall-side of the building. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">do you see me? I'm on the left waving. I'm sorry to tell you this, but those jeans look awful on you.</span></div>
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For years I looked out on some variation of this<br />
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and weather permitting, ate lunch or got some work done out here<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">I don't know how to quit you, Taco Salad Tuesday</span></div>
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As much as a pain in the ass that job could be, there was never a day that I wasn't truly awestruck by my surroundings; as trite as it is to say, it was simply a privilege to be there. The view on the morning of September 11, 2001 was exceptionally lovely although we were almost too busy to enjoy it. We were getting ready for the weekly Democratic Leadership meeting with our whip and committee chairs and also visiting with one of my all-time favorite people in the Senate, John Glenn. He'd been retired for a few years but stopped by fairly often and was always indulgent when we asked him to tell us stories of his time with NASA. As we were talking, our floor leader, Marty, came in the office to tell us that a pilot had flown into a skyscraper in New York. Marty didn't seem too freaked out, but Senator Glenn (who's rather unimpeachable when it comes to planes) told him, flatly, "pilots don't fly into skyscrapers". We all huddled around one of our office TV's and tried to figure out what happened. As we were watching footage of the World Trade Center, another plane banked around towards the second tower, and Sen. Glenn said "oh, that's on purpose." The plane hit. We were stunned. Contrary to popular belief, we didn't have any sort of batphone or top-secret source of information so we didn't really know what to do; as stupid as it seems in hindsight, we decided to press on with the meeting. Not too far into it, CNN started reporting news of a fire at the Pentagon, just as Patty Murray pointed out the conference room window and yelled "SMOKE!". There was a huge black finger of smoke and soot rising up to the left of the Capitol; I remember not being alarmed as much as absently thinking "so THAT'S where the Pentagon is. I thought it was a little more west..." Somehow it hadn't really sunk in that perhaps this particular building isn't where you'd want to be if your country is under attack, so we all just kind of milled around, lemming-like, waiting for who knows what. I called my then-fiancée JHP (who was in Memphis for work) to let him know what was going on and he told me to get the hell out of the building. I assured him that wasn't necessary, everything was fine and that I'd call him later; almost immediately after I hung up we started getting phone calls that the White House and Gephardt's office were both evacuating. Just as Tom was telling us it might be a good idea for us to split, too, the Capitol police came busting in, yelling "GET OUT GET OUT A PLANE IS HEADED FOR THE BUILDING". Well, that threw cold water on us pretty quickly and we all ran like hell. I'm sure there probably is some protocol to get the senators out before the expendables, but I didn't care, I was gone. I bolted down the hard marble staircase and was waved down the hall by dozens of screaming cops, some in combat gear. One of my police buddies, Blonde Dave, said "Elise, get the FUCK out of here NOW!" and all I could think about was ooooh all those senators heard Blonde Dave use the F word! And why did I pick today of all days to wear these really uncomfortable high heels?</div>
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Once we got outside we reconvened on the south lawn, again not really sure what to do, yelling at each other over the din of sirens. We saw our security team hustle Tom away in his bitchin' Navigator, but the rest of us just stood around. My colleague Mark Childress remarked (presciently) that if someone really wanted to get us they'd flush us out of the building and hit us with a bomb, or maybe anthrax; the police must have been thinking something along those same lines because they told us to move to safe quarters. Done. I went to the 7-11, bought a case of beer, 3 pints of ice cream, a pack of Marlboro Lights and went home to make some progress on them. Cslos was out of town for work so I was home alone, completely wigged out and glued to the television. I was stunned when our chief of staff called (from a still undisclosed location) and said we were to head back to work the next day; it was to be business as usual. Driving in the following morning under a sky full of F-15s and helicopters, I thought the low-grade panic that held me would probably never leave, not for the rest of my life. A lot of people have talked about how collegial things were after 9/11 - how people were more kind and less petty, buying coffee for strangers and putting small differences aside - but I just remember being scared, especially once we found out that flight 93 had more than likely been headed our way. I could no longer enjoy our amazing view without imagining a passenger plane hurtling towards us; the Mall had become a potential runway, pointing right towards our office. I was especially heartbroken to discover that a brother of one of Cslos's close friends - the father of a newborn daughter, no less - had been on the plane and engineered the revolt. It's beyond jarring to imagine what would have happened had service out of Newark not been so shitty, and those passengers less brave. Everyone I know who was in the Capitol that day thinks about that a lot. I think of that now twelve-year-old girl a lot. </div>
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Things slowly got back to normalish. We started fighting with the Republicans and the White House again, I got less twitchy and (a little) less bitchy. And then we got this</div>
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so we threw some Cipro in the mix, which we were told can lead to schizophrenia or ruptured hamstrings or a host of other things that suck but not as bad as dying except on top of it all you have to give up caffeine and alcohol and that probably violates the Geneva Conventions. Thanks, you 4th grade Greendale School assholes.<br />
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Then we lost the Wellstones, and I no longer had a sense of humor about any of it. It was time to think about moving on. <br />
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Damn if I don't still miss those taco salads, though. I miss my colleagues, too. Boatloads. Even, and in some cases, especially, those on the other side of the aisle. To this day I count some of the opposition as my favorite people. In spite of what you may think of politicians and their henchmen, the ones I was fortunate enough to work with were, and are, (for the most part) fine people who are truly doing the Lord's work, or at least trying to. They work crap hours for crap pay and horrid poll ratings and love almost every minute of it. I did, anyway. Thank you to the immeasurably brave folks on that airplane who very well may have saved all our lives that day, and to the first responders and members of the military who put their lives ahead of ours every day. We really won't ever forget.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">thanks for letting these two happen</span></div>
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We will now return to our previously scheduled judgementalness, cynicism and general asshattery.That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-79891512923913969482013-08-31T12:51:00.001-07:002013-08-31T19:15:32.033-07:00Pro Dragon Con<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The girls started school recently, which means I have been sick as a dog; they have proven themselves to be quite proficient when it comes to importing all sorts of new germs, and I don't appreciate it. I have been going stir crazy, so this morning it became imperative that I put on my best tutu and head to the Dragon Con parade. For the uninitiated, Dragon Con is the world's largest fantasy/sci-fi convention and every Labor Day weekend it's responsible for turning Atlanta into the adult version of the Island of Misfit Toys. Anything goes - you're a Furry with a Steampunk/Mad Max fetish? Sit by me! You think a Wonder Woman costume might be improved upon by adding blue face paint and a giant pair of black crow's wings? Come on by! It's fantastic. People come from all over the world, admire one another's Star Trek uniforms and have nasty monkey sex. And top it all off with a fabulous parade. Remember that kid who got stuffed in a locker in 5th grade because he was really into Dungeons and Dragons? He's getting the last laugh, as well as a fierce blowjob from a saucy young thing in a Princess Leia bikini. Mark my words.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">you look beautiful, Leia</span></div>
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Things did not get off to the best start for the Piper squad; just as we pulled into the valet station, the RM expressed her opinion of our outing by vomiting all over herself. JHP fled the scene, so I said a quick thank-you to the sinus infection that has killed my sense of smell, mopped her off and rallied. Just in time to see this</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht57QqRaVnH4eKGMkZCfNn6EFZuvu4rx_sDsDqkfMVMXVRr43CGt06A0PYi6zuKoMH9bcFpl6CIUf38VrMUoiFK9KoayT5CRN-SWLMGppfGgHgEpuONL1kWLK293gHzIJCGyLUVVzFfeY/s1600/070.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht57QqRaVnH4eKGMkZCfNn6EFZuvu4rx_sDsDqkfMVMXVRr43CGt06A0PYi6zuKoMH9bcFpl6CIUf38VrMUoiFK9KoayT5CRN-SWLMGppfGgHgEpuONL1kWLK293gHzIJCGyLUVVzFfeY/s320/070.PNG" width="180" /></a></div>
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Begone! This is no place for you people. If you can't accept the idea of people dressed up as Tetris pieces, or that Batman is actually a middle-aged woman (and one of quite large carriage, at that) then you need to get the hell out of my parade. Perhaps your time would be better spent by assisting this poor zombie family who's gotten lost.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUboPjsyFMsRu5ChlM8mIutxRwNnAnHGtmBZqSJ7w1NQoQ0a2I_KddqKorzYSbvVlJ8CCKNyBHY7tQi13QUC-3jglbfkiqweuTF0LGoz4dm3TLX6vEjMsgdT9u-dAxfX-7EBDzy5UPFU4/s1600/076.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUboPjsyFMsRu5ChlM8mIutxRwNnAnHGtmBZqSJ7w1NQoQ0a2I_KddqKorzYSbvVlJ8CCKNyBHY7tQi13QUC-3jglbfkiqweuTF0LGoz4dm3TLX6vEjMsgdT9u-dAxfX-7EBDzy5UPFU4/s320/076.PNG" width="180" /></a></div>
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Zombies were big this year. First there was Stan the zombie, who I wouldn't know from Adam the zombie, but who is evidently famous enough to warrant a solo spot<br />
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But Stan can't beat this with a truckful of sticks; pack your shit up and move on out because nothing is better than zombie Village People. Disco is dead, indeed.<br />
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I don't know the story behind this but it made me feel funny, in a bad way. Like the first time I saw "Reservoir Dogs", or a naked old person.</div>
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Especially because they were immediately followed by this</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">shit</span></div>
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And this made me feel old and out of it, because I don't know who this is</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhap8UQIpNdBZ9eeEAI0D0BDKKKI9oLN0y-gaxrFXRzsNc4gsvQq-8Pc-ygy0kx9iGL0gW-tLlagHpc5OteQOhk7AMlwE9SW8kR-m5iOhWRmq8tMZYhfhv6UgNQuMob6VsNakXws_q0Vh4/s1600/036.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhap8UQIpNdBZ9eeEAI0D0BDKKKI9oLN0y-gaxrFXRzsNc4gsvQq-8Pc-ygy0kx9iGL0gW-tLlagHpc5OteQOhk7AMlwE9SW8kR-m5iOhWRmq8tMZYhfhv6UgNQuMob6VsNakXws_q0Vh4/s320/036.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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but then HE showed up and all was right with the world.<br />
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I was a little insulted on his behalf that someone felt it was necessary to put his name on the side of the car - who doesn't recognize Billy Gee-Dee Williams?!? That is one bad, bold, smooth motherfucker. I love him almost as much as I love Abe Carver on "Days of Our Lives" and that's saying something. Star Wars was, as usual, the most popular theme of the day, so Lando got much love. Star Wars was also open to the most reinterpretation; we had these guys, because, of course.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdg-rdRXvAKW_Fifmlz2ZtlOmjTAGq84ujXh_9pQ4Jprpzmd8scGcD0OKmEYtKobDX_kE-hNCbckKEpqyvrsOpagCSr7QIXB9CLqvUu7QveRafw49kCKWpnkekEJjk0LcLg_ja-ERc3mE/s1600/053.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdg-rdRXvAKW_Fifmlz2ZtlOmjTAGq84ujXh_9pQ4Jprpzmd8scGcD0OKmEYtKobDX_kE-hNCbckKEpqyvrsOpagCSr7QIXB9CLqvUu7QveRafw49kCKWpnkekEJjk0LcLg_ja-ERc3mE/s320/053.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">this is a shockingly common cross-fetish, evidently</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhshpSiIUmDQWxOEyKeTk9a9TNABHatgiynT64TB3L9PpFbWwPRB3tKno5fkdtulFaJRIbNXESqd8n4ST0il7LGSxuLLL5eFlOLv9HNlUJuAQz954k0bG_k70wh_nA7wv1Oq4aFv-9kd0A/s1600/060.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhshpSiIUmDQWxOEyKeTk9a9TNABHatgiynT64TB3L9PpFbWwPRB3tKno5fkdtulFaJRIbNXESqd8n4ST0il7LGSxuLLL5eFlOLv9HNlUJuAQz954k0bG_k70wh_nA7wv1Oq4aFv-9kd0A/s320/060.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">that Jar Jar Binks is such an annoying idiot. It's only August, for Pete's sake and he's all "Merry Christmas!"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">this kind of pissed me off. The Muppets have no business aligning with the Empire. What gives?</span></div>
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The Venn Diagram overlap of Stormtrooper Parrotheads was quite small, which pleased me because I can't help but feel like Jimmy Buffett's career is built upon laughing at our expense. I don't care for him. My favorite ex-boyfriend earned that status by kicking someone out of his fraternity for proudly claiming "I'm the biggest Parrothead you'll ever meet. If you even THINK you know a bigger one, you're wrong." Fortunately, these fine folks showed up</div>
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to let us know that the Death Star shall be breached via Little Rascal. Right about now the RM booted again, this time on my shoulder as well as after my sinus medicine kicked in so I was able to fully appreciate the bouquet. We tied the kids to the car and rolled out.</div>
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It was all exhausting. We lay as we fell.<br />
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-39226206047968399912013-08-15T11:58:00.000-07:002013-08-15T18:01:20.712-07:00We Put the Fun in FuneralAugust 16th is an important date for our family. For one thing, it's my sister's birthday. It's also the day on which both Elvis Presley and my paternal grandfather died, as well as not my birthday, so it isn't all fun and games. I'd like to say that Elvis and Pappaw (that's what we called my grandfather, because we're sophisticated like that) got tangled up in the rough stuff and went down together but the truth is that they died several years apart and Pappaw's idea of fast living was trying sweet acidophilus milk, so, not so much. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">What do you say you let me get friendly with your blood pressure pills, Pap?</span></div>
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Growing up I was not pleased that Cslos was all up in my shit having a birthday a mere five weeks after mine. I felt that it was only reasonable to have the whole season to myself and was therefore reluctant to cede the birthday spotlight so soon. For that reason August 16, 1977 began in the Higdon household with my mother giving me a stern talking-to about how I was not to make this all about me, young lady, or I would be very sorry. This was my sister's day, and if there was even one tiny moment where I tried to steal her thunder then I could just go ahead and kiss my new Stretch Armstrong goodbye missy. So I'm glumly watching "The Price Is Right" while Mom gets Cslos ready for the big birthday party that was not mine when we cut to the "Breaking News!" that Elvis Presley has been pronounced dead. We lived in Memphis so this was a big fucking deal indeed. I ran upstairs to tell Mom that ELVIS is DEAD! and she grabs my arm and says "what did I tell you about trying to get all the attention today! Go back downstairs." It wasn't until we were in the car later on that she realized I actually spoke the truth. You'd think this would have bought me some credibility - or attention - but you'd be wrong.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Jesus called. Elvis answered.</span></div>
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Pappaw followed along a few years later, in a much less dramatic fashion as was his wont. His was the first funeral I remembered attending; according to my parents I'd been to my great-grandmother Sykes' funeral when I was very small, but I had no recollection of this. The only clear memory I had of Sykesie at all was of the time I talked her into playing "bride" with me, a game that involved her walking up and down the driveway holding flowers while I threw gravel at her. Exactly the kind of game fit for a nonagenarian. I was surprised to discover that aside from the sad aspect of it all funerals were actually pretty damn fun. We got to buy new clothes, go to Nashville and see everyone (aside from the star of the show, of course) and play with our cousins? Completely catered and supervised, if at all, by very distracted people? Don't mind if I do! Over the years we had some good times at Hibbett & Hailey, the funeral home of choice, located ironically just down the street from Nodyne Road and Wellman Drive. Lots of bad behavior and goofing off and whatnot. Old H&H must have sensed that my grandmother's funeral in '88 would be our last hurrah there because they sent us out in style; on the afternoon of the visitation my sister and I discovered an artificial leg in a coat closet. Just leaning against the wall, all by its lonesome, waiting for who knows what. Cslos and I to this day can't decide what to make of it - an aggressively practical relative snatched it out of a coffin so as not to be wasteful? Some attendee decided to switch to a mourning wear model? Death, you doth raise eternal questions!</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">A den of inequity! Or parlor of a funeral home.</span></div>
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Elvis is probably more popular now than he ever was alive. Dead Elvis week is a big deal in Memphis - maybe the biggest tourist draw of the year. It's difficult to describe how strange and enjoyable it is if you've never been; picture a poor man's Las Vegas with no gambling and lots of Japanese. I like to think about what a Dead Pappaw week would be like. I do know there would be spaghetti, and lots of Lawrence Welk and Liberace, and the look-alike contest would be heavy on severely hiked up pants. It sounds like the kind of thing that would really catch on in Brooklyn. Either way, people gave their lives for your birthday fun, Cslos. Enjoy it.</div>
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Happiest of birthdays to my beloved sister, Catherine Higdon. I love ya somethin awful.</div>
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-49810709082406931782013-08-14T10:25:00.002-07:002013-08-15T13:00:38.178-07:00VanityFall is practically upon us, which means (among other things) that we are being told how to dress. Let's start with the girls: AD's swimsuit may have grown into her skin to the point that it will take a potato peeler to remove it and get her street legal for school, plus I've got to somehow convince the RM that her underwear is not in fact a storage unit but is instead the foundation (garment) of basic civilized behavior. AD will be fairly easy, but the RM is, as always, likely to be a different story - I'll be reasonably satisfied if I can get her to stop sticking apples in her ass. That's not a quaint country euphemism, yesterday I actually caught her trying to hold an apple slice between her nude buttcheeks. Nothing new there other than the choice of foodstuffs, but still, not the kind of thing that brings joy to a mother's heart. We'll see.<br />
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This is also the time of year when all the fashion magazines deliver their edicts for the coming seasons. Having grown up as a product of Marts both K and Stein, I generally ignore this; fashion was not something my parents put a lot of emphasis on, and I got that gene in triplicate. Please don't mistake me - aside from an inexplicable Cosby sweater bender my dad went on in the mid '80's my parents have always dressed nicely, albeit frugally. It wasn't as if they were walking around in nothing but Ariel underwear with Granny Smiths sticking out of their butts (I guess the RM got a double recessive gene somewhere with that shit), but there wasn't exactly an Andre Leon Talley in residence on Grandview Avenue. The joke among my high school friends was "I'm going to Sam's Club - Elise, do you need any clothes?" Which probably doesn't count as a joke since that's exactly what my mother said on a weekly basis. And still does. So I'm generally not the target audience for the glossy magazines; I'd probably get as much out of a prostate exam as I would from a subscription to "Vogue". JHP has actually been known to confiscate and hide certain items of my clothing because I am unskilled to the point of embarrassment. <br />
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That being said, even I know something's wrong with the latest issue of a magazine that's generally pretty harmless, "Vanity Fair". Some of those ads can only be explained by the fact that the fashion industry is testing the limits of American stupidity. For one thing, this:<br />
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We are expected to believe that appropriate spelunking attire is a leather glove-purse and a panty; I am not buying that, not for one minute. The only thing that keeps me from immediately loathing this designer is that he goes pretty far in redeeming himself on the next page with this<br />
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probably the first model that I am in no way jealous of. What is that face? I think she knows how dumb this is. Thank you for the wink and the nudge, Marc Jacobs - you get that we may be on to you.</div>
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These also bugged me. Who wants their legs to look like a cigarette holder or an Abraham Lincoln hat? </div>
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The shoe industry is another thing altogether - just check out one of the Chanel shoe ads in the Sunday "New York Times" and try and convince me they're not running a long con on women of a certain income. Talk about ugly. Maybe that's what the Marc Jacobs woman is thinking about, all those duped women running around the Upper East Side in footwear that looks like Sesame Street hand puppets. I furthermore don't understand how certain poses are supposed to make you want to wear the clothes. This woman is not aspirational, she's ready for Fight Club. What's the first rule of Versace? Don't talk about Versace. She'll kick the crap out of you for sure.</div>
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Lest you have any remaining doubts that we're being played, I leave you with this<br />
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These are the "Days of Our Lives" of glasses - for the person who will fall for anything. "Hope Brady's back from the dead and is actually Princess Gina, notorious art thief? Sure! Oh, and after the show's over, let's go spend a bunch of money on orange Elvis sideburn glasses, hakay?" These are what finally prompted me to toss the magazine in the trash. I don't need this kind of negative energy. Plus, I have to go to Costco...the girls need back to school clothes.<br />
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<br />That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-48355334924425598312013-08-05T16:44:00.001-07:002013-08-05T16:44:29.381-07:00And We're Off. And I Do Mean Off.We've had a rough go of it over here lately. For starters, we flew to Houston with the kids; nothing makes me want to pull that Julianne Moore move in "The Hours" faster than traveling with those two, and adding the air travel component is so awful that I can hardly believe such a reality exists in the first world. The trip usually starts with the Red Menace deciding to run for mayor of the plane, which means that she must establish a sincere personal connection with each of her fellow flyers. That's all well and good and marginally cute until someone inevitably doesn't want to see her belly button or talk about how long her hair is, and then all bets are off; she becomes the most put-upon creature you've ever met, so abused and mistreated that you can only assume she's on her way to the night shift at a Kathie Lee Gifford clothing factory. Because this behavior is met with swift discipline from JHP and me, we then move to the musical portion of our program, the sing-cry. She gets so worked up that her protestations sound like a Greek chorus by way of Barney - "yoooou yoooou yoooou are the most bad Mommy aaaaall the doo-dah daaaaaay!" or "poooooOOOOOPPPPY DAD!" This usually segues into kicking, which becomes extra awesome if she lands any on her sister because then they're both off to the races. All of this takes place before the cabin doors are even shut, which is why we bring so many drink coupons that we almost have to buy them their own seat. Then we do it all over again on the flight home. <br />
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So I'm barely recovered from our trip, and my sister emails this to me<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">this is a bat. A fucking BAT. What is with that guy next to it? You are NOT all nonchalant, coming home from work or whatever and finding this - you need to be losing your shit, throwing things at it and wetting yourself and running away. We have not one thing in common.</span></div>
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which makes me want to drink paint thinner just so I never have to remember it, ever again. Not since the Giant Sloth Phobia that ruled my 90's or the Great Camel Spider Discovery of aught-two have I been so instantly repelled by an animal photograph. That thing looks like it's trying to claw its way out of a Hefty lawn bag, and what the hell is it eating? I can't even address what it's got going on downstairs...how these aren't extinct, I don't know. Put some underwear on it, and be quick about it before I make a scene.</div>
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Now I'm really off my game so I do something baldly irresponsible - head to Chuck E. Cheese's. As if our recent trip to White Water didn't expose us to enough dangerous bodily fluids. I'm already feeling glum about the poor quality of my parenting, but as we pull in the parking lot the RM sees the sign and yells "Chuck E. Cheese is a proud sponsor of Disney Junior and Super Why!", and I'm back in a place of shame I hadn't visited since AD told me her favorite song was "800-588-2300, Empire...today!" I was thus compelled to abandon my plan of ignoring the girls in favor of the new "Vanity Fair" and instead actually play with them. The joint wasn't crowded so it was actually pretty fun (I totally rule Skee ball, bitches), but I don't know what I missed because once we got home the RM inexplicably stripped down and started wedging a series of things in her butt cheeks.</div>
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Just to be clear, this is not at all unprecedented, which I guess just makes it more alarming. Here's a partial list of the things she tried on for size today:</div>
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1. my car keys</div>
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2. a bottle of nail polish remover</div>
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3. the "Pete's Dragon" DVD case</div>
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4. the "Pete's Dragon" DVD</div>
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5. a Swingline stapler (the Chinese and Russian judges upped her score on account of the strength that move required)</div>
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6. her flip flop</div>
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7. Polly Pocket. Sorry, Polly, we know that's not the pocket you aspire to</div>
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8. a starfish</div>
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9. a purple beaded necklace she bought with her Chuck E. Cheese's tickets</div>
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and as we speak, half of her turkey sandwich. I'm looking at something really special right now.</div>
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I don't know what it says about my mental state that I'm the most disturbed about the necklace. Not that she tried to stick it in her ass, but that I probably paid $20 in game tokens for something that costs eleven cents to produce. </div>
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I'm putting the girls to bed, making some popcorn and opening a bottle of wine. Come over if you want. We'll stick things in your butt cheeks.</div>
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Polly - sorry, sister.<br />
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-880876928030716622013-07-25T12:05:00.001-07:002013-07-25T18:09:11.049-07:00Road TripNow that the structured summer activities are behind us - camp for AD, work/release program for the RM - I've been going a little bit stir crazy. I admittedly have it pretty easy, but there are only so many hours you can ignore your children at the pool before you start feeling a little guilty, and a lot restless. Since the RM is getting better about traveling I've been talking to JHP about doing a family trip somewhere, and I've also been realizing that my parents were either incredibly unsophisticated or else were trying to kill or disable Cslos and me growing up. Mom and Dad were great about taking us on family trips but the destinations and methodology were at times terribly suspect. <br />
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One vacation that was particularly memorable is our drive out west in our 1970's child molester Econoline. The trip itself was fantastic overall - Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, all that - but we had a couple of unplanned detours that were Sketchy McSketcherson. Dad would stop for anything, ANYTHING, including one particularly awful homemade water slide right off the highway. This thing had been clumsily carved out of the side of a hill, coated with blacktop and powered by a garden hose running from the top of it. In what I'm assuming was commensurate with the demand, the water was off when we drove up so we had to wait a few minutes while the proprietor coated it enough to make it somewhat slideable. It was terrible; scoot yourself down a driveway after a light rain and you've got the idea. Multiple abrasions. Mom wouldn't even get out of the van; she just sat there, shaking her head and talking to herself. Part of me still isn't certain this wasn't part of a never-aired hidden camera show. I guess Dad didn't think that was upsetting enough because a few days later we stopped at what I can only describe, generously, as a Soviet amusement park. It was basically a parking lot with a Scrambler that was missing several cars, a miniature merry-go-round like the ones you see in front of grocery stores, a free-standing porch swing and three tricycles on an oval track. If there had been a concession stand it would have offered a single rotten turnip. Obviously the question is why <em>wouldn't</em> we stop here? There was all of one employee in the whole place, so if you wanted to ride anything you'd have to follow him over to a card table to buy tickets, then accompany him back to whatever had tickled your fancy. He had to actually operate the Scrambler and the carouselish thing, but we could handle the swing and the tricycles pretty well on our own, being that they were a swing and tricycles. I think the worst part about this place is that it was in the middle of nowhere, meaning Dad actually had made an effort to find it. Thanks to our horrid van with the blacked-out windows and the permanent "someone farted" look on Mom's face, it probably looked like Dad had kidnapped this poor woman and her daughters and just wanted to give them a bit of fun before gutting them like deer.<br />
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Another time Dad got a wild hair to head to Dogpatch, USA, a C-list theme park deep in the Ozarks dedicated to the characters of relentlessly unentertaining cartoonist Al Capp. Even more random, one of their chief attractions was grass skiing, an activity that consisted of strapping miniature tank treads to your feet and shooting down a mountain. Since even Dad saw the foolishness in that we mostly hung out with Li'l Abner Yokum and the Shmoo, or goofed off in the RV we'd borrowed from one of my dad's partners. My parents were quite comfortable with this particular vehicle, having used it - no shit - on several occasions to shuttle contraband cases of Coors beer to Memphis (a la Smokey and the Bandit) where it was banned due to its lack of pasteurization, so it was a familiar home away from home. It was also a fun ride for Cslos and me since they didn't make us use seatbelts at all; we were free to roam about as we pleased. This doesn't strike me as being quite as dangerous as when they drove to Nashville with us laying prone in the hatchback of Mom's two-seater Datsun 280Z, but still, Dr. Spock won't be giving them any awards. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Offering complimentary tours of our new meth labs</span></div>
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Obviously, I mostly blame Dad for all this though Mom isn't totally off the hook; while he came up with 90% of the content she sat back and let it happen. It's like that Martin Niemoller quote about when the Nazis came for the communists I remained silent, etc.; Mom's quiet acquiescence bought her a tour of the Corn Palace and a couple of nights at the Sioux City Best Western, among other indignities. I'm also a little concerned that I might have inherited a bit of this from Dad because just this week I felt it would be a good idea to take AD to White Water, a water park that, while not homemade, was briefly shut down a few years ago due to a scorching e coli outbreak. I'm almost certain I saw at least three people there who were in the process of peeing, and one of them wasn't even in the water at the time. <br />
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At least I didn't drive her there in the back of this thing. Good times. That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-62068652504216574352013-07-22T14:08:00.001-07:002013-07-29T17:45:38.320-07:00Serial KillerAll this hoopla over the royal baby has made me remember how strange it felt as we waited for our own much-anticipated arrival, the Red Menace. It should go without saying that we also very much looked forward to AD's birth, but since she was our first child we were incredibly naive about the reality of it all. We were also incredibly naive in that we figured we could just have another kid anytime we wanted one. Getting pregnant with AD was a piece of cake and cost to the penny the price of a nice dinner at Floataway Cafe, whereas the RM turned out to be more of a college tuition. One of them fancy ones, too, not that two year baloney. After a year of trying to get pregnant again, my doctor put me through a really fun battery of tests (please note: when someone as clinical and detached as an endocrinologist advises you to take a painkiller before a procedure, you're better off shoving a bottle of Advil up your ass than actually swallowing it because that shit is going to HURT. Your best bet is to head downtown at midnight with a fat roll of twenties or make friends with someone who has a back injury; you'll want the good stuff.) and a heavy dose of Clomid. Clomid is a medical irony - it's supposed to chemically increase your chances of getting pregnant while at the same time turning you into such an irrational heifer that no one you want getting you there can actually stand to be around you. I say "supposed" to, because neither happened to me. I didn't get pregnant, and I experienced zero mood swings, which we might owe to the fact that I'm kind of a hormonal bitch already.<br />
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So. We moved on to IUI, commonly known as artificial insemination. JHP came with me to a few of those, but I went on my own for the last several tries simply because I liked the idea of saying "oh, I got pregnant while my husband was in New York on business..." We tried that move seven times before our doctor said we either needed to get a store-bought kid or bring out the big guns and go in vitro. We've always planned on adopting at some point, but we figured at this point let's dance with who brung ya and see how this plays out, no big deal. Are you laughing at how dumb we are? Because you should be. Here is what most people who have gone through in vitro will share with you about what it's really like: nothing. You will just see the beautiful end result and not realize that getting there was a full-time job of suckiness. I would rather be dipped in gasoline and work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory than to have that job again. For one thing: there are shots. Lots of them, and I don't mean the fun kind off of a rando 18 year old's abs in St. Barths. Furthermore if you have the kind of husband who, during your injection training class, breaks the needle off inside the orange that is serving as your body's stunt double, you have to give them to yourself. A couple of times in the beginning I drank so much before I could inject myself that it did cross my mind that any baby resulting from this venture would come out looking like a hammerhead shark. Because I can rationalize anything - especially whilst working up enough liquid courage to pummel my stomach and ass with needles on a thrice-daily basis - I figured FAS, schmeffAS, at least my kid will be all the better able to detect predators who approach from the periphery.<br />
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Another thing was the wand. Dear God, the wand! Once you start producing the 8 million extra eggs that in vitro requires, they check you daily with this thing. It's aptly named because just like magic it will have you feeling like you're a gym bag that someone's rummaging through for their lost sneaker. I felt that since we were so intimately acquainted that it deserved a more personal name, so I called it Santonio Holmes. Santonio rogered me so roundly, so often, that I still gag a little bit every time I see a Terrible Towel. <br />
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<a data-ved="0CAUQjRw" href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=w9TglHG32MaLMM&tbnid=dD5HLP0x5qYphM:&ved=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.omgblog.com%2F2009%2F02%2Fomg_hes_naked_santonio_holmes.php&ei=wY7tUcqVL46m9gSE-oHoBg&bvm=bv.49478099,d.eWU&psig=AFQjCNEoIxYbB3CIsdCgUD_-ThDb32fqDA&ust=1374609474186210" id="irc_mil" style="border: 0px currentColor;"></a> </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Don't even try to act like you didn't see those shower pictures on the internet. And no, it helped not at all that he's hot.</span></div>
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Ooooff. It was around this point in the process that JHP told me that providing sperm samples made him "uncomfortable!"; it was also around this point that I decided that I will one day write a book called <u>Fools I Have Known And Been Married To</u>. And sneak up on him and Santonio the shit out of him.<br />
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Oh and let's not forget the cost. I won't get into specifics, but go out and buy a new Ford Fiesta, drive it off a cliff and see how financially responsible you feel. Then do it over and over. At the end of the day we had 30 embryos down the (faulty fallopian) tubes and one last gasp of a batch on ice, and that's our little Red Menace. By the time I finally managed to get pregnant with her, JHP and I had almost completely lost sight of the fact that the end result of all this was an actual tiny person. I kept thinking that maybe I'd have a puppy, or one of those giant cardboard golf tournament checks - I knew I was going to get a neat prize at the end, but I just kind of forgot what that entailed. You can definitely tell from the pictures in the days following her birth that we were both a little confused by what the hell kind of bait and switch we'd just fallen prey to. It was a Nigerian royalty internet baby scam, I guess.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Look what we found in the couch cushions. I was actually looking for a Cartier watch.</span></div>
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Fortunately for us, we had time to get our sea legs back because that baby slept a LOT. We were kind of concerned (in a happy, rested way) until we realized she was probably just exhausted from killing all those other babies. There's no doubt that kid clawed her way to the top of the petri dish to get here. That hypothesis always amused me a bit until her personality began to develop to the point that we now realize we might seriously be on to something; she is psychotic. Just today we were at Moe's enjoying a nice Moo Moo Mr. Cow meal when I accidentally dropped her juice box; her response was to slap me on the boob and scream at the top of her lungs "DAMMIT WOMAN!" I don't know how Kate Middleton would react to her kid doing something like that, but you can be sure that I'm pretty freaking jealous of her staff right about now, not to mention the family and friends rate that kid will get at the Tower of London cells. I wish nothing but the best of luck to them and to all new parents, as well as those trying to get there. I may have a critter you can borrow in the meantime; just keep a tight grip on the juice box.</div>
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-84313204563148281402013-07-15T11:46:00.001-07:002013-07-17T18:02:25.706-07:00Back That Shit UpJHP travels for work a lot. As in, usually every week, and usually to places that require relatively long plane rides, like Seattle or Los Angeles. Since I am in possession of both a healthy dose of airplane paranoia and what my therapist likes to call "an active inner life", I'm pretty sure he's going to die any day now. Preparations are therefore in order.<br />
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I wasn't always nervous about airplanes; until I was in my mid-twenties in fact I didn't really give flying a second thought. That changed when I was flying home to D.C. and was involved in something that wasn't actually a plane crash, but that was definitely plane-crashy. We were taking off at the Savannah airport when a tire blew and got sucked into the left engine, which then caught fire. All of this was conveniently located right by my seat so I saw the whole shitstorm unfold. We were told later that the plane was too heavy and too far into the takeoff process to stop so we had to lift off as best we could, dump the fuel and then come back to the airport for an emergency landing. It was the longest fifteen minutes of my life, longer even than AD's Christmas recital and I swear I came out of that thing with longer hair. In the end (and in spite of the terribly unhelpful flight attendant who ran up and down the aisle sobbing) everything turned out fine; my seatmate didn't even get anything on me when she shat herself, which I appreciated. So, yes, since then I've not been the biggest fan of air travel. Part of me knows that the odds are ridiculously on my side when it comes to something like that happening again, but a bigger part just wishes that planes only reached an altitude of ten feet.<br />
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The first thing I did to prepare for my impending widowhood was to consider a potential career. This is a thorny one, since I am almost unemployable in the state of Georgia by virtue of the fact that I worked in the U.S. Congress for 12+ years. For Democrats. Job-wise I would have more luck had I focused on the Congress of the Cow instead. I could probably get a job in retail or in the service industry, but that would involve having to actually make an effort, so I stuck with things I could accomplish from my desk because you can't teach that kind of gumption. After much reflection, preparation and study, I was eventually ordained as a minister.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">I hereby pronounce me Mrs. Henry Cavill</span></div>
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And by "eventually", I mean five minutes after I got on the internet. It was a rigorous process; I was required to provide my shipping information and click on a box that said I was submitting my application under my real name and not using an alias. I guess they don't want an unsanctioned Reverend Sheriff Roy Mucus of Scrotum County running around out there, calling the legitimacy of the church into question. All of this for only $25 - extra if you want a "Clergy" parking placard. I also became a notary, something that was quite a bit more involved in that I had to actually mail something in. It was exhausting. Since it's always a good idea to advance your education I also decided to look into some online classes, but this went off the rails pretty quickly. For one thing, the first step in applying to any of the prestigious Kaplan University programs involved consulting with a representative, and I don't do that. Secondly the classes were either things that actively terrify me - Medical Terminology, Public Speaking - or things that are probably actively terrified <em>of</em> me - Fire Science, Criminological Theory. Nope.</div>
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With such limited career options I decided the best course would be for me to remarry as quickly as possible. Since I couldn't come up with any good JHP2.0 candidates on my own, I figured I'd get with the times and look online. Match.com was more than happy to help; within a few hours they'd found quite a few potential soulmates for me, including </div>
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"CANTBBROK". I CANTDISAGREE with that sentiment, but I also wonder if he's issuing a threat rather than expressing a desire. He looks as if he's mid-heist. Possibly not the best father figure for my girls. Then there was this fellow who went by "THENIGHTRANGER"</div>
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I don't know what he means by that, but I don't like it. Not at all. This guy looks like he'd sneak around in your backyard wearing nothing but a diaper and oven mitts. One of my "Premium Matches!" was this guy, a gentleman who clearly plays fast and loose with the truth</div>
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"IMNOTOAD". Sir, we need to discuss a few things. </div>
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Screw this noise. I'm just going to have to get JHP to go Greyhound and buy a much bigger life insurance policy.</div>
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-23117010903367608722013-07-09T12:05:00.002-07:002013-07-15T12:49:21.104-07:00Scare TacticsThings have been a little slow over here for the last few days, and in my anhedonia I've had no choice but to turn to scaring my children for entertainment. At first it was softball kind of stuff, like hollering "there's a giant spider on your head!" or telling bedtime stories about a President Rick Perry Supreme Court, but all the rain started to really depress me so I had to go bigger. Lately my favorite thing to do is to hide somewhere and yell for the girls, then jump out and scare the living shit out of them. AD has 8 years of living with me under her belt so she just usually squeals and runs away, but the RM, being relatively new to the scene, positively freaks out. It's excellent. She tends to lock up and fall over, like one of those fainting goats you see on YouTube. Sure, she's subsequently developed a pretty oversized phobia of blind corners and draperies, but I'm sure she'll be fine. This sort of behavior - both the need to scare as well as the hair-trigger startle reflex - runs in my family like a Hapsburg jaw.<br />
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I mostly blame my dad. He never missed a chance to scare Cslos and me when we were growing up, and as a physician and therefore the owner of an endless supply of terrifying medical journals and magazines, his arsenal was mighty indeed. To be fair, it was usually in the name of safety and/or discipline; he'd show us a picture of a morbidly obese earless man covered in pustular acne, for example, and very solemnly tell us "....and look what happened to THIS poor little girl when she decided she wanted a skateboard...". He was not, however, averse to revulsion as sport, and for that reason we knew that when a new "Lancet" or JAMA arrived in the mail it would be prudent to steel ourselves for photos of Thalidomide babies or battlefield amputations hidden under our pillows or in coat pockets. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">don't say the word "motorcycle" three times</span> </div>
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I think I took it all better than Cslos did. She emerged from childhood a relatively nervous person and being the loving big sister I was, I hopped on that like a duck on a junebug. She was so high-strung that at times you could just be sitting across the table from her and say "boo" in a totally normal tone of voice, and she'd jump like you'd taken a cattle prod to her. One time I pulled a pair of pantyhose over my head, snuck outside, pressed my face against her window and promptly shaved ten years off of her life. When she saw me she turned milk white and did her best Fred Sanford "Elizabeth I'm coming to join you" chest-clutching before collapsing against the wall; it was a while before she spoke to me again.</div>
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When AD was four I had a window into what it must be like to have a hysterical temperament; Carol, my mother-in-law, sent her a walking Elmo mylar balloon for Valentine's Day that made me as jumpy as a virgin at a prison rodeo. Let me just say that I was not too shocked to hear about the allegations against Kevin Clash because this Elmo was a serious asshole. He would wait until my guard was completely down (usually in the evenings after a glass of wine. Very opportunistic, this Muppet), shuffle noiselessly up from behind and have me blindly lunging for a butcher knife. It was as if we were constantly being burgled in a Fellini film.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">the original Red Menace of Birchwood Drive. It really needs to wipe that fucking smile off its face.</span></div>
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I had no choice but to use Elmo's powers for my purposes, so I started hiding it from JHP. One morning he found it in the shower, another time he opened his closet to find a tie and instead, out ambles Elmo. I always knew when he'd been discovered because JHP screams like a falsetto child. Quite distinctive. I really got him when I belted Elmo into the driver's seat of his car one night - I think he peed a tiny bit. Shortly after that, Elmo was somehow mysteriously flattened which I was okay with because my hair had started coming in gray from the lifestyle.</div>
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The girls better hope this weather clears up soon, because I know where to get an Elmo balloon, and a "Lancet". Not to mention a pair of pantyhose.</div>
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<br />That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-68951415645672013192013-06-24T14:32:00.000-07:002013-06-30T09:46:24.119-07:00BedwetterThe Fourth of July and my birthday are both coming up in a couple of weeks, which means two things. First, JHP will attempt (usually unsuccessfully) to steel himself for any possible sightings or encounters with the ne plus ultra of his phobias, Uncle Sam on stilts. The second thing is that I will begin to get phone calls from my mother that are both precisely timed and scripted, and describe in detail the days leading up to my birth. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Happy birthday America, ye bastion of whiny lardbottoms, ye.</span></div>
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I don't know when she started this tradition, but I can't remember a Fourth when I wasn't greeted with a (insert my pending age) "years ago today, I was making a blackberry cobbler for your dad and Uncle Bob, and I burned my arm on the stove..." etc. This goes on periodically for the next two days when we get to my actual birthday and money shot, as it were. It's not a particularly exciting story (the dramatic highlight is the retelling of a vaguely suspicious vehicle that was outside their apartment and never seen again. Kind of dull stuff), but it's mine, and I love it. The best part is how Mom tells each installment completely seriously and without preamble - no "hello" when I answer the phone, just a solemn "By now I'd made a German chocolate cake and decided to wash my hair..." in her thick Nashville accent.</div>
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Even though I know the whole story word for word at this point I still look forward to this every year. Back before cell phones, catching each phone call could get a little dicey, and missing one would throw the whole thing into chaos and lawlessness....human sacrifices, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria! So you can imagine how happy I was to come home one July 5th some years ago and find that Mom had left that evening's installment on my answering machine. More precisely, she'd left it on the answering machine of the people for whom I was house sitting. The 7/5 pm episode is my favorite, because that's when her water breaks and we finally get this show on the road. "...and I woke up in the middle of the night, and the bed was aaallll wet so I said 'Dennis! I think I wet the bed!' so I got up and went to the bathroom. I woke up later on that night, and said 'Dennis! I think I wet the bed AGAIN!'..." I was so pleased to have part of the story documented that I immediately opened the answering machine and swapped the tape with what I thought was a spare tape inside next to it. What I didn't realize was that by doing so I'd actually made Mom's story the outgoing message on the machine. And remember I was house sitting? It was for my old boss, the former senator from the great state of Tennessee who was at the time the US Ambassador to China. For over two months callers to his house were greeted with a five-minute dramatic reenactment of the time some anonymous country woman twice thought she'd wet her bed. </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">She's really good at storytelling and fake peeing. All reasonable offers considered.</span></div>
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Some very, very important people left some very, very confused messages on that machine before I finally figured out what I'd done. "Um...Secretary Albright would like to speak to the Ambassador but we have the wrong number?" "Ah. Well. Let me see. I'm calling from the Washington Post. I'll try back later." When I called Mom to tell her about it her reaction was a firm and certain "No, that did not happen. Dennis! Bring me a scotch, baby." To this day we do not speak of it.</div>
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Personally I'm just relieved that this didn't trigger an international incident, or get misinterpreted as some sort of strange American S&M etiquette. I also wonder how many people are still wondering what happened after Dennis! went off to work and she finished hanging my mobile. You'll just have to wait until she calls on the 6th!</div>
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6987012229781579139.post-85512709066028641282013-06-19T13:40:00.000-07:002013-06-24T16:34:09.854-07:00PopsJHP and I recently had a week and a half without children and it was a glorious thing indeed. AD's at camp until the end of June, and the RM went to Memphis to inflict herself upon the Higdons. My family has a long history of pawning children off on grandparents; I'm more than happy to do my part. <br />
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My mother would wait maybe ten minutes after school was out for the summer before packing us up and shipping us up to Nashville. Sometimes she'd drive us all the way herself and stay a couple of days before leaving us to our own devices, but more often she'd hand us off to my grandmother at the designated halfway point, Deena's Restaurant off the Lexington/Huntington exit on I-40. Cslos and I were glad to oblige because as far as we were concerned there was nothing more fun than spending time in Nashville. In addition to Opryland and the retrospectively creepy Water Boggan, Nashville was the home to both sets of grandparents, our most fun cousins and a host of aunts and uncles.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">My dad's younger sisters - beautiful identical twins - worked here one summer, and you could not convince me that there was a more glamorous job outside of Hollywood. I mean, seriously, doesn't this just ooze sophistication?</span></div>
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My paternal grandparents were perhaps the kindest people in the world, and not just because they let us have all the normally verboten sugar cereal we wanted. Visiting them might include an impromptu fashion show with my aunts' clothes, or building a sandbox with my grandfather - idyllic grandparent stuff. My mother's parents on the other hand were a different animal in that visiting them carried with it a reasonable chance of serious injury or defamation. My grandmother, Moms, was the most loving and responsible woman you can imagine but she had somehow nonetheless managed to marry the most inappropriate man in the tri-state area. Pops. My Lord, that man. </div>
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I asked my mother recently how she would describe her dad, and she immediately replied "flashy vain insecure unfaithful obstinate argumentative quick temper quick to laugh smart charming and loving". He was a Cark Gable mustachioed dandy who would make my grandmother move to the backseat so he could pick up hitchhikers. He once visited my mother in college and somehow got so drunk by the time she met him at his hotel that he told her he had cancer (he didn't) so she wouldn't get mad at him (she did); he even showed her his "radiation burns" - sunburn from working in the yard - to prove it. Pops was also a bit of a firebug and torched not one but two automobiles. The first he claimed to have no active part in; he started his car and went back inside the house to get something, and in the meantime it somehow accidentally caught fire. My grandmother informed him that their car was in flames in the driveway, and his response was a dismissive "what do you want me to do, piss on it?" I personally consider the "accidentally" part to be alleged, since shortly thereafter he also burned our car down to the steel after throwing a lit cigarillo (a cigarillo!) in the backseat. </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">After JHP and I saw "The Royal Tennenbaums" I told him I hoped he'd enjoyed meeting my grandfather. Dead on.</span></div>
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Pops once traded his .22 rifle to a cousin for a bike to give to his girlfriend's son. I'm not sure this was the same girlfriend he wanted to invite to my christening, but it bears mentioning that 1. he and my grandmother never divorced and 2. the girlfriend's son may or may not have been his as well. We still speculate about any potential half-siblings my mother might have. Several years ago there was a horrible flood that killed over 3,000 people in Papua New Guinea, which just so happened to be where Pops had been stationed in WWII. Dad called me and said "you need to be extra nice to your mother...she lost a lot of family today." You might think a man of this caliber would have trouble finding professional success, but in this case you'd be mistaken - Pops was actually an attorney of some prominence. Which made it all the more newsworthy the time he was tossed in the poke for telling a cop to go fuck himself...that stayed on the front page of the paper for almost a week.</div>
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When I was three years old, Pops fell and suffered a head injury that resulted in irreversible damage to the part of his brain that controlled judgment and inhibitions. Which was cool since he obviously had both of those qualities in spades and could totally afford to have them take a hit. The stories of his hospital stay are legendary; my mother has especially fond memories of the time a nurse asked him what he would like for breakfast, and he responded "I WANT SOME HOT PUSSY!" He backed that shit up, too - his signature move became luring a nurse to his bedside and then jamming his bare foot up her dress. Cute! Once he came home he wasn't much better, which meant he was a pretty fantastic playmate for a three year old. We were always cautioned to keep it to ourselves if there was a certain toy or present that we wanted, because he was as likely as not to get it for us even if it wasn't remotely appropriate, a lesson my grandmother learned the hard way after Delta Air Cargo called her one day and told her she needed to come pick up her dog. "What dog? We don't have a dog." Turns out he'd ordered a show dog, a giant red Doberman, and neglected to tell her. He thought we might like it.</div>
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Pops died of cancer when I was eleven so it's only in retrospect that my sister and I can appreciate how truly off his rocker he was when we were children. Every now and then we'll realize "so he was SERIOUS when he accused us of smoking cigars in the back yard..." or we'll stumble across a photo of him reading "Oui" magazine, me perched on his lap obliviously watching tv. It definitely puts a spin on the time he rolled the car window up on my neck "just for kicks". I think about him all the time, especially on Father's Day, and wonder what kind of grandfather he would have been as we grew older. Something tells me we might be better off not knowing.</div>
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Happy belated Father's Day, Pops. </div>
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That’s Enough About Youhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00533229787846372620noreply@blogger.com1