Hammer Time

MDH and I returned from Florida less than 24 hours ago, and it's been so long since I last posted on my blog that I'd be quite shocked if anyone out there missed me.

Some (one or two) of you may be wondering, as I was, just what the fuck were you doing in Florida in the middle of June crazyface?

Central Florida is hotter than Hades in mid-June and judging (and I am indeed, very judgemental) from the snippets of overheard conversations between my fellow airline passengers, only mouth breathing degenerates and their screaming heathen progeny fly to Central Florida in mid-June.

Or people who already live in oven hot climates.

And us.

Seriously, the mental capacity of some my fellow travelers seemed pretty limited. Case in point: The young man and his "gran-maw", sitting behind us, who I'm pretty sure were both making their debuts outside the holler, had never seen a magazine and spent most of the runway taxi time and flight to 10,000 feet, (at which point the flight attendant said we could use portable electronic devices and I praised god's glory in heaven and giddily jammed my earbuds into my listening holes and was able to block these morons out), pointing in amazement at the "pitchurs" in a glossy men's magazine that I can only assume someone had left behind in the gate area, and reciting aloud the prices of each and every item of clothing in the fashion spreads and wondering who would spend $225 for a pair of jeans and the like.

When reading fashion magazines I often wonder the same thing. In the privacy of my own head. But then I quickly get over it. This guy hammered it all out in a twangy monotone. Item by detestable item.

Lookit this Gran-maw - it sez here this guys jacket costed 23 hunnert dollers. Can you believe that shit? Damn! That's a whole years wortha child support!

I've got nothing against rednecks. I've got no room to talk as I myself come from a long line of the finest Kentucky redneck stock, but when your conversational skills are that loud, that limited and I am forced to listen to your stupid ass bullshit it endangers my health. My eyes were rolling up and all around in my head, it's lucky I didn't sprain them.

Well I guess that's what you get for booking at the last minute on Squalor Airlines.

Anyhoo... back to my original question that I imagined you gave enough of a shit to care about or ask me - we went to Florida in the middle of June because we had to reschedule our original, more reasonably timed December visit to my parental units due to my mother's broken pelvis. Understandably, she wanted no visitors during her extremely painful and lengthy recovery. No problem-o. Then I had the brilliant idea to come down in June for her birthday.

It seems extreme, but I'm finding it increasingly necessary to pad visits with my parents with buffer periods both before and after our time with them. This year our 4.5 day visit with my folks was preceded with 3 days at the beach and concluded with 2 days at Disneyworld.

Let me give you some facts about how things go down at my parents house these days:

1. They keep the air conditioning set at 80 degrees.

2. 80 Fucking Degrees.

3. That is hotter than shit.

4. It is not possible to sleep when the air conditioning is set to 80.

5. My mother makes the weakest coffee known to man.

6. My mother is even more passive aggressive than I am.

7. One morning I volunteered to make the coffee and snuck in a couple of extra scoops.

8. She said it was a tad strong for her taste, but cheerfully decided that she could temper hers by adding a little water.

9. When she added the water to her cup she said that it made it too cool and she has this thing where she refuses to heat up coffee in the microwave - so she decided, rather loudly, that she just wouldn't drink coffee that day. "It's just one day. When I was in the hospital recovering from MY BROKEN PELVIS I went for almost a whole week without coffee. Can you imagine that?"

10. It was so over the top she could've won a Tony.

11. It took every ounce of strength left in my sweaty, exhausted, coffee depleted body to restrain myself from suggesting that she leave her cup in the guest room for a minute or two to heat it up.

12. On a brighter note the house rum is 92 proof, flows freely after 11am (new summer hours apparently as previously noon was considered appropriate) and is conveniently located next to the fridge (with built in ice maker) between the cocktail napkins and a bowl of limes.

Gypsies, Tramps & Skeeves

Well there is nothing quite like combining your 42nd birthday and a family reunion all in the same weekend to leave you feeling a wee bit maudlin. We've been back from Columbus for just a week and I've been a bit down. Not that I didn't have fun. I did. And not that I wasn't happy to see (most of) my family. I was. Perhaps things were a little too good and I wasn't quite ready to leave my old stomping grounds.

Last Friday afternoon I went out to lunch with my mother (in town for the reunion as well), and my friends Amy and Becky. It was marvelous. We laughed and laughed. Until my mom created one of those bizarro moments where the entire world (or in this case the entire restaurant) stops spinning, mouths are silenced and all ears became focused on her when she told this whacked out and racially tinged story about Romani Gypsies that she tried to dignify by saying she'd read it in "the paper".

Awkward.

Fortunately we recovered the moment and the good times resumed as my friends and I collectively made a decision to smile, nod and ignore her crazy ass and quickly move on to less nutty topics.

After my mother left I tried to restore my friends faith in journalism by revealing that the only "paper" my mom reads is the Villages Daily Sun and all they ever report is who died or who has grand kids visiting. I reassured them that she didn't read that clap-trap Gypsy story in the Washington Post or the New York Times. Clearly she made it up.

It's scary to see your parents age. A sad point, driven (literally) home to me in the bullet points listed below in the order that the thoughts popped into my head, as I got in the passenger seat of my mother's rented mini-van and took a short drive across the parking lot of a large mall after luncheon when we all wanted to grab coffees at a nearby cafe:

• Damn. She has to drive? It's so close. Her legs must be very fucked up. I should ask her how fucked up her legs are ...


• Damn. She uses a cane at home? Why hasn't she ever mentioned this. Um... Why didn't she bring it with her?


• Vanity. Apparently my mom is more self conscious about being seen using a cane than she is about getting into a car and driving 50 feet.


• Um... why is she driving in circles? We just drove right by the cafe. There's a spot. Oh. There's a spot. Oh. There's one. Oh. What the fuck?


• Great. Now she's blind too. Apparently she only parks in spots where she can pull forward instead of having to back out.


• This is bad.

I'll just say this about my mom's driving - the only reason she hasn't mowed anyone down (that we know of) is because thankfully they saw her first and were able to get the hell out of the way.

As for the rest of my weekend - here is the highlight reel of my family reunion in the form of, you guessed it, more bullet points:

• Babies, babies, babies! My family sure can breed! I have two cousins who are my age WHO HAVE GRANDCHILDREN. I find this appalling when birth control is so cheap. I can't get excited that you are a grandparent. I just can't. Is that wrong?
  
  
• Speaking of family planning, I'm old enough now that no one is asking MDH and me when we are going to start a family and this made me a little sad. It used to piss me off.


• I raised a huge stink because there was no mustard. Who the hell was in charge of this BBQ shit pile? Call your event planner and get your money back no mustard. (It was my aunt Nan and I totally forgive her - but I made some noise) Hundreds of cheap-ass hot dogs and not one squirt of mustard in the whole goddamn place? I don't mind a cheap-ass hot dog, but I need to put some mustard on that shit to maintain my dignity.



• What the hell? My sister's youngest child is going to be a senior next year. Stop it all of you. No more growing up. I mean it.




• My entire extended family stayed at the Holiday Inn Express near the reunion venue and we basically took over the entire place. It was like that scene from Raising Arizona when all of those wild kids are trashing Hi & Ed's trailer. I lost count of all the people who walked into the pool area, fully decked out in swimsuits, crisp white hotel towel draped over one shoulder, rearing to go and then took one look at the drunk and noisy clan of rednecks who had high jacked the place and hauled ass right the fuck out of there.


• My aunt Libby, who is in her late 60's and seems like a perfectly reasonable person on the surface, came down to enjoy her complimentary breakfast in that room hotels always have right off of the lobby, within clear view of the reception desk, elevators and main walkway of the establishment, wearing nothing but her housecoat (a light blue cotton whisp of a garment with embroidered flowers, gingham patch pockets, and white metal snaps up the front) and slippers (light pink terry cloth slides). Clearly she has come unhinged as she seemed neither to notice nor care that nobody else was dressed in this fashion or that it might be inappropriate or uncomfortable for the other patrons (me) in the hotel to see her in such a state of undress.
  


• I got over it.
  


• I slurred drunkenly on and on about Libby's embarassing housecoat at dinner Sunday night with MDH and several of our friends.
  


• Apparently I wasn't over it, although I had forgotten all about my mom and the weird Gypsy thing until I talked to Amy on the phone last night.

Pants Noise

Today I wore a pair of shoes that are a winning combination of cute and comfortable. I hardly ever wear them and when I took them down from the top shelf of my closet and pulled them out of the box, I was thinking to myself - Oh, I love these shoes, why don't I ever wear them?

Because they make an irritating rubbery squishing noise with every step - that's why.

They make a noise like wet socks inside a pair of rubber boots, but of course I didn't remember this until I was well on my way and it was too late to turn back and get another pair.

In addition to this I wore one of my newer pairs of wide-leg khaki trousers. They make a soft, swishing sound that is also pretty annoying after awhile.

So between the shoes and the pants I sounded like a one man band.

I was self conscious about it all day to the point that I made a contest with myself to see how long I could go without getting up to do anything. Pretty long actually. I made it until around 12:30. When I finally couldn't take it any more and got up to go to the break room to heat up my lunch (there was no way I was going to eat cold soup from a can) enough time had gone by for my feet to stir up a little moisture and a new delightful farting noise was now added to the mix for accompaniment.

Great.

Round about this time (12:50, to be exact) a reminder popped up on my calendar for a meeting I needed to attend - on the other side of the fucking compound. Seriously it's a very big place - the meeting was half a mile away. No joke.

It took me 11 laboriously noisy hours to walk there. Farting, swishing and squishing all the way. Of course I got there late and had to walk all the way to the back of the room to find a seat.

Marvelous.

Anyhoo... the first thing I did when I arrived home this evening was rip these shoes from my feet and ceremoniously slam them into the trash. I said, "Take that you noisy motherfuckers".

Then I unceremoniously pulled them out of the trash, put them back into their box, placed a post it note on top of the box that says simply, "Farts", and placed the box back on the top closet shelf. At least next time I'll know why I never wear them.

The title of the post is a little inside joke because when I was in middle school I had a friend named Dana whose mother was into some weird rattle-snake frenching religion and thought that everything having to do with the human body was dirty and any mention of a body part or body function was a dirty word. She was kinda like Carrie's mom.

Dana's mother once washed her mouth out with soap for saying the word "pimple". Her mother created an alternate language for such things:

Zit/Pimple = Place on your face

Fart = Pants noise

Vagina = Special place

Butt/Ass = Seat

Crazy Bitch = Mother

That's all I can remember, but "Pants Noise" always gave me a giggle and when Amy's daughter LBL was a baby, that was one of my favorite nicknames for her.

Nature Will Never Get Old

Happy 40th birthday to Nature Boy! Please raise a glass, even if it is just orange juice, in the honor of a man who is, in addition to being lucky enough to be my friend, a teacher, a talented artist,

The piece on the right is one of Nature Boy's discards that I dug out of the trash when we were roommates. The stamped raku piece on the left MDH paid full price for at one of Nature Boy's gallery shows and gave it to me for my birthday. I treasure them both.

had the good sense to marry the fabulous Frenchie, I couldn't find a picture of the two of them together, so here is a picture of Frenchie doing what she does best.

and father to boy genius, Jimmy Neutron.

I had to include this picture too because of the matching swim wear.

I have claimed for years that Nature Boy is hands down the best roommate I ever had. The guy was tidy, never borrowed my towels and has one of the best laughs you'd ever hope to hear. It's infectious. Seriously it's one of those laughs that when you hear it you have to find out what's the fuck is so funny and even if you never find out you'll start laughing anyway.

Also, Nature Boy can rock a pair of overalls like nobody's business. He doesn't look like Junior Samples at all.

Happy Birthday Nature Boy - you are loved.

A Good Time Was Had by One

Hello! Thanks everyone for your birthday wishes. I debated a bit about whether or not to let anyone know that it was my birthday, and when I say "a bit", what I really mean is about half a second, but I figured why the hell not? and ended up getting all of your lovely comments sent to me by email throughout the day while I was at work. It really brightened this aging lady's spirits.

I've spent my birthdays alone for the last few years. Not intentionally, but either I was on the road working or, like this year MDH was on the road working. I'm a big girl and it's OK to spend my birthday alone. Really - I don't mind. Besides our trip to Toronto was part of my birthday celebration and MDH and I will celebrate my birthday yet again with dinner at a swanky restaurant this weekend. My darling also left me some presents before he jetted off, including but not limited to:

• The new book by David Sedaris called When You Are Engulfed In Flames, which may be the best title for any book ever.
  
  
• Dirty coffee cups and errant socks strewn about the house for me to find throughout the week like an Easter egg hunt. So thoughtful.

Ever thoughtful Amy sent me a box of presents early last week that I patiently waited to open until it was my actual birthday:

• A bag of candy orange slices (my secret favorite).



• This framed photo of her and Ted from the Phillies game as a memento of our trip to Philadelphia a few weeks ago.

I have many little ways to make things feel special, even if it is just me and the cat, not the least of which was having a Thin Mint Blizzard from Dairy Queen for dinner, as inspired by my newest favorite blogger Fawless over at Lots Better Then Your Blog*. Thanks Fawless! If it wasn't for your informative blog posting I wouldn't have known such a delicacy existed - and I didn't have to give anyone a blow job to get it.

What really made my birthday great was realizing that last night began the new season of Project Runway and having the house to myself so that I could enjoy it with no interruptions. It was my birthday wish come true. God, I fucking love that show.

*I've been meaning to include her on my blogroll for months and I swear I didn't just now do it because she put me on hers.

Your Lucky Has Run Out

In honor of my best friend Amy's birthday I thought I would share a story about Amy's devotion to her dignity and her little dog Rita.

Rita is a 12 year old, 15 pound, black and white Rat Terrier with a little snub of a hot dog for a tail. She is hands down the cutest and most frustrating dog I have ever known.

She is yappy, obstinate, has the worst friggin' breath paired with the longest, slimiest tongue in the entire galaxy and wants nothing more than to lick endlessly inside your ears until she tastes your brain.

This is why when I am at Amy's house I never pick Rita up, lay down on the floor or allow my head to be anywhere near the level of that dog's reeking snout.

Even though Rita sheds enough to knit another dog, her breath smells like rotten eggs and her feet like Chili-Cheese Fritos, Amy loves this goddamn dog almost as much as she loves her own daughter LBL. Sometimes I wonder though, because Rita doesn't lie, ask for money, or whine about having to practice piano.

I helped Amy pick Rita out of the litter when she was a wee, bitty puppy, so in spite of all her smelly and irritating insubordination, I love Rita too. I however can say for sure that I love Amy's daughter more than Rita because along with many other wonderful qualities, at least LBL comes when you call her and nobody has to clean up her shit from the back yard.

Next to licking inside people's heads, all Rita wants in life is to sleep, sit or stand next to Amy - in exactly that order. Which is why she doesn't try to lick inside Amy's head. Ever. Rita needs desperately to be with Amy at all times (unless I'm there, and then she wants to sleep, sit or stand next to me) and knows that if she tries to taste Amy's brain that Amy will not hold her or let her sit next to her.

Rita has never had any training whatsoever (surprised?) and as I mentioned before, she is obstinate and she doesn't come when you call her. She will just stand there and look at you, lie down, or to prove herself to be even more of an asshole, turn around and walk away. She won't even come for Amy.

The old house that Amy lived when she got Rita had a beautiful fenced in back yard for the doggie to run around in. Since Rita only wanted to be inside with Amy, she just went out long enough to do her business, after which she would wait pathetically, with doe eyes and perked ears by the screen door to be let back in.

Rita hardly ever got outside of that fence without being leashed and when she did it was a huge ordeal to get her back in. When she was younger, she ran as fast as a little 4-legged rocket in increasingly large circles so that at some point she would come close enough to almost grab. When you reached out to snag her, she would get away while the circle got bigger and bigger until an arc of it included the road in front of the house. During it all, Rita would wear a big crazy, tongue flapping grin. The louder you screamed at her, the faster the pace and the bigger that infuriating grin.

One weekday morning, Amy ventured out to the supermarket 5 blocks from her house. She was sitting at a stop sign 3 blocks from home and about 1 block away from one of the busiest streets in Columbus when she looked over and saw Rita running around in someones front yard.

She immediately put the car in park and started walking slowly over, calling softly to Rita. The dog stopped what it was doing, looked at Amy for a moment, then it bowed down in a playful stance and took off running in a crazy circular pattern a wearing a wild, tongue flapping grin.

The closer Amy got, the faster and farther away the dog ran, until it was no longer on the part of the block that was residential. She had started running in the parking lot of a strip mall on the busy street. The circular pattern getting closer and closer to the fast moving traffic.

Amy was panicked and crying, wondering how the fuck Rita got out of the yard and blaming herself for leaving the gate open.

The shrilly screaming of Rita's name through sobs, over and over at the top of her lungs is what caught the attention of the store manager working in the tuxedo shop in the strip mall, who for some reason managed to catch the dog's attention and lure it into the store.

Amy ran to the tuxedo store, shaking and crying. Once inside she scooped Rita up in her arms and sobbed a thank you to the store manager.

She walked briskly back to the car, which was still idling at the stop sign and loaded up the dog and drove back home in silence while the dog energetically hopped all around the back seat.

Amy later told to me that she realized as soon as she walked into the tuxedo shop that the dog was not Rita, but after all the fussing and screaming she didn't know what else to do but take the dog.

It was a black and white male rat terrier, with similar markings to Rita's, whose tags revealed it's name to be Lucky.

Once home she put it in the back yard and called the owner's phone number on the tags, feeling quite ridiculous, but also like she had done the right thing. The owner came and picked up the dog a couple of hours later.

That dog was indeed lucky. Lucky that Amy didn't notice it had a penis and a different colored collar than Rita. The store manager was also quite lucky that Amy didn't dump the dog in the tuxedo shop because she was too proud to admit that the dog wasn't hers after crying and carrying on with the hysterical screaming fit in the parking lot.

BTW, Rita is still kickin', smellier than ever and now only goes out to do her business while supervised on a leash. She still wants to lick my brain.

and... PS - Happy Birthday to Frenchie too!