Various Chocolate Candies for Husband’s Valentines Day candy sign = $10 Card for Husband = $2 Vet visit after Pepper and Joe find the bag of candy and EAT IT ALL, card included = $200 Verbal lashing from Vet = PAINFUL!!! Happy Valentine's Day, Husband. Hope you enjoyed your candy sign as they puked it up. You ain't getting another one. ~ wife UPDATE Two hours later, this is what we found when we got back from lunch. Anyone want a dog? Or two? Or three?
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Because I know you’re fascinated how I spent my time away from you, here is a quick rundown on my Thelma and Louise week away. Snarky comments included.
SUNDAY - Drove ELEVEN hours with Thelma to DC to see a friend I’ve known since she was eleven and I was twelve. Met her kids who were all a lot smaller last time I saw them. Freaked out over the fact that she has kids, let alone that they are all little versions of her and her husband, walking and talking and forming opinions and politely looking at pictures of Husband’s studio and pretending to be interested. Then the two of us ditched the family and had a lovely dinner out in DC where we gossiped about everyone we knew growing up, what they are doing wrong and how we would fix their lives if they’d let us. MONDAY – Took the littlest to preschool and then had a coffee and discussed our lives and what we are doing wrong and what we could do to fix our lives but won’t. Then we picked up the two older kids, grabbed the littlest from school, had lunch and went to the zoo. A zoo with a four year old, a nine year old and a twelve year old (who is trying to be fourteen) is pure joy. Even with artic winds threatening to blow us off our feet and the bigger animals hiding inside. Watching the four year old playing chase with a fox, the nine year old staring fascinated at the pile of elephant poo, the twelve year old thinking no one was watching playing chase with the same fox - all absolutely priceless. Watching my friend - who once played Snow White to my Wicked Queen – watching her mother these sweeties, just precious. TUESDAY – I was to meet my first boyfriend (!!!) in DC for a personal tour of the Capitol building but his wife was home suffering from pneumonia and he made the right choice to stay home and nurse her. That meant I got to spend the day wandering DC in the frigid 16-degree temperature taking frozen selfies and amusing myself. It was absolutely lovely. Home to Snow White’s house for a final meal with the family and then my friend took me to meet Thelma in Maryland for part two of the trip. WEDNESDAY – We set out for Philadelphia after an exquisite (sarcasm intended) breakfast of fats and salts and sugar at Cracker Barrel. Got a tattoo – more on that later this week – and then drove down into Allentown to meet Thelma’s family and friends for night of debauchery – well, minor debauchery. Well, two drinks and back to the hotel by 11pm but, when you get up at 5am, that is debauchery. Alcohol, exhaustion and tattoo blood loss is really like having had six drinks and some crack. Not that I’ve ever had crack. If you read this regularly, you know I’ve had six drinks and how that tends to go… ANYWAY - THURSDAY – After a delicious diner breakfast of more fats and salts and sugar, Thelma spent time with her mother while I sat in the waiting room and watched two of the staff dismantle their artificial Christmas tree. Total comedy; watching as they tried to put the tree into the box without taking it apart, them wondering why it wouldn’t fit, flipping it about and trying to put it in from the other direction, as if that would change things - all the while whispering gossip about their fellow staffers in a singsong tale of disgust. Very Lucy and Ethel and very amusing! Thelma and I then had lunch with her father. He and I commiserated over our back pain, each trying to out-do the other with tales of woe. He’s 87. He won. After lunch, Thelma and I took off to Philly to meet my half sibs for dinner. My father was prolific – there are seven of us from three mothers. My father’s father was even more productive – he had twenty children! Part of dinner was trying to figure out which uncle fell in what birth order, what in the heck piece of land was given to which first son and who is protesting the will and why – all the while enjoying the noise of sibling teasing and life updates. My little sister was nine the last time I saw her. Now she's a Model, one brother is a Cop and the other a Sergeant in the Army! Dinner done, and me even more confused by my family tree, Thelma and I drove back to Maryland and into a house where a lone louse had just been discovered on pretty blonde head of the five year old. Our phantom itching began. I had lice when I was in 6th grade when I had a massive floppy Afro. I had to sit naked in a tub for three hours while my mother combed the suckers out one by one. I have sworn ever since than if I were to get lice again, I would shave my head. It was a tense few hours but we thought we were likely clean and clear as we all suspected the infestation had occurred while we were in Philly. But those lice are tricky buggers because… FRIDAY – the five year old was sent home after the school nurse found more lurking on her head. Our scratching began in earnest. It’s not a party till we’ve all sat on the couch and had the others comb through our hair looking for intruders. And it’s really not a party until one or more of us are slathered in RID. It was one festive Friday night in Maryland! As it was, Thelma and I seemed to have escaped the infestation. It would have been a long scratchy trip back to Nashville had we not. Husband did not quarantine me when I got home and he would have had he thought I was bringing home friends. SATURDAY – We drove and drove and drove and drove back to Nashville. Eleven hours is a loooong drive, people. Lots of time for contemplation and self-analysis and random hypotheticals like “If Husband died, would I sell the studio and move to an exotic island?” Or, “If I won the Powerball, what would I buy first?” And eleven hours is a lot of time to ponder the major lesson learned during the week and see how I can apply it to my day to day life, how I can do all I can to embrace it. Because I just feel my life will be better because of it. And what is that lesson, you ask? Don’t share hats, people. Just don’t. My uncle is a bird guy. As in, sits in cold wet/hot dry places waiting for the elusive Whatyamacallit to come out of the bushes so he can get a photograph, bird guy. He’s currently in Australia for the month doing what he loves best – the aforementioned sitting in cold wet/hot dry places waiting for the elusive Whatyamacallit to come out of the bushes so he can get a photograph. Most of the time, he just sends an email with photos as communication but this time we got this: Interesting encounter today along the access road to Hypipamee Crater (for you non-Australians, that’s at the southern end of the Atherton Tablelands, west of Cairns, Queensland). I was by myself, squinting at some small thing in the woods, looked up, and saw this guy strolling down the road towards me. Having heard of a male in the area with some chicks (= aggressive) I was a bit concerned but saw no chicks and decided I wasn’t about to be stompled/eviscerated. The bird walked casually along the road edge while I took photos. I REALLY hoped (Aunt) would follow me so she could see it, and she did, and took some shots of her own. It got a bit tense when the bird seemed to take a strong interest in our blue shirts (color of some favorite fruits, supposedly) and kept walking RIGHT up to us in a determined manner, holding eye contact the whole time. I hid (sort of) behind my tripod and (Aunt) got behind a car. Didn’t seem aggressive, just very focused, but we were intimidated. Finally it strolled off into the woods. You know you’re close when your 100-400 zoom is too long at the 100 mm end — for some of these I used a 24-105 mm lens. This is a typical Uncle email. I’m from a family of dry sarcastic smart asses. Notice that Uncle says he was “a bit concerned…” about the bird. And that the bird was “…walking causally along the road edge while I took photos.” And, that things got “a bit tense when the bird seemed to take a strong interest in our blue shirts…” Yeah, can you say understatement? I mean I’m imagining this little angry bird coming at him, something comical like a duck or a goose. Not this massive guy! HOLY CRAP that sucker is big! Right?!? I now get his very unassuming statement, “…but we were intimidated.” Yeah, I’m totally intimidated and I’m nowhere near that massively big bird. A bird, by the way, who looks nothing like the fluffy wonder that was my childhood crush, Big Bird. I mean, look at this dude's head! Thanksgiving is tomorrow. Any questions of what my family Thanksgivings were like should be answered with this post.
OR, if you don’t get the weird from this post, try this one (The Thanksgiving Threesome Story...) OR (Thanksgiving and THE SEX SHOP...) OR (THANKSGIVING WRAP UP...) It may be mortifying, I may constantly blushing but my family is never ever boring. Yesterday, while gardening with Mom, I was bit on my knuckle by a back widow. Or a Brown Recluse. Or a Copperhead Snake. My hand has swelled, gotten hot and red and angry and I've got intense pain radiating up my arm.
Sure, it's possible that the rose bushes I was evicting got pissed off and stabbed me with their curvy swords of pain but the snake scenario is obviously more likely. Mom and Husband were equally sarcastic when I mentioned my wounds. It’s like they know me. Neither one of them made any effort to check WebMD for verification of my fatal injury. Sure, Mom has no clue how to do that despite being a programmer for most of her life but Husband? Epic fail dude, on your attempt to earn empathy point from me. And both Mom and Husband were useless in the 'humor ej' category. Even when I mentioned the likelihood of chicken gut infection that might have gotten into my snake bite from the chicken I made for our Thanksgiving/Christmas/Mom’s Eleventh Year Post Transplant/Husband’s Fourteenth Year in America Anniversary, I got nothing but a snort from Mom and the glow of the iPhone screen on Husband's non-attentive face. When I mentioned my funeral arrangements and the large party I'd like thrown instead, Husband left the room to 'work' in his studio, meaning hide from mom and me and our scintillating conversation. When I told Mom which friends should get my stuff and that she'd have to write my final blog post, she just laughed. I got no “so sad you’re dying only daughter of mine” hugs. I got no compassionate wound examination complete with sympathetic tongue clucking. All I was offered was the standard medical advice she has always given me, “Just wash it off and put Neosporin on it. You’ll be fine.” How’s that for love? I am obviously not fine! I told her that Neosporin would only make my dying arm greasy. That as the poison spread through my system and reached my heart, she'd feel bad for giving me such trite advice. Still no pity and understanding, no coddling and gentle compassionate nursing. Nothing. And, her advice given, she just went back to her murder mystery as I lay dying on the couch. Of course it's tomorrow and my arm is still attached and there is no blue-black streak of doom spreading up my arm. Perhaps they were right not to drop everything and drive me to the hospital for emergency snake venom or black widow arm removal but whatever. My hand is still swollen and angry despite my heavy application of Neosporin and a Band-Aid. I better get some intense sympathy today or I quit this family. My mom is here! My mom is here!
I'm currently working on regressing to my teen years while parenting her in a totally patronizing way. And it's only been half a day. Nothing can make me more bipolar than my mom visiting. Husband is in for a ride! I looked at my posts from last year and realized that - even though I just picked her up at 5:30pm yesterday - I'm doing the same dang things I did last time. On the other hand, I can cheat and just repost last years post ... so I will. Now if only we'd have the owls visiting the yard at the same time... Pretty sure my mouth is gonna be washed out with soap... My mother is in town for a few weeks. I have currently managed NOT to revert to an angry teenage girl but it’s been close a few times. But it is only day three. So far, I’ve only sneered at her choice of foot wear – socks and Birkenstocks - and laughed outright at her gardening pants worn as regular pants with the socks and Birkenstocks. I didn’t forbid her to leave the house “dressed like that” like I would have when I was a teen. I even I let her wear her silly bushwhacker sun hat and my old dress shirt with the said gardening pants that she’s hemmed herself. I didn’t scream “MOM! How could you?” when she talked to the person at the pet store like they were friends and like the person cared if she was visiting me from California. Or when she made conversation with the checkout lady. Or when she answered the helpful but never sincere “Finding everything you need?” question posed to us by the Target lady. I have only smiled when she presented a tiny purse filled with dimes and pennies and nickels and said she intended to use them. I was quick on the draw and paid with my card instead. And I pointed out the large glob of white sunscreen on her face and suggested gently she rub it in instead of taking a paper towel to her face like she used to do to me I’m doing well. I have, however, spoken to her like she was a child and not my mother and was told off. “Don’t speak to me like I’m two years old. I can follow directions. I’m not a toddler.” I have made fun of her attempts to get down Husband’s new basement stairs without the benefit of a handrail, creeping down the steps, holding onto the walls so she doesn’t fall. I’ve only laughed a little bit. And taken a picture or two. But I didn’t post them on any social media so, points to me. I’ve not limited my cussing at all. In fact, I think I’ve increased my use of the F word and have started peppering every other word with it. She’s only winced a few times. I figure I’ve got another day in me and then I’ll get shut down when Mom uses her scary mom voice with my full name used, every syllable sharp and biting. And I have tried to feed her on numerous occasions – not literarily feed her but tried to make sure she would eat, like she was totally incapable to do so on her own, like she hadn’t been eating when she was hungry her whole life. And I’ve told her how to operate the gas stove. And the shower. And the sink... I’ve pretty much talked to her like she’s stupid more times than should have. I know better. She knows I know better. A few more days of this and she’ll show me that she’s the parent, set me right and send me to my room. A few more days of this and I’ll be thirteen again, slamming my door and screaming, “ I hate you! You’re the worst mom ever!” To which she’ll reply “Good. I’m trying.” I’m so happy she’s here! |
AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
April 2019
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