We are in the midst of an ice storm.  The meteorologist said that the freezing rain that is falling has laid down a sheet of ice one inch thick and it’s still falling.  Obviously I am not getting out of the house in this mess.  But it made me think about all of those poor parents stuck with their kids today.  I’m giving you a shout out!  My kids are all out of school…I would say grown up, but some of you know my kids and I don’t want to get into an argument.  I remember snow days.  There weren’t any easy ones.  At first, I was at home with my kid.  There was only the one, so it wasn’t too bad.  There was a lot of “mommy watch” and “look at me” and crap like that, but you get that with your first child.  You watch too.  It’s your first child.  The world stops for that first child.  Dishes can wait until he goes to bed.  Laundry can be put off too.  It is amazing how one tiny little person can change all the rules.  Then I got my first real job…with a surgeon.  People don’t quit needing a surgeon because of bad weather.  In fact, more surgery is often required due to bad weather.  Why?  Because people are idiots.  They think four wheel drive vehicles are safe on ice.  Like I said, idiots.  Well, when you work for a surgeon, you may have to go in at some bizarre hours.  You’d better have a babysitter on back up.  Luckily, I had a strong family support group.  Otherwise I don’t know what I would have done.  Who do you call at 2:00 a.m. for emergency babysitting?

My next employer was somewhat more lenient.  He still didn’t let me take snow days off (unless he took them off too), but he had a full basement below the office that was decked out like a living room.  By this time I had two children.  They could go in the basement and play video games, snack out all day, and make me crazy using the intercom.  “Mom, how much longer?  I’m bored and I’ve already killed all the alien robots.  There is nothing left to eat down here.  How come we can’t come up there?  What if we start bleedin’?  Can we come up then?”  And this went on all day long.  Eventually, I told them bleedin’ wasn’t going to be a problem because I was going to choke them to death and there wouldn’t be any blood.  Just two little bodies to do away with.  The fear of mom lasted about 10 seconds.

When I quit this job (you knew it had to happen) I opened my own day care.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  I had three kids by now, and I was paying out the wazoo for day care.  Somehow, I figured that if I kept my kids and just a few others I could make just as much money and I wouldn’t have to worry about things like my kids being sick or snow days or any of the other things that working parents deal with.  Here is what I didn’t think about, on snow days you have between 6 and 8 unruly, bored, smelly little people wanting to go outside, in your home.  There has never been enough Xanax for a day like that.  I had parents  who wanted to drop their kids off at 6:00 a.m., and I had parents who picked their kids up at 6:00 p.m.  That is a long ass day any way you look at it. 

I wish I could remember what snow days were like for me as a child.  I don’t.  I know as a teenager I stayed home all day searching the three television stations that our antennae brought into our living room (woo-hoo!), and talking on the phone (which had a cord that attached it to the wall and was the only one in the house…archaic?…I Know!), and waiting for Dark Shadows to come on.  I did my adolescent duty by eating as many bags of Doritos as I could, and consuming mass quantities of Dr. Pepper and Sprite.  However, I’m talking about being somewhere between 11 and 17 years old.  My parents didn’t have to worry about babysitters.  They got up, went to work, and sometime later in the day I began my munch fest.  I didn’t go out in the snow (too girly) and I certainly didn’t get in anyone else’s car and go anywhere (too scaredy).  They knew where I would be all day long. 

The thing that I have learned as I’ve aged, though, is that your parent’s memories often differ from yours.  All of those memories I have about my kids snow days, and the things we did or didn’t do, well they probably wouldn’t agree with me at all.  I have found that so much of what I have been told growing up, my parent’s can’t remember.  There are things that I know happened that they simply don’t remember.  In addition there are things that I have been told happened that they don’t remember either.  For example, I know that in 1975 I was in the swimming area of Hwy 125 park with my friend Diana when a tornado hit.  My mother was standing at the top of the hill shouting for us to get up to the RV.  We ran up the hill and each took places of safety (yeah, right).  I dived beneath the cement table, mom and Di hid behind the RV (genius, right?), and Dad held on to a tree (see what I’m saying?)  As the storm hit, I was the only one who could view what was going on because my eyes were shielded by concrete.  I looked out and saw Dad’s legs out at a 45 degree angle from the tree, and he was holding on for dear life.  After the tornado had passed, I told what I had seen.  Nope…never happened.  His feet were always planted firmly on the ground. It still makes me furious.  As an example of things that I have been told that happened…on February 28th, 1960, snow began to fall, and my mother went in to labor.  My Dad, along with several Aunts and Uncles, was watching basketball at the state basketball tournament.  Someone…the actual person has changed throughout time, although the most dramatic telling is that my mother herself…drove my mom to the doctor’s office. A scant few hours later (I was the fifth girl child) my mother gave birth and my dad walked in and said “I know it’s a girl, just tell me how they’re doing.”  The doctor asked Dad if he could get us home though all the snow because if he couldn’t that night, he didn’t know when he would be able to.  We went home just a few hours after my birth.  The house was filled with people who couldn’t make it back to their houses and my sisters were out of school for six weeks.  In all a total of 6 feet of snow fell when I was born.  - The End-

I have been told this story every year on my birthday forever.  I was recounting it to my son one year, and he doubted that six feet of snow had ever fallen in Arkansas, not to mention so quickly. I responded that while I was alive at the time, I have very little recollection of the event, I had only been told.  Over and over again, I had been told.  He badgered me relentlessly about this story.  Finally, I said “let’s just call granny.  She can tell you the story as well as she’s told me.”  I called my mother.  “Mom, how much snow fell on the night I was born?”  “I don’t know.”  “What?”  “I said, I don’t know.”….”Mom, as long as I’ve lived you’ve told me the story of the winter of 1960 and how bad it was.  You don’t remember how much snow fell on the night I was born?”  (crickets) “About 2 inches?”  “Mom, hand Daddy the damn phone!”  “Yello”   “Daddy, how much snow fell on the night I was born?”  ”About 2 inches, I reckon.”…”Then tell me why, my whole life, I’ve been told there was 6 feet of snow on the ground when I was born?”…”Well, I reckon that by the time it was all said and done there was 6 feet of snow on the ground.” I don’t have to tell you that the entire room behind my was full of people pissing their pants laughing.  My fault, I shouldn’t have put it on speaker, but I thought I had this one.  I really did.  Needless to say, I have since been the butt of many jokes, and with Feb. 28th, fast approaching, I see more on the horizon.  Well, good thing my butt is wide.  It can take the hit.

I went in to my mom’s apartment the other day, and she was busy at the sink. “What ya’ doin’ mom.”  “I’m washing the tupperware.”  Well, I walked over to the sink to give her a kiss and the tupperware she was washing was several I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter containers.  This is the story of my childhood.  Throughout my early years, I was encouraged to eat more jelly so we could have another glass.  Do you remember that?  For you plebes…this is the story.  In olden times, one of the marketing strategies for jellies and jams was to place it in drinking glasses.  That way when the product was gone you had another addition to your drink ware.  The marketing geniuses would run a complete set too, so you would be looking for Pebbles to complete your Flintstone’s glasses.  You could get Yogi bear and some Super heroes too, but that must have been the really good jelly because I only remember seeing them in the store…not in our cupboard.

My mother has always been very economical.  I have seen her re-use plastic forks and plates (after they were washed of course).  I have been agog as she washed ziploc bags and turned them inside out to dry and re-use.  She was the original collector of the plastic Wal-Mart bags.  Some of hers are vintage!  She won’t throw out anything she thinks might be used again or in some other form later on. If she could figure out a way to make a windsock out of those plastic bags…OMG!!!  Her crafting skills are widely acclaimed.  Guess who is the proud recipient of some of this sh…stuff?  I know she grew up during some of this country’s worst economical times (kinda hard to believe things were harder than now, huh) and so by saving everything under the sun she will never be without.  However; does anyone really need every coffee can they have ever opened?  I mean after you punch holes in them for night crawlers, what else can you do? We used orange juice cans for rollers.  We used margarine bowls for stray buttons.  We used Cool Whip containers for sewing supplies.  We used the coffee cans for bacon grease (disgusting, yet delicious atop biscuits before they have been baked).  We used a soda bottle with some little lid of some kind stuck in the top of it to sprinkle the laundry before ironing.  Any jar of any kind, with or without pictures, was always saved. (Let me tell you, a mayonnaise jar with plenty of holes in the lid makes a real good lightning bug container.)  They could be used for leftovers (as could the “tupperware”) or if we needed to borrow something from the neighbors.  They were also good for taking back whatever had been borrowed.  I can’t even remember all of the junk that wasn’t discarded and is still in her house today.  I do know, however, prior to 2000 no commercial plastic ware was purchased for the purpose of storing leftovers by my mother.  I am the proud daughter of the greenest red neck on the planet.

I did not pick up my mother’s conservational ways.  I save just enough Wal-Mart bags to wrap up dirty diapers before they go in the trash.  I keep a few to send home with people when they have a ton of leftovers, which we never eat.  I do not save butter, Cool Whip, jelly, jam, pickle, or any other containers.  To me they always smell like whatever came out of them.  And while I don’t buy Tupperware, I do buy Gladware or some similar product.  These plastic containers are cheap and since no one ever returns them, cheap is good.  Yes mother, I hear your pious little voice screaming “waste not, want not”, but I assure you sometimes it’s just not worth the scalding hot water you put your hands in.  I recently bought the green shopping bags at Wal-Mart.  You know, the little recycled bags for your groceries so you don’t have to kill a plastic tree in order to bring home the goodies?  Well, as I mentioned before, we are trying to be more environmentally responsible.  We are recycling, my hubby has a hybrid, and I have my recycled shopping bags…that I have used, twice!!  I mean well, damnit!  It’s just that the grocery thing is always so spur of the moment.  “Oh and while we’re out, I need to run by the pharmacy, Hobby-Lobby, and we should probably pick up a few groceries…Oh crap, I forgot the g@#d@#$ bags!!”  My grandson is going to grow up thinking this is a brand name.

Okay, so I’m probably more of a chartreuse than a true green.  The movement is still new  though, and I am trying (my husband says I am very trying…har har) I will get there eventually.  You have to admit this green thing will be easier for the children of the 50’s and 60’s, you know, the real tree hugging hippies.  That was their thing man.  Love the earth.  Love the trees, love grass!  My teen age years were in the 70’s.  There was nothing to love in the 70’s.  I blame the 70’s for 30+ years of indifference.  So, I will let my mother wash the “tupperware” and let me drink out of the “good glasses” for however long she wants me to.  I will continue to buy Glad ware and fight the man.  Who ever he is, but know that in my own way I am doing my part.  I am recycling and I bought the green bags.  They are in the pantry…and as God is my witness, some day they will be in my car.

 

That’s another thing.  She doesn’t trust her dishwasher.  She pre-washes everything, and by pre-washing I mean totally washes and rinses.  She can put her hands in water hotter than is physically acceptable for humans.  I thinks her hands are bionic.  She completely scrubs the dishes, rinses them and places them in the dishwasher.  I place my grubby dishes in the dishwasher, and if they still have crud on them when they come out…then I will run some water and hand wash them, but not unless I absolutely have to.  What’s the point of having a dishwasher if you are going to wash the dishes anyway?  I told her she had a glorified dish drainer.  To which she replied, “I like knowing my dishes are clean!”  Did I mention that pious voice? 

 

I  have crazy eyebrows.  I don’t wake up gorgeous.  That’s no secret.  My hair is currently in a short bob, and it tends to do what it do.  I usually have anywhere from a few strands to a hunk that sticks out in weird ways when I wake up.  I’ve given up on trying to get those crazy pieces to lay down.  I think it is a natural occurrence to have crazy hair in the morning, but truthfully how many people have wacky eyebrows in the morning?  I mean my brows are groomed.  I wax and pluck.  They are arched and sculpted.  Yet when I wake up in the morning some go up, some go down, some wad up in the middle, and some knot up and head south.  It’s nuts!  If we ever have to answer the door first thing in the morning, I’m always afraid whoever is there will run away screaming after having seen me in my morning glory.  I would love to send my husband to the door, but he either A.  fakes sleep or B. swears his sleepwear is to revealing and he doesn’t have a robe. (I do.)

I know people, (I hate them, but I know them) who wake up looking beautiful.  They look just like they did when they went to sleep.  These are the same women who look just as good without makeup as they do with it.  It isn’t fair, but then again…fare is just what you pay to get on the bus. So each day I deal with the crap life has handed me.  The eye boogers, the wacky brows, the crazy hair, that is all just part of the wonder of being me.  I can’t complain when there is so much more to be grateful for.  I have these awesome deep marionette lines around my mouth, lovely crows feet beside my eyes, and fantastic saggy boobs!  Why would I ever give any of that up?  I was reading Us Weekly and Lisa Rinna was talking about looking like a freak because she had too much Juvederm in her cheeks.  Are you freakin’ kidding me?  Have you seen this woman?  She has carp lips!  She can’t even completely close them.  Drinking through a straw is completely out of the question for this chick, in fact I’m not sure how she drinks at all.  She constantly looks as if she’s on the verge of whistling a happy tune. Yet, all she sees when she looks in the mirror are cheeks that are too puffy.  She is plastirexic and it doesn’t even matter if the surgery is good.  She just wants it.   Bad plastic attempts like that keep me enjoying my wrinkles.  I’d rather show my age than have people throw corn at me while I’m swimming.

Another prime example is Madonna.  She has done something to her cheeks again.  Speculation is that she has increased the size of her cheek implants.  Really?  She was already beginning to look like the green goblin from the Spiderman comics (except for the green part) and she thought more cheeks was a good idea? I really do understand an aversion to aging, but when you are a public figure and that public knows that you are 50 something it’s okay to show a few wrinkles.  Cher is another one straight out of Death Becomes Her .  You’ve got to wonder who she sold her soul to.  I think that one day her non 80ish face is going to be pushing her very 80ish ass around in a wheel chair.  Okay, maybe some very 20ish arm candy will be pushing her very 80ish ass around, but you get my point.  Science hasn’t quite figured out how to keep our joints as young as they can make our faces look.  Also, sometimes these plastic faces just look scary…Joan Rivers, Michael Jackson, Priscilla Presley…to name a few.  The goal of plastic surgery should be to make you look natural or perhaps well rested.  These people look like some freaky caricature of a puppet.  Why would anyone choose to look like that?  I wonder if they are happy with their appearance.

My wacky eyebrows are easily subdued.  I slap some water on my face and comb those unruly suckers back in to place.  A little water applied to the corners of my eyes takes care of the eye boogers as well.  As for my hair, well it’s going to stay crazy until I wash and style it.  If I have to get out before that happens I slam a baseball cap on my head.  Done and done.  These people who take fat out of their butts and put it in their lips have a whole different set of issues.  How do you kiss someone after that?  I know my hubby wouldn’t come near their mouths with a ten foot pole if he knew they had that done.  Yet it is a viable way to add that pout to the lips.  My pout is not something I spend sleepless nights worrying about.  I can pout like a mo’fo.  Just ask anyone.  Not only can I put on a pout face…I can keep it for days.  Anyway, my point is…plastic surgery, while viable, can be over done and these people prove it.  I would love to have a few little nips and tucks, but there are some sacred things that should never be touched by a surgeon’s hand. 

So save your corn, my dear ones, I will not pucker up for you anytime soon.  My caterpillars and I will march on and take our au natural face to the grave.  We may not be gorgeous, but people will recognize us.  My Aunt had gone to a funeral once, and true to the southern spirit that reigns in Arkansas, she came home commenting on how lovely the service was. “Oh everything was so nice.  And he looked so good.  He looked like he was just sleeping.  They did such a good job on him at the funeral home.  Why, he didn’t even look like himself.”  To which my uncle, in his usual loving way, replied “Well if he didn’t look like himself…who in the hell did he look like?”  And that is what I’m truly saying…I may wake up ugly, but I get over it.

Where do old people go to get their hair cut?  Not moderately old people…the old people with one foot in the grave and one foot on a skate board…where do they go?  You’ve seen them, the women look like well dressed Q-tips and the men have those long, wispy necklines and three hairs that are combed over on the top.  How do you even go about ordering that hairstyle?  I would like the fluffy helmet and my husband wants the Benjamin Franklin.

I really don’t understand the comb over.  Who do the think they are kidding?  Everyone can see your glistening pate beneath those three hairs.  No one thinks that’s a full head of hair.  Once, several years ago, my father-in-law asked me to cut his (Benjamin Franklin) hair.  I was really excited, because I was going to bring him into the twenty-first century.  I trimmed the sides and mowed the fringe and cut the comb over and he looked amazing.  He had a fit!  “I like to look like I’ve got some hair!” To which I replied “well, you don’t so get over it.”  He never asked me to cut his hair again.  However; a couple of months after I had cut his hair, his regular barber got sick and he had to use a female barber.  She cut his hair exactly the same way I did.  He hated it.  I loved it!  I told him he had two women tell him that they felt that was the way his hair should look, maybe he should take notice.  He didn’t.  Ben Franklin is alive and well in Springfield, Missouri.

My grandmother was the queen of the Q-tip hairdo.  She had absolutely snow white hair.  Every Saturday night she would curl her hair on tiny little pink sponge rollers.  Then on Sunday morning should would back comb that two inch long hair until it formed a perfect little white helmet.  Then she sprayed…I mean shellacked…the hell out of it.   This would usually last till about Friday, but she was always good for church.  She would walk in and sit with her friends, and it looked like those two pews were filled with little white Q-tips.  The best was when the Q-tips would rise to sing a hymn.  All those little heads bobbing around with the piano music was a sight to behold.  No one had any doubt When The Roll Was Called Up Yonder  they would indeed be there.

I’m not sure we baby boomers, generation X’ers, Y’ers, and whatever’ers will continue with the Q-tip and Benny traditions.  I for one have a hard time seeing my self in the white helmet.  I know my mother’s stainless steel Jane Hathaway is not for me either but I think my generation will set our own style.  The 70’s really was a kinda nothing decade.  Maybe we will make up for it in the way we age.  We will be the oldies that age with great panache.  We will have kick ass wide leg jeans with low heeled boots, tunic tops (no belly shirts), and spikey little haircuts that are gelled to the moon and back.  We will wear our makeup boldly.  We will paint our canes, and put the best little decals we can find on our Rascals.  We will use designer drugs!  Or at least carry designer handbags.  Our walkers will have bright paint and streamers and bumper stickers and all kinds of fun things.  Just because you can’t walk doesn’t mean you shouldn’t party.  We will still go down, but we will go down fighting.  With good hair.

To those men currently over the age of 70 here is my advice: don’t go to barbers.  They will listen to you and you don’t know shit about hair.  If you did you wouldn’t all have the same hair.  Look at women.  They don’t all have the same hair.  There is no need.  Hair has different textures, colors, and thicknesses.  What works for one does not necessarily work for all.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.  So, if you see a barber’s pole…run!  In addition, a $7 haircut is not a good deal.  It looks like a $7 haircut.  You should have more self-respect.  Go all out.  Get a $20 haircut!  You might be surprised at how good you can look.  To all the over 70 women out there.  If your hairstylist is as old as you are she probably hasn’t been to a trade show in a few years.  Trade shows are the things that keep your stylist up to date  on what styles are currently fashionable.  When stylists go to these they get little certificates that look like diplomas and they put them on their walls (usually framed).  It means I care enough about hair to keep learning even after I have received my license.  These people are the people to go to if you are interested in looking younger than your years.  Just tell them to not let you walk outside looking like a Q-tip.  Most of them will tell you they would rather die.

My hairstylist has been my friend for 14 years.  My standing order is this: show as little gray as possible without using truck stop black dye and never let me look like a Q-tip.  This contract has been signed and she understands that if she fails to fulfill her end of this agreement I am allowed to teach her children any words and or phrases that I choose.  She has heard many of my words and phrases.  I’m pretty sure I’m gonna stay hooked up for life.

I was out recently and came upon some members of the red hat society.  Now I think these ladies are adorable.  The only thing I don’t understand is the part about being old to wear purple.  You know these ladies base their club on the poem by Jenny Joseph that says “When I am old I shall wear purple, with a red hat that doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me”.  Okay, I’m cool with all of that, but why when I’m old?  I love purple.  I always have.  Purple tulips and purple roses are some of my favorite flowers.  I have lots of purple clothes and I always have had.  I remember when I was small, my grandmother made dresses for myself and my sisters in a lavender print.  I had to wear all four of them.  Good thing I like purple.

I’ve never associated age with color.  With the exception of gray, of course, I don’t think color says much about a person’s age.  Now there are some dressing choices that might speak of a persons age.  Here’s the thing though, when it comes to choosing their own clothes there’s not a lot of difference between children and the elderly.  My grandmother was 83 when she passed away.  Thank God she mostly wore dresses.  They match by default.  When she did wear mix and match it was nearly always a disaster.   She assumed that if there was a color in the top that matched a color in the bottom then the clothes went together just fine.  Plaids and stripes and florals and prints made no difference.  It was not unusual to see her in plaid pants and a print top (both very busy) with a common color, ready to go to town.  Of course she always wore knee-high stockings and carried a sensible handbag, and wore a head scarf.  The head scarf did not have to match anything in the ensemble.  As I said before, thank God she mostly wore dresses.  When my children were small and were allowed to dress themselves they chose their clothes mostly in the same way.  My sons wore t-shirts and jeans or shorts so they were usually okay, although one of them really wanted to wear his shorts and cowboy boots.  That same son came in one day with athletic socks on (you know, the kind that come all the way up to your knees and have the colored stripe up around the top).  Each band at the top of the sock was different.  When I asked him about his sock matching technique, he told me it was okay he had another pair just like these.  My daughter was the most creative dresser (she still holds this title).  She has gypsy blood I swear.  The part that amazes me about this is…it kinda works for her.  One day she came downstairs wearing a sweater that came down almost to her knees.  A shirt that was of an entirely different color was underneath the sweater, and she had a belt slung low across her hips.  She was wearing leggings and socks that were striped and didn’t really pick up any colors I could find anywhere on her person and ankle boots.  Full makeup and dangly jewelry and a beret atop a side pony.  She looked adorable.  Anyone else would have looked like a circus clown.  It reminded me of the old saying “it’s not what you wear.  It’s how you throw your shoulders.”

My mom does better.  I think that may be because we dress her.  We being my sisters and myself.  We buy her matched sets.  This works like Garanimals.  If we buy her an “outfit” she knows she should wear it as an outfit.  She sometimes accessorizes questionably…(she has a bronze belt that I will be burning as soon as I can find it when she is not in it) but one can only do so much.  She doesn’t wear head scarves or  SAS shoes or anything like that.  If she any questions about what she should wear she always asks us.  Occasionally she comes up with something that makes us all go WTF?  But you just put on your happy face and get two carts at Wal-Mart and stay as far away as possible and hope nobody will notice that she is really with you. 

My daughter accuses me of being too matchy-matchy.  Apparently I have a tendency to be a bit monochromatic (in her opinion).  She is forever telling me I need to add a splash of color to an outfit.  I am not sure you can teach an old dog new tricks when it comes to the way you are comfortable dressing.  I will sometimes wear prints on my pants, but I generally wear solid blouses and shoes that match that blouse.  One day to please her I wore a pair of black and white hounds tooth pants with an orange shirt and multicolored shoes with orange in them.  I felt like a total spaz.  She loved it!  I may get ballsy enough to do that occasionally but it isn’t likely to become my uniform any time soon.

I don’t think I will wait until I am old to wear purple.  Purple is too beautiful to put off until old age.  I think I will put off wrinkles…and varicose veins…and silver hair…and dentures those seem to be things worth waiting as long as possible for.  I really don’t think I am being judged when I wear purple.  I have a lovely silk blouse in purple and I have never had anyone come up to me while I was wearing it and say “Oh my God, how old are you?”  I usually get very nice compliments.  The purple complements the color of my eyes very nicely, and it also complements my skin tone.  So, I would be a fool to put purple away for another thirty years.  Ms. Joseph also comments that when she is old she will spend her pension on gloves and brandy and sit on the pavement when she is tired and gobble up samples.  These are things I can get behind.  I am also for cursing the neighborhood children, badgering the neighbors, wearing big stupid hats, napping at will, calling for invisible kitties, having really unhealthy dinners (like ice cream), going braless, and talking about the good old days until I bore my kids and grand-kids so much they finally go home.  But that’s just me, your list may be different.  I look forward to growing old, and it’s a good thing because I’m getting there pretty quickly.  I’m already finding “laugh lines” (not funny), losing my vision, and becoming less and less tolerant, so I know I’m gonna make a real good old person.  Just put my rocker on the front porch where I can see the neighbors and the traffic.  I might need to yell at all the damn kids too, and I might wear purple.  If I do it will be because I like purple not because I’m old.  If I shoot your kid with a BB gun for stepping on my lawn, that’s because I’m old.

Do not be concerned my lambs.  My marriage is not in trouble.  My husband is flint and I am stone when we clash there are sparks.  We, however; enjoy the fire.  We have had these little battles since way before we were married. I remember in college, when we first met, we were arguing about something and he commented  on my big nose and added fuel to the fire (my nose is not big).  In the heat of the moment I called him f*@#face.  At first he was stunned, and then he broke into riotous laughter.  This is generally what we do.  We argue and then we laugh at how stupid that argument is.

Now on to other things.  I had to go to Walgreens last night to pick up a few things.  While I was there, like any woman, I looked at the beauty products.  There are about a zillion things that claim to decrease lines and wrinkles.  I bet I have spent a college education trying to decrease my lines and wrinkles.  I think the only way to decrease my lines and wrinkles, or at least cover them up, is to wear a burka.   I know the last time I was at Sephora (my favorite store ever) the child helping me choose a foundation asked how much coverage I liked.  I asked if they had anything with a zinc base.  I look at all these products and I wonder if perhaps the best thing to do isn’t just put some Vaseline Intensive Care on your whole body, face included.  If they made ivory beige caulk, I would probably try that.

I don’t think men realize how very difficult the application of makeup is.  It can take hours of application to look like you aren’t wearing makeup.  You have to start with moisturizers, then eye creams, the primers, then base.  You then move on to actual makeup…eye makeup first (so if you get some on your cheeks you can clean it up while applying your base), then concealer…I use this crap like it’s air, foundation, bronzer, lip liner, and lipstick.  No powder though, because it settles in the cracks and you look like every little old lady you’ve ever seen.  I remember when I was going to church every Sunday, Wednesday and the occasional odd weekday, when I would “fellowship” with the church member all the little old ladies wore tons of face powder and you could smell it on them.  I will not be that little old lady.

From make up we went to the lotions and potions.  These have become more complex as well.  I have always used Vaseline Intensive Care.  It is basic and it works.  However they now have one that is prescription strength.  Okay, what do I do now.  There is a part of me that wonders if there is really that much difference, and a part of me that is curious enough to try it.  It’s a couple of dollars more, but one thing I have learned…after menopause the skin dries out.  My skin, as I have mentioned, is incredibly dry.  I sucked it up and bought the expensive lotion.  It feels like buttah!  There were gulping sounds from my skin as I applied it and I believe I heard my thighs saying thank you.  It’s good stuff.  If you have  incredibly dry skin, I really recommend this product.  We sallied through the rest of the store, buying a few things here and there.  A new toothbrush, some mascara, lotion, nothing major but when we got to the register it was $164!  I was a little shocked.  I don’t shock easily and I know that beauty products are expensive but damn!  I hope it doesn’t get to the point that I have to walk around bare faced.  And whether you know it or not you don’t want that to happen either. 

For now you are safe.  I am 100% covered.  I have lotion, makeup, toothbrush and toothpaste, cologne and everything else I need to appear in public as a non-stinky semi-gorgeous woman.  Their maybe faux pas but as soon as I realize what they are I will stop them dead in their tracks.  I will do my part to stimulate the economy through Walgreens, Wal-mart, and Sephora.  These are my stores and I must do what I must do.  Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.  Hate me because I’m a smart ass.  It makes more sense.  I see so many people out and about that I want to help with this integral part of womanhood.  Just a little bronzer here, or some lip gloss there and Voila!…a new gorgeous girl is standing where drab was before. 

Husbands have been telling wives forever that they are beautiful without makeup.  That is their job.  If they don’t tell us we’re beautiful, they may not have us much longer.  It may also be true that they are trying to convince us that it is true to save the money we spend on cosmetics and skin enhancements.  Or it could just be that they are being sweet.  Here is another possibility:  At my son’s wedding my mother was dressed to the nines.  She was in full makeup too, which is really unusual for mom.   My dad and I were talking and mom walked by.  “Isn’t she beautiful?” I asked dad. “She doesn’t look like she’s 68.”  “She’s not in my eyes”, dad said.  “Every time I look at her I see the 15 year old girl I fell in love with.”  It still makes me tear up a little.  I can’t imagine a better compliment.  If your husband looks at you with eyes full of love and sees you as he did when you met,  if you are that lucky…maybe you can pitch the makeup.  I would still keep the lotion.

 

In the words of every dumb hick who has ever proved his stupidity to his peers…”you ain’t gonna believe this shit.”  I was having lunch with my husband today.  (No that’s not it, just wait)  We were having a perfectly lovely lunch, and the moron with me looked across the table and said, “I couldn’t go to sleep the other night for thinking about the lies you’re spreading (on this blog) about the chili dog incident.”  My response was, “Create your own blog and spread your lies if you want people to hear your side.”  Then it began…again.

“You know perfectly well that on the morning of that day you said you were making chili dogs and I said okay.  As the day went on I decided that I would rather not have a chili dog and that night as you were cooking I walked into the kitchen and I said…I DON’T WANT A CHILI DOG…and you handed me two anyway.  Then you became angry with me.”  I couldn’t believe that after years…years my dear ones….we were going to have this argument again.  Not because one of us was going to back down,  that was not going to happen.  We were going to have this argument because I had the nerve to out him as a bullheaded jackass in my blog.  I squared my little shoulders.  I stuck my little chin out.  I reminded him that I had a witness who backed me up.  The true story is this:  Yes earlier in the day I had said I was making chili dogs for dinner.  Yes he had walked through the kitchen as I was cooking. I asked him, as he was walking through if he wanted a hot dog or a chili dog.   He mumbled something as he was walking through and in that mumbled mess were the words chili dog.  I assumed  that the sentence was “I want a chili dog” because what moron would say “I don’t want a chili dog” if what they wanted was a hot dog.  I told him that would be like someone with a headache being told they could have a lobotomy or an aspirin and in response they mumble “well I don’t want a lobotomy.”  No…you state what you  DO want, not what you don’t want.

This man, whom I love…whom I have loved for sixteen years…whom I have gone through some of the best and worst times of my life with, looked at me and said “well there’s the problem.  You just didn’t hear me, and as for your sister, everyone knows she’s deaf.”  (insert crickets chirping)  “No, my darling…here’s the problem.  You are bullheaded.  You can’t admit when you are wrong.  You never have and you never will.  There is a part of me that wants to reach across this table with my tiny little fist and punch you in your big fat head.  You don’t listen.  You didn’t listen when I asked you if you wanted a hot dog or a chili dog.  You just assume what is going to be asked and you answer without thinking.  The whole point of all of this crap is that you got your way and I ate a GD chili dog I didn’t want.  I should have made you eat it.  I should have stuffed it down your throat.  I should have pounded your big old head into the ground for being a self-righteous moron, but I love you most of the time, when I’m not hating your stinking guts.  But I swear to God if you say one more word…one…you are going to have that au jus in your lap…courtesy of me.  I’ll do it too.  You know I will.”  More crickets.  He looks at me with a very condescending look on his face.  “I love you.”  “You’d better.  I’m spectacular”  “I love you”  “I love you too, but I don’t want to look at your face right now.”  I walked out to the car and got in without looking at him.  “I love you.”  “Yeah, I love you too.  Let’s get these errands over with and go home.” 

It probably took a good fifteen minutes for the sparks to calm down.  All this over a freaking chili dog.  As God is my witness there will never be a homemade chili dog made by my hand in this house ever again.  It is my sincere hope, that at some point he will desperately long for one of my delicious chili dogs to the point that nothing will do but that he have one.  He will be lying in bed yearning for nothing but a chili dog.  Night and day it will be the only thing he can think about.  Of course I will make the chili for the chili dog.  The scent of the onions, peppers, and garlic will fill the air.  The beans, beef and chilis will add to the aroma swirling around him further peaking his desire for the dish.  When he thinks he can’t take anymore I will walk in with the most delicious looking chili dog you can imagine.  It will be a foot long and covered in chili, cheese, onions…just beautiful.  I will place the chili dog and an ice cold coke zero just outside his reach and sit down beside him.  I will lovingly take his hand and then I will say “do you remember the incident with the chili dogs way back in 2005?  I was right wasn’t I?”  And if he says no, again, I’m eating that GD chili dog right in front of him and drinking the coke.  He ain’t getting shit.  Paybacks are hell!!

Art is subjective.  I have heard that my whole life.  It seems simple enough, but it is a difficult concept to understand.  I have trouble with it mostly because if I think art is crap I don’t understand why everyone else doesn’t think it’s crap also.  When I taught elementary art, I gave my students basic criteria to follow: using three colors create a piece of art that uses only geometric shapes but gives one the image of your family.  Then I graded according to how well they followed instruction, not how much I liked the finished piece.  It was very difficult for the little monsters.  They all wanted my approval.  I couldn’t give it though, because art is subjective.

I’m telling you this because I want you to understand, if you ever have need to go inside my mother’s home, yes I did decorate it, no the Jesus art was not my idea.  If I had known we were going to decorate in mini-cathedral theme, I probably would have left the Italian pottery out, but I wasn’t informed until after the fact.  “You know what would look good in here?  The Last Supper!” I tried, I really, really tried to get her to go for the Dali version but nothing would do but Da Vinci’s.  Mother really has no taste.  What taste she has is largely my sister’s and mine.  We buy her things and she puts them up.  When she said she wanted The Last Supper, I knew I had to buy it.  If she bought it, it was going to have a huge gold frame with thingy mabobs and God knows what else.  So I reluctantly bought a copy and framed it in a simple black frame.  It now hangs above her table in the kitchen.  When she moved in to her current abode I tried to hide it.  I placed it under the bed in the guest room.  Well it wasn’t long before she started looking for it.  That kitchen wasn’t going to be complete until The Last Supper was hanging in it.  She searched and searched and couldn’t find it anywhere, and honestly I was feeling a tiny bit guilty.  Not guilty enough to go pull it out from under the bed, but a tiny bit guilty all the same.  I shouldn’t have worried, my older sister was on the hunt as well and soon I heard her call from the bedroom “I found the Lord!”  Super.  So the “artwork” now hangs in the kitchen. 

It is not just this painting that I’m not fond of.  I’m not crazy about most renaissance art, and I dislike mass produced pieces (like Thomas Kinkade), which I refer to as airport art.  When I was in college our art teacher asked us who our favorite artist was.  Most people were reasonable in their answer, but one doofus responded that they absolutely adored Precious Moments.  I almost died!  But to make matters worse, this was after they had said they hated Van Gogh because his work made them nervous.  Holy Shit!  Talk about being seriously deranged!!  You don’t like Van Gogh, but Precious Moments is your fav?  You don’t need to be in an art class.  You need to be in an asylum.  I love Van Gogh, he is hands down my favorite artist.  The Starry Night is my all time favorite painting.  I love all the impressionists.  Precious Moments is not even art.  It is sculpted sugar.  It elevates my blood sugar to even think about it.  Every time I see it out somewhere I have to resist the urge to take a hammer and break it all into itty bitty bits.  This is an opinion I have voiced loudly and on many occasions.  On this particular day I kinda wanted to take a hammer to this nimrod.  After class I asked the instructor to fail her for being retarded.  He looked at me very kindly and said, “while I agree with you, we have to remember that art is subjective.”  I looked at him and very seriously said, “art is subjective.  Precious Moments is shit.”  I don’t know what grade she got.  I got an A+.

One year my husband decided tortured me.  On each gift giving occasion I received a single line of a poem.   The first line was received at Christmas and it said simply “a promise”.  This went on for a full year and by Christmas of the next year I received the full poem framed.  It was beautiful and with it came a golden hammer.  I was a little confused.  I was told to re-read the poem and to pay extra attention to the last few lines.  Well they contained a few words about trees and our precious moments together.  Eureka!  Somewhere on our tree there was a stinking Precious Moments ornament and I was going to get to break that little m’er f’er.  I had never been so excited to do damage to something in my life!  I searched the tree high and low…well low, I’m short and I knew he wouldn’t hide it high…and there it was!  I pulled the nastiness from the tree and whalloped the hell out of it.  Inside there was a beautiful pink diamond necklace!  Leave it to my hubby.  He knew the way to my heart…I got to break a Precious Moments precious face.  I was elated!

Art is subjective.  Yeah, I get it.  You like what you like.  Dark and dismal light and airy, something that matches the couch,  whatever butters your bread is art to you.  But I beg of you to consider this…all of the greatest artists only made one of each masterpiece.  Only one.  Each of them was a true artist.  So isn’t it possible that true art isn’t manufactured?  I’m not saying that is a fact.  I’m just asking if it isn’t possible.  It is equally possible that crap is produced in single numbers.  I know, I paint too.

 

 

I rocked my kids.  Not with real rocks (although there were times when I considered it) but in a rocking chair.  I tell myself it was because I nursed.  That’s really not true though.  I just loved holding their tiny little bodies against mine until they went to sleep, and if I had it to do over I wouldn’t change a thing.  My non-vag daughter doesn’t rock the grand baby.  She puts him in his bed while he is still awake and walks out of the room and leaves him.  The thought sends shivers down my spine.  I just don’t know how she can do it.  It’s inconsistent with everything I’ve seen of today’s parenting techniques.  Today’s parents don’t spank.  They discipline gently.  What a crock!  The little hard heads I raised would have run rough shod over me if I had tried such a thing. 

I’m not knocking today’s parents.  Well, maybe a little, but parenting is hard work no matter how you go about it.  While I agree that it is important to talk to your children, I also believe you have to get their respect.  If that means you have to pop their butts so be it.  It doesn’t work on all kids.  You definitely have to find what works.  My middle son always wanted to be the center of attention.  What worked with him was taking him out of the spotlight.  I remember once when he was about three or so he threw a temper fit.  Not just a little fit, it was a ring-tail hissy (this is the worst of all the hissies).  In keeping with the punishment that worked, I put him in his room and told him when he calmed down he could rejoin the family.  I came into the kitchen and began to do the dishes (in the olden days I didn’t have a dishwasher).  I had my back to his door, but I heard it open and assumed he was through with his little fit.  Soon a set of toddler teeth were firmly lodged in my butt and before I could retaliate he had returned to his room and locked his door.  Probably for the best…I kind of needed to calm down.

My grandson has this same type of temper.  Recently I saw it in action.  He hates taking off his coat.  If you leave your coat on and someone goes outside your chances are better for going along.  Well, he and his mommy had been shopping and she decided he needed a bath.  She forced the coat off.  OMG!!  You would have thought she was beheading the child!  He threw himself down on the floor.  He cried as she carried him to the tub.  He cried throughout the bath.  He cried as she dried him off.  He refused diapering and cried as he rolled around naked on the floor.  I thought I would help by fixing him some warm milk.  I brought it to him…he was sob sobbing and blotchy and I offered him the milk.  He got up and raised his little hand to me and slapped the bottle out of my hand.  I kind of wanted to pop him, but he’s not mine and they don’t spank.  So I left the room.  However; I was pleased to know that my son was going to have his hands full for a good long time.

My daughter, non-vag daughter and I were going to watch a movie recently.  My non-vag daughter decided to bring the portable crib into the living room because it is warmer than the upstairs. (I didn’t think this would work, but I kept quiet…no easy feat)  The baby was put in his p.j.’s and placed in the crib.  He flopped down on the pillows.  He sang a little bit.  He played a little peek-a-boo.  Then that little face peered over the top of the crib, “night, night mommy…night, night ninna…night, night emmy”.  We all said night, night back.  Then in a very sing song voice he said, “emmy, emmy” and he held up his little hands to me. “Uppy”.  I’m not made of stone, people.  If they want that child to stay in a crib they need to stay at home with him.  I didn’t do that with my kids and I sure as hell am not going to do that to my grandson.  Of course, I picked the little lamb up.  I breathed in the sweet baby scent of him and totally ignored the movie.  Movies can be watched anytime. 

The non-vag daughter should have expected it.  Last summer when they went on vacation for a week I kept the baby.  The one rule was they couldn’t complain about his being spoiled when they got back.  They returned and nothing was said about his being spoiled for a few days.  About day three I was talking to her and she commented that they were having trouble putting him to bed at night.  She said that he would be just dead tired and as soon as she put him down he began crying.  He would cry for several minutes rather than going right to sleep as was the norm.  I hesitantly told her that it was possible this new development was my fault.  “While you were gone, I rocked him to sleep.”  There was a hush that filled the room.  It was born of wanting to say something and knowing that if you do you may be cancelling any free babysitting coming to you forever.  “Oh”, she said.  “That would explain it.  Wonder how long it’s going to take to get past this?”  I just looked at her and smiled.  I didn’t think I wanted grandchildren.  I knew I didn’t want to grandparent the way my mother and sisters had.  I don’t either.  I love the little lamb to pieces, but I do it on my own schedule and in my own way.  I don’t apologize and I don’t back down.  He and I will always have a very special relationship.  I will be the backbone against the parents that he can’t have, and he will know this.  I think he may know this already.  He already knows Emmy rocks and Emmy will uppy.  He may know Emmy better than Emmy. 

There is nothing wrong with rocking your babies to sleep.  There is nothing wrong with spanking either.  You don’t have to hurt them.  You just have to get their attention.  Rocking isn’t spoiling either.  It is just letting them know that while they are sleeping you will be there.  You will be protecting and listening for the things that go bump in the night.  Everyone needs that, especially little people who fit so deliciously into the curve of your neck and smell delightfully of baby wash and lotion.  It relaxes the baby and the grandparent.  It is a wonderful experience.  I highly recommend it.  If you are denying your child of this…you are really denying yourself.

It is bitch ass cold.  Of course it is winter, and I know that winter is cold.  Even though we live in what is considered a moderate climate it is currently five degrees outside.  What is moderate about that?  I suppose compared to the blizzard that is hitting the mid-west five degrees is moderate, but really when you are talking single digits…does it matter?

I woke up this morning and as soon as I moved every joint in my body screamed in agony.  I chose not to listen and got out of bed anyway.  I pushed my silenced toes into my Ugg slippers and wrapped my sad little self in my fleece robe.  Padding down the hallway I made it to the kitchen, after crawling down the stairs like a little old lady twice my years, and made a huge pot of coffee.  Two cups later I felt something similar to human.  A cup after that I was less morose and felt like I could face climbing the stairs again for a hot shower.  Our bedroom is a refrigerator.  Getting naked up there is like joining the polar bears club.  Apparently the genius who designed our house reasoned that the proper place to put the upstairs thermostat would be the upstairs hallway.  I don’t know if they didn’t know that heat rises, or if they thought that we would leave our bedroom door open all night long…but it does and we don’t so it’s cold up there.  It doesn’t help that our bedroom is directly over the garage.  The end result is that our bedroom is usually about fifty-five degrees or less.  Not good for naked.  I went upstairs to shower, and all my toasty goodness vanished like a snowman in a heat wave.  Of course the shower was nice and hot, but getting out was unpleasant.  Shaking and shivering, I lotioned, deodorized, and dressed…quickly.  I dried my hair and put on my face looking forward to the warm downstairs and another pot of coffee.  It was not to be.

I had no more than reached the bottom of the stairs when the powers that be (my spouse) announced that he was ready for lunch.  All my little joints gave a unanimous shriek of protest.  I had planned on fixing something in house (see dieting).  Oh well, if I had to get out there were a few errands that I needed to run.  So I layered clothing from toes to teeth and off we went.  The air was so cold my sinuses hurt.  My fingers ached inside my gloves and my butt was numb.  I looked over at my husband in his lightweight jacket, no gloves, no hat, lightweight khakis, and big dumb grin on his face.  “Cold, huh?’ is his super intelligent comment.  “Duh” is mine.  He had lunch, I had coffee.  We took his car to the shop.  We went to the grocers…I hate grocery shopping with him but that is a whole nother blog…and we went to Walgreens, and in a scant 3 1/2 hours we were home.  I don’t think I have ever been so cold in my life.

Once again after a pot of coffee, a bout under the electric blankie, a bowl of chili (no chili dogs), and an extra pair of socks I’m beginning to thaw out.  My joints are so swollen from the cold they actually look a little disfigured.  The ones you can see are slightly reddened and hot feeling to the touch.  I’ve taken all of the pain meds I can take for the day and we aren’t supposed to see any improvement in the temperatures for awhile.  This just sucks.  Sometimes I just think we should move to Arizona.  My husband thinks California, but I have asthma too so I really have only a few places in Cali that meet all my requirements.  We need a place that has mild temps (pretty much 70’s year round), low humidity, low to no allergens, no air pollution, and (considering his addiction) lots of golf courses.  Any ideas?  We thought about Hawaii, but it seemed kind of expensive to ship all of our furniture and cars over there.  It seemed even more expensive to start from scratch.  Oh yeah, I also refused to leave my grandson, and we have to take care of my mom and his godmother.  This move ain’t happening.

After May two of my kids are going to be living in California.  My daughter recently reminded me that my grandson won’t always be my only grandchild.  She informed me that at some point it is possible that the majority of my grandchildren will live in California.  If that happens I will deal with it.  This one will only be cute for a few more years.  Once he starts school he will be a little smart ass like they all are.  It will be easier to leave then.  I think it will all work out.  I’m not too worried about the future.  I’m just trying to survive the here and now.  It’s cold…and I hurt.

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