Why does no one in Northwest Arkansas know how to behave at a four way stop?  Inevitably when there is a four way stop someone ends up honking their horn or almost being hit because some Gomer didn’t know when it was his turn.  Remember those little books we all got when we were fourteen?  There is a section in those books on how to behave when you get to a four way stop.  Then you have it on the actual driving test.  I had it on both the written and the driving part of the test.  If everyone else did as well, then 90% of them have forgotten it and 100% of those 90% live in Northwest Arkansas.

Recently I was at a four way stop and (as is usually the case) traffic was at all four stops.  The traffic heading east and west proceeded like they had brains in their heads.  Good for them, right?  Then the Gomer across from me, who had arrived at exactly the same time as me (and didn’t have a signal of any type on) begin to advance into the intersection.  I began to advance into the intersection as well.  Well, the fool gets about halfway into the intersection, turns left in front of me, (or tries to) realizes he doesn’t have a signal on, turns his left signal on, then proceeds to lay down on his horn because I don’t yield to him.  Now, tell me why I would.  Because he is a dumb m’er f’er?  That’s not a good reason.  If I start yielding to all the dumb m’er f’ers in the world I’ll never get anywhere.  Because he finally signaled….think again.  Just because he honked doesn’t mean I have to listen.  If I stop to listen to everyone who honks at me all day long I would never get anything done.  This whole town is full of people who think that horns are exclamation points for their own agendas.  I don’t honk unless it’s absolutely necessary.  I slow down…give you the “mom” stare, and point a finger at you.  Yes, I know it’s harsh, but hey, you screwed up…deal.

Anyway, we all know that if you, and the person across from you, arrive at the four way stop at the same time, and you are turning left you don’t now, nor have you ever, had the right of way.  We do all know that, right?  I mean it’s not like a state secret that only I and a privileged few had in our Arkansas Driver’s Handbook’s.  I know my children had it in theirs.  I also know they didn’t read that part, because I have been in the car with them when they are driving.  Lord, I wish I hadn’t but there it is.  It’s a large part of the reason for the silver highlights in my hair.  I know my daughter has read it, because once when she first started driving she pulled out in front of a driver at a four way stop who was there before her and traveling straight through the stop and she was turning right.  She looked at me in all of her teenage naivete and said, “right of way a@#hole.  Right, mom?” and I had to explain to her glorious fourteen year old self that it didn’t exactly work like that.  Of course that was back when she thought she could eat a whole package of Oreos and only gain the 12 ounces that the bag weighed.  Ahhh, sweet youth!

Sometimes I think we should all have to take the Driver’s test again after a certain period of time.  The problem with that is…I don’t actually want to have to do it myself, I just want everyone else to.  You see, I know I’m alright.  It’s the other people on the road who scare me.  Especially the ones who are over say sixty-five, and maybe that whole four yearsof driving with an adult over the age of twenty-one before your license becomes valid the first time is a good idea as well.  Something needs to change.  We hear sirens here all the time.  Plus you can’t swing a dead cat without landing on an accident scene.  In fact, it is much easier to find an accident scene than it is to find a dead cat.  The personal injury lawyers are getting fat around here.  You can tell their waddle a mile away.  Some of them even advertise on the back of the Emergency Transport Vehicles.  It truly is ridiculous.  I mean, geez a lou folks, it’s a four way stop not brain surgery.  You accept a certain risk with brain surgery, but you shouldn’t have to make sure your will is up to date just because you know you will have to go through a four way stop on your way to the neighborhood market.  I’m beginning to think that maybe the solution is that we all need to build our cars out of the same stuff that Nerf makes balls out of.  Get rid of all the hard cars, get rid of all the gas, get wind propelled Nerf cars and then at least if people stay stupid maybe they won’t get dead.  And for God’s sake, take out all the horns.  Maybe these cute little “Fluff mobiles” can have warning flags that you can raise when you feel someone is in violation of the rules of the road.  Then at least everyone else who is driving won’t jump, turn around and look, to see if perhaps the person honking is honking at them, and thus risking another accident.   I could cure the world of so much if the powers that be would just listen, but they don’t.  No one does.  However; if (God help us) some Auto genius reads this and develops a wind propelled Nerf mobile with flags instead of horns I expect all of you to be my personal witnesses that he stole my idea when I take him to court for stealing it.  I can find you, and you’ll see me coming…I’ll be the one avoiding the four way stops.

My very dear, very southern friend who lives in my neighborhood had cataract surgery this week.  I went with her for this and for her first cataract surgery.  The first surgery was three weeks ago and went off without a hitch.  The second one…done this week…didn’t go so well.  She inflamed her eye somehow and had to have three injections, yup shots right in the old eyeball, on both Thursday and Friday.  She had to go in to see her doctor on Saturday, and Sunday as well.  Her vision, needless to say, hasn’t been too great.  Neither has her mood.  Now I think she’s a riot, even when she’s in full on bitch mode, but occasionally she pisses other people off. 

She had to go  to a physician who specializes in diseases of the retina.  He didn’t have the greatest sense of humor.  My friend was a nervous wreck, after they told her she needed shots in her eye, and I really think she could have used a valium…but she was using humor to try and defuse the situation.   So here’s the situation: 1) terrified old broad with an eye that looks like blood could begin to drip from it at any minute 2) uptight doctor with God complex answering her questions in short, clipped, monotone one syllable answers 3) me trying not to laugh at the situation unfolding before me.  Here’s how it went down:

My friend calls me to tell me what is going on with her eye and she asks if I would please meet her at the doctor’s office.  I get there…now the last time I saw her was about 2 hours post surgery and she was doing fine…she has one eye that is very hemorrhagic and swollen but is talking like there is no tomorrow.  She has cornered the doctor who did her cataract surgery and is telling her about all the plastic surgery she is going to have once she gets over this.  Right now I would have to agree that she needs some work done.  She kind of looks like a late sixties female pirate who had a late night and bad rum.  I look at her and say “Arrrrrrrrrrrgh!!”  Everyone looks shocked, but her.  She laughs, of course.  Her doctor immediately tells me what is going on with her eye…like I can stop a lawsuit…and tells me what they are doing to correct the problem.  The reason we are all waiting right now is because she is allergic to penicillin and they are waiting for a different antibiotic to shoot in her eye.  Cool!  I ask if I can watch, they say yes.  Yea! 

We finally (after about 2 hours) go in to the treatment room.  They put her back in the chair and begin to prep her eye.  Every time he gets near her eye with anything she becomes convinced that it is the needle and she begins trying to butt walk out of the chair.  She has a white knuckled death grip on the arm rests and  is constantly saying over and over “I know you aren’t telling me the truth…you don’t want me to know you are coming at me with that needle.”  I tell her if she’ll shut up and be still maybe they can find a sticker for her.  She tells me what I can do with that sticker.  Finally she asked her surgeon to tell her a story.  Wait, first she asked the retina doctor if he was a touchy-feely kind of doctor.  I don’t know, I didn’t think he was cute, but she was blind in one eye and not seeing well out of the other.  Anyway, he said no.  She said “damn, just my luck.”  Then she asked her surgeon to tell her a story to take her mind off what was going on.  Her ophthalmologist told a story about a dentist who used to feel up his female patient’s breasts when he was cleaning their teeth because he was checking for swollen lymp nodes.  Well, this story was hysterical because apparently none of these women had a clue that you don’t actually have lymph nodes in your boobs and even if you did your dentist wouldn’t need to check them.  Retina doc never takes his eyes off of what he is doing.

Well, she began to relax.  The white knuckles disappeared and the feet which had been firmly planted on the footrest looked a little more relaxed.  I was silly enough to think she was going to make it through this with only moderate misbehavior.  Then he gave her those shots.  Holy Cow!  She said things that would make a sailor blush!  She cursed the man and his offspring.  She questioned the validity of his parent’s marriage at the time of his birth.  She compared him to some distinctly distasteful parts of the anatomy.  She was like one of those bulls that runs through the streets of Spain.  She was just looking for someone to get even with, and when it was over…when it was finally over, she sat up wiped her eyes and said “well that wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected it to be.”  I remember thinking “what would have happened if it had been bad?”  The retina doc, who had never shown any emotion at all throughout this whole tirade hands her the plastic top off the hypodermic needle and asks her if she knows what it is.  She bites and he says “it’s a midget condom.  You thought I wasn’t listening didn’t you.”  And then he left the room.  Then the next day came and her eye was worse and she had to go through those shots again.  I found out how bad it could be.  Little old women who are almost seventy can curse creatively if you shove needles in their eyes.  Just trust me on that.  You really don’t want to find out for yourself.

She was doing better when I took her in today.  She hasn’t seen the retina doctor since Friday.  He said he was leaving town.  I don’t blame him.  I considered it myself.  She likes just the regular old ophthalmologist she has been seeing.  He thinks she has celiac disease and so does she, so she thinks he’s a genius.  Plus, her eye is a lot better so this dude hasn’t had to stick anything in them besides drops.  That will go along way towards helping how you feel about a feller.  I just hope she’s got something wrong with her.  For two reasons really…she’s really funny at a doctor’s office, and I could use the material so I have things to write about.  

 

When my children were small, I was very careful to cover their eyes anytime they were exposed to anything unseemly on television or in the movies.  It wasn’t necessarily the sexual parts that got them the hand across the face, it was the horror, blood, gore, and anything I in my one person censorship drive deemed inappropriate that stopped the action.  I was merciless.  By the time my sons were ten and eight they would cover their eyes if it even looked like a couple was going to kiss.  I was very proud.  I don’t know what happened.  I don’t know when I lost it.  I don’t know and I’m not sure I want to know.  What I do know is this: I have watched porn with my sons, and life will never be the same.

Recently my youngest son was in from Chicago and my husband and my oldest decided they would get a movies for us to watch.  When they came home with Caligula I didn’t even bat an eye.  Yes, I knew Caligula was freaky and into some strange things but I didn’t expect everything in his repertoire to be shown on the screen.  Even when they told me it was the unrated version, I still was okay.  I mean it had some really great actors and actresses in it.  Names that have a great deal of acclaim.  I should have known when they opened with an orgy.  Sometimes the clues just sail right over my head.

You know how sometimes when there is a car wreck and you really don’t want to look but you can’t not?  Well this film had the same effect.  I knew that when this was over I was going to have to boil my eyeballs, but I did not let my children see weakness.  Periodically I looked around the room to see if anyone else was as disturbed as I was.  My oldest son looked much like he looks on Christmas morning.  Ditto my husband.  My youngest son had a look on his face that can best be described as the look you might get if someone forced you to drink douche.  There you go.  You just made that face.  Thank God!  Someone else at least found it uncomfortable.  The debauchery went on for days and days.  We started on Friday and I swear it didn’t end until the following Thursday.  In reality, it ran about 2 hours.  I must have changed position on the couch twenty times to try to find a position that would allow me to appear to be watching but that would block my vision.  I never achieved nirvana.

When the movie was finally over I felt as if I had been gang raped by a tribe of Sasquatch who hadn’t ever seen a woman before.  I still had to boil my eyes, and there was never going to be enough hot water in this house for all the washing I had to do.   Wow!  I looked at my sons.  My little boys…looked as if they had been caught with their hands in the cookie jar.  Someone had to say something.  “All right.  It was obviously porn.  But, on the other hand…it was just sex and we are all adults here so it’s done.  We will never talk about it again.”  I left the room.  I had to.  My youngest son stayed put.  My oldest followed me.  He wanted to tell me how cool it was that we had watched porn together.  He could just bet that none of his friends had ever watched porn with their moms.  On and on….I reminded him that this wasn’t something that we should be particularly proud of and that I seriously didn’t want to talk about it.  Eventually the night ended…and thankfully I didn’t have nightmares.

The next day my non-vag.  daughter came over and was asking me about the movie.  Apparently my son had told her she didn’t need to watch the movie.  I told her he was right.  In my opinion no one needed to watch that movie.  I explained how horrible it was on so many levels.  She then asked the million dollar question…the question that none of us had ever considered…the one that dared not rear its head the night before…the one question whose answer would have solved all the problems and tension that filled our theatre room the night before…are you ready for this monumental question?  She said, “Why didn’t you just fast forward through all of the sex?”  (insert crickets)  This never entered my mind.  I felt so dirty.  I felt like I had said yes.  I felt like I had dressed to please my attackers.  I felt like a willing participant in the demise of my humanity.  I needed another shower and to boil my eyes again.  Now I was also going to have to do some serious soul searching and try to find out what the hell was wrong with me.

I watched porn with my sons.  I’m filthy.  Bit by bit I am trying to forgive myself but it’s not easy.  I keep seeing those precious little cookie faces that I spent years covering up to protect from all the world’s degenerate acts, and now not only have I taken away the blinds I have invited the smut to live in our home.  I am not going to be nominated mother of the year.  Not unless penthouse has some demented contest.  Oh well, at least they don’t have prison records…yet.

If you can recall, the precious one has given us his cold.  I am recovering nicely but the other night I had a bout of coughing  that rendered me sleepless.  I excused myself from the bedroom and went to the guest room, I figured there wasn’t any point in both of us missing out on sleep, and turned on the television.  Just in case you aren’t familiar with 3:00 a.m. television programs let me tell you, there just isn’t much on.  Once you’ve seen Billy Mayes and everything he has to sell and the new gomer with his Shamwow and Slap and Chop it gets real thin.  Then an amazing thing happened.  I foundRuPaul’s Drag Race.   I don’t know what was going on in my life previously that kept me from watching this, but it wasn’t worth it.  I need these girls in my life, and from now on, as God is my witness, they will be.

Last week there were five drag queens competing for the title.  To begin with they have to make the costume that they will wear down the runway.  Last week’s theme was fruit.  There  were lemons, mangoes, raspberries, papayas, and some other some old tired somethin’ that just wasn’t interesting.  They had to go to the fabric store and match their fabric to their fruit.  Such whining!  I haven’t seen such whining in I don’t know when!  Now, imagine you own the local fabric store.  In come five drag queens carrying fruit and holding it up to your wares in an attempt to match it because they are about to make a dress they are going to wear on national television.  Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be proud. Then, when they got back to the sewing machines to design their ensembles one poor dear had a complete breakdown.  Out came the tears…she didn’t know what she was going to do.  The color was ugly, the fabric was ugly, she was ugly, she couldn’t sew, and so on.  Let me just tell you, you haven’t lived until you have seen a grown, bald, Latino man cry over the color of the material he is about to make his prom dress out of!  Talk about a sight!  Then this tall white boy that talks sweeter than Yoo-hoo comes over and tells him that it will all be alright.  They share a moment (very touching) and of course the whiner conquers her fears and gets on with her business.  Just when you think every thing is going to be okay, who should walk in but RuPaul herself.  What?  That’s right!  RuPaul walks in and looks at everyone’s gowns and tells them what she (in all her fabulousness) thinks of their designs.  Then just before she walks out the door, she tells them oh and by the way you have to wear that tired old fruit we gave you on your costume!  OMG!!  I thought those bitches were going to throw down!  Weeping Willy looked on the verge of tears once again.  WTF? Was written all over her face.  I’m pretty sure she had papayas and I have to admit I was pretty concerned about where she was going to put them.  It can’t get any better right?…just wait!

The next day, after they have the costumes all done, they have to walk a catwalk in front of judges in their handmade duds.  This ain’t Project Runway.  I have never seen humans move like that!  I don’t see how these guys can call themselves female impersonators…which females have they been watching?  Anyway, once they line up at the end of the runway they are asked why they should be allowed to stay.  More tears of course and a lot of gobbledy gook but, (on the bright side) no speeches about world peace or feeding the hungry, and then they are asked who they think should go home.  Everyone turns on this one hussy and I guess she must be a real bitch because while they are raining hate on her she is just standing there taking it like “Come on, babies.  I can take it.  You haters!”  Then it’s her turn to tell them who she thinks should go and she says, “Send me home.  No one appreciates my beauty.  No one ever tells me I’m sexy…” and a bunch of other crap.  You could knock me over with a feather.  I’m like…fight bitch…don’t let them push you off the hill!  So they leave the  runway, and the judges begin their debate.

Well, I am just on pins and needles.  The judges admit that the older queen may really want to go home or she may just be using this as a ploy to get them to feel sorry for her and keep her on.  Duh!  They call in the girls.  They tell Miss Papaya she won this run.  Yea!  Anyway who expends that many tears should win!  And just so you know, she wore the papayas as a head dress.  They then announce the next two queens who are safe.  We are down to the final two.  Here’s what I didn’t know…when you get down to the final two they have to lip sync it out to a song that has been chosen by RuPaul herself.  They also have to dance.  Awesome!  Cue the music…and here it comes…I couldn’t tell you what the song was.  I don’t think I had ever heard it before, but it doesn’t matter.  It was awesome!  I was watching two drag queens dance it out on a runway in full on dress while lip syncing a song picked out by the Queen of all queens.  It just doesn’t get better than that! 

It took me awhile to go to sleep after that.  I was super pumped, as you can well imagine.  Don’t fret my dear ones, I now have this new treat set to Tivo weekly so you shall have updates.  I know many of you may not be blessed enough to get LOGO and I wouldn’t feel right having whet your appetite and then depriving you of that which you crave.  I will share.  Besides, it’s just too juicy to keep to myself.  Finally, television that defines Awesome!!

My husband and I seem to be blessed with faces that encourage strangers to talk to us.  And when I say strangers, I mean STRANGERS!  People we don’t know from Adam will talk to us with great confidence about things we wouldn’t talk to dear friends about.  It is a very strange phenomenon.  Sometimes it makes for a very uncomfortable conversation as well.  I remember once, being on the phone with my hubby and he had a fellow approach him (he was at a phone booth…remember those?) and ask if he knew where he could score some cocaine.  My husband told him to hang on. “I’m talking to my dealer now.” he said.  I didn’t think that was funny, but my hubby got a kick out of it.  You wouldn’t believe the conversations I’ve been involved in.  I have discussed politics, body parts, children, grandchildren, hygiene, local government, illegal aliens, religion, and just recently my daughter’s sexuality, with strangers.  My life is not dull.  I’ll get to that last bit if you’ll just bear with me.

Have you ever had the chance to truly discuss reincarnation with anyone?  It seems a general belief that there is a kind of well of souls, and that your soul dwells in it until you are reassigned.  Then when time and space is right for you again you re-emerge as someone new.  Okay, I guess.  I know a lot of people believe in reincarnation and far be it from me to tell them they are wrong, but here’s the one flaw I find when I talk to people…especially people who have had a reading that tells them about their past lives…they were all someone famous.  No one was ever Joe Blow from down the street.  I’ve met half a dozen Cleopatras, and a John the Baptist or two, the other day (well actually more like 2 months ago) I met Mary Magdalene but no one who just traveled through life doing nothing, plodding along making a living…singing their song…being a logger.  Where are those folks?  I went to a chiropractor once.  The first trip was fine.  He did the crap that all chiropractor’s do.  The second time he wanted to talk to my feet.  Apparently I have real chatty feet, they told him that the reason my back hurt was because I was stoned to death in a former life.  Wow!  And I paid for that!  Psychopractor, as he was henceforth known, never saw me again, but at least I wasn’t someone famous.  Just my damn luck.  I find out I was reincarnated and I’m the one person in the whole effing world who wasn’t famous! 

So anyway, the other day I was in the midst of a full blown asthma attack and I had a crack in my nebulizer (sounds dirty doesn’t it) so I had to go the medical supply store to get the part for it.  I am waiting on the lady to return to the store to get my thingy and from out of no where this chick swoops in on me.  She looks like her hair hasn’t been washed in a couple of days and her clothes don’t exactly match but they look clean.  Her style…I’m being gracious here…is eclectic, and I’m pretty sure she made her purse herself.  “Who are you waiting for?” she asked.  “I don’t know the lady’s name, but she is meeting me here.”  “That’s my mom.”  I was amazed that she figured that out from me just saying lady and meeting here, but okay.  I really didn’t have the air to talk.  “What’s your name?”  I told her.  “When someone asks your name you are supposed to ask their name back.”  So I did.  She told me her name, she told me her age, she told me she still lived at home, and she didn’t want babies.  I told her that was fine.  She asked if I had a daughter and when I said yes she had to know her age, and was she married, and did she have babies, and why not, and was she married, and where did she live, and on and on and on.  I finally answered yes and no enough to make her understand that my single daughter was the same age she was, had no children, lived in Lakeport California with her boyfriend and was okay with all of the above.  I hoped we were done.  Then she opened up on me about how living with men you weren’t married to was a sin, and did I know my daughter was going to hell?  Now, I’m pretty sure the poor thing was a few bricks shy of a load and that’s why I let her live.  After all no one get to send my children to eternal damnation but me, at least in general, so I just looked at the poor little thing who probably would never have the chance to live in sin with man and answered her accusations as sweetly as I could.  “Yes, sweetie.  I know.  But we’re all going on the family plan.”  It was about then that her mother pulled up.

 Yup, I don’t know why we get to carry on the conversations with the people we do.  There’s just something about us that screams “Go ahead, we’ll listen.”  Strangely enough, we do.  It gives us something to talk about with each other.

 

I don’t know how many of you get to experience the joy of going to the rheumatologist’s office so, please allow me to share.  There has never been a light-hearted rheumatologist.  They are all experts in gloom and doom.  They have no bedside manner.  They use terms like…at your age (ugh!), and exercise.  They have no sense of humor and the magazines in their waiting rooms suck unless you are really into  Arthritis Today  or  AARP.   My semi-annual appointment was yesterday. This is my third rheumatologist.  I fired the first one, the second one fired me, and this one isn’t any better I’ve just learned not to respond to his attitude if I want to get the medication that makes my life easier.

The first thing that is interesting about going to the rheumatologist is the clientele.  I assume there is a pediatric rheumatologist for those unfortunate children who have juvenile arthritis because I have never seen any kids at my docs.  In fact, I am the youngest person without fail, in the waiting room.  Generally speaking, I am the only one sitting there without oxygen and some helpful walking aid that doesn’t involve split tennis balls on its legs.  When I walk in on my own steam these haters look at me like I don’t belong.  Ageists!  How dare they!  They’ll see…I’ll walk out of here with just as many prescriptions as any of them.  The nurse calls in one of the elderly and she makes the noise.  You know, the noise old people make when they rise up out of their chairs?  Kind of a mix between a creak and a groan.  I think the creak is the joints moving again and the groan is from the pain.  Anyway, in this case the patient is a woman.  She begins to make the trek.  First she takes off her reading glasses, obviously she is post-cataract surgery (way to go!), and she put them back in her purse.  She then hands her purse to her husband.  Then she puts down the newspaper she was reading.  Then the two of them discuss whether or not he should go in with her (believe me…he should!).  Finally, she starts the climb in earnest.  After two failed attempts she finally gets enough  force behind her to pull up…and she’s off…traveling down the path close to the rail it’s elderly lady.  Trailing close behind and toting a handbag it’s elderly man.  They’re neck and neck as the finish line approaches.  It looks like it’s going to be a photo finish…and it’s elderly man by a purse strap!  The next patient is a man, and considering he is in a wheel chair you’d think he would go a little faster.  No way.  His name is called.  The companion who brought him is in the restroom and apparently he can’t call out to the nurse that this is the case because he is just becoming more and more panicked until his companion comes back into the waiting room.  I know he has a tongue, I saw him licking beneath his chin a little earlier…I don’t have a reason for his lack of speech.  Stroke maybe? There’s that tongue again.   It’s like a giraffe’s.  Why do people read magazines in Dr.’s offices when there is so much to ponder while you are just looking around?

By the time they get to me, it’s about 45 minutes past my appointment time but I don’t mind.  I used that time for research.  You my dear ones are reaping the rewards.  I get into the little room and in comes my doctor.  This guy is tall and very angular.  He has very gray hair and a gray beard and mustache, and his personality is just as colorful as his facial hair. “How are we feeling today?”  “I don’t know about you, but I’m doing okay.” (crickets chirping…never looks up from my chart)  “How have your pain levels been?”  “Well, I’ve always wanted to be a ten, and with the help of these illnesses some days I am.” (crickets still chirping)  “Are you taking your pain meds daily?”  I give up.  It doesn’t matter how hard I try I cannot make this gomer laugh, so I begin to just answer his questions yes and no.  The response is the same.  He gives me my 15 or so prescriptions and I head for the door.  As I am leaving I hear someone calling my name across the waiting room “Mrs. Chickentush, Mrs. Chickentush!  Wait.”  It is the doctor.  I go back to the front desk to see what he needs.  “Mrs. Chickentush, you must remember to take your pain meds four times a day everyday.  With your pain level it is important that you stay ahead of it.”  I looked around at all the old people in the room.  Yup.  They’re listening.  One thing about old people, they think docs are Gods.  I assure him I will, and I walk unaided out of the room.  Vindication is mine!

My grandson, the precious one, being an overachiever has decided to go through his terrible twos a little early.  He is driving his mother nuts.  He is practicing the fine art of “no, don’t, stop, and mine.”  He has perfected his pout, and can throw the best fit ever to be seen for one of his size.  He was sick this week and so his mother was home with him for two days.  The first day he was too sick to be really cranky, but the second day he made up for the first day.

Actually his malaise set in late Saturday of last week.  He got a little cranky and we chalked it up to a late night and perhaps teething.  His father had a cold, but we just let that slide.  The little charmer is subjected to colds day in and day out at this daycare and we didn’t suspect that dad’s was anything new, but by Sunday he was full on ill.  We took him to the pediatrician on Monday…we being his daddy and me, and they said he had an ear infection, sore throat, and asthma.  They gave him a nebulizer treatment which sent him into an absolute hissy fit.  This fit lasted for the better part of six or seven minutes (I made daddy hold him…I’m not stupid) and then he immediately went to sleep afterward.  The next day he stayed with mommy.  By day two mommy was calling, “I can’t make him happy.  He cries when I hold him.  He cries when I put him down.  Nothing pleases him.  He doesn’t want me in the room and he cries when I leave the room. He’s crying for you, and I haven’t had a shower since Monday morning.”  “Well, I was going to say you guys could come over here and I would help you out, but A) it’s really cold outside, B) he doesn’t need to be out in it, and C) you haven’t had a shower since Monday morning.”  “Gee Thanks.”  I could hear the little monster screaming bloody murder in the background.  I asked what the problem was now, and was told that Cars was currently not playing and that was his problem.  We talked above the din for awhile longer and eventually hung up.

As those of you going through or having gone through menopause know sometimes it comes with insomnia and that night I got a whopping dose.  After finally giving up on sleep I got up to do something else, and went back to bed at about five o’clock in the morning when my meds kicked in.  At nine o’clock in the morning I heard a gentle rap on my bedroom door.  “Emmy?”  Eyes blind with lack of sleep led me to the door and a brain comatose from the same unlocked it and there in his golden haired glory is my grandson.  Screaming.  “NO!  Bye-Bye!  Bye-Bye Mommy!  Bye-Bye!”  My non-vag daughter has the most beautiful big brown eyes and she turns them on me with pleading and asks the question, “can he stay with you today?” and someone in the room says, “Yes.”  I assure you, it wasn’t me.  She hands me the screaming bundle who immediately starts wiggling and twisting like some thirty pound night crawler and grabbing for his mother who is backing out of the room as quickly as she can.  “Mommy!  Mommy!  Bye-Bye Mommy  Bye-Bye!”  “I think he’s gotten spoiled to being with you.”  Yup that sounds like me.  “Well, maybe I should stay till he calms down.”  An hour later she leaves anyway…Bitch!

The morning goes pretty well.  We watch five episodes of Mickey Mouse Club, read every book we have…and by read I mean play “what’s that?” “it’s a ball.”  “what’s that?” “it’s a mouse.”  “what’s that?” “it’s a cookie.” and so on.  Then we have lunch, which consists of anything he will eat and not just let roll out of his mouth and onto his shirt…and then a nap.  He is pretty good about a nap.  At least about the sleeping part.  When it comes to the waking part he is a bear.  He wakes up crying and when I walk in the first thing he does is shout “No, Mommy!” at me.  Super.  I go over to pat him on the back.  “No, don’t Emmy!”  Okay, I lay down on the bed beside him.  That’s wrong too.  The phone rings, and when I get off the bed to answer it that irritates him.  It’s mommy.  “What’s wrong?”  “He wants you!”  “Aw, I’m sorry.”  “No you’re not.  you got your day at work.”  She actually laughed.  Finally, I just got him up anyway.  I figured if he was going to cry he could cry downstairs just as well as upstairs.  Forty-five minutes later….were you paying attention?…forty-five minutes later he stopped crying, but before he was through I called his mother.  “What did you do to make my grandson hate me? When he left on Monday we were friends, but today each time I look at him he howls and screams mommy bye-bye.  I have assured him that as soon as you get here you will indeed go bye-bye.” Still laughing she says “maybe he has a headache.”  “Well, I don’t know about him, but I have a doozie.”  She tells me she’ll be here by five-thirty and to hang in there (WTF?) and I swear I hear glee in her voice as she hangs up.  An hour later she walks in and my house is turned absolutely upside down.  Every toy is out.  Every treat is out of the cupboard.  There is a throw in the floor of the family room with a milk bottle on it, three different sippy cups each with a different type of juice, an apple, mandarin oranges, crackers, cookies, and a chocolate bar that he wouldn’t even try because it wasn’t completely chocolate, and Bob the Builder blaring away on the television.  We are blowing bubbles in the kitchen, an exercise that has been expressly forbidden in my house forever. “MOMMY!” he screams and runs for her.  I don’t care.  I need rest.  I need my house back.  I need my sanity back.  I need my television back.  I need my life back.  I almost want to shout and run to her too.  “Buddy!” she says and picks him up.  “NO! Mommy don’t,” he says and starts wiggling out of her arms and reaching for me.  “Look little dude, I love you to the moon and back but you are going home.  I don’t care if I have to carry you out to the car and put you in the car seat myself. ”  I’m really glad my non-vag daughter understands. 

Anyway, they left and I looked at my house which is normally fairly clean and I straightened the chairs.  I put the things in the refrigerator that had to be put away.  Then I went and laid down on the couch amidst the clutter and had a nice two hour nap.  My husband came in several hours later.  He kind of took in the disaster area and looked at me, “yeah I know…he was kind of a terror today.  In fact, he wore the horns off this old billy goat.  I’ll deal with this crap later.”  And I did.

When my kids were little I didn’t keep a real clean house.  I was lucky if I was able to keep things sort of picked up…I remember why.   I also remember why I spanked my kids.  I told my mom about the day I spent with my grandson and she said “Well, maybe they should take him to the doctor.  Maybe the doctor could give him something for those fits he throws.”  The doctors should give him new grandparents because we’ve spoiled him rotten she and I.  Spoiling is easier than listening to that assault on the ears, and I knew that when I was the parent of toddlers.  Those particular toddler’s behavior reflected on me, his does not and quite honestly I would have let him shave a cat if I thought he would have shut up for fifteen minutes.  It’s becoming clear with time that perhaps I am not grandmother material, but I make a helluva great aunt.

My hairdresser has a little boy that is unusual.  That is the word people use to describe a child that frightens them.  This tot has a tendency to look through people.  He loves fire, and I wouldn’ be surprised if small animals disappear when he is around.  I think in retrospect she thinks she should have named him Dexter (after the HBO serial killer who is so polite and well mannered).  She tells me she sleeps with the doors locked and encourages her other children to do so as well.  One day she lost track of the little lamb and heard a pounding from the back of the house.  When she went into the room the noise was coming from she found…to her surprise…her son stabbing the wall repeatedly with her best butcher’s knife.  When she asked him what he was doing he looked at her and very coldly responded, “playing danger.”  He is five.

Yikes!  Right?  But don’t we all have a side that wants to play danger?  I mean I don’t go around stabbing walls…but I do love a good adrenaline rush.  That’s why I ride my horse at break neck speeds sometimes, or try to find a straight stretch to see how fast my car can go (by the way…pretty damn fast!)  These are things that I don’t talk about much because the world thinks I’m an old lady.  Old ladies don’t do such things.  We sit and read or blog, maybe take up knitting but we don’t saddle up and dig in and go galloping across the countryside as fast as we can holding on for all we are worth just because we like the feel of the wind on our face.  Kids do that…because they don’t have any better sense.  Guess what?  I don’t have any better sense either.  I don’t own a rocking chair.  I don’t knit.  I drive too fast, and I take stupid risks and lots of chances.  My husband is the old lady in this relationship, and I don’t tell him about all the stupid things I do.  He would have a cow!  My daughter and I went snowmobiling in Montana one winter.  It was just the two of us.  The guy who lent us the snow mobiles told us the rules, looked worried that two genteel southern ladies were going into the woods on snowmobiles (even though there were clearly marked trails and he gave us a map…which I gave to my daughter because I don’t do maps) and sent us on our way.  We hadn’t gone more than half a mile before I decided to try and jump a mound of snow and got stuck.  My daughter was some kind of pissed.  It was hysterical!  She filled my helmet with snow, called me an idiot, relayed the rules to me yet again (stay on the trail!) and eventually we were rescued by two guys whose job it was to rescue crazy broads who try to jump snow banks.  She took the lead.  I did a couple of more dumb things, but that’s all I’m going to say because some of you know my husband and can’t keep your mouths shut.  But the point is…I felt alive!  I was rushing through life.  I wasn’t sitting around just existing. 

When we took my parents to Yellowstone with my two youngest kids I stuck my hand in the water under one of the walkways.  I could tell way before my hand got there that the water wasn’t hot.  My children and my mother almost died on the spot because there was a sign that specifically said “Do Not Place Hands in Stream!”  I still have to hear about that.  I have always told them that I could tell the water wasn’t hot.  I was never worried about the consequences of touching that stream.  This weekend my son…the geezer…admonished me again saying “do you know how many types of bacteria could have been in that stream?  Suppose you had a cut on your hand?  Would it have been worth dying?”  Never entered my mind.  Not once.  I guess you are going to die of something.  Maybe you should have fun while you are doing it.  I think you should break the rules once in a while.  Not at the risk of going to prison, but I think it’s okay to pull the tag off the mattress.  Some rules are just stupid.  If there is a straight stretch of highway and I can see for miles and there is no traffic, and I am buckled in…why not open my car up and put the pedal to the metal.  I’m not risking the lives of others.  I love risks, but I don’t take stupid ones that endanger other people…I just sometimes endanger myself.  A little.  For grins.  No one has to know.  Right?

See here’s the thing.  This is my secret identity.  So far only you and my daughter know this.  She knows because she’s just like me.  She takes chances too.  She doesn’t have to hide to take hers, she is young and unmarried so there is no one trying to rein her in.  My husband thinks I should.  He worries for her safety and is forever after me to do this or that or say this or that to her.  I say live and let live.  Maybe if she plays danger now she will settle down later.  I don’t know.  I was never allowed to play danger.  My parents insisted upon following the rules to the letter, and as far as they knew, I did.  My husband worries about everything (he can’t help it…his mother was a world class worrier) so I have to watch what I say out loud. Sometimes I tease him at hint at things I’ve done or would like to do and it puts him in an absolute tizzy.  I’m just testing the waters to see if his attitude has changed.  It hasn’t.  I have my motorcycle license.  I have had it since I was fourteen, but God forbid I should ride a motorcycle…which I love…he would die!  I can’t convince him that motorcycles are as safe as the person on them, and if he read this blog he would be convinced that I am unsafe and become even more protective.  That’s not true though.  When I ride my horse I wear a helmet.  I wore a helmet on the snowmobile.  I always wore a helmet when I rode motorcycles, and when I drive I always wear my seat belt.  I take the necessary precautions…I just like fast!  I like horror movies too…but that is because I think they’re comical…I like to get all the kids together and dis them…anyway I digress.  Playing danger doesn’t always have to be dangerous.

I know some elderly people who are incredibly young, and I know some young people who are incredibly old.  I think the difference is in their ability to enjoy themselves, and part of that is finding what makes you happy and doing it.  For some it is playing bridge and for others it is golf.  For me it is going fast and furiously with the wind in my hair.  When I first got my car, I came in from a trip and asked my husband “Guess how fast I got her up to?”  Of course he had no idea.  “115.”  He looked at me as if I had three heads…then that vein at the right side of his temple began to pulsate.  “You know of course at speeds over 100 they don’t ticket you, they take you to jail.”  Did  I mention that the jaw was clenching as well?  “Good thing I didn’t get caught, huh?”  Sometimes, he can roll his eyes just like my mom. 

I love Criminal Minds on CBS.  I have been watching since its onset.  It is one of my television addictions (of which I have several…don’t judge).  It comes on Wednesday nights at 8:00 CST and it is set to TIVO on the nights I can’t watch it or when Lost supersedes it.  I am not blogging about my television addictions.  This is just a prelude to let you get primed for what is coming…the local news. 

We don’t live in a itsy-bitsy town.  It’s not Mayberry.  It’s more Mount Pilot.  However; when it comes to news the local press gets real excited when there is some…real excited.  So on Wednesday while I am watching Criminal Minds a banner flies across the top to inform me that the Duck Pond Apartments are on fire and they will keep me informed as news is made available.  Super.  No harm no foul…so far.  The program begins and it is, as usual, riveting.  It catches my attention immediately and I am glued to my seat.  Ten minutes into it just as the killer makes his first real appearance, the local television breaks into the program to inform us once again that the Duck Pond Apartments are on fire.  No one is injured.  The fire is under control.  The fire department is there and no one is in danger.  This takes ten minutes.  Ten minutes!  What is wrong with the banner thing?  The banner can say all of this and I can still watch Criminal Minds!  Finally, back to the program.  My jaw becomes a little less clinched as I watch the profilers work the case and see Prentis begin to tell how the first victim impacted her life…nope, not to be more breaking news.  The fire, still no one dead or injured, still under control, fire department still on site, oh…possible dead cat.  Fifteen minutes!  By the time we are returned to our program (already in progress) it has progressed to a point I don’t know WTF has happened.  Thanks.  ‘Preciate Ya! Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I am wondering what kind of idiot would rather know about this non-event than watch this gripping television program.  Then my phone rings.  It’s mom. “Are you watching channel 5?”  “I’m trying to.”  “So you heard about the apartment fire.”  “The one that has left no one dead or injured and is not spreading and is under control and is interrupting one of the television programs I live to watch?  Yup.”  “Oh. I thought maybe you knew someone who lived there.”  “No, but no one was hurt anyway.”  “Oh, alright then.  I’ll let you get back to your show.”  I don’t think she thought my lack of concern was very decent of me, but geez-a-lou nothing was happening.   Okay back on topic.   Now you would think that after all this they would be considerate enough to replay this from the start a little later, right?  Nope.  Even though it is prime time programming if you missed it you are just ‘effed.   That’s just wrong.  So I marched my little self over to their website to put my little view point in print.  I logged on and let them feel my wrath.  To my surprise, several people agreed with me, and no surprise to me a couple of cranky old geezers felt that the non-life threatening burning of the apartment building that may or may not have caused the untimely demise of a cat and was under control should usurp any programming and for those of us who felt otherwise we should only watch television on premium cable (stupid idiot! Criminal Minds doesn’t come on HBO or Showtime or I would have been watching premium cable…duh) and thus wouldn’t have been bothered by local news.   I have a sneaky feeling they would have felt different if it had been Wheel of Fortune that had been interrupted. 

I’m not anti-news.  Had the building been in danger of collapsing or causing damage to other structures that would have been different.  If there had been loss of life, or the threat of lives lost I could have understood the multiple warnings.  I felt sorry for the kitty, but the silly cat still might be found.  It was a cat…they get in and out of things all of the time.  I’m not heartless.  I’m just addicted.  Either wait until ten for news that is not “late breaking” or  play the program again, but don’t leave gaping holes in the  storyline of a great plot for something that is really not incredibly newsworthy.  Please!  And by the way…Gomer says hey!

 

Last week the family had hair appointments.  This isn’t news and I’m sure you’re wondering why it is that I feel compelled to write about it.  There is a reason: my husband is stupid.  Most people think he is intelligent and as far as I can tell it is my job to debunk that impression.  He is not.  I have proof.

Our hairdresser has moved to a new salon.  This happens frequently so that wasn’t the problem.  The problem was the name of the place she moved to.  The Spa @ Esthetique is her new place of business. Remember that, you will need to know it later.  Okay…here’s the story.  Originally our hair appointments were for Thursday, but on Monday our stylist called us to say that she was moving to a new salon that would be open for business on Friday.  I reminded her that we had appointments on Thursday and she said all we needed to so was come in on Friday instead.  Easy peasey.  I told the hubby.  Dorcas has moved to a new salon and we have appointments on Friday.  What’s the name of it?  The Spa @ Esthetique.  “What”  “The Salon at Esthetique.”  “S the what?”  “Esthetique.”  The week went on without mention of the salon or the appointments.  On Friday afternoon hubby got up and showered and asked what time the appointments were and announced that he was leaving first so that he could hit the golf course.  Fine, no problem.  “What was the name of the place again?” “The Salon @ Esthetique” he repeats it for good measure…”The Salon @ Esthetique.”  “Exactly.”  “Where’s it located?”  ”In Tontitown next to the Harp’s.”  “Right or Left?”  “Honey, I don’t know but I’m sure there is only one The Salon @ Esthetique in the shopping center so pull into Harp’s shopping center and look for it.”  “What’s it called again?”  “The Salon @ Esthetique.”  Again, he repeats it…”The Salon @ Esthetique.”  And he’s off.  About ten minutes later I left the house and go by my mom’s house to pick her up and then I drive the fifteen minutes to the salon.  My husband’s car is no where to be seen.  The first thing I notice is that it is not The Salon @ Esthetique but The Spa @ Esthetique which was what I had written on the calendar and what I had originally said, but over the course of time and the many, many questions it had become the salon.  I know where this is heading.  I see our stylist and I ask her if my hubby has already come and gone.  No…he hasn’t been there yet.  Crap.  We wait about five minutes and here comes Captain Smarts…fuming.  He takes a look at me and starts in…”you said salon, and it’s spa!”  “Really?  That’s what confused you?  You couldn’t guess because it had the word Esthetique in it and it was the only place in the whole shopping area that said it does hair?  You are really going to put the blame on me?”  “Hell, yes  I’m putting the blame on you.  You are the one who told me the wrong name.”  “Yes, I agree that I told you the wrong name for the most part, but the word Esthetique never varied.  You are stupid and that is not my fault.”  “I don’t know that word so I didn’t listen to it.”  “Not knowing that word is what makes you stupid.”   This went on until I noticed that we were kind of being overheard by people in the spalon…which is how I will forever refer to it from now on…at which point I told him he was dismissed. 

Now I don’t know technically who was right and who was wrong.  I know I gave him the wrong name (partially), but I still believe the average moron could have figured it out.  I recognize that he feels equally strongly that if I had given him the correct name he wouldn’t have had to drive all over Tontitown looking for a salon (but really…when I specifically said in the Harp’s shopping center? And it was directly to the right of Harp’s for God’s sake).  I wonder how old all these people will have to be before I get to stop spoon feeding them.  I’ve got feeder’s elbow for Pete’s sake.  At least in the case of my husband I should have known that it would be this way.  If he ever gets lost it is someone else’s fault.  On the few occasions we have gotten lost while driving he blames the GPS unit (I tend to think he didn’t follow the directions correctly) and ends up yelling at the thing, turning it off, then doing what it said to do in the first place.  At that point, however; it is his idea, not the GPS so he gets all the glory.  He thinks he’s complicated…I think he’s funny.  Most of the time. 

Anyway…we’ve got six more weeks before another haircut.  I think he can find it again…I think.  If he can’t, I need him to find someone else to blame, maybe my mom.  I just know that I am only willing to take the fall for that one once (if at all).  He’s going to have to pony up for anymore mistakes…plus I’m getting my haircut first…neener, neener!

Newer Posts »