I am so sick of rain.  The sky is absolutely gray and the temperature has taken a downward turn.  This has gone on long enough.  I have never been to Seattle, but I feel like I have lived there now.  The only thing this weather is good for is watching chick flicks or reading.  I am currently not in a reading mood.  In fact, I’m really not in the mood to do anything.

I had to get out yesterday.  I had to put the top up on the car, and that never makes me happy.  I have been know to drive with the top down and the heater or air on just because it is so awesome to have the wind in your hair regardless of the temperature outside.  I draw the line at rain though.  It hurts.  The Precious loves to ride with the top down as well.  He doesn’t like the sun in his face so I bought him so “Budin” sunglasses to keep in my car.  Let me just say, we get lots of looks riding down the highway in my little black dot of a car with the top down…The Precious riding shotgun with his shades, and The Wiggles jammin’ from the speakers.  We rock!

Today looks like another top up day.  If the rain holds off maybe I’ll go horseback riding.  It has been awhile.  I know Yo Mama could probably use the excercise, and it wouldn’t hurt me either.  The best part of our ride, of course, is the grooming.  She will stand for hours while you brush her.  I don’t think it’s that she particularly loves being groomed, but she knows that once all of that is done she will get an apple.  She loves apples!  I take a bite first and then hold it out to her…just out of reach.  She will flare her nostrils and start flapping her lips trying to get to the apple.  When she finally gets it, the juices start flowing.  She will have apple juice all over her.  It is just the best.

Obviously, not a big blog day.  Nothing much going on, but if I don’t let you guys know this, I suppose you could think I just fell off the planet.  Not today.  I’m here…in the rain….again. 

The best part of getting the backyard taken care of is the joy of looking at it while I am lying in the pool.  Each year we open the pool and it looks like a sludge filled pond.  Each year I think there is no way in hell that I am setting foot in anything that disgusting.  Yet each year, after tons of shock, chlorine tablets, ph plus, and ph minus to balance the whole thing perfectly we are blessed with a pristine pool that calls to me when I am inside and the sun is out.

This year was no different.  In fact, I might have anticipated it a little more since we re-lined it last year.  I was hoping that maybe something miraculous had happened and when they removed the cover there would be a crystal clear pool shining beneath like some liquid present just my own.  No such luck.  Not only was the swamp in full swill but frogs had taken up residence in the murky waters and I feared what might lie beneath.  I carefully removed the frogs, and tentatively reached into the skimmers to clean and replace them.  I called the pool weasels (they earned that name…trust me) and asked them to come and do their magic.  You know how in the movies the pool guy is some built guy that looks like he just walked off the pages of Shape magazine or Stud Monthly.  Yeah, that’s a lie.  In the real world the pool guy is a middle aged, overweight, red-neck who doesn’t wear a shirt and really should.  I don’t call unless I have to, trust me.

Well, it is done.  The pool is operative.  As an added bonus the yard work is mostly done.  There is only one more flower bed to clear, and I am seriously considering not planting it…you know, just let it go all Jurassic park.  It has the remaining tree stumps from last year’s ice storm, but I figure with the growth rate that ratty corner has it should convert back to its natural state in about…well let’s say the weekend to be safe.  I hate to even walk around back there.  I am always afraid the velociraptor is on the loose and here I am without a jeep.  I don’t do well with nature.  I like being in it as long as it doesn’t get on me.  There are definite getting on you things in the Jurassic corner of the yard.  I shudder.

I think my husband let me put in a pool all those years ago, because he knew it was the only way to get me involved in the yard work.  He was right.  I only do it so I can enjoy the view from the pool.  It looks just fine without any work from the dining room table.  You can always shut the blinds if you disagree.  I like the big vining honeysuckle bushes that line the fence.  I like the two trees that have come up on their own and the ever growing cherry tree is now really taking off.  Recently we discovered a patch of wild strawberries that are growing beneath a mimosa tree.  Most of the back yard defied the ice storm like a storm trooper. The cherry tree is a little bent now, but still hanging in there.  I know how it feels most days.  We took out the hammock because it was becoming a liability, but there is a rumor that my husband will actually come through this year and get me the porch swing back there that I have wanted for a couple of years now.  I’ll believe it when I see it of course.  The only big disappointment is that our huge umbrellas have bitten the dust.  You would think after thirteen years we would remember to take them down.  Apparently we are just not that bright.

Tomorrow I am swimming.  I say this with great conviction.  The water is a little cold.  I don’t care.  I have worked my fingers to the nub clearing out that nasty backyard and have been more than diligent in caring for the pool.  So tomorrow I am going swimming.  I looked at the forecast and there is a chance of rain and the temperatures are supposed to be somewhat cooler.  I hope there is no lightning, because I am not worried about getting wet.  Wet is what I am going for.  Cold?  Cold and I are old friends.  I live with the original Mr. Freeze.  I have a wet suit if need be.  Tomorrow, I am going swimming.  I need to feel like this was all for something.  If I catch cold and die, just remember to please have the service out by the pool..and if it’s not too much trouble could someone please say “doesn’t the yard look nice?”

For the last couple of weeks I have been doing yard-work.  Yeah, go ahead laugh.  I have been weeding and planting, and replacing shrubs and doing all the crap work that needs to be done on a much more regular basis.  Since I hate gardening, it goes way too long without being done and then I have to work three times as hard to get things taken care of.

Well, for the past several years we have had The Yardman doing the lawn.  That is truly the name of his business.  The Yardman.  I called him Forrest because he sounded just like Tom Hanks when he was Forrest Gump.  He was a pleasant, slow talker, with a definite Carolinian drawl, and he was not speedy about getting things taken care of.  Additionally, he usually wouldn’t come for days after he said he would (if he did at all).  He also had a rag tag couple of guys helping him.  One may have been his son, but he looked like he was a very old dwarf.  He never seemed to be in school, and he just kind of hung around doing nothing.  The other was Otis Campbell from the Andy Griffith show.  Now I can’t tell you for sure that he was a drinker.  I never smelled it on him, but he looked like Otis and he walked with a hitch in his git-along and he seemed to have about as much on the ball as the dwarf.  Needless to say, Forrest spent 75% of the time he worked on our yard giving instructions to the two “helpers.”

Okay, so my point, and I do have one, is that my yard was neglected.  While Forrest was perfectly willing to  poor Round-up or whatever on the weeds, he never seemed to pull them.  Looking at mounds of dead dandelions hanging out in my grass wasn’t the lush green yard I wanted.  He really wanted to mow and plant and forget about weeding.  Well so did I, but I had hired him to take care of it.  Eventually we parted ways, because he didn’t want me to buy my own plants, and he got them from the same greenhouse I did.  So why pay more?  I’ll tell you why…because your muscles don’t hurt if you hire a gardener.  I also have ruined a perfectly decent manicure.    I have six flower beds between the front yard and the backyard.  The beds have been ignored so long we are taking them apart and re-lining them and then adding fresh mulch.  Underneath the existing weeds, worms, and undergrowth there is landscape fabric which is supposed to discourage weed growth.  BS!  I think our weeds think this is fertilizer or grade A compost, because they have flocked to this nappy black paper like gulls on a seaside picnic!  I thought I would pull it up easily and most of the weeds with it, since they aren’t supposed to penetrate the fabric….yeah, that didn’t happen.  It was ridiculous.  It reminded me of when Pooh got stuck in the tree.  I was holding on to fabric and my daughter was holding on to me and we still couldn’t get it all out.  We finally had to relent and use scissors to cut around some of the worst of the roots.

I wish the flowers that I have planted can acquire roots half as hearty as the roots on the weeds I have pulled out of the flower beds.  Then the rental property that borders us in the backyard apparently hated my honeysuckle that I have been trying to vine all along the fence back there.  I say that because they poured some type of weed killer or something on it and caused it to fall into the yard, rather than stay vined up on the fence as I had been working for.  This greatly shortened the length of the backyard.  So…and keep in mind my great fear of snakes…I cleared the dead vines from underneath the honeysuckle and raked out the compost that had compiled there.  Of course, my daughter helped.  She tacked the honeysuckle back in place as well, but every time a vine brushed my legs I nearly had a run away!  Boppy has already killed one snake back there, and I am still amazed that we didn’t come across one in all of that mess.

It is almost done.  We have little piles of dead leaves, vines, and bushes that will need to be put in the lawn bags for the compost truck to pick up on Tuesday. If we get it done by Tuesday.  Today when I woke up there were parts of my body screaming for mercy that I didn’t even know had been in the fight.  I didn’t even know your hair could hurt!  I was telling my daughter that what with all the rain and mess perhaps today would be a good day to take off.  She said, “Thank God, I was so sore when I got up this morning, and I forgot at first what I had done to be sore about.”  That made me feel better…you know misery loves company.  Plus, she’s only twenty-three so if it’s kicking her ass, I have a lot less to feel bad about.  I think…no I know that my imagination runs rampant at times.  I set up scenarios and then anticipate their occurrence.  Well, there is a part of me that thinks I am doing all of this so The Yardman will feel ashamed when he drives by.  Look what two chicks can do (at far less than he charged) with a few cheap tools and a lot of time.  Of course, he probably doesn’t drive by.  And if he does he probably is so busy trying to keep his staff under control he doesn’t have time to look up, but in my world…he sees the beauty of a well maintained yard with pristine flower beds and he weeps a little that he could never achieve such perfection. 

I am stricken with migraines.  They don’t come from just one source.  I have hormonal migraines (not often now), stress migraines, and migraines that are resultant from to much blood flow to the brain.  For the last of these I use a vasoconstrictor medication called Maxalt.  It doesn’t work on the worst of the headaches.  For those I have to use Imitrex, but for the headaches I have almost daily the Maxalt works just fine.  The problem with both of these medications is they are very powerful.  Someone described them once by saying only take them when you are afraid you will die if you do not take them, because you might if you do.  Well, if you have ever had a migraine you know that there is a pain level that you reach that will cause you to take anything to make the pain go away.  This pain is a blinding, sickening, screaming pain that worsens with light, sound,  or movement.  Now imagine having a headaches like that and getting your medication out and finding these instructions…”carefully fold in half along the dotted line…tear in half at center mark.”  Now you are in extreme pain and nearly blind, sick at your stomach and trying to fold a square of paper approximately 1 inch by 1 inch in half so that you can then tear it in half again in the other direction.  It’s asinine.  The Imitrex is not much better.  My delivery system of choice (it comes in nasal spray..ugh! Melt under the tongue..ugh! and a pill) was the injection.  I didn’t have to think I just had to point and shoot.  Then someone decided to save money and make the patient load the syringe rather than have filled syringes ready.  If you have a serious migraine, truly the only thing you want to load is a gun.

At first I thought it was just me.  Then in one blinding fit of pain I cried “Uncle” and asked my husband to open the packaging for me.  After about 15 minutes, he got the scissors out and cut the thing open.  Recently my daughter had a migraine and she asked if I had something for it.  She wrestled with the Maxalt for about 5 minutes and then brought it in to me and said that the package was making her headache worse.  I (not having a migraine) opened the package quickly and handed it back to her.  The disgust was evident on her face.  All of this got me thinking about the days when pills came in bottles that just opened.  Does anyone remember?  It was before the Tylenol scare that caused everyone to be so afraid of OTC medications.  Then someone came up with the brilliant idea of childproof caps.  In addition to the “press both sides in simultaneously while turning” or “press down and turn” they added a cellophane shrink wrap around the neck of the bottle and used some type of glue that was formulated at NASA.  And (here’s the beauty of it all) only children can get into them.  You can give The Precious a closed bottle of children’s Tylenol tablets and he will have those “nummies” opened before you can say…well you know. 

So while I’m ranting there is also this…I receive three different medications for my arthritis and fibromyalgia pain.  When I go to the pharmacy to pick up my prescriptions they are  in childproof bottles.  Okay, for the most part except that my pharmacist and his associates know me, and have for awhile.  I am the one making the mortgage payment on his house.  He told me the other day that his oldest was going to college in the fall.  I asked him if he thought I was going to pay for it.  They ‘effing love me!  They know that I don’t have any children at home.  All of my kids are…well adults.  They can’t open the stupid bottles for me either (and most of them have college degrees!).  I asked the pharmacy to please put the lids on my bottles with the “not childproof” caps on.  You would think this was rocket science.  Maybe half a dozen times I have gotten the bottles and not had to switch the lids over.  I know it may seem like a simple thing, but when you have arthritis in your hands, wrists, and elbows little things can become complex.  I once did without my medication until my husband came home from a trip because I could not open the damn bottle.  He thought I was really glad to see him when he came home, but about 50% of my excitement was due to the fact that I could take my pain meds!

It’s really sad that the few have made it hard for the many.  I really can’t imagine, seeing all the gnarled joints in my rheumatologist’s office, that I am the only person plagued by this.  You know, it is a lot easier to get in to other things that are equally dangerous.  For instance, the dishwasher detergent doesn’t have a childproof cap.  The Clorox Clean-up is just a spray.  There are a gazillion products that contain bleach, lead,  acid, and other poisons that anyone can get to at a moment’s notice.  Even mouse poison has arsenic in it, and what do you have to do to open it?  Open it!   So I guess the question comes down to, what are we really being protected from?  I think the answer is we aren’t being protected at all.  The manufacturer’s are just protecting their own asses and making a lot of us paranoid in the process. 

So…other than the products that can’t be switched to non-child resistant lids, I have done what I think is the proper thing to do.   I have flipped the lids over, I have moved the poisonous chemicals (both those with and without tamper proof caps) high where The Precious can’t reach them and placed a lock on the cabinet under that sink where the dish liquid and other cleaners are kept.  Of course the cabinet lock is childproof so I am just hoping that he doesn’t figure that out until he is old enough to understand what danger is.  I am also hoping that someday he will understand what danger is!

 

Last night my oldest son called and asked if we would like to go with them to take The Precious to his first real baseball game.  This is something he enjoys watching on television and we thought we would see how attending a live game went.  The weather was beautiful.  The seats were great.  The teams were pretty close…4 to 5 at the top of the eighth, but the mascot was a sasquatch!

The Precious was not pleased to see a towering sasquatch loping onto the field.  His aunt was holding him, and apparently he began shaking.  As the sasquatch came closer his fear became greater.  His initial excitement at the sight of the field and the players went flying out the window.  “Bye-bye” was widely heard, along with “no-no” and “be nice”.  In the end nothing would do but that mommy hold him.  His large blue eyes continually scanned the park, and the crowd for any sign of the huge mascot.  His experience had definitely taken a wrong turn.  At one point he forgot long enough to cheer, “good hit!” as a player slammed a triple out to center field.  He watched in awe as foul balls popped in the air just over his head.  If he could’ve just gotten rid of the damn Big Foot his life would have been perfect.

We were lucky enough to have chosen to go to the ballfield on Duggar night.  If anyone watches TLC’s 18 kids and Counting…that family was at the Ballpark too.  It was thirsty Thursday and all drafts were $1.  My oldest son figured that was really the reason they came.  Unfortunately for every other child in the ballpark, the Duggar children were allowed to play every game and activity during the spaces between innings that the ballpark allowed.  It’s annoying to some of us (me) that these people don’t let their children watch t.v., but they raise them on money they make from a television program.  They brag how Michelle home schools the kids, but when they were given jumbled letters and asked to spell skeleton the oldest and his wife spelled skeltone.  Good job!  The announcer got so sick of trying to remember all of the damned J names he finally just said, “and another J is out of the game.”  They work so hard at being good Christians, why don’t they bow out and let someone’s kid who bought a ticket play the give away games.  Oh I know, it makes for good television when they are doing exciting things.  Pleeease!!!  The only reason that they should be given any kind of attention at all is just for putting Arkansas in a bad light.  Now we are nationally known as the Duggar state.  How nice.  I’m sure everyone is thinking that all Arkansans just want to see how many children the Lord can give them.  Hey Duggars…it’s not the Lord giving you babies…it’s the sex!  The Lord also created people with brilliant minds who have developed condoms, spermicides, birth control pills and tons of other great devices so you don’t have whore your family out on televison and irritate the locals every time you do anything in town.  Geez-a-lou!  They put the whole family on the pitcher’s mound to throw out the first ball and they had more player’s on the field than the Natural’s. 

Obviously The Precious is too young to care about the fact that he got screwed out of winning any  loot because it was Duggar Day.  My daughter however, mentioned that at the very least they could treat the rest of the kids to dollar beer for having to show up on the day when they couldn’t possibly win anything and they had to keep watching the emcee pull Duggars with J names out onto the field so that TLC could film their preciousness (if you heard a noise, it was me gagging).  I know I had a Margarita and I don’t generally drink when I am out in the sunshine.  I did however catch a baseball for The Precious and of course we bought him a T-shirt.  The problem with the T-shirt is it has the stupid Sasquatch on it and I don’t know if he will wear it or not.  If he does and he looks down, he may have a cow!  For the moment, at least, he thinks he won.  He has a new soft baseball that bears the Natural’s Logo and he is content with that.  Still if you know someone who could take on a seven foot tall sasquatch…you could be a little boy’s hero!

Sometimes I lose my mind.  I try to blame it on my medications (as you’ll remember if you have been following along) but sometimes I am just stupid.  Take Monday for instance.  It was a pretty day.  The sun was shining for a change.  The temperature was in the mid-seventies.  After lunch I mention to my husband that we should go to Lowe’s and buy some flowers to put out in the beds.  Now we always put flowers out in the spring. It’s just that by we, I mean someone we hire.  This year (thanks W.) we is me and my daughter.  I am very thankful that she is home from California and can help or else the front yard wouldn’t be done…and it is. 

All of the spring flowers, daffodils, tulips, hyacinth, and so on were cut back.  The flower beds were weeded out and zinnias were put in the front bed.  In the center flower bed zinnias and stargazer lillies surround the birdbath, and to the side of the front porch we are placing a hydrangea.  Sounds lovely doesn’t it?  We used a tool to plant the zinnias that can dig holes from a standing position to the appropriate depth for whatever bloom you happen to be planting.  No it’s not magic…it’s marked on the side of the tool.  I thought this was great as I tore out chunks of earth to plop zinnias in.  The problem occurred when I had to bend to place each individual plant in the hole and then cover it’s precious little root system with dirt.  I had purchased 54 zinnias.  That’s a lot of bending and stopping and plopping and covering.  Mid-seventies gets hot when you are overweight and exerting yourself.  I got a migraine.  I went in to take Maxalt, shower and call it a day.  I knew the plants would be waiting for me. 

The second day (today) I thought I was being smarter.  I had my daughter work the hole digger and I just sat and plopped.  That worked pretty well for the first 8 plants, but after that I left the holes and the plants to her.  I retreated to the shade of the porch and repotted the house plants that were root bound.  Then I did clean up of the yard waste.  I thought we were through.  I picked up some shock to clean the pool and grabbed some chlorine tablets and headed to the back yard.  My twenty-three year old daughter heads back with me to help.  Great!  I never get help…I open the bags of shock and she heads off to dump the contents in the pool.  I make the comment that we need to have the back yard cleaned up by The Precious’ birthday party which is scheduled for June 13th.  This is where youth trumps good sense.  “I’ll get the hedge trimmers and you grab the weed spray and we can get some of this done tonight.”  She heads off with her hair up in a cute little knot, shorts and tee, just as cute as a bug and begins to lop the hedges.  Now, how do you call it quits when you are faced with that. 

I grab the weed spray and begin to look for weeds.  I find them.  They are the back yard.  I am definitely going to need more spray.  I begin spraying, hoping that my weak right arm will hold out while I pull the trigger on the sprayer.  I find a thorn tree growing beneath the kitchen window.  It is so large I fear it has its own zip code.  I spray it.  It laughs.  I spray it again.  It spits the spray back out at me and grows another six inches.  I reach down to try and pull it up.  I truly believe that its root system extends beneath the patio…perhaps even the pool.  I fear that continued pulling will not only kill the weed it may collapse the pool.  I give. 

Earlier this evening, Boppy was gathering crap that needed to be hauled off and putting it in one place so that the guy with the truck could do his job.  While doing so he found a snake.  In the backyard.  The backyard that I am now working in.  Don’t think I don’t remember this as I am spraying.  I spray the yard, literally and liberally.  I look beneath the bench between pool and the basketball court and there are a ton of weeds hiding there.  I don’t know what kind of plant these weeds are but they have a shallow root system and a broad span of greenery.  It would really be easier to just reach down and pull them out of the ground.  To do so would require me to reach under the bench in the quasi-dark, in a yard where a reddish, brown snake was found earlier this afternoon.  Hmmm…what to do. Yes, I am prone to chickening out but,  I got down on my hands and knees and began to pull.  I nearly had a run away when I found a piece of gray rope.  I jumped when some type of cable became dislodged and hit my hand.  But by now I had my big girl panties on and nothing was stopping me.  Until the biggest ‘effing frog I have ever seen in my life jumped out from under the bench and onto my arm just before he took a nosedive into the pool I did ugly things to monkeys, challenged the validity of the frog’s parents marriage at the time of his birth, and peed my pants a little (and that was supposed to have been fixed!).  I looked over at my daughter to see what effect my outburst had on her and she was happily trimming the hedges.  She was digging around beneath the plants, and pulling out dead branches from under massive piles of dead under growth.  She didn’t even seem to be aware that snakes could be lurking in the shadows.  She was oblivious to the spiders that nest in the dark.  She was happily playing in the dirt…a little girl again.

I still can learn things from my children.  I can find new foods.  I can be taught short cuts.  I can find the joy in gardening.  Well, two out of three ain’t bad.  I used to enjoy gardening.  I really did.  When we first bought this house I spent hours planting in the spring.  I used Miracle Gro like I owned stock in the company.  I watered, I weeded, I did everything I had ever read was the right thing to do if you wanted a successful flower garden.  Year after year I was rewarded with impatiens that were larger and fuller than any others on the block.  I personally landscaped the back yard without ever thinking about what might be lying in wait.  Then my diseases took over.  It quickly became to painful to bend and kneel and do all of the things that gardening takes.  It’s nice to know, though, that someone in the family enjoys it.  I sincerely hope that her joints don’t fail her…or her fears overcome her.  I have tried to raise children who could face anything life could throw at them…but how can they trust someone who shrieks at snakes and curses frogs?  Oh well, at least the front yard is done, and the back doesn’t have to be done for another three weeks.  Hopefully none of the crap I pulled tonight will grow back, and all of the creepy crawlies will  have been warned by the alarm I sounded tonight and move far, far, away.  Yes, I know…but don’t pick at it.  It’s fragile.

My precious, new laptop is giving me fits.  I originally had trouble with the server, and I know that has absolutely nothing to do with the laptop so don’t go there.  But a couple of nights ago I was playing games on POGO, and when I was through I went to shut down my computer.  ERROR! Comes up with a warning that my computer can’t shut down and if I try to shut it down I will lose all my data.  Senselessly I turn to my hubby and show him the screen.  He tells me to run a couple of different operations (which don’t work) and then kind of shakes his head.  The next day I remind him of the problem and try to shut my computer down again.  Once again he shakes his head but this time he goes golfing.  Much later in the day, (because he stays on the golf course until he can’t see the golf ball) he looks at it again and tells me that he needs the original discs that came with it.  His sure he gave them to me (although I don’t remember it) and can’t do anything until they are located. Much to his regret I find them.  He finally fixes my computer…I thought.

The next night, I write my blog.  This is the blog that would have made me famous.  This blog is so insightful it could solve the world’s problems, help with the housework, and  cure cancer.  This blog is the stuff dreams are made of.  I am as proud of it as I can be.  I re-read it to make sure I am not just blowing smoke…No!  It is indeed wonderful.  I shall save it and publish it and the world will be a better place.  I hit save.  The screen goes blank and that stupid ERROR comes up again.  ERROR?  ERROR!  No…No errors!  Where is the perfection?  Where is the alliteration?  Where is the future fame and the fortune I have already spent?  I look at the screen.  I have without knowing verbalized my intense confusion and my children are convinced that I have found a website with certain proof of the apocalypse.  My husband has gone on a zombie killing mission (yes, you read that right) and I must wait for his return to complain.  The time does not pass quickly.  When he walks in I jump on him like a duck on a June bug.  I rattle off the depths of my despair and tell him how this particular essay would be impossible to reproduce and I have nothing…absolutely nothing, to prove it ever existed.  He looks at me and says “I’m sorry honey.  I’m going to go take a shower.”

WTF?  This is one of those times when you wonder if your voice really carries.  Perhaps what he heard was, “I was watching television and had to change the remote batteries.”  Then his response makes perfect sense.  I see him leaving the room, and I am certain that something must be said, so I shout to his back, “did you hear me?”  He didn’t even respond.  Later that night in bed as I lay curled on his chest I said, “Did I mention to you that my computer crashed when I tried to save my blog?” “Mmmhmm.”  “Would you look at it again?” “Mmhmm.”  So the next day he once again looks at my computer.  He can find nothing wrong.  Probably just a bug in the system.  Fine.  I begin to type on it.  When I hit the apostrophe key I get the quotation mark.  Wait…I didn’t shift.  WTF?  I do it again.   Same crap.  Third time, same result…I decide it’s just as easy to type without contractions.  I was wrong.  Just when I am about to complain once more it stops. 

It’s driving me nuts!  The thing is if it was anyone else’s computer he would jump in to take care of it.  My mom’s would have been dealt with ASAP.  He has driven 2 1/2 hours to fix his dad’s computer.  We have driven further than that to work on his Godmother’s computer.  The list goes on and on.  He doesn’t complain though when I ask for his help.  He is always very sweet about it .  “I’m sorry honey.  I’ll take a look at it.”  What isn’t said is…after golf, zombies, MSN, work, and everything else that means more to me.   That is understood.  He hates working on computers.  He does it because he loves us, but he hates trying to figure out where the bug is.  So for right now the laptop is semi-working.  I periodically find problems.  They are minor.  I don’t say a word.  It wouldn’t do much good right now anyway.  It is golf season.  I am a golf widow.  This marriage has been put on hold until further notice.  Which generally includes cold weather or electrical activity.   Then, and only then, any lingering problems will be dealt with.  So if the blogs aren’t turned out as regularly as you or I would like it’s because I have a bug.  I’ll be back.  If you want to speed things along, I would suggest praying for rain.

My server has been down for the last few days so I know a few of you were probably thinking, well, I don’t have to worry about my birthday blog.  WRONG!!  Birthday blogs are like birthdays…you get hit with them whether you like it or not.  So here we go Dinky, Happy Birthday!

My sister from another mother was born in 1954.  I don’t have a lot of the details.  I know that, like me, she came from a family of all girls.  Unlike me, she falls in the middle.  Apparently, she is the only sister whose name doesn’t end in an A.  She has mentioned that this may be because she is of different descent.  She also mentioned circus people.  Having purchased shoes for her one Christmas, I can see where she might be related to clowns.  She was raised on an Iowa farm, by Iowa farmers.  However; she is not an Iowan farmer herself.  There is a family story with regard to her ability to raise crops.  Upon her first attempt to plant tomatoes, cucumbers, and cantaloupe in the rich loam that is the Iowa soil, she harvested weeds.  The neighbors viewed it as a play and brought lawn chairs to watch the gardening disgrace.  Neighborhood children took to playing T-ball among the thistles.  This was all due to the fact that she was naive enough to believe the seed pamphlet that she had received in the mail (can you imagine what an easy mark she is for all those infomercials if she believes a seed catalog?  Billy Mayes must be salivating).  The following year her father, who is said to have been a man of few words that were chosen well and placed carefully, told her to use chicken compost.  The garden then took over her life.  See, that’s how it is with us Chickentush’s…feast or famine.  We don’t do things half-assed.  It’s fully assed or nothing.

I remember the first trip Dinky and I took together.  It was a family trip to Las Vegas.  We went with the in-laws and our husbands, Gunky and Doombah.  One evening we decided to go to a little Italian restaurant and Grandpa Snickle went to get the van.  At this time Grandma Tootsie was in a wheelchair and he had asked me to watch her while he was gone.  Power goes to my head.  I can’t help it, and it is no family secret that when I first entered the family Tootsie and I didn’t exactly see eye to eye.  Once Snickle had left I leaned down and whispered in Tootsie’s ear, “Look who is in charge now.  One push and you are out in the middle of Vegas traffic.  I bet you wish you had been nicer to me all these years.  I bet you wish you had chosen your words more carefully!”  I hear a noise and look up and Dinky is laughing so hard she is about to cry.  You see, one of the reasons she likes me is that I took all the pressure from Tootsie off of her.  Needless to say, I didn’t push her into traffic.  It was always an idle threat, but I knew then and there that Dinky had my back!  I almost expected to see her hand creep down and join mine on the handles of the wheelchair.  I was ready for a demonic voice to come from deep within her and say “It’s go time!”  But that didn’t happen.  It was enough just knowing that someone in the family at that time knew what hell I had been and was going through and understood why I might make such a threat.  Of course, Tootsie told Snickle never to leave me in charge of the wheel chair again and then smelled my coffee to see if I had been drinking, but it was totally worth it.  Two things had been accomplished, 1) Tootsie knew she had better be nice to people who were in charge of her care, and 2) A very real bond had been formed between me and Dinky.  Years later, we went back to Vegas with just Dinky and Gunky.  We had a great time.  They all won money and I drank.  Oh, and we ate out a lot.  Everyone else wants to do it again.  I can’t remember why.  

So my sister that I never shared a womb with a view with isn’t a farmer, she is a video gamer (think poker not  Mario), she has a great sense of humor.  She would have to.  To quote Tootise, “she sells worms for a living.”  I will not explain further.  She also lives with my brother-in-law.   I will not explain further.  She is also a first rate pie artist.  See these are the things that become important as you age.  You worry less about where the good schools are and more about where the good pies are.  Anyway, Dinky makes doozies…just ask Grandpa…he’s old enough to know.  When I think of Dinky, I think of turtle necks and jackets.  I don’t think I have ever seen her in pants that were shorter than her ankles.  I don’t even know if her legs are real.  They could be wooden for all I know.   I’m not 100% sure I have ever seen her arms uncovered…it is possible that she is a robot.  That would explain the always being nice bullcrap.  No one is that nice…not always.  I mean really, everyone gets set off once in awhile.  I think she is an alien with a robotic body and a human head but her mind is controlled by a microchip that doesn’t let her emote anything other than pleasant.  For those of us who have grown bitter this is a real pain in the ass.  Once, when I was at my in-laws, I was loading the dishwasher.  Grandpa Snickle came in and asked what I was doing.  I told him I was trying to become the favorite daughter-in-law.  He told me (without even a moment’s hesitation) not to even bother.  Dinky would always have that spot.  Since then I feel that I have been free to be the B@+*# I can be!  Thanks for that Dinky!  Whether you know it or not the pressure is on you.  You are the fave.  You have to do your best to not let them down.  You have to keep that smile going and that charm shining, and all I have to do is bitch and whine and slack off and we are both fulfilling our places within this family.  I think I win this one!

So far this has been pretty tame.  I haven’t mentioned that she drinks like a fish, swears like a sailor, dances nude at a club in Flippin, or bull rides at the local rodeos at least three nights a week.  Her three pack a day smoking habit can go with her to the grave, for I will never tell.  Those are just part time gigs that just make up a tiny bit of our Dinky.  She shouldn’t be defined by them.  I know when she’s in Wal-Mart people (mostly men, I would say anglers but we all know what their angle is) try to stop her for autographs and try to make advances, luckily her black belt in taekwondo usually keeps them from getting too close (did you know you could buy one of those with green stamps?). She is having a little bit of an issue with me being a Duchess.  Ever since I have received my titile she keeps trying to claim that she’s the Baroness of Flippin or some such nonsense, but when you get to be her age the mind goes a little nutsy cuckoo.  It’s either that or she’s a total hater, so I’m going to go with the losing her mind thing.  She should know that you can’t just call yourself a Baroness and have it be a done deal.  Didn’t she learn anything in the last election.  For heaven’s sake,  lipstick and pigs, lipstick and pigs!  Bless her poor old heart.  It’s just sad when the mind goes.  I had hoped it wouldn’t happen to her.  She’s such a sweet old dear.  The last time she was here I did notice some noun aphasia.  I was hoping it was just the menopause, but it could be the early warning signs of sometimers.  (I don’t think she has alltimers yet)  She’s certainly not the oldest of my sisters.  Once again, she just falls in the middle.   Happy 75th Birthday Dinky!  Stay home and keep your clothes on tonight.  Even bad girls deserve a night off!

…And it came to pass on May 12th, 1951 my second sister was born.  Yup, another blessed blond cherub to grace the manse.  (If you think I haven’t wondered why I was the only daughter born dark-haired and in February, you’re wrong.) Three lovely May born daughters every three years and an auburn locked lass six years after the last in February.  Good thing I had my father’s blue eyes.  And no, he was not a salesman who only came home in August.  Anyway, back to the subject at hand…my second sister and her birthday.  She’s 58, by the way.  Compared to the oldest sister she’s young, not as young as me, but young. 

This is the crazy sister.  You never know what she’ll do.  Yes, I’m the mouth.  You never know what I’ll say, but this one…she’s a wild card.  I swear I think she surprises herself sometimes.  I tried to find out if maybe it was something medical that had removed her filters.  I found out that she had a motorcycle wreck when she was young, and apparently some gravel was embedded in her head.  Yes, she had rocks in her head.  Eureka!!  I was certain I had found the cause, but alas, it seems the doctors had removed the rocks before they could do any real damage.  I asked mom if she took drugs or drank during her pregnancy.  Her response wasn’t pretty.  I looked through some old photo albums trying to find a clue.  I not only found a clue, I found the answer.  My oldest sister choked my second sister at every photo op.  Each time these two are in a photo together, I would say from ages 2 until 8, my oldest sister has her younger sibling around the neck.  It must have been painful because my second sister is bawling her eyes out in each and every photo.  I think this continual deprivation of oxygen caused her to go a little loopy.  All of the nieces and nephews loved it.  She was just like one of them.  Now that we have great nieces and nephews it just continues on.  She is still just one of the kids.  Of course it helps that she is only a little over four feet tall. 

When I was young, this was the sister I looked up to.  She was the oldest sister living at home that I remember.  She had long hair and cat eye glasses.  I remember when she was a Color’s Day maid in high school.  I couldn’t have been very old, but she had to have a formal and I thought she was gorgeous!  I wanted to grow up and be just like her.  I grew up…I had long hair, but by the time I got my glasses they were wire framed granny glasses.  She’s still pretty hot (for an old broad).  When she was dating my brother-in-law I would spy on them. (I was four when they started dating so he’s more like a brother to me.) I am sure I was a real pain in the ass.  I remember running to mom and dad and alerting them to every kiss.  It was so yucky!  The only thing I really remember about her moving out was that I finally got my own room.

This is the sister who pierced my ears.  I was eight.  She used a clothes pin, some alcohol,  and a needle.  I don’t think I was her first victim.  It seems like she had already punctured several other relatives.  Our parents had gone some where and she asked if I wanted my ears pierced.  Hello?  I was eight!  The clothes pin was put on my delicate lobes to deaden them.  The alcohol was used to sanitize the needle and my ears, and the needle hurt like an m’er f’er!  My ears were pierced so low and crooked that it was years before I could wear large earrings, and then only because I got brave and had them re-pierced professionally.  I am pretty sure my mother was pissed.  This is also the sister who told me about sex.  I was stunned!  I believe I was also eight when this happened (Eight was a big year for me.)  I couldn’t believe my parents had done that five times!  I knew my mother hadn’t liked it!  Thank goodness they had finally had all the children they wanted so they could quit.  Yet another little tidbit this sister shared with me during my year of information…what a tampon was for.  Double Yuck!!  I could never really look at my mother or sisters the same way.  Who knew how many of these bitches were walking around with bloody trash in them at any given time.  Thanks so much for all the knowledge.

 While the oldest sister found a profession and stuck with it, this sister tried different things.  She lived in different places.  She (OMG!) frosted her hair!  She wore short, shorts and high heels.  I can’t even begin to go into all of the shocking things she did.  We were raised Baptist for goodness sake!  She drove a car so big she had to sit on pillows to be able drive it.  She wore coffee on her head…I would try to explain, but you really need to hear it from her.   She will be the first one in the play room to play with the kids.  She will argue with them about who’s turn it is and get just as loud as any of them.  And…Please, don’t give her a musical instrument or ask her to sing…because she will…God help us she will!  She knows the words to too many songs, and she knows songs about everything.  If she doesn’t know a song about something she will make it up, and that would be fine if she could carry a tune, and even that might be okay if she wasn’t so damned loud!!  God love her!!   When I was little I wanted to do everything as well as she did.  Let me tell you, last week she came up to give mom her mother’s day present.  While she was there she helped me hang a few things, curtains, pictures, and such, on the walls.  I was using a laser level and an electric screw driver to get the job done.  My sister took over when my arm got tired.  She gleefully mentioned that my brother-in-law doesn’t let her play with his tools. (I know why now.) The laser level light was becoming difficult to see so my sister decided to hang the curtains using a yardstick.  Well, she forgot what she had measured on the left side and hung the right side differently, so the curtains were crooked and needed to be rehung.  Then I learned why my brother-in-law doesn’t let her use his electric screw driver.  She poked several holes in the walls.  That day I learned that there is something I do better than my second sister…I’m a better screwer. (Shh…don’t speak!!!!) 

She’s a good old soul.  She will hopefully laugh when she reads this, and just in case she doesn’t…I’m not answering my phone.  She would do anything in the world she could for any one of us.  It’s hard to think of her as my big sister when she’s so little, but she is.  She’s real big in her own mind, and she’s going to be a legend for years to come.  There will always be stories of remember when she….and can you believe she…..and as long as breath flows in and out of our lungs.  Those stories will be embellished until you won’t be able to tell the truth from fiction.  Like this: remember the time she rode the tractor out into the field  stark naked except for the straw hat and got really badly sunburned, because she was pretending she was a modern day Lady Godiva?…and nonsense like that.  Don’t worry sis, I’ve just made sure that you will live as long as computer blogs live.  You are indeed legendary.   Not bad for an eighty year old broad…huh?  Happy Birthday!!

Happy Mother’s Day!  Did everyone have their mimosas served in bed by their little darlings and or husbands?  Did you also have the day to yourself with every desire met before you even requested it?  Me either.  If you believe life begins at conception, I have been a mother for 33 years.  If you believe it begins at birth, I have been a mother for 32.  Either way, it has been a while.  I have received a lot of mother’s day gifts.  At first the gifts were usually purchased by someone else with the kids names attached to them.  Once they were old enough to do craft projects I usually received something the kiddos had made themselves.  Now that they are adults there is a lot of variety in the mother’s day gifts.  I have received homemade, handmade, store bought, sincere, funny, and so sweet they will make you cry gifts.  This blog is dedicated to mothers every where in every phase of the journey.

When I was a young mom (very young) I really needed to have an instruction manual.  The only thing I knew about motherhood was that I loved the precious little boy I had been given.  We grew up together, since I was only 17 when he was born, and I made a lot of mistakes.  He has forgiven me for most of them.  He has a son of his own now and he understands how easy it is to make those mistakes.  The biggest difference is that he was thirty when he had his son.  I like to think he was more mature.  At the very least he was prepared.  He and his wife are preparing for potty training.  I remember when I potty trained him.  He turned two.  I bought him some underwear.  I put it on him.  I said “you are two.  That is big enough to go in the potty.  If you have an accident in your underwear I am going to spank you.”  A week and several spankings later he was potty trained.  Yes, I feel awful.  Remember, I was young and stupid.  I wish I could go back and do it right. Thankfully, he was only minimally scarred. 

By the time I was twenty, I was the mother of two boys, whom I called Cain and Abel.  I wasn’t sure who was Cain because I really didn’t know who would survive.  They fought 24/7.  They fought over everything.   They woke up fighting about who got up first and went to bed fighting about whose turn it was to turn out the light.  They needed a line down the back seat of the car and God help anyone who crossed that particular Mason Dixon line.  I went to bed many nights and cried myself to sleep.  Not because I regretted having such horrible children, but because I knew that I had to wake up and referee again the next morning.  There were days I felt like dressing in black and white and donning a whistle.  One day I had reached my limit.  I went outside and drew a circle in the yard with a stick.  I placed both boys in it and told them to duke it out.  Two little faces looked up at me with total confusion in their eyes.  “Go ahead.  Kill one another.”  Still nothing.  “I’m serious.  This is what you are living for isn’t it?  Each of you wants to kill his brother.  Go ahead!  Who ever wins will go to jail and neither one of you will be in this house with me anymore.  I win.  So let’s get started.  Who’s going to throw the first punch?”  Of course there wasn’t a fight.  They were pretty sure I had lost my mind.  The rest of that day went pretty well, unfortunately it didn’t last. 

At twenty-five my brood was complete.  I thought I was through after the two boys.  My God, who wouldn’t.  However, God has a sense of humor and I have proof.  You see, I always wanted a daughter…so God gave me one…just like me.  Here’s the problem.  I am not sure there is room in the world for two mes.  When my daughter was born.  She was not a happy baby.  I thought she hated me.  I felt like she knew that I was less than ecstatic about being pregnant a third time and she had decided that she would take it out on me by leaving me sleep deprived.  The only way she would sleep was on my chest, and I had to be sitting up.  I managed for about ten days.  Around that time I threw in the towel and called my sister and blubbered to her that I just needed a few hours sleep, would she please come and get the baby.  I hadn’t had a shower in days, and I couldn’t remember the last time I slept for more that just a few minutes because I couldn’t lie down and would she please, please, help me out.  She was there in about 15 minutes.  Two days later when I took my new daughter to the doctor for her two week check up I found out that she had a staph infection in her breasts that caused her great pain when I laid her down in her bed.  The only way she could get comfy was on my chest with the heat of my body against her.  Once the doctor put her on antibiotics she was like a new kid.  I finely regained what little sanity I had left.  Now I was a 25 year old mom with a new born, a six year old and an eight year old.  I didn’t have a lot of sanity.  I caught myself saying things like, “no one is to ever touch any one ever again!”  I used creative parenting at every opportunity.  I remember traveling to Little Rock to the Children’s Hospital and stopping at a roadside park and making the children run around the picnic tables to  use up some of their excess energy.  I have had deep voiced friends call and pretend to be Santa Claus and admonish them for their behavior. Every where we traveled we had a switch on the dash of the car.  I have followed them two cars back on dates.  I have done everything I ever threatened to do if they misbehaved. 

At the age of 30 I was a single mom, although most of my married life I was a single mom, and I learned that most of the tension in our home wasn’t from these three rambunctious children.  It was from one controlling man.  I quickly became a better parent.  I relaxed.  I still didn’t threaten anything I wasn’t prepared to follow through on.  I spent a lot of time at school plays, choir concerts, basketball games, baseball games, softball games, volleyball games, and football games.  I have applauded louder than anyone as my youngest son took his bows on stage. I have spent many Saturdays without make-up watching my daughter get hers done professionally for prom, or homecoming.  I have taken her to dress fittings, nail appointments, hair appointments, and been awed by how beautiful she was as she walked out the door.  I have picked up her dates flowers and lent her my jewelry.  I have collapsed after she was gone, and high tailed it to dinner just to have a margarita.  I have stayed up to hear every detail when all I really wanted was to go to sleep.  I watched my son fall in love with the girl I now consider my daughter.  I saw the birth of my grandson.  I am currently watching my youngest son realize that he is in love and that it is greater than he is.  My daughter is just learning who she is.  The chrysalis is opening and I can’t wait to see the butterfly emerge.  She’s not there yet.  She thinks she is, but a mother knows.  She has one wet wing out and flapping, but it’s a start.

My kids ask me what do I want for mother’s day.  I already have it.  I have three adult offspring who are about as well adjusted as the world lets anyone get these days.  One has given me a second daughter and a grandson.  One is in the process of reaching his personal goals.  The final one is finding herself in her own way.  Isn’t that all we want for our children? To be as happy as possible and reasonably adjusted?   I have always said that I didn’t care if they were ditch diggers if they were happy ditch diggers.  I think that my kids are happy most days, and I think the odds are good that they are getting happier.  They are finding what it takes to make them happy and they are working on it.  Life isn’t something you ever complete.  It is always a work in progress.  If you ever think you are through, you are dead.  I have always wanted my children to be smarter than I was at their age, and they are.  Thanks guys for the wonderful gift!

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