Captain Procrastination is complaining.  I read a comment that someone (MLS) who shall remain nameless left on the blog and he has issues with my naming him a charter member of the procrastinators club.  It seems if he had not had to take a day out of his week to move “my” mother he would have been able to complete his task on time.  Admittedly this maybe true.  We did finish exactly one day late.  However, I did remind him that a blog is much like an editorial and my opinion is the only one that matters.  He has issues with other people’s opinions too.  (He always has)  Thanks for the support MLS!  You are one of my favorite brothers-in-law.

After being sleep deprived for too daze in a row it has come two my attention that I should not right when eye half not had the appropriate amount of sleep.  I seam to use the wrong words and still get clothes enough that spell checker doesn’t pick it up.  Perhaps I relie to much on spell checker.  I don’t no.  I do know that I usually go back and reread what I half written somewhere between a few ours and a few days after it has been published.  I try to see if after sum time has lapsed I still find that my point is valid.  I want to sea if I still make cents.  Am eye steal as witty as I thought I was when I put fingers to key board originally.  Yesterday I failed miserably.  I made so many word errors eye am surprised any one cud reed what I had written.  I even went sew far as to preface a noun that began with a vowel with an a rather than an.  (I send my deepest regrets to my Junior and Senior hi English teachers.  Sorry Mrs. Watkins and Mrs. Grandon)  Normally I seam two know better.  However; when I try to blog without sleep I journal like a drunk on a three day bender.  Even now typing this I find that I am typing slowly and deliberately. 

Funny, at to this morning I read over looking for errs and then I ran spiel check and no errors were found.   Sew I feel that awl of the blame is not mine…if spell check was a perfect tulle and new what I mint and not just what I rote each blog would knot only be written without type Os but would also emote.  Of course, that wood knot bee good right now.  I am tired.  I think I will go two bed.   It is my sin sear hope that after I get a good nights sleep my writing will improve.  I’m not shore, but I think it can’t get much worse.  Stick with me gang.  I’ll be back in 18 to 24 ours…remember, hope springs in turtles!

Believe it or not there are days when nothing irritates me.  I go whistling happily through my life, and the sun shines, and the birds sing, and all is right with the world.  These are the magical days when absolutely nothing goes wrong.  The days you wish you had bought a lottery ticket.  I believe I’ve had two days like that in my life.  This was not one. 

I went to bed at six a.m.  It wasn’t my choice.  I was being my husband’s help mate.  You see he had a deadline this morning which he couldn’t make without my help.  So we worked through the night, and we didn’t make it.  I went to bed and had a nap, and at two this afternoon he told me that I needed to reschedule my sister’s birthday (which was supposed to be at our home tonight) for tomorrow night.  Well, that meant making about a half dozen uncomfortable phone calls…one of which was to my mother telling her I couldn’t help her with the unpacking today.  Mom doesn’t handle being put off well.  I have promised her that I would have her apartment finished this week.  It’s Monday.  In my mind I haven’t failed in my mission yet.  In Mom’s mind I have failed dismally.  The conversation, which was terse from the beginning, ended with her stating that her email wasn’t working.  Upon further examination I learned that technically it was just one website that wasn’t working.  I told her that I would look at it tomorrow.  I could actually hear my mother deflate.

After that stimulating conversation, and by stimulating I mean “Get me a rope I wanna hang myself”, I went to the bakery to pick up the cake I had ordered for my sister’s birthday.  A slight aside…normally I wouldn’t have ordered a bakery cake come hell or high water.  I would have baked a cake because everyone in my family would ten times rather have homemade, but to further the failure theme we have going today  I had ordered a cake.  I walked into the bakery and it was crawling with curtain climbers.  I don’t know if school was out early or what but the one thing I didn’t need was a bunch of carpet crawlers hyped up on sugar.  You will not meet a child in a bakery who is not dizzy from the sugar high.  I think it is in the air.  I went to pick up the cake.  Trodding over to the counter, I told the little Chickie what I had come for and plopped down my debit card to pay.  “Duchess?  That’s a weird name.”  I am sure that had I been looking in the mirror my expression would have said “are you effing serious?”  Instead, I said “yes, it would be if that were my name.  It is, however, a title.  You know, like Mr., or Dr., or Rev.”  I should have known better than try to continue to enlighten this Mensa reject.  However; if I had I wouldn’t have heard her very sharp witted response to the knowledge that Duchess was a title not my first name.  Are you ready?  Here goes…she said “Seriously?”  Wow.  It’s on the card, it’s not on my driver’s license.  I told her what it was and the best response she had in her was, seriously?  Now granted I was, if not at my bitchy best, at least in the top ten all time bitch modes.  I looked at her, and at least I had the presence of mind to pick up the cake first, said “No, I thought it would be really funny to tell people that I was a titled Duchess when my name was really Duchess, then not have that put on my driver’s license…which cost’s a little more…just so I could have this conversation when I picked up my sister’s birthday cake.”  She looked at me like she still wasn’t quite sure which story to believe.  I waited for my receipt.  “So are you or aren’t you?”  “What do you think?”  “I don’t think so, you don’t have a British accent.”  “You caught me.  Can I have my receipt?”  I think I get by with this crap because I do it with a smile on my face so people think I must be teasing.  Inside, I’m seething.  Millions of people are out of work…two of them are children of mine…and the idiots are taking all the jobs.

Walking out of the bakery I run across three unattended children looking at a display of cowboy and cowgirl hat cakes emblazoned with razorback crap.  For those of you who might not be native to my neck of the woods, the razorback is the mascot of the University of Arkansas. There are cakes galore showing multiple fraternities and sororities and practically begging alumni to order cakes with this huge red wild boar for there next tail gate party, birthday, or wedding.  These little ones are whirling in sugar coated abandon and chanting “yippee, yii, yo!  yippee, yi, yo!”  My first urge is to tell them the Bruce Willis version of the chant with a strong directive to get out of my way, but I am much more eager to just get out of this grubby fingered bottle neck, and into the safety and Simon and Garfunkel induced tranquility, that is my car.  As I walk toward the door, the oldest child twirls right into me, and in a move that would have made any prima ballerina gasp in awe, I turn…switch the cake from my left hand into my right, thrust the left hand out to push the child away from me,  kick my left leg out to still the swaying display case, and stop his younger brother from crashing to the floor, all without dropping my keys…which have remained in my right hand (along with the cake).  Their mother comes out of nowhere and says “say excuse me”.  Seriously?  Her trio nearly collapsed a shelf of competition level cakes.  Took out the cake I was carrying.  Received a life threatening brain injury, and had a bitch drop kick their collective little asses and she thinks excuse me is gonna suffice?  I give her a look that I used to give my children when they were acting up.  They call it the “Mom” glare.  It effectively says…”correct your way of thinking and behaving or I shall remove you from existence.”  Then I left the bakery.  She quick stepped out behind me and rushed her little darlings into her mom mobile, making sure not to leave until I had cleared the parking lot.  I pulled out onto the four lane and right into the scene of a four car accident.  Shit!

I did finally make it home, and no one was harmed in the making of this day.  As with all crappy days this one too shall pass.  I am helping my husband again tonight.  He is sitting in his chair right now, cheerfully whistling, and typing.  I heard him just tell his father that he thought we would have this project all ready to send to him by six a.m tomorrow.  I am seriously worried that my sister’s party may be cancelled tomorrow too. I am not an oak.  I am a willow.  I can bend with the wind.  I just sit hear typing.  He asked me earlier today how much I loved him.  I responded with a relatively low number, (ten I think) and he seemed a little surprised.  I told him he really had some homework to do.  Between this damn project and the golf, I’m feeling a little ignored.  It really hasn’t been about me much lately.  It really should be all about me.  He should know this.  He’s not new around here.  Maybe I have made things too easy for him.  So I don’t laugh when I deliver this message, and just for good measure…I gave him the Mom glare.

This is going to be fun…for me, not for my sister.  Today is her birthday and she is old.  I don’t mean like she is familiar with dinosaurs old, but she is really close.  I told her grandson once when he was small that she was older than dirt.  I told him that she went to school with Jesus.  A little later we were doing something else and she walked into the room and he said “Grandma, I know who you went to school with.”  Of course she bit…”who?”  “Jesus!” he stated proudly.  Those are the moments I live for as a great-aunt.  I am always there to teach the little darlings all I can and then some.

My darling oldest sister was twelve when I was born.  She married at seventeen and I honestly don’t have a lot of memories of her being at home.  She made me an aunt at the ripe old age of six.  Mother says she was largely responsible for spoiling me as an infant.  I think this is all heresy because I can’t imagine a spoiled child turning into such a well adjusted adult.  As adults we became friends, and though I tease, I tease out of love.  I tease her about…well just about everything…and since her mind is going (due to her advanced age), she rarely teases back.  In fact she’ll probably read this and then forget that I even wrote it.  She’s a good looking old gal.  She must be, since a lot of people think we look alike.  She still has all her own teeth.  That goes a long way towards impressing the men  at the senior center (at least I should think it would) and if she ever get the chance to retire, she just might find out what a rare gem she is.  Her oldest daughter is a hair dresser so she is adept at keeping the gray at bay.  She doesn’t hear real well, but I find  personally as I get older hearing seems to be somewhat over rated.  She has two daughters and about fifty grand kids. Her oldest grandson turned seventeen last month, so she could be a great-grandma nine months from any weekend.   Her grand kids range in ages from 17 to 2.  That’s not her fault, unless you consider that she should have had the sex talk with her soon to be 43 year old daughter who has the two year old.  Yes, I know…it’s crazy, but here’s the kicker, the 43 year old also has the 17 year old.  Insanity runs in our family.  Anyway, back to my sister.  She was a beautiful baby, blond curls, blue eyes, big dimples.  She still has blond curls (thanks to the aforementioned daughter) and the blue eyes, but now the dimples are on her thighs.  I know.  She swims in my pool.  Dimples run in the family too.   She is a paralegal but you would never know it to look at her.  She never uses a wheel chair.  I am so impressed by her abilities to get around on her own.  It’s probably because she took so many college courses on how to be a good paralegal.  I think it should be mandatory.  If more of them took classes maybe there would be less need for handicapped parking spaces. 

She’s a hard worker.  No one could ever accuse her of being lazy.  She works a forty hour plus week at her job and then puts in another 30 hours or so with mom.  They watch the wheel together, and probably talk about the rest of us.  I would imagine they discuss what Vanna is wearing and maybe even solve a few puzzles.  On Mondays they watch Dancing With the Stars and on Tuesday they watch The Results Show.  Sometimes I join them, but not often.  I have my own evening job to do.  On the weekends, sis often goes to Harrison to babysit the grand kids or sometimes they come stay with her.  Occasionally, she goes to Little Rock to watch her oldest grandson play ball.  I don’t think she has missed too many ball games and seriously she does have six grand kids that live anywhere from 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours away from her.  The Precious only lives about 10 minutes from me and if he plays ball I seriously hope his parents show up.   See I don’t intend to be as good a daughter or grandparent as my sister.  I don’t want people to expect me to behave as admirably as she does.  It’s nice when people have no expectations of you.  Everyone has always known that my sis is the nice one.  I’m the one that when I speak people say “Oh no, you never know what will come out of her mouth.”  I like that about me.  Hell no, I love it!  We have known since the beginning what was expected of us.  The oldest was the nice one, the next was the one that was crazy, the third was the one with the attitude, and I was the one with the mouth.  It’s nice when you don’t have to work to exceed people’s expectations.  None of us has changed much.  My oldest sister is still the nice one, but considering what the other three of us are like it wasn’t much of a contest.

She is the first of the three of the vag sister’s to have a birthday this month, plus the non-vag sister has a birthday this month as well.  Oh yes, I will be writing about all of them.  It will be the truth as I see it.  And the truth, as I see it is … for an ancient relic, my sis does okay.  She has put up with, and is still putting up with, a lot of unnecessary crap.  She will continue to put up with it because that is her way.  She is a nurturer.  She will take care of those she cares for and put herself aside.  She will read this and see the truth in the parts where the truth lies.  The places where I have taken liberties will make her smile, because she knows me and she knows that I only harass the people I love.  Happy 70th birthday sis!  I love you a lot. 

My rabble is fully roused!  We moved mother into her new apartment on Thursday.  It is a cute little apartment and will be perfect for her once we get her moved in.  It is much smaller than the one she had before and so we are having to do a lot of “weeding”.  My mother has never been particularly emotional about things.  She is about people, but not things.  I thought this weeding process would be simple.  I thought wrong.

When my grandmother died, mother had several quilts that my great-grandmother had made and some granny had made and they all were in my grandmother’s possession.  Mother decided she would just sell those at a yard sale.  It never occurred to her that her daughters might be interested in them.  I don’t know if my sisters said anything or not, but I told her that I would pay her for two of them and ended up having them gifted to me.  Anyway, my dear ones wait until you hear this…my husband (the genius) decided that it would be easier to move mother’s monster television in the stand it was in rather than move both the heavy cherry stand and then the t.v. as well.  I was talking to mother and I see Einstein and his friend rolling the pair of items (intact) out on the furniture dolly.  I commented to mom that I really didn’t see how that was safe and she said that surely they would remove the t.v. and set it in the floor once they got it in the truck.  We debated for a while over just how stupid they were, and decided that they just had to be smart enough to figure that out, after all they had dressed themselves so we left it alone.  Sure enough, they broke the television.  My mother is all cool about it “don’t you worry.  I’ve got two other televisions.  It will be fine.  I’m not mad.”  This went on for the rest of the day.  I was much more upset than she was.  Well, the next day I was helping her unpack and I was taking the bubble wrap off a ceramic pig that wears a chef’s hat and holds a chalk board.  The chalk board slipped and hit the pig’s feet and broke the base.  I got reamed!  “Oh no!  Not my pig!  I loved that pig.  I was so careful to wrap it just right.  I can’t believe you broke my pig!”  The really crappy part is I had gotten her the pig and it cost like $10.  She got me some super glue and I tried for the better part of an hour to super glue the hooves back on Sir Frances Bacon to no avail.  I glued my fingers.  I glued my pants.  I waited until she was out of the room and I sent him to the sty in the sky.  I’m just wondering on what scale of justice do you weigh a 32″ Sony television and a ceramic kitchen pig (from Hobby Lobby) and come out that the pig was the bigger loss?  She would have sucked at Let’s Make a Deal!  After I pointed out to her that this seemed like I was really getting the sharp end of the stick she said “don’t feel bad.  I still love you.”  What the hell is that supposed to mean?  Was there ever a question?  Was it on the line for a heartbeat there?  - She broke my pig…do I still love her?  I guess so.  She’s married to the guy that breaks televisions that I love like a son.  I think I’ll forgive her. - WTF? 

It’s the wee hours of Sunday morning and I have spent every waking hour at her apartment helping her unpack and get organized and try to find places for the thousands of pictures she owns of everyone and their dog.  I mean that literally…their dogs, cats, cousins, roadkill, and game.  I creak when I move more than usual.  I have bruises on top of bruises from trying to make sure I do the heaviest part of the lifting.  I look like someone has stuffed my thighs and upper arms with blackberries (just under the skin).  My own home is somewhat of a disaster.  I need to do at least three loads of laundry and I need to unload the dishwasher just so I can reload and run it again.  I have a feeling that it’s going to get worse before it gets better.  I haven’t seen the Precious in over a week.  THINGS ARE GOING TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET!! 

Okay, I think I’m through.  I know that I am the designated daughter.  I am here and I don’t work outside the home.  My mom is almost eighty and needs the help.  I get all that, no problem.  Here’s the rub, I also have to help my husband with his work which is due Monday morning and could have been done well before mother’s move if Captain Procrastination would ever do anything before the last minute.  Instead, I am with him here in the family room listening to him curse and complain and run his fingers through his hair because he has a deadline looming before him that he can no longer avoid.  When we were in college together we had a project that was due in a week.  I was working on mine in class and he was playing with stuff in the room and bugging me.  I asked him why he wasn’t working on his assignment.  He said that he might die in the next week and he would hate to think that he had wasted valuable time on an assignment that could otherwise have been spent doing something he enjoyed.  I, on the other hand, did the assignment and then didn’t have to worry about it later.  That, dear ones, is the major difference between the love of my life and myself.  It is also a major point of contention.  Neither of us gets why the other doesn’t do it our way.  However; if he had done it my way this time, he would be enjoying watching Tiger play golf tomorrow and I would be helping mother finish organizing the mess that we hope she will someday call her kitchen.  Instead he is going to get to enjoy my sunny disposition…All day!  I really think my way would have been better.  Again.

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