People, I have found proof that God exists.  Well, let me be clear.  I’m referring to the God the Quills have prayed to for years.  We’ve even considered forming an official church and becoming tax exempt for the IRS.  We are very dedicated and loyal to this God: God of bleached white flour and refined sugar.  The G0d of butter creme frosting.  The God of chocolate ganache.  The God of delicate lemon icing and vanilla beans.

My family and I made a spur of the moment decision to eat dinner at The Cheesecake Factory.  Regardless of the mixed reviews I’ve heard, we had a lovely experience.  And I’m sure you can guess that we topped off our meal with cheesecake. 

What kind of idiots would we be if we didn’t eat the food the place was named after?  Not these idiots, I assure you.

I knew instantly what I would order the minute I saw the dessert menu.  Sassy was willing to share it with me – mostly because I became instantly incommunicative the minute I saw it on the menu.  I would not be swayed.

Stephanie’s Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake.

I’ll give you a moment for silent introspection.  Pray amongst yourselves.  Smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em.  BYOC (bring your own cake).  We pretty much allow anything in our church.  We’re very liberal that way.

It was everything I hoped it would be.  As you can see from the picture, it was red velvet cake, cream cheese icing, cheesecake, red velvet, icing, cheesecake, icing and a glorious mound of whipped cream.

The cake was moist, the frosting tangy, the cheesecake like manna from heaven.

I tell you, I almost orgasmed at the table.

Other people had other desserts, but honestly, I have no idea what they had.  I was in rapture.

After My Honey informed me that we would no longer be allowed in the restaurant if I didn’t stop making those embarrassing noises and licking the plate, we ran into the mall for some quick shopping.

I walked along the with the masses and regretted the folly of ordering dinner and not just getting dessert.  The salmon I had was excellent, but now I was over-full.  It wasn’t from eating the dessert.  I knew that would be happening.  The problem, as I see it, was eating the main course.  THAT is what made me uncomfortable.  Thank goodness I didn’t have a salad with dinner – I’d probably have ruptured something.

If our church ever makes up commandments or bylaws or some other organized nonsense, that will be right up there:  Thou shalt not order a main course when eating at The Cheesecake Factory.

My five year old, Bandit, was moaning right along with me.  He finally turned to his dad and asked to be lifted up onto his shoulders.

“Too tired to walk, little dude?” he daddy asked as he hoisted him up.

“Yeah,” he groaned.  “I think I have diabetes.”

“What?”  His daddy was having a hard time following the meandering conversation.  You have to be quick with five-year-olds – they go off on weird tangents and, if you don’t pay attention, you’ll get lost.  “Why, dude?”

“I had those two glasses of chocolate milk and then that cheesecake.  I’m just sure I have diabetes.”

I don’t know what that preschool is teaching him, but I’d love to be a fly on the wall sometimes.

At work the other day, I had to call the Tech Support Line.  I work for an enormous organization and, unfortunately, our Tech Support is manned by people from India.

Like most people, this distresses me to no end.  By the time I call Tech Support I’m already really frustrated and it annoys me to have to run through the same rigmarole every time before I can even state my problem.

When they answer the phone they always state their name.  It’s no secret that they are in India.  They all have an Indian accent.  Ava can imitate them to perfection.  But here’s the thing…when they state their name, it’s always a Western name related to the caller in the lovely sing song accent. 

“Hello.  My name is Susan.” or “Hello.  My name is Bob.” 

Uh huh.

But today, “Mark” said something that made me crack up while I was still on the phone with him.

He needed my ID number which happens to actually be all letters.  I slowly and clearly stated my ID.  Then “Mark” repeated it back to me in the Phonetic Alphabet.  I expected it to be Alpha Tango Romeo Whiskey – like that. 

I didn’t take into account I was speaking to India.

What I got instead was R as in Ramiel and V as in Vishnu.

And it doesn’t help that these people are unfailingly nice.  They are polite to the point of absurdity.  It makes a surly person feel bad.

The essay was very good.  But why would anyone decide that ladybugs are a good topic for an essay contest?  And this one was blue. 

And I was sore. 

The mountains were crawling with ladybugs and then the big mountain grew legs and walked away.  Someone shot me in the hip – with a snowball I think.  

“Meow,” the ladybug said to me, “all ladybugs are boys.”  This ladybug also wore glasses.  He took the essay from my hand and began to chew on it.

The mountain returned, lumbering along the way a mountain does, and sat on my hip.  The whole mountain vibrated. 

“I bet that hurts,” the boy ladybug said.

“Yeah,” I said and then began to cry.

“Meow,” said the ladybug.  “Meow!”

I woke, laying on my side, with my 18 pound cat balancing on my hip and looking down at me with fuzzy interest and purring away.

My hip was in agony.

Stupid cat.

I am, however, beginning to worry about the Lewis Carroll aspect of these dreams.

A cool $135 million.  That’s how much Gustav Klimt’s 1907 Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer sold for at auction in 2006, setting a new record.  For an artist who, in his lifetime, was little known outside his native Austria and is still somewhat obscure, that’s a lot of clams.  In his homeland, however, Klimt was famous not only for his glowing, erotic artworks but also for the controversy they sparked.  An unlikely  rebel, he led the secession from the artistic establishment in Vienna and pioneered a style known for its rich patterns and gleaming gold.  We may not know much about him, but we recognize in his art uniquely lush depictions of beauty.

Klimt is probably most well known for his gorgeous The Kiss.

It’s one of my favorite pieces of art.

Look at this picture and tell me that mommas aren’t the same everywhere.

Kiss it better

It’s a moment a million mothers will recognize as an orangutan mum displays human-like affection kissing her male baby’s hurt finger. Mother orangutan Deedee and her baby Randee live at Lowry Park Zoo, Fla.

The other day I came home from work and I felt completely wrung out,  totally exhausted. 

“Mommy, can you play with me?” Sassy asked. 

She asks this every day.  Both feet weren’t even in the door yet.  I feel like a gazelle being stalked by a lioness.  Just imagine my front yard as the Serengeti plain and I’m sure you can picture it.

“Yes, honey.  First I want to change my clothes and sit down for a minute.” 

She makes me feel tremendously guilty.  It’s as if my playing Barbies or Littlest Pet Shop with her will complete her life, and all I want to do is sit down and read the newspaper and relax for a minute. 

This particular day, after I’d changed clothes and pulled my hair into a ponytail off my neck, I found her and  her brother watching Kung Foo Panda in the family room.  I sat down in a comfortable chair in front of the cooler vent and promptly feel asleep to the dulcet screaming of Jack Black as Po, the panda in question.

Remember when you were kids and you had a sleep over with some of your friends and after the first kid fell asleep you did things to mess with her?  Maybe you put her hand in warm water to see if she’d wet her sleeping bag, or you put her underwear in the freezer.

Then later in your adolescence or perhaps in college, the first person that passed out received a Sharpie mustache,or you put makeup on your guy friends.  Maybe you filled someone’s hand with shaving cream and tickled their nose.

All these things have in common is an unwitting and unconscious victim.

When I finally roused myself after approximately an hour or so completely zonked out in that chair, I found what my charming daughter had begun the tradition in style.

Both my fingernails and toenails had been painted.  Well, to be more precise my fingernails, cuticles and part of my first knuckle had been painted.  My hands were a lovely shade of mottled pink.  My toes were a veritable fiesta of color with each nail painted a different hue.

To top it off, all twenty nails had been graced with a sparkly gem.

How I could have slept through this is totally beyond me.  When I went to take it off, I found that she had applied multiple coats.  It seemed almost an eighth of an inch thick in places.  She was quite pleased with herself and her finished product.

And once again, Mommy had no one to blame but herself.  Beware the natives at my house, don’t fall asleep or it’s a Sharpie for you.

My mom talks in her sleep.  I know – this really isn’t that uncommon.  But what makes her different is that she will often require you to participate in some way. 

For example, I remember being a child, sitting on the floor eating cereal with my brother and watching Saturday morning cartoons one morning, when I heard her calling for me from the bedroom.

“What?” I asked after I opened her door.

“Tell Timmy it’s time to go home,” she said groggily.

To this day, no one knows who Timmy was or where he lived.  For that matter, we don’t even know how long he’d been at our house.  I’m certain it was the imaginary Timmy that ate all the popsicles that summer.

Another time she woke me up to tell me she was drowning.  She begged me to throw her a log to save her.

“There,” I said, knowing that if I didn’t reply this would go on all night.

A few minutes of peaceful silence and then she yelled at me, “Well, pull it in!”

How insensitive of me not to pull in the imaginary log.

The reason I bring this up is because the other night I crawled into bed several hours after My Honey had gone to bed.  This is not unusual since he gets up at 4:30 in the blessed morning to go to work. 

I try to slide into the bed as gently as possible.  Not because I fear awakening him.  Rather, it’s to avoid setting off the snore-machine.  My husband can SNORE!  This particular night, I was stealthily easing myself onto the mattress when he sat straight up in bed and shouted, “Nuclear!” and then went right back to sleep. 

Of course, the snore-machine went off.  How could it not when I lay there shaking the bed with my giggles.

I did a phone interview the other day with another writer for the Examiner.com.  Here’s a link to the interview: Romancing the Tome.

******

Last night it was my turn to put The Bandit to bed.  We were laying in the dark, on the bottom bunk of his bed, giggling and being silly.  I don’t remember exactly how it came about, but I called him “a squeaky little twerp-muffin.”

“Ooooooh, muffins,” he whispered.  “Can we have muffins for breakfast?”

This has been making me giggle for two days now.

******

Now that my dad is recovering from his stroke back in March, he’s developed a completely understandable mild obsession over family.  I totally get it.  In the beginning it was quite inconvenient for me and that produced no small amount of guilt.  He wanted me to take on the elephantine task of creating our family tree and I had to write the entire 2nd half of that book to get it to the agent.

As soon as I shipped it off, I began work on the project.  I’m really enjoying it, but that doesn’t surprise me in the least.  Years ago, my uncle did the same for my mother’s side of the family and he took it back all the way to Charlemagne.  I’ve always found the entire idea fascinating.

I haven’t made it that far yet, but I’m doing really awesome.  I’ve taken one arm all the way back to 1100 Scotland. 

My  dad constantly quizzes me on what interesting things I’ve uncovered – and there have been a few.  One poor ancestor is documented as dying at Tyburn Tree in England, the famous gallows there.  I have no idea why – it could have been for anything.  I’ve also discovered my family has been in America for a really long time – the Morris limb of the tree were Americans back 10 generations before they immigrated from Wales.  I’ve traced us to Germany and Switzerland and England but the bulk of my ancestry is coming here  from Ireland and Scotland – from many of the different limbs.  Yes, we are related to William “Braveheart” Wallace but he was an uncle.  My grandfather of so long ago was his brother.  I find this particularly amusing because on my mother’s side of the tree, we were directly related to Edward “The Longshanks” King of England – Wallace’s arch enemy.

The reason I bring this up at all is because it really gets my brain churning over story ideas.

And not just because I have an ancestor name Jehoshephat, but it helps.

Kelli was interviewed at Brigit’s World blog last Wednesday.  She didn’t tell you, but don’t feel bad.  She didn’t tell us either.  I stumbled upon it quite by accident.

Pop over there and read her interview.

Ava made me go to a Red Cross Blood Drive today that was sponsered by our company.  I say “she made me go” in every sense of the word.  I was shamed and forced into agreeing.  When it looked like I might waver from the agreement, she promised that I would get to see her faint. 

“You promise?” I asked.

“I always do,” she swore.

I used to vomit every time a needle came out.  Once or twice I’ve passed out.  One time very memorably after I warned the phlebotomist that it was going to happen and she ignored me.  Then came along very difficult pregnancies that brought me many trips to the vampires, and my panic began to subside.  Not completely, but I’m definitely better.  Still, I’ve never been to a blood drive, nor have I ever given more than the few vials at the doctor’s office.

Ava herded me and one other brave soul from our office into the makeshift clinic, chattering all the while about how everything was going to be fine.

“You promised you would faint,” I reminded her.  Civic duty blah blah blah. Do it for your fellow man yada yada yada.  I wanted to see some fainting.

We signed in and affirmed that we hadn’t been out of the country, had no new tattoos (Damn! Had I known……), had not been ill, and a bunch of other stuff.  Then we sat in uncomfortable chairs and I slowly simmered into a mild hyperventilation.  I started babbling nervously (I’m sorry Cecelia).  My stomach didn’t feel well.  My hair was itchy.

They called Ava back.  And then Cecelia.  Now I was alone – to think.  For goodness sake, I scolded myself,  you’ve had lasik eye surgery.  You’ve bunjee jumped from a 17 story building!  You’ve driven around race tracks at upwards of 200 mph.  You’ve cleaned your son’s room.  All of these things are much scarier than giving blood!  QUIT BEING A BABY!

The man called my name.  When I stood, my knees were shaking.  He guided me around a privacy curtain and took down all my personal information while I babbled uncontrollably.  He asked my weight.  I lied.  My blood pressure was measured and my pulse was taken.  The phlebotomist asked me if I was feeling any calmer.  No.  Definitely no.  I clenched down on my jaw to keep from talking anymore.  And the last test before I could officially give blood, he pricked my finger to check my iron levels.

Deep breaths.  Deep yoga breaths.  I attempted my tried-and-true calmer and recited Springsteen lyrics.  I fidgeted.

I’ll bet that you are expecting me to tell you that I fainted, right?  That it was me that hit the floor and not Ava.

Nope.  It turns out that I’m anemic and didn’t qualify to give blood.  And no, it has nothing to do about the lie about my weight.  He suggested I eat more red meat.  I’m considering vegetarianism as a response.

Ava on the other hand, had a lovely experience.  Her little Indian phlebotomist flirted with her nonstop through the entire event.  Ava gives blood regularly since she has a rare universal blood type and, she claims, for the first time, she didn’t faint.  Cecelia didn’t do too bad either.  They both ate cookies and we all got t-shirts.

Just like you, Dear Reader, I feel cheated.