Archive for December, 2009

I don’t have much to say this evening, but I feel that I must post something. Some of the readers actually become a little abusive if they find nothing new on here in the morning. You know who you are and you should be ashamed. Do you want sarcasm and harsh reality here, or do you want me trying to straighten out the mess that Thomas and Francesca have made of their lives?

We had a puke-a-palooza here tonight. The Bandit had a VERY upset tummy. It’s all that crap coming out of his nose. I know - very icky, but I shouldn’t have to deal with this alone. His daddy was on clean jammies detail while I just tried to keep the bathroom floor relatively clean. Delightful.

This is my toothless wonder…

She seems to think we live in the frozen tundra the way she’s bundled up. It was probably 60 degrees when we took this picture. She is still no better at controlling her saliva. I hope she gets a better handle on that before she goes back to school.

My Honey gave me a fantastic collection of movies for Christmas. I handily pointed it out at the Costco and waved it up and down and said loudly, “I want this.” He’s good at taking a hint. I try to leave little to the imagination. Anyway, it’s an AMC/BBC collection of outstanding English versions of classic romances: Jane Eyre, Pride & Prejudice, Victoria & Albert, Emma, Lorna Doone, and a few others.

I’ve only had time to watch Pride & Prejudice (which was a miniseries so it took like 75 hours to watch) and Jane Eyre. They are excellent productions as you can imagine considering who produced them. After watching the stories again, I am reminded of several things: I’m still in love with Mr. Darcy and Edward Rochester seriously needed therapy.

As for this weekend, I hope to have lots of hilarity and high jinx to tell you about. I do have a very special post in mind for New Years Day. I’ll give you a teaser if you like. It involves the police and a streaker.

Tune in Friday for further details.

My dog is…..well, my dog is….let me put it this way…..I lack an appropriate adjective. He’s very handsome for a dog whose face is slowly melting off. He also only has one eyebrow - on the left. Don’t misunderstand - he does not have a unibrow. There is one perfect, arched eyebrow over his left eye. I have no idea what could have happened to the other one. His muzzle is wonderfully velvety and his ears are as soft as satin. He loves to cuddle. He doesn’t smell too bad. His nose works very well. He is good natured. He’s also terrified of the Bandit’s Star Wars Light Saber. And still, one of my favorite things is pestering him when he’s trying to hide his treats in the couch. It makes him crazy when he hides bones in the cushions and I “find” them for him.

That’s a pretty good resume. HOWEVER, I am concerned about his lack of intelligence and his ridiculous exuberance. He’s a hound dog for God’s sake. Doesn’t he know he’s supposed to be sleeping on the front porch, not racing around the house howling, molesting the cat, and using my children and their possessions as chew toys? I’ve always believed that big dogs don’t even grow a brain until they are at least 2 years old. They just stay puppies for a lot longer. Roscoe is 2 in February and I’m not holding out any hope that anything is germinating in there.

The neighborhood in our town where my husband and I both grew up, and live in still, is like heaven for supporters of the Second Amendment (the right to keep and bear arms). I’ve never considered it much, it’s just always been that way, and regardless of my personal opinion on gun control, it probably always will. There are currently three gun shops within a block of my house. The largest gun shop in the Southwest is 1/2 block from my front door. Rumor has it that the original owners of that shop were busted for selling weapons to the guerrillas in South America. My Honey remembers this event taking place, but I can’t find any evidence of it. It’s still a really big store, although I have not been inside for over twenty years.

About two weeks ago, our neighbor intercepted my husband in the front yard. She’s THAT neighbor. Everyone has one - nosy, crazy, a “friend” of all the local police, and frequently drunk. If you don’t have one, I recommend getting one - they are nothing if not entertaining. Apparently the previous night there had been a lot of activity in our neighborhood and we missed all of it. We usually do. Someone had tried to break into that particular gun shop in the middle of the night by cutting a hole in the roof. I’m sure they stupidly had visions of a great heist, but that stuff doesn’t usually work out in real life. I’d imagine, gun shops as a rule have pretty damn good security. Anyway, the criminals fled into the neighborhood in an attempt to escape. I understand that there were multiple cop cars on my street and even in my front yard. They had the police dogs out and I understand they were in my yard as well.

We remained blissfully ignorant because my dog is useless. He never made a peep.

Thanks, Roscoe. I feel much safer knowing your on it.

An update because I know you all care.

There are hazards with having no front teeth. As you remember from the events of this weekend, Sassy has now lost both of her front teeth. The troubles as far as she is concerned is the inability to eat barbecue ribs, corn on the cob and whistle. However, as her parent and someone who talks to her a lot, the real problem, at least for the innocent bystanders, is the spitting. If she can’t learn to control her saliva, I’m going to start wearing one of those dentist spit guards.

Another byproduct of Sassy’s teeth coming out, was the early demise of my brand new Blackberry. There was much moaning and gnashing of teeth and whining after I pulled it from the bathtub. I immediately took it apart and applied the hair dryer to it on a low heat setting. I put it back together several times and tried to turn it on, but nothing happened. My Honey blew it out with a can of compressed air, getting out quite a bit more water, and still nothing. I got on the Internet to see what kind of advice I could get and the first thing I see: Do not use the hair dryer on it. Great. The second bit of advice: DO NOT turn it back on for 48 - 72 hours. Freaking great.

So I’ve committed the two cardinal sins of resuscitating a phone after a drowning. My uncle and the Internet suggested that I take it apart and put it in a bowl of dried rice. Apparently the rice helps soak up the water. I walked by the little grave site several times an hour and paid my respects. I sang southern bible hymns such as Swing Low Sweet Chariot and No Body Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen. I whispered into the bowl of rice, “Don’t go into the light!” As much as I wanted to, I did not try to turn it back on again.

This morning I’m proud to say that when I walked by the little bowl of Uncle Ben’s I saw it’s little red head poking out and realized that I could try turning it on again. This was an excellent sign. It meant that I had successfully navigated through several stages of grief.

1. Denial. The phone is fine. It’ll be fine. Mommy’s not mad.

2. Anger. Dammit! Why didn’t I buy phone insurance. $&^*&#!&%^$&

3. Bargaining. Take me. I promise I won’t play anymore Brick Breaker if you’ll just let me have one more day.

4. Depression: Why is it always me? WAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

5. Acceptance. Oh yeah. I wonder if it’ll turn on.

So I put it back together and hit the button and walked away so it could power on or not. I knew that it was working because I could hear a choir of angels singing all the way from the back of the house.

Obviously, I am very excited. And the added bonus, whenever I take the back cover off and remove the battery, rice falls out.

Again, from The Dumbest Things Ever Said or Done calendar:

Isabella, the sixteenth century queen of Spain, vowed not to change her underwear until her husband and his army captured the Dutch city of Ostend. The Dutch defenders held out for three years.

Uh huh. I have some concerns about the European monarchy of yesteryear. The last we checked in with them, an eccentric member of the Italian peerage was mummifying her lover to store in the kitchen cupboard.

But back to Isabella.

Three years. In the same underwear. One would think by then, said underwear might have grown self awareness and it’s conscious would have compelled it to demanded to be changed. I’m guessing there was no such thing as a germaphobe back then.

I would like it to be noted here, officially, that our dear Isabella of these pages does indeed change her underwear. At a minimum of everyday.

I am positive.

Sassy and The Bandit are in their rooms blubbering. I am in the office steaming, and My Honey and the dog are hiding in the back yard. I don’t know how stay-at-home moms do it. I’m losing my mind. I just don’t have the temperament. The constant fighting, the whining, the mess - Dear God! It’s like the trifecta of misery over here.

I’m trying to get some writing done, but everytime I open the current chapter I’m working on, my brain glazes over.

I’m drinking a cup of tea. I asked for a tea pot from my mother and she put together a beautiful basket with a pretty cup, a gorgeous pot and a sample of several types of tea she thought I might like. I’m trying to get off the soda. I’m a junky and I know how bad it is for me. Water is out of the question. BLECK! So now I’m trying tea: iced tea, hot tea, flavored tea, sun tea, chai tea, whatever. I’m not a brewed beverage kind of girl. I don’t like coffee at all and I’m trying to make myself like tea. It’s been slow going.

Based on how well today is proceeding, perhaps the secret is tea with whiskey in it.

A sucker, that is. And I am the sucker of the minute. So, apparently, the turtle species native to the North Pole is the European Pond turtle. And apparently, Santa does indeed deliver live pets.

I could not figure out a way to look my sweet daughter in the face on Christmas morning and explain that Santa lied about bringing her a real turtle. Or try to explain that even though she is the best kid, and definitely on the “nice” list, that Santa was full of *%&^ when he said because she was so good that he would bring her a real turtle.

Everyone I know tried to help explain to my Bean that Santa could not deliver real pets. Even Bean’s awesome doctor put her best serious doctor face on and explained to her that there wasn’t room on the sleigh for real pets.

But my Bean would look them straight in the eye and say “But he said he would.”

So lo and behold, a Christmas miracle indeed happened in our living room yesterday morning. Santa left a real turtle for my sweet daughter. And she is SO happy. She really didn’t even want any of her other gifts. She must have said a hundred times how this was the best Christmas ever.

I guess that mall Santa may just be a little magic afterall.

Another delightful and honest cartoon from Shoebox

We made it. We lived through another Christmas. Well technically there is still an hour and 15 minutes left, but I feel fairly confident that we’ll be alright. Due to my phone mishap yesterday, I am completely incommunicado with everyone. I miss you - each and everyone. I feel like I’m on Jupiter or something.

Our day was pretty nice. At 6 am this morning, Sassy crawled in bed with us to snuggle. I didn’t say anything because I was hoping to eek out a little more sleep time. At 6:30 she asked if she could go in and watch cartoons.

“Aren’t you even remotely interested to see if Santa and the Tooth Fairy came?” I asked her.

“Oh Yeah!” was her reply.

Oh, yeah? This can’t be my spawn. My mom used to booby trap the living room when I was a kid to keep me from going in there in the middle of the night.

Since this morning, we have been opening toys. If you really wanted to make a killing in the stock market, you should have invested in that company that makes all the wire they strap around all the toys these days. I don’t remember our toys being held down by 75 feet of wire when we were kids. My fingers are killing me.

My Honey has been applying stickers to the GI Joe Command Unit that Santa brought The Bandit since 7 this morning. There were approximately 37 sheets of stickers to put on this thing.

And as for me, I spent over an hour trying to put a Transformer back into the shape of a jet fighter. These things are like Rubix cubes on crack. I’m going to have to send them all to Ava’s house to see if her boy can “transform” them back.

I am writing this post on my new wireless keyboard. I have my feet up on the desk and my chair tilted back to the furthest position. Thank you, Santa. I also got a bunch of book store gift certificates. WAHOOOOO!!!!

Anyway, it has been a very nice day and I am so very thankful that I still have 2 days off before I have to go back to work. We should petition the government or the Vatican or somebody to always have Christmas on a Friday. It’s brilliant.

Much love and Christmas cheer to you all. Eggnog and Jack Daniels for everyone!

The world as I know it has come to a screeching halt. As you constant readers know, I have recently upgraded my phone and it has been a less than smooth transition. My cell phone carrier has made this a nightmare.

Well, something horribly, terribly distressing happened tonight.

On Tuesday, Roscoe knocked out one of Sassy’s front teeth. It’s alright. Both of those teeth were loose, so it just came out a little before it was ready. There was a great deal of blood and hysteria, though.

According to The Bandit, my husband offered to put a bullet in the dog’s head. My Honey takes his job as Papa Bear very seriously. Of course, the dog was totally freaked out for the rest of the night - not over My Honey’s over the top threat, but because of how upset Sassy was. He’s very sensitive.

Tonight, Christmas Eve, I got off of work at 2 (yea!!!) and went home and promptly feel asleep. I dozed off and on for a couple of hours and at some point my husband woke me to say he was running to get beer. No Christmas is the same without it apparently. I told the kids to get in the bathtub so they’d smell decent for dinner at my Mom’s. I continued to blissfully doze, while in the back of my head I heard the kids splashing around.

And then the screaming began. The bad screaming - you moms out there know the one. I sat straight up in bed and, instead of visions of sugar plums, I was witness to a naked, wet, screaming, bloody Sassy. Her brother had knocked out the other front tooth. It looked like a scene from a Christmas with Stephen King - standing there with the blood running down her front, her hair all stringy and knotted, she looked like Carrie.

We found the tooth. She hadn’t even known it was out. She does look adorable with that huge space in her mouth. Her Aunt tried to teach her the words to All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth. If now isn’t the appropriate time for this song, then good grief, I don’t know when is.

ANYWAY, I put the screaming, bloody mess in the bathtub and leaned over the water and PLOP! there went my brand new cell phone. So now Sassy and I are both crying, The Bandit is crying because everyone else is crying, and My Honey is like, “Jesus, I just left the house for a minute.”

Things move fast here at the Bright Compound.

I’m now on a suicide watch. I don’t want to live without my phone. It’s drying out and I’m paying a constant vigil. But really, I don’t want to go on. I’ll try to get a grip on myself.

So anyway, it’s going to be a very busy night for mystical people here tonight. I hope we don’t have a traffic jam with both Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy showing up tonight.