Just Stuff

Travis did get the tattoo. I showed up to offer my support since, after they decide it is going to happen, there is nothing left to do but be there for somebody.

It doesn't look bad and Ryan, who was highly opposed, wanted one as soon as he saw how cool it turned out. I do not see that happening, though. First, cause it costs money and second, cause he passed on his own class tattoo. Remember when we used to just have memory books that your friends signed??

Brooke is still freaking about her birthday, which will not be here until April. I told her her birthday was after Christmas, not knowing that translated to "immediately after opening your gifts on Christmas Day" to a three year old. As she cried about where was her cake and her beautiful birthday dress, I worked overtime trying to correct the wording.

I do not even want to think about the trauma this will all cause her next weekend on Cassie's birthday, then Ryan's at the end of the month.

Tomorrow night we are having a New Year's Eve party and I have mixed feelings about the whole ordeal because I have been trying to decide for three days now whether I am sick or not. I feel very non-specifically unwell. It is either the stress from Christmas or a true living virus. Whatever is behind it, I am all out of sorts. Being undecided on the actual cause, only makes it worse.

I have two more unemployment checks before we hit even further down on the financial disaster scale. That is weighing on my mind a lot and I just want to run away from home and pretend this last 20 years was all just a dream, assuming I could still have all my children.

The only good part is that the worse you do during the year pays off big at tax return time. Of course with all my kids getting older that child credit thing went from from 5 last year to 2 this year...that will leave a mark. Not a pretty one, for sure.

I entered a psychotic cleaning phase yesterday and plan on continuing with it today. It started as a "straightening up" thing and turned into a full top to bottom scrub, cleaning out closets, doing laundry from 1pm to 1am and finally ended with me watching over the clean areas to bitch at anyone that touched anything. Ryan, of course, came home from the game with like twelve friends and I sat upstairs listening for noises that may indicate "messing up" all my work.

When I woke up bright and early this morning, I started on more laundry and did a quick check of the rec room. Not so bad, just a few empty cans of pop and some glasses. I can live with that. It usually is much worse and looks more like a hurricane went though as pictures are all crooked, furniture is out of place, snack food is all over the floor and sticky spills are everywhere. I'm very pleased.

I still don't feel good though, but I plan on either jumping into the sick theory or just declaring insanity and calling it a day. I should know soon.

Bitterness, Bikinis and Meatballs.

I slept until 11 this morning. I was the first one up.

Lets review this.....

I, who sleep an average of 2-5 hours per night, slept until 11 this morning. I did not go to bed until 2am, after being up all but an hour or so on Christmas Eve, but my calculations put me at NINE hours of sleep!!

I remember the phone ringing at 830 this morning and being surprised I had even slept that long as I rolled over and went right back to sleep. It was only the second call at 11:02 am that woke me, yet again. So, potentially I could have slept even longer! Finally, my Christmas miracle!

Nobody else was up yet. Bob was still sleeping from his exhausting Christmas activity of vacuuming the carpet yesterday, after I nagged him off the couch he had spent most of this week on, and all the kids, including Brooke, who was playing with her Dora house until 145am last night, were still slumbering, peacefully.

All that non-stop activity of mine must have really tired them all out. I never realized how sleepy it makes others to watch someone else do all the work. Poor babies....

Bitter anyone??

It is just my post-Christmas rant which, for extra fun, includes some highly embarrassing photos, but it probably will not end there....

But, seriously, everyone had a really nice Christmas and got everything they wanted, aside from me, who is wishing that Travis would not go get the tattoo that he and his friends all agreed to get as a lifelong symbol of their friendship. He made the appointment for 230 this afternoon and I tried, again last night, to talk him out of it and it only seems to make him more determined.

They are all getting the Chinese symbol for friendship as unity, but all putting that into a unique tattoo of their own choice to signify their individuality. It is well thought out in theory, it sounds as mature as a lifelong blotch of ink on the skin can possibly sound, until you see what Travis has decide on for his main tattoo.

A meatball!! On his shoulder.

Yes, I said MEATBALL!

Meatwad from Adult Swim will forever be on my son's shoulder unless I can think of some way to convince him otherwise in the next hour!! I may tell him how totally cool it would be and nothing would make me more happy then for him to get this tattoo and that I have never been more proud......that would certainly make him want to NOT do it....but, he'll never buy it!

Doomed again...first the pictures, now the tattoo....

Is it 2007 yet, cause 2006 is wrapping up real sucky-like??!!??

Confiscated.

So, as usual, I open my mouth with the threat of "If ANYONE has seen those and if she is humiliating me, our limited relationship will be so over!". I tell this to my mom on the phone this afternoon.

I arrive at my mom's for dinner tonight and she asked me, all tight-lipped, where my purse was and then walks out of room to find it. She is carrying pictures.

I say nothing.

Sis walks in, an hour late, as usual, and says (in front of the zillion people in the kitchen), "Here are the negatives, psycho and I ripped up the copies I had at my house". I so am thinking she didn't still. I replied, "Thanks and thanks for announcing it in the presence of EVERYONE". I smiled and walked into the dining room.

Then my mom says, in private to me later, "She had doubles and she did rip up her set. I thought my set were in my purse and spent half the afternoon trying to find them....huff....they were in my mail holder". (Okay are they saying HER set and MY set?????)

Then my mom again tells me how they were not, like ,naked or anything and that she was going to use her set (she said HER set again!!) to make me a cute little album and how funny she thought it would be and I am SOOOOOOOO sensitive, yada yada, yada.

Sis comes back in to once again announce in front of people that they were not that long ago, cause she had pictures ,before and after, that were all from April. I say they are years old and drop it there. It does not take a genius to see that they are at my old home, that I moved out of before April...her theory is blown and I am not about to spend anymore time making this the main topic of conversation.

My brother walks in right before I am getting ready to leave and someone makes a joke about him, I laugh and he looks at me and say "Oh, okay , lets talk about........". My mom whisks him off to the kitchen, there is whispering and he never finishes his sentence. Yup, they showed EVERYBODY, just as I suspected!

I am willing to share the top half of the photo, but not the bottom which features a chunky gut and some upper thigh issues.....now, I almost feel as though I have to show that part too..............................

NAH!

Quite honestly, I feared they were much worse than they actually were, and they were pretty bad, but not completely "kill me now". Close, though.

I wish it was over now, but I still have this nagging feeling that the ones she "ripped up" will appear again in my future. Actually, I have no doubt about that at all. I, also, know they were viewed by other family members and just ewwwwwwwwwww.

The only good thing I can say is I have lots of practice with having completely humiliating things done to me by my family and then, them telling me I am just too sensitive when I protest. So, this is good practice for the rest of my life, when they get drunk and torture me over it again and again, or decide to tell stories at holiday dinners about it, or make a poster of the copies my sis still has for my birthday.

Yeah, this is far from over.......................

The Stuff that Can Only Happen to ME!!!

I was out last night at a Christmas party, drinking with family and friends having a perfectly good time until..........

I walk up to the bar for another beer and my brother in law says..."Hey, you look really hot in a bikini!" which is followed by uncontrollable laughing. You know, the kind that makes you unable to even speak to further explain what the HELL you are talking/laughing about!!

I look at him puzzled. Then he starts posing in flex positions and is still laughing..then I get the flash of what this is, but how could it be, this makes no sense..OMG!

Back before Brooke was born, I started gaining weight. I started working out and buying different books to help with this very sudden and troublesome weight gain. Cassie would come home from school and I would be hopping about in the living room in front of some exercise VHS I had popped in and she would just giggle at the sight of me. I was desperate and adjusting my eating to rarely and my exercise to, well, any chance I got. She still laughs to this day about "Remember when you were pregnant and didn't know it and thought you were fat and doing all that exercise stuff??"

One of my many books were "Body for Life". It was a program that featured those "before and after" photos where you are all fat, flabby and very pale..but then, after strictly following the book's eating/exercise schedule, you are all thin, buff and massively tanned.

One night as I sat reading it, I was explaining to Bob about the whole reason these people get so buff so fast. He, the pseudo-body training expert, was all, "that won't work.....". Mix in a few beers, Cassie listening in and a disposable camera in sight and you get two people on a challenge.

We run upstairs,put on swimwear, humorously pose in positions that people were in on the front and back cover as our, "fat, flabby and pale befores". Throwing out our guts, flexing like muscle heads and thinking these pictures could be the stuff that blackmail is made of and that we would surely have to send them to a mail out development place. The local one hour photo place would certainly keep a copy and share them with others for a laugh.

Then the unthinkable happens. We lose the camera. Since I am one that takes an average of 3 years to develop most film, this is not unusual. There was also that unfortunate camera accident where I had two cameras sitting on top a box ,that was sitting up against a wall in the my bedroom where the furnace cover had fallen off. One day as I reached to get something stacked under the box, the two cameras fall into the opening of the heating vent and were gone forever in the furnace.

We start developing different cameras we found around the house and realize that the only things that seem to be missing are Ryan's D.C. trip pics and the body for life shots. I feel bad about the D.C. pictures loss, but almost joyfully giddy over the lose of the second camera and the contents that were better left unviewed, by light of a sober day and actual sense.

Okay, so how someone has, obviously, developed my pictures five years later in some cruel twist of fate that, the God's of cruel twists of fate, happen to play on me just a little too damn much! I can tell by the way my sister and BIL are talking that they must think this is some sexually weird thing Bob and I must have done and this is only further proven to them when Bob says, "OMG, does it have those naked pictures we took together a long time ago??" I respond with a look of total shock and say "What naked pictures???????" I am slowly sinking into some sort of hell as I browse through the pages of my mind, several times, looking for "naked pictures" and come up with "NO F"IN WAY".

I said, "That must have been you and your first wife, cause this gal, ain't enough alcohol in the universe for that!". I mean, with stretch marks and being at my flabbiest in years, taking body for life shots, that just seemed silly and something that would be for my eyes only as I saw them, burnt all evidence and had a good laugh....but NEKKID????? HELL, NO!!

Now, you have to realize that these have ended up in the worst possible hands ever. Since my sis says they developed these two weeks ago, I already know that 2 weeks, times 16 daylight hours, times a view every 2 minutes in said two weeks is a possible 7000 people that have viewed these from my entire family, her co-workers, her neighbors,the PTA, and random strangers that she wants to bond with in shopping malls....I mean, these suckers have been shared with anyone and everyone! No. doubt.

She says her girls looked at the photos first, who then shared them with my sis and my mother..yes, MY MOTHER, who them shared them with BIL and they showed two friends and they showed two friends and so on and so on and SO ON!!

The horror is beyond any horror I have ever known and is only equal to the question of how in the hell she ended up with this camera, which she says has her Easter pictures on it. Now we did have an Easter/Brooke's birthday party at the new house this year...but the camera missing for 5 years...I mean..what are the chances that it is lost forever, moves with us, ends up in a place where she believes it is her camera and WTF???? HOW?? WHY??? ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME??!!???

SERIOUSLY....YOU HAVE TO BE FREAKIN' KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, what begs ever further question is why my sis, who I have talked to a few times in the past two weeks, fails to ever bring this up, but her drunk husband does so, in a bar, filled with people, at a Christmas party....OMG, again. Now, that I think about it, everyone was looking at me sort of differently and they probably had a viewing on some large screen monitor right before I walked in....and my forgotten body for life mistake is now just embarrassment for life and, OMG, I need to go lay down now.........................

But, seriously, why?????????????????

Blog This!

Blogger has been frozen or saying that my password is not right and I hate it, so I gave up on it for awhile...today I was determined to get into my account and used the same password I always had, which it decided was wrong, til I did a password recovery and it gave me the exact same one I was using and finally worked after that..yes..hate it!

Anyway, Christmas is no longer my favorite holiday. This year has proven to be very difficult and stressful. I constantly think I have enough money, to learn that I still have to buy food and toilet paper and junk and then realize I am way short on finishing. Thank goodness for friends and payday loans..otherwise, I would be screwed with a capital S!

It never seems to be enough and if I had a million, I would still be stressing. It is my nature to be a freak. Like my trip to go shopping...

I start off determined to finish once and for all. While driving to, yet, another department store, I spot lots of thick black smoke in a neighborhood. Now I have a giant history of driving by places on fire that no one else seems to know about. My first was seeing a women casually cooking dinner in her downstairs, through a window, while I see her upstairs in flames...I mean, massive flames!! I have spotted so many fires it is beyond freaky, so when I see this smoke and no woo woo's in sight...I must further investigate.

I circle the block about six times and cannot identify the origin of the smoke. I realize I must drive down the side street that looks to have a visibility of zero to find out where it is coming from...I am a daredevil, surprisingly, in fire situations. I must do this a few times, cause I still can't see anything. Then I finally spot a two car garage that has a big metal pole thingy sticking out the top that is the culprit. I see no flames anywhere else, assume all is as it should be and then go on my way, sure that I am the reason several mechanics died in a freak car fixing accident.

I get to the store and start picking up several items, and adding up the cost of the pile of shit in my hands, then put some back, then pick more up, then add again, then put more back and then do this for well over an hour and a half. I finally decide on six items that, in my mind, will surely even out the Christmas piles of my four children, at least until I get home and reevaluate and return to re-even out piles again. Exhausting........

Then I see that at the exact second I am ready to checkout, so is the entire population of the store. The lines are about 10 deep with me in place 10. A new cashier is coming and tells me she is opening up. I, and the two people directing in front of me in line, go to the new register. I made it before them, but I say it would only be fair to allow then ahead of me. BIG MISTAKE!

The older lady, that was first, had managed to pick up three items, out of the six she had, with no prices. The price check nightmare begins as different departments are called to look at her goods and find them for the scanner code thingy. Her old husband keeps repeating the prices, as though they will just take his word and make up a scanner code. I take a few deep breathes.

The people in front of me are a mom and daughter. The daughter is begging for something, the mom is saying no, and the daughter starts with the "Why nooooooooooot??? Mom, pleasssssse. Why not??? Geezeeeeeeeeeeee!!". Directly behind me, and I mean directly because the small children rammed the buggy into the back of my ankles several times, was a grandma, mom and two children under the age of three. The mom and the grandma are talking non-stop, loudly, as the children, even louder, are asking for "Mawmaw" to buy them candy. Mawmaw continues to talk to the daughter as she occasionally says "Mawmaw get you some later, not tonight".

Price check is taking a long time, we are fifteen minutes in and I notice that the line I was in is checking out people that were not even in it when I was number 10. I give myself a pep talk, but then five more minutes pass with.."Does that hat have a decorative button or no button??" by price check wench..she still has not found the freakin' hat!! More "MOOOOOOOOOM, please. Why nooooooooooot??", "THAT is ENOUGH, STOP!", "But why not???""Mawmaw....candy!", "Mawmaw get you some later", "PLEASE!!", loud daughter/Mawmaw talking, "Mawmaw", "Why noooot??" "Mawmaw", "Mawmaw" "Please", "Stop!", "Mawmaw!!"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Another direct hit to the back of the ankles.

I snap! I walk out of line, throw my shit on the nearest shelf and walk out. And not in a nice, calm way either but, rather in a huff.

I get in my car, drive back to possible fire sight again, all looks good..I have not killed anyone. Go to CVS, see gift sets, put several gift sets in buggy, put them back, put them in buggy again and so on. Run to Kroger, deciding that I can at least accomplish something by getting all my Christmas dinner items early, run into old friend, talk for 45 minutes, feel too tired to get everything now....come home, four hours later, with a ham and two gift sets.

Yeah, I am so over Christmas now.

Granny Got Run Over By a Bagger

I took Brooke to school and instead of coming home and playing on the computer for the two and a half hours that she is there, I decided to finally accept that I am a grown up, with grown up responsibilities. I wasted my free time at Krogers buying food for my family.

Before I left, I actually combed my hair, put on a little make-up and tried to look like I gave a damn about what I looked like....AnyHO...it was a merry day at Krogers, the stocking guys were whistling Christmas tunes and I chatted with different ones as I made my way through. I was taking my PMS by the horns and being almost chipper, despite my instinct to make mean faces at anyone that remotely got in my way.

As I was checking out, the cashier lady forgot to add my cigarettes and I was very.."NO problem, don't worry about it" as I smiled and remained pleasant.

THEN!!!!

A bagger girl. A bad, evil, terrible, ruined my entire life, bagger girl followed me to the car. Kroger does not discriminate against, well, intelligence challenged individuals and have several working as baggers. She is fairly new.

We get to the car and she is sort of just tossing bags into the trunk with groceries falling out everywhere. She noticed some wrapping paper and commented on how pretty it was and asked how many kids I had. I said, "four ", as the bag she was tossing in held several six packs of applesauce that fell over. She saw them and said...are you ready for this?????? "Oh, I see you must have some GRANDCHILDREN too"!!! Me. Grandchildren. Old. Turning forty this year.

I said, "No, that is for MY three year old". Thinking the worst was said, she continued talking. "Oh, YOU don't look like you COULD have a three year old, maybe a three year old GRANDCHILD"!! She said grandchild again!! She accused me of looking old enough to have GRANDCHILDREN!!! Not that at 40 you couldn't have a grandchild, but damn, girl, why you callin' me a grandma and shit??

I am reminded of 2 years ago, getting Ryan's tux when the lady thought I was his sister and my mom was "our" mom. I had on a college hoodie and she was asking me what year I was in. So, I go from college student to GRANDMOTHER is two, god forsaken years??????

There will be no living with me now. This ain't good!!

And that is all I have to say about that.

Its Beginning to Look a lot Like...

PMS..everywhere you go..
From the dirty looks I give to the wish that you were dead
Just until next week........

And I cleaned, so nobody better mess up ANYTHING!!

Tonight should go something like this...Yell, be miserable, cry, feel guilty, be too loving and sweet from the guilt, get mad again five minutes later, hate on life, cry, go to bed.

But I truly do love you all....now get the fuck away from me.

Cheers!!!!

Animal HELLter

Our doggie got out of the yard on Monday, I called the pound on Tuesday at 12pm, 1215pm, 1 pm and only got a recording, left a message, they called back at 255pm, 5 minutes before close, informed me that they did, indeed, have her and that we could not pick her up til the following day.

Now, this shy, nervous, starving puppy that we brought home in July was just starting to really get comfortable with us. She was eating fairly well, wagging her tail at the site of us and no longer hiding in the corner shaking like she was awaiting her turn in the electric chair. I thought upon arriving home, she would be thrilled to see us, jump up and down, wag her tail and just go crazy with happiness at being home.

Instead, she came in and looked like we were the firing squad and she was all slouched down, nervous, scared and uneasy. She was making horrible gagging noises and vomiting, would go hide in a corner for hours and we seemed to be starting at square one with a soul that, apparently, lived a tortured life before she came to us.

We were given a note from the pound that 95% of dogs leaving there will develop kennel cough. Well, she did, and also had a severe dandruff problem and she smelled horrible. HORRIBLE!! She had a nice bath and went to the vet today for a shot, and we left with two prescriptions and instructions to put a warm towel around her neck covered in vicks. I, now, have no respect for the animal shelter, cause their housing her for two nights has cost me a bundle in boarding fees and vet bills and obviously, they are not the fabulous animal-atarians that I once believed and the lady that called back was a bitch from hell.

I was all "Can we come right now and get her, she is very sensitive, we can leave right now..". She was all, "Unless you can be here in four minutes, NO." Well, it would have taken fifteen to get there and I asked if anyone could just wait ten minutes and that, due to her past, she may be really freaked out, and it would be better to be home then spend another night. She said "Nope, not if you can't get here in two minutes, now". Compassion, sensitivity and general kindness must not be a requirement to work there.

Ryan will be home next weekend for three whole weeks! I am really excited because the first half of his sophomore year has been really rough on me. He calls less, talks for shorter amounts of time and seems all grown up now. I mean, geeze, can ya help a mother out here and just act a little like you miss her and still need her??

Christmas Check (Yourself In) Lists

It must be about two weeks til Christmas cause I have that "Christmas is almost here severe, anxiety disorder" that I develop every year. The symptoms include making lists, lots and lots of lists, of presents already bought, presents I still have to get, checking account balances added to all projected income I shall receive before the 25th, credit card balances, presents bought again, presents that I need to get again, balances, balances, BALANCES!!

I'm exhausted.

I wake up too early with all the lists and balances ruminating in my head like Chinese water torture and I feel all stressed out and unwell. I get colds, sore throats, muscle tension, chills, hot and cold flashes and your standard "wiggin' out" feelings every few minutes.

Yes. Christmas is joyous, indeed!

I do have moments of intense, real whacked out Christmas pleasure still. Like last night I watched "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" with Brooke and it was the first time she actually had the attention span to really watch it. She was so excited about "dat was Santa when he was a baby" and "Santa bring toys to all the children" and when they do that song "Put One Foot in Front of the Other", she and I danced and walked around the love seat. In fact, she insisted we sing and danced around the love seat "just one more time" for a full 15 minutes after the show had ended.

As she lay in bed, just about ready to fall asleep, she was softly singing to herself, "put one foot and one foot and 'nother" and I just smiled, snuck away and felt total happiness and youthful Christmas excitement. I remembered why I love Christmas so much and then I went to the couch to snuggle in and feel all warm and cozy, then ....

I started making mental lists, lots and lots of lists..............

Drunk Dialing

I have learned a valuable lesson. Several, actually.

Old people should not play quarters, but more importantly, should never play quarters with a cell phone on the table. I sort of forgot about the cell phone thing til I was left a message from SIL from hell at 445am that said "Why you dialin' my number at 3 am when I had to be at work at 5am. I don't do that shit to you!" Judging from the time, the call did not wake her up and judging from the second statement, she is even more out of touch than I ever imagined, cause she is not only the queen of unwanted calls in the middle of the night, but she keeps it ringing for a good hour til she finally gives up.

Then I am woken up at about 9 by the cell phone ringing but the shock of my brain being squeezed out of my skull left me unable to respond in time to answer it. I managed to stumble over and listen to a voice mail from my brother, "Yeah, I can see how people drunk dialing at 3 am would still be in bed, call me idiots".

I signed online a few minutes ago and saw an email from S. about a middle of the night call and voice mail from Bob. And just for the record, I did not make the calls, but I do remember something about egging them on after they started, I could be mistaken. Prolly not, though.

I called Ryan a few times too. He was at a Christmas sweater party and drove home Wednesday, mostly to get a sweater from my mom,I think. She gave him one of hers that was covered in little presents, santas, and little girls with braided, yellow yard hair that hung off the sweater. It was more like a shrug on him so she gave him a tight, ribbed red turtleneck to complete the outfit. I learned that he was still at the party and still wearing the sweater at 245am. I also learned that he thought the first call was funny, the third, not so much.

Most important, I have learned that 39 year old people's hangovers linger for days possibly and I have a full weekend and I must be a total nutcase and that I suck at gambling, cause I also tried my luck at the Downs, and that now I have to make several calls of shame to explain my part in the bad behavior. Definitely, too old for this shit.