I was trying to remember the name of my favorite Anne Tyler novel last night. It was driving me nuts. I could just about say it, just about think it and then, it would slip through my fingers.
I thought I almost had it...so googled A sliding around life and then realized that all I had to do was google Anne Tyler. Duh. And I finally found what I was looking for: A Slipping Down Life.
And there, to my amazement, was a trailer for a MOVIE of the novel that I had loved so much. A MOVIE? I didn't remember it ever coming out as a movie!
I clicked on the trailer and was doubly surprised to see that Lili Taylor and Guy Pearce were playing the lead roles. Good St. Bertram, if I had hand picked the actors, I would have picked those two.
I watched the trailer.
My god. It looked wonderful! I love it when that happens. When Bing called to check in, I told her that we were renting the movie this weekend as soon as she came home. She agreed, chuckling. ("Oh, well, no hello kiss, I suppose...just sit me on down with some popcorn...")
I fell in love with Evie Decker and Drumstrings Casey from the get go. But, Anne Tyler does that to you. She takes you in hand from page one, making you care about the characters. She has done this to me in other novels. I loved Muriel Pritchett, Maggie Moran and Rebecca Davitch from the first paragraph.
But, Evie was special to me. Not sure why, the character is nothing like me, had no traits that I cultivate and was not the kind of person that I read about and thought to myself, "Oh, wow...that could be me! That is just how I think!" She was nothing like me. Evie Decker was a woman who salivated over a man and did something crazy to get his attention. Not me. I am not exactly the hottest woman around, but it has always been of great importance to my vain nature that I not be the salivater in a relationship. I like to be the one that GETS salivated over....
So, why did I feel like weeping when the novel ended? I don't know it, can't explain it, it's just a part of Anne Tyler's magic that she weaves a spell around you when she writes. I found myself loving Evie, loving Drumstrings. I wanted to follow them through their lives, check them out every five years and see what was happening for them. It killed me to let go of Evie. I carried that book in my purse for months after I finished it, unable to let her loose.
Well, finally, I did. And then promptly lent the book to a sister who never returned it and to this day, swears that I never gave it to her. I could have bought a new copy, I probably will do just that, but I ended up going on to the next Tyler novel and the next and the same thing happened to a smaller extent. I found myself diving into the books, the characters, feeling them wind around me, touch me. I wanted to meet them on a bus, work in the same building with them, take a class with them.
I went on to read other books that got to me.
Elizabeth Berg makes me feel the same way. I met Ann in Talk Before Sleep and felt like I knew her in some odd way. I rooted for her, nodded vigorously as I read and felt sad all day long when I read the last page.
Jill McCorkle's Tending To Virginia was read in one weekend when I was all by myself in a house that I had just purchased and really needed to unpack, but instead sat propped up on the one chair in the room, lost in the pages.
But, I don't know that I have ever loved a character as much as I love Evie Decker. I wanted to sit with her and have a long talk, share our life stories and then maybe go get ice cream or an apple martini.
I could close my eyes and picture her exactly in my head. And surprisingly enough, in my imagination, she was the spit and image of Lili Taylor. So, seeing that she was playing her in the movie just floored the hell out of me.
And now I get to look forward to a movie. God, I love it when there is something to look forward to. I love it. And I want to share it with Bing. All I had to tell her was that there was a musician character in it called Drumstrings Casey who reminded me of her and she was in. She loves any movies with musicians in them.
So, here is my question for you.
Tell me about a character in a book who you loved, a character that touched you for any crazy reason at all.
I want to know.
And why don't you see A Slipping Down Life or read the book. And tell me what you think. You will be in excellent hands with Anne Tyler....
Monday, April 27, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Cleaning the rocks.
Well, no garden today. I woke up to thunder, lightning and small hail being flung at the windows. The weather forecast is for it to rain all day and be all chilly and shivery out. Not conducive to putting in a garden. The whole idea of the garden is to take our time with it, carefully pushing the tiny sprouts into the ground, not dodging raindrops and hurrying because it is so damn cold.
Instead, Liv and I cleaned the rocks. I collect rocks. Have collected them since I was a child. When friends or family go anywhere on vacation, they know that all I want them to bring me back is a rock. Big or small. It doesn't matter. I will find a place for it.
The larger rocks are in my garden. They surround my naked lady fountain, my statue of a fairy boy slyly smiling up into the sun. I use them to surround my flower beds too. They are beautiful.
The smaller rocks sit in bowls all over my house. Beautiful bowls. I go to the Goodwill or antique stores, estate sales, etc. and find them. I have some crystal ones, some lovely cracked buttermilk colored bowls. And in them, the rocks live.
They are certainly conversation worthy. Most people ask about them when they come into my house for the first time. I know it probably looks a little odd to have bowls of rocks in every room, but they are truly lovely to look at and most people end up fingering them, holding them up to the sun or a light and commenting on how lovely they are.
"That one is from Tennessee," I will say. Or, "That one is all the way from Poland!" I know most of them well as I often pick them up and stroke them.
Liv has grown up with the rocks and loves them too. When she was beyond the age of putting everything in her mouth, I allowed her to play with them and they were one of her favorite toys. She would group them into families, name them, tell me what each personality was like. Mostly we agreed that this one looked like a Marvin and that one was certainly a Pandora...
I told Liv how my Da had believed that rocks have personalities, are real. That he used to tell me that when we slept at night, the rocks had long conversations among themselves, comparing their life journeys, where they were born, everywhere they'd lived. Liv and I both are believers too.
So, today, when Liv came into the house, looking all bedraggled and dirty, down because we obviously would not be putting in the garden on this cold, rainy day, I told her that it was time to clean the rocks.
She brightened up considerably.
We have a system. We fill the kitchen sink with hot water and then dissolve sea salt in it. Then we put the rocks in to soak for an hour or so. Afterward, we take them out, one by one, and place them on towels to dry. We spend lots of time holding them up to the light pouring in from the kitchen window, crowing about how lovely they are.
It is good for the rock's egos. We all need to feel beautiful and special.
Then we place them in their bowls and set them back in their places all over the house. They look so beautiful, all shiny and shimmery, the black onyx mingling with the rose quartz. The amber nudging up against a clear, sparkly crystal.
We both sigh with pleasure.
It is a small thing, but it makes us happy.
We are lucky, too, that Liv's father is a geologist and is always sending us new rocks for us to find pretty bowls for.
The rest of the day will be quiet. Liv is tired out from her rain soaked trail hiking and hard night's sleep in a sleeping bag. She is tired of her friend's chatter and ready to just spend soft time laying on the leather sofa with her books that I picked up at the library for her. She is on the sofa as I write this, lost in Tuck Everlasting. Other books are waiting patiently for her in her bedroom bookcase:
The Minpins, Holes, The Red King, Secrets of Droon, and several Anastasia books by Lois Lowry.
Socks is tucked up next to her, biding his time snoozing until the rain stops enough for us to take him out for a short walk. We will put on our slickers and Liv will fail in an attempt to put a dog slicker on him. This was a Christmas gift from Vince and Thuan, who do not know Socks very well. Socks is far too dignified to ever consent to wear a yellow dog slicker, although he does look particularly sweet in it. The one time Liv was able to coax him into it, he tried to chew it off immediately, the disdainful look on his face easy to read.
After our walk, we have a wonderful decision to make. Should we have the pot pies (and yes, dear Eric, they are Marie Callender ones) or the frozen pizza? Or maybe go out for KFC?
The Amazing Race is on tonight, which is always fun.
Tomorrow will be back to school and work. But, work is good for the soul (although Liv would argue that geography is not good for her soul...this is perhaps because she is learning longitude and latitude and thinks it is mind numbing, hardly good for her soul.)
Liv is invited for dinner at Hal and Nora's tomorrow evening while I go out for dinner with my sister, so Bing can breathe a sigh of relief. The food will be wholesome.
But, right now, I am looking out the window and can see the sun trying to come out. It is anemic looking and weak, but it is trying. Now, might be a good time to take Socks out before the clouds roll in again.
And tonight, as I go through the house shutting off all the lights with Socks following me carefully, making sure that I remember to give him his goodnight biscuit, I will stop and run my hand over those beautiful rocks in their lovely, shining bowls.
The lights will all go off, I will kiss my Liv goodnight, leaning in to smell her freshly washed hair on her pillow, maybe picking up a strand to run through my fingers, smiling at how deeply she sleeps. Wondering if she is dreaming one of her recurring dreams where she is a magician and in an enchanted forest where the trees talk and Socks and she can fly. Socks will curl up at the end of her bed, smiling, raising his black, curly head for his goodnight buss, his breath smelling of dog biscuits.
I will settle into my own bed, stretching my legs out, enjoying how good it feels to let my achey bones stretchhhhhh.
Soon, we will all be asleep, dreaming our respective dreams and then it will start.
The rocks will hunker in closer together and start telling each other their stories, proudly glistening in the moonlight that pours in the windows, happy to be such a beautiful part of this universe.
Instead, Liv and I cleaned the rocks. I collect rocks. Have collected them since I was a child. When friends or family go anywhere on vacation, they know that all I want them to bring me back is a rock. Big or small. It doesn't matter. I will find a place for it.
The larger rocks are in my garden. They surround my naked lady fountain, my statue of a fairy boy slyly smiling up into the sun. I use them to surround my flower beds too. They are beautiful.
The smaller rocks sit in bowls all over my house. Beautiful bowls. I go to the Goodwill or antique stores, estate sales, etc. and find them. I have some crystal ones, some lovely cracked buttermilk colored bowls. And in them, the rocks live.
They are certainly conversation worthy. Most people ask about them when they come into my house for the first time. I know it probably looks a little odd to have bowls of rocks in every room, but they are truly lovely to look at and most people end up fingering them, holding them up to the sun or a light and commenting on how lovely they are.
"That one is from Tennessee," I will say. Or, "That one is all the way from Poland!" I know most of them well as I often pick them up and stroke them.
Liv has grown up with the rocks and loves them too. When she was beyond the age of putting everything in her mouth, I allowed her to play with them and they were one of her favorite toys. She would group them into families, name them, tell me what each personality was like. Mostly we agreed that this one looked like a Marvin and that one was certainly a Pandora...
I told Liv how my Da had believed that rocks have personalities, are real. That he used to tell me that when we slept at night, the rocks had long conversations among themselves, comparing their life journeys, where they were born, everywhere they'd lived. Liv and I both are believers too.
So, today, when Liv came into the house, looking all bedraggled and dirty, down because we obviously would not be putting in the garden on this cold, rainy day, I told her that it was time to clean the rocks.
She brightened up considerably.
We have a system. We fill the kitchen sink with hot water and then dissolve sea salt in it. Then we put the rocks in to soak for an hour or so. Afterward, we take them out, one by one, and place them on towels to dry. We spend lots of time holding them up to the light pouring in from the kitchen window, crowing about how lovely they are.
It is good for the rock's egos. We all need to feel beautiful and special.
Then we place them in their bowls and set them back in their places all over the house. They look so beautiful, all shiny and shimmery, the black onyx mingling with the rose quartz. The amber nudging up against a clear, sparkly crystal.
We both sigh with pleasure.
It is a small thing, but it makes us happy.
We are lucky, too, that Liv's father is a geologist and is always sending us new rocks for us to find pretty bowls for.
The rest of the day will be quiet. Liv is tired out from her rain soaked trail hiking and hard night's sleep in a sleeping bag. She is tired of her friend's chatter and ready to just spend soft time laying on the leather sofa with her books that I picked up at the library for her. She is on the sofa as I write this, lost in Tuck Everlasting. Other books are waiting patiently for her in her bedroom bookcase:
The Minpins, Holes, The Red King, Secrets of Droon, and several Anastasia books by Lois Lowry.
Socks is tucked up next to her, biding his time snoozing until the rain stops enough for us to take him out for a short walk. We will put on our slickers and Liv will fail in an attempt to put a dog slicker on him. This was a Christmas gift from Vince and Thuan, who do not know Socks very well. Socks is far too dignified to ever consent to wear a yellow dog slicker, although he does look particularly sweet in it. The one time Liv was able to coax him into it, he tried to chew it off immediately, the disdainful look on his face easy to read.
After our walk, we have a wonderful decision to make. Should we have the pot pies (and yes, dear Eric, they are Marie Callender ones) or the frozen pizza? Or maybe go out for KFC?
The Amazing Race is on tonight, which is always fun.
Tomorrow will be back to school and work. But, work is good for the soul (although Liv would argue that geography is not good for her soul...this is perhaps because she is learning longitude and latitude and thinks it is mind numbing, hardly good for her soul.)
Liv is invited for dinner at Hal and Nora's tomorrow evening while I go out for dinner with my sister, so Bing can breathe a sigh of relief. The food will be wholesome.
But, right now, I am looking out the window and can see the sun trying to come out. It is anemic looking and weak, but it is trying. Now, might be a good time to take Socks out before the clouds roll in again.
And tonight, as I go through the house shutting off all the lights with Socks following me carefully, making sure that I remember to give him his goodnight biscuit, I will stop and run my hand over those beautiful rocks in their lovely, shining bowls.
The lights will all go off, I will kiss my Liv goodnight, leaning in to smell her freshly washed hair on her pillow, maybe picking up a strand to run through my fingers, smiling at how deeply she sleeps. Wondering if she is dreaming one of her recurring dreams where she is a magician and in an enchanted forest where the trees talk and Socks and she can fly. Socks will curl up at the end of her bed, smiling, raising his black, curly head for his goodnight buss, his breath smelling of dog biscuits.
I will settle into my own bed, stretching my legs out, enjoying how good it feels to let my achey bones stretchhhhhh.
Soon, we will all be asleep, dreaming our respective dreams and then it will start.
The rocks will hunker in closer together and start telling each other their stories, proudly glistening in the moonlight that pours in the windows, happy to be such a beautiful part of this universe.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
The best laid plans....
Well, didn't get much done today. I woke up about 4 a.m. with a migraine. Ugh. I managed to get up and drive Bing to the airport, although my left eye was streaming and I nearly snapped her head off when she turned on the radio.
I made it to my hair appointment because I know my hair stylist needs the money. And I knew that she would be understanding as she gets migraines too. She was exceedingly gentle, even asking me at one point if the sound of her shears was bothersome to me!
I skipped the trip to the new age store with Florence, skipped a matinee and lunch with my sister. Stayed in bed the whole afternoon. It was amazingly restful. I didn't have to be anywhere or answer to anyone. Just me and Socks, sleeping the afternoon away.
I managed to get up around 4 and went grocery shopping and to the library to pick up books that were on hold for Liv and me. I picked up some pansies to plant in the front and back planters tomorrow. Still too early for planting, but I HAVE to get my hands in some dirt, so I will plant them tomorrow.
When I was putting the groceries away, I looked out into the back yard and was stunned to see that my garden had been tilled this afternoon. I can't believe I slept through it all...and sure enough...there was the bill stuck into my front door. I think I even slept through the door bell.
Liv called from her campsite. Maybe she is not so different from me as I thought. We had an interesting conversation:
Maria: So, are you having fun?
Liv: Well, it's okay, I guess. It is really, really cold. I'm glad you made me bring my heavy jacket. Mama?
M: Yes?
Liv: We are coming home early. It's just too cold and rainy to hike much. So, we'll be home tomorrow afternoon instead of tomorrow night, okay?
M: Okay. And I'm GLAD. Guess what?
Liv: What?
M: The garden has been tilled! Do you want to put the garden in tomorrow?
Liv: Bing won't like that. She says it's too early to plant.
M: I can't help it, m'girl. Every time I go down to the basement to do laundry, I swear those little plants are reaching out to me with their leaves. "Don't go...Maria...take us out of this dungeon...set us FREE. We're getting leg cramps in these tiny pots..."
This makes Liv giggle.
Liv: MAMA! Don't be silly! Well, actually, I know just what you mean because they are begging me too. Can we really put the garden in?
I tell her yes, absolutely. As long as it doesn't rain all day.
Then Liv's voice gets whispery, secretive...
Liv: Did you um...buy the cherry poptarts that I wrote on the grocery list?
M: Oh, yes! I also bought some Totinos frozen pizza and 2 pot pies, chicken for you, turkey for me.
Liv is smiling. I can feel her smiling.
Liv: Mama? I'm a little homesick for you right now. And guess who called me?
M: Who?
Liv: Bing! She said she forgot to ask me what I wanted as a present from South Carolina. I told her that I wanted a beach shell and not to forget to bring you home a rock for your rock bowl. I felt kind of bad talking to her, actually.
M: Why?
Liv: Well, because I wrote the words cherry pop tart on the grocery list and I know that Bing would never buy them at the store because they have preservatives. So, I felt kind of naughty, kind of sneaky, you know?
I assured her that I knew exactly what she meant, but that since Bing is going to be having a great time in South Carolina, well, we can ingest a few preservatives and be just fine.
But, she did hit a nerve. Because Bing called me too, to tell me that she arrived safely.
I was at the grocery store when she called and I looked guiltily down at the frozen pizza, pop tarts and oreo cookies in the cart as I spoke to her.
Bad wife! Bad, sneaky bitch wife!
But, hey...I got over THAT quickly.
Because I can have a damn pop tart now and again. I even brazenly threw a bag of bbq potato chips in the cart as we spoke.
It was almost as if she heard me.
"So, Maria," she said. "You aren't buying junk food are you?"
I decided that honesty was the best policy. Especially because she will be home soon and see the empty potato chip bag in the trash and the pop tart carton in the recycling box.
Yes, I told her. I was buying junk food and not apologizing.
Bing sighed. "God, I work so hard to keep you and Liv healthy and then you go and buy junk when I'm not around. All those preservatives will be flying around your body all week, making you feel sluggish and lethargic...."
I told her to can it. That she would come home to a wife with bbq breath and a big smile on her face.
She had laughed and let it go.
So, I told Liv not to sweat it. I bought lots of healthy foods too....
Liv told me that she wished she were home with me, that sleeping in a sleeping bag in a cold tent when it was raining outside was not nearly as cozy as sleeping in her own bed with Socks laying at the foot...
Soon, I told her...you will be home soon. And then we will put in the garden.
And probably eat a pop tart. Maybe a ding dong. Maybe both.
I told her to be sure and wear her flip flops when she took a shower...
I can just see Bing hooting at me. Here, I am FINE with shoveling processed sugar into my child, but I want to protect her against athlete's foot.
This motherhood dance is tricky. I do the best I can. And one pop tart is not going to kill her. Because I KNOW Liv. She will eat one pop tart and then go chomp into an apple.
So, I will have to finish the box. Because it is WRONG to waste food, right?
I am a role model, after all.....
Snicker. Snicker. Snicker.
I made it to my hair appointment because I know my hair stylist needs the money. And I knew that she would be understanding as she gets migraines too. She was exceedingly gentle, even asking me at one point if the sound of her shears was bothersome to me!
I skipped the trip to the new age store with Florence, skipped a matinee and lunch with my sister. Stayed in bed the whole afternoon. It was amazingly restful. I didn't have to be anywhere or answer to anyone. Just me and Socks, sleeping the afternoon away.
I managed to get up around 4 and went grocery shopping and to the library to pick up books that were on hold for Liv and me. I picked up some pansies to plant in the front and back planters tomorrow. Still too early for planting, but I HAVE to get my hands in some dirt, so I will plant them tomorrow.
When I was putting the groceries away, I looked out into the back yard and was stunned to see that my garden had been tilled this afternoon. I can't believe I slept through it all...and sure enough...there was the bill stuck into my front door. I think I even slept through the door bell.
Liv called from her campsite. Maybe she is not so different from me as I thought. We had an interesting conversation:
Maria: So, are you having fun?
Liv: Well, it's okay, I guess. It is really, really cold. I'm glad you made me bring my heavy jacket. Mama?
M: Yes?
Liv: We are coming home early. It's just too cold and rainy to hike much. So, we'll be home tomorrow afternoon instead of tomorrow night, okay?
M: Okay. And I'm GLAD. Guess what?
Liv: What?
M: The garden has been tilled! Do you want to put the garden in tomorrow?
Liv: Bing won't like that. She says it's too early to plant.
M: I can't help it, m'girl. Every time I go down to the basement to do laundry, I swear those little plants are reaching out to me with their leaves. "Don't go...Maria...take us out of this dungeon...set us FREE. We're getting leg cramps in these tiny pots..."
This makes Liv giggle.
Liv: MAMA! Don't be silly! Well, actually, I know just what you mean because they are begging me too. Can we really put the garden in?
I tell her yes, absolutely. As long as it doesn't rain all day.
Then Liv's voice gets whispery, secretive...
Liv: Did you um...buy the cherry poptarts that I wrote on the grocery list?
M: Oh, yes! I also bought some Totinos frozen pizza and 2 pot pies, chicken for you, turkey for me.
Liv is smiling. I can feel her smiling.
Liv: Mama? I'm a little homesick for you right now. And guess who called me?
M: Who?
Liv: Bing! She said she forgot to ask me what I wanted as a present from South Carolina. I told her that I wanted a beach shell and not to forget to bring you home a rock for your rock bowl. I felt kind of bad talking to her, actually.
M: Why?
Liv: Well, because I wrote the words cherry pop tart on the grocery list and I know that Bing would never buy them at the store because they have preservatives. So, I felt kind of naughty, kind of sneaky, you know?
I assured her that I knew exactly what she meant, but that since Bing is going to be having a great time in South Carolina, well, we can ingest a few preservatives and be just fine.
But, she did hit a nerve. Because Bing called me too, to tell me that she arrived safely.
I was at the grocery store when she called and I looked guiltily down at the frozen pizza, pop tarts and oreo cookies in the cart as I spoke to her.
Bad wife! Bad, sneaky bitch wife!
But, hey...I got over THAT quickly.
Because I can have a damn pop tart now and again. I even brazenly threw a bag of bbq potato chips in the cart as we spoke.
It was almost as if she heard me.
"So, Maria," she said. "You aren't buying junk food are you?"
I decided that honesty was the best policy. Especially because she will be home soon and see the empty potato chip bag in the trash and the pop tart carton in the recycling box.
Yes, I told her. I was buying junk food and not apologizing.
Bing sighed. "God, I work so hard to keep you and Liv healthy and then you go and buy junk when I'm not around. All those preservatives will be flying around your body all week, making you feel sluggish and lethargic...."
I told her to can it. That she would come home to a wife with bbq breath and a big smile on her face.
She had laughed and let it go.
So, I told Liv not to sweat it. I bought lots of healthy foods too....
Liv told me that she wished she were home with me, that sleeping in a sleeping bag in a cold tent when it was raining outside was not nearly as cozy as sleeping in her own bed with Socks laying at the foot...
Soon, I told her...you will be home soon. And then we will put in the garden.
And probably eat a pop tart. Maybe a ding dong. Maybe both.
I told her to be sure and wear her flip flops when she took a shower...
I can just see Bing hooting at me. Here, I am FINE with shoveling processed sugar into my child, but I want to protect her against athlete's foot.
This motherhood dance is tricky. I do the best I can. And one pop tart is not going to kill her. Because I KNOW Liv. She will eat one pop tart and then go chomp into an apple.
So, I will have to finish the box. Because it is WRONG to waste food, right?
I am a role model, after all.....
Snicker. Snicker. Snicker.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Sneaky me.
Bing leaves tomorrow for a week long trip to South Carolina. Yes, this is the trip that I wrote about involving the ferret (otherwise known, if I were a kinder person, as her good friend, Margaret.)
I have to take Bing to the airport tomorrow morning and this means that I will have to see Margaret, who I am sure will be waiting outside the doors of the airport entrance so that I can get a full view of herbraying laughing visage as she sees Bing and slides her arm through hers, taking her away from me. Knowing the ferret, she will wave merrily at me and struggle mightily to look all jaunty and carefree, grinning triumphantly over her shoulder clad in her ugly mauve sweater with the ridiculous fake jewels on it.
Margaret has already left us a voice mail on the answering machine telling Bing in her too-loud, too-force happy voice that she managed to get a room "right next to Bing and how wonderful is that cos we can have slumber parties all week long!!!!"
Which leads me to the sneaky part. I am contemplating putting some sort of spell on Margaret. Or having my friend, Florence, do it. Florence is a practicing wiccan and while she doesn't do spells that hurt anyone, she does do witchcraft and has told me more than once that she can easily put a spell on the ferret to keep her greedy little paws off of my wife.
So, I have agreed to go with her on Saturday afternoon to this store.
Florence will shop around for her spell things and I just like their twirly skirts and gemstone jewelry. I am hoping to talk her into some sort of voodoo doll. I probably won't succeed as Florence is picky about sticking to some ludicrous rule about not harming anyone. Boy howdy. Just when I really need her to get all wicked witchy on me, she goes into her good witch of the prairie routine....
Liv is spending the weekend on a camping trip with her best friend and her parents. She is excited and I am excited for her, mostly because someone else can give her the camping experience and it is one less thing for me to feel guilty about. ( I can just see her telling her therapist in 20 years that "My Mother never liked camping, so I never had the wonderful experience of sleeping out under the stars. She was always whimpering about her worries that there was a snake bite with her name on it out in the wild. So, I never got to experience the joy of roughing it and I feel so deprived!")
The house will be free for a wild night of witchcraft and chanting and cauldrons and black pointy hats and....
Oh, forget it. Good witchGlinda, I mean Florence won't cooperate, so I will just have to try to keep my thoughts from straying to South Carolina. Besides, whenever Bing is gone, the menfolk neighbors get all protective of me. I think if they saw any tomfoolery with black hats and cauldrons in my back yard, they would probably come shoot Florence. As it is, I will have at least two of them call me to remind me to put on the house alarm before I go to bed and let me know that they are keeping a sharp eye on my house for any intruders.
And it will be a very unhealthy week of food. Because when Bing is gone, I sort of go hog wild. We eat one night at KFC. Another night at Popeyes. I buy doughnuts at the grocery store. Potato chips. Frozen pizza. Hungry Man TV dinners.
We are so bad. And it feels deliciously wonderful. Well, at least for me. I think that Liv could probably care less. She is a pretty healthy eater. I'm the corrupt one. When Bing is gone, I just feel like eating like a filthy pig.
I'll miss her, sure. And by the time she gets home, all those bad habits will fade away because I just like to eat like that occasionally. Even when I lived alone, I was never a total junk food hog.
But, once in awhile, it just feels very wicked. And very fun. And if I can't have Florence turn the ferret into a toad, well, the LEAST I can do is eat a fucking ding dong.
I've planned a few wholesome activities too, don't worry, I'm not going to go completely Spring Break here.
I'm going to a late afternoon matinee with my sister and then out for dinner.
My niece has a softball game on Sunday. I'll go to that. I'm getting my hair trimmed and just feeling grateful that I finally have hair growth again.
And then it will be Sunday night and Liv will be back home and it will be time to get ready for school and work. Next week will be a routine work week, punctuated with some really bad dinner food choices, but basically pretty humdrum.
And then Bing will back home again. With any luck, she will have an interesting story of how Margaret suddenly began hopping everywhere like a frog and kept sticking her tongue out to catch flies.
Hey, I can dream.
And now I have to go put on my supportive wifely face as Bing is taking me out to dinner at the vegetarian restaurant since Liv went home after school today with her friend. After dinner we will probably um...make some eggs. (Those of you who are regular readers will know what this means, the rest of you will just have to imagine us having two dinners tonight.)
But, tomorrow morning...the witch face comes out.
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.....
I have to take Bing to the airport tomorrow morning and this means that I will have to see Margaret, who I am sure will be waiting outside the doors of the airport entrance so that I can get a full view of her
Margaret has already left us a voice mail on the answering machine telling Bing in her too-loud, too-force happy voice that she managed to get a room "right next to Bing and how wonderful is that cos we can have slumber parties all week long!!!!"
Which leads me to the sneaky part. I am contemplating putting some sort of spell on Margaret. Or having my friend, Florence, do it. Florence is a practicing wiccan and while she doesn't do spells that hurt anyone, she does do witchcraft and has told me more than once that she can easily put a spell on the ferret to keep her greedy little paws off of my wife.
So, I have agreed to go with her on Saturday afternoon to this store.
Florence will shop around for her spell things and I just like their twirly skirts and gemstone jewelry. I am hoping to talk her into some sort of voodoo doll. I probably won't succeed as Florence is picky about sticking to some ludicrous rule about not harming anyone. Boy howdy. Just when I really need her to get all wicked witchy on me, she goes into her good witch of the prairie routine....
Liv is spending the weekend on a camping trip with her best friend and her parents. She is excited and I am excited for her, mostly because someone else can give her the camping experience and it is one less thing for me to feel guilty about. ( I can just see her telling her therapist in 20 years that "My Mother never liked camping, so I never had the wonderful experience of sleeping out under the stars. She was always whimpering about her worries that there was a snake bite with her name on it out in the wild. So, I never got to experience the joy of roughing it and I feel so deprived!")
The house will be free for a wild night of witchcraft and chanting and cauldrons and black pointy hats and....
Oh, forget it. Good witch
And it will be a very unhealthy week of food. Because when Bing is gone, I sort of go hog wild. We eat one night at KFC. Another night at Popeyes. I buy doughnuts at the grocery store. Potato chips. Frozen pizza. Hungry Man TV dinners.
We are so bad. And it feels deliciously wonderful. Well, at least for me. I think that Liv could probably care less. She is a pretty healthy eater. I'm the corrupt one. When Bing is gone, I just feel like eating like a filthy pig.
I'll miss her, sure. And by the time she gets home, all those bad habits will fade away because I just like to eat like that occasionally. Even when I lived alone, I was never a total junk food hog.
But, once in awhile, it just feels very wicked. And very fun. And if I can't have Florence turn the ferret into a toad, well, the LEAST I can do is eat a fucking ding dong.
I've planned a few wholesome activities too, don't worry, I'm not going to go completely Spring Break here.
I'm going to a late afternoon matinee with my sister and then out for dinner.
My niece has a softball game on Sunday. I'll go to that. I'm getting my hair trimmed and just feeling grateful that I finally have hair growth again.
And then it will be Sunday night and Liv will be back home and it will be time to get ready for school and work. Next week will be a routine work week, punctuated with some really bad dinner food choices, but basically pretty humdrum.
And then Bing will back home again. With any luck, she will have an interesting story of how Margaret suddenly began hopping everywhere like a frog and kept sticking her tongue out to catch flies.
Hey, I can dream.
And now I have to go put on my supportive wifely face as Bing is taking me out to dinner at the vegetarian restaurant since Liv went home after school today with her friend. After dinner we will probably um...make some eggs. (Those of you who are regular readers will know what this means, the rest of you will just have to imagine us having two dinners tonight.)
But, tomorrow morning...the witch face comes out.
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.....
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Something inside me needs a garden.
The days are getting warmer. It is supposed to be 78 degrees today. Ah.
Liv and I are trying to keep our baby plants calm. They are residing in our basement for now, cuddled together under fluorescent lamps, peeping gregariously out of their containers. They are hungry to be in unlimited soil, hungry to spread out their roots, bask under the sun and gossip with each other in the balmy evenings of summer.
I'm hungry too. We don't dare plant our garden until early May. I have made the mistake before of jumping the gun and planting in April, only to see the plants shiver helplessly in a late April ice storm. I'm older now, more patient. I can wait.
But something in me just aches for this garden to be in.
It's been a long cold winter. My bones are soaking up every inch of sunlight they can get. I walk out of work in the late afternoons and take huge gulps of the sun splashed air or the dewy sweet rain drenched air. It doesn't matter. What matters is that the air doesn't slice into my lungs anymore. I'm not dipping my head into my scarf anymore, trying to escape the coldness.
I can hardly contain myself. What I want to do is skip to my car, twirling in the soft air, yank out my pinned up hair and just bust out a song like I'm a main player in OKLAHOMA!
Spring has sprung and I am celebrating.
We are going to hire someone to till the garden for us this year. I simply don't have the stamina, Liv is too young and Bing is too busy. But, once that garden is tilled, we will bring up all those little babies from the basement and tell them to strreeeetttccchhh those little rooty legs out and dig in deep.
And then my days will extend into the evenings as we gently coax those tender little vegetables and herbs out, pulling up weeds that threaten to choke them, hoping for rain and if it doesn't come, laying our snakish sprinkler out to give them a good soak in that deliciously healthy black prairie soil.
A part of me is worried. Can I do this? Some days I can barely get out of bed without Bing's strong arm to lean on. I limp around like some little old woman until my body decides to quit stalling and start moving, letting me prepare for work. I stand under the pounding beat of a hot shower, feeling the heat and moisture seep into my sick bones, making my body pliable and fluent instead of snappish and twiggish.
I think the garden will help. I don't relish all that kneeling and bending, but my soul needs it, so my body will allow this. I need to get my fingers into that dirt. It is probably the sole trait I share with my Mother. She loved to garden and taught me at an early age how to do it. I sometimes look at my beauteous garden in July and think to myself that yes, she would approve.
We don't do Miracle Gro or put any chemicals at all on our garden. We mulch with coffee grounds, banana peels, egg shells and a bit of bone meal. We sometimes spray listerine around the garden if the bugs get too bad. That is probably the only thing we use that is not natural. It works.
And on those hot summer nights, you will find Liv and I laying on the grass singing the garden to sleep. It is the least we can do for them. They give so generously, so lovingly to us.
For now, I sit at my kitchen table planning and plotting my garden. I know which vegetables like to sit next to which. Like people, they have their preferences. Herbs are just as picky. Rosemary will bully everyone if you let it.
Once the vegetables are in the ground, I will feel a sense of peace, of happiness.
Because something inside me needs a garden.
Liv and I are trying to keep our baby plants calm. They are residing in our basement for now, cuddled together under fluorescent lamps, peeping gregariously out of their containers. They are hungry to be in unlimited soil, hungry to spread out their roots, bask under the sun and gossip with each other in the balmy evenings of summer.
I'm hungry too. We don't dare plant our garden until early May. I have made the mistake before of jumping the gun and planting in April, only to see the plants shiver helplessly in a late April ice storm. I'm older now, more patient. I can wait.
But something in me just aches for this garden to be in.
It's been a long cold winter. My bones are soaking up every inch of sunlight they can get. I walk out of work in the late afternoons and take huge gulps of the sun splashed air or the dewy sweet rain drenched air. It doesn't matter. What matters is that the air doesn't slice into my lungs anymore. I'm not dipping my head into my scarf anymore, trying to escape the coldness.
I can hardly contain myself. What I want to do is skip to my car, twirling in the soft air, yank out my pinned up hair and just bust out a song like I'm a main player in OKLAHOMA!
Spring has sprung and I am celebrating.
We are going to hire someone to till the garden for us this year. I simply don't have the stamina, Liv is too young and Bing is too busy. But, once that garden is tilled, we will bring up all those little babies from the basement and tell them to strreeeetttccchhh those little rooty legs out and dig in deep.
And then my days will extend into the evenings as we gently coax those tender little vegetables and herbs out, pulling up weeds that threaten to choke them, hoping for rain and if it doesn't come, laying our snakish sprinkler out to give them a good soak in that deliciously healthy black prairie soil.
A part of me is worried. Can I do this? Some days I can barely get out of bed without Bing's strong arm to lean on. I limp around like some little old woman until my body decides to quit stalling and start moving, letting me prepare for work. I stand under the pounding beat of a hot shower, feeling the heat and moisture seep into my sick bones, making my body pliable and fluent instead of snappish and twiggish.
I think the garden will help. I don't relish all that kneeling and bending, but my soul needs it, so my body will allow this. I need to get my fingers into that dirt. It is probably the sole trait I share with my Mother. She loved to garden and taught me at an early age how to do it. I sometimes look at my beauteous garden in July and think to myself that yes, she would approve.
We don't do Miracle Gro or put any chemicals at all on our garden. We mulch with coffee grounds, banana peels, egg shells and a bit of bone meal. We sometimes spray listerine around the garden if the bugs get too bad. That is probably the only thing we use that is not natural. It works.
And on those hot summer nights, you will find Liv and I laying on the grass singing the garden to sleep. It is the least we can do for them. They give so generously, so lovingly to us.
For now, I sit at my kitchen table planning and plotting my garden. I know which vegetables like to sit next to which. Like people, they have their preferences. Herbs are just as picky. Rosemary will bully everyone if you let it.
Once the vegetables are in the ground, I will feel a sense of peace, of happiness.
Because something inside me needs a garden.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
The bouncey horse.
I took a walk this afternoon with Socks. Bing and I had seen our movie (it was great, btw) and she was home mowing the yard for the first time while the turkey breast baked in the oven.
Liv wasn't due home for another two hours. So, I took the dog for a walk.
We ended up at a park that I hadn't been to in several years. When Liv was a baby, I think we spent hours every day at that park. There is a small pond there with ducks and frogs as big as your hand. The play equipment is geared towards the younger set, with bouncey horses, swings with buckles, a teeny teeter totter and slides that aren't much taller than I am. All in bright red and blue colors set in clean, white sand. The area is circled by benches where seats are prized on hot summer days when the park gets crowded.
I wandered around with Socks. It was a cool day, so it wasn't overly crowded. I walked over the little bridge that crosses the pond and stopped to watch a duck gliding by. Alone. No baby ducks waddling around behind her. For some reason, this made me swallow twice hard.
I wandered towards the small play area and sat on a bench with Socks leash wound around my wrist. A youngish woman was there with her two toddlers. She looked tired but glad to be out of the house. I remembered that look. Remembered vividly that feeling.
And then I looked hard at one of the bouncey horses. One of my favorite photos of Liv is one that I took when she had just turned three and was on that bouncey horse. The look on her face is priceless, her jack o'lantern grin is just becoming crooked. Her blonde hair is in two stubby braids. She has on her white sweatshirt with the pink mouse on it, a favorite of hers that I was always trying to get stains out of. In the picture, she is leaning forward on the bouncey horse, smiling so merrily, caught in the camera lens. Three forever.
I suddenly felt her baby presence so strongly there with me that I actually gave a little gasp, could feel it in my stomach. I remember those days as idyllic, although some days certainly were anything but.
I would pack up the obligatory apple juice box and cheese sticks, baby carrots or cheerios. Maybe cheese crackers or grapes. Seldom cookies. Liv was one of those unusual children who actually preferred carrots to cookies. Once in awhile, I would bring a box of Barnum and Bailey's animal crackers in its own little box. Liv loved to carry her box of crackers like a little purse, swinging it on her arm.
She would find another child to play with or sometimes choose me to play with over the rest. I'd push her on the swings, trying to teach her to pump her legs so that I could rest my arms. I'd say
"Try to touch a cloud with your toes, Livvie! You can do it, that's my girl."
Sometimes we were ambitious and brought some shovels and pails for her to play with. This was rare, though. Sand toys invariably caused a fight as some child would decide to confiscate her toys while his or her mother sat on the bench talking to friends and not paying attention.
Halfway through the play time, I would pull out her apple juice and in opening it up, some would always end up on my hand, a calling card for bees, leaving me feeling sticky and messy. Sand would end up in my sneakers or my sandals as I teeter tottered with Liv. I'd hold the box while Liv would suck good and hard on that little straw, her cheeks pink with exertion, her sandy fingers holding my hand holding the box.
After a long play time, we would walk around the pond before heading home, looking for frogs, which Liv called foggies. Once or twice, a frog allowed us to get almost close to touch it and then suddenly leap gracefully into the water, causing Liv to shriek with happy terror and me to wind my arm around her waist tightly, worried that she would try to jump in after it.
The trip home was almost always long. Liv sneered at her stroller at an early age, preferring to walk. This was fine on the way to the park, but harder on the walk home. She would usually tire about halfway home and stubbornly stand in front of me, arms raised, demanding, "UP! UP!" I'd give in and end up carrying her the last few blocks home, her head lolling on my shoulder, her body hot against me, my shoulders dampening with her drool.
Sometimes when we got home, instead of going inside right away, I would let us into the back yard gate and sit with her in the adirondack chair, Liv sleeping in my lap, me sitting and staring up at the trees, smelling the garden, the heat and the sun.
Liv would wake up and look around her sleepily and then surprised. How did we get here?
Another skipped nap. Oh well. There would be others. There were others.
But, today, I felt lost without a baby in that park. Liv long ago stopped wanting to go there, the playground equipment too babyish for her now. Now, she craves a real park, one with bigger swings, tall slides and bars to glide across like a monkey, bars to hang upside down from, smiling that jack o'lantern smile at me.
Frogs are interesting, but not fascinating. Ducks are okay, but nothing to clap your hands over.
So, I sat there with Socks on that bench and watched the tired mother playing with her young sons. She regarded me with a little suspicion at first. What was I doing there with no child? She probably wondered why I was staring at the bouncey horse.
I finally looked at her and said, "They grow up so quickly!"
She smiled at me in that tired way that we mothers get when other mothers tell us to enjoy our babies that they grow up so quickly! When you are knee deep in the hoopla of baby raising, someone telling you that time passes quickly is just ridiculous.
So, I shut up. I headed with Socks back home and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed.
Bing answered.
"Is she home yet?" I asked.
She was. Bing put her on. Liv told me about how much fun she had had at Constance's house, how they had made this jewelry and then played croquet in her back yard. I listened to her voice, holding the phone tightly against my ear.
"I can see the house now," I told her and we hung up and then there she was, darting across the newly mown yard to me, her hair bouncing in a ponytail. She stopped to show off with a cartwheel for me and I clapped while Socks strained at the leash to get to her.
As soon as I could reach her, I pulled her into a hug.
"I missed you!" I told her.
Socks leaped up on her legs, begging for some love.
And we let ourselves into the back yard to sit together in the adirondack chair until Bing called us in for Sunday supper.
Liv wasn't due home for another two hours. So, I took the dog for a walk.
We ended up at a park that I hadn't been to in several years. When Liv was a baby, I think we spent hours every day at that park. There is a small pond there with ducks and frogs as big as your hand. The play equipment is geared towards the younger set, with bouncey horses, swings with buckles, a teeny teeter totter and slides that aren't much taller than I am. All in bright red and blue colors set in clean, white sand. The area is circled by benches where seats are prized on hot summer days when the park gets crowded.
I wandered around with Socks. It was a cool day, so it wasn't overly crowded. I walked over the little bridge that crosses the pond and stopped to watch a duck gliding by. Alone. No baby ducks waddling around behind her. For some reason, this made me swallow twice hard.
I wandered towards the small play area and sat on a bench with Socks leash wound around my wrist. A youngish woman was there with her two toddlers. She looked tired but glad to be out of the house. I remembered that look. Remembered vividly that feeling.
And then I looked hard at one of the bouncey horses. One of my favorite photos of Liv is one that I took when she had just turned three and was on that bouncey horse. The look on her face is priceless, her jack o'lantern grin is just becoming crooked. Her blonde hair is in two stubby braids. She has on her white sweatshirt with the pink mouse on it, a favorite of hers that I was always trying to get stains out of. In the picture, she is leaning forward on the bouncey horse, smiling so merrily, caught in the camera lens. Three forever.
I suddenly felt her baby presence so strongly there with me that I actually gave a little gasp, could feel it in my stomach. I remember those days as idyllic, although some days certainly were anything but.
I would pack up the obligatory apple juice box and cheese sticks, baby carrots or cheerios. Maybe cheese crackers or grapes. Seldom cookies. Liv was one of those unusual children who actually preferred carrots to cookies. Once in awhile, I would bring a box of Barnum and Bailey's animal crackers in its own little box. Liv loved to carry her box of crackers like a little purse, swinging it on her arm.
She would find another child to play with or sometimes choose me to play with over the rest. I'd push her on the swings, trying to teach her to pump her legs so that I could rest my arms. I'd say
"Try to touch a cloud with your toes, Livvie! You can do it, that's my girl."
Sometimes we were ambitious and brought some shovels and pails for her to play with. This was rare, though. Sand toys invariably caused a fight as some child would decide to confiscate her toys while his or her mother sat on the bench talking to friends and not paying attention.
Halfway through the play time, I would pull out her apple juice and in opening it up, some would always end up on my hand, a calling card for bees, leaving me feeling sticky and messy. Sand would end up in my sneakers or my sandals as I teeter tottered with Liv. I'd hold the box while Liv would suck good and hard on that little straw, her cheeks pink with exertion, her sandy fingers holding my hand holding the box.
After a long play time, we would walk around the pond before heading home, looking for frogs, which Liv called foggies. Once or twice, a frog allowed us to get almost close to touch it and then suddenly leap gracefully into the water, causing Liv to shriek with happy terror and me to wind my arm around her waist tightly, worried that she would try to jump in after it.
The trip home was almost always long. Liv sneered at her stroller at an early age, preferring to walk. This was fine on the way to the park, but harder on the walk home. She would usually tire about halfway home and stubbornly stand in front of me, arms raised, demanding, "UP! UP!" I'd give in and end up carrying her the last few blocks home, her head lolling on my shoulder, her body hot against me, my shoulders dampening with her drool.
Sometimes when we got home, instead of going inside right away, I would let us into the back yard gate and sit with her in the adirondack chair, Liv sleeping in my lap, me sitting and staring up at the trees, smelling the garden, the heat and the sun.
Liv would wake up and look around her sleepily and then surprised. How did we get here?
Another skipped nap. Oh well. There would be others. There were others.
But, today, I felt lost without a baby in that park. Liv long ago stopped wanting to go there, the playground equipment too babyish for her now. Now, she craves a real park, one with bigger swings, tall slides and bars to glide across like a monkey, bars to hang upside down from, smiling that jack o'lantern smile at me.
Frogs are interesting, but not fascinating. Ducks are okay, but nothing to clap your hands over.
So, I sat there with Socks on that bench and watched the tired mother playing with her young sons. She regarded me with a little suspicion at first. What was I doing there with no child? She probably wondered why I was staring at the bouncey horse.
I finally looked at her and said, "They grow up so quickly!"
She smiled at me in that tired way that we mothers get when other mothers tell us to enjoy our babies that they grow up so quickly! When you are knee deep in the hoopla of baby raising, someone telling you that time passes quickly is just ridiculous.
So, I shut up. I headed with Socks back home and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed.
Bing answered.
"Is she home yet?" I asked.
She was. Bing put her on. Liv told me about how much fun she had had at Constance's house, how they had made this jewelry and then played croquet in her back yard. I listened to her voice, holding the phone tightly against my ear.
"I can see the house now," I told her and we hung up and then there she was, darting across the newly mown yard to me, her hair bouncing in a ponytail. She stopped to show off with a cartwheel for me and I clapped while Socks strained at the leash to get to her.
As soon as I could reach her, I pulled her into a hug.
"I missed you!" I told her.
Socks leaped up on her legs, begging for some love.
And we let ourselves into the back yard to sit together in the adirondack chair until Bing called us in for Sunday supper.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
A recommendation and a meme....all for you lucky bastards and bastardettes.
First...if you get the chance, go buy the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine.
The Kings of Leon are on the cover and a decent write up on them...but the real draw this month is a piece by Matt Taibbi called The Class Clowns.
Fucking fantastic. Brilliant piece of work. Read it. And take notes. I did.
And now, for your reading pleasure and because I am just plain lazy....
A Meme. Swiped from plufrompdx.
1) My ex is long gone but not completely forgotten. I still have nightmares about her from time to time.
2) Maybe I should get the floors in the house sanded and polished. When the floors are clean, I just feel better about life. It is the long buried June Cleaver gene in me that pops up from time to time, usually in the Spring time.
3) I love going to the movies on a Sunday afternoon. Since Liv has a playdate, Bing and I are running off to see this.
4) People would say that I am aloof. I get it ALL the time. Funny, I don't feel aloof but I must put that vibe out there or something.
5) I don't understand why anyone would want to be a Republican.
6) When I wake up in the morning I groan. My alarm is set to the hispanic radio station and set LOUD. And the alarm clock is across the room so that I physically have to get out of the bed to shut it off. Otherwise, I would slam down on the snooze button until noon. Nothing like Mexican polkas to make you want to get out of a bed FAST and shut it the fuck UP.
7) I lost my innocence about the world long ago.
8) Life is full of disappointment. It is also full of opportunity. You just have to realize that we all get a turn, but some of us get more than others and it doesn't mean a thing. It doesn't mean that God likes them better or whatever. You have to let that go and concentrate on grabbing the brass ring when it is your turn.
9) My past is full of embarrassing moments, great achievements, really dumb decisions, boredom, excitement and some purely joyful moments.
10) I get annoyed by people who insist on having word verification on their blogs. Seriously folks, we HATE it. It is a pain in the ass and I can't tell you how many blogs I roll my eyes at when I see that damn word verification thingy at the end of the comment box. Please? LOSE IT.
11) Parties are torturous. I detest them. I drag my feet. I usually want to go home within ten minutes of arriving. Unfortunately, I live with Bing, the party girl. She LOVES a party. The only thing she loves more than going to a party is giving a party. Ugh.
12) I wish life was not so twisty and turny. Especially this past year. I feel like I have been on an emotional roller coaster and I am so hungry for...for...the humdrum days that I used to take for granted.
13) Dogs are not your children. I used to mock people who treated their pets like their children or part of their family. And then we got Socks. That dog is my confidante, my slavish audience and my comforter. I have to sometimes stop myself from talking to him in front of people. Because I am truly nauseating sometimes.
14) Cats are mind readers. And sort of sly. Plus, they always want to sit in my lap and refuse to understand that I don't really want them sitting there looking up at me, knowing all my secrets. Because they do. Know my secrets. And yours too. Cats could rule the world if they wished.
15) Tomorrow is a day without being awakened by an alarm clock. Hurrah!
16) I have a low tolerance for know it alls. And blog stalkers. I have google analytics, fools. I CAN SEE YOU.
17) If I had a million dollars I would pay off the house, buy us new cars and save the rest for Liv's college tuition.
18) I'm totally terrified of dying a bag lady. I have no reason to fear this, but I still am afraid of it. I also have a fear of dying and having no one really miss me. It is all pretty silly, but a fear is a fear is a fear. Oh, and snakes. I hate snakes. And mice.
!9) My partner is one of the calmest, most easy going people you would ever meet. She has LOW blood pressure.
20) My life is not as fun as I wish it could be, but I'm working on it. I'm working on it.
So..have a good Sunday, y'all. After the movie, we are coming home and having turkey breast, mashers and gravy and corn on the cob. And buttermilk biscuits. Pickles from our garden. Homemade strawberry jam. Chocolate milk for Liv. Wine for me. Green tea for Bing. Asian pears for dessert, sliced and sprinkled with honey. Want to join us?
The Kings of Leon are on the cover and a decent write up on them...but the real draw this month is a piece by Matt Taibbi called The Class Clowns.
Fucking fantastic. Brilliant piece of work. Read it. And take notes. I did.
And now, for your reading pleasure and because I am just plain lazy....
A Meme. Swiped from plufrompdx.
1) My ex is long gone but not completely forgotten. I still have nightmares about her from time to time.
2) Maybe I should get the floors in the house sanded and polished. When the floors are clean, I just feel better about life. It is the long buried June Cleaver gene in me that pops up from time to time, usually in the Spring time.
3) I love going to the movies on a Sunday afternoon. Since Liv has a playdate, Bing and I are running off to see this.
4) People would say that I am aloof. I get it ALL the time. Funny, I don't feel aloof but I must put that vibe out there or something.
5) I don't understand why anyone would want to be a Republican.
6) When I wake up in the morning I groan. My alarm is set to the hispanic radio station and set LOUD. And the alarm clock is across the room so that I physically have to get out of the bed to shut it off. Otherwise, I would slam down on the snooze button until noon. Nothing like Mexican polkas to make you want to get out of a bed FAST and shut it the fuck UP.
7) I lost my innocence about the world long ago.
8) Life is full of disappointment. It is also full of opportunity. You just have to realize that we all get a turn, but some of us get more than others and it doesn't mean a thing. It doesn't mean that God likes them better or whatever. You have to let that go and concentrate on grabbing the brass ring when it is your turn.
9) My past is full of embarrassing moments, great achievements, really dumb decisions, boredom, excitement and some purely joyful moments.
10) I get annoyed by people who insist on having word verification on their blogs. Seriously folks, we HATE it. It is a pain in the ass and I can't tell you how many blogs I roll my eyes at when I see that damn word verification thingy at the end of the comment box. Please? LOSE IT.
11) Parties are torturous. I detest them. I drag my feet. I usually want to go home within ten minutes of arriving. Unfortunately, I live with Bing, the party girl. She LOVES a party. The only thing she loves more than going to a party is giving a party. Ugh.
12) I wish life was not so twisty and turny. Especially this past year. I feel like I have been on an emotional roller coaster and I am so hungry for...for...the humdrum days that I used to take for granted.
13) Dogs are not your children. I used to mock people who treated their pets like their children or part of their family. And then we got Socks. That dog is my confidante, my slavish audience and my comforter. I have to sometimes stop myself from talking to him in front of people. Because I am truly nauseating sometimes.
14) Cats are mind readers. And sort of sly. Plus, they always want to sit in my lap and refuse to understand that I don't really want them sitting there looking up at me, knowing all my secrets. Because they do. Know my secrets. And yours too. Cats could rule the world if they wished.
15) Tomorrow is a day without being awakened by an alarm clock. Hurrah!
16) I have a low tolerance for know it alls. And blog stalkers. I have google analytics, fools. I CAN SEE YOU.
17) If I had a million dollars I would pay off the house, buy us new cars and save the rest for Liv's college tuition.
18) I'm totally terrified of dying a bag lady. I have no reason to fear this, but I still am afraid of it. I also have a fear of dying and having no one really miss me. It is all pretty silly, but a fear is a fear is a fear. Oh, and snakes. I hate snakes. And mice.
!9) My partner is one of the calmest, most easy going people you would ever meet. She has LOW blood pressure.
20) My life is not as fun as I wish it could be, but I'm working on it. I'm working on it.
So..have a good Sunday, y'all. After the movie, we are coming home and having turkey breast, mashers and gravy and corn on the cob. And buttermilk biscuits. Pickles from our garden. Homemade strawberry jam. Chocolate milk for Liv. Wine for me. Green tea for Bing. Asian pears for dessert, sliced and sprinkled with honey. Want to join us?
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Okay...okay...
Wow. I had NO idea what a nerve I would touch here. It seems like everyone either has been in this situation or knows someone who has or knows someone like the ferret. So...thank you for your comments. And thank you, too, for all the e-mails (and especially the one from you, Utah, offering to come knock her teeth out.)
I talked to Bing. Not that I felt it was absolutely necessary, but because Harriet talked me into it. I called Harriet, she and I met for coffee and we discussed it. First, she made me laugh.
"Oh, good fucking hell...let's go....PIE...her!"
This is funny only to us, I suppose. About five years ago, Harriet and I exchanged "wish" lists. Things that we want to do before we die. We vowed to help each other achieve the wishes. One of the wishes on her list was: I want to throw a pie in someone's face who has really pissed me off.
So...hence the pie line.
But, basically, she said that I needed to talk to Bing, that even if I claimed that this didn't bother me, it must if I was talking to her about it.
I thought about it and agreed.
So, I just asked Bing about it last night after Liv was in bed. I told her that I had been searching out the purse in her closet and found the shoebox of notes and cards and asked her what was up with that.
She looked at me blankly.
"Well," she said. "Yeah, I keep a box of cards and photos from Margaret. It isn't as if I were hiding them, Maria. They are right next to my work out shoes, in plain sight."
I asked her why she was so sentimental about them.
She was slow in answering and then she said, "You know, you keep a box of cards and letters from Harriet, Tinton, Nirand, Utah, Vince, and Thuan..."
She's right. I do. And as I thought about it, I realized that not only do I keep a memory box, Harriet and I also have a friends anniversary that we celebrate. We go out for dinner and exchange gifts.
I told Bing that the difference was that I shared all the notes in there with her, I didn't just squirrel them away.
She gave me a long look.
"ALL of them?" she asked.
Hmm. Maybe not all of them. Most of them. A few of them just felt too personal to share, but JAYSUS...I wasn't hiding them or anything...
I told her this. She nodded.
"Neither am I...," she said.
Then she told me that she knew that I strongly disliked Margaret and that she figured that I would just make fun of the bad spelling and the notes in general.
"¥ou know how you are," she said. "You can be pretty sarcastic..."
She's right. I can be.
"And...well...yeah, I like the notes and the photos. I like Margaret. Honestly, I have no idea why you hate her so much. And she is constantly teasing me about how whipped I am over you, says that I should wear a tee shirt saying I AM IN LOVE WITH A GODDESS. I mean, think about it, you have all these people who are nuts about you, send you cards and letters, call you just to talk, and well...I just have Margaret. I have lots of acquaintances, I don't have friends who worship me like you do."
I thought about this too. Bing has only been in hearing distance once when the ferret has gone into her snotty ass comment mode with me. It was when she was talking about how she could NEVER give up her career to have stayed home to raise her children for fear of losing her brain power. Bing sort of snorted and said something like that she pitied the fool who took on me in the brains department and that she is always telling me to go on Jeopardy! because we could really, really use the money and I know the answer to every damn question Alex asks anyway....
And then Bing went on.
"You know, Margaret acts differently when you are around, I think she feels very insecure around you. She has told me, too, that you make her feel stupid. I wish you could see how funny and good natured she can be but I think she just gets jittery around you..."
Well, fuck that. The simple truth is that I fight back. When she goes into her haughty act, I say something, but I keep it very low key. For example, when she said that she was raised by Jesuits, I just asked her if that meant she went to Catholic school. When she said yes, I said, "Oh, well, I guess I was um...raised by Jesuits too, then..."
Except, okay, I said it in this voice that let her know that I thought she was a pretentious ass.
And once, when she was complaining about her supervisor, she said, "It's as if he thinks I'm not as smart as a picnic basket, for godsakes."
And well...I said (in a completely deadpan voice), "Oh, Margaret, I think you are probably just as smart as a picnic basket, maybe even more so."
So, yeah...I give as good as I get. The difference being that I don't use my...um...razor sharp rapier wit against people that I....LIKE.
I told Bing that the bottom line was that I felt uncomfortable with the box and it bothered me to feel that way.
"So, what do you want to do?" she asked. "Should we both burn our shoe boxes? Because if I have to burn mine, I think you should burn yours...."
Ouch.
She softened then.
Hugged me. Did that nuzzling thing with her nose against my cheek that is very, very nice.
"God, I can't believe you are actually JEALOUS...I'm sorry, but I kind of....LIKE this. You are never jealous," she commented.
I had to smile.
"I'm not THAT jealous," I retorted. "Maybe just a little bit. Maybe just like...a wee bit. Like maybe an inch. No. Maybe a quarter inch."
And then the phone rang and it was a friend who had locked herself out of her house and needed one of us to run her over the spare key. So, we didn't get to talk further about it until we were in bed.
I told her to forget about the box. That it was no big deal. That I couldn't help it, I thought Margaret was a total bitch but, well...if Bing liked her THAT much, I wasn't going to stand in the way or make a federal case out of this.
And Bing said that yes, she did like Margaret, she was sorry if that bothered me, that if it was going to come between us, she'd end the friendship, but she really, really didn't want to do that and besides, it would make her feel like I was some sort of friend dictator.
We agreed that it was my right to dislike Margaret and her right to like her.
I asked Bing if she gave Margaret a lot of cards.
She thought about this.
"I think I gave her a birthday card," she said. "And when she sprained her ankle, I bought her a foot wrap that helped me when I sprained mine. And I send her funny e-mails sometimes. Am I supposed to report to you now when I do this kind of shit?"
I told her no, of course not. I don't tell her about every card I send to Harriet or anyone else.
So, we talked it out.
It isn't completely resolved but about as resolved as this is going get, I'm afraid.
I can live with it. I can live with Margaret.
Well, not literally. But, I admit that I enjoy knowing that I rattle her a bit. I enjoy that QUITE a lot.
And knowing me, I will use it to my advantage because I am not a particularly kind person when it comes to people like the ferret.
But, Bing and me? We are fine.
But, you know...I am sort of in the mood for some....
PIE.
And I know just the person to call.....
I talked to Bing. Not that I felt it was absolutely necessary, but because Harriet talked me into it. I called Harriet, she and I met for coffee and we discussed it. First, she made me laugh.
"Oh, good fucking hell...let's go....PIE...her!"
This is funny only to us, I suppose. About five years ago, Harriet and I exchanged "wish" lists. Things that we want to do before we die. We vowed to help each other achieve the wishes. One of the wishes on her list was: I want to throw a pie in someone's face who has really pissed me off.
So...hence the pie line.
But, basically, she said that I needed to talk to Bing, that even if I claimed that this didn't bother me, it must if I was talking to her about it.
I thought about it and agreed.
So, I just asked Bing about it last night after Liv was in bed. I told her that I had been searching out the purse in her closet and found the shoebox of notes and cards and asked her what was up with that.
She looked at me blankly.
"Well," she said. "Yeah, I keep a box of cards and photos from Margaret. It isn't as if I were hiding them, Maria. They are right next to my work out shoes, in plain sight."
I asked her why she was so sentimental about them.
She was slow in answering and then she said, "You know, you keep a box of cards and letters from Harriet, Tinton, Nirand, Utah, Vince, and Thuan..."
She's right. I do. And as I thought about it, I realized that not only do I keep a memory box, Harriet and I also have a friends anniversary that we celebrate. We go out for dinner and exchange gifts.
I told Bing that the difference was that I shared all the notes in there with her, I didn't just squirrel them away.
She gave me a long look.
"ALL of them?" she asked.
Hmm. Maybe not all of them. Most of them. A few of them just felt too personal to share, but JAYSUS...I wasn't hiding them or anything...
I told her this. She nodded.
"Neither am I...," she said.
Then she told me that she knew that I strongly disliked Margaret and that she figured that I would just make fun of the bad spelling and the notes in general.
"¥ou know how you are," she said. "You can be pretty sarcastic..."
She's right. I can be.
"And...well...yeah, I like the notes and the photos. I like Margaret. Honestly, I have no idea why you hate her so much. And she is constantly teasing me about how whipped I am over you, says that I should wear a tee shirt saying I AM IN LOVE WITH A GODDESS. I mean, think about it, you have all these people who are nuts about you, send you cards and letters, call you just to talk, and well...I just have Margaret. I have lots of acquaintances, I don't have friends who worship me like you do."
I thought about this too. Bing has only been in hearing distance once when the ferret has gone into her snotty ass comment mode with me. It was when she was talking about how she could NEVER give up her career to have stayed home to raise her children for fear of losing her brain power. Bing sort of snorted and said something like that she pitied the fool who took on me in the brains department and that she is always telling me to go on Jeopardy! because we could really, really use the money and I know the answer to every damn question Alex asks anyway....
And then Bing went on.
"You know, Margaret acts differently when you are around, I think she feels very insecure around you. She has told me, too, that you make her feel stupid. I wish you could see how funny and good natured she can be but I think she just gets jittery around you..."
Well, fuck that. The simple truth is that I fight back. When she goes into her haughty act, I say something, but I keep it very low key. For example, when she said that she was raised by Jesuits, I just asked her if that meant she went to Catholic school. When she said yes, I said, "Oh, well, I guess I was um...raised by Jesuits too, then..."
Except, okay, I said it in this voice that let her know that I thought she was a pretentious ass.
And once, when she was complaining about her supervisor, she said, "It's as if he thinks I'm not as smart as a picnic basket, for godsakes."
And well...I said (in a completely deadpan voice), "Oh, Margaret, I think you are probably just as smart as a picnic basket, maybe even more so."
So, yeah...I give as good as I get. The difference being that I don't use my...um...razor sharp rapier wit against people that I....LIKE.
I told Bing that the bottom line was that I felt uncomfortable with the box and it bothered me to feel that way.
"So, what do you want to do?" she asked. "Should we both burn our shoe boxes? Because if I have to burn mine, I think you should burn yours...."
Ouch.
She softened then.
Hugged me. Did that nuzzling thing with her nose against my cheek that is very, very nice.
"God, I can't believe you are actually JEALOUS...I'm sorry, but I kind of....LIKE this. You are never jealous," she commented.
I had to smile.
"I'm not THAT jealous," I retorted. "Maybe just a little bit. Maybe just like...a wee bit. Like maybe an inch. No. Maybe a quarter inch."
And then the phone rang and it was a friend who had locked herself out of her house and needed one of us to run her over the spare key. So, we didn't get to talk further about it until we were in bed.
I told her to forget about the box. That it was no big deal. That I couldn't help it, I thought Margaret was a total bitch but, well...if Bing liked her THAT much, I wasn't going to stand in the way or make a federal case out of this.
And Bing said that yes, she did like Margaret, she was sorry if that bothered me, that if it was going to come between us, she'd end the friendship, but she really, really didn't want to do that and besides, it would make her feel like I was some sort of friend dictator.
We agreed that it was my right to dislike Margaret and her right to like her.
I asked Bing if she gave Margaret a lot of cards.
She thought about this.
"I think I gave her a birthday card," she said. "And when she sprained her ankle, I bought her a foot wrap that helped me when I sprained mine. And I send her funny e-mails sometimes. Am I supposed to report to you now when I do this kind of shit?"
I told her no, of course not. I don't tell her about every card I send to Harriet or anyone else.
So, we talked it out.
It isn't completely resolved but about as resolved as this is going get, I'm afraid.
I can live with it. I can live with Margaret.
Well, not literally. But, I admit that I enjoy knowing that I rattle her a bit. I enjoy that QUITE a lot.
And knowing me, I will use it to my advantage because I am not a particularly kind person when it comes to people like the ferret.
But, Bing and me? We are fine.
But, you know...I am sort of in the mood for some....
PIE.
And I know just the person to call.....
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Everyone has a secret life.
Everyone.
We all have secrets. We all have places, people, things in our lives that are just ours, that we don't share.
I try to keep that in mind even though, being married, everyone tells you that the best marriages have no secrets.
We all have secrets.
I found one of Bing's yesterday. I was in her closet looking for a small purse that she told me was in there that I planned to load up with makeup for my niece who is graduating from high school this year. I know that I loved makeup in high school and I want her to have the good stuff, so I have been buying small sizes of various makeup, skin lotion, perfume, etc. for a few months. I planned to load up a purse and give them to her, along with all of David Sedaris' books.
And then I found the shoe box.
I pulled the lid off, curious.
It was full of cards. And photos. Not cards from me. And I wasn't in the photos.
Cards from a woman that she works with. Photos of Bing and the woman she works with, nothing serious, nothing romantic; the photos were mostly of biking/racing awards that they had won together as a team. Nothing that set off alarm bells in me. But, still.
I didn't like it one bit. The cards were basically funny ones, from The Far Side and ones with photos on the front and funny sayings on the inside. All of them had little notes inside that said things like, "I just wanted to say that you are the best biker buddy in the world" and "I love coming to work every day because you make it so fun."
I hate this woman. DETEST her. Always have. Bing knows this and is careful never to schedule bike rides or whatever when I am around.
Her name is Margaret. I call her the ferret. Because she looks like one and sort of acts like one. She doesn't really walk so much as she scurries.
Margaret is married, supposedly straight, in her fifties and not remotely good looking. She has a Jimmy Durante nose in a small, ferrety face. She is smaller than I am and I am not a big person.
Margaret has airs. The few times I have seen her, she has said things like, "Well, what can I say? I was raised by Jesuits...."
This means that she went to Catholic school.
She is a vegetarian, like Bing and once when we happened to see her and her husband at a restaurant, she looked at my plate of steak and said in a repulsed voice, "Wow...that sure is a lot of meat."
She said it like she was saying that sure was a lot of shit.
Like I said, I hate her. She is athletic and she and Bing often work out together. When the weather is nice, they sometimes go biking together. Since I am not athletic and don't bike and neither does her husband (she refers to him as fat boy...I have told Bing that if Bing has some derogatory sneaky name for me, she can just pack her bags...she swears she doesn't), they say that they are glad that they have someone to work out with, that working out alone can be difficult, having someone to "spot" you is wonderful.
Bing has said many, many times that she thinks the world of Margaret. That she is funny and smart.
I have never gotten this. I don't find Margaret funny or smart at all. I find her pretentious and snotty. She is also a terrible speller (as I discovered from the cards I read where she wrote "I am so pleased to have discovered you, my deer friend." This, of course, made me want to make a Bambi joke SO badly....)
Margaret also has a crush on Bing, but she nor Bing will admit it. I am fairly certain that Bing does not have a crush on Margaret, but I guess one can never be sure of anything.
Once, when Liv and I ended up in a diner with Bing, Margaret and two other friends from her workplace, Margaret did something that made me go hot and mad inside.
She was sitting next to Bing and we were all eating breakfast. And she casually leaned over and took a forkful of Bing's scrambled eggs.
And then looked sweetly over at me and smiled as if to say that hey, we are on close terms, Bing and I. I can do this shit and it is okay...
I wanted to slap her.
And typically, later, when I mentioned it to Bing, she didn't even remember it happening.
"So, she took a bite of my eggs? What the hell is the big deal?"
Well, it is just. not. done.
You don't do that kind of shit unless you are the partner, the wife. When I told this to Bing, she looked incredulous. "Jaysus...it's just EGGS, Maria. It wasn't as if she leaned over and kissed me or something..."
And that isn't all. When I have to deal with her (this often happens at school parties, etc. in Bing's workplace), she always seems to talk a little louder about Bing when I am around, says things like, "We're like salt and pepper, frick and frack, yin and yang. And no one, NO ONE can make me giggle like Aggie can."
She calls Bing Aggie. Bing calls her Rosie. I think she told me how this came about once but I can't recall why.
Margaret often says sweetly caged snotty things to me. Things that I can't really challenge her about, but just the same, they are catty. Like...
"I heard you just dropped out of the workplace to raise your daughter. That is so...so...brave. I could NEVER give up my career like that. I have to be challenged, you know? I don't think I could have stayed home with my children and let my brain turn to mush and lose all the work I had put into my career. I just...well..I would have gone stark raving mad without steady brain food!"
This is her way of letting me know that I went stupid for 5 years while I stayed home to raise Liv.
And:
"I don't get people who don't exercise. Why let your body go all soft and moldy? I like to keep myself firm and pliant. I may be an older woman, but I want my body to say I am 30."
So, she knows I don't exercise. Is she insinuating that I am soft and moldy? I think so.
And:
"My kids went to public school so that they could experience diversity. I would never have put them in some private school and turned them into self involved brats..."
She said this just minutes after I had told the group that Liv is in a Montessori school.
The one time she saw Liv, she said, "You really look nothing like your Mother, do you?"
Okay...probably didn't mean anything...but it bugged me.
She used to call Bing at all hours of the day and she always took the call. After I complained that I was sick to death of Margaret calling all the time and Bing could see that I was annoyed, the calls stopped.
And the next time I saw Margaret, she said something (never to my face, always in a group setting) about how she doesn't "get" women who are so threatened by their spouse's friends that they can't deal with simple calls from them. I mean, wasn't that just broadcasting how petty and jealous they were? So, I am guessing that Bing told her that it bugged me that she called so much and to stop.
No love lost between Margaret and me.
Bing seldom talks about her anymore and I never ask about her.
But, now...seeing these cards and photos, I was taken aback. Should I be concerned? I wasn't sure. Why was Bing keeping them? She isn't much of a saver. She does have every card I ever gave her, every picture Liv has ever drawn for her, but other than that, she has never been much of a pack rat.
I thought about this. Maybe she was keeping them because Margaret was herdeer dear friend and meant a lot to her and she didn't feel comfortable sharing them with me, thought I would make some snotty comment about them. And, okay...I admit it, I would have.
I thought about all the secrets in my life. The shared dance with Nirand in my kitchen. The near kiss. All the other small flirtations. I've never acted on any of them and I am pretty sure that Bing hasn't acted on hers.
I do know a few things.
I know that Margaret has a crush on Bing. I just know. I sense it. I don't think anything will be done about it, but never say never.
So, I basically have a few choices.
1) I can confront Bing about the box, tell her that I found it and ask her point blank why she is saving all this shit. It will put her on the defensive and this might have the boomerang effect here. By acting all self righteous and pissy, I will make Bing feel more and more as if she must hide. Plus, when you are denied someone or something, well....the simple truth is that they become more attractive then they would ever be if you weren't denied them. Kind of like me and Krispy Kremes. I am diabetic. I rarely eat anything THAT sugary. So, I deny myself them. But, sometimes, the craving gets to me and I break down and get one.
And you know....they NEVER are as good as I imagine they will be. It is the craving that makes them so memorable, not the reality.
2) I can sit down and ask for a talk about Margaret with Bing. The thing is, we have done this before. And the simple truth is that Bing and I just do not see eye to eye on this person. Bing sees her as this funny, smart, caring woman and I see her as this conniving ferret who likes making me feel less than, who works way too hard to insult me in as nice a way as she can. And Bing clearly does not see this. I don't get it and yes, it pisses me off that Margaret gets away with it. But, I can't make Bing dislike her. And asking her not to see Margaret anymore will take away a part of her life that Bing enjoys a lot. She loves her workouts, and yes, she loves working out with Margaret.
3) I can trust my wife.
I think the third option may be the best one. I look at Bing and know that she loves me, she loves Liv and she loves our life together. I feel this strongly in my heart. I know this in my soul. Our life together is working fine. We have a few fights, yes, a few areas in our life together that are not perfect, but, for the most part, we are happy.
My outspokenness about Margaret has put Bing in the position where she feels she must keep the part of her life containing Margaret separate from us. And maybe that is for the best. Because I simply do not think I can trust myself to keep quiet about how much I dislike her.
I'm never going to suggest that we invite Margaret and her husband over for dinner, try to be-friend her. For one, I have met her husband and he is a pretentious asshat. And Margaret fits with him perfectly, because she is a pretentious ferret.
What I can do is this.
I can carefully put the lid on the shoe box and put it back in Bing's closet.
And I can resolve to trust my wife. If I let myself, I could drive myself crazy with this. I could turn into some sort of snoop, going through Bing's credit card bills looking for flower purchases, etc. I will not do this. Will not resort to this kind of foolishness. Plus, Bing and Margaret often travel together. They both work at the same school, in the same department and both go to the same school seminars during the school year. In fact, they are both leaving for North Carolina in two weeks to spend a week there at a conference.
I fucking refuse to sit home biting my nails with worry.
I can't change the fact that this woman is in Bing's life and that she likes her. I can't change the fact that Bing simply does not see what I do.
What I can control is me. Now, I am no doormat. If, for a second, I saw any red flags, any signs of an extramarital affair, I would not be stepping back.
The truth is that I don't see anything to worry about really. I am concerned about Margaret's crush, but really...I can't do much about that either. Either I trust my wife, or I do not.
So, the box is back in the closet and I have not said a word. For now.
What do you think? I would really like to know. What is your opinion? What would you do in my shoes? Just curious.
We all have secrets. We all have places, people, things in our lives that are just ours, that we don't share.
I try to keep that in mind even though, being married, everyone tells you that the best marriages have no secrets.
We all have secrets.
I found one of Bing's yesterday. I was in her closet looking for a small purse that she told me was in there that I planned to load up with makeup for my niece who is graduating from high school this year. I know that I loved makeup in high school and I want her to have the good stuff, so I have been buying small sizes of various makeup, skin lotion, perfume, etc. for a few months. I planned to load up a purse and give them to her, along with all of David Sedaris' books.
And then I found the shoe box.
I pulled the lid off, curious.
It was full of cards. And photos. Not cards from me. And I wasn't in the photos.
Cards from a woman that she works with. Photos of Bing and the woman she works with, nothing serious, nothing romantic; the photos were mostly of biking/racing awards that they had won together as a team. Nothing that set off alarm bells in me. But, still.
I didn't like it one bit. The cards were basically funny ones, from The Far Side and ones with photos on the front and funny sayings on the inside. All of them had little notes inside that said things like, "I just wanted to say that you are the best biker buddy in the world" and "I love coming to work every day because you make it so fun."
I hate this woman. DETEST her. Always have. Bing knows this and is careful never to schedule bike rides or whatever when I am around.
Her name is Margaret. I call her the ferret. Because she looks like one and sort of acts like one. She doesn't really walk so much as she scurries.
Margaret is married, supposedly straight, in her fifties and not remotely good looking. She has a Jimmy Durante nose in a small, ferrety face. She is smaller than I am and I am not a big person.
Margaret has airs. The few times I have seen her, she has said things like, "Well, what can I say? I was raised by Jesuits...."
This means that she went to Catholic school.
She is a vegetarian, like Bing and once when we happened to see her and her husband at a restaurant, she looked at my plate of steak and said in a repulsed voice, "Wow...that sure is a lot of meat."
She said it like she was saying that sure was a lot of shit.
Like I said, I hate her. She is athletic and she and Bing often work out together. When the weather is nice, they sometimes go biking together. Since I am not athletic and don't bike and neither does her husband (she refers to him as fat boy...I have told Bing that if Bing has some derogatory sneaky name for me, she can just pack her bags...she swears she doesn't), they say that they are glad that they have someone to work out with, that working out alone can be difficult, having someone to "spot" you is wonderful.
Bing has said many, many times that she thinks the world of Margaret. That she is funny and smart.
I have never gotten this. I don't find Margaret funny or smart at all. I find her pretentious and snotty. She is also a terrible speller (as I discovered from the cards I read where she wrote "I am so pleased to have discovered you, my deer friend." This, of course, made me want to make a Bambi joke SO badly....)
Margaret also has a crush on Bing, but she nor Bing will admit it. I am fairly certain that Bing does not have a crush on Margaret, but I guess one can never be sure of anything.
Once, when Liv and I ended up in a diner with Bing, Margaret and two other friends from her workplace, Margaret did something that made me go hot and mad inside.
She was sitting next to Bing and we were all eating breakfast. And she casually leaned over and took a forkful of Bing's scrambled eggs.
And then looked sweetly over at me and smiled as if to say that hey, we are on close terms, Bing and I. I can do this shit and it is okay...
I wanted to slap her.
And typically, later, when I mentioned it to Bing, she didn't even remember it happening.
"So, she took a bite of my eggs? What the hell is the big deal?"
Well, it is just. not. done.
You don't do that kind of shit unless you are the partner, the wife. When I told this to Bing, she looked incredulous. "Jaysus...it's just EGGS, Maria. It wasn't as if she leaned over and kissed me or something..."
And that isn't all. When I have to deal with her (this often happens at school parties, etc. in Bing's workplace), she always seems to talk a little louder about Bing when I am around, says things like, "We're like salt and pepper, frick and frack, yin and yang. And no one, NO ONE can make me giggle like Aggie can."
She calls Bing Aggie. Bing calls her Rosie. I think she told me how this came about once but I can't recall why.
Margaret often says sweetly caged snotty things to me. Things that I can't really challenge her about, but just the same, they are catty. Like...
"I heard you just dropped out of the workplace to raise your daughter. That is so...so...brave. I could NEVER give up my career like that. I have to be challenged, you know? I don't think I could have stayed home with my children and let my brain turn to mush and lose all the work I had put into my career. I just...well..I would have gone stark raving mad without steady brain food!"
This is her way of letting me know that I went stupid for 5 years while I stayed home to raise Liv.
And:
"I don't get people who don't exercise. Why let your body go all soft and moldy? I like to keep myself firm and pliant. I may be an older woman, but I want my body to say I am 30."
So, she knows I don't exercise. Is she insinuating that I am soft and moldy? I think so.
And:
"My kids went to public school so that they could experience diversity. I would never have put them in some private school and turned them into self involved brats..."
She said this just minutes after I had told the group that Liv is in a Montessori school.
The one time she saw Liv, she said, "You really look nothing like your Mother, do you?"
Okay...probably didn't mean anything...but it bugged me.
She used to call Bing at all hours of the day and she always took the call. After I complained that I was sick to death of Margaret calling all the time and Bing could see that I was annoyed, the calls stopped.
And the next time I saw Margaret, she said something (never to my face, always in a group setting) about how she doesn't "get" women who are so threatened by their spouse's friends that they can't deal with simple calls from them. I mean, wasn't that just broadcasting how petty and jealous they were? So, I am guessing that Bing told her that it bugged me that she called so much and to stop.
No love lost between Margaret and me.
Bing seldom talks about her anymore and I never ask about her.
But, now...seeing these cards and photos, I was taken aback. Should I be concerned? I wasn't sure. Why was Bing keeping them? She isn't much of a saver. She does have every card I ever gave her, every picture Liv has ever drawn for her, but other than that, she has never been much of a pack rat.
I thought about this. Maybe she was keeping them because Margaret was her
I thought about all the secrets in my life. The shared dance with Nirand in my kitchen. The near kiss. All the other small flirtations. I've never acted on any of them and I am pretty sure that Bing hasn't acted on hers.
I do know a few things.
I know that Margaret has a crush on Bing. I just know. I sense it. I don't think anything will be done about it, but never say never.
So, I basically have a few choices.
1) I can confront Bing about the box, tell her that I found it and ask her point blank why she is saving all this shit. It will put her on the defensive and this might have the boomerang effect here. By acting all self righteous and pissy, I will make Bing feel more and more as if she must hide. Plus, when you are denied someone or something, well....the simple truth is that they become more attractive then they would ever be if you weren't denied them. Kind of like me and Krispy Kremes. I am diabetic. I rarely eat anything THAT sugary. So, I deny myself them. But, sometimes, the craving gets to me and I break down and get one.
And you know....they NEVER are as good as I imagine they will be. It is the craving that makes them so memorable, not the reality.
2) I can sit down and ask for a talk about Margaret with Bing. The thing is, we have done this before. And the simple truth is that Bing and I just do not see eye to eye on this person. Bing sees her as this funny, smart, caring woman and I see her as this conniving ferret who likes making me feel less than, who works way too hard to insult me in as nice a way as she can. And Bing clearly does not see this. I don't get it and yes, it pisses me off that Margaret gets away with it. But, I can't make Bing dislike her. And asking her not to see Margaret anymore will take away a part of her life that Bing enjoys a lot. She loves her workouts, and yes, she loves working out with Margaret.
3) I can trust my wife.
I think the third option may be the best one. I look at Bing and know that she loves me, she loves Liv and she loves our life together. I feel this strongly in my heart. I know this in my soul. Our life together is working fine. We have a few fights, yes, a few areas in our life together that are not perfect, but, for the most part, we are happy.
My outspokenness about Margaret has put Bing in the position where she feels she must keep the part of her life containing Margaret separate from us. And maybe that is for the best. Because I simply do not think I can trust myself to keep quiet about how much I dislike her.
I'm never going to suggest that we invite Margaret and her husband over for dinner, try to be-friend her. For one, I have met her husband and he is a pretentious asshat. And Margaret fits with him perfectly, because she is a pretentious ferret.
What I can do is this.
I can carefully put the lid on the shoe box and put it back in Bing's closet.
And I can resolve to trust my wife. If I let myself, I could drive myself crazy with this. I could turn into some sort of snoop, going through Bing's credit card bills looking for flower purchases, etc. I will not do this. Will not resort to this kind of foolishness. Plus, Bing and Margaret often travel together. They both work at the same school, in the same department and both go to the same school seminars during the school year. In fact, they are both leaving for North Carolina in two weeks to spend a week there at a conference.
I fucking refuse to sit home biting my nails with worry.
I can't change the fact that this woman is in Bing's life and that she likes her. I can't change the fact that Bing simply does not see what I do.
What I can control is me. Now, I am no doormat. If, for a second, I saw any red flags, any signs of an extramarital affair, I would not be stepping back.
The truth is that I don't see anything to worry about really. I am concerned about Margaret's crush, but really...I can't do much about that either. Either I trust my wife, or I do not.
So, the box is back in the closet and I have not said a word. For now.
What do you think? I would really like to know. What is your opinion? What would you do in my shoes? Just curious.
Monday, April 06, 2009
Meme # 989087
I saw this months ago on someone's blog (sorry, can't remember whose blog it was) and decided that if I was feeling like I needed to write but didn't have much juice in me, I would use this.
So...here goes...
The alphabet meme.
A.
Age:
50.
Annoyance:
People who slow down at traffic accidents to rubber neck. Idjits just asking to be rear ended.
Allergic:
Penicillin, tetracycline and aspirin.(I know, I know...I'm in big trouble if I ever really need the big antibiotics one day...but, I can't help it. I faint when I take them and/or break out in hives. Lovely.)
Animal:
I like my dog. I am not much of a pet lover, but I do so love my Socks. I'm the same way with children. I don't really like other people's children all that much, but I do like my own child so much. I'm not one of those people who want to pet your dog or hold your child, but for some reason, I usually end up with a pet or a child in my lap. Or both.
Actor:
That would be Johnny Depp. Or John Malkovich. Or John Cusack. Or James McAvoy. I even like that new vampire guy, what the hell is his name? Robert Pattinson. I think he is underused in Twilight. And he looks...edible.
B
Beer:
I don't like beer much and can only drink it when it is ice cold, or as we say on the prairie, tooth crackin' cold. I could care less what brand it is. I used to buy a six pack every week, though, to use as conditioner in the shower for my hair. No lie. It made my hair so soft and shiny. Now, I just use goat milk shampoo and get the same result.
Best Friend:
Harriet. The best of the best. The lactating queen. The one with the cackling witch laugh. Her. That tall, skinny one who coaxes me out of the house to go to Arby's and slurp up Jamocha shakes, sitting in a booth together, laughing our witch laughs.
Best feeling in the world:
Waking up at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning and realizing that the damn alarm clock WILL NOT go off at 6. I can sleep in. Ah....
Best weather
Sweater weather in the Autumn, watching a football game on a Saturday, preferably the Cornhuskers. Sitting on a cushion in the stands with the sun pouring out of a blue, blue sky. Watching my boys play smash mouth football.
Been in love?
Oh yeah. And, yes, it smarts. But, I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Well, okay. THAT one. I would gladly skip THAT one.
Been bitched out?
Yes. But, I give as good as I get. And don't you forget it.
Been on stage?
Yes. I used to act in plays in college for my first two years. Then, I tired of it.
Believe in life on other planets?
Sure, why not? Otherwise, it would get boring.
Believe in miracles?
Yes. Liv.
Believe in magic?
Of course! How dull would life be without it? I believe in everything.
Believe in God?
I should have seen that one coming, huh? As soon as you say something all gushy like "I believe in everything!",you get nailed.
The god thing? Not sure. I am doubtful, but have seen ghosts...so something is out there, why not a god? I just want my god to be a kind, loving one. The one my sisters pray to is just...plain....mean spirited.
Believe in Satan?
It stands to reason that if there is a god, there is a satan.
Believe in ghosts?
Yes, we have one in our house.
C
Car:
I have a bug, Bing has a ford truck and she just bought a new cargo van. She is a musician and hauls drum sets, marimbas, vibes and steel pans to gigs.
Candy:
Nothing in the world like a cadbury egg. Nothing.
Color:
Deep forest green.
Cried in school?
Can only remember doing that once. I was in kindergarten and it was the Christmas program. We were on risers and at one point in the program, we were supposed to reach behind us and pick up a triangle, which was supposed to be laying on a bench. Someone swiped mine. I started crying. The music teacher stopped and asked me what was wrong. I told her that someone took my triangle. She invited me to come sit on the bench with her while she played the piano. I was miserable. I was a GRAND triangle player and it was my favorite part of the song. After the program, I went up to my Mother and she leaned down and scolded me, told me that I had embarrassed her, had shamed myself by crying and she wanted nothing to do with me. She told me to go wait in the car for her. I turned to go, my eyes blinded with tears again. I ran smack into my Da, who had heard what my Mother said to me. He picked me up, told my Mother that we would be at the drugstore down the street and to pick us up in a half hour. He carried me on his shoulders to the drugstore and told me that I was the most wonderful child in the world, that there wasn't a day in this life where he wasn't the luckiest Da on the planet. He took me to the drugstore and bought me a candy necklace. When my Mother picked us up, he must have looked daggers at her, because she never said another word about me crying. He would only live another few years before dying of a weak heart. All of my best parenting comes from his example.
Chinese or Mexican food?
Both. In big large quantities.
Cake or pie?
Pie. Ala mode. Blueberry with french vanilla ice cream.
Countries to visit:
I'd like to visit the Benauts in Australia. I'd like to visit Dive and Jenny in England.
D
Day or night?
I like twilight. I love that part of the day when I am just coming in the door after work with Liv and Bing is just coming home from work too and we all smile at each other, one of us has a take out bag, so no dishes to wash.
Dream vehicle:
Okay. Shoot me now. I like Hummers. Yes. Those big monstrosities. When you drive a bug like I do, you get used to being overlooked by drivers. No one would overlook me in a Hummer. Plus, I have a near phobia of driving in snow and ice and if I had a Hummer, I would feel a lot better on those cold, snowy mornings when I have to go to work.
Dance in the rain?
I've done it and I have to tell you that I think it is overrated. Sooner or later, you have to go inside and then your hair looks totally like a wet seal and your clothes just feel cold and wet.
Dance in the middle of the street?
I was drunk, okay? And there is that one incriminating picture, but I do have one of her with a mullet, so she better not even think of blackmailing me.
E
Eggs?
Yes, scrambled with cheese. And a side of hickory smoked bacon. And hash browns. Crunchy on the outside and silky on the inside. Plus, the word eggs is a code word for sex with Bing and me. As in, "Boy, I'm in the mood for some eggs tonight." Yes, we are so clever, we crack ourselves up. And Liv will figure this out one day and never be able to eat eggs again.
Eyes:
Two. Grey.
Everyone has a
secret.
Ever failed a class?
No. I am far too competitive. I will study until I faint if I have to.
F
First crush:
Hmm..a boy named Ben. He is now a priest. Probably the only good boy I ever lusted after. I like 'em bad. You know that. Unless I am going to be leered at, lusted for, and danced and dipped and then get my heart smashed, I'm not interested.
First thought waking up:
God, how the hell is it morning already? I swear I just laid my head down about an hour ago.
Food:
Yes. Please, sir. I want some more.
G
Greatest fear:
Losing Liv.
Gum
I don't chew gum. And I hate to talk to someone who is chewing. They look like a cow.
Get along with parents?
They are both dead. I get along fine with my Mother now. As far as my Da, he and I always got along swimmingly.
Good luck charms:
I have a lucky rock that I carry in my purse. It's a tiger's eye from Liv.
H
Hair color:
Used to be mouse brown. Now, I am a silver fox. I used to dye it and may again if that dipstick check out guy at Walgreens calls me ma'am again.
Height:
Short. Let's leave it at that.
Happy?
I'm trying. Give me brownie points for smiling through the tears these days.
Holidays?
I tend to not like them much because we always end up getting invited to my sister's house and I can never say no, too worried about hurting her feelings. So, we go and the second we pull into her driveway and see the anti Obama sticker on her fat husband's car, I just want to go home.
Health freak?
I live with one. Personally, the only exercise I get is walking the dog. Bing has machine that actually measures her body fat. Icky.
In (guys/girls)
Eye color?
I like 'em all, but admit that the ones who got to me the most had dark, brooding, bad boy/girl eyes.
Hair color?
Again, I'm not picky, but I always seem to end up with dark haired men and women.
Height?
They've all been taller than me, but since that is most of the general population, it isn't really a trend.
Clothing style?
Every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man (or woman.)
Characteristics
All together now: Maria likes the bad ones.
I
Ice cream:
White chocolate Italian gelato.
Instrument
A pen. I don't play music. I do not have one musical bone in my body.
J
Jewelry
I like anything amethyst. I like small ear bobs, delicate bracelets and then top it off with a big clunky peace symbol necklace. I'm sort of an enigma.
Job:
I work with children with autism. Some days, I come home so wiped that you could mop the floor with me. Other days, I come home feeling like I did something really good all day and am energized.
K
Kids
I only like my own, to be honest. I was never one of those people who just melts at the sight of a cute baby. I especially find other children's snotty noses just repulsive.
Keep a journal?
Not anymore. My blog is my journal. And it is for Liv.
L
Longest car ride?
When I was a kid, my parents once drove us from Iowa to D.C for a vacation. I was carsick nearly the whole way. Plus, we didn't have air conditioning in cars back then and what I mostly remember is my hair blowing into my mouth and my sister's hot doggy breath.
Love:
Oh, c'mon. Yes. I love many people. And they know who they are. Except for you. I love you and you'll never know, Johnny Depp.
Laughed so hard you cried:
Many times. Just yesterday, in fact. Harriet came over to visit me and I was laying down in my bed and she just got in with me so we could talk. Suddenly, I heard a little whoosing sound and she blushed scarlet. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I think I just farted in your bed, Maria..." I pretended to pass out and she put a pillow over my face and threatened to kill me if I ever told anyone. And then we started laughing.
Love at first sight?
I suppose it is possible. But, I think it probably is more like lust at first sight.
M
Milk flavor:
Chocolate. Actually, I love malted milk more than anything. Carnation malted milk.
Movie:
Either Lost in Translation or Garden State. Both the story of my life.
Mooned anyone?
Probably. I boobed Bing once in a grocery store. We were shopping and she was on one side of the pears and I was on the other side. No one was around, so I flashed boob at her. She turned about as red as an apple.
Marriage?
It is fucking hard, yes? I have never compromised so much in my life. But, yeah, she's worth it.
Motion sickness?
Even when I'm not in motion these days...
N
Number of siblings:
3 sisters. 0 brothers.
Number of piercings:
None. Well, I used to have them, but no more. I wear the kind of earrings that you have to take off when you answer the phone.
Number
I like 1.
O
Overused phrases:
Good hell.
One wish
Good health. I know you thought I should say something like world peace, but I'm sorry, it has been a really tough year.
One phobia
I already told you: driving in snow and/or ice.
P
Place you'd like to live
I think I would like New Hampshire or Maine. I've always wanted to live in a small town near mountains or an ocean. And here I am a prairie girl, born and bred.
Pepsi or coke?
Neither. I like diet Seven Up.
Q
Quail?
Quite.
R
Reason to cry:
Death of a loved one. I seldom cry unless I am alone, though. In my family, we are bathtub criers.
Reality tv?
I like Amazing Race and Survivor. And I am not gonna apologize or let anyone make me feel badly about it.
Radio station:
The only one I ever listen to is NPR. Bing listens to something from England, I believe, called Virgin Radio and I like that too.
Roll your tongue in a circle
No. I don't know any tricks.
S
Song?
Gotta be Ventura Highway. For Bing.
Sushi?
No. No. No. I hate it. I know that everyone is supposed to love it. Bing loves it. Liv loves it. But, I can't help it. I hate it. I'm kind of a meat lover.
Skipped school?
I used to once in awhile in high school. There was a ladder going from the upstairs broom closet at my school that went down into the coaches office in the gym. We would sneak out that way. We would go to my best friend's home (she lived a block from the school) and smoke cigarettes at her home since both of her parents worked.
Slept outside?
I went on a camping trip ONCE with my ex. NEVER again. It was hard. It was cold. She wanted to have sex. I thought she was insane. We brought the cat with us and it peed on the tent flap. Gag me.
Seen a dead body?
Lots of them. I've even cut into one. And got so hardened about it that we used to bring our lunches and eat while we worked. Ask Terroni how it goes. She'll tell you.
Skinny dipped>
Another thing that is overrated, but yes, I have done the deed.
Shower daily?
And bathe. I shower every morning and take a long, hot bath every night. You could eat off of me.
Sing well?
No. I can't carry a tune to save my life.
Sing in the shower?
No. I do come up with blog ideas in there, though.
Swear?
A fucking lot. I try not to do in in front of Liv, but she hears me now and then. She once heard me mutter that someone was an asswipe once as I was driving and she spent the afternoon saying that word with relish. Luckily, I ignored her and it stopped.
Strawberries or blueberries?
Both.
Scientists need to invent
A cure for cancer.
T
Time for bed:
On the weekdays, I am often in bed by nine. On the weekends, by ten. Or if SNL looks good, later.
Thunderstorms?
I used to like them. Now, I am a homeowner and that means trees coming down on my home. So, I detest them. Plus, Socks, our dog, is terrified of them and tries to stand in between my legs whenever it thunders and ends up tripping me.
U
Unpredictable?
That's what they tell me, but I think I am pretty settled compared to me at 25 or even 30.
Under the influence:
In my past. Once I became a mother, I became a wine-with-dinner woman instead of the let's-do-some-shots-dude! person that I used to be.
V
Vegetable you hate:
Butter beans. Cannot stand the smell of them.
Vegetable you love
Artichokes. Spinach. Baby carrots.
Vacation spot:
We are going to New York this summer and Seattle in the fall.
W
Weakness:
Cadbury eggs. I adore them.
Which one of your friends acts the most like you?
That would be Harriet. Because I am so farting in her bed the next time I visit.
Who makes you laugh the most?
Liv.
Worst feeling:
When you've hurt someone and know that it hit home and you really didn't mean it.
Wanted to be a model?
Good hell, no. I'm too short and am not particularly photogenic.
Where do we go when we die?
I'll get back to you on that one.
Worst weather:
Blizzards. I hate them.
Walk with a book on your head?
I could, my posture is excellent, but I don't.
X
Ex-rays?
Lots of them. I am a klutz. Another reason that I can't be a model. God damn it all to hell.
Y
Yellow
Green.
Z
Zoo animals.
I refuse to go to the zoo. Don't like seeing animals caged.
Zodiac sign?
Guess.
So, now you know way too much information about me.
Hey, wake up. You fell asleep reading my blog. How bloody rude.
So...here goes...
The alphabet meme.
A.
Age:
50.
Annoyance:
People who slow down at traffic accidents to rubber neck. Idjits just asking to be rear ended.
Allergic:
Penicillin, tetracycline and aspirin.(I know, I know...I'm in big trouble if I ever really need the big antibiotics one day...but, I can't help it. I faint when I take them and/or break out in hives. Lovely.)
Animal:
I like my dog. I am not much of a pet lover, but I do so love my Socks. I'm the same way with children. I don't really like other people's children all that much, but I do like my own child so much. I'm not one of those people who want to pet your dog or hold your child, but for some reason, I usually end up with a pet or a child in my lap. Or both.
Actor:
That would be Johnny Depp. Or John Malkovich. Or John Cusack. Or James McAvoy. I even like that new vampire guy, what the hell is his name? Robert Pattinson. I think he is underused in Twilight. And he looks...edible.
B
Beer:
I don't like beer much and can only drink it when it is ice cold, or as we say on the prairie, tooth crackin' cold. I could care less what brand it is. I used to buy a six pack every week, though, to use as conditioner in the shower for my hair. No lie. It made my hair so soft and shiny. Now, I just use goat milk shampoo and get the same result.
Best Friend:
Harriet. The best of the best. The lactating queen. The one with the cackling witch laugh. Her. That tall, skinny one who coaxes me out of the house to go to Arby's and slurp up Jamocha shakes, sitting in a booth together, laughing our witch laughs.
Best feeling in the world:
Waking up at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning and realizing that the damn alarm clock WILL NOT go off at 6. I can sleep in. Ah....
Best weather
Sweater weather in the Autumn, watching a football game on a Saturday, preferably the Cornhuskers. Sitting on a cushion in the stands with the sun pouring out of a blue, blue sky. Watching my boys play smash mouth football.
Been in love?
Oh yeah. And, yes, it smarts. But, I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Well, okay. THAT one. I would gladly skip THAT one.
Been bitched out?
Yes. But, I give as good as I get. And don't you forget it.
Been on stage?
Yes. I used to act in plays in college for my first two years. Then, I tired of it.
Believe in life on other planets?
Sure, why not? Otherwise, it would get boring.
Believe in miracles?
Yes. Liv.
Believe in magic?
Of course! How dull would life be without it? I believe in everything.
Believe in God?
I should have seen that one coming, huh? As soon as you say something all gushy like "I believe in everything!",you get nailed.
The god thing? Not sure. I am doubtful, but have seen ghosts...so something is out there, why not a god? I just want my god to be a kind, loving one. The one my sisters pray to is just...plain....mean spirited.
Believe in Satan?
It stands to reason that if there is a god, there is a satan.
Believe in ghosts?
Yes, we have one in our house.
C
Car:
I have a bug, Bing has a ford truck and she just bought a new cargo van. She is a musician and hauls drum sets, marimbas, vibes and steel pans to gigs.
Candy:
Nothing in the world like a cadbury egg. Nothing.
Color:
Deep forest green.
Cried in school?
Can only remember doing that once. I was in kindergarten and it was the Christmas program. We were on risers and at one point in the program, we were supposed to reach behind us and pick up a triangle, which was supposed to be laying on a bench. Someone swiped mine. I started crying. The music teacher stopped and asked me what was wrong. I told her that someone took my triangle. She invited me to come sit on the bench with her while she played the piano. I was miserable. I was a GRAND triangle player and it was my favorite part of the song. After the program, I went up to my Mother and she leaned down and scolded me, told me that I had embarrassed her, had shamed myself by crying and she wanted nothing to do with me. She told me to go wait in the car for her. I turned to go, my eyes blinded with tears again. I ran smack into my Da, who had heard what my Mother said to me. He picked me up, told my Mother that we would be at the drugstore down the street and to pick us up in a half hour. He carried me on his shoulders to the drugstore and told me that I was the most wonderful child in the world, that there wasn't a day in this life where he wasn't the luckiest Da on the planet. He took me to the drugstore and bought me a candy necklace. When my Mother picked us up, he must have looked daggers at her, because she never said another word about me crying. He would only live another few years before dying of a weak heart. All of my best parenting comes from his example.
Chinese or Mexican food?
Both. In big large quantities.
Cake or pie?
Pie. Ala mode. Blueberry with french vanilla ice cream.
Countries to visit:
I'd like to visit the Benauts in Australia. I'd like to visit Dive and Jenny in England.
D
Day or night?
I like twilight. I love that part of the day when I am just coming in the door after work with Liv and Bing is just coming home from work too and we all smile at each other, one of us has a take out bag, so no dishes to wash.
Dream vehicle:
Okay. Shoot me now. I like Hummers. Yes. Those big monstrosities. When you drive a bug like I do, you get used to being overlooked by drivers. No one would overlook me in a Hummer. Plus, I have a near phobia of driving in snow and ice and if I had a Hummer, I would feel a lot better on those cold, snowy mornings when I have to go to work.
Dance in the rain?
I've done it and I have to tell you that I think it is overrated. Sooner or later, you have to go inside and then your hair looks totally like a wet seal and your clothes just feel cold and wet.
Dance in the middle of the street?
I was drunk, okay? And there is that one incriminating picture, but I do have one of her with a mullet, so she better not even think of blackmailing me.
E
Eggs?
Yes, scrambled with cheese. And a side of hickory smoked bacon. And hash browns. Crunchy on the outside and silky on the inside. Plus, the word eggs is a code word for sex with Bing and me. As in, "Boy, I'm in the mood for some eggs tonight." Yes, we are so clever, we crack ourselves up. And Liv will figure this out one day and never be able to eat eggs again.
Eyes:
Two. Grey.
Everyone has a
secret.
Ever failed a class?
No. I am far too competitive. I will study until I faint if I have to.
F
First crush:
Hmm..a boy named Ben. He is now a priest. Probably the only good boy I ever lusted after. I like 'em bad. You know that. Unless I am going to be leered at, lusted for, and danced and dipped and then get my heart smashed, I'm not interested.
First thought waking up:
God, how the hell is it morning already? I swear I just laid my head down about an hour ago.
Food:
Yes. Please, sir. I want some more.
G
Greatest fear:
Losing Liv.
Gum
I don't chew gum. And I hate to talk to someone who is chewing. They look like a cow.
Get along with parents?
They are both dead. I get along fine with my Mother now. As far as my Da, he and I always got along swimmingly.
Good luck charms:
I have a lucky rock that I carry in my purse. It's a tiger's eye from Liv.
H
Hair color:
Used to be mouse brown. Now, I am a silver fox. I used to dye it and may again if that dipstick check out guy at Walgreens calls me ma'am again.
Height:
Short. Let's leave it at that.
Happy?
I'm trying. Give me brownie points for smiling through the tears these days.
Holidays?
I tend to not like them much because we always end up getting invited to my sister's house and I can never say no, too worried about hurting her feelings. So, we go and the second we pull into her driveway and see the anti Obama sticker on her fat husband's car, I just want to go home.
Health freak?
I live with one. Personally, the only exercise I get is walking the dog. Bing has machine that actually measures her body fat. Icky.
In (guys/girls)
Eye color?
I like 'em all, but admit that the ones who got to me the most had dark, brooding, bad boy/girl eyes.
Hair color?
Again, I'm not picky, but I always seem to end up with dark haired men and women.
Height?
They've all been taller than me, but since that is most of the general population, it isn't really a trend.
Clothing style?
Every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man (or woman.)
Characteristics
All together now: Maria likes the bad ones.
I
Ice cream:
White chocolate Italian gelato.
Instrument
A pen. I don't play music. I do not have one musical bone in my body.
J
Jewelry
I like anything amethyst. I like small ear bobs, delicate bracelets and then top it off with a big clunky peace symbol necklace. I'm sort of an enigma.
Job:
I work with children with autism. Some days, I come home so wiped that you could mop the floor with me. Other days, I come home feeling like I did something really good all day and am energized.
K
Kids
I only like my own, to be honest. I was never one of those people who just melts at the sight of a cute baby. I especially find other children's snotty noses just repulsive.
Keep a journal?
Not anymore. My blog is my journal. And it is for Liv.
L
Longest car ride?
When I was a kid, my parents once drove us from Iowa to D.C for a vacation. I was carsick nearly the whole way. Plus, we didn't have air conditioning in cars back then and what I mostly remember is my hair blowing into my mouth and my sister's hot doggy breath.
Love:
Oh, c'mon. Yes. I love many people. And they know who they are. Except for you. I love you and you'll never know, Johnny Depp.
Laughed so hard you cried:
Many times. Just yesterday, in fact. Harriet came over to visit me and I was laying down in my bed and she just got in with me so we could talk. Suddenly, I heard a little whoosing sound and she blushed scarlet. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I think I just farted in your bed, Maria..." I pretended to pass out and she put a pillow over my face and threatened to kill me if I ever told anyone. And then we started laughing.
Love at first sight?
I suppose it is possible. But, I think it probably is more like lust at first sight.
M
Milk flavor:
Chocolate. Actually, I love malted milk more than anything. Carnation malted milk.
Movie:
Either Lost in Translation or Garden State. Both the story of my life.
Mooned anyone?
Probably. I boobed Bing once in a grocery store. We were shopping and she was on one side of the pears and I was on the other side. No one was around, so I flashed boob at her. She turned about as red as an apple.
Marriage?
It is fucking hard, yes? I have never compromised so much in my life. But, yeah, she's worth it.
Motion sickness?
Even when I'm not in motion these days...
N
Number of siblings:
3 sisters. 0 brothers.
Number of piercings:
None. Well, I used to have them, but no more. I wear the kind of earrings that you have to take off when you answer the phone.
Number
I like 1.
O
Overused phrases:
Good hell.
One wish
Good health. I know you thought I should say something like world peace, but I'm sorry, it has been a really tough year.
One phobia
I already told you: driving in snow and/or ice.
P
Place you'd like to live
I think I would like New Hampshire or Maine. I've always wanted to live in a small town near mountains or an ocean. And here I am a prairie girl, born and bred.
Pepsi or coke?
Neither. I like diet Seven Up.
Q
Quail?
Quite.
R
Reason to cry:
Death of a loved one. I seldom cry unless I am alone, though. In my family, we are bathtub criers.
Reality tv?
I like Amazing Race and Survivor. And I am not gonna apologize or let anyone make me feel badly about it.
Radio station:
The only one I ever listen to is NPR. Bing listens to something from England, I believe, called Virgin Radio and I like that too.
Roll your tongue in a circle
No. I don't know any tricks.
S
Song?
Gotta be Ventura Highway. For Bing.
Sushi?
No. No. No. I hate it. I know that everyone is supposed to love it. Bing loves it. Liv loves it. But, I can't help it. I hate it. I'm kind of a meat lover.
Skipped school?
I used to once in awhile in high school. There was a ladder going from the upstairs broom closet at my school that went down into the coaches office in the gym. We would sneak out that way. We would go to my best friend's home (she lived a block from the school) and smoke cigarettes at her home since both of her parents worked.
Slept outside?
I went on a camping trip ONCE with my ex. NEVER again. It was hard. It was cold. She wanted to have sex. I thought she was insane. We brought the cat with us and it peed on the tent flap. Gag me.
Seen a dead body?
Lots of them. I've even cut into one. And got so hardened about it that we used to bring our lunches and eat while we worked. Ask Terroni how it goes. She'll tell you.
Skinny dipped>
Another thing that is overrated, but yes, I have done the deed.
Shower daily?
And bathe. I shower every morning and take a long, hot bath every night. You could eat off of me.
Sing well?
No. I can't carry a tune to save my life.
Sing in the shower?
No. I do come up with blog ideas in there, though.
Swear?
A fucking lot. I try not to do in in front of Liv, but she hears me now and then. She once heard me mutter that someone was an asswipe once as I was driving and she spent the afternoon saying that word with relish. Luckily, I ignored her and it stopped.
Strawberries or blueberries?
Both.
Scientists need to invent
A cure for cancer.
T
Time for bed:
On the weekdays, I am often in bed by nine. On the weekends, by ten. Or if SNL looks good, later.
Thunderstorms?
I used to like them. Now, I am a homeowner and that means trees coming down on my home. So, I detest them. Plus, Socks, our dog, is terrified of them and tries to stand in between my legs whenever it thunders and ends up tripping me.
U
Unpredictable?
That's what they tell me, but I think I am pretty settled compared to me at 25 or even 30.
Under the influence:
In my past. Once I became a mother, I became a wine-with-dinner woman instead of the let's-do-some-shots-dude! person that I used to be.
V
Vegetable you hate:
Butter beans. Cannot stand the smell of them.
Vegetable you love
Artichokes. Spinach. Baby carrots.
Vacation spot:
We are going to New York this summer and Seattle in the fall.
W
Weakness:
Cadbury eggs. I adore them.
Which one of your friends acts the most like you?
That would be Harriet. Because I am so farting in her bed the next time I visit.
Who makes you laugh the most?
Liv.
Worst feeling:
When you've hurt someone and know that it hit home and you really didn't mean it.
Wanted to be a model?
Good hell, no. I'm too short and am not particularly photogenic.
Where do we go when we die?
I'll get back to you on that one.
Worst weather:
Blizzards. I hate them.
Walk with a book on your head?
I could, my posture is excellent, but I don't.
X
Ex-rays?
Lots of them. I am a klutz. Another reason that I can't be a model. God damn it all to hell.
Y
Yellow
Green.
Z
Zoo animals.
I refuse to go to the zoo. Don't like seeing animals caged.
Zodiac sign?
Guess.
So, now you know way too much information about me.
Hey, wake up. You fell asleep reading my blog. How bloody rude.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Sneaking back in to say....
Still feel pretty awful, but you know...sometimes the oddest things pull you up.
Last night, I was huddled up on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket, listening to the wind howl and the snow and ice swirl...we had SNL on and it wasn't anything special. Until...
the host said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Phoenix.
And then there was this incredible music. Bing, who had been slouching in the recliner, sat up and took notice. I lay there, smiling, listening.
"Who are they?" I asked Bing.
She frowned. "I dunno," she said. "They aren't American. I think maybe...English? German? Maybe French? I'll look it up tomorrow," she promised.
She did. They are French.
And they made this sick ass woman feel like smiling on a cold, dreary Saturday night when nothing seemed right.
So, now...I am curled up with John Grisham's newest offering and eating my Wheaties, getting better.
Resting does help. Both Bing and Liv are waiting on me hand and foot. There is snow and ice outside, but chicken baking in the oven for Sunday dinner and I'm alone in the house while Bing and Liv are sliding around outside, attempting to take Socks for a much needed walk.
Tomorrow, Bing and Liv start their Spring break from school and I go back to work. Life goes on.
But, hey...there is this band called Phoenix that made me smile. I put their song up on my song list for April. Have a listen, it will make you smile too.
Sometimes, the most curious things just pull you right up....
Last night, I was huddled up on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket, listening to the wind howl and the snow and ice swirl...we had SNL on and it wasn't anything special. Until...
the host said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Phoenix.
And then there was this incredible music. Bing, who had been slouching in the recliner, sat up and took notice. I lay there, smiling, listening.
"Who are they?" I asked Bing.
She frowned. "I dunno," she said. "They aren't American. I think maybe...English? German? Maybe French? I'll look it up tomorrow," she promised.
She did. They are French.
And they made this sick ass woman feel like smiling on a cold, dreary Saturday night when nothing seemed right.
So, now...I am curled up with John Grisham's newest offering and eating my Wheaties, getting better.
Resting does help. Both Bing and Liv are waiting on me hand and foot. There is snow and ice outside, but chicken baking in the oven for Sunday dinner and I'm alone in the house while Bing and Liv are sliding around outside, attempting to take Socks for a much needed walk.
Tomorrow, Bing and Liv start their Spring break from school and I go back to work. Life goes on.
But, hey...there is this band called Phoenix that made me smile. I put their song up on my song list for April. Have a listen, it will make you smile too.
Sometimes, the most curious things just pull you right up....
Friday, April 03, 2009
Break time
Hey, y'all, I'm going to be off on a (hopefully) short break. Just feeling a bit overwhelmed with stuff right now. New meds are fucking with me big time and while I am managing to go to work, when I get home...I just sort of collapse.
Another snow storm is predicted for this weekend and I am feeling almost tearful about that (will FUCKING SPRING EVER GET HERE???)
I just need to sleep.
See you when the snow clears on the ground, in my uncooperative body, and in my mind.
Another snow storm is predicted for this weekend and I am feeling almost tearful about that (will FUCKING SPRING EVER GET HERE???)
I just need to sleep.
See you when the snow clears on the ground, in my uncooperative body, and in my mind.
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