Maria runs around like a chicken with its head cut off

First, thank you for all the good wishes. Feeling a bit better now, although I am not sure how I managed to heal considering that I have had no time to lollygag.

Liv auditioned for a youth orchestra and made it and she immediately started practicing her violin day and night. I thought I would be happy if I never had to hear The Brandenburg Concertos, No. 4 again. She was almost fanatic about it and when I asked her why she was so intent on practicing, she replied that she wanted to challenge for first chair.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

This is something that I would have done. I have always been obsessed with being the best in every class that I have ever taken. I remember running up to my bedroom in tears in fourth grade because Angel Rebbeloso got a better grade on our history exam than I did. I was just that competitive. It served me well in school, but wreaked havoc in my personal life. I love it when I see parts of me in my daughter, but I would have been pleased to have her skip this trait.

Liv practiced devoutly until this afternoon when she came up to me with bleary eyes and said that sentence that all parents dread:

"Mama, my throat hurts."

I think she has managed to come down with the virus that I had. She was in bed at 6:30 tonight, didn't want the night light on because she had a bad headache and when I went to check on her a few moments ago, she informed me that she can't get comfy, that she feels as if she is freezing one second and sweating the next.

Yup. Been there. Done that.

I gave her Tylenol and packed a tumbler with cracked ice and orange juice and told her to take as many sips as she can. Her temp is holding steady at 100 degrees but I suspect that either Bing or I will be staying home from work tomorrow. At least I know that it's not swine flu; she had that already.

I feel guilty for wishing that she would stop the infernal practicing of that stupid violin. Be careful what you wish for.....

We spent a good part of the weekend over at Bing's Mother's house. The estate auction people will be coming by on Wednesday to price everything and it was our job to sort it into piles.

This kind of work makes one return home with a critical eye.

AS GOD AS MY WITNESS, I WILL NEVER PUT MY CHILD THROUGH THE JOB OF GOING THROUGH A HOARDER'S NEST WHEN I DIE.

It was sort of horrifyingly funny. I got the fun job of sorting through her bathroom. I am not kidding when I tell you that this woman had

Over 80 emery boards

20 something pairs of scissors

14 cigar boxes full of bobby pins

bags and bags of curlers with hair wound around them

10 half used tubes of 'roid cream (Jaysus CHRIST! Finish up the tube before you buy a new one!)

8 half used tubes of Ben Gay (ditto)

4 hair dryers that did not work

14 bottles of shampoo that were so old that they were grimy with dust (Do they even make GEE YOUR HAIR SMELLS TERRIFIC! anymore???)

2 boxes of unopened tampons (the woman was in her 80's...long past visits from her Aunt Flo)

several bags of Serenity adult diapers.

shoe boxes stuffed full of beauty tips ripped from magazines (I did learn that blush should only be applied to the "apple" of your cheek and that if you slather your hands with Vaseline and put on kid gloves when you go to bed, you will wake up with "hands so soft and pretty that he won't want to leave for work, ladies!")

hundreds of sample lipsticks and tiny jars of foundation (I never saw this woman wear makeup)

another shoe box full of Fruit of the Loom elastic waistbands cut from men's underpants that I recall her wearing as headbands on hot days

It took me all afternoon to pack up the bathroom and if she wasn't already dead, I might have killed her.

But, this was nothing compared to her basement rec room and her garage. Bing and her brother in law tackled that. They found stacks and stacks of empty coffee cans, four cow skulls and a box of deer antlers. They also found over 40 bags of fertilizer. Bing said that it looked like she had the makings of a decent meth lab....

In her basement was a shelf of every childhood game you could think of with several of the pieces missing. Now, I don't get this. Did she really think some kid was going to say, "Hey, cousins! Let's go play Monopoly even though all the 500 hundred and 100 bills are gone!"

I did all of this with a temp of 100 degrees and a throat that felt like someone had scraped it raw with one of those emery boards...

We came home at night, dirty and crabby and tired and snappish. It was not pleasant. And I informed Bing that she just better stop right now with her pack rat tendencies because I was not going to deal with her piles and piles of magazines if she died first.

Speaking of magazines, Bing's Mother had piles and piles of magazines and newspapers and when I happened to pick one up a ten dollar bill wafted out of it. This, of course, put us all in the position of having to go through each and every magazine and newspaper by hand to determine if there was money hidden inside. We gave that job to Liv and her cousin Stella. We told them that they could keep what they found. They found over a hundred bucks.

What kind of an idjit hides money in magazines?

We also found a gun. I told Bing that I did NOT want that thing in my house, so she took it over to our neighbor who is a gun enthusiast. He told us that it was a rare Colt 45 and worth thousands of dollars.

We found it under her mattress, wrapped up in a pair of men's underpants.

It has been a crazy weekend.

To add to this, I am taking a Spanish night class. My co-workers and I decided that since over 30% of our clients are Hispanic, we should learn their language instead of dragging our secretary, Marisol into our offices to translate.

We thought it would be fun.

And, you guessed it, my competitive fire sparked high. I went to the first class with my guns blazing, hunting for barr.

I should just have a big letter L tattooed on my forehead.

I do not know what my problem is, but I can't learn Spanish. Well, not well anyway.

And there goes smarty butt Piper traipsing all over the office flying up to families and saying with ease and fluidity:

Entre, por favor! Soy el Doctor Piper!! Como esta? Desea sentarse?

I can barely say hello. And then I sound like some sort of idiot who has no business trying to speak the language.

I carry flash cards everywhere with me and make Bing and Liv quiz me. My accent is so pathetic that Liv bites her cheeks not to giggle at me and Bing, who speaks a little Spanish because she's worked with lots of Hispanic students, looks at me quizzically as if she is stunned that I can't even remember how to ask someone to hang up their coat.

I am hopeless. Maybe it is my age. My brain cells are deteriorating. Rapido.

I tell myself to calmate and pon atencion but I feel as if all I say in class is "No intiendo!"

It doesn't help that our Spanish teacher gave us all Spanish names. Mine is Rosa. I wanted to be Angelina so fucking badly. No wonder I can't learn. I have the wrong name. I am an Angelina trapped in a Rosa body.

So, it has been a surreal weekend. Doing everything with a fever is just an odd experience. I almost felt as if I were hallucinating at times, the air seemed to wave in front of me and colors seemed to simmer.

I should have stayed in bed. Maybe I will stay home with Liv tomorrow and we will just have a good lie abed.

But, I have that 10 o'clock appointment that we have had to reschedule twice because of snow and it is Regina's birthday and I promised to pick up those bear claws that she loves on the way to work and I have a luncheon that I promised my bff that I would not miss because she is hosting it for Haiti.

Hamster on a wheel, that's me.

And now I am writing my blog when I should be sleeping...but I had all these words in me that sorely needed to come out....

Ok, ok...I will check Liv and re-pack her orange juice and ice tumbler and then it will be off to bed.

It's supposed to snow tomorrow.

I just remembered that Liv missed her basketball game today and it was our day to bring treats. BAD MOTHER. BAD MOTHER.

Stop this merry-go-round. I need to get off.

Bawl Baby Blues

Ugh. I woke up this morning feeling sluggish and almost sick with fatigue. Took me back to last year when I woke up like that on a regular basis.

But, I slogged to work anyway. Could NOT get comfy in the car as I drove Liv to school. Was freezing cold one moment and then steaming hot. I dropped Liv off at school and for one truly awful second, I thought I might be sick to my stomach. That cherry yogurt I had for breakfast was not sitting pretty in my stomach. I swallowed hard and didn't humiliate my daughter by vomiting in the ladies room or worse...a wastebasket.

Why didn't I just head back home? Because I am stubborn, for one reason and because I am an idiot, for another one.

A virus has been making it's merry way through our office. Marisol came down with it first, followed in quick succession by another secretary and then Piper and finally, Julie. I figured that it had skipped me.

Until lunchtime today when Regina force fed me a thermometer.

101 degrees. Time to hightail it home.

I spent the afternoon in bed alternating between shivering so hard that my teeth chattered and kicking off the covers because I was all sweaty and hot. Socks tried keeping me company and finally even his good nature could not stand the constant pulling up of covers only to throw them off again ten minutes later.

And maybe my breath stunk. My mouth was so dry that I felt like my lips were cracking.

Bing called me on her way home from work to see if she could bring me anything. I thought that I might be able to swallow some Cultural Revolution vanilla yogurt. It is expensive, but so so worth it. Try it, you'll like it. Promise.

So, after faithfully checking my blog, I am now going back to bed. Not even The Office can tempt me away from my soft green 1000 thread count sheets.

I'll see you when the rooms stop spinning along with my stomach....

Stay warm, y'all.

Was dog a doughnut

I never saw myself as a dog person.

Ever.

I grew up on a farm. We had lots of dogs.They lived in the barn. Not once, ever, did one of the dogs come in the house. They lived in the barn with the cows, pigs and horses. They spent long days at the creek hunting squirrels and then came home and ate our dinner scraps. We never ever bought dog food for them and most of them had long healthy lives. No shots either. Nadda. Nothing. And seriously, most of them lived to be about 14.

The dogs had names and I petted them occasionally, but I didn't love them.

I absolutely never saw anyone brush their teeth.

We got our first dog when Liv was an infant. Our neighbor had to go into a retirement home and she begged asked us to take him. I am sorry to say that I can't even remember his name. All I remember is that he was a well behaved elderly dog. He stood patiently at the door when he needed to go outside. He had an arthritic hip and didn't climb stairs, so he slept in our kitchen on the rug next to the stove. He didn't bark unless the doorbell rang and then it was just one quiet well mannered bark. Neither Liv nor I got to know him well. He only stayed with us for a few months and, in a strange twist, died on the exact same day as his owner did in her retirement home. He even died quietly, not making a fuss, just fell asleep by the stove and didn't wake up.

Now that I have a dog that I adore, I can only imagine how sorely he must have missed his owner.

The decision to purchase a dog was a long time coming. Liv's father, Tinton, has a girlfriend who breeds Scotties and he asked me if he could get Liv one when she turned seven.

Bing immediately and flatly vetoed this. She grew up in a house that always had a dog and she said that they were a pain in the neck and a lot more work than you think. That training a dog was HARD and that I would not excel at it with my limited patience.

I figured that if I could potty train a child, a dog would be a snap. I talked Bing into it and Tinton brought Socks to us when he was only 12 weeks old.

Socks was named because he had two odd looking white spots on his feet. As soon as we named him, the spots disappeared, so now everyone wonders why we have named a coal black dog Socks.

He took to us immediately. There was really no adjusting period of time, no pining away for all of his brothers and sisters back in Colorado. Nope. We let him out of his carrier and he sat cautiously on our kitchen floor, getting his bearings. Liv sat down next to him and when she picked him up and placed him in her lap, he sat calmly, licking her once on her chin.

We decided that he must be a very old soul. He seemed almost unnaturally quiet and peaceful.

This was all a ruse.

I know now that Socks is just that way. He will hang back and observe for a while before he makes a move. But once he gets comfortable, he can be very um...energetic.

He took to me immediately and seemed almost to be in love with me. He decided (and rightly so) that I was the alpha dog in his pack and he treated me as such. He always allowed me to go through doors first, hanging back and looking up at me with an adoring Rhett-Butler-to-Scarlett-O'Hara stare as if to say, "Oh, no, please. Ladies first."

And then he would jump in front of both Liv and Bing and plow in quickly after me.

He followed me slavishly. If I sat down, he either put his nose or his foot on mine or better yet, sat on my foot.

Training him was interesting.

We had different approaches. Bing wanted to smack him with a newspaper when he shit or peed inside the house. Both Liv and I were aghast at this and swiftly shut her down.

NO HITTING IN OUR HOME. EVER. NO MATTER WHAT.

Bing shook her head and said we'd pay for our pansy ass behavior.

We didn't.

Socks proved to be a quick study. Our dog training book advised us to all agree on a word to say whenever Socks successfully shat or peed outside. We were to say the word with exuberance and happiness and follow it quickly with a praise of "Good boy!" and a dog treat.

Liv picked the word caboose.

We must have looked pretty strange on our walks, shouting out "CABOOSE!" GOOD BOY!" and giving him a treat. But, he caught on very quickly. However, he took a loooong time to understand that if he peed or shit in the house, we would not be smiling and calling out "Caboose!" or handing him a dog treat. For many weeks, he would pee triumphantly in front of our television set while we were all watching and then look up in surprise and worry when we leaped up and didn't caboose him and give him a treat, but ran to the kitchen to grab the spray bottle of dog pee neutralizer and paper towels.

He did learn eventually. It took longer for him to learn not to jump on furniture unless invited and not to chew shoes. We took him to an obedience class and he liked socializing with the other dogs but was not at the top of his class. The dog trainer informed us that Socks was very intelligent, but "has a defiant little nature, he likes everything to look like it is his idea, not yours."

Somehow, we convinced him that it had been his idea not to jump on beds unless invited and not to chew shoes, especially sneakers, which were practically irresistible to him. Especially Bing's sneakers.

Now, at 2 and a half, Socks is part of our family. He and I are close friends. I have kept my promise to myself not to EVER dress him up in dog outfits, but I have broken my promise to myself to not talk to him like he is a human.

I confess that not only do I talk to him, I confide in him. And I have even been known to get soupy with him. Once, I embarrassed myself totally by referring to him as Liv's brother.

I was sitting at the dining table working and he came over to sit by me and stare at me. This means that he wants badly to go out for a walk. So, I looked down into his coffee bean eyes and said, "I'm busy right now, Socks. Go ask your big sister."

To this day, I am grateful that Bing was not home at the time because she would have never let me hear the end of it. It was bad enough that Liv looked up from her book reading on the sofa and said, "Mama, did you just refer to Socks as my BROTHER?"

I shamefacedly admitted that I had and made her promise then and there to please not tell another soul. She hasn't. But, this may come back to haunt me when she is 16 and wants to stay out past curfew.

I can't imagine life without Socks. He is my partner in crime, my confidante and the best listener in the world.

Bing only has one real rule with Socks and that is that we do not feed him people food. This is any food that does not say explicitly on a bag that it is for dogs. Trust me, I have tried to slide around this rule by telling her that eating meat scraps is acceptable because well...he is an animal and it is what he would be eating if he lived in the wild. Bing countered by saying that Socks would not last a single day in the wild, that he was too fond of sleeping in bed with Liv every night and stalking squirrels and rabbits in our back yard.

"Remember the time that we had that deer in our yard? Socks ran between your legs. If he encountered a bear, he would have climbed up your leg."

I sneak feed Socks and so does Liv. It is our little secret. And Socks is smart enough to know to NEVER EVER even look too interested in food when Bing is around. Instead, he waits until she leaves the room and then he says in his Ernest Borgnine voice,

"Ok, Alpha woman...give me a bite of that sandwich, right this second. C"MON! She is going to come back any second. And make sure that there is a lot of that jelly that I like, okay?"

So, the trainer was right. He is very intelligent.

Bing, of course, thinks that the reason that he shows no interest in food is because she has trained him so well to simply eat all of his dog food and he is satisfied. She has no inkling that when she goes on business trips, Socks lives in nirvana. He gets to lick out oatmeal bowls and drink cereal milk. He gets sandwich crusts and pizza. And best of all, he gets his very own slice of meat loaf. On hot summer days, we have even allowed him to have his own popsicle. This backfired on us once when we let him have a lime popsicle and Bing came home and became concerned when she noticed that Socks had a green tongue. She decided to "keep an eye" on it for a few days and the next day, it disappeared. Whew.

When I was sick last year, Socks was the perfect nap companion. I often slept during the day and fell into hot, deep sleep, the kind of sleep when you can barely come awake again, when it feels as if you are underwater and fighting to break the surface of the water. I would wake up with my head and body aching, remembering odd, vividly colorful dreams of being lost in deserts with giant pink lizards after me or being in huge Indian bizarres where I not only did not speak the language but was naked. Socks always sat next to me, looking me deeply in the eyes and smiling his tough dog smile, talking me down from the bad dream ledge.

On days when I felt well enough to take him for a walk, not once did he run after squirrels or birds, but walked next to me, gently and slowly, looking up at me encouragingly. If I needed to sit down on a park bench, he sat close to me, sitting loyally on my feet using his time to sniff deeply of the air and lean into my hand when I petted him.

He is a loyal friend.

On days when I come home from work tired and cranky, he never fails to run to meet me, jumping on my leg and looking so joyful and excited that I can't stay down in the dumps. How can I when I have this little black dog acting as if I have completely and totally made his day just by coming home? On days like that, after our evening walk, I will sometimes sit outside on the back steps with him next to me. He stays with me for a while in a congenial way and then slyly goes to get his favorite black ball. He drops it at my feet and dares me in true Ernest Borgnine fashion to "C'mon, alpha woman...throw it hard and far. You know you want to. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon...it will make you feel better to throw that ball, you know it!"

And he's absolutely right. It does feel better.

Once his puppyhood was behind him, Socks' devotion to me stopped somewhat and moved to Liv. He started sleeping at the foot of her bed at night, next to her window. When I go in to check on her before I go to bed, he is always there, head on his paws or sitting halfway up, gazing soulfully out of the window. Liv claims that she studies better when he is in her lap, that he helps her concentrate. She says that he knows every single secret she has.

He knows mine too. And I would not be one bit surprised to find that he knows Bing's secrets too. She claims to not be besotted with him but she is. He goes on her morning run with her every day and sits in her lap when football games are on because he knows they make her anxious.

Don't get me wrong, though. Socks is no saint. He has his dog faults.

He loves anything that stinks. Once, I saw him rolling around madly at the side of our back yard and when I went to investigate, discovered that he was rolling around on a dead raccoon. When, horrified, I tried to yank him off the carcass, he was mightily pissed off at me.

ALPHA WOMAN! What are you doing? C'mon. It's fun. Trust me! Just get down here with me and lets roll in this delicious stink. AH...it is so so fun! What? What are you doing? Give me that stinky carcass right now! I found it, it's MINEEEEE! WHY ARE YOU THROWING IT IN THE TRASH CAN??? ARE YOU NUTS!!??

And then, of course, I gave him a bath, which...he HATES beyond hate. He hates baths so much that every other month, instead of bathing him myself, I take him to the groomers. It is just easier and he comes home looking so darling with little bandannas around his neck. He, of course, is humiliated by this and only lets us fuss over him for about five minutes before he is rolling around crazily, trying to get it off.

He regularly goes to the vet for his shots and check ups.

I never in my life thought that I would ever take a dog to a vet unless he was about to die. But, I worry about Socks. I want to keep him healthy. One of my little secrets is that a few months ago, I actually consented to have the vet brush Socks' teeth. Watching this process was odd. I felt like one of those insipid idiotic women who treat their dogs as their children.

I used to snicker at them.

No more. Now, I do things like read the labels of DOG VITAMINS. Once, when we were at the pet store buying Socks his annual Christmas gift of a new collar and leash...ok...I confess...

I stopped and looked at dog sweaters. And I came this close to buying one. The only thing that stopped me was that I knew he would never stand for it. Especially not the pink one with rhinestones that I was looking at. He would be out looking for a dead raccoon to roll around in right away if I dressed him up in that. He'd never forgive me. And Socks is a forgiving sort of pooch. He has forgiven me for accidentally letting him eat a bite of sausage that had horse radish on it. He has forgiven me for stepping on his foot more than once.

And I have forgiven him too.

I forgave him for eating a tube of toothpaste once. He had minty breath all day, but toothpaste on my good bathroom rug? Ugh.

I forgave him for being scared of mice. I had read that Scottie dogs were good rat catchers, had even gone on ships in long ago days as rat catchers. So, when we developed a mice problem last fall, I assumed he would be a great mouser. Nope. He took one look at that tiny mouse running across the kitchen floor and he went whimpering in the other direction. So much for being a mouser.

I forgive him over and over again for being absolutely fascinated with the feces of other animals. And trying to roll in it.

All in all, Socks is a stand up dog. He is a member of our family. We are his pack. I am Alpha Woman. Bing is Omega Woman. Liv is The Kid. And Socks? He is our everything.

This is his favorite song. He gets almost unbearably excited every single time we play it. Play it for the dog in your life.

He deserves it too, yes?

Party time.

Several people have e-mailed me to ask how our New Year's Eve party went.

Well, it was both really, really fun and really, really not so fun.

I will remind myself of these things the next time I decide it might be fun to have a party:

1) Everyone eats a lot more than you think they will. Especially the men.
I watched my bff's husband snarf down an entire pizza singlehandedly and then follow it up with a bottle of wine.

2) Make sure that ALL facilities are working properly before the party. If a toilet has a personality quirk that all family members are aware of, make sure that you put a sign up in the bathroom so that others are aware of this too.
Our downstairs toilet is wonderful. You could flush a squirrel down it and all would be okay. The bathroom off of our bedroom is very picky. It does not like a lot of toilet paper and frankly, if you have to shit, do it downstairs as our bedroom toilet does not handle um....big loads. The other upstairs bathroom has a handle that must be jiggled after you flush. Two small flicks down followed by one swift upward flick. If you don't do this, it just runs and runs and runs.

3) Turn the heat down about ten degrees. Seriously. All of those bodies create heat and as the night goes on and someone decides that you all need to learn the dance moves from that song from Slum Dog Millionaire, you will get very very hot.

4) Do not get in an argument with your spouse ten minutes before people arrive. The argument will permeate throughout the party. Every time you look at him or her, you will decide that they are a complete doofus and you detest them. This will not work in your favor as you need to BOTH be working together on all cylinders to pull off a good party.
Bing and I got in a snipey argument in our bedroom right before the party started. She thought that I had ordered too much food (turns out that I didn't order enough) and she felt it necessary to give me a lecture on how I should not drink since I was not only the hostess but on pain medication. I believe I told her to stop acting like my freaking mother.

5) Make sure that fragile pieces are put up. These are your friends, yes...but it is also a party and people will be be very loosey goosey.
One of my favorite vases was broken when someone was throwing their arms around dancing. My beautiful purple and blue vase from Israel was smashed to bits.

So, those were the down sides of the party. The up sides were there too.

1) Only invite people that you LIKE.
I did this. It made for a very, very fun party. We spent much of the evening talking about health reform and who was going to get Kennedy's seat. It was enjoyable. There were a few dissenters, but they weren't mouthy dissenters.

2) Serve easy food.
Done. Pizza. Chips and dip. Finger foods. Good booze. I wasn't running around worrying over fallen souffles or too thick gravy.

3) Mood music is important. This is not the time to stick to one genre. Play all kinds. I left Bing in charge of the music and she nailed it.

4) Don't be too fussy about tidiness.
I tend to get stressed out about my house. I don't want people to think that we are pigs, but frankly, our house is sort of messy. I am very neat, but Bing is a total slob. I am constantly harping on her to hang up her freaking coat. I was flying around dusting and vacuuming before the party and it went totally unnoticed...and then I had to do it all over again after the party.

5) Don't tuck your pet away unless it is a biter or high strung.
I considered putting Socks in Liv's room. I'm glad I didn't. He was a total hit. Everyone adored him and he spent the entire time being loved up and petted by everyone.

6) Don't drink.
Bing was right. I shouldn't have had anything to drink. I didn't get stupid drunk but I did get a bit tipsy. Just enough that I was probably a bit too giggly. A good hostess or host doesn't end up dancing with a lampshade on their head. I didn't...but I was about one drink away from that.

All in all, our party was a success. Especially, the last couple of hours. One of our house guest, Vince, is a total dance whore and he insisted that we were all smart enough and coordinated enough to learn to dance to this:



I am proud to say that I actually made it through the entire dance, although I was so stiff and sore the next day that I could barely walk.

Vince had a prize of a yellow scarf for the woman who did the best and um...

I did not win.

Big surprise.

One of my co-workers, Piper, won. And surprised us all. She is kind of a short, no nonsense sort of person but that woman has the moves.

When the clock struck midnight, we had just finished learning the dance and after we ran around smooching each other, we all lined up in my living room and danced it perfectly.

It was a fitting end to a great night.

The worst part?

The clean up afterwards. Ugh. That is why I like going to parties more than giving them. YOU GET TO LEAVE AND NOT HELP CLEAN.

I think it was nearly three a.m. when I finally tumbled into bed and then I could not get that Jai Ho out of my head.

Oh..and before I forget:

Wear something comfy when you are hosting a party.

I started out in heels and kicked them off about ten minutes after the last guest arrived. And I was very glad that I wore my roomy jeans instead of the tight ones that I had planned on. Even fun can be stressful, so get comfy cozy.

And hey, invite ME. I am a good guest. Plus, I have this great dance that I can teach you all....

Giggling during the funeral

Bing's mother died recently.

Please don't feel the need to send messages of sympathy. It was a good thing. A very good thing. And we are all relieved that it is over. She had been in the hospital since early November and towards the end, it was a sibling bloodbath. Bing's younger sister, Francine, somehow talked their mother into rescinding her DNR order, so her last month was spent in a vegetative state on every bell and whistle you can think of to keep her alive. Her kidneys began to fail and thus this tiny woman turned into a bloated rancid smelling human whale, her skin practically bursting as it fought to contain her swelling.

Finally, finally, she died.

And then the funeral, wake, reception bloodbath began. Bing and her siblings (two sisters and one twin brother) never see eye to eye. Bing pushed for a green funeral but was outvoted so her mother got the fancy 5,000$ casket (or container, as the funeral director kept correcting us...Bing finally quipped, "Let's just call it a transportation pod, shall we?" and the guy backed off), a long Catholic service (the woman was one of the worst Catholics on record, hadn't been to church in decades) and a wake with a rosary said.

The worst of it all was the priest officiating at the mass. This man, let's call him Father Bruce was a buffoon with an inflated ego and a silibant s that was a borderline lisp. He didn't walk so much as he simper pranced.

I disliked him on sight, mostly because he kept pretending that he knew who Estelle was when he had no idea. He had spoken to Francine before the service and she had neglected to tell Bing and the other siblings that he was coming, so they hadn't even seen him beforehand. The moment he walked up to the podium, Bing leaned over and whispered into my ear that he reminded her of Will Ferrell.

Well, that did it.

Now, it was firmly entrenched in my head and it would not leave. Every time he spoke, it became clearer and clearer that maybe he actually WAS Will Ferrell playing the part of a sissified, effete man with a Truman Capote voice. He even gestured in a girlish way, the kind of gestures that rude people make to insult gay men. Imagine in your mind a man that looked like I described and then imagine him saying this:

"Esssstelle moved to the prairiesss and met Franklin and well, my children, it wassss love at firsssst sssssight, the kind of intenssssse, abiding love that we all want in our livesss. After hisss death, ssshe vowed in true SSSSScarlett O'Hara fasssshion that ssshe would keep her dear little family together and by gossssh and by golly, that is exactly what sssshe did."

Now imagine this fella waving his hands around in fey, feverish fashion, closing his eyes in ecstasy as he imagined that intensssse, abiding love.

Yes, it was hilarious. Except we were at a wake and it was important to stay solemn. Plus, I had Liv sitting next to me and I knew that I must model appropriate behavior, so I held it together.

Father went on to ask everyone to pray for Esstelle's dear children of her intensssse love and marriage bed with Franklin, Marielle, Bing, Bingman, and Francine. And to please keep Marielle's husband, Billy, Bing's dear friend, MARIE (yes, he got my name wrong) and all the grandchildren in our prayers as well.

I was half impressed that he even mentioned me and half insulted that he said my name incorrectly.

The longer Father Bruce prayed, the more convinced I was that he was a total ass hat. And we had to sit through an entire rosary, which if you are Catholic, you know how incredibly time consuming that can be. Liv fell asleep with her head in my lap and I sat staring at the crucifix and silently saying my mantra, trying to look attentive.

Finally, it was all over and we gathered around talking. It was great fun. I hadn't seen some of Bing's relatives in a long time and some came all the way from Louisiana, and I got to meet them for the first time. I got to hold everyone's baby and all of the men in Bing's family bear hugged me in true good ole boy fashion. We all agreed to meet at the mortuary for the procession to the church the following morning.

The next morning bloomed bright and cold. We took Liv to her babysitters to take her to school (we saw no need for her to miss school) and drove to the mortuary. We talked on the way there, Bing grumbling that she hated paying Father Bruce 300$ when she just knew he was going to go out and buy porn with it...

When we arrived, we were greeted by Marielle, Bing's older sister, who informed us that Francine had planted herself on Estelle's casket container and was refusing to let them close it.

It was decided that I would be the one to talk to her ("You have training in talking to crazy people, Maria...")

I walked up to her and saw immediately that this was going to be a challenge. She had draped herself sloppily over her mother's clasped hands and her eyes were tightly closed. I tried gently talking to her. No dice. Bing, who honestly had no business doing this as her social skills are limited, tried to physically pry Francine off of her mother. All of this did was to end up with Estelle's middle finger sticking straight up as Francine had been clutching at her hands.

The effect was exactly what you think it was. It looked like she was flipping us all off. One of the funeral flunkies immediately stepped in and pushed it back down, it made a loud snapping sound which made everyone flinch and pushed Francine out of her lunacy and she was able to sit down next to Marielle on the pew and allow the transportation pod to be closed.

We all got into our cars and proceeded to the church. It was not crowded. Estelle was in her mid 80's and had practically no friends and most of her family was dead. We got to the church and then watched the pall bearers carry Estelle into the church, one slipping on a patch of ice and almost bringing them all crashing down.

The mass began. Father Bruce emerged in a somber black outfit and insisted on incensing everyone and everything in sight, prancing around on feet that seemed to move in ballet slippers and flaring his nostrils out in pious fashion.

All I could see was Will Ferrell. I bit hard on the insides of my cheeks. Without Liv's presence next to me to keep me firmly in line, I was hard pressed not to let out a snort of laughter.

It got worse. It was clear to me that this altar was Will Ferrell's Father Bruce's stage and we were his captive audience. He slithered around the altar as he gave his sermon, taking mincing, goosey steps, and continued to flare his nostrils as he spoke in his Kewpie doll voice, warning us all about how important it was for us to "live your livesssss assss if you might die tomorrow, becausssse, my children, you jusssst MIGHT!"

I looked down, I looked at the hymnals in front of me and tried to think about anything except Will Ferrell.

I could feel a terrible laugh bubbling up inside of me. It started in my stomach and threatened to escape out of my mouth. I pressed my lips tightly together, sternly instructing myself YOU WILL NOT LAUGH, MISSY. DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT LETTING THAT LAUGH OUT. SWALLOW IT BACK. DO NOT LAUGH! DO NOT LAUGH!

A small snort shot out of my mouth before I firmly bit it back. It came on the heels of Father Bruce reminding us that "love is soooo very important, yessss, we musst all reach our heartssss out to othersss and find ssssolacccce in the comfort of their ssssmilesssss"

Bing's head shot up and she looked curiously at me sidewise from beneath her lashes. Francine turned around in her pew to see who had made this terrible sound and she started in surprise when she realized it was me and not Bing. I hurriedly caught myself and bit down as hard as I could on my cheeks.

It seemed to do the trick. I let my mind wander easily then and thought about Estelle's life. What goodness could she carry to the other side?

Well, not much. I'm just being honest. When I had said my final goodbye to her at her hospital bed, she had not given any indication that she knew me from Adam, so I just thanked her for giving me Bing. I told her that Bing was the best thing that had ever happened to me and I was so grateful that she had been born. I looked up, then, into Bing's eyes and saw that her eyes were wet with tears. I decided then and there that I needed to be more demonstrative about my love for her.

Estelle was a hateful person. There. Said it.

She rejoiced in other's bad luck, seemed to find joy in other's hardships. She would tell you that she was not shy about saying her opinions. I will tell you that she was the kind of person who had no problem telling you that you were fat, you were ugly, you were wearing an ugly dress or shoes and that you had lipstick on your teeth too. She had no tact, had no empathy for anyone and she was mean spirited. She beat her children when they were young and called it "doing her parental duty." In the decades that I knew her, she never once, in my presence, EVER said anything nice or warm about anyone. Not once. She drove me crazy by calling us every single day to tell us that there was toilet paper on sale at Walgreens or did we know that it was 10 degrees outside? Did we remember to wear boots outside? And by the way, did you hear about cousin Marcy's impending divorce? But, hey, she deserved it by allowing herself to get fat as a pig so her husband strayed. It was all her fault.

I am not mourning her.

So, that kept me from laughing in church. I simply remembered who it was in that transportation pod.

And then to add insult to injury, the closing hymn was to the tune of Danny Boy, except the verses had been changed to some holy idiocy. Ugh. How DARE they change those beautiful lyrics.

The reception was good, but tiring. I think I talked to everyone. I was more than ready to go home afterwards.

Bing and I stood in the kitchen and took out our last bottle of champagne, a leftover from the case that Vince and Thuan had given us for Christmas. We opened the bottle and toasted each other. We did not toast Estelle.

I managed to say, "Goodbye and good luck" but that was it. Bing thought for a moment and then said, "Is it terrible that the only thing I can think of is Ding Dong the Witch is Dead?

Later that night, as I lay in bed, I was running through the events of the day and a sudden picture of Will Ferrell playing Father Bruce ran through my head and it made me laugh.

So, I suppose I do have some happy memory to store away.

Sorry, sorry....

Yes, I deleted the last post. I wrote it all out and then realized after I had put it all out there that it just felt too personal, wanted to keep the memory to myself.

Sorry...sometimes a memory has little shards and you thought that you were done aching but you really aren't.

I had one crying jag after another as I wrote it and that should have been my big clue. Haven't thought about that night in years.

I'll be back to my regular pithy self soon....until then I will use this time to catch up on all of your blogs.

The time line

I received an e-mail a few days ago from a young woman in college. With her permission, here is her question:

I think I might be gay, but I am just not sure. I seem to be attracted to both men and women, with women edging out men by about 60-40%. I love your blog because you are so frank about the fact that you are bi-sexual. My question to you is this: when did you know? Were you always attracted to both women and men? Your blog kind of takes me up and down. One moment you are talking about Bing as if she is the love of your life and then you start talking about your attraction to bad boys. So. Who wins? Bing or the guys? I'm asking because I think I should figure this out one way or another. Thanks for any help you can give me.

Wow...well, dear reader, I am going to confuse you some more. Because, seriously, I don't know. It totally depends on a lot of crazy things such as what my mood is, who the man or woman is, their personality, etc.

And in that, I may have your answer.

For me, it all comes down to personality. I seem to have a weakness for a certain type of personality(ies) and it matters not a whit to me if they are male or female.

Honest. No joke. Someone told me once that I must have a really active libido to get turned on by both men and women.

Well, I don't. Just ask Bing. Or any of my previous loves. I was always the one in the relationship who had to be coaxed into bed. I am still that way. I don't really have a high sex drive, although I do really, really get totally orgasmic over good conversation. This drives Bing nuts because as she has told me many, many times: Sooner or later, we have to stop with the fucking talking and get on to the plain old fucking.

Well, the problems lies in the fact that when someone asks me if I want to come up and see their etchings, well....I want to come up and see their etchings. And the books in their bookcase. If they have a pet, I want to know it's name and how they got it. If there are frames with photos in them, I want to know who is that in the photo and how do they belong to you? And then, yeah...we can have coffee or wine or sherry or whatever and maybe kiss a little, but I can warn you that I might try to engage you in a discussion about why you have those kind of sheets and hey, that book on your night table? Is it any good?

As Bing has told me many, many, many times: Enough already with the talk! Can we get to the sex yet?

I think that my first stirrings of interest began when I was about 7 years old. There was a show on television called Honey West. It starred Anne Francis and she played a female detective. She was good too. And she wore lots of makeup and pencil skirts and frilly blouses. But, she always got her bad guy. I remember one episode where the bad guy gave her some lipstick that glowed in the dark, except that she didn't know it and of course, he was able to locate her when she was hiding in a dark room because her LIPS glowed in the dark.

God, help me. I was the wee age of seven and I wanted to kiss a girl so bad.

Right on her glow in the dark lips.

And even more than that, I wanted to be a partner in her detective agency. I wanted to go catch bad guys with her and wear make up and pencil skirts too.

After that, I don't remember much until I was about 11 years old. My Da was dead by then and my Mother was running our farm by herself. There wasn't much time for fun but one night she asked me if I wanted to go to a movie with her and I said okay. We lived in a small town with one theatre. This was playing:



Romeo and Juliet. Ah. I had never heard or read Shakespeare before and it just shocked me to the center of myself. It wasn't the characters or the actors. It was the WRITING. I was caught up, crazed inside, hungry for more. The language was so incredibly gorgeous, the story so tragic and beautiful. I remember weeping copiously as my Mother sat next to me, glancing at me with concern. Afterwards, she reminded me that this was just a story, that no one had really died. I was speechless. Of course I knew it wasn't real! But, hadn't she HEARD those words? It was my first indication that I was very different from my Mother. She thought the movie was kind of silly and hard to understand. She told her sister, my Aunt Dottie, that she thought that it was a really bad idea for movies to condone marital relations between 14 year olds.

I was astonished at her naivete. It was all about the LANGUAGE, dude! Couldn't she see that? I was more turned on than I ever remember being about anything. I was almost limp with pleasure when I realized that not only could I check Romeo and Juliet out of the library, but that this guy, William Shakespeare, had written a whole slew of other things and they were considered classics. This meant that I was encouraged to read them. I finished up Shakespeare and asked the librarian to recommend other classics, hoping that this meant I might discover other writers who could make my legs turn to jelly. She didn't disappoint me. She gave me Jane Austin and the Bronte sisters.

It was a very good year. I was in a state of bliss almost continually. I especially loved Wuthering Heights and was almost maniacal about my devotion to the character of Heathcliff. I lay in bed at night, tracing the dialogue between Cathy and Heathcliff with my fingers and wanting to swoon at the thought of there actually being the possibility that there was someone in this world who was deemed to be my partner, my love, my soul mate. To this day, I can't read this dialogue by Cathy without weeping with joy:



Good writing is good writing is good writing and it is the BEST aphrodisiac in the world as far as I am concerned. Give me a woman or a man who can write me a funny, witty letter and I am silly putty in their hands. And here is the odd thing: Bing is not the greatest writer. She is good at technical writing and writing a thesis for her doctorate. She is not a fiction writer, not good at romantic notes or letters and has not picked up a book of fiction in over a decade. If someone had told me when I was sixteen that I was going to fall in love with a woman whose idea of a love letter was (and this is an actual example):

Hi honey,
I thought about you today. Please make sure that when you do the laundry tonight that you do NOT throw my long johns in the dryer. Thanks. I'll be home around nine and hey...don't forget to shut the space heater off. Love ya, sweet ass gal. B

At any rate, I found a side of me, a vital side that could easily fall for any Mary or Larry who could write a decent love letter. This means no spelling or grammar errors too.

I was not a total snob. I was a big fan of The Brady Bunch from the get go. It was 1969. I was still reading Shakespeare and Jane Austin, but I was watching Marcia Brady and thinking she was soooo pretty. I was too young to lust really, but I did recognize the fact that Greg Brady didn't do a thing for me and when I fantasized about having my own little apartment? It was Marcia and me sharing it, sitting up late at night and popping popcorn together and giggling over a movie. Greg wasn't even on my radar. But, frankly, Jan Brady didn't do much for me either. I liked Marcia's strong, assertive personality.

When The Partridge Family came along and all of my friends were swooning over Keith, I was swooning over Laurie. I thought that Keith was ok but he looked a little prissy to me in that jumpsuit. Now, Laurie...she was tall and willowy and she always had a wisecrack to put Danny or Keith in their place. I changed my dream of living with Marcia Brady to living with Laurie Partridge. We would sit up late at night and make snide comments about how stupid those boys were.

As I got a little older, my friends soon discovered the Osmonds. And no, I didn't pine for Marie. I didn't pine for any of them. They were all so squeaky clean that I couldn't muster up much of anything for them. I went back and found Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre and fell back into Heathcliff's eyes, Mr. Darcy's words.

I was in high school then and dated several boys. And liked it. I liked having some boy watch me in class or across an auditorium and duck his head shyly when I glanced back at him. The boys I chose were the ones who may have ducked that head the first time, but held my gaze the second time around. I did my share of making out in cars under the moon. And like the song from the play, A My Name is Alice, I

sure liked the boys who liked to drive real slow...
no rush, you know we'll get there
parking by the lakeside
headlights in the moonlight.
One look at me and off they go.....
Kiss me. Real slow.
No rush. You know, feel every corner, try every spot......

I never once wanted to settle down and live in that tiny town though.

Nope. I wanted to go out and see what or whom was out there. Heathcliff? Laurie Partridge?

I spent my college years exploring my options, losing my virginity and never looking back. I slept around a lot and it wasn't like I was the school slut. We ALL gave it away at the drop of a beer. But, I was slightly different as I gave it away to both men and women. And I liked it that way. Again, it was a certain type of personality that caught my eye. I liked my dates to be a little reckless and a lot kind. I liked a good time and a big party but also some quiet moments of reading good poetry together and trying to get better grades than every one else. I can't remember one time where I went after someone with less than at least a 3.5 average. And a bad boy or girl with a soft heart? Ai yi yi.

And then I discovered (along with a whole nation of girls) Johnny Depp. He was on a cop show called 21 Jump Street and he was ABSOLUTELY my match made in heaven. A soft hearted bad boy. He could gun down a bad guy as he was pulling out his date's chair. Ah. The perfect mix of bad boy and good heart. I was smitten.

And then I fell madly in love with a woman who was not even close to my list of must haves for a date. She was a high school dropout. She didn't read or write. Her grammar was dicey. But, she had a quality that would soon be another to add to my list:

She was an athlete.

She could play basketball like a female Harlem Globetrotter. She was so coordinated that she could spin a basketball on her finger and set the table at the same time. She wasn't particularly pretty, but she was tall and lithe and a great dancer.

I fell in love with Cory after watching her play basketball. And it was baaaddddd. I was hit hard and stayed that way for nearly seven years. She and I moved in together in true lesbian fashion: two weeks after we met. She followed me to Baltimore where we got a little apartment and I put my time in at the hospital while she got a job in a candle shop. I came home so dead on my feet that I barely had the energy to take a shower and go to bed. She stuck it out with me. We went to a lot of movies and I found new heroines and heroes to fantasize about.

Patrice Donnelly in Personal Best.

Patricia Carbonneau in Desert Hearts.

Andrew McCarthy in St. Elmo's Fire.

And suddenly, I was less attracted to athletes who had perfect coordination and more attracted to brainy, reckless types who could banter back at me with rapid fire precision and slick, smooth grammar.

I was offered my first job here on the prairie. I was finally making some money, so I bought my very first NEW car (not a used one with a hole punched in the dashboard) and my first home, a fancy little condo in a swanky part of town.

And fell out of love.

Now came the downward spiral. I spent my days being a polished professional and my nights pounding around at clubs, drinking too much, smoking too much and taking every sort of drug you can spell and some you can't. But, my dates all had one thing in common: they were smart, they could sling back words at me just as fast as I flung them out, and they were a little wild but a lot kindhearted.

I broke some hearts because it would be a lie to say that I didn't. I didn't get my own heart broken because I never invested enough of myself into anyone to get hurt. I realize now that my break up with Cory had left me with some baggage. I was in a state of mind that would not allow anyone in my heart. They could fuck me, they could party with me, but wrap their fingers around my heart? No thanks.

I saw a few movies that made me re-think my Heathcliff fantasy, my Mr. Darcy fantasy and I replaced it with what I saw as a goodhearted rebel fantasy. I now found myself attracted to men (and women) who had as much baggage as I did and were maybe a little damaged by that, but still able to function and love.

To this day, I still want to swoon when I hear the dialogue, "Stay alive! No matter what occurs. I WILL find you."



I prided myself on being a woman who was a pot without a lid. The last thing I needed was a freakin' lid! But, I was aging. I was not some dewy eyed, perky breasted college co-ed anymore. I wasn't even a young professional. I was a woman who had a good career and enough money to take a vacation to the Bahamas if I so chose.

And while I didn't dream of having a partner anymore, I did dream of being a mother.

I thought that I could pull it off. I knew that something in me ached for this, felt called to it. And I knew that I could succeed. But, as I said, I was no spring chicken anymore. Where I used to have to worry about getting pregnant, I was now worried about not being able to get pregnant.

I would close my eyes and imagine myself with a little boy or a little girl. I never imagined the child as having a father or me as having a partner in parenthood.

And it came to be just as I imagined it. Not WHEN I imagined it, of course. Life does not work that way. It came to be after I had loosened my grip on the dream of parenthood.

And just like that I had a baby.

Funny, how your imaginings and attractions don't stop even when you are so woozy with fatigue that you can't even imagine sitting down and breezily bantering with anyone except for maybe Big Bird.

I remember once when Liv was in kindergarten, I caught my first glimpse of that new show called The L Word.

And then there was this character called Shane....



I'll have two please. And soon. Like right now. Please. Pretty please. With sugar on top. Brown sugar.

Even as I was teaching Liv to read, I still had it in me to get all hot and bothered over a bad girl with a good heart.

Eventually, I settled down with Bing, not because I was finally ready, I'm not sure if I will ever be ready, but because I knew that I loved her and that I needed her and wanted her and because it was important for my child to see a successful love relationship modeled. I haven't led Bing to believe that I am suddenly in need of a lid. If anything, I warned her that I am a pain in the ass and that betting on me might be akin to betting on a three legged horse.

She seemed to think it would be okay, that this would work.

So, yes, I stay. I don't always like it. I chafe at the marital bonds from time to time. What I love about Bing, though, is that she knows that I will still daydream and it is perfectly fine with her because she daydreams too.

Our first allegiance is to each other, though. That is never questioned. We love each other. Bing is a homosexual. She has zilch interest in men and says that it makes her feel slightly queasy to think about being with a man in a sexual way.

I feel no such queasiness. I know in my heart that if Bing's spirit was in a man's body, I would be in a relationship with a man, probably legally married. (And, good hell, it would sure be a lot easier on the pocketbook...just knowing that if one of us got sick, we wouldn't have to be sure that our wills explicitly state that we are each other's partner and have all rights to make decisions, etc.)

I can be partnered and still have fantasies. Right now, the last fantasy I had centered around the guy in this video. What can I say? Maybe it is the beard. Maybe it is the lopsided smile he gives his girl at the end of the video. Maybe it is the way he sings about losing control....

And no, the female in Lady Antebellum doesn't do a thing for me. Probably because she looks remarkably like my cousin Patricia.

What I am saying, I suppose, is that I don't think that most people are true heterosexuals or homosexuals. I believe that we are attracted to personalities. Now, maybe we are conditioned to be with either women or men. Maybe I somehow missed that class. I dunno. I just am who I am and I refuse to question it.

So, sorry if I was no help. Truly. But, I am wondering if perhaps my readers have some advice for you? What makes one attracted to females or to males, in your opinion? Are we born one way or another? Do you think that if you are heterosexual, you could ever be able to be in a homosexual relationship? And vice versa? What makes us tick, as humans? Anyone care to take a swing at this one?

Spending the day with Elvis.

It was just a crummy day yesterday. School was canceled due to the extreme cold. Here on the prairie, that hardly EVER happens as we are a hardy bunch. So, it looked as if I was going to be the only one having to heave my ass out of bed to go to work.

Until I woke up at 4:00 with a slammin' migraine. Ugh. Not only was it freezing cold, but I was alternating between sweating and shivering with my head aching so badly that I winced every single time that Bing moved a fraction of an inch. I ended up kicking her out of bed and banishing her to the guest room.

It looked like it was going to be a long day.

I called in sick at work and tried to sleep the pain away. Lucky for me, it was a short migraine, as I woke up around 1:00 and the pain had abated. Bing and Liv were gone. Bing went to a meeting to work on some Apple projects and she kindly dropped Liv off at a friend's home so that she didn't have to stay at home with a comatose mother.

I had the afternoon to myself.

I grabbed a graham cracker (the only thing I can eat after a migraine...it is either that or yogurt) and settled in with my blanket to watch some mindless television. I turned the channel to a show about a couple house hunting in Nicaragua. Their house budget was 800.000$. WAY out of my league and I don't really see myself settling down in Nicaragua anyway. I turned to VH1 and watched a Lady Gaga video which sort of freaked me out. This was followed by a Nickelback one that made me start bawling (made me miss my Da.) This was not good since crying can coax a migraine to return sometimes.

I sighed and channel surfed and hit....PAY DIRT.

There was an Elvis marathon.

I was thrown right into the middle of Speedway.

Now, there are 2 kinds of movies that I cannot resist. One is a Doris Day movie. My sisters and I are suckers for those. The 2nd type is...yes...you guessed it....ELVIS PRESLEY movies, the older the better.

I can totally get into them. I love the way the plots never really change. Sometimes Elvis is a poor boy who wears really hot looking rags and sometimes he is a rich boy who wears really hot looking designer duds, but he is always my Elvis. He's always got the shiny slicked back hair, the bad boy smirk with a good boy heart, and he always sings and dances like he means it sincerely and could sweep a girl off of her feet in no time at all. He can seduce anyone he wants, older women, nuns, young teenage girls, even pets and old men.

There is always a trusty old man sidekick who takes Elvis in. The guy usually owns a surf board shop or a diner with cars for booths. And Elvis always has a posse of loyal boy pals who sing and dance along with him in perfect sync.

And girls. All kinds of girls. Tall girls. Short girls. Tomboy girls. Diva girls. No matter. Elvis makes them all swoon.

The dialogue is really terrible and truly wonderful. Girls run around saying things like:

"She took my perfume and my peignoir! And what is she doin' in YOUR room, Jake!" (Or Trevor, or Billy or Steve or Glenn. Elvis never has a name like Lester or Francis or Basil.)

"You little sneak! Get your racy painted digits off my man!"

"I just borrowed Daddy's wheels and thought I'd come by to say hello and now you don't look happy to see me, Steve! Is this a brush off?"

I soooo want to steal that dialogue. I want to ask Bing if she's giving me the brush off. I want to call someone a sneak for stealing my perfume and peignoir.

The leading ladies are fantastic. My favorite, hands down, is Nancy Sinatra in Speedway. And all of the leading ladies are mouthy and smart and oh,no...they don't fall at Elvis' feet like those other silly girls. Nope. They play hard to get. Elvis has to work to get their attention. But, in the end, they always succumb. Elvis is just too jam packed with charm and sexiness to resist. And seriously, who can resist someone like him? With those sleepy bedroom eyes and that little smirk playing around his lips that says that yes, he knows it is just a matter of time before you fall into his arms and give in to his strong arms and bad boy looks and good boy heart. They are goners right from the get go...but it is so much fun to watch the game begin.

Usually there is some sort of danger somewhere. The leading lady is swept away by a bad guy, a weather event or another less worthy suitor. And Elvis comes in with his bulging muscles and yes, ma'am hip swivel and well, the game is no longer afoot but all wrapped up.

It was a fun afternoon. After Speedway, I watched Blue Hawaii. This one had a young Angela Lansbury playing his mother. Her accent was so southern thick that you could cut it with a knife. She was so angry because there you have it. You raise your rich young son to be a swaggering southern gentleman and what do you get? A son who just wants to drive a tour bus in Hawaii and sing to the ladies while he shakes his hips and pouts his lip.

This plot was pretty much the same. A young college co-ed falls madly in love with Elvis and sneaks into his bedroom. He comes in and is surprised as shit to see her, although, honestly what did he expect after all that hip swiveling and singing sweet nothings in her ear at the diner with the booths shaped like cars? And she shamelessly tries to lure him into bed while he manfully resists her young charms and calls her kid and tells her that she should be in bed sleeping. Of course, she leaps on his bed and tells him that, natch, she IS in bed but not really interested in sleeping.

And then, of course, they get interrupted when Elvis' true love surprises him with a nocturnal visit. Much mayhem transpires with Elvis foolishly trying to hide the girl behind a curtain. (C'mon..Elvis. You KNOW she won't stay there! Silly boy!) Elvis' love is no patsy, though. She immediately smells that bad perfume and knows that there is a ho hiding somewhere in his little apartment. So why is she shocked and dismayed when the college co-ed in the bright orange peignoir leaps out from behind the curtain and wails to Elvis, "I thought you loved me, Steve! I thought I was your girl!"

Oh, it is all just too juicy. And worth a whole box of graham crackers.

Elvis movies just cheer me up. And there are so many of them. At one time, the dude was cranking out three a year! I could have easily watched all of them straight through but, of course, real life interfered. Bing and Liv came home and there was dinner to make and grocery shopping to do and Bing scowling at the TV and saying, "Good lord, do we have to watch this idiotic shit?"

I think I can get through just about anything if I can watch Doris Day and Elvis movies. I'm reminded that things usually turn out for the best in the end, that the girl who doesn't give it up easily almost always gets the hot looking guy and love abides. I don't let myself think of the bloated, insomniac that was the future Elvis. The young, naughty but nice, hot looking Elvis does just fine for me.

And now I just have to think how to incorporate some of that wonderful, awful dialogue into my life. I want to sashay up to Bing and tell her that if she wants me, well, she better stop with the orange peignoired college co-eds or hey, these boots are made for walkin', and that's just what they'll do. One of these days, these boots are gonna walk all over you....are you ready boots? Start walkin'....

And then some bad guy will spirit me away and lock me in a dark mansion and since I am such a plucky spirited broad, I will find my way out and just as I am trying to escape, Elvis Bing will rescue me and I will leap into her arms and we will rush to her red caddy and ride off into the sunset singing some silly song and smiling at each other, me with my scarf around my hair so that the wind doesn't blow it around and she looking back at me with her black, slicked back hair baseball cap on, smiling with that bad girl smile.....

Ah....tell me you don't just want to leap in and escape with me....

Too Much Information.

I like Regina, I really do.

She is the nurse at the office where I work. She and I are nearly the same age; I am two days older than she is. She has been a nurse forever, worked for the VNA for years and then decided that she wanted something low stress, so came to work for us.

Regina is nice looking. She wears those kid friendly nurses outfits with smurfs and Bob the builder on them. She talks a mile a minute, is an extraordinary cook (she bakes often and brings things to our staff lounge like red velvet cake and white chocolate coated pretzels) and she is up on current events.

Regina has one small problem though. She gives out too much information about her life.

This was why I blanched when she drug me into the lounge because she wanted to show me something. Those were her exact words:

Come in here. I have something to show you.

The last time she said those words to me, I was forced to look at her swollen gums.

She has lots of ailments. She has "'roids". They are pretty much what you think. It is with great relief that I tell you that she has never asked me to take a gander at them. She is on blood thinners, so she bruises quite easily and often shows me large purple bruises that are huge and unsightly. She once tore one of her toe nails clean off and actually took off her sock to show me it.

And she tends to do this during lunch.

Regina also talks a lot, as I said. And I mean A FUCKING LOT. I know more about her family than my own. Regina has a next door neighbor with whom I feel as if I could be on a first name basis. I can tell you that her name is Phyllis, that she has bad arthritis and can barely walk, a full grown son who is so lazy that he can't even come shovel her walk when it snows and so Regina's high school sons do it. I know that Phyllis used to be a kindergarten teacher and a single mom. And it doesn't stop there. I know details about Regina's son who is a junior in high school that he would probably not want me to know. For example, I know that he once looked up french kissing on u-tube to learn how to do it and she thought that was so funny that she told a whole table of us about it. I know that her younger son weighs 200 pounds and that she takes him to Weight Watchers.

But, mostly...I know things about Trent, Regina's husband. When I see him, I feel like blushing because Regina is pretty open about the fact that they have a really exciting sex life. I know that he really loves blow jobs but is not reliable at reciprocating. I know that once he came out of the shower with only a towel on and gave Regina a lap dance.

And then I have to see him at functions or when he picks her up. He looks exactly like Fred Mertz. So, then I do what most people would do: I picture him in my head giving Regina a lap dance.

And it is not pretty.

I tend to think that the truth is that none of us look all that great having sex unless we are actors in a movie. The truth is that sex is a lot about flesh slapping together and grunting noises and seriously, who wants to see a close up of two people who aren't Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt french kissing?

Regina told me just last week that she and Trent had sex in their garage.

In -8 degree weather.

They had been shoveling snow together and Trent got the bright idea that he wanted a blow job in their garage.

"So, well...you know me...I'm always up for something new and fun...I just gave him one," she said, casually flipping her hair back.

I was so aghast that I couldn't even speak. When I did manage to squeak out a response it was only to say, "But...but, but...it was SO cold out, Regina!"

"Tell me about it, sister," she answered.

Then she went on to say that they had did it towards the back of their garage so that they couldn't really be seen from the street and that...get this...

She wore one of those ski masks where you have holes for your eyes, nose and mouth.

Ok. Take a few moments here. Picture it. Fred Mertz in the back of a garage getting a blow job from a woman in a black ski mask.

Piper, a co-worker who had been eating lunch with us (yes, she told this story during LUNCH), managed to blurt out, "But, wouldn't his...well, his um...penis get a little chilly?"

Regina said that no, it hadn't been a problem. After all, it had been in a nice warm receptacle.

End of conversation. Piper and I practically knocked each other down trying to leave the room.

The thing is...Regina honestly has no idea whatsover that this might be TOO MUCH INFORMATION. Or as Piper told me later:

"I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO LOOK TRENT IN THE EYE AGAIN. A SKI MASK? A FREAKIN" SKI MASK, MARIA!"

Me either. But now I have a new picture to replace it.

When Regina pulled me into the lounge, she yanked down her top and one side of her bra to show me a HUGE blue greenish bruise on her left breast. I took one look and shrank back because we all know that when women see this kind of thing, it makes their own breasts hurt.

I asked her what in the good hell happened to her.

This is her story and it is a doozy.

"Well, you know how we have all that snow? Well, over Christmas break, Trent and I decided to take the boys and some of their friends sledding. So, we got to Memorial Park and we just watched them for awhile but it looked so fun! So, Trent and I decided that we would join them and go down a few times. So, we got on the boy's new sled, me in the front and Trent behind me. He had his arms around me and just as we started down, he put his hand inside of my coat accidentally and I think he thought he was squeezing my arm or something, but he had a hold of my boob! And he was squeezing it hard with his hand in a leather glove! I screamed like a banshee all the way down the hill and when I asked him why he did that, he said that yes, he thought it was my arm and that I had been screaming because it was so fun to go down so fast!"

Well. Hush up.

I could think of nothing to say, especially after she said that when they got home, Trent suggested that she put a raw steak on her breast to keep it from swelling and bruising up. I didn't have the nerve to ask her if she did that for fear that she would say that not only did it take the swelling down, but it made for a great sex toy too.

I didn't know what to say, so I just grabbed Piper as she walked by and said, "Regina has something interesting to show you."

I have no idea why Regina does not seem to have a censor within herself. Furthermore, I thought I was a free spirit until I met Regina.

I can honestly say that in a million years, Bing would never, ever ask me to go down on her in -8 degree weather in our garage. Wearing a ski mask.

Here I thought I was this gutsy, plucky broad because I had sex once in an airplane bathroom when I was in my early twenties. (And like most stupid things, it was NOT all that fun..I think I pulled a hamstring.)

Regina and Trent probably already have me beat. They probably did it in their airplane seats, under a blanket.

Now, theoretically, I would never think that I could like someone like Regina. But, she is the one who is always on the lookout for great new coffee for me to try. She brings it to work and makes it and watches my face happily as I take my first sip. When Liv has to come back to work with me after school once in awhile, I often find Regina staying late to play checkers or hang man with her while they wait for me to finish up with my last appointment of the day. As I said, Regina is an incredible baker. But, did I tell you that she bakes cakes for each of us on our birthdays? And not just plain old chocolate cakes. No. These cakes have jelly bean tops or are three decker with icing in the middle. No sheet pans for her cakes. She only does layer.

She brings in coats, hats and mittens frequently to put in our clothes bin for our needy families. NEW coats, hats and mittens. And fancy scarves.

The children who visit our office love her because she doesn't talk baby talk to them but she takes a deep interest in them and remembers their names every time and what their favorite tv shows are.

Regina is pretty remarkable.

But, um. Yeah. She volunteers too much information.

YOU try getting that picture of William Frawley getting a blow job in a garage from a woman in a black ski mask.

See?

Prejudice

I have prejudice in my heart. So do you. And despite what a blog reader stated in a post regarding my last blog entry, I believe that I am open minded.

But, yes. I am prejudiced in many ways too. I sincerely don't know anyone who isn't. I can honestly state that I have never met someone who was completely without prejudice.

According to my dictionary, prejudice is defined as:

A judgment or opinion formed without due examination of facts.

So, if you want to get snitty, I would have to say that your comment reflected your own prejudice. That in making your statement, you also revealed your prejudice. And I am, yes....open minded enough to think that you probably are absolutely correct in your assumption that I have prejudice but to decide without due examination of facts that I am also close minded is well....prejudicial.

And I may be taking a crazy leap here, but I am guessing that you are either 1) a Republican or/and 2) religious.

But, what the hell, you are entitled to your opinion in any case. And I am very, very certain that there are many other blogs out there that would suit you better and that you might enjoy reading more. I yam what I yam.

And yes, I do have prejudices.

I live in a red state. This means that I spend my life around lots of Republicans. I have the good fortune to work in an office where I am finally in the majority, though as a Democrat. One of our secretaries is Republican and she has a stupid bumper sticker that says How's that Hope and Change working out for you?

I like her fine, but I don't really want to party with her on New Year's Eve.

I am the lone Democrat in a family of ultra conservative Catholic Republicans. I know what it feels like to be the orphan at the table.

I don't mind religious folk. I do mind holy rollers. There is a difference. Religious folk have a strong belief in God. Holy Rollers also have a strong belief in God but they want you to know that if you don't agree with them....you will burn in hell. I know several holy rollers and I have to admit that I am very, very grateful that they were not invited to our New Year's Eve party.

Yes, it was my party and I had the right to invite whomever I wanted and I did.

I have prejudices, though. Lots of them. Some aren't very nice or very pretty. I'll bet yours aren't either. Prejudice is not all that attractive for the most part.

So, I sat down and thought seriously about my own prejudices. Here they are:

1) I am prejudiced against most Republicans.

I like some on a basic level, but I think their politics stink. I don't know too many people who could do what I do for a living and not want to see health reform. Once you see up close and personal the hell some people live through because they do not have adequate health insurance, well....it is humbling. And I don't believe that the Republican platform is very conducive to legalizing gay marriage, giving women the right to choose or providing health insurance for everyone. So, yes, I am prejudiced against Republicans.

2) I am prejudiced against little people.

That is embarrassing for me to admit because it makes me look mean spirited and I don't believe that I am. The truth is that I had a very bad experience with a dwarf, midget little person in college and I have not worked hard enough to overcome it. So, yes, when I am around a man who is a little person (I seem to do okay with the women), I get anxious. I think that like most prejudices, I could overcome it if I met a little person and got to know them and like them. But, that hasn't happened yet and it isn't as if I can advertise on Craig's list for a male little person to be my friend and not look like I am sort of a creepster. But, it is there and it is part of me and I am not proud of it.

3) I am prejudiced against male authors.

I rarely read books by men. I make some exceptions. I like Bill Bryson, Stephen King, John Grisham, John Steinbeck, Lanford Wilson, and William Shakespeare. But, to be honest, when I am at a book store, the first thing that I do is flip to the back page to see if the author is female. I read a lot and I believe that women writers paint the best characters. I guess that this is certainly a prejudice and I take responsibility for that.

4) I am prejudiced against famous people.

When I read about Paris Hilton bawling like a baby because she had to go to jail for a few weeks, I rolled my eyes. When a famous person complains about being chased by the paparazzi, I wonder if they would prefer to work in an insurance company and be so anonymous that their cube neighbor keeps forgetting their name. I think that just because they are famous, they do not deserve to get free sparkly bags at the Oscars or a slap on the wrist when they drive drunk. When they go to re-hab, I don't feel badly for them. I tend to think they are lucky because they have enough money that they don't have to worry about how their family is going to pay the rent while they kick their habit. It is a prejudice but I don't feel all that terrible about it, not like I do about little people.

5) I am prejudiced against cats.

I don't particularly like them. I can't even give a good reason. I have never been attacked by one. I did have one leap on my back when I was standing by a stove stirring spaghetti sauce once and it scared me so badly that I dropped the big spoon into the pot and it splashed up boiling red sauce into my face and I was slightly burned. But...um...I got over it. I just don't find them to be all that interesting. I am a dog person. I think that cats might be smarter than I am and that may be the crux of my prejudice.

6) I am prejudiced against ignorant people.

This has nothing to do with college degrees. The smartest person I ever met was a janitor who had an eighth grade education. But, it irks the hell out of me when someone spouts off against....let's say...Obama's health care plan and has not even bothered to read it or do any research on it at all. Or bible thumpers who quote scripture at me and tell me that I will burn in hell for my homosexuality, yet they obviously have not read the complete bible. If they had, they would know that the bible is full of contradictions and one cannot just peel off a line of scripture and toss it off as wisdom. As I said, I have no quarrel with religious people, but I dislike those who regard themselves as religious gurus who want to educate me and teach me to be like them. I seldom enter an argument without having facts to back up my opinions and I like a good debate, but if you haven't bothered to bone up on yours, don't whimper when I win.

I can't think of any more. Maybe I have revealed others on this blog, so feel free to enlighten me. So, yes sirrreeee, I absolutely have prejudice in my heart.

I am willing to bet my mortgage that every single person that reads this blog has at least one prejudice as well and I challenge you to throw it out on the table with mine. What's hiding in your closet?

Maybe some good will come of this post. Maybe a little person will read it and contact me and we can be friends, because I would honestly like to overcome this. It is an embarrassing piece of myself that I am not altogether comfortable with.

So...in closing. I have prejudice. But, c'mon....I challenge anyone to prove to me that I am close minded.

But, now...I am really, really curious. Be brave now. Tell us your dark little prejudice. C'mon. Boy howdy. If I can admit that I get the weebie jeebies around little people, surely you can confess that you don't like men who sport a beard or waiters or women who write blogs that you think are close minded and pretentious....

Give it up. Do tell.