just my luck

okay, here's your laugh for today: my badge is now swimming with the fishes.

or at least it is trying too. my id badge and security pass fell out of my pants pocket and into the toilet this morning at work and is now lodged in there requiring facilities to come and remove it.

and for me to get a replacement for it, 'cause that's just nasty.

adventures in deutscheland

Okay, so this is the story of a family vacation, you see. Just your average, ordinary summer travel abroad experience – losing children, sweating through death marches over mountains, dodging life-threatening lightning strikes and being held at the airport looking down the barrel of machine gun. Well, average for my family, at least.

* * *

From the front, my brother’s hair looked like a jack o’ lantern’s smile. What remained of his shaggy brown hair lay mashed against the curved, inside window of the airplane as he stared at the patchwork quilt below us. The center part of his bangs had been cut away – “you’ve been scalped,” my mother exclaimed when she first noticed his hair – the result of a haircut he decided to give to himself one day. The same one he gave his precious ALF doll, too. With the hedge clippers. He said he had to do it; the hair kept tickling his face.

As our plane ascended through the clouds, he began to hum to himself when he could no longer make out the tiny city below while attempting to find our street, our house and the people who looked like the ants he liked to stomp on at home. As our altitude climbed, his excitement over heading to see mountains, real mountains in Germany began to bubble outwardly. “Head for… the MOUNTains of … Buschhh… beeeeer…” he hummed softly to himself as he continued to watch the friendly skies. Somewhere a weary marketing exec formed a tear – his jingle had firmly planted itself into the psyche of an unsuspecting person. The fact that it was a 5-year-old wouldn’t matter so much. One day he would be of legal drinking age.

Meanwhile I sat in the aisle seat, gripping the armrests as we tipped back in our seats, ears popping as if underwater. Between us sat our mother, eyes fixed on the lighted sign above our heads, waiting for the “ding” from the ‘no smoking’ sign to tell her she could now light a cigarette from the ones tucked in her handbag beside her.

The year was 1985. The Cold War was hot. People still feared an evil empire lurking behind the Iron Curtain. AIDS was slowly being recognized as more than just a gay disease. “New Coke” failed to revolutionize the soft drink industry.

And people were still smoking on planes, something my little lungs got to experience for the full six- and one-half-hour flight to Germany that summer. Hell, the Berlin Wall was still standing when we arrived on Germany’s soil. It was just my family that was breaking down at the time.

I was 9-years-old and chubby young girl with a long, blond ponytail that swung behind me when My parents were still together the summer we decided to visit my favorite aunt and uncle, the only relatives not living in our soon-to-be ghetto fabulous neighborhood. At the time they lived in a small town in West Germany. Stationed, really, because that is what it is called when the military tells you to move someplace.

But for me, any time spent with my childless aunt and uncle was special. Excluding the disastrous summer spent with them when my aunt vowed she would teach me how to swim. Or die trying. As if teaching a chubby girl straight out of an urban jungle how to swim would not be a traumatic experience. I feared sinking like a lead weight with only flimsy Styrofoam blocks strapped to my round little spandex-clad belly; the YMCA instructors’ feared summer could not end quickly enough.

But on this visit, my aunt and uncle weren’t childless any longer. Another chubby cheeked girl joined our family with the arrival of my cousin, Sarah, who at only a month old was the sole reason for our transatlantic journey. My mom had wanted to visit her younger sister and see her niece. If by doing so, she got a chance to do it overseas, all the more reason to go. “We’ll make a family vacation of it,” she said.

Completely ignoring the fact my father hated to fly.

Let me put it this way: as much standing on the edge of diving board looking down into the water made my blood run cold, flying did the same for him. A gripping, icy fear that refused to shake loose until it decided to take your bowels with it along the way. But my father, rather than throw the tantrum that I did from the edge of the diving board, crying and screaming until one of the instructors agreed to get in the pool to “catch me” while the other instructor pushed me off my perch on the diving board – he merely decided to stay home. He said someone needed to stay home to feed the cat. This is the same cat that would have preferred to have us leave her alone permanently. She would have seen our abandonment as a true sign of her authority over all humans had we left her behind with say, a few full bowls of food and a house of solitude. No, my dad pledged to stay home if only to just remind the cat exactly who was boss.

So at 35,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, I began making memories of my family as a three-member unit, even though it would take nearly four more years before we officially became one.

* * *

When my mother handed me a few crumbled dollar bills to purchase them from a street corner vending machine, it didn’t seem like a big deal. She had sent me numerous times before to the corner pharmacy at home to buy them for her so this routine trip didn’t seem to faze her.

My mother wasn’t a bad mother; she was clueless sometimes.

I took the money and walked out of my aunt’s apartment on the U.S. Army base in Garmisch-Partenkirchen where they were living while stationed in Germany. I walked along the Army base’s circuitous and blindly similar streets. I walked right off the base, past towering chain link fences, topped with barb wire, past stores of olive green tanks and other machinery and past low, mirrored glass buildings hiding secrets only my little mind could imagine.

Wandering along and listening to the sounds of crickets chirping and lawns being mowed I must have become lost in my own thoughts because I never did find that damn cigarette machine. Somehow in my head, the route that my mother described, and same one I saw in my mind’s eye as I nodded along with her directions, failed to materialize.

So I kept walking.

Goddess knows where I walked to that morning. I remember crossing over a large intersection after leaving the confines of the base into the little town where the buildings took on ancient feel with their painted scenes and wooden shutters and flower boxes filled with colorful displays. Eventually, I recognized a little yellow hotel where we boarded a bus for a daytrip earlier in our stay. The crowd of blue-haired ladies waiting to board a bus gave it away.) The hotel, I thought to myself, it had to sell cigarettes. Undaunted, I walked into the hotel lobby to buy that elusive pack of cigarettes that my mother sent me in search of.

Somehow, I failed to remember I was in a foreign country and as smart as I thought I was, I couldn’t speak German. Why the front desk clerked didn’t try to send me back to the institution for mentally handicapped after repeated attempts at communicating my need for cigarettes after realizing the language barrier – hands in my face waving about, making big dramatic puffs on my imaginary cigarette before giving up, and showing him my crumbled dollar bills – I’ll never know. (Why the clerk didn’t try to call German social services for a strange child wandering about by herself I’ll never know, either. Of course, it was 1985.)

After sneaking one last quick look around the dark lobby for a vending machine, I darted back outside into the bright sunlight, defeated and began to backtrack to my aunt’s apartment.

I managed to wind my way back onto U.S. soil before I felt threatened for the first time that day. But the figure running toward me bid me no harm, the sweaty, red-faced body was my mother. Panic-stricken when I didn’t come back right away, her mind began to wrap itself around what she had done. Her young daughter. Alone. In a foreign country. Who doesn’t speak the language. Walking the streets ALONE. BECAUSE SHE TOLD HER TO.

Realizing her chance of winning the mother-of-the-year award was probably shot to hell, she did what she does best – freak out. While my imaginative waters may run deep, my mother’s runs as wide as the Mississippi. I feared my cheeks being pinching by a pack of blue-hairs as I made my way through the parking lot and into the hotel lobby; my mother feared kidnapping. Her blue-eyed, blonde little girl would be scooped up by a childless, East German couple, forced to live the dull gray existence that Communists lived, not the Technicolor world of democracy and the good, ol’ U.S. of A. Or worse, she feared her daughter was smashed by hooligan cars like those we saw on the Autobahn and would be carried off to some German hospital, unable to speak for herself (that language thing again), or even worse still … unable to speak at ALL. Yes! Her daughter would be completely incapacitated and –

By now, my aunt had finally reached her limit. “Go look for her already if you’re that worried. Don’t just sit there,” she told her. My aunt was always the more pragmatic one of the two sisters. (Of course, she was also sleep-deprived and only one month into this whole “mothering thing”, but I’d like to believe it was more of her nature showing through rather than her maternal instinct just hadn’t kicked in yet.) And with that needed swift kick in the pants, my mother set out to find me.

In reality, I have no idea how long I was gone. I don’t remember getting sunburned on the adventure which surely would have been the case had my pale little self had been traveling too long in the mountain sunshine, and it certainly was not weeks or days. But it did eerily foreshadow my teenage years, when after thankfully finding me not dead in a ditch somewhere; she would then threatened to kill me for making her believe I was. By the time, my red-faced mother caught up with me, her panic had reached a crescendo with each ditch she passed that I didn’t lay face first in.

Her panic was palpable as she screeched from fifty yards, “Where were you all this time?” (I would revisit this exact phrase again as a teenager many times.) But hearing it now for the first time because – 1.) I had never ventured this far alone before, and 2.) I had never ventured so far alone in a foreign country – made me take it to heart. She suddenly made me afraid for things I hadn’t realized, all the dangerous possibilities she saw in her mind.

In my innocence, I set out on my simple task to deliver cigarettes to my mother at her request. I never feared for my safety. One long, sweaty hug later, she led me by the arm, quickly dragging me back to my aunt’s apartment before my aunt alerted the authorities of my disappearance. Along the way I listened to her litany of things that could have happened to me.

But somehow for all the crap she put me through (though if asked, she would swear that I put her through much worse), it obviously did not stop her from letting my brother and I play at the playground within a few days of nearly losing me to the East German kidnapping rings. Never mind that this was West Germany, the land where Mercedes were as plentiful as Hondas are today and we were seconds away from heavy artillery the U.S. Army needed to store there.

The day she let my brother and I out of her sight again was a few days after my sojourn through West Germany alone. This time, though, she let us go to the park by ourselves, being too tired to make the trip with us after the death march we had taken the day before.

Being in the Army, my uncle was required to be physically fit, and a good match for my aunt who managed to get the “good genes” in the family with her slim, athletic build. On the other hand, we had my mother who got smacked with the bad genes – the ones which give a round, curved appearance which when packed over her solid frame implied sturdiness; had she been more athletic, she would have been a force to be reckoned with. Instead she was soft and squishy. All traits she then shared with her children. (Lucky us.)

The Germans, though, loved their outdoor activities. Living nestled between looming mountain ranges, crystal blue skies and large, clear lakes provided year round opportunities for outside activities. Skiing. Biking, Hiking. Mountain-climbing, even. So when my uncle suggested we take a hike – walk is how he probably phrased it, my mother would have never agreed to a hike – we agreed to go along. “When in Rome…” and all that crap.

My uncle, saddled with my newborn cousin on his back like the big old Army packs he was used to, blazed the trail with my brother, who nervously kept a watchful eye for “snow snakes”, those elusive – and imaginary – albino creatures who lived in the mountains of Germany my uncle had warned him about. My aunt, mother and I followed next but it didn’t take long for my mother to lag behind my aunt and me. Smoking a pack a day, being overweight and hoofing it up the side of a mountain doesn’t prepare you for the Olympics of hiking.

We were fine until about halfway up, when we realized the friggin’ mountain grew taller with each step. “Oohh, look at the view of the valley below” grew old after about the fifth or sixth mile (or so it felt). “Think of how beautiful nature is” crap lost its appeal soon after. What remained was five sweaty, hunger, and tired Americans zig-zagging up a dirt path in the middle of a hot, humid August air.
Our feet grew heavier, our breathing got more deliberate the higher we went. Whether it was from being out of shape (my family of three), being a smoker (my mother and aunt), or from the thinning air (my uncle), we gasped for air like fish out of water, and found ourselves stopping more and more frequently to throw ourselves back under water again to stop our freaking lungs from screaming. Somehow, we willed ourselves to the top of that sucker.

Our reward for such heroic efforts? Beer (or more the specifically, Spatten) poured for the adults and dessert for the kids topped with deliciously puffy, whipped cream clouds. Which tasted remarkably like shaving cream. My aunt neglected to tell us another one of Germany’s odd-ball fascinations – unsweetened desserts. Lovely to look at tarts and pies, but tasteless mouths of foam to eat.

So after our adventures in hiking (both up and down a mountain, which down is surprisingly not as easy as expected) and dining al fresco, who could blame her for letting us head to the swings by ourselves. My poor mother could hardly move by that point. Muscles she hadn’t moved in years screamed in agony. Now, it was better for her and my aunt to tend to my baby cousin, the only one I might add who enjoyed our little jaunt on the mountain, riding atop my uncle’s aching shoulders.

We had to play nicely with each other and STAY TOGETHER. Normally, we would have never been caught near each other on the playground at home, that whole boys, and especially brothers, having cooties thing. Amazingly, once isolated from having other children to occupy ourselves with, we got along with each other.

Of course, the reason why there were no other children on the playground could have something to do with the pending thunderstorms rolling in across the sky.

Tucked between two larger mountains when the pockets of cooler air which rolled down their sides, the warmer temperatures found in the valley where my aunt lived made the area a hot bed for wicked weather patterns. Storms rolled in quickly, with great flashes of light filling the sky and deafening clashes of thunder. Having already witnessed Mother Nature’s fury a few nights earlier, I realized hanging around the metal monkey bars any longer signaled a quick trip to hell.

On that night I was certain that lightening bolt had my name on it when I was sent out to the patio to gather the cushions from the furniture. My hair stood on end, and for that brief one second before the night sky’s light switch was turned to the on position, I thought, “uh oh. This can’t be good.” So as soon as my fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, I took off – running out of my slippers, throwing cushions to the wind, and high tailed it out of there and into the house, screaming all the while.

So when we realized the sky had turned dark that afternoon on the playground, signaling the next storm on the horizon, my brother and I decided to head for home. Grabbing hands, we took off for home dashing in between the fat rain drops the sky unleashed.

There is something monotonous about how Army bases are laid out. Precise and methodical, each building was identical to the next. Row upon row of rectangular, Lego-like buildings. Dull brown roofs and white, painted stucco fronts housing multiple floors of the same apartment, same layouts, same kitchens and same front doors.

As my brother and I made the mad dash to our aunt’s, we hadn’t realized we had entered the wrong Lego house. Once inside, there was nothing to tell us we had entered the wrong building as we climbed the stairs. So when we knocked on the door and it opened, I walked right in. My brother of course, was more apprehensive. “Car – wait!” he whispered as he tried to pull me back from entering, “I didn’t hear the dogs barking when we knocked. I don’t think we should go in.” He was referring to my aunts’ two dogs who noisily announced each fart or knock on the door. It was silent in the few moments after we knocked. But I was not about to stop for his crazy talk. My aunt could have had them out for a walk. Or my uncle finally made good on his talk of making them into sausage for all that barking.

Walking in, I realized why the door just opened wordlessly. There was a party of some sort going on inside. Lots of adults lingered about, talking amongst themselves, too busy to realize the little girl who wandered about or the little boy hanging on the door, observing the scene. “Sharon?” I asked meekly as unfamiliar faces began to see me and I saw them. After deducing we weren’t in Kansas any longer, I grabbed my brother’s hand and ran past the door. Downstairs, we quickly analyzed our situation and decided to take a stab at another look-a-like building. This time we were met with the happy barks of the dogs when we knocked. Good for us, but bad for the dogs who yapped themselves one step closer to the sausage maker.

* * *

Our fascination with all things German and exotic grew weary. We were ready to go home. Packed and loaded, we said our goodbyes and my uncle dropped us off at the Munich airport. Suddenly, our suitcases seemed fatter, filled with booty acquired on our trip. Our carry-on bags were filled with all the items necessary to occupy two children for seven hours in a confined space. As we made our way through the pre-9/11security checkpoints, we breezily put our many bags and what felt like mini-toy chests on the x-ray conveyor belt and walked through the metal detectors. On the other side, we picked up our things and continued to the gate, ignoring the yelling going on behind us.

Airport maneuvering is a learned skill; airport maneuvering with two children alone is heroic. In my mom’s defense, having gathered her little ones AND our belongings without leaving anyone behind was a success. However, being whirled around by armed airport security, brandishing loaded weapons, screaming at us in German quickly killed that moment of triumph.

“Halt! Halt!” which only seemed to get louder as they swarmed around us.
“Vhat eez dees? Vhat eez in he-yere? Open-zee. OPEN!”

They pointed their guns towards to the black-and-pink poodle lunchbox my brother carried. My mother quickly popped the latches to show the menacing guards just what metal contraband we were smuggling aboard the plane. Out spilled hundreds of them – little metal and plastic toys known as Transformers, G.I. Joe soldiers carrying guns of their own, playing cards, crayons. Neatly and strategically, we managed to pack an elephant in a breadbox, the contents of which now lay strewn all over a table, having been questioned for its ability to bring down the airplane at 35,000 feet. My mother was flushed with embarrassment over the scene we seemed to be the center of in the airport. In hushed tones, she yelled at us, “to just grab it all, we can repack it later. Throw it in another bag, let’s just get out of here” but any thoughts of hoping to slink away from this were slim. If you ask me, there’s probably a G.I. Joe man or two that got left behind in the melee.

* * *

The rest of our trip, well the last seven or eight hours of it, was relatively unimpressive. What with having landed in one piece and all. Jetlagged, we groggily made our way to our car where my father and grandfather were waiting to pick us up from JFK in New York. The three of us dozed in the car for the rest of the drive home, happy to go to sleep to dream and resume the normalcy of our lives.

starting small, very small

i could apologize to any readers i've thoroughly miffed by not posting for the last, oh say, 4 months. but i won't. part of being unabashedly bitchy is never having to say you're sorry. there are simply times when being bitchy is the only way to fly.

(although i will apologize to any readers not in the inner circle who may have been concerned that my absence meant i was in jail for actually holding the pillow over my mother's head during her long, long, looonngg stay at casa michalski over the holidays.)

now, where was i? ahem, yes, being bitchy. my birthright. but even i can keep my forked tongue in my cheek from time to time. take for instance the night at dinner, when after my mother picked up my pepper shaker with hands as slick as professional wrestler's chest, only to watch it shatter into a million little pieces as ceramic shaker met ceramic tile floor. sneezing and choking, we picked up the shards as pepper dust filled our lungs. finally sitting back down to eat, she leans over to ask me if i have any more pepper.

ahem.

or the night she wore a path into my hardwood floors, pacing circles in the loop between my living room, dining room and kitchen in her nightgown as i washed dishes at the sink, waiting to talk with me. i quickly grabbed my glass of wine from dinner, topped it off and headed upstairs to the "no-mom" zone of the second floor where our master suite is.

speaking of, final cork count for the forty two days of her stay? 14, including wine served at the holiday dinner at my house, otherwise i would be averaging a bottle every three days and my liver is just not that far gone. yet.

but i don't apologize for any of those behaviors. i'm bitchy and i'm baaaaaccck. did you miss me?

'tis the season to consume some valium

fa-la la la la, la la-laaaah!

gentle readers, please excuse my absence for the last four months. and i apologize if anyone was left to worry that mam and i met our untimely demise at the hands of our white-trash neighbors after playing "dude, who hit my car" one too many times. and quite sadly no, white-trash neighbors did not sell their house (damn you, bursting housing bubble!) and until the day the bank forecloses on their property, white trash momma continues to share our driveway.

but that's not really why i have been so negligent in posting here... i think i alerted folks to the other housing nightmare i would soon be embarking on -- helping my mother sell her house.

in the midst of talking my mother out of her own self-induced anxiety attacks, i also managed to pull together 3 sample chapters and full book proposal for the idea i pitched to a literary agent i met last year. it only took 12 months and whole lotta chutzpah to hit the send button on that one.

but really, the most pressing reason why i have neglected this space is my mother. between talking her out of buying a double-wide trailer in a 55-and-up ghetto fabulous development to avoiding her phone calls -- not once or twice a day, but upwards or three and four times(!), to dealing with her meltdowns when i don't help her take out the trash right now, well, she's one step away from having a fatal accident with her pillow if you catch my drift. as much as i probably needed to write about those events (and i may still in a few months when it's less painful and i can see the comic value in the experience), sadly, i must say i tipped back a few slugs of crown royal on the nights most worthy of such instead.

this latest asault, though is what causes most people that i've told to physically wince -- WINCE -- as in actual facial distortion at my impending doom.

my mother is coming to stay with us. for 6 weeks until she can move into her new place on january 4th, 2008.

SIX WEEKS, FORTY TWO DAYS and way-too-many hours to count. during the already touchy christmas season because for me, even the "regular" family get-togetherness the holidays bring is no day at the beach with all the leftover sand in the va-jay-jay irritation.

fa-la-fcucking-la. seriously, what gods have i pissed off to endure this? (true, there are probably so many...) and i know this sounds horrible, but what irritates me the most is the loss of freedom, and quite possibly, my adulthood that my new house guest will rob me of. "what time are you coming home tonight?" "are you still sleeping?" "what time will you be home from work?" i'll be a teenager all over again, only this time, i'm married with a mortage.

oh goddess, that's not the worst of it. save me from all of the talking!

mam and i have two loves -- sleeping in and silence. there are evenings where we don't speak to each other becuase i'll be writing in one room and he'll be watching tv in another. less talk-y, more do-y of other stuff. my fear is that my house guest will latch herself onto my earlob like a leech and force evil words into my head about such exciting topics as what she and her coworkers ate for lunch, who won dancing with the stars?, and the likes and dislikes are of the newest QVC host or hostess. if my head doesn't explode first, what's left of my brain my just leak out of the ear she's not presently attached to. shudder

say what you want about how evil i sound, but when she called me at work (cornered, if you want my honest opinion) and dropped her bomb, "i can stay with you, right? you're not going to leave me homeless, are you?" well, what do you say to that?

if my life was an episode of ally mcbeal, i'm sure what would follow would be a dream sequence of me screaming into the phone, "yes! by all means, bring your crazy-ass, stalker self directly into my home so then maybe, i won't think i'm crazy when i see a white car parked outside in my driveway that shouldn't be there just because i chose not to pick up your 7th phone call of the day to remind me of the dialogue in call number 6!"

instead, when trapped like a rat in a cage, i accepted my fate. there was no escape. if i said no, what are the alteratives for her? a hotel for 6 weeks? my brother's tiny condo? and goddess forbid, what if i did say no? it would have been less painful to brand myself with the scarlet BD (for bad daughter, natch) than to suffer what was sure to be the most egregious assault against a mother to date. all the breederly types in mothers-against-drunk driving and mothers-against-lead-based toys would surely pop my picture on billboard with such witty slogans as:

"what breaks a mother's heart? a bad daughter who refuses to shelter her homeless mother", or "pure evil" splashed against a particularly hideous picture of myself.

so in accepting my fate, i slowly said into the receiver. "yes, mom. you can stay here until your new house is ready." and ever since, i have been stockpiling wine like vineyards all over the world had simultaneously blew up, taking the world's supply of wine with it.

the moral of this post is if i'm not too drunk to hide with my laptop in a closet, i'll try to post more frequently. bear with me. momma is coming home.

dare i even say it, pray for me?

it takes two

most folks in healthy relationships share some common traits; if they did not, most folks would never hook up in the first place. but it's in the differences where most folks find the interesting parts.

take mam and i for example: he is cool and level-headed in stressful situations. i, on the other hand, have some genetic code triggered that results in piggish, extreme and often violent behavior.

like this afternoon, when i have sat home and plotted my revenge. seems we had the pleasure of being visited by the hit-and-run fairy last night in our own driveway. when we questioned our neighbors this morning about it, considering they share the friggin driveway with us, they may have heard something. or maybe even remember hitting our car since they were the only other flippin' vehicles in it last night.

the old poor thing with a million scratches already and a permanent stale odor of impending death did not deserve an asshat backing into it and tearing its poor mirror from the car. nor did it deserve the long metal on metal scratch that tore through the length of its passenger door. while mam's old car was being ravaged in the dark, we sat watching television and when we heard the crunch and tires squeal, we honestly thought nothing of it.

despite giving it a valiant effort, our neighbors decided they weren't going to pursue this whole marriage thing after all. i mean, he only sent her to the hospital once in recent months, and her alcoholic binges have been somewhat under control lately. but anyway, since they put their house on the market, they've been throwing out junk at all hours of the night with loud thunks and crashes as they decide their flea market finds aren't worth paying to move.

"are you calling me a liar?" the white trash momma screamed at mam from her front porch. "all i want to do is get the bottom of why my car's mirror has been sheared off and there's a huge scratch down the side of my car when you have some surprisingly similar scratches on the back of your truck," mam replied, quite calmly.

i had been tied to a piece of furniture while this was happening to prevent me from going outside and going all ghetto, and thus breaking down these peace accords. in my head rolled images of taking a louisville slugger to her windshield a la the american idol country chick who inspired my fantasies at the moment. since they are trying to sell their house because neither one can afford it alone, i plotted ways to drive them into bankruptcy. i could stand in my front lawn in nasty short shorts and bra top, my white flabby flesh reflecting the sun's rays so brightly that folks wandering into the see the property would be blinded instantly upon entering the driveway.

the driveway! yes, this afternoon i began thinking of how to best sever their access to the driveway at all. if those redneck-tonka truck driving idiots can't figure out how to park in a driveway, then i'd line the driveway with alligators who'd chew at their asses if they tried to even enter it. besides, all i need is for the *official* survey results to tell me what we already know -- the length of the driveway is on my property. only the paved section by their garage is theirs. and no, i do not need to grant them access to it via my portion of it. (that's why i need the alligators.)

"hon, all i want is for them to accept financial responsibility for their actions," mam explained to me in the car. "all i want," i tell him, "is blood if they choose not to. i mean, c'mon, we're going to be out the deductible regardless. i am just willing to recoup my losses with bloodshed, that's all i'm saying."

"at least call the cops on 'em," i continue. "hit-and-runs carry more weight in the justice system." and if they did hit our aging car, that's exactly what had happened.

when mam came back from trying to rationally talk with them, i could tell by his face things hadn't gone well. "fcuk them," he said. "fcuk those white trash rednecks. i'm calling the cops now. and the insurance company. let them sick their lawyers on them. i'm done."

"there, there, honey," i cooed as he untied me, "just remember a firebomb works much quicker."

queen of stupid

as we tossed the unmarked glass bottle into the women's bathroom trashcan, we stupidly believed we got rid of the last piece of evidence. especially considering we drank the rest of it.

lisa and i were freshmen. high school freshman. which makes us the just about the smartest people in the lunchroom. i mean, did anyone else see upperclassman finding ways to drink in the cafeteria at lunch?

obviously, we had stumbled upon an idea no one else had thought of before.

lisa lived down the street from me, moving in during the summer between eight grade and freshman year. i was so excited! my street held very few other kids my age, and of the few there were, usually had a penis. so the thought of sharing my teenage years with another girl living closeby - someone to try hairstyles with, experiment with makeup, and talk about the boys on the block, had danced in my head.

the day we first met, lisa tossed her long brown hair and asked me if i smoked cigarettes, very casually, as if every 13-year-old girl smoked. with my wannabe bad ass tendencies, i knew we would be fast friends.

(before anyone wonders what happened to the goddess girls during these formative years in my life, we knew each other separately but had not yet fully discovered our goddess-like tendencies.)

as summer turned to fall, lisa and i braved the halls of freshman year together. although having very different rosters, we shared a lunch period, the walk to and from school and even our similarities at home. lisa and her mother her lived alone, about ten houses down from our red-bricked rowhome. no dad, no siblings. just like how my mother and i, save for the sibling part. i would have gladly traded in my brother for a pack of chewing gum at the time.

i don't remember whose idea it was but one day we decided what a good idea it would be to bring a bottle of vodka with us to school. but the big ideas did not stop then! nope, we decided we need to drink it, too. what could be more perfect than those little single, serving-sized orange juice containers for making screwdrivers?

besides, getting a little tipsy at lunch could only ease the rest of the school day. for lisa, this meant getting through whatever remedial class she was placed in. for me, it meant trying to ease the pains of honors english with mrs. o'kane.

a whole week had gone by, and with a slightly sleepy stupor, i enjoyed mrs. o'kane's class for the first time that year -- "great expectations" and ms. haberstram or whatever the decrepit old lady's name was in the book made sense to me. the exact details of the book escape me (still) but for the first time, i relaxed in her class.

but as teenagers are wont to do, i'm pretty sure we could not keep our genius quiet. "i'm buzzed," i'm sure i whispered to the kids around me. and i'm pretty sure lisa blabbed about our discovery that the little orange juice containers could double as old fashioned high ball glass.

so on the morning we saw the deans beginning to circle our lunchtable like a pack of hungry sharks, we shouldn't have been surprised. with the rest of the gals at our lunch table panicking -- even those who did not drink with us -- lisa and i calmly disposed of the evidence. in the days before csi, we were left with having to devise our own methods of subterfuge, the best we could come up with was do down the clear bottle's contents and dispose of the unmarked bottle.

by the time the deans swallowed our lunch table for punishment, there was nothing left behind. except for a few drunk teenage girls.

their interrogation techniques involved separating us, to keep us from sharing one brain in talking ourselves out of our punishment. but i broke like a cheap crayon, smearing contraband mascara all over my face, before finally tossing my cookies into the dean's trashcan when i saw my mom walk in the door.

grounded for life. or what nearly felt like it. detention for most the remainder of freshman year. saturday detention which is nothing like breakfast club movie. there were no hot guys, only juvenile deliquents and future drop-outs and teenage parents. there was no talking because the friggin' moderator would not leave, like the asshat principal in the john waters' flick which would allow us to discover our shared wounds which our teenager years stabbed us with and learn more about the walls, self-erected or otherwise, we built around each other.

nope, it was merely hours wasted staring at the mural of the high school mascot, counting the number of cinderblocks in each wall.

but i was a good student, so my punishment finally subsided and i was able to get on with my academic career, despite the black mark on my permanent record. i can be so smart sometimes, but don't be fooled. it's all just a cover, i am the queen of stupid.

all in the family

dear goddess, i can't believe this is happening again.

my mother wants to sell her house and move to a smaller place. and my brother and i aren't ready to move again. we don't live with her but we have barely recovered from last time.

nearly ten years ago, when we finally moved out of the norf philly ghetto to the beee-u-tiful suburbs of philadelphia, it was complicated.

my brother and i took care of everything. we packed, we arranged for buyers to do walkthrough, we worked with home inspectors. we protected the home inspectors when my mother refused to let one contractor leave when he gave her an unacceptable list of repairs. he wasn't bludgeoned to death or anything. the exchange went something like this:

her: "you ARE OUT OF YOUR FCUKIN' MIND if you think i'm fixing all that crap. get the fcuk out of my house.

[pause for thoughts to register with electrician. as electrician turns to go up basement steps, whirl around like tasmanian devil, split flying as you prepare to scream]

where the fcuk do you think you're going?"

him: "i'm leaving ma'am. i am not going to take your ab--"

her: "i thought i told you to get the fcuk out of here? get OUT!"
him: "i can't go out the front door?"
her: "no."
him: "but my car is out front..."
her: "i don't care. get out."
him: "but how am i supposed to ---"
her: "OUT. get out. i don't care. go out the basement door and walk around. i told you to get the fcuk out of my house. MY house." [contractor dodges the dragon's tale as he hightails it out the basement door.]

seriously, my brother and i listened to the exchange, ears pressed against the basement door for two reasons -- as witnesses, we could be made to testify or worse, be held as accomplices. maybe this was the time our mother snapped. we never before heard the f- bomb dropped from her lips in such a short time span. except for the time someone stole our downspout to sell for drugs but that's another story.

about the only thing we didn't do was write checks for the repairs. trust me, if either of us made enough money to cover any of the costs, we probably would have done it.

this time, she's downsizing. alone. once again, she's witnessing another a neighborhood decaying around her and this time, she vows not to stay put.

which leads us to her decision to want to move. honestly, she's wanted to move for the last 2 years, but when you've lived in a house for almost a decade without doing much in way of repairs, of course you're going to have to binge on the do-it-yourself workshops.

but she's not a diy-er. she's a stomp-her-hooves-until-one-of-her-children-does-it-for-her. (shhuoohcdifh doesn't sound as snappy as diy.)

if anyone ever wanted to know where i get my bitchiness from, seriously, one look in her seemingly mild-mannered demeanor would prove instantly where the chlorine in my gene pool came from. because, with one withering glance, she can put you in your place. silently and quickly, you WILL know you fcuked up.

whether or not you actually did something.

but now that she's got the itch to move, we need to drop everything and help her. before i cast me and my brother into the worst light, we would help her in a heartbeat if some of her requests weren't so incessant.

and like the friggin' energizer bunny, if you don't pick up the phone, she just keeps calling and calling and calling... seriously, if this were any person BUT mother, i would:

1) obtain a restraining order, and 2) confront the person and possibly invoke a fight to test the limits of said restraining order.

and now it's too late. the realtor posted the sign on her lawn on sunday.

by sunday night, my brother and i were over her house cleaning out the last of the basement flotsam.

local inspectors, you're on your own this time. may goddess have mercy on your soul.

lost in a blood red sky

as a teenager, my friends and i laughed in amazement at the stories our friend melissa would tell us about her aunt. the one in particular that shocked us was the one in which her aunt landed herself in the hospital after having sex without removing her tampon.

"how could she not know she had one in? how could she just forget?" we wondered aloud. as 16-year-olds goddess girls, we were new to our bodies but we knew enough to never have a guy pull on the string, let alone have sex with one in.

which is where we start this post. it seems my va-jay-jay is now the blackhole (so to speak) for tampons. like george bush's elusive search for WMDs, i too, had a fruitless search looking for a tampon that i swore was there.

the lightbulb finally registered over my head the other evening as i got changed after work. by the time that "whoops, i forgot to take something out" blinked overhead, the tampon had already decided to play hide-and-seek. and it was nowhere to be found.

"i don't understand, what do you mean, you can't find it?" mam asks. "they don't just wander off by themselves. where did it go?"

listening to his questions, i realized his tone changed from this is not a new version of "not tonight, dear i have a headache" to "what the fcuk did she do this time" as i am hunched over the toilet spelunking in search of this elusive tampon string.

"are you sure you put one in this morning?"

wordlessly, i point to the applicator discarded in the trashcan and go back to digging rooting through my va-jay-jay like a homeless person searches for food in a trashcan -- mumbling incoherently as i look. but i am starting to panic as those same words are forming in my throat - where the hell can it go?

flat like a tube of toothpaste
my health education classes in a catholic high school were a joke. as the track coach sweated profusely at the front of the classroom, he would provide such gems of wisdom like "the vagina is flat like a tube of toothpaste" and "the cervix is the size of a typed letter O".

forget any chance of actual sex education or -- goddess forbid -- any mention of birth control except to point out failure rates. then they push their own agenda of the natural family planning, with like a 50% failure rate. it's like trying to sell someone on a car whose brakes work only 50% of the time when the car they want has brakes that work 99%. (in a way that would make any lawyer proud, they also point out the 50% failure rate is user error. as in, if you were a better driver, you wouldn't need effective brakes to avoid a crash, would you?)

we educated ourselves on our bodies, through each other, planned parenthood, and good old fashion research in the days prior to the internets". (seriously, how did we advance civilization prior to having this wonderful series of tubes at our disposal?) and we certainly all learned how to use a tampon.

which is why now, at age 31 and seemingly wiser than my 16-year-old self, this is so disturbing. frankly, i am not sure which is more disturbing -- that i can't remember taking the tampon out or the fact that i lost the tampon without realizing it. either way, i feel like i've got more serious issues than a missing wad of cotton and string.

just call the doctor
after checking the internet to see what ills will befall me with this wad of cotton that must now be lodged somewhere between my uterus and my breastbone, i broke down and called the doctor knowing full well the advice i would receive. (this is after the serious of tubes told me to put my legs onto a wastebasket while squatting over the toilet and pretend to give birth (pretend?), pushing downwards to use your muscles to rouse the tampon from its hiding place, mind you. mam had quite the chuckle when he opened the bathroom door to find me in such a position with a mirror on the floor between my legs.)

dialing the number on my cell phone, i reach the lovely answering service who assures me that if this is an emergency i should go the emergency room at the hospital. the memories of sitting in the waiting room for hours waiting to be seen by a doctor still fresh from my mc-clotsky days, i told her i just wanted to speak with the doctor instead. now that it's 8 pm, and the office closed exactly 30 seconds prior to my call, i wasn't hopeful for a quick call back.

the next morning, after a fitful night worrying that the symptoms of toxic shock syndrome would take hold before the doctor called me back, i preemptively called them. i began my spiel with my best legalese (i've been hanging around lawyers too much these days) "i may or may not have taken it out, to the best of my knowledge..., i cannot recall such an event" .... so much so, the receptionist may have recognized the language as being legalese and decided to bring me in to see the doctor just in case i was a lawyer with a lost tampon (i'm not.)

at the doctor's office, the assistant takes my blood pressure. "rough day at work today?" she asks while looking at her watch to see, now that it's 3:30 pm and i've been sitting in the waiting room for a half-hour now. "you might say, what with scoring your last available appt for months, ducking out of work early a week before a deadline, worried sick that either i have lost my mind or a wad of cotton is hiding behind my cervix, waiting to let loose a nasty wave of toxic shock syndrome which, with my luck sister, will just plain. old. suck."

damn, my inner voice is tough.

thankfully, my sadist otherwise known as my gynocologist, decided the office was too warm, and turned the thermostat down a few degrees before i would need to disrobe. this helped eliminate the steam that shot from my ears, too.

the temperature finally hit his intended 57 degrees just as i scooched my butt to the end of the exam table, feet high in stirrups waiting for the clicks of the medieval torture device they call a speculum. the pink paper sheet kept me toasty warm, too, as the table that was so thoughtfully positioned over the air vent meant to keep the doctor who worked above it cool, never mind freezing the bejeezus out of the naked woman draped in paper who lies in close proximity as well.

click, click, click. "you don't have any children do you?" he asked, making me wonder why he's asking that question. (am i flabby and out-of-shape down there too?) he looked left. he looked right. he looked in every single place, in every single light, as the assistant watches over his should making faces at the sight of my obviously ugly va-jay-jay (why else would she have that scrunch-face look?).

it was nowhere to be found. it wasn't hiding by my cervix, nor did it flip around, do a backflip and land sunny side up somewhere. it just disappeared.

so dearly beloved, we gather here to say our goodbye to the tampon lost under a blood red sky, who obviously along with it, has taken my mind.

things that go together

some things are just meant to go together. this worldly pearl of wisdom came to me, funny enough, not while eating a reese's peanut butter cup. although i have been known to experience bouts of wisdom while eating chocolate and peanut butter on occasion.

nope, i had just finished flipping through the interoffice envelope sent to me which held a brochure, a contract and various postcards when it hit me. something just go together. and it pissed me off.

my friend jillian and i planned to host a sex toy party (on june 9th at casa michalski) which should be a wild and crazy time. hell, anyone who can go to kinky quizzo and enjoy reading my stories about me and my vibrator is a-okay in my book. but the brochure she forwarded specifically said "no men allowed", "no children allowed".

i gotcha on the "no kids" part unless you plan to serve them as a tasty appetizer.

but surely, this doesn't mean gay men, does it? there goes some of my guest list. because surely, i can't imagine hosting a sex toy party without my favorite gay man fluglicious. this party hostess-with-the-mostest doesn't discriminate and would hope that someone who peddles lube for a living would recognize the HUGE friggin' market potential having gay men join the party could bring...

some other things that go together (besides chocolate and peanut butter):
+ goddess girls (what can i say, we're earned our bitching stripes together)
+ coffee and cigarettes (even though i haven't partaken in years)
+ wine and adelle

some things that do not go so well together:
+ rottweilers and tennis balls (amazingly, such a small ball in a big dog's mouth can cause much destruction in a living room)
+ ann coulter and just about anyone
+ catholic priests and boy scouts (just asking for trouble with this one)

that's it. please go about your business. no other deeper meaning here to find. just a little chocolate deprivation rantings going on...

and remember kids, it's not cool to discrimate against gay men in your sex toy parties.

love thy neighbor

they say you gotta love thy neighbors, but sometimes, what i really want to do is beat them and bury them in my backyard.

if it didn't keep on happening, i would think maybe i'm being overly sensitive. sort of like the old poker adage: if you when look around the table and can't pick out the sucker, then the sucker is probably you.

well, in this case, i can identify the sucker, and it ain't me. but i think i am the asshole-attracting magnet.

right now, as i write this, my neighbor is playing the drums. loudly. even with the windows shut, it's a pounding thump-thump-thump like a broken metronome. if my neighbor played the drums with any skill, it wouldn't be half as bad. when i lived in my condo before we moved here, we had a neighbor across the hall that knew the opening chords to smoke on the water.

but that's all he knew. day and night, it's all we would hear: dduuuhhnnn, dduuhhnnnn, dduuhhhnnnn, dun, dun, dun, ddduuuhhhnnnnn. thankfully though, it was loudest before we ventured into our front door, and once shut, it was barely imperceptible until you opened the front door and waited for someone to scream "play free bird."

but my neighbor is either still learning how to play or he is calling the spirits of hades to rise up against me. it's not like we live that closely to one another. my house is not attached to his and furthermore his house is easily the width of a south philadelphia street from my house. although we do share a driveway, the driveway is wide enough to fit four car widths.

the driveway! that reminds me, two summers ago, he bought his children little crotch rockets motor bikes. (this is not to be confused with pocket rockets. that's just creepy.) because his spermatazoa are now about 10 years old, they can't exactly go far on their suuuu-zoo-keys. instead, all summer long, they would ride these gas guzzling bikes up and down the shared driveway. they could accelerate just enough in either direction to drive me crazy.

then one day, the bikes were gone. i danced a little happy dance. only to stop when it was replaced by a hot tub and a boat.

now, let's set the record straight -- these folks are not the rockefellers. they are industrious trash pickers. resourceful, even. but still trash pickers.

the boat was bought for a song from another neighbor who, if i ever track down exactly who it sold it to him, will be getting a flaming bag of poo left on the doorstep from me because i have a rusty, stinky barge-like thing taking up space in my driveway. (yes, it's mine. all mine.)

the hot tub is the scariest of all. situated against the back of their house, and steeped in darkness away from the stream of lights shone from either of our garages, the hot tub provides them with entertainment at all hours of the night.

i'll let the dogs out for a final pee and hear giggling in the dark. the dogs go wild looking for the source of the laughter. i'm just horrified once my brain wraps itself around where its coming from. one night as i was coming home late, i parked the car when i heard someone else coming, too. ewwwww.

so i guess for now, i should be relieved it's only the sound of drums being played. when the weather warms up in the next few weeks, my neighbors will be finding other ways to drive me crazy.

random thoughts on a monday morning

my stomach feels like i swallowed a brick last night. although the running with scissors chardonnay was good, i was a good girl last night and after drinking one only glass, i switched my choice of beverages to diet cokes...

chili at a superbowl party is very all-american. the spousal abuse later on, not so much. seriously, after snoozing the alarm for the third time this morning, i crawled back under the covers only to be assaulted by the rat-a-tat-tat of mam's ass. needless to say, i quickly decided braving the cold morning was better than dying of ass-fixin-ation...

.. which leads me to the cold. 9-friggin'-degrees out there this morning. global warming my ass. in august when its 105 degrees in the philly with 200% humidity, i may believe it. until then, i say burn, baby, burn those fossil fuels. i'll gladly sign up for one less day of winter's bitchslap - you know the one. your cheeks sting, your nose flows freely right down the back of your throat causing the most gawdawful sounds of those snorting, phlegm-induced coughing fits that cause you to feel nauseous, like how i felt this morning.

and we come full circle.

them's fightin' words

celebrating the end of a stress-filled week with shots of crown royal with co-workers is probably not a good thing. i am fairly proud of myself though. after 3, possibly 4 shots of whiskey and at least as many hard cider drinks, i remained standing with any assistance from the wall or other objects. i managed to not get sick or start a fight. and that my friends is a beautiful thing.

they say everyone's true colors come out when they are inebriated. guards are let-down, internal walls and self-censoring mechanisms are broken, true intentions become self-evident. if this is true, then by my very nature, i won't go down without a fight.

some people get giggly and laugh a little too loud over stupid things. this is not me. i will laugh but more often, i will just spray whatever it is that i happen to be drinking -- red wine, white wine, hard cider -- when caught off-guard with something funny is said in my buzzed presence. last night, it was the announcement that "everyone knows butt babies don't live" in a conversation about sex that caused me to spray lisa down with a mouthful of cider. come to think of it, it was lisa's mention of vibrator-as-homing device at another restaurant that caused me to spit wine, not only over most to the guests seated at our table, but also at the table behind us. i have exceptional aim when i choose to, obviously.

my drinking downfall (besides the spitting) is that i get beer muscles from drinking too much wine. i get argumentative and ballsy. if threatened, my goddess, you better come strong or don't come at all. i have thrown trained punches at a friend's head, knowing i did not intend to hit it but still unnerving him by the swishy feeling of air at the nape of his neck as hit expected a blow to the back of the head.

seriously though, i have been in more fights when sober than drunk and far less in my late twenties than in my early twenties and teen-age years. still though every time, i go to a happy hour or other drinking occassion, i worry that the she-devil in me will awaken, and that she will uncork all of those things i keep hidden inside, exposing my secrets like opening pandora's box.

new traditions

i am finished. last night around 12:30 am i wrapped the last present that i could, as some gifts were stashed at remote locations. shopping was wrapped up on friday, with only a small trip to the grocery store needed today.

the car needs gas but otherwise, we are all systems go for christmas.

our filet o'dinner starts at 4:30 today, requiring us to leave chez mc-clot-sky around 3pm to get there in time to have a drink before dinner. and possible clear the dining room table off enough to eat.

no one knows exactly what we are walking into today. it's been months since i set foot in my mother-in-law's house. normally my sister-in-law has in the inside scoop on what abnormalities exist there on a more intimate level than i could due to the fact that her belief in family is stronger than mine. i have often said where she reaches for hugs, i reach for drugs. this is not an overexaggeration.

but since her falling from grace as the golden daughter-in-law status (she being the one to bear grandchildren), my m-i-l has been left alone to dwell in her own fantasy world. it's not that we haven't seen her, we have seen her at least once a month since the summer ended, but we have not set foot in her house and all of us, are totally unprepared for what we may find there.

last year, i cleaned her house two days before christmas. it wasn't for her mind you, it was for my father-in-law, sick with cancer who after battling infection after infection from chemo, did not need to be living in a house so filled with germs. before you chastise me for pushing cleanliness over caring for an ill spouse, let me say this, her house can only be described as a frat house but without the beer. there is still a profound stickiness that pervades everything only it is not from beer, but from other fluids spilt and left behind to fester. she does not believe in trashcans, so trash overflows from brown paper bags strewn on the kitchen floor. the bathrooms reek of mildew and mustiness, born of the stained showerstall and nasty toilet. towels used and unused mingled together to lend even further proof of how little care was put into where they were living. this is where my husband and his brothers grew up, it was always like this. my father-in-law's illness was not the cause.

still, the house reeked of desolation, of illness and mold. it did not inspire a return to health and the living, in fact, the house, i feared hampered his health and that of those around him, with windows shut tightly to not let in any more grief and despair. of course, these same shut windows never let any of the desolation or illness out, either.

pierogie-making-day (PMD) was uneventful this year. held at my s-i-l's house which did not need to be cleaned beforehand, supplies were ready at the fingertips, there were none of the raised voices and flaring tempers that can only signal the agitation between a father and son. instead, our day was one of simple conversations and laughter in between stuffing 600 pillows of dough. my m-i-l quietly stood at the stove, speaking only when spoken to and even then, soliciting one word answers to our attempts at conversation.

"this year will be hard for her," my goddess girls and flugilicious tell me. common sense tells me that 7 months after losing your husband is not a long enough time to grieve the loss of your partner of 35 years.

in some ways, none of us are ready for today and what this means -- with its new challenges and new traditions that begin with it -- as mam dresses as santa for the first time for our young niece and nephew. my f-i-l would have been proud.

coasting into PMD

the agitation that i feel right now is growing. with exactly one week until it arrives, my throat feels like closing up.

my final paper for class is due in less than 48 hours but i'm sitting writing posts here instead of writing about blah-ddey blah-blah in my research paper. the queen of procrastination, i am. flug-a-licious might also say the "queen of fellatio" but that's an entirely different post.

is my paper causing me stress? slightly, but not to the degree that others may face.

is it my work? to some degree everyone's workload is stretched but again, i can't relegate my current state of affliction to it.

no, my anxiety-stricken, panic attacks are coming -- signed, sealed and delivered with the same intended level of shock and awe g.w. promised to the iraqis way back in 2003. my bunker-buster bomb is my husband's family on pierogie-making-day (PMD).

welcome to my nightmare. seriously, i can't make this stuff up or else i would probably be writing episode guides for doctor phil if i could imagine the type of family dysfunction without first witnessing it in action.

this year will be different, perhaps even more fcuked up if possible. the ghost of christmas (and PMD) past will be joining us. this year the table will be set for nine but only eight will be there. an empty chair will be set out for my father-in-law who passed away this spring after a valiant fight with cancer.

i know that nothing we say or do this PMD or filet o'dinner will be the same. with arms holding tight to the past, i know this year will be the most difficult. so many changes have happened since last year's PMD -- the births, the deaths -- and the world in its own insulated and heartless way, decided to keep pushing forward, keep spinning, no matter how much we might have wanted the world to stop.

one of my favorite sayings come from tony kushner's angels in america play: "the world only spins forward. let the great work begin." and the only way to do that is to stop chewing on and finally swallow, the events of past.

on santa's naughty list

while researching some things for my final project for class (i am beginning to think i will be in grad school forever) i needed the url for a website i tracked down the night before. being the tech-savvy girl that i am, i decided to check my browser's history file.

which is why i am now convinced i am on santa's naughty list.

christmas time each year is a crap shoot for me as to which list i wind up on. some years i manage to keep my anti-social urges in check. (sometimes, people even say i can be... ahem, nice.) admittedly though, there are far fewer of those folks than the ones who call me a bitch, but que sera sera.

so what does this have to do with my research project? well, lemme tell ya. it involves a little thing called curiousity and something about how it killed a cat, which just so happened to be right after the cat swallowed poor tweety bird who flapped about in a frenzy, yelling "i deed, i deed see a puddy tat!"

at christmas time, no one should ever use the view history option on their web browser. mam and i are both pretty big online shoppers so it's no surprise that either of us would choose to do our holiday shopping for one another online.

sooo, do i think of this before i go digging through our recent web travels? nope.

any sane, rationale person would think of this immediately after they realize "wow, we've been on a lot of websites recently". then that person would promptly close the window after getting what they had intended to find in the first place.

i am not that sane, rational person. nope. not even close.

in my defense, the site that i decided to visit was one of his snowboarding/skiing websites. you know the kind, where the skater folks look all hip, with great hair and hip bones jutted just so. not at all like reality where one's lips are horribly chapped, one's nose is red and helplessly weeping snot while wearing windblown hair that's not at all like sexy, just-rolled-out-of-bed hair but just knotted and tangled like a homeless person.

what my snooping self did was try to snoop on something that was not on his impossible-to-extract-from-him xmas wish list. instead, i get a preview of my christmas morning feigning excitement and choking down fear of careening down an icy hill wearing his present. looking like a newborn gazelle (wow, i've never compared myself to a gazelle before) learning to walk (okay, maybe it should be a foal that i am comparing myself to) on brand new legs, or in this case -- a snowboard.

after three mouse clicks, i realized all of his web searching was for snowboard jackets and paraphenalia for those of the female gender. for one moment there, i did find myself wishing he was into wearing women's clothes. but i'm not that lucky to be married to a cross-dressing, snowboarding afficiando.

no, the son-of-a-bitch was trying to outfit ME in his little snowbunny outfits! obviously he's forgetting that i am neither of the size to be considered a bunny (more like a "snow walrus" these days) nor have the inclination to spend my time outside in the cold on my ass blowing snot rockets like there's no tomorrow. with tangled, nasty hair to boot, thank you very much.

no way is this mamacita into playing those reindeer games!

just another manic martha

now that the holiday season is in full swing, i feel the urges. i have lust in my heart -- for all things martha.

it's these nesting urges that cause me to forget the simple things, like -- i really can't cook. it's these damn urges that force me to try anyway. sure, i can bake a pie! hell, i can even make an appetizer, too.

before i know it, i am knee-deep in recipe denial. and shortly thereafter, i am faced with the crushing reality of defeat as my appetizer flops and i discover the omission of an integral step in the recipe. (and no, i will not share what i fcuked up this time. my amnesia-based cooking frenzy will surely mount its ugly head again someday and next time -- next time i will be prepared! booyah, baby.)

during this time i also feel the need to clean, too. any other time of the year i am referred to as the clean nazi, but at this time of year when confronted with what i affectionately call the muddy season, those urges gain even more strength. october and november are some of the hardest months of the year -- until the ground freezes, each trip to the yard invites the princess (chloe) and piglet (sadie) to take a mudbath.

this might be a stock tip, people: invest in the makers of swiffer wetjet products right before the muddy season begins -- i know loads of other mother of furkids out there who live by their wetjets, too.

so another day means another trip out of the closet for my vacuum cleaner which gets more action than a prostitute these days. goddess only knows, the prostitute probably sucks more and costs less than my bagless vac does.

ahh, and while on the subject of crackwhores, with the return of the holiday season comes the onslaught of a new enemy -- the army of inflatables infiltrating front lawns everywhere. i wanna decorate for the holidays with the best of them but save me from the snow globes, would ya?

what i am thankful for

right now, i am most thankful that thanksgiving only happens once a year.

don't get me wrong, the fall is my favorite season and thanksgiving is it's penultimate holiday. but in reality, i am not sure i know of too many people who look forward to that much family togetherness.

and anyone who does is a liar. and possibly already drunk.

how did what was meant to be a celebration turn into such a melting pot of family hostility? a night of pass-me-a-plate-of-passive-aggression with a side of cranberry sauce, please.

don't get me wrong, my family loves each other. we just can't stand being around each other. add in a dash of food sensitivities, a large splash of alcohol and it's amazing that we manage to survive any of our family dinners together. corrupting the occasion even more is the "my house vs. your house" location argument and "who's picking up grandma from the hood" that gets more heated and dangerous each year.

not the 'hood per se, that's always been a disaster. it's the stakes in who gets the 45 minute ride down and back listening to my nan bitch about why she is still alive. doesn't god know she wants to die? she's wanted to die since 1986 and it is now her greatest failure that she hasn't yet.

somehow this year i think i sold my soul to the devil, my brother. i am pretty sure that by agreeing to his terms to both pick her up and drive her home i need to find a goat, a virgin and an altar somewhere by sunset tomorrow.

after all, we are talking about the woman who brings her own beer to social gatherings. not too many people still drink pabst blue ribbon over a certain age. how many grandmothers do you know that can hang at the bar with 20-something bike messengers drinking shots of pbr all night?

my cousins and fellow she-devils and i do the silent conversations pleading with each other for help. as in "please make her shut up" and "no, you sit there" that can make or break dinner for all of us. my uncle pokes fun at what he calls the "weak", because in his mind, what else is there to do at family gatherings?

we try to talk about what is going on in each of our lives. my cousins in college, my brother and i are now cube dwellers, our parents are already well-versed in each other's happenings to begin with. why then do we suffer?

because underneath it all, we all understand where each other is coming from. and as much as we can drive each other batty, we do feel some small trickle of love and compassion for each other.

even if we have to slice each other open to get to it.

look in the mirror

at some point, it happens to everyone. the day jumps out in front of you like a mosquito as if to say, "hah! you didn't think this would happen, but it did. i'm here to make a liar out of you." and before you could swat the nasty little bugger, it screams those word you loathe to hear: "you have become your mother!"


splat! you squish the little son-of-a-bitch but not before its words have a chance to really sink in. you look over at your mother and realize, wow, you're both sitting with your arms crossed, leaning into the table. hmmm, that's scary. and the more you become aware of it, the scarier it gets, and the more connections you notice and before it's too late, you're suddenly well too aware of what's coming next.

the four o'clock pink my mom suffers with rosacia has already started with me. by the end of the workday, my face takes on the appearance of a healthy 2-martini lunch even if the hardest thing i have imbibed all day is a diet coke.

the other little mannerisms become apparent too, leading me to wonder if looking at my grandmother is just looking into a crystal ball set 50 years into the future, just like looking at my mother's gives me a sneak peak into my future.

either way, goddess help us all.

naked

this past weekend i celebrated my 6th wedding anniversary with mam. wow, what an old fart we've become!

anyway, we decided early in the year to go away for our anniversary. in years past, we've been haunted by the killing season that is grandparentus interruptus. so even in this even-numbered year, we tempted fate by leaving our cocoon and the princess and piglet puppies home.

we drove 2 hours to get away from our lives here and for me at least, all the worries that accompany it. driving up to lake wallen-ppp-pauck (i can't pronounce the sucker, let's just leave it at that) in the cold hard rain that friday night, i worried that my suburban assault vehicle would go crashing off the road into a tree. i worried that a deer or whole friggin' flock of 'em would come dashing out in front of me and land on my windshield. i worried i would hit a slick patch of leaves and slide off the road into a ditch or worse, into the lake that i can't even pronounce.

somehow i am not sure this exchange would make the next onstar commercial:

onstar: "ma'am, we've detected that your airbags have deployed. is everyone alright?"
me: "no! fcuckin' help me. my mutha-fcukin' car is in water. i think i'm in lake www-all-n-pppp-uck."
onstar: "ma'am, are you alright? have your hit your head? you're not making any sense. i am sending an ambulance to you. can you tell me where you are?"
me: "i told you, i didn't hit my friggin' head! i'm in mutha fcukin' lake www-all-n-pppp-puck. and i can't swim!"
onstar: "ma'am, everything is going to be alright. help is on its way to you. try to keep your neck in one position until help arrives. they can help you with your head injury."

these are the thoughts that run through my head as i am driving on a highway that's not really a highway in upstate pennsyl-tucky. i worry like some people breathe, much too heavy and annoying for everyone in close enough proximity.

but i told myself i was not paying oodles of money to go away and worry in a foreign location. i even picked this location based on how well it was decorated. no, there would be no worrying and i planned to drink and be naked all weekend.

yum. naked. naked and drunk.

it's been a while since i had been either, mostly due to the bloodthinners and my insane body issues. but it's something i have desperately wanted to be for a long time.

after finally arriving at our destination -- in one piece -- it was time to start on the naked and drunk part of our weekend. a nice glass of riesling for me and a godiva martini for mam we were all set to start our weekend of decadence. lots of dirty sex before falling asleep on our wonderfully soft, king-sized bed.

sometime in the middle of the night, i remembered something as i sat up in the bed and gasped for air, i'm allergic to goose down. and right then i discovered i was trapped in a goose down sandwich -- feather bed atop our mattress, comforter and pillows. i hit the allergy trifecta on this one.

realizing that being able to breathe was vitally important to making to morning, i gathered the only non-goose down blanket on the bed and headed over to the sofa by the fireplace. shivering because a leather sofa is fcukin' cold when you're naked and only wrapped in a cotton coverlet, fireplace or no fireplace.

what a way to start an anniversary weekend. but at least i was still a little tipsy.

design challenged

what to do on a saturday night? if i were my younger self, i would try to round up the goddess girls and we would head out somewhere to raise mayhem.

considering we just spent our afternoon together -- with flugilicious, mam and ljam in tow -- that wasn't going to happen. for those in the know, ljam and mam are NOT to be mistaken for lisa's left and right chicken cutlets. her breasts prefer - "dirk" and "chesty".

instead, mam and i spent out rockin' saturday night like we spent our friday night -- on the sofa, under a blanket, yelling at the television set. to see the many levels of geekdom that resides in our house, just take a look at this picture:

nestled under blankets on the sofa on friday night, we yelled at the tv. we watched as the philadelphia flyers broke mam's heart one more time this season. yes, folks, another ugly loss and an even uglier 1-and-6 start to the season.

of course, mam had high hopes for this season -- "mr. hands-of-lead" (keith primeau) is gone from the team. we were even spared of having the "esche-hole" in goal that night. but it didn't matter. we still yelled at each bonehead move, missed pass and moment of temporary blindness suffered by the refs.

but yelling at the tv doesn't make someone a geek. and although you would think the frequent commercial break flips to see episodes of the new doctor would raise the bar on geekdom, it doesn't come close to saturday night. to any child of the 70s and early 80s who remembers the original dr. who -- bad british sci-fi with corny, tin-foil and cardboard box attempts at robotics -- this new dr. who will knock your socks off. it's classic 1999, straight-to-video cheese.

but i digress. the true level of our geek stature is measured by the fact that on saturday night, we spent a better portion of our night watching home improvement shows and yelling at the tv.

we yelled at the designer who attempt to make over a room on the show. we screamed "no" as the idiot owner attempted to put lipstick-on-a-pig and call it his new girlfriend. we cursed the color pink, all of its hues and vowed to banish from the world of paint stores. we remained hopeful, when a designer showed bold choices to soften the masculinity that abounded in this room, we bemoaned paint colors, fabric choices, overall design schemes. we shook our hands at our rustic, wide-paneled oak ceiling wondering aloud as to "why, why, why, any one would paint over decades old mahoghany panelling in good condition?"

with make-up gun set to whore, these designer and idiot owners try to make the room into something that its not. frilly pastels and chinese florals in a room deserving of leather club chairs and velvet curtains.

you just can't shake who you are. you need to accept your geekiness for what its worth. and you certainly shouldn't be putting lipstick on a pig.