Do you prefer eating foods with nuts or no nuts? I’m not nut-adverse, I like nuts for the sake of nuts, but I am kinda picky about nuts in other things.
If someone made a movie of your life would it be a drama, a comedy, a romantic-comedy, action film, or science fiction? It would be a drama with exactly the right dose of comic relief to keep you from a complete downward spiral. Critics would hate it. It’d be too good for Lifetime, but nowhere near good enough for an Oscar. People would quote lines from it all the time, but not remember where they heard them.
Who talks real sense to you? The last time I remember having to be talked sense to was five or six years ago, and it was my friend Tracey who did it. I am not regularly accused of makin sense, and yet, I talk sense to people fairly often. I suspect sense is overrated.
Do you have a favorite board game? No, I don’t think I do. I love board games. Scrabble would be my fave, but I prefer Scrabble online, cause I don’t have to do any math.
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? This last one was a BIG week for gratitude!
Thanksgiving was fab. In addition to our own brood, we hosted Master Boombastic and one of The Mister’s former soldiers and her daughter.
Luffly weekend, the tree’s up and all aglow, pie is now breakfast food, the furnace runs and runs — I keep not dyin while drivin in the rain in the dark. I sure do love my husband.
This week, I am looking forward to the return of normalcy, whatever that is. You know, the more-often-that-notness of typical days? Regular schedules and dinners not comprised of a meat with 16 sides?
Cee’s Share Your World is a weekly feature and all are welcome to join in and play along.
I thought I’d let you know that there was a better disposition hiding in my shampoo bottle and that I did end up having a great day and a fantastic night.
The Mister decided to drive us to the shopping, and while we were in the hell that is a superstore on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, he washed my car. We bought the twins a sketch pad and twisted pencils, a plush dog (that I wanted for myself) and some Tootsie Rolls (that I also wanted for myself.) Yes, obviously that child and I are kindred spirits.
Said child has drawn this for me, for my birthday.
Also, I bought cordial cherries, and a pretty new ornament for myself, because I love me.
ooh, parkly!
I hadn’t thought things through well enough, that’s fersure. When your children go to a sleepover, you are childless all night, DUH.
The Mister offered to take me for a mani/pedi, which normally I would be all about, but my cuticles are all ashamed with the scabs of anxiety disorder. Don’t tell my mother.
I coulda gone for the pedi, but alas, I had skinny jeans on.
I’ve been under the weather for about three weeks now. That stupid flu with its lingering cough. While I’m getting better, still not well, just so tired all the time. Being tired all the time and then doing stuff that would normally make me tired is super duper tiring and that makes me freak out about my health and that puts me in a panic loop, and I don’t need more stuff in my loop, because this cough is brutal enough to cause momentary vision disturbances, and I think we can all agree, coughing like that when you’re tryin to drive is panic-worthy even if you’re not a member of The Official League of Neurotics.
I am the forty-three-year-old poster girl.
raw and unfiltered
I have questioned whether I should have gone to the doctor, because my mother told me I should go to the doctor, but then mothers of sick children always think their children should go to the doctor, but that woman is always right, okay like 99.999%, and you should not tell my mother any of this.
The Mister took me to that yummy Turkish place I love and we enjoyed a delicious meal with a deeply satisfying conversation. I really needed that conversation with my person. I needed it like…
You know what’s fantastic about the Turkish place? Okay, freakin everything. But there are not a lot of places where I can pig out on vegetarian noms while The Mister shoves lamb in his mouth.
leftovers
He took the long way home because he loves me.
Then The Mister took me to pick out my tree, which is how I spent much of the evening, decorating my house and my tree in peace. Well, with Yo-Yo Ma, because I just learned from Laura that there’s music in my Amazon Prime tv thingy.
I know, you’re like “Lame,” cause you think this is a dull way to spend a Saturday night birthday without children, cause you’d rather party with your friends or whatever, but trust me, it was perfect.
My birthday is always wrapped up in the holiday, so it’s never a big deal. Now and again, I’ll see what friends are doing for other friends’ birthdays and I’ll think, why doesn’t anyone… and then I remember, oh yeah, cause you’d hate that. I have no #squadgoals. I have no squad.
I like one-on-one. Y’all wanna come over individually and play me some Scrabble or read some poetry or lie in a dark room and listen to music, that’s groovy. Group-wise, I miss Red Rover. Adulthood could really benefit from frequent games of Red Rover.
While I enjoyed my decorating, The Mister talked trash about college football with our friend Dee. Apparently Auburn played Alabama and The Mister said that’s The Inbred Bowl and then, “No self-respecting channel would show this game this far above the Mason-Dixon Line. Low Tide!” I’m not sayin he felt guilty after, but we did drive into Roundabout Land to take Dee some plumber’s tape at like 9pm.
Along the way, we yelled at GPS Voice and got Starbucks, so even though it doesn’t read like fun, it was.
I did the social media thing while The Mister watched Batman vs. Superman — I dunno, all I saw was Amy Adams in the tub, Lex Luthor grew his hair out, and then like an hour later there was a giant monster, so I can’t say if it was any good. Those cherry cordials were spectacular, though.
And then, we did the stuff you’d expect us to do, which always begs the question WHY DO WE EVEN DO OTHER THINGS?
(Could also be titled, Why I Never Blog First Thing in the Morning or I Done Told You I am Not a Morning Person.)
Pretty sure everyone in this house should be up making me coffee and baking me cake right now.
The wee ones have a party at two, and we have to shop for the gifts before, which means I had to set a stupid alarm on my Saturday birthday, which everyone thought was soooo funny last night. “Gawd Joey, it’s at two. How much sleep do you need?”
I NEED ALL THE SLEEP, THANKS.
Well I’ll have you know when my alarm went off at 11 whatever, NONE OF THEM WERE UP. Pfffft. I ranted in the hall.
It’s really too bad the prompt is pretty. Pretty is as pretty does and well —
I’d do much better with petty. Petty pity party poo.
Imma sit here mad at the world for about 15 more minutes. Sit here and mope into the coffee I made my damn self. Then I’ll go get pretty. Maybe a more pleasant disposition is hiding in my shampoo bottle.
One of the perks of having children is that everything old is new again. Like when it’s 2012 and they tell you they want that new BonJovi song “Wanted Dead or Alive.”
At some point this summer, the boy one came over, announcing he was going to make a great new cocktail he’d just heard about, which he said sounded delicious. I was excited and so I asked, “Mmm, what is it?”
“White Russian.”
“Oh. Yes. Very tasty.”
I did not say, Boy I was drinkin White Russians before you were born…I still remember the time Big Michael got up and told me, “If the waitress comes back while I’m gone, tell her I’ll lick her muffin.” Only, he actually said, “I’d like a White Russian,” and bars can be very loud, so it’s a good thing I asked him to repeat that.
At some point, Bubba came in prattling about math, ratios of vodka to Kahlua, and it was math, so I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about, but he can out-math me with a quarter of his brain, so it didn’t matter, right?
Bubba is an inexperienced drinker, because young.
Bubba gets chatty when he’s been drinkin. This is nice for socially awkward introverts. The alcohol restricts their editorial glitches and they get numb to things they’d usually freak out about.
Gotta be careful though. That same alcohol that allows for lil walls of safe space is the same alcohol that will push emotions through that wall like The Kool-Aid Man, which is exactly what happened.
One minute he was laughin about somethin and the next he was in a rage of trembling tears.
We are unaccustomed to this. Crying Bubba has seldom been seen in the last decade or so. Raging Bubba is rarely spotted. Drunk raging Bubba was unknown to us at all. It was a sorta tender moment, the way it is when your drunk girlfriend starts crying because, “The bartender’s never even had a dog, Joey! Is that not the saddest thing you’ve ever heard in your whole entire life?!”
Err.
While Bubba went to the bathroom I passed through the kitchen, which is when I realized how much vodka he had consumed in a relatively short time, and then I really wished I had paid attention to the math he’d been talkin before.
In vino veritas, or in this case, vodka is a truth bomb.
Bubba kept not coming out of the bathroom, so before bed, we went in there to check on him. Fetal position on the tile, moaning how one does. *sigh* I put a towel under his head and a cup of water within reach.
Here’s the thing about parenting boy ones: You can’t fuss over them too much when they get big. You have to let them be men. I’ve noticed that this involves a lot of balancing between me pretending to be dumb and me being emotionally available.
I couldn’t sleep.
I could only think about Bubba all sad in the bathroom.
I asked The Mister, “He’s alright, right? He’ll be okay, yeah?”
He laughed, “He’ll be fine. You want me to go check on him?”
“OH YES PLEASE! THANK YOU!”
My God, I thought he’d never ask!
The following afternoon, Bubba sat up, moaned, and asked me ever so quietly, “Do you have anything I can take for this?”
LOL LOL OH LOL LOLZ
“Water.”
A while later, “My body is rejecting the water.”
“Try again.”
It turns out, he’d never had vodka before.
Eventually, he told me he thought maybe a nice, relaxing bath would help. I agreed.
And then…
Well, what do you listen to when you take a nice, relaxing bath? Maybe something classical, some blues, a little Enya?
Uh huh.
This is what Bubba listened to during his relaxing bath:
That bout drove me to drink.
Happy Friday Everyone! Do your drink maths properly!
“I’ll tell you what, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll feed you first, and then you make me some poached eggs and toast.”
We shook on it, but the dog never did make me breakfast.
One-Liner Wednesday is brought to you by LindaGHill
One day, probably a Tuesday, I woke up in a foul mood. I have no idea why. I contemplated my mood briefly and found no reason for it.
Of course, once you’re already in a bad mood, it super easy to get pissy about most anything.
“Sadie! OFF!” Moo shouted so she could take her place. Moo always wants to talk in the mornings, but on that day, she came to snuggle, quietly, sweetly. This made both of us even more reluctant to leave the bed.
I made coffee and I paused to consider my gratitude for coffee.
I turned to my laundry.
I had grocery bags and a rug in the wash.
When I opened the dryer, the darks were still there.
“Fuck.this.shit,” I said to no one, because my bed wasn’t made and I didn’t want to make the bed and I didn’t want to fold and hang the darks. I slammed the laundry door.
I began my stretching. Then I sorta sprawled on the floor, staring at one of our five million nipple-shaped lights. I tried to blame my mood on my hatred of the nipple light, and then on the lady who had them installed, but it didn’t work. I flopped over and noticed two dust bunnies under the sofa table and I inchwormed my way over to those and clutched them in my angry lil hand, making a mental note not to bonk my head on the chair on the way back up, but of course, I bonked my head on the chair on my way back up.
I decided that was the most exercise I was gonna do and thought about a shower. I hate washing my hair. It takes about 30 hours for my hair to calm down, so I really try to maximize the benefits of already calm hair before starting all over again.
With smooth and straightened hair and still a bad disposition, I attempted to word. Some post that I will one day edit and publish. That’s the trick to keeping your public neuroses to a minimum you know. Write about it while you feel it, and then edit and publish it another day.
I made the bed, tackled that laundry, and went to work.
Sometimes work is exactly the sorta thing one needs. At work, I can’t sit around and contemplate the stuff that sticks in my craw, because you know, work.
Which is why, I must say, I am not a good mother at work. I mean, yes, while I carefully nibble grapes alone in my office, I think about how I hope they’re not eating grapes, because they’re probably leaning over the counter, tossing grapes into their mouths while they laugh, and they’ll probably choke and die, but I also don’t want to respond to texts about how there are only three cookies left and they don’t know what to do, when really, I am fully aware they have the math aptitude to solve that problem.
So yesterday, I bout lost my mind, because the boy one did not listen to us last week and then wanted me to provide a rescue route today, and as I responded to his texts, I thought i will calm down, i will soon be mad only at the situation and not at the person, but that didn’t actually happen. Like when you stub your toe and you wait for the pain to subside, but instead it increases and begins to bleed? As time passed, I grew downright hostile with the amount of reasons the whole thing pissed me off.
Getting disconnected from an important call at work prolly did not help.
Drivin in the dark definitely did not help.
Shoppin for Thursday’s dinner at two different stores prolly did not help.
Coming home to discover I’m out of kosher salt definitely did not help.
Tryin to yank the frozen neck out of my supposedly fresh turkey prolly did not help.
To put the level of my anger into perspective, you should know that The Mister was calm and dedicated to handling the matter while I whisper-screamed at my dog about the insanity of it all. I’ll probably publish that in five years, when we can all laugh about it. I think it will be titled, “Grow the fuck up!” which is funny, because I am still growing the fuck up. “How did you do that without screaming, WE TOLD YOU SO?” “Next time.”
Ugh. Next time.
Even though I had trouble getting out of bed before noon, I feel like this second Tuesday will be a better one than most. After all, my hair is already calm, the cookie jar is full, and well, I married the right man.
Your home life? This home is my favorite one ever. It’s yellow and it’s cozy and it’s shaded with beautiful trees and it has a huge yard and inside there are happy things like books and quilts and stock pots. I’m especially fond of my porcelain bathtub, my picture window, and things that work as they should. I could write at least 2000 words about how much I love my house. Perhaps another day.
Your family? My husband, my children, my pets — all filling my home life with love and laughter, and music and play, and wondrous joy. Heart heart heart, gush, gush, gush. Sassy’s been getting private cello lessons with a symphony pro and she’s been playing Bach every day.
Your blogging community? I really appreciate my regular readers and people like Linda and Cee and Norm who give me ways to connect with others. This blog helps keeps me sane.
Your city or immediate area in which you live? Well, there really is a thing called Hoosier Hospitality and I encounter it every single time I leave my house. People here are more polite and friendly than many places I’ve been.
The regional area in which you live? My fondness for the landscape and my fellow Midwesterners is obvious, isn’t it? Don’t make me go on about corn and trees and clover, cause I will. At length.
The country where you live? I appreciate my many freedoms. I particularly enjoy freedom of speech and not being burned at the stake. I shall continue to hope for all that America’s best people have to offer.
You? Believe it or not, I’ve only been ‘sick’ four times this year and even if I get sick two more times in the next 50 or so days, this will have been the healthiest year of my life. That is no small thing.
Optional Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up? I was awfully glad my weekend started with oysters on date night and that I got two days in pajamas. This week I am supposed to say I am glad we’ll have a houseful of great people to share our gratitude, and I am, but I’m most happy the kids don’t have school. I’m really looking forward to those dry turkey sammiches and punkin pie, decorating the tree, the long weekend, including my birthday, four days of no schedules, and oh the peace.
Cee’s Share Your World is a weekly feature and all are welcome to join in and play along.
Yes, yesterday it was seventy-freakin-five degrees and today it’s thirty-seven because I live in Indiana and that’s how we do. You may also live in a place like that, I dunno. If you live in a Celsius place then that’s 25 yesterday, 2 today.
When we woke up, the tops of the trees, no longer so leafy, were asway in the wind and the sky was white. Some people would say it was gray, but people like me know, that sky was white, the color it looks when it snows. I said to The Mister, “Sky’s snow white.” The Mister does not question my sky words.
There are snow flurries now and again.
First truly cold day of the season. *claps hands* Oh Yes!
joeyfullystated 
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