the christmas letter

you know what i love about the holidays? getting a really long letter from someone telling you how fabulous their life is. but sometimes, if you look closely, you can see through the glitz and get a glimpse of what is really going on. i got one such letter this season and i would like to share it with you. below is the letter, in its entirety, and word-for-word - because i can't make this shit up. i have, however, made a few comments, in brackets, and changed the names to hopefully keep these people from recognizing themselves in the event that they should stumble onto my blog now that it is in its new easy-to-find location at www.luckycharmsandbeer.com.

Hello to all our dear friends and family. Wow, I truly do not know where this year has gone, let alone that I turned 40 this year! [as a side note, this sentence makes no sense] Desi and I celebrated our 25th anniversary of marriage this year. We have been spending a little bit more time together since Desi's company has slowed down the work load. Desi also has had alot more time to work with Larry on his baseball skills and now with Curly's wrestling. Desi is really enjoying that!

Speaking of Larry, he is a ray of sunshine [if she does say so herself]. He is 13 and is always happy [oxymoron] and so conscientious. It makes mama proud that he is very neat too! He finished 7th grade with a very high average, a math award, and a science award, and so this year he was placed in advanced classes. We were not sure how he would do, but he is maintaining excellent grades. He is still playing travel baseball, which we all enjoy very much. He has pitched some great games and even won a "game ring."

Curly entered the high school this year after finishing the middle school with "a presidential award." [don't know what that is? well here, let her tell you] That award is given for always maintaining an A average throughout the entire 3 years. He too is in advanced classes and doing very well. He played on the football JV team as a wide receiver and now he is starting on the varsity wrestling team as a freshman. We are very proud of his accomplishments, especially dad who loves to share his experiences and knowledge of the sport with him. He finally decided to get a buzz cut and it looks great on him. He also got the braces off. What a hunk!

Moe is, yes indeed 21. He is still working at Publix part-time. He also works another part-time job and in between the two jobs, he is in his 3rd year in college. He obviously has little time for organized sports which is a shame because he is so talented, but he does play at leisure with his high school buddies. He does continue to work out in his little gym in his room. It has taken well over a year to learn to let go of my "little boy" and let me tell you, it is not easy! We are very proud of him and love him dearly.

As for me, I'm still in the same routine. I take the boys where they need to be and wash all of their uniforms. That is the down side to sports. I have started a new mural in the basement and I paint when I get the urge.

Well I hope this letter finds you doing well. We want to wish you all a Blessed Christmas and a very Blessed New Year.

Lucy, Desi, Larry, Curly and Moe

my interpretation of lucy's letter: desi is an alcoholic about to lose his job. larry has, at the tender young age of 13, discovered that he is gay. curly, the high school sports star and "hunk," has contracted at least one venereal disease and may or may not have fathered a child. moe smokes alot of pot, sometimes with his "high school buddies" and sometimes alone in his "little gym in his room." lucy is on the brink of a mental break - and why wouldn't she be? everyone else's lives are filled with academics, sports and friends and she is "in the same routine" washing uniforms.

i think it would be really refreshing to get my version of the christmas letter. in fact, i may just write my own.

the mountain house

a while back, i found myself talking to this very attractive and very typical "southern woman." you know the type - always looks perfect, has the perfect family, is always telling stories about her perfect life. i knew this was going to be a painful conversation because it started out with her telling me how busy she had been - so busy in fact, that she had not even gotten to her mountain house that season.
the story continued and somehow this girl managed to do the two things that irritate me more than anything else - yes, even more than talk of her mountain house - she subjected me to her religious beliefs and she tried to get me to buy into her pyramid home-business scheme. i'm sure you are wondering how she managed to get both of those things into one conversation. well, it went something like this:
(for purposes of this story, i will call her scarlett and her husband, rhett. also, this conversation took place poolside where i sat in my mom-tankini and she posed in her bikini, looking absolutely flawless (except for her ridiculously huge fake boobs) holding her 3-month-old baby that she did not adopt. i will refer to the cosmetic pyramid-scheme company as "pyramid scheme."

scarlett: i'm just so busy with the boys. i know you must be too since you are working part-time.

me: yeah.

scarlett: i can't imagine if i had finished residency how hard it would be to manage my career and the boys. and i felt really bad when i first wanted to quit residency. i worried that i had wasted all that time and money going to medical school only to quit residency. but then one day, it just hit me. i realized that god had not sent me to medical school to be a doctor. he had sent me to meet rhett.

me: yeah. (swallowing a little vomit)

scarlett: but rhett's practice is doing well and a friend told me about pyramid scheme, a home-based business. it's a great opportunity and i think you would be really good at it. rhett was skeptical at first, but after he went to the meeting with me, he saw what a great opportunity it was for me to be able to share great products with my friends and family and supplement his income. you would be great at it and it's the perfect way to work from home while your kids are little and need you.

me: hey, speaking of kids needing me, mine are drowning, so i should go. it was nice talking to you.

as i am looking for ways to work, from home or otherwise, i reflected on this conversation with scarlett. she truly presented a picture of having it all. and i wonder if she does or if like so many people, she is just better at marketing and selling her life to others than i am. i'm afraid that my pitch isn't nearly as impressive - i mean, how could it be? i don't even have a mountain house.

family fun

friday night. i was actually excited because steve and i decided to take the kids to dinner and bowling - something the kids have been asking to do and something that steve and i both enjoy (or at least that we enjoyed while extremely intoxicated in college). so we loaded up the kids and headed to loco's - about a ten minute drive. it was raining, but i was in a good mood - excited to be excited about having a family night out. we parked the car and i opened mac's door to let him out and realized he wasn't wearing shoes. immediately, my mood soured. i was mad as much at myself as i was at him, since he does this about 5 times a week and i should have checked. but, we decided to go in anyway. we took mac into the restaurant with his feet bare. i was painfully aware of everyone that noticed his dirty wet feet - and i saw them look directly from the feet to me, the mother of the child with no shoes on in a family restaurant.
as soon as we got menus, things went even further down hill. amelia recently got a massive orthodontic appliance in her mouth and her diet is limited. i had promised her there would be soup on the menu. there was not. and now her mood had soured too.
after the meal, that i will describe as mildly unpleasant, we drove to the nearest store to purchase shoes and socks for mac. forty dollars later, we were on our way to showtime bowling. we arrived and got our lane and shoes. they asked our children's ages and pointed out that they would only do bumpers on the lane for ages 10 and under - i.e. mac but not amelia. amelia handled this news surprisingly well - at first.
we started bowling and i was all over the gutter for my first 3 turns, putting me in last place, then amelia, then steve and mac in first. but as the night progressed, my mediocre bowling skills came back to me and i moved ahead of amelia, who had by this time become familiar with both gutters. she was totally frustrated and following each attempt, she would storm back to her seat and say crappy things. mac, who threw the ball with all that he had (which isn't much) and ran back immediately to look at the scores on the screen, had fallen into second place and started crying because he was no longer winning.
steve, meanwhile, had had it with amelia's bad attitude and told her we were leaving and for her to come with him. as they walked over to pay, i tossed amelia her shoes and as luck would have it, one shoe hit the ground and then bounced up and smacked her right in the face. she burst into tears and stormed off to the bathroom. i coaxed her out of the bathroom and then explained to her that while the shoe in the face was unintentional, she deserved it because she was acting like such a brat. so we loaded both of our crying kids in the car and headed home.
next time, i vote for getting a sitter, drinking heavily and maybe skipping the bowling altogether since it might just bring back memories of all that family fun.

checking in with randy joe

my dad, randy joe, was cursed with a stomach ailment called diverticulitis. i am no doctor, but i know that for him, the condition flares up on occasion and can be serious - should an infection develop or the colon decide to perforate - or as randy joe says, "bust op'n." recently, such a flare up occurred and in fact, there was an infection and a 5-day hospital stay was required. i called my dad every day to check in and got to hear the minute-by-minute of life in the south georgia medical center. the following is a summary of those conversations (in the words of randy joe - unless otherwise noted. as a reminder, ronnie is my mom):

day 1: i knew what it was - i ain't eat in days. i coulda died. if you get an infection bad enough in there, that thing'll bust op'n and from then on, you'll be shitting in a bag.
nicole: how long are they keeping you?
rj: well, they said til monday, but i'm going home on saturday to watch that football game.

day 2: i can't talk. the nurse is here to take my blood.
rj to nurse: i don't know why you wanna take it again, you took it yesterday. i got the same blood today i had yesterday.

day 3: can you believe georgia lost that football game?

day 4: (to nicole) tell ronnie to bring me a box a cheezits.
nicole: are you allowed to have cheezits?
rj: i don't know - i ain't eat in 7 days. i'm starving.

day 5: i can't talk. i'm getting the hell outta here. i'll call you when i get home.

he made it home and seems fine, although a surgery is likely in his near future. he is no stranger to surgery though. several years ago, he had a hip replacement. the recovery was worse than he expected. not too long after the surgery, his orthopedic surgeon told him he would need the other hip replaced, to which he responded that he would "drag that sonofabitch to the grave" before he had another hip replacement. the doctors should probably consider going ahead and removing his entire colon since it is not likely he will be doing any additional surgeries.

my public v. private identity crisis

up until this year, my kids have attended public schools. my husband and i also attended public schools growing up. but when we moved recently, not knowing what area of town we would live in, we opted to enroll them in private schools - mac at a montessori school and amelia at what i refer to as "the academy." i don't know what my expectations were, but i am surprised at how different these two schools are. they are, in fact, polar opposites. amelia's school is everything one might expect from an "academy," right down to its old headmaster who says academy in such a way that it rhymes with dichotomy. the car pool line is packed with escalades and navigators and parent meetings are a virtual fashion show where you would be hard-pressed to find a woman there with flat shoes or unaugmented breasts. mac's montessori school, on the other hand, has a parking lot full of hatch-backs - and i don't mean crossovers, i mean actual hatch-backs - from the 70s. i haven't attended the first parent meeting yet, but i am fully expecting to be passed a bong while we all sing kumbayah. when dropping the kids off, i feel like i need to change clothes between schools. i haven't made many friends yet but surely there are some other hybrids like me out there. i mean, i recycle, but i get botox. i wear birkenstocks with designer jeans. i can't afford the environmentally-friendly vehicle i want, so i am driving a jeep, that's paid for (but regularly stalls in the car pool line). maybe i am over-thinking it, but i think life was easier in public school.

recreational hobos

my children hate the local rec center. i don't know why - other than perhaps it makes them feel like "other children." so i was not surprised when recently, following through on a threat, i made them go there for the day and my son threw an absolute fit about it. he told me that he couldn't go because the last time he was there a hobo tried to kill him. amelia reluctantly joined her class, but mac refused to go. so as i stood there in the rec center lobby trying to explain to him that maybe he misunderstood the hobo's intentions last time, an acquaintance walked up with her two boys, who are the same ages as and go to school with my children. this was great news for my daughter, who likes the boy that is her age but it is terrible news for mac, who upon seeing the other boy starts yelling "oh no, not timmy." well, of course, timmy's mom looked offended but she proceeded to drop her children off (with ease) and was quickly back out in the lobby where mac was still going on about how timmy would try to kill him with a machine gun if i left him there. so this other mom kneels down to mac's level (and i assume she is trying to help me out here and console him so that i can get out of there) and she says to him "well, mac, as i recall, at the spring program at school, it was you and not timmy who was hitting other kids and making everyone mad." at this point, all i could think was "are you fucking kidding me?" so while i was trying to console my son and drop him off so that i could have three hours of peace, this woman was seriously going to stand there and argue with a crying seven-year-old over who was worse - mac or her son timmy? i tried to give her some perspective by explaining to her that before timmy walked up, the hobo had been the target of mac's anger, but she seemed unaffected by this information. for some unknown reason, i apologized to her and then whisked mac away to where the well-adjusted seven-year-olds were happily playing. i bitterly and sarcastically wished his teacher good luck and stormed out into the parking lot, peeled out and headed for starbucks for a $4 cup of transfat-and-sugar-laden peace.

year-round school - making the case

what ever happened to all that talk about year-round school? i, for one, support it. and not just because my kids fight with each other and drive me crazy all summer. okay, actually that is the only reason. but surely there would be some economic benefits. working parents would be better employees, not having to deal with summer camps or temporary babysitters. and teachers would make more money that would go right back into the economy, right? stock in fiskars and crayola would likely skyrocket.

and let's not forget the benefits year-round schooling would bring to the children. i can attest to the fact that summer equals fighting with siblings. the nonstop, obnoxious and sometimes violent, fighting. not only is it dangerous, but surely it is damaging to their delicate, still-developing self-esteem. and for children with no siblings with whom to fight, clearly they need the socialization that only a school classroom can provide.

opponents of year-round schooling (probably just teachers), might ask "what about summer vacations?" as my sister says, vacations are for grown-ups, something you earn - by finishing all of your school. this would provide motivation for kids to stay in school. let's make them earn that weekend of cruising the miracle strip in panama city beach. drop-out rates would plummet.

in closing, economic windfall, psychologically healthier, more motivated kids, diminished drop-out rates, i can't find a downside here.

"the shack" and other stupid books i hated

i was going to write an entry about why i hated the book "the shack" but then i decided that "because it was stupid and terrible" would not make for an exciting blog topic. but it did make me think about books and this book club i was in once. and i know i have said in a previous blog entry that i hate book clubs and other ridiculous reasons women use to get together and drink and gossip - because i think the drinking and the gossiping alone are good enough reasons for getting together. but i was trapped in augusta, georgia and desperate for a social life, so i joined this book club. and while i did read a couple of books that i truly enjoyed, i also read one of the most depressing and horrible books ever (the title of which i cannot recall but the subject matter (child abuse) is burned into my brain forever. it must have been an oprah book - i don't know how that woman stays so positive when all she reads about is death, abuse, poverty and hunger - just when you think no one else can die, someone has a baby). at one of our book club meetings, a girl asked if we could read a romance novel - and at that same meeting, another girl suggested a political biography. how can these two people ever agree on a book? and i find both genres equally offensive. but i suppose the purpose of a book club is to read books that you might not otherwise read, and i guess i would just rather not.

high-five! not so much

today i went for a run on the beach. along the way, i passed an acquaintance who was also running. just as i reached her, i realized she was not waving at me as i had assumed, but was attempting to give me a high five. and it occurred to me at that moment that people can be broken down into two categories - people comfortable enough in their own skin to give high fives and people like me, who not only would never attempt to give a high five but are also incapable of successfully or comfortably accepting a high five. so as i awkwardly lifted my left hand, which was holding my ipod and had a cord draped from it, my friend saw that i was capable only of a no-contact wave and that i was not attempting to reciprocate. to my relief, she lowered her hand so that i was no longer under pressure to return the high five. and in that moment, i caught a glimpse of her face and it looked like a cross between irritation and disappointment. there was no way around it, i had let her down. and it's not only high fives at which i am completely inept - it's all kinds of platonic socio-physical gestures - hugging in particular. in fact, just days ago, i ran into a friend at the grocery store and she attempted a hug. i feel that my awkwardness has to be apparent and yet i am forced to reciprocate all too often. i tend to shrink a bit and uncomfortably hold out my hand or if it can't be avoided, my entire arm. and if forced to hug, i always keep the brunt of the hug on one side, never straight-on. real huggers aren't satisfied with the side hug though (even when you add the pat on the back) that much is obvious. they need full-on frontal contact with the squeeze-back. i don't understand the hugging or the high-fiving. i know that the huggers and high-fivers mean well and i appreciate the thoughts behind their intrusive gestures, i just prefer to use my words to express those thoughts and feelings. for instance, for me, a hug could be expressed by the phrase "how's it going?" or perhaps a jovial "good to see you." and as an alternative to the high-five, one might say "hey. how's it going?" all i'm saying is that there are lots of verbal options here. and while i can't speak for other non-huggers, i can say that i am fully capable of and more than happy to reciprocate a verbal gesture. so let's talk - but don't touch.

blog temporarily out of service

who knew that maintaining this blog would be so much work? well, maybe work isn't the right word. in any event, i haven't updated my blog lately because i have been feeling uninspired and unoriginal. the most difficult part is originality. i have to admit to you now that all of my stories about being a gay boy with OCD growing up in north carolina were stolen from david sedaris. i considered writing a parenting guide - but my entire collection of ideas was written and released already by the authors of The Three Martini Playdate and Confessions of a Slacker Mom. most recently, i am left feeling unoriginal by The Underachiever's Manifesto - a book of mottos that mirror my own, like "It's a simple fact of life that your successes and failures really don't matter to nearly everybody alive." let's face it - i can't say it any better than that.
and so i wait not-so-patiently to be reminded of another randy joe story or for someone to piss me off at the grocery store or to make an ass of myself (which i am overdue for) so that i can call myself a blogger.

scrapbook - as a verb

several years back, when i moved to augusta, georgia, i remember being asked by several people (all women, as i am sure you might have guessed) if i "scrapbooked." after about the fourth or fifth time, i finally asked if scrapbooking was really a verb. this attitude won't get you a lot of friends - particularly in augusta and probably in the south in general. frankly though, i don't need any friends whose sole purpose in life is to make me feel completely inadequate because i have collected my pictures in plain-old albums or worse, in boxes full of envelopes full of pictures or perhaps worse than that - just digital pictures on my computer.

naturally, i have tried to analyze why i am unable to scrapbook. i decided that it comes down to this one thing - i am not able to use gratuitous exclamation points. as you know, i don't even like capital letters - i just can't imagine trying to put that much feeling into a caption. there would be so much pressure. for instance, i am incapable of saying things like "Emma having her Favorite Summer Treat: Ice Cream!" is it really emma's favorite treat? and what if the picture was actually taken in late spring? do all of the letters need to be capitalized or just the important ones? again, too much pressure and thought.

or maybe i can't scrapbook because i am not artsy - or craftsy. and i have never been good at sticker-placement. and like my friend mary ann, i just can't cut my pictures into heart shapes. it just seems wrong. and so, i continue a complete disservice to my children (and other family and friends) by merely collecting their photos in my uncreative, stickerless, captionless, heartless, digital/virtual manner and shamefully, i still think of a noun when i hear the word scrapbook.

half-drunk and blind in one eye

you remember my dad, randy joe, right? well, in addition to liking "sweet milk" (which is just another way of saying milk - i suppose it is to be distinguished from buttermilk?), he also likes lord calvert combined with caffeine-free diet coke. actually, on occasion (and by ocassion, i mean every afternoon) he likes several of those, back to back. on one such occasion, we had gotten together with a group of friends from college and one of my friends challenged my dad to a game of pool. my dad, who was beating my friend at this game pretty severely at this point, says "i'm whippin' your ass and i'm half-drunk." my friend responds "oh i guess next your going to tell me your blind in one eye." this story might not seem funny but as it turns out, (and unbeknownst to my friend) my dad is actually blind in one eye as a result of a really high fever as a child. fortunately for my friend, my dad was a little more than half-drunk and really didn't take offense - not that he would have anyway, especially since it clearly has not interfered with drinking or pool-playing skills.

grier's dorm room

i was privy to a conversation the other day - well, perhaps not so much privy to as much as just eavesdropping on, but it doesn't seem fair to me to call it eavesdropping when the woman was talking loud enough for the entire store to hear. in any event, i had just entered this cute, but a little snooty, gift store and i was admiring the cute, but a little snooty, gifts when i heard this conversation, which may have ruined this and all other cute-but-snooty gift stores for me.

loud gift shop customer lady: (to her daughter) well, honey, i just don't know. what is grier's color scheme?

daughter: (says something but because she is speaking in a normal voice, i cannot hear the response)

loud gift shop customer lady: (to gift shop employee) the color scheme of her dorm room is white with black polka dots and fuchsia and orange accents.

after several minutes and a discussion of a variety of items, they seem to find something that compliments the "scheme" and then they enter the monogramming phase of the transaction. initials are discussed but after the daughter peruses grier's facebook page on her cell phone in a brilliant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to ascertain grier's middle name, they decide to go with the full name, g-r-i-e-r (and not g-r-e-e-r and also not g-r-e-i-r). the purchase is made and loud gift shop customer lady and her daughter seem satisfied with their gift to grier. i, on the other hand, no longer see a store full of fancy knick-knacks. i see only things for grier and her dorm room - the little cups that say "i invited you over for cocktails, not dinner" no longer seem cute to me as they do not compliment black and white polka dots and they don't belong in a dorm room. and the little baby onesie that says "i'm fixin' to cry ya'll" seems somehow not good enough for grier's baby or inappropriate if she does not have one. in fact, nothing in the store seemed good enough for grier anymore. finally, i became disgusted with all of it and i left. plus, i got the text from my husband steve that i had been waiting for that he was ready for me to pick him up for lunch.

tbone and greg

in college i dated a guy who was in law school. i will call him greg, for purposes of my blog. greg was one of those guys who dressed just so (i know it's a cliche, but he took GQ to a whole new level from his suspender-clad shoulders all the way down to his burberry socks), had political aspirations, and generally thought a lot of himself (remember alec (played by judd nelson) in st. elmo's fire? he comes to mind). greg prided himself on having attended a prestigious undergrad and having worked in d.c. and took himself and his law school/career very seriously. at some point, greg decided to get a roommate and he found terry, a fellow law student. terry was just about the opposite of greg - he was country, very personable, and easy-going - all in all, a great roommate - perhaps for anyone except greg. i think what bothered greg the most about terry was that terry took law school very lightly and yet seemed to do really well, while greg took it very seriously, worked hard and did almost as well as terry. well, i say that's what bothered him the most. it also could have been that whenever the phone rang at greg and terry's - terry would always answer (which was good since he was obviously the more popular of the two and it was almost always for him) and the dialogue - or terry's end of it - was always exactly the same. it went like this. and as with quotes from my dad, please imagine a thick southern accent.
(phone rings)
terry: yello
(pause)
terry: this t-bone. (i have to admit, there was another version where instead of this, terry would say "youuu got 'eem")
(pause)
terry: drinkin' a beer, how bout yaself.
but i do think greg must have had at least a little bit of a sense of humor about terry because i remember once greg called me over to listen to a message that had been left on the answering machine for terry. it went like this and imagine the countriest of country accents spoken in an old-lady voice:
"tayr-ree, just called to see what you was up to. call me when you get back. mawma." i loved that she signed off "mawma" as if she were writing a letter. it was the 80s, i guess answering machines were still new to mawma.
but that was all forever ago. i heard recently that greg is still very GQ and i imagine still taking himself and his career very seriously and probably as a result, is successful. and i like to think that t-bone has done pretty well for himself too.

from baseball to field trips

well, little league baseball season is over. my 7-year old son's team won two games. it was a long and painful season, but at the last game, we got our pictures. and the picture of mac in his baseball uniform, bat in hands, is fantastic. and isn't that what it is really all about? the memories of each miserable game, of strike-outs, of crying in the dug-out and bird-watching and circle-spinning in the outfield will fade but this picture, in which mac looks like he not only plays, but actually likes, baseball, will last forever.
and as the end of the school year approaches - so does the field trip - the thought of which has delighted my daughter all year and been a nagging source of dread for me. i am going to new orleans - on a charter bus - with fifth graders. what is more fun than a field-trip to new orleans..... with fifth graders? i don't know about you, but when i think new orleans, i think bring-the-kids-along-for-some-good-wholesome-family-fun. i tried to come up with some plausible way for me to lose the kids and stop off in a bar, just for a drink or two (just to take the edge off), but i'm not so sure it's going to happen. the problem is that i am one of those people that truly functions better with a couple of drinks in me - and it certainly helps in my ability to tolerate children. when you think about it - it's almost medicinal. and no one would ever judge a parent for needing medication. perhaps if i explained this to the teacher.

dog drama

my mother's day started out like any other, so you can imagine my surprise when it developed into one of those faith-in-humanity-restoring kind of days. forget all my previous posts saying how much people get on my nerves. from here on out, it's going to be all praise for the people. or at least to the end of this blog entry.
i slept late (that means until 8am at my house) and then i had my usual cinnamon toast and coffee. steve got the waverunner (the only water craft that we can afford) out and we took turns taking the kids out on it. after lunch, we walked across the busy 4-lane road to the santa rosa sound where our waverunner was parked (unauthorized, at the end of a dock of a vacation rental that is not ours but that is very convenient to our house). our dog sulley, an 8-year old lab with a slow-growing malignant tumor and bad hips who absolutely loves the water, came along with us on the walk over. we had no qualms about bringing her since she has never once wandered. in fact, once she dug out of our fenced back yard only to go to the front door where she cried until we let her inside. but back to the story - so, amelia and i took the wave runner out into the sound and steve took a reluctant sulley back across the street to our house. steve went inside and quickly realized sulley was no longer with him and began looking for her. amelia and i returned about 45 minutes later and got the bad news. we started looking and calling for her. several neighbors came out to help. then some people spotted me from out on their dock and told me that a family had just come by in a boat with a dog asking if anyone was looking for this yellow lab. but the boat had left and was headed towards gulf breeze. the people on the dock offered to take their boat out and stop the boat with our dog. and they did just that. the family that rescued my dog brought her back to the dock and unloaded her. she was wet and tired but looked happy to see me. apparently, sulley had crossed four lanes of traffic and followed us deep into the sound and had been swimming for at least 20 minutes when this family found her. i know that i would have done the same thing had i seen a dog out there - assuming that in this fantasy i had a boat - but that doesn't change how grateful i am that so many people were willing to help us. and this concludes my feel-good story. i will try not to let it happen again.

an r.j. trilogy

i have to share one more profound thing my father said. this one really got me thinking and i am confident it will have the same effect on you. it was a stormy afternoon in nashville, georgia (making it even gloomier than usual there) and a big fat bolt of lightening struck and the power was out. prior to that bolt of lightening, randy joe had been relaxing (as much as his personality allows) in his lazy boy watching the golf channel (or "this here tournament" as it is often called). well now that was all ruined. he got up and kind of paced around the house a bit. then he tried turning the tv on again - to no avail. he paced some more. then attempted to turn on the lamp beside his lazy boy - again, with no success. he left the room and returned and then he stopped. and i knew something big was coming. something that would capture the mood that everyone on our same power grid was feeling at that very moment - and he did not disappoint me. he looked up at no one in particular and said "you know, you ain't got electricity.... you ain't got shit." and almost every time i have been without power since that day, i have thought those very same words - even said them a few times.

profound statements from randy joe

my dad has said some profound things since i've known him. one of those things happened to come in the context of a lecture. a lecture of which steve, my husband, was on the receiving end. but to understand the lecture, you must first know that that my dad loves cars - buying them, selling them, taking care of them - through maintenance and having others wash and detail them. some people consider the eyes the window to the soul. my dad believes the condition of one's car is. so it truly bothered my dad when after a few years of marriage, i came home to visit and the honda that he had given me in college was badly in need of new tires. but i was only home for a short visit and although he inspected the car several times during this visit, he ultimately decided against taking it in for me and getting new tires. so i left on sunday morning on my five-hour trip back to birmingham. about an hour outside of nashville, in the fast lane of I75, my tire disintegrated. i managed to get the car through two lanes of traffic into the emergency lane and i called everyone i could think of, except my dad, who i decided must never, under any circumstances, know about this. i understood the magnitude of the impact this would have on my dad - i knew that there would be a 30-45 minute initial lecture, followed by a lifetime of references to the incident and the assumption from that day forward that steve and i were completely inept at car maintenance - which in my dad's eyes was a serious character flaw - one that in his own child, particularly a girl, might be overlooked, but for a son-in-law could be a deal-breaker. but back to the roadside, a trucker stopped to help change my tire and a state patrolman came soon after. i went to a nearby tire store (on a sunday morning) and paid 7 or 8 times what it normally cost to have a used tire installed on my car. and while it all worked out fine, the tire incident put me way behind schedule for returning home. and so approximately 5 hours and a minute or so after i left nashville, my dad called birmingham and steve answered and of all things, told my dad - the TRUTH. this, of course, sent my dad into a tirade - which began and ended with the following statement (which was also restated multiple times throughout the lecture) - "a car caint run without no tires." i can also tell you that this statement is repeated by me and steve (and a few friends) every time cars are discussed.

i don't know what came over steve during the phone call that made him want to tell my dad about the blow-out, but i know that he learned a valuable lesson that day (in addition to learning that cars need tires to run) - never tell my dad things that make him worry - particularly if those things reflect negatively on your ability to maintain and properly care for your vehicle.

all swolled up and gone to stankin'

aside from all the normal but great "dad" things that my dad has done - like always letting me keep the change or embarrassing me to no end throughout high school - my dad is an entertainer. and not the piano-playing or professional kind, but the have-several-drinks-and-tell-funny-stories kind. but to truly appreciate any stories about my dad, you must be willing to imagine a thick southern accent whenever i am quoting him. and if you are willing to do that, i will share a few of his best quotes in a series of blog entries.
the first story about my dad isn't really about him as much as it is a story that he tells and that many of my friends now quote regularly. it goes back to the early 80s when my dad was on the city council in nashville, georgia - a very small (3-traffic-light, no movie theater) town in way south georgia. as a city councilman in a small town, he apparently often got phone calls about almost anything that wasn't right in nashville. so one night, around 9pm, the phone rang and my dad answered and the concerned citizen said "randy joe (because that's my dad's name), theys a dead dog that been runned over and is layin' up in my yard." and my dad, not sure how this concerned him said "well, what you want me to do about it?" and the citizen says "well, i want you to come and git it. it's done swolled up and gone to stankin'." and i'm sure that i don't do this story any justice by typing it out here, but i have to tell you, since hearing my dad tell this story, nothing in my world is ever just swollen - although sometimes things (an ankle, a river, etc) have "done swolled up" but haven't "gone to stankin" yet. and thanks to my dad, i can't help but smile every time i see a bloated animal carcass resting on the side of the highway.

the principal's office

i was called to the principal's office on friday because apparently there was some concern over what my seven-year-old son mac had written on his florida standardized writing test. at the risk of boring you, i have decided to share the writing in its entirety with you. my only comment is that i find it sad and yet somehow still amusing.

Instructions: Everyone likes to play outside. Write about something you like to play outside.

Mac's response:

I just sit and do nothing. I barly go outside because yesterday I ate dinner at 3:00 in the afternoon because of baseball. thats why I don't play outside is because of baseball. Grrr. It makes me angry. I never ever, ever, ever go outside. Aw man. This makes me so Angry. I can't write - Ok? Alright. But I shoud not go to baseball and...... Oh I can't take it Anymore.

(the remaining 30 or so lines of the paper are left blank)

birds and baseball

you know what i love most about little league baseball? perspective on little league baseball. and here is what i mean. my son is seven. he loves birds - all kinds of birds - wrens, sparrows, owls, sea gulls, pelicans, sandpipers - he knows them all and loves to identify them. but when it comes to baseball - well, he likes it okay. and so we go to games about four days a week (and don't forget the practices). his team, the tigers, got off to a promising start, they won their first game. little did we know at the time, it would be their only win (to date). during the second game, the tigers were down by 17 or so points and mac started crying. and not just sniffling or some kind of muffled embarrassed crying but full on bawling. i go to the dugout and he turns around and looks at me with hugely swollen eyes and a tear-streaked face and says "this is a nightmare." a little dramatic, i know. but finally, after some kind of mercy-ruling, the game is called and it's over. until the next saturday when the tigers were due for their next beating. this time, the opposing team happens to be the team that includes mac's two best friends - matthew and tanner. by the second inning, matthew and tanner's team is spanking the tigers and mac is again crying uncontrollably in the dugout - so much so that the coach has asked me to come over and console him. i reach him and all he can say is that he wants to be on matthew and tanner's team. i could hardly blame him, looking at the scoreboard, but it was still extremely embarrassing and not to mention, a complete downer for mac's teammates who were still out playing ball and actually trying, against all odds, to win the game. fortunately, around that time, mac was distracted by, of all things, an osprey. he recognized the bird by its wingspan and its tendency to nest in tall man-made structures like the giant lights that light up ball-fields. and soon, once again, the game was called (again, a mercy ruling) and we were out of there. steve and i, taking with us, our budding ornithologist and our comfort that we were exposing our son to team sports no matter how miserable it might be for us, the team and the teammates' parents. but a day or so after the game, i told the story to a friend on the beach, who happens to be close to 60 and he laughed at my son's lack of interest in baseball and was impressed by his interest in birds and by his ability to recognize and remember characteristics of them. it occurs to me that when you tell this story to someone that is, i am guessing, over about 50, they seem to have better perspective. they don't express concern or sympathy that your son might not be having a positive little league experience. they laugh because it's funny and because they know that in the big scheme of life and things, it doesn't really matter.

not cool

it's inevitable. getting older changes you. you become less fun. teenagers have it right - people over 30 (especially those with kids) are not cool and if you are over 30 and teenagers do think you are cool, you are probably a loser. i thought about this a few years ago while sitting in traffic. i was trying to get into a left turn lane at a busy intersection and some asshole wouldn't let me over. so when the light changed, i gunned my jeep cherokee and cut in front of him, making my left turn almost up on two wheels. which was all fine until i realized that during the turn, somehow the back part of my jeep had flown open and my double stroller had catapulted from the jeep and come to a rest dead in the middle of the intersection. and so it was after i pulled over and walked into middle of the intersection and retrieved my stroller that it hit me that i would never be cool again. and it wasn't as though up to this point i had thought of myself as particularly cool. rather, i had enjoyed the possibility of it. i have long since said goodbye to that notion although i still grieve it on occasion.

crazy mary

i always say that beach people are crazy but when i think about other places i have lived, i know that crazy people are everywhere. and while they may be more concentrated here at the beach, one of the craziest people i ever met was in a small town in georgia. crazy mary. i knew crazy mary because she was the wife of my husband's coworker (that i will call lou). lou and mary were in their late 40s and were by all accounts an interesting couple. crazy mary and i would see each other at work-related gatherings - where one might assume that conversations would be rather dry since the common link among the women was a career that was not our own. over the five-year period when i knew crazy mary, we probably had five conversations - each more memorable than that last. the first time i met her was at a christmas party. it was beside the dessert table that she told me she was disappointed because she was unable to drink that night because of her hepatitis medication - and then she went on to say that "what with the DUI" and wrecking her husband's antique car (that he spent years restoring), it was probably for the best. and you really have to know crazy mary to truly appreciate the conversation - but try to keep in mind that she talks extremely loudly and has a southern accent that sounds fake - like the kind in movies.
the second time i talked with her was at an interview party for residency candidates. we were discussing how we grew up and she said to me "i grew up in alabama and my daddy liked for everybody to think he was real liberal and he was, right up til the time i started dating a black guy. but you know, he was just scared i was having sex with him - WHICH I WUZ." again, you have to keep in mind that words like "black," "sex," and "which i wuz" were said at a volume that exceeded all other voices in the room - at a party - that was loud.
but i think my favorite conversation with crazy mary was my last. it took place outdoors at a pool party. and it went like this.

crazy mary: so i guess you heard about lou's love child.

me (trying to contain my excitement over what might come next): no, i didn't hear about that. (crazy mary unaware of my response and perhaps even my presence).

crazy mary: well, apparently our best friend denise's son chris who is 19 is lou's. i guess lou and denise had a thing right before our wedding. and she just told him that chris is his.

me: really? i hadn't heard that.

crazy mary: well, i figure if youre gunna have a step kid, thats the way to do it is to get him when he is already grown. and i can't hold it against lou. i mean, who would i be to get all messed up about that after what i did on my bachelorette weekend.

unfortunately, we were interrupted (by a girl who was horrified when she caught on to the gist of the conversation) and so i never did get the details on that bachelorette weekend. i suspect it might have made for the best blog entry yet. but i suppose that is how things go for me - we keep moving around and i have to keep finding new crazy people to entertain me.

the easter bunny and other crap

i can play along with a lot of things - like santa claus and even the tooth fairy, but trying to tell my kids with a straight face that a giant bunny comes into our home and leaves them candy seems wrong to me. a few years back, my daughter inquired "is the easter bunny a real rabbit?" i was stumped but somehow managed to change the subject. what was i going to tell her? either yes, a giant bunny is able to penetrate a deadbolt and bypass our alarm to get candy into her basket or i could ruin it for her which would have likely lead to more questions about other fictitious beings that sneak into houses in the dead of night to bring treats to children.
but i think what bothers me most about easter (and valentine's day for that matter) is that target and wal-mart manage to fill two aisles with holiday-related crap. am i seriously expected to decorate my home for easter? i think an easter-egg wreath represents all that is wrong with our society - or perhaps it is just a reflection of my inadequacies as a homemaker and member of society. who can be sure? but don't go thinking that i am not a complete hypocrite - my kids will have baskets full of all of my favorite candies and we are going to an easter egg hunt on saturday. maybe, if i am really motivated, i can get them to church on sunday and they can learn about whatever role jesus used to play in easter.

celebrating our differences

i have been thinking about people lately and how much i dislike them. okay, that isn't true. but i was thinking about how often it seems that the very characteristic that you like about someone ends up being the same thing that drives you crazy. for instance, i have this friend, that i will call krista (in the hope that she won't recognize herself if she reads this blog). and krista is one of those people that just says what is on her mind, without hesitation. i love this about her - you can always count on her to be completely honest with you and you never have to guess what she is thinking. the other side of this, however, (the part that i don't love so much) is that i have heard the following statements come out of her mouth (again, without hesitation): "i just don't like fat people" and "weren't you mad at the guy who gave you cervical cancer?" (said to a girl who had just finished chemotherapy). and once, she started a story just like this - "so the other day Dan and I were having sex on the bathroom floor..." what made this funny to me was that the story had nothing to do with sex, it was about the hardware she had selected for her new bathroom. while i do realize that krista is an extreme example, i think that most people are like this. my husband is another example. i love that he is reserved and even-tempered, he is very unlikely to offend anyone or make an ass of himself (opposites attract, i suppose) and he hardly ever gets upset or mad about anything. the other side of that, which of course drives me crazy, is that he doesn't get excited about or really enjoy participating in gossip. i can come home with the absolute best of stories (like "you won't believe what my friend krista said...") and the most i get out of him is "really?". but i suppose that is what girl friends are for and honestly, i think girls are better at talking about people anyway. i used to feel bad about gossiping until a good friend of mine said that i should think of it as celebrating our differences. and really, isn't that what it is?

why i have so few friends - a mystery unraveled

okay, so i just got back from a girls' lunch. it was a birthday lunch - but stop right there if you are thinking birthday cake, drinks, gag gifts or anything fun. it was salads and tea all the way around - and expensive gifts - like the $75 name brand monogrammed beach bag kind of gifts. but i have to back up to give you a more accurate picture of how this went down. i arrived and i knew the birthday girl and two of her eight friends that had come to celebrate.
the tea ordering commenced and i ordered a stella on tap. the ordering of an alcoholic beverage at the lunch did not go unnoticed - although one girl commented that she would have ordered a beer had she known i was going to - nevermind that this was right after mine came and still well before our meals arrived which would have given her plenty of time to order one, which she did not. i ordered the cuban sandwich (yes, the kind with, dare i say it - bread and cheese and meat) and the black bean chili.
during the course of lunch conversation, the girl beside me who is very nice, catholic and from birmingham (mountain brook, to be exact) was telling everyone how she had given up sweets for lent. she went on to say that her daughter had also given up sweets and how hard it had been for the two of them especially since a gourmet chocolate shop had just opened up right down the street, yada yada yada. now, this girl is very nice, but she is the personality type that makes me want to say things that i shouldn't - shocking or at the very least, not very proper things - the kind of things that wouldn't be said at a ladies' lunch in mountain brook. that is the only reason i can come up with for why i belted out with "i don't think god cares if you eat candy." this silenced the table and all eyes turned to me. all i could say at that point, with my face burgundy, was that i had given up vacuuming for lent. this didn't smooth things over as i had hoped and i think they may have suspected that it wasn't true. and as if that wasn't enough, i proceeded to get into an argument with another guest about the local school over-crowding issue that people here seem to be in denial about. as you might have guessed, that didn't go over so well either - although slightly better than the god comment, i have to say. and to think i had been worried that the real embarrassment of the lunch would be that my gift was a crappy $10 coffee mug.
eventually though, after salads, tea refills and the oohing and aahing over fancy presents (save mine), the ladies' lunch concluded. i thought i couldn't have been more disappointed in my ability to blend with lunching-ladies - but the real cherry on top was when i got in my car and looked in the rear view mirror and caught a glimpse of a black bean lodged, not just in between, but on top of one of my front teeth. as an after-thought, i decided that maybe instead of remembering all of the offensive and inappropriate things i had said or my crappy gift, the ladies would just remember the black bean on my tooth. in any event, i don't see any more lunch invitations in my future.

on being a minority

my breasts are small. for those of you that know me, this is probably not a shock. for the rest of you, wow, i can only hope you were already sitting down because knowing that there is a woman out there with small boobs who has not had surgery to "correct" this must be startling. and you may be even more surprised to hear that i am not considering having surgery. there are many reasons why - the first of which is that i don't really want bigger boobs. please don't think that i am taking any moral high ground here or that, god forbid, i am happy with my body - i would love better (but not necessarily bigger) boobs (and i will spare you the details of how exactly i would improve mine). and i am certainly not opposed to plastic surgery. but it really irritates me how few women are left out there with their original breasts - and more importantly, how few clothing manufacturers are willing to make apparel for this small percentage of women. there are no AA bathing suits and try searching for AA bras on victoria's secret - the results are barely adolescent (and yet disturbingly somehow still sexy) girls wearing polka-dot bras. ironically, their most padded and push-up bras do not come in a AA. who would need padding and push-up options more than a grown woman with AA boobs? i recently ordered a tankini in an extra small - sure that this would fit. my package arrived and i quickly tore into it. it took me several minutes to shimmy the top over my shoulders and onto my mid-section and to my dismay, the suit was so tight around my mid-section that i could hardly inhale and yet the cups gaped completely open so that when i lifted my arms in the air (as much as the suit would allow anyway) both breasts were completely exposed. so inevitably, i hear society's message that my breasts are inadequate and that something must be done. unfortunately for me, a family history of breast cancer and a healthy fear of unnecessary anesthesia stand in my way of being a "normal" woman. oh well, normal has never really been my thing anyway. and who needs a flattering bathing suit that fits? it's not like i live at the beach. crap.

moving on up

note from nicole: i apologize to my friends who have heard this rant more than once lately.

i went house-hunting this week. it started out fun but quickly became frustrating and disappointing. our decision comes down to this - do we want a 6500 square foot house out in the suburbs crammed on one-tenth of an acre between houses that are virtually indistinguishable from one another or do we want (for the same price) a "refurbished" shoebox in the city with college kids renting on either side. it's a tough call. i am pretty sure i am a real estate agent's nightmare because apparently i am looking for something that most people are not looking for - a reasonable house. the idea of furnishing, decorating, heating/cooling, and removing dog hair and kids' toys from 6500 square feet of house is nauseating to me - so i guess it comes down to just being lazy even though i would love to make some argument that i am being socially responsible. and don't get me wrong, i really like nice houses with fancy countertops and appliances. and i am not a minimalist, although i do think that we have less crap than the average household, but that may be due to the fact that i am not terribly sentimental and don't tend to hang onto things like my kids' first birthday party outfits, a sample of hair from their first haircut or a vial of their first spit-up. i don't have my great-grandmother's china (or a china cabinet to display it in) or an 18th century birthing stool. i don't need any room that starts with the word "formal" and if i had my way, a kitchen wouldn't really be mandatory. i just need a few rooms (at least one with some toys and video games and a lock on the outside of the door) and of course, a full-size indoor theater complete with authentic movie-theater seating and a popcorn-maker.

spring break my ass

spring break. it sounds like fun, but like a lot of things, it's not if you don't have any money and your husband does not have the week off of work. for me, it means that the kids don't go to school and i get to listen to them bicker and beg to play video games and watch spongebob all day for 10 days straight because lucky us, our school gets the monday after spring break off too. i think what is most irritating is hearing other people talk about this like it's a good thing. of course, those people are going somewhere - somewhere that their husbands will be going with them and helping them with the children. somewhere potentially fun, relaxing or just away. being at home for spring break is just a big fat reminder that parenting doesn't feel like what i signed up for. when i got married, my naive 25-year-old brain envisioned me and steve with our kids together on the beach one day or at disney or traveling internationally or perhaps to space. and while we have done some of these things (no international or space travel yet), they are but fleeting moments in a lifetime of what is otherwise, me taking care of kids while steve is at work.
but i know, the days of having young kids will pass quickly - or so i have been told. i remember this one trip to the grocery store when my kids were younger and they were being particularly bad. they were fighting and running off and basically acting like those kids i swore i would never have. anyway, i rounded them up, yelled at them (something i swore i would never do in a grocery store) and got them back in the cart and up to the checkout, abandoning the remainder of my grocery shopping and as i am walking out of the store, this nice older woman says to me "enjoy them while they are young." i put the kids in their carseats, went back into the store and punched the old woman in the face. okay, i didn't. but i wanted to. but things have gotten much easier since then - my kids are older and are now in school when i do my grocery shopping. except on spring break anyway.

girls suck

okay, it's 10pm on a saturday night and i am at home. my husband is out at a roy jones fight (whatever that is) with a bunch of other guys. believe it or not, i actually had a babysitter. she arrived at 6:15 so that i could meet two friends for dinner - whose husbands were also at the fight. i got to the restaurant 30 minutes early (intentionally) so i could sit at the bar and drink beer until they arrived. they arrived pretty much on time and we got a table, ate dinner and by 9:45, my two girl friends were packing up their things and heading for the door. i was visibly distressed, but what could i do? tell them that i was going back to the bar to have a few more drinks and that i would get a cab home? they knew i had had several and were offering to drive me home - i had to come up with some excuse for wanting to stay - and fast. i quickly texted my husband to see if he was anywhere nearby so that maybe he could meet me for a drink and we could ride home together. but of course, i am here blogging, so obviously, he was not anywhere nearby. in fact, he is still out - with guys, who do not feel pressure to rush home and relieve babysitters. with guys who aren't counting the calories in their beers or worried who is looking at them thinking that they might be drinking too much. with guys who aren't talking about the best places in town to buy knick-knacks. with guys who aren't worried about the wrinkles in their foreheads or whether their breasts are big enough. with guys who clearly are just looking to hang out for a few hours and have fun. and i know, there is nothing more annoying than the girl who thinks she is too cool to be a girl, who says that all of her friends are guys. but tonight, for just a little while, i am wishing that girl was here, sharing a beer with me.

get a job?

note from nicole: please forgive today's tone. it is more a series of complaints than my usual attempt at humorous essays. and yes, my usual entries are attempts at humorous essays for those of you who did not recognize that.

i'm so glad i got this law degree. i still owe sallie mae $35 grand for it and i have no job and consequently, no income. and thanks to my husband's career path, which moved us around the country in 4-5 year stints, my experience is all over the board, but with no concentration or expertise in any particular area. but i think what i love most about my law degree is the pressure to use the degree that having it automatically imposes. i used to think this was self-imposed pressure but i was wrong, other people are curious about my wasted degree as well. and while i did practice law collectively for around nine years, i never felt particularly drawn to it or maybe i just lacked ambition in general. nowadays though, i am thinking that i need a job. i mean a real job (i know i am going to piss off some stay-at-home moms with that one!). i know some of you may find this hard to believe, but i don't find taking care of children all that fulfilling. don't misunderstand, i love my kids and i am glad that i have spent lots of time with them up to this point, but i need something else. something that i can complete. something that someone might notice or god forbid, appreciate. something that can be checked off of a list. something more satisfying than getting the spaghetti stain off the baseball jersey. and i am not suggesting that parenting isn't challenging because few things are more so. the problem is that you never know if you did it right. if your child turns out okay, it may or may not have anything to do with the parenting decisions you made. and you rarely get any definitive reward - and as i said, when you do see something positive, as a parent, you would never give yourself credit for that, primarily because you know that you still could have done more. nothing is ever good enough with parenting. if you are feeding your kids fruits and vegetables, there are other parents who are feeding theirs all organic. if you limit tv to one hour a day, there is another family (weird though they may be) that doesn't own a tv. and i know you shouldn't look at how other parents are doing things to see how you measure up, but it's impossible not to - and besides, everyone else is judging you by those standards or so it seems. for instance, -and this is purely hypothetical, mac did not do this and embarrass us to no end- if you have a toddler that sneaks out of pizza joint in downtown augusta and runs for two blocks straight and is escorted back to the restaurant by a policeman, people judge you and your parenting skills. or if your child toddles out of your house and defecates in your neighbor's front yard - again, hypothetically speaking, as mac couldn't possibly have done this in broad daylight in the maxey's yard - people wonder why you aren't doing a better job.
maybe i am selfish for needing recognition or respect or a reward of some kind. that theory has been suggested. whatever the case may be, i need more. so perhaps i am more ambitious than i give myself credit for.

saint patrick's day

it's saint patrick's day. i feel the need to comment on this holiday (is it really a holiday?) given the name of my blog. i don't really know much about the meaning behind saint patrick's day and i don't really need to. i like it well enough without getting bogged down in the details. green is my favorite color, beer is my favorite beverage and who doesn't love leprechauns or anything with an irish accent. however, there is something missing from my celebration this year. friends. as much as i want to have at least a two-beer lunch, doing this alone seems unacceptable - unless you live in a big city or you are in the airport. although i am not sure why there is an exception for big cities - is it because you are less likely to see people who know you? i started to wonder if my views on drinking were skewed by my small-town-in-south-georgia upbringing. when it came to alcohol though, my family may not have been typical for our town. my mother's family is catholic (and at one time irish), so clearly they had no qualms about drinking. and my father's family, while baptist, at one time owned the only two liquor stores in our town and completely coincidentally have each spent at least a little bit of time at greenleaf (aptly named), the nearby addiction treatment facility. so my parents drank regularly - blowing that theory that if you don't make a big deal about drinking your kids will be less likely to sneak around and drink. with the exception of a few nights in high school and college though, i generally don't drink in excess. for me, it is less about the quantity of alcohol that is consumed and more about the occasion and the ritual of drinking. for instance, today, it is not my plan to go out and get drunk at lunch for st. patrick's day - although as we all know, after a couple of beers, plans can change. but more importantly, it is about going out and celebrating the irish and the other things, whatever they are, that this special day is all about.

busy people

it's no wonder i can't find any friends. everyone is just too busy. few things irritate me more than hearing the cliche "we are just so busy" as an excuse for why no one does anything fun anymore. i guess with kids' activities scheduled back-to-back seven days a week starting at age three, parents do stay occupied. maybe i am just selfish, but i don't want to cart my kids around town from soccer to ballet to baseball from the time school gets out until bedtime. and i don't think that my child has to try every sport ever invented to be well-rounded. i didn't grow up like that and i don't intend for my children to either. i am secure in this decision. but that is not my problem. my problem is that it seems everyone else has chosen this lifestyle so that when i am loafing around on the beach in the afternoons, i am alone - with my kids. and when i meet another mom that i think i might have something in common with (i.e. someone who enjoys drinking in the afternoons), i find that they are generally unavailable for social engagements because of little henry's soccer practice followed by his basketball game followed by his voice lessons. and so it seems that these people, when you do see them whisking their budding athletes and musicians from school to hit the activity trail, they always say something like "we have just got to get together sometime. we just stay so busy. maybe when baseball season is over..."
do their kids enjoy these activities? my kids have complained about every organized sport or activity they have ever been involved in. in fact, the more expensive the sport (like karate), the more they hate it. so i find that i don't want to take them there, they don't want to be there and i am paying $100 a month for it. so when we moved to the beach last year, i decided i didn't want to do it anymore. after school, they could loaf around on the beach and i could drink beer - everybody wins. or so i thought. sometime after christmas, mac expressed an interest in baseball (albeit the mario-super-slugger-wii kind of baseball) and my husband thought it would be a good idea (and i couldn't seem to find an argument against it) to try baseball. i started researching local leagues and was told that he was "a little old" to be just starting baseball. he's seven. so, here we are, three practices in and we have spent at least $300 and this week, we have practice or games on four out of seven days. i can't imagine that the kids are taking this nearly as seriously as the parents. i am, however, going to reserve all comments on the zealousness of baseball parents for i am pretty sure that will be the subject of an upcoming blog entry.
so it appears that my already-suffering social life will take another hit. or maybe i will make a friend in the baseball stands and we can plan a get-together for when little henry goes off to college. or maybe, like i did in high school, i could sneak some beer into the stands. in any event, i hope that i am too busy to notice that i have become one of the "so busy."

diary of a blogger

i know - it's redundant since a blog is a diary of sorts. but i wanted to share with you how a blog is born. or at least how mine was.
i am drawn to funny people. over the years, i have stolen jokes and snippets of stories from these people and from movies and tv. occasionally, i repeat these things and people laugh. then they say things like "oh, you are funny. you should be a writer." of course, i know that the material isn't mine, but maybe just the ability to remember and retell it is enough to be a stand-alone talent. i am skeptical. but as technology progresses and friends apply pressure, i decide to join facebook. it is there that i pour my most ridiculous, neurotic and obsessive thoughts into the "status update" and friends tell me they are entertained by them. i don't know if they are appalled and feel the need to comment or perhaps they just feel sorry for me. in any event, my head is constantly filled with ridiculous, neurotic and obsessive thoughts, so i can provide ample material for this forum. but ultimately, what made me go to all the trouble of typing in www.blogger.com and entering some personal information was when my therapist looked at me and said "you need a hobby" (and the implied "or you are going to be just as crazy as the rest of your family.") and so the blog begins. if i were ambitious at all or actually talented in my own right, i would consider looking for a job in this field or writing an actual book. but that simply isn't the case. i believe that ambition just sets you up for failure anyway. now some out there might say that is pessimistic, but like any true pessimist would, i think it's just being realistic. of course, there are some exceptions to my ambition equals disappointment theory. one such example is my friend kirsten, who, long before the therapist's advice, recommended that i pursue writing as a hobby. of course, she is ambitious and so naturally, her hobby has evolved into a thriving photography business serving the entire atlanta-area. and this, of course, means that her advice carries less weight as she is "one of them." them being people that make things happen. it reminds me of an old cliche - those who can, do. those who can't, blog.

in the eye of the beholder

beach people are crazy. this is what i thought when i moved to this beach community less than a year ago. and as i got to know a lot of these people, i discovered that they are every bit as crazy as i thought they were. and then something happened. i started to fit in. it was easy enough to do - the beach is an easy place to get comfortable and the people, as crazy people often are, were welcoming and entertaining. with my pre-existing affinity for beer and drinking in general, i already had one foot in the door. but the realization that i fit in at the beach caused me to step back and examine my own mental well-being. i had always thought of myself as the one in my family who had escaped the genetic insanity that afflicts most of my family members, the women in particular - the most notable being my crazy aunt sherry, who was arguably just as crazy before she was shot in the head (but that is a story for another blog entry). the problem with evaluating your own sanity is that if you are crazy, your perspective is skewed. so i decided this was a futile undertaking, but not before i had diagnosed myself as having generalized anxiety with obsessive compulsive tendencies - all perfectly manageable with self-help books and alcohol. i also decided that i must be narcissistic because i was spending so much time contemplating my own mental state and because i read an article saying that the most active facebook members are narcissists. but the endeavor was not a complete waste of time because i learned some things about myself and more importantly, i learned that you can judge a book by its cover, particularly if the cover is crazy.

parenting by proxy

i love my babysitter. and i mean this in the general sense - not referring to one specific babysitter but to the lot of them - or whichever of them is willing to come this saturday night and stay with my kids in exchange for a large sum of money. i get excited just hearing the word - and not in any inappropriate way - although we have had at least one babysitter who was entirely too attractive (this is not a quality i look for when it comes to child care). don't get me wrong, i love my kids but i love getting away from them almost as much. and to know that they might be adequately cared for in my absence is a bonus.
as a kid, i remember when my sister and i would have a babysitter. it never occurred to me that my parents were probably more excited than we were. we would get to eat dairy queen and stay up late and watch fantasy island. in my eyes, the good babysitters just watched tv with us, while the bad ones tried to clean up and get us into bed. luckily for my kids, babysitters today feel no pressure to clean up at all - despite being paid $10 an hour - or really do much of anything other than text or talk on the phone. recently, and you may find this hard to believe but i swear on my babysitter it's true, we had a babysitter who got drunk and peed on our couch. as she stumbled out to leave, she insisted we keep the $50 we owed her for the evening. it was a selfless gesture, something you don't often see in teenage girls today.
thus far in my parenting career, i have only had sporadic babysitters and never anything too regular. i know that au pairs are all the rage among my friends with ample money. as much as i cherish my babysitter, i do not find an au pair arrangement appealing. the last thing i want is for my husband to be running into an attractive 18-year-old foreign girl in our kitchen at 2 a.m. i beat myself up enough as it is, i don't need that living in my house. the nanny is another optioin - the name alone sounds less attractive than au pair or babysitter but it also sounds more expensive. that being said, i guess i am destined to remain the primary caregiver in our home until my daughter is old enough to take over. and i am not sure how to gauge when that is - maybe when she is able to spend 5 minutes alone with her brother without it turning into a physical fight or perhaps when she is able to carry a plate all the way from the kitchen table to the sink. it could be a while. in the meantime, i will keep my day (and night) job.

the forbidden topics

today i realized the limitations of my blog. there are so many topics about which i could write were it not for the fear of offending you, my burgeoning readership (i think i am up to one follower and two occasional (when prompted by me) checkers). i have so many opinions (and of course extremely clever and hilarious comments) on oh so many topics from politics to anal bleaching (actually, as far as i know, we may be safe talking about anal bleaching as none of my (3) friends has fessed up to doing this). but i simply can't write about them on my blog without worrying that i will lose a friend over it. case in point - recently, on facebook, a friend innocently posted a status update expressing her optimism at the swearing in of a new president. i replied (perhaps with a touch of sarcasm and bitterness) that i was not nearly as optimistic. i did clarify that i had no preference about who was in office and stated that i simply didn't share her optimism that this president would be any more successful than the last (i may have referenced unicorns and pots of gold at the end of the rainbow in my comments). and wow, who knew that people were so sensitive about their political delusions? she accused me of being a parade-rainer-oner, which i readily acknowledged, but this wasn't enough. she demanded a full-on apology for my negative comments and naturally, i declined - feeling no more need to be sorry for my sarcasm than for having brown hair or really long toes (actually, i am sorry about my toes).
but the point is, i would love to talk about breast implants and how it drives me crazy when a friend (or even an acquaintance that i see on a regular basis) won't admit to having had surgery - particularly when we are discussing things like cosmetic surgery or my recent trip to victoria's secret where i was told that they didn't have the miracle bra in a double A - okay, i am sorry, but if someone wearing a double A doesn't need a miracle, i just don't understand who does. and i would love to talk about things like how ridiculous i think it is that i know people who have spent as much money decorating their child's nursery as i spent on my last car or how i think it's crazy how many 3-year-olds i know with a social/activity calendar that is busier than mine or how i truly think that publix cupcakes suck and that fat tire beer is superior to boulevard wheat, but some topics are just too sensitive. and since i don't want to offend my readers, i will keep my opinions to myself.

i like bad books

i can't help it. i confess. i enjoy bad books. not really awful ones, but kind-of bad ones. of the fiction, chic-lit variety. i don't mean the ones with the guy from the butter commercials on the front, but the ones about a woman who meets up with long-lost friends after one of said long-lost friends is killed in a tragic accident, finds herself again, realizes she is in a crappy marriage, accidentally gets pregnant by someone she thought was her soul-mate but later realizes wasn't and gives the baby up for adoption to her newly-found old friend that has had multiple-failed attempts at IVF and who names the baby after the dead friend whose loss they are all grieving. or some variation of that story. i can't tell you why i enjoy these books - perhaps it's that it gives me something to complain about. the more predictable the story is, the more i complain and the more i enjoy it.
i enjoy good books too. i loved life of pi, kite runner, a thousand splendid suns and of course, anything by david sedaris. but for some reason, i keep reading these womens fiction books. i have tried branching out - in fact, several years ago, i attempted a few of oprah's recommended books. i don't understand how anyone could be in this book club and maintain the will to live. maybe therapy and really strong antidepressants. many years ago, i got hooked on john irving - i started with a prayer for owen meany (because my friend recommended it to see if we were "book-compatible" friends) and i loved it. so as i often do, i read every john irving book i could find until i just couldn't take any more of his crazy circus crap. years before that, i did the same thing with john grisham - i read until i just couldn't bear another story about a handsome attorney who was just too likable to continue practicing law and who always ended up with a pile of money and the girl with long, tan legs (whose character could always be played by julia roberts or sandra bullock).
i question my own taste in books. on the upside, i guess no one can ever accuse me of trying to impress anyone with my intellectual library.

this girl's night out

i don't understand why girls (or women, i guess i should call them at my age) need some lame excuse to get together and have drinks. men seem to be able to get together and hang out without needing to play a stupid game or sell each other useless crap. granted, men play poker or watch sports together, but i believe that they truly enjoy doing these things. maybe it's just me, but i don't have any desire to play bunco or buy make-up or jewelry or over-priced kitchen supplies or educational childrens toys or smocked-up baby outfits and i also don't need an excuse to have a drink in the evening (or afternoon if the occasion calls for it, as it often does here at the beach).
during residency, where money was scarce (as opposed to fellowship where it is nonexistent), several of the residents' wives started these "home businesses" and would send invitations to these "parties" to the rest of us. it was surprising to some friends how a simple, seemingly innocuous invitation to a party would send me into a tirade on the subject. i would rather one of these home entrepreneurs ask to borrow $75 than ask me to come and buy a gingham monogrammed jumper for my toddler. as most women have experienced, prior to the party, your host assures you there will be no pressure to buy anything - "just come and visit, it will be fun." it won't be fun and there will be pressure.
now, there is an exception to my general feelings on this topic - and it is for those sex-toy parties. i haven't actually been invited to one of these (probably since i have not kept it a secret how i feel about home-business parties), but from all accounts - there is more drinking (and therefore more fun) and less pressure at these type of parties.
on a related note, i am not really a fan of book clubs for similar reasons. i am all for meeting up and eating and drinking with friends - and if books come up as a topic for discussion, that's fantastic. but i don't need to read a book to get together with friends and drink.

the familiar

okay, so i have blown off blogging for 5 or so months. there is something that sounds really, really slack about that. perhaps it's because i failed to follow the blogging-for-idiots advice that you should pick a topic to blog about with which you are familiar. unfortunately, the things with which i am most familiar are not things that anyone wants to read about. for instance, my husband is in the medical field, specifically, he is finishing his 10th year of medical education/training. at this point, we owe enough to own a house. on the beach. with a pool. and i am totally serious about that (see, not funny). or perhaps you want to hear about my children who fight nonstop and whom i do believe truly hate each other. or maybe you want to hear about how i got an email yesterday from another mom from school telling me that my 7-year-old punched her kid in the jaw at school that day. okay, actually, that one is kind of funny. i asked my son why he would do that and he said "i thought joseph was cutting in line." good thing he wasn't actually cutting or my son might have bludgeoned him to death right there on the playground.
so perhaps i will try writing about what i know and unfortunately for you, my nonexistent readership, i am pretty sure it will just be me complaining.