.......let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

It has been terribly hectic here for the past few weeks and although I definately needed to 'ramble' here and there, there was just no time.  There was a blizzard last nite and since I can barely open my door more than five inches, and there is no way this overindulged 'holiday body' will squeeze through it, I am stuck here to continue cleaning from days of merriment....merridom....merryness....fun!  So I will ramble on........

I love to shop.  I hate to shop at Christmas time.   I also hate lines....and rude people and an empty wallet and sales ploys that confuse me and make me think that I am getting a bargain when I am not.  But I shopped right up til Christmas Eve, ran into rude people and out of money...and whether I got a bargain or not I finished my shopping in the nick of time. 

I did alot of shopping on line this year.  Amazon, Walmart.com, and some strange sites my son sent me for his mountain biking gear.  I did make it alot easier and except for tipping my UPS man and the fact that I now know my Mastercard number by heart, a lot cheaper as well.  Gotta love FREE SHIPPING!!!  But good old fashion store shopping can't be beat so I went to Sears in the Kings Plaza Mall so that I had something to complain about.  (And fodder for this blog I suppose)   I park on the roof now since last year I wandered around endlessly looking for my car which I swore was parked on the blue level and wasn't. The roof also has an entrance directly into Sears so I don't get killed buying a wrench or some other ratcheting item for you know who.  They were having a sale on some tools that my husband asked me to pick up.  Why he finds the need to buy stuff for himself the week before Christmas is beyond me.  Plan A...buy the items, tell him they were out of them, wrap them and slip them under the tree.  Plan B...they really were out of them, look for another tool he doesn't have four of already.

I went to Modells.  I wanted to buy something Yankees for my son in law.  For some reason everyone in the store was 6'5" or better.  I felt like Gulliver. I am short so looking up is nothing new, but this was crazy.  I walked around looking for what I wanted, but it seemed that everything I wanted was hanging eight feet off the floor.  I found the 'stick' that they use to get them up there in the first place and began the tedious task of finding the right size.  Medium...too small and short   Large...too big and you'd need to have monkey arms to see your hands...Youth Large...ummm, no!  OK, gonna need help.  Looked for someone to help.  (They call them associates now...still get paid employee salaries, but it sounds more impressive to be called an associate I guess)  The 9 foot  'associate' came over to help, looked a little pissy that I had taken down so many shirts to check for sizes but helped me find the size I needed.  He mumbled under his associate breath as I walked toward the register and he re-hung all the wrong sized items without even having to use the 'stick.'

I went to Kohls...to Toys R Us....to Telco....to Century 21 and to Macy's.  I went to Walgreens and Rite-Aid and CVS.  I came home to find two messages from my credit card company.  They were simply recorded messages asking me that if I hadn't been on some wild spending spree please call them because someone was clearly using my card in a reckless manner.  Helloooo, it's Christmastime!  If it was August 4th or May 9th I could see the concern....but it was December 15th???  But, I suppose, had I lost the card and someone was in fact shopping with the Modell associate without me, I would have appreciated the call.  I also got a call that they were lowering my credit limit.  Lowering!  Are they crazy?

I spend most nights wrapping and recording what I bought.  I have to make lists because I tend to forget and buy again for the same person.  Sometimes I even buy the same thing for the same person.  So my apologies to anyone who got two scarves or two Old Navy pajama sets, or two animal print Snuggies....try to keep in mind it's the thought that counts.  Kids and grandkids gifts get wrapped, bagged and hauled upstairs to be hidden until Christmas Eve.  After all the Santa believers are home and in bed, my son has the dubious task of carting all the bags of gifts down and arranging them under the tree.  (and half way across the living room)  This year I bought my stinky dog cologne CK-9 (hahaha) and a stocking full of squeaking dog toys.  By Christmas morning not one thing squeaked and the living room had snow-like foam adorning every crevice.  Note to self:  Give dog one toy at a time!

Nothing says Christmas more than the Chia Pet Obama Head which went over well, as did Catch Phrase a game that allows you to make  a fool out of yourself by not being able to answer simple questions in miniscule time frames. I got the Canadian tenors CD which I listened to all day as I cleaned and made it feel like Christmas morning all over again.  I also got several books which although my husband bought me a Kindle last year, I miss licking my finger and page turning.  I miss folding the page when I put the book down to get a snack.  Jay-Z, Whoopie, Sarah and Stephen King all await my attention.  Yes, it was a very eclectic  Christmas.  I got zip drives and bloomers.  I got a keyboard and keychains.  I got gift cards and tupperware.  I got earrings and ear muffs, cologne, coffee and cash.  And I loved everyone of them! 

Christmas lasted three days this year.  If we continue this way we will have to get a menorah just to keep track.  Christmas Eve we did the whole Italian 7 fish dinner.  Four courses, seven fishes (although there were really only 5 but since two were cooked differently I rounded it up to 7), two macaroni's (shells and spaghetti) and enough desserts to kill a horse.  (or a diabetic!)  Tons of food, tons of gifts and tons of dishes!  Christmas day started with breakfast because apparently we didn't have enough to eat the night before.  I cooked the bacon with my As Seen On TV microwave bacon cooker which is the best gift I have ever bought myself.  We also had sausage and eggs and pancakes and waffles....so of course my husband wanted to know where the bagels were?  More food, more gifts, more dishes.  Off to my sister in laws for Christmas dinner for, you guessed it...even more food, even more gifts and even more dishes.  Since my son was not at  breakfast and we had yet to see my in-laws, Sunday the 26th was day 3 of our Christmas fare.  Still more food (cold cuts this time), still more gifts and still more dishes (paper, yay!)  Dinnertime rolled around and leftovers were reheated and re-served but thankfully there were no more gifts and all disposable dishes.   Our bellies beyond full, the tree overcrowded with gifts,  the snow started to fall.  And fall.  And fall.

......speeders and greeters

The weekend after Thanksgiving my husband and I drove up to my house upstate….the air was cool and crisp when we left, colder and snowing when we arrived three hours later. I plugged in my candle warmer and Cinnamon Spice filled the air as the heat began to take the chill out of the frosty house. Families of deer walked softly outside in search of food …and I had just made a pot of hot freshly brewed coffee . Ahh life is good……..reality check!….I am here to fight a speeding ticket I got back on 4th of July weekend when Dudley Doolittle got me doing 54 in a 40. With the dog barking and one of my two grandsons crying in the backseat (he thought we were gonna be arrested), it was kinda hard to plead my case, so I took the ticket and decided to fight it. I am sure if I was doing 54 it was because the speed limit was 55.…that or I just didn’t see the cop car. I mailed in my plea and waited and when it took so long to get a response I hoped they had forgotten about it. Four months later I got the hearing date. Since it was scheduled for a Monday my husband and I figured we would make a weekend out of it….hence the three hours of traffic on Thanksgiving weekend, the most traveled weekend of the year. The house was cold since the heat was set on 50 and it was clearly going to take some time to heat up. The fragrant candle scent came from a candle warmer a friend had bought us when she stayed at our house (that or she left it by mistake and is too embarrassed to ask for it back) A candle warmer is just that….it melts the wax by warming it…no flame for the neurotic, paranoid husband who is convinced that as soon as a candle is lit, it will undoubtedly ignite the house. Forget the fact that there is now an entire jar of molten wax just waiting to tip over and sear the flesh off your skin.

The dog, seeing Bambi and company sniffing at the already frozen ground decided to bark incessantly. Oblivious to the fact that if my dog had been able to get out he would have his own venison Thanksgiving feast right there on our frozen little lawn, the deer simply moved on at their own pace. I got a blanket from the bed, my book (a Kindle which is nothing more than a rechargeable book) and a cup of coffee. Jeez, no milk….I hate black coffee but at this point I needed caffeine to lose the headache I got from the three hours in traffic and my barking dog. My book ended up shutting immediately after I switched it on….battery needed charging…..to add insult to injury, the blanket smelled like baby vomit. I threw the blanket in the washer, found a June 2009 STAR magazine in the bathroom rack and made my way to the couch with my black coffee. My husband was busy changing the outside bulbs to energy saving yellow bug lights. There are no bugs in December, but he was proud of his accomplishment so I said nothing about the fact that he should have done it in June. Before I was even able to find out what reality star was pregnant in 2009 I was asleep. I guess I needed a nap. I fell asleep with, you guessed it, a cup of hot black coffee. Thankfully I didn’t spill much on the couch or rug…most of the searing liquid puddled on my left breast. The rest of Saturday was actually quite enjoyable as we saw finally got to see the newly renovated hotel decorated for Christmas (I miss my grandkids), a firework display that we watched from my back deck (I really miss my grandkids) and a comedian in the night club that was quite funny, even considering there was no way to get a buzz on with the lethargic bar service.

The plan for Sunday was simple, I go to town (sounds quaint, but there’s a Super Wal-mart, K-mart…something-Mart) and do some Christmas shopping, he goes to the Jacuzzi and indoor pool to alternately melt and freeze his balls off. To each his own, I say! After breakfast and a shower I head for one of those Marts locked and loaded for some serious shopping. Would have been nice if I had remembered to bring money since my debit card had little buying power left in it. The store was empty. Me, sixteen checkout girls and two greeters. Yup, they have greeters. You walk in the store, they greet you. “Hello, Welcome to Wal-mart” going in, “Have a nice day” on the way out. I am from Brooklyn, if I don’t know you and you talk too nice to me I get suspicious. You tell me to have a nice day and I become down right paranoid. I made my way passed the greeters and into the toy section in hopes of getting some ideas for my grandkids. It was quite disheartening and a little enlightening to find that they have pretty much everything in 9 aisles of toys between them. I found a few things for their stockings but moved on to the clothing section for the older kids. What the hell size is One? First of all I have never been anything smaller than a 14 I am sure of it. I may have even been born a size 12 for all I know, but the entire junior section had three sizes…One, Two and Three. I assumed small, medium and large. I bought the One. Just because once in my damn life I wanted to buy a size One….who to give it to is another story. On to the Household items where I could have bought a cheap rice cooker or even cheaper potato ricer if only someone on my list had wanted one. I could have bought a fajita maker in the shape of a jalapeano if someone on my list had wanted one, but what I settled for was a bird feeder refill for a feeder my son in law hung outside the upstate house. 79 cents…I decadently bought two. It has been empty for a while now and I am sure I saw a few crows giving me a dirty look last time we were up there. I wanted to yell that it wasn’t my damn feeder to fill….but I restrained. I steered myself away from the fabric department which made me sad. I, am a fabric hoarder. Nearly two hours later I made my way to the cashier, her name was Viola. Viola had an attitude. She clearly didn’t want to work this day and made sure everyone on her line knew it. She tsk-ed and huffed as she pulled the hangers off the tops I bought and gave me a sideways “you-aint-fittin’-in-these” glare as she de-hangared the size One yoga pants. If she said one word I was gonna deck her right here at checkout # 11 of Wal-mart. But Viola said nothing specific and just continued skewing and ringing until it was time to pay.

“Debit or Credit” she asked….

”I’m never quite sure what the difference is....”  I laughed.

“DEBIT OR CREDIT MA’AM?!!”  she wasn’t about to start explaining.

“Debit” I said meekly for some reason.

Viola had clearly won this battle and oddly I was ok with that. I will just punch the greeter on the way out.

Back at the house, my husband was happily snoring on the couch (what a surprise, at least he wasn’t holding a cup of very hot black coffee) and awoke when the dog barked (another surprise) as I walked in.

“How was your shopping?“ he asks really only wanting to know how much I spent and not what I spent it on.

“I hit a greeter” I said with a straight face.

“Nice, who’s that for?“   Did I mention he has a hearing problem??

Sunday mostly everyone in the hotel left so the show that night, another comedian, was earlier than usual. It wasn’t until we got to the nightclub that I realized why. First of all there were about twenty of us in total, my husband and I were the youngest ones there by a good twenty years, and the only ones without a wheelchair, walker or scooter (although with the way the two of us currently walk that might not be far behind) The comedian probably started his career in the 20’s and could have used a walker himself. He wore a blue blazer looking very much like the captain of the Love Boat. His last gig must have been on a cruise ship. He was funny though and he repeatedly poked fun of himself as he adjusted his hearing aid if no one laughed.

Monday morning we went to traffic court. Traffic court was in the back of a Day Care. I prepared what I wanted to say, my defense if you will and got on the line that formed in the bitter morning. A police car pulled up, unlocked the door, put on the lights and thankfully the heat as we all followed him in. The officer asked if I was speeding to which I replied that I didn’t think so…he said I had an honest face (which was probably just frozen skin cells) and he plea bargained my speeder down to a parking ticket and told me to have a seat to see the judge. The judge reiterated what the officer said about my honest face and told me to pay a fine which when I thought about it later was quite excessive for a parking ticket. Oh well, next time I will do 40.…their plan worked. It is a week after Thanksgiving and all but a small, hard piece of pumpkin pie remains and some scar tissue on my left breast.

gobble gobble gobble

It's that time again....Thanksgiving 2010.  For weeks my Facebook friends have been posting all the things they are most grateful for, like family, friends and health.  Since I feel truly blessed and therefore thankful all year long, I am here to say this is what I am thankful for this year:

I am thankful to my daughter for sharing with her friend the fact that I think I need a face lift, and will now be hosting one of those “face-lift in a bottle” party. Gonna take a little more than some lotion to lift all these chins!

I am thankful that I have a washer and dryer. Not that I love to do laundry, but whenever my son (the one that moved to Queens) finds his hamper overflowing he comes to Brooklyn. To see me.  His laundry misses me.

I am thankful that I have a husband that snores like a pissed off bear. I am equally thankful that he has restless leg syndrome or some other freakazoid ailment that has him twitching for most of the night. Sleep is highly over rated anyway!

I am thankful for safety pins. (don’t ask)

I am thankful for my mother in law’s generosity. She shares, without hesitation her best bowel stories right down to the quality, quantity and I am sorry to say, color. Like a jeweler rating a diamond cut, my mother in law makes sure I know exactly how she went that day…and every other day for that matter.

I went shopping for my Thanksgiving dinner. We are 19 this year, counting the kids and a baby. I didn’t need a list since my Thanksgiving fare is basically the same each year.

Antipasto (with fresh crusty bread and smoked mozzarella cheese courtesy of the bowel lady),

Pasta (this year it is ravioli since the kids really don’t like lasagna, manicotti, stuffed shells or anything else I could have bought threw sauce on and baked….and it was on sale),

Turkey (Butterball, by default),

Bread stuffing (my mom’s famous sausage and chestnut stuffing which only half the people like but I love and I make as a tribute to Gracie….even though she wasn’t the best cook in the world her stuffing was amazing, although she did make a really neat lemon meringue pie with real merangue, not that sweet marshmallow shit they serve at diners)….breath 2,3, 4…

Vegetables…every one they’ve ever grown on Farmville and then some,

Sweet Potatoes (which I layer with brown sugar and marshmallows before I bake just in case my blood sugar isn’t high enough already),

Mashed Potatoes (which I would love to use the boxed instant shit but won’t because I would have to bury the boxes so my son and grandsons won’t find them),

Turkey Gravy (which I start with a canned version and then add bird droppings drippings to make it look and taste more like homemade), and of course dessert.

Pies (my sister in law makes one for probably every berry out there,

cookies (my neice makes amazing chocolate chip cookies that I refuse to put out until I have made myself sick in the kitchen huffing them as I plate the food),

the insanely overpriced Chocolate Cornucopias my husband buys from the bakery every year that start out as a table decoration get in the way, removed from the table, then forgotten until the next day where he enjoys them all by himself…maybe that was his plan all along),

Nuts (which I serve in my 50 year old wooden nut bowl that was carved by a neighbor when I was a kid and was bequeathed to me when they died…that or they bought it at one of those cheap souvenir stores in Florida and lied way back when to a trusting little girl),

Figs (which make me fart),

Thin Mints (which I just realized… I finished yesterday) and finally

Fruit (which oddly reminds me of my brother since he  used to  juggle the fruit while I hummed some melodic circus tune and my mother called us, 'wasters').

I got my wagon, geared up for the crowd and went shopping. The first stop was the produce…fennel (which no one but me eats), lettuce, potatoes and all the fruit. When did oranges start costing 89 cents apiece? Bananas (green so they can ripen in time for Thursday), apples and grapes (which my granddaughter loves and I cut into miniscule pieces for fear of choking) and a bag of tangerines which promptly tears open from the bottom sending orange orbs rolling across the store. Sliced Salami and provolone cheese from the deli, and just in case…pepperoni chunks. (You just never know when you will need a chunk of pepperoni!) The rest of the shop went pretty well until I got to the turkey. I am not a fan of Butterball, although I honestly have forgotten why specifically. They carried three brands….$2.39 a pound for a bird blessed by a Rabbi (was that before or after they whacked his head off I wonder), $1.99 for Butterball (which comes with a hot line number in case you want to call and reem out someone when the bird burns because the pop up timer didn't pop in time.) and .99 for Frank’s which came with feet and feathers. I opted for the unblessed, bald, footless Butterball. The Butterball’s were in the freezer case which seemed odd since the flyer said ‘never frozen’.   I opened the door which was already slightly ajar and seven 20+ pound frozen turkeys came tumbling out barely missing my feet. (Damn, I could have had some viable law suit there!) The Mexican stock boy who was on a ladder trying to stack paper towels atop the freezer unit simply looked down from his perch and laughed. (Thanks Julio but guess what, these frozen projectiles will remain on the floor until you come down and help me.) He did, but before the birds were tucked safely back in their frozen nest I picked a 19 pound self-basting Butterball. I named him Al.  Happy Thanksgiving to Al...I mean All!

my apologies to the great state of Delaware

Last week my husband was sick. He stayed home from work for four days. When he is sick he does three things: moans; huddles on the couch wearing his Mr. Rogers sweater which he refuses to admit is two sizes too small; and he shops….on eBay. Day one he was too sick to even open the computer, by day two he had bought a bubble machine. The kind DJ’s use. An expensive DJ quality bubble machine. For all of our outdoor parties, he says. Oh yes, we are such party animals! On day three he asked me to Mapquest an address in Delaware. 230 miles one way, 4 hours and 22 minutes. By day four he had bought a truck….yup…in Delaware. 230 miles and 4 hours and 22 minutes away. I took off work to take him to Delaware to pick up his new toy truck. Now before you go thinking what an amazing, patient, understand wife I am (which I am, of course) let me explain. I love having something to hold over his head. I love having something to say like, ‘oh sure but I drove all the way to Delaware for you’ - you get the picture! That and the fact that my birthday and Christmas are just around the corner. I had not thoroughly thought through the prospect of spending four and a half hours trying to make conversation with a man that will only hear half of it and/or go into his repetitive mode where every 50 miles or so he will repeat a story I already heard and wasn’t that interested in the first time around. But Paypal already issued a deposit and so we were off by 8am.

Map and directions in hand we got in the car. My seat was moved. It takes me 53 moves to get the seat so that I can reach both the gas and brake pedals at the same time, while not having the steering wheel embedded in my stomach. I asked him if he used my car…yes…to get gas….which still has only about a quarter of a tank because he only put in enough to get us to Jersey where the gas is cheaper. (The man just bought an industrial bubble machine and he’s trying to save pennies on gas….did I miss something??) We make it to Jersey without killing each other or stopping for gas. The day was gloriously sunny and clear, and the air smelled like cinnamon, something Mr. Wonderful commented on pretty much every 20 miles. Uh oh, we were slipping into repeat mode. As we drove through Jersey and into Delaware the weather started to change. As did the scenery. Earlier, beautiful brown and orange leaves adorned the trees on either side of the parkways. If I hadn’t been married for 36 years it would have been down right romantic. The trees here were green…the leaves hadn’t turned yet as if no one bothered to tell them it was Fall. The sky had darkened. At least I wouldn’t have to hear what a clear sunny day it was anymore. The roads got smaller. Four lane highways because 3 lane routes which eventually became 2 land roads which were surrounded by flat non descript land. Farms surrounded us, the air smelled like manure. My shoulders ached from being crammed into the mal-adjusted seat for over 3 hours. My left leg throbbed and I drove envisioning a clot traveling from my poor leg into my brain or lung or…”Wanna stop and get pumpkins?” he interrupted my crisis. “Halloween is over,“ I grumbled. “Wanna stop and get corn?”  No.  “Wanna stop and get coffee?”  Now your talkin’!  We pulled into a rest stop which looked like every horror movie ever made could have been filmed there. I could hear the chainsaws in the background and worried what sedative they would put in the coffee to make us cooperate. The only saving grace was that it machine vended coffee, so while it tasted hideous it most likely wasn’t tainted. I had to pee but opted to live instead and we headed back to the car. We should have got coffee back in Jersey at the gas station where we saved 8 cents a gallon. (20 gals x .08 = $1.60 savings whoo hoo)

The roads narrowed even more and we eventually were on a one lane road which actually was a two way….and the locals thought it was hysterical to terrorize the black truck with the NY plate. We passed the car lot, and I use the term loosely, three times since we thought it would have been more than a trailer….each time u-turning in someone’s corn field. Bob, Bill, Bubba…whatever, came out hand extended and greeted us with more gusto than really necessary. In a southern twang that just didn’t go with the territory he asked how our ride from the ‘north’ was.  No comment.  I cleaned out my car while my husband went inside to do some paperwork. I turned to look for a garbage pail and ended up staring back at a snarling, drooling dog.  I tried as gingerly as my fat ass would allow, to get back in the car before Cujo came running. He was barking and shaking his head and as I estimated the distance between me and the trailer, and how fast I could get there…the trailer door opened and Billy Bob yelled out. “Rudy…Rooooody… god dammit! c’mere ya mangy mutt” and with that Cujo’s ears went limp, his bark silenced and he followed his master into the trailer…where I hoped he was having my husband for lunch. I still had to pee but opted to live instead. A quick test drive later, we were back in the car…umm cars…for the long drive home. With him following me (since I had the map) the car was delightfully quiet.   I put on my Peter Lemongello CD, sang along to his love ballads and pretended it was 1976 again. I checked my rear view mirror every so often to make sure Cujo’s lunch was still there and he was except that he drove like an old Jew (apologies to my Jewish friends). If the speed limit said 55 he did 45, 65 - 55, and god forbid we were in a work area where the speed limit was 30...he all but stopped. (The man has an unreasonable fear of speeding tickets. Must be something from his youth.)  I found a great radio station that broadcast out of Philly and I sang along to Beatle songs I hadn’t heard in years. The time and miles were passing.  Quick check in my rear view mirror and  Mr. Wonderful goes rogue. I called his cell. No answer, can’t hear it…deafness will do that… told him to put it on vibrate!   I changed lanes and found him behind a speeding 18 wheel semi that seemed determined to kill someone or at least himself. I made sure he saw me and pulled into an Arby’s.  I was hungry and had to pee desperately and now death defying or not, I was gonna find a bathroom.  Arby’s provided everything I needed for the rest of the trip home, food, coffee and a clean bathroom. My husband stole sugar (is that a senior thing?) and we left for a thankfully uneventful ride home. Ten hours after we left for Delaware we arrived home with a truck that looks exactly like the one he already has. All I have to say is Happy Birthday to me and it’s gonna be one hell of Christmas!

buzzzzz.........

It’s 47 degrees out. The last two tomatoes perilously hanging from my Topsy Turvy tomatoe planter are all but frozen to the vine.   The plants I painstakingly nurtured throughout the summer peer at me through my sliding deck doors begging to be brought inside.  Most of them will sleep and wake next year, but for the few that will perish in the winter cold, I am looking for places in my house to relocate them. The overgrown ivy, which was technically my son’s until he decided to move out and leave her (him?) with me, is the most beautiful and the most un-relocatable. It has a huge lets-pretend-we-are-made-of-stone pot which just fits nowhere. It, unfortunately will perish on the deck. My pussy willow, which bore no pussies this year for some reason, will come back next year so she is on her own. No pussies next year either and she is history! The honeysuckles, of which I have two, were originally purchased to lure hummingbirds. (my husband’s favorite bird) But the few times a hummingbird came near our deck it took Mr. Wonderful so long to hear me announce their arrival, then to get up and go to the door that the bird simply flew off in search of another flower, leaving my husband certain that I had seen a bee instead of a bird. So for most of the day I brought plants in and out, trying not to get wayward soil everywhere. I found homes for two of the plants so far and the plan is to continue for the next few days until all or most of them find a niche in my house. If not I will simply have to let them go to that hot house in the sky.

I sat to watch TV that night and in the darkness of the room and across the light of the TV….there it was….the biggest mosquito I have seen in my life. I jumped up and switched on the light.  It was gone.  Of course. I tried to convince myself that I really hadn’t seen anything at all but then I heard that buzzing sound that my husband insists means it is a male and males don’t bite. Where does he get these things?  Needless to say I wasn’t buying any of that and continued my search. I shut the light hoping to see it buzz past the TV screen again but it didn’t. It was hiding, stalking.. waiting for me to let my guard down, waiting for me to get involved in some trashy reality show and then…wham…an itchy welt! I started feeling bugs on me, scratching and twitching…of course nothing was there but the thought of this sucker….well, sucking on me had me itchy to say the least. The light back on I stood staring into the air waiting for it to fly by. Nothing. Then I went into the kitchen hoping it had decided to go near the Venus Fly Trap plant we had just bought during an outing with the grandkids. The plant stood there with its leaves positioned for the hunt, but no bug ventured near it. I took the plant and brought it with me into the dining room. Armed with my bug eating plant I sat at the dining room table waiting for the mosquito to surface, but instead not one, but two spiders walked across the table in front of me. They were tiny and white and although certainly not menacing enough at this stage of the game, I could tell they were going to find someplace to hide, perhaps behind my new white couch and emerge huge hairy eight legged creatures. They would never be cute word-webbing Charlotte’s. Whack! Problem solved.

I cleaned up the spider guts as the bug-eating plant sat there wondering why I had not offered up the spiders for dessert and since I was near the sink I gave my dog and two windowsill plants some water. The dog came running and so did the mosquito. It flew out of one of the plants I had generously taken the time to reposition in my warm kitchen.  I flailed at it with the dish towel but it simply flew into the ceiling fan as the dog barked.  I swatted with a newspaper but it just whafted into the dining room as the dog barked and knocked over his water dish.  No time to clean up the water, I was hot on the trail now.  I immediately regretted not feeding the spider babies to the Fly Trap since I now needed it to do its thing. Lure the damn mosquito over and snatch it up with it’s sticky trap door leaves justifying the $7.99 I paid for it. I followed the little buzzing blood sucker from room to room carrying my plant like Florence nightingale carried her candle.   I zig-zagged in and out of rooms and although I was on a mission not to get bitten, I was tired.   Having all but given up on the defeated and uninterested Fly Trap I sat down to watch TV. And there she was…flying past the Geico gecko. I followed her with the light off this time as she blindly went into the bathroom. I slammed the door shut and as the dog continued to bark I did the happy dance. Luckily I  realized that it could get out under the door so I grabbed for a  dish towel to block its exit as the dog circled in the water from the overturned water dish. I put my useless Fly Trap friend back on the windowsill and watched as a spider crawled out of the other relocated plant. I took both ungrateful plants and threw them back outside on the deck where they could now freeze to death for all I cared.   I could finally relax.  I cleaned up the water, made a cup of tea and went to the bathroom....oh shit!

saints and scabs

Tuesday was my day off.... from work.  The one where they pay me.   This Tuesday, with my granddaughter attempting to play with the pins, scissors, anything else she could impale herself with, I began a sewing project to help out my neighbor. She had to make a Saint. Yup, Saint….as in Patrick, Francis and Nick. She chose Saint Lucy. Good thing she had a statue of St. Lucy because I personally had never heard of her and honestly, if there was no St. Ethel to go along with her it hardly seemed relevant at all. She had two days for this task although I rather suspect she had sat on the whole ’let’s build a saint’ project far longer. The saints were going to be part of a holiday celebration to impress the holy higher ups. St. Lucy had traditional blue and white robes that looked very much like the ones worn by the manger residents that hung out under my Christmas tree. She carried palm and a tray. The tray held her…. eyes. I never thought to question my neighbor why she chose a saint who carried her eyes in a tray, but I suppose as saints go, they must have had to give up something pretty important to become a saint in the first place. The saint on a stick had to be of normal height. Luckily our St Lucy was an Italian woman who stood maybe five feet. We could use a shorter stick than most.

While I gathered the fabric, eyes and other saint building necessities my neighbor set out to find something to use as a head. It was rather tempting to use the skulls my house is currently adorned with, being Halloween week and all. We opted for Styrofoam. I found canvas work gloves in the basement that need to ‘tan’ up a bit, so I made a pot of strong tea and laid the gloves in them overnight to dye them. (very ‘green’ don’t ya think?) I also left a note for my husband just in case he poured himself a cup of tea without noticing the floating gloves. (it could happen, trust me!) I sewed and stuffed, I glued and pinned and St. Lucy began to take shape. It felt a little sacrilegious as I impaled her with the stick that would serve as her lower half and feet. I asked her forgiveness and them jammed that sucker as far up into the foam body as it could possibly go. Lucy was looking good, headless of course, but her robes were well pleated and adorned with gold piping. The tea infused work gloves left a little too long in the Orange Pekoe and now a little too tan were dry, stuffed and attached. Her right hand held the palm which we had to substitute with some kind of ivy since craft stores just don’t carry fake palm. Her left hand carried the eye tray which was from my granddaughter’s Barbie tea set.   Only something didn’t look right. I had dyed two right hand gloves. Yup, Lucy had two right hands. (hey look, her eyes were in a tray ya know, she could certainly deal with two right hands) I stitched the glove on in a way that hid the fact that Lucy was deformed and so instead of having two right hands, she had one hand with no thumb.  She looked like a muppet.  Who said life is fair? 

My neighbor came with the Styrofoam head, complete with queen size panty hose to give her a skin tone color that did not match her two right hands at all, but at least she wasn’t foam white. A perfect nose protruded out from behind the stocking and her lips were pinned on. Lucy was seriously sporting her ‘hooker red’ lipstick. She had eyes which I had thought were already glued into the Barbie plate but I guess being a saint she was allowed two sets. One to see, and one as an offering or something. Her hair was the remainder of the pantyhose knotted atop her head in a Snooki-do and then cut in strips down the sides. Lucy was looking good. Sort of. Maybe. Ok not so much, but two days to make a life size saint is pushing the envelope…I’d like to see them do that on Project Runway. Lucy done and safely packed away in my neighbors car for the ride to the church, I turned my attentions to the rest of my fun filled day.

It was time to take the dog to the vet to get his allergy shots. The $150 allergy shots that last, at best, two weeks. But in those two weeks his stench ebbs a bit and it makes the cost a little more palatable. My dog, the free adopted mutt that I have had for the past 8 years, has something called doggy seborrhea dermatitis. Basically, dry skin. Having said that, on you and me a nice slathering of Oil of Olay would do the trick, on Stinky, not so much. This trip he was getting a bath, his ears cleaned, a cortisone shot and his nails clipped. I left to pick him up some five hours after being dropped off. I left with a bag of antibiotics for some fungal infection he got from the dermatitis, fish oil tablets he has to take twice a day to keep his skin supple, an astronomical bill and a dog that still stunk….maybe worse. Oh and they shaved him where a dog just shouldn’t be shaved. He looked like he had just escaped from Three Mile Island‘s nuclear site. If someone broke into my house now they would feel so bad for this dog they would crawl back out the window just not to get him in any trouble. I take one pill a day, two if you count the  'over 45'  one-a-day vitamins I take. And I forget. This dog has six pills a day, and I'm the one that has to remember to trick him into taking them. Lord knows how I am gonna do this….maybe I should just pray to Saint Lucy.  She owes me!

apples, and pumpkins and bees......oh my!

Ahhh Fall….a time to enjoy the fall foliage, the brisk weather, packing away the flip flops and of course the dreaded  apple picking with the grandkids.

The plan was simple….our families would all drive to New Jersey enjoying the aforementioned foliage, to an orchard where we would pick the apples right off the vine, umm I mean tree. Take 200 pictures of the kids climbing in the trees that are clearly marked NO CLIMBING and arrive home to start slicing and baking. The reality is that Route 9 has no foliage, Fall or otherwise, and besides isn’t New York called the Big Apple for a reason? And while the intention is always there, most of the hand picked apples remain in a bowl on the dining room table waiting to be transformed into pies as they rot and ferment.

The orchard had rows and rows of trees marked with white, yellow and green tags designating what tree held what apples. Obviously not a fruit connoissuer, I don’t know a Winesap from a Rome, a Delicious from a Granny Smith…what I do know is that yellow-jacks love them all. If I wasn’t stepping on rotten, yellow-jack infested apple, I was picking a rotten yellow-jack infested apple off the trees. Of course I had to taste one from every kind of tree (freebies!) and by the time we had finished ravishing the orchard I never wanted to see, let alone eat another apple. And yes, it is true…apples are definitely a diuretic! I peed six times in two hours. Although the trees were smaller than any tree in Brooklyn, the best apples (of course) were way on top, I am supposing where the yellow-jacks are afraid to fly. We rented a pole. An apple picking pole…which looked more like a bag on a stick, than the bag on a stick it actually was. By the time you got the apple positioned above the bag, pulled back the pole to knock the apple off its branch, you whacked two people behind you and the apple fell mindlessly to the ground where it was immediately covered with…yup, yellow-jacks! We took more pictures in the trees, in front of the trees, group shots, family shots, and me sitting in various places trying to rest my bad knee. I sat on a felled branch, inside a Winesap tree, and my personal favorite the inverted apple bucket. My knee well rested, my ass numb from the bucket handle, we moved on to pumpkins. With an upcoming family pumpkin carving contest, that has taken on a life of it’s own complete with voting rules and a trophy, we needed to get big pumpkins. The buckets filled with what felt like a ton of apples didn’t leave much strength for carrying pumpkins. Large pumpkins. Pumpkin carving pumpkins. Trophy winning large pumpkin carving pumpkins. So we shifted things around in a wagon someone had the insight to bring and loaded it up like a pack mule navigating the Grand Canyon. We carefully chose the ones we wanted, good shape, no rot, strong stem…however I had my own criteria….not more than 3 feet from where I stood and if I bent to pick it up I was taking it home. Luckily I chose well and my pumpkin was perfect.

The lines to pay for the apples/pumpkins looked as if they were giving them away….ten deep with people struggling to carry their apples and pumpkins, swatting yellow-jacks and screaming at their now tired and cranky kids. Not us of course, our kids were perfect. After we got our produce to the cars we decided to meet up at the store conveniently located on the way out of the orchard. Their claim to fame was their hot apple cider donuts which was evident in the line snaking around the store. Not a donut in the world could get me on that line, if Mr. Dunkin’ himself was serving me….but as I went in the store, my son in law got on the line for a bag of the coveted donuts. The store was absolutely packed…apples were cheaper than they were in the orchard which led me to believe we had just paid for the pleasure of yellow-jack swatting and our photo op sessions. They had apple flavored everything which made sense and chocolate covered everything which made less sense but got my vote. I bought a cup of much needed coffee and forgot to get one for my husband, I bought an apple muffin and forgot to buy one for my husband. (see a pattern here) I gave up both when we met up outside because I am an amazing wife….that and the fact that I had a bag full of chocolate covered things I was not prepared to share. Having not moved an inch on the cider donut line my son in law threw in the towel and settled for something apple flavored that my daughter bought him. Our cars were all loaded with the apples designed to become pies but destined to be left in a bowl on the dining room table as proof that we went apple picking. That and the 200 pictures.

burgandy...and I don't mean wine

I am an impromptu shopper.   If I see what I want I buy it. I don’t plan any part of a purchase because the few times I did, disaster. Example…It was time to get a dog. My beloved Sasha had to be put to sleep and my husband and I were ridiculously upset.  I didn't want to make a rush decision since the commitment to owning a dog is a lifetime....at least that of the dog's.  I made a list of things I wanted in a dog including getting her through a private adoption. My list included,  female, really big breed, and not a lot of shedding. I got a male (with balls that I eventually had loped off), smaller than pretty much any dog I have ever had since I was 5, and the hairiest, sheddiest dog in the world. The only thing on my list was that we adopted him from a private breeder who but for the grace of God still walks the earth. I was told that his mother was a German Shephard and the father was a Chocolate Lab. We conveniently couldn’t see the parents because they would be ‘upset’ seeing their pup being taken away. (OK what was I thinking?)  Liar!  The vet said there is no Lab in him at all and wasn’t even sure about the Shephard part. He has an inherited skin condition that requires more attention than a leper, but we love him even though he sheds and stinks….not necessarily in that order.   So much for planning.

I bring up the disaster that is my dog, because yet again I chose to make a decision based on planning rather than spontaneous logic. I need a new couch. I have needed a new couch for about 4 years. I bought my current couch many years ago in Levitz. I paid a small fortune for a couch, three tables and this huge club chair which the dog, yes the same one from the lying adoptee, ate three weeks after getting it delivered. He was a puppy back then and still cute and not yet stinky so I forgave him and threw out the chair….I did however have him fixed shortly after that….revenge is sweet! He never chewed another thing in the house!

The couch which was what I perceived to be a regal shade of Burgandy was recently described to me by my grandson as being….purple. Purple???? Not gonna make that mistake again…..first on the list, no Burgandy! I bought a fabric that seemed like it would wear well and repel stains….not so much when you have a husband that sits on the couch with clothes he has just changed the car oil in. We tried the whole ‘cover it with a sheet’ routine but that faded fast and I simply gave up. Purple Burgandy hides a lot and is the only reason it wasn’t out in the garbage shortly after the club chair….(and besides he wouldn’t have sat still for that whole revenge thing like the dog did) Fabric choice made it to the list….leather could work well and clean up easily too.

One Father’s Day a few years ago we bought my husband a big, comfortable, leather swiveling recliner. (yup, in….Burgandy) He never sat in it. Finally he admitted that the swiveling feature wasn’t his favorite and he creatively placed wooden blocks into the mechanics to stop the swivel. Unfortunately it also stopped the recline. Oh well, another piece of useless furniture in the living room. Looks good, just not functional. One Mother’s Day my kids bought me a chaise lounge (need I tell you what color?) which is in the room as well. It sits beneath my picture window so in case I decide to make a cup of tea, grab a book and sit by the window with sunlight streaming on my face as I relax…..ok I’ll stop lying….no one is allowed to sit on it except maybe the baby since I don’t want yet another piece of furniture screwed up by our fat, Jiffy Lube asses. Add to the list….nothing that rocks, reclines or swivels.

The tables that came with the set were perfect. Light wood with glass inserts and table tops. The middle glass on the three panel coffee table broke and we replaced it with Plexiglas which was fine until it got scratched moving a centerpiece back and forth out of the line of the remote. It has been replaced many times since the original breakage and probably cost more in plexi than it would have been to buy a new table. The glass tops were also not such a great idea once the grandkids came.  So....no glass!

I went shopping…list in hand. (it was actually in my head, I am not that big a geek) The first store they had nothing in all leather…it was ‘leather where you touch’….what the hell? What if I wanted to ‘touch' the back of the couch?   The second and third store had salesmen that knew very little about the furniture and had to ‘check’ on everything I asked. “Does this come in black?” Let me check “How long is the couch?” Let me check. “Can I get this delivered before the end of the month?”   Let me check. By the time they came back I had checked...out! I re-visited the first store contemplating the crazy leather scenario, left again and finally found a store I hadn’t previously explored. The salesman, a handsome man with a clipboard followed me around the store just far enough away so as not to annoy me, close enough to not lose me to another salesperson.  I walked around the store, possibly more times than I needed to, fantasizing that the handsome salesman following me was trying to work up the nerve to ask me to meet him for a drink and not simply stalking me for a commissioned sale, and suddenly I found the perfect couch.  It was leather (even the back), it had no moving parts, the tables (cleverly called ottomans) had no glass and it most definitely was not purple burgundy. It was Ivory.   Ivory???   See what I mean?   I planned.   I listed. And I still went and bought a friggin’ white couch.

windstorms and footlongs

I had to take my state insurance test on Tuesday. I printed out the directions from the test center’s website and then I mapquested them, I also googled the address and printed that as well. I am anal. It didn’t help that my husband kept telling me to leave myself an hour and a half travel time…for a half hour drive…just in case there is traffic. He is the grand poobah of anal-ness. The letter that came with the registration receipt said that we had to be there a half hour before the test (which began at 10) or we wouldn’t be allowed to take the test and forfeit our test fee. I studied the night before more than I should have since I was totally burned out by the time I went to bed. I had dreams of floods and windstorms and every other peril I had just studied. And in my dreams I settled each and every claim before the next disaster struck or I woke up to pee.

After sucking down the last of a second cup of coffee I went through a mental checklist…2 pieces of ID, check….a #2 pencil, check….tissues in case I sneeze, check….cough drops in case I cough, check….2 Aleve in case I have a headache, check….all six printouts of the directions to the test site, check….and last but not least, my travel mug filled with coffee number three. The belt parkway was oddly empty and I knew this had to be a bad sign. It is never, ever empty at 8:30 am. When I got to my exit I turned on the radio. 1010 wins…needed a little news…didn’t want to over stimulate my already over stimulated brain with Lady Gaga this morning. An accident (which I am sure I could have settled expeditiously with my new found knowledge) on a parkway….three parkways away had caused a major back up all the way back to…you guessed it, my parkway. And there it was.   Bumper to bumper traffic as far as the eye could see.   I so hate it when my husband is right!

 

I finally arrived at my turnoff and needed to look for 80th street. 86th, 85th, 84th, 83rd, 77th…what the %&$!  Since I couldn’t U-turn I kept going and in my perplexed state still located 80th Street even though it wasn’t in numeric order…(what is it with Queens??) and the complex that housed the test site.

The instructions clearly stated to pull into the parking garage, park and take the elevator to the 3rd floor and continue on to the test room. I pulled into the parking garage which was empty. Not a few cars empty, I mean empty empty…Omega Man empty….(for those of you too young to relate to the Omega Man movie, think I Am Legend with Will Smith....empty). I didn’t see any elevator on the first floor so I circled around to the second floor all the while bending my head down since it felt as if the low garage ceilings were going to behead me. The second floor was just as empty and no elevator there either. I went to the third and last floor of the garage…nothing! No elevator, no cars, no test site. I checked that my doors were locked and looked on the forms to see if there was a phone number. Again, nothing. I drove back down to the first floor still ducking but more confident that I wasn’t going to be decapitated and back up to the third floor where I saw a parked car that wasn’t there a few minutes ago and parked next to it.  Right next to it.  As close as I could, next to it.  As I got out of the car I looked around to see if there was anyone lurking, skulking, hiding….you get the picture. I was alone. The instructions also said to look for a sign that said Test Site. No sign. I saw some doors. Locked. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a security guard and just like that he was gone…through a set of doors that said ‘employees only’. Not a soul around. I positioned my keys between my fingers the way I had been taught years ago in case I had to fight off an attacker. I could jab him in the eye and temporarily blind him giving me time to get away.  Who was I kidding? With my short stubby arms the guy would have to be under 5ft for me to even reach his eyes and besides, I am sure I would be running and screaming….not jabbing and tai kwon do-ing. Another set of doors opened up into a mall. I felt like Dorothy landing in Oz. The garage, so grey in all its cement-ness and here was this super modern mall with amazing lighting and marble stairs. I was on the third floor and from where I stood could see clear down to level one. Not a soul. Malls obviously don’t open before 9. I called out a feeble unanswered ‘hello’. That’s it, test be damned, I’m outta here and I returned to Kansas and my car. Before I got in my car the elusive security guard came out of nowhere again only this time I was able to get his attention before he wafted out of sight again. I explained my predicament and he pointed me in the direction of a staircase I had previously avoided out of fear (ok maybe I just didn’t feel like walking up the steps). I went up those stairs, down a long outdoor corridor, around an inordinate number of overgrown planters and into a courtyard with stores, and office building and a Subways. Not the train stop, the home of the footlong!

The office building of course was my destination (although I did make a stop in Subways after the test) and I proceeded to the floor listed on the directions. It had to be the most humid day of the year and between the garage walking and the stairs and the corridors and the planters I was sweating like a pig. The elevator alone had to be over 90 degrees. I hadn‘t, until this point, seen a soul other than the shadowy security guard and a Chinese man behind the counter in the Subways but as the elevator doors opened there were all kinds of people walking back in forth in and out of offices all ignoring the sweaty fat chick that just got off the elevator. I started down the hallway and saw a ladies room which considering how much coffee I gulped down this morning seemed like a good idea. Locked. I passed a room with its doors open and lots of people crowding in…must be the test room….nope, Weight Watchers meeting. I continued down the hallways checking my watch (ok no watch, it was my cell phone), sweating and cursing until I finally found the room. It was 9:15...early with 15 minutes to spare! The sign on the door said it wasn’t opening until 9:45 with the test beginning at 10. Cutting it kinda close aren’t they? There was nowhere to sit. It was hot. I was early. There was no one else there yet. I had to pee. I walked down to the Weight Watcher room figuring to ask for the bathroom key, but as I neared the door I realized they might be thinking…‘hey where you going sweetie, get your ass on the scale”…so I got back on the elevator and went down and outside. It was raining.  I thought about going into the Subways (I hear they have amazing breakfasts) but I had eaten at home and I already needed to be upstairs on that scale…so I passed. I sat on a wet metal chair grateful what little breeze there was. At least when I got back to the test site they would think I was rained on instead of just clammy with sweat. At 9:45 I went upstairs on the suffocating elevator, passed the locked bathroom and the Weight Watchers scale, down the corridor and to the test room. I tried the door, still locked and still no one waiting like me. Still nowhere to sit, I considered sitting on the floor but knew how long it would take for me to get up so I just leaned on the wall shifting my weight from one bad knee to the other. Finally a man came and jiggled the door, then another and still another. Then two girls. It was now 9:50. It had been an hour since I parked in the portentous garage. A woman sauntered up to the door, Subways bag in hand, opened it with a key, propped it open with a door stop and welcomed us. An hour later I was in Subways ordering a 6” Jared’s ‘healthy special’ on Garlic Parmesan bread. Oh, and I passed my test!

policies and painted toes

Why can’t I go anywhere and just have it be a normal experience?? I was asked to get my insurance license. I was asked to take 40 hours of insurance instruction to work 16 hours a week….go figure?! I got to the class and immediately chose a seat in the front like the teachers pet I had always wanted to be in grammar school but never got the chance because a girl named Cindy who was always so cute and so smiley and brown-nosing…..oh, sorry.. lost control there.  A very nice girl sat next to me, I mean RIGHT next to me which I found a bit odd since there were at least 30 empty seats in the room. But she was soft spoken, well dressed and looked sweet. She removed her bottled water from a bag and turned to me and said…”Don’t touch that.” I laughed thinking for sure she was kidding, and she proclaimed again, “I’m not kidding, don’t touch that.” No problem. I opened my books and got my pen and highlighter out of my bag. “We were supposed to bring a highlighter?” she asked me not even looking up from the bag she was rummaging around in. “No, I just brought one in case.” I answered her but really wanted to knock her precious bottled water off the desk. “Can I have yours?” OK is this chick kidding now or what? I started looking around for some hidden camera, some Punk’d personnel but instead I simply said, “No, sorry, I only have one.” I should have left it at that, but me always having to make a joke added, “Trade you for your water…!” With that she picked up her books and water and moved to the furthest seat away from mine. Guess she can’t take a joke. As we waited for the teacher to set up the dry erase board which he abandoned after three futile attempts, I began to wonder what the hell was in that bottle. I imagined it to be some high priced imported vodka, or some illegal propellant she was going to ignite and turn this tiny conference room into a fire bomb…and then I saw her drink from it. That ruled out the propellant at least.

I turned my attentions to the well dressed, handsome man that sat in the seat ‘water girl’ had abandoned. He smiled, I smiled, he smiled again, ditto ditto ditto….What the hell?! If he was Asian (which he wasn’t) I would have bet we would have still been bowing to each other rather than getting around to karate chopping each other. I wondered where all this smiling was going to lead us. The water girl raised her hand and asked where the bathroom was. The teacher who had finally accomplished arranging his books and was beginning the class told her where it was and she got up taking her coveted water bottle with her. She never returned. Was it something I said?

As the teacher asked us to read along with him I looked down at my feet to see if I had room to stretch my rotten, stiff, left knee out straight before I ended up in traction. I wished I hadn’t. The man in water girl’s seat wore flip flops and toenail polish. Five toes, five colors. Big toe, blue. Little toe, green. And a rainbow in between. Suddenly the stiffness in my knee didn‘t matter as the pain would have been a welcomed reminder that I was indeed still awake and had not fallen asleep during the boring insurance rhetoric. I attempted to read along with the instructor as I repeatedly glanced down at his toes. His right foot had one color at least, white, but they had letters on them and it infuriated me that I was not in a position to read what they said. I dropped my highlighter. Ooops. I bent down and saw that the letter on his big toe was an I but that was all I could see. I was getting distracted and the instructor was way ahead of me at this point and I was lost. I re-read from the book what I missed while reading toes and surprisingly was even able to answer a question he threw at me unexpectedly.

We broke for lunch. The little Spanish girl I met when we first got there leaned over and asked if I wanted to go to the diner with her. I was starving and thrilled to be with someone who as far as I could tell, had nothing painted on her toes and no bottled water. As we walked to the diner I told her about the water girl and the flip flop man. She said she saw water girl in the bathroom even before the class started and she was talking on a cell phone about how bad the weather was in New York. It was sunny, clear and mid 70’s.

On the way back from the diner water girl was outside the classroom still clutching her water bottle. She leered at the two of us and just as I thought we were far enough past her to avoid a confrontation she throws the water bottle at us. It didn’t hit us and it didn’t even open but my little Spanish friend flew into a rage. Suddenly she was yelling and gesturing at water girl who looked calm and quite frankly bored. I took her arm and told her to calm down, that the girl was obviously a kook, and the class was gonna start. Back in our seats we waited for flip flop man to return from lunch as she positioned herself so that as soon as he opened the door she could read his feet. Foot. He came in and sat down beside me again and did his I smile, You smile, I smile, You smile routine. I looked over my shoulder to see if she had been able to see what this guy painstakingly painted on his toes but she shook her head side to side and I knew it was up to me now. I put my bag on the floor between our chairs so that I had reason to bend down several times and attempt a reading. I managed to get another two letters….X an X….maybe this was just some design and not a word after all?? I caught up to the instructor again and decided to concentrate on insurance rather than worry about what design this guy had on his toes. When the class was over my friend reminded me that water girl could be outside waiting for us. We assured each other we had each other’s backs (I felt so…ghetto!) and walked to the parking lot. Thankfully she wasn’t there since me and my posse of one would have been taken down in a heartbeat by water girl. Can’t wait for class tomorrow!

....calling Dr. Bates

It’s official, I limp. My leg, the one that I already had fixed a few years ago, is killing me again. Not the same behind the knee pain, not the pain that the doctor swore would go away if I lost weight, and definitely not the pain that two Aleve’s every six hours was gonna remedy. This pain is different. It starts in my cheek. To be blunt, my left ass cheek. Runs down the back of my thigh, gets to the knee then magically rotates to the front of my leg causing my shin to feel like I just ran the New York marathon. Or the Boston marathon. Or even just walked up a flight of stairs at this point. I complained to everyone, everyone that wouldn’t tell me to lose weight. Everyone says it sounds like sciatica. So I googled it. (while we’re on the subject, what do you get when you google, GOOGLE?) Sciatica is a condition caused by the sciatic nerve becoming inflamed…what inflames it, it doesn’t really say. Could be this, could be that, might be the other thing….so googling wasn’t the answer.

At the suggestion of another friend (who did hint at weight loss) I called the local chiropractor. He has been in business since the 70’s and is a character and a half. He lives above his office with his ‘Ma’.  ‘Ma’ has never been seen so I am usually thinking 'Norman Bates' when I am on his table and if he ever starts a taxidermy collection I will find another doctor, pronto. The last time I was there which was for migraine headaches….he put his hands on both sides of my head and like a killer ninja twisted my neck around so fast that I thought I was destined to die within minutes. Instead the headaches went away immediately. Of course I had a stiff neck for like a month, but the headaches were gone and never came back. He was my hero back then, so I had no trepidations in calling him for an appointment. I got his machine and started to leave a message when he picked up mid message….chewing. Not his secretary, not a service, just him in full oral mastication. I explained who I was, what was wrong and that I would like to come in as soon as possible. In between chews he said “YES”. Just “yes”. After several more questions to ascertain when he wanted me to come in he told me his ‘Ma’ died. I am not even sure how he snuck that in to the conversation but it was out there now and I had to deal with it. After telling me that she had been ill for months, and telling me that she was in a better place, and describing how his world crumbled when she died and how he was sure he couldn’t live without her, I realized that he hadn’t told me when she passed on. So I asked. Bad move! Wednesday….this was Thursday! So ‘Ma’ died yesterday and two days before he wanted to see me. The man that doesn’t want to live without his ‘Ma’ was gonna massage my left ass cheek and potentially cripple me. I just know it! The pain in my leg was subsiding or was it mind over matter?!   I told him I would be away for a few days and that I would call him when I got back, extended my condolences again, hung up and googled ‘chiropractors’.  Dr. Bates would have to heal a bit more mentally before I let him manipulate, knead or twist any body parts.

I went back on the computer and looked up everything that included the words pain and leg and came up empty. I did find a website for sciatic pain exercises. Since my printer decided to fail at this crucial moment I drew small pictures of what I was supposed to look like when I got into the positions the website deemed miracles for sciatica. I got down on all fours only to immediately have the dog bound over thinking it was playtime. After distracting him with a chew toy (and threatening to cut off his already cut off balls) I began to arrange my legs into the positions I had drawn. Now the problem with my stick figure drawings is that I am not, I repeat...not, a stick figure. So when the bad leg has to cross underneath the good leg I had to wonder, where does my stomach go? I pushed the bad leg as far as it would go, heard something snap….waited, felt no pain…..so I continued. The pulling sensation on my left ass cheek told me that I was doing the exercise right and if the website was right, after a few times I should be good as new. Like bothering a bad tooth, it both hurt and felt good at the same time. I was ready to move on to the next poorly drawn exercise which involved pulling the balls of my feet toward my body while practically laying face down on the floor. Don’t bother trying to picture it, you can’t do it. Well I guess it can be done, but not by me and certainly not by anyone who has breasts or a stomach and an inflamed ass cheek from dreaded sciatic nerve disorder that I have come to self diagnose.

I attempted to go back to the first exercise that I had mastered only this time when I heard the snap….something snapped. The pain radiated down my leg, up my back, across my ass and then everything went numb. As the tears welled up, believing that I had just made myself a card carrying member of the Christopher Reeves fan club, my dog came over and licked my face. This is significant for two reasons…in his eight years he has never licked anything other than his own ass and for the first time I didn’t care that he stinks. I accepted his compassion until thankfully the numbness gave way to great big waves of pain which at least told me that my exercise program had not crippled me. I managed to get back onto my feet and walked limped into the kitchen to find my Aleve.

I am calling Dr. Bates in the morning.