Cracklin' Rose

Things that make me squimish:

Hearing my mother say "vagina." As in, "In usual historectomies they usually slice open your abdomen and pull it all out. In my case they'll be pulling my uterus out through MY VAGINA."

DAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"And then the urniologist will return my bladder to where it should be so that it's no longer FALLING OUT OF MY VAGINA!"

GGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

*thunk*

Mood: Festive
Listening to: Happy Christmas; War is Over

Suddenly I'm feeling all festive. I want to wrap gifts and haul out the holly. I want to put up our tree and wear turtlenecks and sip hot cocoa as I watch the first evening snow fall. In my head-movie I'm looking a lot like Deedee Pfeiffer as I do this by the way. The reason I want to do this? Cheerleading.

I refuse, absolutely RE-FUSE to think about Christmas one second before Halloween like the retailers would like me to. I will NOT venture down the seasonal aisle one instant before December 1, but dammit, Bear had her football/cheerleading banquet last night and I had 14 little boxes of chocolate shaped cheerleaders that needed to be wrapped in team colors and damned if one of those team colors isn't red. It's a small consolation, but a consolation nonetheless that Halloween ended nearly 2 weeks ago, so I don't feel like a complete hypocrit. 

"I'm just looking for plain red wrapping paper," I told myself as I girded my loins to venture into the land of eternal two holidays ahead of the calendar.  "Not ribbons, not bows, not -oooh, is that a shabby chic baby's first christmas ornament?" It went downhill from there. Fortunately, my mother was with me so I didn't go as crazy as I'd have liked to.

Unfortunately, my mother wasn't with me today. I stopped in to pick up a few things for a photo shoot I'm planning with the girls and succumbed to the lure of the sirens' songs. First off? I'm not a gift bag type of gal, preferring to wrap and wribbon the gifts we give, but I saw some beautiful gift bags that should probably be stashed around my house in artsy 'how did this get there?' arrangements. I fondled the bows and the ornaments. I rubbed the velvet stockings to my cheek and teased Rosie in the same way. I coveted tree skirts, picking out the one I wanted as if money were no issue (but *sigh* it is). I hung festive wreaths on my doors and windows, I decorated a tasteful little corner of my yard with glowing deer (which are indiginous to our part of the country unlike those TACKY glowing polar bears ), including a bough decorated trough. I hung mistletoe strategically throughout the house so J would be tricked into kissing me like he did way back when before people knew we were having sex.  I decorated our tree with a meticulous, breath-catching combination of homemade ornaments and olde-world loveliness. And while I was decorating that tree with my family we wore santa caps and listened to the perfect Christmas mix on the stereo. And J looked a lot like... well... himself. Only he was wearing a turtleneck and red sweater and NOT complaining about looking gay and feeling too hot in it.

I'm partial to the part where when we're decorating the tree, the girls are clearly enthralled with the history of each ornament we hang. "And mommy made this one from half a pecan shell, a cotton ball, a pipe cleaner and a square of fabric when she was your age. It's baby Je-sus in the manger." See how they're not struggling over who's going to put up the next ornament? See how they're spacing the ornaments evenly around the entire tree? See how they're more than eager to help pack away the empty boxes. See how Rosie, in her santa cap as well, merrily plays with her toys the entire time?

Clearly this is fantasy.

The reality of our situation is me bitching because no one wants to help. Then me pouting because no one's as excited about decorating as I want them to be. Then me not doing a very good job of biting my tongue when after they do give in and help they just don't do it right. And we never wear turtlenecks or santa caps because J and I are fat and fat people don't look good in turtlenecks I don't care what Lane Bryant would have you believe. The girls also complain bitterly about feeling choked and pretty soon I find myself wishing their turtlenecks would do just that if only to make them pass out so I'd at least get a few minutes respite from the bitching and the exaggerated collar tugging and gagging. 

Still, even with reality intruding on my fantasy, I'm excited about this Christmas. It'll be Rosie's first, and since she's our 3rd and we're veterans we will buy her one big gift from Santa and the rest will be boxes covered with ribbons and bows because that's all she'll be interested in anyway. I won't force the turtleneck issue, but by God, we're all wearing the Santa caps.

 

Mood: middle-aged elation
Listening to: silence. Sweet silence

Sorry for the absence. Seems I forgot my password and then life happened and blah blah blah.

Anyway, something's happened to my husband. He seems to have been replaced with someone not as... shall we say... tight-fisted. And it's weird. Nice, but def. weird.

When my dishwasher broke last year he handed me $ 200 and said, "there ya go, Honey" and sent me to the $ears to buy a new one. With $ 200. That's like me giving him a quarter and sending him to the strip club for a lap dance. The idea of going shopping for a new appliance was nice and tittylating [sic], but how far can $ 200 get you? Not damn far at all. The salesman actually laughed at me.

Fastforward to yesterday when my trusty-crusty clothes dryer finally tended its last load. The smell of burning denim... it lingers. I woke up this morning to an attractively penned note telling me to take his credit card and go buy the washer dryer set of my dreams. Of. my. dreams. Credit card.

So I did -hee! And tomorrow between noon and three p.m. I will have in my possession a frontloader pair of water/energy saving machines that will wash and dry 16 of my towels at once. SIX TEEN. I KNOOOWWW....

Who is this man and just out of curiousity, what has he done to my husband?

Sixteen towels at once.

The mind wobbles.