Cracklin' Rose

Have you ever known someone who was so into a television show that maybe it made you a little uncomfortable? No, REALLY into the show. Like, he had maps of the fictional town. Like he could rattle off any number of  "facts" about the characters in the show, including special guest stars and where everyone is now? Like he writes fanfiction? And then publishes it to the web and spends countless hours checking his email to see if anyone's left feedback?

Yeah. That'd be me. Except I'm a girl.

Well, that was me a few years ago, and yes, I do have a few fanfiction stories floating out there.  Not anymore, as I'm all growed up and have no time, but once upon a time, writing as FUN. (I'm not saying they're good, but I had a delightful time writing them.) And yes, I do realize that the town's fictional. And so what if I know that the late and v., v great Jack Tripper (aka John Ritter) guest starred in "Ted"? Hey, if it's good enough for JR, then it's okay by me. And yes, there were a few times that I had to rein in my enthusiasm so as not to frighten the neighbors. I'm just sayin' is all. Ain't nuttin wrong with a little escape, right?

Now I'll leave you with this nugget. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER RULES! WILLOW AND GILES 4-eva!! RILEY WAS A PUSS!! COME BACK OZ!! And yes, I do have the figurines. My Giles doll bends in 14 different spots.

 

Listening to: My Humps

Okay, so, I'm sitting in my office/guest room/Christmas tree room/storage area trying to write my heroine out of a difficult situation when my 9 year old bops by the door singing (beautifully I might add), "My hump, my hump, my lovely lady lumps...."

WTF? Lady humps? WTF's a lady hump? I mean, I get it, Blackeyed Peas and Fergie's tits and ass... but lady lumps? Maybe it's because I'm OLD, but when I hear that I think of a dowager's hump. Or that hump diabetic women get just below their necks. You've seen it, looks kinda... fatty. Plus, I'm ... uh... morally outraged (?) that my kid is singing about the junk in her trunk. Well, more embarrassed, and pissed 'cause now I can't get it out of my head... Ima ge' ge' ge' get you drunk....  Also? Humps? C'mon.

*sigh*

Right, next thing on the list? We spent time with J's family on Christmas Day. Same thing every year, presents, too much food, lounging, wanting to go home but being too full and too lazy to actually herd everyone toward the door. *This* year, however, we had a bonus guest. Craaaaaaaaaazy Aunt H.

Every family has a Crazy Aunt H (CAH). She wears hats with bells sewn to the brim. She has a creepy lifesize child doll propped in one of her bedroom windows. She has a boyfriend named Fred and she's older than God. She hugs complete strangers and leaves them with, "God loves you and so do I and there's nuttin' you can do about it, it's unconditional." Sweet, strange lady except for when she moves her dentures around in her mouth and sucks on them. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh.

Anyway, I showed CAH a close up of my cat's ear I'd taken earlier with my new digital camera because I wanted to show off how crystal clear, sharp, and COOOL my camera is. So, I show her this picture  and I wish I could attach it, but it's toooo big because my NEW CAMERA is THAT cool, and she looks at it, then squints up at me and asks, "Is that your vagina?"

Yes, CAH, I took a picture of my vagina with my COOL NEW CAMERA and showed it to you so you could be impressed with how well it captures the details. It's like you're RIGHT THERE, isn't it??

"Ummmm. No. It's a cat's ear. Isn't it sharp?"

"Looks like a vagina," she said.

 

So yesterday was my birthday and I am now officially closer to forty than I am to thirty. I am also the exact age my mother was when she died from non-hodgkins lymphoma. My favorite cousin was also 36 when he died from non-hodgkins lymphoma. (How's that for being Debbie Downer -- which, coincidentally, was my mother's name. Debbie.) My grandfather (my mom's dad and my cousin's grandpa as well) also died from non-hodgkins lymphoma, but he was well into his fifties and we think it set in after a coal mine accident left his body weak, but I digress. 

So I approach this birthday with a little bit of trepidation.  If I can make it past 36, I think. Then? I don't know, but I don't want to suffer and die and leave my family at 36. 

I was 17 when she was diagnosed and 18 when she died.  I remember seeing her as so much older, so mature, and so worldly. Thirty-six... wow. So far away from me. Now I'm here and I don't feel old or mature and I'm definitely not worldy.  I'm not tired and ready to let go, the way I envisioned dying people feeling. Knowing what I do and feeling how I do, my anger that she died so damn young is flairing up.  And so is my fear.

Can you imagine? I don't know about you, but I still have dreams. I have things to do. I have friends that I giggle with. I still check out cute guys at the mall. They don't check back, but I still look.  I make up stories about running into celebrities and them falling madly in love with me.  When I'm alone in the mini-van  I turn up the radio and suddenly I'm in the recording studio. Because I am perpetually 14. I think a little part of me will always be 14 and I can't imagine leaving this world while a part of me is still so young and hopeful.  I wonder if my mother felt the same way.

On an upnote, despite the little doom and gloom shadow I invited to hang over me yesterday, I had a good birthday. Tea made for me by my husband, gift from Dee, markedly fewer snarls from Bear, lunch with my parents, cheesecake from my aunt... a quiet night in.  All very... just right. 

Not to mention the kick ass Birkenstock sandals and $$ my parents gave me :). Because I will always be 14. 

And no, the dark humor of listening to Band Aid's Feed The World while writing about how spoiled I am? Not lost on me.  Honestly though, the only reason I watched the live video of it aside from seeing a George Michael no one but gay men thought was gay and Phil Collins drumming? Adam. Ant.

That's right, my friends. He's in the video, looking young and cute, happy, and so very not mentally ill. Check out the guy with the black crewish cut in the black biker jacket (from his lesser known Vive le Rock album... fun stuff but not my favorite) behind a younger, not as hot as he is today Sting. That, my fine feathered fiend, is Adam Ant. Pity Marco's nowhere to be found.

 

Mood: happy. v happy
Listening to: Live aid's feed the world

Yes. I'm spoiled.

So yesterday J asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I promptly replied, "My very own DSLR camera." Guess what I got? **Yep. My very own DSLR camera. Because he freakin' loves me, that's why!!!

(BTW, camera shopping with all three girls at the Micro-Center? Not the thrill a minute joyride you'd expect.)

So v excited!! I've been diddling around with his Fuji digital these past few months taking pictures of the girls and I find that I LOVE taking pictures. Setting up shots, worrying about lighting, making silly sounds to get my kids to smile... lurve the hell out of it.

Thing is, I have no idea what I'm doing.

But I've got a great camera to do it with!!!!

**I'm not actually allowed to open it until Christmas, and to give J even more credit, this is the first time in the ba-jillion years we've been together that I actually have a clue about what I will be opening Christmas day. I think he might be coming down with something.

 

So, what do we do on my first day of my lifestyle change? Why, go to the compound and bake cookies all freakin' day. I did well enough, but still over-carbed enough to wake up feeling like I'd been licking the dregs out of New Year's wine glasses. What up wi' dat?

The compound is my pet name for J's childhood home. It's not that far from our house (we're v fortunate to have both our parents within 7 miles of our home), so we're there often. Lots of fun usually, and yesterday was no exception. J is the 3rd of 4. His older idiot savant brother no longer lives in state, but his 2 sisters do. One is married to a v fun man (although, at the mo' I'm still a little peeved about them calling Bear fat. I plan to hold onto that for a while, but I'm not going to ruin holidays over it) and the other is committed to a v funny woman who I like a lot. If I were a lesbian (di del deedle diddel diddle deedle diddel dummmm) I'd totally ask her out .    When we get together it's usually lots of fun and it's seriously one of the reasons I agreed to marry J lo' those many years ago. Yesterday was no exception.

I am proud to say that we taught my daughters how to bet the horses yesterday. And then we took them both for their allowances.  It was a harsh lesson, but it was something they had to learn.  Plus we needed money for pizza. Then we made them drink water downed beer and inhale second hand smoke.

Kidding. About everything but the gambling.

But anyway, how do you surround yourself with a billion types of cookies and not over-indulge? How do you normal weighted type people do it? How do you stop when you've had enough?  I mean... brunch was easy, as I'm not overly fond of egg casseroles and there was nary a biscuit to be found, dinner was easy as they swarmed the pizza like locusts and there were only 2 pieces of veggie lovers left by the time I got there, but the cookies! My God! The cookies!!!

Any secrets and tips?

Okay, so I'm fat. Fat. Fatfatfat. Fat. Fat. No, not fluffy. Not zoftig. Not chubby. I'm a gross cow. Seriously. I don't care how cute my hair is it doesn't hide the fatty that is me.

Yes, I know, but CR, you just had a baby. You're expected to be a little heavier. Riiiight. My baby's 10 months old. I'm pretty sure my window of post-labor fattness has closed.

You know what made me fat besides an astounding lack of will power and self-love? Fast. Food. I LOVE IT. Really. I'd eat it every day (and, okay, I usually do). See, I was doing okay after I had Rosie. No one would mistake me for... Rosie O'Donnell (no, not the lesbian part of her) or Kirstie Alley pre-Jenny Craig, (Okay, so I'm not THAT fat), but I was holding my own. Nursing Rosie kicked something into gear and I got down to 165.

I'll repeat it. I got *down* to One Hundred Sixty-Five pounds. Yes, down. Shut up. I hadn't been that small since .... since waaaaaaaaaaay before I got married. It's been 12 years folks. So you know what I did with the fabulous new me? I gave myself permission to go to McKillers and load up on the cholesterol and calories. And now? Now I don't even know how much I weigh, but I went to get my license renewed (Guess who's having a birrrrrrrrrrthday!) and when Carrie K (who I went to high school with and J to grade school with)'s mom (who works for the DVM) asked me if I still had brown hair and blue eyes (yes and yes) and if I still  weighed 180 pounds (SHUT UP. Yes, GOSH, I KNOOOOOOOWWW, that's YOOOOOGE) and I answered, "yes?"? Well, I waited for her to laugh and say, "I'll just put down 195."

Thing is, I have no idea what I weigh. I'm gonna bet the farm and say it's not within the AMA's recommended guidelines. I don't want to stand on the scale. I don't want to know. I just want to do better (she says after ingesting a Tac0 Be!!  #1 combo with a Mt. Dew). The reason I want to do better?

My kids? Sure, them. But the reality? The other days my toes went numb. That scared me. I don't want diabetes and I damn sure don't want to lose my TOES. Yes, I want to be around to see my daughters have their daughters, but the real reason? I don't want to die.

Listening to: Kelly Osbourne's "shut up" -because I'm pretty sure it's what Bear is saying

I love my oldest daughter. I adore her essence. I can pick her scent out of a hundred other scents. I have memorized the exact color of her eyes and hair. I know how her hands feel in mine as compared to her sisters' hands. She opened my heart.

She loves to sing with the radio and to pretend that she's cool. She has just started getting into popular music and has adopted Green Day as her band. Did you know that she discovered them? They are hers. You may enjoy an occassional Green Day song, but she is the only TRUE FAN. At nine.

She will play with Rosie for hours at a time. Real get down on the floor, crawl with the baby, converse in that mystery baby language, come over here, chunkie and let's make pancakes with your kitchen set play. She loves to surprise her father and me with the occassional surprise cleaning of the kitchen or unloading of the dishwasher. She sends me funny emails and will rub my feet and pull my toes.  She will snuggle with me and watch cooking shows, and then look up the recipes on line so we can cook together.  When I am ill she will put her soft, cool hand on my forehead and whisper, "feel better, Mommy." She has of her own volition organized canned food drives for the survivors of various tragedies.  She carries change with her so that she can give to the bell ringers at the local stores. 

Why am I telling you this? The answer is pretty straight forward. I'm trying to remember why it is I don't SELL HER TO THE GYPSIES. This child, my first born, is DRIVING ME FUCKING NUTS. Did I mention that she whines? Oh, Lord, does she whine. At the first hint of "this isn't going my way" she pulls out the whine.  That turns into the abusive, harsh, "MOM! You're not listening to me!"

And guess what? I'm probably not. BECAUSE I DON'T WANT ANOTHER CHILD IN MY HOUSE, ESPECIALLY CORI BECAUSE ALL SHE DOES IS BREAK MY SHIT!  I don't care her reasons for trying to persuade me otherwise. I WANT TO WIN AND I WILL FIGHT TO DO SO.

Unless of course, I play the martyr and drop my head. "Fine," I sneer. "Do whatever you want. I'm tired of fighting with you."

I did that this morning as we argued about wearing capris during a winter weather advisory. Silly me, I thought perhaps jeans or any other pant that covered her calves and ankles would be a better choice.  Well, to be fair, she came downstairs this morning in yesterday's sweats. Flimsy sweats that had lost their shape... oh... five minutes after she'd put them on YESTERDAY. Sweats that had yesterday's dinner on them (don't even get me started about her slovenly ways that NOTHING I've done has changed). Sweats she had slept int. Sweats that more likely than not smelled like ... um... er... I'll just say it because it's true and if you can't be honest on your own blog then what's the point?????... STINKYGIRLPARTS. So I nixed those. "How about your jeans? Those are thic-" "MOM  (BITCH!)! I have gym today (idiot). Jeans aren't comfortable (burn in hell!!!!!!WAAAAAAHHH!!!DIE, COW, DIE!! Wahhh, wahhh, arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr pea soup!!!)! You know that, GOSH!" 

But she did disappear from the breakfast table and return minutes later wearing capris, so I did feel like some of what I was saying made sense to her, except, "Honey, there's a winter weather advisory out this morning and it's spitting snow and ice. I'm thinking that capris aren't the-" "MOM! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!! THEY CALL ME LEGION FOR I AM MANY!!! PEA SOUP!!! BILE OF HELLLLLLLL!!! YOU DON'T KNOW!! MY TOAST IS BURNED!!! AND Shelby wore capris yesterday and didn't get in trouble! MOM!"

So I pulled ye olde, "Well, Shelby's not my daughter" card. Which totally made all the difference, and before my eyes Bear blossomed into a genteel flower, "You're right, Mother. I shall change. Whatever was I thinking? Silly me. Capris? In mid-December?!" What? You don't believe me? *sigh* I'm such a bad liar. Truth be told, I'm not exactly clear on what she said, but it sounded A LOT like that scene in the Exorcism and I'm pretty sure her head spun.  To which, I replied, "FINE! Wear the damn capris. Freeze your ankles off. I. Don't. CARE. Swear to God, I am so tired of fighting with you about EVERYTHING. Well, take this to heart, missy!  This is the LAST TIME YOU'VE WON!!"

Riiiiiight.

So fast forward 45 seconds. Bus is honking, Rosie is eating something she found on the bottom of a shoe, Dee is running around looking for her "Festive Winter Hat" (a.k.a. Santa Hat), and Bear, my sweet, sweet Bear has stripped down to her panties, gotten her capris stuck on her tennis shoes, and is trying desperately to put her nasty, stinky, floppy sweats back on all while eating burnt toast.

Soooo.... did I win? I don't know. Was it worth it? I'm not sure. Have either of us learned a lesson? Probably not.

This mothering thing is CAKE!