It's true. I'm not just another pretty face. No, really. I'm not. I'm also an avid reader, a fabulous hostess, a mediocre cook, mildly interesting and marginally fashionable. I don't like to toot my own horn, but I fancy myself a pret-ty, sharp cookie. I've also become quite the "Handy Andy" in my old age. Becky Home-ecky, if you will. Why, I can fashion a toilet paper cozy out of some scrap yarn and an old barbie doll so fast, your head would spin.
I enjoy clipping wedding & engagement announcements out of the Sunday paper and then writing my own captions for them, and then delivering them to various friends' mailboxes. You know, just for kicks.
I dabble in making custom note cards for my peeps (my friends are like, 'mmmmmm, yeah....thanks for the set of personalized stationary. It's even better than the last 4 set you've made me....oh, I see, this one is much, much different. It has the comic sans font....how clever!') My newest creation is buying craft store, wooden letters and then decorating them with decorative paper. I'm fancy that way. Will I ever stop re-inventing myself? Will the madness ever end?
Hmm. I just realized something while typing this. I was just about to add my blog to my long list of talents when it hit me--- this is what I've been reduced to. Writing to complete strangers about my sad, sad existence. Really? Am I really that proud of my stationary and widdled wooden letters? Good God, am I pathetic.
When all my skirts get together, we're like a sewing circle. All you hear is white noise of conversation with a frequent howl of laughter. If I'm feeling particularly anti-social or quiet, I'll just listen to everyones' conversation and I'll wonder if we have anything else to talk about besides the elementary school's new play ground, recipes or regaling each other with darling little stories about our sons and daughters. Is this really what it has come down to? Ugh. I've become my mother. Never in a million years did I think that this is how I would pass my time. Valentine's Day party meetings....I mean, you bring cupcakes, candy hearts and valentines...voila! Oh no, not anymore....you have to have crafts and nutritious snacks and games and centers, my God, the centers.... don't you know?
I know this is why I chose to stay home with my babies. I just envisioned myself being different than those "other" mothers. I thought I'd be much more cool, but when it comes down to it, like every other mother, giving birth has robbed me of my former self. I used to have a somewhat extensive vocabulary. Not anymore, I have to grasp for synonyms and I struggle to express myself without swearing. I barely know how to hold a pen, for pity's sake! I will go to write out my grocery list and it's like my hands immediately go to sleep and I'm like a caveman who's completely unfamiliar with the workings of a writing utensil. I bang it on the table, grunting.
I feel utterly useless. So, I can potty train a child. So, I can teach a little boy how to ride a two wheeler...that's all well and good but can I contribute anything else to society? Well, that is, besides 2 self sufficient, highly functioning men. Well....at least ONE self sufficient, highly functioning man (our youngest is all slow in the head and whatnot). So, I guess if all of my sacrifices, challenges and tribulations can contribute to at least one of my children becoming upstanding members of society, than I guess it was worth it. I'll keep telling myself that!
This isn't exactly where I thought this blog was heading, but evidently I had some pent up emotions on the subject of my so-called life. At the beginning of my rant, I went from being a well read, creative & talented woman and ended my schpeel with my being a useless, ninny who likes to glue paper together. Neat! At the end of the day, we all turn out to be our mothers---it's inevitable. You can't fight city hall.
That reminds me, I'm going to go blog about really stupid expressions, like, you can't fight city hall....
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
The ticket muncher
Many, many happenings in my home these days. My 3 yr old is potty training and we've given our kitchen a face lift, of sorts. Oh, when will the fun end for my family and myself, I mean, WHEN? It just doesn't get any better than this. I've said it once, I'll say it again, I'm just living the dream. Living. The. Dream. I tell you...
Like any red blooded mother, I made a pee pee chart for my son. Every 5 stamps earns him a special treat. Like, dinner for example. His first 5 earned him a trip to Chuck E. Cheese, which is my personal hell on earth, but the kids enjoy it so. So, alas, he earned 5 stamps and off we went to pay the mouse.
Also, on this particular day, my husband and I were in disagreement as it pertained to our new backsplash. He wanted to do it himself. I wanted him to hire out. My husband doesn't "hire out" for anything. He's quite handy, you see. So, you can imagine the brick wall I was up against when I begged for the back splash of my choice and the total ended up being quite a bit higher than the quote. I knew I'd eventually get my way. We'd been getting along fabulously lately. And by gettting along, I mean, he'd been gettin' some (wink, wink). Sure, I'd have to do some fancy footwork to get that back splash, but I'd earn every square inch of it, oh boy!
So, we're wrapping things up at Chuck E. Cheese and we have a few tokens left. I say to him, "whaddya say we make this interesting. Winner of Skeet Ball makes the back splash decision". He tells me no. I rub his back and play attentive wife. A while later, he propositions me. I won't get into the proposition because it involved a darling skirt (now tainted) and some open toe heels that tie up at the ankle. Next thing I know, we're standing before our respective lanes and we're shaking hands. May the best spouse win, I tell him. I blew out my final breath. I (air) kissed the germ infested ball and we were off! Needless to say, I rock the Kaz ba. I won 20,000 to 18,000.
Of all the games & rides at CEC, the thing my kids love most is the ticket muncher. How many tickets will he eat this time? What on earth will I buy with all these tickets? Will I be able to choose from the first, second or third row? The possibilities are endless. While my babies were hemming and hawing over their precious prizes, Jason was wondering if we could pay for our new back splash with the kids tickets. Surely, behind the counter were the really good prizes...can't you just look in the back?? He's a good sport, God bless 'em.
Definitely the most expensive trip to Chuck E. Cheese he'll ever be on, but oh-so gratifying. 1, 2...6, I'm calling up the decorator lady and the back splash is being installed Monday.
Voila! And that, my friend, is how it's done.
Like any red blooded mother, I made a pee pee chart for my son. Every 5 stamps earns him a special treat. Like, dinner for example. His first 5 earned him a trip to Chuck E. Cheese, which is my personal hell on earth, but the kids enjoy it so. So, alas, he earned 5 stamps and off we went to pay the mouse.
Also, on this particular day, my husband and I were in disagreement as it pertained to our new backsplash. He wanted to do it himself. I wanted him to hire out. My husband doesn't "hire out" for anything. He's quite handy, you see. So, you can imagine the brick wall I was up against when I begged for the back splash of my choice and the total ended up being quite a bit higher than the quote. I knew I'd eventually get my way. We'd been getting along fabulously lately. And by gettting along, I mean, he'd been gettin' some (wink, wink). Sure, I'd have to do some fancy footwork to get that back splash, but I'd earn every square inch of it, oh boy!
So, we're wrapping things up at Chuck E. Cheese and we have a few tokens left. I say to him, "whaddya say we make this interesting. Winner of Skeet Ball makes the back splash decision". He tells me no. I rub his back and play attentive wife. A while later, he propositions me. I won't get into the proposition because it involved a darling skirt (now tainted) and some open toe heels that tie up at the ankle. Next thing I know, we're standing before our respective lanes and we're shaking hands. May the best spouse win, I tell him. I blew out my final breath. I (air) kissed the germ infested ball and we were off! Needless to say, I rock the Kaz ba. I won 20,000 to 18,000.
Of all the games & rides at CEC, the thing my kids love most is the ticket muncher. How many tickets will he eat this time? What on earth will I buy with all these tickets? Will I be able to choose from the first, second or third row? The possibilities are endless. While my babies were hemming and hawing over their precious prizes, Jason was wondering if we could pay for our new back splash with the kids tickets. Surely, behind the counter were the really good prizes...can't you just look in the back?? He's a good sport, God bless 'em.
Definitely the most expensive trip to Chuck E. Cheese he'll ever be on, but oh-so gratifying. 1, 2...6, I'm calling up the decorator lady and the back splash is being installed Monday.
Voila! And that, my friend, is how it's done.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
God, Lindsey, I thought I killed her!
My husband Jason and I had been planning our upcoming trip to Colorado forEVER! His best friend was finally tying the knot. This was the most anticipated wedding, since Luke and Laura's. I literally planned potential pregnancies around this wedding. With the exception of over-nighters here and there, we hadn't been away on vacation together in almost 7 years. We were due.
I'd been counting the days 'til we left. I took all the necessary precautions, ie. new dress, babysitter, dog sitter, rental car, fake tan, etc. etc. So, to say we were anxious for this trip to happen was an extreme understatement.
The "day of" came and we giddily (is that a word?) said good bye to our kids and sped down the driveway, leaving skid marks. We chatted (uninterrupted) and laughed (with each other not at each other) the whole way to the airport.
MISTAKE #1: We stopped at Four Winds Casino on our way to Chicago because...well, why wouldn't we? So, we leisurely had lunch, confidently played a few hands of black jack (lost) and we were on our merry way.
After driving for what seemed a bit longer than expected, my husband announces that we should have been at the airport by now. He's starting to panic because we only have about an hour buffer at this point and we're not even near the airport. Mind you, he JUST made this exact trip (same airline, same flight, same airport) 3 months ago for the bachelor party. So, we're driving and driving and he's freaking out. I call a few friends who know their way around the windy city fairly well and they assure us that we're absolutely heading in the right direction to O'Hare. Jason politely thanks them and then mutters that they don't know what they're talking about because he insists that we weren't going the right way.
MISTAKE #2: He sneaks his blackberry out of his briefcase and very surrepticiously begins to type in our flight information. I ask him, 'what are the chances that we fly out of Midway and not O'Hare'? He says '1%'. Then, what he fears the most is upon him and he whips his phone across the car. "&^%$!#$....WE FRIGGIN' FLY OUT OF MIDWAY". Yeah. Midway was about an hour and 20 minutes ago. We now have about 30 minutes to make our flight. Nevermind parking and checking our bags and such. He asks what we should do and I tell him to pull over and find an attorney because I'm leaving him.
We drive through Chicago's mid-day traffic (in a stick shift) for about an hour and half and I say nothing the entire time. I'm fuming. We finally get to Midway and we obviously miss our flight, but the ticket person assures us we'll get on stand by because there's 30 available seats and we're number 6 in line. So, once I realize that I have 3 hours to myself (which never happens) I exhale and decide to forgive my husband. I immediately walked into the nearest bookstore and began piling up books into his arms. He suggested that perhaps I don't have to buy all of these hardbacks, but wait and then check them out from the library. I glare at him and he lovingly walks up to the register with books in tow. Pretty much the same scene goes down at the jewlery store and when I've decided that I've gotten enough mileage out of his huge snafu, I sit down with my new books and begin to read.
It's about an hour before we're supposed to board for our stand by flight and I'm basically sitting on the ticket counter waiting for the ticket person to show up. When she finally does, I'm all but crawling over the front of the counter to get her to notice me, but she just keeps typing away pretending she doesn't see me. I'm absolutely certain that she was typing "I don't see you, I don't see you" over and over. I jingled my keys, I sighed loudly....nothing (you could hear crickets). Then she walks away. Finally comes back and I pop up from under the counter, "HELLO....Hi, can you help me"?? Her: (sigh...eye roll, glare) I shove my ticket in her face and she tells me that she couldn't possibly tell me if I've gotten on the stand by flight or not, it's far too early to tell. I look around, there's basically 12 people sitting there. So, she proceeds to call up the people who need assistance, then the people from the back of the plane and forward, then she calls up the stand by people one by one. She was like, "Ummm, ok, anyone..... anyone at all who aren't these two annoying people standing in front of me looking like toddlers who are about to pee their pants can board the aircraft. Finally, she sighs, nods her head and allows us onto her precious airplane.
Jason and I fought the whole way onto the plane about who will sit in the middle. I hate the middle, but I always give it to him because he's 6'2" and I don't want to hear him kvetch about it the whole way to Denver. I shove in next to what seems to be a very normal man. He was anything but. First of all, he mumbled to himself from the moment I sat down until we landed in Colorado, which ironically ended up being 3 times longer than it needed to be---but I'll get to that momentarily. He had this non-sensical, unaudible way of speaking which at first concerned me, but then really grated on my nerves. He had a comment for every single thing that was said within his earshot. Very annoying.
We're 8th in line for take off. We're 2nd in line for take off. We've sat idle for about 30 minutes when the pilot announces that the airport has temporarily closed down due to a thunderstorm. Oh....and they don't serve booze while still on the ground. The plane erupts into panic. And there we sit, for the next. 4. hours. I was getting dangerously close to losing it.
The guy. You know, the one next to me? Well, he has a ritual of sorts, see? It goes like this: Toiletry bag out. Place on lap. Unzip. Take out--in the following order--asthma inhaler, skittles, plain M&M's, chapstick. Use each one. Zip. Put away toiletry bag. Dig in pocket for 5 minutes (which is very pleasant for the person sitting next to you--which would be me). Finally retrieve wallet. Count 1's and 5's. Count credit cards. Put wallet back. Adjust ear phones. Get out phone. Scroll thru his peeps. Sit still for 2 seconds and..........then it starts. all. over. again. I was clawing Jason's thigh like a wildebeast. I was going mental. He wouldn't sit still. It was like sitting with my 3 year old, except my 3 year old is handsome...and funny. This guy was fat....and very un-funny. Plus, he kept breathing through his nose onto my hands and it was sending me to the moon. At one point I actually text messaged Jason the entire ritual and while Jason was reading it, the guy was doing exactly what I had written at that very time. Jason thought I was a magician of sorts, bless his heart. Oh, and another thing about this guy that I think is note worthy is that I find him to be a bit of a liar. He would scroll through his phone, dial and then say to the person on the other line, "Oooooh, you answered???? I was playing with my phone and it accidently dialed your number. I didn't want to be rude and just hang up. Me, oh, I'm alright, I guess. (Sigh) Except, I'm sitting on this plane in Chicago......" He did this to THREE different people. I couldn't believe it. Lying like that, in front of me, when I had already formed my awful opinion of him. I soooo badly wanted to grab the phone from him and "out" him. "he's lying...he's LYING--he didn't accidently dial your number--it was very deliberate--he's a liaaaar"!!!!
So, we finally land in Denver. It's 12:30 A.M. there (2:30 A.M. our time). We still have to get our bags, our rental car and get to our rented house, where 15 of our closest friends have been staying for several days prior to us getting there. Surely, there won't be anyone else at Hertz, after all, it is 12:30 in the A.M. Yep. Jason is 27th in line and there's one person working. A slow person at that.
I'll use this time to go into my description of the people with whom we're about to spend our weekend. The Rossi family. Ahh, the Rossi's. The Rossi's 3rd child, Chris, is Jason's best friend in the whole entire world. We named our oldest son's middle name "Ross" after these people. Since Jason grew up with Chris, he's long since become an honorary member of their family. And because I'm so charming and witty, they've taken me on as an adopted daughter as well. Between you and me and the rest of the world, I feel closer to these people than I do my own family. I love spending holidays with them. Not the boring ones, like Easter and Christmas, but the really fun ones, like Memorial Day and 4th of July...and Saturdays. So, you get it, we're very close and so forth. Mr. & Mrs. Rossi (Joe & Irene), their 4 kids +spouses (who are mostly our age-ish) Joe & Irene's best friends the Dushane's (Ron & Linda) plus Jason and I all in a 10,000 square foot palatial mansion. This house is on the market for 2 mil and we all got to stay there. We're fancy that way. Now, the Rossi's and the Dushanes are drinkers. Their kids grew up together, there's a lot of history there and they're a riot to watch when they've had a few. Irene with her bloody mary's....Joe with his manhattans....there's no telling where the fun will end. Here's a whimsical little side story to depict the Rossi's.
I'm about 12 hours pregnant and attending a friend's wedding. Jason and I are seated with the Rossi's. Joe asks me what I want to drink, I tell him a long island. He whistles for the waitress and calls her "toots" and tells "toots" to get me a long island. His wife, Irene, screeches, "Jooooeeee, for God's sake, she's pregnant"!!!!!!! J0e looks at her as if to say "....and..???" So he says, "Irene, you drank with all 4 of our kids and they turned out fine". Irene comes back with, "Nooo, not Nick, I did NOT drink or smoke with Nick". Joe replies without hesitation, "Yeah, and he's our dumbest one. Toots, bring this young lady a long island, pronto"!!!! Me loves the Rossi's. And yet another story:
We're all sitting around the Rossi's patio (very typical) and Chris is a newbie attorney and he's telling us about some case where they had to use a NIT kit on someone. That's code-ski for Narcotics Indicator Test. Mrs. Rossi walks into the conversation and says, "what...what...a Nick test.....so, Nick smokes it and reports if it's good pot or not..."????? We laughed for hours about that one. Poor Nick. He's the baby of the family and they all called him Kato Kalin for a while because he'd be known to get drunk and pass out in the pool house on occasion.
But I digress. Back to our trip. So, fast forward a few more hours and we're finally at our destination. Our amazingly, beautiful rented castle which is currently housing some of my most favorite people, who all suck because they've fallen asleep awaiting our arrival. We pull up to the house and there's one lone light on in the kitchen. Out walks Irene (Mrs. Rossi) in all her glory. She's in her 60's, it's well after 2 AM and she's still clutching her glass of wine, God bless her. She greets me at the door with a beer and an Atavan. God, I love these people. Irene knows I love my pills. After we've beat up Jason a little for all of our traveling debacles, we retreat to our fancy schmancy guest room (one of 6) to pass out for the night. Of course, I think my 2nd wind has kicked in and I fight the sleepies. One beer and one Atavan later and I'm all, "I'm not even tir--...zzzzzzzzzz"
The next morning, Jason has an 8AM tee time and he leaves me two $100 bills on the end table. He tells me to have a nice day and gestures to the cash. I tell him that I feel like a whore. He tells me that I must not be a very good one for only $200. I laugh and fall back asleep.
Hours later there's a knock at my door. Mrs. Rossi is standing there with a very nervous look on her face. As it turned out, she just wanted to make sure I was still breathing. I've gotten the rest of the story from Linda Dushane, but this is how it was reported to me.
Evidently Irene has a habit of covering her mouth with her hands to relay a secret, especially if it's a secret that she thinks she'll get into trouble for. So she wearily walks up the stairs and finds Linda sitting on a barstool at the island. She sits next to Linda and leans into her. Linda says, "what the hell has gotten into you, Irene"? Irene places her two hands together like she's praying and then pinches her lips with her index fingers and looks around the kitchen, all shifty-like. "God Lindsey, I thought I killed her"! Anyone who knows me it takes much, much more than a beer and an Atavan to kill this old bird. I've racked up quite a tolerance to the pharmaceuticals.
...for the record the rest of the weekend was a hoot. No further drama to report. Oh, except when I was visiting a friend in Denver, who did we see on the streets of Cherry Creek while window shopping? None other than my seat mate on the infamous flight from Chicago. Just to prove it to Jason, we did take a picture of him leaning into a car window, probably annoying someone, or lying to them. I'll have to work on getting that picture.
I'd been counting the days 'til we left. I took all the necessary precautions, ie. new dress, babysitter, dog sitter, rental car, fake tan, etc. etc. So, to say we were anxious for this trip to happen was an extreme understatement.
The "day of" came and we giddily (is that a word?) said good bye to our kids and sped down the driveway, leaving skid marks. We chatted (uninterrupted) and laughed (with each other not at each other) the whole way to the airport.
MISTAKE #1: We stopped at Four Winds Casino on our way to Chicago because...well, why wouldn't we? So, we leisurely had lunch, confidently played a few hands of black jack (lost) and we were on our merry way.
After driving for what seemed a bit longer than expected, my husband announces that we should have been at the airport by now. He's starting to panic because we only have about an hour buffer at this point and we're not even near the airport. Mind you, he JUST made this exact trip (same airline, same flight, same airport) 3 months ago for the bachelor party. So, we're driving and driving and he's freaking out. I call a few friends who know their way around the windy city fairly well and they assure us that we're absolutely heading in the right direction to O'Hare. Jason politely thanks them and then mutters that they don't know what they're talking about because he insists that we weren't going the right way.
MISTAKE #2: He sneaks his blackberry out of his briefcase and very surrepticiously begins to type in our flight information. I ask him, 'what are the chances that we fly out of Midway and not O'Hare'? He says '1%'. Then, what he fears the most is upon him and he whips his phone across the car. "&^%$!#$....WE FRIGGIN' FLY OUT OF MIDWAY". Yeah. Midway was about an hour and 20 minutes ago. We now have about 30 minutes to make our flight. Nevermind parking and checking our bags and such. He asks what we should do and I tell him to pull over and find an attorney because I'm leaving him.
We drive through Chicago's mid-day traffic (in a stick shift) for about an hour and half and I say nothing the entire time. I'm fuming. We finally get to Midway and we obviously miss our flight, but the ticket person assures us we'll get on stand by because there's 30 available seats and we're number 6 in line. So, once I realize that I have 3 hours to myself (which never happens) I exhale and decide to forgive my husband. I immediately walked into the nearest bookstore and began piling up books into his arms. He suggested that perhaps I don't have to buy all of these hardbacks, but wait and then check them out from the library. I glare at him and he lovingly walks up to the register with books in tow. Pretty much the same scene goes down at the jewlery store and when I've decided that I've gotten enough mileage out of his huge snafu, I sit down with my new books and begin to read.
It's about an hour before we're supposed to board for our stand by flight and I'm basically sitting on the ticket counter waiting for the ticket person to show up. When she finally does, I'm all but crawling over the front of the counter to get her to notice me, but she just keeps typing away pretending she doesn't see me. I'm absolutely certain that she was typing "I don't see you, I don't see you" over and over. I jingled my keys, I sighed loudly....nothing (you could hear crickets). Then she walks away. Finally comes back and I pop up from under the counter, "HELLO....Hi, can you help me"?? Her: (sigh...eye roll, glare) I shove my ticket in her face and she tells me that she couldn't possibly tell me if I've gotten on the stand by flight or not, it's far too early to tell. I look around, there's basically 12 people sitting there. So, she proceeds to call up the people who need assistance, then the people from the back of the plane and forward, then she calls up the stand by people one by one. She was like, "Ummm, ok, anyone..... anyone at all who aren't these two annoying people standing in front of me looking like toddlers who are about to pee their pants can board the aircraft. Finally, she sighs, nods her head and allows us onto her precious airplane.
Jason and I fought the whole way onto the plane about who will sit in the middle. I hate the middle, but I always give it to him because he's 6'2" and I don't want to hear him kvetch about it the whole way to Denver. I shove in next to what seems to be a very normal man. He was anything but. First of all, he mumbled to himself from the moment I sat down until we landed in Colorado, which ironically ended up being 3 times longer than it needed to be---but I'll get to that momentarily. He had this non-sensical, unaudible way of speaking which at first concerned me, but then really grated on my nerves. He had a comment for every single thing that was said within his earshot. Very annoying.
We're 8th in line for take off. We're 2nd in line for take off. We've sat idle for about 30 minutes when the pilot announces that the airport has temporarily closed down due to a thunderstorm. Oh....and they don't serve booze while still on the ground. The plane erupts into panic. And there we sit, for the next. 4. hours. I was getting dangerously close to losing it.
The guy. You know, the one next to me? Well, he has a ritual of sorts, see? It goes like this: Toiletry bag out. Place on lap. Unzip. Take out--in the following order--asthma inhaler, skittles, plain M&M's, chapstick. Use each one. Zip. Put away toiletry bag. Dig in pocket for 5 minutes (which is very pleasant for the person sitting next to you--which would be me). Finally retrieve wallet. Count 1's and 5's. Count credit cards. Put wallet back. Adjust ear phones. Get out phone. Scroll thru his peeps. Sit still for 2 seconds and..........then it starts. all. over. again. I was clawing Jason's thigh like a wildebeast. I was going mental. He wouldn't sit still. It was like sitting with my 3 year old, except my 3 year old is handsome...and funny. This guy was fat....and very un-funny. Plus, he kept breathing through his nose onto my hands and it was sending me to the moon. At one point I actually text messaged Jason the entire ritual and while Jason was reading it, the guy was doing exactly what I had written at that very time. Jason thought I was a magician of sorts, bless his heart. Oh, and another thing about this guy that I think is note worthy is that I find him to be a bit of a liar. He would scroll through his phone, dial and then say to the person on the other line, "Oooooh, you answered???? I was playing with my phone and it accidently dialed your number. I didn't want to be rude and just hang up. Me, oh, I'm alright, I guess. (Sigh) Except, I'm sitting on this plane in Chicago......" He did this to THREE different people. I couldn't believe it. Lying like that, in front of me, when I had already formed my awful opinion of him. I soooo badly wanted to grab the phone from him and "out" him. "he's lying...he's LYING--he didn't accidently dial your number--it was very deliberate--he's a liaaaar"!!!!
So, we finally land in Denver. It's 12:30 A.M. there (2:30 A.M. our time). We still have to get our bags, our rental car and get to our rented house, where 15 of our closest friends have been staying for several days prior to us getting there. Surely, there won't be anyone else at Hertz, after all, it is 12:30 in the A.M. Yep. Jason is 27th in line and there's one person working. A slow person at that.
I'll use this time to go into my description of the people with whom we're about to spend our weekend. The Rossi family. Ahh, the Rossi's. The Rossi's 3rd child, Chris, is Jason's best friend in the whole entire world. We named our oldest son's middle name "Ross" after these people. Since Jason grew up with Chris, he's long since become an honorary member of their family. And because I'm so charming and witty, they've taken me on as an adopted daughter as well. Between you and me and the rest of the world, I feel closer to these people than I do my own family. I love spending holidays with them. Not the boring ones, like Easter and Christmas, but the really fun ones, like Memorial Day and 4th of July...and Saturdays. So, you get it, we're very close and so forth. Mr. & Mrs. Rossi (Joe & Irene), their 4 kids +spouses (who are mostly our age-ish) Joe & Irene's best friends the Dushane's (Ron & Linda) plus Jason and I all in a 10,000 square foot palatial mansion. This house is on the market for 2 mil and we all got to stay there. We're fancy that way. Now, the Rossi's and the Dushanes are drinkers. Their kids grew up together, there's a lot of history there and they're a riot to watch when they've had a few. Irene with her bloody mary's....Joe with his manhattans....there's no telling where the fun will end. Here's a whimsical little side story to depict the Rossi's.
I'm about 12 hours pregnant and attending a friend's wedding. Jason and I are seated with the Rossi's. Joe asks me what I want to drink, I tell him a long island. He whistles for the waitress and calls her "toots" and tells "toots" to get me a long island. His wife, Irene, screeches, "Jooooeeee, for God's sake, she's pregnant"!!!!!!! J0e looks at her as if to say "....and..???" So he says, "Irene, you drank with all 4 of our kids and they turned out fine". Irene comes back with, "Nooo, not Nick, I did NOT drink or smoke with Nick". Joe replies without hesitation, "Yeah, and he's our dumbest one. Toots, bring this young lady a long island, pronto"!!!! Me loves the Rossi's. And yet another story:
We're all sitting around the Rossi's patio (very typical) and Chris is a newbie attorney and he's telling us about some case where they had to use a NIT kit on someone. That's code-ski for Narcotics Indicator Test. Mrs. Rossi walks into the conversation and says, "what...what...a Nick test.....so, Nick smokes it and reports if it's good pot or not..."????? We laughed for hours about that one. Poor Nick. He's the baby of the family and they all called him Kato Kalin for a while because he'd be known to get drunk and pass out in the pool house on occasion.
But I digress. Back to our trip. So, fast forward a few more hours and we're finally at our destination. Our amazingly, beautiful rented castle which is currently housing some of my most favorite people, who all suck because they've fallen asleep awaiting our arrival. We pull up to the house and there's one lone light on in the kitchen. Out walks Irene (Mrs. Rossi) in all her glory. She's in her 60's, it's well after 2 AM and she's still clutching her glass of wine, God bless her. She greets me at the door with a beer and an Atavan. God, I love these people. Irene knows I love my pills. After we've beat up Jason a little for all of our traveling debacles, we retreat to our fancy schmancy guest room (one of 6) to pass out for the night. Of course, I think my 2nd wind has kicked in and I fight the sleepies. One beer and one Atavan later and I'm all, "I'm not even tir--...zzzzzzzzzz"
The next morning, Jason has an 8AM tee time and he leaves me two $100 bills on the end table. He tells me to have a nice day and gestures to the cash. I tell him that I feel like a whore. He tells me that I must not be a very good one for only $200. I laugh and fall back asleep.
Hours later there's a knock at my door. Mrs. Rossi is standing there with a very nervous look on her face. As it turned out, she just wanted to make sure I was still breathing. I've gotten the rest of the story from Linda Dushane, but this is how it was reported to me.
Evidently Irene has a habit of covering her mouth with her hands to relay a secret, especially if it's a secret that she thinks she'll get into trouble for. So she wearily walks up the stairs and finds Linda sitting on a barstool at the island. She sits next to Linda and leans into her. Linda says, "what the hell has gotten into you, Irene"? Irene places her two hands together like she's praying and then pinches her lips with her index fingers and looks around the kitchen, all shifty-like. "God Lindsey, I thought I killed her"! Anyone who knows me it takes much, much more than a beer and an Atavan to kill this old bird. I've racked up quite a tolerance to the pharmaceuticals.
...for the record the rest of the weekend was a hoot. No further drama to report. Oh, except when I was visiting a friend in Denver, who did we see on the streets of Cherry Creek while window shopping? None other than my seat mate on the infamous flight from Chicago. Just to prove it to Jason, we did take a picture of him leaning into a car window, probably annoying someone, or lying to them. I'll have to work on getting that picture.
mcGruff the crime fighting dog
My family and I moved to Pleasantville U.S.A about 4 years ago. And it is pleasantville in every sense of the word. Neighbors look out for one another. Multi-family bbq's take place at least weekly. Children wander fearlessly through each other's yards. Joggers & bikers always wave or stop to say hello, whether you know them or not. Colonial-era carolers visit our home to sing inspirational hymns a capella. OK, that's going a bit too far, but you understand.
We had our dearest friends in town for a visit recently. They're from the East side of the state and although they live in a posh neighborhood, it still seems light years away from me....what with the city lights, locked doors and Starbucks on every corner. They think we live in the middle of nowhere---Butt F*ck Nowhere to be exact. I'll admit, it's a bit small town and yes, I'll even go as far to admit that a few weeks after we moved here, I was scanning radio stations and darned if I didn't hear "Baby Got Bible" on a Christian radio channel. As in, "Oh My Gosh, Becky, look at her bible...it's so big, she must think she's one of those preachers daughter's or something....". I almost put our house up for sale that night. Kids, pack it up, we're outta here. But, after a while this darn place grew on me and we've grown accustom to our small town ways.
That being said, we excitedly welcomed our out-of-town guest with open arms and looked greatly forward to an evening of fun. Fun, indeed. Once we convinced our dear friends that we do, in fact, house electricity and running water, the beers began to flow and laughter ensued. At approximately midnight a threesome of hoodlums came barreling through our backyard, followed by a man yelling, "did you see those kids, they broke into my garage"?!?! Well, that's all the ammunition our husbands needed to play cops and robbers. Off they go, leaving my girlfriend and I to sit roll our eyes at the situation. After about 20 minutes they still hadn't come back yet, so we went around front to investigate. Her husband was huffing and puffing up the driveway and demanded that I call the police. "POLICE"?, I say to him..."Really---is that necessary"? He gets all mad and so forth and tells me that my husband has the hoodlums 'in custody' and I need to call the police immediately. So, I'm in no condition to be speaking to the authorities, but I do as I'm told. Here's how the conversation went down:
Dispatcher: 911, where is your emergency
Me: Well. See, there is no emergency per se, but some kids just ran through our yard and another neighbor claims they broke into his garage.
Dispatcher: Where is that other neighbor now?
Me: Not a clue, musta gone home.
Dispatcher: Where are the boys?
Me: Oh, my husband has them contained.
Dispatcher: CONTAINED???? WHERE??
Me: Over there (I point over there)
Dispatcher: Ma'am, I can't see you through the phone
Me: oh, right...ummm 2 doors down from me....in the yard.
Dispatcher: Ma'am describe your husband please.
Me: OK, he's 6'1", about 230, maybe less due to his recent weight loss, he's Hispanic and is wearing a grubby red shirt.
Me: Oh, wait, I know where you're going with this. He's not holding the kids in a violent way, he's just making sure they don't run. Scaring them, if you will.
Dispatcher: Uh huh.
Me: Seriously.
I'm imagining that my choice of words will most likely land my husband in jail for the night. I imagine our conjugal visits.
Finally she tells me she'll send a car. At this point my girlfriend is doubled over in my front yard, dying laughing. We're crying, when all of a sudden 2 Sheriff cars come whizzing up my driveway. I put down my brewski and walk up the car. One cop stops me and tells me to wait right there. (Like I'm the perp or something) FYI, perp is code-ski for perpetrator. We explain the story again when my friend's husband comes huffing and puffing up the road again and he takes over and explains the situation to the police. At this point, I grow bored with the whole situation and walk back to the deck to enjoy more beers. The guys finally join us and things die down. As it turns out, the 'two youts' weren't stealing out of garages, but ding dong ditching. I called the police on 3 boys who were ding dong ditching. Do you have any idea what that does to my karma? I have 2 boys of my own. Not to mention the fact that I did much, much, much worse than that at their age.
As we all sat there and pondered our own troubled pasts our guest says to us, "nice friggin' place you guys live in....what is this the ghetto"????
We had our dearest friends in town for a visit recently. They're from the East side of the state and although they live in a posh neighborhood, it still seems light years away from me....what with the city lights, locked doors and Starbucks on every corner. They think we live in the middle of nowhere---Butt F*ck Nowhere to be exact. I'll admit, it's a bit small town and yes, I'll even go as far to admit that a few weeks after we moved here, I was scanning radio stations and darned if I didn't hear "Baby Got Bible" on a Christian radio channel. As in, "Oh My Gosh, Becky, look at her bible...it's so big, she must think she's one of those preachers daughter's or something....". I almost put our house up for sale that night. Kids, pack it up, we're outta here. But, after a while this darn place grew on me and we've grown accustom to our small town ways.
That being said, we excitedly welcomed our out-of-town guest with open arms and looked greatly forward to an evening of fun. Fun, indeed. Once we convinced our dear friends that we do, in fact, house electricity and running water, the beers began to flow and laughter ensued. At approximately midnight a threesome of hoodlums came barreling through our backyard, followed by a man yelling, "did you see those kids, they broke into my garage"?!?! Well, that's all the ammunition our husbands needed to play cops and robbers. Off they go, leaving my girlfriend and I to sit roll our eyes at the situation. After about 20 minutes they still hadn't come back yet, so we went around front to investigate. Her husband was huffing and puffing up the driveway and demanded that I call the police. "POLICE"?, I say to him..."Really---is that necessary"? He gets all mad and so forth and tells me that my husband has the hoodlums 'in custody' and I need to call the police immediately. So, I'm in no condition to be speaking to the authorities, but I do as I'm told. Here's how the conversation went down:
Dispatcher: 911, where is your emergency
Me: Well. See, there is no emergency per se, but some kids just ran through our yard and another neighbor claims they broke into his garage.
Dispatcher: Where is that other neighbor now?
Me: Not a clue, musta gone home.
Dispatcher: Where are the boys?
Me: Oh, my husband has them contained.
Dispatcher: CONTAINED???? WHERE??
Me: Over there (I point over there)
Dispatcher: Ma'am, I can't see you through the phone
Me: oh, right...ummm 2 doors down from me....in the yard.
Dispatcher: Ma'am describe your husband please.
Me: OK, he's 6'1", about 230, maybe less due to his recent weight loss, he's Hispanic and is wearing a grubby red shirt.
Me: Oh, wait, I know where you're going with this. He's not holding the kids in a violent way, he's just making sure they don't run. Scaring them, if you will.
Dispatcher: Uh huh.
Me: Seriously.
I'm imagining that my choice of words will most likely land my husband in jail for the night. I imagine our conjugal visits.
Finally she tells me she'll send a car. At this point my girlfriend is doubled over in my front yard, dying laughing. We're crying, when all of a sudden 2 Sheriff cars come whizzing up my driveway. I put down my brewski and walk up the car. One cop stops me and tells me to wait right there. (Like I'm the perp or something) FYI, perp is code-ski for perpetrator. We explain the story again when my friend's husband comes huffing and puffing up the road again and he takes over and explains the situation to the police. At this point, I grow bored with the whole situation and walk back to the deck to enjoy more beers. The guys finally join us and things die down. As it turns out, the 'two youts' weren't stealing out of garages, but ding dong ditching. I called the police on 3 boys who were ding dong ditching. Do you have any idea what that does to my karma? I have 2 boys of my own. Not to mention the fact that I did much, much, much worse than that at their age.
As we all sat there and pondered our own troubled pasts our guest says to us, "nice friggin' place you guys live in....what is this the ghetto"????
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