Sarah has to stand in line again...and nothing good comes of it.

Good afternoon!

Those of you who follow me on Face Book know that Peaches has mono, and that I've been pretty sick myself with a rotten one-two punch of a death cold and a massive sore throat.  

Well, Friday being a day out of the office for me, I planned to do quite a bit of writing.  But, since Peaches needed a prescription for a narcotic, plans changed.  Instead of calling the script in to the pharmacy, because it was for a narcotic, I had to first stop at the doctor's office and pick up the script from the doctor, after showing the nurse my ID.  I've been taking the kids to the same doctor for more than 20 years.  He's seen me at my best and worst...and my worst was pretty much yesterday.  I'd been up most of the night, nursing Peaches and my cough, which is determined to stay with me forever.  I was exhausted and I looked it.  No matter, I drove to the doctor's office, chatted with the nurse while waiting for the doc to give me the script.  Then, off to the pharmacy.


If you read this blog you know that I go to the Sam's club pharmacy.  I don't particularly like it, but it's on my way to work and they are usually pretty quick about filling scripts.  What's not quick, however, is the line to get the scripts.

Yesterday was no different.  I got there and handed the woman the script.  She said it would be twenty minutes.  I spent the time picking out seven grocery items.  Then I took the cart back to the pharmacy.  At the register was an old couple who, of course, were getting multiple scripts filled and apparently needed detailed instructions on how to take every single one of them.  Normally my reaction would be one of rage, but I was there during old people hours, so it was my own fault I had to wait.  I calmed myself.

There was a gent with a cart,  much like mine with a few items in it, and he seemed to be waiting.  I asked him if he was in line.  He said yes.  Good.  Now the line formed behind me.

At least, that's what I thought.

While waiting for old couple to complete their drug instruction, I noticed a guy wandering around.  He was really, really creepy looking, like some kind of TV rapist.  I could almost see his white panel van with no windows parked in the lot.  He had no cart, he was just sort of wandering around those of us in line.  Yes, he very clearly saw me lined up behind the other guy with a cart.

Old people were finally finishing up and Cart Guy was called up.  As he was getting his scripts and laying his 4 items out on the counter, I noticed that Creepy Guy had parked himself in front of me and directly in front of the pharmacy window.

Now, at this point I'd been waiting in line for at least fifteen minutes.  I'd been in the store for almost an hour and at home I had a child in tremendous pain.  I was not about to let Creepy Panel Van Rapist Guy butt in front of me.  No way.

Face it Creepy Guy, I'm older than you and I've
got way better reasons to pick up this
prescription.

So, as Old Couple and Cart Guy moved slowly away from the window, I made my move.  And, much like my hero, Kathy Bates in "Fried Green Tomatoes" I moved my cart in front of Creepy Guy. 

Now, that should have been the end of it, right?  I was in line before him, I got to the counter before him.  That is the end of the story, right?

If it were, I wouldn't be blogging.

Oh no, counter chick acted like Creepy Guy was ahead of me and I was the one butting.  She looked over my shoulder and said "good Morning" to him!  I looked at her, four feet from me, and I said, "GOOD MORNING!"  She then looked at me, and said, "What do you want?"

I'm not even kidding.  Suddenly, I was the one in the wrong.  Because I didn't let Creepy Guy butt a head of me.  Oh no, now I'm getting attitude from the Sam's Club Pharmacy cashier?  Oh honey, this is not a battle you're going to win.

"I am picking up prescriptions for Peaches and for Skippy."  (Oh yeah, Skippy also had two scripts I needed to get.)

She heaves a heavy sigh and turns around to the rack and picks up a bag.  "I have one bag here, but it has three bottles in it.  One for Peaches and two for Skippy."

"That sounds right."

"Do you have anything else you need to pick up?"  This said with all the weary impatience of a First Grade Teacher reprimanding a naughty child.


"No, that's about it."

"Are you sure?"  And add a side of major sarcasm.

"Yes.  I had three prescriptions, you're holding three bottles of pills.  I think we're good here."

She looked at my cart.  Remember, the guy in front of me had four items and she checked him through with no problem.  I had seven items, and I know they've checked me out with several more than that.  "I suppose you want to pay for those, too."

No, you bitchy hag, I'd like to walk out of here with free stuff.  

"I suppose you could pay for them here.  But you could pay for them up front, too."

At this point, she's keeping her eyes away from me and firmly on Creepy Guy.  Okay, fine. Clearly I'm going to be the bad guy in this scenario.  And the romance writer in me imagines all kinds of scenes involving her and Creepy Guy in the frozen foods section.  "No, I suppose if it's easier for you I can go check out up front." I try to muster my very best bitchy voice.  You know, to match hers.

"Yes, that would be best. Just take this up to the front and they will scan it."

Yes, woman, I'm very aware of how the process works.

I take the meds and make my way to the front where I'm forced to wait in line behind, you guessed it, masses of old people who apparently have never been to Sam's Club and all of them have 90 items in their cart, and none of them have valid club cards.  As I'm stuck in line waiting hell, I watch Creepy Guy stalk his way out of the building.

Next time, I'm sending Hubby to the pharmacy.

No Sympathy for Sarah...and a big old BOOO!

Good evening.

So two weeks ago I told you about my rather randy afternoon with my 98 pound physical therapist.

Today was round two.

Only today I was armed.  Last night I did a lot of soul searching while tennising with Hubby.  (On the court next to us, a father and his 8 year old daughter.  Number of times the 3rd grader hit the ball into our court: 0  Number of times I hit the ball into their court: 9) 

Since my car accident I've been spending lunch hours, and hours after work at doctor's offices.  I've been poked, prodded, stretched, x-rayed, MRIed, and medicated.  (more on that in a minute.)  I come home and pretty much go to sleep.  I'm in pretty constant pain from either the injury or from the treatment.

And let's talk about the pain killers.  The first one they put me on made my legs swell so bad I couldn't walk.  Not a little water weight...I COULD NOT WALK because I the bottoms of my feet were rounded and my feet and my shins met in a fleshy, watery, balloon way.  Think of one of those Right Angles from Geometry class....now fill that with over full water balloons.

The second one gave me heartburn in the middle of the night so awful I'd wake up gagging and vomiting.

The final one...well let's just say that Jamie Lee Curtis would probably just hook me up to an Activia IV if she could, but even that probably wouldn't




Won't be needing this as much!

help since this last one stopped waste disposal so completely for two weeks I am actually saving money on TP.  (Oh come on...that's not even the grossest thing you've read in this blog!  Do I need to remind you of the story where we bought a TV in the dead of winter?  HMMMMMMM?)

I will say this...I have finished two of the three Stieg Larsson books, so there's that...

Anyway, I'm relaying this to Cruella deSkinny and then I recount the effects her most recent treatment gave me:

I couldn't lift my left arm for two days.

I had a blinding headache for two days.

I had bruises on my chest, the back of my head, and my arm.

I finished my litany of woes, in tears, and she looks at me and says, 

"These sound like symptoms of depression.  Do you have depression?"

WHAT?????????????????????????

These are symptoms of someone who got hurt in a car accident 11 months ago and now no one seems to know what the #(*$%(*&%$^& to do with her!  There are the symptoms of someone who is angry, used, and fed up.

Oh, and this is someone who is currently being treated like a rented mule at work, but I'm still too angry about that to talk about it.

Then she said, "Well, I'm not sure I even want to touch you today."

Fine, thinks I, no pain for me today.

WRONG!

Cruella has me hop up on her table, set extra high just for me to hoist my fluffiness higher.  Then she begins with the "Does this hurt?  Let me JAB THIS IRON FINGERNAIL OF MINE INTO IT HARDER!"

I swear, the woman has fingertips of steel, weighted with lead.

At one point she actually lifted my rib cage and yanked it up to my chin while pushing on a tender spot in my arm pit.  Let's ignore the fact that I had some other woman's fist in my armpit and her claw wrapped around the bottom of my ribcage and let's forget that it felt like she was going to lift me off the table and twist me until I split.  Let's forget that and try to remember that she didn't want to touch me for fear of hurting me...five seconds earlier.

Afterward, she told me she wanted me to call her office tomorrow and tell her how I felt.

I couldn't help but think of dear Count Rugan after he sucked away a year of Wesley's life on the MACHINE:

How did it make me feel?

I'm pretty sure I'll never make a left hand lane change again...thanks for asking.

Nope, no sympathy from the 98 pound therapist.  I'm starting to think she's playing some weird online game like Words with Friends except for PT people only and it's more like, "Where did you poke this person and did they scream?"

***

Now, about that BOOOOO!  A big old Princess Bride sized BOO goes to the woman at the public library yesterday who was there with her small children at the same time Peaches, my daughter, was.

Those of you who know Peaches know that for her entire life she's had a certain flair for clothing and more recently for hair color.  Right now her hair is a bright candy apple red.  It's not cut in an odd way.  She wears it very neatly either in a pony tail or, when her eczema flares up, she wears it in a neat long bob around her face.  Yesterday she was wearing a short sleeved t-a pair of white shorts and, because she's Peaches, she was wearing some grey tights under the shorts.

The children must have looked Peaches' way, because Peaches says she waved at them.  She's a friendly girl, my girl Peaches.  She didn't speak to the children, she just waved in a friendly way and smiled and then went back to looking for books.

The mother, however, took one look at my daughter and gathered her precious perfect children around her and said in a voice loud enough for Peaches to hear THOUGH HER EARBUDS..."no, no children, we don't associate with them."

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

How to Embarrass your Child at a Stoplight...without being in the same car.

Good evening!

Well, the satellite went out because we are under tornado warnings and super thunderstorms.  So instead of watching a rerun of "Criminal Minds"  I'm going to share with you a fun little  moment Hubby and I had with Peaches and her boyfriend recently.

Oh yeah, Peaches loves it when I blog about her.

It's not that I go out of my way to embarrass my kids.  It just sort of happens every now and then, and usually it's completely an accident.  But sometimes it's more like...well, like fun.

This past weekend Hubby  and I were out and about running errands.  Nothing exciting. I think the highlight was we stopped for coffee at our favorite coffee chain place.

Happily sipping over priced legalized liquid joy juice, Hubby pulled the sedan up to a red light.  Across the intersection, waiting to make a right hand turn, was the Boyfriend's vehicle, Peaches in the passenger seat.

What do you do when you see someone you know and you're stopped at a light?  You wave!  And what do you do when you see your child with her significant other and you really want to be sure she sees you?

You wave like a maniac until she notices.

And you continue waving as they make that right hand turn, passing five feet from you.

Now, Peaches is a good sport, and her boyfriend is a cool kid.  At first they waved back. 

"Oh she's embarrassed,"  Hubby said.

I'm sorry.  I couldn't help it.  "She thinks she's embarrassed.  Wait until I do this!"  And that's when I really started to wave.  I think I broke out in a sweat.  It was a workout!

Hubby loves a good chuckle, he waved with me.  Boyfriend waved back. He's a polite young man.  Peaches, on the other hand...well Peaches looked a lot like a starlet who's been out a bit too late and doesn't want anyone to see her looking disheveled.  She pulled her jacket up and hid her face and they drove past us.

Which just meant one thing:  Success!

Like I said, it's not like I go looking for chances to embarrass the kids.  It just sort of happens.  Skippy, being older, has taken to ignoring me, but Peaches is still in that sweet spot age wise...

As a side note, let me tell you, the first Elsie W. book is coming along swimmingly, the outline for the second one is done and I just have to sit down and flesh things out.  And, while she's gone (and my blood pressure proves it)  Noelle C is definitely NOT forgotten.  NBM found a note...and epic opus really, in some file.  It's 14 handwritten pages and my only question is:  Do I scan it right to the blog or hold on to it until I get to her book?

Yep, it's just that good.  Aqua Girl, as I've decided to call the new one until she gives me reason to give her a different name, starts Monday.  I've begged NBM for one thing:  Let the next one be normal.  I don't even care if she's smart, good looking, friendly, whatever.  Just please, please, please, let this one not be insane.

We'll find out on Monday.

My daughter is dating...and my house has never been cleaner!

Good evening!

So Peaches has her first boyfriend.  He's a very, very nice young man and we will call him Topeka because he's named after a city, but I am not going to tell you which one for real.

When Skippy started dating and hanging out with his girlfriend May, I wasn't all that worried about a lot of things.  I had no issues strolling into his room when they were watching a movie or something and announcing that there would be NONE OF THAT! I get along with May very well and have no issue saying and being exactly what I mean to say and be.

They are really this sort of couple...

But Topeka is a different person.  First off, he's a boy.  And Peaches has, in her teen years, become that mysterious thing all teen girls become when they stop talking to their parents and when everything is "FINE!"  (Throw in an eye roll and you can see her expression.  Throw in Barry Manilow music turned up WAY SUPER LOUD and you have me at fifteen.)  I mean, there are times she says she's staying at her friend's house and I ask her if she's actually going to her friend's house because her wishes her life, she has told us many times, was a John Hughes movie. 

But since I'm a mom, I'm convinced this is
what I'm coming home to...

So while Topeka is very polite and very nice, it is a struggle for me to not run into Peaches' room and yell, "HAND CHECK!"

Other than introducing Peaches to the wide world of Quentin Tarrantino movies  (something I wasn't quite ready for but something that was going to happen sooner rather than later anyway)  Topeka has been quite the nice boyfriend.  He's a little older, but he's very thoughtful, and he even sat through one of Peaches' really awful horror movies  (She is a delicate flower who enjoys films where monsters attack people at random.)  Still, I worry when they are standing in front of the house, or sitting in his car in front of the house, or whatever, because I know, I just know they are going to do something that is going to just be uncomfortable for me to know about.

So, to put my mind at ease and to combat what I know is teen hormones run amok in my own home...I make very sure I'm home when they are in the house and I'm doing something that is either noisy or embarrassing or both.  No way is there going to be any nookie in this building!

It started easily enough.  They were home, listening to some music.  Her door was open.  And I had, had, had to do the dishes.  WE don't have a dishwasher, so doing the dishes is a long, drawn out process that involves a lot of banging around, a lot of talking to the cats loudly, and a lot of singing because who doesn't sing when they're doing the dishes?

Vacuuming came next.  We have four cats.  We have to vacuum a lot.  Not my fault her bedroom is the only one with carpet and therefore gets done when we vacuum the rest of the house.

I find changing out the candles in all the candle holders to be an excellent thing to do.  It involves me walking past her door about a dozen times to get to my office where I keep all my Partylite candles and gifts. (Click here to shop on my site!)

Then I dusted.  I dusted the crap out of my house.  And what goes better with dusting than singing?  Oh, NOTHING!

But once the house is clean and the candles are changed out...NOW WHAT?

And that's when it hit me:  What's the worst, most libido crushing image anyone can have?

Fat woman sweating!

And so my friends, I now hit the Wii Fit every time Topeka is over.  See, our Wii shares a wall with Peaches' room.  Which means, while they are sitting there watching a movie, I'm adding to ten with my hips or hitting the ski jump and I'm doing it...you guessed it...noisily!

I find yoga to be the best hormone inhibitor...what's more disturbing than thinking about a large woman doing yoga poses?  While groaning.....and laughing?  And cheering herself on?  NOTHING!

So it's a win/win.  Peaches and Topeka are behaving themselves, and I'm getting my house cleaned and my fat jiggled.

Wonder what I'll do when the weather warms up and they can be outside for more than ten minutes without freezing to death?

Like Scarlett O'Hara, I will worry about THAT another day!  who knows...maybe winter will last forever this time!

When I am old, I want the sexy wheelchair!

Good evening!

So last week Peaches and I went to visit my 95 year old grandmother in a nursing home 40 mintues from my house.  (I've always said, my people aren't terribly attractive or smart, but we are hairy and we live a very long time.)  My grandmother is one of those spunky ladies who has pretty much outlived all of her friends, siblings, and husband, and hasn't a clue why God is keeping her here, but she muddles along with a good sense of humor.

I maintain God keeps her here so that I can visit the nursing home...and stuff like the following can happen to me.

We went to see her and the plan was to visit for an hour, right before her bed time, and then grab a bit to eat on the way home.  As we were about to wrap things up, the hall monitor....caregiver...came in an announced that there was going to be a band concert on the patio in ten minutes, would we like to go?

Looking at my grandmother's almost sightless eyes light up, there was no way we were going to miss this. 

Which is when the fun started.  See, I don't know my way around the home too well.  It's basically a series of identical halls the lead you to pods of rooms.  I can find Grandma's room.  I can find the lunch room.  Beyond that, I'm just wandering.  Keep that in mind for later.

We managed to get out to the patio, and we were the first ones out there because my Grandma had two people pushing her wheelchair. The rest of the residents had to wait until the hall monitor pushed them all to the lunch room and then moved them one by one to the patio.  Very time consuming, but hey, they were going OUTSIDE.  So they had patience.

The band was the local municipal band, made up of about 14 people ranging in age from low 20's (okay, the two man drum section was made of up guys in their low 20's, both of whom were trying to catch Peaches' eye) to upper 70's...you sort of felt some of the band members were using the concert to scope out the home...you know...for their own future plans.

The concert was okay, I mean, it was 12 really old people playing marches and polkas for 40 super old people who couldn't march or polka if you propped them up and pushed them in step...and two guys trying to catch my daughter's eye.  In fairness to the guys...polkas and marches aren't that taxing on a drummer, and she was, after all, the only person on that patio under the age of 44.  ( I was, yes, the next youngest person out there.)

There was an exception to the rule:  Clarence.  Clarence is a 78 year old volunteer at the home and every single ancient woman in the place adores him.  See, he's not in a wheelchair, he has his own teeth, and he  is charming.  I think even my grandmother, who can't hear or see so well, likes him because every time he moved, she looked in his direction.

You see this.

Clarence sees this.

But Clarence only had eyes for the woman in the sexy wheelchair.

Didn't know there was such a thing, did you?  Well, most wheelchairs have brand names on them, "Mediline"  "Medimove"  "Medipedi."  Things like that.  But there was one semi comatose lady on that porch whose wheelchair's name was BREEZY.

Yep, Breezy...the Porche, Corvette, Mustang of wheelchairs all rolled up into one.  And Clarence couldn't get enough of the lady in the BREEZY.  She didn't seem to notice him...after all, it was half an hour past her bedtime and she was pretty much asleep.  But he was making her hands clap and moving her chair back and forth during the polka.

I suggested Peaches polka with Clarence.  She declined.  And then returned to staring at the drummer with the cute glasses.

The concert lasted 45 minutes and then we were going to wheel grandma back to her room, and go home.  However the caretaker, the only person who brought all those people out to the patio, now had to bring them in from the patio and put them in their rooms.  She told them all, like first grades, to stay in the lunchroom until she got everyone in there and then she would get everyone, one by one, to their rooms.

And like first graders, the wheelchair set was not about to wait. 

We were wheeling grandma out of the lunchroom, ahead of those making a break for it, but there was a gent whose back wheels were stuck on the threshold of the door.  (Speed bump, if you will.)  I gave him a nudge and started to take Grandma back to her room.

"No, sweetie, take me back to my room,"  says the old man.

Now, I'm not one to be unhelpful.  So I told Peaches to take grandma back to her room, and I'd take this guy back to his. How long could it take?

"What's your room number?"

"110," he says, and I figure we're off to a good start.  The group behind me is milling around looking for an opening in the wall because no way are they waiting for someone to wheel them to their rooms...darn it, they know where their rooms are!

So I start taking this man to his room.  After several twists and turns one this is abundantly clear:  There is no room 110.  Oh, and this guy hasn't a clue where his room is.

I ask a nurse, who points me in the right direction.  We get to the door and he reads the name, "Yes, that's me.  I'm Fred."

"Oh good, Fred,"  I park him in his room and I'm about to leave...



You know how I hate unmade beds.

"You make my bed."

I look at this guy.  "What do you mean, make your bed?"

"Fluff up the pillows, pull the sheets tight."

He says this like I'm an idiot...and like an idiot, I make his bed.

"Now I want to get in the bed."

"But Fred, I just made it."

I'm arguing with a 90 year old.

"I'm getting in the bed."

"Can you do that on your own?"

"Yes."

I have my doubts.  But I let him fiddle with the foot rests on his wheelchair for a minute.  I used to work in a facility a little like this, so waiting for an old person to do something isn't an issue for me.  But after a minute, he really seemed hell bent on standing up, whether those flaps were up or not, so I bent down to flip them up.  That's when I saw that Fred had a catheter/urine bag strapped to him.

I'm out. 

Too many things could go wrong.  So I go out, get a nurse, who is laughing about this because she heard our conversation.  Then I head back to my Grandmother's room, working my way through the flood of wandering wheelchairs...sort of like the escape scene in "Titanic"  except in really, really slow motion.  One woman stopped me and said, "Am I lost?"

"Sweetie, I don't know," I said, "What is your room number?"

"525."

I was happy to see a sign two feet away with an arrow pointing to 525.  "You go that way,"  I said.

She started to scoot, and another woman stopped me.  "Can you help me find my room?"

Her husband didn't like her talking to strangers.  He hustled her away from me.

I did notice that Clarence had BREEZY well in hand.

Back in my grandmothers' room we hugged her and said goodnight.  On our way out of the building I noticed that "525" had someone pushing her chair in the opposite direction.  He looked a tiny bit panicked. 

I wonder if he had to make her bed.

The wedding was perfect...we are not...#3

Hello everyone!

THE DAY OF THE WEDDING!

Saturday dawned bright and clear...probably.  I haven't a clue because I was recovering from my attack of the half brat the night before.  We didn't even attempt to make it to the free breakfast at the hotel.  Instead, we all met at the Ihop attached to the hotel.  (Four steps from the "free breakfast."  Yeah, I'd close up shop early if I had to compete with Ihop.)   We all had a lovely late, late breakfast and decided that we had some time to shop before the wedding.  This was a NEED for me because after seeing myself in pictures in a dress, I realized that 1)  the terrain was far too rocky and grassy for me to manage ALL DAY in the high heels and 2)  I wasn't quite confident enough to appear in public in a loose fitting dress again...not just yet.

Hubby mentioned he'd spotted a mall on the way to the airport and the kids and we decided to GO TO THE MALL.  (Grandma stayed at the hotel and read a book.)  

As we got out of the car for what seemed like the 11000th time, Hubby confessed that he wasn't all that sure that this mall was...a real mall.

I wasn't quite sure what he meant until we got into the mall and I realized that it felt familiar.    It felt like...that casino in "Vegas Vacation" where they played Rock Paper Scissors.

There was not a single normal store in the entire mall.  About 50% of the mall was made up of empty stores whose windows were filled with stuff from other stores and directions where to find the stores in this mall.

There were several sports memorobilia stores.  Some looked legit, some looked like a woman got all the sports stuff in the divorce.  There were a couple costume shops, two furniture stores, a good health "Experience,"  and my favorite, "Christian Karate."

I was looking for shoes.

I was not succeeding.

Until we saw a Dillard's!  It was a department store, but it was the closeout store, so the racks were a mess and the shoes were mismatched and everything was 65% off!

MY KIND OF PLACE!

I found a skirt and a pair of shoes that were comfortable and looked okay on me.  The kids were bored because it wasn't a normal mall.

We got back to the hotel with enough time to fix our toe nails, shower, and get into our wedding duds.

Two hours later we attempted to collect everyone, load them in the car and get to the wedding venue in time for PEaches and Grandma to get dressed for the wedding.  (THe rest of us had to already be dressed.)

It's at this point in the story that I have to go back a couple days to the night we left.  Parker's mom dropped him off at our house.  Parker had a duffle back and a wedding outfit covered in plastic hanging on a hanger.  Flash forward 24 hours to our arrival in Asheville when the kids were unloading their stuff I said, "Isn't that Parker's bag of wedding clothes?"

Hubby said, "No, it's mine."

Parker and Peaches said, "Parker didn't have a bag with wedding clothes.  It's all in his duffle."

And we're back.  We're back to the moment when I get to the kids room and Peaches says to me, "Parker's still in the bathroom...he can't find his wedding clothes."

I, alone, knew exactly where those clothes were.  They were hanging up in my house.  In Wisconsin.

Now this was going to be a casual sort of wedding, but Parker's B outfit was a shirt and shorts that he'd worn all day the previous day.  It wasn't going to be THAT casual.

Thank goodness for Walmart!  We loaded everyone into the car, drove to the venue where Hubby dropped off Peaches, Grandma, and me and then he and Parker drove to Walmart to find the boy some suitable clothes.

With everyone I knew busy, I got to regail complete strangers with the story of our wedding trip thus far.  The two groomsmen's wives I was chatting with weren't really that impressed with much until I talked about the shoes I got. 

"Oh, what brand are they?"

Now, friends, I couldn't care less about brand names.  I look for clothes that 1) fit  2) don't make me look like a hippopotamic landmass and 3)  are comfortable.

I never look at labels.

I pulled off the sensible shoe I was wearing and said, "It's says Antonio Melani."

Had I said, "Jesus Christ Himself designed these shoes," those women could not have been more impressed.

They went on for several minutes about how awesome the shoes were.  Frankly, I thought they were sort of ugly, but they were almost comfortable, so I was happy.

hubby arrived with Parker all dressed in his new Walmart clothes just in time for the wedding.  The wedding was PERFECT!  The ring bearer was Carolina, The couple's basset Hound.  It was a fifteen minute ceremony followed by hours of fantastic food and beverages.

Oh wait...beverages.

One more thing I have to tell you, because it wouldn't be a story unless there was one more trip to Walmart involved.

As the reception was starting, the Bride's mother, Hubby's sis, approached us and said, "People want bottled water and we aren't serving bottled water."

Frankly, I was delighted with the raspberry lemonade...who would want bottled water when Wine, beer, lemonade and TEA were plentiful?

Apparently a lot of people.

So Hubby and I put Parker in charge of taking pictures  (I know...it was a huge leap of faith.)  and we went back to Walmart to get a few cases of bottled water.  While we were getting ready to leave, one of the servers managed to get stung by a bee.  So, hey, as long as we're going to Walmart, we'll pick up some Benadryl

She asked if she could repay us.  I told her to keep the fried green tomatoes coming right to me.

So there it is my friends...a three volume travel log.  Feels like you were there, doesn't it?

I have to share some of the pictures with you:

The groom and the ring bearer.

The happy couple.

My two beautiful nieces.

The bridesmaids and the couple.

Parker and PEaches...and Parker's Walmart Wedding outfit.

The Wedding was perfect...we are not...#2

Good evening!

So after the drama of the previous night, we looked forward to Rehearsal dinner Day.

Now for those of you who have never been in a wedding in the US, the Rehearsal Dinner is the meal that follows the Rehearsal which is theorhetically the run through of the wedding so that no one, like the groomsmen, the bridesmaids, the minister, the groom, whatever, screws up the Bride's big day.

Rehearsal  Dinner Day, for most of us, Hubby, Parker, and I, was planned to be a quiet day of sightseeing followed by a dinner at the venue.   We had no idea where the venue was because 1)  Neither of us had actually looked at the invitation since February and 2)  Peaches, the bridesmaid had never actually seen the invitation.

So, first order of business...free breakfast at the hotel.

Why do hotels offer free breakfast, and then close it up by 10 AM?  That's like making check out time 11 Am, it's just wrong.  It doesn't take into account what most people use hotel rooms for...messing around until late at night and then sleeping in.

So we were about the last people to show up for the free hotel breakfast.  That meant we had a choice of toast...and toast.

No worries, the coffee was adequate.  We planned on doing some shopping and sightseeing and what not.

And then Peaches announced she was getting picked up by the maid of honor to pick out the flowers for hte wedding.  Oh, and we had to be at the rehearsal because we were driving Grandma, so we all had to be at the venue by 4.

After you get five people of different generations moving in the same direction at once you realize you have about 90 minutes to sight see before you have to get the five people moving in another direction.

Side note:  The maid of honor couldn't give us the name or address of the wedding venue either.  I'm just sayin'.

We got to the venue...five minutes late due to the fact that apparently when it rains in North Carolina all traffic on the highway STOPS moving, and it was lovely.  IT was some sort of resort house/palace where everything smelled amazing.

The rehearsal took about twenty minutes, which was good since the Bride's mother, Hubbby's sister  (A master chef in her own right) forgot she'd left the beans to cook on the stove.  The rehearsal ended when she yelled, "THE BEANS" and ran back into the house. 

The meal that Sis in law and her husband put together was pure Wisconsin, with some flair.  We had corn on the cob, watermelon, brats, beer, wine...more beer, more wine.  The flair was a great green bean and bacon dish and crab rolls...yum!

One of the bridal party...we called her an assortment of names based on the clothes she wore, imbibed a tiny bit too much. How do I know?  When she was looking for the wine opener to uncork yet another tankard of wine for herself, she referred to Parker, a fifteen year old boy, as her "Sexy little monkey."

Meanwhile, Sis in law made fried cheese curds.  For those of you not familiar, well, clearly you haven't read my book "Dream in Color"  So now you must go to Amazon and buy it...right now...I'll wait...

Anyway, deep fried cheese curds are simply the best food you're ever going to eat.  Ever.  Period.

It is as this point I should remind you that I'm one of those women who doesn't eat food so much as wind up wearing what she's had for dinner.  Soup, salad dressing, sandwich toppings, meatloaf, whatever, if I'm aiming for my mouth, a portion of it can, and will, fall onto that handy shelf 18 inches below my chin.  I'm telling you this because hubby, in a fit of romantic passion, fed me a deep fried cheese curd, and about half of it wound up on that shelf.

Except I was wearing a dress.

I don't wear dresses.  I don't like how dresses tend to accent the super gut I'm building on myself.  But I figured I'd wear a dress.  So the cheese curd went down the neckline of the dress...through the gap between my new and therefore still stiff bra and my cleavage, past my waist, which was unencumbered by a belt or waistband since I was wearing a dress, past my knees and onto the floor.

Sort of like an elevator ride through hell and onto the ground.

There is no way you can emerge from something like that gracefully.

So I didn't.  I continued having a conversation with my neice, and I kicked the cheesecurd away from me...I think it went under the fridge.  I have no way of knowing.

After the cheese curd debacle, I decided to eat a brat.  Rather, I decided to eat half a brat.  Given how I've pretty much fallen off the vegetarian wagon Hubby and PEaches ride, I've indulged in chicken, fish, and the occassioinal hot dog.  But I haven't had Wisconsin's claim to culinary fame, the brat.   I only ate half a brat.

We had a lovely time, but by 8 Pm it was time to go. We had a couple things to get before the wedding  (most important was a pair of shoes for me.  Oddly enough, when the Bride told Peaches to wear flats to the outdoor wedding, I didn't think that applied to me, in my dress.  After navagating the grounds all evening, I realized...style be darned, I was going to be crippled by the end of the wedding if I didn't get some flats.)

So we went to the place where everything is possible:  Walmart.

As we got out of the car to go to Walmart, Parker said, "I think I forgot my phone...at the venue."

Let's remember this for the next chapter, shall we?

So Hubby and mother in law agreed to run back to the venue while the children and I got some snacks  (wine)  and looked for shoes.

Ten minutes into our shopping spree...I realized that my system hadn't quite gotten used to meat yet.

Especially not the spicy grilled goodness of a bratwurst.

I was at the back of the Walmart, and it was a SUPERWALMART, but thank goodness I know my way around the super walmarts.  Of course, I was still in my dress...and high heels, so I was basically doing a weird sort of butt clench hobble limp run to the bathroom before my entire digestive system ruptured.

I made it in time...and thank goodness I was wearing a dress!  (No fussy zippers or buttons to get in the way.)  Of course, I'm pretty sure my picture is now up on a wall in that restroom with a note that says something like, "If you see this woman in this restroom...run!"

Something about firing an entire day's worth of food right out of you...it pretty much wears you out. hubby returned to the Walmart with Parker's camera and we drove the 30 minutes to the hotel, where I hit the hay and was asleep within minutes.

Sooo...what's left?

Well, my friends, what's left is the wedding day!

The wedding was perfect...we are not! #1

Good morning!

Forget Ihop's claim about fluffy omelets.  This place WINS.

I'm back from my lovely niece's beautiful wedding in the mountains of North Carolina.  I love traveling to the South.  The people are super nice and helpful, the food is unbelievable  (Two words...Waffle House!)  and the scenery makes me rethink my wish to retire to the shores of some huge  body of water.  (Sorry Oregon...)

Just one of the many views we
saw in NC.

Of course, you know that any driving trip 14 hours long and a big family event like  a wedding is going to bring out the very best in my story telling.  And this trip did not disappoint!  Try as we might...we are not perfect.

So this week I thought I'd do a three part blog on how my ability to get into unintended mischief made a beautiful, perfect wedding a series of hilarious events.

We got into the car at 5:06 AM Central time.  It was Hubby, Peaches, Peaches completely platonic friend Parker (who was a stand in for Skippy, who was unable to attend the wedding due to circumstances beyond his control), and me.  Everything seemed to be going quite well.  We stopped a couple times for gas and food, but for the most part, we were having a remarkably smooth trip.

Until we got to Asheville.  Karen, our female GPS, announced that we had arrived at our destination address, which would have been fine...had a Ramada...or any hotel...be visible in the dark of the Asheville night.  (It was 9:30 PM Eastern time, and we'd been on the road, thanks to a serious construction jam in Tennessee, 15.5 hours.

We realized our mistake:  NEVER have the 15 year old program the GPS at 5:06 in the morning...in fact, never make ANY 15 year old responsible for ANYTHING at that hour of the morning...but that's another story.  Turns out, Peaches had programmed the address to the wrong hotel in.  We were roughly 15 minutes from our actual location.  (Thank goodness for a data plan!)

So we got to our hotel, happy that one small mistake was all we'd had to deal with on the trip down.

We should have waited to celebrate. 

We booked two rooms and after much debate decided that the kids were going to be in one and we were going to be in the other. Go ahead, raise your eyebrows, but you lock yourself in a Hyundai Elantra with three other people for almost 16 hours and see if you want to look at anyone under the age of 40 again.

We got to the door of the first room, and it was very, very clear that this room was either already occupied or hadn't been made up from the night before yet.  Lights on, beds unmade...do not disturb sign on the door.

We got into the second room and the kids immediately choose beds and unbundled their crap while Hubby went down to the front desk and got the keys to a room that was actually ready for guests.  We then went to our room and unpacked.

Fifteen minutes later, Hubby's mom sent a text that she was at the Ashville airport and was going to take a taxi to the hotel.  (She was staying at the same place.)  Hubby said it was a short ride to the airport, he'd be a good son and pick her up.  So at 11:00 he got back into the car and headed out.

Meanwhile, the kids showed up on my doorstep to inform me of the three following things:

1)  There was a HUGE and SCARY bug of some sort terrorizing them.

2)  They had no bathroom lights at all.

3)  Peaches had dropped her razor in the toilet and was too grossed out to shave her legs with it now...so she needed mine because after all, she was a bridesmaid, I was simply the aunt of the bride. 

So I gave her the razor, told them to man up and crush the bug when they saw it next and said I'd call the front desk in the morning to take care of the light.

At 12:30 hubby returned, sweaty and exhausted.

"You tell me your story and I'll tell you mine,"  I said, thinking I had the better of the two stories.

"Well, I went to pick up Mom and got her to her room, which is right next to the kid's room, and the kids informed me there was a big bug in the room and the lights didn't turn on in the bathroom and Peaches needed a razor.  So I went down to the front desk to ask for a light bulb and the girl down there didn't know where they kept the light bulbs so then I asked her for a key to the room we were supposed to have and I'd swap out that light bulb for the one in the kids' room.  Which I did.  And then Mom stepped out for a smoke and locked herself out of the room, so I went down to the front desk to get her a new key.  So what's your story?"

Clearly, hubby had the better night.

"Ummmm, the kids came by to tell me about the razor and the bug and the lights."

So them, at 1 AM local time, we fell asleep in separate beds.  (Hey, you spend almost 16 hours in a Hyundai Elantra and see if you want to be closer than ten feet away from everyone again.

Tomorrow:  More locked out of rooms and the rehearsal dinner!

Parents are proud of the weirdest things!

Good morning all!

When you become a parent, you lose all logic as to what makes you proud.  There are things all parents are proud of in their children:  Good grades, any sort of awards, an athletic accomplishment, a kid who wakes for school without a series of sonic booms for an alarm.  And then there's a whole closet of weird stuff that sort of makes our parental chests swell with illogical pride.

The other day I came home and Peaches, Skippy, and one of Peaches friends, we'll call him Buddy, were sitting in the living room.  The TV was off.

This raised an immediate red flag for me.

"We have a surprise for you,"  Says Skippy in a very, very cheerful voice.

More red flags.

He then walked me into the kitchen. On the counter sat the laptop computer.  He turned on the computer.

And there was something really, really wrong with the screen.

I'd never seen those big black ink spots before.

"We were goofing around and I jumped onto Peaches' lap and she had the computer on her side and I landed on it in an awkward way."

Now as a parent, you've got two choices in a situation like this.Typically I lose my mind and shriek for about fifteen minutes.   Except, and this is something I brought to mind the moment Skippy showed me the computer:

I've never yelled at the kids for breaking anything expensive before.

In the files of my mental Rolodex I went through all the electronics the kids have had access to and I realized they haven't broken or lost any of them.  Ipods?  Phones?  Computers?  The car?

None of them.

(Okay, the car got broken three times in Skippy's care, but each of those times he wasn't in the car, it was parked in a lot or a driveway, and someone hit him.  So I really can't fault him for that.)

That's when I took a deep breath and said, "Well, it's really your father's computer.  You'll have to tell him what you did."

So we then all sat down in the living room with the TV off and waited a bit for Hubby to come home.  He knew instantly something was wrong when he walked in.  I'm never in the living room when the TV is off.

Skippy went through the whole speech again with him.  And, to Hubby's credit, he didn't howl either.  (He rarely does.  The kids figured if I didn't kill them, they were home free.)

Later, when the kids were gone at their various activities, and I was pondering how proud I was of them for not trying to hide the broken computer, I heard hubby laughing.  He called me into to the office.  There, on the main computer, the first screen that came up when he signed in was a Google page of sites to visit when you need to fix a laptop computer screen.

Yep, the kids were trying to be resourceful.

Brings to mind my very first car accident and how I tried to cover that up.

But that's a story for another day.

Now, lest you think my kids are all the way grown up and responsible, as we were remarking how responsible they'd been, I got a text from Skippy. He was at a book store and wanted to know if I would pay for some of the books he was picking out.  (Our deal is I pay half for books, but nothing for games, Cd's, or anything like that.)

My response:  Computer screen...

His response:  Oh yeah.  I forgot.

So we've got a ways to go.  But for now, I'm pretty proud.  Proud of my computer screen breaking kids.

Parents are weird.

The "How is this fair" awards goes to...

Good evening!

So last week Peaches got her very first honest to goodness, go to fill out a W2, job.  She's going to wash dishes one of my favorite eateries in downtown Waukesha. 

Those of you with teens who recently got their first job, you know what I'm about to ask:

How is it fair that the kid gets a job and before they can start, I've gotta shell out $100?

See, Peaches is 15, which means we need to get a work permit. Now, she could just get that from school, (fee of $10) BUT, she needs a copy of her birth certificate. THAT means one of us, Hubby this time, had to leave work early  (Hourly pay lost:  $20)  and pay $20 for a copy of the birth certificate because the records office is conveniently open ONLY from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM M-F. 

THEN, Peaches is informed she'll need some clothes to wear to work.  No problem.  She needs some plain white shirts, a pair of black bottoms, something she can wear in the hot of a kitchen, and some non skid close toes shoes.

That involves a trip to Kohl's, because she apparently has none of those things.

Bill at Kohl's: $70.

And thusly, I'm out $120 and the kid hasn't started work yet.

For $120 I might have gotten my bathroom cleaned a couple times and maybe a week or two of laundry done. 

The real kicker is that I've offered to pay Peaches many time to wash dishes.  She loathes it.  Somehow, however, if you put a black apron on her and pay her minimum wage, she's all over it.

Meanwhile, the owners are getting married.  Now, I'm as happy for them as anyone, but Friday, after Peaches' first night at work, she got a little envelop addressed to her and to me.

It was an invitation to a wedding shower.

For the boss.

Whom we've known for one day.

I'm not going...but now I've gotta get a gift.

The kid is working, and I'm going into dept!

How is this fair?

Poor Hubby...he tries so hard...

Good evening!

So yesterday was Mother's Day, and I have to say, Hubby and the kids always do a pretty good job.  Granted, I can never expect much actual TIME from the children, they have places to go and things to do, but we did have a very nice brunch that included a spirited conversation on many, some very cringe worthy, topics.  (My children have inherited my love of bringing up topics that are cringe worthy, and then making them funny.)

Hubby, however, lives for one thing and one thing only:  To never do anything that gets him put in this blog.

On that count, the poor guy failed.

It really wasn't his fault.  He found some very fun, and interesting gifts.  He thoroughly cleaned and waxed my car.  He replaced our tattered bedroom shade with a new room darkening shade.  He got me season Two of "Mad Men"  AND "Breaking Bad."  He got me a CD and a book and a very pretty ornament that said "I love you."

He got me yoga socks to go with the yoga mat he got me for Christmas.

And he got me a lot of tea.

I have grown to love hot teas.  I drink it in the afternoons now because coffee is a no no after noon.  So I love heating up some water and popping in a tea bag and sipping it.  I also like tea cold, so tea pretty much works for me in any weather.

Now hubby wanted to up my tea game.  So he went to Crate and Barrel, one of his favorite fantasy store, and he got me some very nice loose leaf tea.  Then he got me a tea infuser.

Are you familiar with this item?

Here's a picture:

You're supposed to pull this apart and put the loose leaf tea in this and then put it back together and stick the clear end in your cup of hot water to let the tea steep.

Now, maybe it's because no one in the family is great about reading labels.  Maybe it was because I was so full of BACON  (another mother's day gift...Hubby made me grits and bacon.) that I was not thinking clearly.

But I must have seemed confused...so my children...who are very helpful...said, "Why did Dad get you a tampon holder?"

We laughed about that for ten full minutes.  Hubby threatened to return it because, as one of the children pointed out, this would definitely get him in the blog.

And it has.

And he hasn't.

Because I still love my tampon holder/tea infuser.

Hey, I love anything that is a multitasker.

A Salute to Mothers...and their children.

Good morning!

So today is Mother's Day here in the US.  Normally I'm against the whole fake holiday thing, but Mother's Day and Father's Day are okay in my book because, well, if done right, parenting is, next to marriage, the most difficult, heartbreaking, amazing job you will ever take on.

So here's to you, MOM!

What makes a Mom? 

Well, first you have to have children that call you "mom."  They can be any age, they can still live in the house or not, but they have to, at least a couple times a year, call you "mom" and you had to have, at some point, changed their diapers/held their hair when they barfed, washed  vomit and blood from their clothes, and kissed their boo boos.

You also had to have yelled at them for missing curfew, failing to turn in homework, sassing you, not cleaning their room, or leaving candy wrappers all over the house.

To be a mom, you had to have cried, prayed, sweat, cheered, and raged in private, because being a mom is sometimes a very private thing.

You have to be a person who can love another person so completely that no matter what your child says or does, you are willing to hold them in your arms and want only the very best for them.

To be a mom, you have to be willing to teach them everything you believe and stand for...all the while knowing they will likely, either for a short time or for life, adopt beliefs and causes opposite of yours.  And you have to be okay with that.

Back in the day...

With that in mind, let me tell you about my kids.  I've got the boy child, Skippy...he's a surly looking kid who did very well in high school, but hates the idea of school in general.  He's very smart, but has no desire to do anything.  Yet he reads...he reads endlessly and thinks about things.   His views about the big issues of the day are rigid, but there's a compassion there that brings me to my knees every day.  The only thing he cannot forgive is hypocrisy. 

He may seem to be directionless to the casual outsider, but he knows exactly who he is and where he wants to be.  He's just waiting for the world to offer him a path he's interested in taking.

Then there's Girl child, Peaches.  Like her brother, she suffers no hypocrites, but she's slightly kinder to people.  She has an enormous capacity for love, and she champions the fringe dwellers of our society, while demanding that those around her take responsibility for themselves.  She is the most self sufficient child I've met at 15, and the most self aware.  She has a tremendous flair for style, though some of her outfits draw criticism from the more stodgy people in her life.  She doesn't care what people say, she's going to express herself through her dress, and I rarely have to ask what her mood is.  I usually know just by looking at the color of her tights.

To someone who doesn't know my children well, Skippy and Peaches might seem like odd, slacker kids with rebellious streaks and no respect for authority.  To be honest, it's never easy raising strong willed kids who don't march to the lock step beat of society's expectations.  Any parent with a kid who falls outside the guidelines of "normal" will agree with me. 

It's not that they don't respect authority.  They just don't respect hypocrisy, and they certainly don't respect those who try and make up their minds for them.   As they get older, Hubby and I may not always agree with our kids.  But we taught them to take responsibility for their actions, to pay their own way, to work hard, to bow a knee to God, and to always be honest, no matter what the cost.

They'll never make it in politics, and they will make me crazy until the day I die.  But I love them and I know they are going to be okay.

So Moms, especially those of you who have kids who aren't always clean, who aren't always sweet, who don't keep silent, or who don't feel like talking, here's a salute to you. 

The Beast. My favorite car, and my favorite car story.

Good morning!

Last night a friend and I were talking about long ago when our kids were little and we'd go to the beach.  That reminded me of my very favorite car, and my favorite car story, which I thought I'd share with you today.

Back when Skippy was 5  (so thirteen years ago if you're into math)  I was a stay at home mom who babysat kids by day and cleaned offices by night.  Those of you who have lived in the world of in home babysitting know that you need a few tools, one of which is a car that will work for kids of different ages.  Most people prefer mini vans.

I had a 1986 Buick Estate wagon with wood panelling and that fun rear facing seat in the back.

I loved that car.  Let me say it again.  I loved that car.  It was big, and bulky, and not smooth to drive.  It got 8 miles to the gallon on premium, and if I didn't put premium in the tank it would knock for ten minutes after you stopped it.  I don't think the heat or AC even worked.

But I loved it because sitting in it was like sitting on a sofa, and the kids could pile in and out of that thing and I didn't care one second what they were dragging in to the car.  We'd go to the beach and they'd be covered in sand, and it did not matter.  The three boys I had would sit in that back seat and it almost felt like I didn't have kids in the car because they were so far away.

Oh yeah, and I covered that thing with bumper stickers.  I didn't have a particular message I wanted to convey with the stickers, but if I found one that made me laugh, or if someone gave me a bumper sticker, it went on the back of that car.

My beloved vehicle.

Yep, I loved that beast.  And my best car story is this:

So for Peaches' second birthday we were going to have a party. I'd ordered an ice cream cake from the local Dairy Queen, a place I'd been only once or twice. 

The day of the part dawned and we were in the midst of one of those blizzards you can only get along the lake shore of Lake Michigan.  I believe 18 inches fell on my fair city that day.  Right in the middle of the blizzard, the clerk from Dairy Queen called and informed me that if I wanted the cake that day, I had to come and pick it up before 10 AM because they were not going to open at all due to the weather, but that someone would be there for about an hour for cake pick up.

Hubby was at work that morning and then was going to go to WalMart for party stuff.  (And yes, people were calling to say they couldn't come to the party.  Most people know a two year old's birthday party isn't worth venturing out into a blizzard.)

  A smart mother would have cancelled it and stayed home.

I am not what one would call a smart mother.

I called the neighbor lady, a darling older woman who has since gone to Heaven, to please come over and watch the kids while I rolled out in the beast to get the cake.

Did I mention the car was rear wheel drive?

Visibility was zero.  There were points at which I wasn't sure I was even on a road, and I certainly wasn't in a lane.  Didn't matter, I was the only idiot out on the roads that morning.  It was only about four miles from my house to the Dairy Queen, and that might have been the longest four miles I've ever driven.

This is taken from behind the big
sign.  Clearly, the drive was behind
the sign.
What you don't see in this pic
is the big, gaping, ditch.

I managed to get to the street and as I approached the DQ, but a question came to my snow weary brain:

Was the driveway for the DQ BEFORE the big sign or BEHIND the big sign? 

I'd only been to this one a couple times and I didn't recall where, exactly the drive was.  Since everything was buried under many inches of wildly blowing snow, I had no visual reference as to where the drive was.

I flipped a mental coin.  "It's before the sign."   My next clear thought was, "And even if it isn't, we're in the city...there's no ditch, I can just drive up on the grass." I steered the vehicle left, praying the tires would find something solid and make it to the parking lot.

God has a magnificent sense of humor.

The drive, for those of you wondering was BEHIND the sign.  BEFORE the sign was a fairly deep, but fairly narrow, ditch. (something I obviously hadn't noted on my previous trips.) No, I didn't put the car IN the ditch.  That wouldn't be funny.  No, the Beast was long enough that I actually SPANNED the ditch.  The front end rested on the forward bank of the ditch, the back end of the back bank, and the tires hung, suspended, in the ditch itself.

The rear wheels, the power for the vehicle, spun like a pinwheel in loose, fluffy snow.

I knew I was not getting that car out of that ditch on my own.  But I was ten feet from the DQ and I WAS GOING TO GET THAT CAKE!

I opened the door and stepped out of the car...and in to about 15 inches of new snow.  I waded, hip deep, from the ditch to the store where the tiny blond clerk was laughing at me so hard, tears rolled down her face.

"I saw you coming, and I kept yelling, Don't turn!  Don't turn!"

Yeah, thanks.  How about coming out of the building and saying that?

So there we were: the clerk who wanted to unload her cakes and go home, and the mom who wanted her cake and had no way of leaving. 

Ah, but I had a cell phone!  I could call Hubby!  But, hubby wasn't at work anymore  (and we only had ONE cell phone), so I got out the yellow pages  (children, the yellow pages is what we used to find phone numbers before we had Google.) and called the local Walmart.  I explained why I needed to page my husband  (I should really learn to edit how much information I give people.) and after the person who answered stopped laughing, they paged him. 

No dice.  He wasn't at Walmart.  So I called home.  My neighbor lady answered.  She also was laughing.  Turns out, Hubby came home and saw the car gone and knew something was up. When he heard I'd gone to DQ to get the cake, he got back in the car and headed out into the storm to get me.

While this was taken years later, at our new house,
and a different storm, this is pretty much
the type of snow we were dealing with
at the time of this story. (My friend in
Paris cannot believe this is a real picture.)

Funny, how did he know I would be trapped?

Pretty much the same way you all sort of knew how this story was going to end...because you know me.

We left the Beast at he DQ until the next day when a friend of his from a towing company came and pulled it back on to land.  The next morning, Hubby went to church...along with about nine other people  (he can, in fact name the people who were at that service by name) and he got a ride from someone to the DQ to get the car out of the parking lot.

Some few months after, we donated that car to the Rawhide Boys Ranch.  I may drive cars that are nicer, get better gas mileage, and handle better.  But I will never love a car as much as I loved that Beast.

Oh and no one came to the party.  We actually held it the following week.

If it's 4 AM and you don't know where your kids are...they're probably at my house...singing loudly.

Now that I've officially entered my middle forties, my requirements in life are quite simple.  I accept that I must work full time.  So, when I get home, I desire only three things:  My couch, my TV time, and a house quiet enough to sleep in at or around 11:30 PM.

Since the children are home for Christmas Break...that's just not happening for me.


Came home after a really long day, and the kitchen was a disaster, the dining room was a disaster, and the living room was a disaster. Peaches had a couple friends over to bake cookie. When I got home, I was informed that Hubby had given the OK for them all to stay over night. Normally not an issue, but I really needed some couch time.  Not in the cards for me, I didn't get to be in the living room, and I couldn't even look at the kitchen. (You know the scene from "Daddy Day Care" where the kid misses the toilet? Yeah, that was my face when I walked into the house.)

Sure, my bathroom was a mess...but did you seen what those teens
did to that poor woman's kitchen?

So no couch time, no TV time.  We have a TV in our unfinished family room in the basement, but I couldn't go down there because Skippy was down there with his girl friend...and since he was packing to leave town for a few days, they needed some quiet time...alone  ish.  (Never completely alone.  I refuse to be called "Grandma" for at least another six years.) 

Hubby, who had been home all day NOT doing the projects he said he was going to do was like a kid who'd been cooped up all day. "Let's go to HOME DEPOT!" (I hate Home Depot).


But with no other avenue of peace and quiet, Hubby and I go to Home Depot and then hit the a local eatery for dinner. By the time I get home it's 8 and I'm beat. I want a hot shower and bed.



I didn't get either. I'm about to hit the shower when Skippy announces that he's taking girlfriend home and then he's showering so I'd better be done by then. (Due to a lack of water pressure, we can't run two showers at a time.) And I'm not waiting for him to finish because the boy has been known to shower for an hour, thus eating up the hot water.



So I take two Tylenol PM and go to bed. Hubby walks into the bedroom and says, "Oh, you're in bed. Well I'll go to bed to."



Great. He gets in rolls over and instantly goes to sleep. And snores.



Meanwhile, the entire freshman class out in my living room is watching some musical movie and shrieking loudly. I go out to tell them to shut up and the movie is on, popcorn is popping all over the kitchen, but there are no children. Oh, they are changing into jammies. Right.



So I drag Peaches out of her room and point to the popcorn mess in the kitchen and inform her that Hubby and I have to be UP AND AT WORK by 7. And they need to SHUT UP.

Hey one more musical number and we'll quiet down, okay Mrs. B?

I go back to bed to attempt sleep. Team High School Musical is still howling in the living room so I start a battle of texts with my daughter to get them to SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.

After attempting to fall asleep for almost three hours I finally take a third Tylenol PM and go into a coma.  It's now nearly midnight.



I get up at 5:30 and I find out that they all decided in order to be "quiet" they would move their operations to the basement. (They couldn't have done that at 9 when Peter took Morgan home?)   Of course, the kitchen was STILL a disaster...as was every other corner of the house.  I informed hubby that if Team Edward/Jacob was still at my house at 6 PM I would perform some sort of violent act on myself.

Flash forward to a week later.  I've nearly regained my normal schedule and I'm looking forward last night to a good night's sleep and a nice bonus holiday off today.

Peaches, who is normally very quiet on her own, and also a pretty early bird when it comes to going to bed, stayed up until 3 singing with her iPod. Have you ever heard someone singing with their iPod?  It's really just them singing...and they have no idea how loud they are. 

But she wasn't the only late night songbird.  In the basement Skippy was having his own American Bandstand night...except he had his iPod hooked up to speakers.  Since hubby's snoring had once again relegated me to the sofa,  I made the rounds....twice...from kid to kid informing them of the time and that they needed to SHUT UP!

It's an all night singing rave!  Hey, Mrs. B doesn't care if we SING...she supports
the arts.  She's a writer person.

Which worked fine, and I was finally dozing off...until 3:30 when Skippy shook me awake and said, "I have to go to Chicago...it's an emergency.  I left a note on the counter.  I'll be back as soon as I can."

Friends, something like this would normally result in a lot of questions from me.  But at 3:30 AM...I could only muster this piece of advice:  "Drive carefully.  We got snow over night."  (Chicago is about 90 minutes south of us.)

Woke this morning to Hubby asking me at 6:30, "Where is Skippy?"

I said, "There's a note on the counter.  He went to Chicago.  It was an emergency."

"Yes, but where did he go?"

"There's a note."

Hubby held up the note.  It read, "I went to Chicago, there was an emergency."

The boy is succinct, I'll give him that.

But Hubby is a genius.  He pulled out the lap top and traced Skippy's moves through the Illinois toll way because Skippy has an Ipass.  "Well, this makes no sense,"  Hubby mutters.

"What?"

"He went through Waukegen at 4:30.  He got to O'Hare at about 5.  He went through Waukegan again a little after 6."

"He wasn't even in Chicago an hour.  And why was he at the airport?"

So much for sleeping in late today.

Sure enough, Skippy walks through the door at 7:15, two girls with him.  One I knew.  One I didn't. 

Skippy rode in on his mighty Dodge and rescued two girls from...well we're not sure yet
but it must have been something fierce.  He did leave a note, after all.

Apparently...and I'm a little hazy on the details here...the girls, who are friends of his and live near the Indiana border  (We live in Wisconsin.)  were at a party in Chicago and things got out of hand.  They didn't want to ride the train alone late at night...and one of the friends had to catch a flight this morning out of O'Hare.  So...Skippy to the rescue...sort of.

So now I have two girls in my house who live almost in another time zone.  I'm not sure how they are getting home or when they are going.

I get more sleep at work!