Daily Diatribes

Warning:  If you are a male or are in the process of becoming one, this entry may offend you. 

Marriage is the hardest thing I have ever done, especially since I married a man. There is just no other way to phrase it; we all know it’s true:  Men Suck!!!  To be fair, maybe it’s not just men, maybe it’s the whole institution of marriage. 

Let’s examine the average marriage.  For starters, why do we get married?  It’s not a biblical thing or a cultural thing; we get married because we want to have lots of sex and if you get married, it’s more legitimate.  When I was young, sex sounded great.  All sorts of people were having sex and I wanted to get in on the action.  So I met a guy and we proceeded to have sex.

But here is the crucial difference between men and women:  after that first time, I was good.  For women, having sex is kind of like bungee jumping, or eating kim chee, or reading War and Peace.  You want to do it so you can say you’ve done it and then it’s time to move on to the next thing.  Men, however, want to continue having sex multiple times per week, if not actually per hour.

“Remember when we used to do it more than once a day?” my husband will ask me wistfully.  “Yeah, I remember,” I tell him, as I shove him to one side.  “Back when my boobs were pointing north and the hair on your head hadn’t migrated to your nostrils yet!!”

And that’s not even factoring in my children hanging on me ALL DAY LONG!!!  By the end of the day, I don’t want anyone to touch me!  George Clooney could appear in my bedroom wearing the Batman mask and nothing else, and I would still tell him to get off of me because Desperate Housewives is on and it’s a new episode.

Here’s another thing:  Men are not by nature helpful creatures.  I often tell my husband that if he did even half of what I ask him to do in an average day, I would probably be a lot more willing.  We have been married 15 years and he has yet to actually comprehend that. 

I am sure some of you are reading this, shaking your heads, saying “but my Ralph does everything I ask him to do!”  Well, let me clue you in on something:  Ralph is gender confused.  He is not really a man, he is actually a woman with a penis.  Seek a sex change operation for him immediately and invest in a good vibrator.

Seriously, I know there are some exceptions, but on the whole, many many many men are still defining their wives with criteria established in the 1950’s by that bitch Donna Reed!  I’m sure most of you have seen the email that circulates every so often with tips for housewives in the 1950’s.  The one that says make sure the house is quiet when he comes home from work and keep the children quiet and do your hair and makeup so he doesn’t come home to a frumpy wife. 

Here are the rules for the millenium:

1.  I have borne your children

2.  I care for your children

3.  I take your children to:  dance, soccer practice, football practice, scouts, piano lessons, gymnastics, competition bowling, the doctor, the barber, the dentist and the grocery store.  Make your own damn dinner!!

4.  I will engage in sexual activity once a week, unless it is a special occasion or I need something from you.  Otherwise, don’t ask!

5.  I will clean the house when someone visits; otherwise, don’t ask!!

6.  If you want the kids to be quiet when you get home, buy me a bigger roll of duct tape.

7.  If you want me to have makeup on when you get home, it better be because you are taking me out to an expensive dinner, with no expectation of sex afterward.

8.  If you want someone to bring you your newspaper and slippers, get yourself a cocker spaniel.

9.  I am not cleaning up after the damn dog; I clean up after everybody else around here.

10.  If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!

I think these are reasonable rules to set for a household.  We would all get along so much better if our husbands would just follow these rules.  Unfortunately, men expect us to work all day, cook, clean and then do the sex kitten routine in the bedroom.  After putting in a full day at work, a man comes home, sits down, puts his feet up and asks where dinner is.  A woman puts in a full day of work, comes home, cooks dinner, does the dishes, bathes the kids, puts them to bed, washes clothes, makes lunches and then sits down.  Then the jackass has the nerve to ask her if she’s in the mood!!!!  Yeah, in the mood for a little axe murdering!!

Most women I know think it would be much easier to raise children with another woman.  The only obstacle is the lack of a penis, but hey, these days even that can be easily rectified.  Better living through plastics (and some vinyl for that realistic texture….and I can see Julie blushing through the computer!!!!!!!)  Seriously, after a couple of months, the sex organs actually atrophy from lack of use and then it becomes a non issue.  You raise the kids with Helen, then when they leave home, you get a couple of cats and knit sweaters together into your golden years.  Sounds like a good plan to me!

I love my husband, I have a good life and I know the grass is always greener on the other side.  But sometimes I look at Ellen DeGeneres and think, well, she may be on to something here!  Except for the sex part, it might be a good deal.  I’ll let y’all know if I decide to run away with the mail lady.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go starch my apron and put my pearls on so I’ll look nice when Tim comes home.  I just hope the blood comes out of the apron…. 

I am on a creative roll, so please check the other blog for the continuing saga of C and C!!!

As I write this, I am still feeling extremely queasy from this morning’s find.  It’s the first Sunday of the time change, and I woke up feeling chipper.  There is nothing like an extra hour of sleep to get your blood going.  So, in the spirit of the solstice, I decided I would make pancakes for my little princesses, Tim and Josh being off together chopping wood or something manly like that.  Actually, I think they’re planting flowers, but that doesn’t really go with my theme here.

So I opened the pantry to get out the ingredients.  Well, I was immediately sidetracked by the crazy jumble of boxes in there.  I know I have diatribed about this before, but my family luuuuuuuuvvvvvvvvvvvvs to take the last fruit roll up and leave the empty box in the pantry for me to find.  So I was straightening the pantry, removing the 37 empty boxes, picking up stuff from the pantry floor, that sort of thing.

I have to set the scene here, because I think I can pitch this idea to Stephen King.  It’s a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning.  The sky is so blue, it makes your soul ache.  The air is crisp with the promise of the coming winter.  Birds are flitting merrily around the bird feeder outside of the window, only occasionally thumping into the window.  My girls are actually getting along, sitting at the table and playing with play dough and construction paper.

Aside:  Why is Anna more entertained by the tiny free container of play dough she got in a goody bag yesterday than by the room full of expensive toys she has?  She sat and played with that stuff for an hour!!  Had I bought the play dough, she would have never touched it.

Anyway, there was absolutely no warning of the horror to come.  No ominous music, swelling with dread, making my spine tingle and alerting me to the fear that was to come.  Nothing.  I was happily ignorant of what lay within the depths of my pantry.

Humming to myself, I reached up to the shelf where the pancake mix was.  I touched it, then pulled away, struck with a need to straighten the boxes on that shelf.  I moved the boxes closer together, lining up the barley and the rice and the Rice A Roni in an orderly fashion.  My hands inched closer to the pancake box of dread.

Finally, I was ready.  Then I turned from the pantry to get my tools together.  A measuring cup, a bowl and a frying pan…I lined them up on the counter, ready to begin the pancake project.  It was almost as if, on some primitive subconscious level, I was aware of the terror lurking in my pantry.

I turned to the pantry in slow motion.  My senses were heightened and it seemed as if I could hear each molecule of sound individually as I reached for the “Mrs. Butterworth’s Complete”.  My hand closed around the red box and Mrs. Butterworth smiled at me complacently, that bitch, not giving me any warning as to the contents of the box.  Mrs. Butterworth the demon, who had replaced the innocent pancake mix with the contents of hell.

I set the box on the counter, and read the back, trying to determine how many pancakes to make.  The girls were starting to get fretful; the supernatural vibes were getting to them, causing them to snap and snarl.  “Two Cups,” I read from the box and I grasped the box firmly and my hand came down to the top to fold the flaps back.

The scream of horror never escaped my lips, but reverberated to the very depths of my soul, shattering my peaceful morning and altering me forever.  As I opened the box, I realized the pancake mix was MOVING AND IT WAS BLACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Some sort of winged insect had infested the whole mix and the colony glared at me malevolently, inviting me to have a pancake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I say my stomach churned, I am soooooo not exaggerating!!!  I think I actually dry heaved a time or two as I lurched to the garbage can to throw the box away!!  I have no idea what took over the pancake mix, but I am considering torching the entire pantry.  It goes without saying that the Bisquick box, the bright happy yellow Bisquick box, joined the pancake mix in the garbage without me so much as peeking at its contents.  Better safe than sorry, I always say.  I may go ahead and throw away everything and fumigate with Raid or at the very least, have a priest come and perform a rite of exorcism.

Needless to say, I am NOT cooking anything this morning.  Oh no, we are off to McDonald’s and the golden arches, where the health inspector comes on a regular basis to make sure the pancake mix cannot fly away!!

I just consumed a large quantity of Halloween candy, originally destined to be handed out on the happiest day of the year, October 31st.  Unfortunately, I had to break the glass door with the hammer to remove the stash for emergency purposes. 

After seeing the longhorn sign and knowing that I was quite likely the Longhorn High Priestess, I became quite calm and placid, even going so far as to vacuum the floor.  It was as if a peace had come over me with the knowledge of the longhorn’s presence among us….and isn’t this blasphemous???

Anyway, as I was saying, my afternoon turned out to be fairly decent.  That is until the bus came.  Why does the bus have to bring the kids home so early?  The hell with year round school, how about round the clock school?  How about boarding school?  Or my favorite thought, MILITARY SCHOOL!!!

Anna got off the bus in a great mood.  We sat down and she read her book to me and showed me all of her pictures.  Then she hooked up Kirby to his leash (Kirby is our golden retriever) and took him for a walk. 

Fifteen minutes later, I hear the most wretched screeching noise and I rush to the door to see if someone has been axe murdered in my front yard.  No blood met my eyes, but my youngest child stood in the street straddling her bike shrieking at her brother.  It seems Josh was trying to call Kirby up the hill and Anna did not feel she had had sufficient time to walk him (Kirby, not Josh).  Will McCrite had apparently earned the privilege of walking Kirby home while Anna rode her bike, and now it was her turn.  Never mind that it was starting to rain and it’s 50 degrees outside, by God Anna was ready to walk that dog.

The more Josh and I called Kirby, the louder Anna screeched.  Abby was walking in, so I asked her nicely to walk Will home.  I love it when your child looks you right in the face and says ”no”, particularly when you have just dropped a rather large sum of money on a jacket said child wanted and did not really need.  Oh yes, I gave in and bought Abby a North Face, reasoning it would last her until she went to college.  But do you think she is grateful that I spent the grocery money on a jacket so she could fit in with her little Greystone peeps??

Oh no, gratitude is way too much to ask.  I snarled at her to walk Will home and she told me “No, I don’t want to.”  I am reading a Stephen King book right now, The Shining and it is very violent and bodily harm is performed in lots of creative ways.  As Anna continued to shriek in the street and Abby continued to defy me, I began to channel Jack Torrance.  I could see myself chasing them with the croquet mallet (yes, I know it’s roque in the book, but where the hell will I find a roque mallet???) and screaming “Come and take your medicine!!!!!” 

So in a very short period of time, I have gone from peaceful Longhorn goddess to demented housewife, ready to sacrifice her children to the Longhorn.  Instead of sacrifice, I did some Lamaze breathing, tried to think WWJD (Jesus didn’t have children, but I guess that’s irrelevant) and told Abby if she didn’t walk Will home right now I was going to hurt her body a lot.  By this time, Josh had walked down the hill and simply unhooked Kirby’s leash, one of the retractable ones in the hard plastic case and had handed it to Abby as he and Kirby bounded up the hill.  So Abby THREW the leash at me, nearly striking me in the face.  I think most of you reading now will be looking for the obituary in tomorrow’s paper, but I held it together and told her in the scary voice she better walk Will home right now.

By now Anna was walking her bike up the hill, still shrieking at the top of her lungs “I HATE YOU!!!” and threatening to run away.  What, this is supposed to make me feel bad?  Come in you little monster, and I’ll pack for you!!!  Here, have a snack for the ride!!!

I jerked her in the door, only swatted her twice on the bottom and I didn’t even pick up the chainsaw.  I sent her to her room and there she remains.  I sent Abby to her room as soon as she got back and there she remains as well.

Josh, who had been watching this drama unfold with varying degrees of glee and alarm asked me, very tongue in cheek, “So how was your day mom?”  “Fine,” I told him and I headed straight for the kitchen where I began to devour Hershey’s kisses like a dying woman. 

Now I feel sick and bloated and Anna is upstairs shrieking “When can I come down?  I want to play!!!!”  I think I am going to finish off the Halloween candy and start on the potato chips. 

I am in a “funk” today; no reason, I think it’s just the weather.  Cold is fine, rain is fine, but cold and rain together suck!!

I started out my day trying to do the unheard of:  go back to sleep after everyone left.  Only people started calling me on the phone and they wouldn’t stop.  I ignored it for a long time, but after the phone rang for literally the tenth time, I decided it was God’s way of informing me he didn’t want me to lay around all day!

I got up, skulked around for awhile, then I decided to go to Wal-Mart to spend money.  I find this to be a very soothing activity, even though Wal-Mart caters to homosexuals, according to an email I received today.  Still, Wal-Mart has a lot of good stuff, and I figured I could go in and dodge the gays and get what I needed.

I am puzzled, though, as to what the author of the e-mail considers to be “gay” items?  According to the author, Wal-Mart sells over 1400 gay items.  What are they?  I walked up and down a lot of aisles, and I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary or “gay”.  I guess KY jelly could be a gay item, but hell, lots of straight people use it too!  Lace panties??  Stiletto pumps??  I see these on the 6th graders, girls and boys (kidding) at my daughter’s middle school.  If anyone has any insight into the gay items sold by Wal-Mart, I would be most interested.

Anyway, off to Wal-Mart I went, in my best Wal-Mart uniform.  What, you may ask, does a Wal-Mart uniform consist of?  Today, it was a pair of grey sweat pants with a ripped pocket, my favorite green t-shirt that has holes in it and says “It may be my attitude, but it’s your problem”, ankle socks and purple crocs, and my dirty hair scraped back in a claw clip.  I epitomized the Wal-Mart sex goddess!!

I stomped through Wal-Mart, bought a couple of Christmas things, got some detergent, the usual sorts of things.  At the check out, I was the last person the cashier took, because the candy needed restocking.  DO NOT BUY THREE MUSKETEERS ON AISLE 33!!!!  The dirty looking white girl restocking the candy bars kept WIPING HER NOSE WITH HER HAND!!!!!!  REPEATEDLY!!!!!!!!!  She was using the popular method of palm to nostrils then an upward motion toward the hairline to distribute the germy mucous evenly over the entire surface of the palm.  I guess she does not actually realize snot is one way germs can be transmitted to other people!!!  Anyway, that was fascinating, albeit disturbingly gross!

On my way home, I decided to stop and treat myself to take out Mexican.  I went in, placed my order with the Mexican hottie who runs the register at lunch, then went to Wal Greens to buy some Vaseline, which may very well be a gay item.  Anna’s lips are very chapped and nothing else is working, so I thought we would go back to basics and try Vaseline.

As I was wandering around, looking for it, a bottle caught my eye.  The product was called “Chaser:  The Hangover Stopper” and it came in regular and Wine Headache.  Boy they got that right!!  A Wine Headache is absolutely brutal!  The Geneva Convention has actually barred it as an interrogation method!  I had to stop and read the bottles to see what this was all about.

The ingredient list read like a character summary from George Lucas’s next movie.  Here is the info:

Can’t you just see the movie now?  Cinchona 12x, a space cadet from the Planet Croscarmellose is madly in love with Lobelia inf, a warrior princess.  Cinchona and his trusty sidekick Nux vom set out on a mission to Quercus Gland to free the Ranunc bulb from the evil Lord Zincum.  Using a bomb made of Titanium Dioxide they must find a whey (sorry, couldn’t resist!!) to destroy Lord Zincum and take the Ranunc bulb back to the planet Croscarmellose.

You know, screw it, I’ll take the hangover.  I don’t even know what half this stuff is!  For all I know, the manufacturers may be buying dog doo in bulk from the dogwalker’s union in New York City, grinding it up, coloring it with red #40 and promising you it will kill your hangover!  No thank you, I’ll stick with tomato juice and egg yolks!  Better the demon you know….

On my way back to Hacienda, I received a sign from God.  There, on one of the concrete pillars that holds up the roof, was a Texas Longhorn.  I swear, it was clear as day.  I am thinking if all those folks who make a fortune by saying the cream in their Twinkie looks like the blessed mother, I ought to be able to make a killing with an image of a Texas Longhorn.  Maybe I will start my own longhorn cult and we will sleep in the parking lot and wait for the Sacred Longhorn to come back and take us all away to the planet Croscarmellose, where there are no gays nor gay “items”.  Forget the job, there is money to be made in this cult business. 

So join me tomorrow in the Wal Green’s parking lot to begin our vigil for the Sacred Longhorn.  Yes my followers, we will drink the green koolaid of eternal life and wait for the Longhorn to take us away from this world of pain!  Until then, I’m going back to bed.  DON’T CALL ME!!!!

Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows Josh (age 13) and Abby (age 11) do not get along.  AT All.  EVER.  I guess it’s a sibling thing, but then again, it may just be a personality defect that renders them unable to be in each others presence for longer than 30 seconds. 

Usually it starts out with one doing something horrible to the other, like breathing the same air.  It quickly goes downhill from there.  He will call her a fat loser, she will call him a stupid jerk, and pretty soon they are rolling around on the ground, trading death blows.

Today, Abby comes storming in the house after school, her face reflecting inner turmoil of the deepest, most disturbing nature.  My first thought was a bad grade or possibly a problem with a friend, and I went to her, where she had flung herself on the couch, and tenderly smoothed back her hair in my best June Cleaver imitation. 

“Did you have a bad day?” sweetie, I asked her lovingly, my maternal hormones surging.  She turned her head, refusing to answer.

“It’s ok Abby, you can tell me,” I told her Junishly.

She turned to look at me, blue eyes sparkling with unshed tears, and I could see the child warring with the teenager behind her eyes.  Whatever the problem was, we would resolve it together, I thought, loving this child of mine.

Finally it burst out:  “Josh sat on me on the bus and called me fat,” she wailed.

I looked at her in disbelief; this was the great tragedy???

I turned around and glared at Josh, who was just walking in the room.  “Did you sit on her?” I asked him sternly. 

“Well, yeah, but after she kicked me.”
I turned to her and said sternly (June Cleaver having been replaced by Mommie Dearest) “Did you kick him?”

“Well, yeah, but only because he was going to tell Ms. Tyler that I said gay,” she wailed (again with the wailing).

Well, at that point I had to leave the room.  Why do they do this to me??  Why can I not put them on the bus together or send them to youth group together or even let them live in the same house together?  I know I was not a perfect child, but surely my brothers and I did not try to reduce each other to rubble daily.  Well, ok, we did feed my younger brother a glass of yeast once and then we told him he was going to blow up like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, but that was an isolated incident.  Ok, we did call him Jason the Elephant Boy for a month after he had teeth pulled and his face swelled up, but that was mostly my older brother who had an absolute genius for insult.  But I know we were not as bad as my hellions!!

Suddenly, a lightbulb pinged over my head.  I walked back into the room and growled “Both of you come here now.”  Josh swaggered over and Abby skulked in and hid her face.  Here is what I told them and my genius amazes even me.

“I am going to get on the bus tomorrow.  I am going to tell Ms. Tyler if you guys so much as touch each other, I am going to start riding the bus with you.  Morning and afternoon.  Do you believe me?”

Josh, the idiot boy, said “You have to sit with me, mom!”  Abby said nothing, knowing I was serious.

“Furthermore,” I told them, “I will get on the microphone and I will announce to the whole bus that I am Josh and Abby’s mommy and I have to ride the bus with Josh and Abby because they cannot get along.  Do you believe me?”

Josh clapped and smiled and said “Well spoken mom.”  Idiot boy.  Abby just glared at me, killing me softly with her blue eyes, blue eyes sparkling not with tears, but with rage….

“I know,” I continued, “that I can get one of my friends to come to Berry and pick me up after I ride the bus with you guys.  As a matter of fact, I will probably have to make them take turns because they will want to be there to see me getting off the bus at your school, wearing my best flannel pajamas with my hair up in curlers and big fuzzy slippers.  So if you don’t want your mommy to ride the bus tomorrow, DON’T TALK TO EACH OTHER!!!!!!!!!”

I’m not sure they got the message, but I don’t care.  I am halfway hoping I get to follow through with my threat.  There are just not enough opportunities in my day to completely and thoroughly humiliate my children. 

As I type this blog, I hear a crash in the other room, and what sounds like breaking glass.  I choose to ignore it, figuring someone will come and tell me about it soon enough.  Sure enough Abby comes sidling in to stand by me. 

“Mom, I was standing by the door and the picture frame sort of fell over and I’m sorrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeee……..” she wailed.  Sigh, do you sense a pattern here.  So I get up and go in the living room, and sure enough the picture frame has toppled over onto one of my very expensive matched pumpkin votive holders, purchased from WalGreen’s. 

“It’s alright, Abby, it’s not a big deal,” I sighed, picking up the fragments.  “But why were you standing behind the column to begin with?”
“I was just standing there,” she told me refusing to meet my eyes.  About that time, Idiot Boy comes swaggering in to see the damage.

“Josh, you’re so mean!!!!!” Abby shrieks.  “Why do you have to come in here and see what I did???”

“I’m not,” he told her, “I’m just walking around.”  Oh yeah, right, that’s believable.  “I hate you,” she yelled at him and ran out of the room.

Well, they are standing behind me right now, arguing about whether anti drug week is stupid or not.  I guess I better go intervene before someone starts bleeding!!!

I love the ellipse….it’s so expressive!!  It’s one of my favorite punctuation marks, right up there with the exclamation point!!

Yesterday found me criss crossing Shelby county with great abandon.  I began my travels at Cracker Barrel in Pelham, chowing down on a free breakfast, paid for by none other than my husband!!  See, he does love me!!

We then went to Wal Mart, where I soaked him for Halloween candy, a birthday gift for the party Anna is going to today, and bird seed for my little feathered friends.

Aside:  I hate birds.  It’s not just the Hitchcock movie, although Lord knows the sight of Tippi Hedren beating off those crows is enough to turn anyone’s blood cold.  Birds are creepy.  You can look at one and tell its brain is small and their feet are gnarly.  I would never touch one.  But I do love watching them at the bird feeders outside my kitchen window.  They are so cunning and dear, as they crack open sunflower seeds with their powerful beaks, beaks more suited to gouging out eyeballs, but still….Of course, the bird feeders being where they are, you do hear the occasional “THUMP” as one cruises a little too close to the window, but hey, it’s the circle of life!!

Anyway, from Wal-Mart, we came home, and then I proceeded solo to the shopping center in Brook Highland, in search of something suitable for the dreaded Girl Scout sit upon.  Fortunately, God smiled upon me and I found nothing.  Then I went to Inverness to plan the Daisy meeting with my co leader.  Daisy meetings are easy to plan; you basically only  have to talk for 10 minutes, because the whole rest of the meeting is nothing but telling the Daisies to sit down and stop swinging off the rafters.  For the uninitiated, Daisies are 5 and 6 year old girls, so you can imagine there is not a whole lot of instruction going on!

From there, I met Tim for lunch, again a meal I did not pay for!  See, he talks big, but in the end, he can always be relied upon to fund my habits!  Then it was home to wait for the bus.  As soon as the girls got off the bus, we had to pack up and rush off to Pelham, to drop Anna off at Grandma’s house.  When we got there, I realized I had left her soccer cleats at home!  I was going to let her play without them, but her footwear choices consisted of crocs or cowboy boots, neither one of which lends itself to soccer playing.  Great, another trip!

From Pelham, it was on to Alabaster to drop Abby off for basketball practice.  The practice was waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy out in the country; I heard the distant twang of banjoes as we traveled those country roads, and many of the residents came out of their cabins to eye us suspiciously as we passed.  We were near the Wynlake subdivision and you know that is in the sticks….just kidding!! 

From the practice, I went to visit Roseanna and spent a nice couple of hours watching HGTV and making fun of the couple profiled on the show.  I seldom watch TV and it’s always nice to see what I am missing.  Unfortunately, I had to leave before I got to see if Debbie and Jim worked out their differences regarding the yellow (his take) gold (her take) paint in the living room.  I will say Debbie had a remarkably prominent rear end and should not have been wearing a t-shirt that clung so lovingly to every fold of her body.  See, I could be on TV too!  Oh, and it was some show about a “Life Coach” helping people work through their differences.  He is an obviously homosexual man (not that this is a problem, but they do get all the good gigs on TV) who rides around in a motor home and spies on people via his laptop.  He then pulls them aside individually to teach them mantras regarding things like yellow paint. In the case of Jim and Debbie, he taught Jim to say “it could work” about the paint.  Hmmmm….life coach/life event coordinator….it could work!!!  

By this time, it was 9 pm and I had spent more hours on the road than a traveling Bible salesman.  I longed to go home to bed, but my day was not done yet.  From Alabaster, I had to go back to my house to pick up the cleats and then run them to Inverness to leave them with Anna’s coach so she could play soccer in the morning.  Anna’s coach works at the Beverage Place which sells spirits of the alcoholic nature.  We passed a pleasant five minutes discussing the difference between single barrel whiskey and double barrel whiskey and why it was permissible to charge three times more for the former.  

On my way out, right in front of the store, was a large flying cockroach.  There is one thing I count on in cold weather:  the disappearance of the roaches. I am positively phobic about them.  I realize it’s irrational, but they disgust me on some deep, primal level.  Snakes and lizards don’t bother me, mice don’t faze me, but show me a roach, and I will be in a tree before you can count to three.  I was deeply pissed off that a roach was out when the temp had dipped below 60.  I believe Kristie is right and the end times are upon us:  Vandy beats Georgia; North Korea has nukes; global warming has emboldened cockroaches to defy temperature extremes and come out and harass the innocent.  Damn Global Warming and the Republican Dogs who created it!!!

From Inverness, I had to go to Berry Middle School to wait on Josh who had to play at the Spain Park football game.  It was close to 10 pm and I was exhausted.  I was sitting there in kind of a haze when Abby started mewling that she had to go to the bathroom.  She had guzzled an entire Gatorade and then a large Sprite after basketball practice.  Idiot.  Finally, I had enough of her, so I had to take her ALL THE WAY HOME!!  Then I had to go back to Berry to resume my waiting!!!  Auuuuuuggggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!    

At 10:15, Josh finally gets in the car and we can go home, where I collapse in exhaustion.  The fun part is I get to do it all again today:  8:30 game in Gardendale; 11:30 soccer party on Acton Road; 2:00 birthday party in Pelham; and 6:30 Halloween carnival at OLV.  And where is Tim during all this merriment, you ask?  Rest assured gentle reader, he is NOT sitting in an easy chair channel surfing.  No, he is freezing his ass off, camping with the boy scouts at Camporee.  Camporee is a fun word used to describe a gathering of hundreds of teen age boys running around like hooligans all hours of the night.  So Tim actually has it worse than me.  Tee hee!!

I’m off to Gardendale; stay tuned for the further adventures of the Globe Trotting Soccer Mom!!

I have several new faithful readers that I would like to welcome.  Hi Cindy!  Hi Meredith!!

For those of you who are new to the blog and have not yet made your way to the earlier entries, I have created a new sub blog, dedicated solely to my bodice ripper.

The new blog address is:  www.bodiceripper.blog.com.  I plan to finish the novel this year, because this seems like the only possible income generating activity I can complete.  So look for Chrysanthemum and Carmichael to get some resolution to their torrid romance.

Kudos to Gianna for the header image on the new blog; I can’t wait to hear the feedback!!! 

Well, all I can say is my new company is going to be fully staffed, so that’s a blessing.  Thanks to Gina, I even have office space.  Now I just need to get my business cards printed, and I’m ready to go!

This morning saw me participating in a scenario that is likely enacted in millions of homes across the globe every day.  It began, simply enough, with me complaining to my spouse that I need more money.  Instead of being properly sympathetic and offering to take on a second job, he began helpfully telling me how I could curtail my spending habits.

What an ass!!!  Do I need him to tell me I spend too much money eating out?  Hell no, I can read any number of women’s magazines for helpful articles on how to manage a family of five on $368.37 per month.  I know how to budget money, I just don’t want to.  I want him to give me more money.  I think it’s pretty simple myself.

He then made some comment that I interpreted as “you are a parasite”.  Well, you can imagine how well I received that comment.  I told him right away that no parasite on this planet would touch his dirty underwear, and yet I wash it on a regular basis, as well as performing other marital duties and obligations on that one day a month when I am headache free (actually, it’s more like once a quarter).  I’m not really sure he called me a parasite, but it was an excellent reason to sulk and stomp around and generally let him know how much I despise him.

He continued with the helpful money saving tips, which I will share with you here:

Stop buying the children clothes; they have enough.  According to Tim, they each need a week’s worth of underwear and socks, one pair of jeans, and three shirts.  This should be enough to last the entire school year.  One pair of shoes per year is sufficient; we can stretch them out when their toes start curling over on themselves.  Or maybe we can just cut the ends of the shoes off; it’s better for their feet to get some ventilation.

Stop all extra curricular activities at once or get a job to pay for them.  Well, I guess I’m gonna have to start hooking to pay for Josh’s piano lessons.  I pay monthly for two activities; I have a friend who pays something in the neighborhood of $500 a month just for dance, and her kids are in several other activities as well.  I spend less than $125.00 a month on activities for the kids, so I think I’m actually doing pretty well.  According to Tim, when he was growing up on the farm, he didn’t have to pay for activities.  Well, duh, Cow Patty Hockey is free!!!!!  The materials are organic and easily accessible!!! 

Stop eating out so much.  Ok, I’ll give him that one.  I guess I could find a new hobby, but this one is so much fun.  I love to eat out; people cook the food for you and serve it to you and then they clear the table and do the dishes.  No one ever does that for me at home.  I cook it, serve it, and wash it.  Tim wants me to bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, perform exotic sexual acts all night and then be ready to go off and do it all again the next day.  Dream on!!!!  He does have an active fantasy life!

Stop taking the children to the doctor so much.  Well, first of all, I have a psycho stalker relationship with Renee, and I frequently pay $25 for her company….wait, that makes her sound like a hooker…no, really I am a hypochondriac, and I pay $25 for her reassurance that the children and I will live to see another day.  According to Tim, we should worm the children once a year and if they get sick, he can treat them with hoof and mouth medication.  He sees no reason for me to consult a human physician when he is perfectly competent to treat the children with antibiotics and steroids, which as I have stated before is the treatment of choice for veterinarians.  Got cancer?  Antibiotics and Steroids.  Broken leg?  Antibiotics and steroids.  If I let Tim treat the kids when they got sick, they’d all weigh 300 pounds from the steroids, but they’d be worm free!!

So we go back to the option of me finding a job.  The problem is no one wants to hire me to work from 9 to 2.  Abby, who loves to pick up the free magazines off the displays at grocery stores, picked one up that was advertising house cleaning jobs.  She was beside herself, because she felt this would be perfect for me.  “Look mom, you can make up to $350 a week, just to clean houses!”  Obviously, in her precious little mind, that is all I am fit to do…become a Merry Maid.  Well, they do look happy on the commercials….

Tim is utterly convinced if I would just sit down and put my mind to it, I could write  a book.  It’s really sweet how utterly deluded he is.  Sure Tim, if I start now, I can have my first bestseller in print, oh, say around the 1st of Never!!!!!!!!!  Considering he reads NOTHING AT ALL, he doesn’t have a full grasp of how difficult and slippery the written word can be.  And since I will be happy with nothing less than a Harry Potter phenomenon, well, I guess I’ll have to look into the house cleaning thing! 

BTW, I do not hate three people….I meant there were only three people I liked and I didn’t want to name them….it was a poorly worded joke.  Of course Gina immediately assumed she was one of the chosen three, simply because she brought daquiris….ok, fine she was right, but still, I might decide to hate her tomorrow! 

Last week, I was bemoaning the fact that I need a job.  It’s not that we can’t pay the bills; it’s just my spending habits seem to outstrip our income every week.  This led me to conclude that a job might be in order.

At breakfast on Friday, I confided this to an acquaintance, who then tried to be helpful.  I hate it when people try to find solutions for you, when all you really want to do is complain.  Complaining is part of the 12 Step Hangnail solution, where you whine and fuss about what is wrong with your life and your companion is merely sympathetic, adding a soothing “that sucks” when appropriate.  Never, under any circumstances, should someone try to solve the problem.  Whining is part of the therapeutic approach and a necessary step toward enlightenment.

Anyway, she asked me what I liked to do.  “I like to sit at home in my pajamas,” I told her.  “Oh and eat out, too,” which seemed good since we were at Cracker Barrel.  “Well what are you good at?” was her next question.  “I’m good at sitting at home in my pajamas and playing video games,” I told her.  Did she seriously think I want to find a job????  I really want someone to compensate me handsomely for sitting around on my butt in front of the computer all day long, sending out letters to the editor and playing Pogo, as well as toppling the occasional Catholic school empire!

Anyway, over lunch that day, with a new set of companions (I told you, I excel at eating out and both meals were free!!!!!!!!!!!!) I recounted the conversation, again with the groan that I needed a job to support my weakness for DVD’s and checkout line cookbooks.  By the way, I adore check out line cookbooks, especially the Pillsbury ones.  They always have such cute things you can cook.

This group, comprised of Lisa, Cindy and Lucy, was much more helpful.  I also needed something that I could put on my business cards.  Lisa had won the lunch from Panera Bread by dropping her business card into a bowl and she got lunch for five.  I told them I needed an occupation to list on my cards so I could win free lunches as well.

They immediately decided I should become an event coordinator.  After all, I am good at arranging things and people always have fun at my parties.  Then they took it a step further and decided I should be a “Life Event Coordinator”.  Ahhhhh…that sounds more like it! 

What, you may ask, does a Life Event Coordinator do?  Well, so far this year, I have successfully pulled off a major surprise birthday party, as well as the funeral of the century.  Throw in a birth and a wedding, and I will have done it all!  Surely I can sucker some poor woman into hiring me to coordinate her daughter’s wedding. 

First, I am going to have to come up with a really catchy advertising hook, something like “From Birth To Death, We Celebrate the First Step and The Last Breath”.  Not too bad, and it will look great on the t-shirts staff members can wear on Casual Fridays.

I’ll have to rent some office space somewhere, but Lord knows there’s plenty of empty commercial space up and down Valleydale Road.  I’ll need a suite, with space for my admin assistant, my research assistant, my staff nurse, and my creative team.  Also, a fairly large break room where we can eat our free lunches from our business card racket.  Also, there will have to be a place for my treadmill and a TV so I can watch Golden Girls reruns while I burn off calories from the free lunches.

I am going to need a logo, company letterhead, a new wardrobe…the list goes on and on.  I am going to have to hire a good office manager, because the whole reason I am getting this job is am terrible with money.  Obviously, we will need new computers, and I need a really good mouse so I can keep up with my Pogo Challenges.

Ok, never mind, this job is costing way too much money!!!!!  You see my problem though; I am just not cut out for a typical desk job.  I have tried them before, and I am usually bored within three months and within six months, I am ready to quit.  I need a job that is interesting and pays a lot!

Ok, here are the things I will not consider:  exterminator, because there is no way I am facing down roaches in their territory; sales of any type, because I’m just way too lazy; receptionist, because it’s better to give than to receive…ok, ha ha, that was sort of stupid, lost my head there!!; or any type of waste handling, be it human or otherwise.

So what can I do?  I am not employable, because I am basically lazy and spoiled and I want to be paid a lot of money to really do nothing.  Is that so much to ask?  If any of your friends/relatives/neighbors/parole officers have a job opening, please refer me to them.  I promise not to let you down!!