Daily Diatribes

I am very glad turkey day is behind me.  I had the best visit EVER with my family, but it was an interesting couple of days, to say the least. 

We left on Wednesday morning and took our time, driving leisurely down the highway.  We stopped for lunch and enjoyed hanging with my uncles (I LOVE MY UNCLES!!!!!).  We got to my parents house mid-afternoon.  My younger brother and his family had just gotten there and we all visited for a few minutes.  Then we headed out to find our hotel so we could check in and get back to the house for dinner.  My brother was staying at the hotel, so he and his wife followed us.

This is where it gets interesting.  The city of Dothan has the most ridiculous highway system.  Highway 231 loops around the city proper and is lined on both sides with strip malls.  The hotel was several miles from my parents house, on the circle and we had mapquest directions.  No problem, right?

Except my husband, being a man, had just gotten a new navigation thingy.  And, being a man, he insisted on plugging in all the coordinates and doing exactly what the disembodied British voice told him to do.  Never mind the full bodied woman sitting next to him, the one who was fully capable of reading the road signs.  We had to listen to Neville Chamberlain give us our directions.

So when Neville told my husband to get in the right turn lane, he complied immediately.  “What are you doing?” I asked.

“We have to turn right,” he said. 

“Yes, but you’re getting in the right turn lane too soon,” I said.

“So, traffic is backed up,” he said dismissively.

“You’re not supposed to be in this lane yet,” I complained.  “You’re going to get into an accident.”

Readers, I promise you no sooner had the words left my mouth when a minivan came out of nowhere and smashed into the side of us.  I felt like I was a doomed character in one of the Jaws movies.  One minute, we were sitting there conversing pleasantly and the next minute, Jaws was eating the side of my car. 

Fortunately, we were both wearing our seatbelts so we were ok, although we were both stunned.  My husband looked at me and then said “YOU JINXED ME!!!”  I just stared at him.  There was nothing else to say.

He hit the OnStar button and called the police while I got out to survey the damage.  The driver of the other car was in hysterics, so I went over to try and comfort her.  My younger brother and his wife pulled up and parked and hung out with us while we waited for the cops.  It was all very surreal.

It took two hours for the cops to complete their accident report (her fault) and for us to get a rental car.  Then we headed out to the hotel.  Turns out the disembodied British voice had been wrong.  The hotel was on the LEFT side of the road.  We never even had to be in the right turn lane.  No wonder we won the war; the British can’t NAVIGATE!!!!

By the time we finally got to the hotel, my right shoulder and chest were killing me.  And being me, suffering from PTSD as I was, I started to worry.  What if my shoulder was hemorrhaging into my chest cavity?  What if a vital organ had been damaged and even now, my subcutaneous transbrachial humeral artery was leaking?  I mewled and whimpered and finally I called Renee, who is even now regretting that I know her cell phone number.  She assured me there were no major organs in the right shoulder.  I quizzed her intently, suspicious about her knowledge of anatomy, but she held firm.  I was not dying.

The rest of the night was fairly uneventful.  Thanksgiving day dawned grey and overcast, the leaden skies heavy with the promise of rain (that was my stab at fancy writin’!).  I woke up feeling much restored, with hardly any pain in my shoulder.  I was much relieved to find I had not succumbed to my shoulder wounds and died in the night!  We got cleaned up and headed back to my parents house.

By 11:00, we were in full Thanksgiving mode.  Football was blaring on the television, the kids were running around screaming and my stepmother, Sheila, was in the kitchen cooking like a madwoman.  The entire family had donned their special black Thanksgiving t-shirts I had purchased.  Across the front it said “EMBRACE YOUR DYSFUNCTION   BENNETT FAMILY THANKSGIVING 2007″.  The back had a Top 10 List of things overheard at our holiday celebration.  Even the baby had one.

At around noon, the power went out.  Right in the middle of the cooking.  But more importantly, right in the middle of the football game.  My husband’s beloved Green Bay Packers were playing and suddenly, they were gone.  He looked at me tragically, as if one of the children had just expired.

Sheila was in the kitchen, wailing and tearing her hair.  All of the food had to be transferred out to the gas grill to finish cooking.  Fortunately, it had a burner, so the gravy could be heated through.  During all the commotion, my husband disappeared.

When I queried one of the uncles as to his whereabouts, he cheerfully said “oh I think he went back to the hotel to see if he could watch the game.”

I saw bright, bloody, murderous RED!!  HOW DARE HE leave the premises without telling me???  How many times had I suffered through holidays with his family and the ONE TIME I ask him to suffer through one with my family, HE DISAPPEARS!!!!  WITH OUR SON!!!!  Had the power been on, I would have gone after him with the electric carving knife. 

I stewed for several minutes, imagining his death in several lovely, violent ways and then I got up and went outside to see if our other children were still at the house.  And I ran into my son.  Turns out they had not left after all.  They were huddled outside in the car, watching the scores on my husband’s Black Jack.  Love for him swelled my heart as I screamed “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING OUT HERE??  I THOUGHT YOU LEFT JACKASS!!!!”  Another Hallmark moment from our Thanksgiving!!

The rest of the day went more smoothly.  Just as we were bringing in the food off the grill, the power came back.  The rolls had burned black on the grill and the turkey had dried out a bit, but otherwise, everything was good.  We blessed the food, fixed our plates and watched the Packers finish annhilating the Lions. 

Probably for me, the highlight was watching my uncle Randowse get eaten by my parents brand new sectional sofa.  He made the mistake of sitting in one of the middle seats and reclining.  When he tried to get up, he couldn’t get the recliner to lock.  He kept trying to get up and kept falling back down, a look of befuddlement on his face.  Everyone kept shouting directions at him, and the more we shouted, the more dismayed he became.  He finally lurched up and over the footrest, staggering away like a crazy man.  Sectional sofas are NOT for the faint of heart.

It was a very memorable Thanksgiving to say the least.  But I enjoyed the visit wth my highly dysfunctional family.  I appreciated my husband hanging in there with me.  But before the next road trip, I am hiding the navigation system.  Neville and family vacations do not mix!!

Ok, I have to do this thing.  I don’t actually know what I am supposed to do.  I will fail miserably. 

Me and Mine Meme 100 Directions:

1.) State the name of your blog, your real name or your online name, and link to your “about me” page.
2.) Say you want to be profiled on BlogHer as a family blogger and link back to this Me and Mine 100 original post, http://www.blogher.org/mommy-and-family-bloggers-promote-yourselves-me-and-mine-meme-100.
3.) Tell how long you’ve been blogging.
4.) Pass this meme on to three other bloggers that you think should be profiled/interviewed, and ask them to do the meme. (Kindly link to the bloggers you select.)

1)  The name of my blog is daily diatribes.  I don’t know how to link to the “about me” section; I bribe other people to do that for me.  Can I just say read the copy at the top and you’ll get a general idea about me?

 2)  I would love to be profiled.  Although it sounds vaguely sinister.  Like maybe I’ll be profiled and some government official in some shabby underground office will label me as a possible threat to national security.  Which I probably am.

 3)  I have been blogging for 1 1/2 years.

 4)I’m not sure I know three bloggers, but I’ll try.  Kathy at www.BirminghamBlues.com , Meredith at www.umyeah.wordpress.com and Neil at www.citizenofthemonth.com  

I doubt I did this right.  I suck.

Thanks Nancy S. We all need to be wary of the growing squirrel menace.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21895918/from/ET/

One of the things I particularly dislike about the Christmas season is the pervasive sense of guilt.  There is guilt about spending too much money.  Guilt about not buying the right gift.  Guilt about not spending enough money.  Guilt that the decorations did not go up thirty seconds after the last Thanksgiving dish was washed.  And for me, there is a huge sense of guilt because I do not become a gourmet baker during the holidays and whip out homemade treats for my friends and family.

Every year, as soon as the stores put out those baking displays, I start feeling guilty.  I feel this sense of urgency to bake cookies and pies and cakes for every person who crosses my path.  I sincerely want to gift the garbageman and the mail lady with loaves of home baked bread.  I want to give Renee’s staff homemade fudge.  But somehow, it never comes to fruition.

I walk into the grocery store and peruse the displays longingly.  Graham cracker crusts and condensed milk and mincemeat abound.  Not that I’ve ever tasted mincemeat, nor do I have a desire to taste it.  In fact, I have a strong suspicion that mincemeat may be nothing more than the leftover scrapple that didn’t sell during the year.  I suspect it is all dumped into a large vat, chopped up and repackaged as mincemeat.  Whatever it is, it sounds very holidayish and they ate it at Laura Ingalls’ house, so I feel I should be more open to it than I am.

Ditto for the fruitcake making supplies.  No fruitcake has ever passed my lips.  Fruit and cake do not go together in my life.  When I want cake, I want chocolate and butter cream.  Don’t even consider putting in dried cherries or apricots.  Fruitcake is too dark and dense looking.  It looks more like a door stop than an actual comestible.  I’ll pass.

But I still feel guilty when I see the container of dried fruit because somewhere, some good hausfrau is making it to hand out to her loved ones.  Even if the loved ones pitch it in the garbage, it’s still a visible sign of love and goodness from the domestic goddess.  So about halfway through the holiday season, I’ll break.

I will go into a frenzy and buy chocolate chips and flour and sugar and butter and vanilla extract and candy melts and brown sugar and nuts and orange rind and marshmallow creme and cocoa. I will spend hundreds of dollars.  I will rush it all home and line it up on my counter and start consulting cookbooks, determined to create the perfect holiday treats.  I will read the Southern Living cookbooks like novels, looking for the perfect protagonist for my holiday story.  And the ingredients sit.

Two days before Christmas, they are still sitting there.  And it’s too late, because now I have to wrap the gifts, a chore I have been putting off for two months.  The chocolate chips in their gay yellow package beckon to me, whispering sweet nothings about the holiday treats I am denying my loved ones.  The brown sugar eyes me reproachfully, slowly hardening inside its unopened box.  The marshmallow creme begins to yellow in despair as it realizes there is no fudgemaking occurring.  And on December 26th, I sadly put it all away, forced to acknowledge another year of failure.

By March, I have thrown out the marshmallow creme.  The chocolate chips have been opened by some child with a sweet tooth and spilled all over the cabinet where they begin to harden into a lump of unfulfillment.  The brown sugar has become a lethal weapon, harder than any substance known to man.  Let’s lob that at the terrorist insurgents!!

This holiday season, know I love you all.  You mean so much to me.  But I am not baking anything for you.  No dipped pretzels, no buckeyes and no fudge.  However, if you are all REALLY good, I will buy each and every one of you your own package of holiday Oreos!  Nothing says “I love you” like red dye #48!!

My uncle and his partner arrived last night with their seven year old son.  To accommodate everyone, I put Marie Antionette in the goddess’s room.  The goddess has a double bed, so it made sense.  I let them stay awake until the uncles arrived, then everyone went to bed.

We were sitting downstairs with the uncles, when the noise began.  At first I thought it was the neighborhood cats having an orgy.  Then I thought perhaps an anti-ballistic missile had been fired at the house.  When the thumping started, I sent Daddy upstairs to see whether we needed to head for the bomb shelter.

A great deal of screaming commenced.  We heard shrieks and roars and pounding.  A door was slammed.  A great number of “I hate you’s!!!” were screamed.  Finally it got quiet.  The uncles and I looked at each other curiously.  Had the children been murdered?  Had Daddy been murdered? 

Daddy came calmly back down the stairs and sat down on the couch.  We looked to him for explanations.  “The girls were having a bit of a problem,” he said.  “I handled it.”

Apparently, after the lights had been turned out, the goddess started kicking M.A., who responded in kind.  Pretty soon a full scale war erupted.  The goddess pinched M.A. and pulled her hair.  M.A. then responded by biting the goddess.  Most children grow out of the biting thing by age two.  It pains me greatly that my twelve year old is still biting and thinks this is an appropriate way to deal with her six year old sister.

When Daddy arrived on the scene, the accusations flew.  He proceeded to relocate the goddess to her favorite blue couch and told MA to go to sleep.  She responded with “I HATE YOU AND NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN!!!”   Which can certainly be arranged with a phone call to Miss Rogers School For Recalcitrant Biting Girls.

This morning, when the uncles came down with their son, I asked him how he slept.  “Well,” he said, “I had a hard time getting to sleep because of the sister fight.”  I thought that pretty aptly summed up the entire situation!  Just think:  all this drama and we haven’t even left for my parents house yet!!  Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Yes, I ended that title in a preposition.  I am thankful for Mojo, who will be sure to point out to me the error of my ways..

Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on the blessings in one’s life.  Or so the Hallmark people tell us.  It’s a time to be with family and to enjoy their company.  It’s a time to fantasize about finally running that carving knife across Great Uncle Marty’s jugular vein.  A time to eat too much, belch and then go lay on the couch and watch football.  America is a great country and I am thankful for the Pilgrims who made this all possible.

I plan on being uncharacteristically serious for a moment.   I would like to list the things FOR WHICH I am thankful. 

I am thankful my children do not have cancer, even though I try to diagnose them with it daily.  God has blessed me with three amazing, healthy children and I can never thank Him enough.  Although I have to admit I wasn’t feeling very thankful when we all went to get our hair cut tonight (or, if you’re real Southern, ‘hairs’) and Napoleon and the goddess played slap hands until her hands were cherry red and his were barely pink.  My, what a coincidence!!  I wanted to play slap kids, but they have video cameras all over the place in the salon, and I was getting my hairs cut last.  I hate the idea of being replayed on CNN over and over again with shaggy hair.

I am thankful for my husband, who gripes and grumbles, but loves me very much.  I’m not sure why, since I’m pretty much a parasite, draining him financially and emotionally.  It must be my killer smile and wicked sense of humor!  I am grateful he doesn’t care if his underwear is wrinkled beyond redemption and the floor of the bedroom is covered with debris.  I’m thankful he understands why blogging comes before housecleaning!!!

I’m thankful for my Lexapro.  Yes, that’s right.  I love my anti-depressant.  EAT ME TOM CRUISE!!  I went off the deep end a couple of years ago and went to a place I never want to visit again.  It’s called Depressionville and it pretty well sucked!  So I am glad I take a nice drug that keeps me happy and makes me not want to curl up in the fetal position and watch Sally Jessy Raphael all day.  Especially since Sally Jessy got cancelled.  Thanks to my Lexapro, I didn’t care.

I am grateful for the Viagra garage band commercial.  Things like that really add meaning and dimension to my life.  I like the idea of men, so confident in their erectile dysfunction that they can ride their motorcycles to a remote location in the country and get together and jam about it.  VIVA VIAGRA!!!!  And hey, if that erection lasts more than 12 hours, they may have to saw it off!

More than anything, I am thankful for my friends.  I have the most amazing friends.  I can’t imagine how anyone gets through a day without girlfriends and I am blessed with an abundance of them.  But not enough.  You can never have enough friends!  I am especially thankful for Gina, my oldest and dearest friend.  We have experienced together every single life altering event you can name, including death, marriage and birth.  I can’t imagine my life without her and I hope I never have to try.  I am thankful for Teensy who, when I needed her most, showed up at my house with a toilet brush, ready to help me clean my house.  And Nancy M., who scrubbed my kitchen floor on her hands and knees! I am also thankful for Renee, a newer friend, but just as important.  Who else would put up with my neuroses and psychoses?  She even hangs out with me occasionally for no copay!!!  And Kiki, who shares my love of the written word and has broadened my literary dimensions beyond my wildest dreams! I could go on and on and on!  I have the best friends.  I love you all!!

I’m thankful for this blog, which has provided an essential creative outlet for me.  And I’m thankful for those of you who continue to read my diatribes, even if they aren’t always daily!  And I’m especially thankful for Joe, who created my cool new site; by the time he’s done playing with it, it will be the Cadillac of blogs!! I hope everyone has a blessed and happy holiday.  Be safe, don’t choke on a turkey bone and keep the sharp knives away from Uncle Marty.  You only have to put up with him once a year!!

This is my very first post on my very new website!!  Do you like the site?  Do I care?? No!  I bet no other blogger in cyberspace has Santa AND Satan vying for attention!!  I am the greatest writer in the universe!!

I love this town!! We are here for our last soccer tournament and as usual, I have my eyes open for weirdness.  Which I have found in Spades. 

We got to the field on Saturday morning at our appointed time.  And I didn’t even get lost.  Which is not so weird, since I was following someone who knew where she was going.  Anyway, it was freezing cold, but as I shrugged into my jacket, I found a pair of mittens!!   Ok, fine, it was a lucky chance, but I am still chalking it up to my good planning and general preparedness.

The girls have to be at the field an hour before the game to warm up and do war dances and make ritual sacrifices to the soccer gods and that sort of thing.  That leaves the parents with a lot of time on their hands to moan about how they are freezing their asses off and wonder aloud why they indulge their children in their pasttime.  A group of us were huddled together and trying to decide if we would get arrested for building a fire out of old shinguards when the wife of the team manager walked over to us. 

“Hey, come over here,” she whispered conspiratorially.

We all huddled around her, she glanced around to make sure no one else was listening and she said “Steve just got the bags for the tournament and he refuses to hand them out.  He says it’s not appropriate.”  For the uninitiated, at every tournament we get some sort of party favor.  It’s usually a patch or a doodad, and sometimes we get brochures about what there is to do in town, that sort of thing.  My interest was immediately piqued.  What was in those bags?  Naked pictures of Beckham??  Cigarette lighters??  Rolling papers?

She went on “I have no idea why they’ve done this, but there are bottles of FEMININE POWDER in every bag.”

I immediately fell over, howling with laughter.  She looked pained and said “there are ten-year old girls at this tournament!  What in the world were these people thinking??  Steve said he WILL NOT distribute them!”

Well, I volunteered immediately.  Far be it for me to miss out on the fun of watching the girl’s faces when they pulled out their goodies!  We agreed that I would be the one to distribute them.

The game started, my child was a maniac, and the game was good.  But when she was subbed out of the game, I decided it was time to visit the facilities.  So I headed for the bathroom.  And there, to my surprise and delight, was a table with bottles of COMPLIMENTARY FEMALE POWDER!!!  And a big sign over it that said HELP YOURSELF!!!

This disturbed me on so many levels!!  They were large bottles, not small ones.  So if you were actually going to “HELP YOURSELF” it would be hard to disguise from the world that you have a problem with feminine odor and wetness!!  And who is going to take a big, community bottle of powder into the stall, use it, and then PUT IT BACK OUT ON THE TABLE FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO USE!!!!!!!  No wonder MRSA is rampant!!!  How about CRABS??  How about GENITAL WARTS???!!!  How about the whole concept is too disgusting for words!!!!  Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I declined the honor of using the feminine powder, did my business and went back to the field.  After the game, I got the bags and another mom and I headed across the field with our prizes.  The coach was talking to the girls seriously, trying to address mistakes made, trying to pump them up for the next game.  I took one of the bottles out of a bag and held it up behind his back.  The girls looked at me strangely.  I then proceeded to shake it on my head, in my armpits, on my butt, whereever I could. 

Finally, the coach caught on and said very coldly “GIRLS…EYES ON ME PLEASE!!”  Oops, I guess I was in trouble.  After he was done, I apologized and then gave the girls their bags and told them to put all the feminine powder in the coach’s bag.  After all, he deserved to enjoy the product too!

I’m catching a LOT of flak about the BORING names I’ve given my family.  Never mind that I had to keep them simple or I’d forget them when I blogged.  It’s not enough that I have to constantly stay on my toes to entertain you people with amusing anecdotes from my oh so boring life.  Now you want interesting names????

Fine!  Y’all name them.  Majority rules!  Here’s what i need:

Husband—–

14 yo son—-

12 yo daughter—–

Go ahead, fill in the blanks since you are all sooooooooo SUPERIOR to me!  I’m sure you can do a MUCH better job than I.  And maybe some of you dreadful lurkers will come out of the bushes and actually make a comment.  Blue Momma gets 36 comments a day; where’s my love????   Altho her kid is much cuter than me, I’ll give her that!

I’m going to Atlanta now, so leave me alone!  I’ll announce the results next week!

We took a nun to dinner last night.  We knew her in college; she was part of the campus ministry.  A sweeter, more delightful woman never lived.

On the way to pick her up, I snarled at the children as only I can.  “John,” I warned, “you better clean up your vocabulary NOW!!  I don’t want to hear a single ‘freakin/crap/rape/butt/jerk/stupid/retarded/moron’ out of you, understand??”

“yes ma’am,” he said meekly.

“Goddess,” I said, “DO NOT WHINE!!!”

“I’m not,” she whined defensively.

“Good, let’s keep it that way.  Amy,” I continued, “no nastiness to anyone, especially me.  Got it.”

“Whatever,” she said.

Who knew I would be the trouble?  We arrived at the convent, picked up Sister B. and had a round of hugs.  Then we headed out to eat.  Only, we didn’t know where to go.  We have a hard time making decisions like this.  Frequently, a discussion over where to go eat results in epic, near marriage ending, fights. 

But before that discussion, we had to find our way back to the main road.  My husband hates to drive downtown.  He has a very small geographic comfort zone, and he seldom strays from it.  Anything north of 459 is off limits for him.  He got to a stop sign and said “do I turn left here?”

“Sure,” I said, “why not?”  Of course this was the wrong way and we drove around the dark and menacing streets of downtown Birmingham with no clue as to our direction.   Several left turns later, we made it out to the road we were supposed to have been on in the first place.  “Do I stay in this lane to get on 280?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said.  “Why not?”  Of course this was also the wrong way and we found ourselves on 280, heading in the wrong direction.  The ONLY reason he was not shrieking obscenitites at me is because there was a nun in the front seat with him.  But even from the back seat, in the dark, I could see his whitened knuckles clenching the steering wheel.  He was NOT happy.

He exited at the next off ramp and we turned down several more dark and menacing streets before we found our way back on to a road we knew.  Then the argument began about where we were going to eat.

“Is there anyplace around here to eat?” he asked.

“Sure, lots of places,” I said.

“Well, where do you want to go?”

“Oh, I don’t care, whereever you want to go.”  This conversation is one of the hallmarks of our marriage.  Neither of us wants to make the ultimate decision, even though we both have a preferred destination in mind.  No one wants to be the bad guy who picks the crappy restaurant that the other person hates. 

“Where is Southside?” he asked.

“Oh, I think it’s up there somewhere,” I said vaguely, waving my hand in a circle.  So the idiot believed me and headed out into yet another dark and mysterious part of Birmingham.  Meanwhile, John and the goddess were tickling each other to death in the back seat and my stress level was peaking at VOLCANIC ERUPTION IMMINENT! 

Ten minutes later it was evident there was no food in the area in which we were driving.  Tom suddenly said “I see a sign for I 65 and that’s where I’m going!  I know my way around there!”

“Fine, wherever you want to eat is fine with me,” I said fake cheerfully.  Sister B. was making polite conversation with my children and the goddess had only just started the “i’m hungry” chant, so it was ok.  Then my phone rang.

I hate my new phone.  Aside from the camera issues, the volume is a problem. It’s either soft or loud; there is no in between volume.  And so it erupted into an ear splitting rendition of Nickelback’s “Rock Star”.  I love Nickelback.  So raw and edgy!  Are you familiar with the lyrics of that song?  No?  Let me educate you:  SO WE ALL JUST A WANNA BE BIG ROCK STARS AND LIVE IN HILL TOP PALACES DRIVING 15 CARS….”

Not too bad, right?  Well, it was hugely loud, the phone was plugged into the car charger and was on the console RIGHT next to Sister B., the kids were snickering because THEY knew what was coming next and I was frantically trying to unplug it before the next stanza played.  No such luck.

“THE GIRLS COME EASY AND THE DRUGS COME CHEAP AND WE ALL STAY SKINNY CAUSE WE JUST DON’T EAT….”

“Well, that’s embarassing,” John remarked to no one in particular.  Thanks son.  I finally got the phone into my hand and muted it and then hit “reject” for good measure.  Sister B. tactfully said nothing about my questionable taste in music.

We got on the interstate and headed to Lakeshore Drive where a number of chain restaurants are located.  We picked one and ate dinner without further incident.  We managed to get Sister B back to the convent without getting lost again and with no further outbursts from my phone.  I am sure she will be ramping up her prayers for us, though.  An evening with my insane family is enough to make one question God’s divinity in Creation!