Souther' Mother

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 20-21 April 1985

2009-04-15T11:30:00.005-05:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

20 April NO ENTRY

21 April

I went over to Joan's
today to work on the banner. L----, J---, and
S-------- also were there.
We finished the banner
by gluing it, then went out-
side and J---, S--------,
and L---- swam. Joan
and I waded. Later, we got
out and practiced getting
on each others' shoulders
etc. Next, we did cheers.
Joan taught us 4 new ones,
plus Hot to Go, which we
already knew. We did the
cheers in a circle right by
Joan's house. It was fun!
I stayed over there for
about 3 1/2 or 4 hours, and
most of it was spent goofing off.

Obvious Joke of the Day

2009-03-17T00:09:00.002-06:00

Did you hear Jenna Jameson had twins?

They came out at the same time.

The Childless Should Look Away

2009-03-12T21:35:00.002-06:00

Bubble has been making the most of her last few weeks as a two year-old, leading me to wonder: what is the terminal velocity of toddlerhood? Where, exactly, does it peak? She doesn't sleep, says no to everything, and is simply not going to use the potty. On a day when I try to confirm that the dead silence emanating from her room at naptime means she has fallen asleep, I find instead that she is behind the blinds of her street-facing window facing, standing on the windowsill, pressed against the window, naked from the waist down. "THIS IS NOT AMSTERDAM," I inform her, and peek out to see if there are any witnesses likely to call CPS.

The only thing that makes this any better is the story of my friend, who lived for a while in American Samoa. She was having lunch at the yacht club with a rather hoity-toity lady and a man who was running for Lieutenant Governor at the time. Her son was two and was with them. During the meal, a waiter approached and said, "Excuse me ma'am, is that your child?" She said, "No, my child is right..." and looked up to see him standing in the middle of the yacht club, buck naked save for his flip flops. "What could I do?" she tells me. "He was the only red-headed white kid on the island. I put on his clothes and got out of there."

The other day, as Bubble was yet again spending her naptime sneaking out of her room and getting into trouble, I finally had enough. Every time I got up to waddle my pregnant ass after her, she would run into her room and lock her door before I could get there. Needless to say she has been told on numerous occasions that this is against the rules. I put up the gate; she climbed over it. She has been able to pry the anti-toddler doorknob covers, which I call doorknobbers, off the doorknobs for a few months now, meaning the only way we can keep her from, say sneaking into her brother's room and vandalizing it, is to lock the door. I had been tempted to duct tape the doorknobbers on for about the same amount of time, but it seemed wrong somehow, like we should just teach her to respect boundaries and not to sneak into the garage. I suppose you could also teach a dog to stay in your yard, but a dog is a dog and it's a hell of a lot easier on everyone if you just put up a fence, at least until the dog is old enough not to go running into traffic, becaus theory and reality diverge violently when dealing with a two year-old.

So I got out this sticky old roll of silver duct tape, so sticky I could barely get it off the roll, put the doorknobber on, covered the hole in the middle so she couldn't lock the door, and wrapped tape securely around the whole thing so she couldn't possibly pry it off, and finally went to take a long-awaited shower. Twenty minutes later, who should stroll into my room? The only thing I did was provide her with 20 minutes of entertainment as she methodically peeled the tape off.

A couple of says later I was convinced she was asleep during naptime, only to have her come out and announce that she was poopy. Unfortunately, nature often does call at that time and keep her from sleeping. I went to change her, only to find that she had neglected to mention that she had already taken off her own diaper and was attempting to flush it herself. The carnage in her room was particularly gruesome, as she had pushed her bed across the room and strewn every object in her room hither and yon. Beyond a few obvious casualties, there was no telling what was contaminated. I am not ashamed to say I wept.

A couple of days after that we were watching a movie in my room. Bubble was at the foot of the bed on the floor where I couldn't see her. She once again announced that she had pooped. I stood up and saw that she was naked from the waist down. This happens quite often lately, with WET diapers. I saw the stained diaper laying on the floor, where it had stealthily been discarded. "WHERE IS THE POOP, BUBBLE? WHAT DID YOU DO WITH IT?" Sensing this was no time for games, she pointed at my bed, where she had placed an orange plastic Halloween candy bucket that she likes to carry her stuff around in. Sure enough, there was her proudly placed turd, the exact size, shape and weight of a baseball. Poop in a pumpkin. That pretty much sums up my week.

Lolcats Ahoy!

2009-02-11T22:38:00.017-06:00

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 19 April 1985

2009-01-29T17:02:00.005-06:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Laura spent the
night tonight. We watched
"Spring Break", and ate
pizza and M&Ms. Peaches
was at Punky's party, and
my parents went out to
dinner for a while and
left us by ourselves.

Today was the picnic.
We're having one every
Friday until the end of
school. It was pretty boring
because I had to go to
orchestra, and nobody
brought their jam box.

L---- brought the felt
today, and we decided to
make just one banner,
and got all the pieces
cut out for it.

I did consider just publishing the entries that mentioned Michael Jackson or neon clothes, but I thought the tragic love story of Thor was pretty entertaining too. That didn't leave much in between so I went for the whole thing.

The Joys of Pregnancy

2009-01-29T16:59:00.003-06:00

Last night I sneezed twice in a row and I had to change my pants.

What is Sexy?

2009-01-28T16:56:00.001-06:00

Victoria's Secret can tell you.

I can tell you what is not sexy. Not sexy is maternity pants with a non-maternity top. And yet I persist.

58 Wonderful Things That Happened On Our Recent Trip to Dallas

2009-01-13T23:25:00.008-06:00

On New Year's Eve morning, Gigi and Grandaddy fetched the children and RightGuard and I departed via automobile for Dallas to attend the Cotton Bowl, where 8-4 Ole Miss would be facing 11-1 Texas Tech on 2 January. Our only Chistmas presents were money for the trip. RightGuard's brother, who lives in Dallas, offered to get us free tickets to the Cotton Bowl. He had been offered them the last two years and was never interested in going. When he got them, however, he decided to keep for himself in case he wanted to go. Did I mention RightGuard played football for Ole Miss? And his brother did not even go there? Or Tech? They were very good tickets. He informed us of this the day after the game was sold out because he is a total dick, and sadly, this is not the first time he has proven to be so. We ordered tickets from a third-party website; we paid more than face value for the worst seats in the stadium. They arrived they day before we left after far more stress than a pregnant woman needs to endure.

When we got to the hotel, we found that the reservation had been made by the phone agent for 31 January instead of 31 December. A room like we wanted was available, since we had opted to stay in North Dallas rather than downtown like most of the other Ole Miss faithful, but since my mom had booked the room with non-refundable Starpoints, it took the better part of an hour and several lengthy phone calls between the hotel, mom, and the Starpoints people to straighten the mess out. Also, they wanted the most ridiculous deposit I have ever heard of from a hotel--entire amount of stay PLUS incidentals, for a room that was now paid for. The hold would have eaten up all of our funds, after the two $100 holds we had already incurred from buying gas that day. After feeling much like Mary after an eight-hour drive to Bethlehem, the manager on duty finally waived the deposit as well. It was at that point that our luck changed and everything from that point went like solid gold clockwork. It's well that it did, because with our upcoming addition, it will be years before we can go anywhere again. The following are a few things I enjoyed about our trip.

1. Hotel was freeeeeeee. Thanks, mom, and your Starwood points.

2. Almost four child-free days. Longest we have been child-free since... we have had children. Thanks again, mom and dad, although if I ever find out you are reading this blog I will freak and shut it down.

3. The Kilgore Rangerettes stayed in same hotel as us. Have idolized them since days when my kicks, too, touched the brim of my hat. That's a long time.

4. Ate what we wanted, when we wanted.

5. Went to bed when we wanted, got up when we wanted. No screaming in the night or five year-old turning on the TV at 6 am.

6. Three actual meals per day, prepared by someone else. No mac and cheese involved whatsoever.

7. Got around easily, cheaply, and funly on the DART train. Why didn't we have this when my family lived there?

8. High-pressure shower head that never ran out of hot water, in a shower somebody else cleaned for me.

9. Fresh, clean, sparkling white towels every day.

10. Fresh, clean, sparkling white sheets every day on a bed somebody else made up.

11. Uber-comfy King-size bed with the fancy new-style hotel linens.

12. Giant plasma TV. No SpongeBob or Scooby Doo involved whatsoever.

13. Top-floor view of the city from the club floor.

14. Club floor nearly deserted and blissfully quiet.

15. Upgraded from Continental breakfast to full breakfast every day for freeeeeeeee.

16. RightGuard got two drinks and appetizers in the evening, for freeeeeeee.

17. RightGuard and I got along great and didn't have a single spat or disagreement, even over navigation. Got to be just a married couple having a good time. The stress of everyday life being lifted had an amazing effect.

18. Got into sold-out Ole Miss Alumni New Year's Eve party at the Hyatt for freeeeeeeeee. Five years on the football team and you know everybody.

19. Penny machine right outside the ballroom where party was being held. Got my favorite fifty-one cent souvenir.

20. Visited the atrium bar, now a landmark to Ole Miss fans' drinking prowess.

21. RightGuard's check direct deposited at midnight on New Year's Eve.

22. Hotel a stone's throw from my favorite mall ever, the Galleria.

23. Country's tallest indoor Christmas tree still up in the middle of the Galleria ice skating rink where I used to skate.

24. Parking valets at Galleria wearing red coveralls, bow ties, and Santa hats.

25. Walked around all four floors of the Galleria drooling over stores I've never even heard of and ones that I have.

26. Ate lunch at La Madeleine: French fast food. Best French onion soup ever.

27. Went into the American Girl Store on the day the Girl of the Year doll came out. Was totally overwhelmed with the awesome girliness of it and the precious thoughtfulness of the doll holders in the bathroom stalls. Even RightGuard impressed by sheer cuteness of the entire scene of dozens of little girls clutching their beloved dolls, even if the raging tides of estrogen may have caused his testicles to shrivel a little.

28.Showed RightGuard around my old neighborhoods and schools I haven't seen in years.

29. Got a Slurpee from 7-11.

30. Got a six-pack of Dr. Pepper made with real Imperial Cane Sugar and not corn syrup in little glass bottles.

31. Dinner at El Fenix, sour cream chicken enchiladas. Mmmmmm.

32. Christmas decorations still up all over the city, including utterly spectacular trees in front of the Galleria encrusted in thousands of red lights.

33. Went into favorite bakery ever, Paradise Bakery, to purchase world's best sugar cookies. Was told they had just closed for the night, so I could have them for FREEEEEEEEEEEE, plus whatever else I wanted. Walked out, nay, boogied out, with three boxes of free cookies and muffins.

34. Knew at that point 1. we would get better tickets than what we had, 2. we would get some money for the ones we had, 3. Ole Miss would win.

35. Heard from dickhead brother-in-law. His company gave him two more tickets on game day. Allegedly. At any rate, received said tickets. Best part: they were three rows in front of him so we didn't have to sit next to him.

36. Sold hard-gained lousy tickets to scalper for 25% of what we paid. Better than nothing.

37. Ate delicious barbecued brisket at the Ole Miss luncheon we did get tickets to in time.

38. Turned around to find Chancellor Khayat standing, and then sitting, next to me. Introduced myself, said I was "a big fan" and thanked him for all he had done for Ole Miss. Got a picture with him. Always wanted to do that and particularly grateful for the opportunity to do so once he announced his retirement the following week.

39. Bought a Cotton Bowl program.

40. Eventually procured T Shirts for Bubba, myself, Gigi, and Grandaddy after standing in line at four different souvenir stands.

41. Weather was absolutely picture perfect. 72 degrees.

42. RightGuard got to legally drink alcohol at an Ole Miss game for the first time ever. Beer sold out on Ole Miss side in third quarter.

43. Saw Kilgore Rangerettes perform twice.

44. Last Cotton Bowl in Cotton Bowl Stadium ever.

45. Largest attendance in Cotton Bowl history.

46. OLE MISS WON. COOKIE PROPHECY FULFILLED. AWESOMEST GAME EVER.

47. Wandered into restaurant for dinner with no reservations at what turned out to be one of the city's best restaurants. Did not exist when I last lived there. They seated us after a 35-minute wait, which they apologized for. Does that happen in New York? I don't think so.

48. Several other Ole Miss people to chat with at restaurant.

49. Ate best meal we have eaten since epic epicure trip to New Orleans, Spring 2002, not coincidentally pre-children. Service gracious, warm, and perfectly timed. Had forgotten such things exist.

50. Fresh-baked bread (of course), best fresh-pressed garlic butter.

51. Applewood bacon creamed corn (voted one of the top ten sides in Dallas!)

52. Parmesan white truffle grits.

53. Kobe beef,sliced tableside.

54. Port wine au jus.

55. Texas bleu cheese butter.

56. Food orgasm.

57. Food coma.

58. Going to bed in that fabulous bed one more time, totally relaxed and happy.

Quarterly "I Haven't Quit Blogging, I'm Just Lazy" Post

2009-01-13T22:30:00.009-06:00

You know, I'm just not going to apologize anymore for not blogging in a long time because if I was sorry I would just blog more. So let's just assume I am not going to be a very frequent poster. Although...it's been more than a month? Oh, really? Yikes. I did not realize that. Ah. Hmm.

Legal Eagle said the slacking started when I got onto facebook. I suppose it is partly to blame, but really it's the fault of my torrid affair with the iPod Touch I got last Christmas. It is so easy to just lie in bed and read on it after the children are in bed rather than the arduous task of sitting at the laptop. Why don't I move the laptop? The batteries are dead and it needs to be plugged in. The cords get entangled in the junk on my "desk." And I don't care for the heat burns on my thighs. So the iPod wins. However, it is ill equipped for blogging and the facebook application still has a lot of room for improvement, so if I still haven't accepted/ acknowledged/ returned your flaming Dr. Pepper/ Mardi Gras pimp cup/ Christmas decorations/ Strawbelicious plant/ five-pointed crown/ thrown cheescake/ Mega Toilet Flush kidnap/ MSU sucks but LSU swallows!! Geaux to hell LSU, go Rebels!! wave, etc., you know why.

RightGuard and I cruised the elementary school where much of the action of the Diary took place a couple of weeks ago, as well as what Dad refers to as the "Ancestral Manse." You know what's so scary? I could probably also find a lot of the stars of the Diary on facebook/ the internets if I tried harder. I'm not having much luck because I don't know married names or if people have moved away. I am finding that I can't quite friend most people from high school, much less elementary school. It just seems too long ago. HOWEVER...I do know the whereabouts of Thor and the update will be provided when I have reached the end of the diary.

Neil Patrick Harris hosted Saturday Night Live last weekend and talked about how he almost hosted in 1990. OMG, that's when I knew him! And then he did a Digital Short where he played the Doogie Howser theme song on a keyboard, accompanied by an orchestra dressed like Doogie Howsers. That really was a time warp, because I remember him quite clearly playing the Doogie Howser theme song on the keyboard in the orchestra pit in our high school theatre during drama class, on yet another day when the teacher was being a drama queen and had something other to do than teaching drama.

Also in the news in my head: what the fuck is with the Snuggie? I just saw an article about it on Time.com, so I know it's not just me and RightGuard who are repelled/fascinated by this item. My issue: at some point, a blanket is no longer a blanket, it's a garment. When is that point? I think it's when you put fucking sleeves on it, yo.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 18 April 1985

2009-01-13T22:08:00.004-06:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Today, we worked on i-
deas for the banners. Act-
ually, L---- and J--- tried
to figure out how much
it would cost and how
much material we would
need. Joan, S------, and
I just fooled around, did
cheers, and got on each
other's shoulders. S------
is going to Galveston to-
morrow and won't be back
till Saturday. We're going
to meet at Joan's house
on Sunday to finish the
banner.

I am upset because
I don't think Thor likes
me anymore. He's stopped
flirting.

RightGuard and I were in Dallas over New Year's and took some time out to visit my old 'hood. Among the many other sights we saw was the former Casa de Thor. I couldn't remember which one exactly, but it was "one of those."

Why I Hate Wal-Mart: Twenty Reasons

2008-12-09T21:59:00.013-06:00

1. Sometimes I have to go there because it's closer even than Kroger, and unlike Kroger, it is open all the time. Sometimes you need windshield wiper blades, posterboard, and bananas at two in the morning. I resent Target not being there for me all the time and forcing me into the Other Store.

2. It always crowded, even at two in the morning.

3. When my children are asleep in bed and I go in at 11:00pm after work, there are always herds of baby mamas pushing their babies and toddlers around in buggies, apparently just to socialize. They only come out at night.

4. Wal-Mart is the mecca for the lowest common denominator of humanity. I go to a Wal-Mart in Mississippi. Do you have any idea just how low a denominator we are talking here? Why do so many freaks hang out in there? I never have been in that store that I haven't seen a person whose appearance didn't shock me so much it was all I could do to keep from screaming a little.

5. Apparently, it is socially acceptable and even smiled upon to wear pajama pants or fuzzy slippers in Wal-Mart. This is one of the few pluses to Wal-Mart. My appearance on some days has been such that I would never dream of being seen in decent company, but I was able to go to Wal-Mart without anyone raising an eyebrow. But I have never stooped to wearing sleepwear in public.

6. Wal-Mart shoppers are not only on the low end of the appearance scale, but the intelligence scale as well. They are unable to look at the merchandise and get their buggies out of the middle of the fucking aisle at the same time. In no other store do I encounter these human-bovine crosses that are totally unaware of the fact that others need to pass by; the also do not respond to "Excuse me."

7. Speaking of room-temperature IQs, when it is not customers blocking the aisles, it is the employees. They always plop down pallets of merchandise such that a buggy cannot pass by or strew boxes everywhere with no apparent regard for shoppers. They respond to "Excuse me, please. May I get through?" quizzically and with great difficulty. In Kroger, the employees are actually aware of their surroundings. They greet me like actual homo sapiens often before I even see them and are quick to offer to move any stock they are working on, even though it is usually unnecessary because they didn't plop it in the middle of the aisle to begin with.

8. Have you ever tried asking for assistance in a Wal-Mart? If you have, god help you because you must still be stuck in that hellhole waiting for the dumbstruck employee to come back. You are on your own, my friend. I will pray for you.

9. Wal-Mart is invariably filthy, from the parking lot to the floors to the dusty merchandise to the beaten-down fruit and picked-over clothing. There are bits of trash everywhere. I think the new flooring came pre-scuffed.

10. Even after renovation, Wal-Mart is still fugly. The soul-sapping rows of florescent lights and giant, obtrusive Big Brother-style camera domes may be gone, but the towering stacks of boxed merchandise on top of the shelving and the government cheese-style food displayed in the cardboard boxes it came in are still there.

11. Its own products are cheap and tacky. It does not carry any brands that are more than one step above its own brands. But if you like ugly shit that's made in China, is probably full of lead, and is worth even less than the low price you paid for it, you're in luck.

12. The creepy greeters have turned into creepy inventory control specialists. I don't see them when I'm coming in, but they are there when I go out, occasionally expecting to check my receipt. I am okay with this at Sam's (a chain they have managed to do right), since they do it every time, or if there was some reason for suspicion. But WTF? I feel like a criminal if you randomly stop me to check my items. Mind your own damn business. I already feel dirty just being in the store.

13. No matter what time of day or night it is, there will be 50% less cashiers on duty than are needed and I will be in line for several minutes.

14. I will always be behind someone who can't find their food stamps or needs check approval or god knows what; if they are not the one who cannot complete a simple transaction, it is the cashier.

15. The cashiers are people who should not have contact with the public. If McDonald's can train people to give a sincere greeting, so can Wal-Mart. Or I might get one of those who wants to talk and says things like, "Oh, my ex-husband used to like to play with Play-Doh after his hunting accident. But then our trailer burned down and I had to put him into care." Awkward.

16. No one gives a shit about visual appeal at Wal-Mart. Not in the way the merchandise is presented, not about making a damn mess of the merchandise when shopping, not about cleaning and organizing after the moron customers who tear the shit up, and not giving a shit about shopping in a store that looks like shit.

17. A man can be loading a shotgun on the hood of his truck in the parking lot and security drives right by. Yeah, he's probably a hunter, but maybe he's fixin' to go into the store and start shooting and/or robbing. Isn't that the sort of thing you would want to check out?

18. Their bags even suck. I hate the depressing gray color. Contrast that with Target's oversized white bags with their cheery bullseye logo. Target's bags are even more stretchy so they are less likely to rip, and I love the list of ways to recycle the bags printed right on them (even humorous--water ballon!). Which I do. They are big enough to fit in the bathroom trash can, whereas others are not.

19. Target is so infinitely better in every way than Wal-Mart and the prices are almost as low. Am I willing to pay 3 cents more on a gallon of milk to shop at a store which is not just not shitty, but totally awesome? Hell yes. Ultimately, I'm glad the lowest common denominator is convinced Wal-Mart is much cheaper than Target, because it keeps them working and shopping at Wal-Mart and I can have Target's gleaming white aisles to myself.

20. Wal-Mart is an evil empire, etc. Go ahead and change your logo and renovate. I am not fooled. Undoubtedly the company prefers intelligence-challenged employees because they are easier to keep from unionizing and lock in at night.

Well, lo and behold, what should be in my inbox but this handy visual which sums up the Wal-Mart customer demographic.

Wal-Mart Bingo

Lolcats: catz iz funniee

2008-12-09T21:21:00.018-06:00

Quote of the Day

2008-12-09T21:14:00.003-06:00

I am driving Bubba to school and I notice it is eerily quiet in the back seat and has been so for some time. I quickly verify that the children are breathing and then make haste to enjoy the peace and quiet as they seem to be doing. It is a nice morning (local readers, this is technically the quote of yesterday, okay?) We are almost to school when suddenly Bubba pipes up from the back seat:

"Mom, do zombies eat people?"

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 17 April 1985

2008-12-09T20:59:00.004-06:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Yesterday, Joan, S-----
----, L----, J---, and I
volunteered to make 2 ban-
ners for the track meet
with Mrs. Feldman's super-
vision. One of the banners
says "(School) is #1!"; the
other one says "(Mascot)
Pride!", and has a little
(mascot) on it, and under-
neath it says "We'll
blow y'all away". L----
added up the costs, and it's
going to cost nearly $15. But
Mr. L----'s going to pay it out
of the activity fund if we
bring him the receipts. We're
making it out of felt - $5 a
yard (it turns out to be 12 feet).
I can sit on Joan and S----'s
shoulders & am going to at the meet.

Uh oh! Someone knows how to use a semicolon but not how to mutiply!

A Post Wherein I Start Slacking on Things Other Than My Blog

2008-12-09T20:31:00.005-06:00

I've been so busy commenting on other people's blogs ::coughJennsylvaniacough:: ::coughabdpbtcough::
it occurred to me I might could actually write on my own. This is useful in that I can now further procrastinate decorating the Christmas tree, which we got on Saturday at the local Christmas tree farm. RightGuard put the lights on that same day and I have the ribbons strewn out over the sofa now, ready to go. All the ornaments are right there. All I have to do is put them on. Just walk over there and do it. Yeah.

The only thing stopping me is that I don't want to do it. Well, and I would have to stand on something and that doesn't appeal to me as a pregnant woman. This is mainly because Bubba has pestered me so much about wanting to do it, mostly at bedtime, when I am about to walk out the door, or going to the bathroom, etc. that the Virginia Pine now looks more like a 15-page paper on statistics to me than a fun holiday activity.

I am doing better, pregnancy-wise; past the worst, I think, but not yet to that magical period when I am better, faster, stronger, prettier, more energetic, and happier than in non-gestating times that I remember from the second trimester. Where is it? What if I don't get that this time?

Well, I started this post first, then procrastinated even finishing it until I put up several other posts. The tree remains unadorned. I will now put the ribbons away and go to bed. Mission accomplished: naked tree, pointless post.

Prepartum Blues

2008-11-08T21:24:00.004-06:00

I have been feeling really, really poorly lately, and that's why I haven't been posting. The reason I have been feeling so shitty is that I'm pregnant.

The first trimesters of my pregnancies have historically been hideous for me, absolutely the worst I have felt in my life. Sure, there were more painful times (corneal abrasions) and worse sicknesses, but they didn't last so frigging long. My previous two pregnancies were, I imagined, like being seasick on an Atlantic crossing in the days before steam: three or four months of inescapable misery, wondering why in God's name you ever signed on for this journey, getting so tired of the same sights around you, each so associated with nausea you would get twinges of it every time you even saw a painting of the sea for years to come.

I feel so horrible I cannot imagine how some women breeze through this period with no problems at all. It is really hard for me to believe this has to do with new life when I fell like I am dying. This time has been more like the worst hangover in the history of the world-- the nausea, the headache, the shakiness, the general feeling of having been poisoned, the swearing you will never, ever do it again. There's also a similarity to altitude sickness this time, which I have experienced flying from my two-feet-above-sea-level abode to Santa Fe when the fam still lived out there. That's the shortness of breath, heart pounding after the smallest exertion, wanting to always have cold air blasting in my face.

Every day right now is about when can I go to bed? That's 180 degrees from my normal night owl inclination. So instead of posting after the children are in bed, lately I am ensconced in my own bed watching TV until I conk out.

My personality is pretty much upside down right now. Football makes me physically ill because I came down with a fever at the South Carolina game and got sick sick on top of everything (and then I get to worry about having a bad fever in the first trimester). I couldn't even go into the stadium last week for the Auburn game. Food is my nemesis; obviously I have to eat, but finding something that won't make me projectile vomit is becoming difficult. I have even lost the will to shop.

The only bright spot is that I know it has to end sometime. It lasted 20 weeks with Bubba and 16 with Bubble; I'm 13 weeks now and praying to see the opposite shore very soon. The land of the second trimester is a bright and happy one, where I feel better than I ever have in my life. The third trimester gets a little uncomfortable and my deliveries have been a breeze; it's just the first trimester that is pure torture. So expect more sparse posting until my body can finally cope with this truckload of hormones.

I Know I Say This a Lot, But I'm Not Dead

2008-11-03T10:24:00.004-06:00

This blog has not been abandoned, nor am I trapped under a rock somewhere. I do feel bad that I went an entire month with no posts whatsoever, but all will be explained soon. Expect more posts this week, maybe even today.

The Debate at Ole Miss

2008-09-27T22:10:00.004-05:00

I was there, man. Okay, not there there but as close to there as most people could get.

Last night I drove down to O Town to watch the first presidential debate. Since it was an away weekend (Yankees and foreigners, read: no home football game), Oxford and Ole Miss were very quiet. That's what happens when a few thousand students and residents empty out of town to go home and wash laundry, visit somewhere else, or even go to the game in Florida on Saturday.

When I got into town close to 6:00, there was no sign that the most important event on the planet that evening would be taking place in two hours' time in the town. A block from the Square, I saw a few families with strollers and folding chairs making their way to the Square to watch the debate on the screen there. The Square was still even open for traffic, so I had to do the ritual loop of the Square, center of the known universe.

Square Books and Neilson's had their red, white, and blue bunting up and scores of folding chairs were already set up facing the screen on the east side of the courthouse. I cruised by and waved. People waved back from the chairs and the balconies where they sat leisurely enjoying drinks. Oxford is the best damn little town on earth. Fact.

A man caught my attention out of the corner of my eye in front of Pearl Street Pasta. I immediately knew he was Secret Service. First of all, he was wearing a suit, a rare sight on the Square. But so were other people nearby. His suit was a little too crisp and his posture a little too erect, the way he was looking around, far too deliberate. I felt him before I saw him; he was intense. He had the stereotypical sunglasses, and then I saw the stereotypical clear coil behind the ear. He was definitely the only person on the Square who wasn't mellow.

I was also able to cruise by the Grove. A large perimeter was set up around the Gertrude Ford Center where the debate would be taking place. The media tents had been set up in the parking lot a month ago. No one had been allowed to park there within that time frame and it was guarded during the first three football games. These were just the kind of preparations that had been obvious to the casual observer.

On debate night, a canvas-covered chain-link fence had been erected around the entire secure area, which was at least a couple acres. On the bridge over what used to be the railroad tracks, the security tent was set up with the metal detectors and everything. It was the only way in and blocked the main artery between Ole Miss and Oxford a mile away. However, you can go anywhere in Oxford by going any direction, so that was not much of a problem.

I got to my parents' house and we ate dinner, then headed back to campus with dad in tow. Traffic was not a factor. We got a great spot. Again, take out a few thousand people, put just a few hundred in and you still come out on the quiet side.

We figured there were about 3000 in the Grove, maybe more. Again, if we can squeeze 10,000 or more plus 20' X 20' tents on game day, 3000 in folding chairs isn't that impressive. The university did tell people shortly after we won the debate not to come, as there would be no public seating available in the Ford Center. We sat near where the Dixie Clique tent is usually located.

The "Rock the Debate" event was breaking up around 7:00, as it was getting dark. Dad tried to get some campaign buttons, but they were all out. Everyone had on the stickers and memorabilia for their candidate but us, it seemed.

We popped our seats towards the back of the pack, but still had a great view of the big screen. The North Mississippi All-Stars were the warm-up act and they were great. They stayed on until almost the last second and we were getting nervous when the debate would actually come on.

We got the live feed, starting with Jim Lehrer sitting on the stage with his back to the camera, saying, "On me in one minute." Then, "Thirty seconds." It was amazing to realize that the future president of the United States was just a few hundred yards away.

The debate itself was good. Both candidates had their moments, although John McCain pissed me off when he scoffed at the $3 million dollar bear DNA research project. First of all, the poor bear scientists doing that. I don't know enough about the project to be able to judge its merit and McCain certainly didn't give any. It was just an opportunity for him to shoot off a one-liner about bear paternity and probably mock these people's life work in the process.

It wouldn't have annoyed me nearly so much if Mr. McCain hadn't keep Ole Miss over a fucking barrel for 2 days at the last minute, wondering if he was going to show up for the debate or not. He had no qualms about making us think we had just flushed six million dollars of a public university's money down the toilet preparing for this debate. Bad manners, John.

There was a mix of students, townies, and imports in the crowd. I was surprised that it was probably at least 2/3 Obama, as on a game day about 95% of the stickers you see are Republican. But then, about 95% of the people you see on a game day are white and this crowd actually had black people in it. Awkward silence. Everyone is avoiding eye contact . . . annnnndd moving on.

The drunk fraternity boys behind us, however, we loudly pro-McCain. After the debate was over and we were putting up our chairs, the idiot behind us actually said this, hand to god:

"He doesn't know what he's talking about. I only care about the economy, not people. Besides, I'm going to be rich [drunken snort], and I don't want the government taking half my money. They just use it all on welfare. It's Economics 101! It trickles down! Everyone knows that!"

How come you know everything when you're 20? How is it you can get older and not know everything?

So the debate is on the books and it went off without a hitch, unless you count the three firetrucks and the Fire Marshal racing around the Grove to over by the security tent during the debate. W did it, y'all! I am so proud of my university.

And today, buttercream icing on top. Ole Miss upset #4 ranked Florida in the Swamp. The only way this weekend could be better for Ole Miss would be if unicorns started roaming the campus tomorrow.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 16 April 1985

2008-09-25T11:12:00.002-05:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Today the councilor
from 7th grade and the
vice principal from North
Suburb came and talk-
ed to us and gave us
forms to fill out and a
course explanation book.
I'm going to take honors
reading, science, and
social studies for sure,
and honors, if not ACE
honors, math. for elect-
ives - we had to pick 4 -
I picked home ec, art,
and theatre arts, and
I can't decide between
band or choir. If I take
band, Joan will tutor me on
the clarinet. Now that I
think about it, I'd rather
play the French horn or flute
(so?) I could play piccolo.

I would have to point out here that the only instrument I had played previously was the violin, which fell under the heading of orchestra, not band, and I was not very good at. Clearly the motivation here was to hang out with my new best friend, Joan. However, I picked choir and would remain in it throughout high school. I still cannot play an instrument.

But I will never forget the heady excitement of being able to choose our own schedules for the first time--the power! The freedom!-- they didn't last long. I am pretty sure I got goaded into ACE honors, rather then mere honors, classes across the board. That also lasted throughout high school and into the first year of college at SMU. Ole Miss allowed me to finally embrace my inner slacker.

Quote of the Day

2008-09-21T23:12:00.003-05:00

Bubba's new kindergarten teacher, Ms. Kelley, is just wonderful and adorable and very highl regarded and Bubba has learned so much already. But even for Mississippi she has got a country accent. I realized this at parent orientation last month when she was talking about something the children would be learning called "Ayel." Now as a Southerner, I understand this to mean "ale." But why would kindergarteners be learning about ale? I listen harder and hear "A L," which makes a little more sense. Finally I realize she's just saying "L." She sounds like Dolly's Parton's country cousin.

Well, Bubba got to go on his very first field trip last Friday. They were doing the letter "T," so they brought their Teddy bears to school. When they came back from art, the teddies were GONE! But they left footprints down the hall! So the children got on the bus to Take a Trip to Town to find the Teddy bears. They looked for them at the police station and the fire station, but no one had seen them. They looked for them at Sonic and the bakery and no bears, but they did get free ice cream and chocolate chip cookies.

Finally, they went to the park to have a picnic, where they found their teddy bears--and their parents waiting for them on picnic blankets! We all had a picnic lunch together and the children played on the playground for a while. It was so delightful.

During the picnic, Ms. Kelley came up to me and whispered in my ear.

"When we were getting off the bus, Bubba was behind me, and I heard him say, 'Damn, damn, damn!' to himself."

"Oh no, I'm so sorry!"

"Oh, that's okay, girl. No one else could hear him. I just cracked up because he said, 'Damn, damn, damn! Those damn titties are making me so mad!'"

"Those what?"

"Titties!"

I know he's heard the word "damn," I mean, hell, it's in Hotty Toddy twice, but I don't know where he got the word "titties" or why they would be making him mad.

After I ask her a couple more times I finally realize that "titties" and "teddies" are both pronounced "tiddies" in the Dolly Parton's country cousin dialect.

Lolcats: Halloween

2008-09-21T22:33:00.020-05:00

Okay, it's early, but the odds of me taking another crack at this before October 31st are poor, y'all. So poor. This edition of Lolcats will feature the kittahs in disguise.

Quote of the Day

2008-09-20T00:03:00.004-05:00

Bubba met a little girl today and asked her how old she was.

"Seven."

"Oh, so you can drive. Do you drive often?"

COPS: Souther' Mother

2008-09-17T22:48:00.004-05:00

Back with a vengeance! This afternoon I got my punk-ass neighbor arrested. Here's what went down.

This spring the neighbor kid from two doors down knocked on my door during the middle of the day. He asked me if I had been saying things about him to the neighbor in between us. I had no idea what he was talking about and said no. He asked me again and I said no. Then he said the neighbor had told him this and I again said no. Then I started to get a little creeped out. I was there with my two small children taking naps, and what would I do if he decided to bust in? What was he going to do if I said yes? He went away and I have been leery of him since then, especially since he already seemed to have a problem with one neighbor.

This morning a black Ford sedan was parked in front of the house across the cove for almost three hours. There were three teenage boys in it; the driver was a black kid with long dreads. They were just kind of sitting in the car, the one in the back seat with his feet out on the ground. I considered calling the police because they looked suspicious. Were they waiting for a chance to break into somebody's house? I notice the neighbor on the other side of the vacant house, Mr. Dan, is out pretending to prune his bushes.

The house they were parked in front of has been vacant and for sale for months. Much to the neighborhood's dismay, it was vandalized several months ago. Someone spray painted what I am told is profanity all over the windows on the back of the house. Hmmm.

Black Ford finally peels out around 10:30. All is quiet until 2:20 or so, when I am in my bedroom and hear tires squealing and can actually hear them humming. By the time I get to look out the front, I have heard someone tearing around the cove several times at a high rate of speed. Black Ford is back, doing donuts in the cove, and now a black pickup is chasing it around. I go get my iTouch to look up the phone number for the police department and my phone. I call them and the lady tells me to call back if they go away.

The next time I look, the Ford and the truck are parked, and a red Pontiac sedan that is often loitering in front of Punk Kid's house comes squealing into the cove and parks in its usual spot. A gaggle of teenagers assembles by the Ford. I walk away again for a minute; when I come back they are gone and I figure they've gone into Punk Neighbor Kid's house. I call the police back to tell them where the probably are and can they please knock on the door and tell them to cut that shit out? I mention Punk Neighbor Kid coming over to my house previously. Dispatcher lady tells me the officer will want to talk to me. Right them I see the cruiser pull up. I am impressed by the response time.

The officer, soon enlightened by dispatch, rings my bell a moment later. Bubba is still at school, but I have to leave to go pick him up around 3:00. Bubble is sound asleep in her bed. I give him the synopsis and he says he's had trouble with Punk Neighbor Kid in the past, but not driving. Hmmm. Officer asks me to come outside. I see one tall white boy with floppy hair in the cove already on his cell phone. He asks Officer if he can go, he has to go take care of his mother that has emphysema. I snort to myself. Officer asks which cars were doing donuts and I tell him. Punk White Kid was driving the pickup and claims he wasn't doing donuts.

There are black tire tracks all around the cove. Officer looks at the pickup's tires and comments that they're bald, asks Punk White Kid if he knows what happens to tires when you do donuts. PWK quickly responds that someone had the truck before him. He makes another call to "mom," saying, "I'll be home soon. Some nosy neighbor..." I don't hear the rest because I'm coiling for an attack.

As soon as he hangs up, I point at him and say, "Listen, boy. Don't you be calling me a nosy neighbor right in front of my face. You are in MY neighborhood in front of MY house. What are doing over here anyway?"

"I was just going to see my friend, but I got to get home."

"Oh, NOW you're all responsible."

"Well, I just want to leave now."

"Well that would be fine with me, and you hadn't EVER come back, but the officer here isn't done with you."

Officer gets his license and asks him if he is in school.

"I'm in GED school on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

GED school? What the fuck?

I ask, "GED school? Why aren't you in real school?"

"I got kicked out a month ago."

"Well, there you go."

"That don't have nothing to do with driving donuts! Which I didn't do! It was a black Altima!"

"There was no black Altima and I saw you. I have little kids and I don't want them to get run over."

"You ain't got nothing else to do but sit and look out the window all day. You ain't got no life!"

"You're damn right! I am here all the time and I will be watching." Huge missed opportunity there to do the point-two-fingers-at-my-eyes-and-then-him gesture.

"I'm going to go to college!"

"Well, you're gonna have to get that GED first. Good luck with that."

Officer asked him if he was the only one in the car and he said yes. Then, he thought a second and said no, he wasn't. Smooth. Harvard, here he comes.

So then Officer asks me who was driving the Ford. I tell him a black kid with dreadlocks. Punk Neighbor Kid comes out. He is black, with short dreadlocks, the giant baggy denim shorts, giant white T shirt, big belt buckle with rhinestones. He has the snakiest eyes I have ever seen. Punk White Kid is just an idiot, but this one looks evil. I don't know what he's capable of. "I wasn't driving that car," he says.

"Not you," I say, "The one with the long dreadlocks, pulled back in a rubber band." He looks even more pissed that his clever ruse has failed. Dreadlocks comes out, and he has the good sense to be scared. He says he is in the local high school (not today, I mutter) and just felt like doing some donuts. Officer gets his license too.

At this point, a copper-colored crossover thingy comes down the street into the middle of all this mess. I pray it's not a realtor showing the house across the street. There appear to be three white females in it. It has Ole Miss plates. They drive up and goon for a minute and drive away.

"Now you've driven a realtor away! You're hurting our property values!"

Punk Neighbor Kid spits: "That ain't no realtor. I know who that is."

Some of his friends dumb enough to wonder if the party is still on, apparently.

So then Punk Neighbor Kid starts talking shit to me, I ain't got nothing else to do to watch out the window all day, blah blah blah, and I start telling him I never had a problem with him until he came to my house that day, we're talking over each, it's getting loud, and all of a sudden I hear a noise on the ground by my feet. I look down, and Officer has thrown down his notepad and the two driver's licences. Oh, shit.

He takes three slow steps towards Punk Neighbor Kid, then rapidly twists his arms behind his back. Punk Neighbor Kid talks some more shit. I don't even know what because I'm kind of shocked. Officer says, "You're not going to come into this nice neighborhood and talk to her that way. I've had it." Punk Neighbor Kid looks kind of afraid, and well he should, because the next thing that happens is Officer slams him face down into the middle of the street. Oh snap!

"You can't arrest me! I ain't done nothing wrong!"

"Oh yeah? WATCH ME."

Oh SNAP.

He has his knee on the kid's back and reaches back to take out his cuffs. "Watch me put on one cuff," click, "and then the other," click. Oh SHIT."

Punk Neighbor Kid's door opens and a black kid with a do rag comes out and I quietly say, "There's another one coming," as Officer's back is to the door. He looks up, then takes Punk Neighbor Kid to the squad car. OHH SHHIIITTT. Did not see that coming.

I am thinking this is just to scare him, the Officer says, "And now you get to take a ride with me. Put your feet in, and I'm shutting the door." This is getting crazy, and I decide it's a good time for me to retreat. I go inside to get my cell phone and keep an eye on the time. It's getting close to three. I stand in front of my door and call RightGuard and tell him what's going on. Punk White Kid, Dreadlocks, and Do Rag haven't had anything to say since "WATCH ME," but they are calling and texting away as well. Punk Neighbor Kid paid the price for Punk White Kid's mouth, too, I think. A white girl and a light skinned black girl with long, light dreads come out of the house and get into the red car. Another police car pulls up and two cops get out. Then another police car pulls up and two more cops get out. "Why don't you just go ahead and come home?" I say.

The cops are not that interested in me right now, so I go to my other neighbor's house, Jabba the Cheater (remember him? Whole other chapter in that saga I may have to get to one of these days), and ring the bell. I tell him I just want him to know what's going on. "I know, I called 911." Waitafuckingminute. He thinks he is responsible for all this and he's been cowering in his house while I deal with it? And he called 911 because someone was doing donuts? But he says he didn't want to give his name and they wouldn't even send a car by unless he did. I see that his truck is in the driveway and realize he's been at home the whole time. I am disgusted. Whatever moral fiber I thought he might have had before clearly does not exist. Be a man! Defend your neighborhood and your neighbors! Plus, his house is for sale. By owner. Letting teenage hooligans run wild is not going to help him sell dick. He does admit he saw the black Ford and the pickup doing donuts.

The circus starts coming to an end. Red Pontiac is allowed to leave first and one cop car. A few minutes later, black Ford, the pickup, and the other two squad cars depart, just in time for me to leave. I was really facing a socially awkward situation of a magnitude previously unknown to me. How does one ask police officers to move their vehicles so one can leave a police call one has initiated? If I don't pick up my child on time, they will sell him for parts.

Officer is the last one to go and he comes over as I am still at Jabba's door. I tell him, hey, Jabba doesn't want to go on the record, but he saw the pickup doing donuts too. He called 911. "I hear the phone!" says Jabba. "I may need you as a witness," says Officer. He gives me a complaint form and says he needs it tonight. I ask him if the kid got arrested and he says oh, yeah. Disturbing the peace and a couple other things.

"That's the phone! Gotta go!" He shuts the door.

"Hey, I need to talk to you!"

Officer goes to knock on the door and I make a beeline to my house so I don't know what happened after that.

I gently open Bubble's door.

"Time to go get Bubba!"

She groans and rolls over. I scoop her and her quilt up and throw her in the car. I call my dad on the way there ("Mom gets illness and food calls, you get domestic security"), and I hang up right as Bubba opens the door.

"Did you bring me a snack? I want to go to McDonald's and get an ice cream cone tonight."

"No and no."

When we get home, I am relieved to see RightGuard is there defending the castle. Bubba continues to whine about an ice cream cone and pulls out the, "You don't get to decide!"

"Bubba," I say, "The last person who sassed me got taken to jail, so I suggest you change your attitude."

Epilogue

I called Officer at 4:00 to tell him he could come get the report I filled out and he said he was still dealing with the kid, who, FYI, is 17, not in school, and doesn't drive for reasons I am unsure of. I then went to the next door neighbor's house, the one between me and Punk Neighbor Kid, to try and tell them what happened, but no one answered. I went over to Mr. Dan's house, but no one was there either. Officer came by the house to get my report after I was at work and RightGuard asked him what happened.

Officer says when the kid's parents, whom I don't think I've ever seen, much less met, got there they said they told him those kids weren't allowed at their house. Punk Neighbor Kid was acting like a gang banger at the jail. His parents were trying to get him in the military, which sounds like the only possible solution for this little punk. I am thinking he is still a minor; they can force him, and once he turns eighteen the Army or Navy owns his soul. And best of all, he would be gone. They ask Officer if they can leave him in jail. I can only hope this just puts them over the edge.

So how was your afternoon?

Please Pardon My Lameness

2008-09-04T01:01:00.004-05:00

As with my last two posts, I am posting from my iTouch because my wireless antenna to my laptop broke. It is plugged into the internets upstairs and I have limited access because of toddler/ stair incompatibility issues. I actually have a lot I want to talk about, but have got to find time to get that thing replaced first. Just don't pour a forty out for me yet, homies, me and the LOLcats will be back soon.

How Do You Get a Redneck To Vote For Obama?

2008-08-25T13:29:00.004-05:00

Put a "G" in front of his name.

GoBama!

Can't Blog Now

2008-08-21T00:57:00.001-05:00

Watching Olympics. BRB

Ole Miss Football Voyeur

2008-08-05T22:50:00.007-05:00

About a week and a half ago I was in Oxford and I went to see The Dark Knight. RightGuard was not with me and I didn't want to leave until the riled-up children with the grandparents were soundly asleep, so I went to the 10:20 pm showing on Saturday night.

Side note: this is only the second time I have ever been to a movie by myself. Both times were in Oxford; the other was Snakes on a Plane. Really, I need to stop listening to the internet nerds, because both times I have felt so motivated to go to a movie I went alone, the movie did not live up to the hype. Actually, I enjoyed SOAP more. At least it was fun.

Okay, Heath Ledger was mesmerizing and his make-up artist is a shoo-in for the Oscar, but I could use some of the old Adam West Batman to cleanse my palate after that deathly serious man in a bat costume. Batman, you do not have the same responsibility for constructing a moral view for all humanity as Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha did. Take it down a notch. Use the utility belt. Have some fun.

The good thing was that either I was late enough or just looked so pathetic digging in my purse/ diaper bag for the Movie Cash I earned from collecting Pampers Gifts-to-Grow points, with diapers, coupons, old grocery lists, and packs of elderly fruit snacks flying everywhere that the guy let me in for free. I used to carry a Dooney and Bourke with a Neiman Marcus credit card, Lancome lipstick, the Pill, and a crocodile-wrapped flask full of bourbon. What the fuck happened?

I am so glad it was extremely dead in Oxford since it was an interim period, so no one else was around to witness this sad, sad scene. I only share it with y'all to explain how I happened to be all by myself driving by Vaught-Hemingway Stadium at 1:15 in the morning. I was on my way home wondering how a movie I came into late could still be so fucking long when I came around the bend and saw that the lights of the stadium were on. I was intrigued. Why on earth would they be on at 1:15 on Saturday night?

The team wasn't reporting until the next week and the campus was deserted. I drove around the west side to see if I could see anything or maybe an unlocked gate, but there was nothing, so I went around to the north end zone. Jackpot! The new Insaneotron eighty hundred by googleplex scoreboard is going in, and where the massive new support posts were installed, all the fence was ripped out and anybody could just walk right in.

What better way to feel young and free again than a little late-night unannounced visit to the football stadium for old-times' sake?

As I pulled in behind the posts, I saw a pair of headlights approaching from the visitors' tunnel across the field. My first instinct was to drive away, and then I remembered I wasn't doing anything wrong. Yet.

However, I was confident I could walk right up talk to whoever was out there if I felt like it, even if it was Chancellor Khayat or the Chief of Police. Here is where being thirtysomething and sober pays off. Hey, just love my Rebels and happened to be driving home on my way from the movie, saw the lights on and the door open. We've been season ticket holders for years and I'm jst so excited about the season and the new Jumbotron. Oh yeah, my husband was a Rebel. My ID? Sure. It's in my diaper bag in my SUV with the Ole Miss plate and Loyalty Foundation and M Club stickers.

I was untouchable. Plus, whoever was out there was enjoying the stadium too (maybe shouldn't have been) and he was my friend and fellow Ole Miss family member, so I wasn't afraid at all. I was more worried about scaring him.

I quickly turned off the ignition and jumped out of my vehicle. Then, it was easy to walk right up in the shadows of the bleachers to the fence, which was covered in advertising banners. I could look between them and was totally invisible. I'm Batman!

Here is what I saw: the field and stadium, ablaze in lights, but no noise but the roar of crickets and cicadas. A couple of pieces of field maintenance equipment were lying on the turf. A man had driven a field cart in a little buttonhook and was sitting in it in the middle of the field, facing the south end zone. His left arm was hanging out the side and he was sitting very still. He was far enough away I couldn't be sure of the color of his skin and I could only see the back of his head; all I could tell for sure was that he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a light-colored hat. He looked pretty big, and I think he was black.

Security? Late night groundskeeping? Staff working on plays late in the office, out for some fresh air?

He sat there for five or ten minutes, never moving, and I got the impression that he was surveying the battlefield. A football player, there for summer school, the first one on the field, knowing where the keys to the field cart were? But who turned on the lights? And why?

He finally drove off down the home tunnel, past the Chucky Mullins statue, and that was my cue to leave. I was excited; the encounter felt like fate. What are the odds I was there at the exact moment that happened? What was he thinking? I felt that it would be something he would remember all his life, and I felt honored to have witnessed a moment like that, that it couldn't be an accident.

I felt like Ole Miss had just shared a secret with me. Even if I don't understand it, receiving it was a thrill all the same.

And that what RightGuard gets for not going with me. He missed it. Karma? Or Batman? You be the judge.

One Of The Best Moments Of My Life

2008-08-03T22:54:00.004-05:00

1:45 pm 26 July 2008

Bubble said "I love you, mama," for the very first time.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 15 April 1985

2008-08-03T22:39:00.002-05:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

I was totally exhausted
today. I was so tired in
reading that several times
I had to collapse. My
mind was so addled that
I'm surprised that I got
anything done. In jazz,
I was fine until the
end, when I got pooped.

In the world, things
aren't going good at all.
Cyndi is p.o.ed because
we made a allience with
Thor's group - Musicland.
She's mad because she
thinks I'm trying to steal
Thor. He's not that pig's
anyway. The motto of our
country could be, "War is
stupid. Peace rules our world."

International Supahstar

2008-08-02T01:30:00.006-05:00

Look, y'all, I don't want you to think I've been spying on you or anything, but I have had a data-collecting program installed on this blog almost since it began. Initially, I just wanted a counter to see if anyone was actually reading my blog, but got so much more with a site called http://www.statcounter.com/. I highly recommend it to anyone with a blog or personal site. The basic level is free, quick and easy to install.

You get all kinds of cool graphs and charts and even a map which will put little arrows with all your recent visitors from around the world. IT'S SO COOL, Y'ALL. All my paranoid friends who are concerned with stranger danger and do not want anyone to know your blog exists, here is what you are missing.

I was just looking at it and noticed an unusual amount of international visitors to http://southermother.blogspot.com/ since 17 July, many of them apparently not even on accident. Countries represented include:

Canada (multiple cities)
Philippines
Ireland
Saudi Arabia
Australia
Croatia
Spain
England (Can you fix my sister up? She likes Brits)
Romania
France
Denmark
Turkey
Israel
Norway
Fiji
China (actually know who this is and have needed to talk about the situation for months, still haven't figured out how)

Japan is usually on there but currently AWOL.

I look at them in list form and they all have their country's flag next to the entry. SO CUTE! Thank you, international language of lolcats.

Also, when you Google "souther mother" now, I actually come out on top. Obviously, that is not a phrase that is in wide use, but the last time I checked I mostly got results where people had apparently accidentally left the "n" off "southern" and even some where they hadn't.

The internet, she is amazing.

My children will never know a world without the internet. Anything that happened before it existed, that wasn't recorded here, won't exist to them. My generation was the last of the new prehistory. When we are gone, no one will remember what it was like not to be constantly connected. There hasn't been an innovation in human history this big since the invention of the printing press.

I am grateful to have known both worlds, the freedom and the anonymity of the old and the power and convenience of the new, where people I've never met from across the world can read what little things I have to say in an instant. I am carving my name in this new stone.

Devil's Wheel of Fortune

2008-08-01T23:48:00.009-05:00

Sorry to leave you guys kind of hanging on Peaches' condition. She did get official confirmation that her bone marrow biopsy was clean and she does not, in fact, have leukemia. Thank you so much to everybody who sent along their well wishes to her. She really appreciates it and so do I.

And now, show and tell!

Picc line. The other end of that little blue tube you see there is in her heart. And this was just sitting around her apartment. Horrifying to see something like this in someone who was a healthy, young person living it up in the Bahamas just days before.

Same bruises a few days after she got the thing out.

So what does she have? Well, with a low platelet count you get a smorgasbord of hideous potential diagnoses.

Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), a condition in which your immune system mistakenly identifies platelets as a threat and forms antibodies that attack them.
Other autoimmune diseases, such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, which may lead to destruction of platelets due to a malfunctioning immune system.
Blood poisoning from severe bacterial infections (bacteremia), which may lead to destruction of platelets.
Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), a rare, life-threatening condition that occurs when small blood clots suddenly form throughout your body, using up large numbers of platelets. TTP sometimes happens as a result of a genetic deficiency, but more often the cause is unknown. In some cases, it may be associated with infection or a chronic illness.

Hemolytic uremic syndrome, another rare disorder that causes a sharp drop in platelets, destruction of red blood cells and impairment of kidney function. Sometimes, this can occur in association with a bacterial Escherichia coli (E. coli) infection, such as may be acquired from eating raw or undercooked meat (often hamburger).

Pregnancy, which may cause mild thrombocytopenia. (Peaches might find many other options preferable to this one.)

And there's more! Imagine that the devil has made a wheel of fortune and the spaces include:

LUPUS!

WHAMMY--LOSE SPLEEN!

RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS!

TTP--WORSE THAN CANCER!

WILD CARD--PREGNANCY!

SEVERE BACTERIAL INFECTION!

ITP--LOSE A TURN!

E. COLI!

SPONTANEOUS INTERNAL HEMORRHAGING!

RARE KIDNEY DISEASE!

LEUKEMIA--CHEMO AND RADIATION!

DEATH!

As you can imagine, Peaches was pretty damned happy to wind up with a diagnosis of ITP, given the other options. Here is what she knows about it:

Idiopathic (no known cause) Thrombocytopenic (low platelet count) Purpura (bleeding underneath the skin, bruising) is classified as an autoimmune disease. In an autoimmune disease the body mounts an attack toward one or more otherwise normal organ systems. In ITP, platelets are the target. They are marked as foreign by the immune system and eliminated in the spleen, or sometimes the liver. (www.pdsa.org/itp-information/ http://www.wikipedia.org/).
ITP is the diagnosis when platelets are abnormally low and other diseases that could cause low platelets have been ruled out. (www.pdsa.org/itp-information/)
ITP can present itself with small purple spots called petechiae (had this) in the mouth and legs, nose bleeds (not this), and bleeding gums during normal dental care (had this). Some people develop bruises on their arms and legs with no provocation (definitely had this). (www.pdsa.org/itp-information/)
Researchers don't know what causes ITP or the body to attack its own platelets. (www.pdsa.org/itp-information/)
Apparently I am very special because the number of individuals in the U.S. with ITP has been estimated to be approximately 200,000. (www.pdsa.org/itp-information/)

"So, what is the plan?

I'm taking steroids at 70 mg, which is a lot. Unfortunately, as Ginger pointed out, I will not be able to participate in the Summer Olympics after all now that I won't be able to test clean. I will go down to 60 mg beginning Sunday and see my doctor again and get more blood drawn next Friday. Hoping platelets keep going up and we can keep decreasing steroid dosage. Ultimate goal is to have platelets at 100+ without any steroids. However, once you get below 25 mg of steroids it gets pretty tough to maintain. Relapse is apparently very probable as well."

Now here's the really scary part. Remember when I said her platelets were down to 30,000 and you should have at least 140,000? How you can start spontaneously hemorrhaging internally and bleed to death if it is under 10,000? Well, it turns out the tech misread the test and she was actually down to 3,000 at the time she was admitted to the hospital.

She went to the doctor Friday and was up to 77,000. Big platelets, big platelets, no whammies and STOP!

Lolcats: Chevrolet

2008-08-01T23:03:00.017-05:00

Because she loves the name "Chevrolet" and Lolcats.

Quotes of the Day: Your Name in Lights

2008-07-21T00:35:00.005-05:00

CHEVROLET: It's easier to buy a gun than a keg of beer in Oxford. I can go into Wal-Mart right now and buy a pink shotgun, but there's a 10 day waiting period on a keg of beer.

LEGAL EAGLE: His girlfriend's a succubus and we just don't cotton to her.

BIG RED: (bona fide Yankee via Philadelphia; husband of Chevrolet, bona fide Yankee via Chicago; both parents of Aston Martin, Oxford born and bred) I was talking about how crazy it was that we wound up having a Southerner for a daughter when a voice from the back seat piped up, "If a cat has her kittens in the oven, it doesn't make them biscuits."

Others present: Peanut, son of Legal Eagle, aged 11 months; Aston Martin, aged 10 months; and Bluebonnet, single, who was struck dumb with horror by the copious and unending talk of poop and children's television.

Peaches Update

2008-07-21T00:19:00.005-05:00

Peaches was released from the hospital on Saturday, much to everyone's surprise. However, she's not out of the woods yet. She still has the central line in, and it will skeeve you out in just a few seconds of looking at it. There are a couple of tubes hanging out, giant bruises where it's taped on, and, oh, yeah, it goes directly into her heart.

She has a doctor's appointment bright and early tomorrow. Daddy stayed with her this weekend; he's taking her and her beagle down to Oxford tomorrow after they go to the doctor. Wednesday they'll be back up for another appointment where all the test results will be in and a diagnosis should be made. Hopefully it is the blood disease treatable with oral steroids and not, you know, cancer.

I brought them some Wei Pei for dinner tonight and I have to say, Peaches' skin just looked lovely. A low dose of steroids will do that for you. Well, the skin on her face looked lovely. She still has large, violent, dark purple bruises all over her from people just touching her and nothing in particular. But you cannot even tell where Dr. Texas Girl jammed a giant needle into her pelvis to suck the marrow out. Freaky.

The mother in me instinctively said, "Oh, you poor thing!" when I first saw her tonight. I hugged her and kissed her. About ten minutes later, the big sister in me spoke up. "Can I see how hard I have to poke you to make you bruise?"

Dr. Texas Girl

2008-07-18T12:47:00.004-05:00

So here's the deal with Peaches. Her platelet count was at 70 (thousand?) a couple weeks ago. It should be at least 140. She went to the Bahamas last week and started bruising for no reason and getting weird rashes on her wrist and forehead. She went to the doctor the day after she got back, Tuesday. The next day, her platelets were down to 30 so they sent her to a hematologist, who sent her on to the hospital. They gave her a platelet transfusion and she went up to 47. Today she was down to 20. At 10 you can start bleeding internally.

I stayed at the hospital last night with Peaches. She was having a bone marrow biopsy this morning and was very scared. It didn't help that I told her I heard it's very painful. Oops. By the time I got there she was asleep. I hung out in the resource center two doors down, used the computer, and talked to a 20 year old leukemia patient, who told me he's had more bone marrow biopsies than he can count and they're not that bad. I got to look a radiology tech's wedding photography portfolio as he showed it to an engaged oncology nurse. I went to bed around 1:30 am.

Peaches' gammaglobulin drip finished up at about 4:00. Peaches got a central line yesterday and apparently that was as scary as might be imagined. The nurses came in to unhook her IV and take some more blood. From then on, it was apparently morning as it got noisier and lighter.

Peaches was so nervous she threw up around dawn. By the time for the procedure, she was expecting a masked doctor all in black, eyes ablaze and a voice crackling with the fires of hell, with a twelve inch needle the size of a straw in one hand and a chainsaw in the other. She reckoned the pain would be about like having an arm amputated without anaesthesia.

Instead, Dr. Texas Girl burst through the door around 7:45 in the AM with a "Hey, y'all!". She was wearing black, a really cute long black Anne Taylor skirt with white embroidery and a size 2 white top. Her blonde hair in a cute little cut, blue eye sparkling, a Texas pin on her white lab coat, she is pretty much your stereotypical Texas girl. She, like us, is from the Dallas area. She also had a large "CANCER SUCKS" button on her lapel, which pretty much endeared her to me right away. She also was refreshingly free of the ice cold (male) bedside manner. She had a conversation with the nurse (who looked to be about sixteen) that went like this:

Dr. Texas Girl: Where's my thing? Oh, there it is. Now Peaches, this is going to feel like a bee sting, but bee stings hurt. You can holler and cuss if you need to, just don't move.

Teenage Nurse: Dr. Texas Girl'll cuss if she feels like it.

Dr. Texas Girl: I've been known to drop an F bomb up here.

Teenage Nurse: But not at someone. Just at things.

Dr. Texas Girl: Oh, yes, at someone.

Teenage Nurse: Oh, yeah, Miss Priss.

Dr. Texas Girl: Well, she was messing with my patients. If you make a mistake, own up to it. Don't just LAH about it, you know?

Teenage Nurse: She doesn't work here anymore.

Dr. Texas Girl: I do, and I'll cuss if I need to.

Dr. Texas Girl has two young daughters, ages 5 and 7, so somehow, she, Teenage Nurse and I (who is improbably a mother as well) found ourselves singing the "SpongeBob Squarepants" theme song as Teenage Nuse and I patted Peaches and Dr. Texas Girl began the procedure. She cheerily injected Lidocaine into Peaches' hip (SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS!), carved a small piece of bone out of her hip to get the marrow (SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS!), then sucked out some marrow (SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS!).

At this point, Peaches' medication was just kicking in and she wasn't caring so much what they were doing to her any more. Daddy (who had arrived just in time), on the other hand, was squirming in pain, as the grandchirren have killed any love he might have had in his heart for the absorbent, yellow, and porous one with their repeated viewings of same.

After it was all over, Peaches declared that it had hurt less and less with each passing minute. She'll just have another platelet transfusion today, but she isn't going anywhere until at least Monday. The biopsy results should be in by then. The good new is that Dr. Texas Girl has ruled out taking out Peaches' spleen and she doesn't think it's cancer, but another blood disease treatable with medication.

Best and Worst

2008-07-17T12:22:00.005-05:00

Best thing that happened yesterday: bought a cup of peach lemonade from some boys on the corner with a lemonade stand for 25 cents.

Worst thing that happened yesterday: my sister Peaches got admitted to the hospital for an extremely low platelet count. I was there last night when she finally got a transfusion of platelets around midnight, but it remains to be seen what the cause is. It could potentially be something quite serious.

When New Kids Attack

2008-07-14T00:26:00.018-05:00

I have a friend named Strawberries and Bunnies whom you may recall. She is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet, plus she's a wife, mother to an adorable little Strawberry Shortcake (age 10 months), and an attorney to boot. Recently she had mentioned a few times that she was very excited the the New Kids on the Block were getting back together and she couldn't wait to go see them in concert with the same girls she had seen them with some eighteen or so years before. Very well. Nostalgia is great. Have fun! I think I missed the NKOTB hysteria by no more than two years of age. My sister, Peaches, who is two and a half years younger than me, got it bad. She begged to go to the concert, had all their cassette tapes for her boom box, and so on.

But then another friend of ours, Legally Blonde, sent out a mass email to everyone that knows S&B to be on the lookout for her on a local radio station. The radio station was having a contest for a trip to California for a NKOTB CD release party. The winner would be the local person who had the most NKOTB stuff. I kind of went, awww at that, because who would still have all that stuff after all these years?

It turns out that Strawberries and Bunnies has been hiding a dark secret in the attic of her parents' house for the fourteen years I've known her. Where most hormone-crazed teenage girls long ago threw away their boy band posters and fan magazines, S&B, it seems, carefully wrapped hers in archival tissue and packed them in hermetically sealed boxes, just waiting for this day.

Now, in the year 2008, the time capsule has been opened and the hoard plastered all over Strawberry Shortcake's nursery. Here is the result:

Yes, of course, she won the contest. I actually was in the drive-through getting some ice cream when I heard her voice on the radio as they announced her the winner and screamed into the speaker. Scared the poor little girl taking my order half to death.*

So congratulations, Strawberries and Bunnies! You earned it! I am so excited for you! Clearly, you are going to enjoy this a LOT. I hope to come by soon to see the shrine for myself while it is still up. (Strawberry Shortcake does not actually sleep in her room at this time.)

And I suggest nobody make fun of her because not only is she an attorney, her husband is too. Nice as they are, I doubt they'd be above suing anybody.

*In other screaming at people over electronic devices news this week, I was talking on the phone while driving the other night (hey, this is the South, it's legal) and felt the top of my head get a little itchy. I reached up and felt something there, like a leaf or twig or something. I pulled it out and saw that it was a yellowjacket (not just a common wasp, dammit, a yellowjacket) and screamed into the phone, "THERE'S A YELLOWJACKET IN MAH HARR! GOTTA GO! OH SHIT!" I was talking to my my boss at the time. How I got that thing out the window without wrecking or getting stung I'll never know. I'll also never know how a yellowjacket got into my car with rolled-up windows.

COPS: OXFORD

2008-07-13T23:37:00.008-05:00

The annual Double Decker Festival was held in Oxford back in April and I am just getting around to posting this. Double Decker is just a wonderful festival where local artists sell their paintings, bands play on two stages, everyone ques up by the English telephone booth for free rides on the town's genuine English Double Decker buses, and every restaurant in town has a booth on the Square right by the courthouse to sell their food. There is jambalaya and crawfish, pulled pork, fried catfish, chicken-on-a-stick, fresh Italian sausage, egg salad and pimento cheese sandwiches, and ice cream sandwiches made with giant homemade cookies and packed with homemade ice cream until they are three inches thick. There are performances by local ballet classes and activities for the children like a rock climbing wall and a little train. My mom's interior designer hands out free screwdrivers--the alcoholic kind--and bloody Marys.

Mostly, it's a lovely, happy time when Oxford is really Oxford--a big, happy, fun-loving, Southern and a little cultured family. Law enforcement doesn't have much to do but kick back and enjoy the food, music, and company like everybody else.

But they did bring the Command Center with them. If it got hot, they needed a place to sit, right? I noticed a sign on the wall through the open door. I got close enough to read its stern message.

What did it say? DO NOT LEAVE PRISONERS UNATTENDED ? DO NOT LEAVE WEAPONS UNATTENDED ? SHUT THE DOOR SO YOU DON'T LET ALL THE DAMN AIR CONDITIONING OUT ? Nope.

Gotta love a town where law enforcement's biggest worry outside drunk college students is crawfish heads on the floor of their trailer.

The Norwegian Rat Corollary

2008-07-13T23:13:00.004-05:00

Last night we were at the zoo in the Herpetarium when RightGuard (critter phobia category: snakes) said there was a snake out with the keeper we could touch. I don't have a problem with snakes and bustled right up to the keeper. When the crowd of children parted, I suddenly found Bubble and myself a yard away from a nine foot boa constrictor piled into the corner behind the keeper. I admit, I was surprised. All I could think about since we went in there was the scene in Harry Potter where Harry makes the glass in front of the boa constrictor's cage disappear, so for a second I thought maybe I had been thinking about it a little too hard. I was expecting something more in the vein of a scarf- or bracelet-sized serpent. He said anyone who was at least five years old could touch it. Presumably, the smallest child it could swallow was a four year old. I was glad Bubble was in her stroller.

At the other end of the snake house, I saw an enormous beetle/ roach creature on the floor in front of the glass cases. My first instinct was to take off my shoe to try and smash it. I already had my shoe off when I realized it was probably some rare and expensive insect needed to feed some equally rare and expensive reptile. A keeper emerged from a nearby door where he had just removed a plastic bucket from over a snake in a bin. I told him I believed someone's dinner had escaped. "Naw, that's just a cockroach. We can't spray in here because of the herps naa naaa blaaah naa naa." I got the impression that the herp keepers are the nerds of the zoo.

It was not a Zoo Bug, it was a just giant fucking roach, so RightGuard squashed it.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 14 April 1985

2008-07-08T22:42:00.006-05:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

I had to spend nearly
all day on my project again.
I finally finished everything
at about 5:00. Then I went
out and swam. I also swam
earlier today. It felt
wonderful. I swam last
night, too.

My mom had to work
t the new hospital tody
for ESA for part of the day,
and Punky came over for a
little.

Yesterday, I was supposed
to babysit for Mrs. Lewis,
and be picked up at 4:00.
Mr. Lewis called and said it
would be a couple of hours
before he picked me up. Event-
ually, he decided to take care
of the kids himself.

Fred, Ginger, and Peaches came over to our abode for Fourth of July and got to discussing various pestilence. At work the previous evening, where my arachnophobia is well documented (and well-justified, I might add), they were stunned that rats don't bother me in the least. My theory is that everyone is phobic of at least one of rodents, reptiles, or insects, usually falling out as rats, snakes, or spiders. I started talking about how we used to have rats in our pool, much to my co-workers' horror, and related this to my family the next day.

Many people in our neighborhood had pools and they all had rats, so we thought nothing of it. They weren't in the houses, just the pools. I mean, it wasn't great, but it seemed to be as natural a consequence as the wasps which were also attracted to the water. The wasps could fly, so they bothered me a lot more than the rats, which could not get out of the pool once they got in and just swam around until they drowned.

Peaches and I were responsible for skimming and checking the chemicals in the pool once we got home from school, but it was up to Dad to check the skimmers because let's get real, we girls were not about to scoop dead leaves out of there with our bare hands, much less dead rats.

On one memorable afternoon, we came home to find not one, but two large rats swimming around the pool, as Peaches recently recalled, wearing sunglasses and saying, if you don't mind, there's no rush, but can we get some daiquiris out there? And dry towels? In case you're wondering, rats doggy paddle, in hopeless little circles and zig-zags.

And our now-favorite pool rat story is the time Dad pulled off the cover of one of the skimmers and sort of jerked and made a noise. We wanted to know what was in there and at first he wouldn't tell us, but then admitted it was a live rat. Of course, we had to see it. Well, y'all, the hopeless little circles of a rat doggy-paddling in a full-sized pool are nothing compared to the hopeless little circles of a rat doggy-paddling in a 6" diameter pool skimmer.

Either Dad decided to put the thing out of its misery or it saw an opportunity for escape, but the next thing you know it was up out of the skimmer on the deck and man and beast were locked in a life and death struggle for swimming pool dominance. Again, in Peaches' recollection, there was eye gouging, some roundhouse kicks on the part of the rat, a sleeper hold by Dad, and then a reverse head butt by the rat, all to the soundtrack of two shrieking girls. Finally, dazed and bloody, Dad reached down and pulled out the ultimate weapon: his flip flop. Killing a pool rat with a flip flop is about as easy as killing Keanu Reeves with a flip flop, but our Dad did it.

He did enlighten us last week that pool rats are not, in fact, common. That "there was a whole story in the paper" back then about how construction up the road had driven the rats our way. They were Norwegian rats and they didn't like to be inside, only outside.

I have another theory about critter phobias. People call certain ones by different names to make them sound non-threatening. Giant mosquito? Naw, that's a skeeter-eater. Giant spider? Nothing to be scared of, it's just a wolf spider. Giant coachroach? No, silly, it's a water bug. Giant pool rat? Oh, no, no--those were just Norwegian rats. I actually believed this until I just Googled Norwegian rat.

"The brown rat, common rat, Hanover rat, Norway rat, Norwegian rat, or wharf rat (Rattus norvegicus) is one of the best known and most common rats, and also one of the largest."

My god, we didn't have sophisticated Norwegian (like Thor!) rats, they were just common rats from up the street!

Nemesis II: The Wrath of Yankee

2008-07-08T01:20:00.014-05:00

I get the feeling a lot of you are sitting around waiting to see what will happen now that I have officially declared Jen Lancaster (who was so super sweet to put me in her links) my nemesis.

Well, I've been looking for a really good chicken-fried steak.

Growing up in Texas, my favorite foods were pretty much cheese enchiladas, beans and rice, or chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes with cream gravy, either washed down with a Dr. Pepper.

I recently came across a blog by a straight-up rich chick whose husband is the CEO of an oil company in Houston. She is apparently Mrs. Oil CEO #2 and loving every minute of it. She is a blonde socialite who enjoys taking trips in friends' private jets to exotic locales, building $30,000 playhouses for her two year-old girl, protestingly accepting a real pearl necklace for her daughter's birthday from a jeweler friend, planning fabulous galas for charity events, and then getting dressed up in couture to attend same. I think she may have a crown or two as well. (Yankees, read: Beauty pageant title) Basically a Texas girl's dream life.

Now, she cannot be my nemesis for the simple reason that, although she seems to be enormously popular and charming in person as she lives her charmed life, she cannot write her way out of a paper bag. I get the feeling that a lot of her material is recycled (badly) from Reader's Digest's Laughter is the Best Medicine column. Couture and dazzling good looks be damned, I'm a better writer than her. So there.

Right when I was really starting to be pissed that someone so dumb could have such a sparkly, shiny life, I scrolled down to a photo of her favorite meal.

Mmmmmmmmahhhhhhmmmmm. My Texas sister, I'm so glad you made it to the show! Who can hate a socialite who actually eats chicken fried steak? Not me!

But I can hate a socialite who eats the kick-ass chicken fried steak she makes herself from scratch.

Frying stuff is getting to be like a lost art in the South. I don't know anybody who makes their own fried chicken or chicken fried steak, but there are still plenty of restaurants where someone will do it for you. I have rarely attempted frying anything myself, as it's messy, smelly, dangerous, and damn hard to get right. I never got my chicken-fried steak fix from home; my mama is not from the South or Texas. I mean, French fries are one of the most popular foods in our country, but how many people do you know that are cutting and frying them from scratch?

This all boiled down to an intense craving for a good chicken-fried steak for me for the past few weeks, because bitter jealousy takes a lot of fuel, y'all. I haven't had one in a couple of years, at least. Fortunately, I have access to The Dixie Cafe, where they will fry a cat if you want them to, and it will be totally encased in a delicious, crunchy fried shell that would make you slap your mama, if she was the kind of mama who ever fried stuff for you.

I had been circling the Dixie Cafe like a shark for the past few weeks until I finally got my opportunity tonight. Pointing a little too eagerly to the menu, I ordered my chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, and fried corn on the cob to go, along with a raspberry sweet tea. The man asked me if I wanted the cream gravy. As opposed to what? Brown? I was shocked an employee of the Dixie Cafe would even refer to such an abomination. John T. would not approve.

When he rung up my order, he mumbled something about being confused by chicken fried steak and country fried steak and that's the northerner coming out in him. I froze, uncertain if I should pick up the bag. This man appeared to be in some sort of management capacity and he was a Yankee? And openly admitting it to a customer? I tried to conceal my horror, lest he be rabid.

I was too afraid to look in the bag and decided to take whatever I got. When I got home, I discovered my fried corn on the cob, "mashed potatoes," and a cream gravy-smothered slab of mouth-wateringly fried meat.

I remembered their mashed potatoes suck and they still do. They were clearly composed of yesterday's baked potatoes, skins and all, smashed into a mass. Y'all. Skins in the mashed potatoes are not homey. They mean you are too lazy to peel the potatoes. Gross. I do make my own mashed potatoes and they PWN that slop.

Still, fried corn, fried meat. Two out of three ain't bad, and that's coming from a guy named after meat.

I cut into the meat to discover . . . chicken. Lifting my utensils to the heavens, I yelled, "YANKEEEEEEEE!" in the key of Khan. I don't even think the tea was sweet. Sweet tea should put you into an instant diabetic coma with the first sip. I could taste the tea more than the sweet and that ain't right.

I ate it, of course, and it was good, but it wasn't beef. I am still unfulfilled. Ironically, the Yankee had been very apologetic about my wait. I have been waiting for weeks. WHERE IS MY CHICKEN-FRIED STEAK?

I will be going back. I will be speaking to the Yankee. I will be getting my chicken fried steak. And this time, I'm getting the fried pickles, too.

Quote of the Day

2008-06-30T23:30:00.003-05:00

On Saturday, Bubble was at her grandparents' house, so Bubba and RightGuard got a full day of quality male bonding. They went to lunch at Burger King and then down to Arkabutla Lake. They drove all around it, and though the swimming beaches were closed due to flooding (??), they still managed to have a pretty good time. RightGuard even bought some worms to make a worm farm that he looked up directions for on the internet and oh my god where are the worms now? uh--anyway, guy stuff. As I was leaving for work that afternoon, they were going outside to play in the sprinkler and have a water fight.

Me: Have a good night doing more boy stuff!

Bubba: Like cleaning the house!

RightGuard: Don't blog that. (pause) Okay, do.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 13 April 1985

2008-06-30T23:20:00.005-05:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Today I had to spend
nearly all day working on
my ACE project. It is a
book with this guy named
Superfox telling about foxes
in the year 2205. It sucks.
I messed up all over it, and
when my mom was talking
to my dad at dinner about
me, she goes ". . . all she did
today was bind that crappy-
looking book." That really
hurt my feelings, even though
it doesn't look so hot. I
have to have my project, a
rough draft, and a final
draft ready by tomorrow
at bedtime.

I can't do hardly any-
thing until I finish, including
watch Saturday Night Live.

Lolcats Ninja

2008-06-27T23:54:00.017-05:00

Quote of the Day

2008-06-25T23:12:00.005-05:00

A grandmother asks Bubba his sister's name at the sprinkler park today. "That's Bubble. I own her."

He also made a girlfriend, discovered water balloons, and almost got his first ticket for public urination. This was after already being caught going outside to pee off the back patio in the morning. Full day.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 12 April 1985

2008-06-25T22:56:00.005-05:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Thor has stopped flirting.
I'm really upset. I don't
know what to expect from
hm anymore. Unfortunately,
I think he's picking up
some bad habits from
that indiginant pig, Cyndi,
and maybe even some from
Christine.

Joan went up to Thor
at recess and goes, "Thor,
I hope you know you
broke 4 girls' hearts yester-
day." And he said, "No I
didn't." And she said, "Yes
you did - mine, SoMo's,
T----'s, and Laura's - be-
cause you didn't walk home
with us." And it went on.
Later in the day, I told him I
wasn't mad at him.

Poor Norwegian Thor
Those Texas tweens
In their extremes
Drove him mad and
Now his brain is thore

He can't take any more
What are they on him for?
He's got red hair
His skin is fair
He's a Scandinavian whore

Quotes of the Day

2008-06-23T01:49:00.003-05:00

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

---Theodore Roosevelt

(seeing my cleavage) "Is that where babies come from?"

---Bubba

NEMESIS

2008-06-22T23:38:00.006-05:00

So I see I haven't posted in anything in a very long time, so let me make it up to you with a big, fat slab of crazy. If you are just here for the lolcats and poop stories, you should get off here.

Here's the deal. I have yet to do anything with my life vis a vis a career. I know what I want to do, which is get paid to write. I know that, realistically, few writers can actually support themselves in this way, but any money I would receive from writing would be more than I am getting now, which is none, so I am cool with that. There are a lot of things that could prevent me from becoming a professional writer; first among them is my refusal to actually write anything.

However, I am somewhat acquainted with not one, but two, very successful authors who continue to become more so every year, acquainted enough that I feel like if they could do it, so could I if only I weren't so incredibly stupid.

The first is John T. Edge, known as John T. I have been bitterly jealous of him for years to the point that he is an enormous source of paranoia for me. He was in an advanced Southern Studies seminar with me at Ole Miss under Charles Reagan Wilson, the great Southern Studies scholar. John T. was in grad school and aggravatingly serious. I was the sorority girl who rolled up the spiral staircase into the tower of Barnard Hall, the antebellum observatory where our classes were held, ten fucking minutes late every fucking time even though I lived in the sorority house two doors down.

We took a field trip one day to Memphis to eat barbeque at a dive where he were the only white people. He and Charles Reagan Wilson were locked in rapt discussion; I was the only one who ordered a beer with my meal. Then I got a daiquiri on Beale Street with my sorority sister while he sowed the seeds of his future success. John T. also was a part of a group that began lobbying for a statue on the campus to commemorate the integration of the campus by James Meredith, which raised a few hackles a the time.

I was particularly idiotic because I found my Southern Studies minor fascinating, and the classes I took to be by far the most engaging and exciting that I took at Ole Miss. To be honest, I been the beneficiary of some excellent schooling before I got there and Ole Miss did not have a strong academic reputation at the time for a reason. Southern Studies was the only new thing I learned in the classrooms in my time there. And what classrooms! I'll never forget sitting in the large lecture room downstairs in Barnard with its soaring ceiling, the giant windows thrown open to a decadently gorgeous spring day, listening to the professor talking about the blues with total passion, and thinking, this is the University of Mississippi.

Cut to twelve years later. John T. is now the Director of the Southern Foodways Alliance in the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at Ole Miss. He studies fucking pimento cheese sandwiches and cornbread for living, y'all. Far from looking down on that, I think he has the best fucking job ever. For Chrissakes, he's written books on Fried Chicken and Donuts and is highly respected in his field. And in one of the many articles I've come across about him, I discovered that he only got so serious at Ole Miss after about six years as a Sigma Nu at Georgia, several of which he served as fraternity social chair and was known for his awesome parties. When he left he was still two years shy of a degree. Naturally, this only made me respect him more.

The James Meredith monument was finally erected (titter) after eleven years of work by his committee; it was a central component of my own thesis, written not for Ole Miss, but an inferior institution. I emailed him once to talk to him about it; mentioning that he has the world's best job. He emailed back that it would be easier if I called. I never did because I am a total jackass. My thesis sucked but it was good enough for a diploma from that other school.

The problem is I can't swing a slab of ribs without hitting John T. He haunts me with visions of my youthful and current slackeritude and inadequacy. Naturally, he is on the pages of the many Ole Miss publications we receive, and when I go into Square Books, the world's best bookstore, on the Oxford Square, there he is, browsing the delicious Southern books of the other people who have actually gotten off their asses and written them. At the new restaurant we ate at on Saturday in Oxford, Big Bad Breakfast (named after Larry Brown's book, Big Bad Love), there he is on the menu. The John T. sandwich: pimento cheese, bacon, tomatoes, bread and butters (which sounds fucking DELICIOUS, godammit). More maddening is him suddenly popping into more than one Food Network program I have been watching. It's enough to make me wonder if I am a little schizo. Despite all this, John T. never made it to nemesis status with me.

And what just set me over the edge and ties him to the second author is the fact that my friend HoJo just mentioned on her blog that she has only ever been to two book signings. Guess whose they were? Her old Flamingo Arms neighbor, John T., and someone many people reading this blog will be well acquainted with: Jen Lancaster.

I "met" Jen when I was pregnant with Bubba and HoJo sent me a link to her blog. Jen was a bitter, unemployed friend-of-a friend-of-HoJo who was a damn funny writer. She is now on a nationwide book tour for her third book, New York Times bestseller Such a Pretty Fat, and is finishing her fourth book. I was excited but a little depressed when her first book got published, as I believe her agent was someone she found after reading The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love, by Jill Conner Browne. I recommended the book to her and she contacted Jill Conner Browne's agent, listed in the book. What stops me from doing this? I suck.

Still, I am a lot more likely to write a book about being a fat, bitchy ex-sorority girl than the cultural significance of red-eye gravy, so it gave me hope. But as she has gained in popularity and is no question a full-on professional author, my hope has dimmed. Maybe I could get a book published, but how could I live up to that?

Jen recently posted how she's lost her nemesis, author Stephanie Klein, and now needs a new one. She defines her nemesis as "a person who's achieved what I want and then I watch and emulate her every move, all the while despising her with the fire of 10,000 angry (immature) suns." I could only sourly acknowledge the total accuracy of this description, as it is what Jen has to me since the announcement of her first-class, chauffeured book tour. I have gotten as far as being bitter, unemployed, and writing a blog. (Technically I have a job, but trust me, it doesn't count.)

Jen Lancaster, you are officially my nemesis. I know you'll take this as the compliment it is.

HoJo also said that at the book signing, Jen spotted her in the vast crowd of adoring minions and said hello to her, totally dunking on all the jenny-come-latelys. AND she said Jen said to tell me hello.

OMG! AWESOME!!! THAT IS SOOO SWEET!!

While hatred and bitter jealousy towards one's nemesis is necessary, an equal part is admiration and the knowledge that you would totally adore her in real life, even if no alcohol were involved.

And Then There Was Two

2008-06-04T23:00:00.007-05:00

Two months ago, when Bubble turned two, I wrote about how absolutely wonderful and sweet and precious she was, how she was made of unicorns and tutus and lollipops and rainbows, and how there could never be a more darling little angel baby. Thank god I preserved those sentiments, because that angel baby is gone, replaced by the proverbial two year old.

About a month after her birthday, ballsiness and height intersected at the top of the crib rail, so she began vaulting out of the crib. There is nothing quite like the shock of a child you believe to be secured in another room suddenly appearing at your side and scaring the bejeezus out of you. And then it scares her, and she cries, and it's just a sad, scary little moment for everyone. And then you turn the crib into a toddler bed and the child is happy, but the parents remains sad, for they knows the trials that await them, for an ordinary room is quite boring to an adult, but a newly-free toddler will find a wonderland of trouble.

The crib vaulting coincided with her cutting two year molars, which parents know means much wookiee-on-the-rag howling and screaming in the middle of the night, first by the child and then by the parent. This was exacerbated by my declaration that a girl big enough to sleep in a bed is too big for pacifiers and cutting off ends of same (approaching dentist appointment and his pointing out of her fucked-up bite due to pacifier use at last appointent also a big factor). She was fine, even excited by, the the paci pruning, but at 3 am, when she was half asleep and her gums hurt, she tended to forget this. And now that she was free to roam about her room (though not the house; we do have a doorknob safety cover thingy on her doorknob so she can't escape), she no longer fell asleep the second she was put in bed or slept until 10:30 am.

Every morning she turns into Ninja Toddler and silently does something weird before politely knocking on her door and yelling, "Out!" to be let out. In the past two weeks, she has twice gotten the lid of the Diaper Genie open and pulled out dozens of feet of plastic bag (bonus for suffocation scariness), pulled all of the wipes out of the wipes warmer and left them in a pile in the middle of her bed, pulled down the spring loaded curtain rod (twice), moved all her dirty laundry to the armchair, and twice I've walked in her room to find no sign of her anywhere (alien abduction bonus), and located her behind the curtains and blinds, standing on the windowsill in the window. Sometimes she takes off her pajamas. And then there was the very unfortunate night that I accidentally left her cabinet unlocked and she got into her little plastic rubber bands and got them everywhere (choking bonus) and opened a bottle of menthol oil for the humidifier and spilled it on the floor (poisoning bonus, destruction bonus). Two year-olds are very death prone and some redecoration has been performed, but I swear to god, she has to leave those blackout curtains alone.

She learned how to turn on the lamp and we would find her sitting in her little chair "reading" with the lamp on and enjoying an imaginary brandy an hour after she was supposed to be asleep. A few days ago, she figured out how to pull the little chair to the light switch so she can turn on the overhead light. A couple of times I've done a routine bed check to find her asleep in the rug in front of the dresser with her pillow and comforter.

And today, a new peccadillo. Bubble and her brother were playing under the bed before naptime and she just laid down under there, looking rather tired. I asked her if she wanted to sleep under there and she seemed to like the idea, so I shoved a soft, fluffy blanket under her, gave her her pillow and put a light blanket over her. I only caught her up once, then she dove back under there and went to sleep. Bubba went through a phase at two where he would only sleep in the middle of the floor, so I wasn't that surprised. I came home from work tonight to find her bed empty, as well as the rug, and then spied her little hand sticking out from under the bed. RightGuard said she just dove into her little den when he said it was bedtime. She can't help but be cute when she's asleep.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 11 April 1985

2008-05-29T00:23:00.003-05:00

I am so mad at Cyn-
di! She acts like she owns
Thor, and is being a real
pain in the butt. Nearly
everyone had left after
school today when the
bell rung, and Thor and
Cyndi were standing at
Miss Huntress's desk. I ask-
ed Thor if he was walking
home, and Cyndi said, "
Maybe he doesn't want to
walk home with you, So'Mo'."
And Thor goes "Cyndi!" in
a sort of whining. I should
have said "Maybe he does,
Cyndi". She is such an
indiginant pig. Nobody likes
her that much right now,
including Thor, I'm sure.

When Men Attack

2008-05-25T00:20:00.007-05:00

This evening, RightGuard announces he is going to make a run to the grocery store and asks me if I need anything. Well, diapers, as we are down to three, which you would think he would have noticed as he was with them all day today while I was at work. Also, Bubble had a pooptastrophe instead of napping so that kind of called attention to her diaper area. Apparently, poop nuggets got all over the floor. GRAPHIC. This is parenthood. There is so much poop involved. (Side note: Peaches' Mother's Day card to me said "Hope you have a great day that doesn't involve any feces.") RightGuard ran out of Resolve, so he used a clear plastic spray bottle he found under the sink to clean the carpet, which turned out to contain diluted bleach. YES.

I also needed cotton pads, organic if they have them because they are supah soft. He had refused to buy them last time and now I know why, as all of a sudden he makes a pore cleansing motion to his face with his fingertips and says, "Oh, for your face." Somewhat inexplicable, as he has successfully, on more than one occasion, purchased feminine pads for me when I can barely tell what kind I use.

Finally, Skintimate shave gel, and here I get really wild and tell him to surprise me with the flavor, as long as it is gel and not cream. He surprises me by saying, oh, he knows to get the gel because that's what he shaves with. "Well, pick something out pretty for yourself, then," I say. Ever since I bought that Jasmine Vanilla shampoo from Bath and Body Works he's gotten all experimental. I have even caught him dabbling in hair products. Which actually is not cool because they are way too fricking expensive for amateurs to be experimenting with.

In addition to not realizing that the critical diaper level should be the primary reason for going to the store, RightGuard also does not know what kind of diapers they are, so he asks me what to get. I specify Pampers Easy Ups size 5 and write it down because we've been down this road before and we both know what measures are necessary. I provide him with one $2 off coupon and one $1 off coupon because I am a fucking diaper coupon ninja.

Approximately twenty minutes later, I get a call and he asks me whether to get the 26 pack or the 42 one, because bless his heart, he wants to get it right. I start to explain that, after several years of calculation, I have determined the smaller packs to be a better deal because of my current high diaper coupon density and also more favorable in terms of Pampers Gifts to Grow Rewards points, but manage to say, "Two small packs, please. And don't forget the coupons!"

RightGuard returns home with cotton facial pads, not organic, but round and not square and that is more important. I could not have faulted him for coming home with the square ones because I did not specify shape, and even though he gets a Q tip out of the jar which also houses round cotton pads every day, it does not mean he has ever noticed cotton pads are in there, much less that they are round. So, good.

He also comes home with Skintimate Flirty Mango shave gel for wimmens AND Edge Fragrance Free shave gel for mins. Well done!

But as I approach the diapers, sitting on the kitchen island, from across the room, something doesn't seem quite right. When I get closer, I see that, instead of diapers with pink trim and Dora on them, there is a picture of diapers with blue trim, Diego, and a faux weenie flap (what is that thing called? Seriously, it deserves a host of nicknames). On the front is a picture of a little boy wearing said diaper. This product is intended for our two year old daughter. RightGuard used the coupons and bought two packages of Size 5 Pampers Easy Ups, but I never specified GIRL diapers. My bad.

Lolcats All-Star

2008-05-18T23:54:00.020-05:00

If you are wondering how long I am going to keep posting these, the answer is: until I have used up all the ones I've saved to my lolcats folder and/or when they stop being funny. Which will never happen. If you have noticed there is a distinct lack of original content on this blog lately, you are totally right and I am not even going to argue with you. BUT at least it's funny. To the lolcats!

Festering, Bloody Bollocks

2008-05-17T00:19:00.003-05:00

I have been anxiously checking my bank account balance all day, waiting for my promised gubmint stimulus money and nothing arrived. I checked all the rules and regulations and couldn't find any reason our direct deposit would not be going through. Neither one of us is an illegal alien, we filed our taxes more than 6 weeks ago and got direct deposit, we prepared them ourselves and did not get any kind of rapid refund, and we don't owe the gubmint any money, etc., etc.

We came home a little while ago to an email apologizing for the previous communication, but since our Turbo Tax fees were taken out of our refund, we will in fact be getting a paper check. In the last batch, two months from now. FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK. We had stuff we needed to do with that money that can't wait two months, like signing Bubba up for summer camp. This is what I get for trusting the IRS.

Safe Baby Handling Tips

2008-05-09T02:14:00.030-05:00

These are from Safe Baby Handling Tips by David and Kelley Sopp.

http://www.amazon.com/Safe-Baby-Handling-Tips-David/dp/0762424915

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 10 April 1985

2008-05-09T01:08:00.003-05:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Punky is spending the
night tonight and tomorr-
ow night and spending part
of Friday with us. Her par-
ents are gone.

I somehow didn't mention
it, but the day before yes-
terday, Monday, I accident-
ally spilled about a liter of
diet Coke on the couch.
I'm not sure how it hap-
pened, but my mom was
furious. My dad was furi-
ous, too, when he found
out. I can't have any
diet drinks till further
notice, and can't watch
TV for a week.

Also, I'm taking care
of the Brewsters' animals.

I'm actually going to have to side with my parents on this one. How the fuck do you not have any idea how you spilled a liter of diet Coke on the sofa? Classic kid move. I think the unit of measure is key here. It implies that it was half a two liter bottle, and what the fuck was a a two liter bottle of diet Coke doing on the couch? I'm guessing that was against the rules.

I remember the very first time I saw diet Coke in a store. We were on a car trip somewhere and stopped at a convenience store. I don't remember where we were going or when it was, but it was night and warm. I walked into that store and about fell out.

"MOM! THEY HAVE DIET COKE! REAL COCA-COLA THAT'S DIET! WE HAVE TO GET SOME!" We were just agog that such a thing could exist. The only diet drink at that time was TaB that we bought for thirty-five cents from the vending machine in the teacher's lounge in the school where mom taught and we went to school. It came in glass recycled bottles and tasted like Chernobyl.

Quotes of the Day

2008-05-06T15:27:00.002-05:00

Bubba: "Boys like sports. Girls like shoe shopping."

Unrelated incident:
Me: "Oh boy, you get to wear your new shoes today."
Bubble: "Happy!"

Lolcats Pro

2008-05-06T00:20:00.016-05:00

No Running On Valentine's Day

2008-05-02T01:04:00.002-05:00

I forgot to do Teacher Appreciation Week until Wednesday, at which point I had nothing, so I decided to wait until Friday and do everything at once. We made Ms. Laurie's book tonight.

I am too lazy to take photos or scan it, but here's what it said:

Cover:
Ms. Laurie
by
Bubba

As told to
Bubba's Mom

First page:
Ms. Laurie is my teacher. I have learned about other people. They're grown-ups. They're big, like you.

Second page: drawing of Ms. Laurie

Third page: Ms. Laurie is a girl. She is a teacher. She sure is a nice person. (And I am very glad he decided not to mention her vagina-ed.)

Fourth page: Bubba's name written out by him.
Ms. Laurie taught me how to write my name.

Fifth page: Ms. Laurie taught me letters and mans and numbers and days of the week and shapes. (Yes, mans. Different types of grown-ups. Like police officers. Not as weird as it sounds-ed.)

Sixth page: scribbles of different colors
Ms. Laurie taught me colors. Green and BLUE are my favorite.

Seventh page: I go to school next to my old school. J---- and C---- and A---- and A--- and T------ and A--- are in my class.

Eighth page: shapes I drew, he cut out and glued on the page
Ms. Laurie taught me cutting. Mom did the star. I like to cut.

Ninth page: In school, I paint and the teachers glue for me. I run. But on Valentine's Day I don't run. I work. I did stories at Old School.

Tenth page: drawing of himself with very cute and whimsical face

Eleventh page: That's all I can think about for tonight. Love. Bubba

Breedin' 'Em Big

2008-05-02T00:20:00.005-05:00

I took my children in for their yearly checkups on Monday. Bubba had to get four shots plus a couple finger sticks, poor baby, and was actually afraid. He is now dosed up for kindergarten. Bring on the measles.

I had to show him how to pee in a cup. Well, generally speaking. But I finally found an advantage to having a penis. They would be so much easier for taking a pregnancy test. He was so thrilled to pee in a cup, y'all. He filled up the cup once and dumped it in the toilet. I managed to convince him not to dump out the second round.

According to their stats, my offspring are officially huge.

Bubba:

Age 5
Height - 46.5" - 97th percentile
Weight - 62 lbs. - off the chart
Clothing - size 7
Shoe Size - Children's 1

Bubble:

Age - 2
Height - 36.75" - off the chart
Weight - 33.5" - 97th percentile
Clothing Size - 3T
Shoe Size - Toddler 8

Thoughts:

1) Why is there not a prize for having the biggest kid? Like even for the day or something?
2) I am glad he is big; everybody wants big, strapping sons. Big, strapping girls, not so much. Maybe she'll still wind up five feet tall and 105 pounds, and her bones will magically become thin and dainty.
3) I have known way too many people whose children were off the charts at some point, either above or below, to find them terribly credible.

Shot records in hand, Bubba was officially registered for kindergarten on Tuesday. They thought he was coming in tardy to first grade and then that he needed to be registered for that day. No, ma'am, this is for the fall. He just turned five two days ago.

Happy Birthday, Bubba!

2008-04-27T22:32:00.008-05:00

Today my son turned five, and I'm feeling a little like I will in a few very long, short years when he goes off to college: how did the time go by so fast? How did he get so big? Did I do enough to prepare him for school? How can I be looking forward to him being gone at school when I will miss him so much?

Ask me again in three months. Summer lasts a long time.

It was a Sunday five years ago, too, when I woke up and found my pajamas squishily wet. I went to the bathroom and and immediately realized, oh, that's the mucus plug they've been talking about.

I was stymied because I was scheduled to go in the next day to be induced, as I was a week past my due date. I knew a baby has to be delivered within 24 hours once the water is broken because of the risk of infection. RightGuard was watching the NFL draft and I walked out and told him my water had broken. I called the hospital to ask permission to take a shower before coming in and permission was granted. She told me to get packed and come on in, but there was no need to rush, as I was not having contractions.

I was planning on packing that day, so I suddenly felt totally unprepared. My friend came over to get instructions on taking care of our cats. And the apartment wasn't totally in order. I packed and showered and cleaned the apartment and we stopped at Bath and Body Works to buy a back massager because how could I give birth without it? and trashy gossip mags. There is actually quite a lot of waiting involved in the birth process, and with the advent of modern anesthesia, it need not be unpleasant.

We were checked into the labor and delivery suite and I was relieved of my clothing and the nail polish on my index finger so a monitor could be attached. I suited up in the hospital gown and several more monitors, and an IV. I had been treated with kid gloves for nine months because I was pregnant and now they were treating me like a pincushion.

I had never been in the hospital before and began to be filled with nervous anticipation. What will happen? What will happen? What will happen? The doctor ordered Pitocin and I was very apprehensive. There were three things I had wanted to avoid: Pitocin, an episiotomy, and a C section. Fortunately, the nurse informed me that I could have an epidural that very second if I so desired. I demurred and decided to wait until I was actually in pain. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon by the time I was settled in and watching TV and reading People.

It was a rather quiet and pleasant afternoon. I partook of some Stadol and watched as my Pitocin-fueled contractions began to ratchet up. After they got to the point where I was squeezing RightGuard's fingers so hard he was having trouble breathing and utilizing the birth class breathing, I requested the epidural. I watched the clear medication inching through the little tube all the way from the machine until it disappeared into my back and the warm numbness began to wash over me.

I hadn't comfortable lying on my back for months and there I was, propped up in the bed but still on my back. Every time I tried to change position, some monitor would become dislodged and start beeping loudly, bringing a nurse running in. There was the pulse monitor on my finger, two monitors on my belly, an internal contraction monitor, and a scalp monitor on the baby. You can imagine how they got those last two on.

For several hours, the medical personnel would interrupt my reading every few minutes to check on me until the hospital grew quiet and we settled down to get some rest shortly before midnight. Despite the presence of two folding beds in the very room, RightGuard elected to lie down on the hardwood floor with his sweatshirt for a pillow. He fell asleep and I dozed for a while in a simulation of sleep much like the simulation of night in the room, the dark punctuated by dozens of small lights and noises.

Around 2 am, my eyes flew open. I felt something. My whole body seemed to be vibrating and some of the pain began to seep through. It felt like every muscle in my body was contracting. I called the nurse. "I feel something," I said.

She came in and checked me and said, "You're in Transition. You're 10 centimeters. It's time." She flipped on the lights and RightGuard awoke in confusion. People began filling the room and futsing around with this and that. My doctor came in and put on all his surgical gear, in case a C section became necessary.

I began to panic a little bit, wondering if I really had to do this right now. I was afraid of the unknown and not sure if I could do it. They removed the end of the bed and had all the bright lights shining on me as I scooted down to edge of the bed. I was covered in blue sheets and couldn't see a thing, having opted to forgo the mirror.

The doctor told me to start pushing when a contraction came and the nurse counted to ten. RightGuard told me later that the doctor was dipping his hands in warm water and, for lack of a better term, stretching vigorously, during all this. I pushed about four times when the doctor sighed and asked, "Is that the best you can do?" Video evidence later revealed him telling a nurse to get the scissors at this point, and her standing there with them at the ready. I asked for one more try and changed the way I was pushing from using my stomach muscles, to pretending to go to the bathroom like the nurse in birthing class had said. Suddenly, the silence was broken by relieved noises. The baby's head popped out. RightGuard peeked and said he had a lot of hair. The nurse shrugged and put down the scissors. Episiotomy narrowly avoided. "What are we expecting, a boy?" asked the doctor.

I pushed through one more contraction and out the baby came at 2:28 am. "It's a boy!" said the doctor, holding up a red, squirming, naked baby with the cord still attached. My first thought was, there really was a baby in there! I blurted out, "Is he okay?" "He's fine," the doctor replied, and on the tape he says, "I don't know what we were all so worried about." He put the baby on the dropcloths on my tummy and I was thunderstruck with shock. That's my baby. It's really here.

I remained in a state of shock as they went through the protocol of cleaning up the baby, measuring, tagging, and footprinting him like a wild animal or tiny criminal. He weighed in at a mere 6 lbs. 12 oz. despite being a week late and had a surprising amount of vernix given that I was certain of his conception date. He measured at 21" long and lacked any rear end whatsoever. His ears stuck out, as did every hair on his head. Finally, they had him swaddled up tight and the little hat crammed on his head and the nurse gave him to me.

I looked into his little face, his dark grey eyes looked into mine, and I became a mother, as miraculously and irrevocably as a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. This is my baby, I thought, and began sobbing. I touched his face ever so gently; it was the softest thing I had ever felt. It was mine to touch whenever I wanted. I was overwhelmed. The nurse began talking to me and I didn't hear anything she said except, "Are listening to me?" "No," I wailed, and she seemed to mutter something about trying again later.

That moment was beyond amazing; I doubt I'll ever experience anything like it ever again. I felt that I had just crossed the threshold into a new and unimaginably beautiful new world.

It's amazing that that moment was five years ago. I wish I could say the new world was always beautiful, but it wasn't. It had cliffs and storm clouds and deserts. Part of the reason his sister has seemed so easy is that he was unusually hard. Looking back, I don't know how I survived Bubba being two. He is much like a brick wall in both stature and temperament, almost impenetrable, nearly fearless, an exhausting thing to constantly push against. This also makes him tough and strong.

Unlike a brick wall, he is constantly concerned with where he is going and what he is going to do next. While exhausting for his parents, this is not a bad quality for a person to have. He has been speaking less than half his life but is making up for lost time. He made up for lost time in size, too, and now he's the tallest on his T ball team; his arms reaching over the little girls' heads when they were supposed to spread out fingertip to fingertip.

Today we ate at L'Amore in Oxford with the grandparents and he ordered spaghetti and meatballs. It's the first food besides chicken tenders he has ever ordered at a restaurant. Naturally, they were out of all pasta after the Double Decker Festival yesterday. He happily settled for a meatball sub; he ate a few bites of meatballs and all of the fries. He tried a bite of my salad. In the last two weeks, he has also eaten steamed cauliflower, spinach, and broccoli with gusto, demanding, "More broccoli, please!" What parent could say no to that? I imagine any new flavor is fabulous after eating almost nothing but peanut butter crackers for three years.

He got several Hot Wheels sets for his birthday and can set them all up. He even taught his sister how to set it up and they play nicely together with the set. A few times he has sneaked into her crib to take a nap with her. As it woke her up, she was quite annoyed, but the thought was sweet all the same.

He can play games on the computer to school all by himself and brush his own teeth. He has learned he won't get anything by saying, "I want!" but rather, "May I please?" He sleeps with the scroungy old Scooby Doo I won him at Dollywood, a Scooby Doo sleeping bag, and a flashlight my dad got him for his birthday. He wakes up way too early and thinks he doesn't need naps anymore; he's wrong. He created an entire imaginary system of secret tunnels in our house, including a mall underneath the house where his dad and his baby sister and I work. If he ever sees a bad guy he will hit him on the foot with a hammer and tell Bubble to poke him in the eye with her finger.

He is still small enough to curl up in my lap and for me to wash his hair. He tells me, "I love you so much," all the time and I try to save each one up for the days when he inevitably won't. He can work the DVR and several TVs, even though he can't read yet. He can write his name in shaky, wandering letters and loves to be outside.

The other day he asked me why is rains so much. Instead of explaining, I tried, as I sometimes do, asking him if he knew. To my amazement, he answered, "To wake the flowers up, mom!" I had a thrill of surprise. My little flower is definitely waking up and I'm so excited to watch him bloom.

Happy Birthday, Bubba! You'll always be my baby.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 9 April 1985

2008-04-25T00:58:00.003-05:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

After a 5-day vaca-
tion, it's back to the nut-
house!

Last Wednesday, after
orchestra I left my pink
necklace that Joan gave
me in the orchestra room.
Stephanie and Laura said
that they passed it around
on Thursday (I wasn't there),
and no one claimed it. They
didn't know what happen-
ed to it. I'm really upset.

Thor and Billy are
soooooo cute! I really
wish I could go with one
of them. I think that Thor
likes me more than Joan.

I need to do my ACE
project and report by next
Tuesday - bad!

Already Doing Chores

2008-04-25T00:47:00.004-05:00

Since it's been a long time since I've had a poop-related story, here we go.

Today I was taking care of business on the throne when Bubble pranced in in her green polka dot dress with a big smile and curls bouncing, because your children never love you more than when you are trying to poop in peace--scientific fact. Usually she will come up when I am going to the bathroom and pat me on the legs and say hi and beg for a head pat (if it's not her, it's the cat). Today she got within a foot of me, then turned to the counter and handed me a catalogue that was not coincidentally within arm's length. "Dere you go!" she said. "Thank you," I said. "Dank koo!" she replied, then pranced off.

Quote of the Day

2008-04-23T23:28:00.005-05:00

Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week, so I decide Bubba and I should make a book for Bubba's teacher about her and all the things he has taught her and illustrate it and such.

Me: Tell me about Ms. Laurie. What kind of person is she?

Bubba: She has long hair.

Me: Uh-huh.

Bubba: And she's a girl . . .

Me: Uh-huh.

Bubba: So I know she has a vagina.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

During his nap , I found a gritty substance on the sofa that appeared to be salt. Remembering Bubba's interest in the salt container the night before, I get a familiar jolt of horror at realizing he is involved. RightGuard thought it was sand but tasted it anyway. Salt confirmed, fortunately. Bubba blearily emerged from his room shortly after that and I asked him where the salt was. "Oh yeah," he said, rubbing his eyes. He went into his sister's room and disappeared under the crib. He emerged with the salt. "Why was it in here?" I asked. "I want to keep it in here. If a grownup needs it I will get it for them." I asked if he spilled it any other places and he replied, yawning, "A few." Tiny scream.

Expert Lolcats

2008-04-12T23:22:00.016-05:00

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 8 April 1985

2008-04-08T00:42:00.005-05:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

We don't have school
today (we didn't have it last
Friday either). From 3:45 to
6:00, I was over at Blon-
die's house for Savannah's
goodbye party. It was a
suprise party, and I got
there a minute too late. I
had fun. We had cake and
ice cream, cheese balls, chips,
candy, and peanuts. We listen-
ed to lots of music. When I
was running on the drive-
way, I went around a
bush at the edge of the
driveway and tripped over
a brick flower bed. I hurt
myself severely. I think my
little left toe is broken, and
its killing me. I also got some
scrapes and bruises.

Oh, god. I left the apostrophe out of "it's." Eleven years old or not, UNFORGIVABLE. But not as bad as putting the apostrophe in where it shouldn't be.

I seem to spend a lot of time in this diary whining about various ailments and injuries, but that one was for real. I have endured many broken little toes since then, and I can testify that, while they do not suck nearly as much a corneal abrasion, they are certainly unpleasant and there is not much you can do about it. The most recent one occurred on our 10th anniversary last year as we were walking out the door for dinner in Oxford (Boure') and a night at a bed and breakfast (Colonel's Quarters). Oh, wait . . . and, yes, I blogged about that. The circle is complete.

While it is amazing how many patterns were being set at this young age (showing up late to the surprise party?-- yes, yes, I know), I am also impressed with my apparent conviction that one day I would need a lot of alibis.

Happy Birthday, Bubble!

2008-04-03T19:49:00.005-06:00

My darling baby girl is two years old today. Two years ago at this time I was lying in a hospital bed panting with relief after getting an epidural and chatting with a friend on the phone, telling her to come on over.

She was due on the 12th, I believe, but the week prior to her birth I had suddenly become unable to move without great pain. This included walking and sleeping. I found myself having use the electric cart in Target to go buy my special fluffy slipper socks for the delivery. She weighed in at 7 lbs. 10 oz. when she was born, a nice number right across the middle of the plate as far as babies are concerned, but at almost a pound bigger than her brother had been, just enough to tear my stomach muscles apart in the middle.

My blood pressure had been getting in the red zone and I was ready to get her OUT, so we had brought a bag to the doctor's appointment that afternoon and sent Bubba to his grandparents' house. It helped the decision that I was 4 cm dilated and 50% effaced already. We checked into the hospital right as the big clock ticked to 5:00 behind the registration desk.

If I was having contractions before I got there, I never felt them because of the muscle pain. So since they gave me Pitocin around 6:15 and the doctor broke my water a while later, I suppose she counts as an induced birth. It really just took the tiniest push to get that boulder rolling, and nothing rolls like contractions on Pitocin, especially with abs that are ripped in a bad way. I had asked for some Stadol with the Pitocin and didn't enjoy it as much as I had the first time; I got really hot and loopy and had to call the nurse to see if it was normal that I was on fire.

The contractions overtook me quickly; there was an agonizing 40 minute wait for the anesthesiologist to get there but he was so good when he did. It was just me and RightGuard there until my friend stopped by; it seemed like she was only there about half an hour before I started feeling the contractions again. Last time that meant I was going through Transition, meaning the home stretch, so I called the anesthesiologist back. He juiced up the epidural with not a moment to spare.

The doctor came in to check me and my friend stepped out. He proclaimed me to be fully effaced, 9.5 cm, with just "a little lip of cervix left." He asked me to do a trial push. I did and he yelled, "Stop! Hold it right there! She's going to come right out!" Suddenly there was a flurry of activity as nurses rushed in to set up the warmer and take the end off the bed and the doctor put on his gown. Once they were all ready, he let me go and baby Bubble popped right out at 10:13 pm.

I wish they had believed me when I said I was in Transition. How many women birth a baby with one push? I suppose two is pretty good, too, especially with ripped apart stomach muscles. I can never use this on her, though. " I was in labor with you for four hours! I pushed for 30 seconds!"

I looked into her face, squalling with that little newborn squall, and thought her eyebrows were beautiful. Her little fingers furled and unfurled. We were in the bright spotlight of the medical lights in the dim room, while the doctor finished his business at my far-away nethers. I remember her red skin and the way it was slightly damp after being cleaned up, and the pink and blue striped hat stuck awkwardly on her sticky head. She had a little bit of dark hair and the usual dark grey eyes. She was perfect and I was so calm and pleased. I was nervous I didn't have the overwhelming rush of love like I had for Bubba, but he was the first. It's different. I came more slowly the second time, but it certainly came.

I nursed her, but she didn't stop crying for over an hour. Later that night, she vomited up something dark and I called for help, alone and terrified. She'd swallowed some blood during the delivery and was find after that. Everything's been fine since then.

My first words after she was out were, "That feels so much better!" I remember this mostly from the home video we made. Oh, don't worry, it was totally G rated, all over the shoulder. Well, you could see my knee at one point. I would be watching it right now but I taped over it a year ago with her first birthday party. I cried for two days I realized what I had done. What was lost was her first moments of life, the first time we ever saw her, and later, the moment she her her brother and grandparents for the first time. Plus any images of me holding her. No one ever thought to take a picture of me, but it was on the tape. This absolutely kills me still, because that little baby is long gone now, and my just memories aren't as powerful as those pictures and recorded sounds. Now, this she can use against me.

I have a toddler now. She has moved from a highchair to a booster seat at the table, and from diapers to Pull-Ups. She's cutting the first of her two-year molars, the first of the last of the baby teeth. She's switching from whole milk to 1% and can put on her own shoes. She eats real food, which her brother still doesn't. She will put on his shoes and baseball hats with her fluffy dresses; it's mind-bendingly cute. She has the run of most of the house now and stays out of the cabinets, but she will beg for pudding (thanks, Gigi). She sounds like a parakeet when she is excited and I love it.

She goes to Mother's Day Out once a week and loves it. They took "Glamor Shots" of them this week and they told me she was a total ham and loved the whole process. Funny, since recently she sometimes throws her hands in front of her face and screams what I am sure is, "No pictures! No pictures!" in Toddler. But sometimes, like tonight, she squints, and smiles and says, "Cheese!"

I have been into her room several times during the writing of this post in answer to her calls, which range from "Mama! Mama!" to Wookiee-on-the-rag howling. I think she knows I am writing about her. The dryer running outside the door probably doesn't help. It would help if she would let me close the door to her room. She is in her crib in her polar bear pajamas, with her books and her lovie and her water and her stuffed animals and her old cell phones (note to RightGuard: please stop charging these so our children don't get brain cancer or accidentally call 911) and her paci (will be putting an end to that soon). Her curly, light brown hair is still damp from the bath and she smells like love.

She says please and thank you and those! for anything she wants. She can say quite a bit, which we are endlessly impressed by, since Bubba didn't talk until he was three. She can count to two and act out scenes along with Monsters, Inc. She puts her little hands on the sides of my face and presses her forehead to mine, then gives me a kiss with her rosebud lips. She loves balloons and bubbles. She wears floral dresses and pink bows, Mary Janes and fur-trimmed boots. She loves her shoes and sunglasses. I got her a purse and she wouldn't go to sleep without it. In the morning, when I went to get her, instead of "Hi!" she proclaimed, "Purse!" with it outstretched on her arm. When I go to work, she will put on her shoes, get her purse, stand at the door and say bye-bye to her father, even as I tell her she's not going. It is heartbreaking to have to leave her kicking and screaming in his arms as I go without her.

Watching her and her brother play happily together is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me in my life. Seeing my two favorite little people inventing games and hiding under the bed together and giggling is enough to get me through almost anything. It's not all perfect by a long shot, but the good parts are elephants of joy that stomp on the weasels of distress.

She is pure candy and ultra wonderful. She is absolute sunshine and totally adorable. She is lollipops and rainbows and fireworks. She is an uber sweet, utterly edible, precious sweetie pussycat darling babydoll. She is everything I thought a little girl would be and more. I love her with everything I have and pray I can remember the smell of her neck, the sound of her little voice, the oh-so-soft skin of her arms, how small she still she is when I carry her, as every day this sweet little angel takes another step away from me into the woman she will someday become.

It's 10:13 right now and I love you, baby girl.

Advanced Lolcats

2008-03-30T23:18:00.016-06:00

The Vulture Pig-Out Derby, Easter Edition

2008-03-30T22:43:00.006-06:00

We had a great Easter, so you don't want to hear about that. Mom, dad, and Peaches all came over to our house. It was the first time we have all been together on Easter in more years than I can count and everyone really enjoyed it.

Well, dad and Peaches did get pretty stabby because no one had told them brunch was after egg hunts and they had not eaten all morning. And I decided to have two separate egg hunts, since Bubba is allowed fully leaded chocolate eggs while Bubble got chocolate teddy grahams, and I didn't want them clawing each other's eyes out over eggs. It actually worked very well. Except when dad put his head down on the kitchen counter and gave a tiny scream when he was informed it was time to reset for round two. He pilfered an egg full of M&Ms, and right as he was about to open it, Bubba snatched it and said, "That's not for you, Grandaddy!" I think dad was considering eating him at that point.

Then, despite the ravenous hunger, mom, dad, and Peaches did our family's traditional standing- around-the-buffet-like-vultures-waiting-to-see-if-the-carcass-is-really-dead and trying to find a Mikey Vulture to try it because apparently the first one to get food loses the Vulture Pig-Out Derby. Of course, this is a variation on real vultures, where the first one to eat wins. While waiting for them to decide, RightGuard and I swooped in and started scooping up food to drop into the mouths of our waiting preschoolers. Because almost-two year-olds--when they are hungry, they don't give tiny screams. This still does break break the tension between them. The ritual must continue. RightGuard oftens participates as well.

Mom was finally convinced to go first, which nevers happens, since we were also celebrating her birthday. When she went to put the whipped cream I had made in my cream whipper on the Belgian waffles I had made in my Belgian waffler, there was a whipped cream explosion all over my kitchen. Praline French toast with whipped cream. Honey baked turkey with whipped cream. Frittata with whipped cream. Birthday presents with whipped cream. Poor Bubble took the brunt of it right in the face and froze with shock for several seconds before her alarm went off. Now mom swears she will never go first again. If she was a vulture she'd be dead.

Next year we may have to bring back potato skins and daquiris at T.G.I. Friday's. But then we'd have missed the blacknecks who own the property behind us, variously attired still in church clothes or track suits, towing what looks to be a late 1980s Pieceofshitwhichhasnotrunsincethelate1990s behind their abode and leaving it there next to their extensive collection of non-functional riding mowers and wooden flatbed trailers, all perfectly framed in the dining room window behind the brunch buffet. To think, if Easter had been later, the vegetation and trees between us would have been covered with leaves and we would have missed that touching scene. How noteworthy that they seem to be expanding their collecting interests. Undoubtedly, this will affect the final hammer prices at Sotheby's Late Twentieth Century American Decorative Yard Ford Probes auction, to be held later this month.

I wondered aloud why they didn't just get rid of the vehicle, as it had clearly been out of commission for years. RightGuard, who was raised more redneck than I was, was amazed. "Because they have a yard!" he said. There you have it folks. The mystery of why red and black necks keep old vehicles in their yards, explained at last.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 7 April 1985

2008-03-30T22:18:00.005-06:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Today was Easter. Peaches
and I found our eggs (aft-
er our mom and dad were
up), got dressed, went to
church, came back home
for a little bit, then went
out to brunch with the
Newton-Johns at T.G.I. Friday's.
We stayed with the Newton-Johns
nearly all day. They finally
went home at 10:15. I got
mad at Olivia because she
was eating all my candy
and throwing my underwear
and bra in the fan. I told,
and she got all mad. Olivia
and P---- really ate all of
Peaches' candy. She hardly
had any left. But we did have
some fun.

That sounds like a pretty awesome Easter. I remember having a great time at T.G.I. Fridays's that day. They had eggs hidden in all the junk hanging on the walls. We had the cool new appetizer--potato skins! And they had this triple level phone booth. All three phones were in this one large cylinder and all four of us girls we were climbing from level to level in our Easter dresses. And with hindsight, it is easy to discern that while this was going on and for the next several hours while the children got cracked out on chocolate bunnies and jelly beans and were throwing unmentionables into the celing fan, the parents were getting shitfaced.

I may not have mentioned before that Olivia, her sister P----, and their parents moved to South Carolina the summer before I was in seventh grade. The 'rents still get Christmas cards from them every year, in which they are as blonde, blue-eyed, tan, perky, and successful as they have always been, despite a decided lack of focus in academic affairs in their younger years. We all eagerly await these missives so we can gnash our teeth with jealousy and try to the the mother and daughters apart.

Intermediate Lolcats

2008-03-24T22:00:00.016-06:00

I don't know about you, but I need a larff today.

While I'm On A Roll

2008-03-21T01:16:00.006-06:00

You people that get here by Googling tween + anything need to stop. Like, skinnydipping tweens. Or tween panties. There has never been a word combined with "tween" in search that wasn't totally skeevy. You are gross at best.

PERVERT ALERT!! YOU ARE A PEDOPHILE WHO GOOGLED TWEEN PANTIES! SICKO! GO KILL YOURSELF NOW!

k thx bye

Almost Famous

2008-03-21T01:05:00.004-06:00

I just discovered that Jen Lancaster http://www.jennsylvania.com/ has me listed in her links on her blog. Jen was a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend who started a blog 5 years ago, which I started reading when I was pregnant with Bubba. She was clearly hilarious and now is a world famous author (fer reals--the Aussies luv her) who just sold her fourth book. So buy her books if you haven't already!

Jen, in your honor, I will get a pedicure and eat a really yummy cupcake as soon as I possibly can. *MWAH*

Quote of the Day

2008-03-21T00:54:00.002-06:00

Bubba: How do boogers get in my nose?

Me: (worn out, having just explained the urinary tract, gastrointestinal system, and circulatory system) I don't know.

Bubba: It must be magic!

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 6 April 1985

2008-03-19T23:59:00.007-06:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Today was Peaches' real
birthday. Olivia and I came
over and got bored, so we
washed the car (Bunny) and
Peaches helped, too. We couldn't
swim, so we had to think of
something else. All 3 of us
nibbled on Peaches' cookie un-
til it was nearly gone. We
went to Mervyn's and my mom
got me a new OP bathing
suit, OP shorts, and a half-
shirt that has bears on it
and says "Beach Bears".

Peaches got tons of neat
stuff. She loved the bag
I gave her. P---- gave
her 9 sets of things, 1 of
something, 2, 3, and so on.
She loves the jam box.

Reactions:

1) Why don't I want to wash the car when I am bored anymore?
2) Do I have to wait until my children are 11 for them to do this?
3) OP was the shizz in the 80s
4) I had no idea I had ever owned a half shirt
5) Nine sets of things--took me a minute to figure this out. Nine fancy pencils, five sheets of stickers, two bottles of nails polish, etc. is what I think was going on here. For the ninth birthday.
6) Spoiler: the diary does not last long enough to cover my birthday. Bummer. I wish I knew what I did and got when birthdays were still awesome. But I know I didn't get a jam box.
7) That car, Bunny? Became mine when I was in high school. It was a tan Volkswagen Rabbit. One day I was trying to sneak off-campus for lunch (one of my first rebellious acts), and it got stuck in reverse. Some girl in my class told me she was another class and everyone could see it out the window. They were all laughing at the Rabbit driving around in reverse in the parking lot and she about died when she found out it was me. SNEAKIN OFF CAMPUS--YER DOIN IT WRONG. Then the car started dropping gears. All I had was 3rd and 4th gear by the time we got rid of it. I had to park somewhere I could roll forward out of the spot and could not go over 50 mph.
8) Britney Spears is going to be on How I Met Your Mother with Neil Patrick Harris. I'm going to have to watch that one.

Beginner Lolcats

2008-03-17T13:51:00.021-06:00

These next two represent two of my parents' pets.

Lolcat Primer

2008-03-11T21:03:00.021-06:00

RightGuard is a computer guy. This means he will physically take apart a computer to build a Frankencomputer, and he can program it to do stuff. If it were a car, he would be a skilled mechanic. These are important skills. But my interest in a motor/ computer specs is limited to "does it work?" I am more interested in some tight rims, a Swarovski crystal-encrusted mouse, or perhaps a monitor installed in my keyboard so I can watch Xzibit whilst I check my email. So I am more familiar with the more popular computer fads, including the now-aged but still funny lolcat phenomenon. I now present the basics for RightGuard's benefit, as he had no idea what the hell I was talking about when I said, "I'm in ur fridge, eatin' ur foodz." In later lessons, we will move on to more advanced lolcats.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 5 April 1985

2008-03-11T20:47:00.003-06:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Today was Peaches' party.
I made her cookie - it was
huge! I iced it very, very nicely,
too. I wrapped 3 presents.

I spent the night at
Olivia J.'s house, of course.
We slept in P----'s room,
on the floor, and I nearly
froze to death.

Yesterday, for Peaches' big
present, she and my mom
went out to Target and got
a Panasonic jam box. I am
very jealous because I have
wanted a jam box for 6 months,
and she only wanted one for
6 days. Peaches also got
Valoette (by Julian Lennon) &
Big Bam Boom (by Hall & Oates)
with her own money.

I remember that. I never did get a jam box until I bought it myself with my first paycheck when I was 17. That sucked. But it's a Sony, and by then it played CDs as well as tapes. And had a remote! OooooOOOOOooooo. I still use it, because I haven't bought a sound system since then. Besides the iPod and its accessories. Which were all gifts. So that kind of makes up for it or something.

Highlights of the Past Week

2008-03-10T20:48:00.007-06:00

Monday: It rained for like, four hours straight. And then some more. Wore new black trouser socks from Target. Yeah, I'm hot, check me out, Diddy. Ended evening with fever of 103. HOTT: YER NOT DOING IT RITE.

Tuesday: Dragged Bubble to Mother's Day Out 45 minutes late due to fear of freezing to death if I got out of bed. Burning with fever. Put sippy cup of milk into Ralph Lauren tote bag. Sippy cup lacked a valve. Casualties: many old grocery lists and receipts, black, cashmere-lined Brooks Brothers kid gloves, Ralph Lauren tote bag. Plus side: wanted new bag anyway, gloves were so old the lining was moth eaten. Have not bought anything for myself since giving birth for first time, with exception of trouser socks.

Wednesday: Called in sick to work. Bubba home sick. Laid under three comforters in sweatsuit shivering with fever. Back ached like Atlas. Aunt Flo arrived. Whore.

Thursday: Bubba missed school again due to fever, but Fred and Ginger whisked the children off to Oxford. Emerged from cocoon to see Seinfeld live and in person. My Christmas present to RightGuard. Seats made for people who have lost their legs above the knees to land mines. Casualties: dinner at Brazilian churrascuria we've been wanting to eat at forever, stay in nice hotel, late night drinks.

Friday: Missed work again, but enjoyed watching a movie with RightGuard in an evening uninterrupted by bath and bedtime. Fever finally broke. It snowed! Work probably closed anyway. It's the South: all businesses and schools must be closed so everyone can rush out to the grocery store for panic supplies.

Saturday: RightGuard and I drive down to relieve the grandparents. I want to see my babies anyway. Seems 208 is condemned. I only mention that so I can use the tag again. More lying around like a wet dishrag on my part. New and improved sick! Now with cough, congestion, and sore throat!

Sunday: Fred, Ginger, RightGuard, and Bubba drive back up to Memphis. Fred and Ginger have Christmas present to each other: tickets to Michael Buble, and Christmas present from me, RightGuard, and Peaches, night in fancy boutique hotel on the the river. Part of gift included petsitting, as they let us go to Seinfeld. Pets include German Shepard/ coyote mix (shepyote?), 30 lb. orange cat, 1 year old yellow lab who eats everything. See cute puppy in sidebar? Now like 65 lbs. and fond of whole sticks of butter, fake lemons, $20 bills, etc.

Monday: I survive by only moving when necessary, although the lab still eats some stuff. Casualties: half of everything given to Bubble to eat, ears, tail, and tag off stuffed elephant, wad of brown paper towel, Bubba's mitten left drying on the washer, one baby girl purple, magenta, and white striped sock--total loss. It is necessary to move a lot. After chasing the dog around the dining room table for ten minutes, I realized I am not faster than a dog. But I am smarter than a dog. The next time she runs out of the room I block it off with chairs. When she returns and is stymied, I throw a blanket over her head and tackle her Crocodile Hunter style. She swallows whatever is in her mouth. Bitch. On my way out of town, saw FOX News setting up for a broadcast with Ole Miss alum Shepard Smith today and tomorrow for the Mississippi primary. I go home to face the rest of the week still less than 100% with no school for Bubba or MDO. Damn Spring Break.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 4 April 1985

2008-03-03T00:19:00.006-06:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Peaches and I stayed home
today, and I worked on my
homework. It was pretty bor-
ing. My book report was
supposed to be due today,
and I didn't do it last
night and I need to today.

Tomorrow night Peaches
is having her birthday par-
ty. She is really excited.
I'm spending the night
with Olivia N.J. Peaches is in-
viting P----, Punky, T----,
S--------, S------ F., G------
--, and somebody else to her
party. All of them but S----
--- are coming. Her party
is totally bears. I am mak-
ing her a big cookie and
icing it, instead of a cake.

I made awesome cookie cakes. Even looking at the pictures as an adult, I am impressed. Much better than anything you could buy at the store.

Sometimes my blog entries are boring, too.

Roller Derby Queen

2008-03-03T00:02:00.004-06:00

Peaches and I changed Bubba out of his Ralph Lauren cricket shirt and into his Lucky T shirt and Von Dutch jeans with the skull and crossbones, and Sumo Waxed his hair into a fauxhawk so we could take him to a roller derby bout on Saturday. He wanted time alone with mommy. Be careful what you wish for. I have surprisingly little to say about this event.

Impressions:

-Roller derby is reached by turning at the spray-painted sign and passing the abandoned amusement park to the beaten-up old gym. Our Scooby Doo fan appreciated this creepy aspect of the evening.

-Roller Derby chicks are cool as hell.

-Roller derby graphics--T shirts, the mug shots hanging up behind each team, the posters--also cool as hell. I heart the pink Priss-killa Prezleys logo on magenta T shirt.

-Roller derby is very loud in an unsoundproofed old gym.

-Roller derby is much more skill-oriented and much less violent than players with names like "Whorecules" and "Smashimi" would lead one to believe.

-Bubba is much more interested in playing with Roller Derby kids than watching roller derby.

-Peaches may become a roller derby girl.

-This may not be advisible as we each broke our left arms on quads as children.

-She should at least get the Angels of Death T shirt.

Quotable Quotes

2008-03-01T01:29:00.005-06:00

Bubba and RightGuard are wrestling.

RightGuard: You're all tied up now! What are you going to do about that?

Silence.

Bubba: (farts)

RightGuard: (laughs)

Bubba: That was my plan.

Out of nowhere: What do fish eat?

Me: You need adult supervision.

Bubba: You don't have supervision, silly. Only superheroes have supervision.

Out of nowhere: Daddy said some people are born without hands.

Me: How did that come up?

Bubba: What other kinds of animals are day animals?

Me: Oh, dogs, cows, horses, most of the animals you know.

Bubba: Like chickens. And babies.

Out of nowhere: Do invisible men leave footprints?

Me: Whay does everybody's trash always wind up in our yard?

Bubba: (muttering aggressively) Freakin' trash always in our yard . . . (etc.)

Me: That is not a word for children.

Bubba: Oh. Damn people.

Meanwhile, Bubble is rapidly adding the most adorable words to her vocabulary. It is all the more impressive considering Bubba did not talk until he was three and she is not yet two. It is totally amazing to us to hear her talk. "Tights" and "bow" are good, "tada" standing on the (indestructible) coffee table with her arms over her head while wearing a tutu and rainboots: too twee for words. So freaking cute. Also impressive: "Bubba Daddy go bye-bye" and "bubble machine." Fer realsies.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 3 April 1985

2008-02-24T23:47:00.005-06:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

I went home sick to-
day. I felt rotten. I finally
went to the nurse's office
at the beginning of social
studies and had a 99.4
temperature. My mom took
me home, but didn't stay.
Peaches had gone home earli-
er in the day with a 99.4
temperature, but that
was at about 9:45.

We had to take this
distguting green medicine
called Sutafed. Grr-rr-rr-rody!

Next Tuesday we have to
bring scissors, a needle
and thread, a ruler, some-
thing to cover our books with,
and two pieces of 9 1/2" X 6"
cardboard to use for book binding.

I knew that someday it would be vitally important that the interwebs know my sister's exact temperature and time she went home on the 3rd of April, anno domini 1985, as well as the dimensions of the cardboard I had to bring to school. THANK GOD this information has been preserved for all time.

Some days I wish I could go to the school nurse, say my tummy hurts, and be chauffered home for Jell-O and TV. On the plus side, being an adult means I can eat ice cream whenever I want, stay up late, and never have to have homework again.

I. . . DRINK. . . YOUR. . . MILKSHAKE!

2008-02-24T02:05:00.004-06:00

Starring Daniel Day Lewis as the University of Tennessee and the kid from Little Miss Sunshine as the University of Memphis:

National Blockbuster: DVD of Scratches

2008-02-22T14:52:00.004-06:00

A couple weeks ago, Bubba and I went to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets. He loved it. Treasure maps! Car chases! The water part! Best of all, secret passageways!

None of us had seen the first National Treasure, or National Treasure Book, as Bubba calls it, so we went to Blockbuster and rented it a couple days ago. I put it in last night after the children were in bed so I could actually watch it, and halfway into the movie, as I am really into it, the DVD sticks. I fuss with it for a few minutes and try different things, but several minutes are inaccessible. I call Blockbuster and ask if they have another copy, mine is damaged. They say they do and I run over there at 10:30 to pick it up.

I tell the dude when I walk in the door that I'm the one who called about National Treasure. I say, "Can I have a free rental, please?" Dude says,

"Oh, this is a free rental."

Are you serious? You mean you are doing me a favor by switching out the damaged DVD for one that actually works? You are not going to charge me for it? Wow! Thank you so much! I will have to rent movies more often!

So I say something to the gist of, it's the same movie! I mean I want my next one free, since I had to leave my warm house and use my precious gas to drive over here at night in the cold and fog in the middle of the movie just to get a DVD that works. I think that's fair.

So he does credit me a whole $1.99 for my next movie. Really, Blockbuster? I had to ask twice for a two dollar credit? Shouldn't he have offered it to me immediately for the inconvenience? I haven't had to work that hard for two dollars since I was a street whore in Hong Kong.

For The Insane Dog Owner

2008-02-19T22:57:00.010-06:00

THE PUPPY PURSE!

http://www.puppypurse.com/

A living purse!

Take your puppy with you everwhere!

Detachable shoulder strap/ leash for those spaghetti strap days!

Biker chicks love Puppy Purse, too!

The Puppy MURSE! (Available in Queer and Flaming only)

Now, that's all I was going to do, but after looking at every single one of the dozens of these things, one particular model began to jump out at me. The brain-dead Maltese (the blonde of the dog world) appears in most of the photos and appears to be pleased as punch to be strapped to its owner's side. And this little cutie could almost convince you this is not completely loco:

Awwwww. But what happens when Little Cutie grows up in bondage? He becomes . . .

SURLY YORKIE

Why, Mommy, why?

Don't you love me anymore?

No one else is going to see these, are they?

Have you seen my dignity? It might have fallen out the poop hole.

Fuck you. Fuck you so much.

I am not the love child of Yoda and Chewbacca.

I'm taking a dump right now. I'm imagining I'm doing it in your latte.

I'm not a bitch! Stop dressing me like a bitch!

Sometimes I leave my body for a little while.

And when I come back, I'm ready to go all ninja on your ass. Sleep with one eye open, muthafucka.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 2 April 1985

2008-02-19T22:44:00.004-06:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Today, Thor played a late
April Fool's joke on Mrs.
Lewis. He had a pen full
of invisible ink, that squirt-
ed when you pressed a but-
ton. He squirted some "ink"
on her dress.

Speaking of Thor, he is
still going with that dog,
Christine. He ought to break
up with her and go with
somebody he really wants to.
If he did, he would ask me,
Joan, or T----.

I need to have my ACE
report & project by next Tues.
Actully, they were due today,
but Mrs. Lewis gave me some
more time to finish it be-
cause I was sick for a week.

Finally, it's all clear! Thor grew up to become Bill Clinton! He moved from Lewis to Lewinski.

The Sea Turtles' Final Resting Place

2008-02-18T21:56:00.005-06:00

I have talked about how Bubba has been asking me about death and how difficult it is to answer his questions. I am glad we had those talks, though, because Death came to call at our house.

Death was just there for our cat but I had to deal with it and figure out how to tell a four year old boy we need to euthanize our pet. After reading a lot of advice online, I discovered that the best tack is to be honest above all, so I was.

I really haven't wanted to write this entry and I don't now, so I'll summarize. The week that began with Eli Manning winning the Super Bowl on Sunday ended with us taking our eleven year-old cat to the vet on Saturday to be put down. He had had diabetes for many years and had been deteriorating rapidly in the previous two weeks. The vet said he was in kidney failure and that she could not fix him. He was skeletal, moved only when he had to, which was either to a weird place like the cold floor behind the toilet or to relieve himself on the living room carpet. Bless.

When I started this blog, I always had it in the back of my mind to write a post called "My Cat and I Have Grown Apart." It stopped being funny before I ever got around to writing it. It definitely was not funny watching him die.

I can say now that I am glad, and not just because the reign of terror vis a vis my carpet is over (way to live up to those negative cat stereotypes, Boo Boo Kitty). It was clear to me as soon as it was over that we'd done the right thing. The cat never even made a peep at the vet's, just laid quietly in his carrier and occasionally nuzzled my fingers through the door. I felt quite sure that he knew where he was and he was grateful.

I couldn't help the tears from flowing at times, and a girl with a little Paris Hilton dog came up and randomly gave me a hug. "I don't even know you," she said, "but I heard you say why you are here and I'm so sorry." That about unhinged me. Before she left, she gave me a scrap of paper with her name and number on it and said, "If you ever want to talk, just call me." That did it. Random acts of kindness.

RightGuard and I got Boo Boo Kitty the day after Christmas when we were engaged and living in sin for six months before our wedding. We mourned for the memories as much as the pitiful creature we brought to his death. He was our baby before we had babies.

But the hardest was Bubba. He handled the death just fine. He had asked to be in the room when Boo Boo died and I let him, per veterinary advice. He saw that there was nothing to be afraid of, that it was quick and gentle. He softly patted me and said, "We still have Zsa Zsa." He looked at Boo Boo, now relaxed and free of pain, and quietly said, "Dead. Dead kitty," and was ready to go. Ever laugh in the midst of sobbing?

He saw that we were sad, but he was not particularly. He never enjoyed he cat peeing on his toys or clothes and I found this particularly egregious as well. But he had fear in his eyes and had to ask me several times if he was going to die. I reassured him that he most certainly was not going to die until he was a very old, old man with great-grandchildren of his own. I told him that people live a lot longer than animals. Except for giant tortoises.

"But who buries the giant sea turtles when they die? Where is their final resting place, if they live longer than people?" And that image has stuck with me, a giant tortoise shell, sinking to the bottom of the sea. The sea turtles' final resting place. And ending up in the cold, quiet, mysterious sea, generations of humans never living long enough to see it, to know where the sea turtles' final resting place is.

A few weeks before this happened, a thought came to me in the shower. No creature, no matter how tiny or lowly or obscure, is forgotten by Death. The man whom all men have forgotten, He alone remembers. No star, no sun, no planet lives forever. I find comfort in this one absolute. I finally understand "All are loved by Death."

But I cannot explain to Bubba why, when Boo Boo can no longer feel anything, I covered him with a towel before I left. Only the sea turtles know.

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia

2008-02-18T21:06:00.003-06:00

Marcia had her ultrasound on Valentine's Day. It's another boy. The sixth. SIX. SIX BOYS. And two girls. She said she cried for 24 hours straight and she looked like it. And then she said she wished she hadn't made her husband have the vasectomy because now there is no way she could ever have another girl. Yes, I did say, "Are you SERIOUS?" so I am representin' for all us earthlings. She did throw in a "not that we would have tried for another one..." How do you regret a vasectomy after eight children in a three bedroom house? I told you she is from another planet.

My Valentine's Day? Unremarkable.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 1 April 1985

2008-02-13T23:28:00.004-06:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Happy April Fools' Day!
Everyone was a fool today.

Joan can't spend the
night Friday, but Olivia N.J.
is. Actully, I'm probobly
going to spend the night
at her house.

This week in reading
we only have a newslog,
a book report, and 7 Fan-
tasy Island projects. See,
we're acting like we have
a fantasy and we have to
do projects relating to
Fantasy Island. Two of the
projects we are required,
but I have finished 2
projects already. One of
the assigned projects doesn't
get a grade, though, and I've
done it.

From newslog to weblog. And thank god it's finally April. That was the longest March ever.

Open Proverbial Mouth, Insert Proverbial Foot

2008-02-11T21:55:00.000-06:00

A few months ago, I became acquainted with a woman who has seven children. I knew this before I met her and was shocked when I saw her for the first time. She is five years older than me, but looks five years younger. She's really cute and has gorgeous hair. Disgusting. Of course, I find her fascinating. It's like meeting a Martian. You can't stop asking questions about what it is like on her planet and she is used to this.

She told me right off the bat she is neither Catholic nor whatever weirdo fundamentalist cult those Duggars are in. Cool. One less question for me to ask. So I opened with, "So how many children did you want when you were growing up?" Her answer? "None."

Seems she worked in a Toys R Us when she was 18 and that took any desire to procreate right out of her. The one night, she had to go down to the Foot Locker to get change, and whom should she meet there but a cute boy? The rest is history.

Still, they didn't start out intending to have seven children. Marcia realized she did want to have children with this guy, so they had a bouncing baby boy. He was perfect and they had a second child, another little boy, like you do. Well, then they wanted a girl but got another boy. Number four they finally hit the pink bow jackpot.

Now all that I can understand to a point. Four children is not that unusual. But seven is. How do you have four children and then have three more?

Well, Marcia's mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer. What better way to stoke her will to live than with a new grandbaby? It worked. Grandmom is still terminal, but, more significantly, still alive long after she was supposed to be gone.

So then they have five and why the hell stop there? Marcia likes even numbers and craved another girl with four boys and got her wish. The seventh? I think he just fell out when she wasn't looking. This last one is only a few days older than Bubble; they were about eighteen months old when I met her; they're now twenty-two months. At the time I asked her if she wanted any more children, not really serious, of course, because how could she want more children?! Her answer, "Well . . ." Really?

A couple of months later she tells me she is six weeks pregnant. Hi-yo! They were not even trying. In fact, Marcia's husband was supposed to have gotten a vasectomy after the last baby. Oops times the cost of raising eight children.

She was not going public about it yet for a number of reasons, the main one being the tenuousness of the pregnancy. At seven weeks, they told her the fetus was dead; at eight it was pronounced perfectly healthy. Another big one is that people tend to be a little...judgemental...when you have seven children and are adding an eighth. This includes their parents, which includes her mother, who is still dying, which further complicates the matter. And telling her seven other children, all different ages and with all different things going on in their lives, right before Christmas, that they will have to share their house and parents with yet another sibling, is daunting, to say the least.

One night I ran into her when she was with her eldest, the perfect one. He is sixteen now and a National Merit Semifinalist. We chatted for a while and they turned to go. Then, in a moment of complete idiocy I blurted out, "Hey, what are you now? Nine weeks?" They had both turned to face me and his head was towering over hers beind her. She winced and mouthed, He doesn't know.

Oh god. Oh no. I forgot. I totally blanked. I tried to think of anything to cover it and all I could think was, this kid's a National Merit Semifinalist and he's seen his mom go through six other pregnancies. I cannot cover this up. He was standing there with a look like you've got to be kidding me on his face. So I smiled real big and said, "Merry Christmas!" We all turned away with pained expressions.

She called me after they got home and said it was okay, I could sleep at night. Which sounds a little scary coming from another person. He knew something was up and he got to be on the secret for a while. If I had to tell any of them, he was the one most capable of handling it. I was so relieved. For being a former National Merit Finalist myself, I can be unbelievably stupid.

She did not tell the other children for a few more weeks and would joke she would bring them to me one by one to break the news. They finally told all the children over Christmas.

Marcia is now eighteen weeks along and showing. She's going for her ultrasound on Thursday, Valentine's Day, and hoping for a healthy baby, first and foremost, but also a girl, which would make it 5/3 over 6/2. She is planning on giving her mom the ultrasound photo in a Valentine saying she's going to have a new granddaughter/ grandson. So she still hasn't told her. I pray I don't come across her.

Here's the coda: Marcia's husband went off for his overdue vasectomy right after they told the children.

MEN: STOP READING HERE. YOU DO NOT WANT TO HEAR THIS. SERIOUSLY.

The vasectomy incision got infected and he couldn't walk for a week and a half. A friend of theirs told him it was God punishing him for not getting the vasectomy sooner.

I remain as yet unscathed by the bolt of lightning I so rightly deserve.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 31 March 1985

2008-02-11T21:31:00.000-06:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Last night, B---- A-- went
with my parents to the
party because T-- is in New
York. She made this beautif-
ul hat with a pink flamin-
go and tied for 2nd place.
Also last night, I stayed up
past midnight and am ex-
hausted today.

Yesterday, we went and
looked at bicyles for Peaches'
birthday ( she went with my
mom and I) at a Schwinn
place and Target. I went
into Alton's office supply
store (it's cool) and got Peaches
a purple vinyl bag while they
were in Target.I also got my-
self some yellow nail polish.
B---- A-- gave me $5 for
her animals, so I could get
these things.

A) They are finally building the long rumored Tar-jhey down the road. It's not far from where the tornadoes blew down that warehouse, so yay!

B) I had a dream about my parents finding my diary and reading it. It was horrible. It had to be triggered by Ginger looking over my shoulder while I was uploading some photos from their camera, just praying I could move fast enough she wouldn't see the folder in My Photos marked "Blog."

Eli Manning, Super Bowl MVP

2008-02-05T00:50:00.000-06:00

Need I say more? Well , I hope to at some point, but for now I just have to say that a sporting even hasn't impacted me so much since RightGuard and I went to the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996.

It was absolutely impossible that the Giants could have won that game, but they did. Now all the people that talked smack about them are applauding the underdogs who became the Cinderella team. It was the American dream, a sports movie played out in real life. It was legendary.

It was the largest Super Bowl audience ever, the second most-watched TV broadcast in history. It was an incredible game where the gritty Giants beat the unbeatable, one of the greatest upsets ever. An instant classic. And the architect of it in the last few breathtaking minutes was our own Ole Miss boy, Eli Manning. He became a hero.

To see him finally reach his full potential after all these years of watching him was exhilarating. To have it happen in such epic fashion, and the year after Peyton won the Super Bowl and the MVP trophy, is awesome beyond belief. I could not be prouder of him or his family or the fact that they are part of our Ole Miss family. It's about all I've been able to think about for the last 24 hours.

And I became not just an Eli Manning fan, but a Giants fan. How can you not love that kind of heart? The incredible individual efforts combined to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts, the very definition of a team that is inspiring far beyond the football field. Greatest game I have seen seen.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 30 March 1985

2008-02-05T00:26:00.000-06:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Today was my mom's
birthday. My mom and
dad went to the ESA cra-
zy hat party tonight, and
Peaches and I had to go over
to the Brewsters' house, and
S----- R------- babysitted.

This morning, I got
my mom hot tea, hot
toast, ice-cold champagne,
the paper, and a card. Also,
a delivery notice. My par-
ents' hats were in!

My mom put Peaches'
big sunglasses & "boinger"
on her hat, and my dad
put my my big fake cigar and
"slinky" glasses on his. They
both won third place.

Nice. Hot tea and toast for the Joe T. Garcia's hangover, and ice-cold champagne to start a new one. What the hell? I can't tell what was my idea, what was dad's, and what was mom's.

Return of the Eye Gouger

2008-02-01T23:11:00.000-06:00

If you are familiar at all with self defense, you probably have heard the advice to go for the bad guy's eyes. I would walk around campus with a key gripped for just such an occurrence, but never had to draw blood with my Jetta key. You could always go for the testicles, but it's obvious and they tend to see that coming.

I can now attest to the value of this advice. I guarantee you a baby can take down a full grown adult human with almost no effort by using a well-placed poke in the eye. It's happened to me twice now.

This time, Bubble didn't cut the cornea with her fingernail, she just punched me in the eye with her pointy little knuckle. Punched me in the fucking eye. I don't even mean like a boxer; all she touched was unprotected cornea. Same fucking eye. Fucking ouch. Do you know how hard that is to even do? As flinchy as I am with that eye, particularly around her, to catch me totally off-guard so I didn't even see it coming and thus did not blink?

She was going in for a hug and it was totally accidental, but still. I am starting to take it personally. Is she trying to blind me? Stop gouging my eye out, toddler!

Insult to injury, we had just sat down at Chuck E. Cheese for a special evening of family fun time. RightGuard didn't get to go last time, so this was his first time as a daddy. We had promised Bubba a special weekend since the grandparents were supposed to be abducting Bubble for the weekend. But Ginger came down with the flu and I wound up with my left eye in agony. AGAIN.

I spent the next two hours staggering around Chuck E. Cheese half-blind, with a paper napkin under my watering, swollen, bloodshot eye, parents giving me looks of horror because I looked like I had pinkeye or was some kind of drunk weirdo weaving around and weeping. I wish. Plus my nose was stuffed up and running because some brain cell was startled awake and was like, what, we're crying? Stuffy nose activated. Now back to creating dreams about sending Eli Manning off to the Superbowl on the yellow brick road.

It's feeling better now, five hours later, although I have a headache. And I then I realized that's probably because I put a painkiller drop in it as soon as I got home.

Plus sides: no cut, can blink now, due for LASIK checkup on Wednesday anyway. Naturally, this occurred Friday evening. Is it even possible to be sick or injured during regular doctor's hours?

So the moral of the story is: fake a knee to the groin, and when his attention is diverted, come from the side so he can't see it coming and stab him in the eye with your car key. Run away, call for help. Or kick him in the groin for real when his hands are covering his eyes and then run away. He probably deserves it, especially if the purse he was going to steal is really cute.

The Redneck Cooler

2008-01-29T16:21:00.000-06:00

Why did someone not think of this sooner? Brilliant! A cooler you not only don't have to carry, but can actually ride. And this sucker really hauls, too. This is entry-model Cruzin Cooler, priced at $399. It has a 300 watt electric motor that goes up to 13 mph(!) and has a range of up to 15 miles. Just think of how fast you could zip from your car parked in BFE to the Grove, with the wind whipping through your hair on a 95 degree Mississippi October day to boot. And then it takes you to the Square, Late Night, and back without even breaking a sweat. But that is just the beginning.

Now this is the 33cc gas 2 stroke model, priced at $599. Its top speed is 15 mph and it is pink! This one is shown with the optional seatback and I do love that it includes a cupholder because to force a person to drive a 24 can capacity cooler without access to a beverage would be criminal. They also make awesome deer camp racing vehicles, as seen in a YouTube video posted on the company's website. But it gets even better.

CAN YOU DIGG IT??!! Now available, the non-motorized Coolagon! Just imagine the possibilities. Load up the whole family and all the provisions for a week of tailgating. Be the envy of everyone who sees you! The lids also come off for wagon usage. The 39cc gas 4-stroke engine, reasonably priced at just $699, recommended for this configuration. It has a 30 mile range and is EPA approved.

The company, http://www.cruzincooler.com/, is located in Houston. Naturally. I would have died of shock if this product had not originated in the South.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 29 March 1985

2008-01-28T22:34:00.000-06:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

It was fun today!
That's because it was
Friday. Tonight, we went
out to Joe T. Garcia's for
my mom's birthday. I wore
my new white dress. The
dinner was delicious.

I stayed up until 11,
but was very tired.

My sister is having her
birthday party in exactly
one week. I can have some-
one spend the night that
night, and I'm asking Joan.

My parents ordered some
foam frog hats weeks ago
for the ESA crazy hat party,
which is tomorrow. We got a
delivery notice, but they didn't
leave the hats with a neighbor.

That is fascinating. Somehow I am beginning to sense that my mother's crises were the family's crises.

And I hope to god it was after Easter.

HOLY TAMALES!

2008-01-20T22:11:00.000-06:00

Eli's going to the Superbowl! Well slap my ass and call me Suzie! Did anybody envision a scenario where Eli would be in the Superbowl and Peyton wouldn't? I never thought I would be cheering for a team from New York against the Cowboys last week, but it was worth it. Got to go with the guy I know.

The Redneck Christmas Party

2008-01-19T11:41:00.000-06:00

The Friday before Christmas we drop the children off with the grandparents and head to a Christmas party. It's in Starkville, so by definition it is Redneck certified. However, it is probably our Oxford contingent which will turn out to be more redneck than the natives. There are about nine of us who venture into the home of Mississippi State to represent Ole Miss.

It is the second annual party for a restaurant/ bar owned by a friend-of-a-friend. Good sort of friend-of-a-friend to have, really. We were invited last year but declined since it was, you know, in Starkville, and there were logistical issues. We get there about an hour before the party proper and enjoy a delicious dinner and a little wine. The chef is very into sustainable, local, organic food, which is redneck only in the sense that farmers are often rednecks. I must say, I can taste the difference. Those Starkville cows are very flavorful. We are adults only hours off work with good table manners and sparkling conversation. We speak in low voices in the empty bar as we admire the art on the walls. After the dishes are cleared we enjoy a few beers.

The place is tiny, and we are amused by some of the quirks of the place, such the outdoor bathrooms (attached outhouses) and the trap door in the middle of the floor that the staff opens up and descends into. It apparently leads to a storage area. And undoubtedly a sex dungeon where unspeakable things are done with farm animals. Starkville! We giggle and start ordering gin and tonics and bourbon and diet Cokes.

The local invitees began arriving and sat down to eat in the other, slightly less tiny room. The Rebels are ready to drink and Smokey leans in conspiratorially to me and Legally Blonde at the end of the table and said, "We're doing shots, right?" I can only think of one time the answer to that question has ever been, "No," and that was 3 weeks after I had given birth to Bubble.

He stupidly allows me to pick the first and second rounds of shots and I pick the girliest ones possible: Buttery Nipples (butterscotch scnapps and Bailey's--nummers!) and Lemon Drops. The group expands to four or five of us doing shots. We continue with our normal drinking in between, so as to pace ourselves. The place is starting to fill up and is getting louder by the minute. I accompany Smokey and Legally Blonde outside for them to smoke but get cold and go inside. Obviously this is still pretty early on because I can still feel cold. Someone may have said, "Nice shoes, whore," in reference to a pair of sexy red Christian Louboutin knockoffs.

I participate in at least three more rounds of shots. Strawberries and Bunnies, who is as sweet as her name, subjects us to Jager shots. After the Red-Headed Slut shots, she announces, "That tasted like a red-headed slut!" We stand in the middle of the bar and toast to the Dixie Clique, the name of our tailgating group. After the vile Cum in a Hot Tub, which is blue, I believe we are all sufficiently hammered to get down to serious partying. The band arrives, which is fortunate, because we have been asking, "Where's the band?!" a lot in increasingly louder volumes.

It should be mentioned here that I was wearing the infamous Glitter Dress again. Someone once was looking for suggestions on how to get back at a co-worker after he covered her entire cubicle and its contents in aluminum foil. I suggested she take a small container of glitter and dump it in his pen drawer. Doesn't seem like much, but have you ever tried getting rid of glitter? It is impossible. If you've even been in the same room with it, you will wind up with a speck of glitter stuck on the side of your nose the next day.

The Glitter Dress is silver with tiny pleats and an empire waist. It's knee length and has a scoop neck and three-quarter length sleeves that end in a pleated ruffle. It's glittery and pretty, very special. Unfortunately, the glitter is not an integral part of the garment. It was apparently just sprayed on and began showering on everything within six feet of me the moment I got it home. I have worn it and washed it three times and it is absolutely incredible there is any glitter left on it at all.

So now I am spewing glitter with every loud, drunken gesture. If you can visualize what contamination by Ebola would look like, if Ebola were very sparkly, you can imagine the extent of glitter contamination. I belly up to the bar for yet another drink and the guy next to me suddenly turns around and says, "Hey, are you from Starkville?" I say that I'm not, and this is where certain, ah, holes start to appear in my memory.

I know the following events transpire at some point: I talk to Elvis, the guy at the bar, the next time I got a drink. Maybe the third time he just grabs my hand and leads me to the dance floor because the band has started up. I don't think he asked me; we just went and that was okay because I was ready to [jazz hands]DANCE![jazz hands] and RightGuard, he does not [jazz hands]DANCE![jazz hands]. He does claim he danced with me at some point. He also leaves the party at about 10:30. The shock is he reappears at 11:30 and makes it until the end.

Elvis is with a cute blonde girl in glasses who did not seem to have any reaction to this turn of events. He had mentioned he is friends with the owner's girlfriend. Glasses girl seems to be part of a large coterie of twenty-something blonde nymphs who are circling around Elvis. I conclude he is gay, because why else would he want to dance with, out of all these, the girl who looks like a drag queen? I inform Strawberries and Bunnies and RightGuard that I have a new gay boyfriend. Strawberries and Bunnies declares he is the hottest guy here (sorry, Mr. Strawberries and Bunnies) and that he is interested in me because all those young girls look alike and I am wearing the Glitter Dress, after all. I love Strawberries and Bunnies.

Back in the middle of the dance floor, I give this information to Legally Blonde, who begins agreeing with me, very loudly, that all these girls are totally boring and unformed and uninteresting, unlike us, who have more life experience, although you can barely tell by looking at us. Barely. There is also some very loud commentary of a personal nature by her which I found quite humorous. Upon reflection, I cannot remember what my end of the conversation was prior to her commentary; it may well be that she was thinking, "Oh my god, I can't believe she is saying that," first.

It's getting later and our party is beginning to depart. I am dancing with Elvis again and he is holding my hand because it is very nice dancing, thank you very much, this is not the MTV. He looks down and sees my wedding ring and reacts with what I like to think is crushing disappointment, but is probably a desire not to to cause any problems. He says, "Well, I better meet your husband," which I think is very gentlemanly. He introduces himself to RightGuard, who is sitting in a booth and not particularly interested. I imagine he is thinking, "If he does yard work, you can keep him."

The very wise Sweet Potato Queens say that the Five Men You Must Have in Your Life At All Times are:

1) A man who can fix things
2) A man you can dance with
3) A man who can pay for things
4) A man you can talk to
5) A man to have great sex with

And the good news is that up to four of these can be gay. So you can see the appeal of having a gay boyfriend to dance with of your husband does not dance. I begin to cuddle up next to the band like it is the only fire in Siberia, and I get burned. I fall backwards over an amp right in front of Elvis and the coterie of nymphs and land right on my glittery butt. I wish I could say it was the first time that's ever happened. In my defense, the band, the amp, Elvis, nymphs, me--all within the same six foot radius. Tiny, tiny room. Plus side: all were within the Glitter Contamination Zone, so they will remember me forever. Meanwhile, Smokey and Legally Blonde have decided they would like to be much better friends indeed and are macking down in the middle of the dance floor.

When Elvis leaves, however, he says that he and his girlfriend are going to another bar. Ah. Still not entirely sure what is going on there. Hope he didn't hear me calling him gay. Again, with the holes in the memory, I like to think that he didn't want to leave without saying anything, but the event that immediately proceeded that may well have been me barrelling through the blondes and bellowing, "Hey! Where'r your goin'? We're dancin'! Your cain't leave!"

Smokey and Legally Blonde leave together. The police make an appearance, apparently more out of boredom than anything else, what with the university being out and the town being so quiet. With Elvis gone, I focus my attention on the band and beginning singing along. Since the place is so small, there is nowhere for them to hide, and my inebriated state has given me vocal superpowers. I like to sing but I am not the best singer. But what I am is really loud right now and can hear myself over the band, mainly because I am trying to harmonize and do some kind of Christina Aguilera thing in between lines. In the end, I put my head down and just groove to the music until the party is over.

They finish up with the familiar opening strains of Dixie. My night is complete. But I forget we're in Starkville, and this is like waving a flag in front of a bull. They boo, the band says it is just kidding, I protest, and they start playing "Who Let The Dogs Out." Poor misguided souls. On the way out, I wait for the band to beg me to join their group and tour Mississippi, so I can say I'm flattered, but I couldn't, really. They say something along the lines of, "You are really . . . something." "I like to sing and dance!" I reply.

Epilogue:

I danced like no one was watching and sang like no one was listening. Unfortunately, they were.

And what happens when you want to be a responsible adult and arrange for child care and get a hotel a quarter mile from the bar so you don't have to drive? You fall off your sexy red heels on the quarter mile walk back the hotel and break your ankle damn near in half. Your male companion goes to find the car because neither of you is sober enough to think to call an ambulance in an unfamiliar town when one of you can't walk and you are both drunker than than Cooter Brown. You lay on the cold, hard Starkville sidewalk alone and in agonizing pain until some guy in a truck comes along and totes you to the hospital while your man drives around Starkville unable to find you. You stay up most of the night getting a cast on your leg and even through the drugs they amazingly gave you, you know you will never live this down.

A few days after Christmas, you have a plate and some screws put into your ankle and they tell you you get to wear the cast until at least April. And even though it's not the same cast from the night of the party, it will probably have glitter in it when they take it off.

The only good thing about this sad ending? It was Legally Blonde, not me. I knew those red shoes were trouble. I hope her ankle heals well.

RightGuard drove us back to the hotel, which, again, is a quarter mile from the bar. He insisted on making it a five minute drive anyway, since we are not familiar with Starkville's one way streets and driving drunk to and from the party twice is a great idea. He encountered Smokey and Legally Blonde in the lobby the next morning and came back and told me she was still in the clothes from the night before and was on crutches. "My god, what did he do to her?" I asked.

Diary of a 1980s Texas Tween: 28 March 1985

2008-01-16T00:21:00.000-06:00

All names have been changed to protect the innocent. Also me.

Today was a pretty
good day. So was Monday,
Tuesday, and Wednesday.
I have barely had any
homework, been near
Thor, and everything has
just been basically relax-
ed. I can't believe that
there's only 34 more days
of school left!

I swear everyone is
acting so hyper! Billy
and Thor were exception-
ally weird today. Last night
and tonight Pete Thomp-
son of 92 1/2 KAFM has been
totally crazy!

The before last, it storm-
ed, and I was scared to
death. I ran and got in
Peaches' bottom bunk!