Finding Joy in Snarkville

…according to Duke:

Take One:
“It is the King’s Birthday.”

Take Two:
Martin Luther King got shot. They didn’t like what he said and they shot him. Then he died.

(So, what did he say that they didn’t like?)

That we were all the same on the outside, even if we are different on the inside.

Does he go to the best school or what???

Tonight I have a horrible headache. The kind that makes me want to poke my eyeballs back into my head, since they just must be poking out. So, I go to the cabinet and pull out two pills for my head. Duke follows and says:

“My head hurts too. I need Medi-Care.”

“huh, what?”

“I need Medi-Care. Actually, I need a ’scription plan.”

That’s it — no more TV for that kid.

(In case you needed to know, I gave him a vitamin — which according to him, didn’t make his head feel any better. I do hope this will work until he’s old enough for Medi-Care.)

Sometimes, you need just a small record of the incredible things that come out our mouths. Today — it seemed we were on a roll.

“Well, I’m mad too. And I’m the Dad, so *MY* mad is better than your mad.”

“I’m just channeling my inner Lucy.” (Said as I literally turned on the mixer with the better covered in chocolate cake was NOT in the cake batter and it sprayed my kitchen.”

“Ok, fine. When you get the cake out of the oven and let it cool then you are GOING to come back here and read me the one about the vans.” (Said as I explained that I had to get the cake out of the oven and thus could not read him yet another story before he went to sleep — kiss me and go to sleep.)

“But Mama, it is SUUUNNNNDDDDAAAAYYY. We have pancakes on Sunday.” “Honey, I know, but we overslept and I have to get in the shower before we go to church. I’ll tell you what, I’ll make you pancakes for lunch AFTER church.” “No, we can’t have pancakes AFTER church, we’ll need to have LUNCH then and pancakes are for breakfast.” (I share this one to share the last one….)

“Mama, make pancakes for dinner.”
(Apparently pancakes are a breakfast or a dinner food — but not a lunch food.)

You know when you may have lost your mind a bit, you get upset, you move on, then realize that it is kinda funny and you want to share it on your blog, then you write it all out (honestly believing that you have taken the insanity label), and then you get a call that you hurt someone else? Oh, wait, is that just me?

Blogs are funny things. On one hand the blogs I love to read the most are witty and fun loving and well, self-deprecating. Since my own personal sense of humor is rather sarcastic and self-deprecating, I try my best to do the same. The problem is that sometimes I am not all that good at it. On the other hand, blogs are windows into our lives and perhaps pulls back the curtain on how less than perfect we all are.

I’m normally ok with people knowing how not perfect I am. I know this is utterly shocking, but I’m not perfect and I’m pretty ok with sharing my weaknesses and failings — provided two wee points: 1. I’m the one sharing; I doubt anyone appreciates being told what their shortcomings are* 2. I’m ready to laugh at myself a bit.

I write this blog for lots of reasons, only one of which is to laugh at myself a bit. I’m willing to let you laugh at me too while I’m laughing — but I find more often that I’m told “you aren’t the only one” or “that’s not so bad” — so maybe I’m more normal than I thought. The bigger reasons I write is because I love the attention — hey, I’m honest; occasionally I think I have something to say; and perhaps, just perhaps, I’ll find something meaningful in it all.

The final problem is the blogs are public. Blogs are open to people we may not want to know that we are human and have faults. Done right the blog is the window into what someone is truly thinking or feeling when the public world they’d never show it. This is truly sad since we know in our hearts that all are human, but horribly some people in this use our own faults against us (can we say grade school?). Perhaps they think that pushing others down they lift themselves up — but you know someone who is like this. They may not be the top of your party invite list, but you avoid sharing anything that would make you seem less than perfect with this person.

A great case in point is that in a former life I used to work with a woman who I nicknamed “WonderMommy.” She was that mom — her pregnancy was perfect (often speaking of the glories of a life growing inside her); her baby was perfect (smarter than average, better than others, most assuredly better than your child…whatever), and her life was perfect. Well, the thing is after talking to her twice, I began to want to chip away at her all too rosey view of mommyhood. I firmly believe that parts of being a mom suck and her “everything is perfect” attitude made me sick. It became a game and frankly the only way I could speak to her and not want to run away screaming. After some time, I was talking to another co-worker and she summed it simply, “Wow, she must be really miserable to want to make us think everything is so great.”

That stuck. It dawned on me then and I still have to remind myself, that it is because I’m not a miserable person that I can bring up the negative bits of myself. Oh, you could talk about being secure in your own skin (something I really don’t think of myself as being), but I think it is more that I don’t have to convince myself everyday that this is ok; that life is ok. I have found in the years since dealing with WM that red flags go off when I hear someone being too positive or too rosey — even when that person is me. When I’m stressed or things look gloomy, I get in that mode of reminding myself (and those unfortunately around me) how good it is.

So alas, this is a long way around saying I was ok with telling the world that I have a pet peeve or nine, this either makes be highly comfortable in my own skin or totally in denial.  I’m going with the former — since if it is the latter, I’ll never admit it.  Ah, finally a Win-Win.

The other day, Duke and I were off to school and he looks up at me and says, “Mama, I love you.”

me: “Oh, Buddy, I love you too.  Do you know how much Mama loves you?”

Duke: (Spreads his arms as wide as possible): “So Much.”

me: (heart breaking wide open from the love in the air): “Yes, that much and so much more.” then, getting cocky, “How much do you love Mama?”

Duke: (Arms still wide open): “Not so much.”

me: dies.

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Driving around before Christmas, Duke screams from the backseat.

“I see God.”

Every person in the car looks around and say collectively, “Where?”

Duke: “There” pointing to a house decorated for Christmas, with a Nativity in front.

Guessing he was talking about the Nativity scene, we U-turn and go back and ask: “Duke, which one is God?”

Duke: points at a wiseman — “There in the purple robe.”

Me: “Oh, sweetie, that’s a wiseman, not God.  However, they haven’t put the baby Jesus out yet — when he gets there that’s God.”

Duke: “Oh. ok.   I saw the Foolish Man.”

The adults all giggled just enough for Duke to call the wisemen “foolish men” for about a day or so.

This lead to many songs about the foolish man building a house upon the sand.

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In distressing news, there appears to be a rash of thefts outside of Duke’s school during the morning drop off.  This morning one mom of a girl in Duke’s class had her diaper bag stolen out of her car.  The window was smashed and they got the diaper bag.  In chatting with the mom, she was bummed over a check that had to be re-issued, but mostly over the loss of the great bag she’d gotten a deal on.  I had to giggle because apparently the thief isn’t too smart — doesn’t he know that mamas have no money and what you are going to get is awesome diaper bags and wipes?

Now, I know what diaper bag she had and it cost more than any purse I’ve ever carried — possibly all my bags put together.  Even still what a pain.  Of course, I’m told this the one day I drove to pick Duke up from school and of course had left my purse in the car.  So, when Duke got out of class, I hurried him off to confirm that there was no window breakage and my bag was still there. (They were.)

Finally, the brain child who is breaking windows for diaper bags missed the fact that two mothers also parked in the same area had unlocked doors and WALLETS on their dashboards.  Why steal cash when you could steal baby wipes, right?

…I want to tell you all about my Christmas.  How perfect it was to have my family there and how special each and every day was.  I wouldn’t even be spinning a tale to tell you that — it was special and magical and nearly perfect in every single way.  However, I’m still totally exhuasted from Christmas.

I spent two weeks with the royal parents and they seriously made me work hard.  In trips past, the Queen Mum and I have had grand plans for things to do on the trip down. (Prince does too, but his plans involve where to eat so he can get foods we can get in Snarkville.)  This trip, on the first night when I was weak with the journey my mother pounced. “You know, we need to plan this better so we actually get the stuff we want to get done — done.” So, we began.

In the course of two little bitty weeks, we accomplished the following:

1. Trip to see Santa.  One photo taken — no fear of the man in red this year.  One type-A family in front of us in line, completely and totally made fun of.  (On a sad note, the family had an 18 month old girl who plopped herself down in the fake snow.  Her helicopter mommy and inattentive dad, never saw the perfect photo that made, while obsessing over if all the kids were smiling on Santa’s knee.)

2. Unpacked/handwashed/sorted/repacked some 1 billion dishpacks of stuff.  This one will never sound like the amount of work it was (sadly there are only 3 people who saw how much work this was — so sympathy for the sore muscles and whining was low), but we sorted through a metric ton of stuff.  My grandmother was our family historian and sorting through the final boxes (which were not small and did take us a solid three days to do) was like walking through memory lane beginning with my great-great-great grandmother and a few many times great aunts.  We dug, divided and then proceeded to handwash so much of it.  In addition to this, I washed, dried and ironed more Irish linen than I’ve ever seen outside of the Irish import store I worked in during high school.

3. I spent 4 hours getting my hair corrected.  You see, not long ago, in a fit of frugality, I bought hair color on sale.  Um, it was not the color I thought it should have been.  So, I went to see the guy who has done my hair since I was 15 and got him to fix it.  Just a note, things you never want to hear in a salon, “Perhaps you might not want to look right now.”  There was a period of time my hair was literally pumpkin orange.  It is better now.

4. Finished decorating the Christmas tree.  Since we didn’t put one up this year (travel and all), the Queen Mum saved a few ornaments for us to hang.  We did this and then packed away boxes so that the house transformed from just a house into “Christmas House.”  Duke took to calling one room “The Christmas Room” and we will see if that sticks the next time we go when the tree isn’t up in the room.

5. Completed Christmas crafts with Duke.  These included two placemats, one ornament, and lots of drawing and playing with clay.

6. Baked goods.  When I arrived, I annouced that there was a horrible lack of baked goods in the house, something that must be corrected NOW.  In the time I was there, we made and ate: 2 batches of cookies; one red velvet cake; one rum cake; cheesecake (well, it was store bought — but we ate it) and one pumpkin cake.  This doesn’t begin to cover the additional cookies that were brought in.  I will note that neither the Queen Mum nor I ate all of this alone — we had help.

7. Moved furniture and made beds.  In the course of my two weeks, four additional adults arrived.  We did more laundry, dishes, and random stuff than I can possibly explain.  I spoke to the Queen Mum the other day and she reports that her washer is on strike and the dishwasher is considering joining a union.

8. Went to the park, meet up with a high school friend, and rode bikes/scooters.  We worked on teaching Duke to ride his bike without training wheels — but I have to say he was awesome with the scooter.

9. Ate amazing food.  My dad outdid himself this year.  Not only did we have three full days of Christmas, including a Boxing Day affair — the food was over the top.  (And I made Yorkshire puddings.)

I’m sure there was a ton more — but for the life of me I can not type anymore.  Seriously, I’m exhausted just remembering all we did.

So, I shall end with the story, I’ve wanted to tell you all along. My parents had a small get together on Christmas night.  We had my whole family who were staying at the house and another couple.  When the other couple arrived, Duke looked up and declared, “You can’t stay over, we have no beds for you.”  That was true, we were officially out of beds — the good news was they lived around the corner.

A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Ok, I promise to be done with this soon — but the more I think about Hobbes, the more I remember random things about this cat — funny things I think I might need to share:

1. Hobbes fell into the toliet in my first apartment twice.  Yup, he’d be running full tilt to hop up on the counter to chat with me while brushing my teeth and he’d use the toliet as a stepping stone — only to find out too late that the lid was up.  This led to one of the two cardinal rules in my house — “The toliet seat lid must be down if you aren’t using it.”
2. As a kitten, Hobbes liked the smell of beer.  I’m not sure if this is bad for a cat or not, but his love for the smell of beer led to the other cardinal rule in my home, “Never leave a beverage unattended.”  (He wasn’t always sure you didn’t have a beer until his face was in your water glass.)
3. He loved to drink the water from under my Christmas tree — when I still had a living tree.
4. His absolute favorite thing was stinky morning breath.  He would love to shove in my mouth when I’d yarn first thing in the morning.  You think morning breath is bad?  Try having a cat nose in your mouth.
5. Prince honestly believed he was afraid of heights.  In his later years he wouldn’t climb like he used to.  Prince met him when he was 3 — and he was already sporting a 16 pound frame.  But as a kitten he’d hang out on top of the fridge.
6. Hobbes loved the idea going outside, but had no idea what he ought to do when out there.  He escaped a few times over the years and never made it further than the steps outside the door.
7. When we got the dog, Hobbes was so offended that he slept on my head for a year.  I’m not kidding on my head.
8. As a kitten, he was an awesome alarm clock.  He used to burrow under my pillow when the alarm went off and push until I was somewhat upright.
9. He hated to ride in the car and was known to meow the WHOLE time the car was moving.
10. He loved vanilla ice cream.
11. He also loved freeze dried shrimp.  He loved these so much that if the package wasn’t locked away, the package would be ingested by a tabby.
12. About 6 years ago he lost a canine tooth (the big hanging down tooth), this meant his upper lip didn’t always cover his lower canine tooth — a look we took to calling “Evil Hobbes”  He also had a scar in his lip from biting his own lip.
13. My parents first introduction to Hobbes was during his early bout with fleas — not only did they think I was nuts for having a cat (expense when I had no pennies) I had a cat with fleas.  It was too much.
14. However, dealing with those fleas, I came to love advantage and borax (dust on carpet and it makes fleas explode — vacuum at will).

All in all he was a very good cat and friend.  But I’ve gone nearly 24 hours without crying — so alas, the sun will still rise.  And I’m counting my extra pennies from one less mouth to feed expensive food and one less butt pooping in the litter box.

Prince had the lovely job of trying to explain what happened to Duke.  I came home and was greeted by Duke at the top of the stairs screaming that he had to give me a hug.  It was sweet and I was getting choked up again.

Duke: Mama, Hobbes died.

Me: Yes, honey, he was old and it was his time.

Duke: Healy is still ok.

Me: Yes, buddy, the other animals are ok.

Duke: Healy doesn’t need to see the vet.

Alrighty then, we have our priorities.  Since this exchange I’ve been told that Healy doesn’t like the vet.

So, I’m ready for day two of 2009.  I’ve slept for nearly 12 hours, which makes me very happy — though going to bed at 7pm (I’m not kidding) was a lot weird.

Please forgive the extended absence, but things beyond my control have kept me away and then I got out of the habit.  So, I could bring you laughs a minute or I could tell you exactly what is going on in my brain.

The past 24 hours I’ve been smacked in the middle of my forehead with the concept of a blessing.  Oh sure, I could talk for hours about how I have a loving husband, an amazing child, my health, and many other trite things.  However, I’m thinking more in terms of when you think everything is off the rails and then (often on the other side of it) you realize that it was truly a good thing.

Yesterday, I spent the night without my luggage in Atlanta.  Why?  Because we spent 45 minutes waiting for a gate, only to have the gate changed to the furtherest gate from where we needed to be in ATLANTA.  We ran.  We missed the flight.  However, since it was the airline’s fault, we got meals AND an all expense paid trip to the local hotel.  Whoa, control the excitement.  (I ought to say that I didn’t sleep much last night and I may be a bit giddy.) I called my parents to tell them what was up and casually mentioned, “You know, this could be a good thing.  We won’t be on the road at midnight on New Year’s Eve.”  And I think I was right.  We had no delays, no gate issues and our bags appeared when we did.  Though the trip lasted 24 straight hours, I think it all worked out for the best.

Now for the bitter sweet one.  This morning we had five animals, 4 cats and a dog.  Yes, I fully accept we are insane.  The eldest of the animals is *MY* cat.  We got a call while we were gone that he wasn’t doing well.  I have known for some time that he was declining and the time was coming.  I never expected that I’d come home from my trip and need to take him to the vet.  Tonight, we have four animals — a nearly respectable 3 cats and a dog. (more…)