Lazy Days of Summer
After I come out of a funk brought on by familial wackiness I have this tendency to go on a major personal improvement campaign. But I stopped myself short a little while ago and thought “hey, what the hell are you doing? You can’t fix them, so you’re going to wear yourself out trying to fix yourself?” Well guess what? I’m not broken! Yeah, I may have a bit of wear and tear in a few places, but so what.
What I’ve decided to do now is have a stay-cation. I officially declare myself on vacation in my own house. It’s a great place to hang out when I let myself. Got beer and food in the fridge and a nice patio with a smoking area. I can play in sprinklers or run around naked in the back yard if the mood hits me. It’s the dog days of summer here in North Texas and the thermometer is going to pass the hundred degrees mark today.
Thanks to Mr. Husband’s collecting habits we have more Blu rays than a video store so I can do a 3 day marathon of Sci Fi or whatever my little heart desires. I get so caught up in the melodrama that I forget to stop, step back and realize my wonderful surroundings. Maybe I’ll go to Walmart and get myself a kiddy pool and vegetate in it while drinking margaritas. Yeah, now we’re talking! I tend to forget that I’m retired and therefore can do anything I want to do…or nothing at all 🙂 I’ll let all my calls go to voice mail and chillax in grand fashion.
In a New York Second – Everything Can Change
North Texas had an unusually mild spring this year so far. Mother Nature noticed the oversight and decided to make up for lost time last night.
6 of us went out to a fawncy restaurant to celebrate my Mother-in-law’s 80th birthday. During the meal I could see a reflection of trees whipping around in a mirror across the room. The trees were not just blowing in one direction; they were whipping around like they were in a washing machine. That is never a good sign.
I started to get antsy but kept telling myself that it was just because I was with the in-laws. I even ordered a second gin & tonic which is unusual for me when dining with them. A little after 8:00 pm we stood outside saying our goodbyes. The wind came up and we were all standing there with our hair peaking up on top of our head like we were in a wind tunnel.
For the ride home we watched an impressive light show to the south, all kinds of spectacular but unusual strikes. Some that branched out horizontally across the sky. Others hit the ground and the rays were so wide it looked fake. Someone was photo shopping Mother Nature.
At home I was in a semi undressed state and Mr. Husband was without apparel when he came running out of the bedroom yelling “the sirens are going off.” I was in a sort of stupor and asked “what sirens?” He answered “the tornado sirens,” for once not rolling his eyes and giving me that “Well duh” look he excels in. I don’t know how he always hears them and I don’t. Must have been that 20 years of working in bars with music loud enough to rattle the fillings out of your teeth.
Of course a sort controlled pandemonium ensued. Where are the pets? Are they inside? Mr. Husband put some clothes on. He tends to respond to panic by dressing. I don’t blame him. If a tornado hits I don’t want to end up getting fished out of the rubble in my birthday suit. I grabbed my 2 most valuable possessions – my purse and laptop and put them in a handy place in case I had to grab them and take shelter.
Fortunately for us, but not so fortunate for those in the path of the tornado, it touched down south of Dallas in the Granbury area. Storm spotters said the tornado became huge with a mile wide funnel on the ground at one point, a real wrath of God type scenario. Some people reported hail the size of grapefruits. A chunk of ice that big could come crashing right through your roof and land on your coffee table.
This morning the news is reporting 12 dead and hundreds injured. The response of people rushing to help those who have lost everything but the clothes on their back is heartwarming.
This kind of disaster always reminds me that life is short. Grab it where you can and don’t waste time sitting around bemoaning your lot in life because it could get a hell of a lot worse in the blink of an eye.
I Have a Kooky Family – So What?
I have a kooky family. So what? I miss them anyway. It’s the day before Thanksgiving and I’m moping around the house. Earlier this month, I expressed an extreme disinterest in doing a huge bang up in-law infested turkey day at Hubman’s mother’s house this year.
We leave on a way loooong road trip, with his mother in tow, the following Monday at the ass crack of dawn. That’s too much to cram into the time allotted. It’s not like there is no one else here in North Texas to cook a damn turkey. So what is his response? Move the party to our house! Excellent idea, oh beloved Bimbo of mine. Howz about I burn all your Star Trek collectibles in a big bonfire in the back yard. Wouldn’t that be fun?
I think I now know why iron skillets were invented and it was not for cooking, that’s just the cover story. There were created to knock husbands over the head with when they just…don’t…get it. Part of the problem is that I miss MY family. I love each and every one of them, even though there have been times that I contemplated murder, keel hauling or at the very least 20 lashes.
Some of this annoying ennui is my fault. I need to put my foot down in the marital kind of way before the next big holiday and say “HEY! It’s my turn. WE, not just me, are going to my family’s house for a holiday.” We are not solely responsible for entertaining every one of your relatives on every damn holiday ever invented. And I don’t wanna hear any whining a about how much it’s gonna cost. Or what is your mother is gonna do without us there to cater to her every whim, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Hell, bring her with us. We’ll give her a peek at how the darker side celebrates a holiday. The crazy beer drinking, Saints football team loving, dance at every opportunity, laugh at everything, wear a turkey on your head, New Orleans people way of celebrating. There is more than one way to do a holiday. And some of them don’t involve standing on your feet slaving over the stove until your feet swell up to the size of watermelons, and groaning and moaning about it. And on top of all that claiming you enjoy it. Uh, yea, and I like to get root canals too. Nice try, but I’m not buying it.
So I’m trying to work on things to be grateful about. I’m alive, have my health, a loving husband, even though he is rather thick-headed in the female department. A family that loves me, friends, I don’t live on the Gaza strip. I can afford to do pretty much whatever I want to do, within reason. I probably can’t afford to charter a jet and fly to Russia to train and go up in space, but I don’t want to do that anyway. I’m pretty much OK with being Earth bound for the time being.
I own a postage stamp size plot of ground on the moon. I bought if from a coupon on a cereal box when I was kid, but can’t find the paperwork. My dog loves me, and my cat doesn’t bite me…often. I do have a lot of things to be grateful for. Perhaps what I need to do is state my case earlier in the game. No means No. If I don’t wanna, then I don’t wanna. And if I do, then I do. Going along for the ride, moping around and pitching a fit when it’s too late to change anything isn’t working out well. Guess I need to pay more attention. Ignoring my needs and wants just isn’t doing the trick.
Letter to My Sister
This diatribe started out as an email reply to my sister’s previous communique to me and ended up being a blog post. It started out with stuff that’s between me and sister, and ain’t nobody’s business but ours. But it turned into a rant and rants are one of my specialties. My other specialties are strawberry shortcake and long-winded short stories.
Dear Sis,
I received an email from a friend who expressed concern after reading my blog and went on to say that I sounded depressed and angry. My first thought was “oh, so now you’re going to fricking psychoanalyze me through my blog????” It really blew the lid off the pot and got me going. If one could somehow harness anger as a power source, North Texas would have a free month of electricity thanks to me.
After a long session of stewing and muttering it came to me. He’s right and Hell ya, I’m depressed and angry. So much in fact that I feel stripped naked and standing on a hill-top in all my furious glory with flames shooting out of my head.Actually the depression stems from frustration due to the inability to adequately express as much anger as I have at the moment without committing some act that would get me on the news. Dealing with Hubman’s mother is becoming an ongoing night mare. I feel like I died and went to Mother in Law hell.
I’m also boiling mad at the medical profession. Her doctor informed her that HE preferred to treat teeny-weeny pre-cancerous lumps conservatively and follow-up surgery with a round of radiation therapy. It should be against the law to call anything as violent as blasting someone with Xrays therapy. This means zapping her chest with radiation 5 days a week for 6 weeks. He did not even bother to tell her options and ask her what her preference was. To me it sounds like he’s treating her breast as if it was some kind of recalcitrant growth not attached to her body. And so now he’s gonna just blast the living shit out of it. Back to the stone age or further back if possible. Can’t have any slip ups on HIS statistics, no sireeee.
So again, Hell yes, I’m angry. I’m pissed at the way doctors think they are God just because they took a few years of Human mechanics classes and I’m pissed at the people who go along with this delusion. So yea, in case I haven’t clearly spelled it out I’M ANGRY. A raging, boiling hot lava, old wet hen, white-hot, nuclear explosion, fire first and ask questions later type of angry. PS: I’m also angry at God.
Other than that everything is fine 🙂 And thank you for listening.
Yo, Isaac, Show a City Some Love
Sat on our lovely patio last night watching the sun set and listening to the cicadas gossip. Is my entire immediate family is going to drown tomorrow night? Well, I certainly hope not. And just for the record it won’t be my doing if it happens!
Hurricane Isaac is lumbering his fat ass towards the Gulf coast. On this particular coastal area dwells my mother, 3 sisters, 2 brothers, brother-in-law, 8 nephews and 2 nieces, an unborn set of grand-niece or nephew twins, and the 8 kids of one of the nephews. All of them have decided to “ride it out.” That’s amounts to approximately 18 relatives that, at the moment, I want to strangle. They have a standing invitation to come to my house if they decide to evacuate, but I understand that driving from New Orleans to North Texas with a car full of relatives and emergency supplies is not at the top of the fun things to do list.
This is the ultimate test by the cosmos of my personal belief that people have the right to make their own decisions regardless of how wacky I think the decision is. I must, I must, I must increase my bust. Oops, got off track there. What I must do is remain positive, cheerful and resist the urge to call them all every hour on the hour and scream into the phone “ARE YOU OUT OF YER EFFIN MIND?”
Hurricane Katrina is still a fresh memory. One of my sisters went missing for 3 weeks and I nearly lost my mind. According to Google Earth her 2 story house was completely underwater. She finally turned up in storm shelter in Jackson, Mississippi. I was going to get in the car and drive there to look for her. The Hubman put his foot down at that point and said if she didn’t turn up soon that he’d hire a private investigator to find her.
So I sit with eyes glued to the Weather Channel. I think it’s going to be OK except for a lot of water. I trust my sister’s husband enough to make the right decisions to keep them all safe. Hopefully the worst that happens to them is they end up not speaking to each other for a month after being trapped together in a house for 3 days of wind and rain.
I’m a woman of a certain age living and loving in Texas. Can’t get real specific because I’m a work in process. I Like to read sci-fi, steampunk and historical fiction, travel all over the planet, stay home on rainy days, go shopping in the middle of the night, and stay be in bed when I should be doing something.
Pampered Chef – Laurie Diltz
