The Keys to Life

I can’t find my keys. I really can’t find them, and it’s ridiculous because my keys are huge. I have things I needed to do today, and I am totally stranded at home. I have no house keys, no car keys, and no keys to the place I was going today. This doesn’t happen to me often. I’m not one of those people who needs a spare key in every room or tracking devices on their keychains because I am always very diligent about putting my keys back in my purse. However, today, my keys have walked off the planet, and I’m becoming concerned. Growing up, my mom was constantly misplacing her keys. As a kid I thought it was funny, you know, silly mom, everyone playing the Find-the-Key game. I remember she had this ginormous safety pin that she used as a keychain just so that she could always find them. That eight inch safety pin may have been useful in finding them once she DID lose them, but she always would manage to lose them, no matter what kind of keychain she had. As a self-centered and impatient teenager however, mom losing her keys was less and less funny. I wanted to be at the mall five minutes ago, and there we were, looking for keys. I was a brat, but a brat that firmly vowed to keep up with my keys. I lost my keys one time when my kids were babies. Once. That was all it took. I had to break into my house, and it was funny and terrible and I was way too fat to be climbing in windows. So, in the tradition of the absent minded women before me, I obtained a very large keychain, and kept adding to it. My keychains got so out of control that Richy forced me to remove just the car key so I wouldn’t break the ignition switch in the car. I can take it on and off of a carabiner that is also attached to my keychain collection. I say all of this to say it is damn near impossible to lose this wad of keys, but here we are. I have torn this house apart. I have uncushioned the couch, I’ve looked under things, looked in every room, checked the fridge (I did lose a cell phone in the fridge once, so it wasn’t that odd). I’ve looked in the dish drainer, on all the flat surfaces, I even looked in the dog kennel. Those damn keys are nowhere to be found. I checked in the car, I checked on the train, and on a plane, I checked in the rain, and checked in the drain, I checked everywhere, Sam I Am. It’s not that I think they won’t turn up, I know they probably will, but I needed to leave the house today. I had things to do and responsibilities (people insist on giving me responsibilities under the delusion that I am a grown up). I am mostly just absolutely bamboozled by the idea that these keys can’t be seen from space, much less by the idea that I can’t find them in a loft apartment that’s smaller than a thousand square feet. For now, I suppose I will ransack my house again in the hopes of finding my lost keys but at this point I really don’t know where else to look. Maybe I’ll try summoning them. A five point star in the middle of the floor should suffice, but what does one add to the points to summon keys? UPDATE: The keys have been summoned from the depths of couch hell. They had been locked away under the couch, back against the wall and inside the lining. I don’t know what they did to deserve such a spot in couch hell, but it took me fifteen minutes, two canes and a headlamp to retrieve them from their seclusion. 

Thoughts From the Couch

Today’s blog is brought to you by sudden inspiration and short term ambition. A writer friend of mine was taking me through Google Docs and showing me how to use it. I didn’t know how to use it because I was born in the time of the dinosaurs and I am easily frightened by technology; I will scamper back into the forest at the mere thought of having to Tumble a Tweet on my YouTube app. However, Google Docs is easy enough for even me to use it, so I have decided to crawl out of my Girl-cave and write today. Of course, this is always with the firmest of intentions to write again in the near future. I have no idea if this sudden drive to write will blossom into writing full time again, or if it'll be a one-off like I seem to do lately. Either way, I will be just as surprised as you are when this is done, because I honestly started writing this with no direction in mind.

I have spent today wrapping presents, since I only have fifteen more days until Christmas and I still have to make four more gifts and buy one more. I’m pretty happy with our decision to make gifts this year. We are, of course, still buying toys for the kids, because honestly it’s just easier, but for the adults in our lives, we are making something that I think is really nice.  I can’t share what that is on here because my mom reads my blog, and that would spoil the surprise. (Hi Mom). But making these gifts requires power tools and that means I have to wait for Richy because I have no intention on sawing my hand off, and that's exactly what would happen.

I bought Richy’s gifts because I suck at crafts and I want to spoil him. He really deserves it. He works so hard everyday and treats me like I’m a princess, so I want him to know how wonderful I think he is and how much I appreciate him. I’m not sure I’ve shown him the proper appreciation though. I only recently had doubts about this since my sister in law bought my brother’s gift.  She presented him with a heated toilet seat. My brother mentioned one day that he’d know he’d really made it in life when he could afford heated toilet seats. Of course one had to be found, and my sister in law absolutely delivered. She got excited and gave it to him the other day instead of at Christmas and he posted it on Facebook. There it sits, an electronic, back-lit, heated toilet seat. She bought my brother a throne. I wonder if this is something I should get Richy. Like, do all men want a heated toilet seat? Can you imagine how long they’d be in there if they are warm and comfortable? I wonder if we’d ever see them again? I think for my man, I’ll just stick to the more traditional gifts, like underwear, a bad tie, and fruitcake.  

Well, our halls are decked, our TV fire is crackling behind the screen and the stockings are hung by the bookcase with care. Our tree is cheerful and we are cozy and comfortable. Please try to remember not everyone has these basic creature comforts, and just be a little kinder to one another. I hope you all have a happy holiday, no matter what you are celebrating this time of year.

Rage Against the Machine

Today's blog isn't funny, and I apologize, but I must rant for a minute. So, if you know me in real life, you know that I am not wealthy or even remotely anything more than broke most of the time. I got sick, which left me with no choice but to go on disability. You don't make any money on disability, I can promise you that. As a result, my car, which is broken, is still broken because I haven't got $1,500 to sink into it. As a result of not having a car right now, my Richy is facing problems at work. This pisses me off.

Richy has a Bachelor's degree and a Master’s degree, so no one can claim that we are struggling due to a lack of education. He chooses to work as a mason on restorations because he makes more money doing that than he would teaching college courses. However, the company he works for is penalizing him for not having a car. They won’t give him a raise or promote him since he doesn't have a car. I am so angry about this that I could spit nails.

Through no fault of his own, he is being penalized for lacking transportation. Well, God bless America! Is this really what this country is about? Is this where we are now?    There is no way to hurry this car repair process along without getting more money, i.e. a raise, however, he cant have a raise because he needs a car! He depends on his own two legs to get to work. This is a literal-Catch’22! I’m not making this up, this man WALKS to work every single day or walks to a bus stop to get to jobs farther afield. He never, and I mean never calls in. He had a hematoma in his leg that was so painful the doctor put him in a boot and gave him pain meds to help with the pain (It didnt really help much. We found that 800 miligram ibuprophen worked better). He walked to work every day except one that I forced him to call in because his leg was so swollen and sore that he could hardly put pressure on his leg. No, I was not going to let him climb scaffolding all day with a leg that couldnt bear weight. Call me crazy, but that seemed like a bad idea.

No one cared. No one bothered to ask “Hey, could you use a ride to work?”  He just did what he had to do and never asked for anything. But now… now he cant even get a raise to help him get to work. And no, I dont think anyone owes us a thing for our situation but when Richy is the only- ONLY person to pass a drug test when they tested a large portion of the company, and the only person not to call in on a regular basis, when he has to fix the errors of the “Master Masons” who make double what he does… Yes, I beilieve he is owed something for that. But he doesnt have a car, so he doesnt deserve what he has worked for. God, I’m angry right now.

I won’t continue this rant any longer, but I had to get it out. I will only say this, and its something my daughter said; it costs a lot of money to be poor. This man is a vet of both the Air Force and the Army. He was shot in Bosnia. He has a purple heart. He has two degrees. He can’t afford a car repair and therefore is not deserving of compensation for his hard work and time. I could choke the life out of his boss. I really am seeing red right now. I’m half of a mind to get his bosses number and call him and chew him a new ass-hole. Not that that would help, and would probably only make things worse, but it would make me feel a hell of a lot better. Just knowing someone out there is walking around with two anuses, partly because of my masticulaory skills, brings a smile to my face.

Okay, rant over. I’m out, but I never want to hear that hard work and determination will get you ahead in life…..EVER!!

It Takes A Village, and A Lot of Wine

As most of us know, when on Facebook, our “friends” can add us to any group they want to. One day you'll be minding your own business scrolling through your timeline and BAM! All of a sudden you are getting posts from Death Metal Ninja Monkeys because some well meaning friend thought it was a group you just had to be a part of. I am normally not amused when I find myself joined up with groups like this. I’m sorry, but I don't support Killing Kittens For The Dark Side, or whatever group someone else thinks I might like. My ideal group would be something along the lines of Golden Girls Salty Guide To Life, or People Who Like Their Dog Better Than Other People, something like that.

Well, I got added to a group. Oh joy.

When I realized a good friend of mine had added me to a mommy group on Facebook. It didn't really bother me since I had been an active Mommy to two children, although my kids have all grown up and are making their own lives outside of my grasp. It stung just a little, as I had only recently lost my children to adulthood, but I didn't bother un-joining, I just left it alone. I'm really glad I did. These women are the funniest, most real moms I have ever met in cyberspace. Best of all, there are no Sancti-mommies. No one blinks when someone calls their toddler an asshole, because let's face it, they are. We laugh at ourselves and at our idiot teenagers, bitch about our partners and send glitter dicks to people who are undeserving of the oxygen it takes to keep them alive.

I have come to see that the group mascot seems to be the elusive Mermaid Caticorn, because we all deserve to have a majestic spirit-animal cheering us on when the kids are acting like tiny sociopaths. Which reminds me that I just found out today, through this group of informed members that Target is now selling glitter-filled unicorn ice-cream. This is the fulfillment of all of my inner ten year old dreams. I will be purchasing this ice-cream in the near future, but back to the moms (and lets not leave out the few dads we have).

A few posts really stuck with me. For example one mommy’s toddler discovered his *weewee (*technically called the gomer). That in itself wasn't all that funny, however when he asked her “Mom, can you tell me why my penis isn't squishy?” I lost it.

Another mom let us all know how her week was going by posting a picture of her adorable infant (more commonly known as a tiny terror). He was covered nearly to his chest in runny baby poo that had blasted its way up and out of the diaper. I had to laugh because my son never pooped a diaper that it didn't go straight up, out of the diaper waist and straight up his back to his hairline. I wish I were making that up. I am not.

For Easter, I have seen so many chocolate dicks in bright plastic eggs that I am inspired to try to find one of my own. I’d probably send one to my mom because that's the kind of thoughtful person she raised.

Someone’s grandpa bought a toy microphone off the internet for the grandkid. Turned out to be a big black vibrator. Both grandpa and the kid have been using it to sing into.

Vibrators are a big deal with this group. For instance there is a sign one lady posted that she is going to make for her home. it reads: “Please don't knock on my door to talk about God… I don't knock on your door to talk about wine and vibrators, do I?” She has a point.

So, for whatever reason, these ladies have accepted me as one of their own. I don't sew diapers, and have no one to diaper if i did. I have no children currently living with me, though I do have a one year old niece who poops in my tub everytime I give her a bath, so maybe that counts. They make me remember the good times I had raising my kids and they make me laugh about all the jerky stuff and insane crap my kids did over the years. I will say this; I wish there had been a group around like this when I was raising my tinys. They say it takes a village, and as I learned, it does.  

Ladies and gents, thank you for all the laughs and caring. Thank you for supporting each other and not being judgemental when a mommy hides in the bathroom to pee and sneak a glass of wine. Thank you for building each other up and caring about one another. There's a lot of laughs and there's some heartbreak too. Either way, these women make my day.

Thanks for reading. I’m off to find unicorn glitter ice-cream!

The Corpse in My Fridge

A corpse was in my refrigerator. At least that's the way it smelled.

For the last few days, when anyone opened the fridge door, a small whiff of something unpleasant would waft up my nose. Nothing horrible, just a slight smell that made me think, hmmm. I knew some leftover or something must have gotten pushed to the back but I wasn't terribly concerned about it. I figured I’d run across it in the next day or two and throw out the offending item. I never ran across it.

Yesterday, my darling Richy sent me a text that he had cleaned out the entire fridge looking for the smell. He cleaned out all the leftovers, checked all the produce, and threw away anything expired. I was so happy that he had done this distasteful chore for me, I was saved by my knight in shining armor. Richy had conquered the Fridge Beast and all was right with the world again.

Except that it wasn't all right in the world again. This morning, Richy and I woke up, figured out what planet we were on and what year it was as our hearts started to gradually beat in our chests. We cleaned the sleep crust from our eyes and began to raid the fridge for Diet Coke and breakfast food.  Oh Jaysus, Mary and Joseph! What was that smell? It made my eyes water! It was like someone had hidden a body in my refrigerator in the middle of summer during a power outage. I had had enough.

Then it dawned on me what i had seen last weekend when we bought groceries. Two bags of frozen vegetables had, for whatever reason, been relegated to the crisper drawer in the fridge. I avoid confrontation like the plague so when I saw them there, I just left them in lieu of moving the veggies back to the freezer and possibly having to explain why I did it. Turns out this was a bad idea.

I opened that drawer and picked up a bag of unfrozen lima beans. I reluctantly sniffed the bag and it didn't have a smell, so I thought maybe I was wrong about it being the frozen vegetables. This led me to be less cautious when smelling bag number two. I picked up the second bag and took a big strong smell, accidentally touching the bag to my nose.

I nearly died. My gag reflex went into overdrive and I nearly threw up. In fact I gagged so hard that I peed just a little. Not to mention I had touched this bag to my nose, so now the stench was actually cold and wet and up my nostrils. Now Im gagging and peeing on myself and having a true drama queen moment while Richy looked at me like I was crazy. I wasn't crazy. This particular veggie bag wasn't simply vegetables like the lima beans had been. This was one of those frozen vegetables with some sort of sauce in it. Apparently that sauce is made out of dead panda assholes and pickled possum feet and if you let it get warmer than freezing it will put off an odor that would kill a horse.

We were finally able to bag and seal both bags of mushy vegetables and get them to the outside garbage. They put up a good fight, but in the end we conquered the rogue produce and evicted them from the house.

They say you learn something new everyday. Well, this time, they were right. I learned two important lessons: 1. NEVER put frozen items in the fridge unless you are going to use them immediately, and 2. Sometimes confrontation is necessary especially if it involves improperly stored food.   

Gimli the Giant

Today's blog is dedicated to a most faithful companion, a distinguished friend, and soldier through life. This honor belongs to one, Gimli; a black miniature schnauzer with the personality of a giant. He was my mother’s best friend and consistent love for the last fifteen years. Gimli crossed into his next big adventure on Sunday at about ten in the morning. He was surrounded by all the love and gratitude anyone, person or fur-person, could ever ask for.

There isnt much to say, after all, Gimli was stoic and silent most of his dignified life. So I thought I would let pictures of this amazing friend tell his story.

Gimli, you were a giant among us.

Now those words, those shouts and that face faded away, far away, until they were lost in the wind... Now he saw before himself a limitless plain, a flower-filled meadow, and he heard a dog barking, but this was not the dark howling of Cererus the watchdog - it was Peritas! He was running toward him, mad with joy just like the day when he had returned from exile, and then across the endless prairie came a thunderous gallop and suddenly an echoing neigh. It was Bucephalus running toward him with his mane blowing in the wind, and he climed astride him just as he had done that day in Mieza. And he shouted, "Go, Bucephalus!" And the steed set off, like some burning Pegasus, in a reckless gallop toward the final horizon, toward the infinite light.

That Damn Ice Cream Truck

Today's blog comes as a direct request from my darling dearest, aka my editing department, aka Richy. His request came to me in his usual gentle manner. He said,  and I quote, “Why don't you write about that damn ice-cream truck on your blog? Since he asked so nicely, I thought, maybe I’d oblige him. So, here we go.

That Damned Ice Cream Truck-

Richy moved into the apartment we now share about two years ago. He moved in about March and the sounds of the neighborhood sang through his ears as he hauled his belongings up the stairs to the loft apartment. Suddenly, in the distance, he heard the familiar tinny music of an ice-cream truck driving through the neighborhood. He listened as it dinged its mechanical version of “Pop-Goes-The-Weasel” along the streets North of the house. Perfect! Enough time to run in and grab some change. He waited in the yard as The Weasel finished Popping its run and now “Mary Had A Little Lamb” chimed its way closer, oh so closer to the street.

Then, as if by magic, it was no longer north of the apartment, it was now south of the apartment. No longer was his delicious cold treat coming towards him, it was now taunting him from the street behind his current location. What fresh Hell was this? He had been so patient and all for nothing, the Ice-Cream Man had completely forgotten to come down his street.

Not willing to take this sort of injustice lying down, this 48 year old man ran through the backyard, hopped a fence, ran through his neighbors back yard and sprinted two blocks to chase down this Damned Ice-Cream Truck. All for an orange cream push-up popsicle. He was 48. Fortunately, the small children that he plowed down in order to get his elusive creamsicle, all blacked out as they hit the pavement, so no one can give the police an accurate description of the 6 foot 2 inch German lunatic running cross country, screaming at an ice-cream truck.

It turns out, the ice-cream truck really, truly…literally does not, will not come down our street... for whatever reason. This is the ONLY street in the whole neighborhood it doesn't come down. Richy finds this highly unfair and regularly uses colorful language whenever that ding-dong music starts playing “Old MacDonald”. Today, as he saw it pass on the street behind us, he cocked an imaginary gun and did a little pretend target practice, on That Damned-Ice-cream Truck.

I don't know which Congressman I have to write, or what federal authority I can get on this, but please, if anyone has any connections, let me know how I go about changing an ice-cream truck route. We find this exclusionary, and personally, I am not going to rest until my dearest darling can have a Rocket-sicle every day of the week if he wants.

According to a good five minute Google search, I found at least three sources that say it takes about 50 licks to finish an ice-cream cone. I say those people haven't reached their full potential.