Mother’s Day Weekend–a Recap

Last week you might recall that I offered some predictions for my mother’s visit. As I know that everyone has waited with baited breath to see how correct I was, here are the results:

1. She will hint at least twice that she wants to move in here.  I nailed that one easily. There were TONS of said hints.

2. She will have some issue with the fact that there is a picture of my late sister in a collage frame that also has a photo of my stepmother in it.  She didn’t seem to notice that one…very surprised.

3. She will further recognize that there aren’t enough pictures of HER around. Not only did she notice, but she vowed to have a new set of Glamour Shots done post haste so that I would have appropriate photos of her around.

4. She will complain that the house is too cold at night.  No, it was too hot. But how was I to know that her doctor’s had changed her hormone prescription?

5.  She will recognize that the house is clean and proclaim that housekeeping is a trait I inherited from her (despite the fact that you literally can not walk through her house)  Partially right on this one. She recognized my house was clean and tried to sucker me into coming up to her house for a weekend to help her “get it in order”

6. When we go shopping for the new sheets I promised her for mother’s day–she will hint heavily about at least four other things that she “needs”.   I was right on the money with this one.

7. She will complain about the driving of whoever is behind the wheel.  Surprisingly, I missed this one.

8.  She will engage a complete stranger in a conversation about any or all of the following: A. whatever illness she is suffering from this week, B. my sister’s death, C. the rising price of various commodities. Oh, I was quite right on this one.

9. She will provide amusement and embarassment with her complete lack of political correctness.  Did she ever! More detail later…

10. She will attempt to do the laundry.  No, but only because I made sure there was none before she arrived. She did say she wanted to “Try out” my front loading washer.

11. She will inform me that I don’t use the right body soap, the right laundry soap, or the right cleaning products, and suggest the nearest dollar store where the correct items can be purchased. I nailed this one too!

12. She will, on no less than three occasions, suggest the she be allowed to smoke in A. my car, B. my garage, or C. in my house if she “cracks the window”.  Having been told no to all of these, any trip of more than 20 minutes will have to include a stop in a parking lot so she can light up.  Surprisingly, she only mentioned smoking in the garage.

All in all, it was a nice weekend. I’m sure it was good for Mom to get away for a few days, and overall, I enjoyed myself. But my psychic abilities fell short in being able to predict the following gems from the visit:

On Friday night, she regaled us with tales of her glow in the dark dildo. Apparently, that makes the multi-speed model easier to find at night.  She went on to tell us how one of her former gentleman friends wanted to tie her up and “then run to Kroger’s for Pepsi!” Then she started in on her list of things she should be entitled to–which includes anything of value that my Grandmother might leave when she passes away. (”I should get that sewing machine because I hid under it when I was little! I should get that ring because I went to the library and the internet says tradition dictates that the first born daughter gets it!)…anything that ever belonged to or had anything to do with my sister…(They should give me the funeral guest book because I had her! I’d like to know what happened to  her diamond earrings..those should go to me! I should get to pick out her headstone <even though she isnt contributing a red cent to it> because I’m the one who carried her for nine months!) When mom saw the 30th birthday collage my dad put together for me, she was aghast that it didn’t include any photos of her. (Why, exactly, should it? “Well I carried you!” As if someone who divorced you 26 years ago still has photos lying around?)

Then it was time for conspiracy theories. “I know your sister’s fiance paid someone to cut those brake lines.” Yeah, because a cut brake line allows a car to operate normally for hundreds of miles only to fail on black ice in a ninety degree turn down a mountain? I’m no mechanic but I just don’t think it works like that.

On Saturday night, I hosted a cook out with about ten or twelve friends in attendance. One friend is pregnant, and another couple there just had their first baby a month ago. When the conversation turned to breast feeding, mom offered that neither of her children were “tittie babies” but one of her ex husbands “sure loved breast milk“. She then suggested that any obstetrician would do what hers had done–”put a few extra stitches in there and you’ll be like a virgin again. That and some Kegal excersises–you’ll be 16 all over!”

Then there were the random comments about being a “Jew” when it came time to buy a new car…how she would make an excellent surrogate mother…and how her hormone shots had given her “these big titties.”

And of course there was our ongoing discussion about how a woman of a certain age should dress. “Are these ok to wear?” she asked, producing a pair of micro-jean shorts. “No!” I said. “Why not?”  

“Well, I don’t think they’re appropriate for somone your age.” She left it alone, but then throughout the day pointed out everyone she saw with something similar on. “She’s about my size, and her shorts are just as short!”   Well, yeah, she’s also 16 and firm. “She can’t be much younger than me, and look at her shorts!” Fair enough, but she also just walked out of a gym, she isn’t wearing that to dinner.

These minor annoyances aside, it was a fairly fun weekend,  but one that nonetheless left me exhausted. I was in bed by 9:30 last night and would have slept til noon today if the clock hadn’t gone off.

She promises another visit soon….stay tuned!

 

Mama’s Comin! And I Have Predictions!

My loyal readers (yes, both of you) will recall that I was complaining about my mother a few weeks back–mostly in relation to a planned visit for this coming Mother’s Day Weekend. A friend from back home has graciously agreed to be my saviour and drive mom down and return her home on Sunday. So mama’s coming after all!

I took today off to prepare myself. And as I tidied up the house, I came up with these predictions for what the weekend will bring. I’ll update you on Monday to see how many I got right.

1. She will hint at least twice that she wants to move in here.

2. She will have some issue with the fact that there is a picture of my late sister in a collage frame that also has a photo of my stepmother in it.

3. She will further recognize that there aren’t enough pictures of HER around.

4. She will complain that the house is too cold at night.

5.  She will recognize that the house is clean and proclaim that housekeeping is a trait I inherited from her (despite the fact that you literally can not walk through her house)

6. When we go shopping for the new sheets I promised her for mother’s day–she will hint heavily about at least four other things that she “needs”.

7. She will complain about the driving of whoever is behind the wheel.

8.  She will engage a complete stranger in a conversation about any or all of the following: A. whatever illness she is suffering from this week, B. my sister’s death, C. the rising price of various commodities.

9. She will provide amusement and embarassment with her complete lack of political correctness.

10. She will attempt to do the laundry.

11. She will inform me that I don’t use the right body soap, the right laundry soap, or the right cleaning products, and suggest the nearest dollar store where the correct items can be purchased.

12. She will, on no less than three occasions, suggest the she be allowed to smoke in A. my car, B. my garage, or C. in my house if she “cracks the window”.  Having been told no to all of these, any trip of more than 20 minutes will have to include a stop in a parking lot so she can light up.

 

Give me strength!

Happy Birthday Sissy!

Tomorrow is/was/would have been my sister’s 26th birthday. (I’m still not sure what tense to use, so forgive me if this post makes you feel like you’re inside the mind of a schizo). She passed away on Valentine’s Day of this year, after several days in a coma following a car accident. My last moment with her was in her hospital room, holding her hand and whispering “You’ve gotta wake up and get better before Mom drives us all crazy!” She squeezed my hand–I knew she could relate. I left the hospital that afternoon and came back home, a 9 hour drive from where she was, thinking that she was at least stable and would pull through, even if her recovery would be long. The next morning I awoke to find a message from an uncle that the pressure on her brain had grown through the night, and there was little hope left. Before I could get back, she was gone. But I swear this won’t be a weepy post. I’d rather remember the laughs and fun we shared.

Last week, my mom said “There’s a bird that’s been waking me up every morning at 7 AM singing outside my bedroom window, do you think that’s your sister?”

“Hell no, she wouldn’t be up that early.” And it’s true. She was not at all a morning person. I remember the morning routine of getting ready for school. It would start out with a gentle “Its time to get up” and escalate quickly into a shouting match that would end in her stomping through the house with a scowl on her face. The only time I recall her eagerly hopping out of bed is when I once went in and told her that Santa Claus had come. She rushed to the living room, and realizing my lie, called me a few choice words. (That it was October might have been her first clue, but who thinks clearly when they are half asleep?)

Of course, she was always a bit dingy, but that was part of her charm I suppose. A few years ago, she called, frantic because she had lost her purse and she and her scuzband-to-be needed to get home from Alabama where he had been working. I agreed to Western Union her some money for bus tickets, but found that Western Union required a password if the recipient doesn’t have photo ID with them, and of course she wouldn’t because of the aforementioned lost purse. So I have her on the phone and tell her “I’ll just make the password the street we grew up on.” to which she replied “Ugh! Just make it something simple like my dogs name!” I guess recalling the street she had spent more than a decade on was too taxing for her. But she’d always had a soft spot for pets, so I guess the name of her boxer was easier.

When we were kids, her pet cat, “Sammy”, a cross-eyed Siamese who always looked drunk, was her constant companion and a constant pain in my ass. I’ve never been one for animals in the house, and took every opportunity to toss his cross eyed carcus out into the yard. She had the habit of closing him up in her room every night, and was too sound a sleeper to hear his scratches at her door when he needed out, so her door frame and wall were scratched to bits by this poor animal who probably desperately needed water or a place to relieve himself. I’ve always been a bit of a perfectionist who likes to keep everything in “as new” condition, so the scratched up trim and walls were reason enough to have the animal put to sleep in my mind. 

One night in  high school one of my oldest friends was sleeping over. (The same friend, it should be said, who was present for the football hotdog incident) As usual, I tossed the cross eyed cat out in the yard before heading to bed. That night, a blizzard blanketed our area with over a foot of snow. My sister awoke the next morning frantic that her cat was missing. She called and called, and he never showed up. We tortured her by striking the pose of the poor feline frozen in place as he pawed at the door to be let in, and assured her that he had no doubt gone to kitty heaven. As the hours passed, and boredom set in, we even fashioned a crude cross in his memory and mounted it to the cat scratched door frame to her bedroom. It should be noted that the cat was merely seeking shelter elsewhere and returned a day or so later, but the whole episode was typical of the pranks we played on her.

Years earlier, we had tossed one of her Barbie dolls into the street, waited for a passing car to run over it, and then, after a few grueling minutes of duct tape “surgery” declared the blonde doll dead and laid her to rest in a Little Debbie cake box buried in the garden.

But our childhood was not all me being the mean big brother. Our neighborhood was a small one of about ten homes, all set on several acres, and the few kids that lived there were mostly roughnecks that we wouldn’t play with. So she and I, in the days before Wii and Playstation, dreamt of wonderful scenarios to occupy ourselves. A few appliance boxes with windows cut into them were added to her small playhouse to form a country villa that entertained us until the next rainstorm turned it into a soggy mess of disintegrating cardboard.  Days inside could be passed by pretending that my bunk beds were a big van and we were on a road trip, or our bedrooms could easily be turned into big city apartments with the addition of a note card taped to the door that bore a distinguished address.

 As she grew into a young woman, it was clear that she had not only inherited our mother’s brilliant  blue eyes, but her taste in men as well. She began  seeing a boy in junior high that we all instantly disapproved of.  I once had to pick her up from his home, which was in a less than desirable part of town. As I made my way up his rutted, gravel driveway I found the way was blocked by a cow. I honked. It mooed. I edged forward. It didn’t budge. I grabbed my cell and called my sister.

“Um…there’s a cow in the driveway.”

“Well just bump it and it will move.” Picturing this beast falling onto the hood of my car as I nudged it with my bumper convinced me that was a bad idea. Suddenly, an extra from Deliverance appeared and shooed the bovine off the driveway, allowing me to pass. I arrived at her boyfriend’s home–which, from the outside, appeared to be a fairly new single-wide trailer. I walked up the steps and swung open the frame of the screen door (the screen was torn away) and walked into the nastiest residence I have ever seen. No less than three dogs had the run of the house. A fourth barged through the door frame and promptly leapt onto an unmade bed and proceded to wallow around on the sheets. Flies buzzed through the house–no doubt attracted to the five foot tower of trash and the piles of dirty dishes and rotting food that filled most of the kitchen. Every step I took on the threadbare carpet sent fleas jumping up my legs.

“Hey!” my sister shouted, “come on in!”

“Um..no, we need to get going. I’ll wait out in the car.” I got the hell out of there.

Mom did her best to keep sis away from the boy,  but my sister was crafty. In order to get as much time with him as possible, she set her father and  his mother up on a date. Sparks flew between them, and in short time, they married–meaning my sister was then dating her stepbrother. (Remember, this is West Virginia)

When she was nineteen, having long since moved out of our mother’s house, she and the boy were having dinner at mom’s. Throughout the evening, he kept calling our mom “mom”, which annoyed her to no end. Finally, she said, “I’m not your mother, so stop calling me that.”

“Actually, you are.” he said, and the news was broken. Months earlier, he and my sister had married in a secret justice-of-the-peace ceremony.  Apparently, it was spur of the moment, as my sister revealed she had said her “I do’s” in a pair of sweat pants. As anyone could have predicted, the marriage didn’t last long. The ink wasn’t even dry on the divorce papers when sis had hooked up with another man of equal caliber–and it was with him that she spent the last years of her life.

Despite a handful of chaotic years, I always felt that she would find her way in the world and turn out OK. As it turns out, this world isn’t the one she was meant for.  So…happy birthday Sis, wherever you are.

 

 

Strange Things I’ve Done to my Penis

Let me start out saying that if you know me in real life, stop now. You probably don’t want to read further. But if you already stomached my narrative on the horrors of being a man at the doctors office, you’ll be fine.

If you made it this far, I’ll continue by saying that I could just as easily write about “Strange things Ive done to my finger” or “weird happenings with my feet” but that would be boring, which is something I try not to be.

From time to time, I have visited tanning beds. I did it in high school to have a nice color for prom. Throughout college and my early career years, I would get a few sessions in before taking a beach trip to get a nice base tan in an attempt to save myself from a sunburn while on vacation. And this month, I’m taking advantage of a month of tanning that was offered by my new gym. Typically speaking, though, I gave up tanning a long time ago. Having the Vinyl Village pool means that I usually get a little sun before any trips, and having the roof open on the car keeps me slightly tanned year round.

I never was, and never will be, one of those people who tans so much that they turn orange. I saw such a creature this past weekend at a fundraiser. The poor thing must have slept in a sunbed every night…she was literally the color of a basketball, and had almost the same texture. I have also never been one for naked tanning, or clever little “press on tattoos” that leave a pasty white image of a Playboy bunny or something equally tacky on the netherregions. I simply hop into the tanning bed with whatever underwear I have on and leave it at that.

Now, before I learned the supportive benefits of boxer briefs, a nice trunk, or a classic tighty whitie, I pretty much stuck to boxers. And that’s what I had on one day when I got into the tanning bed. I’d already had several sessions, so had a good base, and was up to the point where I tanned for about 10 or 12 minutes a session.  So I got down to my boxers, slapped on those goofy looking glasses, and got in.

All seemed well until later that night. My penis was very tender…the slightest bit of friction from walking or moving about was terribly uncomfortable. And it itched slightly. When I got into the shower I noticed the cause–I’d sunburned my dick! The baggy boxers I had been wearing had apparently gaped open at the fly just enough to expose a lemon-shaped wedge of pasty white shaft skin. Well, at least it had been pasty white. Now it was bright red. The shower water hitting me burned. Rubbing against clothes caused almost nauseating pain for at least two days. And then it itched like crazy. A week later, it peeled! And for weeks I had what appeared to be a lemon-shaped liver spot midway up my wang.

But that isn’t all my poor weiner has had to endure. Skip ahead a few years. My roommate in college got a new computer and for the first time, we had the internet in our home. She and I were surfing ebay one night, trying to find something that we actually needed, though I can’t recall what it was.

We came across an auction for one of those penis enlarging “pumps”. The current price was around $2. Jokingly, J, the roomie, put a bid in on it. Now, since she and I were both new to eBay, we had no idea that what we had just bid on was a dutch auction. (Meaning that there are several of the item up for bids, and there’s a good chance all who bid will end up with one.) But that’s what we had done. Bid two dollars on an instrument guaranteed to add inches to your manhood. A few days later, we got the dreaded email :”Congratulations! The auction has ended and you are the winner of the Long Dong Vacuum Schlong” (or whatever it was called). Not wanting to harm our fresh eBay reputation, we ponied up the two dollars and just paid for the damned thing. Within a week, the pump arrived at our door step. It looked like a combination between a test tube on steroids and a blood pressure cuff. We had a laugh, and it got tossed into my closet.

A few weeks later, I went to bed, and for whatever reason, my mind turned to the device in the closet.

“What the heck?” I figured, “Let’s see if this thing works.” So I squeezed through the rubber gasket at the end, and pumped up the little valve. A few moments later, I was the proud owner of a penis that, while not appreciably larger, was a bit more girthy. But it looked like someone was choking it. It was reddish purple, and the pump was not at all comfortable. Fun over, I released the valve and pulled at the pump.

Only, it wouldn’t move. A few painful yanks, and it hadn’t budged. I walked around my room, giant plastic object hanging from my johnson, and found some lotion–hoping that would provide just enough lubricant to extract myself from the pump.

Half a bottle later, I was still stuck and starting to panic. My mind raced. I thought of ugly lesbians, naked old women, and read a passage or two from the Bible, all in an attempt to wither my weinie. None of it worked.

“I could find a hammer to break the plastic!” I thought. It didn’t occur to me that I would also break my wang. The only thing that swayed me from that solution was the realization that the hammer was in the kitchen, two floors beneath me, and I would have to walk past J to get to it. There was no way in hell I was going to explain the predicament to her.

I wrapped myself, and the giant mass  of plastic and rubber at my groin, in a robe and waddled down the hall to my study. Finding a pair of scissors, I reasoned that I could cut the rubber gasket away to free myself. Then I realized there was nothing but skin on the other side and one false move and I’d have to join a support group founded by John Wayne Bobbitt.

By this point, some amount of time had passed and I was having a major panic attack. I was beginning to think the only way I was getting out of that pump was to go to the hospital and have it removed.

“How will I explain that bill to my parents when they get it?”

“What if I get pulled over by the police on the way to the hospital?”

“How can I even face them at the hospital? This is some urban legend shit right here!”

Too mortified to even think of having to share what I was going through with anyone, I decided to try once more to get it off. The throbbing had subsided some, and I figured that either my dick had fallen asleep or it had shrank a bit and the pressure had relieved itself somewhat. I put on a slathering of lotion and pulled hard at the base of the pump. Miraculously, it flew off and landed on the carpet a few feet away.

My unit was dark red, veins bulging as if they might burst any moment. I was so relieved that a visit to the hospital had been averted that I didn’t even care. Over the next few days, a nasty bruise developed at the base of my penis. Dark purple, then fading away over the next few weeks to varying shades of green and yellow. I guess that’s what I got for wondering if the pump worked…

 

I’ve Been Tagged!

Well I have been tagged by TrailerParkBarbie

Here are the rules: 1) Link back to the person who tagged you (that= me!). 2) Post the rules on your blog. 3) Write six things about yourself. 4) Tag six people at the end of your post by posting links to their blog sites. 5) Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their site. 6) And let your tagger know when your entry is up.

Six things about me:

1. I’m not afraid of much, but I can’t even stand the site of a cockroach. Down in the South, they call ‘em “Palmetto Bugs”  You can call them Strawberry Shortcake for all I care, it’s a damned roach and if I even see one across the street I’m likely to scream like a six year old little girl.

2. I once, many years ago,  had an unfortunate incident with  a sex toy from eBay. I’ll make a blog entry on that soon.

3.  I would really like to be a dad. I don’t know if I would be any good at it, since I think pets are too much trouble, but I’d like a kid or two.

4. I used to think if I won the lottery, I would keep working. That was stupid. If I won the lottery, I think I could find enough things to keep me busy without having to show up at an office everyday. me winning=me retiring.

5. Speaking of the lottery, when I was in junior high or high school I had a very realistic dream that I bought 50 lottery tickets and won the very specific amount of $152 million. Once in college, the Powerball hit exactly that number (a record at the time I think) and I was so sure it was my destiny to win it that I wrote a check for 50 lottery tickets that I couldn’t even cover. I beat the odds, all right, I didn’t even win one dollar off any of my 50 tickets.

6. And speaking of bad checks, about four years ago I was writing out bills and balancing my check book as I went along. What I intended to do was write a check for $50 and record my balance as $879. Instead, I wrote the check for $879 and mailed it off. I bounced like 12 things because of that snafu. And I never balanced my checkbook again.

So, I tag the following random assortment of visitors to the Vinyl Village:

Finn

The Reverend

Dr. Murray Trillionaire

Little Miss Sew and Sew

Jodi

and Jennifer

 

My Mom Drives Me Nuts

This is as serious a post as I ever hope to make here. I’ll preface it by saying that I don’t mean any deliberate disprespect…but I just call it like I see it.

My mom drives me nuts. It’s really as simple as that. Other than the job market, there is one reason I live 5 hours from where I grew up, and she is it.

Someone once told my mother that the secret to living the good life was to marry often and marry well. Given that she only listens to half, if that, of what anyone says, she only got the “marry often” part down. I think technically she has only been down the aisle three times, but she has been engaged at least a dozen, and rarely goes more than a few weeks without a live-in. She married my father when she was nineteen, and he was her third fiancee. She remarried about a year after her 4-year marriage to my father ended in divorce. She wisely held on to the second husband for ten years–the magic number at which she could be fully vested in his pension and social security benefits. A slew of long-term boyfriends ensued throughout my teen and college years, and at some point after my own career began, she married husband number three (a homeless looking man whose previous marriage had ended suddenly after he found his first wife in bed with another man and shot them both). I’m pretty sure that she met husband number three after the live-in that preceded him hired him to cut mom’s grass–but, frankly, I can’t always keep up.

As a child and teenager, Mom’s wild and crazy ways could be, at least somewhat, enjoyed. What teenager doesn’t want to go shopping every weekend for new clothes? Who wouldn’t like to get up for school only to be told “Pack your bags! The plane will be here at nine!” (one of the almost-stepfathers actually lived in Florida and his company had a plane that would sometimes spirit us away for a week at the beach). And what teen would really mind that his mother was gone for weeks at a time with whatever gentleman had her fancy that year…particularly if it was a gentleman who (like another almost-stepfather) gave her carte-blanche to spend money on his credit cards and thought that giving her children piles of gifts was just one of many paths to her heart?

At some point after I left for college, her taste in men went decidedly downhill. Prior to that, she had at least dated men who had careers, homes, and their own cars. But after them came a string of lowlifes, all “looking for work” or “drawing disability” or any of the other excuses that such ne’er do wells offer when asked how they spend their days. These were men you’d be embarassed to be seen with at a nice restaurant, who likely had taken much more from society than they contributed, and who carried on conversation with the same vocabulary and mature thought processes as one might expect from a parrot or a two year old.

 But, luckily, I’m five hours removed from most of her drama, and when her phone calls get to be too taxing, I can always make the other phone ring to give myself a convenient excuse to get her off the line.  And they always become too taxing. Mostly because it’s not so much a conversation as it is her speaking into dead air about how she is the victim, disrespected and used by whomever she is dating at the moment, always “sick” “tired” and in need of “a break”. A break from what, I’ve never understood, as she has never worked a day in her life.

Let me take a little detour here. Despite being raised by this flake, I managed to graduate high school and college at the top of my classes. She couldn’t be bothered to attend my college graduation. I went on to have a fairly good career, but she still doesn’t know exactly what I do.  The people I choose to  have in my life are everything the people she chooses to have in her life are not–educated, trustworthy, hardworking, and honest–but rather than be proud that her son has been blessed with true friends, she mostly just seems to see them as other people who might somehow be able to help her out. (”Do you think she could give me a ride?”) While I am far from rich, before I was 30 I managed to own a home that, while normal by most people’s standards, is still larger and more expensive than any home she ever lived in. I travel a good bit, eat out a lot, pay someone to wash my cars and cut my grass, and while I might grumble about rising prices I still buy a gallon of milk whenever I need one and fill my tank when it’s empty. For Average Joe American, I’m just living a normal life. But to her, I’m rich. Better still, I’m her rich son, and therefore an untapped resource when her bills are late, her roots need done, her car breaks, or she sees a set of new sheets she wants. Make no mistake, I rarely send her any money. It’s not a habit I want her getting into. But it doesn’t stop her from not-so-subtly hinting that she wants some almost everytime we talk.  But despite all of this, the only time I can ever recall her being visibly proud of anything I have ever done was last year when I bought myself a convertible for my birthday. I had to drive her past the homes of two ex boyfriends, apparently for no reason other than so they could see her sitting in a nice looking expensive automobile. In the few hours she and I drove around in it, I became more and more embarassed. “It is just a car” I reminded her as she made a show for each stop light, convenience store, and passing neighbor. “I’m just so proud of you!” she exclaimed. Whoopty do. I might buy myself a used and raggedy Geo Metro just to use the next time I have to take her anywhere.

A month or more ago, I invited mom to come here for the weekend of Mother’s Day. I would normally just send a card or some flowers, but you see, my younger sister was killed in a car accident a few months ago, and this will be mom’s first mother’s day without her. Add to it that my sister’s birthday is that same week, and I thought I would do a good deed and get mom to a new place for a few days to take her mind off of things.  Immediately, I sort of regretted making the invitation.

“I can’t smoke in your house can I?” she asked.

“No, but you can smoke on the porch or the patio.”

“What about the garage?”

“No. What’s wrong with smoking outside?”

“I might get cold.”

“It will be 80 degrees outside!”

“You mean you wouldn’t let me smoke in the garage?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Well what kind of clothes would I bring?”

“The kind you don’t need two hairdo’s to wear.”

“Dresses? or jeans?”

“There’s no dress code at my house, just wear what you want.”

I doubt I’ll ever attempt to be nice again.

When I made the invitation, mom and her live-in of the moment were going to come together. As of this week, he is out of the house and the picture. (Although it’s been a few hours since I spoke to her, so that may have changed.) So, apparently, her coming here is now MY problem. My grandmother called last night and said mom told her I was going to come and get her. Because that makes sense? That I would drive five hours, turn around, drive five hours back, then do it all again two days later?

I called mom this morning and explained that, while I was not going to make a total of four trips up and down the interstate in a weekend, I’d happily make two and come home for Mother’s Day.

“But I need to get away from here!” she plead. Well, I’m sorry. It’s not my damned fault that you don’t have a reliable car, money for a plane ticket, or any friends to con into coming with you.

“I could stay a week or two so you wouldn’t have to drive all that way in one weekend. If you could stand me that long.”

Nervous laughter from me. Of course I couldn’t stand you that long. I’d need a prescription of Valium to get through one weekend. After two weeks I’d need to be committed to a hospital.

“Im usually at work 12 hours a day, and two night that week I have after work functions. You’d be bored out of your mind.”

“I don’t mind being alone.”  Then be alone at your own damn house!!

The way I feel right now, she’s getting a card and some flowers as usual because my whole invitation has turned into a microchasm of her whole life–nothing is ever enough, whatever you give her she will always try to get more, and she is the only one and only thing that matters, and the rest of the world is just here for her use and entertainment.

 

There’s a Conspiracy Afoot!

I was talking to a friend of mine earlier this week. She had a car accident some time back. (The accident itself could make for an interesting blog post–but I’ll just say that her parked car was caught amidst a lesbian cat fight that involved drunk driving and a toilet plunger and leave it to you to fill in the rest.) Now, this friend has a nice car–a brand new Acura. She took it to the Acura dealership for repairs, and the lesbian’s insurance company provided a rental. This is where the conspiracy theory comes in. The rental they gave her was a PT Cruiser. Now, I’ll admit that when the PT Cruiser came out I thought it was a cool car. But when you’re used to a luxurious ride and they give you a stripped down Chrysler that has spent it’s life as a rental ashtray  car, you have to wonder what’s up.

And I’ve decided it is a conspiracy forged between insurance companies, car rental places, and auto manufacturers. Take your car in for collision repair, warranty work, or the like and they will give you some piece of crap that is so below what you are used to that you don’t care if your own car comes back three different colors or with worse problems than you took it in for.

I can back this with my own experience. Two cars live in my garage…a big ole SUV that could carry the whole Brady Bunch (if Alice caught a ride with Sam the butcher) and a sportier coupe that really only seats two comfortably (actually, I seem to replace that coupe every few months–but that, too, is a tale for another time).

My last coupe had a whole laundry list of warranty related work that needed to be done over the time I owned it. One of the visits to the shop required that the car stay for five days (because parts were ordered the wrong color, then came in broken, a one day repair turned into a week). The dealership “kindly” gave me a rental. And this was it:

That’s right, the replacement for my sporty little coupe was a giant grocery-getting mom-mobile.

But, when I took the SUV in (again, a one day repair turned into an all-week adventure when they couldn’t figure out why the all wheel drive was malfunctioniong), what do you think they gave me? (shown actual size below):

A roller skate on wheels replaced the SUV. It didn’t even have a CD player, and if you got it up to highway speeds (a task that took about 16 minutes), it shimmied like it was going down the line on Soul Train.

In both of these instances, they replaced the car I took in with something as far removed as possible. All in a twisted scheme to make me so grateful to have my real car back that I never dared take them in for repairs again.

And I think it worked. A few months later, when the little wooden door on the “not an ashtray” fell off, I just traded the car in.

 

 

Midnight in the Garden of White and Trashy

I was driving through, shall we say, an economically challenged neighborhood the other day and had to wonder what in hell the residents were thinking. Does being poor mean tossing out good taste? Does it carry with it some irrational urge to not only save everything but to put it all out in the yard? Every other house it seemed had junk piled around it, lawn furniture and other “goodies” front and center for all to see.

And when I say “junk” I mean “junk”. Old toilets. Piles of lumber. Car parts. Furniture that should long ago have been taken to the dump. And every now and then, evidence that someone had actually tried to make the place feel homey. A sprinkling of flowers….a few pieces of “lawn art”…a birdbath.

I don’t understand it. Do these folks reason with themselves “we’ll use that old toilet for something one day!”? or, “Ain’t  no point throwing away all that busted up lumber! It might come in handy!”. And why in hell would you have your lawn furniture sitting out there with it all? “Merle! Lets go sit out there and look at that pile of car fenders! Whatcha say?”

Then I realized…I grew up in just such a yard!! Well, maybe not quite that bad…but certainly one that stretched the limits of good taste. I blame it on my mom. It was her who put the picnic table, complete with floral umbrella, in the FRONT yard. It was her idea to put the Little Tykes play house on an axis with the front door. It was her who painted everything “redwood”, who decided that some sort of wooden hitching post was the perfect place to hang a pot of begonias. When we got a trampoline, where did it go? The FRONT yard!! Madness! And we weren’t even poor, so this phenomena can’t be laid solely at the feet of those living on meager incomes. (granted, mom and her husband had no clue how to manage money, or what it should be spent on, but they had plenty of it)

And since leaving home, mom has only made it worse. The poorer she gets, the more a spectacle her home becomes. At some point she found an old claw foot tub, and in a moment of shear genius decided it would make a lovely flower bed! It’s right underneath that redwood hitching post. She further decided that the beautiful maple tree in the front yard just wouldn’t be complete without two dozen potted plants sitting around it. (Why not just plant them in the ground??). And those two dozen potted plants are perfectly accented with a piece of driftwood and a large chunk of coal. Nearby, the satellite dish, long ago shut off, is complimented by more potted flowers! Sprinkled throughout are dollar store statues of angels and puppy dogs, a few plastic stones embossed with inspirational sayings, and the requisite “fat lady bending over”.

The flowers and bushes she has are all fine in and of themselves, but they are scattered about with no apparent thought given to their arrangement. The lack of planning makes it impossible to distinguish if something is a weed or a prized specimen.

While there is a perfectly good deck on the back of the house, overlooking a rear yard that is both private and complimented by beautiful flowering dogwood trees, Mom has decided that it is the FRONT yard where the rusty wrought iron patio set and collection of mismatched and faded plastic resin chairs belong.

Lest anyone be tempted to enter this stunning property, and abscond with any of the treasures within, bright “NO TRESPASSING” signs fend off intruders from every corner. (Another item that seems to be a favorite of the economically disadvantaged, as if trespassers are somehow drawn to such spectacles of bad taste). And should anyone wish to direct their motorcar down the gravel and asphalt driveway, they’ll first need to “open the gate” (also known as untying the chain, complete with “no trespassing” sign,  that stretches between two mildewed wooden posts). One must take their security seriously when they serve as Baroness of a White Trash estate!

Why Architectural Digest hasn’t come to photograph her beautiful gardens we may never know. It’s likely that they showed up, and confusing them for a bill collector, she set the dog loose. (Another requirement of a white trash estate seems to be a loud dog that is chained within view of the front door).

Life Will Be Better Once I Have Marble Floors–Won’t It?

I think Americans are obsessed with home improvement. Make no mistake, I’m glad. If not for their obsession with homes, I might spend my days designing prisons and airports (and frankly, I’d rather be castrated with a pair of dull tin snips).

I’m not sure when this obsession began, but it was sometime in the past 15 or 20 years. When I was a kid, homes in even the nicest neighborhoods had vinyl flooring, laminate countertops, and carpet everywhere. It was rare to see crown molding in newer construction. And you redecorated when the old stuff wore out. (or when mom left the tub running and flooded the place.)

But not so now. Even a starter home is thought to be rather low brow if its not outfitted with granite, hardwoods, and enough molding to make it look like a wedding cake. People will tear out perfectly good floors, kitchens, and baths to make room for “something better”, “something  more high-end”, “something more up-to-date.”

And I’m as guilty as anyone. My house isn’t even three years old, and yet it looks almost nothing like it did when that “Sold” sign went up. First up was to paint a few rooms. Then came some molding–crown throughout the downstairs, raised paneling over the fireplace. Of course most of the lights had to be replaced with “something better”.  Then more paint.

Then last winter, a trial run at tiling. The smallest upstairs bathroom was ripped of its perfectly good, perfectly attractive vinyl flooring, and in its place, after three weekends of work, is a lovely ceramic which looks almost exactly like the vinyl it replaced. The project, though time consuming, was easy.

And so three weeks ago, it was time to take on the master bath. Why? Because I looked forward to weeks of stumbling down the hall in the middle of the night in search of an operable bathroom? Because I like tip-toeing over debris to get to my clothes? Because the shock of my feet hitting an ice cold floor will make the mornings easier? Who knows!

But ceramic wouldn’t do. In search of “something more high-end” I got a great deal on some travertine. It’s gorgeous stuff. So one weekend was spent tearing out the perfectly good vinyl flooring, ripping out perfectly good baseboards (they just aren’t tall enough! Life will be so much better with an eight inch baseboard!), and cutting backerboard.  Easy stuff!

But then the dilemma. How to transition the now taller bathroom floor into the carpeted areas that adjoin each end. Off I went to the home improvement store. An hour and a half later (reasons for such a timeline could fill their own post, but I’ll spare you the details) I had lovely marble thresholds and some sort of tack strip to reaffix the carpet.

Weekend two brought the project to a halt. Left on my own, I had decided I would at least get the transitions in place. It proved daunting…the existing metal thresholds will not give up the carpet they are holding in place. Cutting would be necessary. Cringing at the thought of ruining the carpet I don’t wish to replace, and couldn’t afford to replace if I did, I decided to “think on it” a day or so.

In the meantime, I told myself, I can lay out the tiles and get an idea of where to start laying them. This led to the discovery of two uneven spots in the floor. Dammit! I know full well that high spots mean future cracks. Discouraged again, I looked at my “bathroom remodeling” to do list and decided that I only had the strength and ability to tackle one more–call to rent a tile saw. The helpful gal at Home Depot informed me that it was $70 dollars a day and that it was too big to fit in a car. Well, I knew I’d need the saw all weekend, and I only had the little car at my disposal.

In a fit of shear genius, I did the math. The tile saw was going to cost at least $140 to rent. Then two days would be spent installing the tile, with a high risk of cracks and nasty looking carpet transitions. I decided to find a professional. So much for do it yourself.

A Message from Mom

 

So I don’t always have the best cell phone reception in my office. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Apparently I missed a call from my mother this morning, because I just had a new voice mail from her that cracked me up.

 ”Hi handsome! It’s your mommy. I wanted to tell you that Madonna is on the cover of Vanity Fair this month, and I thought you’d want to go out and get yourself a copy.”

God bless her for trying.