Problems

So I'm standing outside the other night by the side door of my house, smoking a cigarette. My porch light, despite having a light bulb purported to be invisible to bugs and therefore won't attract any, attracts bugs like a magnet, regardless of the season. Lately I've seen one or two of those gi-normous "garden" spiders that I was told by my very competent exterminator are "harmless". I'm sure you know what I'm talking about - those massive, striped freaks of nature that build those huge ropey webs that stretch literally six feet across. I feel like I need a spear and a machete and Kevlar body armor whenever I go outside. Since I don't have any of those things readily available I go outside armed with my broom.

Well, there's been one of those spiders hanging out right in the corner of the house next to the door where I smoke. A spider that looks like it crawled out of Chernobyl. Jay is outside with me on this particular night. I'm all Mission Impossible 4 trying to keep my eye on it so I'll know exactly where it is the whole time I'm out there. So I take my eyes off of it for one second because Jay is teasing me about my arachnophobia. Which, admittedly, I do have.

It was only for a second. A split second. And that was all it took. I look back up and that decroded piece of crap spider is gone. Vanished. And Jay is like, is this a problem for you that you can't see where he went?

This is a problem like herpes is a problem. Like climbing Mount Everest in a string bikini and stripper heels is a problem.

I still haven't found it. I'm so getting a machete.

Inspiration

Okay, so I was all inspired by Cousin Lu's redesigned blog and decided I had to keep up with the times. However, I may have gone just a bit overboard. But then, I tend to do that during basketball season. Everything turns a perplexing shade of light blue and I find myself with a Tourette's-like display of various Tarheel fight songs, cheers, and expletives regarding whatever game is still replaying in my head.

My boyfriend always says that as soon as basketball season rolls around we do this whole Freaky-Friday-Body-Snatchers thing where we have this inexplicable role reversal. I'm on the couch with a cup of herbal tea (read: Corona) watching the game (or having the score texted to my cell phone at two and a half minute intervals if I can't watch it on TV or listen to it on the radio), and I'm wearing all my Heels gear and screaming incoherently at the TV at intervals. I refuse to make any plans whatsoever on the days that I know there are games. He, on the other hand, is now standing around with his arms crossed complaining that I'm not paying any attention to him. And I'm all, after the freaking game, already. Now move. I can't see the shot clock.

See, he's from up north. Way up north. Yep, one 'o them thar Yankees. He's from Massachusetts, but he's lived here in North Carolina since he was eleven. He is now twenty-nine. (and he still thinks if we drive a couple of hours in either direction it'll be something straight out of Deliverance.) He still doesn't get the whole basketball thing down south, because apparently up north they have some weird sport called "hockey". I've tried several times to explain that this is just the way I grew up, that I love basketball anyway and for heaven's sake every member of my family graduated from UNC except for me. And I have a big family.

But he doesn't get it. At all. He actually leaves the house when there's a game on and refuses to watch it with me. Unless Carolina is playing Boston College, and then he watches and cheers for Boston College, just to see me have a myocardial infarction because he is on the brink of death, Deliverance-style, in my house. And he always goes, I don't understand why you southern people who love basketball always say "we" when you're talking about your team. It's not like you're out there playing, right? So, how is it "we"?

He's not a very big sports fan. But that's okay. Because I have enough team spirit for both of us.

So, anyway. Basketball season is here, the season opener was tonight against Davidson, we won. I like my ram on this new page, but I'm not sure about the basketballs. I'll think about it.....

Family

I remember as a kid the excitement and anticipation that was always associated with Thanksgiving and Christmas. That hasn’t really changed much, but then I don’t think I’ve really grown up much either. And I’ll tell you, a lot of the anticipation had to do with the fact that my family did the same thing every year. The “same thing” might sound really boring and whatever, but it wasn’t at all.

I have an extremely close-knit extended family. Growing up, this was no big deal to me. I thought this was just what families did and why should my family be any different from anybody else’s? The older I got, though, the more I realized that there was a reason for the expressions of surprise and even envy on the faces of my friends when I described my family’s holiday traditions. My family really is the exception to the rule I think, in more ways than one.

I remember every year piling in the car with my sister and my mom and my dad to drive the few miles to Grandmother and Granddaddy’s house. They had lived there literally for as long as I could remember and we went there all the time just to visit, and every single Thanksgiving and Christmas without fail. There was always the excitement of seeing my cousins and aunts and uncles that we hadn’t seen for awhile maybe, and my sister Betsy and I would start planning weeks ahead of time and counting down the days. We also have a large family – my mother is one of five sisters, all of whom have at least one daughter if not more, and there are a couple of sons thrown in for good measure.

There are lots of things I remember particularly about those days. I remember the Scary Guy who lived next door to my grandparents who was very mysterious, and we made up stories about him that scared the living hell out of us. I remember the basement that was crammed full of old toys and dress-up clothes and dolls and stuffed animals, and how the basement would get really spooky if you were down there by yourself, and how you wanted to look over your shoulder in the dark but just squeezed your eyes shut instead and ran back up the stairs. I remember the stool my grandmother used to sit on and smoke her cigarettes, dye Easter eggs, shell pecans, and distribute cookies from the huge cookie jar she kept for us young ones. I remember late at night after the meals when the kids would be playing outside, one or two of us would run inside to use the bathroom or get a snack and see all the grownups sitting together, talking about Deep Things, and we would wonder how they could be so insufferably boring all the time. I remember making a jump rope out of Grandmother’s old scarves tied together end-to-end and attached at one end to the stair railing in the basement so you only needed two people to jump rope. I remember the little shed and the pile of things next to it in the backyard that Grandaddy kept so carefully organized, and how we kids would go out there to build a fort, usually under the direction of Allie. I realized a few years ago thinking back on it that our grandfather never once in all those years said a word about us messing up his stuff. Never once, and he always went out after we left and cleaned everything up in his slow, purposeful way. He is a man of few words, but a huge heart. I remember the huge spreads of home-cooked food on the old gold-flecked Formica countertops in the kitchen. I remember the old organ that used to sit on the other side of the kitchen that barely played, but it would if you banged really hard on the sticky keys. I remember the piano in the “parlor” that we cousins who knew how would play at Christmas. I remember all of us crammed into that selfsame parlor every Christmas, surrounded by our grandmother’s elaborate Christmas decorations and the tree and all the lights, and piles of wrapping paper and all the moms reminding the cousins to say thank you to whoever for their gifts. I remember every single Christmas Grandmother and Granddaddy giving each cousin a Christmas ornament, a tradition we didn’t much care for as kids. But now? Every time I decorate my tree for my own kids at Christmas, and I hang those ornaments on my tree, the memories of all those Christmases past and the memories of my grandmother make me smile. She loved Christmas.

We lost Grandmother a few years ago. Towards the end she really couldn’t speak much, or chose not to because it required too much effort and pain. I remember when I brought my boys, just three days old and fresh out of the hospital right after Thanksgiving, she indicated by gestures that she wanted to hold them. I will never forget that day. She sat in her old rocking chair with a pillow on her lap and the boys on the pillow, just rocking and rocking and looking at them. She sat like that for hours. Not too long after that day she passed away, and most of the family was there at her home to be with her. The sisters, her daughters, joined hands around her bed, my grandfather on his knees beside her, holding her hand. Someone started to sing a hymn, one of her favorites. She died surrounded by the people who loved her the most.

That is what our family is, and has always been, about.

Things are different now. We feel the loss of Grandmother keenly when we’re together. The cousins are all grown and we have lives and families of our own. There are great-grandchildren for Grandaddy and new husbands and wives, new boyfriends and girlfriends, and new fiancés. Some of us are no longer there – divorce has affected us too. Some of us are now one who used to be two, and some of us are five where we used to be one. Some of us have been touched by the horror and uncertainty of the war in Iraq. Some of us have graduated high school, college or grad school. Some of us have new jobs, new houses, new babies. Our views on life have changed perhaps as we’ve changed and grown. Holiday celebrations are no longer at Grandmother and Granddaddy’s house. That house with its rooms filled with memories was sold after my grandmother’s death. I remember though, every time I drive by the street. We go to different places now, homes of aunts and uncles.

The one thing that’s never changed about these holiday celebrations is that everywhere we go, wherever we end up for whatever holiday or special occasion, there is always, always love there, and constant laughter. No matter how much things have changed for each individual person or family, the heartache and loss we’ve survived, births and deaths we’ve blessed and let go, all the little things that make up this eclectic mixture of people we call family, that love has never changed. Ever. And it never will. We cousins who remember this stuff may not be kids anymore, but those memories will stay with us forever. They really were, and are, a defining force in our lives, and I am so thankful that I get to experience this kind of love and this kind of family. Now we watch our own kids (and innumerable and beloved dogs) play with each other, and we’re the ones who sit and talk about Deep Things. And now we understand. We sit and we tell stories of when we were little and laugh until we cry and some of us are more than a little tipsy. And every time we get together, we build and we build and we build, and we learn something new about each other and poke fun at each other for the stupid things we’ve done growing up.

We’re different now, but still the same. Always the same. I love and cherish each and every one of them.

Spreading Christmas Cheer Betsy-Style

Gist of a phone conversation with my sister, Betsy, as she sits in a bar in Chapel Hill on a particularly bad day for her. For those of you who don't know my sister, she has that wonderful personality trait of having just as much fun by herself as she does with other people and doesn't think twice about doing things that may make other people think she's weird. Culturally or socially acceptable means absolutely nothing to her, and people love her for it. Also, for those of you who don't know her, she is very beautiful and has a magnetic personality and is no stranger at all to guys trying to pick her up on a regular basis, even ones that know she's married. She's so cool.

Betsy: So my day really really sucked.

Me: Really? Why?

Betsy: Well, (goes into a long conversation about how people at her then-job were driving her insane and how ridiculous they were that particular day, and other things that I will not mention here to protect the identities of people involved.)

Me: Oh. Wow, that really sucks, Bets. I'm sorry.

Betsy: Yeah, so now I'm sitting here in this random bar in Carrboro because I really needed to just come and sit by myself and have a drink and smoke a cigarette and recharge, you know?

Me: Yeah.

Pause in the conversation as I hear a guy come up to my sister in the bar and try to pick her up. He says, hey baby, you look -

She doesn't miss a beat. Doesn't turn around, just whips up the hand holding the cigarette so all the guy can see is the back of her head and her hand in his face holding a cigarette, and without batting an eyelash and without her facial expression changing one iota, she immediately interrupts and says:

Nope, sorry. The inn is full.

And goes right on talking to me as though nothing in the world has just happened.

I wish I was that cool.

Intellectual Musing

Okay, so this is my most recent intellectual musing, my sister Betsy being Exhibit A.

When one wishes to quit smoking, one might decide to sashay to the local drugstore and pick up a box of nicotine patches. First line of attack, right? Nicotine patches. Easy, breezy, beautifully simple. Rip it open, slap it on, and grit your teeth for the long haul. Perhaps you know someone who has tried to quit smoking before. It ain't pretty. You shake, you're nervous and irritable, your head is pounding and your mouth is dry, your stomach is upset. Everything you see reminds you of cigarettes. You'll be driving down the road chewing your nails to the quick because you're not smoking while you're driving. You pull up to a stoplight, glance out the window and down onto the shoulder of the road where you see, say, a toothpick. Immediately the nicotine receptors in your brain go into kamikaze mode and the only thing you can think about is a cigarette. I mean, even the lovely shade of metallic green of the car next to you reminds you of the green packaging of a box of Marlboro Menthol Lights.

It really is pretty terrible.

So, my sister decided to quit smoking. She goes to the store and buys a few dozen boxes of nicotine patches. (To me this is like helping a heroin junkie come off of heroin by giving them more heroin, except they don't have to stick themselves with a dirty needle. But whatever.) So she buys the patches, feels fantastic, she's finally going to quit smoking after numerous tries. She triumphantly throws the very last cigarette away and opens the box of nicotine patches.

I get a call from Betsy a few hours later. I want an update on how she's feeling, is she all motivated and whatnot, do the patches work. There's an ominous pause. I'm like, Betsy. What are you doing? And she says, smoking a cigarette. And I go, oh, so the patches don't really work then. And she goes, no, no, they do. It's just so much easier to light a cigarette than it is to get through the packaging to the actual patch.

Which is so true. If the manufacturer of these patches really had any idea how fast we smokers need to be able to get into those patches and slap one on, the packaging would dissolve in your mouth in nanoseconds. I mean, you're really really needing a cigarette, but you stand firm. You refuse to smoke your emergency cigarette. So you're clawing frantically at the wrapper on the patch screaming at the voices to shut up and the ghost of your dead parakeet to get off your freaking shoulder already, and you can't get into the patch. So to save your sanity, you go and light up.

This is false advertising. How can it possibly help your cravings if you can't get the blasted thing open, much less stuck to whatever patch of flesh you can most quickly reach? IT CAN'T.

Rules for Roommates

Here are just a few tips and pointers for those of us who live with a roommate or spouse. I have found these to be very useful in a trial and error sort of way.

• If you have a driveway that is exactly wide enough for one vehicle and you know that vehicle has to get in and out quite frequently, it would make sense then not to park behind it. This will save you the trouble of working yourself into a fit of high dudgeon when the owner of the blocked-in vehicle asks you to move it.
• There is, for your convenience, an innovative contraption located directly next to the sink called a dishwasher. Because it’s so close to the sink, so close that you don’t even have to move, try opening that door one day and check it out. That’s where we put our dishes when your roommate doesn’t feel like washing your crap by hand, which will most likely be quite frequently. It washes the dishes for us. That being said, the drying rack in the sink with the clean dishes in it is for clean dishes. Not the dirty ones you put in there because you felt like the other side of the sink was boring. The technological marvel of the dishwasher does, however, have the annoying setback of being unable to empty or load itself. Thusly, it may require that you move your hand about six inches from the sink to the open dishwasher to place your dirty dish inside. I know this is asking a lot, but it really does work.
• Silverware doesn't work well in the disposal.
  
• Putting a coffee mug or cereal bowl in the sink and filling it with water and leaving it for your roommate to decide what to do with doesn’t count as cleaning it up.
• If you decide to take it upon yourself to clean the kitchen, oh happy day, it is much appreciated. However, due to the bleaching properties of bleach, colored and/or decorative dish towels should not only not be used to clean the counters, but they should certainly not be used with bleach to clean the counters.
• If your roommate has told you a hundred times not to turn the temperature on the clothes dryer up past low (because it gets very, very hot and will shrink your clothes) , this is for your own good and the good of your clothes, and thus you have no reason to complain or point fingers when your favorite pair of winter socks comes out of the dryer as a pair of finger condoms.
• If you are a male roommate and you are above the age of five, there’s no excuse for pee on the toilet seat. You have no problem finding and aiming at other things, so you shouldn’t have any problems with the comparative Grand Canyon of the toilet bowl.
• If you are a male roommate and you use all the toilet paper on the roll, please replace it with a new roll. The reasoning behind this is simple. Women use toilet paper every single time they use the toilet versus your once or twice a day, and drip-drying is really unpleasant, as is looking like a stroke victim as we lurch across the bathroom searching for another role of toilet paper.
• No one is interested in the reasons why you can’t find the dirty clothes hamper.
• If you are a female roommate: While your efforts at maintaining a shower drain clear of hair are appreciated, it is a bit off-putting to find that the shower wall looks like it’s grown a pelt.
• Open tin cans in the refrigerator are gross. Not only is it unsanitary, but the fact that there’s even a possibility that the remaining contents of that open tin can will be ingested is just vile. Not that botulism isn’t fun or anything.
• For male roommates, when you shave your face it would be lovely if you would wipe up the beard/nose/ear hair clippings out of the sink.
• A word of advice – do not use a fork to scrape your scrambled eggs out of your roommate’s Teflon nonstick frying pan. For those of you who are unaware, the pointed fork tines will ruin the nonstick coating, thus making the pan no longer coated with Teflon, and thus rendering the pan useless for nonstick cooking activities. Note: Nonstick cookware is generally not what we would call generously priced.
  
• Do not leave items made of plastic on a hot stove. Fire Education 101: They will melt.
• If you are making toast in the toaster, generally toast only requires a minute or so of toasting, even to get nice and black and crunchy. If your toast bursts into flames you’ve probably had it in there too long, and there’s nothing like having your kitchen smell like charred buffalo for two weeks.
• It is detrimental when you berate your roommate when you discover that you have no clean clothes. Last time I checked, you can’t deposit quarters into your roommate’s open mouth and expect your clothes to get clean. This was most likely not a dispensation in your lease agreement.
• Do not use a sponge relegated specifically to cleaning the bathroom or the cat's litterbox to wash dishes. If you choose to do so, please mark the area where you store these dishes with your name so as to avoid confusion.
• It's a funny thing about houses - they burn down. Just because the oven dial says that the gas is turned to low does not mean it's off. There is a difference between "low" and "off". You'll remember this perhaps as you drift off into a delightful carbon monoxide-induced eternal sleep, or when the house spontaneously combusts when you light that candle.
  

There is, however, a solution to all of these problems that will restore the roommate relationship and create harmony and peace in the home:

Live alone.

Things I Hate

1. Anything resembling an alarm clock.

2. The O.C. I find this drivel insulting to my intelligence as a Generation X-er.

3. Rap music. How anyone can make money off of a song with words like "do yo' chain hang low, do it wobble to and fro / Can you tie it in a knot / Is it platinum or gold" is completely out of my realm of understanding.

4. Traffic, and people who can't drive in it. I am not one of these people. (Please see Cousin Lu's blog for an informative and enlightening view of idiot drivers.)

5. Going to the dentist. Sorry, Dad, but it's true.

6. Having my boobs checked for lumps by a doctor who has all the finesse of Edward Scissorhands.

7. The buyer's remorse I have after any purchase, be it toilet paper or a car.

8. Plunging toilets.

9. The games of "Find the Feces" that my son loves to play when he whips off his Pull-Up before I can get to him to change it. The clean-up is so much fun.

10. Time Warner Cable's monopoly on every technological service that connects us to the outside world.

11. Duke basketball.

12. The fact that, as of today, gas is now $3.05. Which means I'll need to look into purchasing a rickshaw.

Things I Love

1. My children. Most of the time.

2. The fact that the Bojangles down the street from my house has a sanitation grade of 100.

3. The TV show "House M.D.", whose lead character Greg House, M.D. is played by the brilliant Hugh Laurie, whose birthday, incidentally, is the same as mine. This is not coincidence.

4. America's Next Top Model. I was on that show once. Only it wasn't called America's Next Top Model then. It was called America's Next Top Drag Queen.

5. Anything resembling a book.

6. The Lord of the Rings. I'm one of those freaks who loves this trilogy so much that I actually have J.R.R. Tolkien's initials tattooed on my arm, along with a phrase in Elvish written in Bilbo Baggins's handwriting. Yes. I did that. And no, it had nothing to do with the movie, although they were fabulous. I read this book for the first time when I was 7 years old, and have not put it down since. It's what I'm reading when I'm in between other books.

7. The movie Dead Poets Society. If you haven't seen this movie, don't ever speak to me again because we simply cannot coexist in the same galaxy.

8. Carolina basketball. (Please see list of Things I Hate for information on Brandan Wright deciding to put his name in the NBA draft and not return to UNC next year.)

9. Dooce.com. The author of this blog/website, Heather Armstrong, is a gem among women.

10. My Sesame Street blanket that was made for me by my great-grandmother as a baby gift for my mother, and with which I still sleep at 27 years of age. This is a subject of many "jokes" from those close to me.

11. The Pittsburgh Steelers. Though I have never been to Pittsburgh and should probably be a fan of the Carolina Panthers, the Steelers have a pretty sweet football team.

12. Mr. Mike's Used Books, a lovely store about five minutes away from my house where I can buy used books for two or three dollars.

13. Candles.

14. The fact that I have never and will never pay for a toothbrush.

Anatomy Lesson

So the boys are outside playing in the backyard. I’m working on the computer by the window and I hear a crack and a really loud thump. I look out the window and here comes Jonathan, crying and rubbing his face.

Me: "Hey, buddy, what happened? Are you okay?"

Jonathan: "Jijah hurt me!"

Me: "What did he do?"

Jonathan: "He hurt me wif the stick."

Me: "Where does it hurt, buddy?"

Jonathan: (takes his hand away from his face and points to his left eye) "Right here in my tepsticle."

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Elijah: "Mommy, can we have chicken nuggets and Fwench fries for supper?"

Me: "No, buddy. Not tonight. We’re going to have mac and cheese and green peas."

Elijah: "I! DON’T! WANT! THAT!"

Me: "Don’t start, Elijah. You love green peas. What’s wrong with green peas?"

Elijah: (tears rolling down his cheeks) "IT WILL MAKE ME SICK! IT WILL CUT MY FINGERS!"

Me: "???"

Elijah: "IT WILL MAKE ME FART IN MY BIG-BOY PANTS AND POOP ALL OVER LIGHTNING McQUEEN!"

(note to reader: His big-boy pants are from the movie Cars and have a huge Lightning McQueen on the rear.)

Me: "Elijah, please don’t say “fart”. That’s not a nice word. You can say “pass gas”. That’s nicer." (Inner monologue: Did I say fart or something? Geez, I’m really trying to be careful about things like this. They repeat everything.)

Elijah: "I NOT! I WON’T EAT GWEEN PEAS!"

Me: "Well, that’s fine. I’ll just save your plate then until you’re ready to eat it. You let me know when you’re ready to eat and I’ll warm it up for you."

Jonathan: (sighs dramatically) "Mommy, Jijah’s bein’ a big butthead."

Me: "Jonathan, we don’t say that! Butthead is not a nice thing to say at all! Don’t say that again, please. Who told you that word?" (Inner monologue: ???)

Elijah: "FOR SHIZZLE!"


Dear Lord. Thanks, Snoop Dogg. And thanks, Daddy.

Note To Readers

I have two lists that I'll be posting periodically. One is a list of Things I Hate and the other is a list of Things I Love. I'll be adding to these as things come to mind, so check these out every now and then if you'd like.

Firsts

First of all, I would like to issue an official apology and retraction to Leslie for any and all comments made about her not posting anything since March 18th. I have very much fallen off of the posting wagon myself, as my faithful readers (if I have any left) have no doubt noticed. I have missed it, and I couldn't put it off any longer.

It's been almost a month since I last posted, and my little family has had a lot of firsts in that time. First Trip to the Dentist Who Just Happens To Be Poppy, First Trip To The Movies, First Electrocution. Yes. A lot has happened indeed.

Jonathan and Elijah had their "teefies" cleaned for the first time last week. Just for some background for those of you who don't know, my father is a dentist, and a thumpin' good'un at that. And for those of you who have ever heard the expression "the shoemaker's kids go barefoot", I can verify that this is true. Were it not for patient persistence and gentle reminders I would have had dentures by now (they would have been Really Great Dentures, though). But I digress. So the boys went to see my dad for their very first teeth-cleaning and dental examination. I had lived in trepidation of this day for weeks ahead of time, and really didn't know how I was going to handle both boys in the office. I also had an appointment to have my teeth cleaned, and I wondered how I would supervise my little bulls in the china shop of life. But to my great surprise, it really went well. Extraordinarily well. So well that there's really not much to tell. Jonathan got to wear a really cool pair of sunglasses while he was in the chair, and Elijah had his trusty, ever-present toy he takes wherever he can't take his Blue Blanket, a toy model of Mr. The King from the movie Cars, and he will gravely inform anyone who will listen that he is holding Mr. The King. This is his talisman. Jonathan really didn't care to bring anything to the dentist appointment. He was fine with the idea of great treats to come after finishing at Poppy's office. I really was taken completely aback at how well they did. I had braced myself for much worse, but my worries were completely unfounded.

The thing I really wanted to talk about in this post is the momentous First Electrocution. I'm going to get the Worst Parent In the Galaxy Award for this, but really, it was a little bit funny. Let me preface the description of this event by saying that it wasn't at all a severe electrocution. Just a little one. But every time I think about it I have an unholy desire to let out a shriek of laughter. So let me explain with a little background. Jonathan is by nature a very curious child. He wants to know what it is, why it is, and what it takes to break it. I've tried to encourage as much curiosity as I can because I know that it will serve him well later in life and perhaps allow him to discover some things about himself that will help him to balance his very intense personality and inquisitive spirit. Bless him. So something we've been struggling with for the last several months is Jonathan discovering electrical outlets and wanting to know the why and wherefore of them. We have very carefully childproofed all of the electrical outlets in the house to discourage this desire of his. We have the little plastic pieces that you push into the outlets to cover them, and we also have plastic outlet covers that actually cover outlets that are being used with a little hole in the bottom for the cords. These reduce even me to a cursing, sweating heap. Another thing we've noticed is that Jonathan has an all-consuming fascination with keys, and not just any keys. They have to be recognized as being used on a regular basis by Mommy and Daddy or Auntie Betsy or whoever. Jonathan and Elijah both have phenomenal memories, and Jonathan knows on sight what keys belong to whom and what they go to. He figured out about a year ago how to lock and unlock the deadbolt on the front door and what key did that. He knows the keys that unlock Mommy's Monster Truck and Daddy's car, and he knows how to unlock them. We've tried over the last year or so to provide both boys with keys - nice big plastic keys in primary colors. Nothing doing. He knew they weren't "real keys", just like he knows that plastic coins arent' "real money". So we gave them keys to play with with cool keychains and an unused or unknown key attached. Nothing doing. He just looked at them and looked at us like, "Are you stupid?" So one day Jay (my long-time boyfriend and the only father my children have ever known) needed to go to Home Depot for something or another, as guys are wont to do, and Jonathan and Elijah adore the Home Depot. They refuse to even acknowledge the existence of Lowes, screaming "Home Depot" over and over again whenever we pass one. So Jay, lovely man that he is, offered to take Jonathan and Elijah with him to the Home Depot and get them out of the house for a while so I could work. So off they went to the Home Depot. Later, Jonathan and Elijah run into the house in a transport of delight, screaming that Daddy had gotten them keys! So they proudly showed me their new keys. I was thrilled because it meant that I would never had to search for my car keys again down the back of somebody's diaper or stuffed into George, my favorite houseplant. Apparently they had a display rack at the store that had a bunch of specialty keys on it, keys painted or printed with designs or Disney characters. So Jay let the boys pick one key each. Elijah picked a Finding Nemo key and a blue wrist coil thing to put it on his wrist. Jonathan picked a Tinkerbell key and a green wrist coil. He's never seen Tinkerbell before so I thought that was funny that my little reincarnation of Atilla the Hun would choose a Tinkerbell key. These keys were great. They carried them everywhere and played with them nonstop.

Now we come to the real story. I had to explain the background because you have to understand how much Jonathan loved his key and how curious about things (i.e. electrical outlets) he was. Is. We have tried with many different means to discourage Jonathan from putting anything into electrical outlets, but Jonathan is stubborn and the louder he is told no the harder he tries to do whatever we're telling him no about. And this is really something you can't demonstrate to a kid - it's not like you can stick something into an electrical outlet and then say here's why you shouldn't do this. We tried to explain in simple but forceful words, pantomiming sticking something into the outlet and screaming OUCH!!!! Jonathan's eyes just glazed over and he started drooling, so we figured we had gotten the point across as best we could. So a few days ago Jonathan is playing with his Tinkerbell key and with Elijah's Nemo key. I was sitting at my computer working, pushing a hideous deadline and therefore forgetting that I had removed one of the outlet covers to vacuum a day or so previously in the living room, which is where we spend most of our time and is a large, open room. The boys were watching Sesame Street, which is normally completely engrossing for them. Jonathan saw the uncovered outlet and sensed his opportunity. This kid can move, people. I mean he shot off the couch, double-fisting those keys and was gone. If I had had time to listen closely enough I would have heard the theme song from Chariots of Fire. Sure enough, he had shoved both keys in that electrical outlet before I could even unwedge my ass from underneath the armrests of my computer chair. I heard something that sounded like glass breaking and irrationally I thought he had somehow broken a light bulb or something. He yelped and flew to the other side of the room in tears, as far away from that outlet as he could get. Jay came crashing in from where he had been sound asleep since he was working third shift that night. I bent down in front of Jonathan, terrified that I had just killed my child even though it was patently obvious that I had not since Jonathan was wringing his hands and very earnestly trying to explain why he did what he did, trying to avoid being punished for doing something he knew not to do. Jay had gotten the keys that were on the floor in front of the outlet and the first half-inch of the pointed ends of both keys were charred and black. I really was scared to death, but after checking Jonathan and seeing that he really was okay and at this point he had stopped crying, I guess my relief just made me crack. I started to laugh because Jonathan looked so funny and forlorn with his eyes as big as saucers, looking at that outlet like it was the portal to the very bowels of the underworld. He looked at me and he said, "Fire came out of dat wall, Mommy!" and I just laughed and laughed and hugged him close. When I could breath again I asked him if he knew now why Mommy and Daddy had said never to touch outlets, and he said yes, and was it okay if Daddy did it to see if it would happen again?

We threw the keys away and replaced every single outlet cover in the house, and Jonathan gives the outlets a wide berth nowadays. Lesson learned, though he learned it the hard way. Not the easiest way to learn things, but he'll sure have some stories to tell! My Dad calls this the Two-By-Four method: If you get hit in the face with a two-by-four enough times, you eventually learn to duck.

Silence

Things I Love

1. My children. Most of the time.

2. The fact that the Bojangles down the street from my house has a sanitation grade of 100.

3. The TV show "House M.D.", whose lead character Greg House, M.D. is played by the brilliant Hugh Laurie, whose birthday, incidentally, is the same as mine. This is not coincidence.

4. America's Next Top Model. I was on that show once. Only it wasn't called America's Next Top Model then. It was called America's Next Top Drag Queen.

5. Anything resembling a book.

6. The Lord of the Rings. I'm one of those freaks who loves this trilogy so much that I actually have J.R.R. Tolkien's initials tattooed on my arm, along with a phrase in Elvish written in Bilbo Baggins's handwriting. Yes. I did that. And no, it had nothing to do with the movie, although they were fabulous. I read this book for the first time when I was 7 years old, and have not put it down since. It's what I'm reading when I'm in between other books.

7. The movie Dead Poets Society. If you haven't seen this movie, don't ever speak to me again because we simply cannot coexist in the same galaxy.

8. Carolina basketball. (Please see list of Things I Hate for information on Brandan Wright deciding to put his name in the NBA draft and not return to UNC next year.)

9. Dooce.com. The author of this blog/website, Heather Armstrong, is a gem among women.

10. My Sesame Street blanket that was made for me by my great-grandmother as a baby gift for my mother, and with which I still sleep at 27 years of age. This is a subject of many "jokes" from those close to me.

11. The Pittsburgh Steelers. Though I have never been to Pittsburgh and should probably be a fan of the Carolina Panthers, the Steelers have a pretty sweet football team.

12. Mr. Mike's Used Books, a lovely store about five minutes away from my house where I can buy used books for two or three dollars.

13. Candles.

14. The fact that I have never and will never pay for a toothbrush.

Things I Hate

1. Anything resembling an alarm clock.

2. The O.C. I find this drivel insulting to my intelligence as a Generation X-er.

3. Rap music. How anyone can make money off of a song with words like "do yo' chain hang low, do it wobble to and fro / Can you tie it in a knot / Is it platinum or gold" is completely out of my realm of understanding.

4. Traffic, and people who can't drive in it. I am not one of these people.

5. Going to the dentist. Sorry, Dad, but it's true.

6. Having my boobs checked for lumps by a doctor who has all the finesse of Edward Scissorhands.

7. The buyer's remorse I have after any purchase, be it toilet paper or a car.

On Gratitude

I just wanted to say a great big juicy THANK YOU to the people who have encouraged me to write, and write well, and who have been so incredibly, amazingly supportive and empathetic to me as I begin my fledgling writing career. I can't name them all, so I'll just name a few key players in this new obsession of mine:

Leslie Ruth, my cousin, to whom I swear that we will one day collaborate on a book on The Coolest Dysfunctional Southern Family Ever. I love you very much and miss you out there in Texas. I think we've both grown and changed very much in the last few years, and I'm glad you're my cousin, Cousin! Where would The Family be without our favorite Drama Queen? (Well, first favorite. It's apparently genetic, so second favorite would be Lila.)

Rebecca, who really has no idea what she means to me and probably never will because she is so infuriatingly modest, or what she did when she, a True Teacher, brought literature to life for a chubby freshman in English class. And who, years later, is not only still a Teacher of sorts to me, but a Friend and Fellow Woman.

My Dad, who all of my life told me that one of the things I must do in life is to master the written and spoken word. Hopefully I've started my journey there, and May It Never End. And also for everything he has done for me, things much too numerous to mention here, but he knows what they are and how much I am grateful.

My Precious, Precious Mom, who is herself a former teacher of English literature, and whom I can call at any time of night or day if I forget what a past participle is or where it goes in a sentence, who lovingly reminds me to never end a sentence in a preposition, and who has always encouraged me to write and to read because she knows this is Truly What I Love to Do (Is "do" a preposition, Mom?). And that was just for the writing part of the thank you. Everything else she has done for me would take a lifetime's worth of blogs to even skim over, but she should know how much I love her.

My sister, who told me that my blog was even more addictive than American Idol. No higher praise than this can be given. Besides, she's going to be famous one day and she can promote my writing from the red carpet.

My best friends Kim and Lizzie, who don't read my blog. But they do everything friends should do and more: Encourage, support, babysit, dye hair, and not make fun of my favorite book in the world being The Lord of the Rings. They have no idea how they have kept me afloat since high school, and how much of my life is possible because of them.

My boyfriend Jay, for calling my writing "constipated", and making me laugh and then give my writing an enema. I hope it's improved, darling.

My family, including but not limited to aunts, uncles, cousins, and everyone else who can lay claim to the name of Cruise. I am so fortunate to have a family like mine, and all of them were so supportive of my idea to begin writing, and even excited to read what I had to say! I love all of them dearly and desperately, though they may not know it. Also thank you to my family for providing unlimited stories to tell and retell with much laughter over the years, and for providing much fodder for this very blog, yet to be written.

There are so many others I thank as well. I know this sounds like an Oscars award acceptance speech (cue the music for the one who went way over her time limit), but gratitude and joy were really on my heart tonight and I wanted to share it. I have a good feeling about my dear little musings80 blog, and so here's to bridges that will be built with new friends or rebuilt from old ties, and to really seeing the heart and soul and beauty of the world and the people in it through their words, because that's what writing is. I learned that in Freshman English.

A Day in the Life

I think toddlers should come with an owner's manual. And a lifetime warranty. Nobody told me what having two 3-year-old boys would be like. If someone had told me this when they were babies, I probably would have laughed and taken them to the nearest bar, my treat. Being a parent, especially a single parent, has taught me a lot. Yes, I've learned much in the past three years. Pregnancy is great because you still have your life and don't really need to do much except plan for the arrival and make sure you eat right and stay in shape, and plus it's the only time in a woman's life when not only can she flaunt a large stomach, but she can go to a store geared specifically to choosing clothing that will accentuate a huge belly. I miss this. In my case, the eating right and staying in shape were optional, because I was under the (grossly mistaken) impression that I would shed the extra baby weight effortlessly after the boys were born. I spent my pregnancy reading everything I could get my hands on about being pregnant with twins and what would happen after the babies were born. I entertained rosy dreams about feeding my babies organic, unprocessed baby food that I made myself from raw ingredients purchased at Whole Foods, and how they would sleep through the night after we got home from the hospital, and how much I would enjoy breast-feeding and the bonding that comes with it. I firmly decided that my children's fragile minds would not be polluted with such trash as is mass produced on TV for kids, and that they wouldn't even watch TV at all, but would sit and read Chaucer, Tennyson, and Dostoyevsky, perhaps with an infant-sized ascot and smoking jacket. We would play educational games and take nature walks, and I would proudly show off my intellectually superior offspring at family gatherings, malls, and grocery stores while watching other, less evolved children throw temper tantrums in the check-out lines.

Yeah. Not so much.

All these beautiful ideas vanished along with my waistline and any hope of being able to wear a two-piece bathing suit ever again just a few short months after the boys were born. And now, with the boys at 3 years old, I think back on those days before they were born and figure I must have been sleepwalking to the local crack house and scoring some 8-balls, or smoking some other sort of illegal controlled substance.

This is what a typical day looks like in my house. I wake up around 7:00 a.m. I don't need an alarm clock because I can rely, like clockwork, on the sounds of things crashing, creaking, and breaking. This is bewildering to me because the only things in their room are their big-boy beds with no headboard or footboard, no pictures, nothing on the walls, electric outlets covered, doorknobs childproofed, baby gate in the doorway wedged tight enough to stand in for the Hoover Dam. I even took the blinds down out of the windows because I've had to replace all of them twice in the boys' room since I moved here. Who needs all the million and one toys and books we've bought when one has blinds from the Home Depot that have cords with which to garrote one's brother? Or the wands that open and close the blinds to break off and threaten to spank one's brother with? Or the plastic slats to chew off and throw around the room because you're "making sugar"? Come on, people. GET WITH THE PROGRAM HERE. So I wake up at 7 a.m. to the sounds of things breaking and crashing to the floor. I immediately pray for patience and calmness. Then I take my psych meds and a shot of bourbon. Then I pull on some clothes, usually ones I've worn for three days and always made of some form of Spandex. Then I trip over the baby gate crammed across the door because Jonathan cannot abide an actual closed door but tolerates a baby gate, and untangle Elijah from the blinds while trying not to slip and break any bones on the tangled mess of Spiderman sheets on the floor that used to be on their beds. Jonathan, either by electoral vote or in the spirit of Adolf Hitler, is the spokesperson for the two of them. He immediately demands supper (an all-encompassing word for food) for the both of them because "Jonafan and Jijah are hungwy!!". So we change diapers (yes, we're still in diapers) and go into the kitchen where I proceed to throw together bowls of cereal and Pop Tarts. That I made from raw ingredients purchased at Whole Foods. Jonathan prefers to throw his food on the floor under the table and inhale his food through his nose while lying on his stomach on the floor. Elijah sits in his chair, carefully selects one single Froot Loop (he is a connoiseur) and lick it until it's gone, and then chooses another one, a different color, and repeats. After breakfast, we get dressed so the boys can go outside if it's a nice day. If it isn't, we turn on Noggin or watch Shrek 2 for at least the 500th time. The boys play outside all day. I keep a window open by my computer desk because Jonathan, as mentioned, cannot tolerate a closed window regardless of the temperature outside and insists that I can only see him if the window is open. All the way. Glass does not factor into his equation. Only insect screens, apparently, are valid for seeing through. About ten minutes after breakfast the demands for snacks start. Apparently during gestation some neural connection was made as their brains developed that being outside is synonymous with eating. The entire time they are outside. Outside is just not cool without snacks, many and varied. So they park themselves by the open window and yell for snacks while I try desperately to work on my computer six inches away from the open window. There are many tears and histrionics, with both boys falling on the ground in paroxysms of grief, shaking, moaning, and much wailing and gnashing of teeth. There are fights over the yellow Tonka dump truck, of which we bought two that are exactly the same, but for some reason they fight over one in particular. I haven't been able to find any visible difference between the two. Maybe the suspension is better on that one, I don't know. So eventually we come inside to take a quiet time, which is almost never quiet and almost always involves someone getting injured. We eat lunch after Jonathan finishes foaming at the mouth because he doesn't understand why he can't have salt and vinegar chips and chewable vitamins exclusively.

You get the idea. Nighttime is my favorite time of the day because I'm unreasonably excited to watch America's Next Top Model or American Idol, and I can put my boys to bed. I'm tired, and grumpy, and wonder when I'll have time to take a shower, go to the gym, or do the eighteen loads of laundry that are waiting for me. The bathroom is waiting to be cleaned, the kitchen needs to be cleaned up, typing needs to get done for work, and the ants have decided to take up permanent residence under the breakfast table. Then I read Rebecca's blog and feel instantly guilty about being grumpy after my day, and I resolve to be a better person and a better mom tomorrow. I go in and say goodnight to my boys, give them "snuggle kisses" and sing them a goodnight song they especially like, "Eye of the Tiger" from Rocky.

Then, as I go to each one in turn to say goodnight, they throw their little arms around my neck and give me "a stinks on the cheek", which is basically blowing a big, wet raspberry on my face, and they say, "Wuv you, Mommy. See you in the mornin' for supper, Mommy."

And that makes everything worth it a million times over.

I Finally Commited

Okay. This is it. I have finally done it. In answer to all those who said I should, I did. I created a blog. I know you're probably laughing about my title, but that's alright. I love my title. I think it's very pleasantly ironic. I forewarn you that I will occasionally muse, but I make no promises about its intellectualism.

For instance, my musings lately concern such heady topics as why the chip people only fill their bags of chips one-quarter full. Even the Family Size bags. The rest is just...air. Which is interesting to me, because I breathe air every day for free (mostly), and here I am paying $3.99 for a bag of chips that's only one-quarter full of chips and three-quarters full of air. Prepackaged air at that. So basically I'm paying $1.00 for chips and $3.00 for air. This is concerning to me as a consumer, and thus I muse on it. So this is the sort of thing you might read on my brand-new blog. Along with whatever else I feel like writing at any particular moment.

I didn't really want to start a blog. I was afraid of commitment. I didn't know if I had the time to keep it up. Then I checked my cousin Leslie's blog and saw that she hadn't posted anything since March 18th, and I felt better about that. My next objection to starting a blog was not having anything to write about. Then I sat and observed my kids for five minutes and realized I would never be able to make that one fly. So here I am. Blogging. And for this, I would like to thank the author of dooce.com, who made writing about your kids couture, and Rebecca, whose blog I will never come close to matching and in whose reflected literary glory I gladly bask. And last but not least, my cousin Leslie, who was the first to utter the word "blog" in our family, and proceeded to do so with much enthusiasm. Until March 18th.

And so, Reader, whoever you are, thank you for reading my blog and do not hesitate to laugh either with or at me. Enjoy.