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.