War Games

I recently watched a rerun of King of the Hill. Hank and company were humiliated by a pack of teenaged boys who repeatedly pummeled them playing paintball. In the end, however, the old folks triumphed, good defeated evil, and there was peace on earth. In Arlen, Texas anyway.

I've long had a hankering to play paintball even though I know I'd suck at it because my aim is rarely true. Good thing I wasn't incarnated as Cupid. I've heard it hurts to get tagged by those flying pellets of paint. Considering I bruise like a peach and move as gracefully as an elephant, it's probably a good thing I've never pursued my delusions of grandeur in the paintball arena.

Laser tag is a whole different story. Do kids these days still play? It was an activity of choice when The Boy was a young teen. Being a mom who likes to be in on everything, I'd be the first one in line to accompany them to the laser tag facility.

Some parents would just hang around the lobby, the floor shaking from the loud thumping music. The walls were painted black with fluorescent accents. Some would drop off their little darlings and head over to Linens & Things next door to shop while their children stalked and shot at strangers and friends alike.

Not me. I'd strap on a vest, tightly grip my laser rifle and enter the dark maze that served as the hunting ground. The music inside was even louder than in the lobby. The walls were still black with splashes of design hither and yon. Strobe lights and shadows cast an ominous aura around the expanse of doorways and halls and little hidey-pocket spaces connected by ramps and surrounded by walls of various heights. Adrenaline had my heart racing.

Then the buzzer sounded and the game was on! I'd run to a corner and hide take a moment to get my bearings. Shapes and shadows would flash by in the distance, the voices of the players calling to each other echoing off the walls. Running in the arena was taboo, but we all did it anyway. Leading with my rifle, I'd duck and dive from one obstacle to another looking for my next victim target.

My only goal was to score more than at least one of the teen boys in our group. Just one. I'd be damned if I was going to be the big loser of the day. Thankfully there were usually smaller kids playing too. Size didn't matter in my quest for scores. I'd ruthlessly target the slower less savvy players who left themselves wide open. I'd zap them as I stumbled by giggling crazily with the sheer joy of success.

The round would end, the excited buzz continued as we returned our equipment and huddled breathlessly around the scoreboard. I'd poof up with relief pride to see my nick, Momarama (yes I know I'm a dork), near the top of the list.

It's the little things, people.
Don't rush by and miss them.

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Family Plots

Once upon a time in a wee little town, a boy was born.

Right down the road, in another wee little town, a girl was born.

The boy grew into a man and the girl into a woman. They each had life adventures, yet neither ventured far from the wee little towns of their birth. Eventually they met, fell in love and got married. They settled in yet another wee little town nestled smack dab between the wee little towns in which they were each brought up.

A home was established, a family raised. Those three wee little towns all grew a bit bigger. The family still lived in the middle one.

Time flew. The man and woman aged. Their children grown, they retired and enjoyed being part of the community. They each kept roots in their respective hometowns and grew new ones together. Their family cemeteries contained not only long gone relatives but also people with whom these two had grown. The woman got into genealogy and traced her family history quite far back.

Therein lies a dilemma. The woman wishes to be buried with her ancestors in her family plot in her hometown. The man would prefer to be buried with his ancestors in his family plot in his hometown. Nothing of them will remain in the town in which they lived and raised their family. The desire to be buried with their ancestors obviously precludes being buried together as husband and wife. When they talk about it, they shrug and don't make eye contact.

I've never contemplated a situation like this before and wonder how other families handle it. Would you prefer to be buried with your spouse/partner or your ancestors? My partner wins that contest hands down everytime. I don't feel as connected to my ancestors as I do Wendy. Plus they hail from a different part of the country than I call home. Pity the genealogist who attempts to trace my family! We've scattered all over the States.

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Too Darn Hot Again

Oh yeah baby, it's hot around here. Eh, summer has that effect. Weatherbug flashes a big bright 100° down on the task bar. Hell, the attic fan was still running at 8:00 yesterday evening, long after the sun went down. The sun is evidently not the real issue.

The evening found our little family snuggled on the couch, Wendy is wrapped up in her Texans' blanket. The Boy observes from his picture frame. It's like a refrigerator in the house. I like it that way and Wendy adapts.



How lucky are we?
Quite.

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Ours is Pink, But Sometimes Blue

I was half-watching late night TV when a commercial came on about how unsanitary kitchen sponges can be. I'm clueless to what the commercial was advertising. It was the visual that caught my attention.

A lady was "cleaning" her countertops and appliances by wiping them down with a raw chicken quarter. She joyously rubbed that chunk of bird on everything and everywhere, a glowing smile on her face as she left sticky nasty raw chicken goo trails behind.

I immediately got up, threw out our kitchen sponge and replaced it with a fresh one.

Well.
Okay.

I immediately thought about getting up, throwing out our kitchen sponge and replacing it with a fresh one.

Have you sniffed your kitchen sponge lately?

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The Many Faces of Vegetables

I stopped by the grocery store on my way home the other day. The parking lot had been freshly paved. There's nothing quite like the smell of new asphalt on a hot summer evening. It smelled as if my shoes should stick when I stepped on it.

I had a retarded cart. About every five steps one of the front wheels would stick hard, the cart stopping abruptly, the handle jamming my mid-section. I kept trying to anticipate the rhythm but never did get it right.

My cart lightly loaded, I pulled into the express checkout lane. The cashier was a young Jamaican woman. Her hair was braided and big, resembling a calm Medusa. She set the first bag of veggies onto the scale, then looked up at me and asked "What are these?" in her delightful lilting accent.

"Thai eggplant," I replied. "T-h-a-i. Eggplant with an E." I smiled. "It's quite tasty. You should try it."

She looked up the code on her flip chart and punched it into the register. Then she picked up the next item and looked at me questioningly.

"Zucchini," I supplied. "Starts with a Z." She again consulted her chart.

The man in line behind me said, unsolicited, "I like to chop up zucchini and put it in spaghetti sauce."

The cashier and I looked at him, nodding and smiling, both wondering why he thought we'd care. She bagged the zucchini and put the next item on the scale, glancing at me expectantly.

"Asparagus," I compliantly spoke. "With an A."

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This Sucks

We have a most wonderful neighbor, a delightfully spry woman who has kids our age. Well okay. She has kids Wendy's age. She's retired but always on the go. We knew her socially through Tina's family for a number of years before we became her neighbor. A better neighbor one cannot find. She's friendly and helpful yet unobtrusive. I've become quite attached to her in the two years we have owned this house.

She has been our enthusiastic pet sitter since the day we moved in. She has a few cats and her daughter's dog stays with her from time to time. Our pets have adopted her as one of their own.

An excellent pet sitter, she goes the extra yard by doing things like hanging out at our place to keep them company when we are away. She's doled out medications on the complicated schedules Detail and Cosine have had. She doesn't mind our odiferous dogs who shed and occasionally drool. She and Fig were buddies. She's just one of those pet people. Like us.

So here's the dilemma. I've blogged about Cosine getting old and infirm. It is no secret I anticipate her death in the near future. As she deteriorates, she requires a much higher level of care and attention, like being carried outside and followed closely as she goes about her business. She doesn't keep her balance well. It also affects how she eats, as lowering her head seems to really throw off her coordination. So we hold her dish up to chin level.

After her meals we guide her over to the water bowl, which must be kept filled to the brim because she can't seem to drink from it otherwise. We encourage her to sip and eventually she gets it. Her pill schedule is the easy part these days.

We're going to Montana. Not this week but the week after. We arranged with our neighbor to pet sit as part of making our travel plans.

But Cosine wasn't nearly as infirm then as she is now. And how infirm will she be by the time we leave for our trip? Her care is going to be the most intensive our neighbor has had to undertake. Is it fair to ask her to do it? If we don't, then what the fuck are we going to do? Can't take her with us. No way can we board her; leaving her in an unfamiliar place would be cruel.

While the most obvious solution may be to cancel our trip, the thought of that breaks my heart. I need to see The Boy. I'm excited about hanging out with my father for a week. Practically speaking, we've invested a good deal of money I'd hate to just throw away.

Geez, how selfish am I?

I comfort myself by saying if she doesn't get any worse, our neighbor will be able to handle it fine. I've been procrastinating about having a heart to heart with her because I'm afraid of what she may say. I already know she's a bit nervous about the "what ifs" while we are gone. Wendy and I are also nervous about the "what ifs."

Should Cosine get worse... well duh. Honestly, I know she's getting a little bit worse each day. Her quality of life grows suspect. Wendy and I observe her and wrestle with just what it is we are seeing. The imminent departure date for our vacation cannot be a factor in a quality of life decision. It just makes things harder.

See what I mean?
This sucks.

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Obsession

Hello, my name is Suzanne and I'm a binge-a-holic.

"Hello Suzanne!" the crowd calls out.

It's been two months since my last confession.

"Gasp!" says the crowd.

Over the course of those two months, I've ingested a ton of the target of my current binge. Well. Maybe not an entire ton. Let's see. Five containers, each containing 21 ounces. So like 6.5 pounds. May as well be a ton.

It started out innocently enough. Wendy and I were shopping at Trader Joe's. While perusing the displays of nuts, candies and other luscious snack options tantalizingly lining the aisles, my eyes were drawn to a neat stack of square plastic containers filled with brightly colored candies.

Ah-ha! My brain snapped to attention. Those candies appeared to be the little fruity jelly disks I so adore but rarely see in stores! I felt that familiar tingle run up my spine. I looked around furtively to see if anyone was watching. The coast was clear. I made a beeline to the display for a closer look.

Sure enough, there they were: the delectable delights of my fantasies! Soft. Sweet. Fruity. Round. I wiped the thread of drool off my chin as I loving placed a container of them in our cart.

These candies come in an assortment of five colors and flavors: red is cherry, orange is orange, green is lime, white is grapefruit, yellow is lemon. Their centers are soft and smooth, ever-so-slightly sticky. Their exteriors are crusted with sugar creating a tasty delight unsuitable for carrying around loose in one's pocket or purse. Each one is a little larger than a quarter but about five times as thick.

One of each color constitutes a Suzanne Serving. Those five candies equal a perfect Suzanne Snack for a quick pick-me-up any time of day. I have favored flavors but not a favorite flavor. I don't always eat them in the same color order, but I always eat a white or yellow one first. Sometimes I bite them in halves but usually in thirds. I never eat them whole.

Don't look at me like that. It's not like I'm some obsessed freak or something.

I should have known right away that first box was the beginning of something, shall we say, untoward? I think I did know, but I jumped off the cliff anyway. Self-indulgence personified, that's me. The next week found me schlepping off to the Traitor Trader Joe's near my office to replenish my supply. I bought two containers on that trip. Two weeks after that I was back again for two more. I've half a box left and think it'll carry me through the weekend.

But after that? Then what?
Somebody help me.

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Rub-a-Dub-Dub

Turns out Cosine got another bath after all! Well, it was more like a quasi-bath.

Since she'd been acting so odd over the weekend, Monday found us on our way to the vet for a check-up.

We had her leashed mostly out of habit. She moves with such an unsteady gait, we've mostly been carrying her around like a sack of potatoes. Actually we carry her more like a baby. A 40 pound furry baby. Neither potatoes nor babies typically require a leash.

I set her down to open the car door and she tottered away a few steps. Then she assumed that familiar universal doggie squat and started to poop right there on the driveway. For some reason the idea of her pooping on the driveway alarmed me. I squawked and spasmodically jerked the leash.

Cosine startled, lost her balance and fell over right into her neat pile of shit.

I do believe it would have been considerably easier to clean shit off a potato. I know it was easier to clean it off a baby.

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Pick a Date, Any Date

Heterosexual couples have it easy. Their anniversary date is defined by long-standing tradition: the date of their marriage. Along the path to said wedding, they may have other "special" days they celebrate. Afterward, the daily grind of life as a married couple with an "official" anniversary may wear out the novelty and romance of those other "special" days. But they'll always have their anniversary, their real anniversary, the anniversary of their wedding date.

Wendy and I have discussed what date constitutes our anniversary. Since our union has not been blessed by any religious rite or government recognition, we have no standing tradition upon which to define our special day. Our ideas encompass the far-out silly to more socially conformed choices.

We get hung up on what "traditional" means for homosexual couples. Is there such a thing? If so, we have not yet been made privy to the secret. And that, my friends, is a major freaking oversight. We have been inner sanctum homosexuals for a long long time. We've actually written a chapter in the Official Guide to Homosexual Relationships (wanna guess the title of our chapter?).

I so don't want to use our first date, because it was just that, a date. Oh sure, it was a very significant date. Despite my usually poor memory, I can recall just about every minute of it. But it was like a week before my birthday. Heaven forbid special occasions, particularly occasions that tend to the gift-giving variety, are scheduled too close together.

How about the date of our first kiss? Believe it or not, we didn't kiss for quite a while after we started dating. Oh yes. We were quite chaste and proper. It just about killed us. And because I was so distracted with the concentration required to NOT rush into that first kiss, I truly cannot remember the exact date our lips first met. I do, however, remember the most recent time our lips met and it was just as enticing as the first. Ain't love grand?

The first time we slept together? That seems too personal a date to use. The day we started living together? That's got potential, but it cuts almost a year off the time I really feel we have been a couple. Well. I think it cuts off almost a year but since we can't figure out when our anniversary is, I don't know for sure. Perhaps the day we knew we'd be a couple forever? That presents an interesting puzzle. I feel like I've always known we'd be a couple forever.

Maybe none of this matters.
Maybe every day is our anniversary.



=========
PS: Two things got me thinking about anniversaries and dates and other such trivia: Max and Elizabeth's ceremony and Weese and her wife celebrating twenty years together. Congrats to all of them with wishes for many more to follow!

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I got an email from my dad yesterday. This excerpt made me smile for more reasons than one:

"The time grows nigh for the great trek to Montana. I'm really looking forward to this little venture. I feel like coming from the east and west we should drive a golden spike or something."

Ah, yes!
The time grows nigh for the great trek to Montana!

I couldn't have said it better myself.

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Rolling In It

Last evening we were porch-sitting. We glided noiselessly in our gliding chairs, the conversation lazy as we caught each other up on the news of the day. The air was heavy but not oppressive. Today's not supposed to be as pleasant.

Cosine was asleep on the doggie bed in the living room. Dudley was playing junior explorer as he made the rounds of the yard. He was spending quite a bit of time investigating the area of the yard formerly referred to as the wildlife refuge. Wendy mowed it Sunday and evidently revealed some interesting fresh scents.

I recognized The Posture and knew what he was about to do before he actually did it. His hind end rose and his front legs slid down, his nose aquiver. Sure enough, he started rubbing his long basset snout along the ground, slowly and deliberately. I shouted half-heartedly, "Dud! Stop that!" He just casually flopped his head and rubbed the other side of his face firmly in the dirt. Gotta love the obedient basset hound, oh yeah.

We used to spend the week between Christmas and New Year's down in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Not the "we" that makes up our "we" now, rather the "we" that made up my "we" then. Back then, I was single so "we" was Cosine, Detail and The Boy. Some friends owned a house on the beach. The same friends owned Cosine and Detail's mother, Kate, and their brother, T-Square. The week between Christmas and New Year's was all about hanging out at the beach with a houseful of dogs and friends. Ten years we all rang in the New Year together. Good times, good times.

(Yo, Meg-O, still with us?
Quiz at eleven.
Mwah.)

Beach week had rituals attached, not the least of which were long walks on the beach. First thing each morning, before we'd had even a smoke or a cup of coffee, no matter what the weather, my friend Kerry and I would round up the dogs and head out to the sand. Neither one of us was a morning person so we wouldn't talk to each other, we'd just walk and absorb the morning.

The wonderful thing about visiting the Outer Banks in winter, back then anyway, was the lack of other people around. We could walk the beach, dogs off-leash, and not see another human being. Sometimes we'd pass another walker or a jogger, but they were few and far between.

Each of the four dogs had a different beach-walking style. Kate would romp in the surf, catching shells that she noisily demanded her mom toss up in the air. T-Square would get wet too, splashing in the shallow water, running wide circles around us. Detail did not like the crashing waves. He trotted along the dune line, joining us on the wet sand only occasionally and then but briefly.

Cosine stayed out of the water but on the wet sand. She ran way out ahead, but I never worried because with just a single sharp whistle, she'd turn around and race back to my side. Detail, on the other hand, would hear me whistle and start running a little faster forward. He so loved to be free.

We'd walk along until we mutually decided we'd gone far enough. By then my friend and I were more awake, perhaps even conversing a bit.

Cosine sprinted by as we changed direction and she resumed her lead. Every so often she'd pause to sniff at something or dig a little hole.

She was the one who taught me to recognize The Posture. The Posture that joyfully screams, "Score! I'm about to roll in something wonderful!"

It is not uncommon for all matter of dead and/or half-dead creatures and vegetation in various stages of decay to wash up on the beach. It could be a batch of seaweed, a fragrant shell, or a spot of sand that looked innocent but held something intriguing that Cosine decided she must, absolutely must, without any further delay, perfume herself with!

She'd assume The Posture, start rubbing her face, then ecstatically roll onto her back, wriggling frantically, joyfully, in some nirvana achieved only by dogs. While she was rolling in it, whatever "it" might be, my whistles mattered not. The rapture of the roll was her entire world.

I'll always believe it's those little things. Little things like a walk on the beach and a dead fish just waiting to be rolled on.

Oh yeah baby.
That's what it's all about.

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Working On It

I'm feeling some pressure from the Younger Set. Self-imposed for certain, but pressure nonetheless.

The pressure goes something like this: "I think you should write about this!"

Don't they know that merely by saying those words out loud, the pressure squashes my imagination and leaves me like a fish gasping for air on the beach? The slow trickle of the creative stream that occasionally leaks out of my body completely dries up, not a mist remains.

Evidently, they don't.
Know.
The Younger Set.

Why would they?

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Doggie Bath Day

Oh yes indeedy, it's always cause for great celebration in our home.

If you yourself are not a dog person or if you are not related to a dog person or if you do not have a friend who is a dog person, you may not actually be aware of this important doggie factoid: dogs are not naturally squeaky clean and sweet smelling. Then, as a bonus of sorts, to enhance their natural odors, they spend time outdoors where they pick up other fine odors that cling to their fur and add to the distinct aroma of the Suburban-Dwelling Dog.

While it is wonderful to have squeaky clean dogs, it can take quite a bit of effort. Particularly if you have a medium or large dog. Or more than one. When we had three dogs, bathing them was an effort requiring many hours, much backbending labor, and a stack of towels as high as my thigh. Now that we are down to two beasts, we've been celebrating Doggie Bath Day about every two weeks.

So anyhoo. For the past several months, every time I give Cosine a bath I wonder if it is the last bath I will give her. How's that for an upbeat and positive thought? I actually try to interpret it as such, being the upbeat and positive thinker I am. Unfortunately when I apply the bright side to that particular thought, it doesn't inspire upbeat and positive feelings.

I really do think today was the day I gave Cosine her last bath.
I'm still working on how to spin it.

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Thursday Rocked

Please.
Pretty please.
Pretty please with sugar on top.

If anyone reads this who can profess an affection for the movie Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, if anyone can share anything remotely redeeming about that movie, if anyone can share any reason why anyone should watch said film, please stand up and tell us all about it here. Yes yes, and please sign your name. It's important in ways you'll never understand.

Outside of an interesting cast and a few irresistible chuckles, I'm all like "WTF is up with that movie?" So someone help me.

Please?
Pretty please?
Pretty please with sugar on top?
WTF is up with that movie?

Our cable was out tonight. Don't know why. Should it matter? Hell no. We can survive without television for an evening. There was no baseball on anyway. So who needs TV?

Evidently we do. Because we watched that movie. It had been sitting in its Netflix wrapper for months. We don't watch many movies during baseball season. We watch baseball. Duh.

Baseball, being a game of a slower variety, allows significant multi-tasking while watching. There are a plethora of breaks: between innings, between batters, with pitching changes, etc., that allow, nay, require, a viewer with an active mind to occupy their attention elsewhere, but only in spurts and starts.

There are some activities which lend themselves well to multi-tasking in spurts and starts. I've not been doing enough of those. Instead I've been trying to do other activities which do not lend themselves well to random starts and spurts. This leads me to not accomplish anything with any great rate of success.

For that reason I am glad the cable was out. The only things I'm tasking this evening are in a linear progression. I think I'll sleep better tonight. Maybe my mind will slow down.

I didn't even touch on why Thursday rocked. That would require blogging about work and I only blog about work to discuss our annual company picnic and, even then, it is more about me than work. Too bad, too. Because I could weave a tale about today to rival any other tale I've ever told because today was a unique Thursday.

This Thursday rocked.
Hope yours did too.

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40 Questions

A meme. Seen everywhere, swiped from here: Jennifer's Open Book.

1. My uncle once: was a figment of my imagination when I pretended to actually have an uncle.


2. Never in my life: have I seen a long-legged sailor and his long-legged wife.


3. When I was five: I was much more adorable than my sister. She wore cateye glasses and had plain brown hair. I was a Shirley Temple look-a-like, except cuter.


4. High School was: a blur.


5. I will never forget: anything, as long as I remember to write it down.


6. I once met: a strange old man on a city street who predicted, because of the way my shadow fell on the sidewalk, that my life would be filled with joy and good fortune. So far, he's been right on the mark.
   


7. There's this girl I know who: captured my heart.


8. Once, at a bar: my friends and I did so many lemon drop shooters, the only thing I remember about the whole night is laughing hysterically while we carried a toilet down the stairs and out to the curb. (Don't ask.)


9. By noon, I'm usually: ready for my afternoon nap.


10. Last night: I watched baseball and ate popcorn with my girlfriend. We adore quiet evenings like that.


11. If I only had: a few more children...


12. Next time I go to church: it'll be for a wedding or a funeral, guaranteed.


13. Terry Shiavo: a goddamn shame.


14. What worries me most: is that something tragic may happen to The Boy and I'll be powerless to fix it.


15. When I turn my head left, I see: the textured wall, several of those hard-to-kill houseplants I adore and several other houseplants that have also proven hard-to-kill, my sister's painting of Mother Tara, the goddess of compassion.
    


16. When I turn my head right, I see: the inside of our new front door (have I mentioned I'm in love with our new front door?), several more of those hard-to-kill houseplants I adore, The Boy's framed headshot beside a lamp on a side table.


17. You know I'm lying when: my mouth is moving.


18. What I miss most about the eighties: The Boy as a toddler.


19. If I was a character in Shakespeare, I'd be: the First Witch in MacBeth.


20. By this time next year: I'll have lugged sixteen more tons.


21. A better name for me would be: Patience. Mwah.


22. I have a hard time understanding: religious fanatics.


23. If I ever go back to school, I'll: study literature and English.


24. You know I like you if: I tease you.


25. If I ever won an award, the first person I'd thank would be: the presenter of the award.


26. Darwin, Mozart, Slim Pickens & Geraldine Ferraro: Einstein, Beethoven, Kathryn Hepburn & Hillary Clinton.


27. Take my advice, never: judge a book by its cover.


28. My ideal breakfast is: sourdough toast, spread thickly with margarine and apricot jam, topped with a sausage patty.


29. A song I love, but do not own is: Dream On by Aerosmith.


30. If you visit my hometown, I suggest: doing it in April or October.


31. Tulips, character flaws, microchips & track stars: white roses, sensitivity, remote controls & female tennis players


32. Why won't people: respect other people's right to be different?


33. If you spend the night at my house: I'll set up the coffee so you can turn it on when you wake up. Don't expect to see me before 9 a.m.


34. I'd stop my wedding for: my sister's inevitable late arrival (love you, SK!).


35. The world could do without: greed and suffering.


36. I'd rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: go bluewater sailing. I like my feet on solid dry land or, at a minimum, to have land in sight.


37. My favorite blonde is: Heather Locklear. Meow. I don't care if she's a natural blonde or not.


38. Paper clips are more useful than: toenails, among other things.


39. If I do anything well, it's: behaving self-indulgently.


40. And by the way: if you are paying attention, you'll notice we really are everywhere.

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Too Darn Hot

It is so fucking hot. And y'all know I would never use the word "fucking" in such a vulgar way without good reason. Man oh man. It's just been so fucking hot. I don't mean a nice dry heat like Phoenix is basking in of late. I mean serious heat, oppressive heat, sweltering weather so hot it doesn't make a difference if the sun is down or if the sky is cloud-covered, which is how it has mostly been the past week or so.

I've lived in the DC area for nigh on 38 years. I know what to expect from summer weather. The outdoors transforms into a sauna, supersized. It's not the heat, dontcha know, it's the humidity. Thunderstorms typically come through and bring fresh air. But not this year. The thunderstorms this year just add more moisture to the air and bring no sweet clean relief at all.

Day or night, step outside an air conditioned space and poof! Your entire body immediately glistens and oozes moisture from every pore. It's like you're melting from the outside in. Clothing, no matter how light, clings and chafes. The thick heavy air must be pushed out of the way during the strenuous trek from one air conditioned space to the next. It saps your strength and threatens to ruin the best of moods. Stand still and it presses down as if trying to force you to your knees. It's hard to breathe. The stagnant air is undisturbed by even a hint of a breeze. Don't even get me started on what it does to my curly hair. This year even Cosine is bitching about how unmanageable her hair is.

Motivation is nil. I want to do nothing but lay naked in bed with the air conditioning cranked to the max and lick a popsicle.

Meanwhile, Mel enjoys her cool evening breeze. If she keeps talking about it, she may find us on her doorstep. She has a history of adopting people after all. What's two more with her houseful?

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Flying High

Have you ever puked on an airplane?

I have. Only once. Well. I puked more than once but it was all on the same flight.

I still to this day do not know what upset my poor wittle tummy. Wendy and I had just spent three days in Las Vegas eating and drinking and not sleeping enough. Maybe it was that. Or it could have had something to do with the Bloody Marys we swilled at the airport prior to boarding our flight. I suppose it could have been a bug. Cause was irrelevant. It was the puking that counted.

Thankfully the flight was not crowded. I didn't have to worry about not finding an open bathroom when I needed one. I sat there wretchedly in my seat, moaning softly, rocking back and forth, my arms clutched to my stomach. Wendy periodically patted my head, looking sympathetic. The lady in the row across the aisle kept glancing at me, not so surreptitiously. When the mood struck (and you know what I mean by mood), I raced down the aisle uncontested and closeted myself in one of those tiny little bathrooms.

Last week I was reminded of that experience upon reading that National Airport... oh wait, excuse me, I mean Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport... will be eliminating a rule instituted after 9/11. You may or may not be aware that post-9/11, passengers flying out of or into National Airport were not allowed to leave their seats during the first or last 30 minutes of the flight.

My puking experience was post-9/11. Therefore as we hit that 30 minute boundary, the announcement was made that under no circumstance was anyone to leave their seat until the plane landed.

Uh oh.
Uh oh?
Heck no!
The airline provides those theretofore useless to me Barf Bags at every seat!

Right then, right when the ray of realization dawned that I was going to have to vomit in public, it suddenly felt as it the plane was completely full. There was a person in every seat and even others standing in the aisles. In my peripheral view was a stewardess, her eyes boring a hole in my head. Where the fuck did all those people come from? They were all staring at me, their eyes bugged. I looked over at Wendy to find her staring at me too. Sweat popped out in beads on my forehead. I did the only thing I could do. I dropped my face into the Barf Bag and heaved.

The thing that bothers me most about that experience is I cannot for the life of me recall what we did with the used Barf Bags. Did I shove them into the pocket on the seat back in front of me? Did I tuck them into my carry on and carry them off? Did Wendy put them in the trash? Did the stewardess take them away? Are they still in the trunk of my car??

Of course they are not still in the trunk of my car.
That's one place I'm sure they did not end up.

We put my parents on an airplane out of National this morning. They are heading for Alaska to take a cruise. I advised them both to steer clear of airport Bloody Marys. They don't taste nearly as good coming up as they do going down.

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Simple Pleasures

Clean sheets and freshly shaved legs.

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Let's Talk Crazy

I've heard time and time again how everything is bigger in Texas. These news bites I'm about to share, however, tell a different tale.

This first story focuses on a home about a mile from my own. In suburban Northern Virginia. It's a different genre of suburbia than my own, though, being situated in an area I fondly refer to as "The Land of the Big House" due to the size of the less-than-modest homes in the vicinity. This crazy fucking family had over 300 cats in their house. 86 of them dead.

And then I came across this tale in the news today. I thought, "Well. There ya go! Texans aren't all that after all. Their crazy lady only had 22% of the number of cats our crazy family here in Virginia had living with them! And what a wimp that Texas woman is! She lived in her yard and slept in her car while that herd of felines had run of her house. Pshaw! That hardly qualifies as crazy!"

Pshaw.
Say it out loud.
It tickles if you say it right.

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I'm Too Common For My Blog

Jen feels guilty, but I'm mature enough to pretend it is normal.

If, as you live your life, you find yourself mentally composing blog entries about it, post this exact same sentence in your weblog.

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Friends in High Places

Some of us have interesting, fun and stimulating jobs. Some of us don't. After a recent conversation with my friend Tina, I'm not sure into which category her job falls.

Tina is a teacher. Specifically a Montessori teacher. Teachers work hard. Especially Tina.

Her class is comprised of little ones, the Diaper Crowd. I could call them the Potty Training Crowd. I could call them many things. She was telling me about a continuing ed thingamajig she attended last week. For some reason, and I really don't want to know more than I already know, part of the conference included a lesson on potty training. This potty training lesson utilized props: a plastic milk jug, peanut butter, and toilet paper! Yes, yes, yes! The instructor gave a lesson on how to teach a toddler to wipe their ass effectively. Mmmm. PBJ anyone?

I'm pretty sure after raising four children of her own that Tina already figured out how to teach a kid to wipe their ass. At least I hope she did. Perhaps I will initiate a survey of her own children to see if she used proper Montessori technique to train them. A question like that could ignite a evening filled with enlightening conversation. Indeed.

But I digress. Tina is not only a teacher, she is also a shopper extraordinaire. When I say extraordinare, I mean supercalifragalisticexpialidociously extraordinare. If there was an Olympic event in shopping, Tina would take the gold medal. If the Mall of America had royalty, Tina would be the Queen. I swear I think she shops in her sleep.

I've talked about rehabilitating our porch. I've talked about vacationing on our porch. Some would think I have a porch obsession, to which I would reply, "And? Is there anything wrong with that?" Truly. Anyone who has hung out on a screened-in porch on a lazy summer morning, afternoon, or evening can attest to the joy, the bliss, the absolute ecstacy to be attained by merely occupying such a wondiferous space.

So. We had worked on it. We needed to furnish and decorate it.

Enter our Personal Shopper. She showed up Saturday morning, notepad in hand. On the front sheet was a list, numbered one to ten. This list represented not only stores, but also the route we would be taking to visit them all. Wendy and I snuck a look at each other, our eyes wide. We hoped we'd be able to keep her pace.

Tina shops with great organization and purpose. She knows where to find things I never knew I needed in stores I never knew existed. "No buying anything until we've seen everything," she patiently instructed. "If you see something you like, I'll write down what, where and how much. We can go back later after we've seen the options." Wendy and I made eye contact again, this time grinning.

Shopping with Tina meant turning over the reins. We were down with that. Down deep. She whisked us from store to store, herding us from department to department, making suggestions and asking questions. Masterfully she narrowed things down and helped us eliminate options until we had selected a few items.

Wendy and I were tired long before she showed any signs of slowing down. She chauffeured us home, we unloaded our purchases and waved farewell. Wendy and I slept like logs after putting together furniture and then sitting for hours on the porch, sipping cheap beer and talking. Talking is another something for which porches are well suited.

The next day, Tina had already been shopping before she picked us up at noon. She had a list of stores, this time with items of interest under each store name. A stack of catalogs, I kid you not, like 30 of them, had pages marked showing things Wendy and I had shown interest in or determined were needs the day before.

Magical. It was like having a Fairy Shopping Godmother. I could get very used to such luxury. Thanks to Tina's energy and, yes, I'm going to say it, it's really no exaggeration, her expertise in how and where to shop, our porch is shaping up quite nicely indeed.

If I could bottle her, I'd share.
But since I can't, you're on your own.

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Mother Nature Decorates?

We had a big storm blow through here last Thursday night.
I found this on the roof of my car the next morning.

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BMI

I never used to think about my weight. I was one of "those" who could eat as much of whatever she wanted whenever she wanted and I didn't gain a pound. Yeah yeah. Go ahead, hate me. I'm paying my dues now.

I had to start thinking about weight for the first time while I was pregnant. In my first trimester, I ate everything that came within reach. With both hands. Every calorie stuck. When my doctor started bitching constantly lecturing me, I paid attention. For the last five months of my pregnancy, I primarily subsisted on small portions of cantelope, tomatoes and cottage cheese. I still gained weight. Lots of it. My doctor still bitched. He made me cry on a regular basis, the bastard.

I firmly believe my pregnancy weight gain was due to genetics. When my mother was pregnant with my sister, her doctor recommended she start smoking to curb her weight gain. No shit. The cigarettes didn't help her any more than my doctor's bitching helped me. We were genetically engineered to gain weight no matter what we did.

Fortunately, genetics worked in both directions. As soon as I expelled The Boy from my womb, I started losing all the weight I'd gained. That extra 70 pounds (yes you read that right---I gained 70 pounds to create a baby that weighed little over seven pounds) melted away in the same amount of time it took me to gain them: nine months. With a few notable, inevitable exceptions, things were mostly back to normal with my body.

Then somewhere in my late 30s, the shift began again. Sudden may not be the right word to describe the change, perhaps realization and acknowledgement is really what was sudden. Since then, I have had to be aware of my weight and how it relates to what I swallow. I find it rather irritating as self-discipline has never been my strongest suit.

I recently came across this equation. I don't recall exactly where. It was an article about body mass index and how to tell just how overweight one may or may not be. I can't resist a calculation, dontcha know. Here, you try it.

Divide your weight in pounds by your height in inches squared. Multiply the result by 704.5.

An index of less than 18.5 is underweight; 18.5 to 24.9 is normal; 25 to 29.9 is overweight; 30 to 39.9 is obese; 40 or more is severely obese.

So? Where do you fall?
I'll tell ya mine if you tell me yours.
Ha.

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Turn Turn Turn

She paces. Most of her waking hours. Incessantly. In circles. Usually clockwise. Sometimes wide, hugging the edges of the room and bumping her head a lot. Sometimes tight, as if she's trying to catch up to her own bitty tail. Other times, nice even circles in the open part of the room where she doesn't bump into or trip over anything.

Those last circles are, in my opinion, the best circles and the only ones worth turning, but she seems to prefer variety. Variety is, some say, the spice of life. Her life is evidently still spicy in some regard.

You've heard of seeing eye dogs? She has seeing eye humans. We guide her outside and, with a gentle nudge, send her floating into the yard. She moves like a magnolia leaf in a puddle, circling outside too. We retrieve her from the corner behind the woodpile where she inexplicably gravitates.

She startles wildly if touched unexpectedly so I talk to her as I approach. Not that she hears me. I touch her gently with one hand and allow her to get a scent of me. Then she waggles as I guide her inside. She anticipates the step up into the house by high-stepping all the way through the porch.

We sweeten her kibble. She gets a generous dollop of milk or broth or some leftover tidbits crumbled and mixed in with her meal. Usually something that softens it up a bit. She likes variety here too, not wanting to eat the same thing more than two or so days in a row.

Pills administered via a bit of peanut butter on a small piece of a crispy sesame bagel chip are her pre-breakfast treat. A pre-breakfast treat? Why yes. Why not? It's her "It's morning, I'm alive, and here I am wag-wag-waggling my stubby little tail" treat. Yeah, that one. We celebrate the small things.

She'll stand there wagging madly, facing the corner, staring blankly, attentive, expectant, her back to me. It's that blank rapt look into nowhere, off into the distance where, in her imagination, who knows what she's looking at. That stare freaks me out a bit. The looking without seeing. Yet her tail goes a mile a minute, the expression on her face speaking of the eagerness of her younger years.

Meanwhile her circling.
It's driving us mad.
Utterly, completely, certifiably.

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Hmmm

When I read one of the abundant news stories about some horrific thing that happened to a child, my first thought is, "Oh no how awful, so young, only fill-in-the-blank years old!"

Then I feel a palatable sense of relief, thinking, "Whew. The Boy made it safely past that age."

I wonder what that says about me.

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Postsecret

I work with a fellow who I'm pretty sure reads this blog on occasion although I suppose it's possible he may have become bored following my pathetic little life and given up on reading it at all. But I don't think so. I gave him an opportunity to fess up once after he made a comment about something specific I'd posted about myself, but he didn't bite. Eh. I don't really want to know.

Anyway, he shared with me the link I'm about to share with you so I thought I'd give him credit in case he still does poke around here. It's a fascinating concept, albeit not a new one, that of anonymous confession. Some of the submissions are heartwrenching while others are laugh-out-loud funny.

Postsecret

Enjoy.

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Stepping Up

So what do Suburban Lesbians do over a three-day holiday weekend? Pretty much the same things other people do over a three-day holiday weekend. Or maybe not?

Saturday: Road trip to historic Charlottesville, Virginia, home of the University of Virginia, home of the Heritage Summer Repertory Theatre to see The Boy's girlfriend in their production of Damn Yankees. Hellish traffic, fine show, excellent conversation over an early dinner afterward. This was the inaugural road trip for the Subaru Baja that now calls our house its home. It passed with flying colors.

Sunday: Trip to Lowe's for supplies for the inevitable weekend house projects. Two jobs: replacing the rickety folding stairs to the attic and installing a new door on the shed. Another first for the Baja as we made use of it's truckish nature to transport said supplies.

Then, ah then! Then we undertook pet-related chores. Dog beds were washed as well as dogs themselves, nails cut, ears cleaned, hair trimmed. Ah! Shiny, fresh and neat! Time to reward ourselves by doing nothing except reading and watching baseball. We sucked down a few brews in honor of the anniversary of Detail's death. How morbid? How festive!

Monday: Time for those house projects! Wendy and I hate hanging doors so we started with the stairs. Others may have tackled the least favorite job first, but not us. We are nothing if not grand procrastinators.

This photo isn't worth 1,000 words. Those stairs swayed, creaked and crackled when climbed. I always told myself, "Self, it's not that far to fall should these rickety stairs fail and you plummet like a stone to the concrete surface below. Really. Worry not. It's just not that far down. Crumpling will be at a minimum." Dig the groovy angle kicking out at the bottom.

Old style stairs have huge springs as the closing mechanism. New stairs have hydraulics. Huge springs really sproing when they are released. Is there a safe way to remove those springs? We musta used an unsafe way. One sprang all the way into our neighbor's yard. We don't know what happened to the other one. Seriously. It just disappeared. We think it sproinged into the attic somewhere. We hope it did. Maybe we'll come across it when we dig out the holiday decorations.

When we unpacked the new ladder, we discovered a block of styrofoam with a protruding handle. Sword in the Stone, anyone? Around Step 10 or so in the installation process, the instructions spoke of a special tool required to prime the hydraulics: the Wrench in the Foam!

There are many home repair tasks where having brute strength is an asset. Or at least having access to brute strength. Oh sure, brains can overcome the need for brawn in many instances, but there remain jobs where muscle is a true necessity. Turns out it is a serious benefit to be very strong if one is attempting to install an attic ladder. Wendy and I are strong enough to fake it when necessary. We had to really fake it for this endeavor.

Well. We didn't have to fake it to extract that tool from that block of styrofoam. It slid right outta there.

This ladder may not look like it weighs much. Somewhere between a bread basket and an automobile depending on how perceptive you are. Let's say two Cosines and a Figero. A week's worth of groceries and a large bucket of cat litter. Six cases of cheap beer and enough ice to chill it for a weekend. We held it over our heads. While we balanced on ladders. Wielding power tools attaching brackets and bolts. Ug.

Yeah. So even with a dearth of muscle, the job gets done anyway. Booyah. Or something like that.

It's great when what should be Monday morning is actually Tuesday morning.

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Heads Up

Something shiny on the console of my car caught my eye as I fastened my seatbelt this morning. Eagerly I reached for it, unable to resist the attraction. When it comes to shiny objects, I'm like a raccoon. Or a crow. Shiny objects grab my attention and hold me entranced.

It was a penny. A bright shiny new copper-colored penny. I say copper-colored because I don't think there is much actual copper in pennies these days. I saw Lincoln's profile so I picked it up. It was minted in 2005. I thought to myself, "Why the hell do we still manufacture this irritating coin?"

Thankfully that penny was laying there heads-up on the console. Otherwise I would have just left it there untouched until it either magically disappeared like it had magically appeared or magically flipped over to be heads-up, thereby freeing it from the ranks of the untouchable.

Some folks would say I'm superstitious. But some superstitions are so deeply ingrained they aren't even superstitions any more. They become second nature. Not picking up coins that are tails-up is second nature to me. It's how it's always been.

"Pop" is what I called my father's father. Now I call my father that at times. I can close my eyes and picture something Pop once gave me. It was a penny on a piece of green string. The string was tied through a hole someone, perhaps my Pop, drilled through that penny. I kept it tied it to a belt loop on pair of blue jean shorts, that penny on a string. I called them my penny shorts. So imaginative!

Pop told me it was a lucky penny. He said he'd found that penny heads-up in a pig's track, which is what imbued it with luck. He continued by saying, "Now young'un, if you ever see a coin that is face-down in pig's track, well you need to leave it right where it lays. There's not much unluckier than picking up a coin that's tails-up, but if it's tails-up in a pig's track, well, sugar, it's a heap a trouble to mess with something like that."

He nodded wisely as I stared up at him, and he back at me, my eyes rapt with interest. This was good stuff he was sharing. He so sounded like he knew what he was talking about. At my tender age, I was still blissfully unaware that adults ever even told lies. He probably didn't consider that 36-odd years later I'd still believe his words to be the god's honest truth.

My father once told me a lie. Well truth be told he told me many lies, couched as education, but with my dad it is all in fun. Of course, I forgave my dad immediately for his subterfuges. The glee he derived from my youthful confusion was contagious.

So now when I deadpan outrageous bald-faced lies just for the fun of it, which is quite the hobby of mine, I tell myself it's not that I'm a compulsive liar, it's just my genetics shining through.

But that stuff about the tales-up coins, well, that's no lie as long as I believe it.

Better safe than sorry.

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Baseball or Erotica?

I'm relaxing in the chair that replaced the green chair. The green chair is destined to furnish a certain college apartment come September. The green chair has been around. The new chair rocks. Literally. It rocks, swivels and reclines. It's one hell of a chair.

My mind is filled right now with baseball and erotica. Odd combo, I know. It's been that kind of day.

Hmmm.... baseball.
Hmmm.... erotica.

Hmmm.

Erotic writing is something Wendy and I always laugh at when reading lesbian-themed fiction. To us, it is so often the weak link in such books. We are ever-so-certain we could write the most compelling sex scenes, cliche-free, hot and inspirational with just the perfect amount of tasteful innuendo. I don't think it's necessary to spell everything out explicitly. I like my imagination to take over at some point.

I've not attempted to write anything erotic in ages. I used to write it, long ago and far away. It was hardly quality stuff so I'm not sure why I think I could do better now. Strike that. I know exactly why I could do better now.

I clearly remember remember being in high school and composing a rather nasty tale featuring Nancy Drew and her boyfriend Ned. Oh baby, oh baby. I had those two solving a different type of mystery than old Carolyn Keene tasked them with. George and Bess were also much closer than cousins should be. And Carson, man oh man. That lawyer was paying Hannah for more than housekeeping duty.

Pure lust can be a wonderful thing.

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File This Under....

You gotta be shittin' me!

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GPS

No no no, I'm not referring to a Global Positioning System. I'm talking Gross Pet Stories here.

If you have pets, much like children, you'll have stories to share. Some of them make you go "awww isn't that precious!" Others make you screw up your face in horror like you've just bitten into a piece of six day old sushi. Those are the stories that qualify for the GPS classification.

I have a GPS about Figero. It's probably the grossest pet story I have to tell about him. Put it this way: if you are ever fortunate enough to receive an invitation to dine at Casa de la Lesbiana Suburbana, you may remember this story and opt to decline. But hey, live on the edge people! Don't let a little Gross Pet Story deter you.

Figero always had a designated place on the kitchen counter to serve as his dining area. It kept his food up high away from the other four legged critters who seem to prefer cat kibbles over their own. What is up with that, anyway? Oh sure, the cat would occasionally munch on a little dog food but he would never scarf it completely down. The dogs, on the other hand, if left alone with cat food, would hoover it gone in a matter of minutes. Hence the elevated location of Figero's plate. Fig had given up jumping up onto anything high about a year or so ago. We adapted by lifting him up for his meals. He had no problem leaping down after dining.

Some folks think letting cats on the kitchen counter is gross. They are entitled to their opinion, of course. In some instances I'd even agree with them. I usually support the practical solutions, however, and in this case allowing the cat on the counter was the most practical solution available.

During my sister's recent visit with Nikita the Indian Princess, Figero spent a great deal of time up on the kitchen counter avoiding the disrespectful and persistently curious Nikita. Fig would hang out up there long after he'd finished his breakfast or dinner. One day I came home from work and found him curled up next to the stove. I raised an eyebrow, confused. Since he no longer could jump up onto the counter, he must have spent the entire day up there! I was slightly alarmed. I peered around the counters yet noticed nothing amiss. I whisked Figero down while Nikita was outside and sent him on his way.

Later that evening SK put the kettle on the stove to boil water. My sister drinks a lot of tea. Hot tea. Well. Maybe it's not tea she drinks. But she boils water for something. That's when the fun began.

Science has always bored me to tears. What happened that night as the stove heated up to boil SK's water was like some sort of ill-conceived science fair experiment gone wildly awry. Merely a few moments after she turned on the burner, we were all gasping for air. Our eyes watered and burned, squinting tightly against the mace-like pollution filling the house. Oh the stench! It smelled like our house been swirled directly into a well-used port-a-pottie on the Fourth of July on the DC Mall. 98 degrees, man. Blazing sun. High humidity. The whole nine yards. We retched in unison.

I glanced around wildly then ran toward the kitchen, waving my arms and shouting frantically. That frantic arm waving shouting stuff works wonders for solving problems. You should try it some time.

Have you figured out the punchline yet? Of course you have and you are undoubtably 100% correct.

There were puddles of cat piss in the burner drip pans on one side of the stove. Overflowing puddles of heated cat piss. In our kitchen. On our stove. Where we cook our food. The food we put in our mouths. Argh.

It wasn't obvious at first. There was no smell until the stove heated up. Why there was no smell, I don't know, but there wasn't. The burners drips pans are black enamel and the urine blended right in with the shiny surface. Who'da thunk it?

Some of us milled around the hot burner. Others flung open all the exterior doors to let in fresh air. I stopped shouting and cussed under my breath instead. We cleaned it up. Thoroughly. Now we try not to talk about it. I mean really. Yuck.

This story does, however, top my list of When Pets Cross the Line.
What story tops your list?

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Snot Rag, Please

We don't usually keep Kleenex around the house. (Please note the capital "K" in Kleenex. It is, after all, a trademark used for a soft facial tissue. But I usually use Kleenex to blow my nose and am therefore a bit mystified as to why they are formally referred to as "facial tissue." Snot rag would be more true to life.)

So the secret that is not really a secret is now even less of a secret: we don't usually keep soft facial tissues around our house. I know, I know. Admitting it helps me feel less heathen.

According to our mothers, Kleenex is a staple that should be kept on hand at all times. Perhaps at some point in our lives once Wendy and I have reached that certain age, we, too, will feel the need to keep Kleenex on hand at all times. Until then, however, I only buy it when one of us has a cold or when one of our mothers will be visiting. We prefer Puffs Plus brand over Kleenex brand (mmmm.... lotiony).

When Wendy's mom was here a week or so ago, we picked up a box of Kleenex for her. She prefers Kleenex brand. She didn't use them all. Yesterday morning I was glad to have them because I woke up blowing snot everywhere. (Doesn't that inspire a wonderful visual image? Please. Take a moment and let your imagination wander.)

I have a freaking summer cold. I don't recall ever having had a summer cold before. I'm usually so healthy it's ridiculous (k-o-w). It began the day of the picnic with a irritating sore throat. A sore throat! Even when I smoked cigarettes, my throat didn't get sore. Bah.

As my runny sneezy stuffed up nose and I left for work that morning, I snagged that box of Kleenex to take to the office. All day long I was glad I had it.

But now. Oh now I'm sad. When I left the office I neglected to bring that box of Kleenex home.

I should have left my runny nose at work too.

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Hobbies

I did wonder about listing balancing my checkbook as one of my hobbies. But it seems reasonable considering how much I adore keeping track of money.

Doesn't everyone feel a little more lighthearted when they open their mailbox and see that their monthly bank statement has arrived? Doesn't everyone take the first available opportunity to rush to their computers and open up Quickbooks? Doesn't everyone enjoy painstakingly entering every single transaction involving cash or credit or a check into their accounting program? Doesn't everyone get the same thrill, that rush of satisfaction, that splendiferous glow of success, when, after checking off that last transaction on the statement, the bottom line of the reconciliation reads "$0.00 difference"?

No?

Well.
I do.

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36 Hard Boiled Eggs?

Ah yes, it must be time for my ever-revered company picnic! That's the reason Wendy and I boiled dozens of eggs. Wendy has kindly taken on the responsibility of peeling said eggs. I wuv her. I'm in charge of the next steps.

My office takes our picnic very seriously. Two compulsive planners are in charge. No, I'm not one of them. I am but a peripheral picnic planner, a peon. I sit in on the meetings and try not to laugh inappropriately.

The two that are in charge are such compulsive anal-retentive planners that they insist on managing every detail down to extrapolating exactly how many napkins we will need based on the past sauciness of the barbequed ribs. I am so not kidding. Compared to them, I am laid back and relaxed, a real sloth who flies by the seat of her pants having never made a plan in her life.

Compulsive Planner One: "Let's talk about the napkins again. I'm sure we all remember the disaster at last year's picnic when Daniel (his name has been changed to protect the innocent) wandered around most of the afternoon with barbeque sauce on his face because we ran out of napkins. Oh the mess he made in the moonbounce!" Compulsive Planner One shuddered at the memory.

Compulsive Planner Two: "I'm thinking to avoid that problem we should assign the task of bringing napkins to more than one person. Hey! Maybe everyone should be responsible for bringing their own napkins! That way there will be no misunderstandings and we can't be blamed if we run out. Then it won't matter how much sauce Johnny Mac pours over those delicious juicy irresistible ribs!"

Me: "How about we bring that unopened package of 500 napkins and three rolls of paper towels from the kitchen along with the extra-super-duper-economy-sized container of Wet Ones someone gave Daniel as a gag gift at the holiday party? That should cover us nicely."

Compulsive Planner One and Two looked at me like I had just sprouted a second head. Then they looked at each other and scribbled in their notebooks. "Okay Suzanne. If you feel that will be adequate for the 50 or so guests that will be there, we'll go with your idea. But remember! If we run out of napkins it's on your head!" I nodded and smiled.

But seriously, they do plan a fun picnic. Every person in the office is saddled with at least one preparatory picnic task or is assigned a during-the-event duty.

This is the first year I am not in charge of the water balloons, which makes me a bit sad. I perversely enjoyed filling up several hundred water balloons the night before the picnic. Wendy would help. It was a real family affair. There's just something about huddling shoulder to shoulder with your loved one at the kitchen sink, a huge cooler at your feet, stretching colorful bits of rubber around the faucet and gently tying them off after filling. Of course the real fun is when they break loose and spray water in every direction.

Obviously I am still in charge of deviled eggs, which I prepared rather on a whim last year. Now it evidently shall forever be assumed that Suzanne will bring deviled eggs to the company picnic. That's fine because I make good deviled eggs and enjoy preparing them.

The recipe is not complex, yet I enjoy refreshing my mind by looking up what The Joy of Cooking has to say about deviled eggs. This line makes me appreciate the writing in this cook book. It manages to give instruction without really telling you anything specific: "Crush yolks without packing them and moisten them pleasantly." Alrightly then.

That may well become my new farewell greeting: "May your yolks always be pleasantly moistened." Yummy!

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Pictures for weese

Because she always asks so politely.

Before: Big ass honking cedar tree.
We think there is a house behind it.


After: There is, there is a house!


Yeah, we still have a long way to go to make this place beautiful.
A long long way.

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Weekend Recap, Suburban Style

This weekend, a first in many recent weekends, belonged to Wendy and me. Exclusively ours to do whatever we decided needing doing---including nothing, should we so deem.

I secretly hoped we’d deem at least one weekend morning worthy of doing nothing. Mornings are for laying about after all, as are evenings to a great extent. Afternoons and afternoons alone are for exertion. Unless it’s football season. When it’s football season morning and afternoons flip flop on Sundays. But it’s not, so they don’t.

Our weekend began with Friday night. A craving for chocolate had been hounding me all day. Literally all day. I baked a pan of brownies. The box recommends letting them cool for one hour to ensure ease of extraction from the pan. I showed great restraint by waiting 30 minutes.

(They’ll be gone before I go to bed Sunday evening.
I’m a glutton that way.
Just so you know.)

Saturday I played bed slug. Wendy brought me coffee. I fell back asleep and my coffee got cold. Wendy brought fresh hot coffee. I sipped it while eating a brownie and watching Sports Center. Wendy decided to mow the lawn. I watched some cheesy movie on TNT or some such like. I think it was called “Blood Surf” or something equally as enticing. It was about this 30 foot long giant man-eating crocodile. Everyone in the movie got eaten one by one until just a hero and heroine were left. They killed the croc and made love in the surf. Oh yeah baby.

I started feeling a tiny bit guilty about being so indulgently lazy, so decided to get up and do some work in the yard myself. There are several bushes/trees in the yard that need to taken down. (What do you call something that is like a tree but also like a bush? Trush? Bree?) I got it in my head to start taking down a holly bree in the front yard. I ate another brownie and got to work with my granddaddy’s pole saw. Soon all that was left was a humongous pile of pruned branches and the twelve foot tall eight inch diameter holly bree stump.

Wendy and I surveyed the situation.
“We need a chain saw,” I stated the obvious.
Wendy said “Tomorrow.”

Ah! The Alexandria Waterfront Festival. I’d forgotten we were meeting friends there for the evening. We showered and dressed. I ate a brownie and we hit the road.

One friend showed up wearing fake hair in a ponytail, which is odd yet entertaining in its own special way. The evening was beautiful. We could have indulged in an advertised culinary delight called “crab cake in a crepe” but we decided on a pulled pork sammich and some fresh cut fries. I mean really. Crab cake in a crepe? Pul-lease. That’s just not done in the civilized world.

We set up not far from a beer truck to watch the bands. Alexandria is a great city in which to attend a festival. The shuttles run on time, trash cans are emptied regularly and there is Purell in every port-a-potty. Do I need to get out more or has Purell been a fixture in port-a-potties for a while? Either way, it rocks. Totally.

We arrived home a little before midnight. I had a beer and a brownie and headed for bed.

Sunday we got ourselves a chainsaw and finished off the holly bree. We bundled the debris and stacked it by the curb. Wendy and I eyed the cedar trush at the corner of the house. It was huge. Taller than the house. It so needed to be gone. So it was said, so it was done. Said trush now resides neatly bundled at the curb awaiting Wednesday's designated yard debris pickup. Little by little we are taking charge of our landscape.

Which brings us to Sunday evening. Right this minute. Wendy and I are sitting side by side on the screened porch. Cans of cold cheap beer are open at our elbows. We survey our corner of suburbia, our eyes comforted. Green makes everything gorgeous. The breeze wafts across us and we enjoy the sound of the wind through the trees, a gentle rustle as soft and silky as Faith Hill in her “Breathe” video as she writhes naked on satin sheets.

Wendy says “This feels like being on vacation.”
I have to agree.

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Power of Three

Third time's a charm?
Gina thinks so.

3 names I go by:
Suzanne, Suzi, Mom

3 screen-names I've had:
WordsRock, UpUpUpUp, Metis

3 physical things I like about myself:
my eyes, my nose, my freakishly large hands

3 physical things I dislike about myself:
my thighs, my hips, my upper arms

3 parts of my heritage:
Scottish, German, Irish

3 things I am wearing right now:
sandals, toenail polish, jeans

3 things I want in a relationship:
desire, friendship, trust

3 physical things about the preferred sex that appeal to me:
eyes, ears, long hair

3 of my favorite hobbies:
reading, writing, balancing my checkbook

3 things I want to do really badly right now:
go back to bed, visit with The Boy, smoke a cigarette

3 things that scare me:
insects, heights, Ge0rge W. Bush

3 of my everyday essentials:
Coffee, clean panties, goodnight kiss

3 places you want to go on vacation:
Bigfork, Montana; Canada; Sedona, Arizona

3 kids' names you like:
Gregory, Adrienne, Zachary

3 things you want before you die:
To see The Boy on Broadway, to have my relationship with Wendy legally protected, to write something worth reading

3 ways I am stereotypically a boy:
I like girls, I like girls, I like girls

3 ways I am stereotypically a chick:
I dislike sweating, I love to cook, I hate bugs

3 6 celeb crushes (why stop at three?):
Heather Locklear, Angie Harmon, Susan Sarandon,
Queen Latifah, Jodie Foster, Faith Hill

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Doggie Style?

I was home alone a few Wednesday nights ago for the first time in I can't remember how long. My sister was in Maryland praying or doing some other such nunly activity. Wendy was attending her employer's annual board of directors awards dinner. She was presenting an award and ever so excited to be a part of things. (Those of us who know and love Wendy realize she'd rather be home with me and the dogs on the couch watching baseball instead of wearing pantyhose and giving a speech in front of a roomful of bigwigs.)

My arrival at home precipitated a great deal of doggie enthusiasm.

Had I mentioned we were dog sitting for our neighbor? No? Well we were. We also had Nikita staying with us while my sister was off at the temple. So there were four dogs to greet me; four dogs to be petted, walked, fed, watered, talked to, snuggled.

Eventually we all settled down. Hanging out on the new couch, laptop in my lap surfing the internet, baseball on TV in the background. I was completely enjoying the peace and quiet and the feeling of being the only human in the house.

Then some thoughtless neighbor of mine had the nerve to walk down the sidewalk with their dog on a leash.

Nikki started it because she had the best view out the front window. Bonnie and Dudley were instantly alert, leaping up on the couch and lining up next to Nikki, their paws on the window sill. They bayed and barked and generally created a cacaphony that caused the very air around us to shimmer and shake.

Cosine, in her obliviousness, continued to pace large circles in the dining room, unaware of the excitement she was missing.

Ah, the simple life.

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Every So Often

I recently caught a ration of shit from some loved ones when I shared with them something I rather randomly wrote in my little green notebook. I read it aloud to them.

"I've thought how convenient it would be to be mentally ill. To have 'breakdowns' where all would gather around and tend to my needs. Where being in a medicated haze would be encouraged and no one would expect much."

It was interpreted as being disrespectful to persons with mental illness. I didn't intend it as such when I jotted it down. I was just feeling overwhelmed by life in general. Every so often I get the impulse to hide away somewhere. Scrap everything, find a cave in the wilderness and call it home.

That's a pretty big stretch considering how much I dislike camping.

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Ah Youth?

Wendy and I had a taste of young lesbians this past week. (For those whose minds tend to drift into the gutter, allow me to clarify: not a literal taste!)

Two women, both less than half my age but just over half of Wendy’s, accompanied us on our annual Indigo Girls concert outing. Their sexuality is not a secret, yet I choose to preserve their anonymity herein by referring to them as YoungLesbian1 and YoungLesbian2, apropos of Dr. Seuss’ Thing 1 and Thing 2. Yet calmer. And less destructive.

We’ve known YoungLesbian1 for years; YoungLesbian2 is her friend from college. Emphasis on friend. Just. Really. The concert was at Wolf Trap and we were sitting on the lawn with hundreds of others. As I scanned the crowd, I took note of a healthy sprinkling of heterosexuals. It was a nice mix with lesbians in the majority. Lesbians of all ages, shapes, sizes.

The specifics of one particular conversation are lost forever to the vast expanse of my memory that is no longer a memory. But I recall YoungLesbian2 saying to us, “Hey, we could grow up to be y’all one day!”

She didn’t look disgusted or apprehensive or anything! Yay?

Wendy and I were crowd watching, pointing out interesting audience members to each other.

“Hey, look over there. BlackTank is nibbling on BrownTank’s ear and BrownTank seems completely disinterested.”

“If you were nibbling on my ear like that, I’d be a puddle!”

“Yeah, you sure would.”

We looked at each other and smiled.

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Rubbing Off?

My in-laws arrived today. Up from Houston, Texas, they flew. But not on broomsticks. Oh no. They are much too sweet to have been issued broomsticks. They flew Continental Airlines, the only carrier that offers non-stop service from George H. Bush International Airport to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Those airport names please her parents as much as they displease Wendy and me.

Wendy's Texas accent is creeping back as it tends to do when she's around her family.

I like it.
It's sexy as hell.

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Ripped From the Headlines!

It's rather ooogie to think about in any way other than merely on the surface, but I'll offer a hardy thanks to my parents for having passed along the "good" genes.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, it's raining men?

In other news, certainly not headline news, our fence is complete. I solved my shower dilemma by letting the hot water run until the window was completely fogged. Only then did I shed my pajamas and step into the shower. I am one smart cookie.

It is a beautiful thing. Wendy and I can now walk out onto our newly refurbished screened porch wearing nothing but what the good lord gave us without fear of scarring the neighbors for life. We'll have to think of some other way to make our mark on them.

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Another Day

By the time Detail died, I was ready to tell the world. His illness was lengthy and I comforted myself by writing his obituary over several months. I'd revisit it every so often, adding and editing, until I had crafted something I felt worthy of such a beautiful dog. Working on it truly brought me solace.

One may think, because we had two other aging pets in the household, I would have also been working on their stories. But while I have mulled them over in my head many many times, I have not yet committed even a single thought to paper. Perhaps it was my way of trying to postpone the inevitable. After all, if I have not yet written their stories, there is no way my pets can die.

Foolish me.

For those of you who expressed concern, it was not Cosine who died yesterday. It was Figero, the Alpha Cat. Why I just didn't come right out and say that in yesterday's post is up for examination. I guess The Boy isn't the only one with a dramatic flair, although I wasn't thinking "drama!" when I posted it.

I was just thinking I felt worse because I have not yet written Fig's story.

Right now I'm thinking about how the hell I'm going to take a shower. When Wendy and I remodeled the bathroom there was one finishing detail we procrastinated over: frosting the window. The window in the shower overlooks the backyard and anyone in the backyard can look up and observe the showering person showering. This can be entertaining in the right circumstance.

But this morning, bright and early and before my usual shower time, the fence folks showed up to finish installing the fence. In the backyard.

Can I shower effectively with my pajamas on or will Juan, Jose and Hector run screaming out of our yard, blinded because they looked up at the wrong moment?

Complete details on the News at Nine.

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Odd Start to the Week

The man who used to be my father-in-law died last week. I heard about it two days after the fact via a voice mail from my ex-husband. I am grateful to be kept in the loop. I hate when people die and I don't hear about it for weeks or months.

He filled me in on the circumstance in the returned call. Despite his father's poor health over the past decades, his death arrived unexpectedly. As he recounted what happened, I yearned to press for details but knew to do so would be in incredibly poor taste (my mother did manage to teach me a few manners).

He had a coronary while driving, his wife the only passenger. (Were they on a freeway? Highway? Country road? Close to town? Where were they heading? What was he wearing? Was it daytime or nighttime? Raining? Was the radio on? Sirius or XM? What were he and his wife discussing? Were they enjoying the day? Arguing? Laughing? Was their dog in the car with them?)

The wife was able to steer the car off to the shoulder of the road and safely stop. (How did she manage that? How fast were they going? Were there any other cars on the road? If so, could they tell something was wrong? Was she crying? Shouting? Was she talking to him when it began? What alerted her that something was wrong? Could he speak to her? Make eye contact?)

She dialed 9-1-1 and began CPR. (Did she have good signal strength on her cell? Was she calm? Did she stretch him out on the front seat of the car? How the hell did she manage to maneuver him? Had she had formal CPR training? Was he dead before she got the car stopped? Were his eyes open? Did anyone stop to help her? How long did it take the paramedics to arrive? How many of them were there? Male or female? Old or young? Did they declare him dead or was that done at the hospital? Did someone comfort her? What happened to the car? Did it get towed or did she pick it up from the side of the road later? Will she ever be comfortable driving it again?)

All those questions. I’ll never have answers. I have no need to know. It’s just morbid curiosity. Or natural curiosity. Is there a difference?

Another oddity of divorce in a family: who keeps in touch with whom? Who fades away to become someone I used to know? In the case of our family and our divorce, we all kept in touch rather closely while The Boy was younger. His dad wasn't great about making sure The Boy got over to see his grandparents on a regular basis. They were kind enough to include me in invitations for holiday gatherings and other occasions. With me came The Boy. Doh. But I enjoyed participating and always felt welcome. They are good people and it was important to me for The Boy to know that side of his family.

But by the time his high school years rolled around The Boy was so busy, we didn’t see his father’s family very often anymore. It was hard enough keeping up with my own. Distance was a factor. Everyone had moved a bit south and we had moved a bit north. His dad still wasn’t good at making sure The Boy got over to see his grandparents on a regular basis. We made do with minor contact on big special occasions.

I guess today is one of those big special occasions as I feel compelled to attend his memorial service, particularly since The Boy cannot.

And perhaps because a cake is better with icing, someone else died today. This morning actually. Dealing with that will have to wait. Well, dealing with the body will happen now but dealing with the loss will happen later.

I'm on autopilot.
I heart autopilot.

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Blocks from the White House Part Deux

Back in February, I shared with you the ever-so-fascinating tale of the polite man peeing in an alley.

Yesterday, I was in that same alley. Right next to the dumpster where the man relieved himself on that cold February day now sits a sparkling new Port-a-John.

DC is one oddball city.

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I Got Some Last Weekend

Soft sweet baby cuddles, that is.



PS: This baby, soft sweet and cuddly, is only six months old. He weighs 20 pounds and has six teeth. Six teeth! Twenty pounds! Six teeth!

He's going to be the size of a teenager before he's two!

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Ducks in the Road

Picture, if you will, a four lane highway. Route One, Richmond Highway as it is called while passing through the part of Virginia I am in. It is rush hour on a warmish June evening. Heavy traffic, bumper to bumper, fills both southbound lanes. The northbound volume is less dense yet still proceeds along the highway in numbers not to be ignored.

Myself, well, I’m on a side street in my car patiently waiting at one of the world’s longest stoplights. Soon, hopefully very soon, I will be given the opportunity to turn left onto the northbound lanes and proceed homeward.

Movement on the highway median catches my eye. I see a family. A family of ducks! Mommy and six little babies. “Oh! Baby ducks! How cute!” are my first thoughts. Then I think, “Holy shit what are those ducks doing in the middle of the road during rush hour?” I cringe. My mind races through possible outcomes. None of them are good.

An ancient red pickup truck traveling north stops in the middle of the intersection. An older man, let’s say he’s fifty, dressed in denim overalls and a ball cap, hops out of the truck. He boldly steps into the other northbound lane and holds up his hand in the classic sign “stop!” Surprisingly, the approaching vehicles do indeed come to a stop.

Overall Man is in charge. He approaches the Duck Family and begins to herd them across the northbound lanes. The Duck Family is surprisingly compliant and moves in a seemingly organized pack quickly across two lanes toward the curb.

Mama Duck hops up into the grass. But the Baby Ducklings are unable to climb the concrete curb! I see one jump and tumble back into the gutter, then another and another.

Overall Man to the rescue again! He squats down and gently helps each duckling up the curb into the grass. Except for those two ducklings who evidently are alarmed by Overall Man. They waddle rapidly away down the street. He breaks into a trot after them. His legs being considerably longer than theirs, he catches up with them quickly and scoops them up to join the family. The ducks all disappear into the tall weeds.

From afar in my car, I cheer.

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This is a picture I took on my trip with my mom. I call it “Dunking Ducks” because these silly ducks kept putting their heads under the water. My mother thinks they were eating. I think they were taking baths. Anyone know why ducks dunk their heads?

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So Much Paper!

I am in a state of disbelief at the amount of paper I am responsible for pushing around every month. How did this become my metier? It no longer inspires. Instead, I feel buried. And bored.

Some news! I'm now a "regular" over at Emerald Pillows. I wanted to be a "large," but that slot was already filled by the always-lovely-and-ever-so-opinionated Elizabeth (mwah!). She and her partner put out a monthly publication filled with writing and such. Writing and such by lesbians. I fit right in because I am a lesbian and such. (In this case, I think that statement is actually true unlike the other times when I thought I should fit in because I'm a lesbian but then I didn't fit in at all because, like it or not, all lesbians don't always necessarily fit in with all other lesbians even though they may want to. Long live the run-on sentence ending in a preposition!)

So what does being a "regular" mean? Just that my name will appear regularly with my words somewhere besides this blog. In print and on the web. My vanity is growing along with the size of my ass. To view this month's edition in its print format, click on the PDF link at the top of the Emerald Pillows main page or read the contents by following the individual links on the left of the same page. Cool stuff within.

I envy Elizabeth's html skills and hope to wring some of her vast knowledge out of her head and absorb it into mine. Anyone know the proper grip for the Vulcan mind meld?

On second thought, a mind meld with her is too frightening to consider. I mean, really. And I don't scare easy.

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