New Look

Because PTCakes said my old look offended her eyes. I thought about it and realized that the white on black offended MY eyes too.

Anyway. We are supposedly going on vacation in the morning. I say supposedly because one can never be too careful with ones words when describing a future event involving me or any of the other melodramatic souls in my family. The Grizzwalds don't have s..t on us. So far several factors are working against us: 1. My near-homicidal PMS, 2. Part of our route being underwater due to stalled weather pattern in PA, 3. Recently discovered dry-rotted boat trailer tire practically ensuring dramatic blowout in middle of gridlocked interstate in 99 degree heat, 4. Oscar waking up with a 103 degree fever.

Everyone I know is in a bad mood today. I don't know why. Maybe my PMS is so powerful it's contagious. Anyway, that's about the only thing we have going for us. Every trip that begins with a good mood ends with a family member being disowned. But trip that begin with seething eyes and gritted teeth ends in...well, I better not jinx it.

PS Niblets, GREAT FUN LAST NIGHT!!!!

I.m trying a new program of going to bed at or before midnight. This stange and new experience directly corresponds with my "decision" to start jogging which stems from the michelin man who lives around my midsection and the fact that I'm going to turn ~gasp~ t-h-i-r-t-y ~wheeze~ in four months. Since my eyeballs shit the pot, I've decided I need to at LEAST lose some weight before my metabolism goes too. When I got out of the Marine's, I took my legs out to lunch and promised each and every muscle that we would never run again. Not for fire, not for flood. Not for earthquake, typhoon, Cujo, or food poisoning. But I lied. And it's all Tiarra's fault. She goaded me, peer-pressured me GUILTED me into running by telling me things about my heart. Of course, EmEl was the one who told me about all the extra blood and arteries you have to make for every extra pound of lard you have. And that was pretty gross. Anyway, my body was all, "So, you wanna run you FREAKING LIAR? Fine. Watch this." THen my knees were like ZOWWWWWWWWWW and my calves became slabs of meat lathered in Napalm and set on fire, and my toe bones? BRUISED! But Dear Doggy likes it. So we're gonna keep on trying. Besides, I think my heart likes it too.

Let me just tell you, a million bucks couldn't have made me happier than seeing the look on Delta's face when he got his father's day gift. But Iwill tell you all about it. Just not right now. Because she is 15 and has commandeered my computer to do whatever it is 15 year old's do on MySPace. I watch "To Catch a Predator," don't worry. Anyway, it's late. Will write when physically able...Good Night

I found the very best opthamologist in the WHOLE WORLD!! He taught me all about my eyeballs and how they work and he even looked into my brain! And guess what? It's there! And then this really great guy helped me pick out my new glasses and he was so much fun! He said since I only have to wear my glasses at night and while I'm reading and writing, I could go funkier than most people. And then we tried on every single pair of glasses and the ones we liked the very best of all are mahogony with four little rubies on either side. And they are Prada, which didn't influence me at all. I swear. Now I must buy shoes to match! My glasses will be ready next week and guess what else? They speak French just like in the commercial!!! I can't WAIT to get my glasses. My eyes will stop hurting and I can even drive over 10 miles an hour at night! I'm gonna tear UP the streets of Framingham. If you see a black Sequioa doing the Tokyo Drift late at night, holla at me. You won't see me beacause Delta pimped my ride with dark tint, but that's okay, I'll see you. 14 hours till the BEST FATHERS DAY GIFT EVER!!!!

AHA Moment

My little Oscar woke up with a hundred and two fever this morning. If you know me at all, you know I tend to, well, embelish things. I don't mean to be a drama queen. Honest I don't. But I spend more time blowing things out of proportion than I care to admit. So, by the time the pediatrician's office opened at 8:30, I had already convinced myself that Oscar had either lead poisoning, west nile virus, bird flu or a deadly south american flesh eating bacteria from the spider that bit her last week. The doctor, a SUBSTITUTE since our regular pediatrician was off doing something else today despite my child's illness (don't think he didn't get a voodoo doll) said that it was just a little virus, and really too early in the illness to know anything for sure. Of course, she is not familiar with my children, so how in the hell should she know? What school did she go to anyway? The diploma on the wall said Harvard, but please. Anyone with a printer and an imagination can graduate from Harvard. So, we went to CVS to replenish our stock of Childrens Tylenol, Motrin, Pedialite, Pedialite pops, sore throat lollypops, bandaids, thermometer condoms, first aid cream, cotton swabs, cotton balls, witch hazel and bedside toys. When we left, we ran into a friend of my mom's who said I somewhat resembled a male cadaver and thus must also be ill. Sure enough, we went home and I took my temperature and it was a hundred. So, I immediately ruled out lead paint. West Nile and Bird flu were iffy too because neither one of us had any of the other symptoms. But I'll be damned if I didn't have a spider bite on my right foot. Curse you Terminex! What do I pay you for anyway? (Voodoo doll) Oscar and I went to sleep. I woke up fever-free, but she didn't wake up for hours and hours. So long, in fact, that I had begun to worry about whether or not she had slipped into a coma. Alas, my child is now fever free and wide awake. Chances are, she will not go to bed in the forseeable future. But at least her late hours and dreary frame of mind have allowed me to pass the 18,000 word mark in my story. And now for the AHA moment: Tiarra said that she has never met another person who has so much off the wall crap happen. I thought about what my mom always tells me: "Whatever you focus on, you get more of. I spend SO MUCH time researching and diagnosing off the wall crap that I have become a magnet for it. Imagine if that's a fact? From now on, I'm only thinking good things. If I think hard enough, I might just find an extra ice cream sandwich in the freezer. Yum.

Last year I took a CPR class. I already had a working idea of what to do in an emergency from what I learned in the Marine Corps, but somehow something in my pea brain reasoned that I could ward off disaster by taking a class.

Today, I was standing at the kitchen sink, minding my own business, when my little Phee-Phee barreled around the corner clutching her throat and turning purple. SHe was choking on a grape. My skin puckered. I grabbed her, turned her around, kicked her feet apart and did exactly what I learned - in the Marines. I made my hand into a beer mug fist, turned it sideways and heimliched the hell out of her. She caught her breath, screamed for water, which she then puked up and began choking again. SO I heimliched her all the way down the stairs and into the front yard in the middle of a thunderstorm in my poor stocking feet. I always run outside in an emergency. God forbid the sky is raining railroad spikes one day. So, there we were, backlit by streaks of lightning, lurching around like quasimodo until at last the grape was swallowed.

That was some scary shit.

I haven't been writing here because I have been writing there. I started out with a goal of 300 words a day and now I try to stop at a thousand. I don't know what happened to me, I'm like a crackhead over this story. I'm at about 13,000 words now and I think I'll stop around a hundred. Si, I'll talk to y'all then. Actually, probably before that because I have a FREAKING HUGE gift for Delta on Father's Day. My gift for him will make all other gifts look like PRACTICE. The only way Delta will ever be able to top my gift is if he finds me a hot 25 y/o yogi who will walk around my (freshly remodeled) home wearing only white linen drawstring pants and who will give me massages at my whim, cook me fresh food and then watch the kids while I try to contain myself at a thousand words.

Oh Boy was I smug today. Smug and self righteous. I woke up fine, took the dog for a walk, took Ya-Ya out for coffee, everything APPEARED perfect. But really I was building up this snowball of smugness and then when we went walking with Tiarra tonight my dog turned into an idiot, my kids turned into Damian from the Omen only cubed and I proved once and for all that underneath my mild mannered alter ego lies the Lord of the Underworld. (That why my kids were so naughty, get it?)

The Men In My Life

Some of y'all know that my mother's day gift last year was an eight week old Cane Corso puppy. I was never a "dog Person" before he came along. Somehow, I fell in love along the way. My dog is big and drooly and he farts, burps and snores like an old man on a bean diet. He's massive and strong and prone to chewing up anything his unhingable jaws can fit around unless he's walked/jogged on a daily basis. We were walking this morning in the deluge, I in my poncho, he in his Gorton Fisherman raincoat that he abhors, and a thought struck me. For all the complaining I do about my dog - the vet bills, the groomer bills, the work, the 50 lbs of food a month, the work, the shit mountains, the chewed up stair treads, the work etc...he has really been the catalyst for many positive changes. For one, I walk more. He's a big, strong, dominant dog who has forced me to become a strong, confidant assertive leader. (At least while he's around) My entire novel has played out on our walks, I've met more neighbors and received more stares from hot men in trucks than I would ever garner on my own. We've bonded so closely that we even turn our heads at the same time.

He's a dog, I'm a human, we both know our boundaries and we're not too touchy feely but there are times when I can just think for him to do something and he'll do it. He's more in touch with me than I am with myself. Once, he even saved my life.

We've been through some times, me and that old dog. Okay, he's only one. And I'm only just becoming the owner he needs me to be. Becoming a dog owner was similar to becoming a parent in the respect that you don't realize how life altering the change was until you look back on it.