Kids Say The Darndest Things....

Last night, I was leaving to pick up some dinner when my nine year old, D, asked if he could ride with me. I said sure. This is rare, especially considering the fact that he was out in the yard playing.

He gets in the car and doesn't say anything all the way to KFC. After getting the food, I started driving home and he's looking out the window with this extremely thoughtful look on his face, so I say,

"You got something on your mind, kid?"

He looks at me, very seriously and says, "Yes."

"Well, what's up?"

"I was just wondering, can I breath out of my nose and hold my mouth wide open at the same time?"

Well, I wasn't sure, so I tried it and sure enough, you can.


It was kind of funny, because I was thinking maybe he had something really serious that he wanted to talk to me about, but no, he just wanted to ride with me.

The whole conversation reminded me of a joke that Jeff Foxworthy would tell. It was about his daughter staring out the window as they were driving down the rode and he noticed she had this big smile on her face. He asked her what she was thinking about and her smile got wider and she answered, "Candy."



I just love kids....well, really only mine, but some of the things that kids think about is really refreshing. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to revert to that from time to time? The silly things that can make a child happy? I wish it was that easy for me.....The thought of candy making me blissfully happy. Usually, when I'm thinking about candy, I'm p.m.s.ing and I'm ready to bash someones face in with my stapler. If I'm holding a three musketeer bar, chances are you should maybe, probably, keep your distance.

Fantasy vs. Reality

Party planning is for the birds....

Every holiday season for the last several years, I've helped organize a benefit for the needy kids in the area. The party itself is fun. Once you buy your ticket, there's music, free food, all you can drink...but getting there is a real pain in the ass.

I remember watching The Wedding Planner w/Jennifer Lopez and thinking what a wonderful job it would be to plan big parties. You get to wear pretty clothes and plan something that is special, or fun, or for the greater good....Hah! It's really a bunch of spreadsheets, counting numbers and meeting with people that have fifty other things they'd rather be doing than talking to you. I feel like a damn bill collector, calling and harassing people about what their menu is, how many tables they're going to need, how we're going to get power to their booths.....and the worst, are you coming or not? All the while praying that the weather holds, that it's not too cold, or God forbid, it rains...

People totally disregard the R.S.V.P. aspect....I think I could write a book entitled "Laurie's Party Etiquette". It probably wouldn't sell too well, as I would just gripe the entire time about people's LACK of etiquette. I also have a job to do, people. Give me a few simple answers and I wouldn't be pushing it to the last minute. Procrastinators suck!

Anyway, I'm in the home stretch now, so everything is just going to have to fall into place. There's no choice in the matter. I won't have it any other way.

When you were a little kid, did you have this picture of your life and how it was going to turn out? Remember that game, M.A.S.H? I can't remember exactly how it went, but I remember you would pick several careers, who you were going to marry, the car you were going to drive....and the answers where a process of any, many, miny, mo. I always had such a glamorous life, according to the outcome of my M.A.S.H. games.....

And another thing, when I was a little kid, hell, when I was a teenager I had this glamorous view of my prince charming. We are conditioned from the time we're little girls to believe some man is going to come in and sweep us off our feet. We should be teaching girls that men can be jerks, they sometimes are not very conscientious when it comes to wiping and they expect us to work and then come home and make sure their stomachs are taken care of, among other things. That's why, girls, you should at least get you a good looking man, that way you at least have something pleasant to look at, at least until they discover the pleasures of sitting around on the weekends with their buddies, drinking beer, playing poker and telling blood thirsty tales on their hunting kills.....Eventually they all get old...I figure I have about five more good years out of M and then he's going to go fat, bald and boring.

The Fantasy



The Reality



I don't remember ever playing the game M.A.S.H., requesting a job that I'm ignored while trying to do, driving a mini cooper and living in a house that constantly stays messy. Once upon a time, my home was my retreat, now it's just a place I go to maybe get six-seven hours of sleep before I'm gone to the next place. So long as my tub is clean, there are no dirty dishes in the sink and I don't have to squat over my toilets, I can continue to live there. But I won't even mention the laundry....

True Blue Forever

Me and M met on the first day of first grade, standing in line for the water fountain. Our first conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi, I'm Laurie
M: I'm M
We stood there for a second, looking at the fairy tale poster hanging on the wall.
Me: I love Sleeping Beauty
M: I love Cinderella

A great friendship was born that day. We've had somewhere in the neighborhood of three fights in the twenty plus years since. The first one, I told a little boy that wore coveralls to school every day in the third grade that M wore a bra. Turned out she liked him and was humiliated. Fourth grade, I loved Micah. He was this adorable little tow headed boy with the prettiest blue eyes. I had worked hard to befriend him. One day, he tapped me on my shoulder in class and I turned around, smiling my prettiest smile when he asked me if I thought M liked him. I felt my heart go kerplunk into the pit of my stomach. When, in quite a huff, I told M about the conversation, I was in for a big surprise when I found out M liked him too. I eventually got over the betrayal. When I was in ninth grade, I rode with M and her mom to Texas for Christmas to see M's older sister, whom had the bad idea to marry a man she met out there while staying briefly with an aunt. After about four days, M and I were sick of each other and got into a screaming match over a game of pool. We got over it, and since then, and before, she's been the sister I never had.

I remember one time when we were probably around nine, ten years old, we were walking in the woods (we both grew up in the boonies, FOR REAL) behind her house. There had been some wild hogs tearing up peoples yards and Melissa was showing me some of their foot prints in a dry creek bed. Well, as luck would have it, I had to toot and when I did, it sounded JUST LIKE a growl. Melissa was being Ms. Tutor girl and was using a stick as a pointer. When she heard what she thought was a growl, she launched that stick up into the air and went running for her life, screaming at me to come on, "They're coming! They're coming!" at the top of her lungs. I about pissed myself I was laughing so hard. She was probably four football fields away before I could yell at her that it was okay, it was just me.


1998



Another time, we were adults, we took a trip up to St. Augustine. Her boyfriend, my husband and us were riding around, when in a tone of great puzzlement, she asked, "I wonder why, in Florida of all places, there are so many lighthouses?" Now, let me tell you, the car went silent. Finally I said, "Maybe because we're on a peninsula. Geez, M." Of course, she's still never lived that one down.

She's had two little girls over the last few years, and watching her become a mommy has been awesome. She's a really good one, probably because she worries that she's going to do everything wrong. She still has her moments though. A few months ago, she called. This is how it went:

M: Hey, girl.
Me: How are you and the girls?
M: We've been a little under the rain.

Now, it took me a few beats to figure out she was trying to tell me they had been a little under the weather.

I have my moments, too, but mine tend to be with the pronunciation of certain words, words like chaos, island, rendevous, pavilion, adolescent...the list goes on and on. You shoulda heard me in fifth grade when I had to give an oral report on the philosopher Socrates. I thought my teacher was going to blow the vein out of her forehead trying to repress her laughter. I thought I must've done a horrible job until at the end she told me the correct pronunciation of his name and it wasn't "So-crates".

When I was eleven, M's daddy was struck by lightning and died. It was the first death that profoundly affected me. M and I grew up in each other's pockets, so her family was my family and vice versa. Her mom was the first I told about being pregnant when I was fifteen. In July of '03, she lost her fiancé in a car accident and then three years ago, we lost her mom to crohn's disease. Earlier this year, her sister was in a serious accident and was airlifted to the hospital. She had broken her pelvic bone in multiple places, so badly in fact, that they refused to body cast her because if she started bleeding internally from the breaks, they didn't think they would have enough time to cut her out of the cast before she bled to death. It was terrifying, thinking that we were going to lose her, too. She pulled through and is still healing even now. I tell you this, not so anyone can feel sorry for her, but because the strength a human heart has is absolutely amazing. M is still one of the happiest people I know. She can put a pretty smile on her face no matter what is going on in her life. I think she lives by the mantra, fake it until you make it. Smile, even when life sucks, even when you think there is no way you can possibly deal with the pain you are going through. If you can do this, you can overcome any grief, any hardship, any bad mood, all the money troubles you may have. And please, never, ever, ever, think that it can't get any worse, because I guarantee you, it always can get harder. Even if it does, fake it until you make it. Smiling makes everyone feel better.


2008

Monday's suck

Hellooo, cyber world.

It's Monday and I'm never at my best on Mondays.....Today, I'm not quite sure why, as I'm digging this time change. I totally felt like I got to sleep in today, even though I was up at 5:45. I figure it'll take at least 3 days before my body adjust and then 5:45 is going to suck as much as it ever did.

So, three months ago my sister and law and I began a workout routine called P90X. We finished last week and now have moved onto some circuit training which takes half the time but is filled with cardio. I HATE cardio. I feel like my lungs are going to explode and a chamber of my heart will fill up with so much blood that its going to burst because my poor little veins can't pump it out to the rest of my body fast enough. I HATE cardio.

This morning, the lady on the tape is overseeing her two grunts behind her, each with a kick ass body and she actually says into the lens, "If she can do it, so can you." As though the girl is some kind of fat ass, or even flabby ass that has had two kids and smokes a pack of cigarettes a day....It's a hell of a way to start your Monday morning, let me tell ya..

So, my arms are looking awesome, if I do say so myself. I'm skinny, but not toned, at least not until lately. My stomach still needs more work, and my J-Lo booty probably isn't going anywhere, but that's okay. It's looking better than it ever has, so I want to say thanks to Ms. Lopez and the Kardashian sisters for making a plump bottom sexy. And Beyonce, of course...and whoever wrote that song "Big Bottomed Girls"...

So anyway, Halloween was on Saturday. M and I had an adult party to go to after the boys went trick or treating. Well, I go to put on my costume (I was the Octoberfest girl, Gretchen) and blow out the ENTIRE zipper. Hello, I just tried this thing on four days before and it fit fine! WTH? (Read previous paragraph if you don't get my puzzlement)

So, I ended up going out of costume while M went as a beer can with a Joe Dirt mullet wig. We were really classy.

Next month I'm going to Key West for the first time ever, which is saying something. I think every Floridian shoulda been to Key West by the time they hit twenty(inaudible).....One of my girlfriends (purely platonic :-0) are going down to live it up for four days among the sun, sea and fabulous cross dressing shows. There is actually going to be some kind of speed boat race down there at the same time, which should be fun. Getting excited! I even have a snorkeling trip all lined up. Man, I'm so organized. Do you have any idea how much money they want for a plane ticket down there, though? From Tampa, it's $400! So, we're making it a road trip. It's gonna suck, but for the eight hundred dollars we'll be saving, totally worth it. I drive a mini, so fitting all our stuff in there should be interesting, but I have faith.

Last year, I went to Ft. Lauderdale w/two other girls for an mma fight and we managed to fit everything in, so it should be fine.

Have any of your ladies ever been to a fight? No? Well, let me give you a glimpse on what you're missing out on...Mr. White, I expect a finder's fee on any new pay per view orders..jk, unless you're willing to pay me...)