Here's the Blood for Vickie

It's been one of those weeks. You know that kind where you're just bewildered come Friday? I keep thinking, "Wow! I made it through another one! How on earth did that happen?!?!?"?

I did make it. I'm amazed. But my week was dominated by work stuff, which I understand is inadvisable to include in blogdom, only interrupted by an incredibly sad event which I can't really do justice on a blog.

So I'm going to borrow a story from my parents (Vickie and Donnie) instead. Dad told me this story almost two years ago, so I may have forgotten a detail or two.

Let me tell you, first of all, that this story takes place in the land before cell phones. It was back in the days when you had to coordinate and plan things ahead of time, lest you unknowingly eat dinner in the same restaurant at the same time as your spouse thinking you're being stood up. Yes, that really did happen to my mom and dad way back in the days before cell phones. But that's a different story.

In this story my dad is driving home one day along the interstate. He lives in Vermont, so naturally the views out his windshield are trees and mountains and wondrous.Dad's admiring the beauty out his window, maybe thinking about what he might have for dinner. Maybe daydreaming. The view is gorgeous, as always. For whatever reason, I forget why, he pulls over into a rest area. Again, he contemplates the view. In Vermont, even the rest areas are beautiful. Relaxed, he turns to open the door of his car. The side window, however, does not offer the same beautiful vista.

Instead, Dad is shocked to see the face of one of mom's coworkers through the window. "Here's the blood for Vickie!" says the man. He hands a vial of blood to my dazed father and leaves.

In case you're thinking my mother is a vampire or worse, she was actually a scientist in a lab at the time. Still, there was absolutely no way for this man to know my dad would be at the rest area and my mother's only explanation all these years later has been...

Yeah. She never offered any explanation. She's like that sometimes. Oh and happy Halloween by the way.

Photos:
Introduction to Vermont

Partridge Brook Reflections

I Got My Boobs Squishied Today

Work is even more insane than usual leaving me no time or mental resources for much else. For that reason I sat down at the computer and was sort of hoping one of those blog posts that writes itself would come out from my fingers.

But then luckily for me I remembered needed to leave for my first ever mammogram appointment! And what could be better blog fodder than having your boobies squishied beyond recognition?!?! And so, as they say, be careful what you wish for.

Let me tell you something though - it wasn't SO very bad.

I was all worried that whether or not I had gained a pound or two in my boobs would all be a moot point compared to whether or not the mammogram machine burst every last fat cell in my chest. Because I imagine *THAT* would require a whole new set of bras. And I was really scared too, because the bras I like are expensive. And also because I didn't want my boobs to look like pancakes.

I've heard it's worse if you have a mammogram during certain times of the month. So maybe mine wasn't so awful terrible. But I'll tell you what's worse for certain: Childbirth is worse. Having a wisdom tooth out is worse. Getting a crown is worse. Even getting my belly button pierced was worse.

Apologies to anyone who suffered through this who didn't need to be informed about mammograms. I'd post a picture of my pre-squishied chest as a boobie prize (so to speak), but this isn't that type of blog.

Instead here's a picture of a giant Halloween decoration hanging from a neighbor's tree. The spider is pretty huge and, although you can't tell from the picture, it hangs out over the road from the light post. The picture doesn't quite capture it, but it's equally cute and disturbing...sort of like a picture of my pre-squished boobs might have been had I posted one:

Denise Austin's Been Doing Me Wrong All These Years

So The-Guy signed me on to his gym membership. It turns out that as part of the gym orientation, they tell you you're fat. Or at least they told ME that I'm fat.

I tried to argue that all my fat was in my boobs, but the gym guy said they account for boobies. Men are supposed to be some certain percentage and women are supposed to be some other HIGHER percentage. Because they have boobs.

He seemed so sincere that I decided not to waste my breath arguing about how there should be different fat percentages for women with different bra cup sizes. And I suppose he's right to a certain extent, because in part that's why I was there. Because my boobs are all exploding out of my bras and I either need to lose fat or buy new bras, one or the other.

But I (wisely?) decided to keep that information to myself when they asked for my goals during the orientation. I told them my goal was to keep my man company on Saturday mornings at the gym. Because honestly I've got Denise Austin to help me keep my fat under control. Or so I thought.

Still, it's funny how convincing the gym guys can be EVEN THOUGH the art teacher stopped me in the hall on Friday specifically to ask me how I got my stomach so flat after having two babies.

And here's the secret to that one: work out every morning with Denise Austin for ELEVEN YEARS!!!! Seriously, my baby is 11 already. Hers isn't even a year old. I don't think she has to lose hope just yet.

Although Denise Austin totally forgot to tell me I'm fat, so maybe she's not the awesome workout buddy I thought she was. Maybe the art teacher should try the gym for 11 years instead.

Anyway, here are a couple random pictures. My boy raising the flag at school:He's the shorter one without the blurred face.

Older Gal on a turtle rescue mission:
Here's yard of the month near my kids' school:And last but not least, my good for nothin' cat sticking out his tongue:Hope everyone has had a nice weekend!

I'm Scared of My Own Wedding

So...if you go, I hope you have a good time and all. But I might not be there because it's too frightening for me.*

Rumor has it that weddings are scary because of the whole commitment thing. But as we all know, it's not the commitment that's scary. It's the invitations.

Well, that's not exactly right. Invitations in and of themselves are only paper. I even like to make cards and stuff that look very similar to invitations, see?


I even made a convenient card about death (more commonly known as a "condolence card"):But hopefully I don't have to use it. Or I would hope that, except really The-Guy-Who-Knows-A-Song-About-A-Chicken already used it.

So if I'm not scared of putting death on a pretty card, then you'd think a wedding card would be no big deal, right?

Right, because look, I already made a couple of congratulations for being married cards too:It turns out it's not the invitations themselves that are so scary, because those things can only give you a paper cut. It's how to send the invitations to the right people. "The right people" being, of course, the people that actually want to be there and/or who would be upset if they weren't there.

Oh, and also presents are also very, very scary. Because we already have three times more stuff than any five people need. But they told me at work that we can ask people to donate to charity instead. So that's way less scary. Sort of. I think.

Silly me, I thought getting married could be no big deal if I didn't buy a fancy dress. But it will be okay. As I understand it, we still get to end up married no matter how many different ways we screw up and make people mad. Sort of. I think. I hope.

*I'm KIDDING! I'm totally going to be there.

Adventures in Skyping With the Good For Nothing Cat

The cat pictured above has Post-Attic/Eave-Stress-Disorder (hereafter referred to as "PAESD") and I think I might have it too. Because a gal can only roll around in wasps nests and shingle nails and that horrible pink insulation stuff for so long without having nightmares about humongous lonely prehistoric fish with a seahorse head.

Perhaps you've never heard of PAESD. It's like this - we come home to the sound of obvious distress. After opening every last door and cabinet and hidey hole, we finally decide that the loud, piteous meowing was coming from inside the wall somehow.

I tried removing the air conditioner vent plate in the mistaken hope that I'd be able to see into the ceiling from there. I used a pickax to remove one of the attic floorboards.

I made my way as far back toward the eaves as I could. I was awash in fiberglass. I could feel the shingle nails poking into my head. I was inches away from wasps nests bigger than a coffee mug. I could hear at least one wasp buzzing an unhappy warning.

I later had this conversation with younger gal:
Younger Gal - I was SO SCARED!
Me - Yeah, I was really scared too. But I was trying not to let you know.
Younger Gal - I knew.
Me - How did you know?!?!
Younger Gal - (no answer)
Me - Was it when I said, "I'm scared!"?
Younger Gal - Yeah.

I really was terrified, mostly because things have been SO HARD on my gal lately. I was afraid the death of her favorite cat would send her straight over the edge. And I was also afraid of being stung by a wasp. Or getting multiple tetanus inducing holes in my head from all the shingle nails. Or falling through the ceiling into the dining room because I had removed the floorboard.

I got the idea to skype with the stupid cat, because my computer camera is one of those that clips on and has a cord. So I lowered the camera part and a flashlight between the attic floor and the eave, but I couldn't see squat. Luckily he was not as deep into the walls as I had feared and he somehow got himself out a couple of hours later.

I did NOT get pictures of the escapade even though I had potential photographers at hand, because of the whole potential cat's death thing hovering in the air. But I did get the above picture of Nimue having a distinct PAESD experience.

Here's a picture of my other cat snarling. It has nothing to do with anything, but I thought I would provide comic relief just in case you now have Post-Listening-to-A-Story-About-A-Cat-With-Post-Attic/Eave-Stress-Disorder-Disorder:

My Left Hand...

looks like this as of yesterday afternoon:

I Think Maybe Benjamin Franklin Was Jewish...but it was probably a secret. And then he observed Yom Kippur all year long. Or something.

For anyone not familiar with Yom Kippur, it involves hours in services atoning for sin. And you're supposed to fast and then being hungry makes you think about your sins and how you're going to do better next year.

Except, fasting mostly makes me wonder how people who are don't have enough to eat function day in and day out. And it makes me ponder whether the tingly feeling in my fingers and toes is hunger or just like some leftover frostbite from living in Vermont all those years.

Luckily just in case I can't really think up all my sins for the year right on the spot like that, some of the sins are listed out in the prayerbook so I can remember what to ask forgiveness for. I follow along and think about my sins.

The list sort of follows a formula: "We have sinned against you by this and we have sinned against you by that..." And there are a LOT of sins. And during services I say the words while thinking things like, "Yep. I did that this year." and "Yeah, I probably did that sin too." and sometimes even, "I don't strictly remember sinning that way this year, but y'know...it's been a long year. Maybe I just don't remember."

So this year I'm following along and then I read out, "We have sinned against you by irreverence..." and I was like, "Uh oh! I think I'm the QUEEN of that sin." And so that's why I didn't use the word "Antichrist" in the title of this post. Because the point is to try and do better this year.

No seriously folks, I have really have one additional true resolution for this year (besides being less irreverent) and that is to argue less with my gal. Surviving the gal's teenagerhood isn't enough for me. I want to survive AND still be speaking to each other by the time she reaches that magical age called "the end of teenagerhood". I think that's around age 40. Maybe 37 for a lucky few.

Look! How can I be SO proud and yet so exasperated by one little gal all at the same time?!?!?!In other news, I've been skyping with my gal's good for nothing cat. But that's probably a post all unto itself.