Courtesy of awkwardfamilyphotos.com, here's a laugh for today. (Oh, and PLEASE, I BEG YOU, check out this site. It's filled with so much awkward family goodness, I swear my pants are damp--and not in that way, you sicko.)
Please click me for Today's Laugh
P.S. Yes, this is my third blog post of the day, what-of-it?
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Here We Go Again
“Everytime I think I’m out, they pull me back in!”
--Godfather 3, Michael Corleone
--Godfather 3, Michael Corleone
Daughter got another fucking goldfish, y’all. She won him at her school fair a couple of weeks ago. Her last goldfish, Freddie Fishsticks, died back in February. Read his obituary here. After Freddie died, I threw out everything of his (which wasn’t much), because I was pretty sure we were not going to be getting another fish. A large bowl and some rocks went in the garbage because after all, he died in the bowl – but for some reason, I kept the food (must be the childhood lectures about never throwing out “good” food, even though who the fuck was going to eat the goldfish food?) Good thing I kept it though. It was one less thing I had to re-buy when she won this new one. Dammit. Just like Michael Corleone, I thought I was out of being a goldfish owner, but I got pulled back in!
This one is not one of your garden variety goldfishes – he’s orange/red and white and he has a little red slash of color on his top lip that reminds me of a moustache. Daughter named him “Red Lips” because of it. I know – it’s not a very sophisticated name, but what do you expect from a six-year-old? Freddie got a semi-cool name because I helped. I liked the double-Fs…you know, the alliteration of his name. I didn’t help this time. So, this morning, Daughter said his “full” name:
This one is not one of your garden variety goldfishes – he’s orange/red and white and he has a little red slash of color on his top lip that reminds me of a moustache. Daughter named him “Red Lips” because of it. I know – it’s not a very sophisticated name, but what do you expect from a six-year-old? Freddie got a semi-cool name because I helped. I liked the double-Fs…you know, the alliteration of his name. I didn’t help this time. So, this morning, Daughter said his “full” name:
Swimmy Red Lips Fishsticks Coreleone
(well, it’s not “Coreleone” but we have an Italian last name,
so “Coreleone” is as good as a substitute for it as I can make up)
So there you go. Join me in welcoming Swimmy Red Lips Fishsticks to the family.
Vacation Recap: The Grand Finale
Day Four: SundayI know I’m long overdue on this final chapter in my Vacation Recap. You’ll have to excuse me, because between my A.D.D. (which causes me to start all kinds of shit, but not finish nearly any of it), being irritable and homicidal, and THEN getting my Bar results…I haven’t felt much of any kind of happy needed to complete my recap.
Sunday was a lot like Saturday was – started with being out by the pool, and ogling Mr. Perfect for much of the day. Daughter got another full day of swimming in, I didn’t drink as much Smirnoff Ices and I stayed in the shade. I’m probably the only person who goes to Florida and comes back just as white as when I left (oh, except for my bright pink shoulders and back. Yeah. Typical white chick.)
My mom and I discussed what we were going to do for dinner that night, and decided we did not want to go wherever Auntie, the Greek Goddess and Brittney were going, because frankly, I was in the mood for a nice, juicy steak. Cooked medium and bleeding all over my plate, and I was sure that the Greek Goddess didn’t want to go to a steakhouse, and therefore, neither would any of us. I was not going to let her dictate where I was going for dinner AGAIN, so mom and I decided to go to one of the restaurants located on the condo property. We checked out the menu – where I saw they had a nice filet mignon (my favorite) and the decision was made. Done.
Auntie, in all of her Penny Pinching Glory kept asking us if we were going out for dinner. She wanted to make sure we ate the rotisserie chicken and leftovers (The Greek Goddess’ pasta salad and whatnot – apparently, she doesn’t eat leftovers). Oh and there was some instant mashed potatoes in the pantry she brought with her that we could eat too. And some Kraft Macaroni and Cheese for Daughter! I told my mom that I was #1) not cooking any fucking thing on my vacation, #2) I wanted a goddam steak for dinner and #3) Auntie could shove her instant mashed potatoes and leftover pasta salad up her tightwad ass. Mom was still smarting over the being ripped off part of her vacation, so she was an easy sell. We decided we were going to throw the chicken away behind Auntie’s back (and I said we should also throw the potatoes, the mac and cheese and the pasta salad away too).
We were finally able to sneak away from everyone and go have our nice dinner. After dinner, I took Daughter to the arcade that was on the condo property and let her wiz through $20 worth of tokens (not actual tokens, but they were on a card-thing that you swiped).
We got back to the room and everyone was gone. It was at this point when mom threw out the chicken and we had a good laugh. While she was doing it, she also threw out the rest of her beer and my Smirnoff Ices because no one was going to drink them – and my mom didn’t want to get blamed for encouraging underage drinking by leaving them for The Greek Goddess and Brittney. Apparently, a couple of summers ago, The Greek Goddess got shitfaced at my parents cottage on Lake Huron, while in the company of my brother. Auntie chewed my mom’s ass for “allowing” it to happen, even though she wasn’t there to supervise (nor should she have to – my dipshit brother should have known better. Truth be told, I would have let her get bombed too – I’m not that uptight. I mean, when I was 15 there was always an available adult to buy for me and let me get drunk and since the kid wasn’t driving anywhere, where’s the harm? Auntie didn’t quite see it that way, but whatever.) My mom didn’t want to have a repeat of underaged drinking being blamed on her so down the sink they went.
Fast forward to the next morning when Auntie discovers my mom has poured all of the available alcohol down the sink. SHE BLOWS A FUCKING NUT! It was classic because in the process, calls my mother “hateful” – which doesn’t quite make sense, because she said she was hateful because of my brother and father (both alcoholics). I don’t know how dumping out a few beers equates being hateful – but whatever. She tells my mom that maybe she wanted one of the beers…well, then Bitch. Go buy them yourself. My mom comes into the bedroom where I am (we’re packing up getting ready to leave and I’m all – What the Hell is going on?) and she tells me what just happened, i.e., the “hateful” comment. I tell my mom that since we paid for the alcohol, we have every right to pour it down the sink, take a bath in it, brush our teeth with it, or do whatever we damn well please with it, and Auntie can go fuck herself over this whole thing. I was so over this vacation it wasn’t even funny.
Auntie dropped us at the airport with no further incidents. There were no masked girls sitting in front of us, so there were no fake sneezes or coughs. I just couldn’t wait to get home and be done with this vacation already.
I am so pissed at my Aunt I could smack her. Best thing is The Greek Goddess’ high school graduation is this weekend and I’ll be forced to endure an afternoon with Auntie again. Will the fun ever end?
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
The Third Time Was Not The Charm
Got my Bar exam results in the mail today.
I failed it again. For the third time.
I can't even describe the level of overwhelming failure, depression, and anger I am feeling right now. Nor do I really feel like it.
I'm just wondering if I should quit taking it -- you know, three strikes and you're out -- or if I should try one more time. Right now, I feel conflicted. I don't want to give up, because it's not like me to be a quitter. But then again, who am I trying to kid? It's obvious I'll never pass the fucking thing. EVER. At least not with a better game plan.
I failed it again. For the third time.
I can't even describe the level of overwhelming failure, depression, and anger I am feeling right now. Nor do I really feel like it.
I'm just wondering if I should quit taking it -- you know, three strikes and you're out -- or if I should try one more time. Right now, I feel conflicted. I don't want to give up, because it's not like me to be a quitter. But then again, who am I trying to kid? It's obvious I'll never pass the fucking thing. EVER. At least not with a better game plan.
GODAMMMOTHERFUCKINGSHITCHRISTBITCHWHOREPISSFUCKINGASSHOLE. I hate my life right now.
Who do I have to blow around here to pass this motherfucker? Honestly.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Look It Up and Be In Wonder Of God's Miracles...
Last night I was flipping through the channels look for something to watch. I really wanted to watch Scrubs, but WGN is still showing the episodes I’ve seen 400 times. When I saw that last night, I wanted to go off on my rant again, but at this point, why bother? It’s obvious they haven’t read my strongly worded letter yet.
Because of the WGN situation, I was forced to check my standby stations. Some of my standby channels are: VH1 (which was showing Daisy of Love or Charm School – and while I’m usually a sucker for both of these shows, I’ve sworn off Daisy of Love because not only is Daisy annoying as fuck, but the guys they picked for her are even more annoying than she is. I’ve also decided not to watch Charm School, because half the girls are from Real Chance at Love and I didn’t watch that one. Plus, I’ve over the whole Charm School concept, after tuning into the first one with Monique). Anyways, since VH1 came up snakeyes, I tried the Food Network, Biography Channel, BBC America, Discovery Channel, TLC and QVC. All were showing nothing I was overly interested in. I was left to surfing the remaining channels, in the hopes I could find something.
I came across the Farrah Fawcett documentary (“Farrah’s Story”) on her battle with cancer on Bravo. As a little kid, I was a Farrah fan. I watched “Charlie’s Angels” and I even had one of those busts of Farrah where you could style her beautiful feathered hair and put makeup on her. I know they still make these types of toys – although certainly not Farrah anymore. Today they’re some Bratz incarnation where the doll looks like a whore instead of a wholesome, All-American cheerleader in the form of feathered-haired-perfect-teeth-beautifully-blonde Farrah.
I remember getting the Farrah bust for Christmas one year and nearly dying over it because I loved playing with it. I also remember being super pissed at my mom that year because she made me share it with her boyfriend du jour and his two daughters, who I swear, fucked up Farrah’s hair. Or used all of the purple eyeshadow, or some other heinous crime. Anyway—I’m getting away from the topic at hand.
I decided to watch a bit of the documentary because I was curious. Howard Stern had been talking about it all week last week – his comments were specifically on how it’s sad how Farrah is dying of cancer, and he wondered on why someone would want to film the battle in all its graphic detail. He wondered if she was so hungry for fame, that she’d stoop to filming her horrific battle for a last morsel of attention. I doubted that she filmed it because of a sick quest for fame – I believe she filmed it because it’s something that no one has done before, or at least no one famous and in such a graphic manner. I’m pretty sure she wanted to show how cancer attacks and makes you a shell of the person you once were. At one point in the documentary, her voiceover was talking about how cancer robbed her of the life she used to have – the life that she took for granted, and how much she wanted to fight to get that life back so she could appreciated it this time around.
I didn’t watch the whole thing because I ended up going to bed around midnight and there was still an hour left. But I have to admit, it affected me – and not for the obvious reasons. Yes, Farrah Fawcett has a special place in my childhood, and yes, her battle with cancer is both fascinating and heartbreaking. But what affected me was that it reminded me of the battle my mom had with a disease called Amyloidosis. My mom sort of looks like Farrah Fawcett – she’s a beautiful petite, blue-eyed, blonde with a pretty smile – which is what first made me think of her while watching Farrah’s story. Amyloidosis is a very rare blood disease that is treated in a number of ways – mainly with chemotherapy. My mom found out she had this disease during my first year of law school. She got very sick, and was in the hospital for months. She underwent chemotherapy, lost a bunch of weight (she was already thin to begin with, but probably got down to about 100 lbs.), lost a lot of her beautiful, thick blonde hair, and also underwent a stem cell transplant. Most people don’t even know they have amyloidosis until it’s too late, because the symptoms usually point to other problems. For example, with my mom, it started with her ankles swelling up. The doctors all thought something was wrong with her liver, and she underwent a million tests on her liver (with the final one being a biopsy). Nope, no cancer…but finally one of the doctors recognized it was amyloidosis.
What I remember most during her diagnosis and treatment was all of the stress I was under. I know it sounds selfish, but picture this – I started law school when Daughter was 8 months old. By January of that first school year, my mom was in the hospital. She was the primary person that was helping with Daughter, because Husband was a new father and like all new fathers, was a bit of a dipshit when it came to babies. I couldn’t really visit my mom all that much in the hospital, because I was working full-time during the day, went to classes Monday-Thursday evenings, and then tried to study and do all of my homework on the weekends (besides still trying to be a mom and wife). Plus, because of the chemo and stem cell transplant, my mom was uber-sensitive to germs, and we all know babies who go to daycare are germ factories. So it was probably best I didn’t visit her, in case I was incubating some germ that would kill her.
She got out of the hospital in March, and then was basically under house arrest for 90 days. She wasn’t really allowed to got out in public, again for fear that germy people would expose her to a cold or something, which would be fatal. Through the whole thing, I did talk to her on the phone a lot, and she sort of lost her marbles for a time being. She talked a lot about God, and how she was going to survive and all of that. She really did have a great mental attitude, even if she was a little bit loopy (seriously, she was kind of spooky-crazy. Difficult to describe, just trust me on this one.) Of course, she tried to mask the seriousness of her condition from me, because she’s a mom and that’s what mom’s do. They try and protect you from the truth and try to make you not afraid. By then, though, I was a grown woman and therefore, not stupid or immune to the seriousness of her condition. I mean, come on, mom. I’m just one of those people who keeps all fear and emotions bottled up. So just because I’m not balling my eyes out or babbling on over how scared I am, doesn’t mean I’m not scared shitless that you’re gonna die and not see your granddaughter grow up. I just choose to stick my head in the sand and not face it until it’s absolutely necessary.
And in case you’re wondering – my mom is definitely 100% cured, even though every now and then she gets scared that amyloidosis is going to come back (or that the damage it caused to her liver and heart will become serious). She’s gained back the weight she lost and pretty much looks the same as she did before she got sick. The only real difference, which is not really noticeable to the outside world, is that her hair is so much thinner now. Like I described, her hair was so thick (I mean, I’ve never known anyone to have such thick hair as she did) and it was so blonde and pretty. I always envied her blonde hair (I have to highlight mine to get it anywhere near blonde, whereas hers was natural). Although she doesn’t have a bald spot or anything, if you touch her hair now, it’s baby fine and thin. It makes me think of Farrah and her world-renowned blonde hair, and how much it was her identify, and now, in her last stages of cancer, she’s probably bald. Oh, the sad irony.
Anywhoosit, from what I understand, most people die from amyoidosis, because it attacks your organs (with my mom it started in her liver, damaging that along with her heart). People much older and weaker than my mom find out they have it – thus cannot survive the aggressive treatment of chemotherapy or the stem cell transplant, and instead just take medications that treat the symptoms and not the disease – and then die not too long after their diagnosis. However, 6 years ago, my mom was 48 and was determined to treat it with the most aggressive means. I also know that most people do not survive amyloidosis after five years, but this summer will by my mom’s 6th year being totally “cured”. She is a walking miracle. And in case I ever forget this tidbit – she reminds me all the time. As an example, I texted her while I was writing this because I couldn’t remember the name of the disease:
Me: What was the name of your disease again? I forget.
Mom: Amyloidosis. Rare blood disease. Look it up and be in wonder of God’s miracles.
Yeah. So, y’all. Look it up and be in wonder of God’s miracles. Sorry, I’m being sarcastic here, even though I really am thankful to God that she survived the disease in order to torture me on a daily basis with The Crazy. Really. I swear.
Because of the WGN situation, I was forced to check my standby stations. Some of my standby channels are: VH1 (which was showing Daisy of Love or Charm School – and while I’m usually a sucker for both of these shows, I’ve sworn off Daisy of Love because not only is Daisy annoying as fuck, but the guys they picked for her are even more annoying than she is. I’ve also decided not to watch Charm School, because half the girls are from Real Chance at Love and I didn’t watch that one. Plus, I’ve over the whole Charm School concept, after tuning into the first one with Monique). Anyways, since VH1 came up snakeyes, I tried the Food Network, Biography Channel, BBC America, Discovery Channel, TLC and QVC. All were showing nothing I was overly interested in. I was left to surfing the remaining channels, in the hopes I could find something.
I came across the Farrah Fawcett documentary (“Farrah’s Story”) on her battle with cancer on Bravo. As a little kid, I was a Farrah fan. I watched “Charlie’s Angels” and I even had one of those busts of Farrah where you could style her beautiful feathered hair and put makeup on her. I know they still make these types of toys – although certainly not Farrah anymore. Today they’re some Bratz incarnation where the doll looks like a whore instead of a wholesome, All-American cheerleader in the form of feathered-haired-perfect-teeth-beautifully-blonde Farrah.
I remember getting the Farrah bust for Christmas one year and nearly dying over it because I loved playing with it. I also remember being super pissed at my mom that year because she made me share it with her boyfriend du jour and his two daughters, who I swear, fucked up Farrah’s hair. Or used all of the purple eyeshadow, or some other heinous crime. Anyway—I’m getting away from the topic at hand.
I decided to watch a bit of the documentary because I was curious. Howard Stern had been talking about it all week last week – his comments were specifically on how it’s sad how Farrah is dying of cancer, and he wondered on why someone would want to film the battle in all its graphic detail. He wondered if she was so hungry for fame, that she’d stoop to filming her horrific battle for a last morsel of attention. I doubted that she filmed it because of a sick quest for fame – I believe she filmed it because it’s something that no one has done before, or at least no one famous and in such a graphic manner. I’m pretty sure she wanted to show how cancer attacks and makes you a shell of the person you once were. At one point in the documentary, her voiceover was talking about how cancer robbed her of the life she used to have – the life that she took for granted, and how much she wanted to fight to get that life back so she could appreciated it this time around.
I didn’t watch the whole thing because I ended up going to bed around midnight and there was still an hour left. But I have to admit, it affected me – and not for the obvious reasons. Yes, Farrah Fawcett has a special place in my childhood, and yes, her battle with cancer is both fascinating and heartbreaking. But what affected me was that it reminded me of the battle my mom had with a disease called Amyloidosis. My mom sort of looks like Farrah Fawcett – she’s a beautiful petite, blue-eyed, blonde with a pretty smile – which is what first made me think of her while watching Farrah’s story. Amyloidosis is a very rare blood disease that is treated in a number of ways – mainly with chemotherapy. My mom found out she had this disease during my first year of law school. She got very sick, and was in the hospital for months. She underwent chemotherapy, lost a bunch of weight (she was already thin to begin with, but probably got down to about 100 lbs.), lost a lot of her beautiful, thick blonde hair, and also underwent a stem cell transplant. Most people don’t even know they have amyloidosis until it’s too late, because the symptoms usually point to other problems. For example, with my mom, it started with her ankles swelling up. The doctors all thought something was wrong with her liver, and she underwent a million tests on her liver (with the final one being a biopsy). Nope, no cancer…but finally one of the doctors recognized it was amyloidosis.
What I remember most during her diagnosis and treatment was all of the stress I was under. I know it sounds selfish, but picture this – I started law school when Daughter was 8 months old. By January of that first school year, my mom was in the hospital. She was the primary person that was helping with Daughter, because Husband was a new father and like all new fathers, was a bit of a dipshit when it came to babies. I couldn’t really visit my mom all that much in the hospital, because I was working full-time during the day, went to classes Monday-Thursday evenings, and then tried to study and do all of my homework on the weekends (besides still trying to be a mom and wife). Plus, because of the chemo and stem cell transplant, my mom was uber-sensitive to germs, and we all know babies who go to daycare are germ factories. So it was probably best I didn’t visit her, in case I was incubating some germ that would kill her.
She got out of the hospital in March, and then was basically under house arrest for 90 days. She wasn’t really allowed to got out in public, again for fear that germy people would expose her to a cold or something, which would be fatal. Through the whole thing, I did talk to her on the phone a lot, and she sort of lost her marbles for a time being. She talked a lot about God, and how she was going to survive and all of that. She really did have a great mental attitude, even if she was a little bit loopy (seriously, she was kind of spooky-crazy. Difficult to describe, just trust me on this one.) Of course, she tried to mask the seriousness of her condition from me, because she’s a mom and that’s what mom’s do. They try and protect you from the truth and try to make you not afraid. By then, though, I was a grown woman and therefore, not stupid or immune to the seriousness of her condition. I mean, come on, mom. I’m just one of those people who keeps all fear and emotions bottled up. So just because I’m not balling my eyes out or babbling on over how scared I am, doesn’t mean I’m not scared shitless that you’re gonna die and not see your granddaughter grow up. I just choose to stick my head in the sand and not face it until it’s absolutely necessary.
And in case you’re wondering – my mom is definitely 100% cured, even though every now and then she gets scared that amyloidosis is going to come back (or that the damage it caused to her liver and heart will become serious). She’s gained back the weight she lost and pretty much looks the same as she did before she got sick. The only real difference, which is not really noticeable to the outside world, is that her hair is so much thinner now. Like I described, her hair was so thick (I mean, I’ve never known anyone to have such thick hair as she did) and it was so blonde and pretty. I always envied her blonde hair (I have to highlight mine to get it anywhere near blonde, whereas hers was natural). Although she doesn’t have a bald spot or anything, if you touch her hair now, it’s baby fine and thin. It makes me think of Farrah and her world-renowned blonde hair, and how much it was her identify, and now, in her last stages of cancer, she’s probably bald. Oh, the sad irony.
Anywhoosit, from what I understand, most people die from amyoidosis, because it attacks your organs (with my mom it started in her liver, damaging that along with her heart). People much older and weaker than my mom find out they have it – thus cannot survive the aggressive treatment of chemotherapy or the stem cell transplant, and instead just take medications that treat the symptoms and not the disease – and then die not too long after their diagnosis. However, 6 years ago, my mom was 48 and was determined to treat it with the most aggressive means. I also know that most people do not survive amyloidosis after five years, but this summer will by my mom’s 6th year being totally “cured”. She is a walking miracle. And in case I ever forget this tidbit – she reminds me all the time. As an example, I texted her while I was writing this because I couldn’t remember the name of the disease:
Me: What was the name of your disease again? I forget.
Mom: Amyloidosis. Rare blood disease. Look it up and be in wonder of God’s miracles.
Yeah. So, y’all. Look it up and be in wonder of God’s miracles. Sorry, I’m being sarcastic here, even though I really am thankful to God that she survived the disease in order to torture me on a daily basis with The Crazy. Really. I swear.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Keep Hope Alive!
I know I have not finished my vacation recap yet, but I’ve had a few other things on my mind that I need to write down, so here I am.
If you know me personally, you know that I struggle with trying to remain “positive”, even though I’d consider sarcasm and negativity as something that I’ve developed since puberty as a means of self-defense, self-preservation, and overall, a means to deal with all The Crazy that I have to deal with in my life (and if you only know me through this blog, you also know that dealing with The Crazy is not easy, and I have my days where I snap and the negativity takes over).
Definition of The Crazy
Pronunciation: thə \ˈkrā-zē\
Function: noun
(1) My family (mostly having to do with My Mother, but also includes My Brother, My Dad and all of the other extended family members that I choose not to speak to or include in my life because they’re truly nuts);
(2) My depression issues (which is mostly controlled nicely by pharmaceuticals, although since I switched meds in November/December, I have noticed I am having a harder time controlling my anger – NOT GOOD – but so far, I haven’t killed anyone, so we will consider that a “win”);
(3) My A.D.D. issues (which again, are supposedly being controlled by the new medication, although I can’t decide whether it’s working or not and would just rather go back on my old meds).
This morning, on my drive into work, I was listening to The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick and Keith Price, on Sirius OutQ. You know I love this morning show, since I’ve mentioned it before in my blog. I came to their discussion topic right in the middle, however, what I gleamed was they were talking about things that make you feel hopeful. One woman called into the show and said that she stopped watching the evening news, and stopped reading the newspaper, because all of the news is always so depressing. Apparently, she read my rant and agreed with me (and I guess I’m not so crazy after all). Anywhose, I started thinking about things that made me feel hopeful – which being who I am and being forced to deal with The Crazy on a daily basis – sometimes is not the easiest thing to do.
At first, the only thing I could think of that made me feel hopeful, was Daughter. Recently, I’ve noticed she has started developing her sense of humor in a more clever way (and not just in that little-kid way where poop jokes are funny or where knock-knock jokes are funny). This is demonstrated by the way she taunted Husband during our most recent game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, where she was clucking like a chicken and egging him on. I love watching her personality develop and I love spending time with her. Now it’s twice as better because she’s funny. I made this remark to Husband this weekend and he said “You didn’t think she’d grow up in THIS house without forming some sort of twisted sense of humor, did you?” (And no, I didn’t think so. But it’s nice to be reassured that she’s going to understand and appreciate our sarcasm and dark senses of humor. *WHEW*)
Then I realized the sun was shining, I was alert and awake (relatively), and I was healthy (again, relatively). Not too shabby, and good reasons to feel hope in my heart. I hoped the weather would stay sunny, that I would stay alert and awake (and just in case I did, I had a whole stock of 5-hour-energy drinks thanks to Walgreen’s Buy 2, get 1 free sale this weekend), and I hoped my health would stay good.
As my thoughts grew deeper, and I passed over the superficial stuff like the sunshine and being alive (and by superficial, I mean – those are all typical things people are happy about – “well, be happy you woke up this morning!”….check), I started to think of things that made me feel hopeful:
1. Music makes me feel hopeful. Especially any kind of dance or pop music. It’s just fun and easy and you don’t have to think too hard about it. I know a few people who are very serious about music and would scoff at my love of Britney or the Black Eyed Peas or whoever. I want to tell them to get over themselves, because it’s not like music is going create world peace or feed the starving children in Africa. Well, unless your Bono or you bought “We are the World.” And that wasn’t a knock because I love Bono, and I enjoyed “We are the World” and Live Aid when I was in 8th Grade.
2. Pharmaceutical drugs make me feel hopeful. Laugh all you want at that one, but it’s a good thing I didn’t become a pharmacist, because I would be stealing from the pharmacy like nobody’s business. I love anti-depressants, Xanax and Ambien. Without those drugs, my life would be HELL. Me AND a bunch of my friends. Oh, and you can’t forget birth control pills (thank you Seasonique for my 4 periods a year) and my thyroid meds (without which, I’m sure I would have died or something).
3. Technology makes me feel hopeful. Husband and I were talking about this yesterday. Well, not technology in general – we were talking about cell phones. The conversation when something like this:
Him: Who knew that cell phones would be so popular as they are.
Me: I know. I know people who get satellite TV on their cell phones. And who knew you’d use it for more than making a phone call.
Him: You can’t even leave home without it now.
Me: Pretty soon they’ll do everything for you – like they’ll cook dinner someday.
Him: *laughs*
He laughed because it’s probably true. Like you’ll press a button and your food will be beamed right to you from somewhere. Punch up McDonalds and *beam* there’s your Big Mac and fries. Hey, it could happen. If they can make cats and dogs glow in the dark, your cell phone will be able to cook your dinner someday. Mark my words.
4. Summertime makes me feel hopeful. I’m so glad the weather is getting nicer. Because it’s about time. I know we still have a little ways to go before we go into full-on Summer, but these 60-degree days filled with sunshine sure are nice. I am one of those people that stops wearing a jacket about mid-March, just daring Mother Nature to give me cold weather. I love when the Ice Cream Man comes to the neighborhood, and I love opening the windows in my house. It’s nice to hear the birds singing in the morning, and to breathe in that fresh cool morning air while laying in bed. Of course, pretty soon the weather will get too hot to leave the windows open, but I decided last year that I love the summer – even the humid 98-degree days where I stick to everything. Sure beats the snow and grey days.
5. The Red Wings make me feel hopeful. This one might sound corny, but I have had a thought during the last several playoff games I’ve watched (which I’ll share in a minute). If you’ve ever been to Joe Louis Arena during the playoffs, it’s certainly a special place to be. It has this electricity running through it that is hard to describe unless you’ve experienced it. Since Husband and I could not afford to buy playoff tickets this year, we are forced to watch the games from the comfort of our living room – and watching the past couple of games (WINS) gave me the aforementioned thought: For all of the shitty news coming out of Detroit (Chrysler filing for bankruptcy, the fears that GM will soon follow suit, the high unemployment rate, people losing their homes due to foreclosure, etc. etc. etc.), you’d never know it looking at the people at The Joe. The Red Wings make people forget the shit all around them for a few hours and gives them a reason to smile and give high-fives and shout “Woooooo!”. The excitement is enough to give you a heart attack (especially game 7s, when the score is tied until the last three minutes of the game) – but the excitement is also enough to make you believe that everything will be OK with the world.
What makes you feel hopeful?
If you know me personally, you know that I struggle with trying to remain “positive”, even though I’d consider sarcasm and negativity as something that I’ve developed since puberty as a means of self-defense, self-preservation, and overall, a means to deal with all The Crazy that I have to deal with in my life (and if you only know me through this blog, you also know that dealing with The Crazy is not easy, and I have my days where I snap and the negativity takes over).
Definition of The Crazy
Pronunciation: thə \ˈkrā-zē\
Function: noun
(1) My family (mostly having to do with My Mother, but also includes My Brother, My Dad and all of the other extended family members that I choose not to speak to or include in my life because they’re truly nuts);
(2) My depression issues (which is mostly controlled nicely by pharmaceuticals, although since I switched meds in November/December, I have noticed I am having a harder time controlling my anger – NOT GOOD – but so far, I haven’t killed anyone, so we will consider that a “win”);
(3) My A.D.D. issues (which again, are supposedly being controlled by the new medication, although I can’t decide whether it’s working or not and would just rather go back on my old meds).
This morning, on my drive into work, I was listening to The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick and Keith Price, on Sirius OutQ. You know I love this morning show, since I’ve mentioned it before in my blog. I came to their discussion topic right in the middle, however, what I gleamed was they were talking about things that make you feel hopeful. One woman called into the show and said that she stopped watching the evening news, and stopped reading the newspaper, because all of the news is always so depressing. Apparently, she read my rant and agreed with me (and I guess I’m not so crazy after all). Anywhose, I started thinking about things that made me feel hopeful – which being who I am and being forced to deal with The Crazy on a daily basis – sometimes is not the easiest thing to do.
At first, the only thing I could think of that made me feel hopeful, was Daughter. Recently, I’ve noticed she has started developing her sense of humor in a more clever way (and not just in that little-kid way where poop jokes are funny or where knock-knock jokes are funny). This is demonstrated by the way she taunted Husband during our most recent game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, where she was clucking like a chicken and egging him on. I love watching her personality develop and I love spending time with her. Now it’s twice as better because she’s funny. I made this remark to Husband this weekend and he said “You didn’t think she’d grow up in THIS house without forming some sort of twisted sense of humor, did you?” (And no, I didn’t think so. But it’s nice to be reassured that she’s going to understand and appreciate our sarcasm and dark senses of humor. *WHEW*)
Then I realized the sun was shining, I was alert and awake (relatively), and I was healthy (again, relatively). Not too shabby, and good reasons to feel hope in my heart. I hoped the weather would stay sunny, that I would stay alert and awake (and just in case I did, I had a whole stock of 5-hour-energy drinks thanks to Walgreen’s Buy 2, get 1 free sale this weekend), and I hoped my health would stay good.
As my thoughts grew deeper, and I passed over the superficial stuff like the sunshine and being alive (and by superficial, I mean – those are all typical things people are happy about – “well, be happy you woke up this morning!”….check), I started to think of things that made me feel hopeful:
1. Music makes me feel hopeful. Especially any kind of dance or pop music. It’s just fun and easy and you don’t have to think too hard about it. I know a few people who are very serious about music and would scoff at my love of Britney or the Black Eyed Peas or whoever. I want to tell them to get over themselves, because it’s not like music is going create world peace or feed the starving children in Africa. Well, unless your Bono or you bought “We are the World.” And that wasn’t a knock because I love Bono, and I enjoyed “We are the World” and Live Aid when I was in 8th Grade.
2. Pharmaceutical drugs make me feel hopeful. Laugh all you want at that one, but it’s a good thing I didn’t become a pharmacist, because I would be stealing from the pharmacy like nobody’s business. I love anti-depressants, Xanax and Ambien. Without those drugs, my life would be HELL. Me AND a bunch of my friends. Oh, and you can’t forget birth control pills (thank you Seasonique for my 4 periods a year) and my thyroid meds (without which, I’m sure I would have died or something).
3. Technology makes me feel hopeful. Husband and I were talking about this yesterday. Well, not technology in general – we were talking about cell phones. The conversation when something like this:
Him: Who knew that cell phones would be so popular as they are.
Me: I know. I know people who get satellite TV on their cell phones. And who knew you’d use it for more than making a phone call.
Him: You can’t even leave home without it now.
Me: Pretty soon they’ll do everything for you – like they’ll cook dinner someday.
Him: *laughs*
He laughed because it’s probably true. Like you’ll press a button and your food will be beamed right to you from somewhere. Punch up McDonalds and *beam* there’s your Big Mac and fries. Hey, it could happen. If they can make cats and dogs glow in the dark, your cell phone will be able to cook your dinner someday. Mark my words.
4. Summertime makes me feel hopeful. I’m so glad the weather is getting nicer. Because it’s about time. I know we still have a little ways to go before we go into full-on Summer, but these 60-degree days filled with sunshine sure are nice. I am one of those people that stops wearing a jacket about mid-March, just daring Mother Nature to give me cold weather. I love when the Ice Cream Man comes to the neighborhood, and I love opening the windows in my house. It’s nice to hear the birds singing in the morning, and to breathe in that fresh cool morning air while laying in bed. Of course, pretty soon the weather will get too hot to leave the windows open, but I decided last year that I love the summer – even the humid 98-degree days where I stick to everything. Sure beats the snow and grey days.
5. The Red Wings make me feel hopeful. This one might sound corny, but I have had a thought during the last several playoff games I’ve watched (which I’ll share in a minute). If you’ve ever been to Joe Louis Arena during the playoffs, it’s certainly a special place to be. It has this electricity running through it that is hard to describe unless you’ve experienced it. Since Husband and I could not afford to buy playoff tickets this year, we are forced to watch the games from the comfort of our living room – and watching the past couple of games (WINS) gave me the aforementioned thought: For all of the shitty news coming out of Detroit (Chrysler filing for bankruptcy, the fears that GM will soon follow suit, the high unemployment rate, people losing their homes due to foreclosure, etc. etc. etc.), you’d never know it looking at the people at The Joe. The Red Wings make people forget the shit all around them for a few hours and gives them a reason to smile and give high-fives and shout “Woooooo!”. The excitement is enough to give you a heart attack (especially game 7s, when the score is tied until the last three minutes of the game) – but the excitement is also enough to make you believe that everything will be OK with the world.
What makes you feel hopeful?
Monday, May 11, 2009
Vacation Recap, Day Three: Sitting Poolside, Then Dinner at the Carnival
Day Three: Saturday
After our extremely busy day at the Magic Kingdom, the big plan for Saturday was to sit our asses by the pool and let Daughter play and go down the waterslide 400 times. My personal plan was to number one, get drunk, number two, work on my tan, and number three, let my mother watch my kid play in the pool. I know, it is a bit irresponsible of me, but my mother is a pretty responsible adult, and I knew if I got shitfaced, that at least my kid wouldn’t drown out there. Oh, and she’d also not get sunburned (because my mom applies sunscreen to her, like every 30 minutes) and she’d probably -- at least – have to eat some type of fruit and/or vegetable. Which is more than I could say if I was the primary caregiver, because I let her eat whatever she wants (in reason, of course) – I just don’t force fruits or vegetables down her throat.
After a run to the local Publix grocery store for alcoholic beverages – surprisingly enough, my mom bought Corona beers (and a lime) for herself, and I bought some Smirnoff Ice things (grape flavor). I’m a total lightweight when it comes to booze, so I didn’t really need to invest in a bottle of vodka and some cute mixers. Just a few malt beverages, and I’m easy like Sunday morning….
We finally get out poolside – and “we” is me, mom, my kid and Auntie Millie. The Greek Goddess and Brittney decided to park their bikini asses elsewhere in the park, because you know – your family is an embarrassment when you’re 18 and maybe you’ll run into some cute boys. Honestly, all they had to do was stay with us, because truth be told, there was a hot- ass guy with the people next to us, and all he did ALL DAY was lay on his lounge chair and get a tan. See, there is a God, because with my sunglasses on, he didn’t see me leering at him all day long like I was The Big Bad Wolf and he was one of The Little Pigs. I couldn’t help but stare. Really, it wasn’t my fault. That’s what happens when washboard abs and stomach/arm/back tattoos are shoved in my face, especially when they’re attached to a great smile. Damn. He was so hot I almost wanted to ask him what was going on downstairs, because if he was hung like a baby, I might have enjoyed that tidbit – it would have meant that not all good-looking, tanned, perfect men have everything going for them (and whoever says size doesn't matter is lying. No on wants to have sex with a cocktail weenie). Because how would I know about hot guys? I’ve been with the same man for the last 21 years. It’s not like there were a lot of (read: none) tanned, hotties in my past (and if there were, my lips are sealed). I wanted to know if his luck with women was because of his pretty face/body AND the little extra he carried around, or if his girlfriends were devastated when he took it all off. Seriously, I was thisclose to asking him. But I didn’t. Not because I was afraid of my mom overhearing me – because trust me, she noticed him too. He was there with an older woman, who my mom decided was his sugarmama or something. I decided this assessment was incorrect, because they were also with another guy who looked an awful lot like Mr. Perfect, although he wasn’t as tanned – and also a little girl who was about 3. I figured the little girl belonged to Mr. Perfect’s brother, and that the woman was their mother. After explaining this to my mom, she agreed. I then added that if indeed, Mr. Perfect was her boytoy, the woman deserved a high-5 and my mom laughed. Then agreed. So you know she noticed him too.
After thanking Baby Jesus that Mr. Perfect was nearby so I had something interesting to look at besides Daughter jumping around in the pool – I spent the rest of the afternoon sunning myself, and drinking a few Smirnoff Ices. Of course, after my third one, I dozed off on my stomach in my chair for about 20 minutes (which caused quite a burn on my back – DUH…stupid me forgot sunscreen on MY BACK). I woke up and told my mom I was going back to the room to lay down, i.e., sleep off my buzz. The sun and the booze zapped all of my energy. I was laying down for about an hour before everyone came up to the room, and Daughter got into bed with me and we napped. Zzzzzz….
I wake to Auntie Millie and The Greek Goddess arguing about something. Which I would not have really noticed except I hear my name and something about waiting for me and Daughter to get up from our naps. WTF? I see the clock, and it’s like 5pm or something. Now, I know no one is going to question me about taking a nap, right? Especially considering my kid is asleep too, so it’s not like I’ve sluffed my parenting duties on someone else for the afternoon. And especially considering this is my fucking vacation too, and one of my favorite indulgences is napping. Napping accompanied by a strong sun and alcohol is one of the best naps ever, right?
I decide that I am going to seek out my mom to find out what all of the hullaballu is regarding this overheard conversation – I was in our bedroom with the door shut and overheard the muffled discussion. Maybe I’m overreacting and no one cares that I’m still napping? I wait an appropriate amount of time before getting up – so as not to cause alarm in The Greek Goddess or Auntie in thinking I may have overheard their talking about me – and find my mother out on the screened in balcony. She’s alone so I’m all “WTF?” to her and she tells me that The Greek Goddess wants to leave soon (we’re all going out to dinner together) and she was pissed that Daughter and I were “still” napping. Now, I could have marched into The Greek Goddess’ room and got all confrontational on her, but I decided to deal with the situation in the most passive-aggressive way possible. Which was to allow my kid to continue to sleep, and to not get ready to leave until she got up. The Greek Goddess, her friend and my aunt could suck my ass if that’s the way they were going to act. It was five-fucking-thirty on a Saturday night in Florida. Blow me, Ladies.
My mom and I continued to chat a bit – and remember when I promised that you were going to be appalled by Auntie Millie’s behavior? Well, here it comes…Auntie had rented to condo from a guy she works with. She rented it for a week, and because the guy owns a timeshare or something, he gave her a break on the price. She told my mom that he was charging her $1,000 for the week, so my mom had agreed to give her $450 for the time that we were staying there. Which I thought was a fair price, considering we were gone Monday morning. During my nap, Auntie and my mom were out on the balcony just chatting and whatever, and Auntie lets it slip (by accident, I’m sure) that they guy gave her the condo for the week for $500! Which means, my mother basically PAID the entire fee for the condo rental! I nearly shit a brick, especially because Auntie has been so bitchy and acting like we were such an inconvenience to her. I mean, if I had just swindled my sister into paying damn-near the ENTIRE condo rental fee -- which meant my accommodations, as well as my bratty teenager and her friend all got to stay in Orlando for $50 for the week – I’d be KISSING HER ASS!
I was so pissed for my mom – of course, my mom didn’t confront her on what she said, because not only do I like to act passive-aggressive, so does she. I don’t know if I would have been able to hold my tongue during that conversation – which came on the heels of an earlier conversation where Auntie threw up in my mom’s face – “Where else could you stay in Orlando for $450 for 4 nights?” Quite ironic, considering the bitch is staying in Orlando for $50 for 7 nights. Can you believe it???? My mom was really hurt. I was just pissed because after all, we’re family, and you really shouldn’t be trying to ram it into the ass of your sister, should you? Like I mentioned before, Auntie has NO money and I’m sure was worried about how she was going to pay for this trip. But I’m sorry – you shouldn’t take advantage of your sister like that, no matter how desperate you are.
The night only got better – after we all got ready to go out to dinner, we ended up in this place call “Old Town”, which was an interesting mix of a carnival (with rides) and little shops. When we first arrived, I was all judgmental and thought it was beneath me to be there, but after a few minutes, I decided to keep an open mind. After all, carnies need to feel the love too (and FYI – I ended up loving the place. It was very clean, and fun and a great place to hang out because there’s something for everyone). We were trying to decide where to eat dinner and at one point The Greek Goddess and Auntie Millie get into an argument over where to eat, because after all, The Greek Goddess is a holier-than-thou vegetarian (and I got nothing against vegetarians – one of my best friends is one), but I do have a problem with those vegetarians that have to act like they’re doing the planet a favor by not eating meat. I also don’t appreciate those that act like they’re better than me because of their diet. (I especially love how The Greek Goddess acts like her diet is so much “healthier” – yeah, that double-chocolate muffin her and Brittney had for breakfast, washed down with their chocolate milk was so healthy. Carb-overload! Sugar coma!) So we’re walking along, trying to find a decent restaurant to eat, and I overhear The Greek Goddess say something like, “Well, we’re REEEEEEEEEEALLLLLL Vegetarians” (meaning her and Brittney) and I’ve about had enough of this conversation. It is at this moment, we come about a Tex-Mex restaurant (which is where I wanted to eat and where The Greek Goddess doesn’t because she doesn’t think there’s going to be “real” vegetarian meals there…ever hear of a fucking cheese quesadilla????). And wouldn’t you know it? Prominently displayed in the window is a sign that says, “Ask us about our VEGETARIAN MENU”. I nearly peed my pants in excitement. My mom sees this sign and makes sure to be as loud and obnoxious as The Greek Goddess is being, and says “See! ‘Ask us about our vegetarian menu’ – I’m sure they have something for you REALLLLLL vegetarians to eat” only she says it so everyone eating out on the deck hears her for maximum embarrassment to The Greek Goddess. The Greek Goddess says something smart-ass to my mom, and Auntie just stands there like she can’t control her kid. So I have finally had enough, and I tell everyone to get their asses inside because I’m tired of all this shit, and I tell The Greek Goddess to shut the fuck up because she acts like she knows everything, when in reality, she doesn’t know shit. That shut everyone up. At that point, everyone looked at me like monkeys had started flying out of my ass, but holy fuck. I was DONE with the bullshit.
We went inside and ordered our food. And due to my outburst, we all sat for the first few minutes in an uncomfortable silence. Everyone except Daughter who is oblivious to everything, bless her little soul. When the food came out to us, there was one more little hiccup courtesy of The Greek Goddess. She gets her quesadilla and starts picking through it…”ugh…it’s got mushrooms on it! I can’t eat this.” The dipshit had ordered the vegetable quesadilla thinking she’d get a cheese quesadilla. Brittney was smart enough to have ordered a cheese quesadilla, thinking she’d get a cheese quesadilla. Teenagers. I wanted to smack The Greek Goddess and ask her what exactly did she think of when she heard the word “vegetable”, but I stayed out of it. The restaurant was nice enough to replace her food and get her what she “really” wanted, even though she didn’t order it correctly. I wished they would have charged her for it. That would have been awesome and would have sent Auntie into a financial tailspin.
When we leave the restaurant, I had had enough of bitchy teenage vegetarians for the evening, and we split up. My mom, Daughter and I ended up going into one of those photography places where they do old fashioned photos and you can dress up in Victorian clothing, or old west, or whatever and the pictures are brown and white. I dressed Daughter up in the “gangster” theme and got some photos done for my father-in-law. I figured I’d exacerbate the Italian stereotype a little more by doing this – and considering Husband’s shady family history – I figured this photoshoot would be appreciated. (It was.) After the pictures, we have to wait 30 minutes before we can pick out our proofs, so we decide to take Daughter to the carnival part of Old Town and let her ride some rides. I get her the “kiddie” bracelet – no limit to riding the kid rides. She was tickled pink especially when she found out there was a kiddie rollercoaster (she loves rollercoasters) and a giant slide you slide down on a burlap sack. Those were her two favorite rides and she must have ridden the rollercoaster about 10 times over the evening, and gone down the slide 10 times too. It wasn’t very busy on that part of the carnival, so I was glad because there was not a very long wait for her. I chatted on my cell phone with Husband for a while and then my mom and I chatted, watching Daughter. I decide at about 9:30 or so that we should go pick up our pictures.
We’re in the photo place and wrapping up our order when mom realizes that Auntie has called her 3 times. Whoops. She calls her when we leave the place (about 5 minutes later) and Auntie screams at her, “WE’RE AT THE CAR!” because you know, our crystal ball should have tipped us off to the fact that they were ready to leave. This sets me off and I tell my mom that I promised Daughter she could ride the rollercoaster two more times before we left, and I’ll be damned if anyone is going to tell me that we need to leave at this second, without me being able to fulfill my promise. So Fuck Them. We have to pass the parking lot on our way to the kiddie rides (my mom is convinced they saw us), and during our walk, I tell my mom that I DARE anyone to question me about letting Daughter take her last rides. Don’t poke a mama bear, y’all. I was ready to GO THE FUCK OFF on anyone who said something.
I let Daughter take her last rides, and we get to the car. Funny enough, no one says a fucking peep about anything. It was like they overheard my threats. Because it would have been ON if The Greek Goddess had opened her mouth. I think I would have went all Jerry Springer on her AND Auntie if either of them had said something. But luckily for them, no one said shit. You could have heard a pin drop on the ride home.
We got back to the condo and Daughter watched a movie on the portable DVD player, while mom and I read a book in our bedroom. Honestly, my family can suck it sometimes. Especially when my cousin acts like such a bitch and my aunt rips my mom off. Doesn’t anyone have any class anymore? Apparently not.
It was at this point in my vacation when I was ready to come home. I was glad I only one full day left to spend with these nutjobs. My mom snores to wake the dead, so besides not getting a good night sleep, I was just tired of everyone involved. Except of course, my kid. At least I can expect someone to behave themselves. And funny enough, my mom was relatively easy to take on this trip too. Maybe because I was her only ally.
After our extremely busy day at the Magic Kingdom, the big plan for Saturday was to sit our asses by the pool and let Daughter play and go down the waterslide 400 times. My personal plan was to number one, get drunk, number two, work on my tan, and number three, let my mother watch my kid play in the pool. I know, it is a bit irresponsible of me, but my mother is a pretty responsible adult, and I knew if I got shitfaced, that at least my kid wouldn’t drown out there. Oh, and she’d also not get sunburned (because my mom applies sunscreen to her, like every 30 minutes) and she’d probably -- at least – have to eat some type of fruit and/or vegetable. Which is more than I could say if I was the primary caregiver, because I let her eat whatever she wants (in reason, of course) – I just don’t force fruits or vegetables down her throat.
After a run to the local Publix grocery store for alcoholic beverages – surprisingly enough, my mom bought Corona beers (and a lime) for herself, and I bought some Smirnoff Ice things (grape flavor). I’m a total lightweight when it comes to booze, so I didn’t really need to invest in a bottle of vodka and some cute mixers. Just a few malt beverages, and I’m easy like Sunday morning….
We finally get out poolside – and “we” is me, mom, my kid and Auntie Millie. The Greek Goddess and Brittney decided to park their bikini asses elsewhere in the park, because you know – your family is an embarrassment when you’re 18 and maybe you’ll run into some cute boys. Honestly, all they had to do was stay with us, because truth be told, there was a hot- ass guy with the people next to us, and all he did ALL DAY was lay on his lounge chair and get a tan. See, there is a God, because with my sunglasses on, he didn’t see me leering at him all day long like I was The Big Bad Wolf and he was one of The Little Pigs. I couldn’t help but stare. Really, it wasn’t my fault. That’s what happens when washboard abs and stomach/arm/back tattoos are shoved in my face, especially when they’re attached to a great smile. Damn. He was so hot I almost wanted to ask him what was going on downstairs, because if he was hung like a baby, I might have enjoyed that tidbit – it would have meant that not all good-looking, tanned, perfect men have everything going for them (and whoever says size doesn't matter is lying. No on wants to have sex with a cocktail weenie). Because how would I know about hot guys? I’ve been with the same man for the last 21 years. It’s not like there were a lot of (read: none) tanned, hotties in my past (and if there were, my lips are sealed). I wanted to know if his luck with women was because of his pretty face/body AND the little extra he carried around, or if his girlfriends were devastated when he took it all off. Seriously, I was thisclose to asking him. But I didn’t. Not because I was afraid of my mom overhearing me – because trust me, she noticed him too. He was there with an older woman, who my mom decided was his sugarmama or something. I decided this assessment was incorrect, because they were also with another guy who looked an awful lot like Mr. Perfect, although he wasn’t as tanned – and also a little girl who was about 3. I figured the little girl belonged to Mr. Perfect’s brother, and that the woman was their mother. After explaining this to my mom, she agreed. I then added that if indeed, Mr. Perfect was her boytoy, the woman deserved a high-5 and my mom laughed. Then agreed. So you know she noticed him too.
After thanking Baby Jesus that Mr. Perfect was nearby so I had something interesting to look at besides Daughter jumping around in the pool – I spent the rest of the afternoon sunning myself, and drinking a few Smirnoff Ices. Of course, after my third one, I dozed off on my stomach in my chair for about 20 minutes (which caused quite a burn on my back – DUH…stupid me forgot sunscreen on MY BACK). I woke up and told my mom I was going back to the room to lay down, i.e., sleep off my buzz. The sun and the booze zapped all of my energy. I was laying down for about an hour before everyone came up to the room, and Daughter got into bed with me and we napped. Zzzzzz….
I wake to Auntie Millie and The Greek Goddess arguing about something. Which I would not have really noticed except I hear my name and something about waiting for me and Daughter to get up from our naps. WTF? I see the clock, and it’s like 5pm or something. Now, I know no one is going to question me about taking a nap, right? Especially considering my kid is asleep too, so it’s not like I’ve sluffed my parenting duties on someone else for the afternoon. And especially considering this is my fucking vacation too, and one of my favorite indulgences is napping. Napping accompanied by a strong sun and alcohol is one of the best naps ever, right?
I decide that I am going to seek out my mom to find out what all of the hullaballu is regarding this overheard conversation – I was in our bedroom with the door shut and overheard the muffled discussion. Maybe I’m overreacting and no one cares that I’m still napping? I wait an appropriate amount of time before getting up – so as not to cause alarm in The Greek Goddess or Auntie in thinking I may have overheard their talking about me – and find my mother out on the screened in balcony. She’s alone so I’m all “WTF?” to her and she tells me that The Greek Goddess wants to leave soon (we’re all going out to dinner together) and she was pissed that Daughter and I were “still” napping. Now, I could have marched into The Greek Goddess’ room and got all confrontational on her, but I decided to deal with the situation in the most passive-aggressive way possible. Which was to allow my kid to continue to sleep, and to not get ready to leave until she got up. The Greek Goddess, her friend and my aunt could suck my ass if that’s the way they were going to act. It was five-fucking-thirty on a Saturday night in Florida. Blow me, Ladies.
My mom and I continued to chat a bit – and remember when I promised that you were going to be appalled by Auntie Millie’s behavior? Well, here it comes…Auntie had rented to condo from a guy she works with. She rented it for a week, and because the guy owns a timeshare or something, he gave her a break on the price. She told my mom that he was charging her $1,000 for the week, so my mom had agreed to give her $450 for the time that we were staying there. Which I thought was a fair price, considering we were gone Monday morning. During my nap, Auntie and my mom were out on the balcony just chatting and whatever, and Auntie lets it slip (by accident, I’m sure) that they guy gave her the condo for the week for $500! Which means, my mother basically PAID the entire fee for the condo rental! I nearly shit a brick, especially because Auntie has been so bitchy and acting like we were such an inconvenience to her. I mean, if I had just swindled my sister into paying damn-near the ENTIRE condo rental fee -- which meant my accommodations, as well as my bratty teenager and her friend all got to stay in Orlando for $50 for the week – I’d be KISSING HER ASS!
I was so pissed for my mom – of course, my mom didn’t confront her on what she said, because not only do I like to act passive-aggressive, so does she. I don’t know if I would have been able to hold my tongue during that conversation – which came on the heels of an earlier conversation where Auntie threw up in my mom’s face – “Where else could you stay in Orlando for $450 for 4 nights?” Quite ironic, considering the bitch is staying in Orlando for $50 for 7 nights. Can you believe it???? My mom was really hurt. I was just pissed because after all, we’re family, and you really shouldn’t be trying to ram it into the ass of your sister, should you? Like I mentioned before, Auntie has NO money and I’m sure was worried about how she was going to pay for this trip. But I’m sorry – you shouldn’t take advantage of your sister like that, no matter how desperate you are.
The night only got better – after we all got ready to go out to dinner, we ended up in this place call “Old Town”, which was an interesting mix of a carnival (with rides) and little shops. When we first arrived, I was all judgmental and thought it was beneath me to be there, but after a few minutes, I decided to keep an open mind. After all, carnies need to feel the love too (and FYI – I ended up loving the place. It was very clean, and fun and a great place to hang out because there’s something for everyone). We were trying to decide where to eat dinner and at one point The Greek Goddess and Auntie Millie get into an argument over where to eat, because after all, The Greek Goddess is a holier-than-thou vegetarian (and I got nothing against vegetarians – one of my best friends is one), but I do have a problem with those vegetarians that have to act like they’re doing the planet a favor by not eating meat. I also don’t appreciate those that act like they’re better than me because of their diet. (I especially love how The Greek Goddess acts like her diet is so much “healthier” – yeah, that double-chocolate muffin her and Brittney had for breakfast, washed down with their chocolate milk was so healthy. Carb-overload! Sugar coma!) So we’re walking along, trying to find a decent restaurant to eat, and I overhear The Greek Goddess say something like, “Well, we’re REEEEEEEEEEALLLLLL Vegetarians” (meaning her and Brittney) and I’ve about had enough of this conversation. It is at this moment, we come about a Tex-Mex restaurant (which is where I wanted to eat and where The Greek Goddess doesn’t because she doesn’t think there’s going to be “real” vegetarian meals there…ever hear of a fucking cheese quesadilla????). And wouldn’t you know it? Prominently displayed in the window is a sign that says, “Ask us about our VEGETARIAN MENU”. I nearly peed my pants in excitement. My mom sees this sign and makes sure to be as loud and obnoxious as The Greek Goddess is being, and says “See! ‘Ask us about our vegetarian menu’ – I’m sure they have something for you REALLLLLL vegetarians to eat” only she says it so everyone eating out on the deck hears her for maximum embarrassment to The Greek Goddess. The Greek Goddess says something smart-ass to my mom, and Auntie just stands there like she can’t control her kid. So I have finally had enough, and I tell everyone to get their asses inside because I’m tired of all this shit, and I tell The Greek Goddess to shut the fuck up because she acts like she knows everything, when in reality, she doesn’t know shit. That shut everyone up. At that point, everyone looked at me like monkeys had started flying out of my ass, but holy fuck. I was DONE with the bullshit.
We went inside and ordered our food. And due to my outburst, we all sat for the first few minutes in an uncomfortable silence. Everyone except Daughter who is oblivious to everything, bless her little soul. When the food came out to us, there was one more little hiccup courtesy of The Greek Goddess. She gets her quesadilla and starts picking through it…”ugh…it’s got mushrooms on it! I can’t eat this.” The dipshit had ordered the vegetable quesadilla thinking she’d get a cheese quesadilla. Brittney was smart enough to have ordered a cheese quesadilla, thinking she’d get a cheese quesadilla. Teenagers. I wanted to smack The Greek Goddess and ask her what exactly did she think of when she heard the word “vegetable”, but I stayed out of it. The restaurant was nice enough to replace her food and get her what she “really” wanted, even though she didn’t order it correctly. I wished they would have charged her for it. That would have been awesome and would have sent Auntie into a financial tailspin.
When we leave the restaurant, I had had enough of bitchy teenage vegetarians for the evening, and we split up. My mom, Daughter and I ended up going into one of those photography places where they do old fashioned photos and you can dress up in Victorian clothing, or old west, or whatever and the pictures are brown and white. I dressed Daughter up in the “gangster” theme and got some photos done for my father-in-law. I figured I’d exacerbate the Italian stereotype a little more by doing this – and considering Husband’s shady family history – I figured this photoshoot would be appreciated. (It was.) After the pictures, we have to wait 30 minutes before we can pick out our proofs, so we decide to take Daughter to the carnival part of Old Town and let her ride some rides. I get her the “kiddie” bracelet – no limit to riding the kid rides. She was tickled pink especially when she found out there was a kiddie rollercoaster (she loves rollercoasters) and a giant slide you slide down on a burlap sack. Those were her two favorite rides and she must have ridden the rollercoaster about 10 times over the evening, and gone down the slide 10 times too. It wasn’t very busy on that part of the carnival, so I was glad because there was not a very long wait for her. I chatted on my cell phone with Husband for a while and then my mom and I chatted, watching Daughter. I decide at about 9:30 or so that we should go pick up our pictures.
We’re in the photo place and wrapping up our order when mom realizes that Auntie has called her 3 times. Whoops. She calls her when we leave the place (about 5 minutes later) and Auntie screams at her, “WE’RE AT THE CAR!” because you know, our crystal ball should have tipped us off to the fact that they were ready to leave. This sets me off and I tell my mom that I promised Daughter she could ride the rollercoaster two more times before we left, and I’ll be damned if anyone is going to tell me that we need to leave at this second, without me being able to fulfill my promise. So Fuck Them. We have to pass the parking lot on our way to the kiddie rides (my mom is convinced they saw us), and during our walk, I tell my mom that I DARE anyone to question me about letting Daughter take her last rides. Don’t poke a mama bear, y’all. I was ready to GO THE FUCK OFF on anyone who said something.
I let Daughter take her last rides, and we get to the car. Funny enough, no one says a fucking peep about anything. It was like they overheard my threats. Because it would have been ON if The Greek Goddess had opened her mouth. I think I would have went all Jerry Springer on her AND Auntie if either of them had said something. But luckily for them, no one said shit. You could have heard a pin drop on the ride home.
We got back to the condo and Daughter watched a movie on the portable DVD player, while mom and I read a book in our bedroom. Honestly, my family can suck it sometimes. Especially when my cousin acts like such a bitch and my aunt rips my mom off. Doesn’t anyone have any class anymore? Apparently not.
It was at this point in my vacation when I was ready to come home. I was glad I only one full day left to spend with these nutjobs. My mom snores to wake the dead, so besides not getting a good night sleep, I was just tired of everyone involved. Except of course, my kid. At least I can expect someone to behave themselves. And funny enough, my mom was relatively easy to take on this trip too. Maybe because I was her only ally.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
I Interrupt this Vacation Recap for A Very Important List
I feel like this cat.
I need to warn you that I am in an ESPECIALLY irritable mood and have been for the last three days. Some of the things in this post are bitchy, mean, insensitive and cold-hearted. I am not apologizing because I’m just being honest. I’m just warning you that you’re being exposed to my ugly side…
Things that I find especially irritating at this moment:
That AT&T commercial where the boyfriend is leaving to go on a trip and he texts his girlfriend pictures of him in front of Big Ben (“Hi from London”), the Eiffel Tower (“Hi from Paris”), and then eventually, texts here a picture of herself (“Hi from…”) and she turns around and he’s there. This commercial irritates me because of the stupid little knit hat the boyfriend wears throughout the commercial…I don’t know why it bothers me so much but he looks like Enrique Inglasias and really doesn’t need some “cool” hat to look cute. I am also irritated by the cute little song that is playing in the background because I find myself singing along to it everytime the fucking commercial comes on. I hate the cuteness of the whole dang thing. I’ve seen this commercial way too many times. Everything about it is JUST SO SICKENINGLY CUTE. AT&T deserves a strongly worded letter from me.
The fact that I haven’t received the letter from the State Bar yet to tell me whether I passed the Bar exam or not. I’ve counted the days on the calendar, and the letters come out like CLOCKWORK. I mean, everytime I took the exam, I received the letter in the mail the EXACT day I thought it would come. Except for this time. It should have come on Saturday while I was in Florida. But it did not. And now, everyday, I am driving Husband crazy (as well as myself) because the first question I ask him around 4:30pm is “Did The Letter come?” It is driving me insane and I’ve decided the reason I have been in a foul mood the past few days is because of the fucking letter. Just get here already so I can move on with my life. I would write the State Bar a strongly worded letter if I wasn’t so afraid of them. Yeah, I said it. They strike fear in my heart because my future is in their hands. But if I had bigger balls, I’d write one to tell them how unacceptable this waiting period is.
My commute home from work yesterday. Normally, this doesn’t bother me. I know I live far away from work and I deal with it. Yesterday, some asshole decided he wanted to attempt suicide by jumping off the overpass bridge on the main freeway I take home. I don’t mean to be insensitive (actually, I DO mean to be insensitive, because for God’s sake he was on the overpass for NINE HOURS). WTF? How long does it take to talk someone down from an overpass? Apparently it takes hours…at the expense of thousands of people during their commute. As one of my friends mentioned yesterday, even when there is a bear or some wild animal on the loose, it doesn’t take nine hours to capture them. You shoot it with a tranquilizer and then…DONE. Life goes on for everyone involved. When the news reported the story last night, the said the police apologized for taking so long, but these are the types of things “you don’t want to rush.” Acutally, you DO want to rush these things, otherwise thousands of people are inconvenienced and the police spend nine hours waiting on some asshole to jump (or in this case, not). I’m sorry for being insensitive (I really do) but I just have no tolerance for people and their dramatic suicide attempts. I know the economy sucks, but if you’re going to do it, do it in the privacy of your own home like everyone else and don’t make a spectacle of yourself. He obviously didn’t really want to die, he just wanted attention. If I knew the man’s name, he’d be getting a strongly worded letter.
My friends on Facebook that have nothing interesting to say in their status messages – most often are the ones who can only can post shit about their kids/kids activities/husbands/family/blah blah blah. So your life is perfect and great and your kids are awesome. I don’t want to hear about Little Jimmy’s cub scout meetings or Little Susie’s bake sale at school. I don’t give a rat’s ass about how perfect your husband is (goody, goody, gumdrops for you) and I feel sorry for you because it’s apparent you have no other life that one that is wrapped up in your kids and your husband and you no longer have an identity. I mean, I know I often blog about Husband and Daughter so I am probably guilty of this myself. But I also have other interests, hobbies, and I have a life separate from them. I sometimes feel like unfriending these friends because reading their status messages means I just wasted 2 seconds of my life that I’ll never get back. But because I really am a nice person (despite the venom I am spewing in this post), I will not be writing any strongly worded status messages to my friends to tell them they need to get a life. But they should be getting one.
My local newscasts. Every story is about the doom and gloom that is the automotive industry. No wonder that guy wanted to jump off the freeway bridge. They said he was a 51-year-old auto worker who had lost his job back last November. I am assuming that he still hasn’t found a new job and no wonder. I doubt there are many jobs for an out-of-work 51-year-old autoworker right now. The newscasts sure don’t help the situation. I decided last night that I am no longer watching the news because it’s always bad news and it gives me anxiety. I am already on medication. I get anxiety and depressed and those newscasts make me feel like the world is coming to an end. So, no more. I am going to gladly put my head in the sand and get my news third person from Husband. My local Fox station is getting a strongly worded letter, I think.
That WGN (station out of Chicago that is on my cable) shows the same freakin’ “Scrubs” episodes over and over. There are like three billion episodes of “Scrubs” in syndication, yet last night, they were showing the episodes where JD meets the blonde urologist (that he ends up having the baby with.) I have seen those particular episodes, I swear, at least four times. WHAT THE HELL, WGN? Can’t you reach into the vault and dust some other episodes off? The fact that I get to watch “Scrubs” uninterrupted (Husband and Daughter are asleep in bed) from 11pm – midnight is one of my small luxuries. I HATE having to watch the same ones over and over when it’s been on television for the past 65 years and so there’s a million episodes in syndication. That’s it. WGN is getting a strongly worded letter too.
Don’t piss me off today or you’ll be getting a strongly worded letter as well. Believe me, they would all start like this:
“Dear Asshole(s),
You are an asshole because….”
After all, don’t you think, people should be called out when they’re being assholes? And before you go posting a comment on this post calling me an asshole, I’m going to cancel it out right now because I KNOW I’m being an asshole. So there. I beat you to it. (me sticking my tongue out at you…)
Things that I find especially irritating at this moment:
That AT&T commercial where the boyfriend is leaving to go on a trip and he texts his girlfriend pictures of him in front of Big Ben (“Hi from London”), the Eiffel Tower (“Hi from Paris”), and then eventually, texts here a picture of herself (“Hi from…”) and she turns around and he’s there. This commercial irritates me because of the stupid little knit hat the boyfriend wears throughout the commercial…I don’t know why it bothers me so much but he looks like Enrique Inglasias and really doesn’t need some “cool” hat to look cute. I am also irritated by the cute little song that is playing in the background because I find myself singing along to it everytime the fucking commercial comes on. I hate the cuteness of the whole dang thing. I’ve seen this commercial way too many times. Everything about it is JUST SO SICKENINGLY CUTE. AT&T deserves a strongly worded letter from me.
The fact that I haven’t received the letter from the State Bar yet to tell me whether I passed the Bar exam or not. I’ve counted the days on the calendar, and the letters come out like CLOCKWORK. I mean, everytime I took the exam, I received the letter in the mail the EXACT day I thought it would come. Except for this time. It should have come on Saturday while I was in Florida. But it did not. And now, everyday, I am driving Husband crazy (as well as myself) because the first question I ask him around 4:30pm is “Did The Letter come?” It is driving me insane and I’ve decided the reason I have been in a foul mood the past few days is because of the fucking letter. Just get here already so I can move on with my life. I would write the State Bar a strongly worded letter if I wasn’t so afraid of them. Yeah, I said it. They strike fear in my heart because my future is in their hands. But if I had bigger balls, I’d write one to tell them how unacceptable this waiting period is.
My commute home from work yesterday. Normally, this doesn’t bother me. I know I live far away from work and I deal with it. Yesterday, some asshole decided he wanted to attempt suicide by jumping off the overpass bridge on the main freeway I take home. I don’t mean to be insensitive (actually, I DO mean to be insensitive, because for God’s sake he was on the overpass for NINE HOURS). WTF? How long does it take to talk someone down from an overpass? Apparently it takes hours…at the expense of thousands of people during their commute. As one of my friends mentioned yesterday, even when there is a bear or some wild animal on the loose, it doesn’t take nine hours to capture them. You shoot it with a tranquilizer and then…DONE. Life goes on for everyone involved. When the news reported the story last night, the said the police apologized for taking so long, but these are the types of things “you don’t want to rush.” Acutally, you DO want to rush these things, otherwise thousands of people are inconvenienced and the police spend nine hours waiting on some asshole to jump (or in this case, not). I’m sorry for being insensitive (I really do) but I just have no tolerance for people and their dramatic suicide attempts. I know the economy sucks, but if you’re going to do it, do it in the privacy of your own home like everyone else and don’t make a spectacle of yourself. He obviously didn’t really want to die, he just wanted attention. If I knew the man’s name, he’d be getting a strongly worded letter.
My friends on Facebook that have nothing interesting to say in their status messages – most often are the ones who can only can post shit about their kids/kids activities/husbands/family/blah blah blah. So your life is perfect and great and your kids are awesome. I don’t want to hear about Little Jimmy’s cub scout meetings or Little Susie’s bake sale at school. I don’t give a rat’s ass about how perfect your husband is (goody, goody, gumdrops for you) and I feel sorry for you because it’s apparent you have no other life that one that is wrapped up in your kids and your husband and you no longer have an identity. I mean, I know I often blog about Husband and Daughter so I am probably guilty of this myself. But I also have other interests, hobbies, and I have a life separate from them. I sometimes feel like unfriending these friends because reading their status messages means I just wasted 2 seconds of my life that I’ll never get back. But because I really am a nice person (despite the venom I am spewing in this post), I will not be writing any strongly worded status messages to my friends to tell them they need to get a life. But they should be getting one.
My local newscasts. Every story is about the doom and gloom that is the automotive industry. No wonder that guy wanted to jump off the freeway bridge. They said he was a 51-year-old auto worker who had lost his job back last November. I am assuming that he still hasn’t found a new job and no wonder. I doubt there are many jobs for an out-of-work 51-year-old autoworker right now. The newscasts sure don’t help the situation. I decided last night that I am no longer watching the news because it’s always bad news and it gives me anxiety. I am already on medication. I get anxiety and depressed and those newscasts make me feel like the world is coming to an end. So, no more. I am going to gladly put my head in the sand and get my news third person from Husband. My local Fox station is getting a strongly worded letter, I think.
That WGN (station out of Chicago that is on my cable) shows the same freakin’ “Scrubs” episodes over and over. There are like three billion episodes of “Scrubs” in syndication, yet last night, they were showing the episodes where JD meets the blonde urologist (that he ends up having the baby with.) I have seen those particular episodes, I swear, at least four times. WHAT THE HELL, WGN? Can’t you reach into the vault and dust some other episodes off? The fact that I get to watch “Scrubs” uninterrupted (Husband and Daughter are asleep in bed) from 11pm – midnight is one of my small luxuries. I HATE having to watch the same ones over and over when it’s been on television for the past 65 years and so there’s a million episodes in syndication. That’s it. WGN is getting a strongly worded letter too.
Don’t piss me off today or you’ll be getting a strongly worded letter as well. Believe me, they would all start like this:
“Dear Asshole(s),
You are an asshole because….”
After all, don’t you think, people should be called out when they’re being assholes? And before you go posting a comment on this post calling me an asshole, I’m going to cancel it out right now because I KNOW I’m being an asshole. So there. I beat you to it. (me sticking my tongue out at you…)
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
Vacation Recap, Day Two: Destination: The Magic Kingdom
Day Two: Friday
Disneyworld, here we come! Now, I haven’t been to Disneyworld since my honeymoon, in 1995 and a lot of things about the whole Disney Experience have changed. It’s still the “happiest place on Earth”, but a few days before my trip – I figured out that the place is a Major Attraction. I mean, M-A-J-O-R. I sort of had an idea – but honestly, I hadn’t paid much attention to it because I wasn’t planning a trip there so why bother, right? One thing about me is that if it doesn’t affect me directly, I’m rather oblivious to things. I was oblivious to the Disney Machine until like 2 days before the trip. DUHHHHHhhhh to me.
My mom, who is a World-Class Scrapbooker, made Daughter this sweet-ass autograph book. When I say it was “sweet-ass”, I am 100% serious. Donald Duck lost his shit when he saw it – demonstrated by the fact that he had to show it to every single Disney worker in the immediate vicinity prior to signing it, miming his awe, because he’s doesn’t talk. I have the pictures to prove it. Too bad he couldn’t talk, because I’m sure he would have said, “This autograph is sweet-ass.” You could read it all over his face! Really! It was a little three-ring board book thing, that my mom covered in Mickey Mouse fabric. Some of the pages were Disney-generic, while some of the pages – like the Donald Duck one, Ariel, Cinderella, Mickey, Minnie – they were character-specific. So while Donald was signing the autograph book, he actually had his own page in the book. He wasn’t signing one of those rinky-dink autograph books that you can buy in the park. Oh no. He was signing a one-of-a-kind autograph book made by a World-Class Scrapbooker.
Anyway, I also discovered that there is a collection of penny press machines around WDW (Walt Disney World for those of you not in the know). I figured Daughter would get a kick out of trying to find all of the machines, and she’d also enjoy watching the pennies get stamped with all of the different designs. BTW, I was right. And I have 46 pennies and 8 quarters that went through the penny presses, stored in the souvenir book sold at WDW. She got all excited everytime we came upon a new penny press machine. I especially loved the ones where you got more than one penny design (lots of them had 4 penny designs). I liked being able to fill up her souvenir book. I didn’t like having to haul around 3 rolls of quarters and one roll of pennies…but I did it for her. And it was a lot cheaper than collecting the pins they sell or any of the other collector crap at Disney. I got off cheap with the penny collection, considering the cheapest pins sold for $7 apiece.
Our day started when Auntie Millie dropped us off at The Polynesian as planned, and we Monorailed over to The Magic Kingdom. We arrived at the entrance around 8:20am, and MK is scheduled to open at 9am. So far, so good – we are on schedule. Since it’s going to be a hot day, I tell my mom I am going to go buy a pair of sunglasses for Daughter and I – because like the idiot I am, I leave my 10,000 pairs of sunglasses at home and only pack one pair. They were brand new (never worn) and got crushed in my purse during the flight. I love wasting money, don’t you? I go to the little kiosk thing that is outside MK, and get a pair for myself, and also find the cutest pair of lavender-teal Little Mermaid pair for Daughter. She is wearing her teal Little Mermaid, “Disney on Ice” T-shirt she got a few weeks ago when Disney on Ice was in town, so I figure these are going to match her tee perfectly, and she will look adorable all day long. (I was right. Those sunglasses were da fucken bomb!)
About 10 minutes before MK opens, they put on this little show up above the entrance where the train arrives. The train pulls up and who should get out? Fucken MICKEY MOUSE! I about lose my shit like the girl in the footage of the Beatles showing up in America, coming out of the airplane. You’ve seen it right? Yeah, that was me. Then, Snow White comes out of the train! Holy Shit! Snow White too???? I nearly pissed myself.
After the performance, MK opens and we are off. The plan for the day was to start in Fantasyland, where the Dumbo, Peter Pan, Teacups, etc. rides are because they are some of the most popular. Also, Ariel’s Grotto is there, and if you don’t get your ass in line as soon as MK opens, you will be waiting forever to get her signature. And with the Special Autograph Book we HAD to get in line immediately. So Daughter met Ariel who was adorable…let me tell you – I was just as excited. I’m sure you already gathered that I get off on meeting the characters like I was 6 years old too, but I’m just saying. We got some pictures and her autograph, and Daughter was excited. We rode a bunch of rides and moved along.
We spent most of the day looking for penny press machines, riding the rides and taking pictures. It was hot as Hell – I think it got near 90 degrees, but I didn’t mind. Most of the rides are indoors and air conditioned so it was a nice break. We never had to wait very long for any of the rides and used FASTPASS for Splash Mountain (which was a good call.) I bought a few souvenirs (I usually get refrigerator magnets from every place I visit), so I got a few magnets, got Daughter Mickey Ears with her name embroidered on them (a MUST as far as I was concerned – she chose the Tinkerbell ones) and my mom bought scrapbook shit and talked me into getting scrapbook shit. Of course.
The characters we met and got autographs from were Goofy, Donald Duck, Peter Pan, Captain Hook and Mr. Smee, Mickey and Minnie Mouse (this was another time I about pissed myself. Everyone in the park kept saying it was a 50/50 chance Minnie would be with Mickey and when she was there…I did a little dance on the inside), Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Belle, Silvermist and Iridessa (two of the fairies) and Tinkerbell. Besides Ariel, Tinkerbell is Daughter’s favorite Disney character. Tinkerbell was AWESOME. She had all of Tink’s mannerisms down and when she saw Daughter’s autograph book (we had her sign the same page as Peter Pan) she lost her shit because of Peter’s signature. “My friend Peter signed too? Look everyone! Peter signed too!” Daughter was giddy. One of the reasons she loves Tinkerbell is because Tink is so sassy. Whenever we watch “Peter Pan” we always joke around and say “Sassy Tink!”…Tinkerbell sure lived up to the sassiness in the movie. She was so great. I could tell Daughter was having a blast. Tinkerbell asked her what she liked to do, and she answered that she loved playing video games. Tinkerbell spent the next 5 minutes asking Daughter to explain what video games were, because, after all, there are no video games in Neverland! Daughter thought this was hilarious and must have mentioned it to me 2-3 times over the weekend. Bravo to Tinkerbell. I swear I want to write Disneyworld a letter and tell them their characters are TOP NOTCH.
One of the rides that Daughter was bugging me to ride all day was The Haunted Mansion. Of course, once we got on it she got scared – especially when the ride got stuck and we sat on it not moving for 5 minutes. She got all creeped out by the tombstones and ghost shit everywhere. I found this incredibly amusing considering how many time she mentioned wanting to ride it. Kids.
We caught one of the parades -- earlier that morning, my mom was talking to some woman who was there with her husband and kids. They were a young-ish couple, and she told my mom that her husband was a soldier who was getting shipped out to Iraq soon, so they came to Disneyworld to spend some “family” time together before he got deployed. Anyway, during their conversation she mentioned Disney has a new parade – I think it’s called “Pumpin’ Up!” or something. We caught it around 3pm as we were on Main Street in one of the gift shops. Daughter knew the song (I have no idea how) and when we got home I found out it was a Hannah Montana song called “Pumping Up the Party” or something similar. Daughter doesn’t watch Hanna Montana, but she knew the song somehow…LOL She has been singing it non-stop since we got home, but it’s a cute song, so I am not 100% irritated by it.
One of the rides that Daughter was bugging me to ride all day was The Haunted Mansion. Of course, once we got on it she got scared – especially when the ride got stuck and we sat on it not moving for 5 minutes. She got all creeped out by the tombstones and ghost shit everywhere. I found this incredibly amusing considering how many time she mentioned wanting to ride it. Kids.
We caught one of the parades -- earlier that morning, my mom was talking to some woman who was there with her husband and kids. They were a young-ish couple, and she told my mom that her husband was a soldier who was getting shipped out to Iraq soon, so they came to Disneyworld to spend some “family” time together before he got deployed. Anyway, during their conversation she mentioned Disney has a new parade – I think it’s called “Pumpin’ Up!” or something. We caught it around 3pm as we were on Main Street in one of the gift shops. Daughter knew the song (I have no idea how) and when we got home I found out it was a Hannah Montana song called “Pumping Up the Party” or something similar. Daughter doesn’t watch Hanna Montana, but she knew the song somehow…LOL She has been singing it non-stop since we got home, but it’s a cute song, so I am not 100% irritated by it.
The day was relatively smooth, so I don’t any good stories to tell. My mother behaved and Daughter behaved and we didn’t run into anyone else misbehaving. Darn. I always love a good scene. We stayed for the fireworks in the evening and didn’t leave MK until around 9:45 (I think it closed at 10pm.)
However, I did call Auntie around 9:30 to tell her to pick us up at the Polynesian around 10:15. And of course, when she picked us up, she again had a major attitude. Maybe I was reading into things, but I don’t think so. My mom told me later that for some reason Auntie, The Greek Goddess and Brittney couldn’t go out to dinner because she had to pick us up and they “didn’t have enough time.” I swear, the woman needs some medication or something, because we had told her the fireworks were at 9pm, and that we were “probably” staying for them. We were gone ALL FUCKING DAY. I don’t know about you, but I usually eat dinner anywhere between 6-8pm, right? They ended up ordering pizza on the condo resort and not going out because Auntie had to pick us up. It was about this time that I realized that I was getting extremely irritated by her attitude and her BLAMING my mom, me and Daughter for why she could/couldn’t/wouldn’t do certain things. Again, it’s not my fault if you can’t plan your day properly in order to find time to eat dinner in the 14 hours were at WDW. I wanted to ask her what the fuck her problem was because her shit was getting OLD fast. Next opportunity I get, I am recommending some A.D.D. meds and possibly an anti-depressant to her, because seriously –honest-to-God – she needs them. Get your shit together, Woman! After this trip, she has been placed on my Shit List and I don’t think she’s getting off of it anytime soon. And if you think I’m being harsh, this was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to her shit on this trip…trust me, you’re going to be appalled on Day Three.
So that was our Disney Experience. And it wasn’t until I was already home and back to work when I realized that I forgot to look for the brick that Husband and I purchased after our Honeymoon. Disney was selling bricks at the time (actually, they looked a lot like pavers) that you could get engraved with your names, the year and whatever as a momento. We got one with wedding bells, the year “95” and our names. FUCK. I forgot to look for it. Guess I will never get to see it in person!!!!
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Vacation Recap: Day One
I’m back from vacation, y’all. And I can’t wait to tell you about it!
First, I think it is appropriate to give you character profiles of those that joined me on the vacation:
Daughter: Since I’ve talked about her before, you probably already know about her. But in short, she’s six years old, loves fart jokes, is as smart as a whip (and I’m not just saying that because she is my kid…I swear), is very inquisitive (i.e., asks a million questions a day), never stops talking, is not very shy, loves superheroes, and is very loving and affectionate. In a nutshell, she’s a great kid and I’m glad she’s mine.
My Mother: Relatively speaking, is probably not as big a pain in the ass as I give her credit for (I’m sure all mothers get on all daughters’ nerves), but she has a special talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. She also has a sense of humor that blindsides me, because sometimes I think she has NO sense of humor. More about this later.
My Aunt…we’ll call her “Auntie Millie”: My mother’s younger sister. She is a single mother, didn’t finish high school, never has enough money, is very defensive when it comes to anything and everything, and is jealous of my mother (because my mother lives the dream, apparently. However, if you’ve read any of my posts, you know my mother’s life isn’t all roses and sunshine). Divorced her husband (who lives in Greece) about 15 years ago because not only was he 25 years older than her, he was also a Cheap Fucker and treated her like his servant. More about Auntie Millie later.
My Cousin…we’ll call her “The Greek Goddess”: Just turned 18 (literally, her birthday was the first day of my vacation), thinks she knows everything when in reality doesn’t know shit. This is demonstrated by the fact that she’s planning to go to college in the fall but didn’t know that there are prerequisites and required courses that you have to take in order to finish your degree (such as taking an English class, a History class, etc.) Actually argued with her mother (Auntie Millie) over this (Auntie didn’t know this either since she never went to college – my mom had to fill her in on the whole concept of prerequisites). Oh, she’s also a Vegetarian. This is important to future vacation stories.
Cousin’s friend, “Brittney”: While I try not to judge a book by its cover, I couldn’t help but think this girl is a skanky slut. I’m sorry. When I first saw her I decided to try and give her a chance. Really, I did – I swear. But her eye makeup is too heavy and her hair was two colors. I’m far from old-fashioned, but if it looks like a slut, and acts like a slut…chances are the girl is a Slut. I promise you’ll agree with me when I’m done with The Vacation Saga.
DAY ONE: Thursday
I have to count Thursday as my first day of Vacation, because that’s when we arrived in Florida. Even though our flight didn’t land in Orlando until close to 9:30p.m., there is a decent story to tell.
First, the plane trip down to Orlando was rather uneventful except for the fact that there were two girls (looked to be around 20 years old) in the row in front of us with surgical masks on. Obviously, they were trying to avoid any possible contact with the dreaded Swine Flu. My mom decided to send them into a panic by fake-coughing and fake-sneezing periodically during our flight which I found HILARIOUS every time she did it. This is what I mean by her having a sense of humor that blindsides me. Just when I see her as My Mother, she does something that I would have done with my friends or something. She even made up a fake dialogue between the girls: “Wow, did you hear those people behind us coughing and sneezing during the whole flight?” “Yeah, I’m sooooooo glad we wore our surgical masks!” It was so funny. Maybe you had to be there.
Auntie Millie was picking us up at the airport because she rented a car. Her, The Greek Goddess and Brittney were staying in Orlando for the whole week, instead of the four days like we were. Please understand that Auntie Millie and my mom have a love-hate relationship. My mother has turned nit-picking into an art form, and Auntie Millie has played a victim since she left her shitty ex-husband. I usually feel sorry for Auntie Millie because she has no education (dropped out of high school) and will never be able to find a good paying job. Don’t get me wrong here -- I know lots of smart people who do not have post-high school education, and I’m not trying to imply that a college education makes you intelligent or you get a better job because of it. I know one does not necessarily correlate with the other. However, in Aunt Millie’s case, it does. She is a horrible speller (when she lived in Greece 20 years ago, she would write my mom letters. Notable misspellings -- the word “busy” was spelled “buzzy”; “pretty” was “prity”. You get the idea.) Auntie also says the dumbest shit sometimes and also isn’t able to connect the dots, so to speak. She’s not retarded or anything – she’s just not that smart. She also makes my cousin the center of her world because she has nothing else. No boyfriend, no money, no hobbies, etc. She just works and plays mom. My mom often reminds Auntie Mille of her lack of education – like stating the reason she can’t find a second job – she’s been looking and has applied online at places like Home Depot -- is that she probably has misspelled words in her online application. Then my mom giggled about it. I guess I’d be pissed at my sister too, if she said stuff like that -- and then giggled -- instead of being supportive. But my mom just not the “supportive” type. Personal flaws are always meant to be pointed out and made fun of…Any-who…
Aunt Millie had taken an earlier flight to Florida, and got to Orlando around noon on Thursday. She had rented a condo for the week – the trip was originally The Greek Goddess’ graduation trip – so she had also gone grocery shopping earlier in the day. When she picked us up from the airport she had a serious attitude. Not only was she “exhausted” from “running around all day”, she was bitchy. She informed us that she had been circling the airport “forever” and that she hadn’t even unpacked yet. I’m sorry, but my flight was on-fucking-time so number one, no one asked you to circle the airport for ½ hour and no one called you to tell you the flight was early. And number two, it’s not my problem you are such a piss-poor time manager that it apparently takes you 12 hours to run to the grocery store (which was on the same property as the condo and was literally a 5-minute drive from the condo). I mean, seriously? You haven’t unpacked yet and you’ve been in Orlando for 10 hours? She said she hadn’t even been down to the pool yet! I have no clue what she did all day long besides go to the grocery store, because when my mother asked her – she just got all in a flutter and couldn’t answer because she was too busy saying how tired she was. She acted like picking us up at the airport was a MAJOR inconvenience. I was PISSED.
After having to endure the 30 minute drive from the airport to the condo, and hear Auntie Millie repeat how tired she was about 40 times, we arrived at the condo. The Greek Goddess and Brittney were watching Grey’s Anatomy. Neither of them got up to greet us or say “hello” or anything – not even to say hi to my kid. It was at this point where I remember it was The Greek Goddess’ birthday and neither my mom nor I had brought her a present. Whoops! In order to avoid any further awkwardness, after all, no one was getting up, I ran into our room, unpacked, took an Ambien and went to bed. My mother, Daughter and I were going to Disneyworld the next day and we all needed to get to sleep. Auntie Millie was dropping us off in the morning at The Polynesian so we could take the Disney Monorail to the Park instead of having to deal with Park traffic. Oh, boy. Auntie should be thrilled with having to get up early and also having to pick us up….I hope she has time in the 16 hours we would be gone to go sit by the pool for five minutes!
First, I think it is appropriate to give you character profiles of those that joined me on the vacation:
Daughter: Since I’ve talked about her before, you probably already know about her. But in short, she’s six years old, loves fart jokes, is as smart as a whip (and I’m not just saying that because she is my kid…I swear), is very inquisitive (i.e., asks a million questions a day), never stops talking, is not very shy, loves superheroes, and is very loving and affectionate. In a nutshell, she’s a great kid and I’m glad she’s mine.
My Mother: Relatively speaking, is probably not as big a pain in the ass as I give her credit for (I’m sure all mothers get on all daughters’ nerves), but she has a special talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. She also has a sense of humor that blindsides me, because sometimes I think she has NO sense of humor. More about this later.
My Aunt…we’ll call her “Auntie Millie”: My mother’s younger sister. She is a single mother, didn’t finish high school, never has enough money, is very defensive when it comes to anything and everything, and is jealous of my mother (because my mother lives the dream, apparently. However, if you’ve read any of my posts, you know my mother’s life isn’t all roses and sunshine). Divorced her husband (who lives in Greece) about 15 years ago because not only was he 25 years older than her, he was also a Cheap Fucker and treated her like his servant. More about Auntie Millie later.
My Cousin…we’ll call her “The Greek Goddess”: Just turned 18 (literally, her birthday was the first day of my vacation), thinks she knows everything when in reality doesn’t know shit. This is demonstrated by the fact that she’s planning to go to college in the fall but didn’t know that there are prerequisites and required courses that you have to take in order to finish your degree (such as taking an English class, a History class, etc.) Actually argued with her mother (Auntie Millie) over this (Auntie didn’t know this either since she never went to college – my mom had to fill her in on the whole concept of prerequisites). Oh, she’s also a Vegetarian. This is important to future vacation stories.
Cousin’s friend, “Brittney”: While I try not to judge a book by its cover, I couldn’t help but think this girl is a skanky slut. I’m sorry. When I first saw her I decided to try and give her a chance. Really, I did – I swear. But her eye makeup is too heavy and her hair was two colors. I’m far from old-fashioned, but if it looks like a slut, and acts like a slut…chances are the girl is a Slut. I promise you’ll agree with me when I’m done with The Vacation Saga.
DAY ONE: Thursday
I have to count Thursday as my first day of Vacation, because that’s when we arrived in Florida. Even though our flight didn’t land in Orlando until close to 9:30p.m., there is a decent story to tell.
First, the plane trip down to Orlando was rather uneventful except for the fact that there were two girls (looked to be around 20 years old) in the row in front of us with surgical masks on. Obviously, they were trying to avoid any possible contact with the dreaded Swine Flu. My mom decided to send them into a panic by fake-coughing and fake-sneezing periodically during our flight which I found HILARIOUS every time she did it. This is what I mean by her having a sense of humor that blindsides me. Just when I see her as My Mother, she does something that I would have done with my friends or something. She even made up a fake dialogue between the girls: “Wow, did you hear those people behind us coughing and sneezing during the whole flight?” “Yeah, I’m sooooooo glad we wore our surgical masks!” It was so funny. Maybe you had to be there.
Auntie Millie was picking us up at the airport because she rented a car. Her, The Greek Goddess and Brittney were staying in Orlando for the whole week, instead of the four days like we were. Please understand that Auntie Millie and my mom have a love-hate relationship. My mother has turned nit-picking into an art form, and Auntie Millie has played a victim since she left her shitty ex-husband. I usually feel sorry for Auntie Millie because she has no education (dropped out of high school) and will never be able to find a good paying job. Don’t get me wrong here -- I know lots of smart people who do not have post-high school education, and I’m not trying to imply that a college education makes you intelligent or you get a better job because of it. I know one does not necessarily correlate with the other. However, in Aunt Millie’s case, it does. She is a horrible speller (when she lived in Greece 20 years ago, she would write my mom letters. Notable misspellings -- the word “busy” was spelled “buzzy”; “pretty” was “prity”. You get the idea.) Auntie also says the dumbest shit sometimes and also isn’t able to connect the dots, so to speak. She’s not retarded or anything – she’s just not that smart. She also makes my cousin the center of her world because she has nothing else. No boyfriend, no money, no hobbies, etc. She just works and plays mom. My mom often reminds Auntie Mille of her lack of education – like stating the reason she can’t find a second job – she’s been looking and has applied online at places like Home Depot -- is that she probably has misspelled words in her online application. Then my mom giggled about it. I guess I’d be pissed at my sister too, if she said stuff like that -- and then giggled -- instead of being supportive. But my mom just not the “supportive” type. Personal flaws are always meant to be pointed out and made fun of…Any-who…
Aunt Millie had taken an earlier flight to Florida, and got to Orlando around noon on Thursday. She had rented a condo for the week – the trip was originally The Greek Goddess’ graduation trip – so she had also gone grocery shopping earlier in the day. When she picked us up from the airport she had a serious attitude. Not only was she “exhausted” from “running around all day”, she was bitchy. She informed us that she had been circling the airport “forever” and that she hadn’t even unpacked yet. I’m sorry, but my flight was on-fucking-time so number one, no one asked you to circle the airport for ½ hour and no one called you to tell you the flight was early. And number two, it’s not my problem you are such a piss-poor time manager that it apparently takes you 12 hours to run to the grocery store (which was on the same property as the condo and was literally a 5-minute drive from the condo). I mean, seriously? You haven’t unpacked yet and you’ve been in Orlando for 10 hours? She said she hadn’t even been down to the pool yet! I have no clue what she did all day long besides go to the grocery store, because when my mother asked her – she just got all in a flutter and couldn’t answer because she was too busy saying how tired she was. She acted like picking us up at the airport was a MAJOR inconvenience. I was PISSED.
After having to endure the 30 minute drive from the airport to the condo, and hear Auntie Millie repeat how tired she was about 40 times, we arrived at the condo. The Greek Goddess and Brittney were watching Grey’s Anatomy. Neither of them got up to greet us or say “hello” or anything – not even to say hi to my kid. It was at this point where I remember it was The Greek Goddess’ birthday and neither my mom nor I had brought her a present. Whoops! In order to avoid any further awkwardness, after all, no one was getting up, I ran into our room, unpacked, took an Ambien and went to bed. My mother, Daughter and I were going to Disneyworld the next day and we all needed to get to sleep. Auntie Millie was dropping us off in the morning at The Polynesian so we could take the Disney Monorail to the Park instead of having to deal with Park traffic. Oh, boy. Auntie should be thrilled with having to get up early and also having to pick us up….I hope she has time in the 16 hours we would be gone to go sit by the pool for five minutes!
Questions to Ask Your Mother
With Mother's Day approaching, I found an article on CNN.com regarding questions to ask your mother. See the article here. I wish I would have had these questions during my vacation to Florida. It would have made for good conversation between My Mother and I.
Speaking of my vacation, I working on a daily recap that I'll post soon. Day One is almost done. Yeah, the vacation was that good that it's going to be recapped day-to-day. Don't worry. You won't be bored...I assure you. In the meantime, call your mom and ask her some of the questions in the article I posted above. And if you're mom is no longer with us (rest her soul), ask an aunt, a friend, or if you're close enough, you're mother-in-law. I bet you'll get some interesting answers.
Speaking of my vacation, I working on a daily recap that I'll post soon. Day One is almost done. Yeah, the vacation was that good that it's going to be recapped day-to-day. Don't worry. You won't be bored...I assure you. In the meantime, call your mom and ask her some of the questions in the article I posted above. And if you're mom is no longer with us (rest her soul), ask an aunt, a friend, or if you're close enough, you're mother-in-law. I bet you'll get some interesting answers.
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