Recognizing when you've reached THAT age - a handy guide

There's a really easy way to tell when you've achieved that certain level of maturity...

It's not when 20-somethings start calling you ma'am.

It's not when you start getting grey hairs. Nor yet when you start wondering when hell skirts got so short. Not even when you think that a night of dancing and vodka & Red Bulls is just too much work.

Its not when you look at a cute guy and your first thought is not 'rowr!' but 'good lord, comb your hair', not when you slam on your brakes and your arm insinctively flies out to protect the passenger, not even when your idea of being hot has more to do with flashes...

None of it.

What DOES tell you that you are now of THAT age, ready to ake your matronly place in the Halls of Maturity?






Its when your MOTHER now views you as peer and forwards raunchy sex jokes to you, to your dad's utter horror. And THEN calls to ask if you got it.



Please pass the Clorox and the qtips, I have some grey matter to santitize.

Being a parent: the stuff no one can prepare you for

now, granted, our family has been through a wringer in the last 18 months, getting my older son back on track. But there are worse things and some of them came calling tonight.

My son came over for a few hours and was pretty subdued and quiet and after watching a movie with me for a while, he told me what was wrong.

One of his former classmates, a bright and beautiful young girl, killed herself last week. She would have been 19 next week. She was struggling in her first year at college and despondent over her failing grades although by all accounts, she let no one know. She hung herself.


There is nothing that can prepare you for your child asking why... WHY did this happen?

She could have had help if anyone had known... and if anyone could have convinced her that failing school is not failing LIFE.

There was a memorial service at the high school and my son had gone, although he was embarrassed he hadn't been dressed up. ''What you wore is not the important part,'' i told him. ''Only that you were there.''

We talked at length and it was hard on both of us. Some years ago, I lost a friend to suicide as well.

He'll never forget this. And the questions will always be there.

If you can, spare a prayer for Kristin and her family and her friends. For comfort, for peace, and for the strength to heal.

And maybe a small prayer for my son, who's learned some hard lessons in the last year, but perhaps learned the hardest one tonight...

Now THIS is the life

Bless my husband and everyone who looks like him. The man took pity on me (well AND his mom who was starting to get the shakes from Grandson Withdrawal, I think), packed up Short Stuff and headed off for an overnight visit. Jacob, naturally, was pleased as punch (apparently, punch is generally quite pleased, according to Those in the Know) since visits to Halmeoni and Harabeoji mean ALL BABY, ALL THE TIME, woooooooooooooooooooooooooot NO NAPS YAYYYYYYY party party party!!!!

So, I went to bed around nine, in a glorious nest of ALL the pillows and ALL the covers and ALL THE BED. Woke up, made coffee. Ate cold pizza for breakfast. Fired up the PS3. Am continuing to sprawl, in my lounge pants with my hair all freaky looking and IT IS GOOOOOOD. There comes a time when a Mommy requires some recharging of her batteries and I'm going to have the whole day all to myself to do so. (cracks knuckles) AND the Clever Husband had given me a gift card to Gamestop for my birthday, so I have two new games to play. Bwaaaaahahahahaha.

* * *

IF I COULD GET LOOSE, I WOULD GIVE YOU SUCH A SMACK... or A Very Gerbil Moment

So I had to run up to the local grocery last night to return a DVD for the husband. I'm getting out of the car when suddenly this truck that was bigger than Tom Cruise's EGO came flying around a curve, and careened into the spot next to me. I had barely enough time to slam my car door shut and flatten myself against my car. The fecking driver smirked at me. I saw red. Not just red, but all the way past Rose Madder... beyond Cadmium Red and well into the throes of ALIZARIN CRIMSON. (woe be those that paint for we shall be stuck calculating how to get That Shade forevermore...)

The guy wasn't a teenager, either. Looked to be about mid-thirties. Ooh. we are having one of those "sorry about your penis" moments? And as he headed across the parking lot, I took a step after him to give him a piece of my scattered mind.

Yeah. Not so much.


My head jerked back and I just about fell down.


I'd cleverly slammed my hair shut in the door.



















And while we're at it, some pics because I haven't posted any in months and months













I call this: Jacob Sings the Blues. I should point out that he isn't actually crying, he's yelling at me with his eyes squinting shut because I wouldn't hand him the Gibson guitar leaning against the wall behind me. AAAAAAngry boy! "EuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuHHHHHHH"

Chicks Who Blog...

That time is upon us again... the Blog Party. The best kind of party... lots of company and you don't even need to vacuum first! AND, nobody cares if you're wearing lounge pants and there's legos on the stairs.


I'm supposed to be posting some sort of introduction, here.


I'm 41. Married. Three children (20, 18 & 20 mos). Actually yes, that is on purpose, thanks for asking. We have kind of a wacky life... typically suburban with a side of ludicrous. I'm used to having bizarre things happen on a regular basis and we just roll with it.

The GerbChildren

On the other hand, I don't exactly fit the Suburban Mommy Mold... not in my neighborhood at least. I'm a Game Geek of the first water and would rather watch action or martial arts movies than classically defined chick films.

On the other hand, I know all the words to Red Grammer's Down the Do Re Mi and I can make my own Play Doh. And I think rolling around the floor with 20 month old Jacob is the best way to spend an afternoon.

We have no cat, we have no dog, but I have some of the most spoiled gerbils known to man. Or woman, for that matter. I love me some rodents! My two current boys are Raisincranz and Guldens-stern. ( They always have food puns, and we've had such names as Indiana Scones, Elvis Parsley and Poi George.)

The rodents

And on to the party. (Sorry guys, its a Chick Thing although you might still find some cool new blogs to read through the link up top.) Ladies, feel welcome to click the link and join the party. It'll be as fun as we make it!

Out of the mouths of Babes, redux

My poor husband was up much of the night, so he was trying to catch an extra hour of sleep this morning. Jacob needed a diaper change and as we walked up the stairs, he pointed to the closed bedroom door and said "Daddy? Daddy night-night?"

"Yes", I assured him. "Daddy is sleeping."
"Ohhhh," answered Short Stuff and appeared to consider this.

And then he launched into an uncannily accurate imitation of some SERIOUS snoring.

I laughed so hard, I woke up the poor husband.

For those that asked Google..

... just who said ''bailiff whack his pee pee''?

if i recall, it was on the 1971 comedy album titled 'cheech and chong', track 5 - Trippin' in Court. you can't download it here, so try iTunes or something.

also... 'someone kicking someone else's butt''.....?

really????????


ok then.

at least the 'braless children' searches have stopped.

Dear Unknown Coworker

Thanks to you, i have learned that there is actually something far worse than onion breath.


Onion crap.



not only was i unable to step further into the ladies room due to that utter wall of oniony ass you left behind (and my bladder hates you)

... but i don't think i'll be able to face down any more salad for a while.

Resentfully,

Gerbil

I was channel flipping recently

And stumbled across "Keeping Up with the Kardashians."

What a freaking train wreck. Really. And yet, I kept watching it, even through the commercial breaks, trying to understand just what the hell was supposed to be the appeal of this bunch of nutcases. Have you seen it? Apparently one of the daughters was a Paris Hilton friend, had a sex tape released by an exboyfriend aaaaand... spends a lot of time and money on herself. That's all I could divine.

BUT... After about the third commercial break, a pattern dawned on me.

All the commercials were for:

Pregnancy Tests
Various versions of The Pill
Tampons
some ridiculous thing called Re-phresh or something like that, which as near as I could tell, is sort of like Febreze for one's hoo-hah.


And so on and so on. Just when I thought the show's demographic was teenaged boys, the commercials suggest otherwise. The show was horrendous but at least I got a pretty good laugh.

No wonder I hate tv.

My brain is a blank... i wore it out today. So I give you a story instead.

And its even a true story, although a few of you have heard it before.



THE GHOST COW OF DAYBROOK

(cue eerie music)


My mom's parents lived on a farm in this small town area. Very small town. I'm probably related to half the county. And the farm was sort of out there... it was a good 45 minutes into the nearest big town if you wanted to shop for something other than canned Del Monte peas, green beans and a bag of corn meal that may very well have seen the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

My grandparents were born here and although they went on (and out of state) to become IBM engineers, they retired back to my grandfather's family farm.

Note. This is not the farm of The Deer Stalker. Not the Leg Pile. This is the farm from the twilight zone. Just trust me on this.

Anyway, we'd been out for the morning and were coming back over the winding, twisting roads, when a local man flagged us down.

"D'you lose a cow out here?" The word Cow was stretched into additional syllables. That was one helluva drawl.

"Nope," my grandfather answered. "She's right here!" And my grandmother smacked him one in the arm.

"Somebody done hit a COW! On this road," the man insisted, "and they kilt it! Kilt it dead! But when we came back with the truck," he paused, I couldn't tell where it was for intentional dramatic effect or he was simply overcome by the gravity of the whole cow thing. "it.. it was GONE!"

My grandfather gave him a measuring look, thanked him for alerting us, and we continued on our way. From the rear window, my sister and I could see the man standing in the middle of the road, watching us. There was some joking about Zombie Ghost Cows and all, but we were fairly smug in the knowledge that obviously the cow hadn't been kilt dead at all, but probably just stunned senseless and it wandered away after it recovered a bit. I mean, come ON.

Fast forward a couple of hours. There was no cable television out here, and after dark, there just wasn't a hell of a lot to do. My grandfather was having his regular evening nap and my grandmother, sister and I were playing card games at the kitchen table and drinking really asserific coffee. All of a sudden, we heard this really odd noise. I mean REALLY odd. I'd never heard anything like it before and it was really creepy.

We all kind of looked at each other sideways and didn't say anything. You know, that sort of "if I pretend I never heard that, then it couldn't have really happened" kind of thing. We silently continued the card game for a few more minutes and then we heard it again. It was a kind of low, guttural sobbing that cranked into this long "OOOOOOOOOOOO", capped off by a rising wail.

It was definitely the sort of thing that would freak a body out.

Calmly, I got up from the table and went to wake my grandfather. And then of course, the noise didn't happen again and he got cranky and went back to sleep. Clearly, we were on our own. The third time it happened, I grabbed a flashlight and my grandmother grabbed my left arm and my sister grabbed the right, and we went out to investigate, all Lions and Tigers and Bears, OH SHIT!

We circled the house. Nothing. Out by the spring house. Nothing. chicken house? All quiet. Feed shed. Nothing there. Nothing anywhere. And as we were heading back to the house, feeling a little silly, we heard it AGAIN. Oh dear lord, it was coming from up the hill.




FROM THE OLD FAMILY CEMETERY.



We didn't say a word, but all three of us scrambled for the house and got jammed in the doorway like the pack of idiots we were, clawing and flailing to get back into the house. Finally the bottleneck broke free and all three of us thundered through the living room, up the stairs, into the big bedroom and all three of us jumped into the big iron bed and under the quilts. And we STAYED there, too.

Did I mention that my sister and I were adults at this point? Not that it mattered because we were all handling it like 5 year olds and there was nothing on this earth or the next that could have gotten us out from under those covers until daybreak.

So. The next morning we all pretended like nothing had happened, but I was out with my grandfather, counting the cattle as they came in for feed, and trying to describe what we'd heard. 12... 13... 14... 15. Hey. wait a minute, we only have 14 cattle. Count again. No we come up with 15. And then at that moment, the last animal in line lifts its head and.... you got it. That gawdawful noise from last night.

It was the McCoy's bull. It had broken out of its pasture last night and gotten stuck in the cemetery. And we got teased quite a bit about that Ghost Cow of Daybrook.

Out of the mouths and all that

This past Friday was Dr. Suess Day and some of us went to a local elementary school to read books to kids. Part of the suggested curriculum was to discuss the book after it was read. This is what I got from the kindergartners:

Me: "And does anyone have any questions?"

a wee, tiny solemn-faced little girl raises her hand.

me: "Yes dear?"
tot: "Miss Gerbil, are you wearing... stockings??"
me: "Why... yes, I am."
tot (nodding) "I thought so. Thank you."
me: "You're welcome."



Also? I'm feeling tres Put Together this morning. Pinned my hair up in a chignon, hose with NO snags in them yet, my dark brown knit only-designer-top-that-I-own and my chunky fabulous smoky topaz pendant that I TOTALLY got for dirt freaking cheap but nobody knows that except well... everyone NOW but anyway.

I strutted just a bit as I exited my room. Shoulders back, chin up, feelin' GOOD.

And I went out and got coffee and all and completely failed to notice the big ol' splotch of toothpaste directly over my right nipple.

Because I'm just Klassy like that.