Halloween Spirits

I am truly feeling the Spirit of Halloween this year. I generally don't get into holidays very much because I am cheap and a chronic procrastinator. Christmas is expensive and massively commercialized, Valentines is a holiday that brings daters together and drives marriages apart. By the time you are married for 10 or some-odd years you expect your spouse to know precisely what will melt your heart and their lame-ass gifts just don't cut it anymore. Easter is fine, it is about due time to have a holiday after six months of winter. The earth is frozen and the snow has browned and Summer feels too far away to really look forward to. Independance day USED to be cool, until we moved out of Utah to a state that cares whether it catches on fire or not. In Utah we had a plethora of fireworks that we bought in front of the grocery store. Here, it is impossible to buy fireworks. I felt giddy when my neighbor produced a sparkler this year. Total NY contraband. I don't remember any of the other holidays. Oh, Thanksgiving, that's right. Most people LOVE thanksgiving. Clearly they are the recipients of the food and not the ones slaving over a stove, oven, refrigerator, praying to GOD that the food turns out edible, the kids don't stain the carpet and that Uncle Jack doesn't make any racist comments to cousin betty's new boyfriend. There is way to much work and way too many variables to make Thanksgiving worthwile, and I refuse to put that much time and money into a meal that will most likely taste repulsive and cause contention among those in attendance. Besides, noone appreciates how much time you spent preparing the food anyway, they feel like their green bean casserole was enough to compensate for the $150 worth of food that has been prepared for them. Now Halloween is my kind of holiday. We get to pretend to be something we are not for one day. As an adult you don't HAVE to dress up. I generally forget to buy a costume and say that I'm being a bitch, or a desperate housewife for Halloween. No costume necessary. Childrens costumes are a breeze. Princess crap for the girls, and the uniform from your child's most recent sport for your boys. Plus a pair of thermals and a parka. Noone really sees your kids costume when they are trick or treating here anyway. Its frigid. Whether it is snowing, or sleeting, or clear as a bell, you can count on cold. After your kids are wardrobed appropriately they leave with their dad for two full hours and leave you in peace. Maybe a total of 20 trick or treaters stop in. I get to sit in peace until the quiet feels so unnatural I turn on some halloween music to help remind me it is still a holiday. Two hours later I get rewarded for my alone time with three bags of candy, and not the three musketeers garbage like I give, but really tasty stuff. It is truly divine. Now some of you hard-core halloweeners are probably horrified at my take on Halloween. To you I apologize (but only because I still want you for friends) I grew up in an incredibly festive home. My parents overdid every holiday; six christmas trees, haunted house for halloween, my dad is the best halloween makeup artist you have ever seen. For fun he used to put a giant gash in my face (not on Halloween) and have me stop off at gas stations and pretend like I needed some ice and a bandaid. I never had one person question the authenticity of the wound. It was awesome. I lack the mad artistic skills and morbid thinking of my father and I don't have the orginizational skills and creativity of my mother so I would never be able to give my children the fantastical holidays I had when I was a child. I justify may holiday lackadasical attitude by saying that we totally celebrated holidays when I was a kid and I still turned out pretty jacked, so maybe I am doing my children a favor...I am already looking forward to next Halloween.

Quotations of my childhood

I am a very bizarre and unique person. I will never deny that, but part of realizing how I have come to be me involves knowing a little bit about my upbringing. My parents are both very private and friendly, but aside from that they are very different from each other. I have some quotations that have stuck with me from birth, can you guess which ones are from my father and which ones are from my mother? Here they are....

"If it looks too good to be true, it is"
"Never give a sucker an even break"
"Never look a gift horse in the mouth"
"If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck...Its a duck"
"Don't be SORRY, be SMART!" We said sorry a lot for doing stupid crap when i was a kid.
"If you feel sorry for yourself, try doing something for someone else!"
"It doesn't pass the whiff test"
"There's gotta be a pony in here somewhere"
"The more you serve someone, the more you love them"
"We do what we are"
"you know what thought did? It peed the bed" (okay that was a granny great reference, but I had too.
"Practice doesn't make perfect...PERFECT practice makes perfect"
"Even a blind squirrel gets a nut once in a while"
"The harder I work, the luckier I get"
"Chickens one day, Feathers the next" That is a grandpa great quote to even things out.

I know there are copious quotations I have grown up with that are about love and trust and kindness, but these are the only ones I really recall. I made WAY more naughty choices as a kid than I did loving service! I love these quotations and I think of them daily. I love my parents. I love their skepticism and their insight to life. I miss them both for varying reasons. Hopefully they are both Chickens today, and not feathers.

Bizarre

I am bizarre. Atleast, that is the word my father uses weekly when we talk. My hobbies are bizarre, my personality is bizarre. My insomnia is bizarre. It seems that every time we talk I have done something that he qualifies as bizarre. I thought I would reflect for a moment about the past couple months and see if I am really as weird as he (and so many others) think I am. Here is the list of things that I am, have done, or had happen that are odd in the recent past.

1. Have gone to bed after 2am more than four of the seven nights each week.
2. I had a maggot fall into my hair out of nowhere.
3. My baby got bitten on the face by a rabid, heinious child.
4. I flipped out and wanted to launch into (or at) the mother of the cannibal toddler, but kept my hands to myself and my mouth fairly clean. To those who were there to witness my marginally censored freakout, that was as clean as my mouth gets in a situation like that.
5. Went to court twice for once accidently running a red light, and managed to infuriate the judge by grinning at the drunks and crackheads getting nonmoving violations in place of their DWI's because they hired the gnarliest of all sleazeball lawyers. That $50 she added to my ticket was worth every penny.
6. Can't think of anywhere besides home I would rather be than a dojo.
7. Grunt like a man on steroids when I play softball but get embarassed to make any noise in Karate.
8. Told my husband he couldn't buy a $160 pair of shoes with his birthday money and then spent $150 on new clothes for me and bought my kids all new bedroom furniture. (don't feel sorry for him! If you ask for permission, you run the risk of being told no. Just buy the damn shoes, wear them home and take your licks when you get home.)If he had really wanted them, he would have bought them anyway FYI, he was on the fence about it, and I made his decision easier for him. I am SUCH an awesome wife.
9. Painted a crib (this in and of itself is very abnormal behavior for me since I have a natural aversion to crafts AND manual labor) It took me 8 hours to do. It takes less time than that to give birth to the baby in the first place! Next time I am using spray paint, or just buying a new crib. Probably the latter.
10. I Don't really care about recycling and have been in two heated conversations about it with strangers. I understand it's good for the environment people, but I don't think we should be fined if we don't do it. In New Mexico we were practically honored if we put our trash into the trash at all. I know every little bit helps, but globally, your OCCRA bin full of crap to recycle isn't saving the earth. New York and Washington alone aren't going to save the planet.
11. I just soap-boxed to a bunch of random people who probably don't really care about what makes me bizarre.

Nearly Lost It

Easter is a Christian holiday right? I swear last I checked it was. Night before Easter I decided it was probably time to buy the commercial stuff for the holiday. Baskets, goodies, overpriced toys that are already in my trash. The grocery store was packed, and people were angry and frantic. Not me. I was in my happy place. Grocery shopping alone is like therapy. I get to look at all the suckers shopping with their kids, as I nonchelantly buy whatever I really want in my own quiet world. I was slowly sauntering down an isle when I came to the end of the isle. I stepped just far enough to look both ways at the end of the row to avoid hitting anyone walking perpendicular to my isle. As I came to a stop a Large Bra-less Redneck about my age and her mother walked where I had just stopped short of. She gasped, clearly afraid my cart was about to hit her. (Glad I had stopped) I said, "Sorry", relieved that I had opted to stop and check out the traffic before proceeding. She replied "its fine", and continued on. Three steps later she said to her mother, "Stupid Bitch ought to watch where she's going". My sonar hearing caught each word and my heart and mind began to race....Can I take this chick? Is she packing heat? Would I go to jail if I punched her in her face? Why isn't she wearing a bra? How can she affort all that crap in her cart if she can't even buy a bra? Why didn't she say that to my face? Would my husband be proud or pissed if I called him from jail.....pissed. I swallowed my pride, counted to ten in my mind, and bought more easter crap. If I punched her I would end up back in court. The local Judge hates me and wanted to put me in Jail for running a red light (granted I had been laughing at all the drunks and druggies getting of scot free and she caught me smirking prior to my hearing). She gave me the most expensive ticket she could, and added fifty bucks for my attitude (thank heavens the DA had reduced the charges to the least charge possible). I left court, counted to ten and then laughed, and laughed and laughed. Who would have thought that a sober housewife would be so much more detestable than a room full of drunk drivers and criminals. Note to self, counting to ten and buying more crap works better than laughing at a defendent in court!

Moist

Yes, The title of this post is "Moist". I occasionally go to a recipe swap, or a girls night and it seems that the word "Moist" is extremely gross/borderline offensive to a large number of my friends. I would like to passive-aggressively address this issue. Why is it that the word "moist" is so horrific? I know atleast three women who shudder at the word and will ask you to avoid saying it in their presence. I don't understand. When describing the consistency of a food, there is no other term for "moist". The cake was moist and delicious. It is the opposite of stale, or dry. How can that possibly be offensive?! I realize that the same word in reference to the gauze pad on your ceserean incision is disgusting, but at a recipe swap that is hardly the topic of conversation, though, I am sure if was to be brought up it would be MY doing. I think that the words chunky, or runny could also be used in a repulsive manner. I would typically give several examples of how I could use them to be disgusting, but I will refrain. There are two words that can be used when describing me...Gross, and Gluttonous. I love to horrify people with gross comments, and I love to eat (and eat, and eat). I have racked my brain comparing the gross uses for "moist" with those used in cooking and eating. I can think of many more yummy "Moist" things than disgusting "Moist" things. I can generally take any normal word and make it gross, but I'm not on board with this one. I think it is a wonderful word, and when I think of it my mouth waters. I can picture the moist Jello Cake, or Cheesecake, or Spice Cake, or Carrot Cake. YUM! I have looked for synonyms for "Moist" so that I can TRY to be more politically correct when I am with the ladies. If I am going to offend people, I want it to be for something really rank, not in reference to the texture of a cheesecake! Damp, oozy and soggy were on my list of candidates, but in the end I will smile and tell them that their cake is succulent.

The Two Space Parker

I went to the YMCA with my children today, and spent fifteen minutes circling the gigantic parking lot for a vacant space. Feeling frustrated and angry I finally saw a miniscule parking spot far away from the entrance. I was thinking, DAMN these ginormous cars with only two carseats inside them! They don't need to take up so much space, and why do people with small families need freaking huge vehicals? That was not the case today, however. The cars next to me were reasonably sized. I felt angry at the white car to my right for being two close to the line and looked over to see why that made my space so small. The brand new SUV to my left was a foot and a half into my parking spot. I drive an older car that spent its youth in the garage of an elderly couple who apperantly had a small garage because it has more dents in the doors than it has smooth sections. I think there is a dent every other half inch on both sides of the car, so I figured what's one more dent. I should pop my door open and slam the crap out of this beautiful shiny luxury SUV. Now you may be gasping in horror that I would consider intentionally denting a beautiful car that doesn't belong to me, but let me tell you that unloading a carseat and a three year old is a task alone, and being fat doesn't exactly help my situation. Doing it in 2/3 of a parking spot is nearly impossible. So I opened the door...slightly more forcefully than I would have usually. And when I say slightly more forceful than usually, I mean I slammed the crap out of that selfish, rich, entitled, idiot's car. People, I don't care if you are a crappy parker. I am terrible at it. I don't care if you are on the line. It is gray area in my book. But if you are a foot and a half in a parking spot thinking nobody can fit in the miniscule spot and that your precious new car will be untouched, think again. You may have an angry hurried woman more than willing to squeeze into whatever spot she can find, and she will ding the hell out of your car. You are not doing yourself a favor by assuming people just won't park there because it is near impossible for a car to fit. I will find a way to make my sedan fit, and you will have several dings in your car, because I will not warn my children to open the door softly, I will tell them that the person who drives the fancy car is an ass for making me have to flip the car seat upside down to try and get it into the car, and that they can practice opening and closing their car doors as much as they want for two minutes, and to put some muscle into it!

Fatalistic Valentiner

I hate Valentines Day. It has nothing to do with the fact that I punctured my son's eardrum last valentines day, had a miscarriage the valentines before, or had my babysitter run away from my house and be chased down by her parents the year before, I really just think it is a putrid holiday. I hated this holiday before all that crap happened. The real reason I hate Valentines is the reason I LOVE Halloween. People pretend to be something that in fact they are not. I think about romantic relationships and have them placed into several categories in my head. The Cheaters, The Cowards who want to cheat (but are afraid of getting busted), widows, those who have never loved, those who were in love but have drifted apart as a result of trials and life, those who despise their spouse but are too lazy to get divorced, the "friends", the lop-sided relationships where one person thinks things are picture-perfect and the other partner is suffocating in marital despair, and the the floaters who float by comfortably. I am, of course, excluding newlyweds since they are mostly freaks and are hormonally altered. I am not saying that there are no happily married people. They are few and far between in my opinion, but I am sure they exist. I think people can be happy, and be married, but Marital Bliss is as realistic as the easter bunny. My question is this....why for one day, do people pretend? It is as strange a practice as someone who doesn't believe in Christ having a Nativity in their yard at Christmas time. I think that those flowers husbands buy their wives would be far more productive on a day she has spent with a GI bug barfing into the toilet all day. Or a husband could surprise her with her favorite perfume one day because he notices that she is out. Women, why not make our husband a special candle-lit dinner on a day we know he has a rough schedule, or fill up his tank of gas when we see it is empty and know he will be rushed in the morning on the way to work. Don't you think if we did these things along the way, we would quit floating through marriage, or despising our partners, or cheating, or helping them feel justified about cheating. I wouldn't know....I don't do these things. My marriage has fallen into several of these categories in our ten years of being together. Right now we are floating. Floating is good....it buys us some time, but you can only float so long. I can tell you one thing I will not be doing on Valentines, and that is writing an ooey gooey mushy Hallmark Card filled with fflowery bullshit just because it is February Fourteenth. I will talk to my husband about his day, give him a realistic gift and a card that is sincere, and hope that nobody dies or gets hospitalized.