Tag: humor

Grand Gestures and Restraining Orders

One of these things is not like the others.
One of these things is not like the others.

Those who know me know that I despise Valentine’s Day. It’s partly because it’s never been a happily memorable holiday for me and partly because I’m highly pragmatic and figure if you’re not loving on the people who matter on a daily basis then one day isn’t going to help. Despite my antipathy towards this pseudo-holiday, though, my sons enjoy it. Or at least they enjoy the candy aspect. So every year I go out and buy candy for their classmates and make Valentine’s Day cards for the boys to write and hand out.

Over the weekend, the boys and I were discussing the Valentines they were going to give their friends.

“I don’t really want to write any out,” said Luke, hoping to avoid any extra work that even remotely felt like a homework chore.

“Even though it’s a pain to do, you might feel a bit awkward if everyone else in the class ends up handing them out and you don’t, Luke,” I nudged.

“Okay, okay,” he acquiesced. “I’ll do it.” There’s the male Valentine spirit I am used to…hands tied, forced to participate.

“There ya go,” I replied. “What about you, Joe? What are you thinking?” I asked.

“Oh…I want to hand them out. I have a plan.”

Now, Luke often has a plan. Luke is dreamer and a schemer. Joe? Not so much. He’s as straight forward and up front as you can get. I was curious. I raised an eyebrow at him.

“A plan, huh? What kind of plan?” I teased.

“I am going to write To and From on all the Valentines except one,” he said quite matter-of-factly.

“Oh…I see. And the one that’s the exception, would that one use a different word than From?”

“Yes,” he answered.

I knew exactly where this was going. Joe has had a small crush on a girl in his class all year. He can’t seem to decide on a best friend, but the boy knows a cute girl when he sees one.

“That’s pretty bold, Joe,” I said. “Women like a grand gesture.”

“It’s not a grand gesture. She’ll only figure it out if she sees that I didn’t write Love on anyone else’s card,” he said shyly.

“Yes. But you’re putting yourself out there, Joe. That’s brave and not at all easy to do. I’m proud of you.”

It was probably because I told him I liked his plan and was proud of him that he told me the very next day that he was not going to go through with it. It was too risky. I told him understood. I do. I didn’t tell my middle school crush I had a crush on him until we were 38 and at our 20-year high school reunion. Only then did inebriated and emboldened me take the time to seek him out and tell him that I regularly used to ride my bike by his house. I don’t know what I expected from my admission, but having him look at me as if he might be in need of a restraining order in the near future wasn’t my best case scenario. Admitting your feelings comes with a risk no matter how old you are. It never gets easier, but the younger you start the better off you will be.

Tonight I called the boys up to write out the cards so I could attach the treats and get them ready for dispersal at class. I left Joe with his class list and went on to other things. When I returned later and was slapping lollipops on the handmade, handwritten notes, I noticed that one of the notes did not have the customary From sign-off. One of them was clearly and neatly signed Love, Joe. It made my heart smile.

I still don’t like Valentine’s Day. I don’t. It’s hokey, commercial, and highly overrated. But this year I almost have reason to celebrate and it’s because of a card that wasn’t even written to me.

 

 

Posted on by Me 2

Trampolines, Swim Fins, and Half of a Roasted Pig

Hawaii on the brain
Hawaii on the brain

I am jumping on a large trampoline in a spacious, overgrown backyard. There are at least seven of us jumping simultaneously as a breeze rustles the palm fronds overhead. It’s sunny, warm, and peaceful. I am where I belong. A friend suggests we go shoe shopping. “I love shoes,” I think, so I am all over this change in plans. We hop off the trampoline and begin walking down a city street to the store. Along the way I am discussing what I should spend my shoe budget on…casual flip flops or a pair of statement heels. I know I don’t really need shoes because I’m in Hawaii, and barefoot is as good as anything in Hawaii but I am excited to shop just the same. As we walk along, I glance down at my friends’ feet. They are all wearing shoes. I am the only one who is barefoot. Apparently this trip is all about me.

When we get to the store and begin looking around, I can’t find a pair of shoes I like. I’m not entirely sure how it’s possible to be in a shoe store and not have anything pique my interest. Something is distinctly wrong. Finally my eyes land upon a pair of Mary-Jane-style, black Crocs. With considerable chagrin I note that these are the most suitable pair of shoes in the entire store. “I am not buying Crocs,” I think to myself, brows furrowed in frustration. Resignedly I lie down on the floor and fall asleep on my stomach, head on my arms, still without shoes but at least no longer concerned about my shoeless state.

I wake up when I come to the awkward realization that someone is rubbing my back. What the hell? Who is rubbing my back and why? “Personal space, personal space,” my mind screams. I look behind me and see an old friend of mine. I haven’t seen him since college. I’d forgotten he lived in Hawaii. He hasn’t aged.

“Your lower back is really messed up,” he tells me. “See this, here? This is not right,” he says, pointing to a couple of vertebrae that are obviously protruding where they should not be. His concern is palpable. “What have you been doing?” he asks.

“Jumping on a trampoline,” I reply.

“Well, I’ve got to get you to my chiropractor,” he says. “This is serious.”

He shoves an oxygen mask on my face, and as I choke on the unsolicited gas I note that it’s not oxygen because my alert-level changes and I go to some sort of happy place only achievable with something reality-warping like nitrous oxide.

When I come out of my haze, I am walking through a casino with my friend. People all around are gambling. It’s noisy, packed, and chaotic. I feel under dressed. I hear an odd noise I can’t place. Panicked, I check my feet. Gratefully, I am no longer shoeless. Instead, I am wearing a pair of white swim fins and my feet are making a flapping sound as I proceed down the marble walkway in the center of the casino. No one seems to notice my fashion foible, so I press on. My friend points me down a side hallway to a door.

“His office is in there,” he says. “He’ll fix you right up.”

I waddle my way down the hallway, picking up my finned feet as I go. When I get there, there is a kind-faced man who appears to be from India. In heavily accented, proper British English he tells me they have been waiting for me. My eyes adjust to the darkened room before me. It is filled with wooden boards. On each wooden board rests an Indian man, eyes closed. The doctor ushers me to an empty board.

“This spot is for you. Lie on your back. Face the ceiling,” he instructs.

I can’t figure out what is going on, but I don’t see any other option so I comply. The room around me begins to vibrate with the chants of fellow patients. Various meditations fill the room. I remain silent, letting myself be surrounded with the peace and goodwill. I am swallowed by the moment and fade into another mental plane.

After a while, I no longer hear chanting. I hear casual conversation, dishes being clanked together, and the smell of Indian food reminds me I have not eaten in a while. I open my eyes and notice that everyone else is awake. I am the last to join them. I am in the middle of a reception in the doctor’s office. There are trays of Indian curries and naan bread. The men are all eating with their fingers and conversing quietly. The doctor approaches with half of a roasted pig, one that has been twirled on a spit and slow cooked. “It’s a half of a pig,” I remark to myself. It was sawed down the center and is now presented to me as a snack.

“Here,” he says. “Eat something.”

I take the half pig from him. It is still warm and heavy, but not so heavy I can’t hold it without a struggle. I can see hair on its body. Its snout is tanned and rubbery. I stare into the half face of the pig. It stares back at me with one eye. The doctor waits by my side, rocking back and forth, expectantly. As I try to ascertain the best way to partake of this offering, other people begin pulling off bits of pig flesh and eating them. I wonder to myself if they are getting pig hair in their mouths. I look at the pig again. It blinks at me with its one eye. It’s still alive. I am astonished. How is that possible? It seems pretty awkward to take a bite of something that’s halfway watching me. I’m uncomfortable with the idea.

“I’m sorry,” I tell the pig as I grab a loosened part of its tender underbelly and tear it away. It blinks again to let me know it’s all good. He understands. I put the food into my mouth.

The alarm clock goes off.

Now…I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “This gal must live in Denver.” And you’re right. I do live in Denver where pot is now legal and readily available for home consumption and where all kinds of spaced out, random mental experiences are possible. But that’s not what this story is about. This is a story about what happens to me when I have curry for lunch and spicy Italian food for dinner. Although, now that you’ve brought it up, I wonder what my brain might come up with if I relaxed a little and ate an altered brownie? I suppose that’s another blog entirely.

I’m fascinated by what our brains come up with while we’re sleeping, perhaps as they try to work out and file away the everyday occurrences of our conscious lives. I’ve been marveling all day at how my brain reintroduced an old college friend whose last name is Bacon into a dream where I encounter an awkward situation with a cooked pig. Coincidence? I think not.

 

 

Posted on by Me 5

The Upside of Upchuck

The reason I'm mellowing...these kids have both puked on me.
These cute kids have both puked on me.

There are some good things about getting older, particularly if that getting older occurs along with parenthood. In my advancing years, for example, I’ve discovered that I have quite a bit more perspective now than I had in my 30s before I had children. My Type-A, uptight self has been given many opportunities to learn not to sweat the small stuff. I mean, there’s a lot of perspective to gain when you’ve spent hours agonizing over the perfect outfit to wear to an anniversary party at an upscale restaurant only to have your six-year-old vomit on you in the car just as you pull into the parking lot. That’s the universe’s way of telling you to relax a little and stop fussing over things that don’t matter. The universe has been working overtime to correct my anal-retentive tendencies. My mother told me once that if you pray for something, it’s not given to you. Instead you’re provided the opportunity to earn it. My life is proof that her belief is true.

Tomorrow we’re taking the boys up for the first of five ski lessons we’ve enrolled them in. I’m a little anxious because they’re not as excited about it as we are. For most of my life, I’ve been a Nervous Nelly before a new experience. Once, in college, I drank two shots of vodka before going out for Thai food with a date because I’d never been to a Thai restaurant before and there were so many unknowns I was petrified. (A therapist would make a fortune off of me. I know this.) As I’ve gotten older and lived for years with unpredictable children, though, I’ve found a coping mechanism that won’t end in alcoholism. I play the Worst-Case-Scenario game. For example, take our skiing day tomorrow. There are dozens of things that could go wrong. We could get stuck in a snowstorm. We could forget our skis. A kid could drop one glove off a ski lift. We could arrive late and miss the lessons altogether. One of us could tear an ACL. It’s all possible, but it’s not likely. I’ve learned that worrying about the “what ifs” is a colossal waste of time. If we forget our skis, we’ll rent them. If the drive is horrific, we’ll turn around and head home. If one of us tears an ACL, well….that would suck, but it wouldn’t end the world as we know it. The more I’ve realized how unlikely it is that we’ll reach Death Con 5, the less I trouble myself over the small stuff. Gradually, my Threat Level Red decreased to Orange and now at last to Yellow. I’m making progress. I doubt I’ll ever see Green, but you gotta have goals and green is my favorite color.

No matter what happens with our planned ski adventure tomorrow, I know it will all work out one way or another.  I’m grateful that the universe found a way to offer me practice in the things I need. I once thought I did not want to be a parent. The universe knew better. Now I have two boys who are providing me with a great deal of perspective. Because of them, I’m less of an uptight loon than I used to be. I try new foods (without requiring vodka courage). I visit foreign countries. I’m interested in experiencing new things. And I don’t even lose sleep over any of it. It’s incredible how having a little person vomit on you can change you forever.

Posted on by Me 4

A Mind Of Its Own

Gotta know where it is at all times.
Gotta know where it is at all times.

I am the mother of sons. Although I had no say in the matter, the truth is that when hubby and I decided to have children I made it fairly clear that I expected him to give me sons and not daughters. Now, I know we had no say in the matter given that the general rule of conception, at least at this current moment, is “you get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit,” but I’ve always been a girl who knew what she wanted. You see, I am the oldest of three girls. And, while I know my mom enjoyed having young daughters, I remember what I was like as a teenager. I remember how I treated my mother. Furthermore, I remember what it was like living in a house with three teenage girls. Frankly, that amount of estrogen scares me. So, I put that part of my life behind me and gave it a firm “no thank you” when I considered my future and potential parenthood. I was thrilled when the Powers That Be determined that I should have not one but two darling little boys. Apparently, someone up there either understood what I wanted or figured I should parent what I was least likely to strangle. I have always understood why some animals eat their young.

Being the mother of sons is an interesting proposition, though. On the one hand, I never have to share clothes, make up, jewelry, or zero-calorie soft drinks. On the other hand, I am the problem child when it comes to camping and long car trips since I wasn’t built with an external pee hose for convenient potty breaks. All in all, though, being the only female in the house has been an ideal situation for me up until now. Now, my oldest son is now firmly in the throes of being a preteen. Situations in which I am asked to demystify the male anatomy are becoming more frequent. This might freak some women out, but I am not squeamish. I’ve never talked to my sons with baby talk about body parts. I’ll bet I utter the word penis at least five times in any given day, and I’m okay with that. I’m the one who gave my sons their first (very simplified) “sex talk” because 1) they had questions and asked me, 2) their dad was not interested in discussing it yet, and 3) I determined it would be better if they got the details from me than from one of their little friends who has erroneous information. Quite honestly, it’s been fun to hear the things my sons will tell me.

“Please put your penis in its house,” I requested of a not-quite-fully-clothed Joe who was standing in the hallway wearing nothing but a towel after his bath.

He looked down into the towel. “It’s not ready to get dressed yet,” he replied matter of factly.

I closed one eye, cocked my head, and pondered why it might not be ready to get dressed yet. Then I shuddered. Oh Good Lord. “It will be fine. It will fit into pajamas. Get dressed. I may not have a penis, but I know how they work,” I claimed.

“Trust me, Mom. They have a mind of their own.”

So I’ve heard.

You know, my whole life I thought that saying was a cop out. Turns out that even 11 year old boys know it to be true. The best part about being a mom to boys isn’t what I expected it would be. It’s not that no one is hogging the bathroom while doing their hair or that no one is breaking down into weepy, hormone-induced puddles, although those are both good things. It is instead the education I’m getting being able to see the male experience as it happens from birth. It’s given me an entirely new perspective on the male species. I still don’t truly understand men, but I’m getting closer. Apparently, it really is all about the penis.

Posted on by Me 9

The Grocery Store Wars

Hey, Steve. Visualize the pantry. ;)
Hey, Steve. Visualize the pantry. 😉

As the stay-at-home parent, I am the primary grocery shopper in our household. The record will show that I am at Super Target (and/or Safeway) no less than three times each week. The first time I go, usually on Monday morning after I drop the boys at school, I do our shopping for the week. Or, at least that is what I am planning to accomplish. What usually happens, though, is that as soon as I arrive home I realize (often with an audible dammit!) I’ve forgotten something I needed. So, my second grocery shopping trip often occurs on Tuesday, when I revisit the aforementioned store to pick up the items I missed the first time around. The third trip to the store occurs around Thursday, or sometimes as early as Wednesday, because my children have pointed out that they’re out of Goldfish crackers or yogurt or some other thing they neglected to mention we were out of but must have all the same. The clerks at Super Target see me coming with my cloth bags and can probably rattle off what I have in my cart before I even start unloading it. Yes. Sadly, I am that predictable.

Every once in a while, to avoid the embarrassment of showing up at my regular Super Target for a fourth time in as many days, I will ask my husband to grab something from the store on his way home. It’s one of those things I try not to do, but sometimes it’s a necessary evil. Now, you might think I don’t ask my husband to shop because I feel it’s my job or because I hate troubling him after a long day at work. That is not, however, the case. I hate asking my husband to stop at the store because it’s inevitable that when he does he will come home with not exactly what I asked for. In addition, he will have purchased several items that were not on the list at all. I will never understand how he can live in the same house with the kids and I but have no idea what our regular family items are. He will purchase more or less what I want but not exactly. I’m not sure about you, but my kids are fussy about brands so it makes me insane when hubby goes rogue in the grocery store. We’re supposed to be a team. The reason we’re still married after 17 years is that I have come to expect this. Therefore, I try to avoid sending him to the store. It’s a matter of marriage preservation.

For a long time, I thought this was a quirk of our marriage. Then, tonight, a dear friend told me about her husband’s trip to the grocery store. She had asked him to pick up jam. He was apparently confused by her use of the word jam so he sent her a text to clarify. This cracked me up. Steve would have done the same thing. He would have messaged me from the store to ask if I meant jam like in a glass jar or did I really mean jelly like in the Smucker’s squeeze bottle we get for the boys’ peanut butter sandwiches. This would have annoyed the living crap out of me because I would feel he was pestering me because I wasn’t explicit enough. In actuality, he’s be pestering me because he had no clue what I meant and he didn’t want to get in trouble by coming home with the wrong thing. Still…I’d be frustrated because, seriously, doesn’t he live in this house and know what type of jam/jelly we use? What is wrong with him? How can the clerks at Super Target know what I buy while my husband has not a clue?

I told my friend that I get perplexed when my husband consistently returns from the grocery store with some completely bizarre brand I’ve never even seen before, one I’m certain our children will not eat. (You see, I know that my kids will not eat off-brand Goldfish crackers. They’re food ninjas. They know when you try to pull a fast one on them. I don’t waste our money on anything but Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers. Buy imposter Goldfish crackers once, shame on me. Buy imposter Goldfish twice? Well…I’m just not that stupid.) Steve’s blatant disregard for my brand loyalty and specific shopping instructions has led me to only one conclusion. He buys what he wants at the store simply to assert his decision-making power within our family unit. Years of feeling henpecked about his shopping choices have led him to a subversive tactic for retribution. Bad grocery shopping has become his silent rebellion, his non-violent protest against oppression. He thinks he’s Gandhi. I simply wish he’d be Gandhi-esque about something else. Maybe he could non-violently protest the unlawful gathering of shoes on his side of the bed?

Posted on by Me 2

Photos, Plimsolls, and Paybacks

Image 1
My most flattering photo. Ever.

Sometimes people (especially my mother) tell me that I share too many personal things about my husband in this blog. They think he must be some kind of saint for tolerating what I write here. I don’t agree because everyone who knows a writer should be well aware that they should be careful of what they say lest they wind up as blog or book fodder. It comes with the territory. The reason I don’t feel bad writing about my husband is because he’s a photographer. He’s always walking around with his camera, snapping unwanted photos, and calling it “art.” Just tonight, after I’d crawled into bed after washing my face, hair still up and sans makeup, he thought it might be fun to snap a photo of me despite my specifically asking him to do no such thing. For this action, he received the look of death, a look which he of course captured with his fancy camera. He then had the nerve to show it to me and wax rhapsodic about how great the camera is in low light. Evil.

There's a glass slipper in there somewhere, I'm sure.
There’s a glass slipper in there somewhere. You just know there has to be.

In retribution for this unfair photo, I give you a photo and a story of my own. This is a photo of a small portion of my husband’s shoe collection, the portion that is currently in residence on the floor on his side of the bed. He also has shoes stored in our closet and in the laundry room. I understand there are splinter sects of his shoes hiding throughout our house like rebels in caves in Afghanistan. Yes. My husband owns a lot of shoes. He owns more pairs of shoes than most other men I know. He probably owns more shoes than many women I know as well. In fact, for a man who has such a difficult time selecting a pair of shoes to purchase (he once spent about 1.5 hours picking out a pair of Birkenstock sandals, which he promptly rethought and then returned the next day for a different pair), it’s borderline miraculous that he could ever have found the time to purchase so many pairs. I make no claims as to the quality of his shoe collection, but the quantity is impressive.

I have friends who are married to men who might be casually referred to as a guy’s guy. These men spend their weekends watching sports. They know how to fix things around their home. They wouldn’t be caught dead sipping white wine. They don’t buy copies of Real Simple. They don’t know the difference between a Mary Jane and a peep toe. These friends often bemoan living with their more caveman-like husbands. They tell me they wish their husbands were more like Steve. By that, I assume they mean more interested in shoes. I tell them to be careful what they wish for. A husband like Steve may be able to tell you which pump looks best with your pencil skirt, but this knowledge comes with a price. A man who is knowledgeable about shoes will require a lot more closet space, and you’ll still have to live with a mound of man shoes next to your bed.

Posted on by Me 4

Selling My Sons To The Gypsies

Don’t let them fool you. They are not this quiet!

My weekdays begin in pretty much the same way every day during the school year. I don’t need to set an alarm because my boys, early risers that they are, wake me up by busting into our bedroom sometime between 6:15 and 6:45 a.m. They do this because years ago, when Joe was in preschool, we let him shower in our bathroom before school. Our brilliant logic was that 1) our shower is enclosed in glass, which meant less mess, 2) I’d have just one shower to clean instead of two, and 3) while he was showering I’d be able to lounge in bed and ease my way into my crazy day a bit more slowly. The arrangement continued to work great when Joe was in kindergarten and Luke began preschool. Two showers for the price of one, and I could be getting ready while that happened. Fast forward six years, though, and suddenly this arrangement is slightly less than ideal. Now they alternate showers, which means they’re using all my hot water. They also bicker about fairness like old ladies accusing each other of cheating at canasta. And, they’re doing all this in the space where I am trying to sleep. Not cool.

This morning was Groundhog Day all over again. Just starting on my sixth hour of sleep, the bedroom door flies open and as if the house is on fire the boys rush in fussing and yelling.

“I called it first!” Joe yelled.

“You were first yesterday,” Luke retorted. “It’s my turn to go first.”

“But, Luke, I got out of bed first so I could be the first in the shower.”

“It’s not your turn, Joe!” Luke complained.

I was livid. Well, I was as livid as an exhausted person who is barely awake can be. It’s not bad enough that I must wake up before 7 so the boys will be on time to the private school I chauffeur them to. Apparently, I’m meant to wake up to a noisy parade of foot stomping, whining, and caterwauling.

“Boys! Boys! Boys!” I yelled, without flipping over. “Please shut it. I don’t want to wake up to your fighting! Joe, it’s Luke’s turn today. Sorry.”

At that point, I rolled over to see at exactly what ungodly hour they had disrupted my REM sleep. It was 6:25. Are you kidding me? Twenty minutes earlier than my alarm was set? Then I noticed that Steve was still in bed. What the? He usually leaves for work by 5:30.

“Why are you still in bed?” I asked. He sat straight up.

“Why am I still in bed?” he asked right before he flew out of bed and headed toward the shower, boys still bickering over who was going to shower first.

“Your father. Your father is going to shower first because he’s late. Then, Luke will shower because you were first yesterday, Joe. End of story. Now stop fighting or I’m kicking you out.”

The rest of the getting ready process went smoothly. Steve was gone in a flash. Luke got through his shower quickly because his brother pestered him from outside the glass enclosure the entire time. I sat in bed waiting for them all to get out of the room so I could get ready and then make myself a latte, which I desperately needed. When I was a kid and we misbehaved, my mother used to threaten to sell my sisters and I to the gypsies. Are there still gypsies? If so, will they still hand out cash in exchange for random children? I try not to make empty promises, like the one where I threaten to sign away my legal rights to them if they don’t stop fighting. I mean, I’m fairly sure they know I wouldn’t really do that. At least, I don’t think I would. But, if they come in tomorrow morning yelling at each other before 7, I just might have to check into that gypsy thing a bit more seriously. Unless, of course, you know of someone who is in the market for a couple mostly sweet, slightly used, early rising children? You should know I’m not a great negotiator. I’m positive you could get a bargain. History suggests that I might be entertaining offers from serious buyers as early as 6:30 tomorrow morning. Only 24 days shopping days left until Christmas, you know.

Posted on by Me 2

One Thing Leads To Another

The solution that became the problem

Today I want to share with you a cautionary tale, an example of how a small first-world problem can morph and change into another small first-world problem and another after that on into infinity. If you’re not careful, a tiny first-world problem just might cost you your sanity. My mother always said that you can tell the size of a person by the size of the things that bother them. If that’s the case, I’m smaller than I want to admit. (And, I’m not talking about the quarter of an inch I afford myself when I tell people I’m actually 5’5″.)

First World Problem #1: A year ago September I got a new car. Well, it was a new car to me. It was actually my father-in-law’s car, which he had decided to replace with a newer version of the same thing. My new car was two years old when I got it, but it had one flaw. It smelled like my father-in-law. Now, this is not to say that my father-in-law is a stinky man. He’s not. In fact, I’m sure his hygiene is impeccable. After all, this is a man who safety pins his socks together so he never loses one to the black hole that materializes when you close the door to the clothes dryer. The car simply smelled like leather and my father-in-law’s cologne. No offense to my father-in-law, who is the kindest, most generous man I know (aside from his son), but I didn’t want to spend my days in a car that smelled like him. I merely wanted my car to feel like my car and I couldn’t feel like that when every time I opened my car door the aroma from within reminded me of Jim.

So, I went in the house, grabbed a scented car disc from the Scentsy company, attached it to my rear view mirror, and waited for the day when I felt like the car was mine. Sure enough, one day, I noticed that Jim had been replaced by a pleasant, cinnamon scent. The car was mine, and I kept it mine by replacing that disc every three months.

First World Problem #2: A week ago, I noticed that my car no longer had that pleasant, Welcome Home, cinnamon smell. So, when I got home I marched into the house to grab a new disc. It was then that I realized that I was out of my favorite scent. I had two choices on-hand for a replacement...Sunkissed Citrus and Coconut Lemongrass. After weighing my options carefully, I went with the second scent, installed it in my car, and forgot about it. Long about the time I needed to pick the boys up from school, the car was well-saturated with the smell of coconut and lemongrass. My car smelled like Thai curry. It was a distinct change from the cinnamon, but I’m working on dealing with change with more grace so I inhaled deeply and carried on. By the time I got back from chauffeur duty, however, I noticed that I was quite stuffy. I am a person who is sensitive to smells, and apparently the new scent was not agreeing with my nose. It’s no good to have a car air freshener that makes you ill. It had to go. Hubby removed the offender, I took some Sudafed, and I waited for the scent to fade.

First World Problem #3: It’s now a week later and the coconut-lemongrass smell in my car has lightly faded but is still pervasive. For some reason, it won’t skedaddle. So now, every time I get in my car, I smell Thai curry. Thai curry (especially green curry with tofu) is one of my all-time favorite meals, and my car smells exactly like that. It’s disturbing. For starters, no one wants to smell green curry at 7:45 a.m. before coffee. But later, when I get in my car in the afternoon just at the time I’m trying to avoid late afternoon snacking, my stomach starts growling at what seems to be the lingering scent of take out Thai curry. Then today, not unlike the reaction of Pavlov’s dog to the introduced stimulus, my mouth watered when I got into my vehicle. This is not a good development.

First World Problem #4: This afternoon I mentioned to hubby in a text that every time I enter my car now I want Thai food. His response? Ooh…Thai food. Apparently now hubby wants it too. Any guesses what we’ll be eating for dinner tomorrow night? I’m hoping that the combination of satisfying my Thai food craving and installing a new scented disc in my car will turn things around for me in this first-world problem situation. That way I can go back to being annoyed that the new LTE network in Denver isn’t quite consistent enough for me and my first-world-awesome iPhone 5.

Posted on by Me 4

Take Your Stocking And Stuff It

Guess which stocking belongs to my husband…

I’ve blogged a few times recently about traditions and about how we’ve struggled to create some for our little family foursome. Steve and I both came from families with fairly ingrained family traditions. When you start a new household, you ideally take some traditions from each side and then add to them or make them your own with a slightly different twist. One thing I looked forward to when Steve and I got married was picking out new Christmas stockings that would be unique to our household. Steve and I each had inherited the stockings we’d had with our parents. It sounds silly, I know, but I was adamant that I wanted us to start a new tradition for our family with matching stockings of our choosing. I couldn’t wait to purchase and hang our own stockings and to add to our collection of what would be hung by the chimney with care with each child we added to our happy home.

The first Christmas Steve and I were married, however, my incredibly thoughtful mother-in-law had a special stocking created for me, one that looked exactly like the one Steve had when he was growing up. The stocking is hand knit and has my name as well as the year I was born (I really wish I could erase that part). The funny part about my stocking is that it is quite obviously smaller than Steve’s. My mother-in-law swears they were created using the same pattern, but you’d be hard pressed to believe it if you saw his stocking that is big enough for a Cadillac or at least for twice the amount of gifts that mine will hold. I have to admit that I was not a great sport about the gift, at least not in front of Steve. He tolerated my tirade about how I felt the stocking was an intrusion and how it robbed me of my chance to start my own tradition. Although he understood then what I did not, that his mother was trying to be inclusive and thoughtful when she had a stocking handmade for me, he also understood my feelings and told me we should go ahead and start our own tradition.

So, we did. We ordered some holiday needlepoint stockings from LL Bean and had our names embroidered onto them. When the boys were born, my mother-in-law commissioned knit stockings for them, just as she had for me. I also got them stockings, stockings that matched the ones Steve and I had chosen for ourselves. I was hell bent on setting up this tradition for our family. I figured that since his parents lived in another state, it would not matter. We could keep the stockings my mother-in-law had knit for us and just put up the other ones in our home. No one would have to know. Well, then, my in-laws decided to purchase a home 30 minutes away from us and to come to Denver in the winter. The space between us dissipated and, as it did, the ability to put up the stockings we’d bought without creating hard feelings disappeared.

Now, seventeen years after my hand-knit stocking was gifted to me, those stockings are the only ones we put out. Oddly enough, the tradition I fought so vehemently is one I now truly enjoy. I love our stockings. They were created from a pattern that Steve’s grandmother had, and we know no one with stockings like ours. Because they’re knit they stretch to hold a ton of stuffers. And, I love to point out to anyone who will look that Steve’s stocking is gargantuan while the rest of ours are all the same, significantly smaller size. Although they look funny on our mantle with Steve’s stocking dwarfing the rest of ours, there’s a charm and a story in that which trumps the visual oddity.

Every time I open our box of Christmas decorations, I’m reminded about how pig-headed I was as a young bride and how ungrateful I was when my mother-in-law was simply trying to include me in her family. I’m also reminded that I wasted $140 on holiday stockings that we simply do not use. They stay in the box while we hang and stuff the knit ones instead. They’re the ones the boys recognize and are excited to see. Now, I have a yearly reminder that sometimes the effort is not worth the battle. Sometimes, the things we think are important are truly not important at all. I no longer want to tell my mother-in-law to take that stocking she had made for me and stuff it…unless, of course, she wants to stuff it with Starbucks gift cards and cute tops from Boden. I’d be totally cool with that.

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The Griswold Family Christmas Tree

It looked a lot smaller in the forest.

One of our favorite things to do once Thanksgiving is over is to enjoy our annual holiday viewing of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. This seems to get us in the right frame of mind for our next favorite holiday activity…cutting our own Christmas tree. We normally wait at least a week after Thanksgiving before getting our tree, but last year we realized that a freshly cut tree lasts much longer than you think it will so we figured we should get it sooner and enjoy it longer. While a forest tree is not as lovely and symmetrical as a tree you select from a tree lot, you get a lot more exercise when you do it our way. Besides, at $10 a tree, it is quite a bargain anyway you saw it.

When it’s cold, we often pull into the forest, find the first semi-sort-of-okay-but-admittedly-totally-Charlie-Brown-tree, cut it down, and take off. With 50 degree temperatures today, though, we were unencumbered by inclement weather so we sauntered, letting several perfectly acceptable trees stand firm while we looked for something a little better. At one point, I had wandered off in my own direction alone when I spotted IT, a reasonably full number in blue spruce. Steve was nowhere nearby and although I had the saw in hand I felt I should acquire a second opinion, so I called out to him.

“Marco!” I yelled in his general direction. Although I couldn’t see him, I knew he would get the message. No response. I yelled again. Louder this time.

“MARCO!”

“Polo,” came the faint response.

When he was near enough that I could see him clearly, I yelled again.

“Over here! I need your opinion.”

The tree was very close to another tree, which usually is a bad sign, but it was tall and still very full. When Steve arrived I asked him to find the one I was thinking about. When he picked it right out, I knew I was onto something. We went over and inspected it. It was taller than our usual tree, but I thought we could make it work. We checked the base of the tree (it can’t be more than 6 inches in diameter if you want to cut it) and determined we were good to go. We’d have to cut off the lower portion and bring it back with us, but we still felt it was manageable so Steve began to cut. He kept cutting. He kept cutting some more. Dang. This was taking way too long.

Someone must be overcompensating.

“Do you want me to work on it for a while?” I asked, trying not to sound impatient but being really impatient.

“I’m fine,” he said as he started working on it again.

It was still taking what seemed like forever. Either the saw was worthless or we were having operator issues, I thought.

“Where is Charles Ingalls when you need him?” I quipped.

Steve shot me a look and made some reference to the notion that a proper spouse would be supportive. Clearly, he did not think my comment was nearly as amusing as I thought it was. For the record, I thought it was both appropriate and pretty dang funny. (Also, I know I’m not a proper spouse.)

When he had gotten about 5/6ths the way through the trunk, he was starting to slow down from the overexertion. I offered to take over. In less than a minute, compared to his ten, the tree fell over.

“See. And that is how it’s done,” I said as I quickly stepped out of his reach so he could not throttle me.

Once it was on the ground and no longer standing directly beneath a Ponderosa pine that was more than twice its size, our tree seemed a bit bigger. We tried not to trouble ourselves with this detail and got to work making it manageable for the trailer ride home. When we got back to the car, we were relieved to see our tree was roughly the same size as the one our friends had cut down. No worries.

Not your usual Charlie Brown forest tree

Then, we got the tree home and off the trailer. That was when we started to suspect that we might have a problem. You know how sometimes you take more food than you’re actually going to be able to eat because your eyes are bigger than your stomach is? Well, I began to wonder if we’d had similar problems sizing up this forest tree to the realistic size of our living room. We leaned it up against the house. It was huge. I told Steve that, ala one of my favorite scenes from Christmas Vacation, someone was going to ask us where we thought we would put a tree that big. We got out the tape measure. It was 15 feet tall. While a 15 foot tree can easily fit in our living room with the 18 foot ceiling, it cannot fit in a tree stand that can only support a 12 foot tree. Steve cut off a few more feet while I walked around muttering, “little full, lot of sap.” With that last cut, however, we found that now the bottom appeared sparse and uneven so we omitted a couple extra feet to balance it out. Voilà. 

Now, not only do we have the perfect Christmas tree, but we also have several decent starter logs for our fire pit as well as an attractive section of log Steve hopes to fashion into a comely centerpiece for our dining table. We got all this for the low, low price of an Alexander Hamilton. As I sit here inhaling the beautiful forest scent with my kleenex by my side (did I forget to mention that three of the four of us are allergic to evergreen trees?), I’m feeling confident that we chose the right tree. Now I just have to make sure Uncle Lewis doesn’t stand too near to it with his stogey.

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