New Car Shopping

My beloved 11-year-old car, with all its dents and duct tape glory, no longer has working AC and the electronic displays on the dashboard no longer appear. I need to buy a new car.

My teenage daughter will be driving this vehicle someday, which makes her a part-owner by way of teen logic. (Hey, you live with a guy and it's a common-law marriage. Same rules should apply to cars, right?)

Anyway, my daughter Alta REALLY wants me to get a Nissan Altima. Why? Because you can re-arrange the letters in "her" car’s name to say "I ‘M ALTA." Her sister pointed out that since I’ll also be driving this vehicle, they can also call it the "Alta-Ma".

My husband is horrified that this might actually be a factor in my next car purchase. I'm not much of a car person, so this seems as good a starting point as any for a car-buying expedition. On paper the 2007 Altima meets the safety ratings, price, and comfortable-seating-for-five requirements just fine. And it looks darn pretty in my favorite colors. What more need we know?

Hesitant to Blog

I'm still not sure about this blog stuff. The majority of the people who would be interested in reading my blog would probably be offended at some of the stuff that I find hilarious. A lot of moms cannot see the humor when I refer to my children as “demon spawn”.

I was doing something to annoy little Freddy the other night and he rolled his eyes and said, “CHAHR-ming”. I must say it to him a lot when he belches, farts, and/or makes armpit noises because he was able to mimic it with a very regal droll.

There’s just something so WRONG when a belching, farting, armpit noise-making little brat rolls his eyes and drolly pronounces ME to be “CHAHR-ming”. I’m against this new law against spanking… sometimes kids really do deserve a little smack in the rear.

Best Friends

A friend had me fill out one of those stupid surveys answering questions about your "best friend." You typically find out more about the person filling out the survey than you do the person under discussion. With that in mind, here are my answers about Jeff.

Where did we meet? Vermillion, SD

How long have you known me? I think I met you my SECOND year of college… that would be in 1985. Christ, that’s 22 years!

Do I smoke? Nyet

What was your first impression of me upon meeting? Computer geek! Albeit a funny one.

Do I have any siblings? Jah. You come from a huge family by my standards.

What's one of my favorite things to do? Native plants, seed/pod collections. Going out with friends, decorating for the holidays -- you don’t bike as much as you used to.

Do you remember one of the first things I said to you? I remember yelling “Computer geek, computer geek, get out of my way!” I remember you blaming your farts on the potatoes. I also remember almost throwing you out of my car because of your obnoxious behavior in it.

Am I a rebel or do I follow the rules? You love to break the rules in small, off-kilter ways.

What's your favorite memory of me? I think our trip to Europe is one of my favorite memories. I have lots of Jeff stories, though.

How many children do I have? Zero. Oh gawd, what a scary thought that I might be wrong about that.

If you and I were stranded on a desert island, what one thing would I bring? Something to beat the crap out of you with daily.

Little Boys

It is Freddy’s 5th or 6th baseball practice, and he’s STILL incredibly excited about wearing a nut cup. When he first put it on, he repeatedly urged me to “hit ‘em there, c’mon, just try it…” Last night he wandered into my room, casually rapped twice on afore-mentioned cup, and left. Yep, the little big man is ready to go play ball.

This is a kid that I constantly have to remind NOT to eat boogers and don’t chew TOE nails. Yes, we DO try to civilize little boys, but you gotta wonder sometimes just how much is getting through to them, and how many are putting our chapstick on the cat’s butt. Here's the story that made me reflect on all this...

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So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently died. Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on him and nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang out and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom.

Well, we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years old, 3 years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves chapstick. LOVES it. He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing it. So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put it right back in the drawer when he was done.

Last year on Mother's Day, we were having the typical rush around and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on. My two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am trying to nurse my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up. Everything is a mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job that is motherhood.

We finally have the older one and the baby loaded in the car and I am looking for Eli. I have searched everywhere and I finally round the corner to go into the bathroom. And there was Eli. He was applying my chapstick very carefully to Jack's . . rear end. Eli looked right into my eyes and said "chapped." Now if you have a cat, you know that he is right--their little butts do look pretty chapped. And frankly, Jack didn't seem to mind. And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it was the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat's behind or the hundredth.

And THAT is my favorite Mother's Day moment ever because it reminds us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these glorious little creatures, there will always be that day when you realize they've been using your chapstick on the cat's butt.

High School Reunion

Did I ever tell you about my high school reunion? Reacquainting myself with 39 classmates should have brought more joy.

My classmates were nice people, but our small town in SD had little entertainment outside of the weekly keg party. The "alcohol as entertainment" philosophy didn't hold up well over 20 years. One girl(?) arrived at the reunion in a wheelchair, having paralyzed herself in a drunk driving car accident. Another had spent time in the slammer for selling drugs. Yet another had driven drunk and killed his kid, then had to give a speech to us about it as a rehab assignment.

One guy thought he was Mr. Success because he now owned a car dealership out east (news flash, none of us were impressed by car salesmen when we were 8, and that hasn't changed 30 years later). And worst of all, my teeny bop Adonis showed up bald and flabby.

I skipped out early partly because it was so depressing, and partly because I'd gotten up at 5 am to drive there and was exhausted. My favorite part of the evening was talking to a former classmate/biker chick who showed me all her tattoos.