The Christmas Letter



I'm smarter than your kid.



The Christmas letter.   Thank goodness people I rarely see or talk to can keep me up to date with the latest crap their child prodigy pulled off this year.  I used to read those and feel amazing amounts of guilt, now I can't wait to sit down with a glass of wine and laugh myself into hysterics.  ( I've got kids - who are they fooling) ( of course mine ARE perfect)

One I really look forward to reading is the month by month account of everything whinny Winnie and her equally stunted sibling Davis achieved. MONTH BY MONTH.  I can't remember what I did yesterday. Perhaps if I documented it monthly then I could print it out and send all the people I barely know a copy.  With pictures.  ( ohh ohhhh I could blog it!)  ( This month I successfully redistributed a clan of squirrels, saving them from peril. I received two awards from Save the Squirrels, Inc.)  

My favorites are the ones I've known personally ( but have since escaped) with the kid I've seen , the one with boogers hanging off his face, the one that screams and has a melt down if he shoe comes untied and yet he managed to pull his act together and write a play at genius camp this summer, direct and star of course.  And we're talking kindergarten.  

Followed by all the mommy achievements,she ran all the bible studies, knitted a house for Ethiopia, turned their house into an elf playground ( ohhhhh!), was crowned room mommy queen for every class even ones her kids weren't in because she's just that great. And got the year's award for most humble person EVER!!!

I've noticed a trend in these letters ---- no mention of Dad achievements.  Dad hasn't even seen this tripe. Let's face it, Bill doesn't get final approval of my blogging for obvious reasons -----he'd spend most of the time refuting everything I've typed.  But it's all true I swear.  

I like the way my mother-in-law used to send her yearly Christmas letter ----- first she hand wrote it , with errors and scratch outs, and then made 150 copies.  She detailed EVERYTHING - one memorable one was when she listed how much she and her husband had to kick in to pay for our wedding because my family had the nerve to be poor AND divorced.  ( I'm not bitter)   She failed to mention the 250 people she invited were her friends.  I had maybe 10 counting Bill and the priest.   But it's all about the show baby!!

My MIL never once in all the years I knew her actually sent her Christmas letter before Christmas. It should have been called the Great Easter Letter.  Which has merit - you have everyone's attention. And gave her time to dress-up the more seamly events.  Some things take a LOT of creative energy. 

I think I'll aim for July.  I'm going to paste together paragraphs from all the letters I receive this year and change the names to Kelly and Bill.  It's just too exhausting to keep up with the many MANY unselfish and wonderful things I've accomplished.  Got to go - Squirrels for Peace just called.

Merry Christmas!

  

Extreme Christmas Shopping

Today was our annual "Shop the list in one day" Christmas shopping extravaganza.  This annual joyride began years ago by my brother-in-law and his wife when they ran out of time and did an all or nothing trip. Bill and I joined them just for the comedy involved with shopping a 4 kids Christmas list in one night and got hooked.  With 6 kids between us its become a fun filled evening.  The children live in fear of how their lists will be interpreted.  We like to take creative license, especially when it comes down to the wire.  We grab a bite to eat , compile the lists and possible stores based on what store is open the latest.  It always starts out in earnest and usually ends up with the four of us punchy with laughter making fun of everything in the store or everything on the kids lists or the kids or the salespeople or the store. But mostly the stuff in the stores.   Either way it's a win/win.

And this year was no exception.  Here were some of our more entertaining finds

 Push his tummy and his mouth made repeated "O"s while singing something completely unintelligible.  But looking eerily like a blowup midget that we once stumbled onto in a lovely New Orleans shoppery.  So it must be very versatile.  And portable. What is Santa thinking here?We spent 15 minutes just reading the tag lines .  Shake it.  Flick it. Pull it. Bop it.  .............Just let your imagination run wild here.     And this was in the toy section, no really.  I know I was shocked too.

Bumper McBones.  His friends were listed on the back of the box.  Zip McNutty. Senorita Scamps.      True Story.

Who is really in charge of all this marketing for children's toys?

The laughter got so out of hand we resorted to disguising ourselves.

I don't think anyone noticed.

 

I should note here that none of these items were actually on the Christmas lists. I'm not sure that's really why we go anymore.  At any rate I think the local Target has banned us from shopping there for awhile.  So next year we've decided to hire a limo driver with a fully stocked bar and be driven to the shops WE THOUGHT ABOUT BUYING FROM BUT DIDN'T, possibly closer to Tunica. I think we can get all the stuff  we really need thru Amazon.com anyway.  

Listing Liszt

At church yesterday I had a very difficult time concentrating on the message.  It was cantata Sunday and we had a full orchestra that accompanied the choir. And I'm sure it sounded beautiful but I was too nervous to listen.

The bass player kept falling asleep. Sitting on her stool. Hanging on to her instrument.  You know how someone teeters back and forth and the starts violently awake jusssssst before they pass out? Well, that was her during the entire early service.   I couldn't take my eyes off of her. And I should have been more concerned but I kept thinking WOW  what an unforgettable service this will be when she hits the grand piano then slams to the floor. ( I have a stunted mercy gene)  And I wondered what could have made her so tired? Is she one of those wild partying bassists? Where do they party?

Then one of the sopranos ruined the fun and slipped our asst. music minister a note advising him of the situation and I got to enjoy watching  his eyebrows shoot up and down each time she listed from one side to the other. He was seated at the grand piano that she was surely going to take out with her on her descent. He poked her in the back and mouthed a "are you okay" at her. She said she was.  And then proceded to repeat the sleeping/swaying/jerking the rest of the service.   I was afraid to blink.  I didn't want to miss it.   In fact the entire front row of our choir ( I'm in the alto section - we're all a little whacked) was mesmerized by her swaying like a child's top on the brink of spilling over.    But it didn't happen. During the second service she had more than one note to play and so seemed actively engaged - but I can't be sure.  She may have been string-syncing.    

Death at the Disco

The attic is deathly quiet theses days. Not a scritch can be heard. I think disco has killed the squirrel. (see post Rats with better PR)

Squirrel Fever

Last month I tangled with what I assumed was a rodent residing in the attic. The incessant scritching sound above my bed at 4:30a.m. left me with a rather unpleasant demeanor in the morning. Although this had no effect on the rodent ,my marriage on the other hand was skating on thin ice. Me yelling obscenities at the ceiling at odd hours just doesn't have the desired outcome as me yelling obscenities at other times. I think that's how Bill explained it.

 So naturally I turned to the Internet to solve my problem. Where I found a site that for $150.00 would send me a strobe light that was guaranteed to shoo the offender away. ( the rodent , not Bill) ( so far). Something about dilating their pupils in an irritating way due to the lack of RayBans worn by squirrels. They're more the sombrero type.  I've seen them. 

 I pondered this. It was worth it in my opinion. I didn't want to have to resort to lying to my doctor to have the Ambien refilled in order to sleep. Yelling at the ceiling is exhausting. "Yes doctor, my back is out again" just holds so much more weight than " doctor...my rodent is back".  I could have tried "my rodent's back is out" and hoped for the best but I couldn't be sure how sympathetic my doctor was to a rodent's spinal issues. If she had PETA leanings I would have scored. These are things to consider.

Bill heard me talking about the strobe lights (more likely he tuned in at the mention of $150.00) and reminded me he had just purchased two rechargeable emergency flashlights that plug directly into the wall. When the power goes off they automatically come on. Which will be useful if I'm standing in my kitchen or hallway in the middle of the night when the power outage hits. As it turns out they have a strobe function. I'm guessing to flag down help if needed. Or signal a flash mob disco depending on your level of concern.

And so we set up the flashlight in the attic. On strobe. And things have been very very quiet. Deathly quiet. As if a squirrel perhaps had a seizure from staring into the strobe light. And died. In the wall. Where the smell is coming from.

what I see when I look at the wall.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

They are not chocolate.  They are imposters, posers, pretenders.  Why do they exist?  Everytime I eat one I am severely disappointed. I want them to taste like chocolate.........they LOOK like chocolate.......they almost SMELL like chocolate.  It has a really seductive name  , RED VELVET, it just rolls off the tongue, RED VELVET.  Now that I think about it it sounds like a bad vampire porn film.   Which leads to the question are there good vampire porn films?   If it weren't for the cream cheese frosting they'd have no value whatsover. (not the vampire porn the cupcake although if I were a vampire I'd still eat cream cheese )    Red Velvet cupcakes take up space in the bakery, important space better served by real cupcakes, like chocolate or dark chocolate or devil's food,  or even german chocolate. Anything but red velvet. 

I think it's a conspiracy to trick us into trying carob. 

Russell Stovers

My sister and I couldn't wait for Santa to come. We slept under the Christmas tree just hoping to catch a glimpse of the Claus! And somehow without fail before dawn he'd come and put packages under our tree and never disturb us. I'd like to think that was because my parents liked keeping the mystery alive for us as long as they could. But that would only be partially true.

 I was an unusually good gift guesser. I'd shake , weigh , sniff a gift until I knew exactly what it contained. I was even employed by other family members to guess what was in their gift wrapped goodies. Probably because my eyesight was so crappy that my other senses made up for it .  Or it could have been because  I was  very handy with a razor blade. I had become an expert at slitting open my packages slipping out the gift and rewrapping it without detection for years. And then acting so surprised on Christmas day.

This was a skill I learned from my mother. Every Christmas my mother's sister would send her a huge 5 lb box of Russell Stovers chocolate. And every year my mother would slit open the side of the brightly wrapped gift box , eat all the pieces with nuts, and then reseal the box and put it back under the tree to reopen with great joy on Christmas day - ( where apparently no one questioned all the empty papers lounging and crumpled in the box of chocolates- not a bright group) Until the year I caught her. And then we kept the secret. Plus I didn't like nuts anyway so what did I care.

One year my mom and I were performing an autopsy on the suspected chocolate box when it turned out to be a pair of white pants. She was livid. Like cuss out loud livid , which led into hysterical laughter and got us caught. By my dad. Who locked the gifts up in his car trunk.  Something he repeated every year the rest of my childhood. He took this as a personal challenge that we would never find another gift much less guess what it could be for as long as he had control. He went to great lengths to order unusual gifts just to see our faces.  For instance who in their right mind would guess that they'd receive a poncho made from the wool of an alpaca when you lived in Memphis?  Or a leather letter jacket from your high school when you never played sports, of any kind, EVER? 

Still I wouldn't leave me alone with gifts under the tree.  I'm not really shaving my legs..........

Rats with Better PR

At 4:38 am I awoke to a relentless scritching sound.  Laying there and trying to tune my ears to the culprit my first thought was what idiot is taking their trash out 4 days early? so naturally I got up and peeked out the windows trying to find said idiot. Nope.   Hmm.  More scritching.  Above the bed........in the attic.....a squirrel. NOOOOOO!  I stood on our bed and pounded on the ceiling.  Bill, alerted by the white popcorn raining down asked what the heck I was doing.  Just asking our new tenant to pipe down so I could go back to sleep.  It didn't work.  Of course Bill went right back to sleep and I lay awake plotting revenge.  On both the squirrel and Bill. 

We haven't had an issue with random rodent occupancy since we had the house exterior redone about 4 years ago. And that was prompted by some flippin chipmunks that we had started calling Chippy East and Chippy West.


Chippy



Maddie

 

   Chippy East had chewed out a lovely home for himself close to the gas meter and Chippy West had a lovely 2 story in the exterior of our garage with a view of a backyard golf green.  I can only imagine her little furry realtor telling her what a great place to raise kids, a yard, the schools are great,  it's all about location, location, location.   Chippy West had  raised several litters of chippettes that summer. And although they were very cute I knew they had stored enough seeds and nuts behind that wall to last thru whatever disasters they had been warned about thru their own Chippy News Network.   One of which must have been it's better to be in the wall then hanging around in the yard waiting to be lunch for Mr. Hawk.  Which I have witnessed and I must say is pretty awesome except for the soundtrack.  At one point we even tried to just have some piece work done and a carpenter came by and put new wood over the hole.  However he did not look in the hole to see if they were out collecting any more seeds and nuts.  He assumed they were out for the day.  He assumed incorrectly.  I sat down in a chair to read a book and the scritching began in earnest. And I'm pretty sure I heard some chipmunk cussing.  I was horrified.  When I called Bill he could tell I was panicked because I said " that stupid **&*&^ carpenter sealed up those *&^&* chimunks in the %^$$$% wall".  I often speak in amperstands and astricks to get my point across.  To which he said " well, they'll die and the problem is solved".  To which I replyed "only if you are planning to buy another house that won't smell like death for 6 months".  And then Bill said he had real work to do and to deal with it.  Which I did with a crowbar.

And then I had to call the carpenter back.  Before Bill got home from work. 

Off to get my crowbar.  It's you and me squirrel.

" I can see clearly now"



I have a warped sense of humor. It's how I survived childhood. It's how I survive adulthood.  And it's the only way to survive Walmart.  I consider it one of my superpowers.  It serves me well.

It's a survival technique cultivated from years of practice living with screwed up family members who's life plan was poke the bear see what happens.  Growing up in the 60's with a bi-polar mother, nuns for teachers and school pictures that looked like this:





You need survival skills.

I was fitted with glasses in the 5th grade after failing the required eye exam at school.  The first test I ever failed.  Unless you count the time in 2nd grade when my overly creative mother helped me draw a picture of the Tree of Life for religion class.  She sketched pineapples and armadillos among other ridiculous things hanging from the tree. ( manic week).  Sister Mariana, named for the patron saint of the unamused, who was without a doubt around to see the actual tree, was not impressed.  I got an "F".  Who gives a 7 year old an F on a drawing? Crabby nuns do.  And it wasn't even my drawing.  Which is why I did not invite my mother to help out on eye exam day. 

Crabby nun: "Please read the top line on the chart"  [tapping on some object with a pointer]

Me: "What chart?" [squinting like I'm auditioning for the role of Madam Butterfly]

Crabby nun: "F"

Me:"shit"

Okay, I didn't say shit but I'm pretty sure I thought it.  No one in their right mind would have said that to a nun skilled in wielding rosary beads like nun-chucks and lived to fail another test.  Plus I was worried I'd have to do penance for failing a test and I wasn't sure of the Hail Mary to blindness ratio. 

By the time I failed my eye test I had racked up so many injuries you'd have thought one of my parents would have figured out I was nearly blind.  I had repeatedly misjudged distances such as the edge of a trampoline (broken leg) or the back of the sofa ( broken arm) or the distance from the back of an unridden colt to the ground ( broken arm- the sequel) ( my father thought it would be less frightening for the horse if he used me instead of a gunny sack to break him- it wasn't) or the distance from the apple to my index finger that i hacked up with a butcher knife revealing bone.  My field of vision was the size of a postage stamp.  It's a wonder that child protective services weren't alerted by my personal suite at the emergency room.  But this was the 60's so it was pretty much every kid for themselves.

The optometrist only had a couple of pair of glasses to choose from and based on my choice I can't imagine what was left on the shelf.  My grandmother cried when she saw me in them.  I kept pushing them up and down my nose amazed that other people had actually been able to see trees with individual leaves all this time.  It was like being Dorothy in Oz going from black and white to color ,without the midgets.  By the time we arrived home I had blood streaming down my face from doing the before and after tests with my new glasses rubbing the skin off my nose. 

Judging from my picture it was also the year my parents helped bolster my self-esteem by adding braces. I was most likely responsible for the tragic hairstyle that looks rats have been sucking on it. My father's favorite way to describe my or my sister's hair when he disapproved . "Looks like rats have been sucking on it".  Followed closely by his other favorite hit "people in hell want ice water".    Good times.

If tragic crap is the catalyst for forming a skewed outlook on life I was well on my way.  And I had skills.



Reasons to Blog ( not good ones, just mine)

1. Everyone within earshot has already heard my stories.

2. Planning ahead for Alzheimer's ( my family says I'm already there)

3. Chickens.       They're pretty funny and give great constructive criticism.

4. So far cheaper than a therapist - however I may have to retain a lawyer so...

5. Even I get tired of repeating myself - hand out cards with the blog address

6. Maybe the pain in the butt relative who thinks they have to tell me every little detail
    of what Aunt Busybody said to Cousin Slacker will feel threatened by the prospect
    of being published.

7. It makes me look busy and productive.  "Not now honey....blogging" Which sounds
    infinitely better than "Not now honey.....pinning" ( curse you Pinterest)

8. There appears to be no chance of being interviewed by Johnny Carson. [fingers still crossed]

9. I feel compelled to beat my younger sister to it - people tend to remember the first story
    as truth. [nah nah nah]

10. My dog hid in the attic for three hours - I need a backup listener.

PTSD

 I have it. Every morning. With a cup of coffee. Post Toaster Stress Disorder.
 Yes it's real. No matter WHAT the Blue Cross rep says.

In my kitchen lurks the most unreliable appliance known to man , the toaster. Whoever was responsible for quality control the day this toaster came off the line should be shot on sight. He should be tarred and feathered.  I have toast issues.


"Beelzebub"

 Is it too much to ask that the toaster adhere to its own code - one dot - light brown ,two dots - golden brown ,three dots -med golden brown , four dots - nutmeg brown, five dots -charred beyond recognition (call in for dental records) ?

 My toaster,  Beelzebub, only knows dot 5 results no matter the setting. And I suspect it's intentional. And apparently I am the only one in the family that it wars with. My husband thinks I am incapable of using it correctly. But I've seen the way it looks at me - it hates me.
And at the risk of sounding prejudiced, it's not just this toaster ......it's been the last five. Good toasters do exist, I've experienced toaster perfection , usually at vacation rentals - driven almost to the point of stealing those toasters and leaving a " your unit was missing a toaster " note - but I'd hate to be denied entrance to Heaven based on a pilfered toaster. Because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be sorry.