Category: blog

Canned responses are often important because they are simple, responsive and can reduce further conversation when needed.

 

MiniMe has, for years, shared a canned response, “I know.” It doesn’t matter who is talking to her or if the topic is something with which she is familiar, her response remains the same, “I know.” The other day, while getting out of the car on the driver side, at a location where neither of us had ever been before, I said, “Careful, there’s a lot of black ice over here.” “I know,” she replied while getting out of the passenger side. “How do you know? You’ve never been here before and you’re still over there,” I asked. “I know,” was her canned response.

 

Tree also has a canned response, but he only uses it based on ‘return.’ A few weeks ago I found a sweatshirt at my house that I believed belonged to Awkward so, when he and Tree were visiting, I asked about it. “Do you think you left a red sweatshirt here?” I asked Awkward. “Maybe,” Awkward replied. “Yes,” Tree chirped in. “What do you mean ‘yes’? You don’t even know what it is for sure or who it belongs to,” Awkward told him. “You say ‘yes’ because it might be something you want, even if it isn’t really yours,” Tree advised him.

 

“Thank you,” Live Longer said, contributing to their conversation with her new canned response. Turned out it was Awkward’s sweatshirt, thus, Tree once again got a good return on his ‘yes’ investment. I look forward to sharing this story with MiniMe who will most likely reply, “I know.”

A few months ago one of my superiors retired. This month, he decided to host a celebration that included more than eclairs and fruit punch.

 

I arrived to find a wine/beer bar, salmon, dolmathes, meatballs, fruit, chocolates, cheese and crackers and knew I would be staying for a while.

 

As people came and went his wife pointed out/introduced me to other guests, “That group in the corner is the wild group.” I looked to the corner to find a group of six adults, ranging from 60-70 in age, sitting calmly, chatting and drinking wine. My boss provided clarification, “They’re actually the used to be wild group.”

 

Pretty soon, the only people still at the party were me, my boss, his wife and the wild group. “Let’s open another bottle of champagne!” one of them suggested and another hopped up quickly to grab a bottle (or two) from the car.

 

We made a toast and they shared stories about things they used to do, but mostly discussed the dangers of icy walkways. As 70s and 80s songs played overhead one of them asked, “Is this easy listening? I asked for easy listening.” It was then I knew that I had just seen a glimpse of my future. Cheers to the wild group!

I returned to my surgeon for a follow-up on my wrist and, sadly, learned I’m stuck in the S&M brace for another two weeks.

 

“It doesn’t appear to be fractured, but these white areas in the X-ray indicate you’ve still got some injury. It should heal fine; however, it’s probably best to wear the brace another two weeks to keep you safe,” he said and added, “from yourself.”

 

I think it’s going to take more than a brace and a fortnight to accomplish that feat.

It’s been a while since I’ve worked at the furniture store, so I decided to grace them with my presence.

 

I hadn’t seem them for at least a month, so they were surprised to find me donning a brace. After I told them what happened I attempted to take my seat behind the cashier window and, no surprise to anyone, almost fell. “Let’s get you a stool,” my coworker said.

 

Once on the stool everything appeared to be going fine until I was attempting to swipe a credit card and my brace – although ‘small,’ it is quite bulky – bumped my coffee cup causing it to fall off my desk, bounce off the stool, and land in the garbage. Being that it wasn’t empty there was a quite bit of coffee ‘outside of the cup.’ My coworker kindly cleaned it up. “Sorry, like Buster, I’m a monster,” I said.

 

A little while later I decided to snack on some M&Ms from a nearby dispenser. I stuck my braced hand under the dispenser motion sensor and, not surprisingly, it got stuck. M&Ms were totally dumping out. When I finally managed to free my hand I picked up the M&Ms with my unbraced right hand and held them as best I could in my braced left hand. This wasn’t easy due to the fact that my brace covers most of my left palm and, within seconds, the M&Ms were all over the floor.

 

I can dress/brace me up, but I clearly can’t take me out.

 

MiniMe, That’s Not Chinese, Unfazed and I decided to do a movie marathon over the holiday weekend. Due to the fact that most movies nowadays are longer than the ‘average 90 minutes,’ we only ended up watching two movies in our marathon. Turns out, 60-90 minute movies are, for the most part, a thing of the past. According to IMDb, this was a trend between 1910 and the 1930s. The trend for movie lengths now is a little over two hours. Who has time for that? Not me, I’ve got mail to send, wine to drink and blog entries to write.

 

While we watched the trailers, which tack on an extra 30 minutes to one’s allotted movie watching time, we learned that, in addition to movies being longer, they are now given ratings AND new and exciting rating descriptors. Descriptors such as ‘mild peril,’ ‘intense sequences of adventure,’ ‘moderate torture,’ ‘small traces of other peril,’ ‘brief nudity,’ ‘mature thematic material,’ ‘brief strong language,’ and ‘comic violence.’ These are just a few of the descriptors. The list goes on and on.

 

‘Mild peril’ was our favorite, primarily because we liked the sound of the word ‘peril’ and, when prefaced by ‘mild,’ it sounds even better. “From now on when I invite people do things I’m going to provide them with an event rating and descriptors,” I informed my three movie goers and added, “Hopefully I’ll be able to use ‘peril’ in the description.” “Peril is nice,” That’s Not Chinese said. “Only when mild,” quipped MiniMe. “And animated,” Unfazed added. Animation makes porn seem innocent.

 

Just like the Motion Picture Association of America, I plan to convey with precision my reasons for my ratings. Take Rated R for example. It is quite obvious why she got this blog name – language (pervasive at times), some sexual references (when we ride together with her dog in her Subaru we  pretend to be lesbians), brief nudity (she isn’t shy), rude humor (not mild – if that was the case her name would be PG-13), some sexuality (she hasn’t been ‘in the mood’ lately), and brief drug use (she grew up in a small town – everybody did drugs ). Oh, and peril. I give that last descriptor because I like the sound of it and I know she and I have been in peril on more than one occasion. In fact, I have conveyed with precision, in more than one blog entry, about our perilous activities and, I must add, it is usually Ice Cream Man who ends up in trouble.

While pimpin’ at my hodown we began discussing flatulence. I’m not sure why this became a topic of discussion, other than the fact that it is a completely natural and normal bodily function, but it did.

 

Live Longer apparently has a weakness when it comes to flatulence and certain ‘cues’ can make her do so immediately. “I always tell my coworkers, ‘Don’t tickle or scare me.'” “Who tickles you at work?” I asked. “Well tickling will definitely make me fart but one girl at work always hides and jumps out at me when I come I around the corner or out of the bathroom.”

 

A few days later Live Longer accompanied Sleepless, Beaner and I to Zumba and, on the way, informed us she had a bit of a bad belly. “People fart in class all of the time. It’s like a huge hot box,” Beaner advised her. “True. It is horrible because we are totally trapped behind it. Hopefully nobody will tickle or scare you. Just in case, we’ll be sure to be on the back row, as usual, so nobody will have to smell it, maybe,” I suggested. “My farts don’t stick, they’re just really loud, so we should be fine,” she yelled to us over the music.

 

I wasn’t standing directly next to her during class so I’m not sure if she actually released organic flatus, but I do know nobody tickled or scared her.

 

 

The holidays aren’t complete without a celebration at my house. Being that we did a Griswold theme last year, we opted for something a little more wHOlesome this year – a Pimp n’ Ho-liday soirée.

 

Costumes were, of course, a must and Rated R and I were more than ready with our heather gray sweats. As we prepared them in my room – cutting the tops short so our bellies would be exposed – she posed a question, “Should we cut off the sleeves?” “I had sleeves when I was investigated,” I told her. “Well then we better leave them on,” she replied. Once dressed we grabbed our cardboard signs, ‘One on the way – I’ll make your day’ and ‘Single Mom – Anything helps – $5/min’ and we were ready for business.

 

The guests started arriving and MiniMe was ready to track their drinking activity as the ‘Tally (Ho!)’ for the evening. That’s Not Chinese, who was donning law enforcement tagged sweats, mug and handcuffs, had a drink or two prior to arriving so her points were already adding up.

 

Also adding up were the numbers of hos at the party – this was one busy corner. Luckily, the only officer (so far) was That’s Not Chinese and she was busy drinking and probably started seeing as many pimps as the rest of us – three. Just as she and Unfazed decided to evade arrest and subsequent prosecution by heading home, Fat Girl arrived in a black and blue ponytail wig, stripper heels, hot pink hot pants that revealed crack and a mesh ‘top.’ “This is a laundry bag. Can you believe it? It probably smells like dirty socks. Yep, it does. And check this out,” he said the pulled the drawstring that was mid-thigh, “This shop is closed for business. Open. Closed. Open. Closed.”

 

This pimp n’ ho-liday was definitely turning out to be off the hook….er.

 

 

 

While in the ‘big city,’ MiniMe decided to get hair done. Fortunately, she was in luck, because I had recently purchased a gift certificate for a salon. That purchase was nuts, literally – the fundraiser was for men’s privies/testicular cancer awareness.

 

While she got her hair cut and colored I patiently waited on the couch in my muumuu, as most mamas do, and listened in on the conversations at one of the adjacent hair stations. One thing I learned a long time ago is that hair salons are a great place to gather intelligence, regardless of whether you need the information.

 

Exhibit A(DHD):

“She’s on ADHD meds. Do you know anyone on ADHD meds? Totally crazy and skinny.”

 

The comments went on and were often disconnected (now who has ADHD?).

 

“She was in a hot tub full of felons.”

“I would make a horrible parent.”

“She’s really tall, like six feet, maybe 200 pounds, but she’s nice.”

“She later showed up with her sleeves rolled up so we could see her Ace bandage which you know she just got from Walgreens. Ridiculous.”

 

What any of this means I have no idea, but it was intriguing to me. The best comment I ‘overhaired,’ however, came from MiniMe’s stylist as the two of them discussed a hairstyle popular in some parts of town, “That hair has been teased and now it is pissed off.”

 

Just like people, hair doesn’t like to be teased, or so I’ve (over)heard.

 

 

 

 

The problem with fur – real or faux – is when  you forget that it is on the back of your chair and it falls off, unexpectedly, you immediately jump because you think a wild animal is on the loose in your home.

 

In this case, real or faux, this fur is not your friend, rather, your foe.

As one gets older the ‘New Year’, intended to offer new opportunities, generally only reminds us of opportunities lost and weight found. As a result of both, resolutions are made in hopes that one will be more adventurous, change jobs or spouses, join a gym or actually go the gym to which annual dues are paid. These goals and others like them are generally quite lofty and typically unattainable, however, sound like the right thing to say when sipping champagne with friends at midnight.

 

When the champagne flutes are washed and the leftovers are finally eaten (most likely by you), you realize this year probably won’t be much different from last. For that fact, I’d like to make a toast, “To you as you are!”

 

Life is good for most of us most of the time, however, it can really be as good as we want it to be all of the time. It’s all about perspective. As I told D-Dog, “May 2014 be full of smiling assholes.” I wish the same for all of you. Don’t let people or situations get you down. To quote a song from my childhood, “If you chance to meet a frown…..turn it upside down.”

 

Your pants don’t fit?  Who cares? That’s why rubber bands (maternity secret) and extra fabric exist!  You’re not adventurous? Fine with me! People are always in need of housesitters, babysitters, petsitters and the like. Job sucks? Get in (unemployment) line! Spouse sucks? Does she swallow?

 

I know there are some major douchebags in this world and it might be a better place if they behaved differently, but sometimes their behavior makes us look better. And who doesn’t like to look better? Besides, douchebags are just clowns with frowns – turn ’em upside down, smiling assholes.

 

For 2014, don’t aim to be lean, strive to clean or be less obscene. Instead, be seen! Whether by yourself or others – see you as the amazing person or complete fuck up that you are. To you as you are!