Because it really is personal…

My resolutions this year are to:
1. um……
2. ahhh hmmmm…
3. Oh! I know! I resolve to keep my photographs more organized.
4. I will scrub the bathrooms thoroughly each week, with bleach and everything. (that won’t be hard to keep)
5.Let’s see…
6. I will tell my family I love them more often.
7.(What’s another one I can make that won’t require effort)
8.I will have a menstrual period once a month. (or so)
9.I will not allow my children to play video games more than 3 hours a day.
and finally (because it’s such a nice, round number)
10. I will get my hair cut once every 4 months.

There. Resolutions without guilt.

I am still baffled by my reaction to NaDruBloDa. If Sweet Daddio, who outweighs me by 75 pounds, and has a high tolerance for alcohol, had consumed the amount of liquor I had, he’d have been snoring cozily on the bricks of the patio. I, short and round, wasn’t even mildly impaired. It’s not like I was eating, either. I was drinking alot of water, but that’s because alcohol always makes me thirsty. I counted and kept careful track of my consumption, once I realized no buzz was forthcoming. All told, 12 oz of vodka,and 4 oz rum, consumed over a period of 6 hours. Like I said earlier, I think it’s time to lay off the sauce.

Today I was thinking about that, and got nervous for some reason. I suppose I have been relying on it in the evening, because I am normally somewhat tightly wound, and I relish the feeling of being loose and unbothered. I guess I need to find another way to relax. That is acceptable for children and dogs to witness. I need something I can do around 5pm, before Sweet Daddio gets home and after dinner is cooking. Maybe a trampoline. The golfers could stare at me as I and my bosom commit remarkable feats of acrobatic virtuousity.

I read of a whole family of autistics who kept a trampoline in their living room, They related to each other while bouncing. Maybe I could relate to my kids via bouncing.

I made the mistake of going to StuffMart this morning. I am, shall we say, hormonally challenged at the moment. Normally, when I hear a screaming child I sing quietly to myself “that’s not my chiiiild that’s not my chiiiild hahahahahaaaaaha” And I get very smug because my children never did act like that in public. Ha ha ha ha haaaa ha… Not today. I heard a crying baby, that anguished desperate crying of a very tiny baby who needs to be held, and SD had to grab my shoulder and stop me from going up to the baby’s mother and bitch-slapping her. PICK UP THE DAMN BABY, CAN’T YOU TELL HE NEEDS HOLDING???” Sonofabitch, I thought, can’t people tell when a tiny baby NEEDS holding??? I hate those stupid baby carrier things. People think it substitutes for holding and IT DOES NOT. I did fine, thank you, carrying my baby in one arm and pushing the buggy with another, or just waiting until someone could stay with the kids, or could come with me to the store. Even with 3 kids, I did it without a carrier, because BABIES NEED TO BE HELD! IF YOU CAN’T HOLD YOUR BABY THEN GET A CAT INSTEAD!

Then there were the screams of the frustrated child who wasn’t getting her way. Again, I thought, mother, give me your child for 10 minutes please, and I will go outside and commit an act of attitude adjustment on her, and return her to you better behaved. When I hear a parent say “alright, if you’ll be quiet I buy you this toy” I want to stab my ears with a screwdriver. THOSE children will be the ones who’s messes MY CHLDREN will have to clean up when they’re adults. Damn hyper-entitled little brats. Their parents ought to be smacked upside the head with a headless Barbie doll for teaching their kids such behavior.

Today, #4 asked if he could play the gamecube. I said “at 2 o’clock you can.”
“WHAT??2 O’clock!!??” he replied.
“Fine then, no you can’t play it today.” I said
“oop…I’m sorry…please may I play the gamecube at 4 o’clock?” he asked
“Only if you get all the pinecones picked up in the front yard, and put in garbage bags.” I offered.
“OK!” he chirped, relieved that he would get to play his precious gamecube after all.
That’s how it’s done. Carrot and stick approach. It’s not hard, you just have to establish who’s boss from the get-go.

And I have to stay away from Walmart when I’m hormonal.

No hangover, not even a cottonmouth. I am, however, craving something sweet. Sweet Daddio put a pan of those canned orange sweet rolls in the oven so that will be tended to.

Last night was fun. I am going to go through all the participants, and make a little thumbnail thing you can put on your page saying you made it. With the help of Northern Girl (tho she doesn’t know it yet) figure out which participant best embodies the whole spirit of the event, and give them a special thingy. If I get around to it.

Nope, no headache, rolling stomach, sensitivity to light or sound. N achy joints or cranky mood. Scary, huh. Maybe I should lay off the sauce for a few months.

I believe my liver must be made of cast iron. By my calculations I’ve consumed over 12 oz of alcohol…hard stuff, too, all of it. And yet, I’m still typing just fine, can walk a straight line, and have no desire to either throw up or remove my clothes and dance on the dining table. I am singing loudly to U2 (she moves! In mysterious ways!), semi-monitoring #4′s progress though whatever that virtual land that Mario lives in, and occasionally noshing on nuts.

I am probably going to call it a night soon, and crawl into the bed, ad attach my cold feet to the backs of Sweet Daddio’s warm legs. I am not, by any stretch of imagination, a night owl. For me to stay up this late is remarkable.

Ok. #4 has dismantled this weird pair of glasses he has that have eyeballs on springs. So now there is a pair of bloodshot eyeballs staring up at me from our grubby carpet. #4 has apparently fit the entire package of Hubba Bubba Bubble gum in his mouth and looks like JoeBobBubba Turnipseed chawin’ and spittin’. Only smaller. My living room is a den of Housewife Sin. Potato chip bags, eyeballs, gum wrappers on the floor, Nintendo on the TV where it’s been the entire day because I was feeling indulgent. Do I feel like a terrible mother because I let my childen roll around in their underpants until noon? No, I do not. Where does it say a kid has to be out plowing the fields by 7 am? Especially when there are no fields to plow? Really?

I have never been one of these mothers who felt like their kid had to be Involved. No Scouts, unless they wanted to, no soccer, baseball, karate, unless they wanted to. I guess I feel like childhood should be about laying in the yard, reading the clouds, not about rushing hither and yon, and having no time to oneself or time for the family to sit down for a meal each night. There’s plenty of time later to rush around. Right now, they need to play, relax, figure things out on their own. That and, frankly, I don’t want to have to run around taking them everywhere because I’m too fond of spending the afternoons preparing that family meal, dealing with homework, and having time to read the clouds with them.

My childhood was like that, relaxed and even keeled. My best memories are of afternoons on the river, with my dog, or in the woods, or the backyard, or reading on my bed. No pressure or obligations, just a chance to be a child, and work things out on my own. SD shares that sensibility. It’s good, and it works.

Good night and all that…enjoy the rest of the night! (and clean up your mess if you barf)

I’m trying to think of great heaving revelations about my childhood that I can confess. My parents were Presbyterian…how much trouble could they get into? none, that’s how much. In spite of my father’s kilt and blackpowder gun collection and penchent for horrible music, and my mother’s “witchcraft” (she boiled smelly stuff in black pots and Nobody Ever Understood Why), my childhood was relatively calm and event-free…except for the bluegrass festivals. I thought they were called “bluegrass” because of the blue smoke from the grass…people were smoking. My parents were, apparently, clueless. They never seemed to think anyone was smoking anything other than handrolled cigarettes (how quaint!). They also thought “heavy driking” was 2 glasses of Manischewitz.

Oh lord, I am overcome with a desire for a Quianna dress, 1-shouldered, and a pair of Candie’s slides. Blue eyeshadow, Fake Farrah haircut and a skinny dude in a white leisure suit. What can I say, first it was Abba now it’s Bee Gees. (ah ah ah ah stayin’alive….)

I believe I have finally (with the generous help of Sweet Daddio because he’s so incredibly good to me)overcome my external attitude toward disco, and embraced my inner dancer. All it took was lemon drops and an Ipod.

I remember, Christmas 1977, I got a $100 bill. Mom took me out the next day to spend it on the sales. I bought some AWESOME clothes! A couple of cashmere cowl-neck sweaters, a pair of burgundy leather boots, a couple of plaid skirts that matched the sweaters. I was so in style and SO very happy. She took me a couple of days later to get the Perfect Haircut, a curling iron, and some Dippity Doo. I was 12, rather more developed than the average 12 year old, and suffering some angst about the accusations of “stuffing” I kept getting from the other girls. It’s amazing what a couple of good outfits and the right hair could do for a young teenage girl.
I still wasn’t allowed makeup beyond lipgloss, but since it was excessively shiny and tasted like cherry cough syrup, I was ok with that.

I’m hungry.Drinking always makes me hungry for the strangest things. Easy Cheeze from a can. That stuff is horrible, and yet, I want some. On club crackers. Sour Cream and Cheddar potato chips. Smokehouse almonds. Crab dip. Lord, I’m hungry and I will not impose upon Sweet Daddio’s good will. I will, instead, whine here. If I get hungry enough there’s always peanut butter and jelly. Or a boiled egg….gross.

Our freezer, which limps feebly, eventually froze a tray of ice cubes (it took 4 days)that I retrieved for my most recent batch of Lemon Drops. They were, my chemist husband assured me, in their aesthetic state due to the slow rate of their physical change. They were prefectly clear, looking like plastic, with little bubbles gently suspended throughout. So pretty!

Sweet Daddio just rudely accused me of being drunk just because I was taking a picture of pretty ice while singing ABBA loudly. As if I don’t always act like that.
It is pretty, the ice.

#4, at the tender age of 7, has learned to judge when his mother is at her most pliable. “Mom” he just asked me sweetly,”Can I have some root beer?” knowing full well I don’t let him have stuff like that so late in the day. And yet, because I am lubricated, I agreed and even sweetened the pot with a bowl of BBQ chips. Why not. It’s Friday, he doesn’t have to be in school for 6 more days, and what’s the point of being on vacation if you can’t spend it playing Nintendo games and eating crap. I never got to when I was a kid. Tomorrow, I’ll make him pick up pinecones.

ginger ale or coke and rum
lemon drops (essentially lemonade and vodka, shaken and served in a cocktail glass)
red grapefruit juice and vodka
manhattans (I know, I don’t like bourbon, but I like manhattans)
martinis- the real kind, with gin, not vodka, and just enough vermouth to wet the tip of the finger you stir it with, and 3 queen olives on a stick
pretty much anything with rum in it: hot buttered is good in the winter
bubbly wine. Any kind, not necessarily the expensive stuff, either. I am partial to the $4/bottle Italian stuff. Real champagne, to me, tastes like mouthwash.
Cosmopolitans. Oh yes. Once last summer I made a pitcher full and drank the whole thing because I was hot and thirsty. It landed on my head like Hulk Hogan and knocked me out cold, SD had to actually pick me up and put me in the bed. However, I did not suffer a hangover the next day. I am, therefore, enamored of Cosmopolitans. They Are My Friend.

I do on occasion suffer pangs of concience related to my alcohol consumption. It is frequently postulated that Christians Ought Not Drink. In fact, many Christians I deeply admire do not drink. I have found, however, that my life and temperment are such that I am in need to A Little Extra Help. I do not see that an alcoholic beverage (or two, or 5) is that different from, say, a xanax. Or a valium, or any other medically prescribed tranquilizer. Indeed, mine own psychiatrist, the Good Dr. H., has opined that alcohol, for me, would be less problematic than one of those medically sanctioned remedies. He cautions moderation, because excessive alcohol in combination with one of my prescribed medications can cause seizures, of a nature that would be most alarming to the family, but generally harmless. So! Even my doctor says it’s ok, and he shares the same religious philosophy I do, so I know he knows where I’m coming from when I ask him things. I also know that my drinking hsbits are something I choose to keep pretty much to myself. except here, and well…no one knows me here.

Besides, everyone needs a vice, and since I don’t smoke or gamble, and I don’t go around having sex with my friend’s husbands, I might as well drink.

Do y’all make New years resolutions? I don’t generally, as I just see them as an opportuity to fail. This year, however, Sweet Daddio is allocating a bit of money from our income tax refund to pay the membership fee at a local lady’s gym. I was a member at a grand gym before we moved here. it has an olympic sized pool, all sorts of classes ranging from pilates to spinning to water aerobics (my favorite). there was a massive equipment room staffed with hunky young trainers and, with the exception of an astonishing young woman I named “Exotic Dancer Barbie” the members were retired folk recovering from hip replacements and heart attacks.

No such luck here. The ony sizable gym is a Golds populated by college kids and the like. Ick, no thank you. So I am joining a Ladie’s Workout Express. I am looking forward to it, as I enjoy doing things on complicated bits of equipment, and I am thoroughly disgusted with my bingo wings. And my legs. And that…THING…on my stomach that looks like a small squishy animal curled up asleep. I have no illusions of looking like some sort of 14 yr old gymnast. I just want to walk across the room without anything jiggling (except my boobs, it’s ok if they jiggle).

I already eat right. Mostly. I eat a big salad with lemon juice for dressing almost every day. I eat citrus fruit every day, and fat free dairy stuff, I don’t eat (much) butter or fried things, and I drink (easily) a gallon of water, every single day. I’m a good girl. If boring. I’m just a highly upholstered good girl. Like, an American made sofa as opposed to, say, a tightly bound Natuzzi offering. I doubt that will change, but I’d like the foundation beneath the upholstery to be of the Thomasville Gallery variety, rather than the Heilig Meyers type.

And that’s the posting for this glass of R&C.

So what happens to you when you get drunk? Do you go through phases? I know I do. I start out just being relaxed, then everything gets funny, then I get…well…kind of…um…well, let’s just say I’m happy that I’m married to a willing man. After that, everything slows down. and I fall asleep. I don’t operate under the illusion that I can dance, now do I think I can sing. Even tho I do. Sing that is. What I like best about the process of enebriation (I’ve had 4 stiff ones already, can you tell?) is the way inhibitions are loosened, and stuff is FUNNY. I love to laugh, but I am normally in kind of a semi-depressed state (my psychiatrist prefers that to the rawther destructive mania I’d experience if I weren’t mildly depressed), so laughter isn’t a part of my modus operandi. Until I get a few in me. Not wine, it makes me lazy, but good quality hard liquor. Vodka and rum in the winter, gin in the summer. I’m not much of a bourbon person and scotch to me tastes like cough syrup, so I leave it for Sweet Daddio. But then he thinks gin tastes like turpentine.

I started the drinking event at 3, when #2 assurred me he was going nowhere. I made a small shaker full of Lemon Drops, and then proceeded to Rum and Coke (I thought maybe the caffiene would keep me from falling on the floor asleep at a ridiculously early hour). Now, 2 Lemon drops and 2 r&C’s later, I’m just feeling a buzz.

And, I remembered something my politically incorrect son said…”you know femnists..they’re not really intimidating, they’re just loud.” I am suppressing a smile and a chuckle, because I know feminists and they are very sincere people who truly believe in their cause and I applaud their dedication to something they believe in. I also see my son’s point. But I will carry it no further because mine is not a personality that thrives on conflict.

soon, and very soon, I am going to apply a concept to blogging that I have heretofore not used: that is, I will refrain from editing. No spelling corrections, no grammatical changes, what you see is what you get. And later still, I might even quit looking at the keys while typing. I sort of know where all the letters are, and I’m thinking people reading might actually be able to comprehend what’s written, hopefully…but you never know. I’ve never typed with 12 oz of hard liquor swirling through my dedicated Presbyterian veins.

The time has come and now I’m sipping lady like tipples of a shaker full of Lemon Drops. Yum. #2 has assurred me that he will go nowhere atleast until Sweet Daddio gets home, so I am safe in the event of bloodletting or bonecrunching. #4 is mastering Lego StarWarsII on the gamecube, so I type to the background noise of lego people flying to peices, bits of Star Wars music, and the giggles from #4 as a Storm Trooper wearing nothing but a helmet and a speedo goes running by.

Dinner is in check, bagged salad, chicken ready to brown in a skillet, and assorted other chopped items, all to be tossed together in a salad guarenteed to cause SD to make a burger run.

Now. What to blog on. I don’t know, I think we’ll just take the evening as is comes. I did read where the guy who makes the Girls GOne Wild videos is appealing his community service. He only got like 40 hours, and he’s worth a zillion$, so what’s the big deal? Was he ordered to work at a home for unwed mothers or something? SLimeball like that ought to get ordered to clean public restrooms for the rest of his life.40 hours.pfft. That’s not punishment. I bet the judge who gave it to him doesn’t have a daughter.

I saw another thing- a picture of Lil Kim and her astonishingly fake breasts. That poor girl, she is so pretty but she’s so…trashy. Maybe she intends it that way, I don’t know. MAybe her and Britney ought to collaberate on a cd or something. She (Lil kim, not Britney) looks like she’s made from gold, with the color of her hair and skin. Mary J. Blige is the same way, burnished gold, very pretty.

And so, the curtain is closing on Hussein. I am not typically fond of the death penalty, but I think there are some people who need to be removed from the population. Putting them in jail won’t work, because they’ll still be able to influence. They have to be GONE. He is one of them. Ok, so he didn’t kill as many people as Hitler, but he sure enough tried. I don’t doubt a minute if he’d been a European dictator he’s have killed many many more. Good riddance to bad rubbish. And no, if it’s televised or pictures are published, I won’t look at them. I’ve seen enough dead people in my life to satisfy that curiousity.

And, as odd as this might sound, I hope he has the chance to make his peace with God before he goes. But to go, he needs to do. no doubt about it.

ok that’s all for now.

Today is National Drunk Blogging Day. Click on the icon, sign up and peck away.

I just went to the store, where Bi-Lo was offering drink mixers buy-one-get-one, and I loaded up on Lemon Drop, Sour Apple, and Grenadine, also sodas (Coke, 7-Up, Gingerale)because you never know when you need something carbonated. And chips- Lays were BOGO as well. And Salad, for dinner, so I don’t have to cook anything and risk burning the house down. I have some chicken from the other day, when the freezer died and I had to cook 2 weeks worth of meat all at once. I will cut up the chicken, throw it on the bagged greens and place it in front of mine own family, with the reassurance that vegetables are good for preventing dingleberries (ha!)

#2 has informed me that he might not be going anywhere today, so I might be able to start with the festivities as early as 3 (that’s as early as deep seated Presbyterian sensibilities will accomodate). Otherwise, should he decide to go out (in his new car), I’ll wait until SD gets home. If I started now (as I would like to, I have been looking forward to today since Northern Girl first postulated the concept)#4 would put his eye out with a nintendo controller, the dog would have another seizure (2 hours yesterday in the vet’s…why did my dog have a seizure? No one knows.), and I would fall down the flight of stairs, rupturing my spleen and breaking my glasses. So I am going to wait until all’s safe.

And, due to driving 6 hours, getting stopped by a 12 year old state patrolman and having him inform me that Our Paperwork Was Not In Order (I’d forgotten to sign the title), then being told by the Lady at the Courthouse (you know the type, polite-ish, with a sadistic streak) that The Title Was Signed In The Wrong Place (I signed where the 12 year old State Patrolman pointed), then I get home and my favorite dog, Rosie, was wadded up in a corner and unable to move, looking terrified, and all the other dogs were looking at her like she’d sprouted another head, so I’m at the Vet’s for 2 hours, being told that Rosie’d had a seizuer, we don’t know why, she might have another one tomorrow, she might never have another one Oh Well.

Thank goodness for 17 yr old boys who know how to make tacos. I really, really, REALLY didn’t feel up to a pizza or chinese.

So, while I am thankful no one rolled a car, or severed a limb, or lost a job, I am very thankful that today, I have sanctioned approval to behave irresponsibly, in a responsible sort of way, of course.