Family Vacation & Texting

Daughter: How about going to Charleston?

Me: I think it is too far to drive.

Daughter: I thought so too. (yet she suggested it - what?)

Son: We could fly!

Daughter: I hate flying.

Son: First Class. Foot massages. Movies. Solid gold cups that are never empty. My kind of plane!

Me: First Class is the best!

Son: Alcohol for days! (Why a 19 year old suggests that is kind of baffling – or telling…)

Daughter: I hate people touching my feet.

Me: We know!!!

Son: UGH! Fine! Live a life of massage less squalor!

Daughter: I ENJOY MY SQUALOR THANK YOU VERY MUCH

Me: Wow, this is getting too hostile for me…

Son: IF YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE HEAT THEN GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN.

Son-In-Law (who had been silent up until now): Can we not

Me: Don’t you mean get out of the airplane??

Son: HA!

Daughter: Airplanes have kitchens.

Me: Do they have foot kitchens?

Daughter: Why would you want to cook a foot?

Son: You don’t know my preferences.

Son-In-law (apparently at work and getting aggravated by all the texts): I will destroy you all!

Daughter: I think we are driving my husband crazy.

Son: Maybe a little.

Daughter: And I do know your preferences. I’VE KNOWN YOU YOUR ENTIRE LIFE!

Son: I’M MYSTERIOUS AND UNPREDICTABLE!

Me: It is a mystery to me why EVERYONE KEEPS USING CAPITAL LETTERS!

Son: If I need to shout – I NEED TO SHOUT!

Daughter: ME TOO!!!

Son: DON’T STIFLE MY FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS!

Me: I about to exercise my 2^nd amendment right if you guys don’t stop yelling at me!!!

Daughter: So, really, are we doing a family vacation?

 

I love my kids and maybe I think this is funnier than it really is, but hey, I just took up 2 minutes of your day when you obviously had nothing to do or you wouldn't be trolling the blog posts!! GET BACK TO WORK!

Go Away "MayMay" (plus a Stay Reboot!)

I posted last night about my awe inspiring “Easterween” decoration. At work it is hailed as brilliance incarnate and beloved by all. Well, most of them ‘like’ it.

This morning, my sister sent me a text that stated that she had noticed that I made a grammatical faux pas on the aforementioned post, so I went to my blog to fix it. It was then that I noticed there was an obvious increase in ‘comments’ on past blogs so I eagerly clicked in to check them out.

I was stunned. Some humanoid with the screen name ‘maymay’ had commented on nearly all my posts. The problem? NONE of her comments were even remotely related TO my posts! I knew the web had a seedy social media side that I try to stay away from (Facebook for example), but this person had crashed into my blog, assaulted my space, posted GARBAGE – verbally looooong GARBAGE – and walked away without a scratch. I was incensed!

Things like this are why I hate people and definitely should NOT be or work in public; and yet I do. How dare this human piggyback their mindless prattle upon the back of my hard thought out thoughts! Consider them all deleted.

While deleting the unwanted rubbish comments, I came across my post about mom and the perfume I had given to her called Stay. I reread the post since I had just visited my sister (and received the awesome Easterween gift) that included a visit our mother (a kind of 2 for 1 special). Mom had come out one morning dressed and ready to go bathed in the smell of that clean smelling Stay – and I do mean bathed in the smell.

I mentioned that she smelled good and it went – like instant delayed replay about Stay – like this…

Me: You smell good!

My sister: Yes, you do.

Mom: It is the perfume you gave me. It smells so fresh and clean. I love it!

Me: Nice.

Mom: What was the name?

Me: Stay.

Mom: Noooo, wasn’t it Gap or something?

Me: No, it came from The Gap. It is called Stay. (as if the name isn’t the bottle she uses every day!)

Mom: The Gap. That makes no sense.

My sister: It makes perfect sense if that is what they wanted to name the store.

Mom: I still don’t understand why they call it ‘Stay.’

My sister: Because the fragrance ‘stays’ with you all day! (she clearly was grasping for straws here – anything to stop this conversation)

Mom: Well it certainly does "Stay" with me because I spray it all over myself.

Me: How many ‘sprays?’

Mom; Oh, I don’t know, 5 or 6.

My sister: 5 or 6?! Isn’t that kind of excessive? I just do a couple of sprays here and here (pointing to the places on her body).

Me: Me too! Wow, 5 or 6 is a lot. You will run out of it so fast! I better send you another bottle.

Mom: Bottle of what?

Me: Stay.

Mom: Stay? I thought we were going out to lunch.

You just can’t make this stuff up people…

By the way, I switched my perfume from Stay to Sunshine, also from The Gap. I am not telling my mother.

Happy Easterween!

And we are back. Did you miss me?

I was sick, depressed, bored, and useless for the last couple of weeks. So I did not think I had anything worth saying. But I am better now. You might want to run…

It has come to my attention – that my attention – to decorating detail has shifted as I have gotten older. They say that the older you get the more your “bad” or “unlikable” tendencies rear their ugly head in direct correlation to the number of calendar days you have on your human frame. I think I am turning Goth as I breeze through my 50’s and I am not sure how I feel about that.

I do know how my mom feels about that. She is sure I am the backsliding on the road to Perdition. My sister I believe, does not care one way or the other – actually in a strange way she is encouraging this metamorphosis. My coworkers think either I am awesome cool or I have fallen off my traditional rocker. (Some of my coworkers actually rarely think at all – if you catch my drift) My husband – well – God love my husband, he tolerates just about anything I do. My kids have learned to go with the flow – no matter how crazy their mother gets.

Bones have become a fascination to me. Not in the forensic anthropological way, in the cool interior design way! Now I must clarify exactly which boney artifacts I prefer. Skulls – definitely out. To ‘gangy.’ Skeletons however have my full attention.

This penchant has been inside me a long time. I had bone earrings when I was in my teens. I loved those earrings. But when I was 17 I hiked 35 miles on the Appalachian Trail with a church group. I wore those earrings so that I would be a fashionista among the bears and snakes. However, the leader of my proverbial pack decided that I might catch them on a branch or a mountain lion claw and wanted me take them off. I protested, but I was taught strict rules of church hierarchy and so I complied. It has been a decision I have regretted for the rest of my life. Because although I placed them in what I thought was a secure pocket of my backpack; one was lost. I was inconsolable. I think I even requested that we backtrack the whole 35 miles to try to find them! But that earring was lost to the ages and those actions of that ‘leader’ have become the closest thing in my life to an unforgivable sin. I still curse him under when my breath when I think of that incident.

So, it started young and is only now coming out in ways I never thought possible. I go crazy at Halloween – because all things boney are acceptable fodder at that time. I did not do that in the past. My children wonder what happened to the mom that would only let them dress up in ‘happy’ costumes their whole childhood. They wonder why now I have turned into the Grim Reaper.

I don’t know what has happened either. But I kind of want to say I like it.

That leads me to why I wanted to talk about this. I saw my sister (the preacher’s wife who let her children dress up anyway they wanted when they were growing up – no matter how morbid – and my kids probably wished she had been their mother for the Halloween season) and she gave me a gift. An awesome, wonderful, amazing gift. A black cast iron skeleton for Halloween that is walking and carrying a stick across his/her shoulders that holds 2 glass pots that you can put candy, or dip, or chips, or tiger teeth, or witches brew in. I LOVE it. So much so, that I just could not relegate it to the attic for 7 more months waiting for the ‘proper season.’ So I eagerly stated to all in ear shot that I could take it to work and put Easter candy in the containers. At least I could then look upon the loveliness that was this Pottery Barn skeleton for a few extra days during the year. We then started talking about how one of my sister’s children decided we should dress up for Easter this year and celebrate “Easterween” instead of just Easter. GENUIS! Well, we had the “Ween” part of that holiday sitting on the table in front of us – all we had to do was add the “Easter” part!

So we did. The results are in the picture below. 

Office View

Home View

I am either the Queen of Easter or the Queen of Halloween - or - the Queen of EASTERWEEN!!! All hail the Queen of TWO (2) holidays! I feel like I am opening a new frontier to holiday enjoyment!

Come by my office and get some Easterween candy....you may or may not feel like this is the best double holiday in the history of the world.

You are welcome!

Goodbye Mr. Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy has died. That means a little piece of me has died as well. I cannot remember - nor do I want to - life without him. A life without Mr. Spock is totally illogical to my mind. It cannot exist.

I fell in love with him while watching Star Trek hiding behind my father's recliner because I was supposed to be in bed. Not on Star Trek night. I learned to run silently back to my room if I heard anyone move from their spot. I had to risk the punishment. I had to watch this mission to space. I wished it was real.

Most importantly, I wished Vulcans were real. No emotions, pure logic. It appealed to me because for some reason my home life seemed totally illogical. Maybe I was the one out of sync, but although I couldn't really put my finger on it, something always seemed terribly wrong - terribly illogical and I am a logically thinking human. (I have since learned it was probably my mom - but you can't always completely blame everything on your parents)

I got to the point in my life that I once called myself Mr. Spock because everything was so out of control and I refused to have feelings so I wouldn't get caught up in the storm. It was easier. It was logical.

I was Spock. Then I was not. Then I became him again. Only the second time I did not completely get back to being myself. It is still easier not to feel. To be in total control of my emotions.

I am therefore in some ways still half Vulcan, because I can easily distance myself from anything I don't like or can't make sense of. (My mother comes to mind again)

I have many things Star Trek. I am a Trekkie. Everyone knows I love Star Trek & Mr. Spock. My car, home and office are full of memorabilia. I have been to a convention for crying out loud! But mostly, I am Vulcan.

I dressed up like Mr. Spock for work last year for Halloween. I was a 'fatter' Mr. Spock, but for a moment in time, Leonard Nimoy, the creator of my other facade & I, were alive and somewhat the same in the same space time continuum. I relished that thought.

Now I know that Spock was not the only accomplishment this man ever had. He was so much more. But for me, this one piece of him altered my entire life. For the better.

Thank you Leonard Nimoy. I hope someday I get to meet you in space...the final frontier.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone.

I Not Nice

I  have been sick for what seems like forever. It is almost over – almost. I started this blog post 2 weeks ago and just couldn’t finish it because of my affliction. If you get a cold from reading this because of cross contamination of germs, my humblest apologies. On to my story...

All this talking about restaurants the last couple of blogs, brought to mind another incident that happened to me – in another restaurant – in this town (a.k.a. Stupid Town) a year or so ago. Today, I repeated a phrase that now lives in the minds of my family’s vocabulary and is repeated constantly. I said that phrase today to my boss. “You not nice.” She had no idea what I was talking about because I had forgotten that she had not been working with me on my floor when this happened. She wanted an explanation.

We used to have a Japanese steak house in one of our strip malls. We are too small of a town to actually have a mall mall, so we have several mini versions full of stores lined up like jail cells with an overabundance of parking spaces in front of them. The parking lots are so huge in fact, that at these strip establishments most have restaurants sitting in random areas in this vast expanse – sometimes TWO or THREE restaurants and a bank – because the parking lot is WAY too big for what stores are there. Maybe our village idiots’ city government thinks that it is strategic planning on their part. I mean who wouldn’t want to buy clothing, pet supplies, workout clothes, eyeglasses, see a movie, buy some jewelry, and then have some lunch all without moving their car? It is genius (or so they believe)! 

So at one of these shopoterias, that services your beauty needs, your nail needs, your rental furniture needs, your health food needs and your grocery needs, there was a wonderful Japanese restaurant. They had curry that would make any curry lover want to high five a stranger even if they had leprosy. It was just that good.

I ate many much portions of this curry. Often and as much as I could hold because I knew good food in this town was a FLUKE and destined to be destroyed. This town is FULL of people that think our pseudo Chinese, Italian, and Mexican are “simply delicious.” I think they are nuts. I have had good servings of all those, but there is none of it in this town!

Anyway, back to my story. One day I was going to Publix (where shopping is a pleasure) to pick up something and since the Japanese restaurant was in the strip mail with Publix, I called in an order. I got my groceries, put them in the car and walked over to my food pleasure palace. I grabbed the door handle – locked. I peered inside – lights out. Open sign – not flashing. I peer inside again – I see no one and no movement. I test the door again – still locked.

I go back to work empty handed.

Two hours later I get a call on my cell. I don’t usually answer unknown callers, but today I was bored I guess – and hungry – so I answered.

Let me pause to say this. I am in no way a racist. I do not mean to make fun of how any race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, or alien invaders move, talk or speak – BUT – if I don’t tell my wonderful readers in the speak that this man talked to me – it just isn’t funny…and I like funny.

Me:                     Hello?

Asian Man:       Herro? Is Sarah? (Sarah is my pseudonym given when placing a name on a  food order or a wait list because NO ONE can spell my name)

Me:                      Yes.

Asian Man:        Why you no come pick up order?

Me:                      I did try to pick it up but your restaurant was closed.

Asian Man:         Not closed! I not closed!

Me:                      Well, I checked the door and looked inside, but the door was locked and the lights were off.

Asian Man:         I wait inside! I there! Why you no knock?

Me:                      Well, since the door was locked and the lights were out, I didn’t see a reason to knock.

Asian Man:         I wait for you! You come pick up now! I sit afternoon waiting.

Me:                      I am sorry, I am back at work and I can’t come back.

Asian Man:        You come back now! You no waste my food!

Me:                      I can’t. I am sorry.

Asian Man:         You waste my food! I no make money! I go broke! Your fault! YOU NOT NICE!

I hung up on that last tirade. Maybe I did make him go broke because I never went back to that restaurant. I guess no one went back much because the restaurant closed about a month later.

I guess not only “You not nice,” but everyone in town “They not nice.”

I miss that curry…

Restaurant #2 Bites the Dust

I live in a small town. I think I have mentioned that before. I normally tell people (as often as I can and to anyone who will listen) that I live in a ‘God forsaken wasteland.’ I know I am harsh. Lots of inhabitants LOVE this hell hole town. I chalk up my disdain for this place to the fact I am a big city girl. Born and raised. Large towns offer so many options – so many choices for FOOD. I could quite literally never run out of new restaurants to try in any of the large towns I have lived in. You can quite literally run out of new cuisine opportunities in this boil on the butt of the United States municipality in less than 2 weeks. That is just ONE of my problems with this detestable hamlet. But I can’t move, I am stuck, for a few more years at least. Come on retirement!!

So, with few choices for lunch and dinner fare and a husband who absolutely, completely, totally, wholly, fully, and utterly enjoys going out to eat and can eat a hamburger (quite literally) at every meal, I endure the few places here in town that offer a ‘version’ of some international cuisine, just so I do not have to run away screaming eat at a hamburger joint daily.

Today was one of those days. We went to a restaurant replica of Asian gastronomy, we ordered drinks, and we got food (or some facsimile thereof). My husband tasted the unsweet tea he ordered. He said it tasted bad and asked me to taste it – gee thanks love. But, I did taste it. I am used to this sort of nonsense from him. "Here love, smell, this, or taste that" – because he thinks it might be bad. He is so very thoughtful. But then again, I do have a cast iron stomach and he does not. Back to the story – it did not taste bad to me, but it tasted ‘off.’ So my husband called the server over and asked her to take it away and get him some water. She obliged.

But it was then that she did something we did not expect. She went back to the drink station (or some primitive likeness thereof) and POURED HIS GLASS OF PRE-TASTED TEA BACK INTO THE MAIN TEA PITCHER!!! I lost my appetite.

What if we had a cold? What if we had scurvy? What if we had the bird flu? What if we had rabies? What if we had the Bubonic Plague?!! (I mean aside from the obvious thing you all are thinking in regard to – why  we would even be in public if we have the Bubonic Plague?! It is because we are just that sort of giving people! So back off!) But, seriously, what if we had a simmering case of hepatitis – or something that is less life threatening – but still highly contagious?? That restaurant just infected this WHOLE SHIT HOLE TOWN!

What else do they just blithely dump back into other food vats??

So just like the rabbit restaurant that sells drugs, now, we cannot frequent the international cuisine restaurant that may serve botulism for lunch.

We need to move – or write a ‘foodie’ book about our adventures in dining in this portal to hell small metropolitan area. I can’t decide which.

Breakfast and a Drug Deal

We have a new restaurant in town. I won’t name names, but it is a well know chain that serves breakfast and the name is suggestive of the idea of what you would be doing if you picked up one leg and moved about a room and then you told someone that you did it, but spoke the sentence in the present tense. Ok, just think what a rabbit does.

We live in a small town. So a new restaurant is big news - and mobbed – whether it is good or not – for weeks – simply because it is new and pickings are slim in the world of food around here.

Today, finally my husband and I decided to try it for lunch (11:15 a.m.). We got right in, no waiting. One crisis averted (at least to my husband). As the hostess was taking us to our table a server was following us like a gnat. I mean I seriously felt like turning to her and shooing her away or least yelling – GIVE ME SOME SPACE WEIRDO! But I refrained, after all what if she was our server? As we sat down she moved away, so I kind of wish I HAD shooed her like I was doing in my mind since she wasn’t going to be serving us food, but I live by the rule that decorum must be maintained at all cost. So I was just kidding myself – I never would have done it - but it is fun to think about.

But then SHE (the gnat) sachets over to our table and asks what we would like to drink. Diet whatever and unsweet tea is what we tell her. “Do you want some juice,” she asks? No, diet whatever and unsweet tea please. “Well, 22% of my sales need to be juice, so do you want some juice?” NO.Thank.You. What the hell?

She goes off to get our drinks and returns a good 5-7 minutes later and states, “Sorry I took a day and half to get back to you, but I had a rude customer I had to deal with. Sheesh, there are a lot of those.” She did bring me a diet drink, but she brought my husband SWEET tea, which we found out after she left our table – to go to the bathroom. We caught her eye on her exit (don’t you just love being seated next to the bathroom while you eat?) and told her of the error. She proceeded to bring my husband another glass of tea and states she is sorry, but that this indeed is unsweet. He tastes it AND IT WAS SOURED! We call her back again to the table and inform her of the undrinkable drink and she says – “Thank you for telling us we would never know if customers didn’t tell us – AND – would you like some juice?” Now I am to the WTF stage and starting to understand why she may have those ‘rude’ customers.

She takes our order, goes to the visible cash register and rings it up – I assume. Then she goes into the bathroom.

We wait & wait & wait & wait & wait. While we were waiting she took someone else’s order and then went to the bathroom AGAIN. Either she is phobically clean or something is going on. Another server brought our food – minus my husband’s sausages and pancakes. We call her over again and she notices the missing flapjacks and goes to the kitchen to get them. She then exits the kitchen with his piping hot stack AND TAKES THEM TO ANOTHER TABLE. (Oh, did I tell you we were sitting right next to the kitchen entrance/exit as well as the bathroom? So very appetizing!) Now, she was going to the kitchen to get our table missing pancakes only moments before and upon her exit with those pancakes had to walk right behind my husband to take these pancakes to a different table. She looks positively shocked when they tell her that were not theirs! They inform her they are OURS - and point to us - and she finally brings them back to us. We informed her of the still missing sausages, so she went back to the kitchen, came out – with no sausage – and went – you guessed it – to the bathroom.

Finally the manager comes to our table and asks how things are. I tell him we are missing sausages! Our server overhears and yells from several tables away, “I TOLD THEM TWICE IN THE KITCHEN! IT ISN’T MY FAULT!” I am now back to WTF land.

We receive sausages pronto.

Our server then starts to talk to another server and goes BACK TO THE BATHROOM! I just can’t even make this stuff up.

This time however, when she came out, she has something clenched in her fist. She walked up to the other server and in sleight of hand tried to hand it to her without anyone seeing. BUT I SAW. It wasn’t creamer, it wasn’t Sweet N Low, it was a small plastic baggy. The kind of baggies I only know about because my husband watches so many cop shows! The kind of baggies drug dealers and drug users claim are not theirs when the cops find them in their pocket. As I watch, the other server surreptitiously took the item and clenched it in her hand as well and then sneekily (is that a word?) clasped her palm as she walked through the dining room. When she walked into the kitchen area – she slipped it in her pocket. Drug deal. I witnessed a drug deal – AT BREAKFAST – IN A RESTAURANT!

After our server dropped some silverware on the floor and still put it back in the basket of clean ones, talked over us to another server about how to cheat and get a break sooner and then talked to yet another one about what she was going to eat on break WHILE she was handing us the bill – it was time to get the hell out of there. Never to return.

I probably should have said something to the manager – but he was MIA.

Experiences like this are why I prefer to eat at home.