I'm ready for a weekend at Bernies

I was pretty cool in high school. If you don't believe that, just ask me. I'll tell you.

I wasn't very cool in college, I took it way too seriously which is a mistake I hope my children don't make.

I was cool again in my 20's.

I was both uncool and then too-cool in my 30's.

I forgot about it in my 40's, that is, until recently.

Recently I've begun to look and feel middle-aged. I cannot express how much this sucks. For some reason I thought I was immune to it, mostly because I want to be immune to it, and because I hang out with some beautiful people, barely hanging on to their youth by their fingernails.

Anyway, last weekend, I learned that no matter what, cool cannot be re-accessed from middle age, at least not the middle age I'm sitting in, the one that is completely dictated by being a Mom. Everything I do is doormat-related and done for other people because this is my phase in life. I think that people in their 50's or 60's get cool back, once the kids are gone and they can take up more selfish interests.
I'm not there and if you're reading this, you're probably not, either, with the exception of my parents because I make them read everything I write.

They're cool.

Anyway, last weekend, I slammed into the Wall of Middle Age at sound-barrier-breaking speed.
Saturday afternoon, I took Hannah (age 10) and three friends to Skate Inn. I was prepared to sit there for a couple of hours, catch up on Words with Friends (a middle-age person's game) and watch the girls skate.

After watching them for a while, I noticed several parents out there and me, always the no-nonsense, structured parent... who never has any fun, content with making fun happen for everyone else and taking joy from that... Me... (ahem) I, thought I'd do something CRAZY... and skate. Have some fun. Live a little. Surprise my child with my carefree attitude (she's never seen this, mostly because it doesn't exist) and my finesse at roller skating.

Finesse, I say... major skill.

Boy oh boy oh boy did I skate many a mile at the Starlite Skating Center in Clanton. I was good. Really, really good. So good, in fact, that I had the fancy tennis-shoe style skates courtesy of Santa Claus and the 1982 Sears Wishbook.

Yessir... this skating experience will open me up to all kinds of fun stuff in the future. I've had an attitude adjustment. A little shift in thinking will enable a major shift in quality of life... but like every other great idea I usually have...

this was not to be.

Not the case.

It backfired.

On a large scale. (Of course... I'm no small-timer at failure.)

Or at falling.

Which is what I discovered was happening as soon as I stepped into that rink... and when I say "into" I mean "into." There's about a four inch step into the rink, which I handled quite gracelessly in front of a man sitting with a baby. When I stepped down to enter that rink like a former roller girl that I thought I was, my right foot when sailing while my back one made my body do some kind of side flip. I grabbed the step in front of the man with the baby with both hands and laid there, mangled looking for a second, doing a mental body check of potential broken bones and since I didn't have any, well, why not try it again?

It was that step that screwed me up. I haven't skated since 1986 and the problem was the step. I will eliminate that step this time by sitting on it with both feet on the floor, push myself up and then skate like a boss.

That is not what happened, like, at all.

What happened was I pushed myself up and like you see in movies, my torso went first while my arms did the windmill. Then the arms went out front (mummy-style) in an attempt to correct the torso and this action made me fall flat on my ass, with my hands breaking my fall and my fall (nearly)breaking my hands.

If physical pain trumps the humiliation of such an action, then you might be severely injured. The first order of business was getting myself off that floor, which from my perspective seemed to be a large task given the fact that standing was not an option, so, I basically crawled over to the side, pulled myself up to the bench and removed the skates.

My carefree skating experience ended up being not just painful, but record-setting as the shortest skating session in history. And to add insult to injury, it cost money to do this.

So, I had two more hours to sit there, in agony, and reflect upon my experience. My phone didn't work in there, so I couldn't even play my old-peoples' game.

Anyway, ice and ibuprofen work miracles, nothing was broken, most of the pain was in my hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders, and neck since I'd used my arms to cushion the fall, thus protecting my spine, which I guess is some kind of innate automatic process that you're body does without thought. (Which is pretty cool if you think about it.)

Anyway, the following day was dreary, I was pretty sore, and in an attempt to feel better, I went to Old Navy. I got some shorts, a shirt, and a pair of sunglasses that, I was happy to see, looked just like the Vuarnet's I had in college. So awesome. The style was nearly identical.

So cool.

Anyway, I forgot I bought them until later that night, so in my excitement I went to the bag, pulled them out and put them on.

Hannah died laughing.

"What? What's wrong with them? They look so good!" I said.

"MOM! They're AWFUL! Scott, come here.... LOOK AT MOM'S GLASSES!"

Scott walked over to observe my Vuarnet-style specs and said "Hannah, they're not awful. They're perfect for Mom's weekend at Bernie's."

"WEEEKEND AT BERNIE'S, THAT'S HILARIOUS!"

"Yeah, and she's going with the Fresh Prince of Bel Air as his date."

"I don't get what's wrong with them." I said to the room-at-large.

"Mommy, did you look at them in the mirror? Did you?" They're HIDEOUS!"

She's now pulling me by the hand to the closest mirror because I'm still wearing them. My hand is very sore from the fall and hurts as I'm being pulled. This entire experience is an exercise in complete humiliation and I knew I was firmly planted in middle age when I looked in that mirror
and thought I looked so hot.

My children went on and on discussing my plans at Bernie's with The Fresh Prince and all the "cool" things we were gonna do.

Know what? They don't know everything. I'm cooler than they think I am and that's fine because kids don't want "cool" parents. They want the structured, firm, stick-in-the-mud that I am.

Now I have to go because my yellow princess phone is ringing and I think it might be the Fresh Prince.

We're going away for the weekend...

Should've ordered the chicken fingers... a lesson in being too demanding.

Last week, I told you that it was the 20th anniversary of our first date. I told you about our first date. Last weekend we decided to go out of town to get away and celebrate it.

In last week's post, I told you how critical he was 20 years ago when I ordered chicken fingers for dinner and he ordered something more grown up... blackened tuna... (I was a kid, okay? geez...)
He was all smug about it.

Anyway, for the anniversary dinner we went to our fancy hotel restaurant and as per usual, Frank did his thing with the menu. He ordered a grilled grouper entree that sits atop some kind of potato cake. He asked many questions, attempted substitutions, etc., but this dish was one dish. Not the kind of place where you have choices... he did, however, mess a bit with the salad, getting one kind of dressing then blue cheese, both on the side. He asked what dressings were homemade... I was surprised that none of them were (but does it really matter?) I almost laughed out loud when the waiter said their blue cheese was made, possibly, in Hidden Valley.

All I ordered was French onion soup because we'd had a late lunch. (Both lunch and soup were outstanding...)

So we ate and we drank and we had a fine time and around 3am he wasn't feeling so great. By 5am he'd be in the fetal position for the next eight hours.

Essentially it was a horrible vacation because something in his fancy entree made him very, very sick. The thought has occurred to me now, and in the past, that there could be a teeny-tiny addition of a wait-person's spit mixed in, because if you ask somebody to name every beer, both import and domestic, and you order a Bud Light, might you just be messing about with people? Might you just need to get over yourself?

Is it at this point that it becomes glaringly obvious that you've never waited tables or worked in any capacity in the food service industry? (I have and I believe it makes you a better, kinder and more patient person.)

So anyway, we suffered through it all day long Saturday, Sunday came around we packed up and left. Up to this point, Frank hadn't eaten anything since Friday night, but with a late checkout, we really needed to get back home to our kids. I was watching the time, Frank was not.

There was a Chili's very conveniently located right next to the I-4 exit we needed to get on.
"Let's eat there." I said.

"HELL, no. You can eat there and I'll take the other half of your lunch from yesterday and eat that at the table with you." I'd had half a Panini. The other half was in our room fridge. He brought it with us.

I don't know what his problem with Chili's is other than the fact that we live near one and eat there about once every two months. This is puzzling to me given the fact that during the five work days of the week, he and his buddies eat at five different restaurants, the same five, each and every week, for the last ten years.

And he always gets the same thing at each one.

But oh, heavens no.... No Chili's, I mean, we ate there with the kids back in December.

The road we're on goes under I-4. I know there's another big resort that direction so I suggest we drive just a bit and see if there's something else (there wasn't).

So we drove and drove, got on another highway where we saw a road sign for restaurants off the next exit and one of them was Outback.

Frank, hater of chain restaurants, sure does love Outback, a source of much disharmony because I'm not wild about it. I've never understood why it's ALWAYS so damn crowded. I'm usually not prepared to wait 70 minutes for a table but our argument usually goes something like this:

"Hell, no, I'm not eating at 9:00. It's too late. We have, like, 25 other choices within a two mile radius. Not doing it."

"It won't take us that long, we'll find something at the bar."

Frank likes to loiter at the bar, watching peoples' plates, hovering over their tables, sliding in when they slide out even though the food's still there.

It's a sport and the acquisition of a table makes him feel victorious. Gives him a one-up on all the poor sods sitting outside on the benches.

I won't do it.

So we fight.

I like a sure thing, I like it timely, and I like it to be clean.

But anyway, he likes Outback, it is now TWO O'CLOCK in the afternoon, we're STILL in Orlando, but he's been SICK. So I'll agree to this Outback, how crowded can it be at two in the afternoon?

So we get off the exit, looking for the Outback.

We don't see it.

But we DO see Texas Roadhouse, Olive Garden, Bonefish, Joe's Crab Shack, two or three giant local restaurants, Red Lobster, Applebees, Carrabbas, plus a dozen more I can't remember and a Burger King.

No, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO, NO!

We rode and we rode and we rode and Siri FINALLY located OUTBACK off the road in the back of a damn strip mall.

God threw me a bone, it wasn't crowded, therefore no hovering, which he'd make me do by playing the sick card.

We're seated and five minutes later a young man approaches our table and tells us his name is Mark and he's our waiter-in-training but today's his last day of training and tomorrow he'll kinda "graduate" into a regular waiter.

If today's Mark's last day of training, Frank will be his final exam. When he said he was in training and soon graduating, I audibly sucked in my breath at the torture he was about to endure. I knew for a fact that this kid had not yet met the likes of Frank.

It starts with the drink.

"I'll have half and half tea." I say.

"I'll have half and half tea, too, but with extra, extra lemons." (By extra, extra, he means, like, a bowl of lemon wedges.)

We are seated next to a large table of four couples who appear to be in their late 70's to early 80's and I wonder just what is the SECRET to that kind of longevity both in life and in marriage. I almost ask them, but think better of it. Maybe they're all swingers. Maybe half of them are deaf. I don't know the secret, they probably would think I was daft by asking, but not if they heard Frank order.

If they heard Frank order, eight octogenarians would be asking me what the secret is.

A few minutes later, Mark, the near graduate of Outback's Waiter Training course, comes back with the drinks and half a lemon tree he's cut up in the kitchen.

He proceeds to take our order.

"I want the blah, blah, blah, lunch special, medium well, fries and a salad with ranch." I told the waiter.

“Do you want that wood fire grilled or classic seasoning?”

“Whichever one doesn’t have all the salt.”

Okay then, and he reads it back, got it right, plus wood fire grilled. Got it. Now it’s Frank’s turn.

“Do you have the sirloin special with the two sides, I only see it with one side on here.”

“Yes, sir, that’s on our dinner menu. The lunch menu offers smaller portions, but you can order from the dinner menu if you’d like. It’s right here. He hands Frank the dinner menu.

Frank is now in a quandary. How to get the dinner entrée at the lunch price? How? How?

“Okay, well, I’d like the sirloin…”

“And how would you like that cooked?”

“Hmmm…. Let’s see… Medium, but pink.”

Oh my stars. This man is 55 years old. Hannah could order steak better than this.

“Medium rare? Medium well?” Inquires Mark.

“Medium, you know, pink.”

“Frank, you want medium well. You ALWAYS get medium well.” I add, trying to be helpful.

“I WANT medium, just medium.” He says, to the waiter and to me, just a little too loudly.

“Okay…. We’ll make that medium….” Decides Mark. “And what would you like your side to be?”

“Well, I want both a potato and a salad, but I want the salad to be my side and the potato to be additional.” Frank is very, very specific about this and this is because potato on the side costs less than salad on the side.

I cringe at all the choices about to be laid out for him. People, it’s gonna be a while.

“Do you want your steak wood fire grilled or traditional seasonings?”

“I want it wood fire grilled and ask the chef to add the traditional seasonings.”

“Sir, I don’t think they can do that.”

“Yes, they can, they do it for me at home.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll make a note of that.

I’d have love to have seen what he jotted down. Probably something like “Am I being Punked?” “Is this Candid Camera?”

He jots his note and goes on. I hold my breath.

“And what would you like on your potato?”

Here we go….

“What are the choices?” Frank’s favorite question in a restaurant even though he knows exactly what he wants, he sure does love to hear the choices. For everything.

“Butter, sour cream, chives, bacon bits, cheese….”

(I’ll have the butter and sour cream, but on the side.)

“I’ll have the butter and the sour cream, but on the side.”

And your salad dressing?

“What do you have?”

We have ranch, honey mustard, blue cheese, yada, yada, yada…….

(I’ll have one blue cheese, and extra on the side.)

“I’ll have one blue cheese and extra on the side.”

The waiter brings the salads.

The waiter brings more tea.

The waiter brings the food.

Everything’s perfect. Frank is pleased. He asks for the check. The waiter, Mark, brings it.

“We were strategically placed here by Outback, Incorporated. We were sent here to be the most demanding diners you will ever meet. We were your final exam. You got an A. Congratulations, you have passed. You are now a wait-person graduate.” I say to Mark, the waiter-in-training.

Mark does not know what to say. I don’t offer anything else, just made sure he was properly tipped and that his supervisor was aware of what he’d just been through and how well he’d handled it. I let her know he was DEFINITELY ready for tomorrow…

Frank slept all the way back, has now mysteriously developed a cold… I, however, feel fine.

Maybe we should eat in for a while…

Why Weddings and Marriage Should Not Be Related. Now Seriously.....

If you know a bride, by all means, hide this from her...It's inside information that brides cannot have access to until it's too late.

I'm thinking back to my wedding day.

Yes, I was a beast bride.

Yes, I obsessed over details that would never matter ever, ever, ever either that day or any day that would follow.

Yes, I was drunk when I walked down the aisle.

I wasn’t drunk because of my selection of groom. Actually, I wasn't drunk at all, but I was happily tipsy from a glass (or a bottle...) of champagne. I was drunk (tipsy) because I suffer from stage fright (if you read me regularly, you know that I am intensely shy in person) and what I’d created wasn’t the pairing of two hearts, two souls, two partners for life, but a show,a very large show, and I was the star. I had become my own worst enemy.

Just one more victim of BRIDE’S magazine.

Does anyone else see the irony between weddings and marriage? Is it just me?

My younger sister, Lacye had an enormous outside wedding that involved 10 angels in ages varying from three to twelve. It was so sweet that nearly everyone in attendance walked awaywith diabetes. I’d been through the hardcore boot camp of baby having (I had a baby present at her wedding) and child rearing and the ravages they inflict upon your marriage and as I watched her take her vows and watched those angels, some of which, during the ceremony, were playing in dirt, one might have been in a tree (complete with theater wings she’d ordered online…) I couldn’t help but think…

“I’m glad the angels are here, you’re gonna need them, perhaps you should’ve invited God and Jesus and all the saints as well, I did and I don’t think they came. I needed reinforcements when this second baby came along…”

But they came, clearly, I’m still happily married and have two beautiful children, that’s my karma deflector for this blog post and the kind of crap you don’t want to read…Anyway….back to the blog.

Weddings are precious, aren’t they? A precursor to a lifetime of love, happiness, babies, children, school plays….sporting events….

Learning how to live with another person who comes into the marriage with all his own expectations, wants, needs, (complete and utter stupidity…) crazy sporting requirements, weird low fat eating habits, insanely thrifty spending habits, his friends….

Then you have a baby and you never knew how much you could love somebody (the baby) orhate somebody (the baby-daddy, you remember the guy who once was a groom…)because the down and dirty negotiations for diaper-changing, night time feedings, time away from the baby…and a husband who operates under the delusion “You’re the girl, it’s yours, isn’t it, I mean, I can’t have one…I‘m really not sure what to do with it.” and then you secretly suspect that you married somebody who is fit, cheap, crazy and retarded, I mean, I didn’t get the baby by myself…I’m pretty sure it came in a pretty package from a stork that said “Mrand Mrs. Flynn.”

I’m sorry, did a wedding, with the bridesmaids, the beautiful dresses, guys in black tuxedos, flower girl, (angels for the intensely deranged….) flowers, champagne (for celebrating!) hours and hours, months and months of planning….tossing and turning at night over such monumental decisions as “yellow’s my favorite color, but I just loved those pink bridesmaids dresses, even though so and so hates pink and says they should be black because black’s edgy and different but if I go with pink bridesmaid’s dresses, then maybe more yellow in the flowers, but if I go with black then I can have yellow and pink flowers, but probably just white, but how would the pink dresses or the yellow dresses look with a red runner down the aisle, the black dresses would look better with the red runner and definitely white flowers, is there a color option on the runner? DOES THE CHURCH HAVE CARPET OR HARD WOOD? IF THE CHURCH HAS CARPET, WHAT COLOR IS IT? WILL IT MATCH THE DRESSES? THE RUNNER?…..”

Honey, although these are all very important matters, are ya thinking about that groom?I know he’s handsome but does he have a job? How does he feel about his mother? What are your expectations? Do you know his? How do you feel about his parents? His friends? Hisdog? Because guess what? You’re marrying THEM, TOO, yes you are, you really, really are!

Did a wedding with all it’s beauty, all it’s celebration….how, please tell me how, a wedding is a precursor to:

Did you pay the electric bill?
Have you gained a little weight?
I better hide that Talbot’s receipt before Frank gets home.
Can I ride my motorcycle tomorrow?
Do you think I’ve gained a little weight?
When are you going back to work? Don’t all babies go to daycare?
Do you think the trash will touch the ceiling or spread all over the kitchen first?
I had a little accident on the motorcycle, I might have sprained my ankle…
Did you roll the trash to the curb?

I love a good wedding…

So does the florist, the caterer, the bakery, the bridal shop, the tux shop and the divorce attorney.

And since we got married, other new and fun traditions have sprung up like : a gift at every table, a gift for every guest, a miniature cake for every guest, manicures and pedicures for each woman (or angel) in the bridal party….

How much money can we spend? What is now the average cost of a wedding? My parents threw five weddings for three daughters. They've celebrated their asses off! Why don’t we ask them how they feel about weddings? Do you think they're fans? Of weddings?

So now, as we approach our 15th anniversary…I think back to weddings we’ve attended, weddings we've read about, heard about…weddings, weddings, weddings…

Marriage.

Everything we’ve been through. Everything we’ve put each other through. Everything still out there to go through… Mostly good, some bad.

We’re still married, so far we've beaten the odds. I used to think it was because we're smart. Then I became smart enough to know it was because we’re lucky. Now I know it’s because we’re both smart, lucky and most, most, MOST importantly,

we pretty much just think each other's hilarious. The other day, he put on three pairs of sunglasses (two black, one white…stacked...) and, taking one pair off at a time he said

“Now, seriously."
"Now, seriously."
"Now, seriously….”

Just laugh and don’t take it too seriously….

And a little wine helps…

Thank you to all my readers, I got to my goal of 500 today and am thrilled!!! My friend Jonathan has promised me a bottle of Dom if I get to 1000....ha. ha. HA!!! Halfway there!

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We had no idea...no idea.

"I might have sprained my ankle." What he did was crush both heels and break one leg, end up in a wheelchair for six months, crutches for a year and we've just had one more surgery in January from a motorcycle he was not supposed to be riding.

Life's a little messy.

The day before Hannah was born, 10 lbs,6 oz, two weeks early after two rounds of IVF.

Frank and me in Orlando, 7/2009

Geriatric Parenting: Overprotecting the Fun Out Of Childhood Can Make You Tired

Today I went out and about sporting my usual look: rumpled up, slept on hairdo, baggy pants, decent shirt, flip flops, no makeup.

Who is the last person that you want to see when you look your very worst?

Your ex-boyfriend, right?

Who’s second?

Your ex-boyfriend’s wife.

But, third is your ex-boyfriend’s best friend. I saw this person from a distance and knew a close encounter was inevitable. I looked in my vanity mirror and wished I’d put on a teeny bit of makeup, so I rifled through my purse and came up with lipstick and found a baseball cap underneath the seat to cover up my lovely do.

I still looked like hell.

I was telling Lacye about this on the phone when I got home.

“That’s nothing’” she says… “I had to go to the office the other day, (her husband’s office,) just had to run in for a second….at the very last minute I put on a bra, which was lucky.“

“And I know that bra was all worn out, damn Target bra I‘ll bet.” Lacye has never, ever taken support seriously.

“Worn out yes, but not Target, it was Wal-Mart, anyway,…I had the same ‘went to bed wet’ hair you had, but I couldn’t find my flip flops anywhere. I was desperate, I had both of the girls loaded in the van.”

“What’d you do?”

“The only thing I could. I ran back in and put on my fuzzy slippers.”

“No. You. Did. NOT!”

“Oh yes I did and I was wearing them when I noticed my flip flops were on the floor of the van, so I put those on, instead. I was gonna wear them, I didn’t care who saw it, I’m just at that point, you know, like that girl I saw in Wal Mart that time…”

“What girl?”

“You know, I told you about her, had the fuzzy slippers and pajamas on with two kids hanging on the buggy?”

“I don’t recall it.”

“Oh, please, she did not have on the kind of pajamas that maybe, possibly, could kinda pass for real clothes….Girlfriend had on pajamas, fuzzy slippers and an expression that dared you to judge her.”

“Unreal.”

“Paige, it’s us against them…” She doesn’t elaborate on who “them” is…Husband? Kids? Ex’s? The whole establishment?

“Yeah.”

“Survival of the fittest when you’ve got little ones like this.”

“I know, I know….”

But, really, I think maybe we’re just old….Yesterday, I went to kindergarten lunch with Hannah:

I’m sitting with Hannah and her best friend, Sarah. We proceeded to eat.

“My Mom is 29 years old.” Sarah starts our conversation this way. “But my Dad’s really old, he’s 33.” I think she’s trying to make conversation with me and using her observation of my advanced age, she’s trying to relate to me using her (old-ass 33 year old) father.

“That’s nice….” I say to her, then under my breath I say “Babies…..” ("Babies" came out with a slight air of contempt...)

“What?”

“I said ‘babies.’”

“They’re not babies!”

“It’s kindof a joke, I know you think they’re old, but they’re not. That’s what I meant. They’re young.”

“Oh. … Well, how old are you, Mrs. Flynn?”

“Much older than your parents.”

“Yeah, my Mom’s real old…” Hannah adds.

“How old?”

“I’m 42.” They both look at me wide-eyed. This is an inconceivable number for them, although they’ve previously told me they can each count to 200, which is a good thing, considering I’llsoon be about 200 years old. They’ve been studying dinosaurs and Hannah asked me the other night if I’ve ever seen one, you know “when I was little.”

“How old is your husband?”

“Ancient. He’s 51.” And with this information they both start laughing. They’ve each got their little hands cupped around their mouths and they’re hovering together, laughing conspirationally at the geriatric-ness of my husband and me. It isn't funny....to me.

“Well, since my Mom’s 29, she’s going to be 30 on her next birthday. She was 23 when she had me.” Sarah’s all about numbers…so I figure I’ll shock her with some math of my own.

“I was 36 when I had Hannah and 29, like your Mom is now, when I had her brother, and he’s 13 years old.” Again, Sarah is wide eyed, she’s doing her mental calculations with the numbers I’ve just given her. No matter how you add it, subtract it, multiply it or divide it, the following numbers are old to Sarah: 42, 51, 29 and, yes, even 13... She wouldn’t be shocked at all if I said “yeah, we live over there in the nursing home, with all the other old people.”

And to think we considered having one more. Let’s do the math on that one, shall we? If I got pregnant in the next three months, I’d give birth at 43 and Frank would be 52. When that child is in kindergarten, I’d be almost 50 and Frank would be almost 60. I would be having this exact same conversation and the numbers would compare like this: Sarah’s mother, 29, me, 50. Sarah’s father 33, Frank, 60. Our kid’s sister Hannah, 13, Brother Scott, 21, who’s only two years younger than Sarah’s mother was when she had her.

Ugh.

Hell, no wonder Lacye and I are tired and she’s wearing fuzzy slippers in public. We are too old to be in the baby business. It’s just not natural. Nature dictates that these children could be our grandchildren.

“You know the only reason that girl was wearing fuzzy slippers is because Wal Mart won’t let you in barefooted….” I say to Lacye, getting back to our conversation about being worn out.

“Winn Dixie Feet.” She says, laughing…When she and I were kids, Mom would drag us to Winn Dixie and during the summers we’d be barefooted. When we got back into the car, our feet would be black on the bottom. My friend Dustin, calls it Circle K feet, we call it Winn Dixie Feet.

I absolutely cannot imagine one of my kids having Winn Dixie Feet…as my kids always have the proper shoes, Scott because he’s growing and he pronates (has no arch) and Hannah because she’s growing and has to have the proper support…lest they do not grow correctly and suffer a lifetime of tiny, humiliating feet with debilitating pain, which of course would be

Completely my fault…..

Yesterday I saw three teenage boys on skateboards wearing only swimsuits. No helmets, no kneepads, no shirts, no shoes, just swim trunks and a smile, the way nature intended. No doubt they were also sporting Winn Dixie feet.

I loved it. It reminded me of my own Tom Sawyer type Alabama childhood where kids lived fun, if not totally dangerous lives, picking blackberries in snake-infested fields and climbing tall trees, making mud pies from bacteria laden Alabama clay (hell, we probably ate them...) unlike today’s kids who are over-analyzed, over-protected, over-educated, over-antibacterial-ed, over sunscreened, over-afraid and over-everything elsed by their over-aged parents. If we old parents get a free minute, we have to figure out a new way to protect or promote our kids…

Hell, no wonder we’re tired.

Where’s my damn slippers?

In my next post I'll be writing about my childhood pet velociraptor named "Little Bit." If you'd like to hear about our adventures, please go to the following link and click "Like." You can find my facebook link on the home page.

In Praise of Veruca Salt.....And Her Love For Justin Bieber

Yesterday we hit a milestone.

It’s called “independent play.” Hannah is about to finish kindergarten and for the first time in her life, she went to her bedroom, turned Justin Bieber on her ipod player and proceeded to dance in front of a mirror.

Alone. A-l-o-n-e.

For the first time in nearly six years, I did the unthinkable. I sat down, with a cup of coffee and switched on Oprah.

May 11, 2010, I got Oprah with coffee. The storm that has been Hannah’s baby/toddler/preschool years has officially ended.

Scott was on my laptop facebooking, Hannah was in her room dancing, I nearly felt guilty for the indulgence.

“Look at this.” I said to Scott, as I settled into the recliner.

“Where’s Hannah?”

“In her room….dancing! Hear that? It’s Justin Bieber…(coming from the hall, you could hear Baby, baby, baayybee….) I haven’t seen Oprah in more than five years!”

“Good for you, Mom, you deserve it…”

Commercials go off and I hear Oprah’s voice come on, you know the dramatic voice with the trailer for today’s show…I don’t remember the exact words, let’s just say it went something like this…

“On today’s show…..he’s the biggest….(cameras show throngs of screaming girls) he’s themost talented…..(cameras show more throngs of screaming girls…in Austrailia…) he’s quite possibly the most popular teenager on the entire planet….(a third throng of screaming girls…in Paris…)

He’s JUSTIN BIEBER.

Oh for cryin’ out loud.

The frickin universe is working against me and I know this for sure. Where’s Dr. Oz and his gross dead organs? Where’s Tom Cruise jumping on a chair? Hell, I’d settle for SUZE ORMAN and her financial advice I'll never follow...

The scene switches from throngs of girls screaming, to girls being loaded into an ambulance because they’ve been trampled on at his concerts, then it shows him singing on stage.

I can hear him from down the hall.
I can hear him and see him on TV.
I turn to look at Scott.

“Don’t do it.” He says….”Just change the channel.”

“I can’t. It’s damn Justin Bieber. I’d change it if it were the Jo Bros, but I can’t change Justin Bieber.”

“Come on, Mom, it was your first TV in almost six years. Justin Bieber sounds like a girl. Watch something else.”

“I can’t.” And with leaden footsteps I go down the hall, open her door, where she’s crooning a Justin Bieber song at her reflection in the mirror, holding a giant pink microphone. She stops what she’s doing and looks at me. “You’ve got to come see what’s on TV.”

“Why?”

“It’s Justin Bieber. He’s on Oprah today.”

She runs past me and jumps into my recliner. I grab my coffee and settle into another seat. She is mesmerized by everything she’s seeing, the girls, him on stage, him talking….I’m pretty sure she might be holding her breath. She won’t even blink.

He is talking. Justin Bieber talks. He has words. To say. He’s saying his words. To Hannah. Only.

“I love my fans, yeah, my fans, they’re the best….” “Yeah, I get in trouble sometimes, on tour, my Mom takes my phone away, things like that…” “I like to take one day off a week and be a regular kid….” “No, I don’t get an allowance, I just tell my Mom what I want…” “No, I don’t get nervous going on stage…”

Then Oprah goes on to talk about how she’s selected a family of three girls to go on a limousine ride with Justin Bieber for a day, they get to watch him rehearse, then front row seats for his Oprah concert.

Hannah is not happy about this.

They show Justin Bieber in the back of the limousine with the three girls who are now Hannah’s mortal enemies. Her nemesises (or is it nemesi?)

“I want that.” She turns and says to me with a tone and demeanor made famous by the legendary Veruca Salt.

“What?”

“I want to ride in a limousine with Justin Bieber.”

“Well honey, it’s not that simple.”

“Yes it is. Those girls are doing it.” Her tone, like Veruca’s, is very flat. She very, very direct.

“Yes, those girls are doing it, but they’ve won a contest.”

“I want to win a contest.”

“Hannah, thousands and thousands of girls entered that contest. It helped that their father is deployed in Iraq. He’s a soldier.” As soon as I’ve said this, I can already picture Frank in an army uniform and us tearfully saying goodbye to him for a year or so, so he can risk life and limb by serving our country, so Hannah could have a decent shot at winning a limousine ride with Justin Bieber.

She’d be on Oprah with Justin Bieber, in a limo, then the camera would switch to show a live shot of Frank in Iraq and Hannah would say something sweet like “Oh, hey, Daddy, can you call back later, I’m in a limousine with Justin Bieber. Just talk to Mamma or Scott or Oprah or somebody. Bye.”

“I don’t care who enters it. I want to enter it and I want to ride in a limousine with Justin Bieber, just like them.”

I say nothing because it is pointless. She continues:

“Enter me in a contest NOW!”

Um, okay, I’ll enter you in a contest…here it is:

The Veruca Salt contest. You’ve met every single one of the entry requirements. You are the only contestant. Surprise, you’ve won. You’re Veruca. You are Veruca Salt.

“I’m gonna marry Justin Bieber, I don’t care about Jake (little kindergarten boyfriend) any more.

“Aren’t you gonna date him first?”

“No. I’m just going to marry him. Like you married Daddy.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t you think I can marry him?” Actually, if anybody can, she can….at some pointsomebody will, I just hope for Justin Bieber’s sake, it isn’t Hannah. But it could be….you know karma’s a bitch and he’s had a pretty sweet ride so far. Hannah may be just what he needs…

“Sure, I suppose….”

“How do I get him?”

And now I’m visualizing me with Willie Wonka. “Okay, Mr. Wonka, how much for the little rocker boy?”

“Justin Bieber’s not for sale, Mrs. Flynn.”

“I WANT JUSTIN BIEBER AND I WANT HIM NOW.” My little Veruca would say, looking directly at me, not Wonka.

“Okay, Mr. Wonka, seriously, how much for the young celebrity. My Veruca wants him. We‘d like to take him home….I‘ll write you a check...”

And during that show, Hannah grew up just a little bit. She was able to see what “thousands” of girls look like in a group. It began to click that sometimes life isn’t fair, some girls get to ride in limousines with Justin Bieber, but most girls don’t.

Most girls want to marry Justin Bieber.

But only one girl will….

And mine’s got a better shot at it than most of them and that’s because my daughter thinks she can. My Veruca doesn't see why not... I like the way she thinks.

Go get him, Veruca…..

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Ain't you that Dummy Girl?

“Ain’t you that dummy girl?”

“Excuse me?”

“The dummy girl, you know, got a dummy in 'ur car.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess that’s me…”

“We just call you ‘dummy girl’ because of ya dummy, not ‘cause we think 'ur dumb or nothin'.”

“That’s great…” Now shoo...go away....

“Where‘s he at?”

“Who?”

“Yo’ dummy?”

“Oh, he’s in the trunk.”

“Why you keep him in the trunk?”

“Well, because when I’m here, I don’t need him sitting in the front with me.” I'm sure this guy is wondering what I need him in the front seat for in the first place....maybe when I'm "there" wherever "there" is, I'm in the back seat with him...

“Oh. Can I see him?” He doesn't care about "here" or "there" or front seat or back seat. He just wants to see him.

“Sure.” And I open the trunk, revealing my dummy, he’s lying face up. His expression doesn’t change when he sees me and this redneck.

“Yep, that’s him! ‘Howdy, there, Dummy!’” (And if The Dummy could think or talk he’d say “Howdy, yourself, Dummy!”)

“I’ve gotta get to work…”

“Yeah, me, too, thanks for showin’ me.”

“You’re welcome….” I get my dummy out and put him in the front seat, even though I just told my new friend that I didn't 'need him, um, now that I'm here.'

“Hey er’body, I just seen that dummy, she keeps him in ‘er trunk!” He says to his fellow workers as he’s walking up to their truck. They all stare at me as they pull away, the way you'd stare at a freakshow at the State Fair.

~~~~~

I had so much fun in 1990 with yesterday’s blog post, that I thought I’d stay in that year for another day.

Safety Man.

This is the dummy’s name.

I told you yesterday about my long work commute and that my mother made me get a “bag phone” for safety. I had a 90 mile commute, one way, mostly rural and this made my mother worry because I was on isolated roads a lot by myself. I was 23 years old and in the car alone and my mother was losing sleep over this.

She felt I needed protection.

~~~~~

Mom’s a great gift-giver. She’s the kind of person who puts lots of thought into a gift and spares no expense or effort in obtaining the gift. We look forward to birthdays and Christmas unlike any people I know.

In my 42 years, my mother has had only two gifting epic fails.

The first one was when I was about seven years old. Lacye and I were obsessed with horses and we rode our stick horses every day in the yard. My mother decided to make us something more realistic that year. She worked tirelessly on these things every night for over a month before Christmas. We knew she was up to something, we couldn’t wait to see what it was…

What is was, was a horse, whose bones were a laundry basket with a hole cut into it. This is where our bodies were to go. She covered the laundry basket with cheetah print fabric,then made a head, complete with yarn-mane, a bridle with reins and of course, a tail made of long, black yarn…two of them, exactly alike.

We went from a stick horse with a plastic head to what can only be described as a large….

Contraption…

You could not throw this thing on the ground if you spotted a frog you wanted to catch. It could not double as a weapon if your sister pissed you off. This thing was a commitment…

This horse was could not “run like the wind” in. It was not aerodynamic like our stick horses were. It bounced when we galloped. A bouncing, cheetah-covered laundry basket and a head, with reins, lest we needed to make it slow down…

It was like Ralphie in the Bunny Suit. It was that bad.

This was Mom’s first epic fail gift. She didn’t do it again until 1990, for my 23rd birthday, when she gave me Safety Man.

She and Dad were so excited, although I could tell Dad was walking the fine line of how much Mom loved it and how much he knew I’d think it’d suck, either way it was entertainment. Dad has been entertained by having a wife and three daughters for years and years, it's either laugh or go crazy.

Safety Man, being huge, came in a huge box. I think she obtained Safety Man from The Sharper Image. She wrapped this box as nicely as the could with yards and yards of wrapping paper and presented it to me.

I was giddy with excitement. I tore into it, first paper, then the box, opened it up and saw….

A person.

Imagine my surprise at obtaining a person for my birthday.

I pulled the person out of the box and noticed he was only half a person. He stopped below the waist, right at the hips.

He was handsome
He had good hair
He didn’t talk
He listened to everything I said
He had nothing below the waist

My parents had given me a half-man for my 23rd birthday.

“What is this?” Was all I could say.

“This is Safety Man, he rides in your car, to make people think you have somebody with you…”

“Oh.” Oh shit…she’s gonna make me put this thing in my car. Oh shit…My windows aren’t even tinted…

“Do you like him?” Mom’s desperately trying to read my expression, she is thrilled with her gift….plus I think she’s kindof making fun of me, at the same time.

“Sure, I guess? Where’s he gonna go with me?”

“Everywhere!”

“Oh…” Oh. Shit. Holy, holy, holy shit…

“He makes people think that you’re not alone in the car! And look what all you can do with him..” She sits him in a chair and positions his arms, one on the table, one on the chair, she jerks his head around to look at me, you know, like he’s my boyfriend or something.

Silence, I say nothing while we are moving his arms around, playing with him when she says “I could buy his bottom half, they sell it….your father and I didn’t think you needed it, though…” Whatever would my parents think I would do with the bottom half of a man? Of course I didn't need it.

“No, Mom, that’s okay, one half of a man who doesn’t talk is fine with me.”

My parents lived in chronic fear that I was a perpetual loser and old maid because I was 23 and not married yet.

They bought me a boyfriend.

Again…

My parents felt so sorry for my single-ness that they actually bought me a boyfriend to ride in the car with me.

So, here’s what I did. I put Safety Man in my front seat for approximately two miles of my commute. He went from my office to the Junior Store on the outside of Eastpoint, where I’d pull over, put him in the trunk and buy myself a Diet Coke and some chips, then, on the way back into Eastpoint, the next morning, I’d pull off at the Junior Store, get myself a coffee and put him back in the front seat.

This transaction was always a little embarrassing to me, so sometimes I’d just put him in the back seat, but not often, because people walking by my car had once thought he was a real person, lying in my back seat, unconscious. After that, I tried covering him in a sheet, but then he just looked like a dead person, in my back seat, whom I was concealing, under a sheet, while I was at the mall or at work. I’d rather look like a lunatic than a killer, therefore, he had to reside in the trunk…

This is where I saw the construction worker who was so interested in getting a closer look at him. You see, I had to parade Safety Man through Eastpoint in case I passed Mom or Dad…

While Mom and Dad were turning me into The Old Maid, Eastpointer’s had deemed meDummy Girl.

After the Dummy Girl Incident, I gave up on the whole charade.

“Mom, all of Eastpoint calls me Dummy Girl because of (you…) Safety Man… This really sucks because I have to go to the Junior and the Post Office…”

“Well, just take him out at the Junior on the way into town, then they won’t see him.”

“Excellent idea…”

Needless to say, Safety Man lived in my trunk for the duration of the ownership of that car…now he lives in my attic. He is dressed in one of my father’s shirts. Frank likes to take him out sometimes at Halloween, sit him on the doorstep, let him ride on the Halloween Hayride…

So now, at the age of 42, I actually appreciate Safety Man…all his wonderful attributes, mostly his silence and lack of lower body. I could eat chips all day long, he wouldn’t care.

I’m going into the attic to bring him down for some fresh air and snap his picture for this post. We might talk for a while, maybe I’ll take him on the school pickup run, tell him about my blog posts, make him listen to the Madonna Glee CD…

For more of Mom's gift-giving advice, and to see what happens in 1991....please go to the following link and click "Like.

The Nasty Sucker Contest: The Best of Sibling Rivalry

I'm going back to work, probably temporarily, but maybe more. My youngest sister, Tiffany has moved the furniture store location and now my father, whom she works with, is about to undergo major back surgery.

Dad's out of commission.

It's a two hour drive for me to work there. One way. I'll probably spend one night with Mom and Dad and work two consecutive days a week for a while.

I'm working for Tiffany. My youngest sister. This is so gonna suck, for more reasons than one.

The first reason is that Tiffany fires everybody. Every single person. Tiffany has no problem with the words "YOU'RE FIRED!" She's The Donald of Eastpoint, so from this point forward, I shall refer to Tiffany as The Biffy, because I've always called her Biffy and it flows better than The Tiffany...Maybe she actually fired Dad....

The second reason is that did I mention she's my little sister? Yeah, I know we're old, but that doesn't matter. The law of birth order is one we must follow, um, forever.

The Biffy has been my nemesis since the spring of 1973. I was five and a half years old when she came to spread her sunshine in our lives. She was fat, round, had jet black hair and blue eyes, all in sharp contrast to mine and Lacye's super-skinny, blonde and green eyes. She didn't match us. I was convinced she was some sort of reject because I couldn't imagine anyone actually wanting her, so of course a band of gypsies, on their caravan through Central Alabama, left her on our doorstep on that fateful spring day. And this would be the story that I fed her for years, with my sidekick Lacye agreeing, saying things like "yeah, gypsies....dirty gypsies....you're just a stupid dirty gypsy..."

The Biffy was cute, all smiley and happy.....

The Biffy was not left by gypsies.

The Biffy was Mom's favorite.

The Biffy was Dad's favorite.

The Biffy was MAMMA T'S favorite.

And this meant war. She could have those other two, but not Mamma T.

Lacye and I inflicted all sorts of horrid torment on The Biffy.

We bounced her to the moon on the trampoline.

We taught her dirty words and didn't tell her they were, um, dirty words.

We married her to a doberman in an elaborate garden ceremony and we made her wear his collar.

We stared at her without blinking once through every family dinner. For over ten years.

We licked lollipops, scrubbed them on the carpet of our mother's car floor and made her eat them. Lacye and I referred to this as The Nasty Sucker Contest because we competed to see who could make the Nastiest Sucker....

We called her "stupid" about 10,000 times over the course of our childhood.

We didn't let her ride shotgun, um....ever. The first time she saw the front seat of a car, she was driving it.

Of course for all the childhood trauma I inflicted upon her, she got me back even better when I hit adolescence.

She told Mom that I went to see Porky's instead of Chariots of Fire. Of course going into Chariots of Fire was social suicide, no self-respecting thirteen year old would've made that choice...My bff Kelli and I were looking all kinds of cool, with all the other cool kids, in line to see Porky's. We'd been anticipating the arrival of this flick for months. Every single one of us told lies to our parents, all of whom thought we were watching Chariots of Fire, playing in the other theater, but no, the cool people were in the Porky's line, including Kelli and me, which Tiffany and her little friend Amy witnessed, (on their way into Chariots of Fire....) and promptly reported this information to Mom. I was grounded for six whole weeks, a punishment that surely didn't fit the crime, especially since none of us actually watched the movie.

At the ripe old age of fifteen, I'd grown into a gangly yet slightly heavy teenager with braces. Tiffany was nine years old and Star Wars was the rage. Tiffany could do the "Yoda Voice" better than Yoda himself. She dressed herself in some sort of toga looking getup when she was en Yoda.

Given my less than stellar looks and the fact that Tiffany sat Indian Style at the foot of our driveway steps and made my boyfriend, who was cute and I wasn't qualified to have, fill out an application to enter our home, all in Yoda Voice and Toga, then she slipped the application into a box (with all the other applications, ummm....not).

I looked out the window and saw him talking to her, I saw the toga. Humiliation does not get much worse than that. He began to fill out the paper on his knee. She submitted the completed form into a slit she'd cut in the top of the box. Yoda en Toga granted him entrance. "You may enter now..."

It's amazing I ever got a second date.

So the next year when I started driving, I'd blast her eardrums out with incredibly awesome 80's music all the way to school.

This was a very long ride for The Biffy until she figured out that she could pin me to the steering wheel with her legs locked against the back of my seat...so....while driving.....pinned against the steering wheel, Loverboy cassette on highest volume, (she likes her tapes on ten...) and I am beating the crap out of her locked legs with my right fist.

Yeah, that's right, driving down the road. When we moved to Florida, we were doing this on bridges.

With habits like that, who needed texting?

So, here I am, about to go to work for Tiffany.

After she gets me down to minimum wage and works me like a mule, how long do you think it'll be until I hear the words...

"YOU'RE FIRED!"

But trust me, that won't be the end of it.....she may win this battle, but I'm still in the war.

I'd love to hear stories of your sibling torment, I know we weren't the only ones....and remarkably, as adults, all three of us get along, with only a slight amount of, ummm....drama.

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