I just spent the past hour cleaning out the crevices in my kitchen cabinets with a steak knife. Not sure why it's important to start that job close to midnight, but suddenly I couldn't let another moment lapse without getting down on my hands and knees and obsessively scrub. My initial intention was to unload and then reload the dishwasher because I always feel bad about myself when I leave a nasty pile of dishes for our nanny/housekeeper. I know she judges me, but leaving a nasty pile of dishes is just so blatant and screams, "JUDGE ME!" As I started to put some cups away I noticed the thick layer of film that was wedged between the cabinet and the decorative frame and I was struck with paralysis in pure disgust. So, I abandoned my efforts at unloading the dishwasher (my LEAST favorite job in the whole world) and starting picking out almost 9 years of dust and grime. Unloading the dishwasher is so loathsome of a task to me that I think cleaning out crevices with a steak knife was infinitely more appealing. Before anyone gets too congratulatory on me, I must confess that I only did 4 cabinets. I think there are probably about 30 more to go.
Every once in a while I have this fantasy that my husband takes my kids away for a whole week so I can completely clean my house like it's never been cleaned before. Of course, I know I'd spend about one afternoon cleaning and the rest of the week surfing the internet or doing puzzles, but it's my fantasy so I can keep on dreaming. For instance, tonight while I was cleaning baseboards I had never before even laid eyes upon, I wistfully imagined myself scrubbing all the baseboards and cleaning grout while Lee communed with the kids at his dad or mom's house. Then I wondered when you sell your house, do you have to do things like clean baseboards? Is that a deal breaker?
I'm not the only one awake at 1 am. Lee is out in the den watching some Richard Gere movie. He could stay up watching movies till 1 am every night. I get too distracted (by things like baseboards and chopping up watermelon and putting it into 8 different plastic containers). He's on his way to bed now. I can hear him mulling around in the kitchen. He's in our bathroom now making me admit that I'm crazy as hell.
"Admit it! You're crazy! That's what is wrong with you! You just spent the past 2 hours cleaning grout or some shit like that! Admit it!"
This is coming from the man who does lock down every night in our house and it takes him about 15 minutes to check all the doors and set the alarm and make sure the oven is turned off. About once or twice a year, something will be askew in his nightly beat and then he has to "check the house for killers". This entails opening every closet, looking under every bed, going into all 3 attic spaces (including the one in the garage that he has dead-bolted because a killer might come in through the garage, go into the garage attic and crawl over to the house and come in and kill us in our sleep). So all I"m saying is I'm not the only one who is crazy in this house.
Actually, speaking of crazy and basically just poor decision making in general, I think Lee gets the gold star today. On my way back from yoga (where I practically passed out from the heat and my lack of hydration) I call Lee to tell him I'm on my way. He tells me that our new neighbor (who is really an old neighbor who moved away and then came back. But that is a story for another day) has a friend who owns a bow shop (as in bow and arrow) and he is going to take the boys to go look at them, but not to worry, because HE wasn't going to buy our 11 year old son a cross bow. If he wanted one, he was going to have to put it on lay away and buy it himself. Seriously. A cross bow for an 11 year old. So he can keep us all safe during the apocalypse? In a really nice, not at all bitchy or judgmental way, I asked him if he really thought it was a good idea, letting our 11 year old get a cross bow? He didn't really seem to appreciate the areas of concern that I had such as safety and not killing his brother or sister or one of the dogs or generally not encouraging scary weapon love. But, because I was so nice and laid out my arguments so rationally, he quickly changed allegiances and agreed with me. When I got home he proudly showed me the text he sent to our neighbor telling him that he had to tell Evan he was too young for a bow. "See, I sent this before I even talked to you on the phone." Even though the text was timed some 10 minutes after we hung up. And I want to send our kids away with this man for a week?
Evan has a one track mind. He's relentless. He won't let this damn bow thing die until he has one in his hands. Every conversation will involve bows and earning money to acquire said bow and taking lessons to learn how to use a bow and do I think it's illegal to practice in your own back yard and look at this web search I just did that has a cost analysis of bows. Other than target practice in the back yard ("I won't practice back there till I'm really good mom."), which I told him I was fairly certain was not legal ("Can people have handgun practice in their backyards?", I asked him), he told me he was going to use it to go hunting. We are not a hunting people. My husband doesn't hunt. I don't hunt. My uncles hunt and so does Lee's dad (if you can actually call it hunting. He just pays a bunch of money to kill birds they let out of a cage), but generally, we aren't a killing shit kind of family. But somehow my oldest has a deep and abiding love of killing defenseless woodland animals.
One last story then I really need to go to bed because it's late people. Another one of Lee's shining moments in parenthood was the time he let Evan buy a Bear Grylls bowie knife. ("He wanted it and he wouldn't shut up about it. I made him use his own money.") About a month ago our middle kid had a friend over. They were hanging out outside in the front yard and I was folding clothes in the garage (it sure sounds like I do a lot of housework, huh? Fooled ya!) and I look out onto the driveway and there is middle kid's friend, sitting cross-legged making a spear with the bowie knife. His mom texts about the same time as I witness the spear making. She asks how the kids are doing. I reply, "Fine as long as you are okay with your son bringing home a finger in a zip-lock baggie with ice. They are busy playing with knives right now, I hope you don't mind." She responds, "You're funny." Then I'm like, "No, I'm serious. It's like Lord of the Flies over here. I just overheard part of their conversation. They are playing Hunger Games and making spears and hurling them at each other like javelins." And then I reassured her that my 11 year old was supervising and her kid's glasses served as protective eye wear. She's a forensic psychiatrist so her answer was, "The overwhelming appeal of Hunger Games to preadolescents proves innate aggression drive in kids! I know it's a nerdy thing to say, but I just love listening to them play!"
See, not everyone can be great parents like us and we have advanced degrees and shit!
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Independence Day
Happy 4th of July everyone. I'm spending my day lying naked in bed. I think it's a decent way to commemorate our country's freedom. I'm exercising my right to go without clothes. It's only the dogs and me (and the hamster) or else I'd probably not be naked.
I'm not exactly sure why I have decided to start posting again and I'm fairly certain that no one will even read this because, other than my husband, no one knows that I've fired up the ole blog. I just read a pretty funny book written by a blogger. I hadn't followed her blog (b/c in all honesty, I'm too busy reading the Drudge Report to devote time to any other internet sites) but parts of the book made me laugh so hard that the whole bed was shaking while Lee was trying to sleep. Even though it wasn't a fabulous piece of literary greatness, I have a deep and abiding respect for the author because she seems to write from the heart about the imperfectness of her life. I love the transparency. It's very validating to the rest of us poor slobs out here.
I used to write because I thought that maybe one day I'd get discovered and I'd be on Oprah. But now that Oprah doesn't have her own talk show anymore and blogs are about as ubiquitous as the air we breathe, it seems fairly unlikely. And, coupled with the fact that I don't think I am going to tell anyone that I am writing, I don't think anyone will stumble upon this b/c how many people are going to do a Google search for "hollerin chefs"? So, I guess it can kind of be my secret online diary that hopefully will never be discovered by my current or future employers. Not that I think my current employer would even care and not that I'm planning on having any future employers b/c I really like my current job. Also, I don't know if I want voyeurs peering into my life, but I do want to write about shit and I don't really consider myself to be an exhibitionist. Oh, and I also used to write when I was going through breast cancer treatment but that was because it was very therapeutic and people wanted to know what was going on and make sure I wasn't dead yet and they hadn't found out (that was before the days of Caring Bridge. I think). Then I just kept writing b/c I got positive reinforcement and I liked it. I guess I stopped because I got too busy and not just reading the Drudge Report (because I didn't actually start reading that till a year ago).
So, here I am again and I've just written 3 whole paragraphs on basically nothing. But,it feels good (I just had THE worst charley horse in my right calf. The pitfalls of lying in bed all day, I guess) and natural. I have a friend, Carie. If we were still 8 years old I'd venture to call her my best friend but I don't think 43 year old women categorize each other like that any more. Anyhow, Carie has always been a big proponent of my writing, which I kind of find ironic (if I am using that term correctly). Carie is probably the smartest woman I know. Like weirdly, Chinese, super genius smart without any chance of EVER being in her same league. I think we became friends in medical school partly b/c I thought it would improve my street cred by hanging out with one of the 3 smartest people in our class. That and a lot of other reasons. Anyhow, compared to her I always felt like, to borrow a Chelsea Handler phrase, a hot mess. But somewhere in the history of our 19 year friendship I realized that she wasn't friends with me just because I made her look smarter (like she ever needed that anyway). One thing I should add about Carie is that even though she is that special brand of Chinese super genius she is also drop dead gorgeous and pretty damn funny. So she was cool in that way that only geeks can appreciate. Anyhow, Carie has always subtly asked me about my writing since I started my breast cancer blog. Not a lot, but just enough to be annoying, kind of like when your faucet drips. Last year, after a trip my daughter and I took to visit her and her family I came home and immediately enrolled in an online creative writing class. I think I took 2 classes and spent about $1400 and exorcised a lot of demons and wasted a lot of time researching creative writing degree programs. But, like most projects I start, that one fell to the side when I got distracted by some other shiny object. Then about a week ago she told me to read this book that a female blogger had written because it was funny and it reminded her of me. After reading the book I'm going to choose that it reminded her of me in a lot of really good, mentally healthy and sane ways and that it was also another jab to start writing. Might not have been her intention, but that's how I choose to interpret the fates.
I wonder how long I'm going to get away with being completely and utterly selfish by lying here naked in bed ignoring any and all domestic responsibilities. Now the dogs aren't even in here with me b/c Lee put them outside before he went to Lowe's to buy parts to fix the toilet. It's just me and Tiny. Normally Tiny doesn't board in our room, but my middle kid got new furniture about a month ago and in the process Tiny came to stay with Lee and I till the room got situated. The new room is neither situated nor has Tiny returned to her proper location but because it might take me the next 8 years that Jake will be living at home to get his room properly situated, Tiny might be in here with us till then. Or until she dies. Which ever comes first. I hate to even say this out loud, but I feel like I have to put it out there. We are terrible stewards of pet hamsters. I could completely blame all of this on Jake since it is his hamster and part of the deal was that he'd feed her, give her water, change her shavings, but he never does. And honestly, who really expects their 9 (now 10) year old to actually follow through on their end of the bargain. Everyone knows that parents are just going through the obligatory motions when they make their kids promise to take care of pets that are about to be acquired. I have a small confession to make. Tiny's cage rarely gets cleaned out. She gets plenty of fresh food and water, but her shavings haven't been changed in about 2 months. I choose to ignore the unsanitary aspects of this truth. She doesn't seem to mind. She hasn't filed any complaints yet, her cage doesn't smell unless you stand right next to it for more than a minute and I'll be damned if my 10 year old gets the better of me in this bargain. I'll hold out forever before I clean that cage for him because I have principles and it is some sort of lesson that Jake doesn't even realize I'm teaching him and because I can be pretty damn lazy about the things I choose to be lazy. So, for now Tiny will continue to live in her own stink and luckily hamsters aren't the kind of animals that animal activists bust down your door because of the squalid living conditions to which they are subjected.
So, it's just me and Tiny with the dogs outside and other people watching my kids and Lee doing the middle-aged male homeowner thing by choosing to do something he really has no business doing and could be accomplished in a fraction of the time if done by someone who is trained in the toilet arts. And even though I'm starting to get kind of hungry and my Diet Coke isn't really doing anything to make my stomach stop growling, I'm going to lie here until I'm forced to get out of bed because it is a rare day in hell that a working 43 year old mother of 3 gets to actually sit in her bed all day with absolutely no one bugging her, not even the dogs.
Lee was lying here naked with me earlier (you fill in the blanks. No kids and 2 consenting adults). Anyhow, I asked him "Would you rather lie here naked all day or go work out all day to your heart's content?" He chose the work out option and I told him that was the fundamental difference between him and me. He said I was only choosing to be lazy because I just did 2 12 hour shifts in the ER, but I'd like to think of myself as a completely self-indulgent person so I ignored his insensitive attack on my character. While we were laying (lying?) here we played the "would you rather game". Like, if you had to eat one of the dogs/hamster to survive, which would you choose first? Or if you had to watch a set of our parents/stepparents having sex, which couple would you choose to watch? Or if you had to tear down a neighbors' house to have a double lot which neighbors would you rid yourself of first? Mostly we were in alignment on all of our choices but he chose to eat the small dog over the big dog first because he likes the big dog better. I told him that was a strategical error that would cost him, but he wouldn't budge (right now the dogs are going nuts barking outside and I should go and yell at them to shut up or bang on the window, but I don't even care that I'm being a bad neighbor by letting them bark. More proof that I am completely self indulgent and thoughtless to the needs of others). I also wondered aloud if, when we were 72 after having geezer sex, would we lie in bed with him running his knobby arthritic fingers over my liver spots? He said he would.
Last thing before I go forage through the refrigerator...has anyone read the People magazine excerpt from Rielle Hunter's forthcoming book? Can anyone say stupid whore? Seriously, I am embarrassed for her and for John Edwards even though he is a completely narcissistic, stupid douche bag. I couldn't even be sick because it was too much of a parody to even get nauseated. That poor kid Quinn doesn't stand a chance. Maybe both of their gene pools will cancel each other out and she'll actually be even more resilient. Unlikely, but it could happen. Elizabeth Edwards timed it right by dying before she had to be subjected to the real life equivalent of a bad Mexican tele-novella. I'll probably download the book on my e-reader because that kind of cheap entertainment is rare. I'll make sure to give a summary because I know it's one of those things that's hard to delay gratification.
Happy 4th of July!
I'm not exactly sure why I have decided to start posting again and I'm fairly certain that no one will even read this because, other than my husband, no one knows that I've fired up the ole blog. I just read a pretty funny book written by a blogger. I hadn't followed her blog (b/c in all honesty, I'm too busy reading the Drudge Report to devote time to any other internet sites) but parts of the book made me laugh so hard that the whole bed was shaking while Lee was trying to sleep. Even though it wasn't a fabulous piece of literary greatness, I have a deep and abiding respect for the author because she seems to write from the heart about the imperfectness of her life. I love the transparency. It's very validating to the rest of us poor slobs out here.
I used to write because I thought that maybe one day I'd get discovered and I'd be on Oprah. But now that Oprah doesn't have her own talk show anymore and blogs are about as ubiquitous as the air we breathe, it seems fairly unlikely. And, coupled with the fact that I don't think I am going to tell anyone that I am writing, I don't think anyone will stumble upon this b/c how many people are going to do a Google search for "hollerin chefs"? So, I guess it can kind of be my secret online diary that hopefully will never be discovered by my current or future employers. Not that I think my current employer would even care and not that I'm planning on having any future employers b/c I really like my current job. Also, I don't know if I want voyeurs peering into my life, but I do want to write about shit and I don't really consider myself to be an exhibitionist. Oh, and I also used to write when I was going through breast cancer treatment but that was because it was very therapeutic and people wanted to know what was going on and make sure I wasn't dead yet and they hadn't found out (that was before the days of Caring Bridge. I think). Then I just kept writing b/c I got positive reinforcement and I liked it. I guess I stopped because I got too busy and not just reading the Drudge Report (because I didn't actually start reading that till a year ago).
So, here I am again and I've just written 3 whole paragraphs on basically nothing. But,it feels good (I just had THE worst charley horse in my right calf. The pitfalls of lying in bed all day, I guess) and natural. I have a friend, Carie. If we were still 8 years old I'd venture to call her my best friend but I don't think 43 year old women categorize each other like that any more. Anyhow, Carie has always been a big proponent of my writing, which I kind of find ironic (if I am using that term correctly). Carie is probably the smartest woman I know. Like weirdly, Chinese, super genius smart without any chance of EVER being in her same league. I think we became friends in medical school partly b/c I thought it would improve my street cred by hanging out with one of the 3 smartest people in our class. That and a lot of other reasons. Anyhow, compared to her I always felt like, to borrow a Chelsea Handler phrase, a hot mess. But somewhere in the history of our 19 year friendship I realized that she wasn't friends with me just because I made her look smarter (like she ever needed that anyway). One thing I should add about Carie is that even though she is that special brand of Chinese super genius she is also drop dead gorgeous and pretty damn funny. So she was cool in that way that only geeks can appreciate. Anyhow, Carie has always subtly asked me about my writing since I started my breast cancer blog. Not a lot, but just enough to be annoying, kind of like when your faucet drips. Last year, after a trip my daughter and I took to visit her and her family I came home and immediately enrolled in an online creative writing class. I think I took 2 classes and spent about $1400 and exorcised a lot of demons and wasted a lot of time researching creative writing degree programs. But, like most projects I start, that one fell to the side when I got distracted by some other shiny object. Then about a week ago she told me to read this book that a female blogger had written because it was funny and it reminded her of me. After reading the book I'm going to choose that it reminded her of me in a lot of really good, mentally healthy and sane ways and that it was also another jab to start writing. Might not have been her intention, but that's how I choose to interpret the fates.
I wonder how long I'm going to get away with being completely and utterly selfish by lying here naked in bed ignoring any and all domestic responsibilities. Now the dogs aren't even in here with me b/c Lee put them outside before he went to Lowe's to buy parts to fix the toilet. It's just me and Tiny. Normally Tiny doesn't board in our room, but my middle kid got new furniture about a month ago and in the process Tiny came to stay with Lee and I till the room got situated. The new room is neither situated nor has Tiny returned to her proper location but because it might take me the next 8 years that Jake will be living at home to get his room properly situated, Tiny might be in here with us till then. Or until she dies. Which ever comes first. I hate to even say this out loud, but I feel like I have to put it out there. We are terrible stewards of pet hamsters. I could completely blame all of this on Jake since it is his hamster and part of the deal was that he'd feed her, give her water, change her shavings, but he never does. And honestly, who really expects their 9 (now 10) year old to actually follow through on their end of the bargain. Everyone knows that parents are just going through the obligatory motions when they make their kids promise to take care of pets that are about to be acquired. I have a small confession to make. Tiny's cage rarely gets cleaned out. She gets plenty of fresh food and water, but her shavings haven't been changed in about 2 months. I choose to ignore the unsanitary aspects of this truth. She doesn't seem to mind. She hasn't filed any complaints yet, her cage doesn't smell unless you stand right next to it for more than a minute and I'll be damned if my 10 year old gets the better of me in this bargain. I'll hold out forever before I clean that cage for him because I have principles and it is some sort of lesson that Jake doesn't even realize I'm teaching him and because I can be pretty damn lazy about the things I choose to be lazy. So, for now Tiny will continue to live in her own stink and luckily hamsters aren't the kind of animals that animal activists bust down your door because of the squalid living conditions to which they are subjected.
So, it's just me and Tiny with the dogs outside and other people watching my kids and Lee doing the middle-aged male homeowner thing by choosing to do something he really has no business doing and could be accomplished in a fraction of the time if done by someone who is trained in the toilet arts. And even though I'm starting to get kind of hungry and my Diet Coke isn't really doing anything to make my stomach stop growling, I'm going to lie here until I'm forced to get out of bed because it is a rare day in hell that a working 43 year old mother of 3 gets to actually sit in her bed all day with absolutely no one bugging her, not even the dogs.
Lee was lying here naked with me earlier (you fill in the blanks. No kids and 2 consenting adults). Anyhow, I asked him "Would you rather lie here naked all day or go work out all day to your heart's content?" He chose the work out option and I told him that was the fundamental difference between him and me. He said I was only choosing to be lazy because I just did 2 12 hour shifts in the ER, but I'd like to think of myself as a completely self-indulgent person so I ignored his insensitive attack on my character. While we were laying (lying?) here we played the "would you rather game". Like, if you had to eat one of the dogs/hamster to survive, which would you choose first? Or if you had to watch a set of our parents/stepparents having sex, which couple would you choose to watch? Or if you had to tear down a neighbors' house to have a double lot which neighbors would you rid yourself of first? Mostly we were in alignment on all of our choices but he chose to eat the small dog over the big dog first because he likes the big dog better. I told him that was a strategical error that would cost him, but he wouldn't budge (right now the dogs are going nuts barking outside and I should go and yell at them to shut up or bang on the window, but I don't even care that I'm being a bad neighbor by letting them bark. More proof that I am completely self indulgent and thoughtless to the needs of others). I also wondered aloud if, when we were 72 after having geezer sex, would we lie in bed with him running his knobby arthritic fingers over my liver spots? He said he would.
Last thing before I go forage through the refrigerator...has anyone read the People magazine excerpt from Rielle Hunter's forthcoming book? Can anyone say stupid whore? Seriously, I am embarrassed for her and for John Edwards even though he is a completely narcissistic, stupid douche bag. I couldn't even be sick because it was too much of a parody to even get nauseated. That poor kid Quinn doesn't stand a chance. Maybe both of their gene pools will cancel each other out and she'll actually be even more resilient. Unlikely, but it could happen. Elizabeth Edwards timed it right by dying before she had to be subjected to the real life equivalent of a bad Mexican tele-novella. I'll probably download the book on my e-reader because that kind of cheap entertainment is rare. I'll make sure to give a summary because I know it's one of those things that's hard to delay gratification.
Happy 4th of July!
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