Still waiting for a regular room . . . . let's hope they'll leave a light on for me and have Tom Bodett waiting with a cocktail . . .

Blue Sparkly Toes

Y'all, this is a big deal. Actually it's a BIG FREAKIN' DEAL!!!!!!!!

VeeGee let me paint her toenails today.

VeeGee has sensory processing disorder which makes her unable to tolerate much in the way of texture, especially "wet" textures. But, for some unknown (who cares!) reason, she finally said yes when I asked if she wanted me to paint her toenails. First she wanted green, and, well, I'm kind of a nail polish collector, so I dug out my green polish. She thought that was quite fun and so she asked for red. I'm kind of not into red polish (especially on an itty bitty like VeeGee), so I offered blue. She said YES!!

I tried to get her to let me paint her fingernails, but that was just too much. I got one hand done, and it wasn't all that fun because she kind of freaked when I got a teency bit of polish on her skin. So we stopped there. It's pretty faint, so I'm thinking she's forgotten about it.

Now, the toes are a different story. When I took her shoes off for her nap, she wiggled her toes and said "Pretty!"

Yep!

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What Came Before This

I used to write a blog called Um, Well, Huh. And then I got bored with it. Or something. And so I abandoned it.

But, I've been looking it over lately and thinking that there's some interesting backstory contained therein. So, if you, many dear readers, are of the mind, feel free to take a gander.
#

And then there was more rain.

It has rained far too much this spring. I've got plants all over my yard in pots because the ground's been too wet to plant them. It's a pity. Something like this, well, nothing like this, but something to cause planting procrastination, namely the unexpected acquisition of a two year old redheaded child, happened last year, and so there are several lovely ferns that are pleading with me to give their roots some long awaited room to wiggle. Hopefully Saturday will be sunny enough to dry the ground a bit.

As is typical for me, I would rather do just about anything than the work that I'm supposed to be doing. I have several projects that I just cannot seem to bring to conclusion. Fellow procrastinators, what is it that causes this? I mean, it's not, actually, that I wait to the last minute. No, I don't wait to begin things at all. I just don't finish. I keep on working, or, at least, I keep on thinking, on the project: how can I make it better? what else do I need to include? have I covered all the bases? what the hell was the original assignment?

It's become so ridiculous that I've carried several Incompletes forward with me throughout graduate school. Please tell me someone else has done this and survived to actually get a job.

Oh, and that's the other thing. I am at that point in my career where it's time to start sending out the CV, figuring out what's next. And what do I find myself doing yesterday? Yep, looking in to PhD programs in ANOTHER discipline. Ugh - what's wrong with me?

So, rainy Thursday, I yield myself to the project at hand. I sign off with hope.

the tongue's always the first to go

last night some friends invited us to a baseball game. i had to twist K's arm a bit since he's been so tired from work and the phantom illness that no one can diagnose, but he soon realized what fun it would be and, after securing a promise that he wouldn't whine about being tired all day today, we trucked on downtown.

but not before i popped a little pain pill. i'd been hurting a bit all afternoon and was worried that it might ruin the evening to be clutching my chest all night fred sanford style.

we had great seats - just past first base - and the weather was phenomenal. perfectly warm with low humidity (a gift of an evening by memphis standards).

K and friend headed off for the big beers. yuuuummmy. though i'm not too much of a beer fan these days, it was just what the doctor ordered. except...

for those pain killers.

about a quarter of the way into my beer i noticed the strange thickness of my tongue - i had forgotton about my little pink boosters and was greedily chugging the $8 cup of brew. i couldn't mention my discomfort for fear of the blank stares of K and friends - gotta guard the beverage from wary worried husband, ya know.

so i just slurred the night away.

it sucks. it's always that way with me - the tongue's the first to go - WAY before the rest of me gets there.
la-la la-la-la-la-laaaaa
*

Guess Who's Coming For Dinner

i used to be a chef. and K used to be a restaurant manager. so, we have lots of fun cooking for ourselves - and others.

problem is, one likes to cook for us. we get lots of "oh, we'd love to have y'all over for dinner, but we're too intimidated." what we end up doing is going out to restaurants with our friends, who sometimes insist on treating since they never have us over. wt's terribly, terrible uncomfortable. whey've almost always suggested a fine dining place since they assume that's all we like, so it's never cheap - which eans we can't do it very often.

i didn't tell very many people about my surgery before it happened because, well mostly because it seems stupid to call someone up and say "oh, by the way, i'm having heart surgery next week. just in case i die, i just wanted to let you know. goodbye." also, K and i are pretty autonomous - our professional lives have always been SO social that when we're not working, we just want to hang out - alone. we don't like anyone, including our families, to make a fuss. i didn't even want my mother at the hospital - what with cell phones, the need to sit in the waiting room is nullified these days. ('course, if you've read my stuff before, you know i probably didn't want my mother there for lots of other reasons.....)

boy, howdy, have i gotten in trouble for this! word got out because of the post-operative complications that made it seem even more serious than originally thought. k couldn't resist telling his buddy that just happened to call him about something else. and i had to let my gallery members know so they wouldn't think i'm just slacking off by not showing up for a week and a half.

wow. friends have crawled out of the woodwork with soup and casseroles, flowers and cards, scolding me for my over-privateness. it's been kinda cool. and finally, finally, someone brought me food!!!!!!! and i thought it was SO yummy.

maybe having friends isn't so bad after all......

feeling much better...not quite dead yet...think i'd like to go for a walk...

so, melodrama has subsided. today i just feel fried and headachey. and it hurts a bit too. i promise not to turn this into a daily report on my maladies - there's probably some grandparent that you'd rather talk about that with.

++++++++++++++++++

i got married 14 years ago today.

not to k, though, unfortunately. he wouldn't come to the wedding (though he was invited). i wish he had come and pulled a john cusack with a boom box from the balcony of holy communion. that would have been awesome and i totally would have hauled ass out the back door hoping to meet him in the parking lot.

i knew i was fucking up, but i really didn't think i could get out of it. it was a fairy tale extravaganza of a wedding - i had my dream dress with a twenty foot antique belgian lace train, beautiful flowers - gardenias and white roses, a huge cake with a fountain in it (though the cake table was placed in front of one of those HORRIBLE lattice panels with FAKE FERNS woven in - can you tell i'm still pissed about that?), and about 1,000 guests. and it was so wrong. wrong, wrong wrong. the worst thing is that i knew it.

but, all's well that ends well, right? not that the marriage ended well (i was a total bitch, calling him in nashville from memphis at 3 in the morning to tell him i wanted a divorce after having promised him that we were only temporarily separating), but it did end for the best.

but the end, end - the now - couldn't really have happend any other way. and i wouldn't trade it for anything.

so, happy anniversary J. i'm sorry i hurt you. i so hope you're happy and well. i wish we could be friends.
*

So Not Cool

I am so not cool.

I don't know if I ever was cool. I used to think that I was, but that was probably just an illusion of youth. I have never been very stylish (though I do have a nice hairstyle), and I never know what the hip movies, bands, or clubs are. Is cool still cool or is there something cooler than cool now that I haven't heard of? Hip, maybe? Phat? Oh please don't tell me that's it!

Funny thing is, I have several friends who declare me to be their "cool friend." This absolutely cracks me up (and I'm sure you're rolling on the floor if you know me!). Maybe it's because I don't really care about being cool - not because I'm too cool to think about it, but because I forget to think about it. Maybe it's because I don't have kids at my advanced age like so many of my friends.

I'm mostly aware of my low cool quotient when I'm at some place like the Hi Tone or the Buccaneer (great clubs, both!); or sometimes at my book club when I proffer a book that's so passe that everyone gags (and I'm not talking about the Divine Secrets, DaVinci Code or anything like that - maybe just something I heard about on NPR).

I have one friend, a guy friend, who's a couple of years older than me. He's a philosophy professor and is too cool, even for his own good. Anyhow, though, he's always got the niftiest new shirt from Banana Republic (maybe I should shop there?) and seems to know about the most obscure bands and whatnot. Even though he's 37 or 38, he still talks about canoeing with vodka soaked pineapple chunks as his lunch. He seems to work at it. Is that cool?

It's probably not cool to think about being cool or what's cool or who's cool. So, to avoid further embarrassment, I'll just chill out.
*

Rock On

As my dad was on his way out of town headed toward the beach this morning, he called to check in with my husband, who is his VP of Operations (sweet gig). My husband jokingly said that we'd see them down there. And lo and behold Daddy thought it was a great idea!!! Yahoo, an impromptu trip to the beach - FREEE!!!! Bubye.

Tits So Funny

I think it rather hilarious that the posting ending in "should I show my tits?" has gotten the most commentary (though, clearly six is no big score!). I guess that's cool, though. If there's one thing I like about my body, it's "the girls."

I feel lucky to be busty and so I have a wonderful collection of what my husband calls "booby shirts" that I pull on for special occasions. Frankly, I don't mind if people don't look past my chest, cause the rest is not so perfect. They may as well dwell on the positive part of my appearance. I mean, I'm no dog, but I'm certainly not svelt. I think my eyes are nice and one day when I get these fucking braces off I intend to have Eric Estrada (glow in the dark and perfectly straight) teeth. But for now, you can check out the boobs....

Another reason, besides their size, that I like my boobs is something pretty much no one gets to see. I have a skin condition called Vitaligo where something "eats" the pigment in my skin. It 's almost completely symetrical on my both sides of my body - including my boobs. There the de-pigmentation is in the shape of a butterfly and under a black light it's really, really cool (glows since it's white).

Well, you may think it's silly, but I figure I may as well celebrate these "flaws" and get a kick out the cards I've been dealt! Right?!
*

Brain Cloud

I only had two vodka sodas last night, but my head is KILLING me. Am I getting too old for a mild little party of two vodkas? Shit, I hope not!!!

This is my graduation week. I'm a "non-traditional" student who started college at 30 (great story, maybe I'll tell it sometime), and I have mixed feelings about doing all this geeky "senior stuff." I skipped the "senior party" last night, partly because I wasn't sure if my husband was invited (and that would suck way too bad to have to brave the throng of 21 year olds without someone to whisper sarcastic mean comments to) and partly because it was the season finale of the Amazing Race (oh MAN do I want to be on that show BAD!!!!!).

But, Monday night I did got to the Honors Program dinner at Cafe Society (sadly, sans hubby), mostly because my friend is the director and she pretty much demanded that I go. It was nice. I was really worried that I wasn't going to be able to have wine, but we did - what a relief.

Still, it was weird when it came to the toast/roast part of the evening. Most of the other students, in fact, with the exception of one who is known to be one of those people who can (and does) go to class drunk and still make good grades (but, she's from New Orleans, so everyone seems to think this is perfectly normal - one of the nice things about going to a Catholic school), all were toasted by their professors.

"Anna is the most amazing, perfect, sweet, beautiful, saint, er, education major CBU has ever seen."

"Jeffrey has the amazing ability to always be right in all of his rocket science classes."

"Lauren just has the sweetest disposition - and she's so smart!"

Aside from rocket science dude (about whom I'll just have to take the professor's word, since, of course, I've never crossed paths with him), I have to agree - these are some pretty neat kids.

I, on the other hand, was roasted. Two of my professors, one of whom is a very good friend outside of school, let me have it. The friend especially. This would have been all well and good if ANYBODY else had taken the "roasting" option so seriously, but NO, I get to be the old student AND the one who, according to Dr. Friend, makes "snotty comments about her fellow students." Squirm. My "accolades", juxtaposed against the GLOWING testimony to all the other students' brilliance and high moral character, were a bit jarring. This was clear enough for my friend, the director, to apologize the next day for having read them all aloud.

Oh, well, I can take my lumps - I certainly dish 'em out (apparently).

I've got a baccalaureate, president's reception and finally the graduation ceremony to get through before I can THROW DOWN at my party on Saturday (please, oh please God, don't let it rain...). Let's hope I can handle more than two vodkas without getting a "brain cloud."

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In Hot Water

So, that didn't go over so well. Who knew hubby was gonna be all sentimental or particular? He didn't think the happy birthday card was "acceptable" (actually, he said HELL NO!) - that is, at first. I had to throw a fit and point out what a brilliant idea it was, and how, of course, his mom is so cool and funny and hip (nice touch, huh?) that she would get a big ole kick out of it.

I wore him down. But I think it's mostly because he didn't have a better idea (I suppose I could have suggested MAKING her a card - since he is an artist and all, but that would be giving in. And you bet your bootie I wasn't going to do that - not after his initial reaction!).

So, anyhow, the card's still sitting on the dining room table and he just called her instead...But she did ask about her card. Maybe I'm wrong about her being cool enough (since getting a card obviously mattered - YUCK). Do you think there are any of those sappy, crappy ones on markdown?

I'm a great daughter-in-law!

***

Happy Birthday Mom, I Suck

So, I bought my mother - and my husband's mother, and my step-mother - birthday cards instead of Mothers' Day cards. I figure, having to read the crap that they put in the MD cards is much worse than getting a BD card for the holiday. Don't get me wrong: I appreciate all these women and want to make sure to mark the (contrived) holiday at least so they'll know I remembered them. Actually, I appreciate them enough not to bore them with the ridiculously florid and sappy language that would NEVER come out of my mouth.

The step-mother is gonna think it's funny. She's no fan of Hallmark (though the best thankyou note writer in the world). Hopefully the other mothers will get the joke and not be insulted by the reality that I just got to the freakin' store too late to snatch up the funny or sincere cards.

In my typical birthordered sangfroid, I'd wager that my goofy brother doesn't even remember - he never does. And then my stupid card'll look great!!!!