Just One More Excellent Idea

As the mother of a twelve year old and a six year old you might be tempted to think I've got the whole HOSTING A KID’S BIRTHDAY PARTY thing figured out.

Let me assure you, you'd be thinkin' wrong.

After all, I am the one who invited 25 three year old girls over for a BARBIE BEACH BIRTHDAY PARTY in Colorado in June, where the general idea was to spend HOURS and HOURS slip-n-sliding, splashing around in a wading pool and running through the sprinklers.

Except here’s the problem: Colorado in June can still be quite cold. Especially when you’re wet. Which is generally the goal when one is slip-n-sliding, splashing around in wading pools and running through sprinklers.

So here's what happens when you stick 25 shivering three year olds in to a hot tub full of 102 degree water because if you don’t they will all die of hypothermia right there on your deck and you’re really thinking inside IF I "ACCIDENTALLY" KILL ALL THE KIDS, THAT WILL TEACH THOSE PARENTS TO DROP AND RUN AT MY RILEY’S BARBIE BEACH BIRTHDAY PARTY.

Anyway ...

As soon as their little feet hit the 102 degree water about half of them immediately scream I HAVE TO GO POTTY.

And the other half?

Well, as soon as THEIR feet hit the 102 degree water they would have screamed I HAVE TO GO POTTY except their eyes are all rolled back in to their heads because all of a sudden they are VERY RELAXED.

And don’t even pretend you don’t know what I’m talkin’ about.

Well, we wrestled a sum total of two toddlers out of their wet swimsuits before just sending them all back out to the backyard to RELAX IN THE HOT TUB, IN THE YARD, WE DON’T CARE ANYMORE.

And then there was the time when Riley turned ONE and I invited about 100 people over to celebrate and spent days and days boiling and peeling enough eggs so that every guest could eat their weight in deviled eggs. BECAUSE WHAT ONE YEAR OLD DOESN’T LOVE DEVILED EGGS?

And then I forgot to get them out of the garage refrigerator until after the party was over.

I was so distraught that night I actually let my neighbors talk me in to watching THE WIZARD OF OZ with the sound turned off and Pink Floyd’s THE WALL playing as the soundtrack instead. In exchange, my neighbors agreed to eat a lot of eggs.

Which really has nothing to do with anything except the synchronization of the "Wizard of Oz" and that album was kinda creepy and all those parents who DROPPED AND RAN at my Riley’s BARBIE BEACH BIRTHDAY PARTY should have been thankful I let their kids RELAX in my hot tub instead of turning THAT on and sending their kids home to have nightmares and wet their beds.

So when Wyatt told me he wanted to go bowling for his birthday party I, naturally, said SURE. A bunch of five and six year olds PLUS 10 pound bowling balls PLUS slick bowling lanes oiled up to a glassy sheen? SURE let's go for it.

EXCELLENT idea. BEST ONE I’ve heard today.




And then THIS. THIS here is what you get.



Good thing we're so important we travel with our own doctor at all times ... or maybe he was just one of our guest’s dad who also happens to be a pediatrician. Regardless, Wyatt was triaged right there on Lane 3 after 10 pounds of bowling ball slipped through his hands like a greased pig and fell on his foot and pinky toe.

And he wasn’t the only one either. In roughly two hours time over 50% of our party guests sustained either a crushing or pinching bowling ball injury and/or a blow to the back of the head courtesy of the copious amounts of oil applied to the bowling lanes extra special for our party.

Just so you know, for his birthday party next year we're planning on throwing a bunch of kids in to the back of a pickup truck and speeding across the Mexican border for an afternoon of lawn darts, trampolining, and homemade puffer fish sandwiches. And we probably won’t let them wear sunscreen either.

Jerry Garcia Called. He Wants His Shirt Back.

This morning my kindergarten son left the house in camo shorts, camo underwear, camo pants and his favorite RAINBOW shirt (aka tie dye).

Apparently he’s planning on taking the summer off to travel with the Grateful Dead.



I blame myself.

It's quite possible, given all the old photo scanning I've been doing for my job at Facebook, that he ran across THIS on the floor of my office.




May God have mercy on his soul.

P.S. - I'm loving the 1970's era paneling that totally hides blends the door to the garage with the wall behind the TV. With all that sophisitcated decorating it's a wonder we ever found our way out of the house.

Did the Pilgrims Celebrate Valentine's Day?

Dear John,

Saturday was Valentine’s Day and I’m thinking about our new neighbors, the polygamist evacuees from El Dorado who have settled in on the ranch next door. You know the ones who just put up the new high tech security gate right next to Deanna’s house?

Actually, if it weren’t for Deanna and her house painters – who started asking what was up next door with all the KIDS RUNNING AROUND IN PILGRIM SUITS – it might have been months before we realized they were even living over there.

The polygamists got me thinking about what my life might look today had I not married you and married, instead, someone else amongst the throngs who threw themselves down on their knees over the years asking for my hand.

Like “Bob” from Ohio.

I met “Bob” right after I moved to Cincinnati. That was a good move for me because now I am really, really good at spelling Cincinnati and because of Graeter’s Ice Cream and OH ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Sorry, I just googled “Graeter’s Ice Cream” only to discover they sell Black Raspberry Chip in TWO states now. Ohio AND Colorado. Up until now I’ve never regretted our move to Texas.

Anyway, “Bob” transferred to Cincinnati from Salt Lake City about the same time I transferred from Dallas. We worked together and struck up a friendship that then kind of morphed in to a burgeoning romantic thing. It never got much past the burgeoning romantic thing phase, though, after “Bob’s” dad came to visit.

I showered. I made a lasagna. I thought it went well.

At least I did until two weeks later when “Bob Sr.” left the comfy confines of Utah once again and returned to Cincinnati. This time with an 18 year old girl in tow.

BOB, MEET YOUR FUTURE WIFE, GEORGIA DAWN.

Yep, I got ARRANGED MARRIAGED right out of that relationship. Which is probably a good thing otherwise I might have wound up looking like this and living on that ranch over there with my 8 other sister wives.



So, in spite of our rocky start back in grade school, John ... AND DON’T EVEN TRY DENYING THAT TRAUMATIC BEGINNING TO OUR RELATIONSHIP WHEN YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS THREW ROCKS AT JANICE AND NANCY AND ME IN THE WOODS WHEN WE WERE JUST THIRD GRADERS.

See? Your 5th grade picture just screams out I LOVE THROWING ROCKS AT LITTLE GIRLS. ESPECIALLY ONES I WILL GROW UP AND MARRY.



In spite of that, you grew up into a pretty great guy who never, ever expects me to wear PILGRIM DRESSES.* And for that, and many, many other things too numerous to mention here, THANK YOU.

*Well, never except on Thanksgiving. But, then, who doesn’t dress up for Thanksgiving?

I Love You.

www.ForAllTheWaysYouCare.com

What Oscars?

My friend Margaret asked me the other day if I’d seen the movie “Slumdog Millionaires” yet. I almost lied and said yes so I could feel smart and all culturally relevant. But I haven’t seen “Slumdog Millionaires”, I haven’t seen “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and I haven’t even seen “Frost/Nixon”, in spite of the fact that I minored in political science in college and it's like a rule and all to see films about politics.

In fact, I haven’t seen any of the movies nominated for an Oscar this year.

The last movie I saw in a theater was “Twilight” with Riley. Like a good mother I had informally banned the “Twilight” books from our household on the vague unfounded suspicion that they contained a lot of teenage vampire sex.

Being a 7th grader and all, Riley read the first book anyway and then begged ME to take her to see the movie because all of her friends whose mothers aren’t Puritans straight out of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” had already seen the movie like 163 times.

As I’m pretty much all about any excuse to eat movie popcorn I figured WHAT THE HECK and off we drove to the Palladium, a tacky Greek-themed movie theater fronted with huge architectural columns. If you squint from the Bass Pro Shops parking lot it’s almost like you’re standing in front of the Parthenon. Which is good as it effectively eliminates the need for an expensive trip to Athens to see the real thing in person.

Riley and I settle in to the Palladium’s luxurious seats with our $37 snack bar haul of popcorn, Coke and baklava and while I had completely intended to spend my quiet time in the movie texting and downloading free applications on to my new iPhone, I found myself reluctantly caught up in the movie.

AND SURPRISE! No sex. No gore. Good story. So much for vague unfounded suspicions. Which is too bad as vague unfounded suspicions have served me quite well throughout my life.

NOT.

Upon returning home I immediately became obsessed with the “Twilight” series, read all four books within a two week span of time from the comfort of the big brown chair on our porch and completely ignored certain things like changing my underwear and saying hello to my kids.

John says I actually hissed if anyone got close to me and my chair during those two long dark weeks but I have absolutely no recollection of that and am pretty sure he’s making it up to punish me for all the time I spend Googling “Robert Pattison” and writing LORI LIST JACKSON PATTINSON over and over in my notebook.

In summary, “Twilight” darn near ruined my life.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about here, you are obviously in dire need of a teenage girl in your household.

They’re good for you.

First, of course, they are like your own personal portal in to the REAL world. After all, the whole “Twilight” hysteria might have passed right underneath my radar had it not been for Riley subliminally injecting “Twilight” into every conversation.

As in MOM I’M HUNGRY CAN I HAVE A HEALTHY twilight APPLE?

Or MOM YOU LOOK ESPECIALLY THIN twilight AND YOUR HAIR IS NOT AS BIG AS USUAL TODAY twilight.

Or MOM WOULD IT BE OKAY IF YOU AND DADDY twilight WENT ON A DATE WHILE I BABYSIT WYATT FOR FREE twilight?

They also build character in you. The Bible says so:

“… but we also rejoice in our sufferings; because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

I was one of those parents who remained convinced my superior parenting skills would allow me to effectively squash any form of rebellion in my child.

Then she turned two.

The other day she gave me the “slow-blink-while-turning-head-the-other-way-before-opening-eyes-again” move which is way more difficult than your basic eye roll and I must admit, I was impressed.

So this, this is what I confessed to Margaret when she asked me if I’d seen “Slumdog Millionaires” yet and she probably got way more information than she bargained for but that’s just the way I like to roll.

Please Pass The Parmesan

Around October every year I refrain from making any last minute impulse purchases for myself and starting feeding them as Christmas gift tips to JJ. This eliminates the guesswork on his part and ensures I get what I want. Which is, of course, the whole point of Christmas.

One evening back in October I found myself ALL ALONE in Walgreens while waiting for them to fill a scrip. And by ALL ALONE I’m not talking WALGREENS ONLY CUSTOMER … I’m talking about the only 30 minute window of time during 2008 I didn’t have a child, spouse or dog attached to my hip. In celebration of my aloneness and the absence of questions like WHERE’S THE MILK or HOW DOES GRAVITY WORK , I decided to treat myself to something nice.

After surveying my options … shower cap? new socks? nose hair clipper? purple fingernail polish? … I narrowed my selection down to either the Scooby Doo Chia Pet or the Ped Egg. Now, I have to tell ya, Scooby Doo almost won out because (a) being a child of the ‘70’s I spent every Saturday morning glued to either Scooby Doo or Land of the Lost cartoons and what could be cooler than Scooby Doo growing out of some mysterious organic material? (b) and, I’ve been hyper-skeptical of the Ped Egg since it first stormed the shores of women’s feet everywhere and all the praise started … blah, blah, blah.

I think, deep down, all that Ped Egg praise wore down my self-esteem as I was pretty much convinced my heels would snap that dinky little cheese grater in two and I’d be the first woman in history to take them up on their “money back guarantee”.

And just as I was about to throw caution to the wind and toss the Ped Egg in to my basket (keep in mind, this story might have had a completely different ending if Walgreens had just carried the Land of the Lost Sleestack Chia Pet) I realized THIS would make a perfect addition to JJ’s “Christmas Tip List”.

So Christmas rolls around and OH! SURPRISE! MOMMY GOT A PED EGG!

After days spent digesting pie and picking Christmas wrap and tape off the tile floors I finally broke open my new pink Ped Egg the other day and commenced to shaving enough skin off my heels to pretty much guarantee I’m back down to a size 9 shoe.

And that handy little storage compartment of shavings? Well, I managed to get a RETCH AND A GAG out of JJ when I showed him the fruits of my labor and reminded him that even though it looked like PARMESAN CHEESE don’t go sprinklin’ it on his spaghetti and meatballs. Bonus.

Only problem is all that shaving revealed two Grand Canyon sized cracks in my heels that had been buried under inches of a dried, calcified skin-like substance. And those cracks have been killing me. Or maybe it’s that I accidentally shaved all the way down to the bone. Regardless, once the bleeding stops and they get the skin grafts to take my heels are gonna look awesome.

But this is what I noticed this morning as I was caressing this wonder of the modern world … I’ve got the PROFESSIONAL model.

Says so right on the egg.

This, my friends, is not for amateurs. Sure, I’ve been benched after my initial test run but after my mandatory healing time I’m ready to take on the big boys.

That’s right. I’m going pro.

I’ve got the talent. I’ve got the tool. I’ve got the heels.

And I’m thinking it’s about time to start looking for sponsors. You know, lucrative endorsement deals. I’m willing to make room on my PROFESSIONAL PED EGG for paid logos and advertisements. Heck, I’d even let “Wonder Bread” sew a couple of patches on to my bathrobe - just like the NASCAR jumpsuit Will Ferrell wears in “Talladega Nights”.

And while white bread sponsors would be okay … I do, after all, let my kids wad up slices of white bread and stuff them en masse in to their mouths while we’re dining out at Rudy’s BBQ just down the road … I’d rather hear from the folks at Jack Link’s Beef Jerky, just so they’d let me be in one of their ”Messin’ With Sasquatch” commercials, which have completely changed my life.

So, if you’re reading this Jack Link (and I’m sure you are), have your people get in touch with my people. Let’s talk. I am, after all, a PROFESSIONAL and thinkin’ the only heels nastier than my pre PED EGG heels could only be found on a creature like Big Foot. It’s a match made in heaven.

"the clarification you require to get through your day"

a thought occurred to me in the car yesterday.

on our little road trip to explore the miles and miles of country roads we've so nicely transplanted ourself in to.

on our way out to visit our friends bill & tammi and their kids mckenna and grace.

on our way out to surely overstay our welcome by not leaving until 8 o'clock last night.

on our way out to sponge pizza and cheesey bread off of them.

on our way out to hug their necks and tell them how much we've missed them.

on our way out to laugh manically at everyone who chooses to remain in frozen colorado while those of us with two brain cells to rub together have moved ourselves to the land of warmth and fire ants.

on our way out to sit on a swing underneath the oak trees, to feed deer, watch our kids play in the sand, and to plan gardens.

this is the very thought that occurred to me and the very one that i must now convey to you.

urgently.

riley is NOT the boss of wyatt's belly button.

how do i know this?

because wyatt informed us of this exactly 3,963 times in the car yesterday on our 160 mile roundtrip roadtrip.

so allow me sum it up for you again - in the event you're still operating with the confused notion that riley is, in fact, the boss of wyatt's belly button.

RILEY IS NOT THE BOSS OF WYATT'S BELLY BUTTON.

now you may get on with your day.

sweet sweet revenge

this is what happens to naughty dogs in the Jackson household:

superhero costumes.

plastic-y vinyl vests.

masks with your ears pulled through the eye holes.

belts.

and you’re all like “WHAT? that patio furniture deal was like MONTHS ago.”

and i'm all like “yeah, and I’m STILL ticked off about the cushions. i am so leaving you to the mercy of the kids.”

i'd suggest gettin' your POWER RANGER ON there aunt bea. and be happy about it.

impress your friends and neighbors with this trick

oh, the joy of being a parent. our kids teach us so much.

for example, yesterday my 11 year old daughter came home looking like she'd been making out with a spider monkey in the back row of a movie theater.

yep, she was sporting a couple of hickeys. remember them? those little (or sometimes not so little) bruises acquired when another human being sucks on your neck?

if you don't know what i'm talking about, just pay close attention the next time you're standing in line to ride a roller coaster or you're picking up a 12 pack of crunchwrap supremes from the teenager at the taco bell drive-thru. chances are you'll get an eye full.

except hers weren't on her neck. imagine bruises around her mouth ... kinda like alice cooper makeup.

"whadja do to your lips?" i asked innocently when she got home from school.

"whadda mean?" she replied. innocently.

"go check 'em out." i sweetly demanded.

okay, so it appears you don't have to actually involve another human being in the hickey-giving or hickey-receiving process. turns out a little bitty eraser, as in the kind you pop on to the top of a pencil, will do. spider monkeys probably work too but the for the purpose of this demonstration we'll just stick with the pencil eraser method of self-hickey application:

step 1: squeeze the open end of the eraser in to a slit.

step 2: stick the now-slitted end of the eraser on to the skin all around your delicate lip area where it will open up and create suction, thereby sticking all by itself to the skin all around your delicate lip area.

step 3: repeat steps 1 and 2

step 4: repeat steps 1 and 2 again until you are out of erasers

step 5: lipsynch "slow ride" by foghat (which you have mastered thanks to hours and hours of practice on the guitar hero) for your friends with erasers hanging off your face causing them to fall on the floor in hysterical laughter and shoot milk out of their nose at the lunch table.

step 6: check out your brand new "eraser hickeys". ah, the sweet smell of victory.

they're still pretty vivid today, over 24 hours later, so chances are if you've got a big social event coming up like a wedding or a deposition or something you could get 'em going a couple of days early, time permitting, and still impress everyone with some manufactured evidence of your wild monkey-suckin' passionate love life.

well, i gotta run, tomorrow night's bunco night here in the neighborhood and i'm thinking a couple of hickeys is just the thing i need to get the ladies buzzing with jealousy over a rousing game of dice.

olympic church and the tooth fairy

toddler wrestlin' through christmas eve church should be an olympic sport.

really.

just ask the nice folks behind us this evening.

if wyatt weren't so darn cute and snuggly i might have pulled his hair and made him cry.

i think i broke a bra strap. and broke a sweat. in church.

it wasn't that he was naughty. he's just 4 and it's christmas and he loves the caroles and singing loud and he's pretty darn sure that because he stopped sticking out his tongue at riley around november 29 he's a shoo-in for the big santa spiderman haul.

you think i 'm kidding about the sweating thing.

not.

on the lap. on the floor. head in lap with feet draped over my ears.

hands in pants. hands caught in pants. frantic ripping and tearing to remove hands from pants causes major snuggy during "silent night".

fake napping complete with snoring.

"did baby Jesus poop?" questions.

yep, he's 4. and guess what else 4 year olds do?

they also lose teeth. on christmas eve.

so, tonight, we're breathlessly awaiting the SANTA CLAUS VERSUS THE TOOTH FAIRY WWF SMACKDOWN

'cause, really, i don't know what kind of mayhem will ensue when/if santa and the tooth fairy bump in to each other in my kitchen tonight.

i hear towels popping and tutus ripping.

santa, of course, has the reindeers to tag in in case the fighting gets dirty. i hear rudolph packs a mean left hoof. to the best of my knowledge the tooth fairy is a bit of a loner.

so, i'd love to sit here and chat all evening but i've got other stuff to do ... like fix my bra.

merry Christmas.

back by popular demand

well, my fans have spoken ... and by "fans" i'm referring to "alex in canada" (hey alex!) who reprimanded me via my husband to get back on the bloggin' horse ...

so here we are ... halloween has passed ... thanksgiving has passed and Christmas is upon us and i've missed a plethora of blogging opportunities because i've been way too busy doing the "not blogging stuff" that seems to fill up my days.

stuff like assisting john with "wii stalking" throughout san antonio. it's not that we really decided it was time to bring video games in to our household as part of our Christmas celebration ... it was more like the gauntlet had been laid when the newspapers announced a wii was really, really hard to get.

then we had to have it.

john won the wii game early one morning in front of our nearest best buy store. he was #15 in line to get the last wii that arrived that morning.

he marched in with his wii box strutting around all proud and then we looked at each other and wondered "now what"?

what does one do with said wii?

well, this is what you do. you go out and immediately double your initial investment with the purchase of two sets of the wii tennis racket/baseball bat/golf club set as well as GUITAR HERO and an extra nunchuk.

actually, i am the "Extra Nunchuk Queen" having been the one who actually located the nearly extinct extra nunchuk hiding place at wal-mart. i have no idea what it's for but it was really bugging me that we had 2 of everything except the nunchuk.

nunchuk matched sets. for the borderline obsessive compulsive personality.

someone casually mentioned it was for the boxing game. boxing?

i see lots of broken stuff in our future.

act your age, not your shoe size

so we pretty much live out in the sticks. we've got our wal-mart and our home depot and an entire antique shopping district but as far as "real" shopping goes, well, we've got to drive all the way in to san antonio.

and as we do, we find it necessary to pass by the evil "bass pro shop".

now, i'm not saying there's anything intrinsically "wrong" with bass pro shops ... it's just that being married to the guy i'm married to we rarely pass BY the bass pro shops where we don't have to stop and GO IN TO the bass pro shops.

and that's just not my kind of shopping.

camouflage bedding.

beef jerky.

fishing boats.

turkey jerky.

guns.

alligator jerky.

did i mention that this bass pro shops it's absolutely HUGE? and that they carry jerky?

which means i can lose john in about 10 seconds flat only to find him 2 hours later caressing a 12 foot long smoker/grill you can actually hook up to a trailer hitch and cart around town.

it's enough to make me curl up underneath the stuffed elk and cry. you know the stuffed elk over by the indoor fish pond stocked with thousand pound catfish that terrify my 4 year old. actually, i find them kinda scary too.

you may have seen us going in to bass pro shops before. i'm the 43 year old adult splayed out on the million degree asphalt kicking and screaming. that tantrum-throwing adult? yep, that's me.

riley and i did discover a little somethin' way up on the second floor the other day, though, right behind the "bow hunting" department.

they carry women's shoes ....

and not just the hip-wader-slogging-through-the-swamp-frog-gigging kind of shoes but REAL shoes. girly shoes.

you know, the kind where your toenails show.

so, naturally, riley and i proceeded to go to town trying on shoes while john and "his" son were downstairs, lost somewhere in the bait aisle.

and that's when i realized my riley, my precious little 11 year old daughter, has surpassed me in shoe size.

in fact, nothing in the bass pro shops inventory fit her.

she's already a size 11+.

so we went toe-to-toe and it appears her big toe, the boss of all the other toes, is the culprit.

he's huge.

he's the goliath of big toes in the big toe world.

even in a pair of flip flops* her big toe hangs over the edge like a cliff diver eyeing the rocks below.

*sidebar: we used to call these "thongs" but daughter informs me that today's proper use of the word "thong" implies fabric being crammed up your fanny crack and therefore it's not appropriate to announce in the middle of the bass pro shop shoe department that we're intersted in TRYING ON THOSE THONGS. which, of course, gives me license to stand there saying THONGS THONGS THONGS THONGS over and over thereby driving her in to a humiliated pre-teen frenzy.

now, i have to admit, my first thought was "oh dang, she's outgrown everything i'm going to be able to buy off the rack ... she's going to require custom-made italian shoes for everything ..."

but then i was overcome with the "she's only 11 ... how BIG ARE HER FEET GOING TO BE?"

and then i looked over and realize this sweet little 11 year old girl also understood the unspoken - all the cute shoes she sees in nordstrom and macy's and neiman marcus and sometimes target aren't going to fit her.

and just when i think she might be tearing up she comes up with this AT LEAST WHEN SOMEONE TELLS ME TO ACT MY AGE, NOT MY SHOE SIZE I CAN TELL THEM I AM.

and i'm relieved 'cause she's let me off the hook ... i don't have to justify marrying and procreating with a 6'7" man who is the carrier of the "huge foot" gene.

last night we were "chatting" about uncompleted chores and she looked at me, serious as can be, and told me to "stop messing with the sasquatch" ...

sasquatch? did she just call herself a sasquatch?

AWESOME. THAT'S ONE LESS HALLOWEEN COSTUME I HAVE TO FIGURE OUT.

crap, it's almost halloween ...

at least it feels like it around here. day after day the catalogs roll in. fancy costumes that cost a fortune and fall apart while my kids are still standing in the driveway.

yes, i've bought them.

yes, i'll continue to buy them.

why? genetics.

you see, in spite of the fact that i do consider myself a fairly creative person, i inherited "costume-block" from my mom.

i just don't see it: how to take a relatively normal-looking person and transform them via wildly creative, innovative and inexpensive measures in to something akin to a mardi gras float.

my mom couldn't pull it off when we were kids and, so far, i haven't managed to overcome this disability either.

so, i resort to buying them.

one year i did manage to recycle riley's dalmatian costume by stuffing wyatt in to it and then dressing riley up like cruella deville. that was pretty cute and maybe my highest score yet.

but this year, dangit, the superhero thing just won't go away.

and now the catalogs have gotten greedy ... they're including costumes for EVERYONE ... including mom, dad and the dog.

so, picture this: one big happy family, all dressed up from "The Wizard of Oz", heading out for an evening of group trick or treating.

this is the subliminal message i hear: "if you love your kids you and john will dress up like a big dorks and walk around in the dark asking for candy from your brand new neighbors who still, at this time, are under the assumption you're relatively normal. that assumption, of course, will be dashed into a million tiny pieces when they spot a 6'7" transvestite named dorothy on their front porch."

so wyatt's been hauling around his library of costume catalogs and our recent conversations are going something like this:

wyatt: "i want to be spiderman for halloween."

me: "yeah, buddy, you just told me that 200 times while i was buckling your carseat."

wyatt: "oh, well i want YOU, mommy, to wear THAT (pointing at the wonderwoman costume)"

me: "wow. i'm not dressing up like wonderwoman. i gave birth to your giant 10 pound 4 ounce head. that gets me out of halloween costumes forever. it's in the rule book."

wyatt: "well, can aunt bea be "spiderdog" then?

me: "i don't know how to make a "spiderdog" costume, buddy."

wyatt: "you don't have to you can just buy it right here."

and sure enough, there it is: the "spiderdog" costume.

i don't know, it'd be pretty cute. a little boy and his dog. spider-buddies.

plus, it'd be pretty good revenge on aunt bea for all the chewing she's been doing. "fine, you want to chew up my patio furniture? then you're going in to "spiderdog" timeout. wear this for a while and let's just see how badly you want to chew on my stuff."

as for riley, my sweet little innocent girl who can't bear for my bra strap to slip out and expose itself because it's "inappropriate" ... well, she wants to be "bad sandy" from the end of "Grease", not "sandy in the stupid skirt" from the beginning. nooooo, she wants to be tight-black-pants-cigarette-smoking-red-lipstick-wearing-shimmying-on-the-carnival-ride-in-johntravolta's-face sandy.

like i said before ... crap, it's almost halloween.

would it be wrong to have my dog stuffed?

i'm just wondering 'cause aunt bea is in "killer bea" mode right now.

she's chewing up the backyard at a rate of about $100 a day.

today it was the brand new grill cover and the hose to the "creepy crawly" pool cleaner.

so, i'm wondering, really, if the kids would notice if i took her down to the taxidermist and had her stuffed and mounted on wheels.

the kids could roll her around the neighborhood.

riley wouldn't have to pick up poop.

wyatt could still ride her around.

i love the dog. i really do. but the chewing thing ... well, if she survives the night i'm considering one of those hannibal lector masks from silence of the lambs. 'cause i suspect she could chew a standard dog muzzle right off her face.

i guess that's what 11 month old lab puppies do.

john went out this morning and yelled at her when he discovered she'd targeted his grill.

now, it's personal. a man and his grill.

then he stomped back in to the kitchen with wet feet and proceeded to slip and fall on his butt right there on the tile floor.

bad dog karma.

i love you john for yelling at our dog and taking the fall for me 'cause i was in more of a mindset of "wanna eat the grill cover? really? well, let's just see you eat the entire grill cover right here. right now. go on you big tough grill-cover-eatin' dog."

speaking of taxidermists ... my stepbrother once went on a "corporate hunting trip" down at the king ranch (that's the kind of thing you do when you work for a big oil company).

he shot a turkey and as part of the boondoggle trip his hosts offered to have it mounted for him and shipped to chicago, where he was living at the time.

about a month later a freight delivery truck shows up with an enormous crate.

yep, it's the turkey. he'd failed to realize as it was laying there dead on the ground that it had a wingspan of, like, 8 feet and the taxidermist had mounted it in full flight.

it was HUGE and being a man and all, he actually hung that thing from his ceiling. obviously, this happened back in his bachelor days when it was actually an option to display dead stuff in his house without getting divorced.

oh, another taxidermy thought ... grandma cox once got riley a cute little stuffed kitty to put on her bed.

except that cute little stuffed kitty caused the same allergic reaction as the cute little live kitty we'd had to get rid of when riley's face swelled shut the day we brought the cat home. that and the cute little stuffed kitty was actually mounted on a board and looked so lifelife riley's babysitter wouldn't go into her bedroom 'cause it gave her the "creeps".

so, i ask grandma "where'd ya get the cute little stuffed kitty?" and she proceeds to tell me she found the greatest store that had all these stuffed animals that were "so incredibly lifelike".

ewwwwwwwwwww.

yep, we've already owned a stuffed cat ... a stuffed dog can't be too far behind.

anything but fondue

we went over to my mom's house the other night for my early birthday dinner.

it's been a long time since she's put on a home-cooked birthday meal like the kind she pulled off so effortlessly when we were kids.

a couple of weeks ago she asked me what i'd like to have her cook for my birthday and before i could answer she quickly qualified her offer with "ANYTHING BUT FONDUE".

dang.

see, when we were kids, fondue was THE birthday meal. and my brother steven, being born just a week before me - albeit three years later, always wanted the same menu.

so for a month our lives revolved around fondue.

now, we didn't do any sissy "warm cheese/melted chocolate" fondue. sure that was there too but the centerpiece of our fondue experience was like something out of a medieval horror show.

vats of boiling oil on the table, platters of raw meat we picked up with our fingers and stabbed on to forks long enough to poke your brother's eye out without even leaning over.

we loved it.

mom was always a complete baset case on "fondue night".

i mean, really, i've got two kids and on the rare occasion we fry up some bacon they won't step in to the kitchen without their swim goggles on, just in case there happens to be a wild smattering of grease aimed right for their eyes.

three kids and boiling oil at the dinner table? if someone banged their knee on the table leg we all dove for cover as the oil splashed around in the fondue pots like the tide was rolling in.

then, of course, there were the "fondue fork sword fights" - with or without the meat on the fork you can still pin your brother's scrawny little hand to the table. trust me, i've done it.

not long after we were married john and i went to a fondue restaurant in denver. "the melting pot", i believe it was. i was in heaven and john's summary of the evening went something like this:

"that's a lot of money to pay to cook your own food."

oh, he missed the heart of the culinary experience. see, i think it's something about the element of danger involved: there could be permanent disfigurements. multiple stabbings. all in the name of fine dining.

danger mixed with cheese and chocolate. yum.

bat-man-panties

we were in wal-mart yesterday, collecting the final items on our "back to school" shopping list.

ick.

it's always those last couple of items that every store runs out of that gives me headaches.

this year, it's the "kindermat" - the little vinyl fold-up mat for preschool naps.

naturally, they're all gone.

so i bought a yoga mat, thinking it might suffice. it doesn't, by the way, so don't attempt to slide one past your preschool director as i did ... evidently it MUST be vinyl. that way the kids won't attempt to get up and walk around during their naps as the electrical conductivity of vinyl against 4 year old skin causes an abundance of sweat, thereby adhering their little bodies TO THE MAT, making movement virtually impossible. i think at the end of naptime they must grab them by their shoes and rip them off the mat, like a giant bandaid.

so we're in wal-mart, in the toy aisle, looking for the vinyl mat.

and what wyatt really wants to do is shop for toys.

but i'm on a mission to find THE MAT and so by the time we head to the front of the store with our non-compliant yoga mat (which got returned this morning, by the way) he's sporting "THE BIG LIP".

you know what i'm talking about.

the big giant bottom lip that creeps out when your 4 year old is caught in the throes of utter superhero disappointment.

"i wanted to see the batman, mommy"

so this is the problem with superheros around our house: the dog likes them better than the kids.

if you are stuffed, or 4 inches tall and plastic, your days are numbered in the jackson household 'cause aunt bea will sneak in to your room and find you in the middle of the night and chew your head off.

and i simply can't take another "teenage mutant ninja turtle" funeral around here. i really can't.

but superhero underwear? that i can do. the dog thinks they taste yucky.

so we detour off to the superhero underwear aisle and my big guy snags himself a 3 pack of batman "glow in the dark"* underwear.

*yeah, right, i pulled those suckers right over my head last night and popped in to wyatt's pitch dark room to give him a little "glow in the dark" thrill ... he didn't see a danged thing except his mom stretching out his brand new underwear. he darn near tore my pearl earrings out of my lobes yanking them off my head in disgust.

now, they package underwear a little different these days ... the come in a little plastic shell with a plastic hook which makes displaying them at 4-year-old eye level a snap. in my walmart they're hanging right next to the fruit loops, live goldfish and mr. bubble.

wyatt discovered very quickly that this little hook fit nicely over his belt loop so he proudly wore his little packet of underwear around the store, through the checkout, out to the car, in to his carseat and back home.

so i was wondering, when did i lose the enthusiasm for lingerie that i would never consider just strapping on a brand new bra in nordstrom and wearing it out, over my clothes, to my car, all proud of my new purchase?

"looky looky", i'd say to the stranger who just parked 2 inches from my car door, "it's got UNDERWIRES! wanna feel 'em?"

but then mall security would probably get involved and i just don't fancy trying to explain why i'm all "lifted and separated" out in the parking lot.

so, the lesson for today is, always, always be grateful when your underwear don't glow in the dark ... or maybe it's to be grateful you don't stick to your mattress ...

i don't know ... you decide.

like beans in the yard, baby

did i mention, out here in septic land, that our garbage disposal is "off limits"?

we have one. nicely installed, and all, in a beautiful 4 foot designer sink. but septic rules dictate that we do not, in fact, actually put said garbage disposal to use.

something about egg shells and coffee grounds and baked beans mucking up the system.

so the other night we attended a 'back to school fish fry" put on by the neighborhood. 112 homes reside in our little gated community so we decided to take a big batch of beans, knowing they can sit out by the pool for a little while before turning bad, like potato salad.

being new here and all, i DID NOT want to be the one responsible for the homicidal potato salad at the back to school fish fry.

so we show up with about 10 gallons of beans, as does everyone else in the neighborhood, and we came home with about 9.75 gallons of beans.

i put some in the fridge and then set the bowl on the counter.

and it sat there. and it sat there. and it sat there.

a couple of days later, john asked me what the "bean plan" was.

"bean plan"?

"bean plan?"

truth is, HONEY, i don't know what to DO with the beans.

can't throw them in the trash. they'll leak and smell before the trash is picked up.

can't put 'em down the garbage disposal 'cause, as i said before, we CAN'T ACTUALLY USE OUR GARBAGE DISPOSAL.

at this point, i'm tempted to just walk the big giant bowl of fermenting beans out to the back, back yard and start flinging them in to the nuclear-fertilized grass with a big giant ladle.

after all, if i actually USED MY GARBAGE DISPOSAL that's where they'd wind up anyway. so, really, i'm just bypassing the system. i'm just accelerating the process.

john, however, thought that might be a bad idea. might ruin all the good will we've built up with our neighbors. the beans are now sitting in his workshop.

More Star Wars Please

you can already file this away in the "guess you had to be there category", but here goes anyway.

we were in vegas last weekend on business. john and i spent a little time at the blackjack tables. now, we're not big gamblers but we do enjoy playing blackjack together, especially if john sits at my right and lovingly coaches me when i attempt to double down as the dealer holds a face card.

that's, evidently, a big no no.

we ALWAYS net a profit and we ALWAYS walk away when we're ahead.

the casinos hate that, by the way.

anyway, we spent some time at the "party pit" blackjack table in Bally's Casino. you get really cool plastic jewelry when you hit a blackjack. now i'm not big on plastic jewelry but last weekend i was rather enjoying my mardi gras beads.

and our table got on a run.

we played for hours, collecting plastic jewelry and laughing so loud the dealers were fighting to get back to our table as a happy table is a tipping table.

they were doing well too.

as i said, though, john and i always know when it's time to cash out.

so cash out time rolled around and we collected our stack of chips and headed over to the Cashier's Cage.

we waited in line as very serious tellers exchanged very serious money for chips and very serious chips for money.

when it was our turn, john sauntered up to the cashier and proceeded to request 2 TICKETS TO STAR WARS ... NO, MAKE THAT THE STAR WARS TRILOGY.

and the cashier didn't think it was funny. at all.

and the more the cashier didn't think it was funny, the funnier it got.

and i wet my pants right there in bally's.

the end.

A Change of Scenery

wow, there's nothing like a change of scenery to bring life in to perspective.

as many of you know, 3 weeks ago we packed up our life and moved to the Texas Hill Country. just 'cause we wanted to.

moving is hard work. even with a great support network of a top-notch moving company, efficient service people and family it's still a lot of work to settle in to a new "normal" 1,000 miles from where "normal" was a month ago.

there's so much to be grateful for ... but the most profound experience i've had, to date, in the Texas Hill Country - other than way more armadillo encounters in my backyard than i choose to recount - is the fresh perspective life i've chosen to embrace.

i believe it's because, in many ways, me and my family are WAY outside our comfort zone.

everything is new.

like the cicadas (i.e. locusts) nearly deafening whir at night. i grew up with a locusts so, to me, it's a familiar, almost welcome sound. my kids, however, have experienced nothing more than a bug-less Colorado upbringing.

WHAT'S THAT NOISE? CUZ I DON'T LIKE IT,

and late last evening we were standing in the far-reaches of our backyard, which abutts a working ranch. riley was asking me what lives back there and i was telling her i hoped it was coyotes, which are an armadilloes only natural predator, when a deer went racing past with two coyotes in hot pursuit.

cool.

we were rooting for the deer, by the way, as a hungry coyote is, hopefully, an armadillo-eating coyote.

to put it in john's words, "armadilloes creep me out".

aunt bea says "hey" and, in case you're wondering, armadilloes taste yucky.

man panties

i'm the mother of a very courageous little boy.

john and i took the kids jet skiing in mexico.

knowing riley's love for speed, john, um, "volunteered" to ride with her. and when i say "volunteered" i mean he pulled my hair, poked me in the eye, and dislocated my knee as we were racing to see who got to her jet ski first.

nah, not really. but we both really, really wanted to ride with her because we both like to go really, really fast.

in contrast, wyatt sometimes tells me to slow down when i'm pushing him around the grocery store in their racecar shopping carts. "too fast" he'll tell me.

too fast? i've only got 2 wheels that are spinning regularly ... the third is tangled up in some kind of string they use to truss up hams and the fourth is not even touching the ground. it's not possible to go "too fast" in a rig like this.

but a jet ski ... ah, there's some speed for ya.

john and i once jet skiied all the way around paradise island and the atlantis resort twice in our allotted time when we'd been warned we'd be pushing it to make it around once.

his hind quarters looked like he'd been sitting on a cheese grater when he was done (something about little mesh swimsuits inside the outside swimsuit ... guys, i feel for ya.)

anyway, i drew the short jet ski straw with wyatt as my riding buddy.

we got on. i "accelerated" enough to move us a foot or two off shore and he started ordering me to "SLOW DOWN!"

bummer.

so, keeping us just out of a stall, we head out in to the caribbean ocean.

my son and i.

the first ten minutes went something like this:

wyatt: SLOW DOWN!

me: I CAN'T GO ANY SLOWER

jet ski: STALL

wyatt: SLOW DOWN!

me: I CAN'T. THE JET SKI IS OFF

then the next fifty minutes went something like this:

wyatt: SLOW DOWN!

me: I CAN'T GO ANY SLOWER

jet ski: STALL

wyatt: SLOW DOWN!

me: I CAN'T. THE JET SKI IS OFF

but then our hour on the jet skis was over and we went to the poolside restaurant for lunch. there, wyatt proceeded to point out very loudly, as an obviously european fellow strolled by in his speedo, that YOU DON'T WEAR YOUR MAN PANTIES OUTSIDE.

and i fell back in love with him immediately.

My Hat Goes To Hawaii

me and my hat are presently wiling away a few hours in the phoenix airport, awaiting our connection to KONA, HAWAII. we're straddling a little round coffee table in the US Airways lounge under the strict supervision of tracey at the front desk, whose primary job responsibility today is to ensure we understand, without question, the "no feet on the furniture" policy.

in spite of the fact i've lived in colorado for 17 years she must be able to still smell the "oklahoma" on me ... i don't hear her warning anyone else of the NO FEET ON THE FURNITURE rule, which she announced to us the minute we sidled up to her desk.

now john's reclining, using his carry-on bag as an ottoman, but occasionally tracey will glance over here to confirm his giant feet aren't actually touching the coffee table.

i just smile and wave and keep on clipping his toenails.

okay, i'm not really clipping john's toenails in the phoenix airport ... that would be CRAZY seeing as you can't even say the words "toenail clippers" in an airport anymore. much less pack them on your person. but i'd really, really like to see tracey's face if she were to catch me mid-clip ... with toenail shards bouncing off the upholestery right and left.

but today i'm going to hawaii so tracey's furniture fetish isn't bothering me. not even the intimate frisk i received from the security screeners in the denver airport, thanks to my underwire bra, could take the bloom off this day's rose.

toenail clippers and bras aside, i'm wearing my hat today and feeling good about it.

i bought this cute little straw hat with the black band about 15 years ago. it was expensive. made in italy. and it looks pretty darn cute on me if i do say so myself. but i've never worn it outside of my house. might sweat on the sweatband or ruin it or something.

i was in my closet the other day, surveying my hawaiian atire options, when i noticed the hat glaring at me. it never leaves my closet. it wanted to go to hawaii. i said yes. after all, what's the point of having nice, expensive stuff if i'm not going to wear it or use it today?

my decision to take my hat to the steamy tropics was liberating. i found myself pouring orange juice in to our fancy-schmancy-wedding-gift-wine-glasses that have never been used ... our harmonica, the "nice" one (i guess you really can't take the oklahoma out of the girl), has now been broken in by wyatt ... it's sticky and covered in cheerio juice and making sweet, sweet music these days ...

i'm a little self-conscious in my hat. i couldn't pack it, being that it was an expensive hat and all, so it's riding in the main cabin with us. on my head.

i wore it in the denver airport. i'm now wearing it in the phoenix airport. people look. not for any reason other than i'm an aberration in the airport landscape. for a while i took it off and then i realized i wasn't wearing MY hat out of concern for what other people were thinking.

"looking good. looking bad."

it owns us and drives us unless we really get how ridiculous it is.

so i proudly put my hat back on. smushing down my hair until the hawaiian humidity kicks it up a notch. and i feel great.

why?

well, in about 7 hours i'm going to be wearing my first lei thanks to tony, our driver, who kindly pointed out that as this was not "fantasy island" he would not be waiting for us with fresh flowers unless we were willing to pay for them in advance. we did.

aloha!