Halloween

Usually, Halloween night at my house is chaotic at best. We wait too long to get ready and then rush around to try and meet up with friends, I wait too long to order the pizza and either we don't get to eat it or we have to choke a piece or two down before running out the door. The doorbell rings like crazy, turning the dog into a snarling, growling, maniac, and T mysteriously disappears leaving me to fend for myself against the masked masses.

Tonight was different.

We were ready early, I dropped Mac off at a friend's house, T ordered the pizza later, and the dog barely let out a peep when kids knocked on the door.

I IM'ed with Candi and emailed back and forth with T downstairs, I made myself a drink, and watched House. And Blogged. What a lovely Halloween.




Here is my little PuNk RocKeR and Steve Irwin.

Things I Learned This Weekend

A) When you order Chinese on Friday night, you should expect your house to still smell like Chinese when you wake up Saturday morning. (Ewww.)

2) When you see a girlfriend you haven't seen in 2 years and you've missed her so, so much... you will probably start to cry. (ps - I saw Candi on Sunday!)

2.5) Babies you haven't seen in two years turn into children. And then they don't remember you. :( (Biza)

C) Hwy 5 in Southern MD needs more Golden Arches. I'm just sayin.

*There was probably more than this, but DAMN, it's Monday night and I can't remember any more.

Mackenzie

At the request of Omm, I am adding the kid's eyes too...

Dillon

At the request of Omm, I am adding the kid's eyes too...

Self-Portrait Saturday

Can We Go To Bed Yet?

Taiko circa 2:30 this morning when I couldn't sleep. He really prefers to sleep in his own bed in our room but won't go up if I'm not there. He has separation issues.

Playing With Wordgirl

Yesterday, Wordgirl called us all out to post photos of our front doors, in recognition of "Show Me Your Front Door Day" but I didn't read yesterday and as such, didn't know I was supposed to show her my front door. But today I did, and while my OCD really wanted me to sweep the stoop, trim the flowers and buy some pumpkins before I did so, I refrained and took a picture showing exactly what it looks like at this moment in time (though if I could have reached the Flag, I would have untwisted it - I couldn't).

Here it is (it's a little dark because it was, in fact, getting dark out):



And the Other Side:



The trim around the door was just replaced last night. It will be painted soon, but not now. I'm busy blogging.

What you see when you walk in the door: (Evidence for Annie that my Entrance Tansu is still there for her junk...)

Come To Find Out...

..that apparently, I'm "scary". Or so thinks Dillon's girlfriend. Evidently, I am the second scariest person she knows.

Which begs the question:

Who's the first scariest person she knows? Elmo?

Apparently, I give her "a look".

I've known about this for a few weeks now, and have truly tried to not look at her in any sort of suspect manner when she comes over, but it seems I have been unsuccessful. She was here yesterday and after she left, she told Dillon that I was doing it again. Which is funny, because I've consciously tried not to be fearsome or disapproving. I think I'm a fun, fun girl! I crack myself up!

So I got to thinking:

Just maybe as Super-Fun Girl (Pass the Tequila, Please) Paige aka Brandi, I'm not-at-all scary to my friends and family but perhaps to an almost-adult son's girlfriend, I represent the potential (dreaded) mother-in-law with all of the disapproving glances, judgmental attitudes and unjustified prejudices included in one all-inclusive, drama-rich, scary-as-hell package.

Is perceived stand-off-ishness and disapproval of a girlfriend an inevitable by-product of being the mother of a son? An unconscious manifestation of the threat (real or not) of a son's Oedipus Complex? Are mothers and daughters-in-law doomed to forever compete for a son's loyalty? One of those circle-of-life deals that suck us in generation after generation?

I don't know. But I do know one thing:

I AM NOT SCARY, DAMNIT!

Things I Learned This Weekend

1) It is REALLY, really hard to take your own photo! Especially if you have freakishly short arms (and legs, FYI) and you can barely get the camera far enough away to get your giant head in the shot. (Not to mention eliminating potential under-chin fat.) Behold:



2) My kids are incredibly patient to put up with what we call "Mamarazzi". They just smile and pose as long as I am taking their photos. Or, they are truly just total hams.

3) Turns out, Halloween is in ...like... a week.

4) This Mexican Chocolate Cake is not only delicious, it'll make you sick at the end of a huge meal:



5) No matter how many times you* remind yourself you need coffee at the store, if you don't write it down you Will Not Buy It. (And then you'll be cranky as hell the next morning.)

6) My baby boy is (disregarding the purple mohawk) almost grown up:



7) Flickr! is not nearly as difficult as I was trying to make it for the past two years. I sat down Saturday, dedicated half-a-braincell into figuring it out, and voila! 100 photos uploaded. (Annie. I'm talking to you.)

*Ok. Maybe not you, but certainly me. Every Single Time!

This Post Brought to You By the Word 'Super'

I do this thing.

It all started when I bought a super-fun Superman t-shirt last fall. At first, I wore it to work (where I have a super-casual dress code - I mean it's just me in there, I can pretty much do what I want) as a joke on the days that I expected it to be Hell On Earth (which begs the question - "Did I wear it every goddamn day?"). Then slowly, slowly, it morphed into being the shirt I actively sought out of my closet when I started out having a bad day - when I needed something to give me strength to get through the day.



I wore it yesterday. It seems so bizarre that something as silly as a t-shirt could give me such a psychological boost. But it works! It does! It's Super!

You should get one.

What Was

Most of you didn't know Mackenzie as a little girl.

She used to follow me around the house as I did laundry, cooked dinner, even vacuumed while chattering at me all the while. Eventually, I started tuning her out and inserting "Uh-Huh" and "Oh my gosh!" at well-timed intervals while compiling my grocery list in my head or singing along to Sheryl Crow.

But now, every time I see this commercial, it makes my heart hurt just a little bit for the animated little girl that's gone and the censored tween who replaced her. It makes me wish I had stopped and listened to Every Single Word she said.

Blog Spawn Update

Betty has the Journal.

Do it, Girl!

Photo Stall

This is my gorgeous daughter wearing my dress (which clearly doesn't fit me any longer). She went to a Murder Mystery Party Saturday night and played the part of a young lady whose father traveled extensively during the 1800's. All the other girls were wearing their dresses from Colonial Days and I had a moment of panic there while I realized that while the entirety of the US celebrated Colonial Days in 4th or 5th grade (I don't even know), we were overseas, obliviously ignoring our American Heritage and now find ourselves without a Colonial-Style dress to our names. Luckily, the mom of the Birthday Girl realized this and thoughtfully wrote our
travels into the script. Mackenzie wore my navy-dyed pumps from my sister's wedding, and my mom, Omm, sent Mac her opera gloves to complete the outfit. She was stunning. Clearly.




I think this was my last rose of the year.






Taiko's still moving a bit hesitantly, not jumping up on the sofa and taking the stairs slowly, and resting quite a bit. I haven't heard him cry for a couple days and I haven't given him any pain meds at all. He keeps curling up on any soft surface that he can find and crashing out.

And these goofy critters appeared on top of the TV cabinet last week.
I guess Halloween's on its way.

Mother-Daughter Bonding

What started out as me sitting on the floor, leaned up against the sofa, folding laundry evolved into Mac sitting behind me playing with my super-straight slippery hair - braiding, flipping, combing - lamenting, "I wish I could run my hands through my hair." As she lulled me into a state of relaxation, I was stunned by one of my hairs being yanked out from the root. She handed it to me. Gray.

And then another one.

And then another one.

And then she parted my hair on the other side and exclaimed, "Oh, I think I found where they're hiding out!"

About 20 total. My gray is gone, but now I'm sporting a hellacious headache.

Word Association Composition

Tagged by Nicole:

Let the Word Association begin!

Fret: My new expertise. I've been fretting about moving. I've been fretting about my job. I've been fretting about T, the kids, the dog. I need to stop and just Be. The fretting is causing an upset stomach and sleepless nights and my Rosacea to explode. It's causing a headache since August and feelings of Apathy. I'm starting to climb out (again), but it's a long, exhausting ascention.

Faith: Faith. This is a hard word for me. My Faith is less about a fundamental belief in the word of God and is more about my belief that everything happens for a reason. It's a belief in Karma. Optimism. Hope. Pollyanna was a girl with Faith.

Fractious: Homeowners. Seriously. They really need to lighten up.

Football: I got nothin' here. No feelings one way or the other. Wait. Maybe college. College ball games. That was nice. And high school. Friday nights with my friends. So they still do football?

Tagging Annie, Jes (as if she has time for this!), Betty & Brenda.

Your words are: Creativity, Ambition, Sensual, and Seasons. Go forth and compose.

Vet - Just the Facts

• Dog couldn't stand on his leg for a while yesterday, then started limping, couldn't stand on his hind legs last night or jump onto the sofa and the one time he tried, he let out a pitiful doggie yelp and then proceeded to whimper for 2 minutes (or what felt like two minutes). I took him and laid him on the sofa but then he tried to follow me into the kitchen: "Must keep Mommy in visual at all times." (So I told the kids they had to do the dishes because I had to sit on the couch with Dog.)
  
• Dog wouldn't walk up or down stairs this morning and looked all 'droopy'. I was denied by the military vet for all care except for basic care/immunizations, so I had to find a civilian vet at 8:30am (thank you, Beth!).
  
• Got in at 9:05 so I gathered up his leash and asked him, "Do you want to go for a ride in the car?" At which point he started turning in circles and running to and from the door and stood proudly in the back seat all the way there. And then continued to practically prance on his leash while I made excuses for myself a la "He really wasn't acting like this at home! He's been practically lame for the past 2 days!" She made me feel better when she said it was just his adrenaline giving him a boost. When I got him home he would start acting hurt again. She was right.
• But only after I paid the $360 ransom they held over his head. For the visit, a blood test, stool sample, and 4 different meds.
• Bottom line: (But damn, it takes me a while to get to the bottom line sometimes.) She doesn't know what's wrong with him. He may have torn his ACL, twisted his leg, banged his hip on the wall running around... it's injured, but it doesn't appear to be broken. She gave us pain meds and anti-inflammatory meds (with some antibiotics thrown in for his Skin Ick.) We are to keep him on complete bedrest (read "crated") for 2 weeks, only getting up to go potty on a leash, without walking anywhere (especially up or down the 2 flights of hardwood stairs we have - Yay, me. T has already stated, "I will not carry that dog up or down any stairs."). Then after the two weeks, if he's not any better, we need to start considering other diseases/disorders. The problem with the crate plan is that Taiko is MY dog. If I get up to go in the kitchen, he does too. If I go upstairs, so does he. If I go to the bathroom, he sits outside the door. He won't come in anymore on the off chance that what I really want to do is lure him into the bath. He will DIE if I put him into a crate for 14 days and proceed to traipse around the 3 floors of this house. Or, as Dillon so succinctly put it, "Dang, that plan will cause serious psychological damage, worse than his leg." So. For one week, I am going to try to convince him to stay most of the time, carry him with me some of the time, and baby-gate him into the basement when I leave for work in the morning. Then I'll revisit the "Crate Plan".*
  

*My God! That was the Worst Example of a "Bottom Line" ever! Can I not just shut up? Did I not understand the title of this post?

Word Shortage

My friends who know me in real life* know that I am rarely without words. This weekend I lost my voice. I just couldn't think of a single thing to tell you guys. But since then, enough has happened that I can ease my self back into my monologue by just hitting you with the highlights (Lucky YOU!):

There's something wrong with my dog-baby. He's been twitching his back legs while sleeping for the past couple of weeks and today, when I got home from work, he got stuck coming down to see me on the second floor staircase holding up his rear right leg. (Perhaps completely unrelated symptoms but worth mentioning.) After a while, he started walking on it again, but he's walking a little funny and laying around and clearly doesn't feel so hot as he didn't come running a while ago when I opened a bag of chips. "Call the Vet", right? He's on base and my ID expired yesterday. (Hope those kids don't break anything...) But really, I'll call in the morning. T can take me.

D has detention tomorrow morning at 6am for writing himself a note last week when he overslept and we all left the house not realizing he was still in bed. Two days later I wrote him a note, they compared notes...Viola! Busted.

I have Rosacea. I'm somewhere between the Middle and Advanced Stage, eyes Early Stage (I don't have that thick-skin-nose-problem, thank GOD). I've actually probably had it for years, but it launched a sneak attack last Tuesday whereby my cheeks turned into two burning scaly raised patches of nastiness and all my pores filled with pus* prompting me to call Right Now, as opposed to Sometime The Week After Next...Maybe like I usually do. I got into the doctor (Who I LOVED, BTW!) the next day. She took one look at me and immediately commenced all the prescription writing. I walked out of the clinic with a grocery-bag-o-meds, but here it is 5 days later and my face looks 90% better.

*Notice how I used "pus" as a noun here and not as an adjective, as in "pussy".

Omm sent more Laugh Out Loud mail. I'll get to those later.

And now I'm out of words again.

*UPDATED to include Betty, Bridget & Bec. Girlfriend Betty called me out for leaving her off the Real Life Friends list. My most humble apologies.

Using Every Available Opportunity to Mess With Your Kids

Me, after listening to Mac's story about how she was playing with the candle, causing the flame to shoot up after dripping wax onto the open flame: "Nice, you little Pyromaniac."

"I'm not a Firemaniac."

"No, a Pyromaniac."

"What's that?"

"A Firemaniac."

And that frustrated little scream you hear, means I need to add an extra fifty bucks to her Therapy Fund this month.

The Post That Will Likely End All Further Correspondence

Last August, while visiting my Aunt Jacque in Indianapolis, Jacque and my mom were talking and giggling late into the night. Their conversation turned toward listing the things they'd like to do or see before they die. My mom mentioned that she's always wanted to go to the Opera, and how that was near the top of her wish list. And what do you think my Aunt Jacque got her for her birthday?

Opera tickets.

For the two of them to see Carmen last Sunday.

Mom was so excited when the playbill announcing their date arrived! She read it and celebrated her great fortune and her sister's thoughtfulness... right up until the moment she looked at my dad and cried in dismay, "Ohhhhh, it's in French! I thought it would be in Italian!"

I wasn't there, but in the retelling of this story, I came to understand that Dad looked right at her, with tears of laughter filling his eyes, and hilarity shaking his body, and said, "What difference does it make? You can't understand either!"

And while Dad sat there in hysterics, laughing harder every time he thought of her distress, Mom lost it as well, and through their laughter she had to concede that Dad was correct, as she neither understood French, nor Italian.

I supposed she had a good time. We haven't talked in a few days.

And then today, another one of her Famous Postcards arrived in the mail:

"Hi Paige Suzanne!

The opera was fantastic and Carmen was a slut!!

Center stage 6 rows back.

xoOmm"

Yup! She had a good time. :)

When Kids Take Control of the Answering Machine

If you call me tonight, and my Tater's new telephone* rings, and I fail to pick up (which frequently happens, due to an inexcusable fear of the telephone which causes me to screen and quiver in loathing every time it rings), what you will hear is Mackenzie saying, "You've reached the M**** residence. Please leave a message after the Wookie."

And then you'll hear Dillon make an awesomely realistic (assuming Wookies are Real) Wookie sound, signaling the moment you should start talking.

Unfortunately, it will be hard, what with all the hysterics.

*Because. Seriously. Tater... and the Electronics... a more passionate relationship was never had.

I Did Not Teach Her That...

Tater, on taking Mackenzie to the wholly inappropriate movie Crank while I was in NY with Annie:

"Before we go to another movie like that, remind me to have a talk with you about The Birds and the Bees."

"Oh, I know all about The Birds and the Bees... and Snakes in Caves."