Tag: funny stories

The Space Between

Published on by cmglife

“Oh, no.  That’s too bad, I haven’t seen it.”

That is what I will say to my daughter when she notices her rival school’s t-shirt is missing.  She says she doesn’t care if the other kids will make comments or say something. What she doesn’t realize is that I have lived way longer than she has and I know these things will hurt.

It’s almost the same as the “nice rack” moose t-shirt exploiting women’s breasts that was inexplicably lost behind the space between the dryer and the wall until a month ago when it was miraculously found.  By then it was way too small for Tristan to wear anymore.  Darn.  Too bad.

Maybe we’ll find Allison’s t-shirt in the space between the wall and my dresser in a couple of years too.

Epic Spills

Published on by cmglife

During my life I have experienced many detrimental spills.

“Oh my God!” You exclaim,”What a sorry uneventful life you must have endured to remember spills!”

Well, my memories are scattered at best.  I don’t have any idea why I can remember the smell of a certain event and my thought pattern during it, but cannot recall going to a party two weeks ago.  It is very frustrating to say the least.  I feel dumb a lot of the time.

With my co-workers and friends I can usually get away with them believing I do remember the event I was a key player in.  I have to be careful not to say “I don’t remember” too often.  When I do have to say it, I can only allow them to give me a limited number of details. After it looks like I might have a grasp on the forgotten event, I lie and agree that I do indeed remember.  It’s a miracle that I’ve made it so far in life with my mask still in place.

Crazy never stops when you are saddled with a history of Bipolar II.  It feels like my memory capacity has been eaten away by some sort of casuistic chemical caused by this condition.

Hey, wait a minute! How did I get so side tracked from my lifetime of epic spills?

The first one I can remember when I was four in England.  Back then they let small children go down to the shops and buy loaves of bread.  I took a loaf from the shelf, grabbing the wrong end.  All of the bread fell out onto the floor.  The shop people were very nice about it but, that was it for me.  I didn’t shop again until I was six!

On Saturday mornings when I was a little older my sister and I would go to the local department store to hang around and get items for my mom.  Hair color was on the list on this particular Saturday.  In a strange coincidence the bottom of that box also gave out and the dark brown hair dye bottle hit the ground and shattered!  Mortified is the best way to explain my eight year old feelings.

26 years ago Emily spilled red artificial colored juice on the carpet that cost me my deposit on an apartment.

While visiting home one summer my husband fell asleep with a very dark beer on a futon. We had to shamefully explain what happened to my dad.  I don’t remember replacing it.  Did we?  No memory of that…means nothing.

Tristan kicked my glass of red wine on our new $1300 pillow top mattress.  Of course, it was my side.  To this day I still sleep on a brown stained corner.

Last year my phone was plugged into the truck and as I reached to answer it I caught a very full Starbucks with the cord and spilled an entire Grande vanilla late on me, the seat and the floor of John’s new truck. Yes, the same one as in the aforementioned parking garage.

This morning Allison was rolling around on the floor doing something flexible with her legs in the air and my terminator like vision zoomed in on a half-filled glass of wine across the room on a side table.

“Watch that glass!” I yelled and finally avoided another epic spill.

Romance is Not Dead: It’s Just Hacking up a Lung

Published on by cmglife

The other night John was supposed to be home early(ish) so we could go out for a drink.

He called around 8 to say he wouldn’t be home until 9 and then called at 9 to say he wouldn’t be home until around 10. That was alright, I said I would be here anyway, but it was too late to go out. I put Allison to bed and Tristan went downstairs to watch a movie or something.

John came home shortly after 10 and I was all ready for bed sitting there watching Survivor and drinking a Mike’s Hard Lemonade. I love them, it is more like a dessert than a drink so since I am watching my calories, it is better to drink than to eat. Even though they say you shouldn’t drink your calories, I don’t care, I just love a Mikes’ Hard Lemonade at the end of the day. As you can see why I am still needing to lose that 10 lbs., my body is carrying around 10 lbs. of rationalized fat!

John seemed to be in a better mood than the situation warranted. He came into the room with a grin on his face and a black plastic bag. For some reason I thought it was maybe a stuffed raccoon at first, I don’t know why. Well, yes, I guess I do know why. He’s done this before, but with pheasant tails, an old stole made out of ferrets (and their faces), a long horn’s skull and just a bunch of various pieces of fur. They weren’t for me personally and I wasn’t sure this was either until he said with a grin, “I’ve got something for you”.

He began the story, when a story begins “I was in a bar in Cheyenne” the rest can’t be good. There is always a story, it can’t be “I picked something nice up for you”.

John says, “I was in a bar and these ladies were having a lingerie sale”.

“In the bar?” I say. He is very sensitive so I have to choose my words and tone carefully.

He laughs pulling out a black and purple corset thing with big bows on the hips.

I’m having a really hard time hiding my dismay, because I can smell it from where I am sitting, and, of course, I can see it. It has been in a bar for god knows how many hours and obviously the bar didn’t have a “no smoking ban”!

“I love it!” he says.

“Then why don’t YOU wear it?” I think.

“I’m going to have to wash it before I can wear it you know.”

“No you don’t, I don’t mind”, I think at this point his mind is seriously on that old one way track, and I have to put my foot down.

“No, I really have to wash it”

“How are you going to wash it?,” he asks.

“I suppose on the delicate cycle on cold.”

“No, I mean so the kids won’t see it.”

He thinks that Tristan is more involved in our laundry than he really is and Allison is pretty much oblivious to almost anything that is not hers. Needless to say I will not be setting the alarm for 2 am to do a clandestine delicate laundry run.

Parknaphobia

Published on by cmglife

Among other things in my kaleidoscope brain is a parking phobia.  Parknaphopia I believe is the clinical term.

Downtown is the worst. I have always gone to great lengths to find a perfect spot or an open spot.  I have been known to walk 16 blocks to my destination because I pulled into the first spot I saw.

When I have to go somewhere new and I suspect there is sub par parking available, I’ll call ahead and casually ask.  I hate it when people just flippantly say, “Oh, yeah, there’s parking”.  What does that mean exactly? Parking in the rear, on the street, in a garage, where, what?  I’m starting to get worried again.  I’ll move on.

The strange thing is I do know how to parallel park, but I don’t always have the confidence at the time to try it.  If I’m feeling all rough and ready I’ll do it and I’ll do it well.  I really don’t have a parking problem as much as I have a self confidence problem you are probably observing.  Or, as I am reading back over what I wrote I pretty much have both and it’s when they both collide is when I have a serious problem.

Oh, yeah I also have a little claustrophobia.  It’s pretty much hell when I’ve got to park in a parking garage and I’m feeling a little down on myself.   One time I actually backed into a cement wall trying to park John’s new dodge truck on the top floor of a parking garage that was downtown on a one-way street.  I was trying to get to the top floor to get out from under the 10′ roof that seemed to be getting lower with every floor I went up.  I was so flustered by the time I got up there I didn’t see it (the cement wall that is).

Now I wonder if you are wondering how I even get out of bed in the morning with all this to deal with.  I’m used to it I guess.  It’s probably the reason I need 10 hours of sleep a night,  I’m exhausting.

Nitrous Oxide

Published on by cmglife

“Now, you want the nitrous oxide, right?”, asked the dental hygienist.

Hell, yeah!

“Yes, please”, I responded.  My hands were already balled into fists.

Wikipedia: dentophobia or individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder, caused by previous traumatic dental experiences.

The latter is the category I feel I fall into.  I’m not going to bore you with horrific old stories of needles hitting a nerve or anything like that, just suffice it to say, I have “dentophobia”.

I like to think there is an upside to everything.  This particular silver lining is called nitrous oxide. It’s not exactly a high, just a nothing feeling.  So much so that the 45 shots I got in my gums and cheek  for a recent root canal didn’t even faze me.  Even when I think the dentist did hit a nerve and a jolt of electricity went through my tongue, I didn’t flinch.  Amazing stuff.   I would enjoy my life so much more if I could wheel a canister of it around during the day the way oxygen patients do.

Idea of the Week: Sparkling My Wine

Published on by cmglife

My cousin in England served me a sparkling wine last year and after more bottles than I am willing to admit to sampling, I have yet to find something comparable in this country.  That’s when I came up with an idea that I could sparkle my own wine.

I used to drink wine mixed with Sprite because I breastfed my youngest daughter for so long that I had to start drinking!  I figured that diluted wine would be the safest bet.  This is TMI isn’t it?  Still, adding Sprite to wine wasn’t exactly the thing I was looking for.

Last night I was at my sister’s.   I had bought her a Soda Stream last year for Christmas.  My sister carbonized some plain water and added it to my wine…it was delicious.  I heard recently, that if you drink equal amounts of water with your alcohol you won’t get a hangover because you won’t get dehydrated.  Well, I thought maybe if I added “sparkling” water to my alcohol it would kill two birds with one stone (I’m always looking for ways to streamline my drinking). Still, adding sparkling water to my wine wasn’t the thing I was looking for.

I had read an article called “Going Rouge with my Soda Machine”.  It was like it was written for me.  The author had tried sparkling his lemonade and it didn’t work out so well, something about a “mess”.  He said the Soda Machine manual forbids using anything except plain water.

I’m still going to try to Soda Stream the wine straight, warning or not.  Two reasons;  I want to and I’m no longer breast feeding anyone.

10 Reasons to Sleep Alone

Published on by cmglife

I’ve been married now for 20 years.  You don’t have to be married for 20 years or married at all if that is your preference.  Here are my pet peeves when sleeping with someone.  I mean really sleeping, not having sex or anything. 

1.     “Leg zaps” I like to call them.  Restless leg syndrome is what the experts call them.

2.     Sleeping diagonally. 

3.     Being “dead weight” and being too small, weak and tired to move your partner no matter how much lower body strength you can muster with both feet against the back of the person that is intruding on your personal sleep space.

4.     Snoring, enough said.

5.     Leaving the TV on and falling asleep on the remote. 

             Me:     “Give me the remote before you fall asleep.”

             Him:   “Oh, I’ll turn it off before I fall asleep.”

             Me:    “Yeah, and I just crawled out from under a rock.”

6.     Being hit in the face with a partner that is flailing around in a violent dream.  It happened to me one night.  It really was pissed me off!

7.     “Spooning”.

8.     Coming to bed after I’ve already fallen asleep.

9.     Cold feet.  His cold feet always somehow find their way into the arches of one of my feet.  They are like heat seeking missiles.

10.   And the number one pet peeve: Cracking ankles and toes. Oh wait that’s me, never mind.

The Day Heavy Metal Died

Published on by cmglife4 Comments

John and I were out the other night having a hamburger at a bar that has really good bands playing every Saturday night.  We never get to go because for some reason John will spend $800 on a kayak, but won’t spend $5 on a cover charge.  I picked up a flyer, and it turned out the weekend that Emily and her husband, Paul, were coming there was a showcase of metal bands playing.

“Great,” I said, “we’ll take them here that weekend”.

I sensed John didn’t really believe that I would plan this, but I did. That Saturday, Emily got Grace to sleep, Tristan babysat and off we went. I was really quite proud of myself for planning a night out, just like the old days I thought to myself (really old days, like 30 years ago).

We left at 7.  We got there at 7:10.  We just walked right in, giggling that the bouncer wasn’t there to charge us the cover charge. John was over the moon.  He must have mentioned it a couple of times before the drinks arrived.

We were talking and laughing.  It was really fun until we started to look around and notice the band members coming in one by one, bringing in their equipment.  A lot of them had those t-shirts with very disturbing images on them, devils, hatchets, ghosts, skulls etc.    The table started to doubt what kind of music was going to be played.  Not me, of course, I had seen the flyer.

To prove it to them, I dug around in my purse. After a while I pulled out the flyer, found the date and pointed out that it did indeed say“Metal Band Showcase”.

Paul laughed and said, “Metal is screamo!”

“No, it’s not, Metal is Heavy Metal”, I said a little condescendingly (just a little, really).

“No, mom, Metal is screamo,”Emily said, with a lot of condescension in her voice.

I look at John for help and he gives me a helpless shrug.

“No”, I continue this ridiculous argument, “Heavy Metal is Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones.”

“No, mom,” Emily says patiently, “that’s classic rock”.

“What? I don’t understand”, I keep looking at John begging for some clarity, he’s no help!

Then the band starts and I am still holding on to my naive belief that the band will begin its opening set with “Gotta a Whole Lotta Love”  or “Living on a Prayer”.  No such luck.

The music started out okay, until the singer began to roar into the microphone.  I’m sure there is a technical name for the noise that came out of that kid’s throat, but I can’t imagine that it is more descriptive than roaring.

Everyone thought it was so funny, but I didn’t.  I was thoroughly disappointed.  We left after the drinks and went over to a boring old bar and had chicken wings.  John’s only recollection of that night is that at least he didn’t have to pay the cover charge.

Pomander. What? Who?

Published on by cmglife

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Definition of a pomander: a ball made of perfumes.  The pomander was worn or carried in a vase, also known by the same name, as a protection against infection in times of pestilence or merely as a useful article to modify bad smells.

They may have had serious applications during the days of the plague centuries ago, but now they are just pretty!

I drive myself crazy the way I approach a project.  I never have all of the ingredients together.  This time  I had the oranges, but didn’t have the cloves. It was a week before Christmas (I know, shouldn’t I have been doing something more worthwhile than making a pomander?) and all of the inexpensive cloves were sold out at Wal-Mart. I guess there were a lot of people in my area making pomanders that Christmas when they should have been doing something else too.  The only cloves left were $7.39 a bottle! I bought them, after all I was on a mission.

I got down to business and began my pomander, the instructions I had were illustrations. Not always a bad way to go as far as instructions go, but these were not the best – I like photos – good ones like they do in the DK books.

I took the orange and drew dots in the places I would push in the cloves, seemed easy enough.  After half of the cloves were in I took my bloody finger tips and rinsed them under the sink, muttering all the way something about “ this better be @#^$(*@% worth it”!

To make a long story short, the pomander looked decent, I think.  I didn’t really have much of an idea what it was supposed to look like.  I apprehensively put it into a brown bag and placed it on a shelf in the furnace room, as the instructions directed.  And then, of course, forgot about it. Not completely, I would remember every other week, but forget to follow through on that memory and retrieve it from downstairs. Really, how often does one wander past or enter into the furnace room?

I did manage to bring it upstairs last week. Although it smells gorgeous, I can tell you that looks aren’t everything to a homemade pomander.

What fresh hell can this be?

Published on by cmglife

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a surviving victim of the catholic school system.  When Allison came home telling me she was assigned St. Catherine of Bologna as a history project, I almost choked on my mouthful of  Lean Cuisine.

After getting myself together, she told me the class was learning about important figures from the Renaissance.  The other kids were assigned fabulous characters like King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth I and Joan of Arc.  What evil forces were at work when she was assigned a nun? Allison was far from pleased to have to wear a nun’s habit when  the other girls were going to be decked out in all the Renaissance splendor that the era is known for.

Not only did she have to research St. Catherine, but also dress up like her, memorize and recite an entire page of a single spaced typed biography. Oh, yeah, spoken with an Italian accent, oh mio Dio!

No, she is not enrolled in a college preparatory school.  No, she is not in an arts school or even a gifted and talented program.  Just a little ‘ole 5th grader in a charter school that take themselves far too seriously.

The preparation it took for the final presentation was more labor intensive than the summer Olympics in London last year.  Hours of researching, typing, memorizing and  practicing a renaissance era Italian accent with just the right Bolognais dialect.

We started looking at photos of St. Catherine on the internet.  I found some perfectly lovely drawings of her, but all Allison could focus on was the mummified body of the actual original nun preserved and sitting in the chapel of the Poor Clares in Bologna, Italy.  I do not exaggerate.

And then there’s me, catholic PTSD every night I have to think about sewing that damn costume! I am not usually a procrastinator, but with this particular project I could not get my act together and left it until the last minute, or until the Saturday before the Monday she was going to present.  Off we went to store to buy a few yards of white, brown and black broadcloth.  I then proceeded to drape and cut and do a little (very little) sewing.  I thought she looked fabulous, for a dead nun.

That morning I was on pins and needles wondering how it was going. Was she going to choke? Was the wimple staying in place?  Did she remember the rosary?  Was the Little House on the Prairie book wrapped in brown cloth believable as a bible?

She ended up choking on the speech part (cazzarola!), but got an A for effort.  Phew! I’m glad that is over. Yesterday I got an email from the school announcing a “Civil War Re-Enactment and Ball” for the 5th and 6th graders in April.

Oh, what fresh hell can this be?