New Year’s Resolutions for the Year After COVID

1.  Be flexible.  Do not wince when you see someone’s actual lips and teeth and resist saying “DO YOU NOT CARE ABOUT THE SAFETY OF THE COMMUNITY, LINDA?”

2.  Stop making bread. 

3.  Stop cross stitching.

4.  Stop drinking so heavily.

5.  Stop it with all the hobbies that are sending you into a dangerous spiral of being a one-lady knitting club with rogue facial hair.  

6.  Search for your waist again.  It will take a year to find.  Good luck.      

7.  Smash your television.  You’ve had your run.

8. Damn it no. That was just the crowded bars talking; a moment of sheer temporary insanity. Soon you will tire of being close to people and will need to hide on your couch. Keep the television.

9. Just say no to lipstick.  We’ve gone a year without wearing it due to the masks.  Your lips don’t need to be stained to look like you consumed a vat of wild cherries.  This is the time for a revolution.  

10.     Be kind to people.  But not the people who felt the election was stolen, Linda, the jerks who never drag in their trash cans, or the folks who think climate change is a hoax. 

11.  Never forget the time you got an adult pimple on your chin due to the moist air from wearing a mask, and YET YOU DIDN’T LOSE YOUR ELDERLY MOTHER TO A LIFE-THREATENING VIRUS. It wasn’t that bad, is what I’m saying.

12.  Wear pants with a zipper. 

13.  Don’t look surprised when people say “you seem so different!” but don’t explain exactly why.  It could be the sourdough bread bloat and lack of human interaction.  Just smile and say you did something to your hair.    

14.  Cut your hair.  Blow-dry your hair.  Do something –anything – with your God-forsaken hair.

15.  Start writing that book you put off. But then again, if you were locked at home for twelve months and didn’t do it, it’s highly doubtful you’ll start now.

16.  Floss.

Using Words Wrong to Save Time + Words

“At a recent round table meeting of business executives, & long after formally introducing Tim Cook of Apple, I quickly referred to Tim + Apple as Tim/Apple as an easy way to save time & words. The Fake News was disparagingly all over this, & it became yet another bad Trump story!”

-President of the United States, The Donald, Man of Few Words

We need to cut the President some slack. He’s running this nation.  He’s a very busy man, and cannot be bothered with things that take time PLUS contain words.  That’s a lot to deal with.  I mean it’s Monday.  Tanning day.   Hamberders.  Hungry.

Okay, sure. It actually takes longer to create an online rant on twitter using your thumbs on an outdated apple phone (see above / contact Tim Apple) indicating why you didn’t say this one word by instead using fifty-two words, but he has his reasons!

We all need more time plus less words.  Let’s try this at home:

Let’s go grab lunch at the French bakery=                 LUNCH FRENCH

I’ve had a headache since Tuesday=                          HEAD TUESDAY

What a cute blue dress your kid is wearing=             BLUE KID

It’s like an entirely new (nonsensical) language!  Look at all those words we saved!

 

THANK YOU, MR. PRESIDENT.

 YOUR IDEA STUPID

(short for “thank you for your helpful idea which makes us better people and less stupid on all fronts!”)

An Open Letter to Parson Brown

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Dear Rev. Brown,

I’m sure you recall last Winter, when we first met.  It was in the lane, where snow was glistening.  You may have believed it was a beautiful sight and we were happy that night. But you know what? I can honestly say it the worst time of my life. I was taken advantage of with a broken-down car and was not fully aware of that one night’s long-lasting implications.  It was the moment I met Ted, who coincidentally is now my husband.  And it’s all your fault.

I was just passing through the woods on my way to the airport.  Detour signs led me deep into the forest. My car skidded off the road and out of nowhere came a man who walked up and offered to help.  He handed me a flask of whiskey, and I drank it.  What was I supposed to do? It was seven degrees outside with a negative wind chill. Reverend – I should have known better. This is 2018. Who is out at night walking in a Winter Wonderland? I looked around me because I was scared, but gone away was the bluebird.  Instead all I saw were new birds.  They appeared to be crows, who peered at me with their steely death-filled eyes.  I should have seen that as a foreboding sign.

As we walked, we came to a meadow, where Ted said we could build a snowman.  Who wants to build a snowman in a blizzard with a stranger?  I just wanted my car fixed!  I was beginning to think he slipped something in the whiskey.  All of a sudden there you were, this fat white guy with a large nose and a top hat standing there asking if we were married.  I was like “no, man” and at that point things got really hazy.  I think someone said they’d get the job done in town, and I was like “FINALLY” since that’s a fairly new Saab. Now I realize it wasn’t the car you were talking about.

I think Ted must have been sitting home alone before we met, conspiring and dreaming by a fire, to make this all happen. I mean, normal men don’t walk around in forests with laced whiskey unless it’s pre-meditated.  Did he put the detour signs there to force me off the road?  Had he been stalking me?  He kept going about the stupid snowman again, this time pretending it was a circus clown.  I think even in my altered state I realized Ted was mentally ill.  Now, there is no doubt.  The other day he said he liked to frolic and play the Eskimo way.  An Eskimo?  We live in Massachusetts, not Greenland!  This is getting worse by the day.  He’s a psychopath and needs medication.

Look, I’ve been trying to contact you for a while. I’ve searched all the seminaries and they have no record of you. I’m beginning to think you’re not a real preacher after all. I need to contact you to see how to annul this marriage since it was based on false pretenses.  If annulment isn’t possible, we are getting a divorce.  I can’t take it anymore.  I come home from work every night and I have to listen to Ted yelling at the television and ringing those stupid bells. Sleigh bells ring, am I listening? How can I not? The tinkling and jingling is giving me anxiety. That’s not snow glistening, it’s tears filled with hidden rage!

I’m done with this whole game.   You can take this Winter Wonderland and stick it.

Sincerely,

Susan White

 

photo credit

The Truth about Texting Abbreviations

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I realize everyone has limited time. But if you’re going to give your thumbs a rest by using texting abbreviations, let’s at least better understand them. Studies show that using texting abbreviations during the entire course of life will save you a total of sixteen minutes. So when you’re ninety years old and drooling, you can stare at the wall a little bit longer. Make it count.

Here are the most popular:

OMG (Oh my what – God? Gosh? Grapes?). This is mainly used when there is literally nothing else creative in the universe to say, generally an acceptable response to anything from “I’m having a ten-pound baby” to “Let’s have tacos for dinner, OMG I love tacos.” If we are going to perpetuate this abbreviation we should maybe vary it up a bit, like OMS (oh my stars!) or OMB (oh my bacon!). People can guess. It’ll be fun.

LMAO (Laugh My Ass Off). This is ridiculous. Let’s all stop using this. There is no one who laughs so much that they lose their own ass. Perhaps the laughing is so forceful and it burns so many calories that the fat melts off. This is odd at best, scary at worst. Because you need an ass. Without one, how would you look in jeans? How would you sit? If you are laughing this hard, you need to calm the heck down and take a sedative.

ROFL (Rolling on the Floor Laughing). I can’t believe this is even a thing. I’ve been on this planet for 40 long years, and have heard some extremely funny things. However, I have never rolled around on the floor about it. Not due to Lucille Ball. Not after hearing Jerry Seinfield. Not even listening to the Louis C.K. HBO special. There is dog hair on the floor, and germs. I’m not sure why you’d roll around down there, even for a good solid Trump joke.

LOL (Laugh out loud). This is a classic, but don’t you think it’s getting tired? It is rare that you laugh out loud. It’s often only a slight chuckle, so to say you are truly laughing is a bit extreme. Americans are going crazy with extremes. If you laugh at something, perhaps just say “Ha.” Or “Funny.” Or even “YFPS” = you are so funny that I want to take you to parties like a sideshow. Not to be extreme. As an aside, I had a friend once whose wife was in the hospital with a life-threatening illness, and her mother-in-law thought LOL meant “lots of love,” so whenever she’d text the poor girl she would say “Does the IV hurt? LOL” or “I’m so sorry you are losing your eyesight LOL.” That actually did make me laugh out loud.

IMHO (In My Humble Opinion). I’ve had this thrown at me a few times, meaning that the person is about to say something I do not want to hear. Because of course I wanted their vain, arrogant opinion.

The folks who post on our neighborhood garage sale always use the phrase ISO (in search of). That cracks me up because instead of leading with “I need a used dresser” what they are instead saying is that they are on a search! A quest! A scavenger hunt for treasure! I am desiring a purse made from the threads of Burberry!

The only phrases (in my humble opinion) that are truly worth the energy-save of an abbreviation is perhaps JK (just kidding), the occasional K (okay) and certainly GOTYM (get out of town you moron). Otherwise, you need to salvage your ass and stop rolling around on the dirty floor. No matter how funny Jim Gaffigan is, sit up for heaven’s sakes. K?

photo:

(threew’s).flickr.com/photos/garryknight/8331105136/in/photolist-dGc6iJ-aKPi8T-4zV17D-9qQCYc-5Qb9JK-5Q5g4D-5Q5fr6-6gqgXv-bJYiHH-9EGRvd-bFiepD-eaNEDk-NfCGd-bS6CLn-68rFgK-eyNL71-duEZhk-bR52LB-a8wdVc-6NbQH1-okNmYq-5Q5fdM-pR8z8t-d393Xf-frhDdG-cEGGkd-7SLQGz-npcgs5-btPpXc-7Se6fK-5Q5fWt-5Q9v1u-5Q9v4y-rWPzZX-CRYc3u-gvZyq-fM2ZcC-9ZY28m-5Q9vpY-dsB2Y9-gvZxb-C24FK2-8URHGt-eWKEim-APgSC1-C5LRtE-Bp3ucJ-dVQU7M-4UjLyE-8quZL3

Farewell, Frog

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The other morning, upon running late, shooing children out the door, and wearing a pencil skirt with leopard-print pumps of all things, my son makes a discovery.  A tiny little frog had hopped into the garage – fresh from the rain puddles I suppose, and had found himself juxtaposed between a corner and a large 4-year-old boy with beautiful eyes and a fascination for reptiles. He didn’t have a chance, really.

“Can we take him to school?” my son asked.  He was jumping and his eyes were smiling.  But we didn’t have time.  I was in heels.  There has been zero consumption of caffeine.  We have exactly eighteen seconds to get in the car and peel out of the driveway or both kids would be late.  “Please, mom? Can we can we can we?” I looked in his little eyes, those eyelashes batting up and down.

Damnit with the eyelashes.

So back in the house we go, the superman Tupperware shaped for sandwiches being brutally sacrificed for the love of frogs, so I stab air holes in the lid and hobble back out in my heels and ridiculously thin skirt and try to catch the slippery thing.  Finally with the help of a piece of paper and my transferring-frogs-into-tupperware-skillz that I learned in parenting school, I captured him, to the delight of my screeching son, who was happier than I saw him last Christmas morning.  Which means this Christmas I’m just going to fill the house with frogs.  Thanks a lot, gears-gears-gears. You were a waste of $60.

Off to school we go, after rounds of Taylor Swift for my daughter and having to endure the interior light so she can read her book on dogs who talk and save the earth, and I somehow get the children dropped off at their respective places with statements of love and happiness, through the Starbucks line, and I’m happily in rush-hour traffic toward my office.  Fast forward eight lovely hours, whereby I skipped lunch to review contracts and I’m back in my car, which is hot enough to roast marshmallows because it’s Texas and it never freaking gets cold despite it being October. And then I see it.  Right there next to his seat.

Death.  It permeates the Lexus.

The poor thing suffocated.  It had no hope.  We even put a leaf in the little container for it to eat, although let’s be honest small baby-like frogs don’t munch on leaves like potato chips, but to my son every living thing eats leaves so let’s not ruin the whole story over semantics.  I am forced to make a pit stop in suburbia one block away from my son’s preschool and pull over, opening the lid to throw the dead body out on the pavement below.  I can’t exactly explain to him that we simply “forgot the frog” or “it suffocated in the heat, dying a slow miserable death whilst plastered to a converse blue image of a superhero he will never become,” now can I.

I had to bang the Tupperware against my car for him to fall out because his little water-starved body was stuck to the side. I know, I know. It’s horrific.  I crossed myself although I’m not Catholic and said a little prayer as it lay there lifeless on the pavement below, soon to be run over by the wheels of my own car most likely, but what exactly do you do in this situation? Stupid Texas heat. If we lived in Chicago the sweet little frog might be fat and happy munching on that leaf all afternoon.

I hid the Tupperware in the front seat so my kid wouldn’t ask questions.  I said we could have mac-and-cheese for dinner.  I tried all my tactics to keep him upbeat and not be suspicious.  Until he saw it.  The Tupperware lid peering from underneath my blazer.  Oh, friends.  Let the tears roll.

I told him I let it out by his school, so he could frolic and play with his friends since we forgot to take him in, which at first blush may seem a wee bit untruthful but his froggy friends could so totally be frog zombies. He was mostly angry I didn’t let him out at home, so he could find him (until I offered oreos and then would forget), his long-lost friend (that he forgot) and wanted so badly to save (that he just met this morning it’s not like you guys are BFFs, geez.  Plus he’s a frog).

Needless to say it was a big ordeal, only to be healed by a television show and love from his dear mother (who committed frogslaughter and dumped the body).   The most important thing about all this is that I managed to kneel down in a pencil skirt.  If you see any frog remains in front of a brick house I don’t know what you are talking about.

You guys can judge all day, but just wait until this happens to you.  Let’s hope it’s just a beetle, who “overdid it on the leaf eating.”  They are less frightening when dead. Not that I know anything about that.

Let’s all have oreos. K?

photo:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/125791999@N06/14815693604/sizes/m/in/photolist-ozdixb-aEMcB5-8iSSBF-bYL3sS-oeMB1H-frJm9V-afehCU-afbuXR-diibw6-fPkXDZ-e7AHBd-nJEnGP-cuLtuw-fmKcbz-bYdh9h-eYhuLL-a3QXZi-8vQEc6-ar5Pqq-ar5MA3-a7xzoR-gawWdG-cY3ubd-n2RsAZ-n2RzzB-95bS3U-p7uwkv-8NSef1-fhXu9g-o22gME-fJHrBS-9U6BNz-8zbaEB-aGfTcP-it5PQC-9n11Qh-8e8PTF-8sxVNX-8fxwty-bbRNfR-9U6Dw6-9U6CAV-9Nhus2-7GMaLY-jJnqsc-8qF36E-dNU7LR-nHabUq-8A75Dc-afvex1-7PaxWm/

 

The Flight Safety Speech

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I flew to a conference last weekend, from Texas to Ohio with a detour through Florida, because honestly that’s close. It’s pretty exciting being crammed into a plane with recycled air with a bunch of children sporting Mickey ears shrieking about Disney and beleaguered parents praying their sugar high will last until the rental car. But even more fun is when you hear the same speech you have heard for your entire life from every perky flight attendant since the dawn of time and spacecraft.

The Captain has turned on the Fasten Seat Belt sign!  I love this opener, because instead of just saying “put on your dang seatbelt because we’ll be taking human beings into the thin air in a large mechanical bird and if we crash your ashes will be spread out like dust over Birmingham,” they tell you the sign is on.  Like that ever works when you see the yellow light in a school zone.

Please make sure your seatback and folding trays are in upright locked position! I’m wondering if it would cut a human in half if the folding tray was down.  I’m also curious if some guy named Bob just made up this line twenty-seven years ago because they were trying to fill up space, like “make sure your shoestrings are tied!” and “take off your hats, ladies!” because the seats only move a total of 1.7 inches even when you force them with all your might by digging your heels into the cold floor and what’s the freaking point of the seats moving 1.7 inches.  And I’m imagining the gasping of a woman decapitated upon take-off, and her sobbing husband wishing he had only remembered to keep the folding tray in an upright locked position. 

If you are seated next to an emergency exit, please read carefully the special instructions located in the seatback in front of you!  I take this seriously, ya’ll. I glare at these exit row passengers with beady eyes to see if they’re paying attention to this immense duty that has been bestowed upon them, because if they can’t handle the exit row responsibilities I’m totally there to lead this ragtag crew in to safety. I’m ordering scared children toward open doors and blowing up life rafts saying things like “atta boy” and “you betcha” and high-fiving the flight attendants.  Also? I know there are a ton of exits, somewhere up front and blah blah down at the end that can only be recalled with some fancy two-finger arm movements that I can recall in a pinch if the plane is plunging to our deaths. I’m onto you, old lady who moves slow and is taking up precious exit row space.  Get with the program and read the handout in the seatback pocket in front of you.

At this time, we request that all mobile phones, pagers, and other electronic devices be turned off for the full duration of the flight! They LIE I tell you, because something as sophisticated as a plane that lifts us into space surely isn’t derailed by my itouch reader and an electronic Jane Eyre.  But then again apparently the seatback thing is a deal and people have to follow signs to remember to wear safety belts and you wait with crazy anticipation for a cup of soda the size of a sippy cup so perhaps we aren’t all that bright after all and the machine really has to dig deep to fly straight.  And Southwest took me through Orlando on the way to Ohio which means someone’s turning on their freaking cell phone.  Stop it, people.  Have mercy. This thing needs to fly in a straight line.

And lastly, it’s always nice to be reminded that it’s a non-smoking flight, in case you woke up from your nap and thought it was 1952. And in case you wanted to run off and light up in the lavatory, because we all still totally use that word, or tamper with, disable, and possibly destroy the smoke detectors, it’s a no-go, folks.  I totally caught some woman eying one, thoughts racing inside her head like she needed to tamper with it, or perhaps destroy it, but then the soda came and like Pavlov’s dog she was giggling and I realized she was staring at an exit row sign while playing Candy Crush.

The moral of the flight safety speech is that we are all morons, have to be told things of no significance, need to yield the exit row to my mad skills, may cut our bodies into two if we aren’t careful with the tray locking feature, have to resist urgings to destroy things, can’t smoke, need signs, and get super excited about small cups of Dr. Pepper. I’m confident about our future generation.  If we’re lucky, they will learn to actually turn off their cell phones.

Have a good flight!  If you forget something, there’s a sign. And a speech that won’t change for another two hundred years.

photo:

Flight attendants are pretty cute too

Luck of the Irish

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This girl can’t pass up a good groupon, so when an Irish restaurant in town offered a four-course menu for four for $99, I ran toward the computer with my credit card in tow and snapped it up like last call.  Not that ye Irish are really known for their food, and I’ll be honest about a vague stereotype I had trapped in my mind of a bunch of burly men in pubs eating Guinness rabbit stew, but still.  So when said groupon was about to expire, I gathered up three besties and we wore our St. Patrick’s best. Come on, it’ll be fun. They’ll be potatoes.

So off we go toward this random restaurant set high on a hill like a movie set and as we pull into the parking lot and leave the vehicle I have a sense that we’ve grown ten feet tall and what’s in front of us is really a hobbit’s house or maybe a hovel for gremlins.  But we approach what appears to be Hansel and Gretel’s cottage and open the creaky door, it opens to a front-porch-like haven of horrors with little dolls and St. Paddy’s paraphernalia. My nostrils are hit with the smell of old-people’s homes but with someone baking soda bread in a far-off forest. It’s a confusing combination.

I start to back my way out, because perhaps we’re in a dream and this place has swallowed up my children and there’s no hostess stand or normalcy and why for the love are there so many dolls.  For a fearful moment I thought we stepped into Frodo’s neighbor Marge’s living room, who has been alive since well before Eisenhower. But alas – another door in front of us creaked open and my other girlfriends were in fact inside, perched at a table covered in lace.  They looked frightened, or maybe hungry for rabbit: hard to tell.  But there were normal-looking people inside, everyone just sitting around as if they were eating a blooming onion at Outback on a Tuesday. My friends waved and I sighed because if we are going down an Alice-in-wonderland tunnel at least I wouldn’t be alone.

So there we sat in the hobbit house, trying to not hit our heads on the ceiling, just a simple table covered in lace.  My friend Jess kept wiping her eyes because the prices were all wrong and there was a bottle of wine on the menu for thirty-five thousand dollars and she thought maybe they laced the air with hallucinogenic drugs.  But alas the waitress came along, just a wee girl of fifty wearing a prairie dress with spitfire hair and told us that bottle of wine wasn’t actually for sale. “It’ll kill ya perhaps, young lassies, with all the air bubbles and such trapped inside.  But it’s a family heirloom, yeh.” So we decided to live and order the house red and the lady’s voice said “Aye, a good choice,” and the cadence of her voice rose and fell as if she descended from the streets of Dublin and I WAS TERRIFIED AND ENTHRALLED ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

So the courses began, and us girls all sat around giggling as the potato soup was served and we attempted small talk as if we are not all in a hobbit house sitting around a table covered in lace.  After a while my friend needed to use the restroom so she transcended into the bowels of the earth somewhere to the left and came back to the table as if she were having a life-threatening brain spasm. But in reality it was just the facilities, which included a green bathtub and a faucet connected together by strands of electrical tape and a cherub that looked out the window at nothing that overcame her. So my other friend Becca braved the dark and I offered to tie a string to her so she’d never get lost but she went in like a hero and took iphone pictures of the statute of a woman staring at your private places holding towels.

So between the salad and the beef they brought out a palate cleanser, but not the real kind, just lemon sherbet from Wal-mart, and we were just so giddy about all the absurdities we looked around and realized no one else was laughing and we must in fact be caught in a dream. But our best friends are all there so it was actually quite delightful and I drank red wine that in hobbit-money probably costs thousands.  I had a hunch the other patrons were in fact staged and it was all some big gag and a muskrat dressed in a three-piece suit would very soon appear with signs that said “Happy 40th, Josephine!” and we’ll all say “no, no, you’ve got the wrong girls.” But no one jumped out from the kitchen so we sat eating carrots cooked in maple syrup, but not the real kind, just Aunt Jemima’s from Wal-mart, and we toasted our future travels to Ireland where we could start a gang because we were all a good six-inches taller than all these other red-headed hotbloods and we could take this place down.

So we finally got the bill and although I had a groupon they said the actual cost of the meal would have run us about $469 so the suggested tip was around a hundred bucks and we’re like “but we live in the real world, thankyouverymuch” so we paid for our wine and we took our iphone pictures and we ran out of the hobbit house as fast as our legs would carry us.

I haven’t laughed so long and so hard in months and when I think of that green bathtub and my friend having a brain spasm and that waitress in the prairie dress and the hobbit house as we sat around a table covered in lace I am exceedingly glad we went, because it was all just so brilliant and colorful and strange. And it’s times like this that memories are seared and if we were all just sitting around eating a blooming onion at Outback on a Tuesday night we’d have no great stories to tell.

Because life, my dear friends, is a huge book that can’t close because it’s so jammed with stories. I’m so blessed and delighted to live inside of it, with friends who laugh and a heart that’s open and a life that sings, so when we run out of little houses after sitting around tables covered in lace we can say we had a life well lived, and friends that are well worn, forged in the tunnels of green cherubs staring into nothing.

It’s just luck of the Irish, I suppose.

 

photo:

Bag End

Odd and Curious Thoughts, Downton Abby Edition

(1) I’m fairly certain that no matter what time period we’re floating around in, Miss O’Brien should not have hair curls that resemble horns.

(2) That Cora.  Always smiling with her head turned like she was just handed a newborn kitty that smelled like baby powder wrapped in a bed of roses.  I was just getting to like her in that angry, I’ll-never-forgive-you-for-killing-my-daughter way, but now we’re back to the eerie smiling.

(3) How in the world did all those people find outfits in shades of cream?  Can you not play cricket in sage or pale yellow?  It looked like a Martha Stewart wedding for crying out loud.

(4) Speaking of color, the ladies were all matchy-matchy at Sybil’s Christening, like they all went to David’s Bridal the day prior and made off with clearance bridesmaid’s dresses.  Cream for cricket, breezy lavender dresses for events at churches that involve your dead sister’s child being brought up in a way you don’t approve of.

(5) I’m so bitter that we are left with blood dribbling down Matthew’s sweet face.  But all this “I’ll love you til I die, you’re really a nice little Mary” foreshadowing business was getting a bit dull.

(6) So Molesly gets drunk and starts shrieking like a banchee, which is good fun, but don’t we all get tired of seeing him played the fool?  One of these days he’s going to rip off his clothes and he’ll have washboard abs and tattoos.  Then who’s laughing?

(7) At least Edith is working and Mary’s mothering it up and we don’t have to just watch these women’s dreadful boring days of getting up, eating, changing clothes, and eating again.  With all that sitting and eating I’m shocked they aren’t all chubby little cherubs.

(8) I like to say Lord Grantham.  It’s so prestigious and elegant.  I think I’ll start referring to my father as Lord Franklin and see if he can conjure me up a butler, some tea, and an estate worth millions.  See also: Being a Countess should get you free Starbucks

(9) Lady Rose looks like she’s taking meth or perhaps has a nonstop Red Bull habit.  Why is she always giggling?

(10)               Daisy, quit wearing that dumpy hat.  Seriously.  You’re about to own a farm and you’re young.  Pull yourself together and tease up some bangs.

Laugh Until Life Makes Sense

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I’m not a big fan of bumper stickers.  I find it odd that people want to display their political sentiments on a used Honda for the world to see.  I find it annoying to have to stare at hateful words about our President at the stoplight in front of the grocery store.  And I’m amazed so many people put stick-figure families on their mini-vans to display how many people and pets live in their households.  Yes, yes. Michael plays soccer.  You have a cat.  Riveting stuff.

My own daughter asked that her school name be displayed on the back of our Chevy Tahoe.  But do you think given my poor driving and bad texting habit I want to announce what school we’re affiliated with and have people stare into the car from afar to see if they know me? You don’t know me.  I’m likely to run into you from the rear by accident or be smirking unpleasantly at your family of stick people.

So it might surprise you that I slapped a bumper sticker on the back of my car.  Yes I did. The very woman who is constantly shaking her head at the stupid Jesus Fish / Darwin Fish debacle.  It’s on there, firmly planted square in the middle.

Laugh until life makes sense.

It’s one of my life mottos.  So when I saw this sticker a year ago, I immediately went home, created a (very often unseen) circle of clean with a paper towel and Windex, and stuck this saying on my back window.

Sometimes I check my rear-view mirror and see my daughter lip-syncing to Katy Perry, or notice that my son has used his squeezable yogurt to finger-paint on the back glass.  But quite often I simply catch the word – laugh. It’s written not only for the cars behind me, but for me to see when I need it most.  There are times I don’t feel like laughing. Times when I’m gripping the wheel in prayer that I’ll make it until lunch.  And yet somewhere in there, there’s a silver lining.

Given enough space and distance from pain, life can be funny.  What other attitude is really worth having? Who wants to hang out with people who scowl all day, eat fiber, and gripe about the lack of comfortable pants?  My oncologist said that people who laugh a lot really do live longer.  From one who’s made it through some rough health patches, I can use all the help I can get.

When my own life gets hard, I lose weight.  I end up putting the coffee creamer in the pantry and buy multiple cartons of eggs.  My dentist tells me that I might need a root canal and I realize my sobbing cry face looks like a hollowed out whale. So I go to the mall to invest in a quart of face cream but catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.  How did a homeless woman end up at Neiman’s? Don’t they have security in this place?  Oh, wait.  That’s me, wearing a sweatshirt from high school that says Coca-Cola Classic.

And just like that, on my way to the YMCA to choke out a run on the treadmill, I smile.  It bobbles up and down into a chuckle, which erupts into a real belly shaker, and a few cackles later I’m in full-on snort mode.   Did I really go to Neiman’s wearing sweat pants with a hole in the knee?  Am I seriously going to need a root canal?  Why in the world do I have all these freaking eggs?

This life we live doesn’t make sense.  There is so much killing and suicide and death and mental illness.  There’s chaos and disarray and a dusty, cursed earth.  And yet we are made for more than this.  We are not in this place forever.  The righteous will not be moved, and you can only do what you can do in a day’s time.  And when the really hard stuff hits,  you’ll be prepared.  After a night of no sleep, you’ll wake up to discover you’re out of coffee, your kid’s school uniform is dirty, it’s snack day at your kid’s preschool and all you have is raisins, and some wild animal has knocked over your trash can in the night, strewing trash all over your front lawn.  You  have to fight demons and hurt with friends and heal from grief and now this? Yeah, it happens.  And it’s a tiny bit funny.

Ecclesiastes says there is a time for everything.  A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.  3:4.  So mourn and sob and weep and sigh.  Take Advil and Zanax and buy more coffee.  But in the end, realize that you have enough eggs to make quiche for the tri-county area, and that’s just downright weird.

As for me and my Chevy Tahoe, we’re dwelling in this season of laughter as long as we both can, puffing and choking and driving toward the bitter end.

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Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/philliecasablanca/2578387623/

Quote “until life makes sense” credit:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Laugh-Until-Life-Makes-Sense/202930039805662?group_id=0

Olympic Fever

I love the Olympics.  They make you feel and do strange things, such as:

(1) Mutter to yourself, after a bottle of vegetable oil topples out of the top cabinet, “Oh man.  So close.  It sucks to fall.”

(2)  Hold your head up high and prance around on the pads of your feet as you walk across the kitchen floor towards the trash to dump used coffee grounds.  Because you normally walk that way and all.

(3) Comment on the form and mistakes of random gymnasts you’ve never heard of before last week who fall off the pommel horse.  After all those years of studying the pommel horse.  Finally, a chance to show off your knowledge.

(4) Look in the mirror and think, “I could so totally rock that.  I’m hitting the YMCA tomorrow.”

(5) Ponder nicer looking women’s swimsuits.  I mean really.

(6) Pray that someday, your daughter will never, ever win a gold metal in the Olympics.  Because if that happened, you’d be that mom who’s all weepy with mascara running down her face and her hair tied up in some strange pony tail with a USA flag sticking out of it.  The world would see you jumping and screaming “she’s miiiiiiiine!  That’s my baby girl!  Right there in the ugly women’s swimsuit that makes her look like a dude!”  Do you want to be that mom?  Do you?

(7) Wonder if anyone actually watches horse jumping.  The Queen might, but it’s England.  And her granddaughter is competing.

(8) Allow your 6-year-old daughter stay up until 10:30 pm so she can see synchronized men’s diving, answering fun questions like “why do they wear one half of a girl’s bikini?”  There are no good answers.  Mention something about aerodynamics and change the subject.

(9) See quite a lot of Ryan Lochte’s shaved chest, and finally,

(10)               Max out your tivo with events you don’t care about, just so you can fast forward through them and feel you are watching.  Because men’s team volleyball needs love too.

It’s the Olympics. The one time you will watch insane amounts of sports on television, feel proud to be an American, and cry at Proctor & Gamble commercials. Give these hard-working athletes their moment of fame, until one comes in 7th place.  Then you can critique their form before forgetting all about them because they won’t have endorsement deals and their face will fade from your memory.  Good effort, folks who spent ten years of their life pursuing one solitary goal only to have their dreams dashed on time-delayed television.

Toodles, ya’ll.  I have fencing to watch.  Go U.S.A!