Mother’s Day: Holiday Reality Check
Those of us who wish to honor those intricate, passive-aggressive relationships with our mothers have a nearly impossible task of finding the perfect Mother’s Day card to properly convey our admiration for those women who selflessly go out of their way to remind us of our shortcomings.
Behold, the next generation of Mother’s Day cards for those of us who feel legally obligated to love our mothers:
1 comment May 13, 2012
Tags: dysfunctional families, love, Moms, Mother's Day, relatives
Twihard with a Vengeance
We entered the living room as complacent couch potatoes, but left as kickass vampire slayers.
We were watching TV one night with Tommy sprawled across one couch, nearly asleep. Something fluttered past my face and Tommy mumbled, “What was that?”
“I think it was a moth. We should probably get rid of it before the cats mistake it for a Happy Meal.”
I turned on a lamp as was horrified to see a tiny brown bat perched on top of the couch by Tommy’s head, blinking at us.
We then did what any kickass vampire slayer would do: shriek until we were hoarse and dance around the living room like our hair was on fire.
I realized that while our energetic response to Edward was burning a ton of calories, it was failing to get him outside. I was worried that the cats would view him as a Big Mac (or vice versa), so I herded them upstairs.
Yes, I literally herded cats. I am putting Chief Cat Herder on my resume.
I noticed Tao and Lao Tsu had stopped about two stairs from the top. Impatiently I told them to go to their room. They paused briefly from their enthusiastic staring to glance at me, clearly exasperated. I moved closer to see why our beige carpet was suddenly so interesting.
And that’s when I saw Bella hanging from the stairs, blending perfectly with the carpet. She seemed to nod her head at me, saying “Howdy”.
I grabbed both cats, took a giant step around Bella, and dumped them in their room. Tommy launched into action, and walked Edward and Bella to the door using our pool skimmer and a bucket, earning him the award for Most Unusual Application of a Pool-Cleaning Tool.
In retrospect, I wonder if Edward and Bella were in fact vampire bats, given their small stature. If so, Bleedy McBleederson and his platelet issues was the last person who should have been bat wrangling.
After Edward and Bella left, we participated in an impromptu vampire hunt to see if we could locate the rest of the Twilight cast in our house.
While we didn’t find any more surprises, Tommy was concerned that more teen angst-ridden glitter monkeys could find their way inside, so he cleverly suggested that we leave ALL of the lights on to discourage them from wanting to party with us.
And then we tried to sleep.
The rest of the night and early morning, Tao and Lao Tsu helpfully screeched at us that we had left the lights on.
Because trying to sleep amidst blinding lights didn’t tip us off.
Several times throughout the miserable night, just as I was starting to drift off, Tao would brush up against me and I would jump out of bed, convinced that Edward or Bella (or possibly both) had returned to snuggle.
The next day, I called the exterminator to come deal with the Twilight cast. He cheerfully informed me that starting LAST WEEK it’s now bat mating season and Florida requires that any bat removal occur after August 15th. Now why does this sound familiar?
http://margaritaminx.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/bat-out-of-hell%e2%80%a6and-hanging-out-in-my-attic/
Guess we better stock up on hair gel and glitter. It’s going to be a long summer with the Cullens.
4 comments May 7, 2012
Tags: animals, bats, Bella, drama, Edward, entertainment, glitter, nature, Twilight
Begone with the Wind
One Saturday morning, I awoke with one goal: take Tommy on a romantic picnic at the beach. The events that unfolded are a testament to my goal-oriented nature, determination, dedication…stubbornness…and blatant refusal to acknowledge the occasional failure of my best-laid plans.
I packed a delicious variety of Port Salut, herbed goat cheese, Muenster, Genoa salami, smoked summer sausage, honey-baked ham, baguettes and flat bread. I grabbed my grandmother’s quilt and my camera to capture every moment of our sophisticated, romantic spring picnic at the beach.
On the way to the beach, I mentally calculated how I would carefully position our food to give the appearance of a casually elegant picnic in the photos. I would edit them in black and white to add a touch of glamour and make sure to capture our feet in the sand near the quilt to display our carefree, playful nature. I was so focused on the fabulous epicness of the upcoming photo shoot that I almost didn’t hear Tommy comment, “It’s really cloudy today. I think it’s going to rain.”
I shook my head emphatically, barely glancing out the window. “Nonsense. The clouds just mean we’ll have some shade and their fluffiness and varying shades of blue and gray will make a colorful backdrop to our picnic.” I considered the matter closed and went back to daydreaming about our romantic, perfect day at the beach. I started plotting all of the witty things I would say during our picnic to remind him of what a fun date I can be.
Tommy tried to rain on my parade again: “The wind is really picking up.”
I carelessly wave my hand. “It’s not too bad. At least we won’t be too hot.” I pictured my hair being gently tousled in the sea air, like a character on a romance book cover. Damn, I forgot to bring a corset.
We parked at the beach and held hands as we walked over a bridge with our picnic items. The beach was nearly deserted and I was pleased that we would have a nearly private stretch of the Gulf to ourselves. Let the romantic, picture-perfect picnic commence.
Placing the quilt on the beach proved problematic. The wind was considerably stronger by the water and the quilt kept whipping around, dumping sand into our laps. In between scraping the sand off our skin, we surveyed the water in front of us. I actively ignored the wind wailing in my ears, flinging sand on me like a stinging, gritty curtain. This made it next to impossible to stare deeply into Tommy’s eyes. I could lose a contact lens. I tried squinting at him instead, to ensure my lenses stayed glued to my eyeballs. I am sure it was attractive.
I opened the food containers, anxious to get our romantic picnic back on track. We feasted on meats, cheeses and breads, pretending not to notice how much sand we were eating. Rather than savoring our feast and delighting in the sensuous flavors I had carefully selected, we began scarfing down our food to minimize the sand inhalation.
Quietly we put up the food, silently agreeing never to speak of the price we paid for our elegant, dirt-laden meal. I pulled out the camera, resigned to the fact that while I could not capture the casual elegance of our romantic picnic, I was determined to document the turbulent waves crashing into the shore.
Numerous ruined photos passed before I realized that I could not properly capture the excitement of the waves without shaving my head. My unruly hair insisted upon a guest appearance in each frame.
Refusing to admit defeat, I proceeded with the romantic picnic schedule and suggested we put up the food and quilt and walk along the beach. Surely the casual, playful stroll along the beach would make up for the sand-encrusted lunch and ruined photo shoot.
It was impossible to hold hands during our walk as I constantly had to move my hair as it slapped my face with almost as much force as the sandstorm that continued to assault us.
While on our romantic walk, it was pointless to try to whisper sweet nothings to each other as the unholy combination of wind, sand and waves blasted our ear drums like a screaming banshee. After 15 minutes of this, we headed back to the car.
And that was when it started to rain.
We arrived back at the car, soaking wet and covered in gritty sand. As I looked in the mirror, I saw that the careless, romantic tousling of my hair had culminated into horns that twisted into tangled peaks on either side of my head. Yes, I resembled the cover of a romance novel…written by Wes Craven.
In the aftermath of our romantic, carefree picnic, I discovered that it pays to be flexible with those rigid, carefully crafted plans. Oh, and a Pizza Hut picnic in my living room can be just as romantic (not to mention sand free).
Add a comment April 30, 2012
Tags: colorful backdrop, goat cheese, nature, outdoors, travel, vacation
With Apologies to Poe
Once upon a noon quite sunny,
As I floated in my pool,
With sunscreen quite runny,
While I sunbathe, nearly napping,
Suddenly there came a splashing,
As of someone feverishly swimming, swimming within my pool.
“’Tis my imagination, causing me vexation,”
I concluded. “Only this and nothing more.”
Back into my air mattress I did settle,
And soon again I heard splashing, only noisier than before.
“Surely,” said I, “this is merely the effects of many mojitos, and nothing more.”
Up most quickly I did sit,
And was amazed to find a tiny lizard surfing the pool waves
— And throwing quite a fit.
Much I marveled at this vision,
And sincerely did I vow to lay off the rum
— a most wise decision.
But the lizard, possibly drowning,
Spoke only one word amidst his frowning: “Nevermore.”
(or possibly, “Save me, you drunk bitch!”)
Startled by the lizard’s declaration,
I awkwardly paddled to his destination,
All the while cursing my mojito-enhanced celebration.
With a stomach quite queasy,
I grabbed his squirmy body — most greasy,
And quickly set him easily on the pool’s ledge.
And from the concrete floor
I swear he muttered, “Nevermore.”
Thus I floated in my haze,
The lizard’s eyes in a daze.
The fog of mojitos swirling,
And my insides thusly twirling,
Quoth the lizard, “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our farewell, reptile or demon!” I shrieked most loudly.
“Take thy scaly form from my sight,
and quit the ledge upon my pool!” I finished proudly.
Quoth the lizard, “Nevermore.”
And the lizard, never fleeing,
is crouched just silently being,
all alone upon that concrete floor.
While I question as to why he stubbornly sits there staring,
I’m not above swearing
That the chlorine made him high.
Quoth the lizard, “Nevermore.”
(Or, possibly the lyrics to “One Toke Over the Line.”) 
2 comments April 23, 2012
Tags: air mattress, concrete floor, Edgar Allen Poe, lizard, mojito, mojitos, pool, travel, vacation, wise decision
You’re Going to Need a Bigger Boat
Fishing in the country requires a good pole, fresh bait…and nerves of steel. Uncle Jay and his fishing buddy, Mr. Sandlin, took their old rowboat fishing on our pond. They set a metal bait bucket full of minnows and crawdads on the shore and put the rest of the fishing gear in the five-foot-long rowboat. Closing the lid on the bucket, they set it in the middle of the boat and began rowing.
Once they were in the middle of the pond, Uncle Jay opened the lid to the bucket and jerked back his hand as a large water moccasin appeared. Apparently it had taken advantage of the open bucket and crawled inside to feast on the free bait buffet. Now that it was full, it clearly was ready to head back home and appeared to be asking my uncle and Mr. Sandlin for directions.
They shrieked like tweens at a Bieber concert and proceeded to run toward opposite ends of the row boat in which they crossed paths WITH EACH OTHER AND THE SNAKE while trying to ESCAPE FROM THE SNAKE.
I repeat: They actually headed TOWARD the snake while trying to AVOID the snake. On purpose.
Why was no one filming this?
Once they realized that they could not run away from a three-foot snake in a five-foot row boat (especially when the snake is also one of the passengers), they each grabbed an oar and tried beating the snake instead.
And missed the snake. Repeatedly.
They did not, however, miss the boat.
It began to sink rapidly.
And neither man could swim.
And they broke the oars.
Both men grabbed the splintered oars and began furiously paddling back to shore in their rapidly sinking boat…with the snake lazily treading water beside them.
Once on shore they swore off fishing forever until they found a bigger boat…or a mongoose.
Add a comment April 16, 2012
Tags: fishing buddy, free bait, Jaws; fishing; rowboat; water mocassin, nerves of steel, travel, vacation, water moccasin
Desperately Seeking Ricky Bobby
“My pappy said ‘Son, you’re gonna drive me to drinkin’ if you don’t stop drivin’ that Hot Rod Lincoln.’” — Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen
We spent some time with NASCAR’s mentally retarded, in-bred cousin with webbed feet, East Bay Raceway Park. Prior to our arrival, I was instructed to dress in my white trash finest so that I’d blend in. I took this task seriously, and tried to recall what I wore as a teenager. I settled on a black tank top, jeans and flip flops — and once we arrived I realized I was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overdressed. It appears that camouflage is the new black. Also, a woman’s best accessory is her beer gut and back fat — accentuated by a neon spandex tank top four sizes too small.
We chose to sit high in the stands because those sitting too close to the dirt track will get splattered — it’s like Redneck Sea World. Studying the spectators in their natural habitat, I came to realize that they clearly dropped out of some of the finest vocational schools in the state.
We watched in amusement as two ingenious men carried sofa cushions to their seats. After sitting on splintery, wooden benches for three hours, we stopped laughing at them and started debating the merits of ripping the cushions out of our car’s interior.
We observed flocks of barefoot, free-range children scampering over and under the rickety wooden stands, their parents obviously using the race track as a babysitter.
Once the racing began, I felt a great deal of empathy for those drivers who wrecked and could not finish racing as surely that meant that the rest of the drivers would divide up the race groupies amongst themselves. Poor subpar driver. No Cheetos and fried-Twinkie-smelling racing groupie for you.
During each race, I observed one fan who spent the majority of his time in terrible vexation, flailing his limbs, shouting instructions to the drivers and regularly spilling his beer. Vo-Tech Boy was emotionally invested in these races — a fact that became evident when he kept asking those around him if the race had started yet (every time the caution flag appeared, his agitation became more pronounced as he kept reminding the drivers to go faster.)
I learned many invaluable life lessons from my careful study of these curious primates:
- Save your nice camouflage for fancy date nights.
- Race tracks are more reliable babysitters than TV (even after your electric is cut off, the race track will still be there to raise your free-range children.)
- Always go faster.
Add a comment April 9, 2012
Tags: cars, commander cody and his lost planet airmen, hot rod lincoln
Eager Kittens and Reluctant Cougars
“And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson.” — Simon and Garfunkel
At what point do you hang up your hooker heels and call it a day? While trying to get my groove on, I came to question my inalienable right to get down and funky with my bad self. Perhaps when you reach a certain age, it becomes alienable?
During our late 20s, my friend Angel and I used to go out dancing at Suede, a local upscale hangout for pretty people. It was in Brookside, the swanky neighborhood where the zip code justified charging $12 for a watered-down martini. Like we wouldn’t know the difference between Grey Goose and “house” swill.
Wearing what we termed “conservative slut gear” (i.e., plunging necklines paired with pencil skirts and hooker heels), we stood in line at the door with the other prissy hos. Instead of the usual $5 door fee, the beefy bouncer told us the cover was $20 because there was a band playing that evening. We called bullshit on that and walked away because no one fucks with booze funding on girls’ night.
Thinking fast, we recalled a local 18 and up club called the Midnight Rodeo and decided to check it out. Waiting in line once more, we took stock of the other patrons and came to the rapid realization that (a) we were waaaaaaay overdressed, (b) we would probably get a senior citizen’s discount at the door, and (c) we would need to steadily drink until we no longer cared about either (a) or (b).
After a couple of cocktails, we were uninhibited enough to get our boogie going out on the floor. After a few songs, we refueled with more cocktails and sat at a table to admire the enviable flexibility of some of the dancing fetuses.
Two sad little man-cubs had been stalking us since we arrived, but we attempted to discourage interaction so we wouldn’t set off any amber alerts (i.e., avoiding eye contact, standing directly in fluorescent lighting, refusing to suck in our gut rolls, etc.). Unfortunately, their pubescent hormones overpowered logic, and they decided to hit on us old crones regardless of our obvious lack of interest. They probably just needed someone to buy them beer.
Huge grins spread across their acne-speckled faces as they approached our table walking slightly bow-legged (why do boys think this is attractive? It just looks like they’ve been riding a horse too long or that they’ve applied ointment to a crotch rash. Either way, not a sexy mating dance.)
Using their bravest big-boy voices, they asked if they could buy us drinks.
I smiled and said politely, “I doubt you’re old enough to vote, much less buy drinks.” Sadly, my verbal barb was taken as a formal invitation to join us. Moving their chairs closer to us, they began eagerly asking us all sorts of pretending-to-be-interested-in-you-but-actually-trying-to-determine-your-bedability questions.
At one point, they asked about our careers and I was able to baffle them with a vague description of what a geophysics editor does. Perhaps when they returned to school next week they’d pay closer attention in their middle school science class.
Feeling more and more like babysitters rather than attractive, 20-something conservative sluts, we decided to head out. The amoebas asked, “If we can’t get your numbers, can we at least get your names?”
I smiled and said, “Mrs. Robinson 1 and 2.”
The toddlers looked at each other in disbelief. One of them replied, “Wow. That’s amazing that they both married guys named Robinson.”
2 comments April 2, 2012
The English Major’s Four-Letter Word
My co-workers were asked to perform a horrifying task. Something that strikes fear in the hearts of all English majors. Something that brings endless agony as we long for the simplicity of a Shakespearean sonnet in which to translate and pontificate.
Math.
or “MATH”.
Better known as that “miserable semester freshman year in which I worked my liberal arts ass off for a measly 70% in algebra and still need a fucking calculator to add small columns of numbers”.
While I too have a fear of all things numbers (credit card bill, calories, speculum width, etc.), my co-workers’ math meltdown was harrowing (and hilarious) to behold.
Our boss handed over a set of questions from a client that our team needed to answer. “George” (thus named because of his misfortune of sharing the same laugh with Bush Jr.) took the lead and began slowly looking through the questions to determine the volume before dividing them amongst our group.
The questions were numbered.
George began counting out loud and using his hands as back up.
Again, the questions were numbered.
“Sleeping Beauty” (thus named because of his baffling habit of falling asleep and snoring loud enough to shake the cube walls), my other co-worker, decided to help George solve this brain teaser. He suggested that we should read through each question to see if they could be grouped differently and then assign the groups according to our background knowledge.
George nodded, appearing to be deep in thought as he carefully weighed the consequences of this suggestion. “We also could assign even sections to one and odd sections to the other and the third could simply look over the completed work.”
Sleeping Beauty was concerned that assigning a numerical system to the sections would be confusing and instead offered the solution of employing an alphabetical system and selecting sections based upon their numerical equivalent.
Because that sounded so much easier.
Clearly if English majors have one universal trait, it’s our unwavering ability to simplify a problem. And not examine it from every possible angle until we are so mired down with superfluous details that we long for the days when our biggest concern was avoiding comma splices.
I saw that George and Sleeping Beauty had pulled out calculators. I decided to end their suffering. It was getting sad. Also, I had enough material to write my next blog article.
I helpfully pointed out, “Since there’s three of us and 61 questions, how about two of us answer 20 questions each and the third can answer the remaining 21?”
I’m ready for my Mensa membership.
1 comment March 26, 2012
It’s What’s On the Inside (of Those Egg Sacs) That Counts
“People are very gullible. They’ll believe anything they see in print.” — Charlotte Charlotte’s Web
When I was in the first grade, I would walk down our long gravel driveway in the country to catch the school bus (however, it was not several miles long, nor uphill, nor continuously covered in several feet of snow.) As I walked past the end of our house one day, I noticed a large black spider with bright yellow markings sitting in the middle of a web.
While I occasionally enjoyed playing beauty shop with my (mostly bald) Barbies, I was much more of a chasing lizards and catching fishing bait kind of girl. In fact, I had developed quite the enviable reputation as an expert grasshopper catcher and was delighted to share my expertise with all of my parents’ dinner guests (especially during dinner in which I would extol the virtues of grasshoppers versus earthworms as fishing bait).
Seeing a large spider was especially exciting for me because my teacher had just finished reading Charlotte’s Web to my class. I immediately named the spider Charlotte (my childhood innocence displaying an enviable lack of concern for gender and its rigid stereotypes).
I decided that Charlotte looked hungry, and paused briefly to catch a few juicy grasshoppers for her. I threw the large insects into her web and eagerly watched as she raced over to her victims and rapidly encased them in cocoons to save for later.
After school, I would stop by Charlotte’s web and feed her a few more grasshoppers so she wouldn’t go hungry.
A diligent, responsible pet owner, I would repeat this process every morning and evening for untold weeks.
Like any faithful pet, Charlotte always was anxious to see me, and I swear I could hear her pincers clapping together in delight as I threw four or five grasshoppers into her web before and after school. I tried to be sensitive to her needs and offered her a variety of differently colored grasshoppers. A grateful companion, she never complained about her menu options and went out of her way to show her appreciation by immediately wrapping up each offering to savor later.
Because I saw Charlotte daily, I hadn’t really noticed her size until one day I realized that she had produced not one egg sac, but two. Wow. Best. Pet Owner. Ever. And she had grown to roughly the size of Jabba the Hut. (Or my Aunt Barbara — but I can’t take credit for that — to this day, I have no idea who was feeding her grasshoppers.)
I eagerly showed my mother what I had discovered. “And thanks to me, now Charlotte has two egg sacs! Most spiders only get one,” I smugly explained. I waited expectantly for glowing praise and possibly a reward of some kind.
My mother seemed unusually quiet as she stared at Charlotte. I noticed that she seemed to be a little pale and oddly started backing away from Charlotte, pulling me with her. She insisted upon walking me to my bus stop that morning, talking nonstop about things that didn’t have anything to do with Charlotte. Clearly she was just jealous that she seemed to only have one baby at a time while Charlotte got to have way more. I bet there were about ten eggs in those sacs and I had helped make that happen!
After school that day I raced down the driveway to feed Charlotte her dinner. I was shocked to see that Charlotte was gone. That ungrateful bitch had even packed up her egg sacs and her spider web! The ragged edges of the spider web remnants taunted me. Clearly I had been used for my incredible food-bringer skills.
I vowed never to trust another pet again. That’s why my cats are unaware of my enviable grasshopper-catching skills. It keeps them loyal.
3 comments March 20, 2012
Tags: responsible pet owner
Awkward Elevator Moments
They exist to humiliate you. Their goal? To knock you off your game and revert you to that socially awkward teenager that you swear you never were (I wasn’t a geek, I was just creative. It’s not that I didn’t have friends; I simply chose to be alone. Yeah right, Dungeon Master.)
When awkward elevator moments attack, the repercussions are infinite, and the psychological damage is profound. Where will you be when an awkward elevator moment finds you? (If you did not answer “in an elevator”, the GOP would like to vet you as a presidential candidate.)
I was heading toward the company elevator at the end of a long day. I spied our department director at the elevator and slowed my pace to barely above a screeching halt. You did not want to spend time in a small space with this winged monkey, a minion of the company’s wicked witch that refused to stay melted. His social awkwardness was so awe-inspiring that it was contagious. I’ve had more awkward conversations with this winged monkey minion than I ever did during puberty.
Unfortunately, he spotted me and was holding the elevator door. Damn it. I plastered on a smile for Monkey Minion and proceeded to endure the longest thirty seconds of my life. I opened my mouth, willing something clever to escape — weather reports, music lyrics, top-secret brownie recipe, etc., anything to relieve the awkwardness.
I finally said, “I’m surprised to see you’re still here. I thought I saw you heading out about forty-five minutes ago.”
Monkey Minion nodded briefly and replied matter-of-factly. “Yes, but I’ve been in the bathroom.”
And because one cannot engage Monkey Minion in a conversation without contracting his social awkwardness, I smiled and said warmly, “Good for you!”
And then resisted the urge to immediately resign and seek job opportunities in single-floor buildings.
Add a comment March 12, 2012
Tags: social awkwardness, wicked witch, winged monkey
