Spring break is fun. For kids. For moms it just goes on and on and on while you get nothing done except pulling out more hair.

But the visit with the outlaws has been excellent and tonight at dinner? Guess which Blazer stood right by our table?

That’s right.

And no I won’t tell you where we were cuz even tall, tall, tall men who are NBA supastars need some anonymity.

He is almost 7 feet tall, no fooling. Go look at his stats. And when you see that up close in person, even if you’re 5 foot ten inches tall you feel rilly rilly wimpy and short.

Man.

Cuz Twitter is okay, Facebook is okay, but Thee Blogs are the place you want to be when you have the flu, can’t sleep, and it’s 3:15 a.m.

Lucky in-laws. Lucky, lucky people, flying 2,000 miles to visit Chez Grippe. I’ll give them your sympathy, Internet, when I yell downstairs at them in a few hours I HAVE THE FLU I’M STAYING IN BED ALL DAY. TAKE THE KIDS, WHO’S NOT THROWING UP, WOULD YOU?

love,

wm

One day, long, long ago, there lived a woman who did not whine, nag, or bitch.

The End

(That was courtesy of Zip.)

Listen, my friends, if you are still out there, that is? Are you there? ?Si o no? It was a rough day today. It has been a rough few months, I think you have probably already figured this out. I cannot give details. But I will tell you this… I am lucky to have you, and I am blessed to still have my grandma. How many of us can say this, once we hit our forties?

I am 44, my grandma is 88. I called her on our last birthdays (they’re a week apart) and told her, You are double my age! She thought that was hiiiiii-larious. I love my granny for a lot of reasons, but the number one reason is 1) she will always talk about my cousin with me, when I am missing him and the second reason I love her so is 2) she’s zany.

It is tough seeing her down and not feeling well and not hardly zany at all. I am not feeling very zany, either. I cry all the time now, from stress, from my grandma being sick, from this flu/cold thing that won’t leave. Because right now everything makes sense and nothing makes sense.

It looks like my family leave will be approved (for 12 weeks, unpaid except for the first bit of it), and that’s about the only good thing I can say for today. Not true — L took me out for lunch. We had soup and lattes. And she gave me two books! (Nothing says “love” to a librarian like books.) I fixed manicotti and broccoli for dinner, that was good. I mean — fake it til you make it with this motherhood thing, eh? The kids worked on homework and piano and they worked extra hard on “being kids” which is where they shine the brightest. Now I’m going to watch Jeopardy with my husband and try to not be distracted.

I have a couple of little projects I’m working on. I’m also working on the big project of finishing my Grandma’s cookbook that I started way back when — it’s almost ready for production (ie — Hockey God will take over).

Mom and I went out to see Grandma today — she was sick all morning, after having an okay day yesterday. She slept most of the afternoon. That is good, she needs her rest. And when she’s sleeping, she’s not throwing up. The nausea is doing her in. (The doctors are trying to figure it out — I’m blaming the Ativan, which is supposed to help with nausea but sometimes has the opposite effect.)

I have never seen my Grandma sleep. Ever. She goes, goes, goes. She looked just like an angel, and that was too intense because… I’m not ready for her to be an angel. I want her to keep on being wild and out-of-control and stirring up trouble.

It never occurred to me until today that my Grandma might stop being wild someday.

Please keep sending her good thoughts, would you? I don’t want her to be hurting. I don’t know when we’ll feel zany around here again, but it will be a long while, is my guess.

Not as much for me as it does for my Granny, who is convinced she will die soon, go to Heaven (her heaven is Capitalized), find my Grandpa, slap him silly for being the one to die first and leave her, and then start a new family with him.

Presumably so their babies will be cuter this time around.

(Just kidding. My mom is adorable.)

Hmm.

Do you have any thoughts on Heaven? Or Hell?

Please share.

wm

They set her hip with a pin and she is doing all right. Not great, but all right. Still heavily sedated. Thanks for the good thoughts and e-mails, I appreciate them and she does, too.

xxox

wm

it’s been two years since we lost our dear, crazy dog. i still am yearning to get another pup. we will not get a pup. we would love to be dog people but we are just not dog people, i am sorry to say.

we’re not really cat people, either. or fish people. or guinea pig people. we are people-people.

“People/
People who need people/
are the luckiest people/
in the world…”

— B. Streisand

i need people, people. i need my internet people, my librarian people, my family people, my friend people and my Nekkid Neighbor people.

i need my grandma, people. I need my friend S, people. Cuz when she’s goofy from pain pills (she messed up her arm) well. She’s always funny, but she’s extra-funny on the “happy pills.”

today started out ok, even though my husband refused to watch this YouTube video with me:

that’s right. sometimes you need to start off the weekend with a little Tony Manero.

“Hey, you guys do layaway? Put me down for five dollars for that blue shirt in the window. Hold it for me.”

— T. Manero

we went to the eye doctor’s, where I was informed i need bifocals. excuse me — “progressives” — and that they may make me want to throw up while i’m getting used to wearing them. middle-age is so cool, i am loving it. i am gobbling it up.

out to pizza schmizza for lunch, then home, where I received a call from my aunt, chipper and over-animated, “Hi kid, how are ya?” me, hesitantly, “Good…” (thinking, “someone died…”) “…and you?”

“Good! Say, Grandma broke her hip.”

i love my grandma. she is under sedation and in the hospital.

this sucks.

as do happy-perky phone calls that carry loaded news right smack-dab in the middle.

say prayers and light candles for my granny, would you? She turns 89 in July. She shouldn’t have been walking in the store, by herself, that is no good. You know what she says when I call her? “Yeah, I’m a little tired. I was out late at the clubs again. You know.” She fractures me. There should be no fractured or broken hips in this post, just my grandma cracking me up because she is funny girl, my granny.

Candles and prayers or good thoughts or whatever you do would be nice. Thank you.

Here are some posts about her. She’s a pistol.

wm

Only we don’t eat turkey over here. Still, we’re grateful. I’m grateful for bacon, cuz that clam chowder I had for dinner last night was so good. My son is grateful for pigs. Live pigs. He has requested that I give up bacon. And his sister has requested that we buy them a Wii or Nintendo DS.

Wouldn’t hold my breath on any of that.

And dear readers, I am grateful for you, for America’s new president, for my new job, that I love so much. It is a cool thing to finally, after years of searching, find the right career. And it was there in the library, in the stacks, right under my nose, this whole time. (I needed to look between Cormier, Robert, and Creech, Sharon. Between DiTerlizzi, Tony, and Draper, Sharon. It just took me awhile to get there.)

I’m grateful for Hockey God, who is the yang to my yin, every day without fail. I’m grateful to my kids, who are funny and kooky and remind me of what’s important. (“We are. Over here. Don’t pay attention to anything else. Give us chocolate.”)

I’m thankful for the Nekkid Neighbors, cuz if it’s wasn’t for their love of gadgets, pots and pans, I wouldn’t be cooking Suzanne’s Crockpot Stuffing right now. (If you haven’t already, go sign up for a Book Club or two.)

I’m thankful for Suzanne, and all my Internet buddies. And I’m especially thankful for all my “real-time” buddies. This year will be better. It has to be. I just know it, that’s why.

Have a great weekend, y’all. We’re going to eat root vegetable soup with greens, stuffing with vegetarian herb gravy, TWO KINDS of cranberry sauce (in honor of my Mom’s family, who can never agree on a damn thing), pumpkin pies and real whipped cream, and brownies.

I wish you and yours all the best.

xxox

wm

I was missing my family. My family I haven’t seen cuz I worked all day, then went to meetings, and just now got home.

I missed ’em right up until the point my son came at me with his Dad’s drill. His Dad’s drill that he found lying on the bench upstairs. Then his sister (who is 9, lest you have forgotten) said, “Put that fuckin’ thing down it’s a piece of shit.”

Internets, at that point I told them, all three of them, “I’m glad I didn’t see you guys all day because you all are crazy.”

In my day, if you found a drill lying around, you left it the hell alone because hello, you could hurt someone with that thing. Or they might make you do some remodeling or something and God knows, you didn’t need that, did you?

Also, if we had just gotten back from hunting, and my uncles, their buddies and my grandpa hadn’t had a chance to clean their guns, and the guns were scattered all over the kitchen floor (What? Well, where the hell do you keep your guns?)… here is what you did:

You stepped over the guns.

You did not pick them up, see? You stepped over them. Leave the drills alone, leave the guns alone, keep passing the open windows, it’s not that hard.

Here’s a story I told my kids the other night, about their great-grandpa, who died 11 years ago this week (my mom’s daddy):

When he wanted to get a kid’s attention, he would ask this question:

“‘What say we tell your folks about this?’ Well, no, he didn’t think that was such a good idea. Then I’d say, Son, I have a gun. You might’ve gotten shot. You wouldn’t have liked that, would you?” And he’d say, No sir, I guess I wouldn’t.”

(My kids: “He shot people?” Me: “Just to watch them die. NO, he didn’t shoot people. He just intimated that he would shoot them if they didn’t do what he wanted.” My kids: “Huh.”)

My grandpa was the rockingest dude. Just as long as you didn’t mess with him.

Hockey God, to Wacky Boy, while they were both inside the pit toilet because… You know. We didn’t want him to fall in:

HG: “I swear to God, if you don’t quit whining about the smell I’m never taking you camping again.”
WB: “I swear to God, why did Mommy make us go camping???”

— everyone was fed, front yard and back yard were watered, spouse out the door, daughter practicing piano without complaint, son happily shooting spiders with his launcher, garbage and recycling already by curb for tomorrow (i have to put it out early or it’s forgotten)…

…I’m on my 2nd cup of coffee…

It’s a wonderful life. Happy Wednesday, y’all.

wm