I’m breaking my self imposed silence to talk about Survivor.

Since I decided to go underground there have been all kinds of topics running through my head to write about. And I’ve actually thought about writing them but not posting them. But I haven’t because once I get a piece worked up, I’m all “let’s hit that “post it” button” so that doesn’t work for me. Besides there are other things I need to be writing, like a piece about my father I’ve been asked to write. Do you have any idea how hard it is to write about your parents? Well trust me. It is.

Anyway.

Back to Survivor. My burning question today:

Is there a bigger moron in the history of Survivor than Erick?

I have been a Survivor fan since it first started; I’ve watched as much as my life allows of the shows. I watched Richard Hatch cavort around naked. I watched Jonathon self-destruct. And James. What can I say about James? “Ooh la la” comes to mind and then I need to wipe the drool off my chin.

I LOVE this show.

And Erick? He’s obviously never seen this show. Because he did the stupidest thing he could have possibly ever done on this show. He walked to the end of the pier with a bucket of fish guts and blood and carefully and thoughtfully poured it into the water, jumped in and asked the circling sharks to EAT.HIM.ALIVE. And they did. And he was SURPRISED!

And wasn’t James’ line about being replaced as the stupidest contestant on Survivor wonderful?

This vignette was originally published December 21, 2005

We’ve come to this time of year. To send Christmas photo cards or to not send Christmas photo cards?

I always begin with good intentions.

I take pictures of my children through the late summer and fall with an eye toward, “I wonder if this would make a good Christmas card?” I download them to my computer and put them in a special folder if they are Christmas card “worthy.” I print them out and demand my husband tell me which one is best and which one would make the best Christmas card.

And then Thanksgiving arrives.

And the cards haven’t been ordered. The background hasn’t been decided upon. Colored envelopes or white ones? No pithy message has been selected. In short, it hasn’t been done.

And then the first of December comes bearing down upon me, and I still haven’t picked a photo or a border or decided whether to have the folded kind or the postcard kind. And the message! Gack! What can I say that will be personal enough for family and friends but I can still send to people I work with?

And soon we are at that time of year when it is too late. And all those good intentions are for naught. And I put away my hopes and dreams of being organized. My plans to get my cards out on time and in an orderly fashion are dashed.

You suppose anyone has a holiday photo card available to celebrate National Prune Breakfast Month? I have the perfect picture of my kids for that.

This vignette originally appeared October 23, 2003.

I think I got dissed this weekend by the 12 year old working at the Clinique counter at the mall.

I needed some makeup, mine having reached that dreaded barren bottle status. Even leaving it balanced on its top all the time, it still wouldn’t give up anymore makeup.

Time to go talk to those perky, young, made up, cosmetic pushers.

I took my little bottle of foundation. It amazes me how many different types of makeup they have within the same line. They all have names I’m sure were meant to be descriptive but just serve to confuse me:

Gentle Light
Almost Makeup
Pore-Minimizer
Dewy Smooth Anti-Aging Makeup
Continuous Coverage
City Base Oil-Free Powder
Work-Out Makeup All Day Wear
Stay-True Makeup Oil-Free Formula
Balanced Makeup Base
Clarifying Makeup Clear Skin Formula
City Stick
City Base Compact Foundation
Superbalanced Makeup
Soft Finish Makeup
Superfit Makeup
Clarifying Powder Makeup

Even looking at the written descriptions and the shapes of the bottles on the web page, I can’t remember which one I use.

So, I showed up at the makeup counter late on a Sunday afternoon with my empty makeup bottle in my hot little hand.

It was late on a Sunday afternoon for several reasons. I’d managed to get most of the stuff I needed to do last weekend done relatively early. The GirlChild was at her BFFEIS for the afternoon. The GirlChild didn’t have a soccer game that weekend and it wasn’t because I’d prayed for rain and been rewarded for my efforts. The Boychild was napping. And the DearHusband was hanging Halloween decorations on the front porch.

I showed the teenybopper my empty bottle and she wondered away. She asked if there was anything else I needed.

Damn!

There actually was but I didn’t bring it with me.

Damn! Damn! Damn!

I weighed the chances that I’d be able to get to the mall by myself within the next few weeks. Two soccer games next weekend. The DearHusband committed to helping clean out his mother’s house. Needing to put in a few hours at the office each weekend this month. Things didn’t look good.

I decided I’d try to go it alone and describe to her what I wanted, “Powder. In the square compact. That you can carry in your purse. Not that loose stuff that gets all over the counter when you open it. Powder. In the pressed form.”

And she looked at me and smiled her cheerful, lipstick painted smile, “do you want the Stay-MatteSheerPressedPowder, theSoftFinishPressedPowder, theSuperpowderDoubleFaceMakeup or theGentleLightPressedPowder.”

I looked at her and said “Powder.” I felt like a deer, caught in the headlights of a GMC pickup truck that was full of red-necked hunters with guns and knives.

I couldn’t just go with cheap. Three of them were the same price and the more expensive one only cost a dollar or two more. I know that because I asked.

So she proceeds to explain to me the virtues of each. This one is oil absorbing. This one is moisturizing. This one absorbs light. I’m not at all clear why one would need that. One helps “cover lines, shadows and evens out skin tones” and she gave me that look that said “it’s the one you need, honey.”

I picked a powder.

They always give free miniature samples there when you buy stuff. Usually it’s nice stuff you can use but would never really buy; eye puffiness reducer, lip stuff to keep your lipstick on your lips longer, stuff to keep your eye makeup on longer. This time the toddler came out with a product called “Advanced Stop Signs” that carries the notation that it “targets lines and dark spots.”

She showed it to me and dropped it into my bag. She told me “I think you’ll lllooovvveee this.”

I don’t know how she could possibly know that. She didn’t look old enough to drive a car much less be pushing makeup to middle-aged women at the mall. She had flawless skin. The kind that doesn’t require any artificial assistance to glow. It was sweet, smooth, innocent.

I’ll admit it kind of pissed me off.

It’s bad enough that at 40 I still have acne.

It’s bad enough I have gray hairs that stick out at funny angles.

It’s bad enough that my moisturizer has the words age fighting on the front of the bottle and is called TimeWise.

It’s bad enough that I know what lines and dark spots are all about and from time to time worry about them.

It’s bad enough that I probably will lllooovvveee the product that “targets lines and dark spots.”

But she doesn’t have to rub my face in it.

This originally appeared on September 14, 2003. The GirlChild would have been about 9 and the BoyChild would have been about 15 months old. As a little background, my brother, RangerDoc, was in Afghanistan. DogDoc is my SIL and RangerDoc’s wife.

Last night the GirlChild and I were laying in her bed talking over her day.

“I’m sad.”

“How come?”

“We aren’t a family anymore.”

Since she had just returned from spending the night with DogDoc, I kinda thought I knew where this was heading.

“You and BoyChild and Daddy and I will always be a family, Sweetheart.”

“We aren’t a BIG family anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“With RangerDoc gone, we aren’t a BIG family anymore.”

“RangerDoc will only be gone a little while and when he comes back he’ll still be part of our family.”

“But what if he dies?”

Pause.

I didn’t see that coming.

“Well, I hope RangerDoc doesn’t die, and I don’t think he is going to, but if he does, we’ll all still be a family.”

“Really? Even DogDoc.”

“Yes, Sugar, especially DogDoc.”

“Mom?”

“Yes.”

“Can the BoyChild go with us to the grocery store tomorrow?”

“We’ll see.”

I’ve been busy at work lately.  I was asked to teach the Basic Bankruptcy Seminar and I’m trying to put my materials together and still work.  And.  Well something else is afoot that I can’t write about.  Nothing bad.  Just not something I can talk about here.  So in the mean time.  I’m going to re-post some of my better blog entries.  This one is from way back.  It first appeared on my blog August 16, 2003.   The BoyChild would have been about fourteen months old.

Tonight we went to Bob’s BBQ for dinner. Bob’s is in the little hamlet down the road with the college football team that adults are inordinately proud of having graduated from. Despite being a shrine for said college football team, Bob’s is a pretty good place to eat. They have southern fried catfish and a red meat extravaganza that makes my arteries harden just thinking about it.

It also has a mascot that is a tall person (I think it’s a man but it’s hard to tell) wearing a white chef’s shirt and a big pig mask who goes by the name of Bobby.

Bobby terrifies the BoyChild.

So tonight we are sitting in the dining room. I’m splitting up my salad between my kids (I often wonder how long it will be before I am the only person eating off my plate again) when the BoyChild lets out a scream that would make Jamie Lee Curtis proud.

David, the GirlChild and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Bobby. The BoyChild has spied him over the room divider. He screams. And he screams. And he screams.

Everyone in the restaurant stops talking.

The manager and waitress rush over to see what’s wrong.

The restaurant stops.

Everyone is looking at the BoyChild.

David finally figures out it’s Bobby that’s causing the shrieking and is comforting the BoyChild as best he can while he’s strapped in a high chair. The manager banishes Bobby to the back.

The BoyChild spent the rest of dinner scanning the room for Bobby, lest he sneak up on him again.

I guess Walt Disney World isn’t in our future anytime soon.

I know I’ve whined before about quitting smoking. Well I’m here to whine again. I am having terrible cravings for a cigarette.

And you know the really sad part? I can’t remember the day I actually quit.

The first time I mentioned it on my Blog was 1-10-08. But I think I’d quit before that because I waited a few days before saying anything in case I chickened out and went back to smoking. I’m thinking I quit right around the first of the year. If not December 31 then January 1 or 2.

In any event, you’d think the cravings would be GONE by now. But they are not.

And I’ve been drinking my water. And eating everything in sight, though I am trying to keep it to fresh fruits and healthy soups rather than chocolate bars and potato chips.

But I want these crazy cravings to END! Now would be good.

This weekend, after 5:00 Mass, we went to the mall to eat dinner.

There is this one place in the food court where the BoyChild can eat that doesn’t seem to bother him. And that’s where he wanted to eat tonight.

But today was not his potato day. So he couldn’t have the french fries and all he got to eat was meat and water. I gave him his meat and didn’t eat any of mine until he said he was full and finished and had eaten all of mine he wanted.

After we ate, David and the GirlChild decided to go to Target. The GranMa and the Baba gave the kids gift certificates for Easter (nothing says Happy Easter like money!) and it was burning a hole in the GirlChild’s pocket.

As the BoyChild and I sat at the Mall, I thought about all the things there that he couldn’t have.

He couldn’t drink the smoothies, he couldn’t eat the Chinese food or what passes for the Italian food. He could possibly eat some of the the chicken from the chicken place that has a cow for their mascot; but not the really good crunchy chicken. He couldn’t have the cookies from the cookie store. He can’t eat the ice cream dots. He can’t eat the $29 a pound chocolate candy.

And this musing led me to thinking about the things he might not be able to do.

It will be hard for him to go spend the night with a friend. Birthday parties are already a challenge. I don’t know whether he’ll be able to go to the sleepover camp the GirlChild goes to every year; I’m not sure they will be able, or willing, to deal with his food allergies.

I wondered about how he would be able to date. It seems like so much socializing, at least where we live, happens over food. In restaurants. At someone’s house.

There are just so many things his food allergies may prevent him from doing.

I’m hoping the allergy shots will work. I’m hoping he’ll out grow some of this. But I’m not really counting on either one happening.

And it was all making me a little sad.

Then he stuck his tongue out at me when I asked him to throw his plate away. I told him we couldn’t stay at the mall anymore because he was being ugly and griped at him while I marched him to the car.

He made me forget about being sad…….

Oh Wednesday afternoon last week, I got a telephone call from the BoyChild’s teacher. I didn’t really think it was anything bad because he’d been gone from there for hours, so he couldn’t be in any trouble.

The BoyChild had been selected as Student of the Month for his class! Yahoo!

The very cynical me thought that they must take the number of students in the class, divide them by the number of months they are actually in school, and assign each child a month.  I did not, of course, share this with the BoyChild.  Or with anyone else except for the entire internet.

The big assembly was scheduled for Friday. On Thursday it had been so hot we had to turn on the air conditioner.

On Friday morning I picked the BoyChild’s clothes and decided since it had been so hot, and surely would be hot again that day, that he should wear shorts.

The high on Friday was 54°F (or 12°C) . And it was significantly colder at 8:25 when he walked out the door to head to the car.

While he was student of the month, I failed at being mother of the year.

Today I took the GirlChild to the doctor to get some of her medicines refilled.

They always insist on putting two of the prescriptions on one prescription pad/note/whatever you call it even though I’ve asked them before to put them on separate ones.

You see the GirlChild doesn’t  run out of her different medicines at the same time and I don’t like to fill them until I have to.  It’s easier for me to carry the prescription around in my purse until we need to have it filled and then drop it off at the Walgreen’s drive through the day or two before we need it.

His nurse said, “oh just tell them you don’t want the other one filled and then call them and tell them when you need to have it filled.”

I just looked at her and wondered, in what world does she live where you can call the pharmacy and actually speak to a person in a reasonable amount of time without punching in all kinds of numbers and without wanting to bang your head on your desk in frustration before you are finished?  I also wondered, what really are the chances that if I said to the pharmacy tech at WalGreens, “oh, just hang on to that other one, I’ll get it filled later,” that anyone would ever remember that conversation when it came time to have it filled again. Or that they would “hang on” to that prescription?  Or fill it for me when I actually needed it?

And she and the doctor seemed all put out that I still insisted on getting three separate prescriptions for the three different medicines.

They must live in a much different world than do I.

I stole this from Amy at A Tad Polish. I thought it was fun trying to figure out what movies her quotes came from, so I thought I’d do it too.

The Rules are:

1. Pick 20 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search/other search functions/looking at my profile or reading my blog archives or whatever to see what these movies are.

And my quotes are:

1. Neighbors bring food with death, and flowers with sickness, and little things in between. To Kill A Mockingbird by Dani of Between A Rock and A Hard Place

2. Gentlemen, congratulations. You’re everything we’ve come to expect from years of government training. Men in Black guessed by Jess at Days Go By

3. I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted. I won’t be laid a-hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.

4. I regret trifling with married women. I’m thoroughly ashamed at cheating at cards. I deplore my occasional departures from the truth. Forgive me for taking your name in vain, my Saturday drunkenness, my Sunday sloth. Above all, forgive me for the men I’ve killed in anger… and those I am about to.

5. Now I have some instructions for you. I want you to go straight back to the gallery - Start your motor - When you get to the gallery tell Jennifer that she will be looking after things temporarily, she’s to give me a ring if there’s anything she can’t deal with herself. Then go into the office, and make out a check, for “cash,” for the sum of $5,000. Then carefully, but carefully Hilary, remove absolutely everything that might subsequently remind me that you had ever been there, including that yellow thing with the blue bulbs which you have such an affection for. Then take the check, for $5,000, which I feel you deserve, and get - permanently - lost. It’s not that I don’t want to know you - although I don’t - it’s just that I’m afraid we’re not really the sort of people that you can afford to be associated with. Don’t speak, Hilary, just… go.

6. I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.

7. This is an extremely primitive and paranoid culture.

8.And he piled upon the whale’s white hump, the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole race. If his chest had been a cannon, he would have shot his heart upon it.

9. Don’t underestimate the mentally ill. We know how to count Benny & Joon by Lisa from TigerSquirrels.net

10. This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather. Groundhog Day by Dink(y)

11. You just fulfilled the first rule of law enforcement: make sure when your shift is over you go home alive. Here endeth the lesson.

12. Vengeance or death!… Preferably vengeance.

13. You want to talk to God? Let’s go see him together, I’ve got nothing better to do.

14. The Almighty says this must be a fashionable fight. It’s drawn the finest people. Braveheart by BritneyMarie

15. And now you understand. Anything goes wrong, anything at all… your fault, my fault, nobody’s fault… it won’t matter - I’m gonna blow your head off. No matter what else happens, no matter who gets killed I’m gonna blow your head off.

16. You want to find an outlaw, hire an outlaw. You want to find a Dunkin’ Donuts, call a cop.

17. Hey, look. “Esc-a-pay”. I wonder what that means? That’s funny, it’s spelled just like the word “escape.” Finding Nemo by Lisa from TigerSquirrels.net

18. Let’s have an intelligent conversation here: I’ll talk, and you listen.

19. Normal is what everyone else is and you are not.

20. I don’t know. It’s just that… it’s like you escaped from a Hallmark card or something. Enchanted by BritneyMarie