Post-Thanksgiving Thanks

1. No one died. Or even got sick! A huge blessing, because for the First! Time! Ever!, I cooked everything.

2. My sweet pink Crocs. Because I had to stand in the kitchen for hours and hours doing all the damn cooking, and my size 8 feet ain't used to such abuse.

3. My oldest two children, who are not exactly children, being 15 and 20. Steven volunteered to take the gang to the video store. Katie was such an ace cleaner-upper that it was comparable to folding it up and putting it in the fridge. No bribes, no guilt trips. Just genuine help.

4. The King of the Hill Thanksgiving marathon. Peggy Hill, YOU are my hero.

5. A day when I didn't have to load up the van and take somebody somewhere! I did leave the house, but only to take my frost-nipped plants out on the patio for a haircut. I hunted no car keys, I buckled no seat belts, I scraped no windshields

Life is like an opera

I’ve often thought life would be more interesting if, once in a while, we didn’t speak to each other but sang instead. An opera in real life. Imagine: Hey, you stinking bastard, you stole my parking space! Or One pound of smoked ham, sliced thin please and a chorus of deli workers reply sliced thin! how thin? how does this look to you? People might be more deliberate with their words if they had to sing them. There are far too many people running around the world trying to talk the rest of us to death. Let it at least be melodic.


So, please let us designate
A day to musically enunciate
The humdrum chatter
That doesn’t matter
Our deepest thoughts
About robots
Our jokes, our curses
‘cause it ends in hearses

Let’s have a day of song!


I think it might catch on.

So Says People magazine

Sexiest Man Alive Without Indoor Plumbing.

Sexiest Man Alive With Indoor Plumbing

Sweet Dreams

Don’t you wish you could pre-program your dreams? If I could, I’d have the one I had last night and another one (which I won’t describe on the grounds that I might embarrass myself) on all-night replay. It was impressive and I mean that in the literal sense – I’ve been thinking about it since I was so rudely awakened. Not that anything really happened in it, but, whatever.

It started outside at some kind of lawn party that was part Alice in Wonderland and part Gatsby. The light is that wonderful gray/yellow illumination just before a thunderstorm. I am holding a sweaty drink wrapped in a white napkin standing near a table and up walks Nick Lowe looking indescribably handsome in a black suit with white shirt open at the neck. He says something to me and I follow him, and we’re talking back and forth but he’s always ahead of me. The last thing I remember is looking down at him and there’s this white path that kind of disappears in the overgrowth of some incredibly dense and thick willow. I take a few steps and I can see more of the path. Then, dammit, I wake up.


So, I’ve been noodling around all morning (no, it’s work! real work, I swear!) on dream interpretation websites trying to discover the meaning of this dream, which sounds like a stupid thing to seek when I write it down – I guess I’m just interested in any hidden symbolism. Yeah, that’s the ticket. If I can only find that path…

Anyway, these are some of the things I found.

The sweaty drink: To dream that you are drinking alcohol, denotes that you are seeking either pleasure or escape. Hmmm. Pleasure AND escape for me, please.

The table: To see a table in your dream, represents social unity and the potential for a meeting or gathering. It refers to your social and family connections. Potential is good, unity is good, particularly in this social sector.

Black and White: Black symbolizes the unknown, unconscious, danger, mystery, darkness, death, mourning, hate or malice. White represents purity, perfection, peace, innocence, dignity, cleanliness, awareness, and new beginnings. You may be experiencing a reawakening or have a fresh outlook on life. Oh, my.

Nick’s Neck: To dream about any neck, denotes your present feelings of jealousy and resentment. It involves emotional problems involving a friend or relative. Oh, my redux. My feelings of jealousy and resentment are right now focused on a co-worker, but if I need to, I can work some up over Thanksgiving, taking the trash out EVERY SINGLE TIME it needs to be emptied and other household inequities.

The overgrown path: To see a blocked or windy path, denotes that you need to give serious attention to the direction you are heading in your personal and/or business life. You also need to take time out to consider and rethink the consequences before acting on your choices. Ok, I can go with that. I always do my thinking after the fact.



So, my little dream of delight is a lie! I am a disturbed and resentful bag of malice with homicidal intentions towards a family member, seeking escape but needing to consider the direction I am heading.

Some things are best left unstudied.

Nick, if you want me to follow, just ask!

My Prayer

May I Never Again Hear:

1. “My gyno.” I seem to only read it in Glamour or Cosmo, so I can’t really say I’ve ever heard someone say this offensive phrase. It evokes disturbing images of STDs and Panglossian denial. Is it prudish of me to NOT want to be on nickname acquaintance with the doctor who’ll be examining some of my most interior parts? This is not the ENT dude. This is not the mammogram ma’am. This is the doctor who will see if you’re a swamp-like miasma of excess and kink or an arid desert of denial. If ever there were a profession in need of some good euphemisms, this be it. And “My Gyno” ain’t one of ‘em.

2. Git R Done. Let me be clear: there is only one funny person on the whole Blue Collar Tour. Call him Tater Salad. Larry the Cable Guy – I just don’t get. At all. I live here in the South and I can say, with authority, that he doesn’t come from around here. He is absolutely alien to me. And when I’m at a soccer game, and some moronic boob calls out ‘Git R done!’ I get nauseous. If I worked at McDonald’s and some pinhead told me to Git R Done, I’d probably spit in his food.

3. “In all actuality.” I didn’t think “actuality” was an actual word, so I looked it up on the good ole M-W online. The state or quality of being ACTUAL! Why, you could almost say it was actually actual! A co-worker of mine is always using that phrase with what she thinks is an intelligent and thoughtful look on her face. Reality, actuality, causality, duality – it’s the new black. Or should I say the new Ism? Run; run quickly from the room when you hear those words!

4. “Going to hospital.” You can go crazy, nuts, insane. You can go to work, you can go to hell if you don’t change your ways, but everyone knows you can’t go home again. You can go to pieces, you can go to Wal-Mart, and you can go to school. You can go to Fort Sanders Sevier, but you can’t go TO HOSPITAL. At least not on this side of the Atlantic.

5. “Taking the dog a walk.” WTF? How do you take a walk to a dog? This sounds like one of those carny catchphrases to me. Don’t let ‘em get away, Sammy, I’m almost taking the dog a walk. Check your wallets, folks.

I Love the Smell of Sweaty 12-Year-Olds in the Morning!

Josephine’s final 2005 soccer game was last Thursday. We have been truly blessed by the Great Soccer Gods this fall – only one slightly drizzly game and this final one turned off cold as hell, but all in all, sun and fun at games and at practices. I’m strictly a vicarious athlete, but I’m an excellent Soccer Mom. I knew I was going to miss yelling ‘boot it!’ and ‘go, red!’ (or blue, depending).

Then, before I could completely thaw out from that colder-than-a-well-digger’s butt final game, there was Coach Mark on the phone wanting to organize an indoor team for the winter.

What I like best about indoor is that it starts on time every time, it takes one hour and we never have practices. It’s a minimum 3-hour time investment, being an hour away, but there are several large liquor stores on the way. If our first game was a barometer, it’s gonna be a long season. We did score. Once. On a PK, but it was my kid that kicked it in so big ups to the austinator. The scoreboard read 6-1 at the end, but the other fabulous thing about indoor is that the winning team can only be 5 points ahead. In the interests of sportsmanship and self-esteem and all that noble stuff they don’t teach in sports anymore. The actual score was probably 20-1, but I quit counting when it went into double digits. It’s a rebuilding year.

But the kids enjoyed it. Most of them are new to indoor, and it’s a major adjustment, going from large grass field to small enclosed astro-turfed oval. It’s like pinball-meets-basketball-but-with-no-hands. Very fast paced, lots of action and NO offsides rule to worry about. The perfect game for the average 12-year-old PS2 addict. And for the average Soccer Mom: cappuccino and warm cinnamon buns in the deli!

But does it have to start at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning?!?!?!

The Second Sign of the Apocalypse

Or, Shoeless in Sevierville

You know those days, the days where it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed. The days when even your dog doesn’t love you. The days when you walk thru a spider web in the dark and beat yourself silly trying to kill the brown recluse you just know is poised to bite. The days when the only possible reply to cheery good mornings is ‘eat shit and die.’ The days when there isn’t enough liquor, and automatic weapons are looking like the only solution to Sartre’s vision of hell. Have you had days like those? I have, and I had a really simple cure. Just kidding about the automatic weapons, btw. At least until the statute of limitations runs out.

My cure involved shopping. Shoe shopping, to be specific. There’s nothing like the little boost one gets from a new pair of saucy sandals or the pick-me-up provided by the smell of real leather. Sure, it’s bought love, but that’s the only kind of love I need on Those Days.

Yesterday, it didn’t work. No shoe in the store could do anything for me. For once, the Power of the Shoe failed. I went down every single aisle, tried on 45 different pairs and bought nada. Was it that I couldn’t find the right shade of brown? Were there no pumps to pump me up? (I am almost ashamed of that) Has Mootsies Tootsies run out of style? Or was it me? The boots failed to excite. The flats fell flat (I am ashamed of that one). There was nothing new under the fluorescent lights. I’m hoping it was just my mood, because damn I’d hate to lose my cure. I’ll try it again without children. It’s hard to focus holding a sticky hand.