Twitterature - December 2013

Today I'm linking up to Modern Mrs. Darcy for Twitterature. 

When I was a bookstore manager I made it a point to hire readers.  I really thought (and still think) that you cannot do a great job selling something unless you are passionate about it.  While I was interviewing I usually skimmed through the "required" questions because I wanted to talk to the potential booksellers about, well, BOOKS.  I would always start out with a no-brainer - "Do you like to read?" and only a handful ever told me no.  They didn't get a call back, by the way.  They I would say "What are you reading now?" or "What have you read lately that you enjoyed?" and I got a wide range of answers.  Sometimes people would tell me of the last thing they were required to read in high school - 15 years ago.  Sometimes people would have a wide and varied list of classics, current bestsellers and everything in between.  I got a lot of great recommendations from people like that.  And then there were the ones who said "Oh I LOVE to read!  I read a LOT of magazines!"  I gave them credit for trying, but it just wasn't the same.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with reading magazines, by the way.  But if they couldn't roll at least a title or two off that they had read in the past month, I figured they weren't really book readers. 

This month, I have felt like a magazine-only reader.  I've started several books but none of them has really held my interest past the first chapter or two.  I've read a lot of magazines.  I've read a lot of blogs. I've read a lot of books with and to the boys.  I'm still reading, but I'm not really making any progress with books for ME.

I almost didn't link up this time, but the one - yes only one - book I managed to finish was so, so good I wanted to share it.

Beautiful story of the half American, half Chinese woman who makes her own way in early 20th century China. She fits nowhere, but despite being abandoned time and again manages to survive and even thrive. 

Make no mistake, this book is gritty and raw and even crude, but it is beautiful.  Amy Tan has such a gift with painting pictures with her words, and although I wasn't carried along by plot, I had a hard time putting this book down because the descriptions were all so vivid and amazing.

So there you have it - my one recommendation for the month.

What are you reading right now?

This post contains affiliate links. 

On the shelves

Modern Mrs. Darcy asks:  What's on YOUR bookshelf?

I was a bookseller for almost two decades.  This job came with long hours, low pay and only vague returns, but the one thing that it had that I miss - really, really miss - is all the books.  I miss taking new books out of the box and seeing them before the rest of the world.  I miss having access to them all the time.  I miss talking to like-minded book lovers and making suggestions for their next read.

I really do miss being around books all day. 

Over the years I amassed a really ridiculous amount of books.  Between a really reasonable discount and first dibs on ARCs (advance reader's copies), my shelves, quite literally, overfloweth.  My hubby is a reader too, and between us we just had more books than space, so a few years ago in a fit of de-cluttering I got rid of hundreds - ok, maybe even thousands - of books.  It made me super sad at the time, but really, it was out of control.  What that means though is that what's left is pretty much the best of the best.  

You might think that all those years of being around perfectly organized and categorized books would spill over into my home shelves, but I think I rebelled against it.  My bookshelves are in no particular order.  They are cluttered with family photos and knick knacks.  They are messy and warm and totally us, and I love each and every book I put on them.

Even though I don't have the thousands of books I once had, every time I look at my shelves I spot a little treasure I haven't seen in a while.  Sometimes I pick it up and read a page or two, and it's like running into an old friend you haven't seen for years and being able to pick up the conversation like we were just talking yesterday.

Here I see The Yale Shakespeare, a John Grisham and a couple of my favorite short story anthologies.  The sci-fi/fantasy books you see interspersed here and there are all my hubby's.  I've read a few of them, but they're definitely more his thing than mine.

Oh Lewis Grizzard - you left us too soon!  You were a funny, funny man.  My vintage Faulkner books have a special place in my heart, and I spy the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Midwives on this shelf.  

In among my coffee table sized books I see some mythology, a book on Ford Mustangs (like my '66 convertible), a photo book of Elvis, some fairies, and some Disney stuff.  They are all important to me in different ways.  

  

Umberto Eco jumps out at me from this shelf.  I also see Faye Kellerman (if you haven't read her early stuff - DO!), Larry McMurtry, who writes the best, most realistic dialogue I've ever read, an autographed Homer Hickam (I actually have quite a few autographed books from all my years of going to bookstore manager conventions), and a baby name book, which really didn't serve my kids all that well.  

This shelf has some more recent advance reader's copies on it.  My friend Natalie knows how much I miss them and keeps sending and/or bringing me ones she knows I will love.  I admit, I may have gasped when I pulled the new Amy Tan out of the last box she brought me.  

  

I see another vintage Faulkner book here, and an autographed George Takei.  Oh, and Les Mis, and a book on shots.  That shelf is just a party waiting to happen, isn't it?

Oh!  Barbara Kingsolver!  I love her! There's also some Melville here, and a book on how to buy a house.  That one could probably go - I'm pretty well settled in here, and have no plans to go anywhere else - ever. 

A beautiful copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls is peeking out from this shelf, along with a collector's edition Harry Potter, and the one book that I consider my greatest reader's fail of all time.  I DID NOT like Cold Mountain.  To be honest, I hated it.  It was SO freaking boring.  But the rest of the entire world loved it, so I have picked it up and tried to read it no less than a half dozen times over the years.  Yep, still boring.  I keep it as a reminder of my failure ;).

I see my Atlas of Literature, which was a gift from my first bookstore boss, a Tami Hoag book which reminds me of my Mama (those books were her favorites), a Mr. Boston bartender's guide, Willie Nelson's attempt at fiction (stick with what you know, old boy) and a couple good and geeky comic book hero guides.  This shelf is a pretty perfect representation of a day in my life.

So there you have it - a smattering of books from my shelves.  It's by no means all - only a few of the (least messy) shelves, plus most of my shelves are double stacked so you can't see what's behind.  And in case you thought I don't have any kids' books, the boys both have bookcases in their rooms and they have at least as many books as I do.  For some reason when I was in my book de-cluttering phase I had a really hard time getting rid of any of those.  

Did you spot anything on my shelves that you love?  That you hate?  I want to see your bookcases, too! 

On being a Capricorn.

The first time I went for a REAL job interview (whereby REAL=not fast food or phone sales) I sat down, nervously fidgeted with my skirt, and was promptly asked "When is your birthday?"

At the time, I was too young, naive and stupid to realize this was a highly inappropriate and illegal question, so I stammered out "January 16, 1974."

"Ah, so you're a Capricorn, then," my interviewer said.  "Capricorns make the BEST employees."

She really didn't ask me much after that, except to test my obscure author recall ("Who wrote Cry, the Beloved Country?" "Alan Paton."  "Who wrote Brave New World?""Aldous Huxley."), and 20 minutes later I had the job.  So basically a mind full of random trivia and the fact that I was a Capricorn netted me a 17 year career in bookselling.  Oops.

Until that time, I had never paid much attention at all to anything at all horoscope related.  But this first manager of mine was sort of obsessed with it, and she liked to point out to me all the ways that I was goat-like.

"You're such a hard, steady worker," she would say.  "So careful and patient.  But I knew you would be when I hired you, since you're a Capricorn."

"You got all that shelving done so quickly and accurately!" she would gush.  "But of course you did.  You're a Capricorn, after all."

"I love how you took to that challenge," she would gloat.  "Capricorns are SO competitive."

So slowly, over time, even I began to admit that there might be something to this horoscope business, even though it was in direct conflict with my practical, cautious, realistic, pragmatic CAPRICORN-LIKE nature.

And to be quite honest, when I read a description of a Capricorn's traits, it's like reading straight from my own personal rulebook of life...  Hard working, determined, practical, realistic, dedicated to the point of stubbornness, industrious, organized, unwilling to make waves, blessed with common sense, quirky sense of humor that many don't appreciate, self-critical, competitive...  Yeah.  I'm a Capricorn all right.

Whether I believe it or not.

A sick day.

It's 10am, I'm on my third - or is it fourth? - cup of coffee, the whining and fighting is at an all time high, and there is green snot running out of three of four of the boys' nostrils.  Everybody is still in pajamas, the tv is turned up as loud as I can stand it, and I'm seriously considering opening a bottle of wine.

Yep, it's a sick day.

Both zj and cj have some sort of general crud.  It's not serious, but a little fever means that zj is home from school, and an even littler fever means cj won't detach himself from my person long enough for me to pee.

It's super awesome.

When I was working, taking off at a moment's notice wasn't an option for me.  I was the one with the keys to the store.  I kinda had to show up.  So whenever the kids were sick, either RJ would stay home with them, or our super duper kind sitter lady would let them come anyway.  She would spoil them and let them lay on the couch and eat popsicles all day, and I could swoop in at the eleventh hour and take them home just in time to go to bed.

It was a good system.  For me.

I was proud of the fact that until last year sometime, I had never been in the "sick" side of the waiting room at our pediatrician's office.  RJ always had that job.

But since becoming a stay at home Mama, sick duty is mine.  All mine.  And to be quite honest, I'm not particularly good at it.

Oh, don't get me wrong.  I hate it when my boys are sick.  I want them to get better.  I'm not TOTALLY heartless.  But the actual dealing with sick kiddos?  Not my strong suit.

The whining and the snot and the whining and the "Mama!" and the whining and the "I'm thirsty" and the whining and the "Mama!!!" and the whining and the general crabbiness and the whining and the "I WANNA POP-A-SICLE!!" are a bit much at times.

But I'm here to do my job, and do it I will.  My main goal at the moment is to get zj well enough to go to school tomorrow.  I will do this by general care, magic, or brute force if necessary.

And now if I can just find my corkscrew, I might make it through the day.

Weekends.

Since the tender age of 19 when I got my first real job in a bookstore, I've never really understood the whole concept of weekends.

Saturday and Sunday were the busiest retail days of the week; therefore, they were pretty much always work days for me.

This trend continued for the next, oh, 17 years or so.

I would hear people talking about "weekends" like it was some magical time of fun and frolic, as in "So what are you going to do this weekend?" or "I've got big plans for the weekend" or "I hope you have a great weekend!"

This. Does. Not. Compute.

Well meaning customers would mention weekends to me and I would answer, quite self-righteously, "Well, I'll be here all weekend.  Working.  Someone has to work so you have a place to shop, you know."  They I would smile my nicest so they would know I was being all friendly about it.  I wasn't, by the way.


The UPS man who brought our packages to the bookstore was the worst.  Over the years I met no fewer than a dozen UPS men, and they all had the same patter of small talk.  It's like days 5-9 of UPS Man 101 Training went like this: "Ok, you're going to meet a lot of people and it's impossible to remember everybody's name, so you can get away with calling the women 'Lady.'  Try this.  'Hey Lady, how you doing today?'  If you can throw in a wink/click maneuver, even better.  Oh, and talk to them about weekends.  Everybody loves weekends, right?"


I would give him hell about it.  It's perfectly acceptable to be bitchy to the delivery guy, especially when he says the same damn thing to you every Friday for six years - "Have a great weekend!" - and you respond the same way - "I have to work all weekend, you asshat."

Ah, memories.

But then I quit working.

And then zj started school.

And slowly, it began to dawn on me that those two "S" days really were different from all the others.

No dragging a tired kid out of bed every morning and forcing "just one more bite, no you have to eat some fruit, too and sit up please. SIT UP NOW" down his throat before trying to get him ready "brush your teeth.  No, you can't just stand there you actually have to put the toothbrush in your mouth and move it around.  MOVE IT AROUND.  MOVE.  IT. AROUND!"

No homework.  No schedules to follow.  Nowhere to be.  Nowhere to go.  Total freedom.

So now we spend the weekends taking long walks:

And throwing rocks:

And playing video games:

And... actually, I don't know what the hell this is, but we do a lot of it anyway:

Oh, and we sleep in and eat a big breakfast while reading the paper and watching cartoons, and we don't fight about eating vegetables, because it's the weekend and we stay in out pajamas all day if we want to because HELLO!  it's the weekend and we don't do housework or laundry or anything at all that we don't want to do.  Because it's the weekend, of course.  And every Sunday night, we have pizza and watch a movie together, because the weekend is almost over and we're gonna celebrate right up till the bitter end.

Yeah.  Weekends.  I get it now.

And I can't wait until the next one.

The boys' bathroom.

It doesn't LOOK all that scary, right?

I sit here in front of my computer typing away.

It's not because I have anything profound to say, really.

It's because I'm avoiding something.

I'm avoiding my most hated, most dreaded, most loathed of all tasks.

See, it's time to...

Cue ominous music.

Clean the boys' bathroom.


*Duh-duh-DUH!*


First, let me say that I realize just how fortunate I am to have a separate bathroom for the boys.  I'm THRILLED that I don't have to share my personal private bathroom space with them and all their bodily fluids and little boy funk.

But cleaning their bathroom is BY FAR the worst job I've ever had to do, and coming from someone who worked for seventeen years in a retail store that had public restrooms, that's saying a LOT.  Lord, the things I saw...  I'm still not sure how women manage to pee on the walls.  Men, I get, but women...  It's anatomically impossible.  Except, somehow, apparently it's not.

I was definitely one of those stupid "I will never ask you to do anything I wouldn't do myself" kinds of managers, which means every time somebody pooped in a urinal or flushed a diaper and caused an overflow, guess who got the call?  Yeah, me.  Once when I was an assistant manager, a customer approached me and said "Your men's room needs attention."  Uh-oh.   That's never good.  Also, he looked kinda green when he said it.  Expecting to walk into a giant mess, I suited up - rubber gloves on, trash bags ready, mop bucket prepared, plunger in hand, only to walk in and see... nothing.  No shit dripping from anywhere, no overflowing toilets... I kicked open the first stall.  All clear.  Whew.  I kicked open the second stall, and there I saw it.  In the toilet was the largest poop I have ever seen in my life.  It was perfectly round and roughly the size of a cantaloupe.  Flushing just made it swirl around, but it was too big to actually go down.  Finally, I resorted to breaking it up with the stick end of the plunger so it would flush.  Afterwards, I threw the plunger in the trash, and the manager blamed the cleaning crew for stealing it.  I never said a word.  Some things, you just don't talk about.

But I digress.

To be honest, I'd rather be back in the land of giant poops and toilet paper all over the floor than to have to clean zj and cj's bathroom.

'Cause it's RANK, y'all.

I mean, I clean it more often than I do any room in my house, and while that's not saying a lot, really, it still amazes me how they can manage to pee on everything in there.  In one bathroom trip.  And I mean EVERYTHING.

And the smell.  Lord, the smell.  It's something between locker room and sewer, with just a touch of old garbage can.

Seriously, how can two little little boys cause such an atrocity?

I can only imagine that this will get (*gag*) worse as they get older.

Ok, forget it.  I just talked myself out of it,  I'm not going to clean their bathroom.

I probably need to start building up a tolerance to it, right?

Spicy Chex Mix. Because there are simply not enough Chex Mix recipes in the world.

I'm a salty snack kinda gal.

Oh, I like the occasional cookie or brownie or ice cream cone just fine, but set me in front of an unopened bag of Lay's potato chips and I'll last MAYBE .34746 seconds before I rip it open and start to suck down all that salty crunchy greasy yummy OH MY GOD I'LL BE RIGHT BACK I HAVE TO GO EAT SOME POTATO CHIPS RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!

Ahem.

Ok, I feel better now.

Back to my story.

About 10 or 12 years or so ago, I worked with a wonderful woman named Betty O'Kelley.  She was one of those people who always celebrated every single holiday with wild abandon.  Fourth of July?  Sparklers in her hair.  St. Patrick's Day?  Shamrock cupcakes for everyone!   When the holidays rolled around and we would begin the inevitable potluck meals to get us through the retail Hell that was bearing down around us, she always had something yummy for all of us.

Once she brought in a big bowl of this Chex Mix, and I thought "Meh, Chex Mix," and promptly ignored it in favor of other delightful foody things that were filling up our break room table.  Sadly, I had to actually stop eating and go wait on customers for a few hours, and when I came back, pretty much everything else was gone.  I guess other people thought "Meh, Chex Mix," too.  Anyway, I picked up a handful, popped into my mouth, and promptly fell in love.

It's delightful.

It's also kinda spicy, which is an excellent thing in my opinion.

[Printable Recipe]

WHAT YOU NEED:
1/4 cup margarine (that's half a stick, by the way)
2 T. Worcestershire sauce - in 37 years of life, I have not heard this pronounced the same way twice.   Plus everybody who tries to say it sounds like he has marbles in his mouth.
2 T. Tabasco sauce
1 1/2 t. Lawry's Seasoned Salt
1 t. garlic powder
1 t. onion powder
1 t. cayenne pepper
1 t. Mrs. Dash Extra Spicy Blend
1 t. Mrs. Dash Garlic & Herb Blend
8 cups Chex Cereal.  I like to use a couple cups of Wheat Chex and then the rest either Rice or Corn Chex, or if I'm feeling really crazy, a combo of the two.
2 cups mini pretzels
2 cups Goldfish crackers
1 cup mixed nuts.  Ok, lets be honest here.  Everyone knows the nuts are the best part.  Throw in a whole small can if you want to.

WHAT YOU DO:
Heat your oven to 250 degrees.  In the largest shallow baking pan you have, melt the butter in the oven.  While the butter is melting, mix all the seasonings into a small bowl.  Remove the melted butter from the oven and stir the seasoning mixture into it.  Dump in all the cereal, pretzels, Goldfish and nuts, and stir and stir and stir and stir until everything is pretty much evenly coated.  Bake it in the 250 degree oven for an hour, stirring it every 15 minutes.

After it is out of the oven, let it cool completely, then store it in an airtight container.  It will store that way forever, but it tastes so damn good it won't last that long anyway.

 

We MUST get out more.

So a few weeks ago, zj started school, and that has left cj home with me all day.  Every day.

He's in love with it.

Some days, we do this:

Other days, we do this:

And sometimes, just for fun, we do this:

Oh, and a few times a day when I have to put him down to do something like, oh, say, GO PEE, we do this:

All this newfound togetherness, coupled with the fact that he no longer naps has driven me bat-shit crazy been a bit challenging.

I decided the right course of action would be to take him out into the world occasionally to socialize.   With other people.  Besides me and my lap, where he would happily sit for 14 hours a day if I would let him.

Last week, we went to story time at Barnes & Noble, and he liked it.  Mainly, I think, because he got to sit on my lap the whole time, but still, at least the scenery was different.

This week, I thought we'd repeat the story time experience, and double up with a trip to the kids' play area at the local mall.

We got to the mall early, and were the only people in the play area.  I know playing alone is totally not the point, but I was still relieved.  I like to stake and claim my territory early whenever possible.  

Cj immediately took to this castle/bridge deal, calling it a doghouse.  He crawled around yelling "I A PUPPY!  WOOF! WOOF!" and playing in his doghouse until other kids started to arrive.  At this point, he retreated inside the doghouse, growling and barking if any other kids came near.  

This was cute for about a minute, until I realized he was pretty serious about defending his turf.  Also, the other busybody moms went from smiling at "the cute little puppy" to muttering among themselves.  I caught a few words like "strange" "anti-social" and "feral" before scooping my growling puppy up, slapping his shoes on him and booking it out of the play area.  

"I think we'll find somewhere else to go." 

Cj licked my face and wagged his tail in hearty agreement.

Our next stop was story time at the bookstore.

Since we had done so well there the week before, I wasn't too worried.

Until we sat down among the other story time participants and he began to climb up my person like a spider monkey.  If a spider was the wailing, screeching sort.  Who yelled "Help MomMom!  Help MomMom!" repeatedly and made snot bubbles with his nose.

Story time: exit left.

So home we came, where we spent the afternoon curled up on the bed watching True Blood re-runs on HBO on Demand and eating Ruffles.  

It's ok, though.  I made it a fun learning experience.

Can you say "vampire," baby?

"Bampire."

The second best peanut butter pie I've ever eaten.

I used to work with a guy named Bargain Jack.

Actually, his name was just Jack, but he worked in the bargain section, and there was already a Jack, and bookstore people are weird, so just go with it, ok?

Bargain Jack was a retired English teacher, and everybody knows that bookstores will take any retired English teachers on staff, immediately and forever, no questions asked.

He and I used to occasionally spend our breaks in the break room diagramming complicated sentences.

It's been a long time since I've had that much fun.

Bargain Jack had a pronounced Southern accent, loved his Harley and his Corvette beyond reason, and called his wife "Mama."  Every time he spoke about her.  Every. Single. Time.

Mama's cooking was nothing short of legendary.  Every time we had a potluck at work, Bargain Jack would bring in the most delightful creations, and nary a crumb would be left.

Once he showed up with a peanut butter pie that was the single best thing I have ever put in my mouth.  It's also possible that after eating a piece, I took the rest of the pie into my office and hid it under a stack of schedules.

I got the recipe and tired and tried and tried to recreate it, but I could never come close.

I suspect "Mama" had a secret ingredient, like magic pixie dust, or  maybe crack.

In any event, no peanut butter pie I've tried since has ever come close.

But this one is a pretty good second place.

WHAT YOU NEED:

1 pre-prepared chocolate pie crust.  I have heard crazy tales of crushing cookies and whatnot to make your own, and if you're so inclined, I applaud you.  But I just bought one right off the shelf and saved about 6 hours of my life that I would never have gotten back.

Filling:

1 brick of cream cheese

1 cup of creamy peanut butter.  Choosy moms choose Jif.  I'm not judging if you use another kind, but everyone knows Jif is superior.

3 tablespoons sugar

Half of a small tub of Cool Whip.  I highly recommend you eat the other half with a spoon as you stand at the kitchen counter whipping up your pie.  Baking is hard work and you need all the energy you can get.

Topping:

2 oz. semi-sweet baking chocolate (or a handful of chocolate chips - just in in case you need a backup plan because your kid ate all the baking chocolate.  With the foil wrappers on. True story.)

1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

WHAT YOU DO:

Unwrap the pie crust.  Whew.  Aren't you glad that's done?  

Put the cream cheese, peanut butter, and sugar in a bowl and blend it with a mixer on low to medium until speed until it's fully blended.  

Find a little boy who loves peanut butter more than he loves his Mama, and give him the beaters to lick.  

There are so few great non-raw-egg-beater-licking opportunities, don't you think?

Fold in the Cool Whip until it's incorporated, then spoon it into the pie crust, smoothing out the top.

Put the whipping cream and chocolate in a small bowl and heat it in the microwave, stirring it every 15-20 seconds or so to keep it from scorching.  Once the chocolate is completely melted and mixed into the cream, let it sit to cool for a few minutes, then pour it over the top of the pie.   It should be thin and easy to spread out at this point. 

Put the pie in the fridge uncovered for an hour or two to let the chocolate set.

Eat it with a shovel.

Food is fuel.

I used to know this guy.

We worked together, actually.

He was, and I'm guessing still is, pretty awesome.  He was so awesome, in fact, that he had the dubious distinction of being scheduled for the closing shift with me every Friday and Saturday night, week in and week out, because he was the only one on the staff who could keep up with me.

Lucky guy.

Anyway, one time right after Easter, he showed up to work with a bag of leftover ham.

It was a gallon sized ziplock bag, and it was pretty full.

He ate some ham for lunch that day.

And the next day.

And the day after that.

I teased him mercilessly about his bag of ham.

His response?

"It's just fuel to get me through my day."

I laughed, then went back to my Doritos, Snickers and Dr. Pepper from the vending machine, which was my typical workday lunch.

Now, some five or so years later, I finally get it.

Food is fuel to get you through your day.

DING! DING! DING!

It totally makes sense, for the first time ever.

Since January, I have been tracking calories in versus energy out, and I'm learning a lot about how my body works and what it needs to survive (lots of water) and what it needs to perform at an optimum level (NOT Doritos and Snickers).

I'm also learning what food is not.  Food is not, or should not be, a reward.  For as long as I can remember, I've thought of it that way.  It was a reward at school for good behavior and good grades.  It was a reward at home for milestones and celebrations and birthdays.  It carried over into my adult life with a vengeance.  Bad day at work?  Burgers and fries in a greasy sack will make me feel better.  Great day at work?  I'll reward myself with a pizza.  And forty pounds later...

Now having said all that, I still love food.

And I love to cook good food.

And I love to eat good food.

But I do not love having an a$$ the size of a compact car.

So I'm working on it.

It's a process.

It's a SLOW process.

And sometimes I have to think about a guy with a bag of ham, and remind myself he was right all along.

The one where the water heater broke - twice.

For years, I was a manager at a large chain bookstore.  One of the most challenging aspects of my job, aside from making those poor employees actually WORK for their pay, was maintaining a 22,000 +/- square foot building.

Something was broken all the time.  All.  The.  Flippin'. Time.

I dealt with repairmen on at least a weekly basis, and usually it was more often than that.

I spoke fluently to them about grease traps, HVAC units, reverse osmosis water filtration systems, R2D2 scanner units, paint colors, stopped up urinals, pounds per square inch of pressure necessary to automatically close a door, breaker boxes, electrical closets, broken slatwall, duct detectors, etc.

Etc.

Etc.

I knew my building inside out, and could proactively pinpoint problems and discuss them with the appropriate repair persons in an intelligent, informed, logical manner.

This is a skill that, for some reason, never has and never will translate to my real life.

When something breaks at 154 Hidden Court, I almost always attempt to fix it myself first.  I faithfully Tivo shows on both HGTV and the DIY Network, so I'm more than qualified.  Anyway, when that doesn't work out, I a) panic and b) call RJ.

RJ then calls the appropriate repair person, and takes time off from work to come home to deal with him.

Because I can't.

I just can't.

For whatever reason, when faced with a plumber, a gardener, a carpenter, and electrician on my home turf, I become a bumbling idiot.  No, that's not the right phrase.  It's much more helpless female/Blanche Dubois than that.

 Which brings us to last week.

On Thursday, I got up at my normal butt-crack of dawn and headed into the basement to hop on the treadmill and get my run in.

On the way down the steps, I heard a strange noise.  It sounded like... running water?  Uh-oh.  

The water heater, which lives in the basement, was pumping water out like a faucet on full blast.

Shit.

I was pretty sure that wasn't supposed to happen.  

I yelled for RJ, but by the time he got downstairs, I had found the shutoff valve and, well, shut it off.  Now there was no more running water, just STANDING water, which is ever so much better, especially at 5am.

Anyway, none of my HGTV shows had covered this particular problem, so RJ called a plumber, who would come at 10am that day.  Unfortunately, he wasn't going to be able to miss work, so I was on Plumber Duty. 

Joy.

I cleaned up the water and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Most plumbers are on Eastern Plumber Central time, which has no bearing on or resemblance to real live time.  Anyway, 11am came and went, and the plumber finally arrived.  He was a typical plumber looking guy - sort of sandy haired, probably ate too many Doritos in front of NASCAR on the weekends, and totally non-threatening, as plumbers go.

"You got a leaky water heater?" he said.

"Um, yeah, it leaks, well I wouldn't call it LEAK exactly, it more like gushes.  Or pours.  Maybe a I have a POOR water heater.  Ha!  Yeah, that's it." All the time, I'm standing in the doorway, preventing him from entering.

"Well, ma'am, if you can show me where it is..."  

"OH!  OF COURSE!  FOLLOW ME!"  Why was I shouting?  Plumber seemed  to wonder that, too, and took a couple steps back and broke all eye contact with me.  He took a deep breath, then bravely stepped into my house.

At this point, I decided it would be better for all of us if I shut the hell up, so I directed him into the basement with a series of complicated gestures, sort of like flashing gang signs and/or interpretive dance. Brave soul that he was, he followed on...

He glanced at the water heater for .1827 seconds, declared it needed a new overflow tank, and asked to see my regulator.

Well, how FRESH!  He didn't even buy me dinner first.

"Uh, bumble, bumble, uh, I, uh, toil and trouble, uh, I don't know what that is."

"Show me where the water comes into your house."

OH!  That I can do!  

He glanced at THAT for .17493 seconds, and declared we needed to put a water regulator on our house, or all our pipes were going to go Old Faithful.  Soon.

"Uh, I, uh, what?  Uh, let me talk to my husband about it."

He replaced the tank, said it might buy us a little time, warned me to get a regulator put on ASAP, and got the hell out of crazy town.

Whew, glad THAT was over...

The next morning, I stumbled out of bed, headed downstairs to get some weightlifting in, and heard it again.  Yep.  Water gushing out of the water heater.  Turn off.  Clean up.  Rinse.  Repeat.

RJ called the plumber guy again, told him to come put a water regulator in TODAY, and left on his merry little way to go to work.

Lucky bastard.

Anyway, Plumber Guy showed up, and carefully avoiding my gaze, he made his way down to the basement where he installed said water regulator in record time.  

"MA'AM!" he yelled.  "Can you come down here so I can show you what I done?"  Plumbers are not known for excellent grammar.

I made my way down the steps and over to Plumber Guy, who was pointing proudly at a doomehickey thingamajig that was now sticking out from one of the water pipes.  

At this point, he began to explain pounds of water pressure, how to adjust the regulator, etc. with great proficiency.  Also, every sentence he said began with "Now you tell your husband..."  As in, "Now you tell your husband that this is set to 55 pounds of pressure, and you tell your husband that he can adjust it up a little by turning this screw a quarter turn and be sure to tell your husband that this access door I took off can be replaced if he moves the hinges from the top to the side..."  

I snapped out of my self-induced coma for a minute.  Hey!  I hung that door!  Oh well,  he seemed so earnest that I didn't correct him.

And then finally, finally, he was gone.

I poured myself a stiff drink, never mind that it was before noon, then I sat on the couch for the rest of the day, staring off into space.  It was really all I could manage to get done.

Plumbing is hard work, you know.

That one time that I stole something from the Wal-Mart.

This post is brought to you by Mama Kat's Pretty Much Famous Writer's Workshop.  And by prison.  Which is where I'll go if any police officers or Wal-Mart loss prevention representatives read this post.



Long ago and far away, I had a high-powered career as a retail bookstore manager, where high-powered equals I worked a lot, career equals I got a 15 year pin, and manager equals I was the one who got to clean the bathrooms whenever someone had explosive diarrhea all over the walls.

It was a glamourous job, filled with travel (twice a year we got to stay in a hotel near the airport in Columbus, Ohio) and rewards unimaginable.  It was leading up to one of the trips that I began, and ended, my life of crime.

Here's some background.  At this point, we had a Regional Director (read: big bucks, no actual work) who believed in building what he called shared memories, which to him meant that at a three day meeting, we got to dress up in three different ridiculous outfits and sit in meetings all day dressed like that so as to lose any shred of dignity we may have once possessed all the while being gently goaded and/or violently threatened to SELL MORE STUFF.  Ah, how I miss those days.

This particular year, Day One was to be Dress As Your Favorite Character From a Book Day, Day Two was Dress As Your Favorite Sports Hero Day, and Day Three Was Hippie Day.

Good times.

I got online and ordered one of these, ironed a red "A" on the chest, and viola, I was Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter.   She's not really my favorite anything, but she's totally recognizable, even to a room full of bookstore managers dressed up mostly as Harry Potter, Hermione, Sookie Stackhouse and Harry Dresden.  I really love Caddy Compson from Faulkner's Sound and the Fury, but didn't want to spend the entire day explaining who I was.  Ok, Day One, check.

For Day Two, since I have exactly zero sports heroes, I - you guessed it - got online and ordered a baseball jersey with "The Beers" on the front, and "12 oz." on the back.  Drinking beer is a sport where I'm from.  Really.  I've medaled a time or two.  Day Two, check.

At this point, I had nearly half a week's salary invested in costumes for a meeting that was designed to tell us there would be no raises that year (true story), I decided to shop for my final costume at Goodwill.  Hippies donate stuff, right?  Anyway, I found some stuff, and used my mad sewing skills, an ugly skirt and a pair of $2 jeans to create these awesome pants:

Home Ec class for the win!

I also found some ugly platform shoes that looked like they were made out of hemp for $2, a vest for $1, and I made myself a headband with the rest of the skirt.  

I just needed a few accessories and I'd be done.

I needed a few groceries anyway, so I stopped at Wal-Mart, a place I typically avoid at all costs, especially after that time I got trapped in an aisle there.  I did my grocery shopping, then wandered over to the jewelry section, where on the clearance rack, I saw a necklace something like this:

It was perfect!  And it was on clearance!  Of course, it was from the Mary Kate and Ashley line, but never mind that.  I've always had tastes that are similar to those of a twelve year old girl.

I tossed it in my cart and headed up front to pay for my stuff.  

After the madhouse of the checkout lane, I headed outside into the bitter cold to load up my car.  

It was as I was unloading the last bag into the trunk that I saw it.

The necklace, the perfect Mary Kate & Ashley hippie necklace, had fallen to the bottom of the cart and was dangling out the bottom, held only by the tag, which was wedged on the side of the cart.

And I hadn't paid for it.

I immediate looked around to see if Wal-Mart security had followed me.  Was there going to be a take-down right here in the parking lot?  Maybe I'd make the next episode of cops.  Whew.  Ok, no security guard.  What about cameras?  Surely they were watching me on camera and getting my license plate number so they could arrest me later.  Plus, they knew my name.  I paid with my debit card and they could track me with that...

Clearly, I'm not cut out for a life of crime.

Ok, think, mj, think.  What would Chuck Norris do?  

I had three options.  1) I could push the cart, necklace still caught in the bottom, over to the cart corral and hope no one noticed.  2) I could untangle the necklace from the cart and go back in to pay for it or 3) I could untangle the necklace from the cart and put it in my bag and drive off like a bat out of Hell and never shop in that store again because my picture would surely be hanging on the bulletin board with the words "Teeny-bopper Jewelry Thief - If Seen Please Detain.  Crazy, Dangerous and Poorly Dressed." under it.

I ran through all the possible scenarios in my mind.  My conscience was telling me to "take the damn necklace back in and pay for it already!" but my super paranoid side was saying things like "They're never going to believe you.  They are going to think you are some sort of attention-seeking klepto with horrible taste."  What to do?  What to do?

So I made my decision, and wore my costume with pride, and even won a prize for second best costume of the day.  

Oh, and I'm not going to tell you what I decided to do.

I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I may incriminate myself.

Badass.

Here we are in 2000.  I'm not even going to begin to explain what we were doing.  Also, in looking for a picture of the two of us, I can safely say that in 95% of the photos of the two of us together, we are dressed in some sort of costume.  Ah... good times.

My friend Natalie and I have been through a ton of things together, including but not limited to: several marriages, one divorce, six children, some unfortunate hair dye that resulted in one of us having hair the color of a baby chick, more moves, bloody Marys and business plans than I can count, craft projects from Hell, a roller blading incident or two, and several road trips that required hourly bathroom stops because SOMEBODY has a bladder the size of a pea, and the last time we saw each other we showed up with the same hair cut, which is no small feat considering she has naturally curly hair and I do not.

However, it wasn't until recently that we separately, but nearly simultaneously, decided to get into shape, lose some weight, and begin an exercise program.

We have been supporting each other and maybe competing a little, because that's how we roll - both of us are Capricorns - and most of our talks and texts turn to the topic quickly.  I mean, what's more interesting than how many calories I consumed for lunch?  Our workouts have gone in different directions, though, with me focusing on my running and Natalie beginning the P90X program, which I tried for about a minute and hated.

She sent me a text the other night that said, "These exercises make me feel all badass."  That text was immediately followed by another one that said "Wait, is badass one word or two?"  Two seconds later, she sent me another one that said "You're Googling it, aren't you?"  I totally was, by the way. 

I responded with "It's one word.  When it's two words, it just means your ass isn't good."

Since then, "badass" is our new mantra.  When I ran 7.61 miles last week, I was badass.  Her 500 calorie burn on Kempo, TOTALLY badass.  There has been talk of bench pressing children, making snooty ladies jealous of our cute little behinds, and shopping for a new summer wardrobe together.

All of those things sound great, and I look forward to each and every one of them.

But really, it's just nice to have someone who is in the same place as I am, supporting me.  Because having a friend who will support you through all your craziest schemes, plans, setbacks, failures, successes and dreams, now THAT'S badass.

Happy birthday to my superhero. You're five. Really? REALLY?

Today is zj's fifth birthday.  I was all prepared to write a post about how much I love him and how much he's grown and maybe pull out a bunch of old baby pictures and sob hysterically as I thought of my baby boy growing up so fast, but then I remembered that I did that last year.

Well, then.

On to plan B.

We gave zj some choices about what he wanted to do on his birthday.  Just for the record, none of them contained an actual party, because as I have mentioned before, children's birthday parties make me want to drink gin straight from the cat dish.  His decision was quick and decisive.  We would go to Chuck E. Cheese and we would go ice skating.

Umm...  Ok?  I guess I'll have to drink a lot before we even leave the house I'll have to suck it up.  His birthday, his choice.

Here are some highlights of the day:

8am - Presentation of the birthday gifts.  Zj proclaimed the bathroom "the most awesomest thing he'd ever seen."

11am - Ice skating.  I can't skate.  Zj can't skate.  There was a lot of falling down.  There was a fair amount of "Are we done yet?"  I didn't think to bring gloves.  I feel certain that this is one of those memories that will be better after a fair amount of time has passed.  Ya know, kinda like having kids.  In six months, I'm sure we will remember how much fun it was and want to try again.  Or not.

12:30pm - Chuck E. Cheese.  Oh dear Lord.  Deliver me from large rat-like creatures bearing tokens and crappy pizza.  As I have mentioned before, this place is only suitable for the young and/or intoxicated.  Unfortunately, once again, I was neither.  Moving on...

2:30 pm - Build-A-Bear Workshop.  This photo sucks because by this time I had lost the will to live was getting tired.  Zj chose a dog for himself and a monkey to take home to cj, who spent the day at the sitter's the lucky little bastard.  And $60 later...

3:30pm - Barnes & Noble, because I joined their Kid's Club and had a coupon for a free cupcake.  I got to get a very large cup of coffee, too, but it was all for zj.  Really, it was a sacrifice.

4:30pm - Toys R Us.  Clearly, I have a death wish.  Zj was told he could choose one toy.  He immediately went to this one, which until now, I had successfully avoided buying for the past TWO YEARS, mainly because a) it's exorbitantly priced silly string and b) it's exorbitantly priced silly string.  How would not be swayed, even when offered a Kung Zhu thing, which I he wants desperately and which I have also managed to avoid buying.  So, in the bag it went.  For the record, three hours later, we were $14 of silly string down and my left eye wouldn't stop twitching because of the crap hanging off every available surface.

6pm - Zj declared this "the bestest day of his whole entire life, forever and ever" and promptly crashed.  

Next year, I'm just going to have a &#($ party and be done with it.