As I drove home Saturday morning after a miserable night at work spent coughing and hacking and, in general, being miserable, I decided that buying a paper would take my mind off of my troubles. Now, a few years back my aunt introduced me to the sheer wonder that is “The Saturday Edition of the Sunday Paper”. Do you all know about this? She was visiting at the time and said that we should buy a Sunday paper…..on a Saturday. I looked at her like she had two heads. I said, “how would we buy tomorrow’s paper today? Today hasn’t gotten finished yet, let alone tomorrow!” She laughed and said that you could buy the Saturday edition of the Sunday paper. Thoughts swirled in my head. How would this be possible?
I am now a convert to the ‘day-early’ newspaper. It makes me feel like I’m living in a time warp.
So, I went to the convenience store near my house and who should I see but Jack ‘Darn’ Elliot. (this is a family-friendly blog!) I just glanced at him, but I was too intent on making sure that the comics and TV guide were inside the paper that I wasn’t paying much attention to our local celebrity. Then…..he kept talking and it hit me. I muttered, in his general direction, that it was “like hearing radio in person’. I told him about how when I lived in Panama I wrote a column for the Tropic Times (I’m sure you’ve heard of it) and it would NEVER FAIL that the only time someone would recognize me in the store was when I had no make-up on, hair askew and my arms were stuffed full of Ding-Dongs and Doritos. (and I wrote a cooking column, for goodness sake! I should have been seen buying capers and wine!)
As we stood there talking about where I came from in Illinois and it’s proximity to the town of Cairo it hit me again….that fatigue, the general funk that had kept me down all night at work and I knew I just needed to get home and get to bed. I thought that nothing would cure this illness like curling up with the newspaper. I bid Jack adieu and headed out.
Hours later at home, my body wracked by what can now only be described as The Flu of Epic Proportion I was terrified by the thought that I had infected Jack and would be met with the wrath of his fanbase if I got their beloved leader ill. (And not in any taboid-worthy way, either, just by standing close to him in a convenience store!)
As I was busy hacking up the lower lobe of my left lung I pictured angry villagers chasing me with torches and pitchforks like I was some kind of Typhoid Cyndi.
So, let me just say to you publicly, Jack: I am sorry if you became ill after our encounter. I didn’t realize just how sick I was and how bad I would feel later in the day. In the wee hours of the night I thought about you and hoped that your health was intact. I’m sorry if I got any funk on you or near you.
15 November 2009
01 November 2009
Halloween 2009
Jake & Katy went as Calvin & Hobbes and Claire, though dressed as an angel, was a 'princess' according to young C. oookay. Too bad you can't see Claire's pink Chuck Taylor's under her 'princess costume'. (angel suit!)
17 September 2009
Cricket Mom, what thinketh thee?
I received the following email from one of the moms in the new co-op we recently formed:
“Can't we buy crickets at the pet store to give the kids with their Chinese Cricket cages in week 10? I thought that might be fun.
What thinketh you?”
She thought that might be fun.
Fun she thought.
Uh-huh. Fun.
Fun is dancing through a sprinkler.
Fun is eating watermelon on a hot day.
What is fully apparent to me is that Cricket Mom has not experienced the unmitigated JOY that is “tearing around the house at 2am on a Sunday morning trying desperately to find that d@mn cricket!!!”
What thinketh you?
What thinketh me, indeed!
What I THINKETH, Cricket Mom, is that with two pre-schoolers in my house, we are currently exceeding the maximum allowable decibel level on our street.
What I THINKETH is that my sanity is not likely to last through a cricket permanently residing in our home.
Please remember, Cricket Mom, that we live semi-in-the-country and a late-night Big Mac run was recently averted abruptly due to a skunk on my front porch. A skunk whose very presence held me hostage in my own home.
I’m just telling you right now that if you give my kid a cricket, said bug will soon end up “going to live with a nice family on a big farm where he has plenty of room to run”. Or, to put it in adult vernacular, buried next to the hamster.
Oh, and I’ll give you three guesses as to what YOUR kid is getting from my family for Christmas:
1. Drum set
2. Kazoo
3. Ant farm with a crack in it.
Happy Holidays!
“Can't we buy crickets at the pet store to give the kids with their Chinese Cricket cages in week 10? I thought that might be fun.
What thinketh you?”
She thought that might be fun.
Fun she thought.
Uh-huh. Fun.
Fun is dancing through a sprinkler.
Fun is eating watermelon on a hot day.
What is fully apparent to me is that Cricket Mom has not experienced the unmitigated JOY that is “tearing around the house at 2am on a Sunday morning trying desperately to find that d@mn cricket!!!”
What thinketh you?
What thinketh me, indeed!
What I THINKETH, Cricket Mom, is that with two pre-schoolers in my house, we are currently exceeding the maximum allowable decibel level on our street.
What I THINKETH is that my sanity is not likely to last through a cricket permanently residing in our home.
Please remember, Cricket Mom, that we live semi-in-the-country and a late-night Big Mac run was recently averted abruptly due to a skunk on my front porch. A skunk whose very presence held me hostage in my own home.
I’m just telling you right now that if you give my kid a cricket, said bug will soon end up “going to live with a nice family on a big farm where he has plenty of room to run”. Or, to put it in adult vernacular, buried next to the hamster.
Oh, and I’ll give you three guesses as to what YOUR kid is getting from my family for Christmas:
1. Drum set
2. Kazoo
3. Ant farm with a crack in it.
Happy Holidays!
10 September 2009
06 September 2009
Words Cannot Describe
That moment we first feel them move.
Those agonizing minutes, fretful hours as we labor them here.
Those tear-filled nights when we worry and wish over their sleeping forms.
That moment when you get the call, that news, those words that tell you hope is gone.
That golden time spent holding a tiny hand, still warm, but not for long.
Feeling his life slip away as he lets go of your hand and takes the hand of God.
There is no levity in this world this week, little joy. This blogger fails to find any funny thing anywhere in the world right now.
I'm so sorry, Nicole! Words just can't describe how we feel for what you and your family are going through right now! You have my cell phone number. Use it ANYtime!
http://www.nelson-funeralhome.com/index.cfm
Armondo Sciacca
Those agonizing minutes, fretful hours as we labor them here.
Those tear-filled nights when we worry and wish over their sleeping forms.
That moment when you get the call, that news, those words that tell you hope is gone.
That golden time spent holding a tiny hand, still warm, but not for long.
Feeling his life slip away as he lets go of your hand and takes the hand of God.
There is no levity in this world this week, little joy. This blogger fails to find any funny thing anywhere in the world right now.
I'm so sorry, Nicole! Words just can't describe how we feel for what you and your family are going through right now! You have my cell phone number. Use it ANYtime!
http://www.nelson-funeralhome.com/index.cfm
Armondo Sciacca
25 August 2009
The Chickens and the Bees
I had no idea how much a person could learn just by teaching their kid about sex.
Friends were appalled that I just TOLD my kids about it.
"What if they ask questions?"
Answer them.
"What is they ask, you know, personal questions."
Tell them that the answer is “Nunya” Nunya Business. Next Question.
"What if they want to know about your past?"
See above answer. Repeat as necessary.
Just don’t do what my mom did and give your kid James Dobson’s book Preparing For Adolescence. The way he described sex made it sound like the man has to pivot on his toes. I had no idea at that time that legs could move around at all, despite my brief flirtation with gymnastics. I just knew that if his most masculine part was sticking out at a right angle and my Orifice to all Things Feminine was parallel to my feet, well, it doesn’t take a degree in Engineering to know that that sort of arrangement just isn’t meant to be.
I told my boss Kenny that I wanted to get chickens. He told me to keep the rooster out of there. I asked why.
He blinked and looked as if he had been thoroughly stunned by my apparent stupidity. It seems Kenny grew up knowing farm stuff. I stop short of calling his knowledge Animal Husbandry as that term makes me feel vaguely icky. I think that animals should just stick to marrying each other and humans can do the same.
So, Kenny grew up with this country grandma who, according to his recollections, would strangle the errant rooster when he was “making trouble”. I asked why she would do that. He replied, “because they wouldn’t leave the chickens alone”. I asked why they were hanging out with the chickens in the first place.
He said, “once the roosters have sex with the chickens they always want back into the coop!”
I said, completely incredulous and probably WAY too loud for the interior of a Blockbuster store, “OHMYGOD!!! ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT ROOSTERS HAVE SEX WITH CHICKENS?!?!”
I don’t think I have ever seen that man laugh that hard.
Or that loud.
Or, for the matter, that long. I always thought of roosters and chickens as competing groups, not so much as fodder for dating each other. I kinda’ pictured a West Side Story of the chicken coop going on. I just didn’t realize that in that scenario the roosters are wearing the black leather jackets and the chickens are wearing the twirly dresses.
Kids who grow up in the suburbs are clearly at a disadvantage when it comes to this kind of knowledge. I was in middle school before I learned what a cowlick was. I had been told for years that my hair “had a cowlick in it”. I thought that it meant that just when my hair was coming in (as my people are born pale and bald) a cow licked my head just in that spot over my right eye and that is why my hair lies funny and why that Dorothy Hammill haircut never looked quite right on me.
Friends were appalled that I just TOLD my kids about it.
"What if they ask questions?"
Answer them.
"What is they ask, you know, personal questions."
Tell them that the answer is “Nunya” Nunya Business. Next Question.
"What if they want to know about your past?"
See above answer. Repeat as necessary.
Just don’t do what my mom did and give your kid James Dobson’s book Preparing For Adolescence. The way he described sex made it sound like the man has to pivot on his toes. I had no idea at that time that legs could move around at all, despite my brief flirtation with gymnastics. I just knew that if his most masculine part was sticking out at a right angle and my Orifice to all Things Feminine was parallel to my feet, well, it doesn’t take a degree in Engineering to know that that sort of arrangement just isn’t meant to be.
I told my boss Kenny that I wanted to get chickens. He told me to keep the rooster out of there. I asked why.
He blinked and looked as if he had been thoroughly stunned by my apparent stupidity. It seems Kenny grew up knowing farm stuff. I stop short of calling his knowledge Animal Husbandry as that term makes me feel vaguely icky. I think that animals should just stick to marrying each other and humans can do the same.
So, Kenny grew up with this country grandma who, according to his recollections, would strangle the errant rooster when he was “making trouble”. I asked why she would do that. He replied, “because they wouldn’t leave the chickens alone”. I asked why they were hanging out with the chickens in the first place.
He said, “once the roosters have sex with the chickens they always want back into the coop!”
I said, completely incredulous and probably WAY too loud for the interior of a Blockbuster store, “OHMYGOD!!! ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT ROOSTERS HAVE SEX WITH CHICKENS?!?!”
I don’t think I have ever seen that man laugh that hard.
Or that loud.
Or, for the matter, that long. I always thought of roosters and chickens as competing groups, not so much as fodder for dating each other. I kinda’ pictured a West Side Story of the chicken coop going on. I just didn’t realize that in that scenario the roosters are wearing the black leather jackets and the chickens are wearing the twirly dresses.
Kids who grow up in the suburbs are clearly at a disadvantage when it comes to this kind of knowledge. I was in middle school before I learned what a cowlick was. I had been told for years that my hair “had a cowlick in it”. I thought that it meant that just when my hair was coming in (as my people are born pale and bald) a cow licked my head just in that spot over my right eye and that is why my hair lies funny and why that Dorothy Hammill haircut never looked quite right on me.
11 August 2009
High School Reunion
Saturday night was the reunion. It was, in a word....surreal. For one thing, I kept thinking, "Can you guys believe we are old enough to DRINK?! Shouldn't somebody be running up to SA with a fake ID to buy Purple Passion and Bartles & James wine coolers?!" (Bonus points if you actually remember SA before it turned into whatevertheheckit'scallednow!)
I noted quickly that time tends to sharpen the edges. I noticed a LOT less clique-adge. More people were moving with great fluidity between social groups.
I also noticed that people only knew me in the context of "being Amy's friend". As soon as I said, "I was friends with Amy R." I would see the flash of recognition. I suspect that if I had spent the reunion sitting alone at a table on the periphery of the room with my face buried in a notebook writing my sad poetry....they would have said, "OhYEAH, now I know who she is!"
I spent much of my high school career as Amy's sidekick, the person whose job it was to make her dates laugh while she went to the bathroom and put on make-up.
If I had a dime for every. single. time I heard, "Amy, your friend Cyndi has such a great personality" (which, as we all know is code for "nice to talk to, not exactly Date Material") I would be a rich woman indeed.
I still can't believe that the people I went to high school with are this old.
Unbelievable.
Prior to the reunion I had lunch with my brother Dennis. I told him that I was starting to feel a little nervous about going to the reunion. He said,"well, as long as you don't go with your hair looking like that it should be fine." I explained to him that I had already "done my hair". (If you can call washing and putting gel in hair "doing your hair".) He said,"but it looks like it's just wet. It looks like you have gel in it, like it's "fake wet".
sigh....
I attempted to explain to Dear Brother that my hair currently has two settings:
1. Dry and frizzy
OR
2. Fake wet gel from hell
That's it. I understand that while we were growing up I had that silky baby-fine straight hair, but after Baby Number Three my hair became curly and rebellious.
I know not why.
All I know is that when I don't put gel on it young children run screaming and villagers end up chasing me with torches and pitchforks.
I didn't want to ruin the reunion.
I had to use the gel.
I noted quickly that time tends to sharpen the edges. I noticed a LOT less clique-adge. More people were moving with great fluidity between social groups.
I also noticed that people only knew me in the context of "being Amy's friend". As soon as I said, "I was friends with Amy R." I would see the flash of recognition. I suspect that if I had spent the reunion sitting alone at a table on the periphery of the room with my face buried in a notebook writing my sad poetry....they would have said, "OhYEAH, now I know who she is!"
I spent much of my high school career as Amy's sidekick, the person whose job it was to make her dates laugh while she went to the bathroom and put on make-up.
If I had a dime for every. single. time I heard, "Amy, your friend Cyndi has such a great personality" (which, as we all know is code for "nice to talk to, not exactly Date Material") I would be a rich woman indeed.
I still can't believe that the people I went to high school with are this old.
Unbelievable.
Prior to the reunion I had lunch with my brother Dennis. I told him that I was starting to feel a little nervous about going to the reunion. He said,"well, as long as you don't go with your hair looking like that it should be fine." I explained to him that I had already "done my hair". (If you can call washing and putting gel in hair "doing your hair".) He said,"but it looks like it's just wet. It looks like you have gel in it, like it's "fake wet".
sigh....
I attempted to explain to Dear Brother that my hair currently has two settings:
1. Dry and frizzy
OR
2. Fake wet gel from hell
That's it. I understand that while we were growing up I had that silky baby-fine straight hair, but after Baby Number Three my hair became curly and rebellious.
I know not why.
All I know is that when I don't put gel on it young children run screaming and villagers end up chasing me with torches and pitchforks.
I didn't want to ruin the reunion.
I had to use the gel.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
