Author: Big Mama

If Erasure was playing in the background it would capture the entire experience

I saw this meme over at It Coulda’ Been Worse last week and knew I would do it eventually. I had no idea that eventually would be this soon, but after a completely uneventful week that resorted to me telling a 10 year old shark story, and a stellar lack of creativity, here it is. A little walk down memory lane, back to my days at West Brook High School. Let’s hope this time my Liz Claiborne jean jacket doesn’t get stolen out of my locker.

I knew getting assigned a locker in J Hall was just bad news.

1. Who was your best friend? Throughout most of high school it was Jodi Brockhouse. We were inseparable, but had a falling out the summer before our senior year. Sad times. So, I had a close group of friends, but not really one best friend.

2. Did you play any sports? I played soccer. And I use the term “played” loosely. If memory serves I played for two reasons, so that I could have another picture in the yearbook and to have something else to put on my college applications.

Notice that neither of those reasons have anything to do with actual athletic ability.

3. What kind of car did you drive? A sweet, sweet black Honda CRX. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Oh yes ma’am. It only sat two people comfortably, but my senior year we decided to see how many people we could cram into it. I believe we reached a number somewhere around 15.

High school kids are smart.

4. It’s Friday night. Where were you? If it was football season then I was at the game performing at halftime with my batons o’ fire. I’m totally kidding. I cannot twirl and certainly wouldn’t attempt to do so with pyrotechnics. Fire and the amount of Flexnet in my hair would have been a lethal combination. Think Michael Jackson on the set of that Pepsi commercial.

I danced. I was on the dance team. Apparently, they didn’t require a lot of rhythm.

And why yes, I did steal Colonel Sander’s outfit. I can fry a mean chicken using a secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices.

5. Were you a party animal? I don’t know if “animal” is the right word, but I did my fair share of celebrating. Our favorite party spot was at this abandoned warehouse that some guy’s daddy owned and, apparently, forgot he had given his son the keys. Thinking back, I’m not sure what was so appealing about standing in a cold warehouse in the freezing cold drinking Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill, but 17 year olds aren’t really known for their discriminating tastes in social functions.

6. Were you considered a flirt? I feel fairly certain that I probably was, although I tended to get really shy around guys I actually liked for, you know, like more than a friend.

7. Were you in the band, orchestra or choir? No. My days in band and choir ended in junior high when it became apparent that my mouth was shaped wrong to play the flute and my voice was just plain wrong.

8. Were you a nerd? On the inside. For sure. On the outside, I put on a pretty good show of coolness.

9. Were you ever suspended or expelled? Even all these years later, this makes my face get all hot. I wasn’t suspended but I did get detention for saying a bad word in front of the principal. Not on purpose. He overheard me. It was a proud moment made even prouder when I had to tell my mama. I’ll never forget that we were in the Burger King drive-thru when I finally worked up my courage. Her response was a loud gasp as she said, “I didn’t even know you knew that word!”

Proud. So proud.

10. Can you sing the fight song? Not a chance. Although there was a time that I could have recalled some dance team choreography to it.

11. Who was your favorite teacher? Coach Breithaupt. He was my sophomore English teacher and encouraged my love of writing. He also let me go to the nurse one day after my boyfriend broke up with me and I couldn’t hold it together. He had pity on my teen angst.

12. What was your school mascot? The Bruin. It’s a bear.

13. Did you go to the Prom? Oh yes. The theme was “One Moment in Time”. Thank you, Whitney Houston.

14. If you could go back, would you? Oh no. Whitney knew what she was talking about, it’s meant to be just “One Moment in Time”. By March of my senior year, I was ready to be done with high school and I’ve never looked back.

15. What do you remember most about graduation? Sadly, I don’t remember much of anything about graduation. I do remember that the school hosted “Project Graduation” to keep us all safe and sober. My friends and I spent the night fake gambling in a fake casino in the school gym and then the minute they let us out at 6 a.m. the next morning, we all drove to the beach.

That was safe.

It’s a wonder I got that cap to stay on my head seeing as how it had to compete with the mass of hair.

16. Where were you on Senior Skip Day? I skipped school often enough in the spring of my senior year that I didn’t really feel the need to take advantage of a senior skip day.

17. Did you have a job your senior year? I can’t remember if it was junior year or senior year, but one of those years I worked at Bealls’ Department Store in the junior section, which was right across from the lingerie department. I have memories of my fellow workers and me putting large women brassieres on our bottoms and thinking it was hysterical.

18. Where did you go most often for lunch? We had to stay on campus for lunch. I have documented that experience and my love of the a la carte line burritos here.

19. Have you gained weight since then? I don’t think I have. It’s just that the weight has shifted to other areas.

20. What did you do after graduation? See #15. Oh, and in the fall I went to Texas A&M University, graduated in May ’94 and moved to San Antonio. I have worked in financial sales, door sales (not door to door, I actually sold doors), pharmaceutical sales, and most recently, “yes you are having peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch” sales.

21. What year did you graduate? We’re so great, we’re so fine, we’re the class of ’89. Sweet mercy, how do I remember that yet can’t remember to buy dog food at the grocery store?

22. Who was your Senior Prom Date? The boy I dated throughout my senior year.

23. Are you going/did you go to your 10 year reunion? I went to my 10 year reunion and unbelievably, my 20 year reunion is right around the corner. We’ll see. I don’t have a burning desire to go. I wish someone would just send me a book with current photos and biographies. It would be all the fun without all the small talk.

Here’s one more picture I found of myself that I can’t believe I’m actually putting up. However, I feel that the look of total disdain on my face for everyone in the universe combined with the drum majorette style dress a la Michael Jackson, completely and totally sums up my entire high school experience.

Like, GAH, just take the picture. I need to go dance to some Debbie Gibson.

If y’all want to play along, have fun and let me know.

And don’t forget to sign up for prom committee.
Whoa, here she comes, she’s a maneater

Every summer about this time, the Discovery Channel decides it’s a good idea to broadcast Shark Week, a series of shows that all focus on the man-eating power of sharks. Most of the shows have titles like “Top Five Eaten Alive”, “Deadliest Sharks of the Universe” and “Blood Runs Red in the Ocean”. It’s lighthearted viewing fun for the whole family right in the middle of the summer season. Apparently, the programming staff at Discovery Channel is bitter, angry and hellbent on ruining any fun you might have been planning to have at the beach this summer.

P and Caroline love Shark Week. They watch all the shark shows and note the differences between a tiger shark versus a lemon shark, while I sit and wonder who these people are and how I ended up living in this house with them. A shark is a shark. They all have sharp teeth and will EAT YOU ALIVE if given the chance. I firmly believe this to be true, even though every year on one of these shows, some Professor of Sharkology will say that most of the time a shark isn’t interested in eating you, they’re just tasting you. Oh yeah? Tell that to the girl who used to have a left leg.

Something tells me she doesn’t find solace in the fact that the shark was just confirming she wasn’t a wounded seal.

Last night, Shark Week was on full force at our house and I couldn’t help myself, I started watching “Top Five Eaten Alive”. It was a harrowing tale of some poor girl swimming off the coast of Easter Island and having her entire leg bitten off. And I was the picture of sympathy as I sat eating my Sour Patch Kids while listening to her tale of life and death struggle. Then, I remembered that P and I have our own story about narrowly surviving (maybe not narrowly surviving, as much as kind of coming close to the possibility) a shark attack and had to share it with y’all.

Thank you Shark Week for providing blog material.

P and I went to a little island in the Bahamas called Exuma for our honeymoon. It’s a tiny, tiny little island known for its stellar bonefishing and pretty beaches. The water is as clear as glass and we rented some snorkeling equipment so we could explore all the different coral reefs that were practically right outside our hotel room. The first day we went snorkeling we swam out to where a private plane had wrecked years before and multitudes of rainbow-hued fish had since claimed the wreckage as home. We found huge conch shells, giant starfish and all kinds of incredible things.

It was fun but, every time we got to the edge of the wreckage, we could see where the ocean dropped off and became that deep, dark blue. This was in the days before I had seen “Finding Nemo” 1,842 times and knew what a terrible place the drop off really is, but, even so, I knew it was eerie and just thinking about it right now gives me a shiver up my spine. Eventually, a barracuda made his way to where we were swimming so, because we value our limbs, we decided to call it a day.

The next day, we decided to stick closer to home. There was a big bay area of water that had huge rock formations on either side creating a cove. We’d spent the morning lying in the sun and decided to put on our snorkeling equipment and swim out to a big coral reef we could see out in the distance. We started swimming and it was further than it had originally looked, so we stopped to tread water and discuss whether or not we were going to keep heading out.

About that time, a small boat that appeared out of nowhere pulled up next to us. It was an elderly man and he said, “You kids probably need to head back to the shore. There’s a 12 foot hammerhead shark that’s been swimming around this cove all morning.”

Umm yeah, you know those scenes in cartoons where the characters literally run on top of the water? That’s about what we looked like. We turned tail and swam like we have never swam in our lives. And when we finally got to the edge of the water, we collapsed on the beach, panting for air. Then, we looked out to wave our thanks to the man in the boat. But he was gone.

I’m telling you there is no way he could have gotten the boat out of that cove by the time we swam to the shore. And as we strained our eyes to see if we could see him in the distance, all we saw instead was a huge, shadowy figure about 12 feet long swimming right in front of the coral reef we had been heading towards.

I don’t know how many other times I have been protected from various dangers by guardian angels, but I have no doubt that on that day in August of ’97, P and I were guided by an angel wearing a fishing hat.

I’m just glad he was there to give the warning, even if it means I missed a shot at starring in my own Shark Week story of man versus beast.

Psalm 91: 9-11 “If you make the Most High your dwelling–even the Lord, who is my refuge–then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. For He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.”

And the shark.
File this under “mommy has friends from the computer”

Earlier today, I had a chance to meet up with Grafted Branch from Restoring the Years. However, seeing as how we have now met in real life, I can call her GB.

We had emailed back and forth over the last few months and knew we lived in the same city. Eventually, we decided each of us was who we claimed to be, and made plans to meet for lunch with our girls. And where else do mamas meet for lunch, but McDonalds? Only the Play Place can afford any real conversational opportunities. Otherwise, it would have just been an opportunity for GB to meet me and listen to me say, “Caroline, quit playing with the sugar packets. Caroline, quit squirting the ketchup on your plate. What? You have to go to the bathroom now? Seriously, now?”

And as much fun as that would have been, McDonalds seemed like the best option. We had so much fun discussing various aspects of blogging and assorted other topics related to life, love, faith, and raising girls. She was witty and just a little sarcastic, which, needless to say, is a quality I like in a person.

I think Caroline summed it up best when we were driving out of the parking lot and exclaimed, “Oh Mama, those girls were SO MUCH FUN!”

She couldn’t be more right.
It takes some effort to look like this

Since I seem to have some deep, compelling need to confess every beauty blunder, I have a confession to make about my latest case of bad beauty judgement. I have no idea why I feel the need to tell y’all every detail of how I am, apparently, trying to make myself less attractive. Let’s just call it Beauty Gone Bad starring Big Mama.

And last month when I shared my other major beauty faux pas of the summer, it warmed my heart to know that many of you have also suffered at the table of bangs. Sometimes a girl just needs to know she’s not alone.

On a completely different side note, can I just tell y’all that I used my new WordPress search feature to find all the posts where I’ve mentioned my beauty mishaps and by just entering the word “mustache”, it pulled up like 15 different posts. I think I have some serious issues.

Anyway, about a month ago, I mentioned that I was in the process of getting laser hair removal treatments. It was a long, sad tale of woe with much whining and crying about the pain. The terrible pain. The unendurable, heat of 1,000 suns pain. Compelling stuff, really.

Anyway, after that treatment I asked Laser Girl if there was anything I could do, besides taking 14 shots of Jose Cuervo, to lessen the pain. She told me that I could purchase a tube of Dermacaine for the bargain basement price of $40.00. I immediately decided it would be the best $40.00 I’d spend all year, or at least for that week.

Hook me up with the Dermacaine, Laser Girl.

She handed me my tube of miracle cream with instructions to apply the cream 1 hour before my next treatment. Honestly, my upper lip and underarms were burning so badly, the prospect of the Dermacaine was the only reason I made another appointment.

Fast forward to last week.

I obsessively waited until 1 hour and 10 minutes prior to my hair removal appointment. At just the right moment, I opened up the miracle in a tube and began to apply it to all areas that would be experiencing the torture. And then, I just sat and waited for it to take effect.

After a short while, I began to feel some tingling on my upper lip. Good sign. Very good sign. Who says no pain, no gain? I am totally going to beat this whole pain thing. Ha Ha, I am so clever and wise. I am so glad I spent the $40.00 because now that laser will feel like the whisper of 1,000 fairies.

And then, because I am an idiot, I licked my lips. Immediately, my tongue went numb.

I don’t know why I licked my lips. They weren’t dry. I hadn’t eaten anything. It was just a reflex. A dumb reflex. And just as I was realizing that I could no longer feel my tongue, I realized I could no longer feel my throat. All my internal organs were completely numb.

I was dead inside.

I drove to my appointment and called Gulley on my cell phone. I could barely talk for all the not feeling of my tongue and internal organs. I honestly think even my teeth were numb.

I arrived at Laser Girl’s office and she looked confused to see me, or maybe she was just staring at the drool running down my chin due to the fact that I couldn’t feel anything. I said, “Heyth, I hath appotmet dith mownin”, and she looked at her calendar and I wasn’t on the schedule. She explained she was on her way out the door for a mammogram because she was having surgery, and asked if I could reschedule.

And here is where I’d like to write phonetically how it sounded as I explained to her that I was all strung out on the Dermacaine and I hated to waste part of my $40.00 investment in pain relief and I’d driven 30 minutes to get to her office. But I’m not going to, because I am very busy contemplating other ways to make myself hideous. Anyway, she took pity on me, or more likely, wanted to get my drooling, mumbling presence out of the waiting room filled with only beautiful things and perfect, cosmetic miracles of modern medicine. She said she had time to go ahead with the appointment.

She also confessed that her mammogram and impending surgery were purely cosmetic in nature, thus relieving me of my guilt in begging her to wait a few more minutes for her mammogram. I wish she and her 2 new friends many happy years together.

I walked into the procedure room, put on my laser goggles, so as not to sear my corneas, and was perfectly at peace knowing I would feel nothing. Ahhh, it’ll be like a few minutes at the spa.

Or a few minutes of pure, unmitigated torture.

Curse you, Dermacaine. Curse you. You and your faulty pharmacodynamics.

How is it possible to make my small intestine numb, but yet my underarms retained all feeling despite being slathered in Dermacaine?

And the best part?

I still have 2 treatments left.

Next time I’m bringing in my bottle of Wild Turkey.
Bedazzled by the dazzle

One of the great things about being a kid, and one of the things kids don’t appreciate, is they pretty much require a new wardrobe to begin each new season. For the most part, Caroline has outgrown all of her clothes from last fall and winter and thus, will require new fall and winter clothes.

I’m more than a little envious.

However, if I were to outgrow my clothes from last season, it would be due to entirely different reasons. Very unpleasant reasons involving strawberry butter, cheese biscuits and three chocolate cookies. So, I guess I should be thankful that all my clothes still seem to fit.

Anyway, I’ve slowly started buying things for Caroline’s back to school wardrobe here and there. It doesn’t get cold here until around November, so I can find some cute things on sale that will work through most of the fall. The thing I didn’t anticipate is that she’s reached the age where I can’t just hang the new clothes in her closet for safekeeping until back to school time arrives. Oh no, she has become a clotheshorse and, in all fairness, she comes by it naturally.

She seems to have a sixth sense that detects any new clothing that has entered our home. She can sense the presence of a Nordstroms shopping bag from 3 rooms away. I have never been more proud.

The problem is she wants to wear these new clothes immediately. And I have always said I am going to choose my battles, so I don’t really want to fight over the new clothing, which is why I gave in when she walked into the living room the other night wearing a new long sleeve t-shirt in lieu of a pajama top. It looked pretty cute and she had actually coordinated it with some Gap pajama bottoms with stars on them. I had to admire her fashion acumen. She won me over on style points, so I let her wear it to bed.

?

The other day I bought her two new pairs of pjs at Old Navy, and then stopped by a local boutique and found a cute hot pink outfit with bedazzled rhinestone hearts on the shirt and on the leg of the knit pants. I am normally not a fan of anything that appears to have been bedazzled, but it was more than a little sassy and I felt like it fit her personality, so I bought it. When I got home I pulled the pajamas out of the bag and she was really excited, but then she said, “I feel that there is something else in there.”

She sensed that she was in the presence of fashion.

So, I pulled out the bedazzled apparel and it was love at first rhinestone. She begged and pleaded to put it on and I finally acquiesced, with the stipulation that she could only wear it around the house. A few seconds later she was decked out and sitting next to me on the couch in her new little outfit. I noticed her doing something out of the corner of my eye, so I looked to see what was going on. She was kissing the rhinestone heart on her shirt, then she kissed the rhinestone heart on the pants. And then, she licked both of them.

Apparently, the outfit was good enough to eat.

And in a way, I understood. It’s how I felt in 5th grade, the first time I ever wore Jordache jeans. Okay, honestly, it’s how I feel about the jeans I bought last week.

The difference is I didn’t actually eat my jeans.

I had to make a statement that prior to motherhood I never dreamed of, “Caroline, don’t lick your clothes.”

A little while later it was time for rest time, so I put her in bed. About an hour later, she came out of her room and I noticed the front of her shirt was wet. Then, I noticed that a few of the bedazzles were missing.

“Caroline, what happened to your shirt? What did you do?”

“I ate those shiny, beady things.”

“What, you did what?” (Why do I always ask when I already know the answer?)

“It had too many of those shiny, beady things, so I ate some.”

“If you eat your clothes, Mama’s not going to buy you new ones.”

Words to live by, my friends. Words to live by.
I hate to admit that I may have been curled up in the fetal position

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this, but I am not a fan of change. And when I say not a fan, what I mean is that change tends to make me panic and hyperventilate.? Like I always tell P, it’s not that I’m high maintenance, I just like things the way I like them.

I mean I am a woman who spent days after I brought Caroline home from the hospital crying because I was just so homesick for the hospital. After all, in the hospital I knew how to be a mama, but to have a baby at home was an entirely different experience. I didn’t know how to be a mama within the confines of my own home.? Of course, the hospital also had the bonus feature of an around the clock nursing staff who were far more competent than me AND they changed diapers filled with a tar-like substance.? But of course, hospitals tend to frown on people taking up permanent residence, not to mention the insurance companies, so I had to learn how to be a mama at home.

And I survived.

So, it would make sense that in spite of all the issues I was having with Blogger, and especially Haloscan, that I am feeling a little uncomfortable here in my new home at WordPress, even though I know it’s bigger and better.? Everytime I push a button or click on a link, I just know I’m about to erase my entire blog or post something that looks like this ~~ald;jlkhiopehoi?~~ because I’m so busy trying to learn all the features and have no idea what I’m doing.

I’m very computer savvy.

Anyway, for those of y’all who have mentioned that you’ve had trouble subscribing or adding a link, I’m pretty sure it’s a temporary glitch in Bloglines. I was able to subscribe to the new feed on Bloglines, Google Reader and iGoogle. I also know several readers who have had no problem putting the new link on their blogroll, and IT WORKS.? So, the right link is http://thebigmamablog.com/? for your blogrolls, and if that doesn’t work for the feedreaders try http://thebigmamablog.com/feed/. And if all that fails, or you want to do it the easiest way possible, look on my sidebar at the end of my blogroll and click on either of the subscribe icons and they’ll hook you up.

If y’all get the chance in your busy weekends, I’d appreciate it if you’d give it a whirl so I’ll know it’s all working. I’m going to keep double posting over at the Blogger site for the next week just to make sure something is showing up in Bloglines and to give y’all time to make the switch.

Thanks for your patience while I sit here at my desk and hyperventilate.