Another day

If you’re here to read the post about whether or not I rinse my dishes before I put them in the dishwasher, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. I’d so much rather bore y’all to tears with mundane tidbits about my weekend, rather than the state of my dishes as they go in the dishwasher but, for the record, my dishes must be rinsed and rinsed well before they see the inside of the dishwasher. I may not make my bed everyday, but I have standards, people. Standards.

On Friday night, we attended my cousin’s wedding, and when I say we, what I mean is Caroline and I attended a wedding. P pretty much gets a free pass on such obligations because I am a great wife. I won’t even bring up the fact that I felt obligated to attend a geographical Easter egg hunt nightmare with his relatives, even though he wasn’t able to be there. I am just that unselfish. Sometimes.

Not to mention, if I hadn’t attended the Easter egg hunt, I still wouldn’t know that sturgeon breed off the coast of Russia or wherever.

Anyway. Family wedding.

Caroline completely cooperated with my master plan which is, in and of itself, a miracle of divine proportions. We spent Friday morning at the pool and maybe it was because I made her swim the 400 meter freestyle, but she actually came home and took a nap. I was thrilled that she would be ready to stay up late for the wedding festivities, but completely underestimated that she is her daddy’s girl and turns into a pumpkin around 10:00 p.m. no matter how much sleep she’s had.

How did I end up with these people? These cheerful early to bed, early to rise kind of people? It’s just not right.

In my ideal universe, otherwise known as college, I would stay up until 2 a.m. and sleep until noon. I love those hours, but when you live with people who like to start the day off with a bang at 6:30 a.m., staying up until 2 a.m. is just self-imposed torture. But sometimes, I still do it, because it’s really pleasant to spend an entire day feeling like you could nod off at any given time only to be brought back to consciousness by a 3 year old yelling, “PAUSE THE T.V., MAMA! I HAVE TO GO POTTY!”

I brought a purse full of Lifesavers to the wedding so I could continuously dole out candy coated bribes throughout the ceremony. They worked like a charm, especially because the minister was blessed with the gift of brevity and the whole thing only lasted about 10 minutes. I kid you not. And my favorite part was when he started the ceremony by saying, “We are gathered here to celebrate the marriage of D and C. These two love each other quite a bit.”

Quite a bit.

Those words don’t seem to accurately convey what two people should feel on their wedding day. It’s more of a phrase I’d use to describe paying my utility bill, such as, we had to pay QUITE A BIT to the utility company this month due to the fact that I have to sleep in a room that is 68 degrees every night because sleeping with 182 pillows makes a person hot.

Or, do you like cheesecake? Oh yes, quite a bit.

So, after the ceremony where the couple declared quite a bit of love for each other, we moved into the reception area. The only problem was the pictures took forever, which means it was forever before we finally ate and an additional week of forevers before they cut the cake. Caroline was beyond exhausted at this point, but she was not leaving the reception without a piece of cake. It honestly got to the point where I wondered if anyone would notice if I just took my dinner knife and sliced off a little piece off the back of the bride’s cake. My thought is if a cake isn’t cut 3 hours into all the wedding festivities, she only has herself to blame.

That’s Caroline waiting on cake. I think her face says it all.

Finally, the music started playing, so to distract Caroline and her white frosting obsession, I got her out on the dance floor. I asked her if she wanted to dance with Bops and she told me she wanted to dance with the beautiful bride, and the bride was sweet enough to dance with her for a few minutes. Shortly after that dance, the bride made her way over to the cake and cut it. I have more than a small suspicion that Caroline might have told that bride to hurry up and cut the cake.

Then, Saturday morning, we went and swam over at Mimi and Bop’s house because really, two trips to the neighborhood pool everyday for the last week just isn’t enough. It was she and Bop’s first morning swim of the summer and thankfully, the sun was out so it wasn’t too cold. Bops must be living right.

After the morning swim, we went home and she took another nap. I can’t tell you the last time she actually slept during naptime 2 days in a row, but I’m pretty sure Nixon was in office. I actually got to read a book and do some laundry completely uninterrupted.

Saturday evening, we had yet another big social event. A birthday party for one of Caroline’s best girl friends. But seriously, this was a hit with all of us. P got to hang out and talk about deer proof fences, I got to catch up with all my friends and Caroline, not only got to jump in a unicorn bounce house, but also got to meet Barbie, who gave her tattoos on her cheek and both hands.

Not real tattoos, mind you. We’re saving that for her 16th birthday.

The funny thing was none of the kids seemed to notice that Barbie had braces and, under the blonde wig, looked suspiciously like their 16 year old babysitter. I guess they were too in awe of the silver lame mini dress she was wearing, and really, who can blame them?

The best part was Gulley and I had no idea that Barbie was going to make an appearance, and as we sat and visited, we caught a glimpse of blonde hair and silver lame and both thought some Mama was way overdressed for the party.

So, there y’all have it. More than you ever cared to know about our weekend.

I have to say, we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit.

One huge advantage of working for a large pharmaceutical company, other than the ulcer-inducing stress, is the insurance. Big pharma will flat hook you up with some good insurance coverage. In fact, during my 10 years in the industry, P had two back surgeries, a septoplasty, and some sort of esophagus thing due to the fact that he used to almost choke to death while swallowing baby aspirin, and I had a baby. All of these surgeries combined cost us about $2.99 out of pocket.

And when you work for a drug company, guess what? You get their drugs for FREE. I mean, you still need a prescription, but after that minor detail is worked out, they are FREE. It’s enough to make you want to have something wrong with you. “No, I don’t actually have high cholesterol, but prescribe something anyway. IT’S FREE, plus it counts toward my monthly quota!”

And these braces that I constantly complain about, although I know someday I will be so appreciative of my straight teeth because that’s what everyone keeps telling me, I will forever owe a debt of gratitude to the pharma industry for these teeth. The industry may have shaved 5 years off my life due to the high blood pressure, but at least I will have a beautiful smile while I’m here.

So, once I started exploring all of our private pay insurance options, I quickly realized that cash money can’t buy an individual policy like the one we had. Yes, we could Cobra our old insurance for 18 months, except that it’s $1500 a month and really, what good is health insurance if you can’t do frivolous things like buy food? The other thing is, truth be told, it was more insurance than we really needed, but I can’t turn down a good deal. Every year when the company would send us our a la carte menu of coverage options, I always checked all the boxes for maximum coverage because I am an insurance agent’s dream come true.

If I were to ever go to Vegas, I’d be the girl pumping petty change into the nickel slots all day long. I am not really a risk taker. Well, unless someone can guarantee me with ABSOLUTE certainty that the risk will pay off in the end.

Anyway, I finally found a policy that will work for us. By the way, if you’re ever in need of insurance, a great place to start is at www.ehealthinsurance.com, which will give you various plan benefits and cost comparisons. Just be prepared that your phone will start ringing off the hook with agents looking to “help you out”. They are all so sincere and really, they just want to help you out in the same way a shark looks to protect a wounded mullet.

Once I started filling out the application, it became apparent to me that insurers are more than happy to take your monthly premium, as long as you can pretty much guarantee that you’ll never actually use the insurance. And an individual policy with maternity coverage? There are rumors that such a thing exists, but I have yet to see it. I guess they figure they can hedge their bets on other illnesses, but for a 30-something woman, pregnancy is inevitable and may even require (oh the horror!) a c-section complete with a 4 day hospital stay.

After filling out a 114 page application, the insurance company now knows more about my personal health history than my physician. I had to check a box marked “Allergies” as a pre-existing condition. Who doesn’t have allergies? It’s the American way. Those “amber waves of grain” are really just fields of allergy inducing pollen. Allergies are an unalienable right.

Yet, the insurance companies want no part of it. If you have allergies, buy yourself a Benadryl. If you’re depressed, think happy thoughts. If you have high cholesterol, eat a piece of fish. If you have acid reflux, take a Tums. Prescription medication is for the weak. Doctors visits are overrated. A hospital stay is a luxury akin to going to a 5 star island resort. So what are we paying for?

Peace of mind.

The peace of mind that can only come from knowing that, when and if we encounter a health crisis, we can call our insurance company and they will haggle us, perhaps literally, to death. And we get to pay for the privilege.

So, in case y’all have been up late at night wondering, the folks at Toyota along with other major automotive makers, did not come through with a car for me. Apparently, they only give free cars to people like Oprah, which is ironic considering that Oprah probably doesn’t drive herself anywhere EVER and if she wanted to, she could buy any car she wanted.

I’m not bitter. She’s Oprah and I can’t compete with that.

Really, I’m not bitter.

And while I’m not exactly on this subject, I’m also not bitter that Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon are given free Prada purses and Manolo Blahniks, when clearly they could just buy them. Why not give those Pradas and Manolos to someone who would really appreciate them? Like perhaps a mommy blogger who calls herself Big Mama?

I’m not really bitter about it at all.

Anyway, last Monday night, when it became apparent Mr. Honda wasn’t going to give me a car, P and I began to discuss our automobile situation. My official last day of work was going to be the next day, Tuesday, May 1, and the company would be picking up my sweet, sweet Ford Escape at some point, leaving me without a mode of transportation other than Gulley’s Trailblazer or my feet.

We decided that after I dropped Caroline off at school Tuesday morning, we’d go car shopping. For the last 10 years, I’ve always had a company car, which means I’ve driven a white Ford Taurus, a silver Ford Taurus, a black Grand Prix, a silver Grand Prix and a gray Ford Escape. P has always driven Ford trucks and so between the two of us, our car knowledge was limited.

We called a friend who knows a lot about cars, and we did some research on the internet Monday evening to prepare for our big day. We knew enough to know we couldn’t go in blind, or we might leave with a 1987 Suzuki Samurai because it’s a classic and they get great gas mileage.

At 9:00 Tuesday morning, we hit the first dealership. Lord have mercy, we weren’t even out of our car before a salesman came running to meet us. He introduced himself as Jo EL, strong emphasis on the EL, and he shook P’s hand very firmly and then turned to give me the limp, dishrag handshake. Way to go, Jo EL, you just started off with one of my biggest pet peeves. If you’re going to shake my hand, shake it like you mean it. I realize I’m a fragile, delicate woman, but I can handle a real handshake.

I am a strong believer in equal opportunity handshakes. Do not hold my fingers lightly and turn my hand in a way that looks like you might try to kiss it. I’m here to buy a car, not to watch Prince Charles play polo.

Anyway, Jo EL began to question us on what we were looking for in a vehicle and P was quick to tell him that we were only looking today, not buying. There were a few cars on the lot that we were interested in, so we took a couple of them for test drives while Jo EL sat in the back and offered a running commentary on the car’s various features and essentially gave us the entire history of the Volvo corporation. The real seller was when he let us know “Volvo’s are still made in Sweden”.

What?? They’re made in Sweden? Home of the famous meatballs? Well sign us up, Jo EL.

He also let us know that the seats in the car are designed by the same people who design the seats in Lear jets, which made complete sense, because when I first sat in the car I thought it felt exactly like the seats feel in our Lear jet.

When we pulled back into the lot, Jo EL asked if we were ready to go in and see what kind of a deal he could get us on this fine, Swedish piece of auto machinery. P stated again that we weren’t buying a car today, we were just looking. And Jo EL said, “Well, you think you’re just looking but I bet if I made you a deal that looked as good as a big old juicy steak sitting on a plate with a baked potato, you’d decide you need to eat today.”

Shut up.

Texas Sales Skills 101. Jo EL was pulling out the big guns with his steak analogy.

And since I hadn’t eaten breakfast, all his closing technique did was remind me I was hungry.

We thanked Jo EL for his time and all of his information, and headed to the next dealership. Once again, we were met as soon as we got out of the car, but this time we didn’t see anything that interested us, so we left without taking any test drives. Finally, we went to the last dealership on our list and test drove a few more cars. The salesman showing us around was nice enough, but when we went to leave without buying anything, I thought his manager was going to self implode. He began pointing quickly to all these cars while practically yelling at us, “Do you want a Passat? Here’s a green Passat. It’s a great car. Wait! Please! LOOK AT THIS PASSAT! YOU MUST BUY A PASSAT!”

And I couldn’t help myself, I just started laughing. P informed him we weren’t interested in a Passat, and after we pried him off the bumper of the Escape (which was never so appropriately named) we left. We headed home to do a little more research, but we both felt that Jo EL and his Volvo were the frontrunners.

Later that afternoon, we decided we were ready to make a purchase. It was a good deal with a great warranty and was exactly what we were looking for. P drove back up to the dealership and told them to start the paperwork because really is there anything quite as fun as making a major purchase after losing a source of income?

In fact, we were a little concerned that we may not qualify for financing because after all, I no longer have a job and P is self employed. So, essentially the only proof we had with us at the dealership that either of us actually works for a living were P’s business cards. But here’s something I didn’t know and actually, Boomama shared with me that same day, once you’re in your mid-30’s, nobody cares about your source of income. They just figure if you have good credit by the time you’re 35, you must be doing something right and will gladly loan you buckets of money.

Who knew?

So, if you’re in your 20’s and reading this, just know that the American dream is alive and well and, if you pay all your bills on time, when you reach your mid-30’s you will be rewarded richly by the banks of America and allowed to go into debt.

God bless America.

It’s pure, consumer power.

Anyway, we were signing the papers and Jo EL walked in and said, “I knew if I made it look like a steak, you’d be back. Everybody’s gotta eat!”. Well, yes Jo EL, yes they do.

We said our goodbyes, he handed us the keys, and Caroline and I drove off in our new steak, otherwise known as a 2004 Volvo S60.

I’m just sad that Gulley and I didn’t get a chance to carpool to HEB in the Trailblazer at least once. It would have made a good story.

I really don’t want this turn into a forum that discusses nothing but my daughter’s bowel movements because I’m assuming that would cause many of y’all to go away and never come back. And understandably so.

It just seems that lately, we have had an abundance of poop at our house. In fact, we haven’t had this much poop since the time Caroline was about eight months old and I fed her strained prunes because I was afraid she was constipated, and then made a serious miscalculation and put her in the johnny jump up.

For the record, laxative inducing fruit products and jumping…not a good combination.

The other day we were over at Gulley’s house playing and Caroline started calling for me. I went in the bathroom and she had pooped. We took care of business and then she went running back into Jackson’s room. She was so proud of herself and yelled “Jackson, I just had poop and my poop is BISGUSTING”.

And she’s right, her poop is disgusting. However, I think it will serve her well as she grows older to realize that you don’t necessarily want to share this information with your boyfriends.

Then, today she was outside playing and had an accident in her pants. Let’s just say that her new Hello Kitty underwear became Goodbye Kitty in the blink of an eye.

Since our neighbor Tillie died almost three years ago, her former home has undergone several changes. One of the problems with living in an older neighborhood is builders are constantly on the lookout for an older home that they can buy, update and resell for an absurdly high price. And because our quaint little neighborhood is about twenty years behind on adopting a set of building codes to set limits as to what you can build or how big it can be, you never quite know what you’re going to get when people start building and remodeling on your street. Our biggest fear is that someone will come in and build an enormous home next to ours and people will drive by and think our house is the servants’ quarters for the house next door.

Anyway, my point is Tillie’s house has already had two different buyers. The first family that bought it did so for the sole purpose of renovating it and reselling it, which would have been great, except they had the taste of a Las Vegas showgirl.

This could have been due to the fact that the wife of the husband had actually been a Las Vegas showgirl before she found her wealthy husband sitting at a Blackjack table somewhere in Vegas.

Remodeling Tillie’s house was apparently some type of family project and the Vegas showgirl, her husband and their four kids would show up every Sunday to work on the house. Before long, Tillie’s cute little rock cottage had a huge, black awning over the front door that made it look like a funeral parlor. The next thing we knew they had planted little fir trees all along the side yard. We live in South Texas, so those fir trees were gasping for air when the temperature hit 85 in March, and by July they were little dehydrated specimens consisting of dead branches and brown leaves. They looked like Christmas trees on crack. It was just sad.

It became kind of a hobby for P and me to keep an eye on all the various ways they were desecrating Tillie’s house. Some days, P would call me on my cell phone and ask “Did they have the picnic table with the huge Coca-Cola umbrella up before you left the house this morning?” And I would gasp and say “Shut UP!” and he would say he wished he were kidding.

The best day was the day the former Vegas showgirl showed up wearing spandex bike shorts and a sports bra, pulled a chainsaw out of the back of her car, and proceeded to attempt to cut down a pecan tree that was at least three feet in diameter. P and I watched in fascinated horror as she wielded that chainsaw with all the skill and grace of a drunk monkey and held our breath as we noticed the tree beginning to lean precariously toward our other neighbor’s garage. It was the best free entertainment anyone could hope for on a Monday morning.

Our other favorite thing about these neighbors was that the dad was a real friendly sort of fellow and anytime we were out in our yard he would feel free to walk over and talk to us about how we needed to have another baby or that he noticed P drove a Ford truck and had he mentioned that he didn’t really like Ford trucks. He always looked sharp in his own pair of bike shorts (and nothing else) with his thick, gold chain draped elegantly around his sweaty neck. He also was constantly trying to lead us to Jesus by saying things like “Whoo! I’m out of breath from planting those fir trees and speaking of, you know the Bible says that man’s life is but a breath”.

One day I asked P if he thought we should just tell bike short dad that we were Christians so that he could save his efforts, but we agreed it was too entertaining to listen to all the ways he tried to witness to us. “I notice you only have one child, but you know the Lord says that blessed is the man whose quiver is full”. I thought blessed was the man who gets to sleep eight hours at night with no interruption and having only one child is helping me take a step in that direction.

About a year ago, this family sold the house to an older couple who informed us that their plan was to renovate the new renovation which thankfully, included removing the black awning from the front door. They said that they wanted to really downsize now that the kids were out of the house, and they just needed something small like say, 2500 square feet. Oh what a great idea! Hopefully the two of you will be able to live in something that is bigger than our entire house including our garage.

Anyway, last week I woke up and was sure that our entire neighborhood must be under siege. There were horrendously loud noises coming from somewhere nearby, the dogs were cowering under the table and the windows in our house were rattling as if they would break at any moment. I looked out the back door to see a dumpster being dropped in Tillie’s old backyard, jackhammers eliminating her old back porch, and a concrete truck pouring fresh concrete to make a foundation for something that by the size of the concrete slab will be anything but quaint.

Oh yes, we are now living in the construction zone.

This is the view from our back porch this morning.

It’s hard to pick my favorite blue accessory adorning the lot, but the bright blue port-a-potty is certainly the front runner. It warms my heart to know that construction workers are able to relieve themselves not even ten feet from my back porch.