Year: 2006

  • I don’t care if it’s Chuck E. Cheese, no rat is a good rat

    I was talking to AJ on the phone tonight and she was telling me she was on her way to buy some rat poison because the house she is renting with another girl has a little bit of a rat problem. Last week, she decided that the problem was the bag of dog food she was keeping in the laundry room, so she went and bought a heavy duty trash can to store the food. She went out of town for three days and got home tonight to discover that the rats had chewed through the industrial strengh trash can.

    Chewed through the trash can.

    It reminded me of my own rat story. Ahh, fond memories.

    When P and I were newly married, a family friend offered us free rent in one of his townhomes in exchange for P acting as a leasing manager for the complex. We were young and poor, so we jumped at the chance.

    The townhomes were built around the 1950’s and really quaint. The one we lived in was two stories with hardwood floors and I just loved it.

    One night, while we were sleeping, P jumped up and said “Did you see that?” He’s notorious for talking in his sleep so I didn’t pay that much attention. “What? Did I see what?” He said, “It was a gray, furry thing that ran across the floor.” Umm, yeah sure…go back to sleep.

    Two mornings later, P got up early to go hunting and as he was drinking his coffee, he felt something staring at him. It was a family of baby possums huddled in the corner of our kitchen. So, he grabbed his gun and went hunting in the comfort of his own home.

    I’m kidding.

    The possums scurried out a small hole in the kitchen baseboards. So the next night, P put a Have a Heart trap in our kitchen. It was a tip we’d seen on Martha Stewart for catching wildlife that live in your home.

    The next morning, P goes downstairs fully expecting to see some possums, but instead sees that he has caught a rat. A big, nasty, fat rat. And from what he told me later, the rat lunged at the side of the cage and hissed at him. This was no Jerry mouse, my friends.

    Of course at that point, I felt like we were living under siege. I was completely grossed out to the point of never wanting to step foot in the kitchen again.

    The next night, P was out playing basketball with some friends. I was home by myself, minding my own business, when I start hearing rustling noises coming from the kitchen. Not wanting to come face to face with any member of the phylum rodentia, I run over to the doorway of the kitchen and flip on the light thinking the light will scare whatever it is away.

    Well, the light came on in time for me to see a piece of half eaten toast go flying across the kitchen floor. The worst part (well, maybe not the worst part, but still very bad) was that we don’t even eat toast. This creature was flinging half eaten toast of an unknown origin across my kitchen.

    P came home to find me just slightly undone by this turn of events, so once again the trap came out followed by a good, solid round of rat poison and boarding up any potential gateways to the outdoors that existed in our kitchen.

    And that was the end of our rat problem.

    And we moved out a month later.

  • Paging Dr. Dobson

    I don’t really get my feelings hurt that easily. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and think if they say something hurtful, they probably didn’t mean it. Of course, I also spent the first 32 years of my life not being insulted by a person I brought into this world.

    Yesterday, I arrived to pick Caroline up from school only to have her turn away from me and tell me “just leave me alone”. Excuse me?

    She walked away from me and kept telling me to “just leave”.

    I informed her that she had to come with me because there are laws about leaving her alone and like it or not, she had to get in the car with her mama and go home.

    We get in the car and I’m already a little upset by her attitude and behavior. Then, as we’re driving across the parking lot, I hear her voice from the backseat saying “I didn’t want you to pick me up, I don’t like you because you’re an ugly girl.”

    I pulled the move patented by angry, frustrated mothers everywhere, and one I remember well from my childhood. I SLAMMED on my brakes and I promise I laid rubber in the parking lot of the Methodist Church. Hell hath no fury like a mama who spent 24 hours in labor with no epidural until it was time to push.

    I had flashbacks of my own childhood as I heard things coming out of my mouth such as “I am your Mother. You do NOT talk to your Mother like that. I will wear you out if I EVER hear you talk like that.”

    And for all my big talk, what I really wanted to do was put my head down on the steering wheel and cry. I know she’s three, I know she’s figuring out the art of emotional manipulation, and I know that she was tired after her school day. I know I shouldn’t let it hurt, but it did. I wanted to yell, “I would give up my life for you without even a second thought and this is the thanks I get?”

    I had to call Gulley for therapy and it makes me laugh to think of how much our lives have changed since we first became friends seventeen years ago. I remember nights spent talking about things like, “Do you think he likes me? What do you think he meant when he said he’d call?” and now I’m asking, “Am I a good mother? Am I doing something wrong? Why would she say that?”

    I know that as the years go by, Caroline and I are going to have our ups and downs. It’s the dance that mamas and daughters have been doing since the beginning of time and we’ll be no different.

    I know she loves me, she’s just figuring this whole thing out, pushing the limits, testing my boundaries to see how far she can go. As P likes to remind me, I did this. I prayed that we would have a daughter with a strong spirit because in all my rookie, hormonal, pregnant mama confidence, I believed we were up to the task of raising a leader. God is probably still shaking His head and laughing at me saying “Here you go, one strong willed leader coming right up.” I’m going to need all of His help to mold this spirit in the right direction, because that’s my prayer, to mold her spirit without breaking her spirit.

    This evening after bathtime, all the drama of the afternoon was forgotten. I dressed her in her “I Love Mom” pj’s (a shameless ploy to make myself feel better) and we snuggled on the couch. She scooched up under my arm, looked up, kissed me and said “Oh Mama, I hope someday I have a big nose just like you.”

    And that’s how I know, in spite of how she may act or what she may say, that she loves me.

  • The brightest star

    By now, y’all know me well enough to know that I have a serious addiction to Dancing With the Stars. 6 hours and 38 minutes left until go time for Emmitt.

    Y’all know he’s going to bring it on.

    If Mario Lopez wins, it will be the final straw in completely destroying my faith in the American public.

    And if you’re wondering if I am maybe a little over the top in my reality T.V. viewing habits…well yes, yes I am.

  • A faux prince and fantasy dates

    Oh happy day, The Bachelor was back on last night! I am sad to admit how excited I was at the prospect of a Monday evening filled with chocolate chip cookie dough and quality television programming.

    After watching, I just have a few thoughts and obviously nothing else interesting to write about.

    The night starts off with Lorenzo’s fantasy date with Jen. He really wants her to “open up” to him and share her emotions, so naturally they are headed to the amusement park. I don’t know about y’all, but some of the most meaningful, intimate conversations of my life have been had while riding in a bumper car or going down a 90 foot drop on a roller coaster.

    And that Lorenzo is astute. Did y’all hear him ask the bartender in that ice bar if she was cold? I mean that is someone with razor sharp skills of perception.

    So after Jen really opens up, Lorenzo is off to one of the lesser known European cities of love and romance, Budapest, to meet Lisa.

    Oh Lisa.

    Let me say that I am blessed to have several close girlfriends and not a one of them would ever sell me out on national T.V. by showing up at my house with a wedding gown and telling a potential fiance about my timeline to the altar. I realize this happened two weeks ago on the show, but I must have been in some kind of fog to not comment on the seriousness of this offense. I would like to ask Lisa what she did to her “best friend” to make her hate her so much.

    Then again, in defense of Lisa’s best friend, I will say that no one forced Lisa to actually put the dress ON.

    Lisa goes on and on tonight about how great her hometown visit went and I just wanted to shake her and say, “Girlfriend, take off that wedding dress and hide those Brides magazines. Put them under your couch like the rest of us used to do. No guy wants to walk into your apartment and see bridal magazines fanned out on your coffee table. It will make him start to itch and ultimately, to run far, far away”.

    The word “intense” was used about 1398 times to describe their fantasy date, which to me was code for Lisa will be voted off Bachelor Island and I was right, which just goes to show that no good can come from putting your china pattern before the horse.

    As for sweet Sadie, I have to say that I like her. I’m not sure why she’s on The Bachelor and I’m fairly sure she may be too good for Prince LoBo, a fact that was made clear in the previews for next week where we see LoBo shed one dramatic tear (Boomama, you know I noticed) as he faces the decision of his life.

    And y’all know I’ll be watching. It will be the MOST DRAMATIC rose ceremony in Bachelor history.

  • I just hope Harvard doesn’t hear about this

    Friday night we took Caroline to her first high school football game. She had a great time although she did ask if “it could be a little more quiet”. She’s not a fan of loud noises unless she is the one making them.

    At one point, P and Caroline went down to the concession stand to get a delicious bean and cheese taco, and by delicious, I mean absolutely disgusting but what do I know? I don’t have the discriminating palate of a 3 year old.

    Anyway, while they were gone, a dad comes and sits behind me with his little boy. It just so happens that I knew this little boy was in Caroline’s class last year, but I didn’t really know the dad. Someone asked him where his son was in school this year and he precedes to tell them, and talk about the wonderful curriculum and how superior it is to the school the kids attended last year.

    After sitting in front of them for about 30 minutes, I can promise y’all that one thing the new, improved curriculum at the new, improved school doesn’t include is a lesson in how to not kick the back of the person in front of you 184 times in a 3 minute time period. I knew for sure that by the time we left, one of my kidneys was going to be permanently damaged.

    Fortunately, the dad was so preoccupied with discussing this new school’s academic superiority that he wasn’t worried about my kidneys or the fact that his son was about to take a header onto the ground below.

    I’m sorry, back to my original point.

    Apparently, the preschool our children attended last year has a subpar curriculum in his opinion and they aren’t focused enough on educational goals. I guess my standards are a little lower because I was just impressed that they taught Caroline not to throw sand on the playground and how to glue a popsicle stick on some construction paper.

    I had no idea that she was going to be so behind because she wasn’t attending a preschool with a curriculum that placed more emphasis on quantum physics and algebraic equations. How on earth is she going to have a chance of getting into the Ivy League with St. Episcopal Preschool as part of her academic record?

    I’ll just have to hope and pray that we can overcome this educational deficit in the dog eat dog world of elementary school.

    She is also at a new school this year and I have really lofty goals for her academic progress. I’m hoping she might learn to share toys, develop friendships, learn how to slide down the big slide and if we’re really lucky, not pick her nose in a social setting. Now I’m questioning if that will be enough on her kindergarten resume.

    Of course, I can take some comfort in the discussion we had on the way to school last week. She told me she didn’t want to go to school today. I said, “Well sweetie, you’re going to school. It’ll be fun and you’ll learn something”. She looked right at me as I was getting her out of her carseat and told me, “I’m going to school, but I’m NOT going to learn anything”.

    I guess all this worrying about school curriculums may be an exercise in futility given the fact that we are talking about stubborn, willful 3 year olds who aren’t really worried about our agendas as much as they are worried about whose turn it is to be line leader on the way to chapel and if they’re going to get any candy today.

  • An update

    Last week, I told y’all about AJ and finding out that her mom has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I can’t thank you enough for the sweet comments and prayers. I know that her family has been so blessed by the prayers being said on their behalf.

    For those of you who are praying, here’s an update.

    They went to M.D. Anderson last week to see what their options were and found out that the cancer had already spread further. The only option is a really experimental chemo treatment.

    They’ve decided to try this chemo and will start the first round on Monday. The best they can hope for is that it may slow down the progression of the cancer. The worst part is that they really don’t know what all the side effects could be since it is such a new treatment.

    Her mom had said originally that she didn’t want to try anything experimental, but I think she just wants to feel like she’s doing something. They are going to see how this first round goes and decide after that if she wants to continue it.

    Anyway, if you feel led to say a prayer for them, it would be much appreciated.