Back at it. I had to take a little sabbatical to sloppy-snot-sob for a few days over successfully launching a child. How screwed up is that, and the days leading up my middle daughter’s departure were insane. Throw a full moon into the mix and everybody in and around me was off their nut.
Oh, it must be Tuesday! I don’t clean house anymore. I don’t want to and you can’t make me. I started cleaning houses for money at 12 years old. Enough. I’d forfeit just about anything not to clean another shower or toilet, so I get my house cleaned every other Tuesday. It stays clean for 5 minutes. That’s it. I swear my niece sets a reminder on her phone for drop in Tuesday, and last Tuesday was no different. Thus, Tornado Tuesdays. I hear the front door fly open and her calling me all panicked from the bottom of the stairs. I’m in my bra and fashionable (of course) panties at the top of the stairs just changing out of work clothes. Some little kid caught her 3 year old daughter’s finger in a door and slit it open. There isn’t a whole helluva lot of meat on a 3 year old’s finger to stitch. I’m of the “butterfly Band-Aid” generation. My Father was a carpenter when we were kids so I’m not even sure we had medical insurance. All I remember is we went for check ups and shots and that was it. Everything was repaired with a butterfly band-aid. When my Father closed my hand in the car door at Gilbert’s pharmacy going to buy our psycho poodle his nightly Hershey bar, I got a butterfly band-aid, and you could actually see bone. When I fell UP the stairs (we are faller-uppers as you’ll notice in previous posts), I got a butterfly Band-Aid. Especially on this occasion since it was our 24 hour family vacation to Nutley, New Jersey to visit my parent’s dearest friends. My Mother was NOT going to give up 1 hour of her 24 jawing time with my Aunt Emily to take me for stitches even if it was the corner of my eye. Nowadays a plastic surgeon would be flown in. Then there was the nice-needed-stitches opening to the chin falling up the stairs again, but I got another butterfly.
I talked my niece into a good cleaning and a butterfly Band-Aid. I also thought it would be more traumatic for the 3 year old going to an emergency care facility to get 2 stitches not to mention there were two other babies and one needed a boob. So, I ask myself who is going to hold the 3 year old during these stitches while she’s screaming bloody murder….not muah. Instead I offered up a St. Joseph’s baby aspirin to ease my little great niece’s pain, but her Mother said, “No! Reyes Syndrome.” These new parents google way too much shit. I explained we ate St. Joseph’s like candy because a) they were our form of candy, b) we rarely got candy, and c) there wasn’t any children’s Tylenol or Motrin. Considering the amount of kids that sucked down St. Joseph’s aspirin, the percentage of Reyes Syndrome was pretty damn good if you ask me. One aspirin wasn’t gonna do the Reyes thing to her daughter. Then I offered brandy like my Polish Grandmother would have, and got another, “No.” So, I fed them all dinner instead while her girls jumped on the two new leather ottoman’s the size of 4 that I inherited from my daughter’s impending move. Hey! If you’ve ever got kids, furniture, animals to get rid of, just drop them off. It’s a living and stationary tag sale. WTF.
On Thursday, I followed my daughter to the car dealer to turn in her leased car. Easy enough right? No. I pull in after her and I’m greeted by triple XL man with that dicky-doo thing (definition: when the gut sticks out more than the dicky do) and the summer teeth thing going on (some are here, some are there, some are no where to be seen). I figured he was the sales rep since she seemed to have recognition. He starts by jabbing her about the side swipe on her car. He repeated over and over and over, “This is not a scratch, this is not a scratch.” Then he’d point to a scratch, “That’s a scratch. That one is NOT a scratch. This went on for a full 5 minutes until finally I just had to ask, “Excuse me. WHO. ARE. YOU?” He tells me his name and that he was sent by my 1X’s wife. A goombah. Apparently Goombah was there to assist in making sure Honda would forgive the 8 months left on the lease and take the car back. It wasn’t looking good. Matter of fact, the actual polished sales rep asked what our relation to Goombah was, and I explained the family dynamics. We left WITH the car, with the NOT A SCRATCH, with Goombah giving us advice not even legal enough to disclose here. He noze people. I should’ve known he was connected with my ex husband. They probably get together and repeat the same sentences over and over for hours and crack each other up.
So, we dropped by my auto body guy, a nice clean-cut honorable man, who gave us his advice and we had a good laugh as always. I usually show up with some random shit that’s happened to my car like the mystery of the missing side view mirror. I was away for a week and when I returned the car somehow drove out of the garage all on its own because nobody knew nothin’ about it. Judging by the chunk of trim missing off the side of the garage, the side view mirror ate the trim all by itself. Shit never stops. After brainstorming with my auto body man, we dropped the car off to my ex-husband to take over the lease and insurance for the next 8 months. I figured we were doing him a favor. He’s still driving a 2001 SUV that was originally mine that apparently has a door hanging off its hinges and the 17 year old is ready to blow. I’m on my third car since that one. Repeat after me, “Tight as a fleas ass.” I haven’t heard from 1X. No news is good news. The car was just cleaned, and I thought that was nice.
From there, I hosted the La Familia farewell pizza dinner for my daughter who was flying out the next morning. I started crying before pizzas were even delivered and continued alternating crying with drinking wine.
Then she was gone…..and I had a big headache.
So, over Halloween weekend in between tears, I began launching my overstock of furniture onto tag sale websites, clearing out 30 years of…. do we really need to save my son’s 2nd grade ceramic art project peacock/bird thingy that looked more like peacock minus the pea?
Added to my sadness, Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. It was a given that my emotions would be down the shitter after dropping my daughter off at the airport to move to a glorious island with her beloved, so I had already bought a onesie spandex at the thrift shop for $2 with the thought that I’d score a Depends from one of the numerous senior parents sporting them, and go as a crybaby for Halloween figuring it would befit my swollen-chemical-like peel eyes. However, as my good fortune would have it, when I was cleaning out the defector’s room, a Little Red Riding Whore ensemble jumped right off the closet rack into my hands. I even had in my boot whore-ding collection, a genuine pair of cockroach killer short red boots and fish nets to compliment my basket of condoms, little alcohol shooters, and naturally a candy here and there to lend to the spirit of the holiday. Of course I wouldn’t have thought to buy the glow in the dark condoms that same day when I was in Darien Lululemon uniform buying my candy so I had to go back in full out Little Red Riding Whore regalia. What do I care? Clearly I don’t. I can turn the adult/professional/appropriate off like a light switch and go full throttle Barbarita Mamasita. Hell, only hours before I was at a downtown Halloween parade with my lovely niece and her precious 3 baby girls dressed as the 3 little pigs. My friends saw a photo of me with them and told me I looked like Rosie Gonzalez, the South American nanny since I was the only non-blonde in the bunch. Turns out, my niece dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood (NOT whore like her 20 year senior Aunt), and her husband was the big bad wolf when they took their little ones trick or treating. They possess a modicum of décor. I don’t, but I wouldn’t be the fun Aunt either. My mantra is I’m not dead yet, and one of my co-workers thinks I’m an Iris Apfel in training. Matter of fact, this same co-worker has forbidden me to contact any of her family members since I turned them onto the term, Fucktard and that’s all their vocabulary consists of now.
It was also a hot weekend of spiriteering. My niece will not sleep in her house when her husband is away. It’s an 1800’s plaque house and let’s just say it’s a spiritually busy joint. So, my little 3 year old great niece (the butterfly Band-Aid kid) was sleep walking and talking. Her Mother was in the next room and my other niece in another room having to sleep over. They hear my little niece talking in her sleep saying, “Bar-bar, there’s a ghost in here. I can’t sleep in there like this” all while she’s sleep walking in the hallway. Then a couple of days later, I stopped at a friend’s home to hear about her daughter’s connection with some family members on the other side.
To wrap up the All Saint’s/Soul’s weekend, my deceased boss sent me a few zingers. I had a friend visit and I set her up in my massage chair with her own bottle of wine while I sat on the floor and went through piles of paperwork and bills I had been too busy to deal with the last couple of months. When I looked down, there was a nickel and I immediately thought, “Hi P.W.” Then I was cleaning out the pouch I keep my checkbook in and came across P.W.’s worn out prayer card that I had in my wallet for at least 4 years. Once my piles were in order, I started telling P.W. stories and went to retrieve my box of communications some people would pray didn’t exist. A box my dear friends helped me painstakingly organize chronologically by topic. When I pulled out the P.W. file, the light bulb finally went off. I went back to find the nickel, the prayer card, and realized that day was the 5th anniversary of his death. A medium had told me 6 months after he died, “He says he’ll be nickels, not pennies.” I’m pretty sure he was pissy that I hadn’t remembered, but I had November 8 on my radar for a baby boy who was born the day of P.W.’s funeral. A little boy who I had the blessing to watch being born right after the funeral mass. Lucas’s middle name is P.W.’s surname as I kindly requested for all the running around I did that day. I will be going to Lucas P’s 5th Birthday party on November 8th, and I’m sure P.W. will be hovering.
I can’t finish any projects or a blog post because there’s always some wrench thrown into the plan. Yesterday I tried to get one of my regulars to meet me as we refer to it, “the 3:05.” No, not a train but on our outside Adirondack chairs at our favorite pub, but she had to work so I couldn’t beg off actually now paying the bills I put into piles so I went home. I pull down my driveway and see our dirty, stay out pimp cat chasing something under a tarp and then into my garage. It was a kitten. I was held hostage for 6 hours trying to get this kitten out of hiding in a car engine. That would be Engine kitten #3. I’m a dog person NOT a crazy cat lady. I went to a shelter and adopted exactly one cat, Big Al. We brought a very sick stray home, Lukie, from the Poconos who the vet had to put to sleep. I then agreed to take in an orange tabby kitten whose Mother was murdered by a coyote. Bella definitely had Post traumatic stress syndrome/anxiety issues and should’ve been on kitty Xanax because she pulled her fur out. That’s called trichotillosis – there’s actually a term for every damn neuroses. Next came, William (named for Will & Grace), our gay cat. He got caught in a college dorm and was dropped to my house equipped with a leopard print kitty cabana, princess washcloth and matching towel. Next delivery was a basket of 2 more kittens that were keeping warm in a truck engine.
Since we refer to my 87.75 year old Father as Jesus and my son as Baby Jesus or Baby J, the natural option is to name the kitten, Moses. It is a male because Baby J took Moses to the vet. Only in Lily White Darien would a feral kitten with no fleas, ear mites, or any health issues asides from needing to be fed chose our Jerusalem as its place of refuge. At this rate, we’ll have pets the names of all the apostles in no time sitting at the right hand of Jesus.
The Word According to Be Hoxie (Hok-see) 