Hairy Houdini & Muck Love

It's been a week...

The Squirrels kept telling me that Sassy the Sinister Snobbish Cat of ours, was "missing fur". I figured she's an outside cat, big deal, right? Until I looked closer and saw that something had taken a rather large chunk out of her side. Like I could see shiny, viscous muscle tissue rolling around underneath her missing skin in a perfect circle with bite marks around it.

A quick call to my local vet to schedule an appointment and I went outside to find the cat. She was MIA. Looked and looked and could not find her. Called the vet back and said she was missing and I would call back when I found her.

Not 5 minutes later, she shows up. Determined not to let her escape again, I put her in the van, threw my purse in there as well, and went inside to round up the Squirrels.

I come back out to open the van up and put the girls in car seats when I find that the side door won't open. "That's funny," I think to myself...until with great dread, I look up to see the cat with hind legs on the drivers' seat and front legs poised on the door handle. Right where the lock button is.

Yep, Hairy Houdini (or should I saw "Reverse Houdini") had locked herself into our van. With my purse. And my cell phone. And the only set of van keys if you don't count the set dangling off of Husband's key chain AN HOUR AWAY. I don't have a land line and am now in panic mode. The girls are due at swimming lessons in an hour!

We try to dangle cat toys and food outside the window in the hopes that she can step on the "unlock" button but the cat eyes us with disdain and curls up on the dash. I march off to the neighbors house with two rapid-fire questioning girls in tow "Mom, why did you leave the cat in the van? Why can't you open it? What if we can never get in our van again? Will the cat die? [at which point I decide not to tell them that FELINE EUTHANASIA is MOST DEFINITELY ON MY MIND]"

The neighbors are not home. Or maybe they are just not answering their door since I am the same crazy lady that accidentally set fire to the prairie and smoked their baby goats out of their barn.

But I digress...

I download Skype on an upstairs computer and dial my father-in-law's house. No answer. I email Husband at work, praying he is at his computer and not in one of the 10,000 annual interminable meetings of the corporate minds. He emails back that he is in a phone meeting and can't I just go to the neighbors? I fire an email back that THIS IS AN EMERGENCY and to call our neighbor who is also our fabulous mechanic - he resurrects our junkers on a regular basis.

My neighbor (props to Jeff S of S Repair in G town) laughingly shows up 10 minutes later with son Max in tow. Jeff is no stranger to my mad life. Last time he saw me I was at his house finding out that the husband I had sent to Prompt Care by himself was now being taken by ambulance to the ER due to his heart being in a-fib.

Jeff unlocks the door in less than 2 minutes using some red plastic wedge and a long metal pole. I gotta get me some of them.

But alas, the week was not a total loss. Eli must have sensed my unraveling because she made a lovely card for me in Sunday school. In which she tells me"Thaks" me for "Evrything" I give her and she loves me very "muck". Well, muck love right back atcha, Squirrel #1!

Sik on Vekashin

Poor Kate had too much vacation this past week. One early morning following yet another late night, she woke up and was not herself. Husband pushed her to finish her morning bowl of Chocolate Marshmallow Mateys (hey, Husband lets them buy all this crappy cereal, not Nutrition Nazi Mom!) when she just seemed lethargic.

Cut to the pool, about a half hour later. She is dressed in her new polka dot sun dress when she hurls regurgitated cereal all over herself. I cleaned her up and laid her down to sleep for a while.

The nieces decided to make get well cards for poor little Kate. The best was the card from Rachel - who we call Duke, Dukey, Rudy, Woo, Wooster, and a host of other names. In case the photo scan doesn't come through, this is what it says:

"GET well

I now what it

fells like to Be

sik on vekashin ones

some one in my

clas throw up its

cinduv grows isint

it Love Rachel"

Oh Woo...you are a blog onto itself!

The Latest in Jolly Green Giant Fashions

I was hoping for a drama-free summer but last week's happenings made it quite the opposite.

We open with Scene One - which is Husband in his flashy red and black church softball outfit, running like mad to get to third base during a friendly Tuesday night game. He feels his heart go funny but, like mostly manly men, doesn't say anything until...

Scene Two - Husband comes home from work, plops down on the couch beside me, and asks me to check his pulse. I do so, and find that it has a funky rhythm and is anything but the consistent LUB-dub, LUB-dub it is supposed to be pounding out. Husband says, "It's been doing this all day. Not sure what to do."

I pull questions from my college First Aid class and ask if he is feeling dizzy, chest pressure, tingling in his left arm, shortness of breath. He tells me he feel "off" and more tired than usual. I tell him to call Brother-in-Law Nelson who is a RN on the cardiac floor of the local hospital.

I figure Nelson will not overreact, as would my mother (also a RN), who in her spare time, dreams of crazy ways for us to die. Like by getting struck in our hoo-hah with lightning while going pee during a thunderstorm (I guess technically if lightning struck our septic tank, the jolt could travel up the line of pee into our...um...hoo-hah... but that would definitely win a Darwin Award and that is worth something). Or being beheaded by a crop duster. Or in a house fire by a toaster left plugged in too long.

Nelson has me take Husband's pulse twice, then nonchalantly suggests Husband go into the local Prompt Care. I am in the midst of supper and getting the kids ready to go to the neighbor's house to see their new fawns, goats, and cow, so I don't go with Darren. I figure how bad can an irregular heartbeat be?

Scene Three - evidently, when Husband shows up at Prompt Care and says the words "Irregular Heartbeat", they throw him in a wheelchair, careen 20 feet to the EKG machine, read the print-out and promptly load him into an ambulance with oxygen pouring into his lungs. At this point he calls me and tells me he is heading to the Big Hospital by ambulance. I feel a slight pang that I will not be nominated for the Wife of the Year award beings that I sent him to Prompt Care BY HIMSELF (whoopsie!). Luckily his parents are free to meet him at the ER.

Scene Four - Husband has a team of 8 who lunge at him once he enters the ER and put him out, shock him twice, and poke him full of holes to get some good drugs in him. He has more lines attached to him than a landmine field and there is an abnormally loud machine that squawks every time his heart gets off sync...which is about every minute. He is told that he is in a-fib, which my sister Renee (another RN) tells me basically means that the top of his heart is quivering instead of beating and the risk is that he will throw a clot to his lungs or brain.

Scene Five - Husband is told he has to stay overnight at the hospital and will have an echo cardiogram in the morning. He is now sporting the latest in hospital wear - a mint-green, mid-thigh-length gown with gaping back and a sprinkling of mint leaves just to make the gown festive.

As it turns out, before he was facing yet another shock to the heart at 1 PM the following day, his heart corrected itself. Could be because of the IV meds. Could be because the heart just found its groove thing again. Certainly could be because loads of people were praying for my now-grass-green-grippy-slippered Jolly Green Giant. Whatever the case, he was finally released at around 9:30 PM the following evening (but not before the Squirrels tore apart his hospital room and begged every five minutes for snacks) and he has not had any recurring episode.

I look at his very sculpted 6'5", 210 lbs. frame with next to no body fat and next to no cholesterol level and come to this conclusion...if Mr. Fitness himself gets himself in heart trouble, there is no hope for the rest of us. I might as well enjoy life and eat bacon while I can. And then maybe I will get a chance to look fierce in some mint-green hospital fashions!

Death by Skirt Asphyxiation

I may have missed my calling...that is, writing product reviews for people who really don't care.

Exhibit A:

I recently ordered this very lovely pencil skirt from Chadwicks (tagline: the company that sends you a gazillion catalogs if you order one thing). I picked out my size according to their sizing charts and eagerly awaited a skirt described as having a "built-in slimmer slip".
Here is the reality (and the review I posted):

"I got stuck in this skirt!"

I purchased my normal size in this skirt but the fit was WAY too tight (think obscene second skin) and as I went to unzip and get out of it, the zipper got stuck, the parted below the zipper rendering it incapable of being unzipped. I was STUCK IN THIS SKIRT! It was too tight to shimmy over my hips or up over my top. I finally got it bunched around my waist and slid it around and after much jimmying with the zipper, was able to coax one side of it down. A giant heave ho later, I was able to get it off the top of me but not without nearly squashing myself silly.

I like the fabric. I will try it in another size because it doesn't wrinkle and the length is right. However, if this zipper fails again, I will post another review.

No, I am not one of those people that can't face that I am in double digits size-wise so I order wrong. I really did order the size I normally wear and that matched the measurements listed in the sizing charts.

http://www.chadwicks.com/clothing/Shape-Benefits-Enhancement-Skirt.aspx?PfId=192587&DeptId=8207&producttypeid=1&PurchaseType=G&pref=ps

Too much information? Evidently. No one marked my review as "helpful" but when they are dying of skirt asphyxiation from not heeding my review, they may have second thoughts.

Stomping to the Death - Orange Shag Runway Style

'Tis the season for my hometown paper to report of all the local queen contests in preparation for the county fair at the end of July. Much to the chagrin of my mortified mother, I was once a candidate myself.

Why did I submit myself to the wonder of the local beauty pageant? Two words...savings bond. That's right. All that humiliation for a savings bond for the winner. Well, that, plus I was afraid I would be pestered to death by the local Pork Producers group to become the County Pork Queen and that is a title you just don't live down. I'm sure many Ivy League colleges would be impressed if I listed "PORK QUEEN" as a high school accomplishment.

My first foray into beauty pageant...I mean, queen contest, was my hometown pageant. I was running against one other person and she had 99% of the support of the crowd. I counted only my sister Lisa and my friend Heather B. as my lone supporters. Nevertheless, I bellowed my way through my talent and somehow wound up winning. For such a small town (350 people), they gave me one GINORMOUS crown. I needed a whiplash neck brace to keep my head upright when I wore it.

On to the County Pageant ruled over by the long-standing pillar named Wava. Wava was the Saturday Night Live church lady with more lipstick and extra plumpness on top. On the big day, Wava stood behind her podium and staidly announced our entrance as we climbed out of the trailers (I know...redneck city) in which we were changing clothes and climbed up the rickety metal steps to the "stage" - which was half of a trailer sitting on the drag racing track. The roof was a green tarp and covering the floor was orange shag carpeting.

We stomped to the death (move over, Tyra Banks...this broad was FIERCE!) in our clothing selected from a local clothing store. Thankfully there wasn't a swim suit competition or I would have foregone the lure of the savings bond.

There was, however, the talent competition. I had written a song a year before after a guy I had a crush on really wanted nothing to do with me. He had used the dreaded F-word (let's just be FRIENDS) and I guess I was heartbroken enough to pound out some sad, sordid number called "Nothing Broken But My Heart". I don't remember much but the chorus was:

"Nothing broken but my heart

Nothing hurt but my pride

Nothing shattered but my faith

Since I can't have you by my side."

I know...dig out that sad violin music and pour me a bottle of bourbon. Nashville, here I COME! No seriously, I had to play on this old upright piano that had been painted mint green sometime during the late '70s. The microphone poised near my mouth kept weighing the stand down and the microphone began to slide down, down, down towards my lap. I'm sure by the end I was hunkered over like the Hunchback of Notre Dame as I tried to bellow out the last stanza.

I ended up getting first runner up...the only real dig was that I lost to my current-boyfriend-at-the-time's ex-girlfriend name Julie. My family consoled me with a little ditty called "Junky Julie from George" in which they assured me that the crowded "jeered and jived" that I hadn't won. And my only chance to practice my "wrist, wrist, elbow, elbow" queen wave in a parade was rained out.

But I do still have the savings bond. And in another hundred years, it just might have doubled in value. To $50. If I actually consider the rate of inflation, I actually lost money on this whole deal. As well as a great deal of dignity.

The Need for an Adult Bib

This week I am away from home on business, training a new sales rep for my company. Now, I suppose I should feel enormous guilt for abandoning my Squirrels but they are spending the week at my sister Susan's house, and they had nary a minute to talk to me when I called. Which means they are having the time of their life, probably free feeding on TCBY frozen yogurt, riding horses, and turning Susan's house into shambles. So, if it's all right by you, I'll skip the Working Mom Guilt this week.

I indulged in something tonight that made me realize there is a market for adult bibs...a 45 minute pedicure. Why the bib? Let me 'splain...

I was in Old Navy feeling sorry for myself as I realized sometime between last year and this year, Old Navy had shrunk all their pants. I stood before the dressing room mirror in the "Sweetheart" jeans and turned and twisted trying to see if my backside looked like it needed backup beeping sounds in the pair of pants I had wedged myself into. I realized it would be some time before I would be in single-digit sizes again and resigned myself to fate (cue the violins playing sad music).

So I left the store planning to attend my Pity Party, Population One when I spotted a nail salon. The last time I had a pedicure was right before my wedding and I managed to leave the salon on my foam flip flops and promptly rear end somebody at the next stoplight as I was looking down admiring my newly-painted toes. The passenger of the vehicle I rear-ended got out and was smoking up a storm and cussing at me. She must have called the cops because soon an officer, an ambulance, and a fire truck pulled up. Suddenly she was in the car complaining of chest pains and neck/back injuries. My insurance company rewarded me with a fat increase in my premiums for the next three years. Happy Wedding to me.

So I felt it was time I climb back into the saddle again...or, in this case, the delectable vibrating, swirling warm water around my feet pedicure chair. I really think if we'd drop these pedicure chairs into the Middle East (instead of food packages and bombs), we'd have world peace in no time.

I was 15 minutes in before I figured out my pedicure chair was programmable. It started massaging my back and between that and having my feet pampered, I feared my eyes would roll back in my head, I'd start drooling like a nursing home resident, and fall out of my chair.

Alas, I made it through and must say, my feet look fabulous! At least 10 years younger (ha!) and in honor of my cute little Asian pedicurist, I indulged in some MSG-laden Chinese food for dinner. Who says business trips have to be a drag?

Slow Death & Black Hair Snobbery

After recently visiting the town we used to live in in mid-North Carolina, I have realized that adopting African-American children as pasty white parents while living in the South would have been an entirely different experience.

It isn't just because the South has some weird traditions. Case in point...when I first moved to NC, I was driving along the road and I saw signs on either side of the driveway of a house that said, "Slow death in family". I thought that was very odd to broadcast to the world that a loved one was slowly dying until I realized a punctuation mark was missing, and it should have read "Slow. Death in Family". As in, slow down...there is a 3-day wake happening in this household where people are double-fisting fried chicken, fried okra, collard greens, black-eyed peas, and gallons of sweet tea all while prefacing anything they want to say with "Bless his heart..." followed by a thorough roasting.

And it isn't just that the grocery stores in the South carry weird items...like floating bits of what appear to be brain matter they call "chitlins" and shrink-wrapped packages of pigs' feet. And evidently what I call a grocery cart is labeled a "buggy" - no horse required to pull.

It's that there is a clear racial division in the South and the blacks really don't care to mingle anymore than the whites do. There could be two grocery stores belonging to the same chain in the same town and one was where all the whites went, and one was where all the blacks went. You had your black funeral parlors, churches, dry cleaners, and schools and your white versions of the same.

Well, I show up with two African-American girls and get the look of Black Hair Snobbery from every black woman I see. I went into a African Braiding salon to see if someone could give my nearly arthritic hands a break and cornrow the girls' hair. I got the aghast looks from the two ladies braiding and was told they didn't have time for me. I asked if there were other salons in town that could help me (the town is 50% black) and was told "not really". Really? One salon for all the black women? I know how many hair relaxers, weaves, extensions, corn rows, and wigs go into making a black woman's hair look nice. I know that a black woman will pay for their hair to be done before paying their rent even if it means eviction. And they are telling me one salon caters to all the black women in a town of 23,000? Seriously...

And then the older black women think they can tell me how to raise my child. I was carrying Kate back from the breakfast nook at the hotel when the maid told me "Put her down. She's old enough to walk." I was so shocked that someone would tell me how to parent that I'm sure I looked like a guppy standing there with my mouth hanging open.

So alas, (and no disrespect to my dear friends in the South) I am glad we waited until back in the Midwest to become an interracial family. And I'm glad no black woman saw my squirrels while we were at OBX. FYI...chlorine, sea water, tons of sun, and black hair is a deadly mixture. I didn't even bother to tame the beasts until mid-week.