Some Call Me The Rat Queen

Seems like it was just yesterday that Richard and I were talking about our summer goals and all that we would achieve and junk like that. (You know, stuff like "We are SO gonna get up every morning at 6:00 before it gets hot and walk three miles.")  Then I blinked twice and here it is, already August.  We did not walk once. 

The school year summer is over even though the technical summer lives on.  (And the temperature summer lives on and on and on until mid-October when we can finally put on a long sleeve shirt as long as it's made of a light, breathable cotton fabric.  No sweater needed until November.)

I think a summary of my summer activities is in order.  In no particular order:

1.  When I last blogged I had just gotten home from a top secret trip to New York that I couldn't reveal at that time.  You can read all about it here.

2.  I got pretty excited about Shark Week like I always do, but I got sidetracked during that week so I recorded a bunch of the shows so I could enjoy all the oceanic terror at a later date.  But then I discovered that watching shark shows after Shark Week is kind of like celebrating your birthday after your actual birth date.  It's anti-climatic.   So, bummer.  I'm just not there any more.  (I also discovered that AMC's Mob week coincided with Shark Week.  My DVR was busy that week.   I still haven't watched any of it.)

3. The grass grows overnight here and just when I think I'm all caught up, the thought pops into my head that a snake really is a lot harder to see in 6-day old grass as opposed to 2-day old grass.  So I have been mowing quite a bit.

4.  And speaking of snakes (and I feel TOTALLY bad about this, I really do), I hacked a snake to death earlier this summer with a dull-edged garden tool.  This really was one of my darkest moments, but in my defense, I felt I had little ones to protect and at our house we place the well-being of humans over the lives of serpents.

My niece, Zoe, was visiting from Missouri and we wanted to go swimming in our little laying-out pool.  As I was walking toward the pool, I saw a huge, I mean HUGE snake slithering toward me at a very aggressive speed, and he did not seem the least bit spooked by our presence even though every animal show I watch promises that wild animals are much more afraid of us than we are of them.  (It's like he knew me and was coming over to speak.)  My mom was walking slightly behind me with Zoe when the hollering  started.  And she was all "Lorie, you've got to do something!"  So without really thinking too much about what I was doing, I quickly retrieved the first thing I saw which was this rusty garden tool thingie (I don't know the technical name for it) from the shed, and with the combination of my adrenalin surging, my mom screaming "KILL IT!  KILL IT!"  and the bearing down of the hot noon sun, I started chopping the poor creature until I had four snakes, not one. 

And then I threw my bloody garden tool down and the voices stopped.

In retrospect, I wish I would have just thrown rocks at it to scare it away, because later after my husband and I went outside to examine the remains, he informed me that it wasn't a poisonous snake, it was a "good" snake that ate rats, and I really should have let it live.  (And I felt the eyes of a thousand rats staring at me from the foliage, not unlike the munchkins did to Dorothy after her house landed on the witch.  I am sure by now they have erected a statue in my likeness and pronounced me their RAT QUEEN.)  Then he gave me a little lesson on how to tell if a snake is poisonous or not by how the eyes are set in the head and the shape of the head, but seriously?   If I encounter another snake at close range in my lifetime, I can't promise I'm going to take the time to examine it's head and eyes. I've seen the river scene in Lonesome Dove too many times.

Still, I wish I had let it live (mostly because I hate rats), and the whole hacking part still haunts me.  This is the most violent act I have ever committed in my entire life.

I wonder if Lizzie Borden started this way? 

4.  To change the subject, Richard and I have really gotten into the Next Food Network Star. Maybe it's because we just visited the Food Network Studios, but we are really looking forward to the grand finale on Sunday.  Richard wants Susie to win, but I like Jeff because I would totally watch a sandwich show.  We both agreed Penny is a snake in the grass (heh) and we were happy to see her booted off the show, even though it was about three shows too late.  She could cook, however.  But she really needs to tie her hair back.  And also, gosh, be nicer?

(I know.  That coming from a snake killer.  I have ruined my good reputation as a nice person.)

*Update.  I started this post on Saturday.  Today is Monday.  The finale was last night.  We have recorded it, but have not yet watched it, so I will try and stay off social media today because I don't want to know the outcome until later.  This is gonna be hard.

6.  Brayden turned two.  He has a big boy bed now.   He's speaking in little choppy sentences. There is talk of potty training.  And my plan to be called "Lolli" isn't working out so far.  It sounds more like "Mammy."  I'm not sure why he can't get it right, but he really needs to get with the program.

 He still likes trains.  And mud puddles.

7.  At the beginning of the June, I decided I would make friends with summer and embrace him with open arms.  That lasted through July 4.  It has been all down hill since then.   

8.  And speaking of July 4, we had such a great day that day.  We went to Frost Bridge to swim in the creek and slide down the rapids. (Does that sound like a completely redneck thing to do?  I prefer the term country-style outdoor activity, thank you.)

Let me insert a vent here.  Why do people litter?  Sigh.  I am not a mother earth environmental nut, but really, do you have to be one of those to know that littering is just wrong?  Every time I see a beer bottle in the creek is angers me.  Just pick up your dad blame trash and take it with you.  Is it really that hard?

Anyway, the creek was very low and even though I have issues with swimming in water that is not clear enough to see my toes, I jumped right in and had a good ol' time.  Of course, we had to go early in the morning before the party crowd got there with their coolers of beer and loud music, but we had it all to ourselves for a couple of hours.  It was nice.  I resisted the urge to hillbilly handfish, even though it's so tempting to stick my arm in a muddy water hole and feel around in the debris and rocks for a monster catfish, but Isaac caught a nice bass the old fashioned way.  With a fishing rod.

Afterwards, we went home, hung out, had a shrimp boil, homemade ice cream, homemade peach pie, then fireworks at the annual fire works show in State Line.

Fun times.

Thanks To Delta, I Now Know What It Feels Like To Be A Vagrant

So last week I had to fly to New York for something.  Something that I cannot reveal at this point in time, but when I can I will, so no asking, okay?

Anyway, I absolutely hate flying to begin with for as many reasons as there are types of mustard in my fridge at this very minute, which is way too many, but I make myself conquer my fears and just do it.

The flight out there was not too bad, but the flight home was like that song on that children's show with Lambchop, you know, the one that goes "This is the song that ne-ver ends, yes it goes on and on my friends..."  and then it's repeated 659 times by little sock puppets who are waaaayyy too enthusiastic about singing.  Do you know that song?  It just happens to be the most irritating song in the history of mankind.  But anyway...

We were supposed to leave LaGuardia Airport at 5:00 PM sharp, and our driver was supposed to be at our hotel to pick us up at 3:00 PM, which made me really nervous because I personally didn't feel like two hours was adequate time to drive through New York to the airport and then go through security and all that, but I decided to not be my usual controlling self and just trust that the people who had set up this driver knew more about New York traffic times than I, especially since my hometown doesn't even have a stoplight.

And let me just warn you now that this post is probably going to be lengthy because I am venting here and I want to be as detailed as possible.

So anyway, we, and by we I mean Richard was with me, were in the lobby of our hotel by 2:15 because I am pretty anal about being late, and since the doorman asked me what company my car was with and I told him in a clear, audible voice, and since there were other people waiting in the lobby for their cars and he had already come in a couple of times to inform those people that their cars had arrived, I did not feel like I needed to say the words "Would you please inform me when my car arrives."

At about twenty minutes after three, I gave my husband that "please go and check cause I am fixin' to have a meltdown" look, which he did, only to find our driver sitting directly in front of the lobby waiting.  And the doorman was there, too, just standing there as doormen do.

And anyone who personally knows me knows that one of my biggest pet peeves is being late--it unnerves me to no end--and my second biggest pet peeve is when a driver who can barely speak English tries to put the blame on me by saying "I have been here since twenty 'til.  Didn't you know this?" 

Grrrr.  So I guess he was absent from Chauffeuring 101 the day the teacher said it would be a good idea to let your clients know when you arrive either by physically walking into the lobby or by sending the doorman who is usually standing at the door?

(Of course, our doorman was staring at the car parked directly in front of the lobby--I'm wondering why he didn't just ask the driver who he was there to pick up?  How hard would that have been?)

So anyway, the ride to the airport was... interesting.  I could go on about this, but just imagine a typical New York driver and multiply that times ten because we were now running late. Thank you, Jesus, for getting us to the airport in one piece. 

Security was a mile long of course, but we made it through and actually had a few minutes to spare, much to my surprise.  And just as soon as we got to the gate, they announced that our flight was delayed until 9:00 PM.  

We waited around for a little bit, then a few minutes later, Delta announced that there was a 50/50 chance that the 9:00 PM flight would probably not take off at all because there was a whopper of a mechanical problem (my words, not theirs), so it would probably be best if we all started calling the 800 number to Delta to get re-booked.

So that's what we did.  And the only option for us was to be shuttled over to JFK for a 7:15 PM flight.  So this all involved a lot of walking around the airport and hauling our extremely overpacked carry-ons because we didn't want to check any luggage, and yet another nice, relaxing drive through New York.  Yay.

But we managed to get over to JFK, go through security AGAIN, and then make it to the gate, only to hear an announcement that that flight was delayed.  AGAIN.  This time due to weather.  So we waited.

At about 7:50 PM, we finally boarded.  Of course we were not sitting together because we had been re-booked at the last minute, and beggars can't be choosers now, can they?  And of course we had a connecting flight in Atlanta that would probably be taking off without us at 11:15 PM.  And of course I suddenly had to pee, and oh, how I hate airplane bathrooms, so I decided to hold it.  Plus I was sitting by the window with two people next to me, neither of whom could speak English at all.  The guy was sleeping soundly, and the girl was talking on her phone (go figure), so I was basically trapped.

Then, the pilot announced that we probably had a two hour wait before take-off.  He told us to stay put and not get off the plane, (like they would let us off anyway) because there was a chance we could take off earlier.  But we all knew the truth.  We were stuck.

So sure enough, after we had been sitting at the gate for two hours, he said we would now be making our way to the runway.  The kicker was that there were 47 planes in front of us that had also been delayed.  (And no I didn't randomly make up that number THERE REALLY WERE 47 PLANES AHEAD OF US!)  So we taxied for two more hours.  He'd rev up the engine, go about three feet, then sit still for five minutes.  For two hours we inched our way to take-off.  And you know how I like to exaggerate on this blog?  WELL I AM NOT EXAGGERATING NOW.  We boarded the plane at 7:50 and we took off at 11:50.  Talk about grueling.

(The actual flight was okay, but I couldn't help noticing that there was a RULE BREAKER on board who caused me undue stress.  The girl next to me kept her phone on the whole time.  Listen, people, there is a reason they ask everyone to turn off their cell phones before take-off and that reason is that it can MAKE THE PLANE CRASH!  She was even told to turn it off, but I watched her, and she did NOT, she just slid it into her purse.  I considered passing a note to the flight attendant so she could be properly disciplined and thrown off the plane at 10,000 feet which really should be the punishment for people who put other people's lives in jeopardy.  In the end, I decided to just let God handle it because I had to pee too bad to find a notebook and pen in my giant purse/overnight bag.)

And I haven't even got to the part about feeling like a vagrant yet.

So we got to Atlanta at about two in the morning.  All smiles and happy faces were left in New York on the subway, where it's fun.  I decided that I would be the one to re-book our flight, so I left my husband sprawled out on the floor with the luggage and headed to the Delta ticket counter, thinking they would put us up in a hotel, but NOOOOOOOO.  People were getting pretty ugly.  I was not necessarily angry about the delays, because who wants to get on a plane that has a mechanical problem, or fly with lightening crashing all around, but I really think they could have compensated us a bit more, like maybe a hotel room.  Or at least a meal voucher.

Even bag of peanuts would have been greatly appreciated.

So they booked us on an 8:30ish AM flight which was the first flight to Mobile where our truck was, and our only option was to find a quiet corner of the airport to get some sleep.  Apparently there were a lot of people in the same boat because there were bodies lying all over concourse A.  Almost every row at every gate had someone, and I just did not feel comfortable sleeping across the aisle from a total stranger, so we found an unoccupied corner and lay on the floor with all of our belongings around us, strangely reminiscent of the homeless people I had seen in New York earlier that morning.

I mean the morning before because we were now in a new morning.

(And in the past when I've seen people sleeping in airports I have always thought to myself "I could never sleep in public!")

(But when grandma and grandpa need sleep, they need sleep.)

But before we nodded off to dreamland ,  Richard asked me if I got us seated together, and I was like "Are you kidding?  We're lucky to even get on the flight at all."  Then he said "give me those tickets" in that voice that can be kind of scary if you didn't know he was really a gentle giant, and he left for the ticket counter.  I don't know what he did but he came back with us seated together, two delta blankets, and two meal vouchers for $6.00 apiece, which we were REALLY excited about.  (Free food always puts a smile on our faces, even in the worst of circumstances.  Wheeeee!!!!)

So we slept surprisingly sound for a couple of hours. (My apologies to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport for all the bodily noises coming from the corner of gate A-27.)  We got up feeling and looking completely grungy and gross (kind of like homeless people), but ever ready to spend our $6.00 meal vouchers at Dunkin Donuts.  Then we freshened up ever so slightly in the bathroom, but we were all "WHO REALLY CARES!  WE'RE GOING HOME, TOTO, WE'RE GOING HOME!"

Great big bubble burst just ahead.

We went to our gate to wait for our flight, only to hear about five minutes after we sat down that it had been canceled (not even delayed--canceled), and would we please go to the nearest Delta ticket counter where they would gladly re-book us. 

I can not even tell you how tired and deflated we were.  Our vehicle was only a five hour drive away, and I mentioned that we should just rent a car and drive there or we may never see Buckatunna again.  Richard went to the ticket counter and re-booked us, scored two more meal vouchers, and we were placed on a stand-by flight around 9:30.  At 9:15 the board showed that the flight had been delayed until 11:30.  It was at that time that we decided that we had had enough of this hell called flying, and we made our escape in a rental car.

But not before spending our vouchers at Sbarro.

And I don't know if we were supposed to return the blankets or not, but we didn't.

Take that Delta.

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Things And Stuff

Just a few quick lines while I stay completely off task today.

1.  A couple of weeks ago, Brayden got his first haircut.  And since this was a very important "first" in his life, he had a small entourage accompany him to the salon, which was mom, dad, Grammy and Lolli because it takes a village, people, it takes a village.

And he only had two small meltdowns during the whole 15 minutes process.  I don't think he really knew what was going on at first, but you could definitely see his countenance change the second he realized that "SOMEONE HAS BEEN CUTTING OFF PART OF MY BODY FOR THE LAST THREE MINUTES!  MOMMMMMMMYYYYYY!!!!!" 

It was so darn cute.

But he was handed a water bottle which always makes losing part of your body seem like a little game, especially when you get to squirt your daddy and no one is telling you it's a no-no.

Fun times.

2.  In other news, the hot is here, so there is a lot of suffering and complaining going on at my house.  And it's dry, too.  So dry that I have not had to mow for like three whole weeks, which is just unheard of in the South. 

3.  Right now I'm doing what a lot of people do when they are supposed to be doing something they really don't want to do so they do something else.  I'm avoiding packing because I'm flying, and I have resolved in my mind that I will NOT check a bag even though I am going to be gone a whole 63 hours.  I have never not checked a bag, so trying to make it all fit in a carry-on and a small personal item will be an exercise in making wise choices.  But I remain committed to not pay $50 for the privilege of hauling clothes and accessories halfway across the country that will not be worn, because this is what always happens.  I am a habitual over packer.

So I've got to make this work.  Somehow.

Wedge sandals sure do take up a lot of room, don't they?

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

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Mavis Beacon Please Save My Marriage

Recently, I got a nightstand which has transformed my whole bedroom experience for the better, and my husband's for the worse.  And not for reasons that may or may not be coming to your mind right now, so please don't think of anything until I explain.  Not that anything is coming to your mind, I mean it shouldn't be, except when someone says a phrase like "transformed my whole bedroom experience," things just sometimes pop in the mind.

Your mind should be blank at this point.  Thank you.

For some reason, when we bought our bedroom suit twelve years ago, we only bought one nightstand, and for some other reason completely unknown to me, my husband felt like it should go on his side of the bed.  So I have been nightstandless for twelve years.  And I didn't know what I didn't have until I had it, then it all became clear to me what an invaluable piece of furniture a nightstand is.

I now--get this--have somewhere to set a glass of water.  I have somewhere to put my glasses.  I have a lamp which illuminates the written words of a book if I choose to read in bed, and then I can put said book in my very own nightstand drawer.  

I have my own drawer.

But the best thing is that I now have a place to set my computer once I have done whatever I need to do on it.  And this is the part that is making my husband miserable. Because I have been bringing my computer to bed with me. And this is a problem.

And if you think I'm going in a certain direction with this, I am still not going in that direction, so will you please blank out your mind again?  Thank you.

The problem with bringing my computer to bed is that I type.  But it's not typing that bothers him.  It's my typing that bothers him.

So I was sitting in bed the other night, just typing away without a care in the world (In the bed!  Next to my nightstand!), and I suddenly had this eerie feeling that I was being watched.  So I looked at him and indeed, he was staring at my fingers with somewhat of a disgusted look.  So I asked him what the problem was and he said "You're a hunter and pecker, aren't you?"

"What?"

Then he went on.  "You don't know how to type, do you?"

"Uh, I'm pretty sure I'm typing here.  What are you getting at?"  I was starting to feel a little defensive.

"How did you get through college?" he asked.

"My sister typed my papers, thank you,"  I shot back.

"I can type without looking," he boasted.  "You know, you're supposed to type without looking at the keys.  Didn't you ever take typing in high school?"

Good grief, let's just pick your wife apart and watch her bleed to death all over the keyboard.  (I cannot believe this subject has never come up in our whole married life until now.  There is a good possibility, though, that he may not have really noticed my poor typing skills.  We didn't get a computer until 2002, and it was a desk computer stuck in the spare bedroom where I spent many lonely hours learning the Internet.  I upgraded to a laptop in 2009, so it hasn't really been that long that I was able to move out of that dark and dreary dungeon and type from our loveseat which is across the room from my husband's lounging place of choice, the couch.   SO, my hands have been hidden from his view, and with the TV going loud which is the usual scenario in the living room, he really may have not noticed.)

(Or this.  He has noticed and it's been driving him batty, but because he loves me so much and does not want to hurt me in any way, he has held back.  Obviously he is naive enough to think that his disapproval of my typing skills will in some way make me feel bad.  Good one.  I think me typing in the same bed not two feet away was more than he could take and he just snapped.  At least in the living room, I'm on the other side of the room on a completely different couch.) 

So he went on to explain that I didn't know how to type correctly .  And then he said that I "hunt" and "peck" all over the keyboard.  And I challenged him that he was making that phrase up, but while we were discussing it, I pecked the term out in my Google search engine and there it was, right there in the Urban Dictionary.  (Truthfully, I'm pretty fast with my pecking, so I'm not sure what the problem is.)

I asked him if me typing like I have hooves instead of fingers would have any impact on our relationship as man and wife, and his response was "Do you want me to teach you how to correctly type?"

I'm taking that as a yes.

So it looks like I am going to have to turn to Mavis Beacon for help in salvaging what's left of our shattered marriage. 
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All Aboard!

My mother asked me the other day if I was aware that I have not blogged since April 11.  Yes,  I am painfully aware.  The last few months have been a blur and the only thing that is really standing out to me about my life in April and early May is that I watched so much royal wedding commentary that the voices in my head are still speaking with British accents.  But I think I can focus long enough to do a recap of what is freshest in my mind, which would be our trip to take Brayden to see Thomas the Tank Engine a week or so ago.

The real Thomas.  In real life.

So all of us along with Isaac's mother, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew drove south to Silverhill, Alabama, to meet our cheeky, blue friend.

(I mean, how LUCKY are we that the REAL Thomas came so close to where we are since he lives all the way on the island of Sodor in the Irish Sea!)

(And you'd have to be up on the whole Thomas scene to get my "cheeky" reference above.)

In fact, we skipped out on church in order to leave by 11 AM so we could have hours of endless fun before our actual train ride.  And it only cost us $23.00 apiece, plus food, gas, ice cream, souvenirs, and a $6.00 lemonade, which is a bargain considering all the beautiful memories we will cherish, like this one:

 






















And this one:

And this one:

Oh I totally kid!  We had a fantastic day and the meltdowns were few and far between.  Especially mine.  The weather was absolutely perfect, and it was mentioned more than once that we simply could not do this in July or August because the heat would just be too unbearable.  

(I was the one mentioning that.  Unlike the pain of childbirth which fades into a foggy memory because you get something beautiful from it, I have not forgotten the pain of last summer.  I remember the Alamo, darn it!)

And this trip marked a couple of "firsts" for Brayden that my daughter brought to my attention.  His first real outing  (never mind that we all went to the beach last year--I have been informed that that was a vacation, not an outing), and the first time he got his hand stamped.

Precious milestones, people.  The next thing you know, he'll be getting his first tattoo.

(It was also a first for me.  The first time someone ever looked at me like I was a child predator.  It was completely innocent, though.  I thought I was doing a good deed by taking pictures of Brayden's cousin jumping across the hay bales in the hay bale play area.  And after I had snapped about ten or so pictures, I really looked at my subject and it turned out that he wasn't Brayden's cousin at all, but some other little boy who I didn't know from a bar of soap.  Isn't that just hilarious?   Not to his mom and dad who were staring at me kind of...I don't know...scathingly.)

Would you believe that the highlight for Brayden was not the actual train ride?  It was the tent where all the toy trains were.  He and his cousin just loved. that. tent. 

They would have been quite content to stay in there all day.  It was a very unfortunate decision to pull them out of there to go ride the mini-train.  Now THAT evoked some blood curdling screams, let me tell you.  Never pull a little boy away from a train table in public.  

After the mini-train was a visit with the fat controller himself, Sir Topham Hatt.  To be honest, our little guy wouldn't have anything to do with him.  I tried to explain to Brayden that he needed to put on his happy face because after all, we HAD skipped out on the house of the Lord to take him there, and a good attitude was in order on the Sabbath.  He didn't quite get it, though, and he totally dissed the Sir.

Amber, however, was quite thrilled to get her picture made with him.

I put my husband in charge of videoing the big day.  And this is how that turned out:

 

I must say, the big train ride was quite relaxing.  We all put on our imagination hats and enjoyed the view as we rode nearly two miles an hour around the "island of Sodor."  (Wink) 

After that, we made our obligatory visit to the souvenir tent room where we spent a ridiculous amount of money buying Thomas paraphernalia, so our little guy could take home the magic of the day in the form of a song CD, a Thomas and friends blankie, and a very special train cup, with a high quality plastic straw I might add, which all together cost about $450.

But our little guy is worth at least that.