lo's laundry adventures OR reason # 712834 why i adore my mother

so while the fiance was away for the past few days, i decided to venture the hour north to visit my mom and stepfather. its always relaxing to go there for a multitude of reasons. usually, i end up there to do laundry instead of feeding the shitty machines in the basement of our building.
so anyway, on monday morning i was folding some laundry. i was the only one in the house as my mother was at work and the stepfather was in the garage with the step-grandfatherkindof. step-grandfatherkindof is also referred to as lucifer because he is a devious little frenchman whose english isn't that great but he knows how to say "sit on my lap" to both my sister and i. we usually just laugh it off and then run out of the room. anyway, during the course of my laundry the phone rang twice. the first time, i picked it up, said hello a few times and then hung it back up because there was no answer from the other end. i thought nothing of it. a while later, the phone rang again. story goes the same, EXCEPT for after i said hello the 3rd time, someone answered with what i can only describe as a if.i.don't.find.a.restroom.soon.i.will.shit.the.pants GRUNT. i was taken aback, but hung the phone up and laughed it off, thinking nothing of it.
when my mom got home, i told her about it and asked who in the world would call and grunt into the phone. her reply, "step-grandfatherkindof's girlfriend." she then went on to tell me that this woman doesn't speak english very well, which is all cool with me because its not her first language. the mom also informed me that the woman doesn't necessarily fire on all cylinders AND she has a drinking problem. at this point all i could think of was, wow three strikes and you're out. anywho, i said to my mother, "so does she have trouble talking because of the alcohol OR because she's just not all there?" my mother's deadpan response......"yes."

the man with all the toooooooooys

its the holidays, so holiday thought, kind of.

the title of the post is also the title of a beach boys christmas song if you must know, and i LOVED it as a small child. i remember the record jacket for the album. i believe it showed the beach boys decorating a christmas tree and they were all wearing the same outfit. even at 4, i knew that grown men wearing the same outfit was not normal. i'm a little upset, because now my beloved beach boys album has become standard muzak listening at the local rite-aid.

i like giving gifts better than receiving them. its not because i'm a martyr, its just because i'm really bad at the forced gratitude thing. i am more likely to congratulate someone on the extreme effort it took them to brave the lines at target to buy my gift over thanking them for the gift itself. i know, weird.

i don't like the stupid cinnamon scented pine cones at the grocery store. they put them out before halloween and they stink up the entrance until after new years.

new holiday drink alert. champagne and goldschlager makes a mean drink. AND its a new favorite because its one of those magical concoctions that takes two kinds of alcohol and makes them taste, ummm, not like alcohol. magically delicious.

the no doubt song, you can do it. i have been listening to it a lot recently, and i'm puzzled. its quite possible that gwen says "chicken do it" instead of "you can do it." i'm curious.

britney spears' little sister is pregnant. wha?? first of all, my parents would never allow me to LIVE with a boyfriend at 16 and secondly, i was still afraid of the penis at this point, so there would not have been any sexo. nothing says merry christmas like teenage mothers.

candy canes that are anything other than peppermint flavored or any colors except red and white are sacreligious.

this is the first year of my life that my christmas presents have been wrapped before christmas eve. i'm usually the one who waits until 9 p.m. to even start wrapping the mountain. and because i'm anal retentive when it comes to ribbon and bows, its a process.

i miss my dear friend who is in ecuador teaching english to short latinos. i sincerely hope the amoebas move out soon. come home so we can feed you yummy beer and thai chicken pizza!

giving some thanks

first of all, i never update this and i want to be better about it. i'll give it a go from this day forward. i figure i owe it to the .3 people who might actually read this. moving on now.

thanksgiving was fabulous. i'll provide a list as to why.

1) i made a yummy peanut butter cheesecake that was demolished after thanksgiving dinner.
2) i used to think my grandmother's cheesy prayer before thanksgiving dinner was well, cheesy, but its getting to be not so much anymore.
3) making wreaths with my mother and grandmother and alternating between laughter and tears.
4) the grace under fire that the women in my family have demonstrated.
5) being told i remind them of my beautiful amazing aunt whom we miss every day.
6) pounding out christmas carols on the piano and realizing i didn't forget how to read music.
7) watching the fiance drive a tractor down a hill with the 79 year old grandfather riding on the back. and then watching the 79 year old grandfather drive the tractor back up the hill with the fiance riding in the bucket.
8) helping my cousin give a newborn calf its first bottle.
9) shoveling shit out of a calf pen.
10) listening to crazy great uncle frank tell me that the fiance looks AMISH and then ask me "where did he park the horse and buggy?" uhhhh, smoke another one?
11) drinking said crazy great uncle's gift of cheap apple wine and getting a little buzzed with mom and grandma.
12) watching my grandfather tear up listening to the story of how i used to sit at his mother's feet when i was little and jabber about life, while she would nod and smile but not actually hear a damn word i said.

just a few things, but most importantly, seeing the man i love more than anything happy and healthy for the first time in too long.

'i can't spend your love at the grocery store'

i'm totally over this whole "semi-unemployed" thing. i don't really enjoy sitting still, although the divine miss e would probably argue that i do like to sit still. especially if it involves long periods of time in my towel. but anyway, unemployment sucks. i'm not getting as much done as i would like to and you can only spend so much time pounding the pavement and writing variations of the same damn cover letter.

i'm at that point where i'm seriously beginning to question the choice to attend an overpriced private college. on occasion it feels as though i paid/am still paying for some killer lessons in beer pong and bad drunk choices. sure, i could wax poetic about how college helped me to figure out who i was, and maybe in some way its true. but.......not really. the world i lived in during those four years was NOTHING like the one i live in now. i remember less about classes and more about drinking games. i can tell you how to get drunk on a friday night for less than ten dollars, but i'm at a loss when it comes to anything i learned in constitutional law 1, except for the day when the professor kicked a girl out for rustling paper around. that guy was a prick. i learned what is was like to have a broken heart and also to break one. yeah, sorry about that. i also discovered that i will be paying an additional 50% of my principal student loan balance, just in interest. since when did education become a privilege instead of a right?

you suck at life

its a terrible tragedy when people who truly want children are physically unable to conceive. it always seems like the people who would make great parents aren't able to become parents in a natural way. for those people, there are obviously other avenues toward having children both naturally and through adoption. but for some, even with these alternatives, it just is not possible. SOOO, when i read a headline that says "couple sues over twins, wanted baby" i get a bit riled.


my understanding of some of the basic facts of this case may be fuzzy because i didn't do any extensive research into it. basically, a couple from australia decided they wanted to have a baby, and so they chose to go the route of in-vitro fertilization. now, this is a horribly expensive procedure in the u.s. but apparently in australia, there are PUBLICLY funded programs to alleviate the costs. now, this couple signed a consent form saying that more than one embryo could be implanted, but told their doctor that they wanted only one baby. apparently more than one embryo was implanted and now the couple has THREE YEAR OLD twins, and they've decided to sue the doctor.


i can respect the fact that this couple got more than they bargained for, but filing a public lawsuit that involves your children and the fact that you didn't WANT one of them? can you imagine what will happen when those two children get older, because they will eventually find out about this. we live in an age where people know too much, so finding out about their parent's lawsuit is inevitable. i used to like australians, but now i'm going to have to re-evalute my position.

love my baby motha, i never let her go

i thought that since dmx is currently in hot water over dog stuff, that he might appreciate a post that serves as an homage to his late 90's hit. i remember listening to that song for the first time during week #1 at syracuse. i had a very white roommate from new hampshire, who had a penchant for gangsta rap. needless to say, my musical universe was rocked.

just the other day, i was thinking about how i haven't really come into contact with any new music that i've fallen in love with. it seemed like that happened CONSTANTLY in college, but i have a funny feeling that napster plus kazaa had something to do with it. now that i have to pay 99 cents per song on itunes, i'm a bit more careful with new music.


different subject entirely. definitely had an interesting weekend. played some beer pong, which i don't believe i've done it a few years. i actually didn't suck which made me thank my lucky stars for my overpriced education. made about 2 dozen cupcakes for my dear friend leaving for the dirty south, south america that is.

its more than a truck

money sucks. people who have it abuse it, and people who don't have it, want it for various reasons. this is part of the reason why i'm getting seriously disillusioned with all of this grown-up bullcrap. enough already, i just want to ride my bike with the spoke-clackers and play with my goddamn jem doll! i actually had two of them. both were given to me on the same birthday i believe, and if i remember correctly, a girl named jessica jordan gave one of them to me. jessica jordan and i competed in kindergarten about who would get to do ballet dances for the rest of the class. our teacher was only about 400 years old so i think she just didn't have the strength to argue with two little girls who just wanted to dance for charlie bellows (he's a different post altogether).
back to the issue at hand. fiance (lets call him mayer) and i have had, for lack of a better word, a poo-tastic year and a half. more has been heaped upon our collective plate than some couples experience within the course of a lifetime. and no, i'm not being dramatic. due to unforeseen circumstances, mayer has been unable to drive his beloved truck for about a year now. we still pay for said vehicle, insurance and all. but while examining our finances this past weekend, we both had an awakening. we realized that if we sold the truck, we could not only pay off our credit cards with the remaining cash, but we could pay for a large chunk of our wedding and also have a bit left over for a nest egg/rainy day. this is HUGE and exciting, but i'm sad about it. that truck, believe it or not, represents more than just a gas-guzzling monster to me. it reminds of much easier times, and at times, happier ones. i have memories of road trips and silliness. its totally corny, but during the formative first months of our relationship, mayer and i spent a TON of time in the truck we fondly refer to as "ortizzle dizzle." i've fallen asleep in that truck with my head resting against mayer and his arm wrapped around me more times than i can remember. the truck has hauled our belongings from apartment to apartment, survived a boston parking garage it NEVER should have fit into, moved the belongings of our friends. i've sung many a song to my beloved mayer sitting shotgun in that truck. its the place where i first discovered mayer's love for reggae and punk music. its even been the site of a few scandalous moments that should never take place in a car for obvious reasons.
i remember traveling route 26 to sunday river for skiing on a night when NO ONE was on the roads. there was literally eight inches of snow on the road and i felt nothing but safe while we ate pecan pie with our hands out of the plate it had been baked in. i have pictures of mayer driving, his right hand steadily gripping the wheel, staring straight ahead at the road, while smiling at me. whenever we were in the car for more than 10 minutes, i would always scoot over into the middle section of the front seat in order to be closer to mayer. it meant i could kiss him while he drove and attempt to distract him. i used to take the bus down to visit mayer on the weekends during the infancy of our relationship. on cold friday evenings during the winter, i always knew that when the bus pulled into the station, i would see the driver's side door to the big black truck open and mayer would pop out ready to greet me with warm bear hugs and fabulous kisses. ortizzle would be warm and cozy and we would head off.
i also remember the very first full weekend mayer and i spent together. my sister and a mutual friend drove me down to meet mayer. we spotted him circling the parking lot and soon saw that there were a dozen red roses sitting on the passenger seat where i was to soon sit.

i'm trying my damndest to remind myself that there are other trucks in this world. but for some reason, i'm having trouble letting this one go. its not just a truck. it represents a time when things were so much easier, and we were so madly in love and terribly naive. maybe its fitting that the truck will most likely be leaving us soon. maybe its time to move one to bigger and better things and jump-start our future. i guess i can thank the truck.