I'm telling you, this was a hard choice. Now I understand the agony that Doc must go through trying to pick a winner worthy of his peach (that sounds wrong doesn't it...)
I was having a rough week and I REALLY needed a good laugh (today will also be a zoo but hopefully not quite as much... oh no, I've just tempted the "Fates"... crap-in-a-hat!). And all y'all kindly delivered!
There are some seriously sick and twisted gifted and funny folks out there and I'm glad you were around to cheer me up.
I snorted Pepsi up my nose (Thanks a million Roger!), I let out a loud HA! (and caused the clerk who has a desk near my office to poke her head in to see if I was ok - Lu'... that was your doing) and I ended up smiling for a good part of my day and evening (which also had to do with my HABS winning last night- phew!) because of everyone of you (even you Sage just cause you're you) ... but I had to pick one:
The honours go to Coopernicus for a caption that I could actually hear in my head being spoken by a very proper Englishman on the BBC (or someone from Monty Python) which GREATLY enhances the experience:
"Direct from the West Hamptonshire University Team Charades Finals, this year's third place winner The Belton-Hatchley Family with their configuration of Bridge Over Troubled Water."
So, as I said, the winner gets a SURPRISE! and this...
Now for the surprise part... if you want it (and are willing to reveal your identity to moi), I have a little gift for Coop. But it has to be sent via snail mail, so to receive part deux of your prize (it's smaller than a breadbox but bigger than a lady bug) e-mail me your coordinates my friend and I'll head to the post office this weekend!
I greatly enjoyed this and I know I'll do it again (it's as good as having a guest poster!)
I'm one week away from being with my honey *sigh* and this song made me frolic around the house as I was getting ready this morning and sets the tone for today's mood... enjoy and dance! Go on... it can't be worse that the neo paleolithic dance troup (that was VERY funny Travis!).
Have a great Friday babies!
Love you all more than my luggage! Hugs, smooches and gropes!
I'm just not feeling it. I walked away from my computer last night uninspired and annoyed.
"But it's HNT!", I thought. And I just didn't feel it.
So I thought I'd put up a picture (that I found at random) and let you all come up with a caption for it... whoever is funniest, wins something I haven't decided on yet a SURPRISE!
Here goes... (hey! They're half nekkid.... although I have NO clue who they are)
Please make me laugh! PLEASE!
Oh... You get points for originality and straying from the obvious BTW...
Love you all more than my luggage! Hugs, smooches and gropes!
My moods in the past few months have ranged from silly and giggling , all the way to doom and dread. That usually happens when I take a peek at the laundry room and decide that maybe we should just move to somewhere warm, join a nudist colony (considering the picture on the left, me thinks the Chicklet might not mind) and be done with the need for laundry.
Whenever I start taking this notion too seriously I remind myself that they would probably make me give up shoes, sandals and boots (Oh the Humanity!) and that I cannot do. My regular reader has witnessed my fondness for footwear on more than one occasion (Guys, I promise the slideshow is coming... Aunt Bertha and Uncle Gus have nothing on this one!).
But in all actuality, most of the time I just feel an overwhelming void. And the impending shadow of Mothers Day is making it worse.
You really don't have to read on.. you might just want to skip to the video.. or hit the next blog button. What comes next isn't cheerful and is just a form of catharsis for me. I am decidedly not writing it to elicit any sympathy, but because I have to get it out. To those of you who have reached out to me in the past few days, knowing, I thank you. I love you much...
Since Mom's death almost 4 months ago, I've been covering up a lot of sadness. Trying to live, survive, move on, be brave, make people laugh and all that crap (the life goes on version of "rub a little dirt on it... and walk it off").I feel like the only thing keeping me tied to the real world most of the time is my beautiful, sparkling and precious daughter.
Every once in a while I get a good day, but sadness always gets to me sooner or later (usually the former). It lurks like the monster under the bed or the creepies in the closet.
I can't set foot in my parents' house without feeling sick to my stomach. There are too many memories there. And although you might think it to be comforting to be surrounded by memories and things that are associated with a loved one who has passed, for me, in this case.. it just isn't. Not so many of them at once. That was my mother's house, it feels hollow and dead without her. She hadn't lived in the house since last summer when we she started getting sick and had to be rushed to the hospital. But somehow, it still felt like she was there.
I've gone through the motions of every holiday and special occasion that was important to my mother since her death...
I went through the motions of Valentine's Day because of Chicklet... but to me, it was just the one-month anniversary of my mother's death.
I was grateful for my ex-mother-in-law who hosted a party for my daughter's birthday. I just couldn't do it, she knew... I'm certain of it. She knows the pain of losing a mother, she's gone through it herself.
The time Chicklet and I got to spend with my sweet friend Mary and the ever charming and darling Alex (aka Bug) meant more to me than she could have ever imagined. I Love you Flygirl. I was grateful to wake up in a hotel, on a trip with my Chicklet on Easter morning, just the two of us... it was unlike anything we had ever done while Mom was alive. I don't think my father and I really wanted to celebrate his birthday either... Birthdays were Mom's thing, she got the cake or made it, and made sure we had cards to give. But, Chicklet and I drove together to Dad's house (I can't get used to calling it that) because Mom would have wanted me to, and Chicklet wanted to give her Papou a birthday kiss.
St. Paddy's day was an exception because it has always been big for me and wasn't part of Mom's main holidays. So, that one holiday, I gladly participated in. It was wonderful seeing Chicklet's enthusiasm for it. And she and I started new traditions. Life goes on ... we rubbed some dirt on it and walked it off.
And now I find myself on the eve of Mother's Day... Chicklet has made some presents for me at school, and I know they will be beautiful and I will cherish them.
I miss Mom but I know she would give me hell for moping on Mother's Day. I'll just focus on Chicklet's joy and hold her tight.
I really do apologize if you actually read through this and it harshed your mellow. Rub a little dirt on it.. and walk it off.
We may as well laugh... Mom loved to...
So, as Mother's Day is almost upon us...
I haven't met a mother yet who hasn't felt that eye-twitch... the one often triggered my a small child calling out repeatedly "mommy... mommy... mommy... mom... mom... momma... momma.." a la Stewie Griffin. Or the one you get as you're driving through traffic, late for work or an important appointment, or exhausted from a long day at work dealing with moronic questions and requests you want to answer by using the magic 8-ball... and your child finds the long lost whistle and proceeds to blow it with unadulterated glee as if heralding the coming of the Messiah. You know that whistle... the one that had been wedged and forgotten in between the cushions of the back seat along with a penny, a couple of Goldfish crackers (No!! Don't you put that in your mouth!!!), some mysterious goop - which may have been a grape in a previous life (they do not always turn into raisins it seems), and a rock. The plain ordinary rock that your child has decided holds magical powers as it is a vestige of an ancient druid temple and has found it's way across the ocean in some Viking's tunic (try explaining to your child that Druids and Stonehenge are not contemporary to Vikings.. it's a lost cause) ... yeah.. THAT rock! At that precise moment, your head feels like it's going to spin around like Linda Blair's and fall right off like the guy's head in that mint commercial. You just want to scream... and shove the child off the ice.
And then.. your child giggles... she tells you she loves you... your heart melts... and she lives to see another day.
A true Mommy moment.
Love you all more than my luggage! Hugs, smooches and gropes!
"A day without laughter is a day wasted."- Charlie Chaplin
I promised myself and a few people I would try and share more… a New Years resolution of sorts.. since this might be my final post for this year I thought I’d get off to a running start… Maybe this post will make it to the blog... we’ll see... at least I’m writing it.
Yesterday evening, three generations sat in a room and laughed together watching television. Nothing special about that usually, I mean families do that every day somewhere on this big planet of ours. The difference is that we didn’t watch in the family room, or the den, or the living room… we watched in the room my mother will most likely die in. We watched, we laughed, and that room felt like home. Who better than The Tramp himself to pull that off.
My mother watched and remembered times gone by, my daughter discovered the timeless genious of Charlie Chaplin and Life on Easy Street and I watched them both. And smiled.
For those of you not intimate with the full contents of the Luggage Hold, my mother has been in an extended care facility for some months now. A colorectal cancer we thought had gone into remission has spread. She had surgery some time ago, but the cancer had too strong a hold and this past year metastases were found on her lungs and thyroid. Chemotherapy was attempted but was not successful and her condition did not improve. All efforts to treat her were stopped this fall. Now… the focus is on controlling the pain.
I’ve taken off work since the week prior to Christmas to spend as much time with her as possible during the holidays, doing what I can to see that she is comfortable. She has been fighting and hanging on to the surprise of some of the staff … I don’t know what her unfinished business is, I don’t think I’ll ever know (love you Lee Ann). The weekend before Christmas we didn’t even think she would make it to her birthday on the 21st, let alone Christmas, but she fights… and I’ll take every day I have.
Two days ago Mom was in a deep sleep. I sat there as my daughter zipped around the halls of the infirmary making friends with people right and left, bringing smiles and laughter, in her Grandmother’s wheelchair. My Chicklet has been racing one of the residents and beating him every time. Then a wave of sorrow came over me, an ache… I honestly thought my mother might be slipping into a coma.. I’d been warned this could happen.. I feared I would never again see her open her eyes and smile at me. My daughter and I had been there all afternoon, dinner came and went… I waited...
Finally Mom woke up as I was stroking her hair… and smiled.
and pride
