Wasn't I a bad ass? *sarcasm*
This was one year after I had fallen off the back with NO helmet and suffered a fractured skull and concussion. I may be able to blame all my issues, problems, and short comings on this three-wheeler.
Thanks Dad.
There is a deeply ingrained thing in me. It's DEEP and it's not going away. I am not frugal. I am not thrifty. And I am sure as hell not cheap.
This realization occurred today in Mcdonald's drive-thru. We had to go to Mcdonalds today to get an ice cream cone for Parker, because for 53 minutes, he had on a shirt and shorts. This feat deserved an ice cream.
Anyway-
Brandon orders a sausage McMuffin without the sausage. So I go, isn't a sausage McMuffin without the sausage just an egg McMuffin? We look at the menu and figure out that an egg McMuffin has ham, so he could in fact order an egg McMuffin without the ham, but it costs ten cents more than the sausage one. He has been ordering his breakfast this way for years because it's cheaper.
I called him a cheap bastard. I said it with love.
This isn't the first time I have called him that. He is a deal shopper. He will buy things he doesn't need because they are ON SALE. His Ex is the coupon queen of Utah. She has her own segment on the news and everything. If that right there doesn't make us polar opposites I don't know what does. Not the being on the news part, the coupon part. I think she may have rubbed off on him… but that sentence is so disturbing it makes me want to vomit.
ANYWAY…. back to my story….
Brandon is a cheap bastard.
I am mortified if I have coupons. I feel like I have a note from the newspaper saying, "This woman can't afford full price so she'll need you to take a little money off the total." When Brandon calls to order Pizza he goes, "any deals today?" and I want to die! When we buy something expensive like all the furniture in our house and we hear the total, he always makes a comment like, "you better deliver it for that price." Or "Are you throwing in a TV with that?" And I want to die.
My blackberry is TRASHED. I want to go to the verizon store and buy a new one. Brandon insists its cheaper to buy online. I could go on and on and on with money stories. They are long and there are many and they happen daily. We love each other in spite them.
We have come a long way working through our money differences, but the McMuffin saga brought it front and center.
I wondered for a moment where I had developed this strong opinion about getting a deal….
I remember being eleven or twelve in the mini-van with my three younger brothers and both parents. We were sitting in the drive-thru at Arby's. My mom was telling my dad what to order. At the end of the instructions to my dad, she said, and you have to say, "I'm burned out on burgers" so we get a free roast-beef. To which my dad replied HELL NO. I will pay for the roast beef before I ever say something so stupid. All of us kids, being the fools that we are, jumped on my mom's bandwagon. If for no other reason than to hear dad say, " I AM BURNED OUT ON BURGERS."
"Come on dad," we chanted… and the more we insisted, the more irritated he became.
Mom continued to harp on him and we continued to beg and when we finally pulled up to the speaker, against his better judgement, Dad said, "I am burned out on burgers." The voice in the speaker said, " I am sorry sir, we are no longer doing that promotion."
My dad has a vein in his forehead, I have watched it my whole life to see how much trouble I am in, because when he is mad, you can see it pulse. Not a pretty sight. Well, Dad's vein was bulging in that drive-thru. It looked like he had a vienna sausage on his forehead.
Dad was mortified.
Embarrassed, pissed off, and fuming mad he drove us home. It was a very silent ride home with our curly fries.
My mom was a deal shopper and coupon clipper. She is SMART with her money. My dad is a money maker and a money spender. In my opinion just as smart. He works to earn it, so he can spend it.
While my mom will have money in the bank when she dies, I think my dad will have more memories. I am clearly my father's daughter.
I shared the "burned out on burgers" story with Brandon yesterday on the way home from McDonalds. He laughed so hard he damn near ran off the road. In fact, he laughed all day long about it. Last night he couldn't contain himself any longer. He phoned my dad and asked him if he would mind stopping on the way home from work at Arby's. He said something along the lines of, because we have so many kids to feed, I need you to get the best deal you can. They have a promotion right now, all you have to say is I AM BURNED OUT ON BURGERS.
And with his stern dad voice, my dad said, "VERY FUNNY BRANDON!" I know his vein was growing just thinking about it!
10
Mar
Dear Parker-
YOU may be the death of me.
Love, Mommy
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Dear Parker-
Why won't you wear clothes anymore? I love to buy you clothes. You now refuse to wear them. EVERY SINGLE DAY you wear your ugly shoes from Old Navy and a size four huggies diaper. PERIOD. I have given up the fight. When you look back at the family pictures and wonder why you never had clothes on, I will happily share what a freakin' nightmare it was to dress you.
Today we had some errands to run and it required you to get out of the car and go into public places. This required you to be dressed. It took both dad and I fifteen minutes of coaxing to get your clothes on. If I didn't know you, I would read this and say, "Beat his ass and put his clothes on. He is two, you are thirty eight. Come on!!" But no, not you. YOU FREAK THE F OUT!! You were inconsolable. You acted like we were cutting off your extremities one by one. Can you say HYSTERICAL? Honestly, you are testing the limits of my sworn sobriety.
Love, your extremely frustrated mommy
*********************************************************
Dear Parker-
You are OCD. If things are not perfect in your little world, you turn completely upside down and ruin the lives of those around you. If your velcro straps are not straight on your shoes, you bawl like teenage girl.
If there is a crumb, or a hair, or a spec of anything floating in your tub, you scream like an old lady and shout, "POOP POOP POOP" until we locate said foreign object and remove it from the water.
If the faucet isn't straight, if the volume isn't perfect, if the lights are too low or too bright, or if somebody other than the person you had in mind attempts to talk to you, pick you up, or help you in way shape or form, you flip your ever livin' lid.
Parker, you are hard as hell. It's a good thing you are cute.
Love, your very exhausted mother
******************************************************
Dear Parker-
A little conversation for you to enjoy. This took place today between you and dad.
Dad- Do you want to read this book?
Parker- "no no no book."
Dad- "This one?"
Parker- "no no no one"
Dad- "Show me which book you want."
…and you show him, and you're happy, and as dad is carrying you back to the chair to read he says, "Parker you are so opinionated."
and you said, "no no no pin-ay-ted!"
Yeah right!!
You are obsessed with books, trash trucks, fire trucks, busses, and the moon. You love taking pictures and making cookie dough with dad. You love your little sisters… sometimes too much and too aggressively. You love the car and coming with me everywhere. but I think it's only because you get to see trash trucks. You love diet coke and sunchips. You love to cook. You love to CLEAN! Your love affair with the vacuum is disturbing. If there is a crumb on the floor, you have a wipe, the broom, or the vacuum, ready to go in an instant. You are a neat freak. I think it may be OCD. Time will tell.
You love music. Classical/Jazz is your favorite. You love to dance and have amazing rhythm. The music at the beginning of Monsters inc. is your favorite. We play it over and over. You are talking more everyday. You can name all the members of your family and the housekeepers. Speaking of the housekeepers, you LOVE them. You help them clean throughout the day. I think you may drive a trash truck or work as a janitor. At age two, those would be your dream jobs!
I love you Parker man. You are the hardest two year old I have ever had, but I think you may be the most charming two year old on the face of the earth. That charm… it allows you to live one more day… everyday.
Love, mommy
09
Mar
missing
We had some friends over today. *SHOCKING*
They came from Utah. *Not so shocking*
It seems that only Utahns want to hang out with us. *Kinda sad*
Anyway… If you live in Utah and want to be my friend, I would love it! Please come down.
**********************************
This is my friend Jodi and her husband and friends. I love her! ( I hope it's okay that I publish this picture?)
She claims we met once in Utah a long time ago. Sadly, I do not remember. She has been reading my blog from moment one and we've become amazing friends because of it. Drama is NOT the only thing that blogs make…. they make friends too!
Ty entertained the heck out of everyone. Pickle walked around screeching like a Pterodactyl. The babies charmed and cooed. The other kids wandered in and out and I just plain enjoyed the adult conversation so much I may have grabbed their legs and sobbed when they were trying to leave.
I miss Utah. Okay, damnit, I don't miss Utah. I just miss having friends.
Last night we took a few kids and my dad out for some sushi, or in my case, a salad, and a movie. We saw Alice In Wonderland. Not the best movie I have seen, but it was an enjoyable evening none the less.
On the ride down the street Hunter was recalling one of his worst memories of living here in California. It was the typical "remember when" chit chat and Hunter chose to "remember when" the sewer backed up and filled our bathtub. He recalled the floating poop and toilet paper in the sewer water and Brandon wading through it with a bucket and roto-rooter at our house till after midnight…. It was a memory that I would never choose to recall. I clearly pushed that one deep in my mind, but Hunter seemed to remember every stinking detail of the entire evening. Kids are extremely weird that way, add poop to any occasion and the memory will be firmly stuck in their minds for the rest of eternity.
After the movie, we were loading the car and Bronson shut his seat belt in the door and couldn't re-open the door to fix it. I had his door child-locked because I had taken Pickle with me earlier that day to pick up Hadley from school. My dad was curious about this child-lock thing and found it fascinating that I could enable or disable the child-lock feature at will. I reminded him of the time that I ran over Ty with the car (that is a post for another time, or not, since I like to forget it ever happened.) and explained why I always engaged the child-lock whenever Pickle was a passenger.
Hunter piped up from the back seat. "That (running over Ty) was one of the most disturbing things that has ever happened."
I said, "Oh Hunter man, I am so sorry, That must have been awful for you to witness as such a little guy. I feel terrible that you were there. You had a hell of a childhood. Between that and your parents getting divorced, its a wonder you turned out okay."
Hunter's respond to that, "Honestly, the poop in the tub was worse than anything."
…. We laughed till our guts hurt. If that right there doesn't show the resilience of kids….
I stew and stress and worry constantly about the things my kids will have to deal with and the scary world we live in and whether or not they are going to turn out okay living in this day and age…. And the worst effing thing that has ever happened to Hunter is to watch poop shoot out the tub drain? I think my kids may be worse off than I ever imagined!
08
Mar
place holder
Since I think that very little is cuter than babies in a sink. I am going to let you all enjoy these two while I work on my next post.
Is this the cutest thing you have ever seen? He walked around taking pictures of everything…. with the camera facing the WRONG WAY!
05
Mar
Attraction epiphany
Laying in bed the other morning Brandon is rubbing on me and dragging his feet to get up for the day. In an attempt to stall he says, "I love your body. It's so sexy."
"Baby, you love my body and think it's sexy because this is the body you get sex from."
SILENCE
and I snuck out of bed while he was contemplating my deep philosophical brilliance.
Nothing else has been said about it. Honestly, I don't know if he even gave my words a second thought, but I have been second thoughting them for a few days. When thoughts start taking up too much space in my very cluttered brain, the only thing I can do to get rid of them is to write them out.
So lets talk about this. I think I want your take on my thoughts, but first let me give you a few more things to think about.
When I met Brandon, I fell head over heels in love with him. He was a complete and total stranger in more ways than one. HE WAS NOT MY TYPE! I had never been with a guy that wore a tie and worked in an office. I was mystified on more than one occasion at how on earth this happened and where this strange attraction came from.
I was married, for fifteen years, to a guy who could have been my brother, meaning he did the same things that my brothers did all my life. Being with him was comfortable right off the bat. He was my type. He was the only version of "male" that I knew. He was a guys guy. He smelled of exhaust and dirt. He worked construction. He played with snowmobiles and ATV's. He didn't own a pair of dress shoes. He didn't know how to turn on a computer. He was at home in the garage. He was the kind of man I grew up with my entire childhood and the man I spent 15 years married to.
He was my familiar and the type of man I would say I "was" attracted to.
Going from that to the polar opposite is hard to understand.
I went from being attracted to construction workers to being attracted to clean-cut well-mannered men.
Brandon on the side of the road in dockers and loafers…. It was love at first sight. I have never been able to explain it. I couldn't then, I can't now. We both just say that it was meant to be and it was, and still is, bigger than we are. But a funny thing happened after being with Brandon. I started thinking about all these clean cut well mannered men that I had never thought about before. People I would have never even pictured as the opposite sex were occupying my brain. Not that I was having fantasies about being with them, or even wanting to be with them, I was just, for the first time, aware that men in suits and ties, had penises and most likey had sex. *SHOCKING*
So, the original thoughts I had have turned into a long rambling mess, but I think the point of my confession is this, I think you become attracted to the type of person/type of body/ type of personality, that fulfills your sexual needs. If Brandon had been a short little fat man or a huge ripped black man, I think I would find myself attracted to that. I am in love with Brandon and everything he is. That means I love his body, his mind, his heart. I love the entire package and I am attracted to the entire package. He is a geek. I call him my wireless wizard. He can't climb widowmaker on a 250cc or build a house, but he can hook me up wirelessly no matter where I am. And he can make a mean homemade mac and cheese, one that is so good it makes you moan with every bite. And his chocolate chip cookie dough, it's to die for and he can make it in under four minutes. Also, he can convert USD to Naria and metric tons to gallons and barrels in his head. He is brilliant. Best of all, he can breathe on my neck and turn me to goo in mere seconds. He does it for me in every way. I am happy to say that nerds in flip flops are my new "type."
Talk to me. Are you attracted to the "type" of person you are with, or am I smoking crack again and none of this makes any sense?
Because, on the flip side of this equation, I wonder if the majority of people are attracted to exactly the opposite of what they are with. Maybe I am the freak and the norm is to want what you don't have?
Maybe it's 90% emotional and very little physical?
Maybe it has nothing to do with a type- Quiet, smart and sensitive, and more to do with a body- Strong, tall, blonde. Type- Wild, spontaneous and fun. Body- dark, lean, and perfect teeth. Type- rugged, outdoorsman, mama's boy. Body- 5'10 lean but ripped.
Maybe its all how they make you feel and nothing to do with what kind of person they are or what they look like at all.
I think I am having a break through right here and now on my blog! I see the light. This is it. I just discovered a truth about me. First Love paid a lot of attention to me. He cared more than anything about what was going on in my head. If he didn't know what I was thinking, he wouldn't leave until he did. He learned who I was real fast by talking to me for hours. I always thought he should have grown up to be a shrink because he was good at figuring people out and was a fantastic listener.
When I married The Ex, he was the "type" of guy I was comfortable with, but he never cared to psychoanalyze me and I never felt heard or understood. NEVER. After we fell out of love, I stupidly attempted to regain my first love. Looking back, it may have been easier to just see a shrink to feel understood. But, I probably would have fallen in love with the shrink and ended up in the exact same place.
When I met Brandon on the side of the road, he wanted to talk…… and we talked and talked and talked. He wanted to know me, inside and out, and for the first time since I was seventeen years old, I felt like I mattered to somebody. Truly, truly mattered. Shit, no wonder the sex was so amazing.
There you have it. That's the story of why I was attracted to a guy in a tie.
PS- I am aware that this post is all over the place. The stream of conscience blogging is what you get today.
PPS- You are all still welcome and encouraged to share your attraction stories because I would love to be distracted with a little sex today. THANK YOU!