I think I kind of look like a Gouda Gold

Damn you, snow! We were trying to throw a New Year's Eve party but now the people who were on the fence about driving up to Mulletville have climbed down off the fence and snowshoed back to their cozy homes to ring in the new year without us.

The cheese stands alone in Mulletville, my friends. So...very...alone.

Back to New Years. Since I don't do resolutions, I have four simple requests for 2009:

1) That it stop snowing so damn much.

2) That my birthday, which is in three days and for which Chuck and I have planned a date night, is more titillating than Date Nights I and II. (Would you rather have a quick synopsis? Date Nights I and II involved beer, Lens Crafters, Hell Boy and an 80-year-old named Corky. If we don't top that, well, I can't even go there. We will top that.)

3) That Junior start using the "l" when he says clock and the "r" when he says fork, lest people start to think he is being raised by perverted truckers.

4) That Chuck heartily accept his new role as a stay-at-home dad and that he greet me at the door with homemade dinner whilst wearing something sexy. And by sexy I don't mean skanky (there's a huge distinction, you know). And he better not start complaining about how we never talk anymore while I'm trying to enjoy my after dinner brandy. So annoying.

I think that about covers the necessities. If you find yourself up this way (we're just past the goat farm and grain store), feel free to stop in.

Happy New Year!

I love when Life gives you a good ole bitch kick

Remember how I wanted to break up with the nanny because I hated her slipper obsession? Well, I decided to try the old adage "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." So I got these for Junior:



Then Chuck, being the smartass he is, gave me these for Christmas:



(Those, too, are slippers. Is it any wonder that Junior cries, “Cookie! Cookie!” while trying to attack my feet because he thinks I am trampling the face of his favorite puppet?)



I even got Chuck a pair of slippers! (Normal LL Bean slippers, I swear).

We were all going to be one big, happy slipper-wearing group. Happily Podiatry ever after.

But Life had a different adage in mind, didn't she? Mmmm, yes, the ever popular "careful what you wish for." Chuck's boss gave him the pink slip today* which meant I had to have THE TALK with the nanny after work (I get home first and Chuck, well, he's a talker and a sucker which means he might have given the nanny a raise instead of ending things).

Aside from the heavy sighs and wistful looks, she took it well. As she packed up her cheese and—yes!—slippers, I kept wanting to tell her that it was us, not her. That with a little time things might work out differently and we may still get back together. We need a little space right now and yes, we need our keys back.

Sigh. I was really starting to like her (again). She brings her double stroller and she puts her own kid in the front carriage and tucks Junior safely in back so he's not dangling into the street. Who does that with someone else's kid?

I want her back! We can make it work!

I'm going to shoot some Jager and cry into my Cookie Monster slippers now.

* Sorry, honey. You'll make a great stay-at-home dad.

Are you a modern woman?

It’s over. It’s finally flippin’ over. Twenty people. Chez de Mullets. Heartburn. Headaches. A life-size Elmo. Old faces. New friends.

Well, I wouldn’t call them friends exactly.

My grandmother brought her new boyfriend, John. When I offered him coffee he shouted, “We finished eating. I don’t know why the hell we’re still here.” (He’s actually an improvement from her last boyfriend, who tried to charge my dad for a turkey he brought for Christmas—a turkey he’d gotten free from work.)

Aunt Flo decided to pop in and visit my niece, Sarah, for the very first time. She didn’t take it well; in fact, she and her mom left early because of it. Sarah was worried people would see the Kotex wrappers in the waste basket and know they were hers. I offered to casually announce that they belonged to me—as in, “Hey everybody, if you, um, happen to notice Kotex wrappers in the bathroom they are totally mine please pass the potatoes”—but she wouldn’t have it.

It’s funny how you forget the weight of those early coming of age experiences. Why, after Sarah left I realized I had completely blocked out that muggy afternoon in Maine when my cousin and I were at my aunt’s house and I butterflied into the vibrant, oh-so mature woman I am today.

I believe that when I came running out of the bathroom that fine day in 1987, my aunt was slinging one of my training bras across the room at her parakeet, Hank, who, incidentally, could whistle “Oh, when the saints.”

“Is this your Band-Aid?” she asked me.

After I sheepishly shared my news, she told me I could find a box of Tampax under the sink. When I politely asked her for a maxi pad, she told me that modern women didn’t use pads, they used tampons. Coming from a woman who lived in a double-wide in the woods of Maine—a woman who toted a 6-pack of Bud under her arm—this statement struck me as odd.

Nonetheless, I looked under the sink and found the Tampax, right next to my uncle’s collection of Hustler “magazines.” He may have been rolling joints on the kitchen table while I dutifully read the Tampax instructions; this is where my memory grows hazy…

…because using a tampon for the first time is nerve-wracking! There’s sweat, shaking hands, fear you’re going to mess up and end up with a tampon sticking out your nostril. What if you puncture your kidney? What if you can’t get it out? What if you just lost your virginity to a wad of bleached cotton?

Never mind a stoned uncle, heckling aunt and whistling parakeet outside the door.

I would have been thrilled with a Kotex and an aunt who offered to take ownership of my stupid little wrappers. Thrilled I tell ya!

Anyhoo.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. I like how WYM ended off her post-Christmas post: “Don't forget. Appreciate. Breathe in your life, hold it in and allow it to nourish your heart.”

And banish those horrid relatives who scarred you in your impressionable years to the bowels of hell!

Amen.

Wordless till the weekend

It's almost time for Junior to hang up his reindeer hat. Happy holidays!

I can make the runner stumble

Well fricken well.

Not only did I announce to the blogosphere that my friend Jen has a bun in her Easy Bake Oven, I also announced it to mutual friends who read my blog unbeknownst to me (you sneaks!).

What’s worse is that one of those friends happened to mention to Jen that her wonderful, faithful, darling friend moi has been featuring her for the last week.

Thankfully Jen was very understanding this morning—perhaps because I complimented her good looks so profusely. Heh, heh. But I do feel I owe her an apology. To make amends, I’d like to tell you why Jen rocks my world (am I a butt kisser? Maybe).

When Jen and I shared an apartment many years ago, we were very poor (this is the year she ate microwave popcorn for dinner), so we took a job catering a Christmas party in Greenwich for some extra money. The party was held at the home of a former Talbots catalog model and her very handsome, cowl-neck-sweater-wearing husband.

While Jen drove to the party, I drank the Mr. Boston Blackberry Brandy we’d picked up at the package store. When we got to the party (sprawling mansion doesn’t even begin to describe it), Jen slipped on the ice as she was pulling up her thigh highs (don’t ask) and fell into the wooden clothes drying rack she had in her trunk—eye first.

So there we were, me reeking of cheap booze and Jen holding one hand to her slouchy thigh highs and the other over her eye, which was bright red thanks to all the broken blood vessels. In a word: smokin!

I don’t know about you, but when I start to drink I like to keep going (especially if I am offering cheese puffs to very wealthy people), so we hid a bottle of brandy behind the magazines by the toilet (apparently rich people read in the can, too). In between ogling women’s Christmas diamonds and prepping brie bakes, we would take turns sneaking to the bathroom.

I don’t know about you, but when I start to drink I get belligerent (especially if I am offering cheese puffs to very wealthy people), so I started taking too many trips to the bathroom (you know, salve to my pauper wounds, blah blah). When the caterer asked Jen if I was all right, Jen sweetly told her I had a “killer period” and needed to frequently change my female products.

This is the best method for shutting people up: Offer them more than they want to know.

But the horrible woman was on to us. Maybe it was my slurred words or the fact that I stopped taking no for an answer when someone didn’t want a coconut shrimp. (Yah, I kind of just stood there awkwardly and swayed. Rich people hate that!) She banished me to the door and put me on coat duty.

Which is when I had the pleasure of taking the coat of Jen’s daytime boss, a man who’d have a hissy fit if he discovered Jen working an extra job because people would call him miserly, and we all know that people in small towns talk.

So Jen and I did what any drunk, cycloptic, faux-menstruating duo would do: We lifted a bottle of tequila and got the hell out of there.

Is it any wonder I love her so? Jen, this is for you.

Mission Monday

Welcome!

If you haven't already, click over to Jay at Halftime Lessons and Deb at Dirty Socks and Pizza and enter the Mission Monday Grand Prize Giveaway!

Finally, spam for women

Chuck just told me that today is Global Orgasm Day. Didja know that? Huh? Huh?

There's a whole website devoted to it, in which they explain that the day exists to "effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible instantaneous surge of human biological, mental and spiritual energy."

Uh huh. They also take donations. The currency is VISA, my friends, not um, a global moan. The donations allegedly support Global Orgasm for Peace. Holy crap, and I thought the Goodwill was important.

So get off the computer right now and support peace by schtooping your loved one (or whoever the hell you want).

But wait! One more thing. Did you hear about this?



Yes, according to Health magazine, a new drug called Libigel (ew, how unsexy) has helped women experience a 238% increase in satisfying sexual experiences.

Is that number even mathematically possible? I can't help but picture women rocketing through their roofs, shooting to the moon (note the black bars because this is a PG site).



The only thing is, who exactly told Chuck about this important day? It's not a guy conversation. I mean really, which one sounds more plausible?

GUY: "Hey Chuck, today's Global Orgasm Day bro! Pound beers! Yah!"

GIRL: "Ooooh, Chucky wucky, today's big bad Orgasm Day. Ooooh."

See, it's totally a chick line. And he did have that thing with a bonbon.