Does how we say good-bye make us better pet owners?

So yah, the fricken turkey gift basket.

Because of budget cuts, there almost wasn’t one for the marketing committee to give away. But after much debate, the Marketing Head decided to make a cut in another area: office supplies.

Whew.

This year, the turkey toss-up was between a male employee, Steve, and female employee, Kathy, who have dedicated their lives to saving cats. Not as a cat-saving duo but in their own respective corners of southeastern Connecticut. The committee didn’t spend much time vacillating between the two. Steve, a middle-aged man who lost both his father and his wife in the last two months, was the clear winner.

What we did spend time on was the wording of the congratulatory card. Let’s listen in:

Co-worker #1: “We should keep it simple. Like, wishing you a happy holiday.”

Co-worker #2: “No, no. We should say, we hope you have a happy holiday.”

Co-worker #3: “Is that even possible? The man is grieving.”

Co-worker #2: “Fine. In this time of loss, we still hope you have a nice holiday.”

Marketing Head: “Closer, but no.”

Co-worker #2: “Take time this holiday to reflect on happier times?”

Co-worker #3: “Now is the time to think about happier times?”

Marketing Head: “Let’s not talk him off the ledge, people.”

Co-worker #3: “I heard he has 17 cats in his house. Are we sure he’ll even cook the turkey?”

Co-worker #2: “Take pause to reflect?”

Co-worker #1: “I heard it was only 11. How about, enjoy your turkey?”

Co-worker #2: “Wishing you the best?”

Co-worker #1: “From us to you, with warm holiday wishes?”

Marketing Head: “People. The man is now alone with his cats. A card might not be enough. What we need is someone to say something in the spirit of warmth. What we need is a personal touch. Co-worker #1 and Mrs. Mullet, you will give him the basket and say something warm from the committee."

Co-worker #2: “What about the card?”

Marketing Head: “No card. We mailed him two condolence cards. That’s enough postage.”

Co-worker #3: “But the card is in the gift basket.”

Marketing Head: “That’s besides the point. The man has gotten enough cards from us.”

So it was. Last Tuesday, after I ate my 5,987,678 salad, my co-worker and I wheeled the gift basket on a mail trolley down to Steve’s office.

Not only did he not want our "charity", he didn’t want to hear our warm wishes. Steve told us flat out that he joined a support group for grieving spouses, and that no one had any business feeling sorry for themselves, including him.

He told us that he buried his wife—he didn’t divorce her—and that after 18 years of marriage, he and his wife should be considered a success story. Tears were unnecessary. People should be happy for him.

Then he tried to tell us a story about his favorite cat, Fang.

Co-worker #1: “So you don’t want the gift basket?”

“NO.”

As we wheeled the gift basket back to the boardroom, I had a Carrie Bradshaw moment. Did Steve have a point? Is seeing your spouse in a casket preferable to seeing him/her in the court room? If something happened to Chuck, would I take solace in the fact that we’d been separated by the universe, not by marital discord?

My initial thought was no, feeling like a marital success doesn’t ease the pain of losing someone you love. Still, I kind of admire Steve's outlook. After spending almost 20 years with someone, seeing your time together as an achievement, and not something lost, is kind of sweet.

Unless he was sick as all hell with her. That also could explain the ease of his acceptance.

What do you think?

You want staging? I'll show you ^%$&ing staging

We had a very nice Thanksgiving. I only had to make out with, like, 25 people to crumb together half a cookie. It was worth it, except that one of those people had a cold and I've been sniffling and hacking for the last three days.

The perils of sucking face for sweets.

My cold put a big damper on our weekend plan, which was to make some progress on Operation Move. Remember how I mentioned in August that we were moving to Mulletville Lite?

We haven't gotten very far. For one, we haven't sold our house. My darling brother Ted, who stopped by yesterday, wondered aloud if it might have something to do with the fact that our dining room looks like this



"You've heard of staging, right?" he asked. "You have to stage your home."

Staging? Have I effin' heard of staging? This, coming from a 28-year-old bachelor who still sleeps until 3 p.m. Who has no idea how few able-bodied hours there are in the day when you work full-time, raise a toddler and get winded opening the mailbox.

Even if I had spent precious time staging, the house we're moving into-my father's old house, aka my childhood home-has been fraught with problems. Because of black mold, Chuck had to demolish the basement and air scrub it.

And my wannabe Bob Vila father keeps taking a sledgehammer to anything that looks even slightly off kilter. No sooner do we think a room is ready than we get a call along the lines of, "I saw an air bubble in the paint so I got the axe and tore down the wall for you."

It's madness; we need to abscond his keys.

Diddlydoo's Mulletville Lite bedroom looks like this



The dining room looks like this



But don't worry! Staging will save us.

I swear, siblings can be such peckerheads. You're helplessly staring up at the friggen summit and all you can do is waddle around base camp, cramming almonds and reduced fat cheese sticks into your mouth, and they get all HGTV on your ass.

Anyway, after some discussion this morning, Chuck and I decided that Operation Move will now be called Operation Move Later. Diddlydoo will be born in Mulletville. We'll move in January. With a newborn. In the middle of winter. On limited sleep.

That's when I officially change the name of this blog to "Vodka in my Vodka."

My kiss may have an ulterior motive, but I still love you. Honest

Chuck, my husband and blog manager, just informed me that my last few posts have been very angry and that I need to lighten things up.

Chuck, honey, I have some questions for you. Have you been living on these?



Do you forage for twigs and nuts every morning because you have been diagnosed with fucktational diabetes? Do you have nightmares you're going to give birth to a hard-boiled egg with peanut arms because everything you've eaten in the last few weeks has 4 billion grams of protein?

No. You come home and shovel leftover Beef Lo Mein down your hatch then wash it down with a Dairy Queen Oreo Blizzard and some Gatorade. I daydream about licking your empty cartons. I fondle them. I've named them.

Oh, whoops, lighten up. Lighten it way up, Mrs. Mullet. Deep breath.

Ok, here goes.

I want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving, especially the wonderful people I've come to know through blogging. I love all of you. I wish you a peaceful and memorable holiday. It warms the cockles of my heart to envision you gathered near the hearth with your darling families. It makes me so very happy to picture you casually popping stuffing and buttered rolls and pumpkin pie and cookies and party wieners and sweet potato pie into your satisfied, carbohydrate-laden little bellies.

So happy I could scream. (And possibly kiss all of your faces if only to allow a few errant cookie crumbs to drop into my own mouth...)

Eat a lot for me, ok? And if you happen to have a chronic seasonal masturbator in your family too, say an Amen for my dear Aunt Burty. She's up there hammering away, I'm sure.

Peace.

Dear Santa, All I want for Christmas is for you to have a soul again

I know I’m supposed to tell you whom the Mulletville Corp Thanksgiving Gift Basket Committee picked as its turkey recipient, but if I don’t write about what happened Friday night I am going to explode.

Chuck, Junior and I went to the West Farms Mall. I knew Santa had already arrived at the mall—he comes after Easter now, right?—I just didn't realize he had changed so much.

Did you know he up and moved to Narnia?



Hell ya. He's now shacking up with the Ice Queen. In his new digs, he has a magical throne that makes your butt cold when you sit on it (that was the helper’s enticement to try it out, not mine). Snow globes through which you can walk. Televisions that blare scenes from the new Chronicles of Narnia movie, Voyage of the Something Something.

Gone were the little wooden trinkets and jingling bells of years past. This Santa was 100% Disney-fied. Bigger. Brighter. Balls-to-the-wall action.

Of course Junior wanted to meet him. Of course. What pre-schooler doesn’t want to say hi to the man in red and inquire about his reindeer?

We made our way through Narnia and found Santa, who invited Junior onto his lap.

"Have you been a good boy? Do you know I like cookies? Wasn’t that last scene from the Chronicles of Narnia riveting?"

Yes, yes, yes, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp and Walden Media. I mean, Santa.

“Let’s go, Junior,” I said sweetly.

And then, from Santa, came this: “Do you like LEGOs or Hot Wheels, little boy?”

I didn’t know Junior knew race cars by a particular brand name, but he surprised me by saying “Hot Wheels.”

“Well. Then you’ll love the Hot Wheels Criss Cross Crash Speed Set! Make sure you ask for it!”

I grabbed Chuck’s arm. “Did Santa just name drop a specific product? Did he just tell our son to request a mother fucking criss cross speed set? Did he?”

“Yes,” Chuck said. “Santa just target marketed to our son.”

Junior climbed down. We walked away.

I felt dirty.

For the next few hours I couldn’t help but shake my head. The Narnia vomit was bad enough, but to have Santa ask pointed questions about Junior's toy preference and to then have him recommend a specific product was, well, disgusting. It confirms every feeling I have about what the Christmas holiday has become: over-commercialized, mechanical and soulless.

I kept thinking, Santa’s a sell-out. Nothing is sacred anymore. Nothing.

Over the weekend I contemplated calling the mall to ask how much Santa gets paid for his product pitching. I also wanted to know the name of the marketing company that dreamed up this let’s-get-Santa-to-market-specific-toys campaign. Not only because it is evil, but because they didn’t even execute the campaign correctly.

A helper should have been listening to the kids’ responses and should have immediately handed the kids custom coupons for the products for which they’d shown a preference. Then the company would have known how many of Santa’s pitches converted to actual sales.

If you’re going to sully the lap of the Big Red Man you should at least be able to track your fucking sales leads.

But maybe they were just dabbling this year, trying out the idea. Maybe next year Santa will be on the Pirates of the Caribbean ship, pitching Bratz dolls, and that’s when we’ll finally sink those last few inches to the murkiest of murky bottoms.

Then what?

P.S. I thought about writing a Letter to the Editor to share my experience but realized the nearest newspaper, The Hartford Courant, probably wouldn't run it, seeing how they sponsored the Ice Palace. Those pesky conflicts of interest!

It's that time again

Mulletville Corp's annual turkey send-off. We're meeting today.

Gobble, gobble.

Why my shoes are on the wrong feet and I’m lying face down on the front lawn, smattered pieces of brain in my hands

Prenatal vitamin: Take one hour before or two-three hours after meals

Blood glucose test: Take four times a day, two hours after beginning meal

Junior’s pre-op ear tube surgery instructions: Nothing to eat after midnight

Arrival of beeping garbage truck: 4:32 a.m.

Junior’s ear tube surgery arrival time: 8:00 a.m.

Major project at work: Teleconference in at 11 a.m.

OB-GYN ultrasound appointment to follow up on gestational diabetes diagnosis: 12:40 p.m.

Follow-up appointment at Mulletville Diabetes Clinic: 1:30 p.m.

Phone calls to family members/friends/post-op doctors to say “Junior is just fine”: 7

Average length of phone calls despite intentions to keep short by only saying “Mmhmm”: 12 minutes

Work files due at printer: 3:30 p.m.

Arrival time of yet another person who wants to look at my house but won’t make an offer because the street is too busy: 4:45 p.m.

Actual time work files were sent to printer: 6:15 p.m.

Number of fat cats crying to be fed: 2

Average weight of dirty dishes in sink: 7.2 lbs.

Ear drops for Junior: Three times a day in each ear for five days

Number of times attempted self-performed lobotomy: Not enough

I used to walk to school uphill both ways, and I loved it

I know I'm sinking into that eight-months-pregnant-and-perpetually-grumpy slouch, but every time this commercial for the 2011 Toyota Highlander runs, I find myself yelling obscenities at the television.



According to the moppy-haired brat, he "doesn't tolerate dorkiness very well." He disapproves of his family's car choice (there's poor Dad, washing the Dodge caravan in his white socks and sandals). The boy concludes by saying, "Just because you're a parent doesn't mean you have to be lame."

I hate this kid. I hate every bratty, spoiled, entitled thing about him. At a time when families are losing their homes, unable to pay medical bills, and worrying how they're going to put food on the table, I—as a parent—am supposed to give a shit that my kid doesn't think our family car is cool enough?

When I was a kid, my family's VW wagon had holes in the floorboards. During the winter months my father would wrap his legs in a blanket and hop to get into the car. My mother would hand him a cup of coffee for his drive to work. I remember thinking he looked like a worm, not that he was uncool.

Maybe that snot would worry less about being cool if he spent a week in Haiti, where cholera is claiming lives because people are bathing in and drinking water from street canals. Or maybe he'd like a free trip to Mulletville, where Chuck recently encountered a grown man crying at a Walmart register. The man finally had enough to buy his son a birthday present. The kid's birthday was back in April. The present was a box of LEGOs.

Times are tough. Family and friends are what matter—not that your damn minivan has streaming audio capabilities. That kid should be grateful he has food on his plate. And that he can see. What is he, a fucking sheepdog?

Ok, I'm done. For now.