Zombies and Freezer Cleaning

Well, we have less than 72 hours left here in the Midwest metropolis of St. Louis, and I am holding up surprisingly well. I have put a moratorium on packing because there are so many boxes piled all over my house that I can't figure out what to do. And, all these boxes are stressing my dog out so much, he is licking all the fur off of his body and developing nervous twitches, so I am chasing him with a broom and dustpan to scoop up the chunks of hair. Don't feel too sorry for him, though, because my guilt about him is being assuaged with giving him quality dog food. Of course, because I am moving, it means I have to clean out the refrigerator, so he is getting lots of people food, too. However, the hot dog I gave him the other day was clearly past its prime because he took it, started gagging, and threw it down on Bunny's art project. She was not pleased. And, the kids are not digging this move, either, mainly because Mommy is only coming in one form - SCREAMING mommy. I wake up freaked out, and it only escalates through the day. And, then, the poor little puppies come and mention the fact they are hungry/thirsty, and I SCREAM, "Can't you take care of it yourself?" In addition to the main food groups of pretzels, apple sauce, vanilla wafers, and canned beans which they can serve themselves, they now pour their own drinks. The other day, my four-year-old climbed up on a cabinet, got a cup, opened the fridge, and poured himself some milk. He was pleased about all of it except the half gallon of soymilk on the floor, but it did remind me that they are not Brazilian street kids and I shouldn't expect them to fend for themselves all the time. Hubby dear is not very excited about my cooking offerings, "What do you mean you don't want Andouille sausage, sweet potato fries, egg rolls, and potato latkes for supper? They are all in the freezer, aren't they? Who cares if they match or cause indigestion?"

So, we have been having a sleeping issue around here lately. The main one is my kids are reading books that are too sophisticated for them, which is resulting in them being freaked out about stuff. For example, do you children worry about Minotaurs? Revenants? Mine do, because they have been reading too many fantasy stories lately. I told my children that zombies are afraid of salt, so Bunny coated her bed with salt and Monkey Boy uses a shaker as his comfort item during sleep. Now, a neighbor who I normally adore, mentioned that salt is not effective for all zombies, so I will have to figure out what to do about the other types. I can't make fun of them, though, because I slept with a foot long, glow-in-the-dark crucifix for two years. And my mother took me to see Amityville Horror when it came out (I was in third grade), and just in case you don't remember, the little girl had an imaginary friend named Lucy who turned out to be a demonic pig. Guess what my imaginary friend's name was? Lucy. That is right. I was then convinced that Satan was personally after me and if I missed one Sunday School session, he was coming in my bedroom window to steal my soul. I was hoping the crucifix worked on both demons and vampires. Zombies weren't a concern, but I have also never seen a zombie movie because I tend to absorb new fears visually.

Off to pack!

Oh, to have a Valium prescription

Went to Mississippi again. Managed to make it down in, oh, 10 hours. Mom asked to see the kids, and as she had cared for my dog for the past month, I decided to humor her and drag them along. What I learned - the piercing whine of, "I have to pee," is even worse than the one complaining of "how long, I am hungry, I hate this song, I am bored, X hit me." And the great thing is, it can go on for many exits. It is amazing how a kid that doens't have to pee at one exit, has to pee once you get on the on ramp and you have to get off at the next one. Well, this got tiresome after oh, 100 miles into the 350 mile trip, so the whine changed to, "Why CAN'T I have anything to drink? I can see the bottle RIGHT THERE. Please, please, please pass me some. I promise to not have to pee if you just let me have one little drink."

When I was in high school, my father was stationed at the United States Military Academy. My parents' divorce wasn't great, but my mother always had no problem with visitation. Basically, one week after school finished, I was sent to Daddy to return one week before school started. They never bothered with holidays/weekends. West Point, NY, 4,000 cadets and me. True, they all left soon after I arrived, but for a few glorious days, it was me and a bunch of men in uniform moving in formation. I loved it, and because of these trips, my accent is not as thick as is used to be. Anyway, I remember after one of these visits, when I returned home, I realized something. New York City radio stations NEVER talk about "pork belly futures". And they never advertise herbicides, fungicides, or insecticides. And no one ever wore a baseball hat advertising seed companies. And, most importantly, no one got to watch this on a regular basis:

crop dusting

I am so immune to them that I didn't even notice until the kids yelled about the crashing plane.

Mississippi isn't perfect, but I realize that one way it is totally in my skull is I only relax in places that are completely flat. And Mississippi definitely doesn't look like this:

Sirens

Why? Well, water doesn't flow in Mississippi. It slides. And there isn't one freaking rock in that state that wasn't brought in from somewhere else. Our gulf coast beach was imported because there are no rocks nearby to make sand.

Our water looks like this:

swamps

or like this:

Catfish ponds

Just so you know, they typically drive a tractor around the pond spraying dogfood in there and the lake looks like it is alive.

Because I am obsessed with beauty pageants a bit right now, I have to tell you a story about one. Growing up, watching beauty pageants was a ritual for me. Loved them. But then one year, Miss Mississippi was in the finals, and her question was about her unusual hobby. It was grappling. Drawing a blank? Here is an instructional video. Skip about 3 minutes in.

Fishing Mississippi style

Oh, and it is flooding a bit in Greenville, too.

floods

The guy doing this is the most irritating person I have seen awhile, but it has some good images of Mississippi.

Delta video

We are going to be moving and I think it is possible I will ignore this blog even more than I have been lately.

The Perfect Boy Birthday Party and a Circus

Monkey Boy just had his 9th birthday party. I will not be a mother who says that time flies because I honestly have no memory of life before my kids. I am not sure if there is a relation to the amount of bourbon that went down in the years before the kids, but I don't remember a pre-mother identity. Monkey Boy invited 7? 8? masses? of boys for a Construct/Destruct birthday party. First of all, the boys were given a huge pile of cardboard boxes, a bunch of tape, and told to just use it for whatever. This went well for about 45 minutes, then it degenerated into a free-for-all that involved screaming at the sisters, violence, and water guns. After they were completely soaked, they were given electonics and their very own screwdrivers (love dollar general - a whole set for a buck) and told to figure out how things work. For some, it involved smashing, for others, it was systematic organization of screws and reducing it to the smallest parts. They didn't learn a dang thing, but I now have lost of toxic electronic parts to figure out what to do with them. All in all, it was by far the cheapest part ever. Monkey Boy and his compatriots were busy for 2 solid hours and I didn't have to deal with people in stuffed suits giving me bad pizza.

Yesterday the big two and some friends and I went to the circus. I haven't been to the circus in forever, mainly because I take a hard stance against performing wild animals. I don't mind dogs doing tricks, but I don't think that elephant really wants to stand on that ball. This circus had dogs, horses, and goats, and all the animals looked happy. And, it had the Flying Wallendas! My mom used to tell me about the Flying Wallendas and their gruesome fall, so I was all pumped to see them. And they have a VERY ATTRACTIVE batch of genes. And if you put ANYONE on a trapeze, I will watch. I still mourn the loss of Circus of the Stars and Erik Estrada being shot out of a cannon, and I would watch it again if it came back. They had a fantastic clown (who was a Wallenda cousin), and St. Louis has a local circus school and those kids are professional. These kids can jump onto the back of a moving horse, jump rope on the back of said horse, etc. I was wishing I had stuck my kids in it because then I could live through them. They have exercise classes for adults. Can you imagine crunches on a trapeze. The pain...The kids' favorite act was this man who could juggle his children with his feet. Seriously. He is like a sixth generation foot juggler, and I am not sure Monkey has plans for college anymore. It was great.

Off to Mississippi tomorrow morning. No storms forcasted. No illnesses. Just a dog pickup. This time I plan to count the dead armadillos. I am betting I hit 100.

I Get To Be the Fried Chicken Queen!

So, two of my favorite books about the south are Queen of the Turtle Derby by Julia Reed, the head writer at Vogue and who also happens to be from my home town, and the Sweet Potato Queen's Book of Love by some lady from Jackson whose name I am blanking at the moment. Anyway, both of these women love the concept of getting to be a queen and wear a tiara, especially if you can do it for something stupid or give it to yourself. Now, not to degrade those women out there who are former beauty queens, Mardi Gras presentees, or debutantes, but DANG. Y'all just didn't pick the right events. I want to share with you REAL beauty queens. And check out their tiaras. Why would you WANT to be Miss America? She gets just a crappy, one-tier tiara, not like these gorgeous pieces of hair fluff. I am just not sure if I would really want to be a sawmill or meat pie queen.

Queens


And the funny thing is, most of these women are actually attractive. But how can you use "Cracklin Queen" on your resume? Yes, I was the queen of deep fried pig skin, and she didn't even get a CROWN. No sparkles, either. I bet she didn't have any real competition. I remember one time I was in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, for the summer and I happened to be at their county fair watching the beauty pageant, and well, some of those young ladies looked like they fell face first off the back of a tractor, and their gowns had NO SPARKLES. If you don't like shiny stuff, don't try to be a beauty queen. Go for the fluffiest sheep award. Beauty queens must have shiny stuff, good posture, no fat flipping over the top of their underwear, and really, really good hair. And colored eye shadow. Yet another example of how the South doesn't need to rise again since we are already far above other parts of the nation in our beauty queen training. Can you imagine asking someone in say, Idaho, about beauty pageant advice? Now, as I peruse these queens, I find it hard to pick which one I am most jealous of, so I would love if you would put in my comment box which crown you want to claim, or if you are male and so inclined, who is your favorite. Thanks to the blog Deep Fried Kudzu for sending me to these lovely girls.

And I was having a pretty good day today, until my husband pointed out that my yeast allergy prevents me from drinking beer. Oh, well, at least there was not an allergic reaction to grapes.

Time to learn the Baltics!

You aren't supposed to freak out over Lithuania. It is the other two - Estonia and Latvia. Here is the Estonia link on Youtube and the Latvian link is the pirates on the right. I still have the pirate song embedded in my brain.

Estonia


I am starving here. Right before I left, in yet another visit with the snake venom doctor, I gave up a gallon of blood for allergy tests. The results were available when we came back, and it will be possible to eat, but the fun is gone. The foods I am allergic to and can eat no more than twice a week: yeast (no more bread, pretzels, etc.), bananas, garlic, dairy. I have to give immediately and forever more - rice. Rice is considered a hypoallegenic food, but I know for a fact that it makes me feel like a run-over armadillo whenever I eat it. I always assumed it was the accompanying beans. And, if I trust my new internet knowledge, rice can be a scary one to have because from one exposure to the next, you can go from gut cramps to anaphylactic shock (or however you spell that word). And all I want in the whole wide world is a piece of cheese toast. I know it could be worse - I could be allergic to pickles, or wheat, or soy, or nuts, or (ahem) mayonnaise, but dang, it is making life complicated. I had no idea that yeast was in so much stuff. And rice. I love food labels.

Guess where I am going this week? Mississippi to pick up Pete, the wonder dog. He has been shedding all over my mother's place of abode and rearranging pillows, and even though she knows he is awfully darn cute, she is sick of his hair in her food. Joy, joy, joy another eight hours in the car.

Oh! I am planning the best birthday ever for monkey boy. It is called the Build and Destroy Party. I originally had visions of wood and nails, but I have modified it to duct tape and cardboard. The boys are going to be given their own personal roll of duct tape, and a huge pile of cardboard boxes, a couple of pair of scissors, and then be ignored for 45 minutes. When they finish their peacefully, team-organized, masterpiece, they will each receive their own set of screwdrivers ($1 at dollar tree) and a Goodwill appliance that they can spend the next part of the party taking apart and maybe? putting back together. And Monkey doesn't even want a cake. He wants an ice cream bar. I am loving this party. Whenever I show up at a business to beg for boxes, I always find a man, tell him the theme, and he happily starts looking for cardboard. Nothing like endorsed destruction and creativity combined to get the testosterone pumping. And, just because I am clearly nuts, Monkey is getting his own personal pocket knife because he wants to take up whittling. His sister is already ordering furniture for her doll house, and he agrees to provide it.

Boo's cute quote of the day, in response to "where do all these kisses come from?" My stomach is just full of them, and I have to give some away.

Regardless of what my husband thinks or my own children's opinions, they are living with my forever. Well, that is not true. My first "run away" threat happened today. Monkey got mad at me when I told him he couldn't read a book until he did his schoolwork, and so I was labeled as MEAN, and he was leaving. I remember doing this to my mother, and she packed my suitcase with roller skates, but Monkey boy only made it to the tree in front of our house. He came back later and said he didn't run because he was too hungry. If it was always so easy. The funny thing is, his sister who generally considers him to be a boil on the butt of humanity, was in tears and went searching for him. She was appalled that I just kept eating my yeasy, cheese, and rice free hotdog and was not properly distraught.