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.

Egad.

WE'RE BACK!!! As much as I hate to admit it since I went to neither the donkey park nor the banana museum (which I sadly think is no more, but I still wish I had their banana weathervane), I would actually rank this as trip #2 in terms of okayness. The other would be our wedding. However, we did have to get there. We are such rule abiders, so we rushed to get to the airport two hours in advance, only to be told that our flight had been delayed by four hours. Arrive in Newark, to be met by the lovely representative, who told us that we were not, in fact, going to Amsterdam, but instead to Portugal, where we would have an extra 6 hour layover. I was already so tired I could weep. Fortunately, the three little melons slept significant portions of the trip, so they were revved and ready to go in Lisbon. We paid a jillion dollars to store our luggage temporarily, and took the bus into town where we walked around. Lisbon is lovely, but there is only one direction - up. The whole time I was there, I kept thinking about Candide, the French novel, which is the only source of knowledge that I have about Lisbon, and that was "the best of all world" during the earthquakes. Lots of tiled houses which were pretty. Same ice cream they sell in Germany.

Arrive in Germany in time for the two hour drive to our rental house. By the time we get there, Monkey Boy has gone into slightly psychotic exhaustion mode where he is unable to stop talking or moving. Finally, at 2 o'clock a.m. after almost 24 hours of travel, the angels slept. However, Boo showed up literally with the sun at 4 a.m. to tell us the day had started since the sun was now awake. I immediately changed from like to dislike of our house since none of the rooms where the children slept had curtains so they were all early birds. I quickly taught them how to turn on the TV and what channels would teach them how to speak Telly Tubby German.

We stayed at that house for a week then moved to the farm. The farm was run by two delightful people, Rolf and Antje. The only bad thing I can say about this place is that it caused us to have to be decontaminated on the way back (nasty little box on the customs declaration about did you touch farm animals?). Basically, that meant those people that are gaurding us against food terrorism had to wash every pair of shoes we owned, which meant I had to pull all of our used underwear out of them where they were shoved in the nether, unreachable regions of our suitcases. Gak.

Monkey Boy has found his calling. He can milk goats like a shepherd. Bunny was indifferent to it, she was much more into mixing the feed for the horses, pigs, chickens and goats. I have discovered that I am totally and completely allergic to goats. Can't go near them. The people who run this farm don't actually raise any of these animals for meat. They have pigs because they are sweet. The pigs were kind of cute. Hairy little buggers, though, and I think I am going to have to rethink my intense relationship with bacon. Boo was all about the collecting of eggs. Bunny fell off the pony, but got back on. We rode repeatedly in the scoop of a tractor.

And, the miracle of miracles, it didn't rain in Germany. This is like saying there is no sand in Saudi Arabia. It just is an impossibility. We actually went to the beach and Bunny played in the Baltic Sea, something I have still failed to do. The best thing about the no rain thing though is the snails were not out. You know how Indiana Jones hates snakes? And how Winston in the novel 1984 sold out to keep the rats and mice away? That is me and snails. Actually, it is more broad. It is me and snails, slugs, moray eels, leeches, ticks, etc. If it would keep the slugs from coming closer, and I was in a lifeboat type situation, I would totally throw my husband out of the boat to keep them away. Last summer while camping, the boys were playing in a creek. Boo stood up and Monkey said, "What are those black things?" I started screaming at hubby dear to fix this situation now, but he pointed out that he had a flicker of flame after 45 minutes of puffing, and those leeches could just suck his youngest dry. Monkey calmly turned around, got a stick and started flicking. He got a gift as a result, because I would have just thrown Boo into the van and driven in search of a park ranger rather than touch a leech. There is nothing in the world that makes me happier than killing snails. If I was a Jainist (I think those are the ones who say you have to keep your mouth shut so you don't accidentally ingest a gnat?), I would definitely be bumped down a few levels during each reincarnation. I will pour big jars of salt on the tiniest little slug, sacrifice a premium beer for drowning, etc. Slugs keep me from farming.

The worst part of going to Germany this summer was I didn't take the right books. Usually I pack a pile of mindless drivel, but this time I took National Book Award winners. Yeah, whatever, I was begging for money to buy 10 dollar Time magazines by day 3. I did manage to read 1 quality book while I was there. It was called Gilead, and it did win the National Book Award, and it was beautiful. It got to the point that I was underlining stuff because the language choices were so perfect. I started a novel by Neil Gaiman, which I think would be classified as fantasy, and I had not read anything in that genre since age 15. I did this primarily because my friend Adrienne is such a big fan, and he appears in her dreams, and he is definitely hotter than any of my world leaders (Note to self - be grateful that Angela Merkel, the German leader, has failed to appear).

But since I had no lowbrow books, I had to watch lowbrow TV. One night my husband stayed to visit with his family, the kids went to sleep, and I watched 3 straight hours of MTV. I discovered that MTV no longer plays videos. Instead, I became deeply engrossed in the lives of Tila Tequila and Bret Michaels, both of whom should be forced to have sterilizations to protect the world. However, I also learned that Germany should never, ever criticize American culture. At one point, before I embraced my reality TV loving self, I counted 4 channels where people were singing folk songs (in drindels!), 2 where they were talking about music, 2 where they were teaching you how to plant stuff, and a bunch of handball. MTV was logical at this point.

Now the highlight of my trip was, hands down, the Eurovision contest. For all the non-Europeans out there, imagine watching American Idol tryouts where those folks are the finalists. I will never, ever judge the Miss America pageant harshly again. The basic premise is all the countries in Europe send the best from their country to compete. This has resulted in the discovery of ABBA, Katrina and the Waves (Walking on Sunshine). However, it is telling that in 53 years, those are the only two names worth remembering. Out of the 43 countires that tried out, 26 get to be in the final. Italy and Austria have decided to retain some dignity and decline to participate. However, every time a former Soviet bloc breaks up, then you get a bunch of new guys. Here were my favorites:

http://www.eurovision.tv

Pay particular attention to the eliminees, Lithuania and Ireland. Turkey puppets!


Bosnia

Can't believe I missed the chicken the first time around.



Spain



Azerbijan



France

And the French had a problem with the fact he didn't sing in French.


The ones that made me not beat my head repeatedly on the floor:


Greece



Ukraine

and the guy who won. Don't get the ice skating part, but the director of Billboard thinks he might be American's first Russian superstar. You have been warned.


Russia

They did these weird introductions before each country. I think the guy is David Archueleta on methamphetamine.

I have to go now, but just type in Eurovision on youtube and you get those other lovelies like Iceland and Romania.

Enjoy.

Not here for awhile

In case you perambulate by here on occasion, I just wanted to let you know that we are off to visit the in-laws for almost 3 weeks day after tomorrow. Yes, it is Germany. Yes, it is beautiful. However, this is probably the 12th time I have been there, and well, we have done it all, multiple times. This is also the first time we will be traveling with Daniel when he has opinions, so it is not going to be fun. Last time over the ocean, I watched a penguin video 8 times. And, he won't eat any of the food, and he is one of those obnoxious kids who can't stop opening and closing the trays. However, we are diaper free this time. Back to the boredom of Eutin. It is to the point that I get excited when Saturday versus Wednesday market comes because the olive man comes on Saturday. My husband's family lives in THE MOST BORING PLACE IN GERMANY. You have to drive 2 hours to get to something even remotely what any German would consider worth seeing. Yes, there is a beach 20 minutes away, but you have to pay to go on it, and I just finished shoving our winter coats into the suitcases. I pack wool socks and hats for summer vacation. Stefan's family has had a very "sick" year, so we will be doing lots of supportive listening. Well, Stefan will do that. I will sit there with a look of bafflement on my face. It is kind of funny because just like Americans do to non-English speakers, his dad sometimes thinks if he just says it LOUDER I will understand. Nope, I am pretty clueless even if you shout at me. I can promise that I will come back 5 pounds fatter. My mother-in-law could saute dogfood, and you would ask for seconds. However, this IS the year that I am going to demand to go to the donkey amusement park and the banana museum. They are the only two things left. We have been through the U-Boat, seen the mummified bog people, visited the zoo in Hamburg a billion times, etc. And, aren't I lucky? We will be there in time for herring season. My joy overwhelms me. However, we will also be there for strawberry season, which is worth the plane ticket price. German strawberries are so amazing, and they taste nothing like the ones you buy here. And, last but far from least, we will be staying at a farm part of the time. Isabel has already announced that she plans to ask if she can muck a stall, and apparently, Daniel wants to learn how to "pick eggs." There is also a litter of baby pigs, so here is your German word for the day. A piglet is a Ferkel in German. Try to make sure you use it in a sentence properly. See you in 20 days or so.