Survival Of The Hungriest

You know you’re ghetto when you pour a serving size of yogurt from the big 20-oz container into a tupperware bowl for breakfast because you can’t be bothered to go out and buy individual yogurt cups.

That’s how my morning started, because we’re currently playing the “eat everything in the house before we go shopping again” game, which is actually a clever moniker for the “we don’t feel like going to the grocery store and spending hundreds of dollars” game, and the kitchen is looking a little sparse.

Okay, a LOT sparse.

We’re pretty much down to loose oats, tea, canned soup, canned tuna, half a box of whole-wheat fusilli, and a left-over omelet from last Sunday’s brunch. No, not this past Sunday. The one before it. Hey, it still might be good, right?

It’s not that we don’t have the money to go grocery shopping, it’s just that we don’t want to spend it. Hey, I bust my ass from Monday through Friday [writing creative blogs], and I really hate spending that hard-earned cash on necessities like electricity and food and running water. It always comes down to this: Sure, we could spend $200 on food...OR...we could buy a plane ticket to California! See what I mean? Which one sounds like more fun to you?

But, as I was pouring the yogurt into my little tupperware bowel this morning, I kind of realized that we had hit rock bottom. Things like milk and eggs and meat were starting to become a distant memory, and I came to the conclusion that if I didn’t go shopping tonight, the only thing left for breakfast tomorrow morning would be the last piece of home-made bread...mold and all. My grandparents say you can just pick it off, but every woman has her limits. I think I’ve officially reached mine.

Which is just as well, because I’ve been missing one integral stick of pastel Secret deodorant since our backpacking trip over Memorial Day weekend. No, I haven’t been going without deodorant this whole time, but I’ve definitely smelled more manly since that weekend. I believe my exact aroma is called Arctic Blast. It definitely freaks Brian out. But you know what? It isn’t the first time I’ve used men’s deodorant, and it probably won’t be the last.

Because I do what it takes to get the job done.

Which is why I probably would have been better off working as a high-class hooker than as a medical writer.

Wait. What?

Classy.

So I’m guessing that tonight’s itinerary will include a trip to the grocery store, despite the fact that Brian was toying with the idea of putting it off for another day. He brought up the fact that we had leftover pasta from last night, and I could bring in a can of soup for lunch tomorrow. “Plus,” he said, “we haven’t had food for so long, I’m kind of used to it at this point.”

Great.

Now we’re officially living in the Great Depression.

I suppose it’ll be nice to have cabinets stocked with produce and baked goods and snacks again, but I think a small part of me will miss the adventure of foraging for my food each morning. Somehow, my breakfast bagel tastes better when it was discovered in the back of the freezer, hidden under an empty Eggo Waffel box and 2 years’ worth of frost. It’s like I earned it or something.

I am Woman. Hear me Roar.
Oh, wait, that was just my stomach...

Bonus Monday Post: Welcome To My Hell

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Iceland Envy

There are many reasons why I hate my sister, including the fact that she doesn't work (because she's a student) and she can run 3-5 miles at any given time, even if she hasn't run for 6 months.

And now I have a new reason to hate her.

She and her husband just came back from a 2 and 1/2 week trip in Iceland. Lucky Beeyatch. And after seeing the pics, there is no doubt in my mind that Iceland will be the next international trip I go on.

Observe...

I could say that I now have a hard-on for Iceland, but that would be completely inappropriate, so I will do no such thing.

Let's just say that....if I had a penis, it would become erect at the thought of Iceland.

There. That's much more appropriate.

Bonus Sunday Post: My Happy Place

I had a riding lesson last Tuesday, and I totally kicked ass and took names.

Having come back to lessons after a 10-year hiatus, I was feeling decidedly rusty and disconnected. To be honest, I've been kind of all over the place during the past few lessons.

It hasn't been pretty.

But this Tuesday, I got on and was like, aahhh, NOW I remember.

It all came flooding back to me, and I was suddenly the capable, confident rider I used to be.

This is me taking a few jumps. These jumps are tiny compared to the 5-foot monsters I USED to go over, but I'm still pleased that I managed to pull it off as well as I did.

(Pay no attention to my obnoxious trainer and the country music blairing in the background. He's a little...uh...UNTRADITIONAL compared to other trainers)

Man, there's something about horseback riding that always, ALWAYS puts me in my happy place.

Plus, if society ever ends as we know it and there's no gas for cars, I figure I'll be ahead of the game. I'll be all like, hahah, you suckas can walk and I'll meet you there.

BURN!

Crazy Is as Crazy Does

You know those moments in your mid- to late-twenties when you have a startling realization that time is flying by and there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop it?

I’ve been having a series of these OMGWTF moments over the past few months.

Namely because my grandmother is losing her GD mind.

She’s always been quirky, ever since I was a little kid. As a result, my sister and I were conditioned from an early age hold everything she said at arm’s length. My parents used to tell us to “take everything Grandmom says with a grain of salt,” and “let everything Grandmom says go in one ear and out the other,” which was good advice, otherwise I would have grown up believing that men are the devil and all they want to do is get in your pants, so every time they’re nice to you, you should punch them in the balls and run away screaming.

Surprisingly, that was excellent advice on how I SHOULD have dealt with my Ex. If only I had known…

Vaguely traumatizing advice notwithstanding, Grandmom was then and still is today one of my favorite octogenarians. If you’re not easily offended, she’s hilarious. She’ll tell you exactly how it is at all times. She’ll tell you that your ass looks great, getting old sucks balls, and the “PRs” are ruining this country (don’t get your panties in a twist, I’m just repeating what she says). She knows that what she says isn’t politically correct, or even accurate half the time, but she says what’s on her mind and makes no apologies for it. Beyond that, she has always had these amazing moments of clarity where her wisdom and life experience really shine through. In one heart-to-heart talk we had, she accurately diagnosed the emotional source of my longstanding feud with my father, and explained to me in perfectly clear terms why I probably married the Ex, despite how bad he was for me.

My grandmother: What Freud would have been if he was a short, Italian racist.

Unfortunately, these moments of clarity are getting few and far between. Moreover, she’s developing dementia, paranoia, and the inability to regulate her emotions properly. As a result, my grandmother and grandfather recently moved from the assisted-living community they were staying at and bought a house—at the ages of 85 and 87—because she was convinced that the nurses were trying to kill her, or at least drug her to steal her Medicare money.

Oh yeah, she’s definitely on the one-stop train to Crazy-Town.

It could be Alzheimers, although lord knows she’d never submit to a psychological exam. The way I figure it, diagnosis or not, she’s just friggin’ OLD, and as a result, her brain isn’t working the way it used to. It’s sad, but honestly, what can I expect? Sure, there are people out there in their nineties who are still completely independent and as sharp as a tack…but not many. My grandmother has had 85 years of relative cognizance, and I am grateful for every coherent conversation we have had.

However, I’m happy to report that, even in her declining mental health, her personality is shining through. Take the other day, for example:

My mother told me that earlier this week she was driving my grandmother home from the hospital (she had been admitted for a panic attack), and they stopped at WalMart to pick up her newest list of prescriptions. When my mom came out of the store, my grandmother, who had been waiting in the car, was giggling almost uncontrollably.

“Do you see that?” she asked, and pointed to another car in the parking lot.
“No,” my mother said. “See what?”
“That dog. He’s taking a shit on top of that car over there.”

Of course, there was no dog on the car, let alone one who was taking a shit, but try telling that to my grandmother. I guess the thing is that, while I’m sad for my grandmother that she’s losing her marbles, at the same time, she’ll always be Grandmom. She may be hallucinating, but at least she’s hallucinating in a manner that’s consistent with her personality. She’s not seeing elephants walking by, and she doesn’t think she’s the queen of England (yet), but she sure as hell managed to conjure up a totally inappropriate image of a dog taking a shit on a car.

If that doesn’t say “Grandmom,” I don’t know what does.

The Baptism Blues

So I have this problem…

A few weeks ago, I was having brunch with Brian, his brother, his brother’s girlfriend, and their parents.
Yeah, I know, that’s so classy of me.

Brunch: making drinking before noon socially acceptable since 1896*

* I Wikipedia-ed that shit.

So we somehow got on the topic of religion, and Brian’s brother started talking about all that bullsh ... stuff that Catholic kids do while growing up. You know…CCD, communion, etc. The thing is, Brian’s mom is Catholic. And not the “go to church on Christmas and Easter or when you’re feeling especially sinful” Catholic. She’s, like, “go every week and volunteer for the church fundraising committee” Catholic.

So Brian’s brother is going on and on about the different things he had to do, being a child of a Catholic woman and all, and at one point I interjected, “Thank god I didn’t have to do any of that stuff in MY church while I was a kid. Man, that would have sucked”

Because Tact is my middle name.

But I said it because I was practically raised in a Presbyterian church. No joke. My dad was the choir director, and my mom was, like, the secretary or some shit. We totally ran that joint. We were like the popular kids in highschool who walk down the hallway in slow motion to rock music while the crowds part in a wave of awe and envy – well, except, replace rock music with hymns, I guess. I mean, we practically OWNED the church, except we couldn’t put it like that, because God would have probably struck us down.

Being a false idol is SUPER fun, BTW.

Ironically, through a series of random events (read: church scandal and appropriate fall-out), my entire family is now either atheist or agnostic. We’ve seen the light of a different kind, as it were. Card-carrying God haters, the lot of us. Isn’t life funny? One minute you’re praising the lord, the next minute you’re driving around with a Darwin fish on your bumper and rolling your eyes because NPR is talking about the Pope visiting Israel, or some shit.

Anyway, after I tactfully pointed out that I had not been a Catholic growing up, Brian’s mom turned to me and said, “Oh, that’s right, you’re Presbyterian, aren’t you?”

****

Commence first awkward pause of the day.

****

I have no idea what I said in response, but I think it was something like, “Yeahcanyoupassmethesalt?”

Later, driving home, I had a little talk with Brian:

“Does your mom think I’m religious?”
“I dunno. I might have told her that you were a Presbyterian when we first started dating.”
“But…does she think that I WAS Presbyterian…or… AM STILL Presbyterian?”

****

Commence second awkward pause of the day

****

So, in this way, I found out that not only does Brian’s mom think I believe in God, she actually has me sub-categorized as Presbyterian.

Now this in itself is not such a bad thing. I’m like George Costanza when it comes to lying. I can maintain a lie for upwards of 20 years if I have to. There are people I went to elementary school with who TO THIS DAY still believe that I have Tourette Syndrome, all because I used to curse like a sailor in 3rd grade and didn’t want to be called out on it.

BUT….here is the potential issue:

Brian and I are pretty serious. There is a theoretical marriage and theoretical children in our near future. Which is all fine and good, until Brian mentioned that we’re probably going to have to get the kid baptized.

Yes.
Baptized.
As in: unless we dunk this kid’s head in water, certain theoretical mother-in-laws are going to believe that this kid is going to roast for eternity in the fiery pits of hell.

The way I see it, like mother, like child, you know? But seeing as she’s hardcore into “God with a capital G” and I’m apathetically amused by this whole Christianity shtik, at best, it’s looking like I’m going to have to go through with it, rather than put her through years of suffering believing that this kid is going to hell because it’s sinful, sinful mother is an atheist.

I said to Brian, “You know, I’m going to have to seriously lie my ASS off when we do this. It’s going to take all my willpower not to roll my eyes through the whole thing.”

He was horrified. “You can’t LIE in church! That’s, like, the first rule they teach you in Catholic school!”

So I said to him, “Well, it’s either lie in church, or denounce god in front of the ENTIRE CONGREGATION, including your mother. Which would you rather have me do?”

Apparently, there are levels at which you can sin.

FYI, lying is pretty low on the list.

Denouncing God? In a CHURCH?
...that’s on a whole other level.

Bloggin' on the West Side

Yo, yo, yo, what up, dawgs?

Today I’m over at My Blog Doesn’t Suck flexin’ my nuts ‘n shit.* Y’all need to pop over to that joint real quick to peep my mad writing skillz while I rap about some crazy shit that went down in college. For REALZ.

Just don’t playa hate, cause I’ll be all up in yo’ shit gettin’ mine, fool.** Word.

Peace out.


*And by nuts, I mean ovaries. Because I’m a girl.

** I don’t even know what I just said. Sometimes I confuse myself…