I had high hopes for this weekend, really and truly. With the kickoff of the apple-bottom lawyer Christmas party, and the prospect of the entire weekend to do things at my own (totally ADD) pace due to Lawyer Boy's absence, I had visions of myself decking the halls, tying beautiful bows the size of a baby on all my precious gifts, and decorating cookies so beautiful they would sing their own Christmas carols.
Let's be real here. At least, I wish I had been when all those sugarplums and whatnot were dancing in my idiot head.
Friday night I did not sleep AT ALL, which is the kiss of death for me. While I'm normally the smiley happy elf of any event, anywhere, my jollitude largely depends on the quality of my sleep. If I don't sleep well, my elfish good nature morphs into Bitchy, the eighth dwarf, as well as the ninth and tenth dwarfs, Cranky and Shitty. Saturday morning, with LB having been up at the crackhead of dawn to leave town to help his parents move, I woke up with the aforementioned headache I had not earned, and downed a pot of coffee (that is real, people, I am NOT exaggerating) in my first attempt of the day to be human.
Before I continue, a word on helping people move. I fully comprehend that LB's parents gave him the gift of life, and refrained from beating his ass/leaving him outside overnight when he was crappy, and all that, but asking someone to drive four hours to help you move is on par with asking someone to assist you in giving yourself an enema. Everyone's glad when it's over, but no one is happy. Or smells nice.
Anyway, when I finally walked my groggy-yet-well-coiffed self (snaps to my friend Hayley, who did my hair so well for the party that the magnificence was in effect for over 28 hours of radiance) out of the house to finish shopping, I was fully expecting the mall to resemble The Apocalypse, or at least be uncomfortably jammed with The Velour-Cloaked Soccer Moms With Chicklet-Sized Cell Phones Driving a Chevy Mammoth Full of Aspiring Prostitute Ten-Year-Olds Dressed Like Rihanna With a Lisp and Muffin Top. But seriously, and I guess this is because I lit candles to St. J.C. Penney, Patron Saint of Retail Misadventures, it wasn't any worse than any other velour-cloaked Saturday at the mall (which is still no tray of cupcakes, but better than The Apocalypse...I think).
My first stop was to buy presents for my eight-year-old nephew, five-year-old niece, and nine-year-old Angel Tree giftee. My goal with buying gifts for my niece and nephew (aka my Rent-A-Babies) is to get something that they will love, that won't make my sister and brother-in-law hate me till the end of time. I may still be in the dog house for the gift I gave my nephew when he was three: It was this bad-ass saxophone kit, made of a bunch of separate made-for-small-hands pieces, that you could put together in a million different ways, and still play it like a saxophone. Unfortunately, no matter which way you put it together, it still sounded like a three-year-old playing a plastic saxophone. I think they would have appreciated a Komodo dragon more than that.
Oh yeah, and my other goal, which gets progressively harder each year, is to buy something that my niece will love, that won't encourage her to sell herself into prostitution by the age of 10. Bratz Dollz, I'm looking at you, with your tiny shiny skirts, LIFE-SIZE BOOBS, and vaginas for sale.
What I ended up finding for them was, as usual, something I want to buy for myself but exceed the weight limit for. I found blow-up sofas, one with the Batman logo, and one with the Disney princesses, all covered in allegedly flame-retardant yet still beautiful plush velvety goodness. CHECK! Even though I could technically fit if I put two of them together, I knew it wouldn't be a practical furniture investment for our living room since we sometimes have guests who need to sit down too. Also they were $10 each, which is steep compared to all the free stuff on Craigslist. And the stuff from Craigslist comes with free included health hazards.
The rest of my shopping was exponentially less awesome. It's never as fun to buy a grown-up sweater as it is to buy a gift that allows you to sit on Sleeping Beauty's face.
Before you have time to process what I just accidentally said, let's move on.
The zenith of my day was, without a doubt, when I got home and took the dogs for a walk. We have two labs, Breeze and Amor, who came from LB's parents' farm, who live in their own specially engineered house, complete with climate control, weather protection, yard, and beds that (apparently) double as late-night snacks. We walk them every day at least once, for the joy of seeing them romp, and the delight of clawing their poops into plastic bags. Amor is old--she's 16 and kind of slow, but way sweeter than most people I know. Breeze is 9, and she's an entire rave packed into an 85-pound bag of fur. Seriously, she's like walking a NASCAR. I let them out of their yard, and once I was able to manhandle Breeze off the roof, I leashed them and we set out. We walked along, fa la la, no problems, until calamity struck.
The only way I can describe what happened is this--picture this all happening AT THE SAME TIME. We happen to stop in front of a little old lady's house, the owner of which steps out of a car in front of it. Prancing out behind her is a Chihuahua tinier than a dinner roll dressed in a holly-printed blazer fully trimmed in white fur. Bear in mind here that together, Breeze and Amor weigh more than I do. SO, at the same time as Breeze lunges forward to go make aggressive friends with Sir Tinkerdoodle, Amor chooses RIGHT THEN to drop what can only be described as a full gallon of HOLY LIVING HELL on the little old lady's front lawn. Meanwhile the little old lady is eyeing my dogs, eyeing me, checking on Dinner Roll's general wellbeing, and suddenly decides to start a conversation with me about how nice the neighborhood is. All this while I'm holding off Breeze from loving the canine cornish hen to death with one hand, holding back Amor from rapidly vacating her recent calamity with the other hand, trying to scoop up said calamity with the toes on my left foot, and making pleasant conversation with my remaining 3.7 brain cells. Two minutes, one dislocated shoulder, and THREE plastic grocery bags later, I left the scene with two large dogs, zero dignity, and Cheeseball's holly blazer, which Breeze is keeping as a trophy of her love.
Last night was the cherry on top of a creamy delicious day. It was the first time I had ever stayed alone, overnight, in our super-old creaky-freaky house. I do not believe in ghosts per se, except I'm afraid of them, which makes no sense until it's midnight, you're by yourself, and you mistake the cat jumping off the bed for a crazed maniac stalking your virtue. My tolerance for all things "scary" has not evolved at all since I was five and was afraid of E.T. (Srsly, the scene where he runs shrieking out of the cornfields haunts me to this day.) I am extremely jumpy and do not watch anything scarier than "Casper." So my master plan was (surprisingly not to get so drunk I passed out dead) to fall asleep in front of the t.v. till I woke up incoherent and could stumble into bed, and right back to sleep.
This master plan was genius, really, until I happened to wake up on the couch at 12:17 during a commercial break, during a commercial for that movie "The Strangers," during a shot that was one of those scary sock-headed murderers peering in at Liv Tyler, during which she shrieks like a banshee. It rattled me to my core, causing me to tear upstairs, neglecting to brush my teeth or turn off the Christmas tree, before I leapt into bed, pulled the covers over my head, and remained in that exact position, breathing my own recycled air, until 7:30 this morning.
Needless to say, I woke up this morning the psychological equivalent of a hungover Dick Cheney. With a to-do list and a vendetta. And no staff. I fidoodled around the house, made a pan of baklava, and cleaned, before LB got home with a U-Haul full of heavy stuff I couldn't identify but still had to help unload (why I'm a magic wife: I had a bowl of homemade chili, and a plate of corn chips, cookies, fudge, and hot chocolate waiting for him when he got home). He was practically delirious from having worked at moving till 1am, slept on the floor, moved some more heavy crap, and then driven home. I was practically delirious from having not slept and the noise of the vacuum. Except he was wearing a beanie that made him look like a gnome, and I wasn't. It took us THREE HORRIBLE HOURS to unload all this ugly heavy crap like "table saws" and "lumber." After that I had to go to the grocery store, where I was in such a ridiculous mental state that had someone told me baked beans were essential to good pound cake, I would have bought a case. Of beans, not cake. Well, probably cake, too. I was pretty far gone.
FINALLY, we were done, there was delicious, delicious wine, and my aunt surprisingly brought over a half-dozen Christmas ornaments, which coupled with LB's safe arrival home, absolutely made my weekend. Lawyer Boy, sparkly ornaments, and wine. What else could I need?
I'll talk to you again once I've regained full mental function.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment