From the monthly archives:

September 2009

Open Letter: Miss G? You Rock My World.

by Mary Anne on September 13, 2009

G Bday

Dear Miss G,

Happy Birthday! Today you are eight years old. I can’t even believe it. How did you get to be such a big girl?

I remember so much about you. I remember the moment I knew you were growing inside of me. I knew it, I just knew it, even though I was only one week along. Your Daddy thought I was nuts but I knew, just as surely as I knew it was a Sunday, that something in our lives had changed.

I remember taking the test to prove to your Daddy I wasn’t crazy, that there was another baby about to join us. I told him, “I hope Mr. C is ready to be a big brother…because he’s going to be one soon!” And I remember we were standing in our living room and your Daddy just hugged me and wouldn’t let go. Even though I think the Cowboys were playing at the time, which says a lot.

I remember your Daddy’s smile when he realized he was soon to be the father of a little girl, even though he knew he was doomed to be wrapped around your little finger for the rest of his life. He loved you from the minute he saw you before you were born, and he will always be the first man who fell in love with you. Never forget that.

I remember your brother, such a sweet and talkative little two year old, being excited about being a Big Brother and even more so that he would have a Little Sister that he would protect and take care of for the rest of his very young life as well. You guys may not get along every day right now, but you love each other and I know you will be close and protect one another in years and decades to come….because deep down, no matter how much you fight, you know nothing means more than family.

I remember the minute we noticed you were a girl on the sonogram and how my heart filled with joy that I already had one perfect boy and now would have one perfect girl to finish our family picture. But the thing I remember most is thinking I how glad I was that you were joining us. Thinking that you would be the only one to understand what it felt like to be me….because someday you would join me in this journey. You are the only person in this family that will ever understand what is in my heart…the most important job in the world…to be a Mom.

I will never in my life forget the moment I saw you, curly black hair and violet eyes and your little hands curled up around your face….because once a priss, always a priss. We are cut from the same cloth, me and you. Every day that passes, I see more of myself in you. Prissy, prideful, joyous, funny, in love with life. But let’s not forget the bad parts of me you inherited…tempermental, fussy, emotional and argumentative. Trust me though, the good balances out the bad and every part of your personality is important. You are an amazing little force of life and you will leave a mark on this world.

So Miss G, today I wish you all the best. I hope you have a lifetime of happiness, and from the sorrow life will deliver…I pray you learn life lessons. I hope you will be good and strong and know that you have an awful lot to offer this crazy world.

Because you? Are amazing.

I love you more than I could ever say,

Mama

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Tell Me You Haven’t Been There…

by Mary Anne on September 11, 2009

I’m not sure if this video is real or not (I’m thinking not…) but watch it and tell me you haven’t been there at least once…

Here’s hoping you and your computer have a happy and peaceful weekend!

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The Party Of The Century That You Are Not Invited To

by Mary Anne on September 9, 2009

Seriously, the social event of the century is near at hand and I am planning it.

Does it involve formal dress? No.
Does it involve celebrity appearances? Nope.
Will there be tremendous swag? Swag yes, but only in the form of a goody bag.

In case you are wondering what this grand event may be, it’s the annual celebration of the day the frilliest princess in all of the world joined our family and by God, I’d better not screw this up.

We’ve talked about nothing but this grand event for weeks. I am thankful she chose a more affordable venue this year after last years bank breaking American Girl experience. In a shocking shift of party preference, this year Miss G chose a bowling alley as her location of choice.

I thought the venue debate would be the tough part.

I was wrong.

The negotiations have stepped up in intensity in recent days. It started with the guest selection. She can invite no more than 12 guests to the grand event and after hours/days of agonizing over the list and verification of spellings on each and every version, we had our final list.

Talk of the style of invitations began shortly thereafter. And last night? “GoodyBagGate” started in full force. I was late getting home because I had a doctors appointment and I was not in a good mood. (Let’s put it this way, when you go in for a regular OB/GYN appointment and come out with a 1.5 inch gash with huge black stitches because there was something “not good” on YOUR FACE and you now look exactly like Frankenstein minus the square head and green skin, you have officially had a bad day.) I hoped to be greeted at the door with quiet children and perhaps a glass of wine.

IN MY DREAMS.

Apparently the children had somehow come into possession of a catalog full of fun things to put in goody bags and were prepared to lobby for why or why not each item should be included/excluded. In case you were wondering:

  • Bouncy Balls:  YES. But please make sure they aren’t those stupid hackey sacks that confuse everyone when they throw them on the floor and they don’t bounce as expected, because those?  Would be a NO.
  • Squoogey Balls with eyes that pop out.  NO. Because one of her girlfriends gets freaked out by them. And we can’t have that.
  • Clappy Clap Thingies?:   YES. Clappy Clap is always a good noise, especially if it gives the parents a facial tick.
  • Anything Hannah Montana?  NO. Because that is so YESTERDAY. However, if I could arrange a live performance by the Jo Bros?  Then YES, at that point Disney is cool again.

Today, The Man took her to make her invitation selections.   Now if you were having a party at a bowling alley what would you choose?   If your answer was hot pink, lime green and zebra print, then you, lucky reader, are officially invited to this little soiree. Witness:

bday invite

But please, don’t show up with those non-bouncy bouncy balls or Miss G will throw you out on your ass.

PS:  Let’s not go all crazy telling her happy birthday just yet okay?   It’s not for a few more days and if she gets too much press, she’s probably going to put on her tiara and beat the rest of us in this house to death with her diamond encrusted scepter.   THANKS.

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Shoebox Chronicles: BBQ Bill

by Mary Anne on September 7, 2009

First of all….THANK YOU to all of you who were kind enough to comment last week on my plea for Shoebox Chronicles entries. I could never tell you how stuck I was and how much your support means to me. I’m going to get to several of them but today, let’s start with one from Pippa who asked:

“The best dinner party guests ever (alive or dead, but the dead ones would have to be alive because of a Time Travel Machine that you or someone you knew made, otherwise they would be really bad guests as they wouldn’t eat your food or talk and would smell and their head would fall off into some soup…)

Wait. What?

Okay, now I get it and I love me some Pippa for asking. I could tell you about bringing someone back from the dead and a great dinner we had where their head did not fall off in their soup but that would be too easy. So Pippa, I’m turning that question on it’s head and telling you about the worst dinner party in the history of….well, ever.

We had a friend over for a grill last year. A friend we don’t see often for reasons that are about to become clear to you because we don’t live very close to each other. Let’s all pretend we are in the witness protection program and call him BBQ Bill from now on…because I really don’t want him to ever find us again.

BBQ Bill shows up with his kids :45 minutes early while I’m still running around in a towel with curlers in my hair. Oddly enough, he has a HUGE cooler with him even though we told him not to bring anything. Normally, I’d assume our guest brought adult beverages but I was a bit confused as it was only the three of us (because in this house we have a strict one beer per child limit) (also, I’M KIDDING) and the cooler could easily hold two cases of beer and a few bottles of wine.

But it wasn’t beer and wine.

It was meat. At least 50 lbs of raw meat. Even though we told him we had the food covered. Beef, chicken, ribs, you name it. I’ve never seen so much raw meat outside of the grocery store. I’m not kidding you when I tell you what once was a small farm was now in that cooler.

So I looked at The Man and The Man looked at me and shrugged his shoulders (because we are both totally at the WTF??? portion of this story a mere :15 in, which is never a good sign) So we finally asked the million dollar question, “What’s with all the meat?”

At that point, BBQ Bill informed us he doesn’t have a grill at home so he’s going to grill this meat (50 lbs!) on our grill and store it for future dinners. Which, no big deal right? It wouldn’t be normally, no. But…the grill we bought is crap, and after about an hour or so of high heat, giant plumes of black smoke start to emerge and stain our house which is entirely white brick a lovely shade of grossness. Witness the setup:

grill 2
Needless to say, The Man and I tend to be careful to avoid this very situation. Not that day. BBQ Bill took over the grill….for four hours. This, in and of itself, was annoying. Aside from the whole house turning black you should know that in the summer in Texas, we tend to grill and run inside because hell has nothing on us heat wise. Four hours of it and you are basically dealing with three adults soaked in sweat and smelling of charred flesh…which is to say, not my style. It was all too much…how much meat can one man grill? (50 lbs in case you weren’t following)

The fact that his son was pulling out our in ground sprinkler system and beating my children repeatedly in the pool was really the icing on the cake. (Kids will be kids!) With every thwack and every sizzle I cringed. At some point I’m fairly sure I ended up in the fetal position under the table sucking my thumb though the post traumatic stress disorder prevents me from remembering it all.

The Man did not think I would be able to endure. I did not think The Man would endure. Every time we thought he was done, another burger patty would magically appear and one of our children would scream in the distance. We were at a stalemate as to which one of us was going to go completely freak show and send them running to the street. Sadly, we are both far too polite and it never happened. Though our house, once white, now fully smoke black, was begging us to.

Hours later (eight in total for what was supposed to be a three hour get together), we got them out of our house with their cooler of full of meat, sprinkler system in serious need of repair and children now afraid of anything pole shaped.

As we burned the flesh off of our hands scrubbing with bleach to restore our house to it’s original color (it’s still not quite there) we pinky swore with our ragged fingers to never have them over again.

So thank you Pippa for the question….because just the other day I was thinking we hadn’t seen this guy in a while. Now I remember why.

Now y’all tell me…whats the worst dinner guest you’ve ever had and have you had them back since?

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MJ’s Family Has Nothing On Mine

by Mary Anne on September 4, 2009

How’s this for lazy Labor Day? I’m re-posting. Shoot me. Or call it my effort to green up the planet by saving keystrokes.

Whatever.

I saw this funny Some E Card and it reminded me of my little adventure at a family funeral a year ago. Hope you all have a happy and safe Labor Day Weekend!

mj funeral

Putting The Fun Back In Funerals
Originally posted September 30th, 2008

Yesterday I was out all day at a funeral. It was for an 83 year old uncle who I adored. Sad, yes but he had a great life, built a construction empire and died without pain. I’ll miss him. I won’t however, miss his daughter.

As I mentioned, he built a construction empire. From this you should feel free to infer that he was loaded because he was. And he and my aunt adopted a girl when she was a baby and gave her a life filled with lots of toys and goodies. Maybe too many toys and goodies, because she is now 37 years old and I just have no idea how someone that age could behave the way she did these past two days.

In case you were wondering how to act in the most reprehensible manner possible at your parents funeral, I’ve composed a list for you. Bookmark it and pull it out when and if the time comes and you want to cause shock and awe among your family members along with a general agreement that you are obviously “on something”. I have categorized these so you can mix and match as your needs dictate.

Play Hard To Get: First, being the only child, you should definitely not fly into town when your mother calls to tell you your father died…wait at least three days to put forth the effort.

Practice Being Fashionably Late: Next, to make sure everyone knows you don’t give a shit…try showing up 45 minutes late to the viewing and leave your 80 something year old mother there alone to greet well wishers and extended family members. Also, be sure to not feed your two boys before you get there so that they can loudly beg for food and raise hell.

Do This Only At The Expert Level: Invite your BIRTH MOTHER and HER SISTER to your father’s funeral. It is also key to point out here that you must point out to everyone that the woman grieving over there may have raised you, but this woman gave birth to you and her sister is now officially your aunt. (Note: I’m all for getting in touch with birth mothers, don’t get me wrong, however, your fathers viewing just ain’t the time to roll them out to a bigger crowd who have never met them, and didn’t even know they existed, in front of your “mother” who has no relationship with them either.)

Make An Entrance: If you really want to make a big splash try this. The funeral starts at 12:30. You should definitely let your poor mother take one last look at the man she loves on the arm of someone who works at the funeral home rather than your own. Here is the key people, if you are going to be late to your own father’s funeral MAKE AN ENTRANCE so everyone knows it. You should loudly pull the doors open and march down the center aisle a full :30 minutes late and only two minutes before you are to eulogize the man who raised you. Also? It’s a nice touch if you drag your freaky boyfriend behind you if you have one. If not, rent a follower to give you the entourage effect.

Know Your Audience: Eulogy Schmoology. We all know you have better things to do than to put thought into what you might say about someone who cared for you all of your life. You should appear stoned and incoherent and say things like “he finally said the one thing I wanted to hear in our final conversation and I look forward to the next chapter of our relationship”. (Hi…he’s the dead one? In the coffin? Yes…right over there….you probably won’t be having too many conversations so this next chapter in your relationship may prove to be difficult. Just sayin’) Then, since most of your audience has gray hair, you should throw them a curve ball and recite all the lyrics to a song…BY THE GRATEFUL DEAD….because they rock like that, yo.

Emulate A Celebrity When Possible: To give off the star effect, pick the celebrity of your choice to emulate. Yesterday, my cousin chose Britney Spears. If you also would like to choose Britney what you should do is this. While waiting to get into the hearse with your grieving mother (not birth mother, the one who raised you….who is crying) you should MAKE OUT with your freaky boyfriend. Add a little pelvic grind to it for extra shock and awe. When you get to the graveside services, be sure to leave your mother sitting alone. When you realize you may need to go sit with her, be sure to stomp over to her BAREFOOT with your DIRTY FEET on display for all the world to see. Also? Be sure to walk on top of all the graves in your wake…they are dead, they don’t know any better. You should then snap and gesture wildly for your boyfriend to also march across the graves to come join you. Also, underwear are TOTALLY OPTIONAL at this event.

Party Like It’s 1999: The last thing you will want to do is to be at least two hours late to the very nice reception set up in your fathers honor to see all the relatives who traveled great distances and gave up an entire day of work just to pay respects. You should also have spent so much time smoking whatever it is you smoke, that your breath actually smells like a BIOHAZARDOUS CHEMICAL.

So there you have it, the complete list of how to behave like an ass at a funeral. Feel free to cut and paste and improvise where needed.

I promise you no one will forget your performance, ever.

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