I'm so glad you're a freak like me

Macy Gray -- Freak Like Me -- 2001




Ever since she was born, I have been treated to a non-stop procession of people just waiting to tell me how much the Princess resembles me. Except for her hair, which is clearly the fault of her father's lineage, she and I look very similar. I guess. It has always been a puzzle to me, because when I look at the Princess, I see the Princess, not a mirror image of myself. However, according to the intelligent masses, we are very much alike. Some callers even have difficulty telling our voices apart on the telephone.

There are other similarities aside from looks, but most would quickly engender the nature vs. nurture debate and I doubt there would be a clear-cut winner. Of course, since I raised her alone, it would not be surprising that we have similar senses of humor. Or interests. Or likes and dislikes. Or pet peeves.

However, at the core, we are very, very different people.

Where I can be daring and often reckless - she is steady and deliberate.

Where I can be outspoken and abrasive - she is pensive and controlled.

Where I can be be avoidant - she meets every obstacle head on.

Where I have difficulty finishing what I start - she creates a plan and sees it to it's completion.

Where I crave danger and excitement - she craves stability and routine.



We also have simpler differences. While we both love music, the Princess' true love is movies. I was never a big movie buff. When I was young, movies were a luxury that my Mother could not often afford. As I hit teenage years, I much preferred to spend my money to see a concert, and in my area, there was no shortage of excellent venues to choose from.

The Princess has been a movie buff since toddlerhood. I took her to see her very first movie when she was 3. It was a reissue of Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. She was so small that I had to bring a stool for her to see over the top of the seat in front of us. She was simply mesmerized.......not so much by the movie itself, but by the entire experience. She loved the darkness that enveloped us, the reverent silence as the curtains opened, the soundtrack that we could feel reverberating in our chests.

She was hooked, and I spent the next 13 years toting her around to see every manner of film. Many of which I found hopelessly boring. Many where I laughed and screamed and covered my eyes right along with her. Movies became something that we shared together. Our girls night out.

By the time she became a true cinemaphile in high school, her tastes had tipped too far in the direction of art house snob for my liking. We parted ways on film-going and she began to schedule her movie dates with friends.

She became a film major in college and made a few admirable attempts at her own stop-motion animation reels. As maturity took hold and reality crept into her future plans, she changed her major from Film Studies to Education. But she never lost her love for movies, and with each successive visit home for a weekend, I would again hear the familiar question "Mom, you want to go see a movie?" To which I would always respond " sure", more for the opportunity of her company than for my interest in the movie itself.

Now that she is living back near home, we are re-establishing our relationship as film partners. She generally has all of the background information on the film she is peddling to me, and, oddly enough, we have again discovered the similarities in our film interests.

This past weekend, she called me at work to ask if I wanted to go and see

( ***SPOILER***)

this


She has long been a fan of the Coen brothers work. Me, not so much. But I had heard some interesting buzz about No Country, so I agreed. If there is any type of movie that will propel me into a theater, it's a thriller.

So off we went to the movies. It was a relatively new theater that was built in the vein of old-time cinemas. An outdoor ticket window, real popcorn with real butter. Red velvet screen curtains. No previews.

We sat in the darkness, the Princess and I, and we were transported. For two hours, we were carried along on the waves of the story. The movie itself was one of the best I have seen in many years. I was absolutely mesmerized by the story, the actors, the cinematography. This actor was incredible. I was so transfixed by the movie that, momentarily, I was shocked when I glanced into the seat next to me and saw the Princess, now a young woman.

I had become so involved in the story that I had lost track of time. The smell of popcorn, the images on the screen, the muffled coughs of the other movie-goers had taken me back to a time when a tiny little curly-haired girl sat expectantly on her stool next to me in the dark, sometimes holding my hand when the music became intense, sometimes asking questions about the motivation of the characters or the justification of the plot.

Somehow, in those 20 intervening years, my girl and I had made our own memories at the movies.

I can't wait for the time when the Princess has her own children. I will dust off that old stool, take a chubby little hand in mine, walk into a theater and lose myself for 2 hours ......sitting next to the best movie partner a person could ever want.


It will be our story that unfolds and it will be better than anything projected onto a screen.

Some days you're thankful for what you've got

Some Days Are Better Than Others -- U2 -- 1993


It was a quiet Thanksgiving at my house. Just the three of us: me, the Heat Miser and the Princess........and the 5 curly hooligans.

But, we had a roof.

The Princess has a job and an apartment.

The Heat Miser has a clean bill of health.

I have my sanity.....for the moment. My bills are easing. My job is secure.

I have my dogs and they help to bring happiness not only to me and my family, but to the people we visit. It is comforting to know that we can share that with people who are in need.

We had the traditional dinner. Turkey, mashed potatoes, veggies, stuffing, pie. The Princess made sweet potatoes and a pumpkin cheesecake.

There was enough food for 6 people. That made the Poodles very, very happy. It was a holiday for them too, so they were treated to a bit of turkey and sweet potatoes with their meal.

In fact, Trevor was so enamored of the feast that he learned a new trick in the spirit of Thanksgiving.

Trevor planted himself firmly at the Princess' right side, sitting politely on the floor near the table. When we were all finished with our meal, Trevor quietly managed to scoot himself even closer to the Princess. He continued to sit quietly, but began to glance surreptitiously between the Princess and her plate. He was finally able to gain her attention. As soon as she looked at him, he began to work his plan. He gazed at her intently, then obviously shifted his gaze back to her plate. Back and forth his eyes shifted until she started to laugh at his subtle-as-a-brick technique.

I instructed her to ignore him as the dogs are NOT ALLOWED to beg at the table. EVER.

However, Trevor decided that he was not to be ignored. Since he is very aware that barking at the table will buy him a hasty time-out in his crate, he devised a new tactic. He tried the trick I recently taught him for our therapy work.

He sat next to the Princess and whispered at her. Over and over he whispered. Patiently. A sound barely perceptible, accompanied by much mouth movement. He looked positively demented, jaws furiously working but only small grunts and puffs emitting from his mouth.

The Princess laughed so loud that her eyes were tearing. Trevor was rather proud of himself for making her so obviously happy. He was even happier when she took him aside and gave him a bit of extra turkey.

I watched this scene and laughed along with her, as did the Heat Miser.

And then I realized what I was most thankful for. I was thankful to have my daughter back living near me. To hear the peals of her laughter. To sit in our house and share the dessert she made especially for us. To share the holiday with her.

I was thankful.

And this time, I took a leap and I told her so. I'm not normally sentimental or expressive. But I thought she needed to know.

Today, we returned to life as normal. The Heat Miser and I both went back to work. The Princess has the day off and will probably sleep late. Everything is status quo.



And I am thankful.

If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning

Peter, Paul and Mary -- If I Had A Hammer -- 1962

Saturday morning, 7:30 a.m. Phone rings. The HM answers, I hear a lot of,"sure, OK, no problem". She hangs up the phone and begins to race around the house yelling, "they're on their way to start the roof. In 20 minutes. Get dressed, get the dogs out. HURRY".

She wasn't kidding. By 8 a.m., our house was crawling with roofers. 7 of them to be exact. They actually started tearing the front portion of the roof off by 8:30. It sounded as if the world was coming to an end. The banging, the scraping............ the barking.

From the dogs, not the men.

THE BARKING.

My head still hurts just thinking about it. You see, my dogs are used to a quiet life. Me, my mother, my daughter, our neighbors. Our neighborhood, noise wise, is generally very quiet.

But this.......this noise. This ripping and destruction. This was altogether too much for them to take. It started with the appearance of strange men outside the window. Trevor, the Standard Poodle immediately appointed himself official protector of the family. He heralded his new position by barking furiously at anyone who moved within a one mile radius of the front lawn. And his bark is very, very deep. And loud.

To better carry out his duties, he also devised a clever method of scoping out the enemy. He quickly learned to race, at full speed, from window to window, stand up on top of the radiator cover, jam his nose onto any one of the 6 over 6 panes and bark ferociously.

This, in turn, ignited a pure frenzy of little Poodle barking. Because none of the littlies are tall enough to reach a windowsill, they commenced to racing around the house jumping onto any available piece of furniture that would allow them the necessary height to spot the intruders. It resembled a demented game of this

Minus the mallet. Although I did consider a flyswatter.

Once the windows were covered with tarps, there was much growling and grumbling from the pack, but the frenzied running and slathering for roofer-flavored-flesh abated.

However, the noise from the roofers was as deafening as it had been from the Poodles. I simply was not prepared for how LOUD it was going to be.

They managed to finish the entire front of the roof by 3 in the afternoon, cleaned up meticulously and are returning today to complete the back. Then Steve, the actual contractor will be back later in the week to replace the gutters and hang this as a favor. We used to have one over the back door, but it was ripped away in a violent rainstorm a few years back.

Hopefully, by Thanksgiving Day this will all be over and I can spend my day off searching for errant roof nails in my yard before one connects with a dog paw.

In other news, the Princess made me a fantabulous belated birthday dinner of Fettuccine Alfredo, Salad and Garlic Bread for dinner. It truly was delicious. She loves to cook. I am an extremely fussy eater so she was thrilled that I enjoyed her fare so thoroughly. She said that she has considered taking some cooking classes to learn technique, but for right now, she is content to cook the occasional meal for Lumpkin when he plods in for his monthly visit.

Keeping sending me some good ju-ju for rain free weather until this project is done.

TYVM.

On the roof, it’s peaceful as can be, and there the world below don’t bother me

James Taylor -- Up On The Roof -- 1979




Tell me folks, do you know what this is??




This is the sound of relief. A sigh of contentment. The lovely feeling of an empty bank account and an even emptier wallet.

This is a pallet of roof shingles. Delivered to my home yesterday, with work to begin shortly. Of course, once we finally began the process of ordering supplies, arranging delivery and preparing for the workers to swarm the top of our humble abode, it has rained nearly every day.

Nevertheless, we will shortly be ensconced in the warmth and beauty of Tamko Heritage Grey roof shingles with a 30 year warrantee!!! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee. I will either be dead or demented by the time we need to do this crap again.

In other news......I'm still sick, although slowly improving. If you ignore the cough that begins in my lower extremities and causes lights in the state to dim and windows to shatter. My co-worker was kind enough to inform me, just mere moments ago that there have been 53 confirmed cases of this EXACT type of crud in the US, causing 10 DEATHS. That, in my meager estimation, is a 20 % death rate! The CDC can't exactly put their finger on what it is, but the most obvious symptom is a horrendous cough. Please, please let me live long enough to see my lovely new roof. Then I can die and forgo the loan payments.

And in "the remnants of the birthday that never was because the birthday girl was suffering from an as yet unnamed CDC deadly illness", I will be treated to a homemade dinner this weekend, made by my lovely Princess. It was supposed to happen last week, but the Princess was loathe to enter the house of the deadly cough to cook for me. The Princess, who, judging by the sound of her voice this morning, may or may not have caught the plague as well. So, maybe I will still have no birthday dinner.

But, I did get this for my birthday ( fair warning: Poodle haters beware. I WILL NOT tolerate negative comments on this gift. If you dare to poke fun, I am immediately dispatching the plague to your home and you may be victim number 55, right after me):



What you are seeing is a version of this:



hand painted onto a long-sleeved t-shirt by a local artist. It took her hours and the level of detail is eerie. It was a gift from the Heat Miser and I intend to wear it faithfully. Proudly. I think I will find it much easier, and possibly more pleasant to poke at my chest instead of rooting around in my wallet for the actual picture when people say, in utter disbelief " you have HOW MANY dogs???".

So, all in all, it has been a pretty crappy week, but it is promising to get better with scads of men preparing to crawl all over my roof and the CDC diligently hunting down a cure for my mysterious chest fever. Everything should be JUST FINE by next week.

Send Robitussin and tarps just in case.
Please.

You know how hard it is for me to shake the disease

Shake The Disease -- Depeche Mode -- 1985


Hey kids, thanks for all the cheery b-day wishes. I appreciated them.


Unfortunately, the Heat Miser decided to graciously share her lung plague with me for my birthday. She's very share-able that way.

I started feeling lousy about midday on my birthday, and basically have been hacking and snorting and snotting and sneezing ever since.

Great times. Great, great times.

The Princess was going to prepare me a homemade dinner for the occasion of the celebration of my birth, but I advised her to stay far, far away lest the plague invade her chest cavity. We agreed that we would wait until next weekend for the fantabulous meal.

So, instead, she took herself to Lumpkin's for the weekend. Their second anniversary weekend.

Puke, barf, vomit.

And not from my disease.


They have been " a couple" for two years, with no end in sight. The thought still makes me sick. Er. Than I already am.

For such a smart and driven kid, she really can be an asshole sometimes. She did, however, score a few brownie points by giving me this for my birthday. Since she knows how I LOVE me some Mike, she went straight for the soft underbelly with this purchase, probably hoping that I would forgive her stupidity in matters of the heart.



Maybe if Mike takes off his shirt.

Live the life that I thought would be mine from the day I was born

The Leaving So Long -- Midge Ure -- 1988




On this day, 42 years ago, this happened.

More coverage here and here.


Our area was plunged into darkness for many hours. Elevators were stuck, commuters were stranded, hospitals were forced to rely on emergency generators.


I was born.


My Mother always joked that I was such an awful looking baby that the doctors took one look and shut off the lights. Permanently.

Other famous events that happened on November 9, throughout history:

A famous town is aflame.

A final victim is chosen and dispatched

The very first issue of Rolling Stone is published.

A man from new Jersey finds infamy.

Ireland elects it's first female President.

Famous people born on this day. Aside from me:

A King.

An actor.

A monster.

A politician.

An actress.

A poet.

and a singer.

Famous people died:

A Senator.

An author and poet.

A President.

A comedian.

A journalist.



Today is my birthday. I am 42. I can't begin to imagine how I got here, but it's definitely been an interesting ride so far.


I can't wait to see what the next 42 years have in store.

Have you seen her, tell me have you seen her

Have You Seen Her -- The Ch-Lites -- 1971



I haven't seen much of anyone interesting the past few days. The crazy asshole next door has managed to keep an extremely low profile since spewing her bile at my Mother. I'm sure she knows I'm gunning for her.

The Princess has not been home much as this is conference week for the parent's of her students. The conferences are held AFTER school hours for the convenience of the parents, so she hasn't been getting out of work until after 7:30 p.m. She did finally get the Lyme test results. They were negative, so her MD is operating on the assumption that she has migraine headaches and is giving her some samples of a prescription to try. If this doesn't work, onward and upward to a Neurologist.

We had some big political upset yesterday in my little town. The seated Mayor was defeated by a virtual unknown. This would have been the Mayor's 5th consecutive term. He was my neighbor until he moved out and left his family home, including his wife, to live with his "friend". Of the female persuasion.

That will leave another neighbor jobless as she was appointed to her position by the now former Mayor. No great loss. She was a big, lazy asshole anyway. And had the nerve to cop an attitude while sitting on her oversized can.

My friend Patty has completed all of her required "therapy" appointments and goes back to court next week. She has been told that all charges related to "the incident" will be dropped. Her turd of a husband actually had the nerve to ask her when he would " get the chance to go to therapy too". As if she chose to see a therapist and purposefully left him behind. She told him to get the fucking phone book and have a ball.


The Poodles are fine. Grooming weekend has passed and they are all fluffed and buffed and looking beautiful. I am 2 weeks away from completing my Hospice volunteer training. I've about had it with the feel-good stories, the ethereal discussions about death, and the blathering moron that sits across from me. I can't wait to start the actual visits and leave these fools to their defective logic.

The Heat Miser has a cold. Or bubonic plague. Either way, she is always teetering on the brink of death.......according to her. My grandmother liked to regale us with the tale of how my mother got Pneumonia as a toddler. Since my grandmother was heavily pregnant with my aunt, she was not allowed to visit my mother in the hospital, so my grandfather took off from work to spend many hours there with her. My grandmother was certain that, even at such a young age, my mother quickly learned to love the singular attention, and therefore would play up any minor illness to garner sympathy.

She still does it. My mother, probably the strongest and most determined woman I know, turns into a whining and whimpering child at the first hint of illness. It is enough to drive me batty. After my years of Emergency Room work, I have little tolerance for malingerers or sympathy-seekers. SUCK IT UP!!!

The roofers are supposed to begin work on the house next week. We do NOT have near the money we need, but since the owner is such a good friend, he is allowing us to pay half now so he can begin the work before it gets too cold, and the rest, well.........somehow we have to find the rest. I have applied for a loan at my Credit Union and I am waiting for an answer. I don't expect it will be the answer I want.



That's all I have folks.

The truth is in what you see - not what you read

New Of The World -- The Jam -- 1978




No news about the Princess and her exploda-head yet. Her Lyme titer was drawn this week, but it apparently takes a long time for the results to come back. Those mule-powered centrifuges are a bitch.


In other news, I have a neighbor I think I would like to torture. Just a little. Toy with her, maybe. I haven't thought of exactly how, but I'm sure something fun will come to me.

She lives directly next door to me. She and her husband moved into the house about 4 years ago. At first, they seemed a nice enough pair. She had a child from a previous marriage but had lost custody of him. They had no children together. They both worked nights, so we didn't see them much. They were exceedingly private to the point of being anti-social. The first week after they arrived, we heard them outside in the dark, yelling. We live in a verrrrrrrry quiet little neighborhood, so the yelling.....well it attracted all sorts of attention. It seemed as if they were yelling for their cat. Who was an indoor cat only, and had escaped from the house. Being the charming neighbors that we are, my Mother and I went out to help them look for their beloved pet.

Once the cat was located, the wife was full of apologies, insisting that they really were responsible pet owners and that things like this escape were completely out of the norm. They told us that they had 2 dogs and that the wife also housed several exotic and unusual animals in the basement as she hosted live animal shows at local elementary schools.

Mmmmkay. Host shows for other people's kids, but can't take care of your own. Whatever.

At first blush, she seemed a little wacky, but in contrast to the family that had sold the house to them, she was a gem, sparkling and glinty in the light of the nighttime moon.

Within a few weeks, the problems started. Apparently, this couple had lived in a Condo prior to buying this house and did not have a yard. Now that they had a home with a nice yard, they were taking full advantage of it. By leaving the two dogs in the yard. Around the clock. A Mastiff and a Shi-Tzu, neither of which were used to being left outside. Especially at night. With 2 owners who were at work.

So, we quickly developed an " issue" with the dogs barking at night. One elderly neighbor tried to discuss the problem with the husband but he ignored her and walked away.

One night, I was awakened by the barking. When I looked out the window I noted that both of their cars were home. It was 2: 20 a.m. The dogs continued to bark for over 30 minutes. In disgust, I called the Police department. I did not know the neighbor's last names, nor did I have a phone number, and I was not about to ring their doorbell in the middle of the night. The Police came and it took over 15 minutes of banging on the door before either one answered. They were advised to keep the dogs inside at night, and thus began an uneasy standoff between them and the neighborhood. We were not the only family affected by their thoughtlessness, but apparently they were extremely angry that I had called the Police.

Not that I cared. I've been hated by worse. My Mother is a peacekeeper, but I am of the firm belief that I should not have to be kept awake because of the stupidity of another person.

Over the past few years, their house and property has fallen into disarray. They have added and lost several dogs in their pack, and they rarely mow their lawn, nevermind clean up dog shit. In the summer, the yard smells like a sewer. In an attempt to keep my dogs as far away from the fence line that divides our properties, I constructed a smaller fence about 4 feet away from the original fence. Since their dogs appear filthy and unkempt, and I know that they are unlicensed, I do not want my dogs sickened by exposure to whatever they might carry. They live in a feces filled yard and spend the day scratching themselves relentlessly. The little fence was a source of protection for my own dogs.

Apparently, the little fence also offended the wife. She mentioned to another neighbor that I "hated" her dogs and that's why I built the fence. I have chosen to ignore her crazy ravings. She actually is quite out of control and at times, really appears to be rather manic. Just 2 weeks ago, she came storming out of the house and began to slap and curse at the husband as he was standing in the front yard.......in full view of the neighbors.

The final straw happened yesterday. My Mother was in the backyard putting away Halloween decorations and our dogs were outside with her. The wackadoo next door came out into her yard with her latest acquisition.....a beagle puppy. When Trevor saw the puppy, he began to bark. Since both my Mother and I are intolerant of barking, my Mother immediately told him to stop barking. He barked again and my Mother started across the yard to send him into the house.

And then she looked over the fence to see the neighbor marching around her yard with her fingers stuck firmly into her ears. She was playing with the puppy as she stood with her fingers in her ears. When she was done, she scooted her puppy towards her house with her foot and went inside, ears still plugged the entire way.

A short while later, my Mother spotted her outside again. My Mother called over to her and said " I'm sorry if my dog's barking was bothering you".

The response from the crazy lady: " as if you fucking care!", and she stalked off into her house.

My reaction: Oh no she didn't!

The woman who allows her dogs to roam around the neighborhood and shit all over other people's property. The woman who allows her son to play in that garbage-dump of a yard during his " visitation". The woman who brings her work van home on a regular basis to run inside......and leaves the van parked outside filled with her mentally handicapped patients. The woman who is being chased so relentlessly by creditors that they are calling our house looking for her.

That woman.


Game on bitch. Game on.


And guess what? I don't lose.