Barking Mad

Two Cherries, One Stone

How convenient is this?  I get my "has her first guest poster EVER" cherry popped by none other than the Fucking Awesome Bejewell (now ya'll just knew I could not talk about her without dropping at least ONE F-bomb!  Just wouldn't be normal) and I get to pop her "first time EVER being a guest poster" cherry. 

I don't know what's wrong with me.  Maybe I am just overcome with giddyness that my parents are here!  In my house!  The house I live in!  They are SLEEPING DOWNSTAIRS, right this very minute.  Actually, when you are reading this, my mommily will probably be sitting at the breakfast table, with her eyes rolled back into her head and in utter shock at all the times I have referenced cherries being popped over the last three days.  And my dad?  He'll just sit there and laugh...kinda like he did when Meg and I were talking about things that really were better off not being talked about at the dinner table.  I am however, so glad they are here and not shakin' and bakin' out in So Cal, where they hail from.  Thankfully all is well at home, no damage from this afternoons tumbler, and my younger sibs are taking care of everything back at the ranch.

Enough with the talk.  I'm going to go back to my little holiday with the family and you're going read this most fabulous post from the most FAB, Beej!

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I’m a Guest Posting Virgin

 
So a couple of weeks ago, Auds asked me to guest post for her here at Barking Mad while her mommily and daddy are in town, and I was all like, “Hell yeah!” but then I realized that I’ve never actually guest posted for anyone and really have no idea what I should talk about or what I’m doing in general (which is not exactly a new feeling for me). And normally I’m a totally offensive and obnoxious blog poster, which is fine on my own blog (because I’m not sure, but I suspect that many of my readers are already closet social deviants like myself), but just a *little* different when you are actually a GUEST on someone else’s blog.

And I’m even more intimidated by the fact that probably most of Auds’ readers are very nice people -- I mean, after all, Auds is herself a very nice person, even though she says she’s not (and there was that whole laughing-in-the-face-of-psycho-emailer-and-Black-Hockey-Jesus-stalker-Steven  incident, which was AWESOME). So if I’m rude and obnoxious like I usually am, they might all hate me, and start some kind of blogosphere movement against me or something, and even Auds herself might be like “WTF? What is WRONG with you, you freak?” and I would feel sorry and sad (but also probably a little juiced that I got everybody’s attention, if I’m being honest).

And as if I wasn’t freaked out enough, I asked her if I could curse and she answered me with only a very curt “Yes,” which I keep thinking about because Auds is usually a very talkative person (or whatever the electronic equivalent of talking is) and I don’t think she’s ever answered one of my questions with just a one-word answer. So that makes me think that maybe she just said “Yes” to be nice, but her “Yes” really meant “No,” and I don’t know what the fuck to do now.

Basically, I’m like some geeky guy who got invited to a frat party by mistake, and this super-hot chick got wasted on Jell-O shots and now she’s hanging all over me and whispering dirty things in my ear, and I totally want to take her back to my place but do I really want to take advantage of the situation? Okay, I totally DO want to take advantage of the situation, but do I want to deal with the rejection in the morning when she wakes up back in my dorm room and takes one look at me and my messy room with the Darth Vader poster and is all “Ewww… ummm…. Gotta go” and doesn’t offer me her number or even ask for mine before she embarks upon the Walk of Shame with her smeared mascara and panties wadded up in her purse?

(Not that I’ve ever done that.)

(Also, I think I just compared myself to a reluctant, very inept date rapist. I’m not really sure how that happened.)

So anyway, now I’m sitting at my laptop with absolutely NO IDEA what to do and I’m all freaked out and apprehensive, thinking Auds is going to fucking KILL me when she reads this and she will never speak to me again. And she’ll tell all of her blogging buddies (and she’s got A LOT of them, way more than me) what I did and they’ll all be like, “That stupid BITCH! We HATE her now!“ and start ignoring me, or worse, making fun of me behind my back but where I can still hear them, like something out of Heathers. And I’ll feel humiliated and awful (but also a little charged because there’s no such thing as bad press).

I think now might be a good time to mention that I’m on medication.

Maybe what I should do now is just focus on the positives. People love a good, positive post. (Or so I’m told.) Okay, I can totally do that. Hmmm. Let’s see. The positives, the positives. What are they? I know I can come up with at least five. I KNOW I can! C’mon, Beej… THINK POSITIVE! Okay, here goes.

Positive #1: At some point, Auds liked me enough to ask me to guest post for her.

Positive #2: Have you SEEN the other people who are guest posting for her? I SO do not belong in this company.

Positive #3: I am not at the gym right now.

Positive #4: The medication is making me fuzzy. And I mean that in the best possible way.

Positive #5: It will all be over soon.

Well, I guess that’s about the best I can do with the positives. Which means I’m pretty much through with this guest post! Yay, me! I’m no longer a virgin! My guest posting cherry has been popped!

Auds, I just want you to know that, whatever you think of me in the morning, I’m glad you were my first.

(My apologies to anyone who has read this post and feels that I did not live up to their expectations. But if you will visit my blog   you will quickly find that your expectations were completely unrealistic.)

Live from the Closing Remarks of WeanHer '08

There have been no progressive cocktail parties through Macy's...but there have been several cocktails!

There have been no bags of swag handed out...but there have been bags of used Kleenex taken out to the garbage bins.

There have been no tearful readings of essays...but there have been tearful readings of The Going to Bed Book , Snoozers , and Pajama Time as well as not so teary but disgruntled nonetheless readings of I Love You Stinky Face .  Oh and there have been tears.  Buckets and oodles, and oceans of tears from both the Little Imp and mommy, and some from daddy because he just didn't know what else to do to comfort his little girl.

There has also been some pain, the kind that lives in the heart - knowing that this IS really happening and that she hasn't nuzzled into my breast for two days now and the kind when you wake up, completely engorged - almost as bad as when you first started breastfeeding this beautiful child more than two and a half years ago.  There have been wet spots on t-shirts and I'm wondering just how bad it's going to look if I cut a maxi pad in half and stick it in each side of my bra, as I gave up nursing pads by the time the Little Imp hit four months.

There were no long talks with friends I'd been reading for ages....there was a long talk with my prescribing doc this morning about upping my dosage of Zoloft.  He wasn't kidding when he said UPPING either. He DOUBLED it!  Damn!   And there was a hint of some anti-anxiety meds too.  He concurs with my therapist that I need to WRITE WRITE WRITE about what's happened and how I'm feeling and to not stop taking pictures, something I used to love and had this silly notion I might have been good at.  Yeah, funny thing about writing about what happened to precipitate the depression, I CAN'T write about what happened.  I CAN'T talk about it.  No way, no how.  Not yet anyways.  And when all is said and done, I probably still won't be able to.  And as far as taking pictures....meh, just don't care.

He tried to encourage me to hang onto the things I love most.  But it's hard to do that when you just don't want to, when you just don't care anymore.  And now, to ice to the cake, I'm taking something away from my little one that both of us find rewarding.   I no longer put her to bed, rather, I have to lie to her and tell her mommy is out picking up Meg from work, so that she knows that I, and more importantly my boobs, are not in the immediate vicinity.  It's worked for the past two nights.  That makes me incredibly sad.  She has long associated a good old pull at the mommy-trough with bedtime snuggles, giggles, cuddles and kisses.

So, doc says to me, "I'm sure you can find something good about weaning your little one. "

I thought about it for a while and yes indeed, I did find a couple of good things.

• The hubby will be most pleased that he can possibly touch the boobies now, not just look at them longingly and then get his hand slapped if he does anything more.
• I can drink more than one glass of wine without worrying about the hangover my TWO YEAR OLD will be sporting the next day, or whether she's a mean drunk or a happy drunk.
  
• I can once again eat a variety of things I was too afraid too, lest it make her sick, burn her little bum, or cause some sort of other disturbance.  Funny thing about that though is that I could care less about eating those things now.
• I was horribly, almost scarily ill this past winter.  At least now, should I get the plague again, I can take medicines that I know will work for me, yet won't harm the Little Imp.

So there, that's enough of a friggin bright side.  So far, WeanHer '08 has been an experience. One that I certainly won't forget anyhow.  It's not been as miserable as I was thinking it would be, but it's not exactly been a day at the amusement park either. 

As of this morning she is, for all intents and purposes,  weaned.  She was still asking for it and I told her what Grandma told me to tell her (you'll have to go read the comments from this post to see exactly what Grandma said). She came to me last night before bed and said; "Mummy, I don't need mummy milk tonight, it's all gone."  She gave me a hug and kiss and was off to bed.   Occasionally when she was still asking for it,  I would throw in how happy the Boogey Man, Boogey Mommy and Boogey Baby are that I've shared my mommy milk with them...because ya know, the Boogey Mommy has no Boogey Boobies. 

I think it's safe to say that the Boogey Man never gets his hands slapped!

A Meme and an Announcement!

The beautiful and hilarious Tootise Farklepants at Vintage Thirty has tagged me for a meme.  Now technically this is my first meme.  I could make a really crude comment about popping my meme cherry but that's kinda crass and....oh, what's that?  I DID make that really crude comment?  Well scratch what I just said.  See, this is why my mommily loves me and is coming to see me.  Because I am tacky and sometimes crude and she thinks I need to have my mouth washed out with soap.  Also, she misses the fruit of her looms.  Or something like that.

Where was I?  Oh the cherry-poppin' meme, that's right!  Thanks for reminding me.

So here we go...

What is your favorite quotable line from a movie? The Lost Boys; David (Keifer Sutherland's character): "What, you don't like rice? Tell me Michael, how could a billion Chinese people be wrong?"

Who is the most famous person you've talked to? Wow, there are a lot, having been in the radio and voice-over industries for a long time.  I got a hug from Bill Cosby and there is even a photo.  Marilyn Manson licked me.   I've spoken with Reba McIntyre several times and she ALWAYS remembered my name! I've met so many people over the years  I think those are the three most memorable.

How many bags/boxes of potato chips are consumed at your house per month?  Can't stand them unless they are on top of tuna casserole.   We are pretty much a Doritos and Tostitos bunch.

What foreign food dish do you prepare from scratch and serve? Being that the hubby is British, you'd think I'd have gotten good at one typically British dish or another.  Not so much.  I'll have to say Bangers and Mash.  It's easy peasy lemon squeezy.  Oh and tasty!

What is your favorite section of the supermarket?  The bakery! Our local grocery has the BEST sugar-free strawberry pie in the whole fucking world!  Word!  It's like a little strawberry orgasm in your mouth!  I would send you some, but that would be generous and when it comes to this pie, I am NOT GENEROUS!

What was your high school team's mascot and what were the school colors? Our mascot was an eagle and the school colors were red, gold and black.  Damn, I'm surprised I remembered all that without having to get my yearbook out.

Well now, that was oodles and oodles of fun and not nearly as painful as I recall a certain other cherry-poppin experience I had.  Hush up Mom!  You too Meg!

Lets see, who shall I tag for this meme?  Eeny meeny miney moe...or was it duck, duck, duck GOOSE?  Don't know, don't remember actually.  I'm tagging the following people and you'd better do this...or else!

Rachael over at Scientific Nature of the Whammy

Alias Liz Jones

KD at A Bit Squirrelly

There ya go ladies.  Have at it! 

Now for the ANNOUNCEMENT!

I haven't exactly been keeping this under wraps (no Mom, I am NOT pregnant, remember, I had that little thing called a tubal back when I had the Little Imp?  You can stop looking at the computer screen like you've just had a seizure) but haven't said anything about it out here.  Being the Twitter-Ho I am, I've mentioned it here and there.

When I get back from our holiday on the seventh of August I am going to kick off ...

I can't say a lot, but what I can tell you is:

If you are looking for a new digital camera, (valued at $200.00) then this is the give-away you want to pay attention to.

If you have a sense of humor and love taking pictures, this is YOUR give-away!

If you have a sense of adventure, this is YOUR give-away!

If you love me, then you will tell everyone on planet earth about this give-away!

Edited to add: OPEN TO INTERNATIONAL RESIDENTS! Thanks Kelley over at Magneto bold too  for reminding me!

Go ahead, steal the cheap graphic above and if you can figure out how to make a linking graphic, go for it and whilst you're at it, can you tell me how? I'm clueless.  Put the graphic in your sidebar.  Pretty please?  With sugar on top?  Whip cream? What, you don't like whip cream?  Please don't tell me you are a Cool Whip fan.  Well OK, if you want Cool Whip, then Cool Whip it is.

I'm so excited about my first give-away that I am about to wet myself.  Speaking of poppin' cherries, this would qualify wouldn't it? 

Alright, there you have it, a meme and a give-away. 

I'll see you when I get back from our little holiday which isn't really a holiday but because my folks are flying all the way in from So Cal, I will try and be on my best behavior and consider being the perfect hostess.  Or not.   

Oh wait...not so fast there bucko! 

There will be the occasional guest poster.  BE NICE TO THEM!   Don't make me get outta my chair now, ya'll hear me?

Another Milestone...Sorta ***UPDATED***

I'm sitting here, one hour before my oldest daughter Megawatt gets behind the wheel of one of our cars, whilst an officer of the Maine DMV slides into the passenger seat next her, (say a little prayer for him/her won't you?), chewing my nails to the quick and wondering where all my Valium has gone.

I keep asking myself, does she REALLY need her license?  The short answer is yes, because as I have stated before, the hubby and I are tired of dragging her ass here, there and everywhere.  But, maybe we could suck it up a little longer...oh say another ten years?  No, probably not. 

She leaves for college in less than four weeks.  And now she's getting her license, well, provided she passes the test.  There are a million things running through my mind...

What if she drives and gets distracted by the stereo?  OK easily rectified, yank that sucker out!

What if she drives and talks on her cell phone?  Threaten her with immediate death if caught blabbing away on that thing.

What if, GOD FORBID she texts whilst driving?  Cut off her hands.  That will take care of the entire driving thing pretty much.  But then she'd have to go around with hooks and really, those aren't very trendy.   So maybe that solution is out.  But I think I recall seeing a Discovery show about a man with no hands who was driving with his hooks.  Yeah, she'd be ALL OVER that!

What if she speeds?  Hmmm I wonder how much those speed governors are that you can put on cars to keep them from going over a certain speed?

What if she puts "spinners" on the Volvo like she keeps threatening to do? Remind her that Helga, my precious Swedish girl, does NOT roll that way!

What if the unthinkable happens?  Nope, not gonna think about it.

Yet, I will think about it, much like every other parent who has a teen who is dying to get out and burn rubber.  I worry, sometimes obsessively about her driving habits, but more than that, I worry about the driving habits, or lack thereof of OTHER drivers.  So many things can happen.  I hope we've prepared her enough.

This is all coming too fast.  Weaning the Little Imp...Meg getting her drivers license, Meg heading off to college.  It's all colliding at the same time and I just want to yell;  "STOP THE MERRY-GO-ROUND!  I WANT TO GET OFF!"

So much change, happening so rapidly.  I'm just not ready. 

And frankly, I don't think other drivers in Maine are ready either.

Alas fellow Mainers, and drivers everywhere, I can't put this off any longer.  This morning at 8AM EST we may be welcoming a newly licensed driver into the fold. 

That reminds me, I need to go refill my Valium prescription.  I wonder if the pharmacy would mind opening a bit early for me?

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10:32AM EST

Soup Nazi says; "No License for YOU today!"

Parallel parking did Meg in. 

Oh and her examiner?  Pretty much a bitch.  I say this because she wasn't even at our car when she started barking (picture a pit bull if you will, except with blond scraggly hair and too much blue make up! Obviously she was still stuck in the 80's) orders at Meg. She didn't introduce herself she just dug her heels in.  OK I get it, no nonsense.  However, some things Meg told me about how she responded to her and then when I saw her greet the next potential licensee, a cute male, close to Meg's age - she was all smiles and hair tosses and giggles and demure femininity.  She extended her hand in introdcution and as they drove off she was all smiles and more hair tosses.  WTF?

I will admit though, Meg comes from a long line for first time flunkies.  I flunked my first road test and it was only by a miracle - being that I was pregnant and in my first trimester with the twins and had to pull over in the middle of the drive so I could barf - that I passed.  I think my examiner took pity on me.  My mom, Meg's grandma flunked the first time as well.  So really, she's just carrying on family tradition.

Selfishly I am a tad relieved she didn't pass...yet.  But then reality slaps me in the face and reminds me that SOMEONE is gonna have to take her to and pick her up from work again. 

Until the 21st of this month.

When she hopefully passes her second road test. 

She Should Have Gotten a Brazillian

You know it's going to be good when your oldest daughter, who is eighteen, calls the land line from her cell phone, downstairs in her bathroom, and says;

"Mom you have to PROMISE me you won't blog about this!  I mean it, PROMISE me!"

I told her to just shut up and tell me what's wrong already.

Now that I have recovered from the near seizure I almost had caused by fits of hysterical laughter, and have called my vet to make sure my dog would survive, you know the first thing I am going to do is blog about it.

Earlier this evening Meg had taken Casey (our seven month old Goldendoodle puppy, AKA Hell Hound, Demon Dog and Satan's Canine Spawn, for the two of you that are new and have no idea who I'm talking about) downstairs with her while she was in exercising on the elliptical machine and Ab Lounger.  Casey apparently fell asleep in the family room and Meg decided to get in the shower. 

A little word about the downstairs shower.  It's approximately the size of a toaster.  Well, OK, it's a tad bigger, but you can't bend over, so there's no shaving.  Ever. Perhaps your arm pits but that's it.  The bathroom itself is huge, but the shower, um yeah, it's minuscule.

Meg was headed to the beach so she did what any other female who is about to sport a bikini would do, some pruning.  Now without getting entirely too graphic, because this is my daughter,  I'll just say enough to let you know that she was standing in the bathroom while she was taking care of business and was letting all the hair drop to a towel below.

She finishes up and runs upstairs to get the broom and dust pan in order to take care of any pieces of hair that might have escaped the towel and when she gets back downstairs she discovers that Casey has awoken from his nap and is standing in the bathroom having a snack.

The snack?  Yeah, you guessed it. 

Now, before I went into fits of laughter I was genuinely horrified that my dog might choke on his snack and wasn't sure what to do.  Do I Google it and see if any other dogs have met some horrible fate after eating pubic hair?  I decided to just bite the bullet and call the vet.  That is, until I dialed the number and someone answered and I had no idea what the hell I was going to say.

Vet's office:    Hello, after hours help line, this is Marcy, how can I help you?

Me:    Um, Hi Marcy, Um my name is Audrey SoandSo and I have a seven month old Goldendoodle puppy that is seen at your office and he just ate something I don't think he should have.

Vet's office:   And what was that Mrs.SoandSo? 

Me:    Well um. Errrrrr, it was um hair.

Vet's office:     What kind of hair was it? 

Me:    Just hair, you know.  On the floor.  The kind that's on the floor.

Vet's office:  How much hair was it?  How long was the hair?  Was it human hair?

Me:   Um yes.

Vet's office:    Mrs. SoandSo can you tell me how much hair?  Was it long hair?

Me:     Hang on, I'll have to ask my daughter.

Me shouting downstairs:  Meg!!!! Come up here for a minute.  *teenager stomps upstairs*  Just how much hair was it? 

Meg:  MOMMMMMMMMMMMMM! 

Me:    Meg, I'm serious, the vet wants to know how much hair he ate.

Meg:   Well, all of it.

Me:    So it wasn't just a trim or a light pruning, but rather you gave yourself a Brazilian without the wax?

Meg:    Yeah you could say that.

Me:    Oh for fuck's sake!

Meg:    Well what do you think I was going to do, measure it?  I didn't exactly have any measuring cups down there.

Me:    You could have eyeballed it, just guesstimate how much hair there was.  Never mind, I don't want to know.

I go back to the phone conversation with the vet's office and I can hear laughter as soon as I place my ear back up to the phone.

Vet's office:    Ma'am, I couldn't help but overhear part of that.  Did Casey eat pubic hair?

Me:      *whimpering*  Yes.  A lot apparently. 

Vet's office:  Mrs. SoandSo does your dog appear to be in any distress?  Is he vomiting?

Me:    No.  He's acting normal.  He was pretty thirsty when he came back upstairs and I went ahead and let him drink two bowls of water because, you know, I thought, well, um, he might wanna wash it down so it didn't get stuck in his throat. 

Vet's office:    Mrs. SoandSo I think everything is going to be fine.  Dog's do after all, bath themselves and ingest quite a bit of hair and it goes through their digestive tracks often without trouble or distress.  Watch him over the weekend and call us on Monday if you are concerned and we'll get him right in.  Was there anything else that I can help you with?

Me:    No, I'm good.  Um, thanks.

I can never show my face in that vet's office ever again.  Everyone is going to know that I'm the one with the dog that ate the pubic hair.

First thing Monday morning I'm changing veterinary practices.