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Category: Are you kidding me?

Blog awards? And I thought I just did this for fun. And pain. And you.

Blog awards? And I thought I just did this for fun. And pain. And you.

After getting a kick in the gut, knife in the back, slap to the face yesterday (bitter much?), it was really nice to have someone point me to the fact that I am actually up for a few awards at the Bloggers Choice Awards.

Now, I was more than a little sad to not be in the ranks with Liz at Mom-101 because if I am with her, I have made it, baby. But, sadly, I am not. I tried to campaign to join her, but they top off the number of categories you can be nominated in. Bummer. Honestly, any award that Liz is up for is one I would be honored to be there with her. Though, this particular nomination she writes about is a ridiculous joke. However, you have to love her sense of humor about it. She was nominated for one she deserves, though. (So go. Vote for the one she deserves here.)

To be 100% honest, the best “awards” I get for this blog are the comments, the emails and the friendships. You readers rock.

I have to say after yesterday, it was nice to get a kind email from someone who reads this blog letting me know that there are friends I have met online who are good and kind and caring, unlike some I have met and trusted who put the B in Witch.

So if you feel inclined, go vote. If not, go vote for Mom 101 HERE. That is the nomination that is real.

This is the only time you will see me talk about it or write about. I feel compelled to, though, because someone took the time to nominate me. For that, I am thankful. Again, my readers rock.

** [Edited to explain this one.] This award will be presented to the blogger who demonstrates the best writing ability on his or her blog.
My site was nominated for The Blogitzer!

Does this mean best writing about parenting because best parenting part is SO not going to be ME!
My site was nominated for Best Parenting Blog!

(This one makes me feel like I am being voted off the island and am getting farewell tribute. All time? Ever? Uhhh, not so much.)
My site was nominated for Best Blog of All Time!

(And just no to this one.)
My site was nominated for Hottest Mommy Blogger!

Now remember go love on Liz here.

I fought the chair and the chair won

I fought the chair and the chair won

While on vacation and the night was clear and beautiful, I decided to take the opportunity to enjoy the incredible stars that seemed to go on forever. The best way to see such an amazing sight was from our upper deck with (of course) a telescope. Gleefully hopping up into the bar/deck chair, I lean forward to look at the beauty of nature.

And fall ass over tea kettle.

Ironically, I didn’t even know I fell until I hit the ground with my knee. (Bless the sturdy workmen who did an excellent job on putting up the railing around the upper deck as it kept me from plummeting to my death below.)

Suddenly I am gasping in pain unable to stand up and seeing stars of a different sort. (Before you even ask, I was stone cold sober, my friends.) My older brother was immediately by my side.

“Can you get up? Are you okay?”

“No! I am so NOT okay. My knee must be broken and bleeding and I am sure that I have a concussion!” (Drama much?)

My brother helped me up and then went on with, “…Want me to throw that frickin’ telescope in the ocean. I will get that bitch to the Bahamas!” (I do so love having a big brother to take care of me. )

My knee in fact was bruised and scraped, but not broken or gushing gallons of blood. It was then that the embarrassment hit. To witness my wonderful act of grace was my nephew, my sister, my brother-in-law, my teen and of course my brother.

My nephew is three and kept chanting: “What happened to my Jennifer? What happened to my Jennifer? What happened to my Jennifer?” I wanted to reply, “That son-of-a-bitch chair and I just had a throw down and it won!” but rather replied, “I just fell down. I am okay.”

My sister just laughed. (In her defense, I would have done the same thing had it been her.)

My brother-in-law pretended not to see it as to not have to commit to laughter or sympathy until he saw whether I was going to cry or laugh.

And my teen?

He sits back in his deck chair having never gotten up in the first place and mockingly says, “Nice move there, Mom. Takes talent to fall out of a chair for no reason what. so. ever.”

There was SO a reason. Apparently, I leaned over to look out of the telescope that was BROKEN and fell right out of the chair. But he did have a point. Not my finest or most graceful moment.

So I laughed. What else is there? Then limped my graceful self downstairs for ice. After putting that in my margarita, I got some for my knee.

And that, my friends, is why they call me Grace.

I thought about showing you a picture, but they are not nearly as dramatic to look at as it is to hear about. And you know, the whole “drama” effect works for me.

Guess what I did!

Guess what I did!

Go on!  Guess.  I started another blog.  (Shuddup, Amalah!  I can so add one more!) It is not a typical Mommyblog, but it does have Mommyblogishness to it.  Go on over and check it out.  Please.  I mean, begging is not above me, but come on people, as of this moment, I have not had more than one cup of coffee, so if I get down on my knees to beg, I just may fall asleep down there.

Go meet Marama and at my new Mom Gamer blog:  Aggroqueen.

Did I mention that you are my favorite reader?  Don’t tell anyone else, but really….you are my favorite!

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The things I will endure for a Slurpee

The things I will endure for a Slurpee

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I spend most of my day hauling children to and from school.  I wonder at times if I actually live in my car.  Seriously, I could be stranded in my car for days before I started to miss the comforts of home.  In fact, if I were to get stranded alone, it would be longer than that.  (This is the point I should add pictures, but for the life of me I cannot find the charger for my digital camera so we are all out of luck.) There are days when I have considered not even bothering to get out of the car between drop offs and pick ups. What’s the point?  I can become the infamous car blogger.  (Note to self:  Look into hooking up laptop to steering wheel.)

So yesterday being a Wednesday, I was all over town as always.  But with a twist.  I had my husband’s car.  It just was not right.  My radio stations were not programmed.  I didn’t have any of my own CDs.  And there was not one Diet Coke, one cookie or even a piece of candy to tide me over.  The biggest horror is that there was not ONE extra pair of shoes in the trunk.  Who lives that way?

So at 9:00pm, much to my dismay I had to once again jump in the Car That Is Not Mine and run to the store.  Across the street from the store is a 7-11.  Suddenly I realized I MUST HAVE a Slurpee.  I haven’t had a Slurpee in probably 20 years, but I really needed one RIGHT THEN.  My only dilemma was that in order cross this street, I had to maneuver across 6 lanes of traffic under construction.  One lane open. One closed. One open., Median. Open lane. Closed lane. Open lane. Then the Slurpee Haven.  Normally, in my second home own car I would whip through that kind of car dodging situation without blinking an eye.  But remember, I was in The Car That Was Not Mine.  And it is a standard.  The last time I owned a standard was about the last time I had a Slurpee.  Could I be brave enough to slalom through the barricades and cars in a car that was not as familiar to me as my own?

Must. Have. Slurpee.  I ground the car into first.  (Hey, I told you it had been a while since owning a standard.) I dodged and ducked and whipped around barrels and flew past cars to safely arrive at the 7-11.  I grabbed my money and dashed into the store.  Just as the door was closing I hear that horrifying sound.  The unmistakable sound of metal smashing metal, glass shattering in wreckage just outside in the parking lot.  I couldn’t look.  I grabbed the guy standing beside me and begged him to look and make sure my husband’s car was not hit. 

“What kind of car is it?” he asked.

“Red.  It is red.  See if the RED CAR WAS HIT!”

He went outside and returned to reassure me that the red car was in fact fine.  However. 

“NO!  Don’t say however!”

“However, they are locked together about a foot behind you, so you aren’t going anywhere for a while.”

After grabbing my Slurpee (which had lost a lot of its appeal by then), I leaned up against the counter and started talking to the 7-11 counter-boy.

“So, Johnny, does this sort of thing happen often here?”

“Uhhh, my name in not Johnny.  Why are you calling me Johnny?”

“You have no name-tag and ‘7-11 counter-dude’ seemed rather odd since we’ll be hanging out for a while.”

“Works for me,” he shrugged.  “This usually only happens on weekends when the teenagers are acting like idiots.  Those two look like adults acting like idiots.”

Then the guy I grabbed to make sure that it was not The Car That Is Not Mine was not involved offered to take me down the corner and buy me a beer to wait it out.

Sure.  I am always into jumping into cars with strangers to go grab a beer while waiting out a couple of cars that look to be copulating.

“That is so nice of you, but Johnny and I here have plans to hang out.  I can’t just drop him.  It would be rude.  You know.  Like leaving a party with someone other than the one who brought you.  But really, the offer is so appreciated.” (I think Johnny choked back a laugh, but I couldn’t look at him for fear of laughing.

After about 15 minutes of really idle and quite boring chit-chat, I look at Johnny and say, “You know what movie line keeps going through my mind over and over?”

“Let me guess.  ‘Of all of the 7-11’s in all of the world, I decide to stop at this one?’ Or a variation of some Casablanca line?”

I stare at him. This kid certainly didn’t look to be someone who would quote Casablanca.  Now I felt stupid.  “No, ummm…not so much.  Actually, I was thinking of the infamous: ‘Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K’ but of course using 7-11 instead.”

Now it was his turn to stare at me.  “No. Way.  You did NOT just pull out a reference to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.  Dude.  That is so lame!”

“Is not.  It is totally appropriate here.  Admit it.  You’re thinking it now too.  HA!”

It was then that we saw the copulating cars separate and move out of my way. 

“Well, Johnny, it’s been fun.  Stay cool!” And in the lameness of the moment we high-fived.

The moral of the story?  Seriously?  You think anything that pulls a quote from Bill & Ted has a moral?  Not even.

But the Slurpee was kind of good.

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Like Scrubs, only not as funny

Like Scrubs, only not as funny

[cue dramatic music]

Like sands through the hour glass…so are the Days of our Lives.  (Okay, Days fans, hum it with me.  Buh nuhh nuhh nuhh nuuuuuuhhhh nuhhhhhh…)

Oh wait.  My bad.  This is so much more General Hospital.  Yeah.  That’s it.  Anything hospital themed will work.  I wanted to go with Scrubs, but General Hospital is much more dramatic and crisis driven.  It just works.  (Even if I totally am crushing on Dr. Cox.  Not the actor.  The doctor and his acidic, razor sharp tongue that lashes people before they see it coming.  That means you too, Bambi.)

What the hell am I babble-assing about now?  Well, Mom is still in the same stable but critical condition.  Apparently, this just doesn’t sit well with Dad.  I mean, a man needs some attention now and then.  What better way to get it than to be checked into the hospital, too?  Yes, you did read that correctely.  Now my Dad is also in the hospital.  Apparently he went surfing on the Internet for something new that Mom has not had but that he can take full advantage of her specialists and came up with pancreatitis.  Gotta give him points for creativity.  He is in one hospital and Mom is in another down the street about 5 miles.

So, again I am on my way back to Houston.  Again.

Anyone in Houston want to meet for a stiff drink?  A scrumptious lunch?  I’ll settle for a long nap.  *grin*

I will update when I can and blog from there if I can.  If you don’t hear from me it is because I have not been able to get access to a computer.  Because, really, Internet, I love you bestest and will always come back to you.  Even you over there lurking in the corner.

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Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Are you still here?  Do you remember me?  I feel like I have been away from the real world for much longer than a week.  Between being in the hospital with Mom and hearing nothing but Rita coverage for DAYS and DAYS ad nauseam, I am devouring every newspaper I have been able to get my hands on.  When you are locked in the same place for so long and the only news you hear pertains to a hurricane, the aftermath of a hurricane and the hysteria of the media about a hurricane, you begin to feel like the rest of the world must have stopped with you.  It feels like a shock to emerge and see that the rest of the world went on without you.  You mean there is life outside of Houston?  Outside of the hospital?  Who knew! Where do I begin to update you?

I’ll start with Mom.  The doctor that called me at home was jumping the gun with calling me.  I mean, Mom is not going to hop out of bed and be better, but at that moment she was not dying.  Not immediately.  Do I think she will heal from this?  I certainly hope so.  But, she has so many things wrong and so many things going against her.  It is heartbreaking to see one thing get better only to have something new pop up.  Example:  Today, we were thrilled to see that her fever was down.  Her fever has been a big source of head-scratching because they cannot find the source of her infection.  So, no fever is great.  Of course, not to let us get too hopeful, her x-rays showed that her lung had collapsed.  See?  For every good news medically, we get something new that is a set-back.  The emotional roller coaster is harder than I could ever do justice to with mere words.  I am a mess.  A MESS.  I cannot describe the hell it is to get a phone call telling you to come to your mother’s bedside to say goodbye and then be told that “oops, not quite yet”, so you stay so that you can sit with her and try to comfort her when all you want is for her to comfort you.  It is an emotional mind-fuck if ever there was one.

She continually asks me to take her home.  Oh how I wish I could!  I hate leaving her and knowing that she would give anything to be able to go with me.  Her tears kill me.  There is nothing I can do reassure her or give her what she wants.  She wants to talk.  She wants to go home.  She wants someone to promise her that she will get better.  I feel so damn helpless not being able to give her any of those things.  It’s not fair.  I know.  I know.  No one said life was fair.  But holy crap on a crispy cracker this is outrageously unfair.

But wait, the fun never stops here!  In the midst of this we are told that “Sorry ‘bout it, but a Cat-5 hurricane is headed your way.  Get the hell out of dodge!” If it was just me, I would have completely ignored the warnings.  But, my sister has 2 young children that she wanted to keep safe.  So, we did what we felt we should do to protect them.  We loaded them up–along with a 3 month old puppy– and hit the road.  Along with 2.7 MILLION other Houston area residents.  My sister had the van with the air conditioner and the kids and puppy.  I had the small car all to myself with no air.  I asked her more than once if she wanted to switch cars in order to get a break from the kids.  She, however, said that I looked “pretty damn hot back there” and that she was just fine with her own little chaotic van.

It took us 12 hours– TWELVE HOURS– to go just over 50 miles.  12 hours.  50 miles.  (For those of you who know Houston, we got from I-10 and Beltway 8 to southern part of Loop 336 in Conroe in those 12 hours. We began to lose all mental control when we hit Hwy 1488 and still knew it would be at least an hour to the next exit.) I suppose it was around the 5th hour that I started to go a bit mental.  I called Jenny just so that I could scream at someone who would hardly even bat an eye at my rantings. 

But the drive is an entirely different entry that involves flying bras, Pull-ups and flashing busloads of prisoners.  You may feel guilty for laughing, but trust me, it was entertaining to hear (not so much to live, though).  I will post that one later today.  I mean, you know what they say….Always leave them wanting more.  Oh, I want to tell you all about the amazing people I met while I was at the hospital in lock-down for 36 hours.  Everyone has a story if you will just sit quietly long enough to listen to the people who will share them with you.  From a Katrina evacuee to a surgeon to an alcoholic who was there for detoxing, I met many people who touched me deeply just by sharing who they are with me.  I would never ask for the situation I was in, but if I had to be there, I am glad I was there with the people I got to know.  But again, that is another story.  Actually, many stories.  But now, now I must sleep.  I am still not normal.  I still feel like I am a step or two behind the rest of the world. (More so than I usually am.) Will you come back again?  I’ll leave the light on and the coffee pot full.

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