Writing on the Wall

The other night I woke up in the middle of the night sure that there were snakes on the ceiling.  I am sure that it was brought on by some freakish and unusual dream, but alas there I laid thinking a cobra was going to be falling on my head at any second.  

 

It didn’t take me long to jump from the bed screaming at the top of my lungs and thinking that I was going to die.  There I stood in the pitch dark looking at the outline of the bed while the dogs were dashing around my feet trying to figure out what was going on and how they could help me lick the culprit to death.

 

Matt, in his usual dead-to-the-world-while-asleep mode, made a few sounds and said come back to bed.  My inner being told me HELL NO.  There are snakes in your bed that are going to kill you.  My heart was beating so fast trying to figure out how to inspect the bed without getting bitten.  Mind you, I had no thoughts of how to actually get Matt’s bony ass out of the bed and not get bitten. 

 

So there I am pacing in the hallway and kitchen trying to figure out my plan of action to get the snakes away from the bed. I finally yelled at Matt at the top of my lungs “Get out of the bed now.  I want to turn on the lights to make sure that there are no snakes in the bed.  You go wait in the other room and once I have turned off the lights again you are welcome to come back in”. Somehow this translated in his head to “get up, stand in the hallway and turn on the lights.” But whatever, it worked.

 

Luckily for me and for the snakes of the world there were no slithering scary masses anywhere to be seen in the bed.  And Matt was quickly back into bed snoring happily while I continued to calm down and go back to sleep.

 

Thankfully Matt has never mentioned the incident.  I think he was actually asleep the entire freaking time.  Even while he stood in his bare feet on the tile while I wrestled with my fears in our bedroom, he made no sounds. Had he been awake I am sure that I would have been ridiculed with laughing banter all the next morning.   

When did regular joe schmoes decide that they too could be a rock star?  When karaoke was developed!   Matt, his friend Shalen and I decided to hit up the local bar and grill in our local city on a Saturday night.  What we didn't know before walking in is that every Saturday night starting at 9 is karaoke night.  Before long people in all shapes and sizes took to the stage to show off their lack of talent and ability.  Each song was carefully selected from the repertoire of songs they chose to perform last week.  The singers chose to show their heart felt emotion by making the most ridiculous facial expressions.  Every time that they moved it looked as if they were trying to shift to not feel so constipated and blocked.  Their eye brows get really close together and they looked so concerned and in trauma that it couldn't be anything but a compacted colon.  I wanted so badly to scream "STOP!  Don't you realize that everyone is laughing at you?  Not with you?" I mean come on!  Who in their right mind gets up and takes on a Barbara Streisand song believing that they sound just as good as Barbara? And then has the audacity to try and mimic her trademark expressions! But then I realized 2 things:

 

1. All of these people have been drinking for a very long time .  We are talking a lot of alcohol.  Case in point:  in the time it took me to drink 2 beers (Four Peaks Pumpkin House Porter – a seasonal local beer that is so good), Matt and Shalen had drank 3 pitchers of Coor's Light.  So if these people were even drinking half the amount my husband and his best friend down, then the chance that they were in the right state of mind is slim to none.  Frankly at times like that (ie.: drunk out of my mind) I am known to think I too am hotter than Heidi Klum. 
2. Each time someone sang I got more and more into this thinking that I could show all of these people up.  Even for a while I sifted through the large book of choices trying to find the perfect "sing-along" to show off my wonderful talents.  Talents that at some point could be thought of as equal to one Ms. Hill.  So after remembering this long diatribe on my own (in reality defunct) vocal skills I realized that anyone was a sucker for the Karaoke and could and would be sucked in. 

 

So I give up in trying to talk some people out of participating in this embarrassment.  But if you do choose to sing along, please do me one thing: stop making the poop face. I can't look you in the eye afterward.

 

A person that shall remain nameless sent me an email entitled “FOR BLONDES” and asked, “Name 4 words in the English language that no other word rhymes with”.  Did he assume because I am a fucking blonde that I couldn’t answer this question?  Because of his audacity in the way he asked his question, I answered.  (I’ll scroll a little bit to give you time to actually think of the answer yourself)

 

 

 

I stated: “In terms of a perfect rhyme (not including near rhymes): orange, silver, month, purple, and for a fifth: aardvark.”  Thinking I was ever so smart and showing off that his ridiculous assumption regarding the breadth of my knowledge was completely off base. He of course sent back an email of apology, never to question me again.

 

 

Thank god for Google.  I would have been lost without it.

My husband loves dogs.  He thinks that they come in a close second to me and every family should have one. It is for this very reason that he was able to talk me into getting a dog.  As soon as I said that I would look at what dogs were available, we had TWO dogs living with us.  Now I have to say that they are really cute, but I have never had a pet in my life.  So this was a huge jump for me.  They moved in with us in February of this year, and really everyday they have done something completely inappropriate and frustrating with that god damned little pouty dog face that gets them every fucking thing they want. 

 Sunday was one of the best.

Bandit (Sir Bandit as Matt likes to call him, half of Smokey and the Bandit, Smokey would be his brother and cohort) has decided that his best and most favorite toy in the world is string.  String balls, socks, towels, you name it, he loves to pull it apart.  He has been given one towel as a toy, one sock (which neither Matt nor I claimed as our own) and he randomly gets string balls when I think about buying one at the store. My ability to love the little guys could be partly some of my joy in watching him as well.  He prances everywhere; jubilant with his stringy find.  He pulls and plays and throws it in the air and catches it by himself.  The part that isn't so good is that he eats the string.  He threw up last week because of eating so much string that his body weight tripled.  Of course he had to throw up on the only 5 X 7 area of carpet that we have in the house.  Matt was a freaking baby about it too.  "IT SMELLS, IT SMELLS!!!! YOU CLEAN IT UP!".  What the hell?  Are you turning 26 in a month or 12?  How the heck do you plan on having children if a hard mass of string covered in bile freaks you out!!!!

But this isn't the worst.  Seems as if some of the string got through Bandit's digestive track and caused some serious issues with his ability to shit.  Being a Sunday morning, I got up all bright eyed and ready for the day, my husband then came in the door (he slept at a friend's house because he was so drunk) all hung over and ready to hurl something or sleep.  So I sat myself down on the couch to study and get some other stuff done while he snored on the bed.  Soon Bandit came around the corner from the kitchen dragging his butt across the tile with a gigantic pained face.  I ran as quickly as I could to him, thinking he had broken a leg or had a serious problem.  Only I found shit hanging out of his body covered in string.  The string had caused a stop up, with half of the string hanging in the body and halfway out of the body.  I started to scream for Matt to come help because I wasn't quite sure what to do and I wanted to hold bandit as still as possible.

Matt comes around the corner, and because of his weakened state begins to dry heave at the sight of the shit hanging out of Bandit's ass.  At this point I start laughing to the point of crying because it serves Matt right for getting himself in the compromised position in the first place.  Between heaves of breath I try to yell at him to get some paper towel in order to pull it out.  He gets paper towel and puts it over the top of the shit and tries to use his foot to pull it out.  Again, more dry heaving as the shit wont budge from the lack of an attempt Matt makes.  I then have to hold Bandit down while I use my hand (with paper towel) to pull.  It comes out without any problem.  Matt crawls back to our room, and Bandit bounds around the house, happy as can be, looking for a string toy.

 Remind why I said yes that I wanted dogs?  I should have known better than to think that he would take care of them!

My goals for the rest of 2004:

 

·        Lose 5 pounds – I think every person has this on their list, but I have decided that this is number one.  I have this stellar skirt and sweater that I would like to wear for Christmas, but I really would look better if I could talk my thighs and abs into being about an inch smaller.  I figure if I write it out like this that somehow it is going to give me the impetus to actually do this.

·        Finish my creative project for my girlfriend for Christmas.  I would write about it but I don’t know if she would find this on the web and I so desperately want it to be a surprise.  Come 12/26/04 though I will have plenty of stories regarding my ridiculous waste of time in attempting to take on another hobby.

·        Complete Christmas cards – Why people think that Christmas cards are the way to go I don’t know.  I think that they are 1. A complete waste of time and a shameless attempt to show off regarding something that really doesn’t matter 2.  A complete waste of money.  37 cents for every freaking stamp is so much when you multiply it by 100 cards.  How many people REALLY read what I send?  Maybe grandparents and my in-laws.  That is about it.  I could draw stick figures and say “we are still alive” and that would suffice for half of the people. But I am drawn to complete the project merely because I won’t hear the end of it if I am the only person who does not do one.  Damn family.

·        Become more tolerant – now this might seem like this should not be included in such a short time period.  However, I feel like this is imperative for me to be able to effectively manage the holiday season.  Too many people, activities, and sugar that make me feel completely over stimulated and force me to snap at some poor soul that only came up to wipe the powdered sugar off of my face.

·        Finish the backyard – My husband and I took on the project of redoing our backyard last April.  The story behind this monstrous task shall be told in another blog, as it deserves its own time and place for many to be able to laugh and remember there own shortcomings in home improvement.  But alas, I would like to see the completion of the backyard by the end of the year (giving that I can get Matthew to move his rear-end).

·        Decorate (at least start) our Bedroom - Lastly, I want a pretty room!  We have talked and talked and talked about redoing our bedroom and the project has fortunately started.  I will try to post pictures as we continue the work.

(I wrote this last Thursday and just started to publish this today.)

As I sit here in our computer room, my husband is laughing at some television show while he packs for an eventful weekend in Las Vegas. It will be a nice opportunity to get away for the weekend and enjoy family and friends at the wedding of Matt’s cousin Carrie. The thing that gets me at this very moment is how free Matt is always with his laughter. I wish someday that I can be as free as he is. That I am not as bogged down with obligation and lists of things I should be doing instead of enjoying simple things. He is my constant reminder to slow down and look around and enjoy everything around me. I hope one day his enthusiasm for life finally rubs off on me.