Ginormous is the New Humungous...

RUDE AWAKENING
/rud/ /uh-wey-kuh-ning/


I had one of these today...

I was at the store with OD (only daughter), and we spotted the cutest top and
Bermuda shorts in the ladies department...

"Go try it on!" is what she said to me with great enthusiasm...
Which incidentally, she doesn't show us too often these days, especially
when it has anything to do with any one other than
a) herself
or
b) one of her close, personal friends...
Which, by the way, she has several hundred of...
I saw them all on her myspace...
and I do not happen to fall into that category...
But incidentally, Tom, some geek who invented myspace, does...

I got all caught up in her excitement, as she was trying to find me the perfect top...
She held one up and said "Will this one be too big?"
I answered immediately "Yes! Look how HUUUUGE it is!!"
I took it in the dressing room just so that I could prove my point and we'd most likely share a good old laugh when I showed her how humongous it was on me...


I was chuckling to myself as I was undressing...
This was going to be a hoot!
I slipped on the Bermudas...
They fit... sort of...
And they would be alright as long as I didn't drop anything while wearing them...
They were seriously low cut...
You know the kind, that if you bend over, your butt crack peeks out the top of...
NOT PRETTY on a 20 year old and even less so on a 40 something... TRULY!

So the bermudas were out but the top still had potential...
I slipped it over my head and...

HOUSTON... We have a problem!
The stinkin' thing was kind of small on me!

How could that be?!
It was like a magic trick prop or something...
I mean, off, it looked ginormous...
Yet, on...
Not so much...

I have solved the great mystery of why I do not enjoy clothes shopping...
It's all about smoke and mirrors...
I exited the changing room with clothes in hand and met my OD's gaze...
"I hate shopping" was all I said...
"When they start making clothes that fit people right, we'll come back!"

What was your latest rude awakening?

The Rain, Rain, Rain, Came Down, Down, Down...

WE had lots of plans over last weekend...
Most of which involved being outside...
One of which, was to re-coat the roof of our camper so it won't leak...
90% of the time on Saturday and Sunday, this is what it looked like outside...



Which only caused my typeA EASY going husband to grumble...
and grouch...

I had a suggestion to go ahead with the RV roof re-coat despite the weather...
My plan involved a series of umbrellas, lined up in 3 overlapping rows, 12 blow driers, and 41 volunteers...
Oh... and rainboots...
It was an idea that I just brainstormed...
because I'm an " outside of the box" type of thinker...


Tony thought it was dumb...
(He's still inside the box with his thinking)

Just to make things clear...
My Guy is really, very smart...
And, NO, he's not a mime...
(His thinking is the only thing figuratively 'in the box')
Mimes are annoying...
and quite frankly if I was married to one, I would most likely alternate between pretending to strangle him and pretending to club him over the head with a hammer on a daily basis...

I just happen to take the stand that if you don't like my ideas...
you are...
what's the word I'm trying to think of...
Oh yeah!

WRONG!


PS - Actually, truth be told, the preceding story was only partially true...
EVERYONE knows that it would be downright dangerous to operate a blowdrier in the rain!

The Good, the Bad & the Sweaty...

YEARS ago, when I was still 'courting' my husband...
You know what I mean...

Back when I became embarrassed if I made a mistake in his presence...
or my hair got messed up,
or I got sweaty,
or basically anything that proved I was human...

Wayyyyy back then, I had a blonde moment, that tops any moment I've ever had since...

Before I open myself up and pour out my humiliating experience for all of you to see...
and laugh at...
and possibly use from that moment on as a new standard of stupid that you have never,
even at your dumbest moment,
measured up to...

I want you all to know that I am a smart girl.
I can do mental math...
Answer 85% of the questions on Jeopardy (on a good day)...
I am capable of patting my head and rubbing my belly at the same time...
Heck! I can even chew gum and walk... simultaneously!
I actually pride myself on having a good brain...
and, above all, I am humble...
sort of...

This happened many years ago, when we were dating, and lived 20 miles west of Boston...
He's from there, so he liked to take me to the city on dates and show me around...
Boston is a great place!
Faneuil Hall, NE Aquarium, Fenway Park, The Public Garden with its swan boats... (and bums)

We were heading in on the Mass Pike, which is a toll road which heads in and out of Boston...
I had noticed many times, a furniture store, which was highly visible from the highway...

The reason I remembered it, was because it had a HUGE sign on the building on which was painted, amongst other things, that they had been in business for a large number of years...

(this is the part where I get into trouble)

I'll continue...
So it read that had been in business for a large number of years WITHOUT A SALE!

By now, you can probably guess what the next thing out of my mouth was...
"Then how do they stay in business?"

He asked what I meant, so I dug my hole even deeper by saying "if you never SELL anything, how can you stay in business?"

That was a good 29 years ago, and I still have not lived it down!
I like to think that I am not the only one who thought that same thing when they looked at that sign...
Hopefully, for their sake, they were smart enough to keep it to themselves...
I am happy to say, however, that I heard that they did, in fact, go out of business!
I guess THAT showed THEM!

I've told you before, it's genetic!

And just in case any of you are wondering, I have proven over and over again to Tony, that I am indeed, human since then...
We've been married many years, and believe me, he's seen it ALL...
The good
The bad
and the sweaty...

What's your worst Duh moment?
I'd love to know that I am not alone here!

The 'Other' F Word...

'FORWARD'...

That's where my mind is...

Where is yours?
*sigh*

I was looking through my inbox and have decided to write on open letter to anyone who has EVER e-mailed me, has thought about e-mailing me, or is e-mailing me at this very moment...

Here goes -

Dear Friend, Family member, Acquaintance, and/or Solicitor,

Although I always like hearing from all most of you, I think there's something you should know.
Half of the crap mail that you send me, I'm less than thrilled with.

Many years ago, I was a chain smoker, and since breaking that habit, I'm not into any chain activities... including the e-mail variety; replying to, forwarding to and/or sending to my top five most special friends and in return for blessings guaranteed to arrive within 10 minutes...

So don't bother sending me these because I break the chain...
every time....
and chuckle aloud, whilst pressing delete...

Also to those bottom feeders
friends that want to help me with penis enlargement, buying prescription drugs from Ethiopia or just want to be my 'friend' (wink-wink)...
I have a spam blocker...
it does for me what I normally do for myself in the case of chain letters...
(without the laughter...)

I also don't celebrate Mondays, Wednesday Humpdays, Sexy Mama Days or any of the non-traditional holidays...
Look at a US calendar before sending these...
if it's not on there, I won't be celebrating...
(another good rule of thumb for you... If there is mail delivery that day, don't bother)

Finally...
If you haven't either
A. had dinner at my house
or
B. shared a laugh or two with me over a beer

You haven't earned the right to torture me with Please don't forward me jokes, etc...

Sincerely,

Jackie

Do you think that's too harsh?
What's the most annoying type of e-mail you regularly receive?

Dnt txt my phn agn... evr....

I received a very unusual text message last night...
Before I go any further, you probably should know a few facts that are
important to this story...

FACT #1
I have a cell phone...
My teenage daughter does not...
But she thinks it's ours...
But it's not...
It's mine...
and mine alone...

I'm not completely heartless...
I do allow her to use it when we are hanging out at home at night to text her friends, etc...
She's really good at it too...
She can have like, I don't know, 30 conversations going on at once...

And even though she is sucking the life out of me on a daily basis, simply because she is a teenage girl, she is a great kid...

FACT #2
I was a bit of a semi-wild child when I was a teenager...
But I always flew under the radar, thus lowering the chances of getting in trouble...
I'm sure you can see where this is heading...
Because I wasn't always a rule follower, quite frankly it's hard to get things past me...

Although my adult kids will now occasionally confess to one or two times when they pulled one over on me...
They think because they are fathers themselves that there's nothing I can do about it...
Au contraire! (that's fancy-french for "Yeah...Right!")
Because what I can do, is wait for Karma to come back around and bite them in the patoot (which is Jackie-talk for REAR END!)

Okay, back to my text message of late...
I will give you the script using STB for stupid teenage boy and CLM in place of completely livid mom...

Here goes -

STB - Can you sneak out tonight?
CLM - Umm.. STB, this is G's mom and sending my daughter text messages like this
ever, could be seriously hazardous to your health!
STB - Oh, sorry
CLM - You should be STB! This is not a good way to make a positive
impression on me or cause me reason to ever trust you!

Silence followed by crickets chirping occasionally...

END OF TRANSMISSION....

My darling (nosy) husband then asks "Who was that?"
Poor seriously STB, who now will be known as, PSSTB, will never again gaze into my daughter's beautiful brown eyes!
Because now he has not only seriously angered a mom,
but he's turned a father into a lion...
a big, scary lion with sharp claws and pointy teeth
(and all lions have those embarrassing 'male' parts that swing all over the place that are also quite intimidating!)
PSSTB has done all of this, with just a few words he typed out with his thumbs...

I don't expect we'll be seeing PSSTB ever again... if he knows what's good for him...

4 Hour (not so) Funny Bone...

Is anyone else sick of those ridiculous Viagra commercials?
The latest one "Viva Viagra" is the absolute worst of the bunch...
You know the one...
It's filmed in Nashville at precisely at 1:22 a.m....
(not 1:23 or 1:24...)
How did I know that?
Because it says so on the left hand side of the screen at the beginning of the ad...
"Nashville 1:22 a.m."... why they feel compelled to tell us that is beyond me...
(Maybe Good Ol' Boys lose their gidd'up and go, at that time of night)

It features a bunch of country music musicians talking about erectile dysfunction...
I'm sorry, but REALLY FOLKS!!!
Is it necessary to discuss Erectile Dysfunction with ALL of us?!

I realize that this is addressing a legitimate medical condition....
But Puleeeease! I do not want to explain to any of the younger tv viewers in my house what an erection is...
That's just wrong....
It goes back to my problem with using correct anatomical names with a straight face...
IMPOSSIBLE...
I don't want to have to say 'erection' (but be thinking 'boner') and giggling uncontrollably in front of the children...
ALSO WRONG!

When I hear the words 'erectile dysfunction', it reminds me of Robert DeNiro in the movie Analyze This, when kept referring to his ED problem as his "dead dick thing"...

Funny Stuff...

I especially die over the disclaimer -
If you experience an erection that lasts longer than 4 hours contact your doctor...
Can't you just imagine...

First This -

Several Hours Later -

Lastly -

And let's be honest ladies....
Would you REALLY need one that lasted even 3 HOURS????!!!!

I'm just keeping it real here...

The Forbidden Phrase...

My husband said it again the other night...
I was sitting there at Applebees, minding my own business, when he just blurted it out...
"This crowd is different than the other Applebees at this hour!
It's all 'young people'..."

OH - NO - HE - DIDN'T!

What the heck is with him an using that phrase?
I've warned him about that...
Repeatedly...

"What the heck Tony!" was the only thing I could think to say...

After all, there are a zillion and one reasons that it really bugs me when anyone close to my age says things like that...
The top two being-

1. It implies that we aren't, you know.... young!
   
2. It implies that we aren't, you know.... young!
   

Okay, I'll admit it, it was one in the morning and we zipped there to get half priced appetizers, which are available after 10 pm...

OH! Good God!!!

I just re-read what I'd written, which happens to be a true account of how it 'went down' that night, and realized that 'zipping to Applebees' at 1 am for half price appetizers sounds like it might possibly be another step in our progression towards early-bird specials, and 'senior tuesdays'...

I'm officially depressed!

The thing is, in my mind, I am still "young people"
and I hope that never changes...

In the meantime, I'm going to try this out...
The next time Tony dares to speak the 'forbidden phrase'
I will be ready to reply with this:
"I know... I hope we're not making you feel too out of place"

It's all about perspective!

My BFF is ISO a NGBF...

My bff announced recently that she wants a 'new gay best friend'
I'm not kidding...
That's exactly what she said to me...

I wasn't really sure what to do with that news... I mean, was she implying that her old best friend (Me) was gay but she wanted a a new one?
Because if that's the case, she's had me pegged all wrong, all along...
You would have thought that the husband and five kids would have tipped her off years ago!

Or could it be that she was suggesting I experiment by 'switching teams'? That wasn't going to happen... It's just not "Me"....

The hurt and puzzled look on my face prompted her to delve deeper... "Oh you stupid old cow!" she said (she's English... she says things like this to me all the time)
She continued... "I meant I would love to have a gay man-friend that loves to shop and we could go to the mall together and then have lunch too!"


"You mean, like WE do?" I said

She laughed "Yes... But you aren't a gay man"

Thank heavens for small favors...
(before you get your panties in a wad... I am happy with who I am, and don't want to be a man; gay or otherwise)


I told her that she's been watching too many Bravo Television shows, and that she has romanticized herself into movie characters; like Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding... remember her gay best guy friend? He was fantastic!

I tried to make a couple of points to her:

• Not every gay man is as fun as Rupert Everett was in the aforementioned movie
• It's not fair to stereotype ... I'm certain that all gay men don't, in fact, like to shop
• Okay... Okay... they do all eat lunch... I'll give her that

I told her that I am happy with my friends... I accept them all for who they are...
I'm not looking for more...

She's on a Mish though... (that's UK talk for 'mission')
Knowing her, she will find the Rupert Everett kind of GBF... and they will go shopping... and have lunch...
and they may even invite me along...
and... yes... I'll probably go...
and I'll have a great time...
(as well as coming home with a wealth of fashion tips... from him... not her...)


and afterwards, although I will never tell her, I'll secretly be on a quest to find my own GBF or at least 'borrow' hers, when she isn't looking...

All I have to do is Dreeeeeam, Dream, Dream, Dream, Dreeeeeeam...

I am a big dreamer...

I know what you are thinking...
something along the lines of "good for you" or perhaps "the world needs dreamers"...
but that's not the kind of dreaming that I'm referring to.
I'm not talking about laying on a plaid blanket at a picnic, looking up at the sky, kind of dreams...
Those are day dreams... awake dreams...
The kind of dreams that I'm talking about occur at night... while I am alseep...

Whoop-D-Doo!
I can almost hear you thinking it...
Hello Jackie! Everyone has dreams while they are sleeping!
I am aware of that fact...

But sometimes the dreams I have are more than just your average run of the mill, garden variety dreams...

Like hiding from bad guys,
or falling off of any number of places that are very high (but miraculously jolting awake before hitting ground zero)
or even the ever popular,
trapped underwater and when you can't hold your breath any longer, take a tiny one and discover that, HEY! You can breathe underwater!

The dreams I'm trying to explain to you here are bigger than that...
More meaningful than that...
I actually come up with ideas in my dreams!
I know that it sounds, like, totally nuts...
But I do!

Sometimes, I even gain a different perspective on some troubling situation because of a dream I've had...
Is that unique to me?
Should I be rushing to a doctor?
Looking at inkblots?

Is it 2 horses heads facing away from each other?






I don't know... Is it a cat?
I'm guessing here.... I'm not a good 'tester'

One time I even had a dream about an invention...
I woke up so very excited because it was a really great invention...
Then I laid back down and went back to sleep...
When I woke up again, I remembered that I had dreamt up an invention...
But here's the kicker...
I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was...
This incident has haunted me for years...

We're talking - GREAT Invention here...

My family likes to tease me about my dreamt invention...
We'll see who's laughing if I ever have another of those kind of dreams...
Because now, whenever I dream something profound, I get up and write myself notes so that I don't forget...
So my invention would have a chance to become reality if it ever pops into my head again...
And if it happens to be something that revolutionizes the world, much like the wheel, or the light bulb, or those frozen margarita machines...
As soon as I'm done depositing the truckloads of cash into my account, and the world is waiting with bated breath to hear my story...
I'll tell them that it all started with a dream...

In the meantime, I'll just be glad to be one of the few who actually have dreams that mean something...
That help me be a better person...
That often give me new perspectives on situations in my life...
That help me breathe underwater Never mind... that doesn't work...

I'll keep you posted...

You look Kinda Like....

My #3 son has a unique problem... People stop him ALL the time and say he looks familiar...

He tells me that they'll say he looks just like, "You know, that guy from Planet of the Apes!"

"Charlton Heston?" I ask...
"MOM! Not that OLD movie!"....

And for some unknown reason, whenever anyone mentions that old movie, I can't help myself...
I just have to do it...
My REALLY bad Charlton Heston impression...
"Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"

That's when #3 looks at me with a look that says either,
Mom is sooo funny!
or it could be more like
Mom actually thinks she's funny...how sad!
(I choose to think it's the first one)
I think he's handsome, and to me, he looks like himself...

Here he is with Baby Sister...

Here's Mark Wahlberg, his supposed look-alike...
I wonder if people ever stop him and say "You look just like that guy who built his own car!"

Come to think of it, our family is full of celebrity look-alikes...
We have a White Oprah (Tonys' sister L.)
A White Diana Ross (that's MISS Ross to you!) - (Tony's sister J.)
Carol Burnett & Vicki Lawrence (My Mom heard that one LOTS when I was a kid)
Alyssa Milano (Son #1's Fiancee)
We have a close friend that gets mistaken for Liam Neesin all the time...
I'm not sure if he corrects people or not...

It's funny, but no one ever mistakes me for anyone else....
Except for long ago, I worked as a waitress... there was a girl that worked at the same restaurant, who I, personally, didn't think was particularly attractive...

OH YEAH! You know it!!

People used to call me "Sue" all the time!
Why, oh why couldn't it have been the really cute waitress that caused all the mix ups with me?!!
I would get huffy and hostile every time someone started to say "You look JUST like..."
I would glare at them and hold up my hand to halt that sentence....
"DON'T....EVEN....SAY....IT!!!!!!!" was my warning to them!

I'm hoping that after I lose a few pounds, I might start getting mistaken for someone like Miss January 1979 or Heather Locklear....

As well as displacing
large amounts of it
while I'm at it!! ;)

Stupid Theories 101...

I’m not sure that I am comfortable with the fact that totally ridiculous stories that fly in the face of reasoning are called “wives tales”!!

I mean, why not just “tales” or “stupid theories” for that matter?!

Recently I begin to think back to my own childhood and all of the ‘rules’ that my own Mother laid down that seemed a bit sketchy to me at the time….

#1 – Do NOT make ugly faces because your face may get stuck that way...

#2 – Fat, fuzzy, brown and black caterpillars should NEVER be touched…because my Mom heard a true story of a little girl (coincidentally, my very age, every time she told me the story…. sketchy!) who touched one and ended up with a rogue caterpillar hair in her eye…
which caused her to go blind…
in both eyes!

What are the odds of that?!

#3 – I refuse to discuss all of the additional ways that blindness could be caused…

#4 - If you go outside with your hair wet, you most likely WILL catch pneumonia… (Even if it is 88° degrees outside!)

I saved my best one for last!

#5 - DO NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES break icicles off of the edge of the roof to suck on like a Popsicle, because they…

Are ready for this one?…

CAUSE POLIO!!

(This rule applies to eating snow as well…)

Give me some of your Mom-isms (wives tales)…
I’d like to know that I’m not the only one who endured these while growing up…

Dear Crayola...

A recent experience with my GGT got me steamed...
I sat right down and drafted a long over-due letter...
I'll fill you in on what they have to say, as soon as I hear back from them...

S is for....

Today, my two teenagers attend school for the last time before summer break...
In honor of this exciting event,
I've written an acronym especially for the occasion...

Snacks... be prepared, because you will go through 5 million of these, possibly more, as you feed your kids... their friends... and sometimes, their friends' friends...
There's nothing you can do to stop it...
a padlock for the pantry might slow them down...
but not much...

UV Rays, as well as the following types;
UVA, UVB, and sometimes even UHF (if the cable goes out)...
all speeding up our aging process and causing our dermatologists to dream of the next big ticket item that they'll soon be able to afford...
(like a Mercedes or maybe this year, a month long trip around the world... the sky's the limit!)
due to all of those rays...
(well, except for the UHF ones...)


More "together time" than you might actually be prepared for...


Main Hangout for sleepovers, as well as xbox marathons...
All husbands hate these...
Moms know, that at your own house,
you know what all the kids are up to,
which is really our secret weapon...
Shhhhh! Don't tell!!!


Endless begging to be driven here, there, and everywhere in between...
Always done with outstretched hands, palms up, for the money that they
will be constantly asking you for because they "need" it!
Hey! I need it too! You know, to replenish the snack cupboard!


Ranting and raving...
It's what all real moms begin doing approximately 2 to 3 weeks into summer...
Mostly due to all of the extra cleaning and grocery shopping that we are forced to do...
But we still have a part of us...
like our heart...
that's happy that our tadpoles are hanging out
for the summer, in the pond, with their mama frog!

Everything's Coming Up....

I love this time of year!
Of course, here in Florida, flowers can bloom all year round...
But around this time, during this season...
Everything's coming up roses...(Think-Ethel Merman style)

That is, if I HAD roses...
which I do not...
But I DO have these in my yard...

Hibiscus!!

I also have an enormous one of these flowering plants...



Bougainvillea!!


I should probably mention, that since I got my new camera... I can't stop taking pictures of

My Sunflowers!!

Which by the way, I never planted... they just sprouted on their own...
It's a great mystery at our house, and we all have our own theories of their origins, ranging from "yard fairies" to my personal favorite, "God just put them there, cuz he knows you like them"(Grandson#1's theory)


I took this shot at my friends house...
It's of those other cool flowers that
I don't actually know the name of...




But they are really pretty...

To be honest, as much as I LOVE flowers, I am actually horticulturally challenged...
I work much better with flour than with flowers...
I'm fantastic in the kitchen...
Not so much so, in the garden...

But as you can see, I'm very fortunate to:

a. Live in a place where beautiful plants thrive on their own, without my help
b. To be host to garden fairies who like to surprise me with plants I didn't ask for
c. Have an awesome Grandson who reminds me from time to time how simple faith can be...