A Conversation with Marc

Sunday evening Doug cooked supper and his mother and 7-year-old nephew, Marc, joined us. The babies were hooting it up in their jumperoos and I had Busytown Mysteries playing for them in the background. Marc came into the living room to greet the boys and me, and that's when we had the following conversation about something that had been bothering me.

A: Have you ever watched this show, Busytown Mysteries?

M: I don't think so. Maybe when I was 4 or younger.

A: There are twins in it. Pig Will and Pig Won't. Do you see their car? They are pigs and they drive a sausage car. What do you think of that?

M: Actually, that is disturbing. Sausage is made of pigs. Sausage is dead pig. It would be like me driving a flesh car.

A: Exactly.

Important Things

It is important:

I see a lot of Rice Krispie treats in their future.

To always have fixings for rice krispie treats in your pantry.

To note that eating >1 100 calorie pack treat is defeating the purpose.

To remember that if you are not a scoring threat, be a defensive monster. Continue to block jokers even with 4 fouls and make them wish they never met you. Seriously, 12 blocks in 1 game! My love for Nerlens Noel continues to grow.

To send your mother cards just to say hello. 

Talking with my mother today, she told me she came across a card I sent her when I was a freshman in college. The contents of this card: Eller had her butt slapped by Ernesto. I spilled my 7-up in the middle of Commons Cafeteria (figures). I was being stalked by some feller with taggy, stringy hair and cheese puff residue in his teeth. (Ryan was his name. Eller said he took the effing cake. After she said that, I laughed so hard that I fell to the ground. You just had to be there, I reckon.) Lastly, I had run into Cliff Hawkins on my way to class.

To help the Children's Home with Kelli and me!

Because helping the Children's Home during Christmas was so rewarding for us, Kelli and I decided to   continue to donate year round. Month 1 donations: Super Bowl Party Treats! Together we bought for 35 children and 15 adult supervisors. Working with our $230 budget (thanks to Tyler and Anne-Marie for contributing to our fund), we hit up Kroger and Sam's and were able to purchase party food fit for a king: chips, dip, salami, crackers, salsa, skyline chili dip fixings, potato skins, mozzarella sticks, pop, wings, jalapeno poppers, cookies, and donuts! So awesome to be able to get such a spread for the kids. I hope that they have a fabulous party!

We will be doing something every month throughout this year (and probably forever). So, let me know if you're ever feeling charitable! Next up: Valentine's Day goodies!

On the Playground

I had PBS on this morning for the little dudes, and the Cat in the Hat was talking about teeter-totters. This brought terrifying recollections of late 80s-early 90s playgrounds to mind. Do you remember the death traps we were sent to play on? Let's talk about this for a moment.

The teeter-totter. This was perhaps the most frightening piece of playground equipment for me. The level of fear it evoked depended upon my teeter-totter partner. Seesawing could be an absolute blast if, say, I was playing with my best pal, Eller. I could laugh and fly through the air without anxiety. However, change my partner to my cousin John, and the fun was replaced by terror. I knew that at any moment (while I was in the air), he could and would (and did) jump out of his seat on the opposite  side of the teeter-totter leaving me to plummet to my doom! Oh, I can still feel the pain that shot through my 50 lbs body. The jar to the earth made my teeth chatter and my body convulse. Thank God my hands were in the clear. You could lose a finger in an instant!

The Merry-Go-Round. Also known as the Scary-Go-Round. I can never remember not being afraid of this contraption. When I was a kid, someone told me (probably one of my cousins or some idiot classmate) that some kid got her foot chopped off by the Merry-Go-Round. True or not, the very thought of sitting on that thing and getting slung around by the likes of Edward Dale Brewer (The Pig from Hell) and having my foot severed was enough to keep me off of that thing for life! You go ahead and spend your recess trapped on the wheel of death (cause once it starts spinning, your ass is trapped there until the bell rings), holding onto the bars with dear life. I'll be over by the swings.

And who could forget the ole tire...tire...tire bridge? I don't even know what you would call it. Basically, there were about 12 tires chained together that you could climb, jump, walk across. Or, you could attempt to do those things and have one of your legs go down the center of the tire while the other one flailed about helplessly and you lay astraddle the so-called-bridge. Not that that ever happened to me.

Last but not least: the skin-scorching metal slide! Now, I ain't one to complain too much about a slide. After all, they are pretty spectacular. But, you climb up on that sucker in July with your little short shorts on, and you might as well say goodbye to your epidermis. That top layer of skin is toast. Literally. Picture little Allison running full-speed ahead to the playground. Yes! No line for the slide! Ascending the steps, the anticipation was brutal. Crawl on top of the slide, stick my legs out in front of me, and scream bloody murder all the way to the bottom. Get off that frying pan and check out my beet red chicken legs. "No line for the slide." What a fool I was!

A Case of the Mondays

A list of things I've cried about today...well, not literally cried...a list of things I've whined about today:

Extreme snuggling.

My freaking foot hurts. Remember TWO WEEKS ago when I fell down the stairs in the bathroom?Yeah, still feeling that one. In addition to sucking for the mere pain aspect, there's also the whole I'm supposed to be exercising thing. A bum foot really impedes power-walking. I feel like a big loser because I haven't been hitting the gym, but truly my foot aches! What can you do but whine?

I was in the kitchen fixing myself a nice cold pop when I thought, "Hey, when Doug gets home, I'm going to get him to take me to Steak-n-Shake! Right on! Cheeseburger! Skinny fries! Strawberry milkshake!" Then I remembered, "Oh, wait. The little dudes. They'll be asleep when Doug gets home and we can't wake them for a 10 PM trip to Steak-n-Shake. Drat!"

Flipping through the channels trying to find something good to watch on the tube and I come across "Extreme Snuggling." YES! That sounds like my kind of show. Perhaps it is a program full of snuggling babies and kitties and puppies! Oh wait. That says, "Extreme Smuggling." Epic fail.

Ah, I guess today wasn't ALL bad. Here are a few gems:

I didn't know Juan Epstein was in Styx.

I devoured a package of white chocolate covered pretzels (100 calories pack--See! I'm  still on my diet!). Yum!

This morning as I sat down at my desk, my lovely coworker greeted me with amazing news: the boss was out of the office! Hooray! No ambushes with insane projects (at least for a few days). 

I received an email from Amazon telling me that I can access, for free, MP3s of all the CDs I have purchased from the site. Among the 5 CDs I have purchased (all of which were Christmas presents for my Mom or Uncle Bob, the only 2 people who still buy CDs) was Styx Greatest Hits. I hit the damn jackpot!!! I don't care what you say, Styx rocks! 

And finally, even though I felt like death warmed over for the majority of the day, and even though Joe Bear put up a stellar fight at bedtime, all my troubles melted when I saw my sweet little dudes all cozy in their cribs sawing logs. They are just too precious! (And, when they sleep, I get to sleep. La la loo!)

Some day, we will also rock out to Styx!

Spoiler Alert!

11 PM Friday night: I am upstairs in the nursery perusing the internet for vacation destinations. I hear this wild, loud cackle coming from downstairs. "What on earth?" I ask myself. So, I set my laptop aside to go check out the situation. It was Carol hysterically laughing at Dacian who was trying to pass off "munt" as a word in Scrabble. It's getting wild in the Woods, y'all!

11:30 PM Friday night: Finally in bed. I drift off to sleep thinking about the Parenthood Season Finale. Did you see it? I am so glad that Sarah is left alone. Ugh, she kills me. She has trampled on poor Mark's heart a dozen times. Then, finally she serves him the last blow, and chooses grouchy ole Hank over him (p.s. Why was Mark's facial hair always so scraggly? Made me sick.). But the brilliant thing is, that Hank is moving to Minnesota. Ha! Adios, Sarah! Have fun being single and continuing to live with your parents when you are 90 years old! You are no Lorelai Gilmore, and it hurts me so. Also, I kinda wanted Christina to still have cancer. I like her and all, but it was just too clean for a season finale. I thought the show might be a little edgy and have her continue her battle or die off, but that didn't happen. Anyway, what kind of inspirational story would that have been? I guess they couldn't kill her off. I don't know, I just like when shows are a little unpredictable...

Except when it is Game of Thrones! (Yes, I am still ranting about this!) Ned Stark should not have died by his own sword! I can't believe Doug let me read that entire book, and listened to me as I tried to guess how in the world Ned was to be saved. Would Aria throw needle with such precision as to stab Ilyn Payne in the head, forcing him to drop Ice, whereupon Ned would pick up Ice and single-handedly take out every Lannister in sight? Or would Aria's direwolf, Nymeria, come soaring through the crowd and bite off Ilyn Payne's arm, whereupon Ned would pick up Ice from Payne's cold, dead arm, and single-handedly take out every Lannister in sight? Or, finally, would the army of Rob Stark or Stannis Baratheon come tearing into King's Landing at just the right moment, startling Ilyn Payne, whereupon Ned would pick up Ice and single-handedly take out every Lannister in sight? But none of these scenarios happened, and Eddard Stark was no more. And I was left sitting there, madder than hell, and in shock--how could he kill off his main character who was a complete bad ass just like that?

Speaking of spoiling the endings of shows...this one time in college, I was watching The Sixth Sense for the very first time. There was about 10 minutes left in the movie, when my drunken friend stumbles into my apartment--"You know he's dead, right?" Bah! Thanks. Thanks for that.

The Picture in My Head

Some people are very visual people. You say something, they picture it in their head. My dear friend ED is like that. Unfortunately for her, I tell her horrible things about people, forcing her to endure mental trauma. I send her Tenacious D songs with lyrics regarding scrotums (perhaps I should've sent her this Monty Python song about the whole schlong). And in more bad news, we are surrounded by a lot who likes to share intimate details of their lives...their intimate lives.

Seeing her suffer today made me really think about her condition. I am one, luckily, who doesn't immediately visualize what another says to me. Except, there is one saying that has always plagued me with visualization. In southeast Kentucky, when a baby looks like someone else, for example, if the baby looks like its dad, they say, "He looks just like he crawled out of Luke's asshole." Why? Why would you ever say that about a precious little baby? Why can't you just say, "He looks like his daddy." Why do you have to paint this image of a baby tearing out of somebody's butt. Isn't the true birthing story bad enough? People, I may say "Finer than a frog's hair split seven ways." I may say, "Lord willing and the creek don't rise." Hell, I might even say, "Colder than a well digger's ass." But you will never hear me say that a baby looks like it crawled out of somebody's rump.

That is all.



Wow. The content of this blog just keeps getting weirder. 

What Do You Think About When You Hear That Song?

"Bob Dylan has sexy lips." said Eller

Music is fun. It makes you laugh (She Acts Like We Never Met--Bob Dylan). It makes you cry (He Stopped Loving Her Today--George Jones). It makes you angry (You Oughtta Know--Alanis). It makes you lovey-dovey (All Night Thing--Temple of the Dog). Some songs even make you want to get liquored up (Honky Tonk Women--The Rolling Stones)!

Today I was jamming to some tunage at work, and each time a song came on, I had a memory associated with it. So, I decided I'd jot them down quickly to share later. With my playlist on shuffle, these were the following 10 songs (and associated memories) that popped up after I decided to play this little game:

The Zephyr Song - Red Hot Chili Peppers: Walking around UK's beautiful campus, in the snow, jamming away to the Chili Peppers via my Walkman. Yes, those were the days before iPods (or at least before I could afford an iPod).

Let's Stay Together - Al Green: I will forever and always associate this song with my dear friend Brian.

After Hours - We Are Scientists: A trip to NYC with my best bud, Jenna. And a night we spent hanging around the city with her boy from Ohio.

The Gambler - Fun: Being pregnant and my obsession with this song over the summer. I am also reminded of how I thought that no one had heard of Fun because I never had, but then I discovered they sang that song, "We Are Young," which everyone and their brother knew. To quote Sally Brown, "What a fool I was!"

All My Exes Live in Texas - George Straight: My friend Nate and how he always sung to me, "Allison in Galveston, somehow lost her sanity."

Little Red Corvette - Prince: My Aunt Gladys and how she blasted Purple Rain when she took a shower.

Gotten Good at Goodbye - George Strait: Watching the Top 20 Countdown with my Mommaw and cousin Jonathan on CMT. (Jonathan, remember Streets of Bakersfield--that was our jam!)

Ain't Nuthin but a G Thang - Dr. Dre & Snoop Doggy Dogg: I always think about this song's music video, and how I wish that Snoop Dogg was my friend.

Country Roads, Take Me Home - John Denver: Dwarf! And I now associate this song with my babies because this is what I sing to them when I rock them to sleep.

Beast of Burden - The Rolling Stones: A summer vacation at Myrtle Beach with my friend, Shantell.

Thanks for taking a listen to my playlist (I may be one of a handful of folks who have The Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Denver, Snoop Dogg, and George Strait on the same playlist) and strolling down memory lane with me.