I think I’m going to preemptively turn in my girls’ club membership, because after people read this, it will probably be revoked.
Todd is out of town. He went camping. In Perote. Yes, that is a real place. Pronounced “Pee-Rote.†It is somewhere in the wilds of Alabama. Okay, peeps, here’s the deal. I had tivoed Gossip Girl, America’s Next Top Model, and numerous The Hills and Real World episodes.
Maybe this is Freaky Friday – Todd goes to the middle of nowhere, no electricity or power, where he will not see football all day long. I watch football all day long. Color me Jamie Lee Curtis. Todd is Lindsay, of course.
I just spent the day between about 2:30 and now (11:13) watching football. I did nap for thirty minutes around 3pm. But other than that, I watched football. That is not unusual for me, as Todd and I often spend Fall Saturdays watching football. But tonight, you would think I would be doing the bottle of wine, husband out of town, guilty pleasure Tivo thing. Nope.
Football. I Could. Not. Turn. It. off.
LSU Kentucky. No, wait. KENTUCKY/LSU. Fucking awesome. I had Tiller and Rollie in their pjs yelling “Go Wildcats!†and “Big D!†on that last LSU possession. I even chose to watch those three overtimes over the Bulldogs game. Unheard of, but I really like Kentucky. I think they are a classy act, and I LOVE an underdog and an upset. And I kind of think LSU fans are pompous fuckwads this year, too, for the most part; Heberts and Lambremonts excused. I like to watch an LSU Tiger looking all stunned in the face paint. Good stuff.
Dawgs. God’almighty, they just about broke my heart last week, but they pulled this one out. Knowshon looked stellar in that last quarter. Me likey. I kind of want to make out with Richt when he does stuff like yell at the boys for celebrating too much on the field, and I though him apologizing to Vandy before the media or the fans could even start bitching about it was just another example of what a class act he is. So proud of him as coach. And, hey, if they’re gonna have an off season, a rebuilder, or what have you, this is as good a season as any, because the upset factor is keeping me pretty entertained.
Speaking of, Cal. Ha! Little freshman QB was doing okay, but he really choked there on that last play. The annoying part of this whole thing is that fucking Ohio State will move into the number one slot, and I hate them solely on my knowledge of one single Ohio State fan acquaintance. Buckeye Boy is more of a fuckwad than the whole LSU fandom united. Props to T’s Auburn boys for pulling out a tough one against Arkansas, too.
The really sad part is that even when I did watch some of my Tivo stuff, I watched Friday Night Lights. Nope, not kidding.
All in all, good football Saturday. Would’ve been better with a little company.
Oh, wait. . . I gots me a bottle of wine. Which just might secure retainment of my membership card, because I bet I’m the only football fan in Georgia that watched that much ball today while drinking red wine, rather than bourbon or beer. Maybe I’ll start the Bulldog Wine Club.
One last football footnote: (God, that’s cute. “Football footnote.â€Â) Must convince Nessie to go see Band of Horses with me tomorrow. Ben Bridwell likes him some Dawgball.
I’m post-dating this. Totally forgot to publish it on Saturday. Wish I had made BOH, but just wasn’t feeling like braving a 99X crowd.
It has taken me almost an entire week to digest the loss to Tennessee. I still can’t really believe it and remember it almost as if it were a very bad dream, a night terror.
I just couldn’t bring myself to comment on it at all. I will say that my mother was a very humble loser and did not lord it over us on Sunday the way I thought she would. I think the spanking was so bad that she actually pitied us.
I am not even really looking forward to tomorrow. The Vandy game is completely losable. I don’t know if my weak stomach can take anymore.
I met my sister at the dog park yesterday morning. We spent over an hour together. Afterwards, having just said goodbye to each other in the parking lot at Piedmont Park, I picked up the cel phone to call my sister as I pulled out of the lot. I had forgotten to mention something very important to her.
Her: Hey. What is it? Me: I haven’t talked to you in a while, and I missed you. Her: We should talk more often. Me: I know. So, did you see that mutant mutt dog? I mean, I am a dog lover, but that was the ugliest thing I have ever seen. Her: I thought he was cute! Like a Bassett raped by a pit bull. Me: Seriously, that dog looked ridiculous. Her: He can’t help it that he looks that way. Me: I know. I would take his ugly brindle ass home anyway. Her: Me too. Me: Okay, bye. Her: Bye. Oh, wait! Are you coming over? Me: Yeah, I’ll meet you at your house.
So, it has been mentioned before that we are very close to one another. My friend Harris might have used the words, “Freakishly close” to describe our relationship. I don’t give a shit. Everything in my life is better when shared with my sister. Even unfortunate mutt rape victims. I couldn’t not call her and talk about it. Does an ugly mutt at the dog park exist if I don’t call my sister? Yes. But it’s way more fun if i call her about it.
Dear Tiller, Today you turned two. We celebrated your party on Sunday. It was a Hello Kitty themed party. Aunt Lisa and Papaw Palmer couldn’t make it, but your Grandma Palmer was there, and also your Johnson Grandparents. Uncle Mark showed up, even though Aunt Lisa didn’t make it – I think he is either in love with you, or cupcakes. Maybe both. Other attendees were Mama and Dada, Rollie, Ned, Vanessa, and Scarlett. We had chocolate cupcakes, and some with colored icing, but everyone wanted chocolate. We ate pizza for lunch, and you received way too many gifts. You received a stroller, baby bed, and infant carrier, a couple of baby dolls, two cel phones (just what a little girl needs), a stuffed dog on a leash, a vacuum cleaner that really vacuums, a tea party set, a doll case, and a ton of clothes. You are a very lucky girl to have so many friends and so many people who love you.
I remember when Rollie was two, and you were about to be born. It seems like just yesterday, and now he is four and you are two, and I am really, really a mother. You have learned so many amazing things in the last year. You learned to walk a little after you turned one. Now you are running and hopping. Of course, you don’t actually leave the ground yet, but you say “I am hopping!” and do a lot of bending at the knees. You like to do whatever Diego and Dora are doing – All the actions: Climbing, swimming, rowing, hopping, swinging, climbing. Thanks to Dora and Diego, you intersperse your English with Spanish words. Sometimes I have to act out actions to figure out what you are saying to me.
Your talking is just amazing – what a vocabulary! You string so many words together in run on sentences and your dada and I just look at each other, wondering what it is you are saying, because we just don’t understand all of it. That doesn’t matter to you, though. You just keep on talking, and are so expressive when you do it, nodding your head convincingly, or holding your hands palm up when asking a question of us. You repeat everything that we say, and think that Rollie’s word is God. If Rollie says or does it, you want to say or do the same thing.
You are starting to show a bit of stubbornness. When we say “time to change your diaper,†or “Let’s put on pjs†your first reaction is to take off running. We spend a lot of time chasing you down. You love the water and will pour water over your own head when in the bath and then laugh and laugh. You are the laughingest goofball of a child I have ever known. Your sense of humor is corny and quick. You love to sing in goofy voices and then laugh at yourself. Did I mention the dancing? You love music and singing and love to dance. Your dances are a sight to behold, too – You do one where you move your arms around. I couldn’t explain it if I tried, but will have to show you the video someday. Your favorite songs are “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,“ “The Wheels on the Bus,†“You Are My Sunshine,†and “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.â€Â
You love animals and babies. You crack us up, because when you talk about the other kids in your Mommies’ Morning Out class, you call them “babies,†but you think you are a big girl, even though you are all the same age. You started the MMO this fall, and I was worried you would miss me, but you love the class, and the other kids (Kai, Claire, and Abby) and your teachers, Miss Betsy, and Miss Janet. You cry on the days when Rollie has class, but you don’t.
You are kind of a bruiser. Sometimes I am in another room, and I hear Rollie screaming bloody murder and I walk in, and you have him in a headlock, or you are lying on top of him and won’t get off. I am hoping you will turn out to be a gentle soul, but it is nice to know that you stand up for yourself, too.
You love swimming. I am amazed at how much you love the water. You laugh and laugh in pools, and you love the kiddie pool at the lake. When we take you in the lake, you lie back as if you could just float on your back, all by yourself.
When we go to the park, you like to swing, swing, swing. You are not scared to climb or slide, but swinging is where it’s at for you. I have pushed you on a swing for almost an hour at a time before. You cry when I make you get out of the swing.
In the mornings, you scream and cry, “Mama†or “Daddy, come get me.†“Mama, Help!†You sound pitiful and sick, but as soon as we walk in, you start chirping away in your excited, sweet morning voice, asking “Where’s Dada?” or “Where’s Rollie?” You start talking in a waterfall of words and if other people in the house are still sleeping, I try to shush you, and you just won’t quiet down. It is endearingly annoying. When you wake up from your nap, you are the same way, except crankier, just like your Mama and Aunt Lisa, and Grandma Palmer. I carry you down the stairs, you crying the whole way, and when we get to the bottom, I ask if you want a snack, and you turn the tears off immediately, a smile breaks across your face, and you say, “Sack†while nodding your head at me.
Let’s see. What else:
You sleep well at night, usually going to bed between 7:30 and 8, but you aren’t a great napper. Most of your naps are 35 to 45 minutes long. I am thankful when you give me a whole hour. You never let me fix your hair, which I guess is part of the curse. I never liked having mine fixed either. You love eating. I have been lucky that both kids have healthy appetites. I try to feed you healthy stuff, and you do a pretty good job with it. You do love gold fish. You call them, “Olefish.†So cute. You are starting to love to read, and we read to you every night, but you also will grab a book and sit down with it, turning the pages and pretending to read.
Since your birthday party, you have been walking around saying, “I’m a baby!†and then “I’m a big girl!†You may be growing up to be a big girl, a young lady, but you will always be my little baby girl, even when you are fifty. I am so lucky to have you for a daughter. I knew that being a parent was special, but I never knew how amazing it would be to have a boy and a girl. Mom always said that there was something so very wonderful about having a daughter, and now I understand what she meant. You are sweet and mercurial, tough and sensitive, beautiful and ornery, girly and tomboyish, smart and silly, all wrapped up in the cutest, roly-poliest package I have ever seen. You are a little like your father, and a lot like me, and better than both of us put together. I have learned so very much from you and Rollie. Having a little girl, though, is a slightly more daunting task for me. I know that I am your foremost role model, the woman from whom you will learn so very much in your life. You bring out so many things in me that I didn’t know I had inside. You make me a better person. You make me want to be someone you can look up to, someone you can learn valuable life lessons from, and someone you can respect. I hope that I do as wonderful a job as my Mom did. I hope that I set an example for you that will make you as proud of me as I am of you.
Happy Birthday, Baby Tiller.
With love, Mama
Thanks to Uncle Mark for the cute Tiller with Stroller vid.
Most of the time i feel like Dogwood Girl is a great outlet for me, a healthy exercise in purging my sick mind and all that. But lately? It is just another damn thing that I am not getting done. Who needs something else to make them feel guilty? I am not going to let it get me down. I will post when I can post.
But some things require taking the time. Like when one of your bestest friends, the one that introduced you to your husband, which resulted in your life becoming boring and parental, and yet you still love her, is getting married and you spend the weekend with the girls, acting trashy and pretending that you don’t have children or husbands. Much fun.
In case you haven’t visited the town, Helen is totally kooky, touristy, and a total fucking riot. Here’s a town where everyone drank the Kool Aid and decided to make their little town a theme park. With beer river tubing and taffy and Ye Olde Fudge.
We spent the weekend in a cabin, with a pool table, a panoramic view of Mt. Yonah, a hot tub, rocking chairs, four couches, and three tvs. Anyone who knows me can tell you that if you put me up with a pool table, a stocked bar, an IPod, and a hot tub, I might never leave. I watched Auburn beat out those detestable Gators while pounding beers, playing pool, and hot tubbing. It was awesome. We are even mature enough that we could afford a place where everyone had a bed. I shared a King with my little sis and I barely knew she was there.
This was the first Bachelorette party I have been to, i realized later, at which only the Bride-to-be was a Bachelorette. The rest of us were all Matrons. That is a little disturbing. Didn’t get in the way of the shenanigans, though. And as Lisa and I informed the others, we are still way cute when we drink. You can see evidence of this in the following picture, as Leelee exudes cuteness:
High points, other than aforementioned view and hot tub, were the excellent meals, and the company. Great group of girls. Okay, it’s a tossup – Girls vs. very frightening, nightmare-inducing Deer Anus Cyclops Head. It could go either way.
More pics: Keri, Robbie, and Nessie:
Robbie solo, and with her very cool future Sis-in-law, Katie:
Et moi, basking in the heat of the tub and two beautiful field goals against the Fucking Florida Gators (Yes, this Bulldog hates them just. that. much.) And to top off a great weekend, on the way home, i met a couple of bikers on Harleys at the gas station. One of them asked me to go for a ride with him. He was cute in a pushing-50s, Marlboro-Man-gravelly-voice kind of way. I was tempted. It was a great day.
“I need to get back to Atlanta,” I said.
“I live in Atlanta,” he replied with a devilish grin. “I’ll take you home.”
“I can’t. I gotta get back to the husband and kids.”
“Ma’am, I’m so sorry. I didn’t see your ring. I didn’t know you were married.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “You made my day!”
And it did. We’re still cute, girls, even when we’re not drinking. And chivalry is not dead. At least not in the hills of North Georgia.
This is kind of a sad day for me as a Bulldog fan. Tonight is the first game in my lifetime that won’t be called by Larry Munson.
This article is a good overview of his career, and includes some of his greatest calls. My first recollection of Larry calling a game was about 1984. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was twelve years old and it was a cold and rainy day in Georgia. I played soccer on Saturdays at the Roswell soccer fields. By high school, we would call these fields and their parking, just off the high school campus, “The Water Tower.” As in, “meet me at the Water Tower,” or the more exciting, “Fight at the Water Tower after school today.” Good times. I think we were waiting for my game to begin, sitting in the warmth and dryness of mom’s red station wagon. I’m not sure if Lisa was there, and I have no idea where Dad was, but Mom and I listened intently to Larry’s voice on the radio as the cold rain poured down.
“So we’ll try to kick one a hundred thousand miles. We’re holding it on our own 49-and-a-half … gonna try to kick it sixty yards plus a foot-and-a-half … and Butler kicked a long one … a long one … Oh my God! Oh my God! … The stadium is worse than bonkers!” – calling Kevin Butler’s field goal in the final seconds to win over Clemson in 1984″
You would have to know my mom to have any idea of the response this elicited from her; Words cannot do it justice.
I know a man needs to settle down, but Larry will be missed.
So, I am almost 36 and I still feel like I am 26, maybe even 16 on a good day. I still think of myself and my friends, even the ones pushing 40, as “us kids” and the parents, teachers, etc. as “them.” “The old people.” “The man.” Whatever.
When my friend Tara was made “Room Mother” for her son’s class, I laughed. It was an evil laugh.
So, it is with much dismay that I find myself in the position of a pending nomination to a position on the board of the PTFuckingA at my son’s preschool.
I am not kidding people. Anyone who knows me can vouch for this: This is the sign of the Apocalypse.
The New York Times contains an article today about photographs donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The photos seem benign enough; they look pretty much like the photographs in my Grandfather’s albums from the 30s and 40s, pictures like the one below, pictures of him and his family and friends frolicking. The photos are so similar in appearance, but yet so different: The photos are pictures of Nazis at Aushchwitz prior to the liberation of the concentration camps. There are pictures of soldiers and nurses relaxing in lounge chairs, listening to music and singing along to someone playing an accordion, and eating blueberries. There is even a picture of a group of them, and one woman is holding a baby lovingly.
The horror of the photographs to me is not the unspoken subtext of torture and death that took place on the same day and in the same location these photos were taken. The haunting and horrific facet of the photos is that these are not the faces of evil I imagined. These people look so normal, so happy, so carefree, and so similar to you and me.
To think that not that many years ago, women regularly wondered where their next meal would come from, as they waded down towards the river to wash their clothes by hand. They knew that after a long day, they were expected to service their husbands. They were in constant fear that their beloved family members were going to die from some terrible disease for which there was no cure, no antibiotic.
I am sitting around today worrying about my slow internet, the fact that I didn’t get a chance to write once last week, and that I couldn’t fit my long run in this weekend, so I ended up doing it today. I was kind of disappointed that I only finished 7.5 miles in the time between dropping off and picking up my son from preschool, when I wanted to finish 9.5 miles.
