Tee Hee

So my job is trying to keep me from blogging by requiring me to work 10-hour (okay, only four days a week, but then I have to recover and pet my parents dog a lot).

I am hoping to be back by Friday, but until then I invite you to visit a funny little blog I just found:

Welcome to the world of the people who live inside your catalogs:

When I'm 82 (Hopefully. Sort of.)

Being home means being back around my grandparents,* which is both good and bad. Good because I love them and am happy to get to see them regularly. Bad because this means that my grandma won't send me any more packages with cookies and holiday socks, and because I have to come to terms with the fact that my grandpa is a pain in the ass who sits in his armchair ALL DAY LONG and watches Fox News and thinks that Sarah Palin is awesome.

My grandma came over for dinner last night (my grandpa, as expected, stayed home) and we had a totally awkward but still fairly awesome conversation. Before I tell you what we said, I think you need some background, here: my grandparents are pretty open about sex. As in, my Grandma gives my Grandpa a Playboy Calender for his shop every Christmas, and the whole family passes it around and makes comments.** Consider yourself warned.

So, as my Grandma was leaving I reminded her that I have Fridays off (I work four ten-hour days) so I could come see her some Friday soon. My grandma responded strongly, "Friday morning." Confused, I said, "Oh, yea, right! Okay."

Grandma: "Friday is 'Date Night.' "

Me (smiling awkwardly but pretending that this is totally normal): "Well I won't come over Friday then!"

Grandma: "Yea, we discourage it."

Me: "What, discourage people from coming over?"

Grandma: "Yep."

Me (too loud): "Cool..."

Grandma (sensing that I am totally weirded out by this conversation): "Well, doesn't it at least give you hope that we still have..."

Me (desperately trying to figure out how to end that sentence): "...DATE NIGHT?"

Grandma: "Well, actually it is more like Date Afternoon...but yes."

Me (too boisterously, to hid my embarrassment, but also honestly): "Heck Yea!"

****************

So there you have it. My grandparents (my grandpa is in his mid-80s, people) have sexy-time "Date Afternoon" every Friday and my Grandma ain't afraid to tell you about it. And as awkward as that conversation made me feel, I think that is totally fucking awesome.

There is a lot about my grandparent's*** marriage that I find problematic and would not want to replicate. I have even found myself wondering if my Grandma was happy in her marriage. Yesterday's conversation just goes to show you that we never know what is happening in other people's relationships (and should probably keep our opinions to ourselves).

I might not want to have a marriage like my grandparent's marriage, but Date Afternoon when I'm in my mid-80s? I definitely hope that is us someday.

*Not my mom's parents. My dad's parents.

**I never said my family was classy. Hopefully you have found out through my excessive use of the F-word that we are not a classy people.

***Where the F does the apostrophe go here? Granparent's? Grandparents'? Where is my damn grammar book?

Home again

I don't know why I even take a shower before I go to my mom's house.

My mom and step-dad have a three acre plot of land that is split about evenly between garden and woods. Tending to this land requires a large collection of work clothes, which my mom has assembled over the years from her kids' closets, Goodwill, and the local Feed and Seed. My siblings and I have a long-running joke that you can't be at the house for five minutes without ending up outside in a ridiculous outfit, and this time was no exception. Within ten minutes of arriving at my mom's house I am wearing yoga pants, knee high rubber boots,* a purple and blue ski jacket from approximately 1984 and a yellow and black Caterpillar knit cap with a yellow pom-pom on top.

We start by admiring the dogwood tree and saying hello to the garlic stalks. My mom fusses with the basil and has a few choice words (of the four letter variety) to say about the excessive rains having melted her cucumbers. Then we head up the hill into the woods. Since the great Fuck You my mom has spent a lot of time in the woods. Today she is showing me the "meditation trail" she has built into the hillside, a pathway that tracks back and forth through the steep, steep hillside so you can walk them without becoming totally out of breath. She has transplanted around 50 baby fir trees. The babies spring up in the dirt under their Mama's crowns, but there isn't enough light or food there for them. So my mom painstakingly dug them up and transplanted them all over the hillside, like so many Charlie Brown Christmas Trees. I am in awe of their lime-green tips of new growth; they look inherently hopeful and I understand why my mom would love them so much.

As we head back down the hill we stop by the barn to take a gander at the beets and the radishes and I am dispatched to get the hose for some reason. As I am getting it I hear my mom squawk like someone has poured cold water on her head. This is the noise that she makes when her mortal enemy, the garden slug, dares make an appearance within a 5 mile radius of our house. I know what is going to happen next. With a crazy glint in her eye, my mom mutters, "Die, Fucker," and smashes the slug with a rock.

And it is then that I know that I am truly home.

*I'm not talking cute stripey galoshes from Target. These are industrial size, all black, meant for shit-hauling, real life farm boots. They are not cute and they do NOT mess around.

photo from here

Oh for cripes sake

EXTREME NERD ALERT: I feel like Han Solo when Chewy finds him all blind and weak after being frozen by Jabba. "I'm out of it for a little while, everyone gets delusions of grandeur!"

Except that no one has delusions, they are all just grand.

Seriously, I leave the internet for a few weeks and you guys all go off and write awesome posts and have huge life events. Cate is talking about vaginas and leaving the little lady alone (to crawl, mind you). Peonies is having freaking twins!* P's wedding photos are up (goodbye this morning's activities, I used all that time to drool over photos). Mrs. LIOLI is writing hella posts and growing basil, yadda yadda yadda.

I have so much to tell you! But it is sunny for the first time and weeks and I want to go frolic in the sun on my first weekend after the start of my new job.

Happy Weekend. Please try and keep the mind-blowing wit and life events to a minimum until I am back on the scene. K?**

*So, I don't know any of these ladies and only one of them reads this blog to my knowledge. Doesn't mean I can't be creepily excited for them!

**I kid! Please keep saying amazing things and experiencing wonderful and important milestones.