The Day of the Dead Meat

(BLOGGER'S NOTE: If you're driving, pull over. If you're standing, take a seat. If you have a ginormous mouthful of coffee and chicory, please swallow before reading further. Consider this your grossness spoiler.)

Okay, so. I work full time, six days a week, so I do the house stuff on two afternoons and Sunday by necessity. I usually manage to put the groceries off to Sunday, and I have commissioned these two able-bodied male people I found just hanging out on my couch to help me unload and distribute groceries when I haul them home. Now, right here, I will add that this is truly a story of grocery helper training fail, and I take full responsibility for it. I do not wish to disparage the wonderful help these two give me, as I would totally love it to continue. No fussing about getting a newer or more efficient model, nothing like that. Just so we're clear. Okay, so. Back to the story. They help me, carry huge loads of plastic bags into the kitchen, yada yada.

Two weeks ago, there was the first hint of the training fail. Two hours after returning from the grocery trip, I was making that mental inventory I do in my head concerning groceries purchased, menu thoughts etc., when it occurred to me, wait. I don't remember putting eggs away. I know these were purchased, because three days prior, I'd managed to have eight cartonized eggs plummet from the fridge shelf and explode onto the tile floor, seeping into a lovely puddle both under and in front of the fridge. Talented that way, I am. So I remembered buying them. I didn't panic, took a leisurely stroll out to the car and popped the trunk. Sure enough, the new dozen were sitting prettily in the cardboard box I keep for toting just the very perishables. Untouched by grocery helpers. Hmm. Made a note, had a confab, grocery helpers looked sheepish and went on their merry way.

The next Sunday, it's grocery time again. As usual, big list, lots of bags, lots of good grocery help. Now, when I buy meat, I usually bag them all together, and I usually place them within their bags onto the meat shelf of the fridge, for neatness and consolidation, let alone minimal leakage. All the perishables (so I thought) were accounted for at the time.

Fast forward to yesterday (WEDNESDAY, for those of you with a score card), early. I get into my car to go to work, when OMFG, the SMELL! I looked quickly into the back seat, half expecting to see a body. No body, but no explanation of the horrible stench. I checked under seats, in cup holders, under umbrellas, no, no nothing. Then it occurs to me. I gingerly make my way back to the truck, pop it and what do I find?? Well, it once was a three-pound roll of ground chuck, but that this moment, it more resembled a zombie balloon. The middle section of the roll had puffed up three times its size, and the reek was amazing. Astounding. Need I say breathtaking? I thought just for a moment how fortunate that this item had been encased in the roll, and in its original plastic grocery bag. If that much ground chuck just in a meat tray had rested in the hot trunk for three days, I shudder to think. Hamburger zombies on the prowl.

So, as fast as I have ever moved, I whisked the zombie balloon out of the garage and into the outside garbage can, which fortunately is large and has a very heavy lid, which keeps the garbage nicely isolated. Whew. I then Febrezed the garage, trunk and car interior to fog maximum. Unfortunately, a bit of the zombie whiff is still in evidence. I hate to think I will get used to it. However, new grocery helper training has commenced, with a new position to be filled: The Final Trunk Checker (FTC). This is a highly sought after and lucrative job, as the FTC will assure that there are no more breathtaking instances of zombie balloons in the trunk of my car, now affectionately called the Stinkmobile. And so ends the Day of the Dead Meat. One of uuuussss.... one of uuussss....

Woman Duct Tapes Eleven-Year-Old Boy to Ceiling. Vows to Let Him Loose on 30th Birthday. Maybe.

Motherhood is just a fricking carnival. I mean really, I could puke cotton candy at any moment. I AM on the way to the store for some Gorilla Tape. Serious. I'll even rig a spaghettios dumb waiter so he doesn't starve. I'll also hang him close enough so he can peer longingly at the Little Debbies moldering on the top of the fridge. But I do have concrete evidence that my panicked eleven year old bullshit detector is in working order, and I can play good cop bad cop all by myself. How do I know? It all started when I noticed... a strange cell phone on my coffee table Mardi Gras night, about three minutes before the end of Glee. After much heated discussion, I found out this was a cell phone from one of his friends (left innocently here, moons and moons ago...), and a second phone was produced, also stealthily procured from a more privileged friend. (EVERYONE has a cell phone but MEEEEE!) This was a pay-as-you go deal, with no more minutes left but a fresh new code which happened to coincide with our home number. ("I was gonna give it back this week!")
Now, neither of these devices had service, but they did sport some goofy new pictures and both held a good charge, by way of the charger from my old Bluetooth device, which just happened to marry with both of these accidentally by chance and not at all on purpose with malicious forethought. So tomorrow night, we walk the neighborhood with ol' Light Fingers himself, returning electronics. Then, a brief ceremony, then duct tape on the ceiling and spaghettios until further notice. I'll be in the corner, puking cotton candy.

Good Night, Ms. Armelin, Whoever You Are

It's midnight. The house is blissfully, finally asleep. The clanging of a gong brings me out of the depths of a dream. Wait, that's the - no is it?- the phone is ringing. I am on my feet still half snoring, catch the clock with one eye and see a two. Hmmmm. This can't be good. Notice as I make my way into the living room a body on the other side of the bed. Get to the phone. Use that same one eye to see that the ID says Private Caller. "Hello?" A male voice says, "Ms. Ellen?" Whoa. That's me. "Yes?" "This is Sgt. Whateverhesaid of the Lafayette Sheriff's Office." WHAT?! I am now awake. Alert. Bordering on concerned. My brain kicks into high gear. I could win Jeopardy single-handedly right NOW. The voice continues through the new adrenaline. "I'm calling about your son, Dwan." By the end of this sentence, I have traveled to the door of my bedroom, thrown it open and flicked on the light, discovering that it was not 2 AM but only midnight, and the body in the bed was Chuck. He's now awake, too. And why not, I don't have to be the only one on an adrenaline jag.

"My son, Dwan??" During this three-word sentence, I head to the other side of the house to Max's room, throw open that door, and growl like the mom in the GEICO commercial, all the time thinking, OMG, Max has sneaked out of the window, hitched to Lafayette, gotten in trouble and now told the sheriff his name is Dwan, no maybe it's one of his crazy friends??? Oh, I am in such troooouuubbbble. "Max! Maxwell?!" (I really think somebody heard me say these things and then wrote that piggie commercial...) A small voice comes from the bottom bunk. "Mom?"

"Sargeant, I only have one son. His name is Maxwell, and he's in his bed. But how did you know my name was Ellen??" "Ma'am, just a minute. Is your last name Armelin??" "No sir, it's not." "Well, I have to apologize. This was a wrong number. Please excuse the ring." Click.

My now adrenaline-soaked parts process this. Thirty-three seconds ago when this crazy time started, my then still slumbering brain processed "Ms. Armelin" as "Ms. Ellen." Twenty minutes later when I finally managed defib, I went back to bed. Some time later, to sleep. From time to time, I've wondered how Ms. Armelin was, and what the trouble was that Dwan had given all of us. And if that sheriff's officer regularly misdials in the middle of the night.

Saturday Back Seat Karaoke

OMFZG, has it really been since May??
Just stopping in to record this nugget.
In the car, on our way to our usual Saturday Storytime gig. Max in back seat, singing along with Steve Miller. "Big ol' jet and a light on...." I ask him to repeat, he does. I tell him the right lyrics. He says he likes his better. Actually so do I. Sorry, Steve and Band, your song is forever Big Ol' Jet and a Light On in our elite circle. And don't TELL us we're wrong.

Less guilt, more slacking.

I have truly been wrought with guilt over my scarcity in the blogosphere as of late. Racked with it. Paralyzed. No, really. I forced myself today to visit the home base, to see if maybe I should spruce things up to motivate myself. I then started visiting my fellow bloggers, those who have inspired me and made me laugh, cry, think about things or not think about things, as it were, and maybe leave a comment or two, just so they realize that I am alive. And guess what. For the most part, I am a slacker among slackers. Most of these folks are worse than I am about updating -- with a few notable exceptions, of course -- you blogger-by-the-day-types, you are the bomb and I shall never rise to your standards. That said, the metallic clunking noise you hear is me, shaking off the guilty shackles and sitting up a little less slumped in the computer chair. There. I feel better now, and I'm getting itchy for a Facebook fix, maybe a quick Family Feud defeat or a stop to revive the spoiled sushi tray I've left too long in Cafe World. Um. So. Until I have a really really good post to put together, that's where I'll be. Bwahahahahahaha, slackers!

She Knows I Have Deadly Intentions

See the riotous joyful explosion of springtime beauty and grace? The cascades of lovely fragrant rose blossoms? The amazing accent in the front of my house? This, ladies and gentlemen, is The Rosebush from HELL. The very one I had planned to uproot and fling into the nearest sacrificial fire on the next convenient occasion. Of course, now all my devious schemes and plans are thwarted. Who could do away with a natural vision of loveliness like this? I tell you, by a narrow margin, I can't. Yes, this rosebush knows I have her in my sights. She has invaded all the careful plantings and boundaries I set for the flower bed. She grew through the magnolia tree, for heaven's sake!

This Rose, she and I have quite a history. Her name is Peggy Martin. I heard her sad tale shortly after the summer of '05, year of the hurricanes. It seems she was the sole survivor of three weeks of salt water flood at a lady gardener's house in Chalmette, post-Katrina. Nurseries were selling plants from cuttings, all to help Katrina rebuilding. I bought one, felt good about doing my part to help other gardeners get back into the green, and picked out a sunny spot in my front flower bed, chose a dainty trellis and awaited Ms. Martin's arrival. She seemed polite enough to begin with, graceful canes reaching toward the trellis... but shortly things got, well, out of hand. She outgrew my trellis, she became a rambling, roving mess through my flower bed, tangled in the Indian Hawthorn, even using the magnolia as refuge and support. I hacked, pruned and cajoled her back to the acceptable bounds, and hoped for the best.

Every spring since then, it has been the same thing. I hack and haul; she invades, rambles and roves. I understand how this stubborn survivor lived through three weeks of putrid salt water, although knowing that does not give me much hope for a victory over the canes. This is the first spring that she has bloomed in such profusion, she must know the jig's almost up. She's going down this year, I promise. If I can find an empty (and I do mean bare!) spot that I think she might like, I might replant her, but not until I prune her down to size yet again. Maybe this crazy wild blooming phase is akin to that thing your hair does, right before you go to cut it -- one last "hey, this might not be bad" before it gets chopped into submission. Okay, Peggy Martin Rose -- bloom your little heart out. I have a pruning saw and a big ol' shovel, and I am not afraid to use them. Later.

Death to Chocolate Bunnies, or Happy Easter to All

Easter Monday has arrived, the Last Day of Spring Break around here. As I wandered out of the bedroom at 8:35 to the tune of my cell phone (my mother, not the anticipated Fire in the Children's Department of the Library) and the Medium Boy actually ANSWERING it, I thought. Hmph. This is the usual form my waking thoughts take, momosyllabic cavewoman grunting, especially if it is 4:39 and I have been roused conscious by my body doing this weird "five hours is enough rest for you and now you must be wide awake and get up for an hour then collapse into bed again" thing it's been doing for a while. What I have found out about that particular phenomenon is that it doesn't necessarily have to continue unabated forever more -- light at end of tunnel, but it symptomatic of this disease I've recently been forced to consider as a part of life from here on, diabetes. Ugh. Light attached to speeding train. No, no, I know, but sometimes it seems that way, as all giant former worst fears realized can. Another waking thought, heavy sigh.

You know, it occurred to me that I've been daring God for a challenge like this for a while. After all, I've been ignoring my weight and my age for a bit and sticking my chin out at working out. Well. So much for that, it appears He has taken up the offered gauntlet and surprise, no more carefree in your face living large for me. I've been sticking my finger religiously several times a day to monitor blood glucose, (took me twenty minutes the first time) trying to get more exercise in the form of dancing about in the mornings to my iPod and walking more, plus I have established a modified white flour and sugar are the devil eating regimen endorsed by my internist. I've managed to lose a bit of weight in the last eight weeks (how could I not, on meat and vegetables...), and the glucose numbers are going down into the not-so-panicky range. Well, all except the fasting numbers, because it seems my liver is the last holdout in the challenge, stubbornly insisting that these new low numbers are TOO low, and waking me up at 4:39 AM while dumping an 18-wheeler of glucose into my system. YAH! Hallo, Liver -- you gotta believe. This new low thing is a good thing. No really. Seriously. Stop with the dawn syndrome already. (Did you think you'd have to endure my inner dialogue to my liver in a blog post? Check that off the bucket list.)

Working on that, I am. But I am properly chastised, and will think yet twice or thrice again before issuing the next Big Dare to the universe. Okay, all whining will cease. Easter has been deemed successful, a lovely day was had by all. The Medium Boy has bitten the ears (and most of the other vital bunny organs...) off his chocolate bunny, the peeps are history and most of the dyed eggs have been pocked and devoured. I am dealing with this whole new health thing, I have whacked the clover in the garden into submission, and meantime have developed a wicked vegetable soup recipe. We go on from here, with the best wishes for a lovely spring. My liver salutes you.