Deuces

I love you military folk.  You are tidy creatures.  My sis' boyfriend is a Major in the U.S. Army.  Big time Army dude.  He's great.  Hospitable, friendly, and just the right touch of scary. I get a little uptight when I am in his presence.  If I am at his house I am making constant mental note to put things back EXACTLY where I found them.  If I don't, he quietly sweeps in and fixes what I did 'wrong'.  He really is nice- I don't want to make him out to be a baddie.  I just get nervous with his super tidy ways. I am relatively tidy.... you know.... relatively.  If I miss a day of vacuuming, I'll survive.  If I see a crumb lurking in the corner of my faux granite counter-tops, I might eye it and promise I'll get it next time I'm in the kitchen.  Or, or, or... it might sit there all day.  So when Major so-and-so is due for a visit, my stomach gets a little queasy.  I take a mental picture of my house and sur...

I opened it today. A tin can filled with letters of love. Letters from friends, letters from suitors, letters from family. This is a tin can that makes me smile when I open it. It gets opened, at most, once a year. It will get spotted as I reach into the far corners of "The Cave", which is the large closet under the stairs. The place I tuck away holiday decor, mass quantities of paper towels and Kleenex, junk I can't seem to part with and memories. And so while I am in the dark reaches of the cave searching for something else, my eye catches the tin can, and begs me to open it. Today I opened it. In it, towards the front, tucked into its original envelope was my first real love letter. "To Cambria, From Jayson ". It was given to me in the 4th grade. The envelope is white, the paper pink, typewritten. It reads, with a few omissions to protect his identity and with all its grammatical and spelling imperfections, as such: DEAR CAMBRIA You don't know m...

The list seems never-ending.  The To-Do's.  I woke up this morning and, despite being a Saturday, I just could not sleep in.  My eyes bolted open and I instantaneously started playing the days events in my mind, and what needed to be done before then.  Do you do that too? I think it is a woman thing.  I hope I am not alone.  It's a crazy person inside me that just can't not   think right when I awake.  To-Do's today include getting a birthday present for tomorrow's birthday party and subsequently wrap said gift.  Clean house, thoroughly, for the family house guests we have coming this evening.  I have to get cat food (but only from Petsmart, because I can't chintz out on my cats' health). So if I am driving all that way to Petsmart, what can I do while I am in that area?? And so I play not only what needs to be done, but... in what order.  Consecutivity, which is likely not a word, matters to me. I have to buy Lloyd's Hallowe...

My husband refers to me as a once-upon-a-time cereal dater.  It took me a while to realize that he meant I was once a serial dater.  After picturing myself cavorting with the likes of Captain Crunch and canoodling with Tony the Tiger, I was sure I had misunderstood him.  While I did once date a leprechan and a gent that resembled a honeybee, it is comforting to know that my husband and I are having less mis-communications than ever before. Semantics.  They get you every time.    

Hey mama-  I want to tell you a few things. I want to say "Thank You" for raising me to be a compassionate human being.  I want to tell you that I appreciate all the sacrifices you made while we were growing up.  You always wanted to travel abroad, and with your blessing, I got to go to Europe before you ever did.  Hey mama, I want to say I am proud of the person you are.  You drive me nuts sometimes, but I also miss it when we are apart for too many days.  You raised 6 children, and somehow half came out to be Democrats, and half Republicans.  That says a lot about your character.  You raised us to think for ourselves.  I am proud to be a bleeding heart liberal, while having conservative family values.  I am happy that I can watch CNN with you, and Nancy Grace.  We love Nancy Grace, you and I do.  You don't tolerate criminal behaviour, although you seem to tolerate everyone else in the world. Hey mama.  Than...

Several years ago I went to Denmark.  I went alone.  It was my last great mission to prove to myself that if I could travel to an unknown place on my own, I could do anything I wanted to do for the rest of my life.  I had been working hard.  Annoyingly hard.  I had been opening restaurants for a year, and 12 hour shifts interningled with late nights out with co-worker friends left me tired and feeling like I had neglected myself.  I was single and curious about the world.  I had entered that age in life where everyone was making huge decisions about getting married and having their children.  I wanted to take one last gamble on myself before I found myself settled down.  I was also looking to finally put the nail in the coffin of a failed relationship.  Someone that I adored, more than they adored me.  He wasn't good enough to me or for me, and as difficult as the decision was, I broke up with him for it, but it still hurt.  ...

Lloyd and I love the drive-in.  In truth, we have only been once (together)- his very first time, and what had been a long over-due visit for me.  We are hoping to remedy that infrequency, because we love it that much. We went as a novelty a few weeks ago when Lloyd's friends were in town visiting from the UK.  How "All-American".  One can't help but picture Sandy and Danny Zuko at the drive-in, him trying to make out with her, that Australian accent of hers and him being stranded and... "branded a fool".  (Let's face it- when you hear "drive-in", you think of that song....) So we went to one that is close to my house.  We were relatively prepared.  We had blankies, pillows and chairs.  Us gals sat in the back of our truck, and the boys on the chairs in front.  We tuned our radios in, and we watched.  Of course what we watched was secondary to the experience.  The experience of not hearing every crunch of a stranger n...

It's time for a hair change.  I realized today as I stared into the mirror that my hair has been looking a bit like.... it did a few months ago and.... a few years ago. I'm not "that girl" that always has the fabulous hair.  I am content with being that one girl that throws her hair in a pony and can't remember if it has been a day... or two... or three since I last washed it.  What I realized today, however, is that my blissfully happily married status has left me a complete bore in the hair department.  I used to color my hair after every break-up or break-down.  If it wasn't the color it was the chop.  If it wasn't a full fledged chop it was, at the very least, side-swept bangs or a few extra layers.  I mean.... if these follicles could talk.... The same pretty much goes for my weight.  The ups and downs are gone.  The occasional emotional wreckage that was me in my early 20's reached for fast carbs and swallow-my-pride-pie.  T...

I love Halloween.  It is my favorite holiday.  It has been for as long as I can possibly remember.  I have to stop and ask myself- Why Halloween?  For many people Christmas and Thanksgiving rank near the top, along with birthdays and the 4th of July or some other warm welcoming holiday.  For me, Halloween reminds me of so many things, people and good times. As a kid, Halloween was the pivotal time of year when creativity and novice was key.  We didn't have a lot of money, so it was up to us to come up with our costumes for the school parade.  Remember the parades?  At Vineyard Elementary it meant all of the students walked in a big circle in front of their peers.  This was awesome, although also a bit stressful if you didn't have that awesome Princess gown like so-and-so.  And so we were rock stars and hobos, and anything else that you could put together on a dime.  We strutted our stuff wearing charcoal on our faces instead of 5 ...

The Report is due on the 25th of every month. It used to be due on the 20th, and the boss decided since none of her employees were turning it in by the 20th she would give some reprieve and offer a few days grace. She specified the new directives clearly "the reports will now be due on the 25th of each month- no later". It was clear. The following month, her employees had their reports in on the 25th. The month thereafter, a funny thing happened. One of her employees, a decent, hard-working employee sorta kinda forgot. She turned the report in on the 26th. Despite being written in red, bold font on her Outlook Calendar "REPORT DUE" it didn't make it there on time despite her best efforts. I am not sure what it is about procrastination that has everybody doing it. The fact that it begins with "pro" makes it seem like anything but a "con", and pro's are good, right?

The radio is always on. Different stations, different songs. I get bored with just one. It all depends on my mood, really. I can croon to the tunes of my favorite country folk and jump to the sordid, disrespectfully tacky hip hop and rap songs of my youth. I might fist pump the air as I cruise in my mom van that is full of books instead of babies. If the day is ending and my energy has all but left me, I will jump to something embarassingly awesome like my "love songs on the coast" or my kbig 104.3 where I can find a classic Phil Colins song preceding the latest from Kelly Clarkson (I mean, who doesn't love some Kelly Clarkson and Phil Colins all mixed into one music streaming session?). If I am lucky I will catch a Cyndi Lauper classic in there and a tune from one of my favorite bands, Journey. When I am in the mood to think about my parents or family, I might cruise on over to K-earth 101. My sister, Camille, loves that station. I think the other is Kola 99.9. I will...