Tuesday, May 31, 2011

So You Think You Can...What??

Last week on TV I had the finales of DWTS and American Idol, which I didn’t really watch but did want to know who won.  I was very happy knowing that it was the last nights for these shows so some time would open up for me to do other things.  Then during AI a commercial came on announcing that the NEXT night, So You Think You Can Dance would be coming on.  Seriously??
I absolutely love that show.  They have dancing up there that has to be seen to be believed, it’s so incredible!  What a great way to showcase talent that otherwise might have gone undiscovered.  Kudos to Nigel Lythgoe!
Anyhoo, as I’ve mentioned before, a lot of times we make our own fun at my house.  Usually this involves Brie and I, since Kitty thinks we’re unbearably silly at times (she and her Living Dead dolls had an election in her room to see who’d be president, but I’m the silly one).  Kitty was at work so it was just Brie and I home to watch the show.
We admired and were moved by the lithe contemporary dancers, enjoyed the hip-hop/b-boy/turf dancers, and laughed at the delusional ones who actually thought they could dance well enough to be on the show.  Such entertainment!
Then we saw this one contemporary couple who did this really intricate move: it looked like she was on her stomach while he was on his hands and knees over her; then she reached behind and over him to grab her ankles and they did this rolling move.  So of course I looked at Brie and said, “I bet we can do that.”
“Mother, no!  You know what always happens when we try to imitate dances people do on TV.”
She was right of course, because the two of us have caused ourselves more injuries based on trying to copy dance moves, than law allows.  Trust me: we are no MC Hammers, Vanilla Ice’s or even in my case Sophie B Hawkins or Michael Flatley!  Pumpkin River Dances better than I do!  (That’s right: picture me trying to RiverDance!)  But nothing deters the Lordess of the Dance!
“Come on Brie, it looks so easy!  You’re smaller and more limber so you lay on the floor on your stomach and I’ll just be over you on my hands and knees and you grab your ankles.  It’ll be fun!”
She didn’t look as if she believed me, but she agreed and reluctantly got down on the floor.  I am not a floor person, so it took a minute for me to actually get down on my hands and knees over her.  And this is where the issues began…
First of all, we are curvaceous women, as opposed to the willowy contemporary dancers.  So laying on her stomach Brie was up higher than the girl on TV; and this went for her…backside too since she’s built like Jessica Rabbit.  Then you have to throw my curves into the mix, as I’m positioning myself over her but now my additional “frontal” curves are adding to her…horizontal height.  Now she was supposed to reach around and grab her ankles so we can do the rolling part. I’m not saying we would have been able to look very graceful, but Pumpkin decided that she wanted to be a part of the dance and began scooting across the carpet towards Brie, and then she jumped up and started licking her face.  This caused Brie to start laughing, and I could feel the vibrations of her laughter since I was practically resting on top of her.  This in turn made me laugh, but I still told her to grab her ankles!  However, she said she couldn’t because I wasn’t as thin as that male dancer and her arms weren’t long enough to reach.  I just laughed harder and told her I’d squish myself down more and told her to “Reach!”  But now that she was squished, she couldn’t move to grab her ankles.  So now she’s laughing, Pumpkin’s still licking her face and I just collapse on her and laugh and laugh.  “Get off me!” she finally gasps.  Now it’s going to take me a minute to get up between the laughing and being on the floor and stuff.  But finally I got up and so did she.
“Seriously Mother?” she said.
I shrugged.   “It sure looked easier on TV.  I really thought we could do it.”
“When are we going to learn our lesson?  We can’t do what they do on TV, or else we’d be on TV!”
“Okay, okay.  I’ve learned my lesson.  I won’t make you try anything else I see on TV.”
That is…not until So You Think You Can Dance comes on again this week!!!  J


Friday, May 27, 2011

Thinking About Going Vegetarian

Everyone who knows me, knows that I LOVE beef.  Steak, pot roast, beef stew: you name it, and I’ll eat it!  One of the guys at work calls me “meat lady”, because he knows how much I love it. For my birthday he gave me a gift card to a store called “Just Meat”.  Need I say more?
I have a couple of places that are my favorite for buying beef.   I love Hannaford; and any day (or many days!) of the week you can find me prowling around the meat counter, drooling over the cuts of beef, imagining which ones I’ll buy and promising to come back for them.  Sure the butchers look at me askance, but who cares.  The beef is so alluring!
There’s a butcher place not far from where I live. I’m not going to name it, but they have wonderful beef and each week something wonderful and new is on sale.  One time they had prime rib for $5.99 a pound, so the girls and I had that for Christmas Eve dinner. Yum, yum!  And another time they had filet mignon on sale for $7.99 a pound.  It was so delicious!
So I had been waiting for a few months for that filet special to show up again and finally it did!  By now though it was $8.99 a pound but I didn’t care: I was going to buy a pound of it for me since both girls were working.  I went there after work one afternoon and marched myself past the deli counter and into the wonderful butcher emporium.  I perused the marvelous cuts of beef, and a butcher I hadn’t seen before approached the counter.  “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’d like a pound of the filet mignon,” I replied, barely able to contain my giddiness.
“Oh I’m sorry, but we only sell them whole.”
I was crestfallen.  “What?  Last time I bought a single one.”
“Well, if you really want one, I guess I could cut one for you.”
Dejected, I said, “That’s okay; don’t go to any bother.”  I looked at what else was on sale and noticed the New York Strip, which I also like.  “Um…just give me a strip please.”
“Okay, but I don’t think the other customers would appreciate me on the counter taking off my clothes.”
When he said this I looked up and started laughing, that remark was so unexpected.  So I came back with, “But I have a wallet full of singles!” and he laughed too.  He was really cute: taller than me, dark hair, pretty eyes and apparently a good sense of humor.  He picked out a nice NY Strip steak for me and wrapped it up.  As he handed it to me he said, “Listen, sometimes when a person buys a whole filet, they want us to cut it for them and there’s a piece left over.  If someone does this tonight or tomorrow, would you like for us to call you?”
That was a no-brainer.  “That would be great!” I enthused.  “Okay, let me write down your number and hopefully we can work something out for you.”  I gave him my number and happily went to the cashier to pay for my steak, hope springing up in me that I would get a filet.
I got home, started changing my clothes and the phone rang.  “Hi, it’s Rob the butcher.  I just wanted to let you know that a customer came in and bought a whole filet, and there’s a 9 ounce piece left over.  Would you like it?”  “I sure would!  How late are you open?”  “We close at 7.”  I looked at the clock and it was 6:30.  “I’ll be there in 5 minutes.”
When I got to the shop, he held out the filet.  “Is this good?”  “You have just made me the happiest woman in New York State!” I replied.  “Well then my work here is done.  Here you go.”  “Thank you so much Rob, and if you have any more pieces left over before the sale is over, keep me in mind!”  “I will!”
I went home, made that filet and ate it.  It was sooo good! I was very happy; then settled down to watch “Everybody Loves Raymond” with the pets.  About 15 minutes in, I got a text message. “It’s Rob the butcher.  I just wanted to check and see if the filet was to your liking.”  I immediately texted back, “It was awesome!  Thanks again.”  From him: “No problem.  Is it okay that I texted you?”   I replied, “Sure, anyone that can provide me with filet mignon can text away, haha!”  And with that, we texted back and forth until almost 1:30 in the morning!
Now things like this don’t usually happen to me, but I figured that God had finally answered my prayers for the man of my dreams: a butcher, to keep me in red meat forever!  Hallelujah!
However, that isn’t exactly how it went.  We texted that night, then all through the next day and until almost 2 in the morning.  But then, the texts…kind of veered to the left.  As you can imagine, after a couple of days the tone changed to a very sexual one, and as much as I tried to move on to another path, he liked the one he was on.  I told him that if he was looking for a one night stand, a hit it and quit it situation or sexting, then I wasn’t for him.  He swore out he didn’t do one night stands either, but unfortunately his texts seemed to suggest otherwise.  And then, the piece de resistance: he sent me a picture of his own “filet”!  When I saw that honest to God my eyes got warm!  I asked him WTH and he said that he wanted me to see what he had to offer, gave me his address (like 4 blocks away!), told me to come over and we’d “hang out”.  I told him it looked like he was already “hanging out” and called him "Stranger Danger"! What kind of nutjob would I be if I showed up at his door?  “But I’ve got candles,” he said.  Dude, seriously?
So that was the end of that!  It took a long time for me to venture back in there.  When I look back, it makes me wonder what kind of impression I was giving that made him think it would be okay to send me “junk mail”?  Ugh!  I had thought about talking to his manager to let him know what one of his employees was doing with customers’ phone numbers, but figured someone else would beat me to the punch; and they did.  He was dismissed, thank goodness. So now my loyalty lies with Hannaford, with second place going to Price Chopper.  And so far: no "junk" mail from their butchers! I count that as a serious win.

Friday, May 13, 2011

The Second Coming

With all the hype going on about “May 21st” supposedly being the end of the world according to some religious groups, I’m going to give a very short opinion about that.  I actually read the entire article that was on MSN about how this group came up with the formula to predict the exact end of the world.  All of their sources supposedly came from the Bible, and they coordinated all the calendars to line up the dates to come to this date of May 21st.   Well, it may have sounded “plausible” in theory, and I loved all the numbers and dates that they had in that long article.  However, they kind of lost their credibility when they wrote, “And by using these calendars we see that Jesus was born in the year 7 BC.”  7 BC?   How did that happen?  According to them, Jesus was born 7 years before he was even born.  Was that the true miracle of Christmas?  I think they need to go back and recalculate!
And they also said, “No man knows when our Lord will return.”  Um…then why are you telling us it’s going to be May 21st????  If no one knows, then why are you throwing that date out there??  Darn charlatans!  Anyone who buys into this truly needs to go back to their Bible and what it says.
And now that we have that out of the way, I’m going to tell you one of my favorite recent stories involving Brie.  One thing about her is that she is the deepest sleeper I have ever come across.  She has slept through everything: a hurricane, a tornado, an explosion at a plant that we used to live very close to, her sister cutting her underwear when they were children (don’t ask!) and me screaming when the cat scared me while I was watching a scary movie and Brie was right on the couch!  So I have told her for years: “Brie, when the trumpet sounds, you are going to sleep through the second coming.  There will be no one left but you and your twin sister Luna.”  She just laughs and says, “No, I’m pretty sure I’ll hear that!”  Will you Brie?
Last Halloween Kitty was invited to a party and needed me to drive her there.  So after church I took my mother out to lunch and then went home, and by the time I had changed my clothes and straightened up a bit Kitty was in her costume and ready to go.  I asked her if she had told her sister we were leaving and she said she was sleeping.  I then decided to let Pumpkin ride along with us, since it took like 20 minutes to get to Christina’s house where the party was.  I put her in her pink Pumpkin carrier and carried her to the car.  I noticed that there were hardly any cars in our parking lot, and wondered where all the kids were.  Oh well, maybe everyone else was at Halloween parties too.  With that thought, the three of us were on our way!
After dropping Kitty off, I decided that it would be nice to stop off at my mother’s so Pumpkin could visit with her and my sister.  So I pulled into their driveway and picked up Pumpkin’s carrier.  It wasn’t until I was at the front door that I realized I had left my cell phone in the cup holder; but since I wasn’t expecting any calls I didn’t bother to go back to get it.  I let Pumpkin visit with great-granny and auntie Robin for an hour or so; then finally we got back in the car to go home until it was time to pick up Kitty.
As I was driving and neared where I’d turn into our parking lot, I noticed again a total lack of cars except for one.  Then as I turned in, I saw a rather odd sight.  It was Brie standing outside by her car.  When she saw me, she started yelling and gesticulating.  Of course I couldn’t understand what she was saying because I was in the car. When I finally parked and opened the door she shouted, “Where were you?  Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked, grabbing Pumpkin’s carrier.  “What are you doing outside?”
“I woke up and no one was here!  Pumpkin’s always here and she didn’t answer when I called!  I said ‘hoo-dat hoo-dat hoo-dat hoo’ and she didn’t come!  I turned the corner and there was Luna, just looking at me as she cleaned her paw!  I couldn’t find Victoria!  There was no one here but me and Luna!  Then I called you and no answer.  I called Kitty and no answer.  NO one answered their phone and you weren’t here!”
I started laughing at her hysterics.  “And…?”
“And I thought I’d missed the trumpet!  I thought everyone was gone but me and Luna!  I even came outside, and there were no cars: just the wind blowing little pieces of paper around and there wasn’t a soul in sight!  I thought I’d been left behind!”
By this time I was laughing so hard I was almost crying.  “Brie, I took Kitty to her party and she probably doesn’t have her phone on.  Then I took Punky to visit grandma and Robin, and I left my phone in the car because I wasn’t expecting any calls.”
“Well if you look at your phone now you’ll see I called you four times,” she pouted.  “Don’t scare me like that again!”
I was so sorry that she’d been afraid she’d slept through the trumpet.  But it was still funny to me!
So with that said, let’s not waste any time worrying about May 21st.  The Lord will come when he’s good and ready; not when some religious fanatics declare it.  And I'm sure He'll take Brie and Luna.  ‘Nuff said!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Mother's Day...?

I am still recovering from my illness.  It's been 3 weeks now.  Good grief!  Si since I spent most of this Mother's Day in bed, I'm going to share with you one of my former Mother's Day stories to let you know why now I kind of like to celebrate by myself:
One thing I love about holidays is you never know what the kids will get you.  I especially had no idea what I was in for on this particular Mother’s Day!
It started off well: Schmoop-dog and I went to church; then he took me out to lunch.    The sun was shining, birds were singing: all was right with the world.  Or was it?
We stopped by my parents’ to drop off some things for my mother: flowers and a card with a little something in it for her enjoyment.  However, when we arrived my mother asked, “Have you called home lately?”
These words never boded well.  “No.”
“I received a call from there and I think your daughters are trying to kill each other.”
“Okay then.”
Instead of calling, I decided to just head home.  Creeping up the stairs, I heard no WWIII sounds, which meant nothing.  By the way: my daughters loved each other and were each other’s allies.  But every so often: look out!
We entered the empty kitchen.  Rounding the corner into the living room I found Brie in a chair and no sign of Her Majesty; and it looked like a tornado had gone through the room!  “What happened?!”
“Kitty tried to kill me!”
I studied the rubble: the phone was torn from the wall, a broken video tape was in the middle of the room, and the couch cushions were askew. By this time Kitty had emerged.  “Mom, I hate Brie!  She hit me in the head!”
I glowered at Brie, who quickly recanted: “No I didn’t!  She was trying to kill me so I got up from the computer and went to run, and my elbow accidentally might have hit her in the head.”
“How was your elbow by her head?”
“Um, I kind of raised my arms and…”
“That’s enough!” I snapped.  “What about this room?”
“Brie was taking too much time on the computer and I wanted to use it.  She called me a name so I threw a videotape at her – “  “At my head!”  “- and it broke.  I’m sorry I broke your tape mom.”
I picked up the pieces.  “It’s not my tape Kitty, it’s yours.  Why’s the phone cord torn?”
“I wanted to call Grandma again but Kitty snatched the phone from me and tore it from the wall!
“And the couch?”
“When she threatened me I got on the couch to get away from her and she grabbed my arm and started twisting it!  She tried to break it!”
I threw up my hands in exasperation.  “Why is it always my stuff that gets destroyed?  Both of you go to your room and if I hear any noise, arguing, grumbling or anything I’m coming in there!”
“Thanks a lot Brie!” Kitty muttered as she stormed off, followed by her sister.
All through this Schmoop hadn’t uttered a peep.  But now he turned to me and said, “Happy Mother’s Day…”
Now that the girls are women it's not that bad, but still: on Saturday I was reminiscing to myself about the wonderful gift I had been given:  a day to myself!  I got my hair done alone, treated myself to lunch alone, went to Harry and David to buy myself some treats alone and even shopped at the Dress Barn and only bought clothes for me.  What an awesome day that was!   Oh well: there's hope for next year :o)