A Hillary Observation

This past weekend, Saturday Night Live (Jan. 20, 2007) had an opening sketch that is to die for. It's a skit with SNL regulars playing Hillary Clinton and Chris Matthews. The comedian who does Matthews is perfect. I first saw the clip on Lucianne.com and I tried to load it here from YouTube but apparently NBC has a problem with putting their clips on YouTube without permission. Well, that's okay. There is a good article and a link to the clip on this website. This clip is so funny...and sooooo true.

Parenting Test

It's been years since I've had small children living in my house, but those are years you don't easily forget. Today I got this funny Parenting Test in my email. I especially like the Grocery Store Test. God bless all you young folks with little children. Be happy in the knowledge that it won't last forever and an empty nest is just waiting for you to come and take a nap. Enjoy!


You're not ready to be a parent unless you can pass the following tests:

Mess test: Smear peanut butter on the sofa & curtains. Now rub your hands in
a wet flower bed & rub on the walls. Cover the stains w/ crayons. Place a
fish stick behind the couch & leave it there all summer.

Toy test: Obtain a 55-gallon box of Legos. (If Legos are not available, you
may substitute roofing tacks) Have a friend spread them all over the house.
Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream
(this could wake the little ones at night).

Grocery store test: Borrow 1 or 2 sm goats & take them grocery shopping w/
you. Always keep them in sight & pay for anything they eat or damage.

Dressing test: Obtain 1 lrg, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a sm net bag
making sure that all arms stay inside.

Feeding test: Obtain a lrg plastic milk jug. Fill halfway w/ water. Tie jug
to ceiling fan blade. Turn fan on. Try to insert spoonfuls of oatmeal into
the mouth of the jug while pretending to be an airplane. When finished, dump
the contents of the jug on the floor

Night test: Fill a sm cloth bag w/ about 10 pounds of sand. Soak the bag in
warm water. At 8pm begin to waltz & hum w/ the bag until 9pm. Lay down your
bag & set your alarm for 10pm. Get up, pick up your bag, & sing every song
you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more & sing these too until 4am.
Set alarm for 5am. Get up & make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look
cheerful.

Physical test: (women) Obtain a lrg beanbag chair & attach it to the front
of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now remove 10% of the beans.

Physical test: (men) Go to the nearest drug store. Set your wallet on the
counter. Ask the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest grocery
store & do the same. On the way home purchase a newspaper. Go home & read it
quietly for the last time.

Final assignment: Find a couple who already have a sm child. Lecture them on
how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training,
& child's table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to
them that they should never allow their children to run wild. Enjoy this
experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.

Meet Anthrax, the Scanner Cat

Hey, a Cat Scan!

Tonight I introduce our cat, Anthrax. I've written about her here and here. Hey, it's a slow news cycle. Anthrax is five years old, born about three weeks before 9/11/2001, which explains her name. She is the only one on this blog who goes by her given name. She don't need no stinkin' screen-name (coincidentally, the other night I saw the actual movie that has the line "we don't need no stinkin' badges", it's a Humphrey Bogart movie. I never did see what the name of the movie was but the actor that says that line was perfect). Anyway, Anthrax is the perfect cat. She doesn't claw the furniture, all though, as you can see, she could if she wanted to.

She is quite proud of her God-given eye-gougers. She doesn't use a litterbox, she prefers to go outside. She stays outside mostly, unless it's cold. She does not do cold. She doesn't bite my feet at night and her only vice is that she likes to get up at 3:00 am and have a snack and then go outside. She prefers that you stand there and wait for her to finish eating...at 3:00 in the morning...aside from that, she is the perfect cat. Unlike the dog, who I seriously would pay a good hit-man to take out. The dog stinks. The cat is perfect. I'm a cat person.

We didn't intend to keep Anthrax or her pretty yellow brother. We planned to give them both away. Anthrax is not a beautiful cat. She is your usual gray tabby although the older she gets, the yellower she gets. When they were kittens, Stoicdad took them both to the local pet store on adoption day and sat for a few hours waiting for someone to come along and adopt them. A little girl came by and snatched up the male cat, which was the cat I would have kept if I had a choice. He was prettier. But we ended up keeping Anthrax and giving her that wonderful name and it turns out she is one of the best cats we've had. She has earned her spot at the foot of my bed. She sits and guards my scanner so no cat-burglars can get it. She really is a good cat. I 'spect I'll keep her.
My cat and my mouse.

A Bittersweet Wedding

MR & MRS SPROUT (Official wedding pictures are forthcoming)

This has been the hardest post for me to write. It should be the easiest one. Sprout and his bride had the most beautiful wedding. There was candlelight, Christmas trees, flowers, and a brass quartet. It could not have been more perfect. They spent Christmas in town visiting family and friends and then headed off to honeymoon their way across the country back to Armyland. Everything is good.

So why am I having so much trouble writing this? Why have I sat down five times to type only to get up and walk away on the verge of tears? I think because in my mind the order of my life lately has been - thanksgiving...wedding...Christmas...DEPLOYMENT!!! Now that the wedding and Christmas have passed, my mind is focused on Sprout's upcoming deployment. I have to get ready. I have to prepare myself. This week I even bought this and have put it away to send to Sprout NEXT Christmas...his deployemnt tree.



I feel the need do something now to prepare myself for the time when my son is at war. I have always been one of those women who thinks of everything. When we travel, I am the one who makes sure we have the credit card, the maps, our toothbrushes. There are always spare lightbulbs and toilet paper in my house. I am always as prepared as best I can be.

But how am I supposed to prepare for this? How do I ready myself for a year of constant worry? How do I accept the fact that my son is going to a place where he must sleep with his rifle in order to protect himself? What I would really like to do is go to Iraq, find out exactly where Sprout will be living, check out his quarters, build a few brick walls around his temporary home and clear the entire country of bad guys and bad things. Instead I am stuck contemplating the useless junk I can buy to send to him while he is away.

When Sprout was home this time, he was excited and busy and giddy with wedding stuff, but under it all I could see his worry, his fear creeping in and out of his expressions. I know that having his wife with him now will do him a world of good. He will have someone there to talk to at night when the world gets quiet and the long days of preparing for battle have ended. I am so glad they decided to get married before he left for war. I would hate for him to have to go through all these hard preparations without a soulmate to help him cope.

Now, if I can just figure out how I will cope.

Christ Puts Himself Back in Christmas

The Stoic household is buzzing these days with wedding prep and Christmas decorating. Sprout will be here soon and the wedding count down has begun.

I decided that I should take pictures of the Christmas tree before the festivities began and I go and forget all about it. So the other night, I took this picture.



Now, look closely at the cross on the wall to the right of the tree. Guess what...there ain't a cross of the wall in that room. I had to do a double take because I know that room like the back of my hand. I hung every picture in that room and I KNOW there is not a cross on the wall. On closer inspection, I realized that the cross is actually a reflection on the glass of the hallway that is behind me as I took the picture. Freaky, huh? I guess I better not forget who in in charge of Christmas.

Now, back to the wedding preparations.

Merry Christmas, y'all.

Tis The Season To Think As A Child

The grandkids were over today and helped me pick out a Christmas tree to fight with. But before we did that, we had to answer the traditional holiday protocol in this family and first bring out the creche and set up the Holy Family, who did after all start all this crazy merriment we now call Christmas. I explained to the Little General that I usually stash baby Jesus away in a drawer until Christmas day because he isn't born until then. She didn't like this idea, apparently thinking me guilty of some sort of child abuse and indicated that she preferred to have baby Jesus adopted out by Barbie.

Well, some folks might think that it would be sacrilegious of me to allow a child to play with a baby Jesus figurine as a play thing, but knowing my God the way I do, I happen to have it on good authority that he suffers the little children not to come unto him and I am sure that he considers it an honor that the Little General feels inclined to rescue baby Jesus from a deep, dark drawer.

And isn't it just like a child to teach us the meaning of things? After the kids left this evening, I went around the house picking up toys and putting things back in their place. I passed by the nativity set and smiled at the way all the wise men and shepherds were haphazardly arranged. It wasn't until I begin moving them around that I noticed how the Little General had arranged the manger, swaddling my plastic baby Jesus in a blue plaid blanket to keep him warm. I stand here now, humbled.
I have decided not to change a thing.

Thanks, Little General for reminding me.

Giving Thanks and Walmart Shopping

We just got back late this afternoon from a week long Thanksgiving visit with Sprout in fly-over country. Stoicdad has a horrible fear of flying so we drove...two days up and two days back. Under normal circumstances, this would have been enough "bonding" time to end a twenty-seven year marriage, but we took Bridey and cousin Pedro with us so we had to be on our best behavior. Sprout was glad to see us, VERY glad to see Bridey. She is staying on an extra week so that they can go hunting for an apartment and do other such getting-hitched type stuff.

On the way up and back, we spent the night at the home of my mother's sister. It's been eight years since I have seen my aunt. She moved away about ten years ago, around the time my mom died. I did not realize just how much I missed her and her family. We stayed up talking and reminiscing and laughing and she looks so much like Mama and sounds just like her and moves just like her and laughs like her and thinks like her. It was nice to have someone else remind ME that it was Mama's birthday for a change. Mama would have turned seventy-one last week had she lived. She and my aunt were so close and so funny together. Sigh! How I miss those days.

But the most exciting thing about our little trip is that our hotel stood just across the parking lot from a Walmart. Now, normally I don't do the Black Friday shopping thing BUT when Walmart is so close you can spit on it, well, if that ain't a sign from God, I don't know what is. I woke up at 4:30 A.M., looked out the window and saw a stream of headlights heading into the Walmart parking lot and decided to brush my teeth, throw on some clothes and grab my purse. I left Stoicdad a note that said "Gone to Walmart" just in case I never made it back. I got there and just happened to be at the exact door where the portable DVD players were and managed to get a couple without a fight and made it back to the hotel by 5:30 and Stoicdad was none the wiser.

The poor man could wake up completely broke one day and not have a clue.