Ugh. Make it stop.

Step away, candy temptress!

Must. Stop. Eating.

Someone really needs to do something about how fat I'm getting.

Ugh.

Next year I'm begging someone to give me a chocolate-covered tapeworm and a glass of cabernet.

Happy Halloween.

Wrapping up the Hooker Trip

It's almost 11 a.m. on Saturday.  It's my first sleep-in opportunity since October 14, and I REALLY love to sleep in.  But I woke up at 7:30 a.m. and laid in bed stressing out about work for about an hour, and then said uncle, got out of bed, drove to a donut shop and bought 12 donuts for five people, and brewed a pot of coffee that I'm 3/4 of the way through.  My life is fueled by sugar and caffeine and fear.


At first, the kids had Disney in the background, and it was like fingernails on chalkboard with the stupid jokes and canned laughter and lippy teens, but they've switched to "Chopped", so I can write again.  Whew.  That Disney/Nick stuff makes me crazy.  We were the only parents I know who forbid the kids to watch Suite Life of Zach and Cody because those kids were so rotten.  Our children were ashamed.


So...let's wrap up this hooker convention.   I'll show you a few of the hooking projects so you know of what I speak:

An awesome footstool, all hand dyed wool and hooked.

School scene in a very small cut of wool -

each wool strip is about 3/32 of an inch wide.

This was one of my faves - it's small, about 8x10, and the detail is amazing.  There are probably 10 shades of flesh toned wool and another 10-15 shades of red in her hair, all hand dyed and hooked in that little 3/32 of an inch strip width.
Even though these shows are grueling with the lugging around of product and incessant talking and taking of money that has to balance out later and the 10 hours of standing, and for all of my joking about hookers, these people are truly artists and incredibly.  I've made one rug and started three others, and they are not easy.  Or cheap.  Enough about hookers, let's bring it back to me.


My co-worker and I arose at 6 a.m. to get to the airport on time for our second experience of sitting in each other's laps and pedaling the plane to Baltimore.  However, when the taxi pulled up at the Lancaster airport, which is slightly smaller than your average Texas Roadhouse, it was covered in fog.  Damn.  And I had no coffee.  I brought the airport Sunday paper in for them from the front step, so I knew there was no coffee shop in this building.  Our flight was delayed, so I settled in and started reading.

"This is Where We Live" by Janelle Brown.

352 pages of the rest of my life.

After the pilot got on top of the plane and squeegeed all the windows and took the made sure there were fresh batteries in the remote control that operates the plane, we boarded.  I knew when we buckled our seatbelts that we were going to miss our connection in Baltimore.  As we landed, I saw our United flight to Chicago taxi down the runway.  Goodbye Weekend!  No big deal though, right?  We can just get on another plane.  We went to the United counter, and funny, EVERYONE is flying to Moline on Sundays.  Everyone.  Every United flight to Chicago was booked, as was every flight to Moline.  The ticket agent said, "I think you might have to spend the night in...." and looked up to see me starting to come unravelled and tears forming in my eyes, and said, "Um, let me see what Delta has available."  The very nice woman found us two seats on a Delta flight to Atlanta and then to Moline, IL, getting us in at 10 p.m.  Sold.  I gave her the golden chocolate coins the hotel used for turndown service


When we got off the plane in Atlanta four hours later, we knew we still had five hours until our next flight, and then, like a golden oasis in the middle of the desert, we saw this:

The best franchise EVER.  A spa in the airport.

My friend and I each signed up for a 30 minute Stress Relief massage.  Yay!  The day was saved!  I had a moment of panic when my person, Tonya, started.  I have a HUGE problem with eyebrows being rubbed the wrong way.  I can barely type it, and I have that heebie jeebie feeling right now even mentioning it.  I have no idea where this originated, but if Current Husband wants me to leave the room, all he does is start rubbing his eyebrows...ugh.  They grow in one direction.  Those hairs are not meant to move the other way. 


I feel like I've just exposed a great weakness.


So Tonya starts my massage by pinching my eyebrows.  I grab the chair arms tightly and think, "How long can this last?  She HAS to stop, right?  Did I sign up for an Eyebrow Massage?"  After about 10 seconds she stopped, and it was just in time, because I was about to bolt up and run to the nearest mirror to brush those brows back to their German unibrow origins.  AS THEY SHOULD BE.  Once I knew the brows were safe, and I wasn't gassy, I could relax.  And it was lovely.


We got to our next gate, all blissed out, and found out our flight to Moline had been delayed.  It was announced over the loudspeaker that the flight to Montgomery, Alabama came in late because they were deciding whether or not the tires needed to be changed.  The people waiting for the flight looked around and smiled nervously.   DID the tires get changed?  Was one going to blow on landing?  "HA!" I thought.  "Glad I'm not on the Montgomery flight!"  and then they announced, "And the flight to Moline is late because they spent three extra hours in Montreal with mechanical problems."


WTF?!?!  Are you referring to MY plane?


So all of the Moline people quickly texted goodbye messages to their loved ones and got our affairs in order.  NOTE TO THE AIRLINES:  If my flight has bad tires or mechanical issues or the pilot is drunk, and you aren't going to do anything about it, don't tell me.  Ignorance is bliss, and a lot better than sitting in what you've been told COULD BE an airborne potential death trap for the next hour or so.


We finally landed after 11 p.m., and CH arrived with Youngest Daughter to pick me up from the airport, because YD had been waiting for 5 days to see her Mommy and she wasn't going to miss it.  I went home, then to bed and back to work 7 hours later and spent the entire week catching up with paperwork and kid stuff.


And that, my patient and tolerant readers, is why I only blogged once in the past two weeks.  Please forgive me!


On Thursday, I leave for my biennial high school friend reunion, and there is always PLENTY to blog about then.  Here is a refresher course from our last reunion in Scottsdale, AZ.  These are my WOMEN.  If you've ever read The Girls From Ames, we are The Girls From Fremont.  I love them all.

SKIN TAG, YOU'RE IT
BACONCAT

Hooker Adventures

Last week I attended a hooker convention. You know, my kind of hookers – the classy kind. I am, after all, based in the Quad Cities, home of Fred Garvin, male prostitute.









We departed Wednesday morning from the Quad Cities on a flight to Detroit, Rock City. After a delay on our flight, we only had a 45 minute layover in Detroit to make our flight to Baltimore. I don’t check bags because I don’t want my luggage lost, so I’m hauling a 40-pound carry-on behind me as we are running to the gate to make the flight. We get to the flight and since everyone else has already boarded, there is no room for carry-ons, so they check my bag. (Of course, it got lost.) That flight is delayed, so we are certain we’ve missed our flight to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We get off the plane in Baltimore and again run through the airport. When we arrive at the Cape Air gate, the friendly counter person is speaking into a walkie talkie, saying, “I have the two passengers from US Air, we are en route” and she rushes us past security. Wow, this is some service! Then we see the plane:

And realize that we make up 30% of the passengers on the flight. Yes, that is the pilot, on the plane, washing the windows. Here is a shot from my seat:

The pilot is on the left, one of the passengers is on the right. At this point, my knees are hugging the sides of the pilot’s chair. I could’ve reached up and bear hugged him. Except that I was busy telling Jesus how sorry I am for everything I’ve done lately because we were flying through a solid wall of fog and hitting massive turbulence. When we landed, all seven passengers applauded.


At the hooker convention, I was equally celebrated and berated by all varieties of older women. I managed to break out with an impressive bout of adult acne, and did burn the side of my face with a curling iron because in my heart I am forever 13. I was unable to drink because the co-worker who accompanied me does not drink, and it really is not fun to drink alone, or to be watched peevishly while one drinks. I was also out of Prilosec, which is essential to my drinking.  So I suffered, parched.  Sure, a hooker convention SOUNDS fun, but it's really standing for 10 hours saying the same thing over and over and over and your face and back and legs hurt when you are done.  And then there is paperwork.

This is what I sell:

Five hundred smacks, baby.  And it doesn't do your dishes.  Plus, there are 10 blades, at $149 each.  That's a lot of Diet Coke and peanut M&M's.

 Meanwhile, my family was doing all kinds of great things while I was gone. Oldest Daughter was in her Hauntcert, which is an orchestra concert where the kids dress in costume to play creepy songs. OD rocked her kangaroo outfit. Then Youngest Daughter attended her Fall Festival (a.k.a. Halloween party) and went as a Beauty Queen.

I want to tell you more, but it is 10 p.m. and I just finally got the kids tucked in (playoff game tonight for HS football) and Current Husband just got home and expects to be spoken to (which is not code for sex, literally, we have to schedule conversations anymore), so I will leave you with this bit of entertainment.  It is off of the upcoming album by The Black Keys, and I am almost as excited for that  new CD as I am for Breaking Dawn to come out.  ALMOST.



 

I'm Packin'

Actually, I am.  Packing.

I'm packing for a hooker convention.  Oh, I know what you're thinking.  The drinking, the partying, the hooking.  But honestly, I'm a family girl.  I'm going to miss my people.  I'm leaving for Lancaster, Pennsylvania tomorrow so I can attend a five-day hooker convention.  Namely, the ATHA Biennial.  The Association of Traditional Hooking Artists, bitches.  And I might just cry.

First, I'm a bad packer.  I don't really plan anything, I just throw things in a suitcase and hope it works out.  Second, I'm a bad planner.  Just today I realized I hadn't rented a car in Lancaster, and I called the hotel to see if they have a shuttle.  For TOMORROW.  Third, I'm a Mom.  Do you know how much planning it takes to leave when you're a mom?  I had to leave notecards with the kids names on them for CH.  Okay, under the names were the schedules and dinner suggestions and what people need to have with them.  But still.  Where the hell are my reminder notes every day?

Now I am quickly blogging so I can finish packing so I can write notes to Youngest Daughter that CH can give her every night so she doesn't get too upset.  I text Oldest Daughter and The Son, but YD and I are old school.  George the Superpet and Todd "Hot Nuts" Epstein just know.  They don't need physical reminders of my love.

I will try to blog from Lancaster, but you know what they say:  "What happens in Amish Country stays in Amish Country.  Because we don't have wireless."

Have a great week, Wifers!

When I Started Stalking the Kids

I'd like to start this post with the thoughts that plague me all the time anymore:

I'm so, so sorry, Mom and Dad.
I was wrong.

Oh, that's right.  Twenty-five years later, I am finally contrite.  Allow me to make a short list of things for which I am sorry, and these are just off the top of my head:

1. Fake orthodontist appointments
2. Beer bongs
3. Street sign stealing
4. TP-ing
5. Prolific swearing
6. Distracted driving
7. Unfinished homework
8. Skinny jeans that weren't purchased as skinny jeans
9. Last minute rides
10. General behavioral issues

And that was all before I was 18.  Much of it before I was 16.  Oy. I remember when I was in Junior High, as we used to call it in the olden days, and my group of friends would get together, and we would say we were going to the movies, get dropped off, wait for the parent to drive away, and then go hang out outside the bar down the street or just generally roam around.  One girl, whom I loved then and still love now, had a mom who was rightly suspicious of us.  She would drop her daughter off, and then we would see her gray conversion van across the street and think, "Oh Christ, now we HAVE to go to the movie!!!"   I look back now and think, "I would SO be in that conversion van!!"

I'm old enough now that I can look at the Courtney Love v. Courtney Love's parents showdown and think, "Those poor people."

Nah.  I was always Team Parents on that one.

And I even liked Hole.

This weekend, I became Stalker Parent.  Helicopter Parent.  Parent hiding in the bushes.  Parent in the van across the street.  And it's really not because I don't trust my kids - it's because I don't trust THE REST OF THE WORLD.

I started the weekend by watching Youngest Daughter perform in a dance team thing a the football game, one of those grade-schoolers-hang-out-with-the-dance-team-for-an-afternoon-and-get-a-shirt things.  The little girls finished, and YD wanted to run around the football game with her friends.  Luckily, another parent offered to take YD and her friends away from the game and have an overnighter at their house.  (LET'S PAUSE WHILE I PLACE THIS "MOTHER OF THE WEEKEND" CROWN ON SAID MOM'S HEAD.  Applause. ) I had to volunteer in the concession stand, so Current Husband was in charge.  Then Oldest Daughter informed us that a group of her friends made plans to go to a haunted house, and they needed a ride, so CH offered to drive them.  He lined up another parent to be the go-to group for The Son and his posse of kids running around, and left. 

Soon, concessions were over, and then the game.  I was walking out with the three boys, all middle schoolers, when some high school boy yells down from the top of the bleachers, "Keep walking, Motherfucker!"  I was on my cell phone with CH taking a crisis call, and I said, "Hold on, CH".  I marched back to the bottom of the bleachers and yelled like a mom should - loudly and awkwardly and full of momma bear bravado.

ME:  "WHAT did you say?"

KID:  *****

ME:  "Do you want to tell me what you yelled at those boys?"
KID:  ***** (possible contemplating spilling his slurpee on me)

ME:  "Well you keep that up and see where it gets you in the future!"
KID:  *****

BAM! 

You TELL him, Julie!  I bet he is shaking in his boots!  Yes!  The dreaded FUTURE comeback!  I'm sure that moment changed that kid's life.  He probably looked at his skanky girlfriend standing next to him and said, "She's right.  I DO need to think about my future.  I should stop with the language and the methamphetamine and pick up a copy of Henry James' 'Portrait of a Lady' for my English report, and then clean my room and get a job and cut back on the red meat.  I'm so glad I attended this football exhibition."

The boys were impressed.  "Dude, your mom is AWESOME" and "It's like having your own bodyguard!" was overheard.  TRANSLATION:  "Dude, your mom is crazy!" and "It's like Thanksgiving when my Aunt Karen gets drunk!"  Middle school boys only get impressed when someone else's mom goes apeshit.

I get back on the crisis call with CH.  He is nonplussed, as he's heard me come unhinged on people before, and by 'people' I mean him.

CH:  "When are you getting home?"

ME:  "Now.  What's up?"

CH:  "You need to drop the boys' off at G's house, and come with me."

ME:  "Where are we going?"

CH:  "Did YOU know where the haunted house is?"

ME:  "Skellington's or Scarington's or something."

CH:  "Did you know it is smack dab in the middle of gangbangerville?  On a Friday night?"

ME:  "It's in Rock Island?"

CH:  "Yeah.  And I saw about 40 cops and a guy trying to break into a car when I left."

ME:  "I'm on my way."

I dropped off the boys and picked up CH.  We drove to Rock Island, which reports a shooting about every three days, and went to the haunted house, which was right on the edge of the bar district on Friday night.  We passed a closed off street with about 10 cop cars and a fire truck where a car had smashed into a building, and a number of other squad cars patrolling the area.  We parked directly across the street from the haunted house, facing it, and I texted Oldest Daughter that we were outside.  We sat in that van and fretted for 40 minutes until the group came out and got into the van, laughing. 

Not wanting to freak the kids out or embarrass OD, I engaged them in conversation about various things while CH clutched the steering wheel in a death grip, imagining it was each of their heads, but as each kid got out of the car, I asked, "So did your parents know you were haunted housing in Rock Island tonight?" every one of them answered, "They knew I was going to a haunted house, but not in Rock Island."  Like DUH, I wouldn't tell them I was in THAT town!

We got home and had a lovely discussion with OD about her new regulations requiring her to submit her social plans in triplicate forms, 72 hours in advance, and that if we find out she left the city without telling us she would be spending a lot of time watching The Golden Girls and eating Milk Duds with her parents on Friday nights.

We went to bed and spoke in whispers about what rotten teens we were, and how lucky we are that OD doesn't do a fraction of the things we did....yet.  And then we made an appointment to get all of the children micro-chipped.

The end.
 

It's Whoreticulture Friday! Issue 72.5

Whoreticulture: The industry and science of whores and whore-related topics. Whoreticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of OB-GYNery, Brazilian waxers and shavers, adultery, personal hygiene mavens and easy women. The word is composite, from two words, whore, from Greek meaning "harlot" or "dear", and the word "culture". Like NPR's Science Friday, Whoreticulture Friday exists to educate and spark discussion on the science of Whorology. Whoreticulture Friday is not for children. Or squeamish people. Or Mother-In-Laws. Or people I work with. Or anyone who lives within 10 miles of me.



Today's topic: The Pussy Wagon is Full

Confession - I'm a total tease.  Today isn't whorish, full of or showing any vaginas.  I'm on Day One of my "time" and no one around me is getting sex.  NO ONE.  I'm sorry men expecting porn, you may now go back to searching for the nude Scarlett Johansson photos.  For everyone else...

CAT PORN.

I think I've mentioned before that my neighborhood is crawling with pussy. 

Well those days have come to an end.  Last weekend when I was at my hooker convention in Nebraska, the animal control wagon pulled up and got loaded up to the gills in pussy.  Someone finally called the po-po and reported that our street had literally 30+ cats running around, and when there is that much pussy on the street there is bound to be infection.  Hide your husbands, hide the kids.  The street was lined with cat traps.

Most of our family was happy with this news, not so much because we are cat haters (but some of us are) but because it is hard for one neighborhood to feed, sustain, medicate and deliver 30 cats to music and dance lessons.  However, it upset Youngest Daughter.  She started freaking out, and Current Husband, who was running the asylum in my absence, couldn't figure out why.  Finally, he talked her off the ledge, and she got a coherent sentence out: 

"GET GEORGE IN THE HOUSE, THEY'RE ROUNDING UP PETS!"

Does this look like a feral cat to you?

Youngest Daughter perhaps had a point.  To calm her down, and to be sure we didn't lose The Best Standard Poodle Ever, CH called George the Superpet into the house, where he watched the feral cats get loaded up and carted off with a look that could only be described as satisfaction.
Thank you, Animal Control!  Our tax dollars at work, freeing our neighborhood from this:

Happy Whoreticulture Friday, have a great weekend!

My Weekly Blog Post

I'm pretty sure if I keep up this level of productivity vis a vis the blog I am going to have to change the name to "A Week in the Wife", which not only gets away from the whole Beatles reference, but frankly sounds a little stagnant.  Nothing should spend a week in the wife.  Nothing.

I have a lot to cover.  First, lest I forget, I have two strong recommendations to pass along.  I just finished the book "The First Husband" by Laura Dave.

But you can't Click to Look Inside! because I am a vicious tease. 

But you CAN click here.

I cannot stop listening to the new Band of Skulls CD, particularly the track "Fires".  It's pretty White Stripey at the beginning, which is fine, but then they get more into their own stuff, which is good.

I attended a hooker convention in Nebraska last week, which was informative and entertaining, mostly because I spent two nights at my parents' cabin on the Elkhorn River.  You may recall that Mom broke her pelvis.  And I brought her puppy, aka The GD Dog, home for the month.  It was time to return The GD Dog to her rightful owner.  But since no visit with my family can go without a Deliveranace moment, I bring you what I now refer to as "The Reason I Won't Eat Beef Stew Again".

Let me preface this story with a few facts:

• My Auntie was visiting from Colorado, whom I haven't seen for a few years, so it was nice we could share this special moment. 
• Auntie was sleeping downstairs at the cabin, and I had the upstairs room to myself because it has these crazy submarine steps that are impossible to navigate.
• The cabin exactly fits the bill for a summertime retreat, except that the plumbing is marginal.  Very marginal.

I woke up the morning of the Hooker Convention, and navigated my way downstairs to brush my teeth.  Mom and Dad were gone because they took The GD Dog to get her spayed at 7 a.m.  I walked in the bathroom, and something was WRONG.  VERY VERY WRONG.  On  the floor, there was a suspicious brown pool of water.  By the toilet.  Oh Dear God No.  I opened the lid to the toilet, and sure enough, it was full to the brim with what looked like beef stew.  I became an instant vegetarian.

I will tell you that my family has a long and storied history with plugging toilets.  I don't know if it's something in our diets, or that we just need to buy places with better plumbing, but my people have plugged toilets at restaurants, funerals, and weddings.  Hand to God, it's true.  The toilets at this cabin are so bad that I won't let the kids eat fruit for days before we go, and I stop at a McDonald's just before the cabin and make all of the kids go to the bathroom, saying, "If you can't poop now, you might not get another chance until Sunday."

SO.  I see The Stew.  Apparently, I make a small moaning sound.  Auntie wakes up in the other room.  

AUNTIE:  "What!?!  What is going on!?!"
ME:  "Do NOT come in here."
AUNTIE:  "Why.  What have they done."
ME:  "Someone has poor digestion and we are going to suffer."
AUNTIE:  "I'm coming in there."
ME:  "You'll never get this image out of your head, I'm warning you."
AUNTIE:  (Comes in)  "Oh God."
ME:  "I told you.  I can't just leave it.  I have to plunge."
AUNTIE:  "I have to pee.  What am I going to do?"
ME:  "I can tell you that you aren't peeing in here unless it's in the sink."
AUNTIE:  "I can't take it.  I'm going in the yard."

And so she left and apparently peed in the yard.  I tried plunging and flushing.  I won't paint a picture for you, but let me just say that gallons of water and old towels with Welcome Friends-type geese on them died for my efforts.  I had to leave for my hooker show, so I scrubbed down with hydrochloric acid and hand sanitizer and prayer and made my way to the show.

Two hours later, Auntie and my mother walk into the hooker convention hall.

AUNTIE:  "Arrival from Shitsville!" she announces.
MOM:  "Your dad got Drano and some chemical that is hazardous and thought we should leave."
AUNTIE:  "The label on the chemical had a skull and crossbones and said DO NOT USE IN TOILETS OR IN COMBINATION WITH OTHER CHEMICALS so your dad thought we'd be safer here.  And they have working bathrooms."
MOM:  "But your dad took off in the middle of the morning without telling us, and we both had to go to the bathroom, so we had to use the outhouse."

(OH.  Did I mention that my parents' super-deluxe cabin comes outfitted with an outhouse behind the garage?  One with lighting and tile flooring?  Could this have maybe been the tip-off that the plumbing in the house isn't so good?  Auntie was not aware of this feature when she peed in the yard.  I didn't tell her, because our function in life is to entertain the neighbors.)

They soon left, bored with the hookers and their multiple bathroom trips over, and I made sure to use the bathroom before I left the hooker convention.  My friend Meem from high school brought a Starbucks Salted Caramel Mocha to me at the hooker event in the morning because she loves me, and I made sure to glug that down immediately so I wouldn't suffer the effects hours later when stuck in Shitsville.  When I arrived at the cabin, Dad told me he had fixed all of the plumbing issues and everyone was safe and that the hazardous chemical was not used, but I didn't go within 10 feet of that bathroom before I left.  I would rather pee in the yard.  I ate broth when I felt faint and that was it.

Auntie tells Dad how she feels about the bathrooms.

I'm sorry for traumatizing you people, but I think we can all agree that if there is one thing I will never do on this blog, it is to sugar-coat the facts.  I might embellish a million little pieces, but I won't sugar-coat.  Unless it is something I'm eating.  But NOT before I visit the cabin.

It's Whoreticulture Friday! Issue 72

Whoreticulture: The industry and science of whores and whore-related topics. Whoreticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of OB-GYNery, Brazilian waxers and shavers, adultery, personal hygiene mavens and easy women. The word is composite, from two words, whore, from Greek meaning "harlot" or "dear", and the word "culture". Like NPR's Science Friday, Whoreticulture Friday exists to educate and spark discussion on the science of Whorology. Whoreticulture Friday is not for children. Or squeamish people. Or Mother-In-Laws. Or people I work with. Or anyone who lives within 10 miles of me.





Today's topic: Grab Your Balls, Mate



Can I just tell you how unprepared I am to be an adult?  I'm 42, and just not quite there yet.  I leave tomorrow a.m. for another hooker convention in Nebraska, and I have not packed a thing, I don't have all of the paperwork I need, and I am dead tired, but I'm still putting it off to blog, because ORGANIZATION and ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIVITIES repel me.
I have, however, planned when I am stopping for my first Salted Caramel Mocha of the day.  It will be at approximately 8:45 at the Starbucks in Duck Creek Plaza.  I've also arranged for my friend Meem to deliver another one to me at the hooker convention on Friday.  I DO have priorities, people.

So, since I am tired and behind, I'm making this short but sweet.  I stole this from The Bloggess, as usual, because I have no originality because she is so clever.  Really, she's enabling me, and everyone else, to not be their best selves, because she will bring the funny to the people.  Go over there right now and read her posts about the Missing Rattlesnake.  It's okay, I'll wait.


So I'm reading her weekly wrap-up, and came across this.  Watch it to the end, it's worth it.  You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll cringe, and you'll have a ballsack stuck in your head.  You can't buy that kind of experience at Target, people.



I'm going to go out and feel someone's balls RIGHT NOW.  Current Husband is SO going to wish he hadn't gone out with a friend.  I'd like to know where I can buy a set of balls like these, because they would make GREAT stocking stuffers this holiday season.

Happy Whoreticulture Friday, and have a great weekend!

All Growed Up

Last night, my little girl went to Homecoming.

This is how she looked to me.

And this is how she looked to everyone else.

Sigh. *wipes away a tear*

It's been a crazy few days, with lots of fun stuff, and it feels like everyone has aged a few years this weekend, particularly me.  We started with the Homecoming parade on Thursday night, where Youngest Daughter got to ride the parade float, and is on student council.  She doesn't seem OLD enough to be on a student council.  It's like saying "my toddler is on student council".  I wanted her to wear a helmet or water wings or something.  It's weird for me.  But I guess a good transition into the other milestones of the weekend.

Then we all went to the Homecoming football game, where Oldest Daughter promptly ran away with her friends, The Son promptly ran away with his middle school friends, and Youngest Daughter ran in a pack of elementary school girls on the hill about 30 feet away from us and loaded up on brownies and slushies.  They all wanted to stay after the game and line up with the students to high five the football players running back to the locker room.  The odd part is that I was thinking "they want to line up with the students!" and the reality is that they ARE the students.   OD is one of the "Big kids".  This can't be happening.

Then, the big day.

We all slept in (bliss) and then at 10:30 we left to OD and her friend's nails done.

These are pink to match her dress, with a black houndstooth pattern on two of them.  By noon, she was tired of me taking pictures.  I was over her attitude.  Things were going South.

Then the Great Fight Over Whether or Not To Wear a Sweater took place.  You can imagine which side of the fight I was on.  Guess who won?

Hmm.  No sweater.  But it's going to get below 50 degrees when the sun goes down.  Whatever.  Go ahead and freeze.  I'll be home in stretchy waistband fleece pants with a beer and wool socks on.  Doesn't her friend look like a blonde Audrey Hepburn?  Look at the hair...

So pretty!  Then we were off to the BIG photo session.  Indulge me while I share, it's all I had going on for the last week.  Or month.

So pretty except, apparently, for my mysterious ingestion of five pounds of salt.  How does one bloat up like this?  I give you the Starbucks Salted Caramel Mocha.  Damn you, SCM.  Damn you to hell.  Isn't this how MY mom looked when I was in high school?  How did I become the mom?  No, don't tell me.  I know.  It's icky.

She gets beautiful flowers...

I tell the boys to simulate a fight scene, thus ruining the pics for the other parents, You're Welcome Parents!

And here are the beautiful girls, who didn't

line up by height on purpose....

And then they went inside for dinner and I had to leave.  I asked if anyone needed a ride from the club to the dance, and OD said, "No Mom, I don't think we need you."

What?!?!  You don't....NEED...me?


And as I drove away in the swagger wagon, I realized that she doesn't.  I mean, she NEEDS me, but she doesn't need need me, like to cross the street or eat at a restaurant or be around large groups of people.  So this weekend was about a little more than my oldest child going to her first big dance, with a date, no less.  It was a litle bit about starting the slow process of removing herself from our home.  Baby steps.  The little bird looked over the side of the nest for the first time, and I think she likes what she sees. 

So far, I'm pretty lucky.  She's a good kid, she had manners, she gets good grades, she's in some nice extracirricular activities, she has good friends.  But nothing is guaranteed, and I know that I'm not arranging the playdates and picking out her clothes and pulling the strings anymore.  It's a little scary, but it's a little bit fun too, to watch her find her way and become the person she is going to be.  I hope it's a good one.

In the meantime, I'll be licking my salt block and nervously eating cake.  Wish me luck, people.