Open Letter to Mr. Groundhog

Dear Mr. Groundhog,

I wanted to drop you a brief message, before your big day this Wednesday February 2^nd. If memory serves me, you are due to pop your nose out of your burrow, and let us know if we have 6 more weeks of winter.  Well that is if your burrow has not been plowed over with 10 feet of snow, like most of the driveways in our neck of the woods. Furthermore, I am hoping you still have a mailbox, as the mailbox fatalities caused by snowplows this season have been very high indeed.

Please Mr. Groundhog, (or Phil, if I may), I know I am speaking not only for myself here, don’t predict six more weeks of this!  We have had enough!  No mas! No mas! We have suffered through enough snow-maggedon to last a lifetime.  My laundry room has been draped with soggy snow pants, parkas, and gloves, for months now.  The smelly old damp boots are stinking up the joint. My car looks like a Jackson Pollock painting, festooned with mud and salt.  I can’t afford to bring it to the car wash anymore, as I was spending more money there then on my home mortgage!

I am tired of the frenzied mob of shoppers crowding the bread and milk aisle, whenever another foot or two of the white stuff is on its way.  (The liquor store usually has a line winding around it’s parking lot, or should I say rink!) I am having a nervous breakdown every time I drive my car, and it pirouettes down the road.  My nose is running like a faucet, and my throat has been sore since November.  I am finished with the rescheduling of the sports games, practices,  CCD classes and birthday parties.  I have had enough snowy, pristine winter scenes for this year.  The next snow I want to see is the one on the cover of next year’s Christmas card.  

I guess most important is the school issue.  First off, the local school board takes great delight in waiting till 4 am to let you know they will be closed. As most parents know, it is then virtually impossible to fall back to sleep. If you are lucky enough to go back to the land of nod, you will be awakened again at 6 am by your hyper offspring wanting to know if school is closed! Children were not meant to stay home with their parents for days on end.  Oh sure the first time or two, with me whipping up a batch of hot chocolate was heartwarming.  But I gotta tell you Phil, the bloom is definitely off that rose.  All my kids are learning these days, is that they have a crazy lady as their mother! I believe cabin fever is a real and woefully misunderstood affliction.

So Phil, if you know what’s’ good for you, I strongly suggest you predict a quick end to winter 2010/2011. I don’t believe in vigilante groups. However I feel you should be warned.  If you predict six more weeks of this, you might want to consider entering a witness protection program.  I am not a violent person, but even  I may be compelled to wring your little rodent neck.

Thank you for taking time to consider my request.  I am looking forward to your anticipated cooperation in this matter.

Sincerely,

Frazzled Mother

Kicking Ms. Clairol to the Curb

I am throwing in the towel, waving the white flag, (or in this case the grey), and kicking Ms. Clairol to the curb! The time has come to surrender to the will of Mother Nature and let my hair go grey. There comes a time in everyone’s life, when they must start to embrace the person they’ve become, and wave goodbye to the futile attempts to hang on to their youth.  My time has come. 

Oh I resisted! I would go to the hairdressers every time my coif was looking a tad skunkish. Once there I would sit for hours, as I was “double processed”, highlighted, low lighted, color rinsed and tinted. This was no inexpensive venture, time or cash wise! Sadly I began to realize that my accessories were not matching up.  They say you should match your shoes to your purse.  Well my personal accessories were definitely out of sync. My dark “Color Me Luxurious Chestnut” locks were clashing with the turkey gobbler that has replaced my neck.  I didn’t have crow’s feet, I was sporting hawk claws. Dark hair coupled with a pale, pasty complexion might have been great if I was going for the Goth look, but at 50+, it just doesn’t work.

I went through a number of stages, before coming to this decision. First I decided to dye it myself, but after having to call in Service Pro to clean up the resulting dye destruction in my bathroom, I ruled that out. Then I tried Root Touch –Up. I laid a few paint tarps down, and touched up the grey roots framing my face. Sadly, I was oblivious to the back of my head, which was sprouting grey fluff like Mt. St. Helens! My children kindly pointed this out for me.

My husband is sporting a number of grey hairs too, but in his case, it serves to make him look distinguished, worldly, intelligent, and handsome. That was not the case for me. 

Originally I had visions of my white locks ala Elizabeth Taylor. Maybe even the look Meryl Streep sported in “The Devil Wears Prada”…………….

That didn’t happen.

Well ok, I would even accept a “Bride of Frankenstein” look.  Let’s face it, her silvery streaks are rocking!

No dice………

You see, not only does the hair color change, but the texture changes as well. Grey, or shall I say silver, hair gets brillo-ish. That is about 10 steps up on the frizz-o-meter scale. I have very curly hair to begin with, so the resulting hairdo runs about three times the size of my head. That is not counting high humidity days, when my hair can actually block out the sun, and frighten small children.

The truth be told, I am beginning to resemble Phil Spector, minus the glasses, money, and murder conviction!

Holiday Trilogy Part 3 Homecoming

Holiday Trilogy Part 3 Homecoming

So when I last left off, my family and I were pulling into our driveway after our 10 day cruise with the walker and cane crowd, and a delightful jaunt through the south.  Yeah!  We were home. The story should end here, but of course it doesn’t.

Since I had operated under the false illusion of balmy weather, I had not packed any winter, or even fall clothes. I was wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. We are now in the driveway, but someone needs to open the front door, and the garage door, to get family and luggage inside. I volunteered to sprint to the front door, and get the ball rolling. Well after sitting in a car for the past 14 and half hours, I was a little stiff, and truth be told, I am not all that limber at the best of times. Our driveway was shoveled, but the front walkway was not.  In fact it was blocked by a packed mountain of snow about 5 feet high. No problem!  I rappelled over the obstacle and started making my way. Mind you the snow was over 30 inches high.

I had made it about 10 feet; when I fell down, face first into the frozen snow.  Just like that old commercial, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”  I probably should have borrowed a medic alert necklace from one of my shipmates, but hindsight is always 20/20. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t get myself to an upright position.  My arms (bare arms, I’d like to add) would just break through the top layer of the perma-frost. This went on for what seemed like hours.  My family, seated in the car, could not see me over mount snow, and began to wonder about the hold up.  One son finally emerged, and yelled over the mountain, “Mom?”  “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” I replied.  “Moms down, Moms down”, he yelled!  I felt like I was on one of those cop shows, but substituting Mom for Man. My husband quickly came flying over the mountain to my rescue.  He went down.  The other son, was frantically looking for the video camera, thank God he couldn’t find it.

 So both parents are now flailing in the snow. We have one son, half our size, trying his best to get us up. My Husband was able to get upright fairly quickly; I guess that gym is really paying off. I, on the other hand, was now trying to do the breast stroke to the door. I started to crawl the last 10 feet, and made it to the front steps.  Only then was I able to return to a standing position.

First stop, after shaking off 30 pounds of snow, was to run some warm water over my now, completely numb hands. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the sink filled to the brim with dirty dishes! A quick glance around my kitchen, revealed trash cans over flowing, food out on the table, but no sign of any inhabitants.   The other thing that was missing was our mail. Upstairs we were greeted by a few unmade beds (like the three bears story, it took awhile to find one that was just right!) Damp towels littered the bathrooms, and dirty clothes festooned the remaining floor space. Turns out junior came home the day after we left and conveniently departed the morning of our return. Couple this with the un-shoveled walkway and all we can guess was that his survival instincts must have kicked in.  We would surely have killed him, if he was there!

Next up on the agenda, was the opening of Christmas presents. The two young ones jumped right into the fray, ripping open gifts right and left.  As I’ve pointed out before, at this age the gifts are small, electronic, and come encased in that impenetrable “Clam” shell packaging. It fell to me, with my non-working paws, to spring the items from their plastic prisons.  No easy task with fingers suffering from post hypo-thermia. I was then asked to read the miniscule print on the directions, and put things together.

 It was now midnight, and my boys looked up and sweetly asked, “what’s’ for dinner?” Thank goodness for those chocolate tower gifts, and left over chips! Shortly after a nice filling meal of empty calories, we all headed off to bed. The Holidays were officially over.  Thank God!

Holiday Trilogy Part 2 Driving Through Dixie

Holiday Trilogy Part 2 Driving Through Dixie

Bright and early Tuesday morning, it was time to disembark after our 10 day cruise on the SS Assisted Living.  I bid my new friends, Ruthie, Gert, and Doris, a fond farewell, gathered up the last of our belongings (of course we did leave one phone charger still plugged in) and exited the boat. We found a van, for a great price to ferry our family and belongings over to the airport. At 10am, we had checked our luggage, gotten our boarding passes, made it through security, and had great seats at the gate. Our flight was not due to depart till 1pm, but there was a Cinnabon and Starbucks kiosk nearby, so we were happy. And then it fell apart. I knew things were going far too smoothly.

They canceled our flight.  Due to the blizzard, the airlines were canceling flights left and right. Off we went to the front of the terminal to get on the 2 hour line, to rebook. My husband stood in line, the boys watched over our carry-ons, and I went to try and retrieve our checked in luggage. I have to admit, this was a lot less painful than I had anticipated.  The baggage department was able to locate our bags (because they were the only ones checked in for the non-existent flight) in under an hour. I lugged them back upstairs, in time to see my husband headed our way, and he wasn’t smiling. The earliest they could rebook us was 5 days later. Hello Hertz!  We are driving through Dixie!

We rented the biggest car we could, but even so, the boys had all the carry-on bags, and 1 large garment bag sharing the backseat with them. So we’re off.  Well not yet.  My husband is genetically unable to do a road trip without a cooler! The local Piggly-Wiggly had Styrofoam coolers, ice, water, soda, and chips so after a short shopping spree we were on our way.  The big old cooler sat up front between me and my man.  “Lets’ hit 95 north, and go home!”

We figured we would stop at 7:30pm, and spend the night.  The question was where would we be 7 or so hours on the road?  We had chips, we had water, we did not have maps. We knew we needed to head north, but had no idea how big the states we were driving through were. How big is Georgia? How many miles from south to north? I mean I could do the math. My beloved was rocking down the road at 80 MPH (he feels speed limits are suggestions) so that meant roughly 560 miles. Just for future reference, if you leave Fort Lauderdale at noon, you will hit Savanna Georgia by 7:30pm.

We checked in to a nice hotel right off 95, and headed out for a bite to eat.  Now as anyone who has ever taken the Dixie tour will tell you, there is always a Cracker Barrel nearby. However my extended family doesn’t eat at Cracker Barrels. Some years back, my sister talked her husband and assorted relatives into stopping at one for breakfast one morning.  Not only was there a 3 hour wait, the food was inedible.  Things have to be mighty bad, for my relatives to judge any food as inedible! Ever since that day, we use the catch phrase “Cracker Barrel” to describe the type of day we are having.  For instance if you get a flat tire on your way to an important meeting, you are having a “Cracker Barrel” morning. We found a nice non Cracker Barrel restaurant, and had dinner.  The wait staff showed us Yankees the famous Southern hospitality that they are known for, they just do it really  s l o w l y. I guess their motto is “when God made time, he made plenty of it.” Two hours later we were back in our room, with the 2 queen beds. Each adult took one son, and we turned in for the night.  This was not the only turning that took place. My sons are like whirling dervishes when they sleep. It was like sleeping with a 100 pound Mexican jumping bean. I can’t tell you how many shots to the head I took.  Of course he slumbered on peacefully.

We hit the road by 8am, and were in South Carolina in no time. Interstate 95 north, is really just one long advertisement for “South of the Border.” It seemed like every quarter mile there would be another billboard extolling their virtues.  One clever sign said “you never sausage a place.” Another announced that everyone left a “wiener!” We were on a mission to get home, so we didn’t stop by to see Pedro and the gang. Maybe next time.

Soon enough we entered the State of North Carolina!  No more South of the Border billboards.  Now we were reading billboards extolling the great buys at J&R.  One of their signs said they carried everything from Brassieres to Chandeliers.  Having stopped at this fine establishment a few years back, I knew this was not just hype. You could purchase a wedding gown, while the next aisle over carried carved coconut head sculptures. If they don’t carry it at J&R, chances are you don’t need it.  Apparently North Carolina had received an inch of snow (more like a dusting from what I could see) and was in a full blown state of emergency. Lucky for us, everyone was hunkered down, and we had the road to ourselves.  A friend called to see where we were, and requested we stop and pick him up some fireworks.  Who was he kidding! If my husband could have figured a way to gas up while in transit, we would all be wearing adult diapers, and be on fluid restriction. He was a man on a mission, and that mission was to get home to New Jersey before midnight!

Now the Styrofoam cooler was starting to get on my nerves, so I tried to tuck it down by my feet. That was not one of my better ideas. The leg area was only big enough for either one set of legs or one Styrofoam cooler. I was fighting Charlie horses in my cramped limbs for the entire length of Virginia! I thought about telling my husband that this car was not big enough for the two of us (cooler or me) but after all the delightful conversations we had enjoyed for the preceding 8 hours, I decided to keep my opinions to myself.  I didn’t fancy a solo trip on the Metro Liner DC to Jersey!

Driving through DC during rush hour, enough said.

Only Maryland and Delaware left! We were in the home stretch. The snow situation still didn’t look like it amounted to much.  True we were on an interstate, but looking off to the sides, we still couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.

Then we hit New Jersey. The snow wasn’t too bad at the southern end of the state, but grew higher and higher the further north we proceeded. We exited about mid-way through the state, and headed for home. Most of the main roads were cleared, but we ran into some icy patches here and there.

Finally, we turned into our development.  A veritable winter wonderland greeted us. The streets had not been plowed, and everything had a 3 foot covering of icy snow. Luckily, my husband had called a service to plow out our driveway, and they had done a magnificent job!  We pulled into our driveway at 10:30pm!  Now to just open the garage doors and head inside!  We were home and Driving through Dixie, was just another fond memory of Christmas 2010.

But the story doesn’t end.  Stay tuned for Holiday Trilogy Part 3 Homecoming

Holiday Trilogy Part 1 Sailing Away for the Holiday

I wanted to tell you all about our Holidays this year.  It is a long story, so I have decided to make this story a trilogy.  Holiday Trilogy Part 1 Sailing Away for the Holiday

We decided to go on a cruise this holiday season.  A nice 10 day sail down to the Caribbean sounded like just the thing to avoid the Holiday madness.  My dear husband researched and combed the internet for the best deals on flights and boats.  It was to be a party of four.  I have three children, but my oldest informed us he would not be home for the winter break, as he had swim practice that week, and would be moving into the “Swim House” (read Frat) for the duration.  He told us he would only be home Christmas Eve, and Christmas day, and was fine with spending those days with his aunts, my sisters. We were sad that we would not be with him on Christmas, but he wasn’t bothered in the least. So off we flew to Fort Lauderdale, on Friday the 17^th.  We boarded our ship the next morning.  I should have paid a little more attention to our fellow passengers, for a day or two into the cruise I realized we were on the SS Assisted Living. We were cruising with the walker and cane set. The well off customers, jetted around the place in motorized scooters.

There were loads of seminars, available for the passengers; Complaining 101, Advanced kvetching, Pros and Cons to keep in mind when purchasing your hearing Aid, and making Fiber Flavorful.  I attended the Pros /Cons of Blue rinse for Hair class. I found it very educational, and I have to admit it changed my mind; I am now definitely Pro Blue Hair rinse. Bingo was a popular event, and very well attended. It did proceed a tad slower due to the hearing capabilities of some of my fellow ship mates.  I am happy to report I won a round. I was however nearly tripped by a number of canes when I went up to get my prize, apparently there were many card carrying members of the sore losers club present. I attended the trivia contests that were held daily.  I have to admit I was much in demand at these events. I earned the reputation as a whiz kid at current events. Current events being those things that happened during the past quarter century!  For instance, the God-father of Heavy Metal was Not King Midas, as most players guessed, but Ozzie Osbourne. I also knew that the Beatles were a rock band, not insects. There was some grumbling about trick questions. (Sore losers club strikes again), but our Cruise director held the line.

The food, as on most cruises was abundant.  Notice I didn’t mention quality, but quantity. We did have to wait in lines at the buffets, as there would be walker and scooter grid lock at the more popular offerings. We had much better luck at if we went for the more ‘chewy’, denture unfriendly foods, like bread.  For the sake of the majority, the midnight buffet was moved to 9pm.  By 9:30pm we had the ship to ourselves, as most passengers bunked down for the night.

Now don’t get me wrong, my husband and I had a wonderful time, the bars were still open and the casinos were more than happy to take our money. The island forays were lovely, and they did televise some football games on the big screen. I did feel sorry for my two young sons. Thank God they had each other, and their games boys! It did foster some quality time with each other, as the people closest in age to them on this trip were us.

Truly a Holiday to remember!

As our cruise started to return to port, we began to hear ominous rumblings about a major blizzard blanketing the North East. Ho Ho Ho we laughed, dodged that bullet! We would be disembarking on Tuesday, plenty of time for the airlines to get back on track, and get us home by Tuesday night.

We were very, very wrong.

Holiday Trilogy Part 2   Driving Through Dixie will follow shortly