StephAndMee

MEE's #92

So I finally achieved my first item on my to do list.  It was quite exciting, my first hot stone massage.  And it was completely different from what I was expecting.  Although I’m not 100% what I was expecting.  I guess everytime I’ve see photos on spa websites just show someone on their stomach with hot stones placed on their back.  Of course, if that was all it was, that would totally suck.  I mean, just lying there for sixty minutes without moving so as not to disturb some warm rocks. 

But no!  It was lovely and happy and relaxing.  And at the end there was some lying around with some rocks, but it wasn’t weird.

And now there are only 99 things left on my list.  I’m 1% finished with my list . And also, I’ve decided to reserve the right to change some of the items on my list, as there is a huge chance that things that sound like a good plan now might not in a few years.  But I promise myself that there will be 100 things completed. 

I’m hoping a few more things will be completed by the end of the year. 

Birthday Celebrations, MEE family-style

I just remembered something my little sister does for birthdays.  She always doubles your birthday age and then tells you it’s your half of whatever birthday.  So if your next birthday was 34, she’d tell you “Happy Birthday!  You’re halfway to 68!”

Which is either awesome or kind of depressing, depending on your outlook on things. 

When our parents turned 50, that was a huge deal.  Because then they were half a century.  Halfway to triple digits. 

And what does it say about me that I’m okay with being halfway to 60 on my next birthday, but 30 is not quite as okay? 

Hybrids and other grocery store musings

I decided to live-it-up this Friday evening with a trip to Trader Joe’s.

The trip began with me getting out of my car deep in thought about high school color guard (don’t ask).  So deep in thought in fact, that I was nearly run over by a Prius.  No wonder blind people hate hybrids - they really do make virtually no sound.  I need the vroom of an engine to snap me back into the reality of a grocery store parking lot.  Apparently that soccer mom did not get the “you must drive a gas-guzzling minivan or SUV” memo.  Silly soccer mom.

I did manage to safely get into the store. Once inside, I recognized the cheesy song playing as a song commonly heard playing at the pharmacy. (There must be a special satellite station entitled “bad music for the retail setting.”)  One of the pharmacy technicians I work with always sings along with this song.  Actually, she loves to sing along to everything - especially cheesy songs. No one can stand it, as she is usually a titch off-key, but I find it endearing.  I love when people who are so close to being good singers but aren’t quite there, just sing like a big “f you” to the critics around them.  So I felt the need to send her text message to tell her that I was listening to her song and it made me think of her.

And then this occurred to me: do I need to communicate in some form every thought that pops into my head?  Between blogging, texting, chatting, emailing, twitter’ing, and the ever popular form of communication, talking, I feel like I might be expressing each and every inner-working of my brain.  Am I too transparent?  Is that where we are all headed - complete thought disclosure?  So much sharing!  This could be bad.

In case it’s not bad, here’s another nugget from my head: I like falafel.  Just figured that out today.  And now that this silly post is complete, I am going to eat a pistachio cookie.

Musical memories

Have you ever listened to a song you haven’t heard in a while, and in an instant it took you back to the time you last listened to it?  Then suddenly all the emotions, feelings, things you were thinking at the time come rushing back with such force you nearly fall over from the weight of it all.

Perhaps I am just an emotional fruit loop.  I always consider this to be a very real possibility.  However, fruit loop or not, it’s not so great when a tidal wave of freaky memories washes over you at work, I assure you.

Ah, another fairly unproductive day.  Fortunately, “fairly” unproductive seems to be enough to get by at work.  Kinda sad.

Steph is so dark today.

Evil Forces

 So I started writing for our novel.  Back it up, a group of five of my friends decided to write a book, basically a collection of essays about being daughters, daughter-in-laws, cousins, granddaughters, anything really.  Basically about being girls and dealing with families.  So I starting writing a post about some crazy family antics, and I realized that there is a cliche about having an evil mother-in-law.  I don’t actually have a mother-in-law, she passed away while I was engaged to my now-husband.  And I doubt anything she would have done would have fallen into an evil mother-in-law category; my biggest beef with her was that I had no idea what to call her.  Mom seemed to be too much, and it seemed disrespectful to call her by her first name, and yet her last name seemed to formal.  It ended up being one of those situations where I would just try and get in front of her to ask her a question, and that seemed to work. 

Anyway.  I realized that I do have an evil mother-in-law.  In fact, I have a super evil mother-in-law.  Basically, I think my mother and my father-in-law join evil forces and create my super-evil-mother-in-law.  And this isn’t to say that they sit on the phone and plot evil plans.  In fact, although each of them can drive me crazy in their own special way, I have to believe that individually I could tolerate them.  And most of the time I don’t really have many problems with them.  It’s just that when I do have a problem with one of them, the other either feels left out, or decided that I need just a smidge more angst, and ups the ante.

So I have to believe that all of this is just making me stronger, or perhaps is training me to be really freaking nice to my future children-in-law.  Although I have to say, I’m not sure how much more family drama I can take in life.  A girl can only screen her calls so much, you know. 

I have learned that the best way to deal with a super-evil-mother-in-law formed from a crazy mother and father-in-law is a big old bottle of wine.  So in case anyone out there is having some family drama of their own, I highly recommend some wine and plopping in front of the teevee for a lovely evening of relaxation.  And look for our book to come out, so you can laugh at our struggles. 

And thank God I have a family I care enough about to have drama with.  Otherwise I’d just be some drunk watching bad teevee, right? 

A letter.

Dear reproductive system,

Here we are again sharing that special time together where you swing into action and play havoc with my body and mental state.  In addition to the pain and general uncomfortableness that is always accompanied by your awakened state, you’re really heaping on the crazies this time around.  I’ve gone from wanting to punch a woman in the back of the head for taking too long with bread selection to weeping over a broken bottle of iced tea at the Wawa to giggling uncontrollably at someone spinning around in a desk chair.  I can go from zero to psycho loony biatch in a matter of seconds.  Really hormones?  Is this really necessary?

Someday a beautiful, naked, screaming bundle of joy had better spring forth from you or I will slice open my own abdomen, rip you out and trample all over your bloody self.  That means you, uterus.  You might not be safe either ovaries.  I’m watching you…

Hugs and Kisses,
Steph

PS: I’m now going to attempt to control you and end the cyclical hell you are putting me through by ingesting some more hormones that come nicely packaged from the pharmaceutical companies of the world.  ‘Tis a cruel, cruel game we play.

Quite frankly, I’m surprised the suicide rate for women isn’t higher.

Now that I've finished it...

 I feel the need to start completing things on my list RIGHT THIS INSTANT.  I guess I could start a post about 100 things that make me happy, but I’m not 100% sure I want the whole world to know that singing that Miley Cyrus song to my cat makes me super happy.  Whoops.  Now you know one of my deepest and darkets secrets.  I’m a closet Hannah fan. 

Alien weeds

So I have these weeds. Not just any weeds, crazy prickly weeds on steroids.

I have lived in my house for about a year and a half now and I swear to you these weeds did not exist last year. They are a big “welcome to spring/summer 2008” surprise. Mee, back me up here (she too has been graced with their uninvited presence). Evil weeds that never existed, now suddenly appearing out of nowhere? Sounds like the work of alien spores to me. They are seeding our planet one yard at a time.

I wish I had taken pictures a few weeks ago when I first attacked them. They had taken root on right side of my house, a side I rarely visit. By the time I discovered them, many of them were nearly 5 feet tall - I kid you not. (In all fairness to me, they do grow REALLY fast). Additionally, one needed industrial leather work gloves to handle them in order to avoid bloodshed caused by the “sharp-as-glass” leaves. But at that time, they were pretty well contained within the flower bed and they pulled out easily, root and all. Nice scary weeds.

Here’s a root:


After hours of work, my team (my dad) and I felt we had successfully removed them all. And since we ripped those suckers out by the root, they should be gone forever, right? Right?

Oh our naivety!

In just a couple short weeks, those SOB’s came back with a vengeance. Not only did they make themselves nice and cozy in my flowerbed again, they jumped the striped grass and commingled with the lawn. Please realize I’m not trying to achieve that “putting green” look with the lawn. In fact, I have made my peace with the clover and the dandelion and the various other non-grass plant life, but these weeds are dangerous. I’m fairly certain they could kill small children.

Look at them all!


This cohabitation has created a twisted symbiotic relationship giving the weeds super strength and consequently, they no longer pop out of the ground with a gentle tug. After fighting with them for what seemed like forever, I busted out the Weed-B-Gon (much to my anti-pesticide dismay) and shot those bastards with gleeful delight.

Just when I felt satisfied with my work, I noticed 2 escapees had danced across the brick walk and settled comfortably in my neighbors’ lawn.

They are going to take over the earth, mark my words.

A side note: Those aren’t the only scary weeds growing in Steph’s yard. Seriously, someone is feeding my weeds the ‘roids. I took a picture of one of the monstrous weeds next to my car so you could get an idea of its size.


Look at its root!


And if that root weren’t kind of phallic looking enough, when I broke it up to make it fit in the lawn bag, a white, sticky substance oozed out. Really.

The joys of homeownership! Poor Jerome and Latisha have no idea what they are in for. Maybe we can incorporate the extraterrestrial weeds into an episode. I will look into securing ALF (potentially the source of the weeds) to make a cameo. He better not eat Kitty.

Comments

We must MUST figure out how to enable comments because gosh darnit, someone out there might have something to say about popcorn scented boobs.

If anyone can clue us in, please email us: stephandmee[at]gmail[dot]com.

Boobs

 This has nothing to do with anything, and yet….

My boobs smell like popcorn.  I just told my (male) coworker, and he said it was inappropriate to be discussing.  But I’m very concerned, because my BOOBS smell like BUTTERED POPCORN. 

And no, I wasn’t eating popcorn today and have a renegade kernel in there. 

What on earth would cause my boobs to smell of popcorn?  If this means that my boob sweat smells of popcorn, that is SO AWESOME. 

Love,

MEE