Category Archives: The Real About Me

by | May 6, 2016 · 8:15 am

The Real About Me – Part 3

The Real About MeSince we’re being real here, I am a terrible mother.  I do not say that like all mom’s who want other mom’s to say, “Oh no you’re not.” I know I am, and I usually keep it to myself because others will eventually know I am too.  Others will try to say that I’m not but there won’t be any conviction behind the words.

This is serious. I truly mean there aren’t enough years left in her little life for the amount of expensive therapy she will need to recover from me.

Here’s an example.  My mother-in-law gave us tickets to The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and my daughter was being kinda naughty that morning.  So I told her that if she didn’t shape up the Grinch was going to come off the stage to steal her and I wouldn’t stop him.  Well, unbeknownst to me the Grinch actually does come off the stage during the performance and run through the isles of the theater.

Yeah.  We were in row 2. He ran off the stage right towards us and my daughter starts screaming, because her mother terrified her.  She was clutching onto my arm like she was being sucked out of a hole in an airplane. You can’t comfort that kind of scared.  And a six year old doesn’t understand, “Mommy was just kidding. Ha, ha!”

Then there was the day she hurt her knee. We were in the middle of nowhere and she had hit it pretty good, so my instinct says we need to get ice. So I pick her up to get her in the car, and hit her other leg on the door. She screamed all the way home.  So now we have two ice packs.  She is in desperate need of a bath so I think I’ll get her in the tub and bathe her that will help calm her down.  Yeah, I dropped a cup on her head while washing her hair.  So she cry’s. Then I cry. Then she strokes my hair and sings me the Laurie Berkner song, “I’m not perfect.” (if you’re a parent you’ll know that one – if not see below).

Believe me a six-year-old who has had double kneecapping and cup dropped on their head trying to comfort you for your crappy parenting does not make you feel good. No it does not.  She’s doing it because she knows.

She knows.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under humor, Mommy, Moms, The Real About Me

by | April 22, 2016 · 8:02 am

The Real About Me – Part 2

The Real About MeHi All!

In continuing with my series The Real About Me (click here if you missed the first installment and my reasons why I’m doing this) here is the next installment.

I am NOT warm and fuzzy.  I know this because my husband told the neighbors that, using those exact words, “Yeah, my wife is not warm and fuzzy.”

How did this come up in conversation you ask? Yeah, I asked too! Evidently, one of my neighbors was being a dumbass (you know who you are) and driving like a moron so I flipped him off. I didn’t get the memo but the rule is (I guess) if you know the person you can’t flip them off in earnest. You can only do it in mock playfulness. Who knew!

Of course, the conversation didn’t end there. Well why would it right? Once the line is crossed to criticizing your friend’s wife, just go right ahead and get it all out in the open.

There’s also some unwritten rule of country living (oh, I live in the country now and this story will illustrate why I sooo want to move back to a city) that says when you pass your neighbor anywhere, on a freeway, on a side street, in a parking lot, when you’re leering in their windows, you have to smile and WAVE at them.

I don’t wave. It’s a stupid rule and I don’t want to do it.  In fact I don’t want to do anything anyone else thinks I HAVE to do.  Unless, there’s a paycheck involved.  In that case, I’m all on-board the waving train. But no one has offered to pay me yet.

The conversation did end there.  The not waving issue is a real craw sticker, if you know what I mean.  It really bothers some people in the neighborhood (again you know who you are), which makes me more determined to not wave.

This all came to a head one night when my husband decided we should head down to the local watering hole to watch one of our favorite local bands The Soup Bones play (Hi Johnny!). Since I live in the country and there’s not much action everyone from the neighborhood had gone to the bar that night. I shit you not.  It probably helped that my husband called everyone to say, “Hey, let’s go see The Soup Bones.”

So there we are surrounded by people who are drunk and mad at me. It’s kinda like a family function with out the implied love.  One of the drunks neighbors finally hit me where it hurt.  He played the kid card. As low down and heartless as I am (I’m not it’s just perception) I have a soft spot for kids.  He slurred at me, “My kids wave to you from the bus stop and you never wave back.”

God I’m a BITCH!

To tell you the truth I did even realize they were waving at me. I thought they were just trying to stay warm by flailing their arms.

Well of course, that did it.  The next Monday morning I waved. But only to the kids.  I will wave to the kids. But I still refuse to live my life like I’m on a parade float. Unless they want to give me sash and a crown.  Then I’ll wave and I’ll even smile.

~S

Cat wearing a crown with Christmas decorations

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under The Real About Me

Tagged as , ,

by | April 8, 2016 · 8:00 am

The Real About Me

So I was told (rather rudely I might add – there’s no cause for that) that my About Me Page “needs work.” I used to have a really fun about me page that was written by a friend of mine (Hi Joanna!) in which I made comments about her perception of me.  That one I was told (again rudely – not necessary) that that page was “unprofessional.” Maybe it was but it was fun.

Here’s the deal.  All “about me” pages are crap. You know that right? Every author or aspiring author edits out the bad and embellishes the good in a desperate attempt to make readers like them. They should all read like this, “Like me, please like me – see I’m legit! Look at all I’ve done.”  Then you find out years later that they participated in a horrific murder as a teen (looking at you Anne Perry), but that’s not in the bio is it! NOOOOO!

So here’s what I’m going to do dear reader.  I’m going to run a series called The Real About Me. In these posts I will tell you who I really am.  Will it make you want to read my books more? I dunno. Will it make you not like me? Maybe. Will it make you loooove me? Again dunno. Either way it’s me and it ain’t pretty y’all.

Ground breaking right?

Here’s your first installment:

The Real About Me – Part 1

The Real About MeI am afraid of spiders.  I’m not the kind of afraid of spiders where I will run the other direction and scream, though I will do that.  I’m the kind of afraid where I will leave my child in the clutches of a man eating spider and sacrifice my husband to whatever god the spider overlord wants me to worship kind of afraid. I would rather burn my house down then go back in if a spider escapes the slayer (aka – the husband).

I’m not proud of this fact.  I will try to pretend that I’m not afraid if I’m in public and a spider drops down from a restaurant ceiling.  Actually, no I won’t – forgot I was trying to be real. This happened to me.  One dropped down between my husband and I during dinner at restaurant. Not only can we NEVER go back to that restaurant, I’m pretty sure the owner is still in therapy from my reaction.

I think I screamed something to the effect of that restaurant being a filthy hovel that I would never eat at again and I threatened to send a city inspector to shut them down.  No, I did not call the inspector. That was the fear talking. It’s not a filthy hovel and when I calmed down a few days later I came to my senses.  I have never eaten there again though. That’s my spider PTSD and fear that they have a photo of me posted that prevents me from going there again.

I have also been known to throw things at spiders on TV. Nope not kidding. Again, it’s the fear.

We have wolf spiders here in Minnesota (google it yourself so you can see these beasts) and they like to turn up in the darnedest places. One sunny afternoon my husband and I were going out fishing. The boat we were to fish from was beached.  My job was to push the boat out into the water while my husband retrieved the life jackets from the hold. I can still see it. Hang on I have to shudder.  As I pushed the boat away from the shore a giant wolf spider sat right next to my bright white Ked (that’s the singular of Keds) on my right foot.

People I didn’t even know I could vault my husband, but I did!  As he describes it, “She was in front of me and the next thing I knew she was behind me.”  I scramble to the back of the boat and then realizing that I can’t walk on water but spiders can, I stopped and pointed. I couldn’t do anything else because the breath had be scared out of my body. Like when you fall and get the wind knocked out of you. When I finally realized I needed to breath out and not in all that came out was a loud scream.

My husband and brother-in-law rolled their eyes and went to see the offending spider.  Both of them stopped in their tracks.  This thing was probably 2 inches in body and another 7 inches of legs. HORRIFYING! Neither of them were brave enough to step on that thing and eventually when it picked up on it’s legs (I swear it was the size of a small child but my husband says it wasn’t – agree to disagree) and ran up the hill toward my brother-in-law he ran too.  Finally, a cinder-block was dropped on the unearthly creature.  I did not sleep that night.  I had spider riddled dreams.  I screamed,and kicked all night. Eventually I kicked the wall in our room so hard my brother-in-law sleeping on the other side of the wall fell out of bed.

I told you it wasn’t pretty, but there you have it.  Now you know something about me that is real and not on my about me page.  Just wait for the next installment!

~S

4 Comments

Filed under The Real About Me

Tagged as , , ,