The Mini Van Soap Box

About a week ago, I said something that hurt my mother's feelings - and as punishment I had to go over to her house and build her a deck.

I'm exaggerating.  But only slightly. I did say something that hurt her feelings. And I did go over and help with the deck.

15 years ago, the three of us built the deck on the back of their house.  I learned yesterday that it's 1400 square feet of deck.  I don't think you really realize how freakin' big 1400 square feet is until you have to build it - or you move into your first apartment.  Because yesterday, while demoing our creation from 15 years ago it dawned on me just HOW LARGE their deck is...and how very small my first apartment was - comparatively speaking.

So, it's time for the old to come out and for the new to go in.  They got a quote for some new uber cool boards that they are going to use - and then the quote for just delivery of the boards and the quote if someone ELSE would build the deck for them.  Let's just say it was an easy choice to build it themselves.


There are muscles in my body right now that are screaming - and these are muscles that I didn't even know I had. My ass hurts. It hurts to sit down. It hurts to get back up. It hurts to bend over. I actually had to ask my daughter to get my shoes on for me this morning.  It's times like these where you realize you really need to get into the gym.

But given the way I feel I would rather blow up the nearest gym and then go for ice cream and watch it burn.

While sitting on the couch last night I asked my daughter to please not hurt herself in any way because I just didn't think I could muster the energy to save her life. Or even get up for a band-aid.  That's how awesome I am.

I could tell you how awesome my Mom and I are with power tools, or how every single time we accidentally killed an earth worm we would apologize - or how I wasn't allowed to kill any of the 5 million spiders that tried to eat me....But even the tips of my fingers hurt, so this is all you get.

Please send ice packs.

It all started with my folks having to go downtown. He had a "thing" at work. She wanted to go see it. I said I wanted to go too.  What follows is why my mother and I should not be allowed together, in public, without supervision.  Or maybe just not allowed together at all.  Or maybe neither one of us should be allowed out of our homes- regardless of if we are together or not.

We don't go downtown all that often. So when it happens it's kind of an experience. We have to figure how we're going to get there, what we're going to wear, what time we're going to leave, when we'll get home, when the sun will rise, what we will be doing every second we are there, and what shape the moon will be in later that evening.  It's kind of a big deal.  Which to the males in our lives...going downtown is kind of .... "meh".  They do it everyday.

We had a few hours to ourselves to just walk around - no problem. Shops, sightseeing, people watching. Turns out this week is the Policy Unity Tour downtown, so there are about 5 gazillion cops downtown. Makes you feel pretty safe actually. They are pretty easy to pick out - turns out cops come from far and wide to unite for fallen brothers & sisters.  However, they can get pretty rowdy when the sun goes down.  While standing at a street corner waiting to cross...MY mother says:

"You could jaywalk anywhere in town today and no one would care since all the cops are probably already drunk!"  and from directly behind we hear...

"Not quite yet"

Turns out we were standing right in front of a cop and his lovely girlfriend.

Score 1 for Mom and I.

Shortly after that we were chased down an alley by some crazy man talking to himself...or us....or his imaginary friend. We really didn't want to stick around and ask him who in the hell he was talking to.  Or if the voices spoke back to him.

And after THAT some greasy guy asked me for money, and when I POLITELY shook my head.....Well, let's just say he said things about me that I won't repeat on this blog.  And y'all KNOW the language I use on this blog.

When we finally made it into his office, we learned that apparently my mother and I are wanted criminals.....Because it's the kind of office where we have to wear tags with a big red V on it and be escorted every where we go.  Including the restroom.  So, it was actually all very cool and spy'ish. Except I learned that my mother can't be cool when trying to be stealthy trying to sneak to the bathroom without trying to be noticed.  I'm never taking her to break into a bank.  She'll totally break my cover.

That was after we were locked in an office for an hour and decided to put lotion on our feet because we had nothing else better to do. And then realized that the lotion was so slippery and gooey that when we put our shoes back on we both fell flat on our faces. So we spent a good 10 minutes trying to wipe the lotion off - only to realize that we were trying to wipe the lotion off with tissues with lotion built in.

You need to understand at this point in the story that we have yet to actually start the reception or meet another living soul.  We just do this when we're alone.  And frighteningly so, sober.

We managed to get our shit together by party time. We were cool, calm, collected.  We met people, we shook hands - we were thrilled to meet all the folks he worked with. It was a great reception.  We met people we've only heard stories about - and finally got to put faces to names.  And apparently for them as well.  People seemed excited to meet us as well.

And I have to say - I think I have "some girls" now.  Even if I did say to one of them that the lady bug pendant that she was thinking about buying was, indeed, not cute.  And they did ask me a few times if my soda was, in fact, ONLY soda.  I'm sure that was said out of love.

We ended the day with a final restroom break and while using the facilities I chatted away at Mom's feet.  Only to realize while standing out in the hallway waiting for her - that my Mom was on the other side of the building.  I have absolutely no idea who the hell I was talking to in the bathroom.  Or what the hell I said.

Very few days go by that I don't talk to my best friend. Most of those conversations are nonsense.

I called her the other day to tell her that some lady was walking her dog. In a baby stroller. You can't make this shit up y'all.  She was walking.  With a dog. In a baby stroller. And she was stopping every so often, and peering inside...petting him...and then would continue to walk. I was stuck at an goose accident.  Again, you can't make this crap up. Some asshole hit a goose on a small road behind my house. So, I got to spend a good 10 minutes watching this woman...I don't know...Stroll her dog.

It was one of the weirdest things I had ever seen.  So I called her.

That's what I do when I see stupid shit. I call her.
It's also what I do when I DO stupid shit. I call her. And she agrees. "Wow, you're a stupid shit."

We also talk about Lost.  A lot.  We're scared that come the end of May we won't have anything to talk about anymore and our friendship will end.  I feel as though that as long as there are stupid people in the world, our friendship will survive.

Anyway, I was talking to her the other day - and I'm not entirely sure what we were talking about - but somehow we got on the subject of Cinco De Mayo.  And me, being the stupid shit said, "When is that?"

I'll wait here......Done?  Ok.

We laughed for a while and I explained that on MY calendar at work it doesn't say 'Cinco De Mayo', it says "Battle of Puebla". So, of course we both immediately looked it up.  Thanks Wikipedia.

The point of this post is that neither of us knew WHY we drink on Cinco De Mayo.

But we drink none the less.
And decided that I need a new calendar.
And a history class.

Happy Battle of Puebla Day!!

So much - and so little - has happened over the last week or so that none of it really will fill a whole post...So it's all here. Just sort of thrown all together like left over's. Consider it Soapbox Stew, if you will. Except no one likes stew when it's 80 degrees outside. So, serve it with a nice frosty beer...That's what I do.

My basement flooded. Again. Asshole basement. My daughter and I were all dressed and ready for church, when my heathen husband was downstairs about to start some laundry.  I heard some...grumbling...coming from the lower level and decided to check it out. The carpet squishes now when you walk on it. It's very cool.  There was also a large spider on the wall when all of this was going on. Which was ALL the child could fixate on. My husband and I were, obviously, concerned with the two feet of water in the FINISHED portion of our basement and where it had come from and she was all AND LET'S NOT FORGET THE SPIDER! HELLO! PARENTS! RIGHT THERE! BLACK WIDOW! Turns out the pressure release valve blew, or some shit like that.  I sent her to church with her Grandparents and spent the next two days moping up water and rolling up very wet carpet. Oh, and yes, I killed the spider.  I'm pretty sure all this happened because my husband doesn't go to church with us.  He'll learn eventually.

*****

I went to a bachlorette party a few weeks ago.  It was all mostly low key and just gals hanging out for dinner and drinks and celebrating an upcoming wedding.  I got the chance to meet some nice ladies - and think I might have made some new friends.  I spent a good amount of time chatting with this one lady who, like me, felt a little old to be doing "bachlorette" sort of things - but certainly didn't feel too old to sit at the bar and drink and mock those that WERE doing the bachlorette things.  We were sharing some of the lamer things about ourselves when I shared that I have this weird thing about copying accents. Even when I don't mean to. (I shared this because the bride is marrying a British guy...and I can't seem to stop blurting out BANGERS & MASH! WANKER! BOLLOCKS!) She laughed a bit, and then asked me if I had Tourette's.

She was dead serious.

"No, sweetie. I'm just a dork who has an I.Q. of a sandwich."

*****

As I'm typing this, I'm making brownies.  I mixed 'em up and put them in the oven and set the timer for 40 minutes.  But apparently I DIDN'T set the timer, I turned the microwave on. For 40 minutes. I didn't realize for a good 20 minutes.  See? I am a dork.

*****

Also, my crotch feels better. Thanks for asking.

If there is one thing I do really well, it's pee.  Seriously, I'm awesome at it. If there was a category in Pee in the Olympics I would have Gold. Lot's of them. (Mostly because it seems to me that this would not have to be a Winter OR Summer event, which means I could compete every two years)

Not everyone can be as good as me.  There are two things that make you an outstanding pee'er.  How often you go and how fast you can do it.

I'm the girl you WANT to be standing behind in line of a crowded bar with only one stall. Trust me, I can drop trough, pee, wipe, get back in my clothes, flush and get back out in the time that it take most women just to lock the door and pick a  place to put their purse.

I am, however, NOT the girl you want to take long car rides with. 6 hours turns into 7. Every time I stop to pee, I also have to refill my 64 oz. drink. So, yes, I do realize they go hand in hand.  There is not a minute in a day that I do not have some form of liquid in front of me.  And no, I do not have some disease that requires this...I just really like liquid I suppose.

So, you can only imagine my, er, discomfort, on Thursday night - when I COULD NOT PEE AT ALL and this horrible back pain with it.  It honestly felt like all of my internal organs had....fallen down...and were now resting on my bladder.  Friday morning came and went - and still not so much in the pee department.  For someone who is so damn good at pee'ing, you can only imagine how troubling this whole situation was.

As any women would, I jumped to the logical conclusion of a UTI (sorry, guys!) and called my doctor.  They got me in quick enough and a few hours later and I was peeing (or lack there of) in a cup.  To every one's surprise, however, it wasn't what we thought.  No UTI. No kidney infection. No nothing.

So, now what?

Take the drugs for the UTI and let's see what's what.

Just to be on the safe side, I called my OB and relayed the story back to them.

"Hmmmmm" was what I heard. "Given your family history, did they give you a sonogram?".

DING DING DING DING

Words I dread hearing.  I'm plagued with broken twats in my family. I have the only living coochie left on my fathers side that isn't riddled with problems.  My Aunt has survived ovarian and uterine cancer.  My older sister, younger than I am now, had her uterus and one ovary taken out.  We call her the penis sleeve. Her husband prefers penis sock.....Which ever you prefer.  Problem is though, I make it a point of making sure I don't hear those words - because I don't go to the damn doctor.


(please don't leave me comments that I'm an idiot - my mother does this on a regular basis. In it's place you can leave me a comment that says "My dog eats his own shit", and I'll know what you mean)

This time I couldn't get away from it - because my lungs are now resting comfortably on top of my bladder.

Today I saw my OB.  Apparently my left ovary had a ruptured cyst.

Awesome.

I know it's fine.  Really, I do.  I know it happens every day to tons of women. It didn't help that I have to go in tomorrow for further testing and that we talked about base lines, and family history, and uterine walls, cysts, CA 125's, and a whole bunch of other stuff that just sounded like white noise.

It did help though that I can could TELL her that my sister is a penis sleeve and she knew what I was talking about, and to better explain the procedure that I have to have tomorrow she used the words "think of a really really small dildo....with a camera on it".

I really like her.