Chaos Reigns

Ball O’Fire!

I shouldn’t be left alone or trusted with small childen.  Old kids that can fend for themselves may be a different story, but I’m not even sure of that.

 I decided to light the new Christmas candle I bought. I love candles. The light, the aroma. I  find it very relaxing. Lord knows, I need relaxing.

So I pull out the matches. You know those old fashioned safety matches,. Those are the ones – those safety matches. Yeah, these are the ones.

I strike the match just as I have done hundreds of times before. But this time the head of the match goes flying off. I search frantically for the match head and all I find is dust bunnies. (I really need to clean my bedroom.) At his point, my menopausal bladder decides that NOW is the TIME to head for the little room with the porcelain fixtures.

My menopausal brain has an attention span of about 2 nanoseconds. So I exit the little room and head for the kitchen, grab a glass of wine, and settle down in front of  “What Not to Wear.” I just get comfy when the smoke alarm goes off. Now my hormone deprived brain does not remember anything that happened in paragraph two.  I immediately think that the batteries need to be replace. No such luck!

As I head to the back of the house to replace the smoke alarm batteries (Don't know what I was going to replace them with since I don't have a single 9 volt battery anywhere but in the smoke alarms - guess I need to rectify that problem), I am greeted with --- SMOKE! Doing the prudent thing, I rush into my bedroom where I find the basket of unfolded clothes in flames. No fire extinguisher – Eric used it to see what would happen if you pull the pin and squeeze the handle (Science experiment lab report still pending.) So I started stomping. Melted my slippers but I stomped it out. Because as my friend, Julia, would say – “That’s the way Ms. Terri is.” No pictures of this, I was too busy stomping.

Just so I don’t hog all the glory here, Eric and Michael stomped too, but they didn’t sacrifice a perfectly good pair of slippers. They did help me dump the clothes basket into the shower and turn  on the water.

Final loss:    
        Two sets of Ralph Lauren curtains     $300.00
        One pair of slipper                              12.00   
        My favorite shorts                               30.00
            (I didn’t buy this pair from Kmart. The Kmart ones are still in the dresser.)
         Laundry basket                                 12.00 (It was a NICE one)
         Misc. Stuff                                        who knows- The basket was full. Okay the basket was overflowing.

Burned floor  that looks like dog poop when I first roll our of bed – disgusting!

A house still standing – PRICELESS!    

Oops! Or how not to spend your vacation

The boys and I went down to Mom and Dad's last Friday so we could celebrate Father's Day with the World's Best Dad. It turned out to be a rather strange celebration but a celebration none the less.

Friday evening, Mom and I were preparing dinner. Everything was just about ready. Mom just needed to mash the potatoes and dinner would be served. She decided to use the hand mixer on the top shelf of the cupboard so she got out her handy dandy step stool and climbed up. All of a sudden I hear a thump and Mom says, "I broke my ankle." Sure enough, her right foot was pointing in the same direction as her knees. Her left foot was pointing in the opposite direction.

As I'm reaching for the phone to call 911, Mom says not to call. We should just drive her to the emergency room. Now I'm usually an obedient child but this time I defied my mother and dialed. She's still protesting that she can just hop to the car on one foot.

Mom and Dad live about 15 miles outside of town on a country highway with only the mailbox to mark the spot. I walked up to the road to flag down the ambulance. About the time I get to the highway, it starts to rumble and roar. Lightening is flashing all around me and I'm standing in the middle of the road like an idiot. I finally decide that maybe, just maybe, I should go back and get the car. Getting struck by lightening would not have made the day any better and I didn't want to find out if the ambulance service had a family plan.

The ambulance arrives and the crew doesn't want to drive down to the house. They don't think the thing will go down the drive and if it does, they're afraid that they will drive over the septic tank and get stuck. After a few minutes of very persuasive begging on my part, I convince them that the drive is really quite wide (and it is) and the septic tank is behind the house (and it really is).

The EMTs finally got in the house. The dog is barking. Mom is white as a sheet. Dad isn't looking much better. One son is watching every move the EMTs make while the other is curled up on a couch with a blanket over his head. I don't want to see what's at the end of her leg. I don't do well with blood.

They doped Mom up with morphine and she was feeling fine. It took three large, strong men to lift her onto the gurney. Remember, this is the woman that was going to hop to the car.

Mom was taken into surgery and did very well. She should be coming home in the next couple of days. We are thrilled about that.

However, Mom won't be able to drive for at least 2 months and Dad hasn't been able to drive for over 35 years. I'll be staying with them to act as gofer, chauffeur, nurse, chief bottle washer and trouble maker. My sister will be coming over on the weekends to help out and give me a little break.

Blogging will probably be sporatic but I'll post as often as possible. They don't have cable modem! I'll have to use dial-up. I hate dial-up! 

And I Paid For This

Lately I've been asked to go on a cruise, a fishing trip, and boating out on the lake. My polite refusals were met with quizzical looks. After all, who wouldn't like to spend time on a boat of some sort? Me, and here's why.

Two years ago, my brother, Mike, decided that we all needed to go fishing when he came to Florida. After all, the gulf was just sitting there doing nothing. So he made all the arrangements a month or so before his trip.

The excitement built as the day of the grand fishing expedition came closer. Finally the big day arrived complete with booming thunderstorms. We never let a little weather stop us besides the storms passed through. No big deal. So off we went at o'dark thirty. An hour later, we stood on the dock. The fishing boat was there - two of them - but no captain. The guy in the reservation booth informed us that the captain was checking the weather and conditions in the gulf to see if it was safe to go out. That should have given me a clue as to what laid ahead. But no, not me, I climb on this seafaring craft prepared to haul in a big one.

The water was quite calm - until we sailed past the last sandbar. Then the fishing tackle started swaying. And the boat started to rock back and forth and back and forth. The fishing tackle swayed faster and faster. The girl next to me turned green. I did too. She tossed her cookies. I helped her out by tossing mine.

I spent an eternity (I've been informed that it was ONLY 5 hours) curled up in a ball in the bow of this mightly vessel groaning and wishing the blasted thing would sink and put me out of my misery. I got up to look at the dolphins, took three photos - not of the dolphins-, and curled back up in my corner. For this wonderful experience I shelled out $40.

I understand that several photographs exist of me and my glorious green glow. I haven't seen them. I don't think I want to see them. Since I can't share those with you, here's one I took Mr. Terry Man teaching Eric how to fish with Sweet Sarah in the background. 

I'm Too Cool

I finally got a promotion and enough experience as a Systems Analyst to get sent to Dallas to review some software. I had ARRIVED! I was so full of myself as I carefully dressed in my cute, tailored suit. I had my briefcase. I was set.

As I walked down the skyway to my plane, a voice behind me said, "Excuse me, miss." I turned, fully expecting to be asked how to climb the corporate ladder. After all I was exuding cool, professionalism. I turned to the gentleman behind me and he said, "I've been waiting all my life for this.... Your skirt's unzipped."

Yep, that's me - totally professional and totally embarrassed.