There are only presents because of last-minute-guilt, remote shopping, and insane wrapping at midnight.
Do Rappers have this problem when they write songs? I wonder.
Miso bossy and Miso Snoop!
We do not travel to see the lights.
Instead I huddle at home, being a giant lump of coal with a couch instead of a stocking.
Because my tongue hurts. All the time.
My tongue has hurt for over three months now.
I keep eliminating things:
Thinking I had OAS, I stopped eating foods that hurt me. (Oral Allergy Syndome–I thought tomatoes hated me.)
I change a mouth guard, thinking it might have latex.
I stop two new medications–one of which does have associated neuropathy of the tongue as a rare side effect–it’s week three now and I am thinking that isn’t the problem.
Last night, I tried taping my mouth shut only to bite myself in my sleep. (Okay, those of you laughing your asses off, I know what you are thinking, just stop.)
I still have a tongue that feels burned most of the time. I’ve been eating my weight in yogurt–which is sort of a cyclical nightmare. The more I eat, the more I bite myself and hurt my face two ways.
I am now blaming the CPAP. It’s the only thing I haven’t stopped doing. Basically, I have dry mouth from too much air. AIR IS HURTING ME. That has to be the definition of getting old.
My friend is helping me to try and change settings, but if we can’t fix why my tongue feels like a burnt offering, I don’t know what I am going to do.
So, for those of you who have wondered at my absence–and more particularly lack of holiday cheer–there are reasons beyond the usual.
“I’m just a crabby, crabby girl in a blistered-tongue world. Tryin’ to find a reason to celebrate the season!”
I might need to write a rap about that…all I need is a white-girl rapper name. Make your suggestions. I could use a laugh.
P.S. At one point, I had thrush. Let’s not mention the two weeks of drinking Nystatin oral fungal medication–the same ingredient to treat athlete’s foot. Everything tasted like tinfoil and it felt like my tongue was an insert from an old sneaker. Let’s just agree this never happened, shall we? Kind of my approach the 2025 in general–denial and a whole lot of useless salves to cover the wounds and hoping it will all just go away on its own.
BedBug False Alarm ($175), real Scabies Fiasco. (Untold dollars.) Still scarred by that experience. Haunted by phantom itching everywhere.
September – October – Deck Detailing (at least $500) Impulse to stain a naked fence leads to, manic purchases and lots and lots of kneeling to sand wood already in place. (Not recommended.) Then comes the staining!
Cold weather is coming, so I hire two neighbor girls to help me out. They are pre-teenagers on the cusp of being human. They are enthusiastic though, like overeager puppies throwing themselves at a basket of rubber balls–things fly everywhere.
Knotty Knotty Pine–While they paint, I run to Home Depot for a variety of supplies – one of which requires me carefully putting a plank of wood in my Toyota Prius V. (The V is important. If I hadn’t owned a V, I wouldn’t have tried this. And, likely have saved myself money and hassle.) There had been a bad board–with a big knot that caused the wood to split mid-way along the rail of our ramp.
I get to the Depot. They are super busy. I decide to just go grab a board, get it cut and get back home. I check out and the cashier hears about my great adventure in deck maintenance. Looks at my board, looks at me and says,
Clerk: “You know this isn’t deck planking, right?“
Me: *Blink Blink Blink* “No. I did not know there was such a thing as deck planking.”[Despite the fact that is exactly what was written on the note a helpful clerk had written up for me.]
I decide, screw it and buy it anyway. How bad could it be if it was a little thicker?
Banging Wood in the Parking Lot: Putting things in my trunk, the cart with the board starts wheeling away. A good Samaritan grabs the cart, then the board, and shoves it in my car and slams my trunk. He waves and walks away having done his good deed for the day.
I walk to the front of the car and see this:
Thicker Wood is Bad! I end up paying for it, and losing a Saturday going to Safelite Auto Glass–being terrified by a giant attack spider–and getting the price of my window down to $436.17.
Anyhow, the day of the window fiasco, I schlump back to my house, cursing my fate to discover…
The girls are staining my deck steps instead of the railing…because they accidentally dumped a pan they were filling with expensive stain down said steps.
*Sigh*
I pay them for three days of labor, but then call it ‘good enough’ because I have to save money because a tree in my yard suddenly looks very under-the-weather. Limbs are turning black and dropping off.
I call the city to ask for help. Turns out, despite the fact that the same city parked in front of my house for about 3 months during the hottest part of the summer and dug up the road right next to this tree, even digging into my property to cap an old water main, their arborist claims my tree was already sick and dying before that happened.
I have my own arborists who agree–digging up the roots definitely could effect the tree. But, I am too tired to fight city hall. I take the lowest bid from Top Down Tree Service so that the tree can come down before the winds can bring it down.
Felled Wood: $1184. Not dropping a tree on a person’s head? Priceless!
Catastrophe almost averted: I am just about to relax when…I come home to find my house filling with gas–the person watching my son is unable to smell death coming.
DTE is called, a very competent woman comes and checks my home. I shiver outside with my son as he has snit fits about the door being open. The next day we call a plumber to replace a Gas Cock (yes, my dryer is a boy!) and we are safe once more.
By November, I am twitching and looking at all my appliances sideways. I’m afraid to go anywhere. (Hold that thought.)
I am feeling the cold winds of winter blowing…through the cracks in my front door. I go to Home Depot and a clerk, who shall not be named, suggests these “EASY TO INSTALL” weather stripping.
Me: “What if there are nails in the way?”
Clerk: “Oh, I’m sure there won’t be–it won’t be a problem.”
SPOILER: It was a problem
Turns out there wasn’t a strip of trim holding the decades old weather stripping in place. Nope, it was the entire door jam and very sunk-in nails doing the job.
SIDEBAR: Perhaps certain people shouldn’t own crowbars? Maybe licensing should be required?
Thankfully, there is an area service provider I call in emergencies that I have caused.
It is not called HELP ME I SCREWED UP AGAIN but it should be! Home Repair Services of Kent County takes my call. This week, I get a call early Monday morning.
WARNING–SERIOUSLY LEWD PARAPHRASING FOLLOWS
Mark: “Hello. I have a few minutes this morning to check out your issues.”
Me: “Oh, it’s gonna take a lot longer than that to fix all my issues.”
Mark: “I’ll take a look and then come back later. How does that sound?”
Me: “Come any time you like.”
After assessing the damage, Mark shows up later that day like a superhero and fixes my door!
Afterwards, I thank him profusely and ask tentatively:
NOT PARAPHRASING AT ALL
Me: “So how much is this gonna cost me?“
Mark: “Twenty-five.“
Me: “Twenty-five hundred?“
Mark: “No. Twenty-five dollars.“
Me: “I love you.”
I slip Mark a $5.00 tip to forget I said that.
I am deliriously happy. I’m in debt up to my eyeballs, and getting just a slap on the wrist feels like redemption. Then I spot a thing I have been avoiding seeing out of the corner of my eye while driving in the parking lot of my super grocery store chain.
Me: “No NO NONONONONO!”
After conversations with my car insurance and Safe-Lite Glass Replacement they have the same response to warranty/coverage:
“Not It!”
**SIGH**
I decide to forgo fixing the window for now. We’ll see how long it lasts through the winter.
As I contemplate the bleak holidays ahead, I consider canceling my son’s camp weekend in January 2026.
And that’s when the email arrives from the camp Indian Trails, saying.
“Your son has been awarded a scholarship for the balance of your camper’s weekend!”
So here is Lesson Number Two, just in time for the Thanksgiving Holiday.
BE THANKFUL FOR THE GIFTS YOU ARE GIVEN–BE THEY SMALL OR LARGE. THEY MAKE THE DIFFERENCE WHEN TIMES GET HARD!
I did a thing yesterday. I made a fun-fun outfit for my kid for school. No one made me. I did this on purpose. And I only set off the fire alarms once…
*****
Spirit Week has some fun options but I get absolutely fixated on an idea for Monday’s Fleece or Flannel Day. I order some things from Amazon before I quit my free month of Prime. (Take that, Jeff B.!)
I cobble together a complete outfit, but his pants have a problem. They are too comfortable. Too easy-to-wear for public venues. So…beltloops are the answer.
Last night I learned the truth the universe has hidden from me–beltloops are the devil’s accessory. I have also learned that I will pay anyone whatever they ask to never have to add beltloops again! (I paid someone $1250 to have a tree removed last week that I swear took less time that it took me to make these damned loops from hell.)
I begin my project by waiting until the absolute last minute to start it.
[Sidebar: I have my first ADHD testing tomorrow; I wonder what I will learn?]
First up…I have to find my supplies that were hidden during a recent curse/plague/scourge that required stuffing nearly all of my house in garbage bags. Be grateful you are only hearing about pants today.
I ask the internet how to make beltloops. It is only so helpful.
I hunt, I search, I eventually find. I snip. I cut. I iron. (Setting off the fire alarm in the process.) I pin. I poke myself about eleventy-billion times. Ow.
I ask my internet what the hell this thing is on my sewing machine? The internet suggested I go find a manual and look it up myself. Sigh.
Footer Tension Mechanism or Button-Hole Related – The Internet Wasn’t Sure Which.
I only sew only one of the things on the wrong way…and I had a seam ripper to pull it apart and sew it back on correctly. I call that a victory.
It takes me about 5 hours to put 8 beltloops of questionable construction in place.
The next morning, I dress the boy in all-over orange and greyish black flannel plaid with orange argyle socks.
You can’t even see the beltloops in place. But trust me, they are there! And I am very proud that this day is over.
Now to find something Black and Orange for tomorrow! What a shame he can’t wear this two days in a row!
As I sit in my chair facing out into my garden watching the ever darkening evening approach, the flash and bang of incendiary devices commences. I am reminded.
Oh, right.Tomorrow is the Fourth of July!
This means, I am currently bombarded by amateur firecracker smiths’ efforts to celebrate early—no doubt drunk on freedom or something wetter sold in cardboard cases at every gas station in the fifty states.
Hang on…Firecracker Smith? Is that the right title? What is the term for someone who professionally handles fireworks? Checks the internet…ah yes, a pyrotechnician! At least, that is what their lawyer will assert should they burn down any important buildings.
Sidebar: someone who unprofessionally sets off fireworks is typically called “Lefty” or “That crazy bastard” by their neighbors.
I am thinking of Fourth of Julys past. I discuss this with my mother-in-law— specifically the reason why we stopped going to the pancake breakfast hosted on behalf of veterans in Grandville, Michigan. I’m surprised she’s forgotten.
MIL: “Oh. That’s right. That was an awful day!” Laura replies.
Since then, we’ve managed tamer 4ths, including an unforgettable cruise on the S.S. Badger many years ago, but I’ve never entirely trusted the holiday either. (Personally, I believe the Fourth of July was invented to test parents’ patience and their ability to keep their children alive.)
The weather we are having lately tips into the 90’s. It is 10 P.M. here and it is still 86° outside. That is now considered a ‘cool’ temperature.
If you are in Arizona, you are no doubt laughing your proverbial derrieres off. For you, it doesn’t really start to get hot until there are three digits beside that degree symbol. (At that point, the little round circle is saying it is hot enough to boil an egg.) I am never going to move to Arizona. I am too white to survive the melanomas that would spontaneously erupt every time I stepped outdoors.
I would much rather stay home, in air conditioning, and read or work on a jigsaw puzzle. Instead, I will walk with my son along the Buck Creek Trail as we have in years past and set up our blanket to lie down and watch the stars be put to shame by flashier if shorter-lived displays. I will suffer the loud concussive booms of the many firework enthusiasts—those with all their fingers and those who can no longer count to ten without taking their shoes off—and appreciate that my son still enjoys this journey with his mom.
And then I will gratefully haul my child homeward, where ice cream awaits to celebrate surviving the heat of the day.
I wish you much joy on your Fourth of July and we will hope that you can count your gratitude on all ten of your fingers come Monday!
If you stop by for a visit this week and think, “Ugh. What is that stench? It smells like something died in here.”
You would be right.
And, for future reference, please bookmark this page in case the question of my sanity ever arises in court. I may need defense witnesses.
You can mark this Exhibit A.
* * * * *
The first Monday back to school after the holidays means that I am highly motivated to tackle a lot of undone, or never started, What Was I Thinking? projects.
I have a list.
…In my head.
None of them get tackled. Except one. The least necessary and at best, or maybe at worst, the creepiest example of how my mind works.
In an effort to recycle and save money, it seemed like a good idea to try and create my own bird feeder suet cakes. In my freezer are baggies upon baggies of saved skin. You know, just in case.
I thought, “Why not just grind up the skins leftover from chicken and turn them into bird feeder cakes?”
I’ll tell you why. Beyond the ethics of promoting bird feeder cannibalism, I mean.
If you dump a few months worth of skin into a blender and forget to add any liquid, you will wrap that rubbery flesh around the small blades that are the propellers at the base of your blender. Your blender will make a wheezing noise and you will then belatedly add liquid and create the most repulsive slurry of pulverized bird bits plus fat imaginable. Then, as you keep pressing the “Chop” and “Ice Crush” options alternately trying to free the blockage, you smell a rank, sickening odor emerge from the depths of hell. Smoke rises from the blender base. The scent of burnt plastic mixes with the souls of the damned. This noxious stench will fill your nostrils and your house for hours! You will move the blender base to the garage–this will have no effect on how your kitchen smells.
As you spoon up the slurry and mix it with melted fat and bird seed–and try not to vomit at the sight and sensation of skin slurry sticking to your fingers–you might try to imagine a product that might be capable of what you were asking the poor Oster blender to do.
Of note: the Oster people never promised its blender could dispose of a corpse using a ‘pulverize bone’ setting. No they did not. I’m sure that is spelled out somewhere in the fine print. Meanwhile, I am wrist deep in goo and regretting my A.D.D. impulse of the day. My mind wanders…
“I wonder,” my brain says to me, “if this is how serial killers end up using lye or bleach to dissolve bodies? Or, maybe there is a blender out there that does the job…just nobody puts that on the label?”
Can you just imagine someone confessing to a bunch of homicides and then offering to provide a testimonial for Ginsu knives because of the extraordinary sharpness in handling those pesky joint ligaments? Or how about a cleaning product that does double duty–disappearing a corpse or cleaning up a crime scene…before the police get to it? Even if it does a fantastic job for the murderer–who would buy a product hawked by a killer?
Buy OJ Simpson branded gloves–They Never Fit and Always Acquit!
There is probably a good reason market research rarely quotes serial killers’ opinions of their products. Maybe it’s blocked by trademarked copyright? Or maybe it’s that pesky rule preventing convicted criminals from profiting from their crimes? Only their lawyers know for sure.
If there is a super-powered Bone-Breaker 10,000 body crunching, wonder blender out there, the deranged killers are taking that secret to the grave…where body parts are left to feed wildlife the way nature intended.
Apparently, I should have used my Cuisinart.
Of note, this is the second blender I have killed doing something idiotic it wasn’t intended for. I can’t recall offhand how my previous blender met the appliance grim reaper, but I’m sure no one in their right mind expects modern appliances to double as tools of body dismemberment. It so lacks the personal touch.
…..
You Read This Far Bonus:
The A.I. Image maker wouldn’t touch the topic “Serial Killer Putting Livers Into a Blender.” Even the A.I. wouldn’t touch this subject. If you read this far, what does that say about you?
These were two very hot and heavy chapters. A lot of unresolved sexual tension finally was released. In the book, people! I had both hands on the wheel! Unfortunately, I also had a lead foot on the accelerator. I looked down after the climax to see that my car does indeed reach into the 90 mile an hour part of the dial. Who knew?
I’m lucky that I didn’t get pulled over. Can you imagine trying to explain to the officer what had happened?
Police: “License and registration, Ma’am.”
Me: “Uh, yeah. Sure. Here you go.”
Police: “Are you aware that you were going 95 miles an hour–in rush hour traffic!?”
Me: “Eep. Um. No, I’m sorry, Officer…but in my defense, it was a really good book!”
Read responsibly, people.
And preferably in bed where that kind of delicious smut belongs!
Bonus:
And if you thought this was a ridiculous post, here is a link I found while searching for an image to steal about an accident reported in the UK citing an Audiobook Accident via the High Point Police.
Sadly, they do not include the name of the book that caused the wreck. I could use another audiobook as I have a trip coming up this weekend.
I recently read a few other bloggers’ trials and tribulations in the kitchen–HERE and again HERE and this made me reflect on some of my worst disasters.
Please enjoy my retrospective and recollections of thymes past.
I’ve been living an absolute nightmare. For TWO WHOLE DAYS!!!
But finally, after a weekend of anxiety-drenched trauma, I am back to tell the tale. It’s mercifully short, but not, I think, an insignificant one to any who has experienced the horror. Mary Shelley only dreamt of such nightmares as this!
As my favorite tv show—The Big Bang Theory—comes to an end, it wrestled recently with a surprisingly feminist sub-plot: whether or not a woman should want to have children and what it means if she doesn’t. The series frequently pokes fun at parenting including the ambivalence surrounding having kids. Perhaps I have laughed a little too hard at some of these jokes, or maybe I appreciate that someone had raised a question that bothers me in my own struggles with motherhood*.
TheDustSeason 