Filed under: Misc. Humor, Travel | Tags: family, Fishing, humor, lake, mafia, Middle-Age, mobsters, south, southern, sports, subourbonmom, summer, travel, trees, Virginia
Lately, I’ve been learning a lot of things about myself—some good, but most of them not flattering. For example, as I’ve gotten older, my brain-to-mouth filter has gotten, shall we say…porous? Hard to believe, I know. But one of my most recent self-discoveries had nothing to do with the new job. It had everything to do with one of our favorite American traditions—hiding the bodies.
This week, with the 4th of July coming up and the buzz around the US Soccer Team creating a surreal sports hype I was feeling nostalgic for some American traditions. What better tradition than to devote a weekend doing yard work and drinking beer? So, we went to the lake, where we have a small house and a boat, and enough chores to keep Hubby busy burning stuff for a lifetime. One of our chores was to finally sink this year’s Christmas tree in a secret fishing spot. In theory, the sunken tree will attract crappie and other fish (if you ever see fisherman randomly sitting 20 yards or so off of…nothing, you can bet there’s a sunken tree down there somewhere). Mind you, this is
a) illegal, and
b) a messy activity involving pine sap and pine needles that are impossible to get out of indoor-outdoor carpet.
It’s also harder than you’d think. First, I had to drag the tree to the dock because some people were a little concerned about spiders and lizards. Then we tied a cinder block to the tree so it would sink (the arborist version of cement shoes). Daughters 1&2 held the tree in the water in front of the boat while we idled over to the secret spot. With a flourish we let the tree go and backed the boat away.
The tree floated like a bobber.
Or a body.
Apparently, one cinder block wasn’t enough. In the meantime, the ski boats that whirl around our little piece of lake were watching.
Hubby was getting nervous…he sat on the front of the boat, feet dangling in the water as he tried to guide the carcass with a stick.
“Stop! Back up! You can’t go that fast!” All the while the body, er, tree was bobbing up and down for the whole world to see.
Eventually, we nudged the tree back to the dock and tied two more cinder blocks to it and headed back out.
“Hurry up!” Hubby said. “You know this is illegal, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but everybody does it.” Pause. “Do you want to stop?”
Hubby said, in true, fatalistic accomplice fashion, “No, they’ve seen us now. We may as well finish.”
Five minutes later, we had sunk our tree, praying it was deep enough not to get hung up in someone else’s boat prop, but also hoping the fishermen would snag it often enough with their lines that they would stop trolling along our piece of shoreline at 6:00am.
The boat was littered with evidence (it still is)—pine needles in the carpet, sap on the seats and our hands and legs, like Lady MacBeth’s blood. At least three ski boats saw our crime—hopefully we looked intimidating enough (me in my tankini and Hubby in one of his soccer dad t-shirts) to scare them into silence.
So what did I learn from my near-mobster activity?
- Do your illegal activities at night—no witnesses, and it saves on your breakfast revisiting you in the form of anxiety-induced heart burn
- Use plastic sheets to keep the evidence off of your stuff—there’s a reason they always assassinate the victims with plastic bags on the floor.
- Carcasses are more buoyant than you think
- I cannot pull off acting cool when I’m doing something “illegal”—we took treated lumber to the dumpster once and I was as nervous as if we were doing a drug deal in the middle of The Jefferson
- If the first detective asked me anything about it, I’d crack like an egg.
Happy birthday, America!
Filed under: Middle Age, Parenting | Tags: adulthood, brownies, children, cooking, driving, family, humor, kids, Middle-Age, mom, parenting, parents, soccer, south, southern, sports, subourbonmom, teenagers, teens
As many of you know, spring is an especially crazy time of year in our house: sports seasons wind down (“Has anyone seen soccer my jerseys? They were due yesterday…”) and start up simultaneously (“What do you mean none of your riding pants fit?”); prom (“A new dress is going to cost How Much???”) and general hormonal mayhem ensue (“I’m going to put all my projects off until I stress-cry”); and preschoolers finally start losing it with each other (Teacher: “Why did you poke him?” Child: “I don’t like him anymore.”).
So, my apologies for not posting for a while. I haven’t started stress crying yet, but it’s only because I don’t have time. Even now, you’re only going to get what I like to call a window post—I’m just going to give you a peek through the window of my life, so you can see what I’ve been hearing over the last couple of weeks…
Daughter #2: “Mom, if you hadn’t married Dad, we’d be ugly.”
Daughter #2: “I’m going to make sadness brownies.” A week later: “I’m going to make sickness brownies.”
Daughter #1 (driving) to Daughter #2 (behind her in the back seat): “Stop pressing on my seatbelt with your toes!”
Daughter #2: “You can feel that?”
Daughter#1: “Yes. It’s pressing into my ovaries!”
Me to Daughters: “The dishwasher makes things smell because you don’t rinse your dishes. Eggs turn into cement of you just throw the plate in the sink.”
Daughter #1: “Well, why did Dad get that dishwasher?”
Me: “It’s super-quiet and has a delay setting.”
Daughter #1: “It’s super-quiet because it’s not cleaning anything.”
Next post….”Underwear and how many pairs women supposedly have” (working title)…seriously, that’s the next one…enjoy your week beneath the fine powder of pollen.
Filed under: Exercise, Middle Age, Posts, Spring Break, Travel | Tags: adulthood, adventure, Caribbean, champagne, family, French, humor, islands, Loterie Farm, Middle-Age, sports, Spring Break, St. Maarten, subourbonmom, travel, zip-lines
Day Three of Spring Break, St. Maarten:
Today was one of those perfect days you fantasize about when you’re scraping the windshield and cursing the fact that you didn’t get that finicky backseat window in your car fixed before winter hit.
Our intrepid leader Mark and his up-for-anything assistant Stazzi took us to a place called The Loterie Farm (pronounced “Lottery Farm,”), an oasis in the middle of St. Maarten that offers an idyllic infinity pool with cabanas you can rent, straight out of “Who The Hell Lives Like That?” magazine. (This is the genre of magazine that features houses with all-white furniture and carpets, and ads for curtains that cost more than my snow-covered car.) For the more adventurous, there is a network of zip-lines and hiking trails throughout the jungle.
Before we left, there was the usual 45 minutes of trying to round up seven people and all of their gear for the day:
Me: “Does anyone have the bug spray? Did you put sunscreen on? No you didn’t—you’re not shiny enough. Put it on—not here, outside! Did you bring sneakers? You can’t zip-line in flip flops…”
Everyone else: “Mommmm…”
Eventually, Mark and Stazzi managed to corral all of us into the rental van. When we arrived at The Loterie Farm, we entered the pool area and plunked our gear down. What a surprise! We were a loud, laughing group of Americans invading a quiet and serene European setting–no wonder they hate us. A frowning French waiter brought a complementary bucket of champagne, which made me salivate like a dog looking at a steak, but that would have to wait—there was zip-lining to do first. After all, I do have a little bit of a work ethic.
The zip-lining was as fun as it was exhausting – I definitely recommend it to anyone with a sense of adventure. After and hour of straining muscles over a ropes course and clipping and un-clipping ourselves to various cables and trees, the tired Fam plodded down the last wooden ramp to the fix-it-yourself rum punch bar—seriously, they had that. I love Island People. The more athletic and wise among us (Daughters 1&2) made do with water. Dripping with jungle sweat from squatting and zipping and maneuvering my not-as-limber-as-I-thought body around, I went back for champagne and my bathing suit.
Guess who didn’t bring hers?
Hubby, already in his suit and ready to get into the pool and cool off with a glass of the bubbly, saw me getting ready to FTFO and took me to the Teeny, Tiny boutique that was there just for forgetful people like me, to buy a suit. Everything in that boutique was Teeny Tiny, including The Loterie Farm Dog, a Chihuahua named Felly who periodically got the “zoomies” and ran in circles before collapsing in the grass ( I think I lost 20 minutes just watching him). The only things not Teeny Tiny were the price tags. Of course, the Teeny Tiniest things in the boutique were the bathing suits. And Ladies, in case you were wondering, Land’s End tank-inis don’t exist in Europe or The Islands, except on suburban-American moms. We may think we are camouflaging the muffin-tops in them, but the rest of the world can spot us a mile away, and they shrink back in horror.
What I ended up purchasing was a band-aide-sized, black and white bikini that, next to my sunburned skin, made me look like a zebra with a bad case of mange. You could clearly see the tan lines left by my forgotten suit.
Mortified, I wrapped a towel around my waist, trying desperately to ignore the fact that there was air coming down the back of the bottoms because—yes, it’s gross, but true—I’m pretty sure I actually had crack showing. Classy.
But, after a delicious tapas meal and a couple (make that several) boat drinks over which we solved the problems of the world, I was no longer mortified. In fact, I felt kind of French—I had a too-small bathing suit, lack of inhibitions, and an attitude of undeserved privilege—or is that more like a recent college grad? It’s hard to tell the difference, except for the accent.
Either way, I decided it was a pretty nice way to spend time on vacation; and since Daughters 1 & 2 are closer to graduating than I will ever be again, I’ll just have to become French. Oui?
“Mommmmm…”
“I know, I know. Put some more sunscreen on. You’re not shiny enough.”
Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Parenting, Posts, Sports | Tags: adulthood, apps, condoms, football, hormones, humor, libraries, Marriage, Middle-Age, mom, NFL, parenting, sex, sports, subourbonmom, teenagers, teens, WiFi
As promised last week, here are a few inventions I would like to patent but never will, because I am lazy, can’t do math or chemistry, and don’t want librarians or activists to hunt me down. Football coaches, I’ve seen your physiques–good luck catching me.
1. Condoms with the words “What Would Jesus Do?” printed on them. It’s the perfect compromise, people—pro-choice, and yet discouraging at the same time. For the non-Christians among us, substitute whatever deity you believe in. For atheists and religions that don’t worry so much about sex as much as Christians do, change it to “Do you like changing diapers?” If you are more worried about disease than pregnancy, or if you work for the CDC, change it to, “Do you have your $50 co-pay ready?”
Puke Pourri:
Spritz our smelly stuff about,
And the puke smell’s gone
By the time you check out!
2. A spray that makes library books stop smelling like vomit. Daughter #2 always asks me, “When we can go to Barnes & Noble?,” (we are not electronic readers) and I always reply that the library books are free, so we should go there instead. “Not thanks,” is her reply. When I asked her why she never wanted to go to the library, Daughter #2 said, “They always smell like throw-up.” So of course, I went to the library and amused myself (and others I’m sure) by smelling lots of books in the children and teen sections. You know what? She was right. They do smell like vomit. So, in the same spirit as the incredibly wonderful Poo-Pourri spray (sold at Hallmark–thanks Debra!) that eliminates poo odors in the bathroom, I would invent “Puke-Pourri” spray, conveniently sold at all libraries. It could even be a fundraiser for our national libraries!
3. A remote, phone-specific disconnection timer app that would disconnect certain phones in my house from the WiFi for certain periods of time during the day, like 7:00-8:00am, and during scheduled homework times. This would make getting out the door in the mornings with teenagers easier, and the process of getting homework done much faster. This app would be controlled by specific phones (mine), so the teenagers could not turn it off. I Googled it–so far all I saw was a list of sites complaining about phones disconnecting all by themselves…
4. The hormone alert wristband. If only humans were as straight-forward as cats when they want to have sex. When a cat is in heat, she will meow incessantly, sending out her mating call for all the tomcats in the area to hear (It’s only finny if it’s not your cat). If only men and women could send out signals like that in a bar, or, even better, after a decade or three of marriage. The hormone alert wristband can be made for both men and women. The woman’s band would determine estrogen and progesterone fluctuations, alerting her partner that her emotions might be running high, or that her estrogen levels are low, so trying any hanky-panky is most likely futile (unless you want to keep pestering for some pity sex, in which case I say good luck to you–keep trying and you might draw back a bloody stump). The men’s wristband would detect testosterone levels, alerting his companion to the fact that he is more likely to be aggressive; and it would detect vasopressin levels which, according to a Men’s Health article (http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/understanding_sex_and_the_brain/printer.ph), are involved in regulating sexual persistence, assertiveness, dominance, and territorial marking. High vasopressin levels could alert his partner to the increased likelihood that the man will want sex, or might be inclined to wander. Either way, if a woman’s estrogen levels are low at the same time, put the basketball game on–he won’t bother you or anyone else.
Photo courtesy of ajc.com
6. An NFL coach that teaches players how to tackle.
Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Sports | Tags: adulthood, Corn Hole, family, football, games, humor, Middle-Age, south, southern, sports, subourbonmom, tailgate, Virginia, weddings
I have a new talent. It’s not very often once you hit your forties, you discover something new about yourself that doesn’t have to do with migrating hair or the fact that the doctors on Gray’s Anatomy all look like they’re children.
This summer, I discovered I’m pretty good at corn hole.
The revelation occurred during a wedding reception. Daughter #2 and I tossed our way into a corn hole victory, wearing summer dresses and aiming for a board painted with twining, pastel flowers. What a welcome departure from the typical wedding small talk over bacon-wrapped scallops and monogrammed mints!
A couple of weeks later, Hubby and his work buddies set up a corn hole game in the glass lobby of their office. After hours, we played several games, with the added risk of shattering three stories of glass on a mis-throw. As we played, I realized that corn hole is like dancing: one beer will loosen up the arms, but two or three beers produce uncoordinated, jerky motions that cause folks to shake their heads and back away.
I didn’t realize corn hole had become a part of my psyche until a couple of weekends ago, when we went to the Montpelier Steeple Chase races in Central Virginia.
Tailgates sported silver candelabra and flower arrangements that belonged in an issue of Southern Living. Colorful hats, feathers and scarves competed with the jockey’s silks against a backdrop of falling leaves. Southern men staggered around in khakis and button down shirts, clutching red solo cups filled with bourbon or gin while their dates grabbed an arm and led them over to the track to watch the races. Vendors touted overpriced boots, and hats, and artwork to grace libraries and sitting rooms.
One vendor was selling chairs and pillows covered with hand-painted watercolor animals and insects. I was about to move on to the tent with Kettle Korn and gyros, when I noticed a small pile of square beanbags that were also painted in the same style for $20 – $40 each. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why anyone would pay such a ridiculous amount of money for corn-hole bags. It wasn’t until I picked one up, felt its weight and caught a whiff of lavender that I realized they couldn’t possibly be corn hole bags. They were sachet bags–the kind that women sometimes put in their underwear drawer. (Does anyone even still use those?) The fact that I even knew this was due to my proper southern upbringing; but like tomato aspic or chicken gizzards, just because I know what a sachet is doesn’t mean I partake.
Having been introduced to the addictive world of corn hole, I’ve decided it should not be limited to NASCAR, football and weddings. I think the DMV should have them, as should the Post Office, women’s bathroom lines at concerts, and on the back of road construction trucks, ready to be dropped at a moment’s notice when traffic comes to a standstill on I-95. What better way to kill time and make a group of strangers come together in a spirit of camaraderie?
So grab a couple of boards, prop them up, and raid your kid’s toy box. You never know when you might need to make some friends, or just pass the time while life goes on around you. For those of you still too proud to admit you like corn hole, just tell people you’re throwing sachet bags around.
Subourbon Mom 