A Family Outing

Nick and I decided to take C and his friend from school to King's Dominion this past Friday and overall it was a wonderful day.  As with any trip, we had a few hiccups and a few highlights.  I'd like to share a couple of these with you.

I love Nick and I'm about to explain why in a couple sentences.  I am relatively intolerant of other people's kids when they are ill mannered.  Nick makes me look like the patron saint of patience.  While waiting for one of our first rides, a child of about 15-16 wanted to appear to be using oral tobacco products (aka dip) and so to make the appearance realistic, he found it necessary to spit all over the walk way and railing where everyone was trudging along and leaning as they waited patiently in line for their turn on The Grizzly.  Folks, it wasn't just a drop or two.  The kid was spitting enough to make Pavlov's dogs jealous.  I was wondering if he had an issue with his salivary glands because no normal person would produce that much spit whether using a tobacco product or not.  Well me being me, I figured if I just bitched loudly enough that they could catch the general idea of what was being said and hoped that the words "No son, it's just that his mother didn't raise him better" would be enough of a hint for the kid to stop spitting all over the place.  Not one for subtlety, Nick speaks up and says "Hey kid, how about you stop fuckin' spittin' all over the place where people are walking?"  As you may suspect, the kid refrained from spitting on The Grizzly and, apparently scared straight, he wasn't spitting in the line of the next ride we saw him in several hours later either.  I was deathly afraid that this was going to be a trend for the rest of the day.  Kid acts stupid.  Nick tells them why they are stupid.  Fortunately, this was an isolated incident and Nick didn't have to straighten anyone else out for the rest of the day (myself included.)

After the issue of the spitting kid was resolved, we were free to move on with our day.  Nick is great to ride roller coasters with.  I talk a lot.  I know this.  I don't need anyone to tell me.  On the total opposite end of the spectrum is Nick.  He is generally a fairly quiet man.  However, for some reason he wants to have a full conversation with me as the roller coaster is zooming around a track.  I'm being jostled to the point of acquiring black eyes and a concussion, screaming my face off, and Nick is talking to me about the roller coaster, his future plans, and whatever else comes to mind in that 3 minutes and 46 seconds.  I don't want this to change.  It's just an observation.  If I want to know what's going on with Nick, take him on a roller coaster.

At some point in the day, I decided it was best to blame all my insane screaming on Nick.  It's not like the people in front or behind us can actually see what's going on.  They just hear screaming as if someone is being stabbed to death in a cart near them.  So when the cart stopped rolling, I would exclaim "NICK!  IS ALL THAT SCREAMING REALLY NECESSARY?"  to which Nick answered "DAMN IT WOMAN!  I WILL BEAT YOU!" and everyone in all the carts around us broke up laughing hysterically.  

Another favorite moment for me was riding the Intimidator with C.  For some reason, this roller coaster scares the beejezus out of C.  I'm not sure if it's the part where you are cruising up a 305 foot hill at an extremely steep incline or if its the part where you really can't see what's coming up next or if it's the part where you drop 290-some-odd feet at close to 100 mph but what ever it is, it scares the crap out of little C.  Well, for every other roller coaster in the park, C had been a brave trooper.  He rode with his friend.  For this one, he insisted on riding with his dear old mom.  As we were going up the hill, C's eyes got about as big as saucers and he began to have a full blown panic attack.  My son started screaming "OH MY GOD! WE'RE GONNA DIE!" at the top of his lungs when we were roughly 250 feet in the air.  A great mother probably would've had some great thing to say that would make it all better.  I'm apparently not that mother.  When he freaks out like that, he freaks me out too.  I looked over at him after we had made the gigundous plummet to the Earth and he screamed "Woooohoooo!"  

So anyway, that sums up the major events of our day at Kings Dominion.  First, Nick loves kids that spit. Second, Nick screams on roller coasters, and lastly, C loves the Intimidator. 

Suzy Q: The Diabolical Dog

Suzy, came to live with us a few months ago after her owner contacted me and stated that he was being evicted for having a dog unless Suzy found a new home.  Since coming to live with us, I have spent many minutes each day chasing a little brown and white dog across our yard and yelling at Suzy to get out of our bathtub.  Apparently, the water droplets in there taste better than the water in her bowl.  She is cute and small and graceful and moves more like a bunny rabbit than a dog when she runs.  I call her "Bunny-Dog" and Nick calls her "Tiny Dancer Dog."

First, Suzy is a Jack Russell Terrier.  The Chihuahua in her is inconsequential.  She looks like a Jack Russell Terrier.  She acts like a Jack Russell Terrier.  Therefore, for all intents and purposes, she is a Jack Russell Terrier.  Second, we are NOT Jack Russell Terriers so Suzy has infinitely more energy than anyone else in our household.  We sent my offspring to play with Suzy outside once and, ten minutes later, he came back with the ball, sweaty and panting, asking to please go inside.  Suzy stood in the yard wondering who was going to play with her next.  To tire her out, we decided to try sending Suzy out with Nick on a run.  Suzy was wiped out for a good hour or two afterward.  Nick was wiped out for a solid week.  Now we just take her into the backyard and get her really excited until she runs frantic circles around everyone and then eventually collapses.  It works for us.  It works for her.  

Another characteristic of Suzy (and of most Jack Russell Terriers from what I understand) is that she is smarter than most people.  Suzy "treat" trains like a champ.  Most maneuvers only require 4-5 repetitions and she's got it.  This is a far cry from Brutus the Chinese Crested who, after saying his name daily for months, I'm quite confident would've answered to "Kitty" and had no idea who the hell "Brutus" was.  Assuming it would be a futile gesture, I never attempted "sit" or "down" or "stay."  Brutus is cute but we'll just say his bulb is pretty dim.  

You may be wondering why the "Suzy is smart" thing is an issue.  Well, Suzy has a diabolical mind and she is evil.  Suzy screws with Nick and Christian because she can.  Me, she seems to like.  Nick thinks she and I are in cahoots so I spend a disproportionate amount of time in trouble.  Suzy prefers to jump on balls.  Not the rollie kind that get fetched... the kind you really don't want jumped on... the kind I don't have.  If Suzy jumps on the couch, she's aiming for gonads.  Somehow, telepathically, I tell her to do this.

Nick also seems to believe that I ask Suzy to position her rear end on his arm as she lays next to him.  After all the crap that we have been through with Nick's shoulder, I would never risk harm to Nick's arm like that.  Suzy's anus could wilt plastic flowers.  Suzy is 10 pounds of tiny dog capable of producing the most noxious flatulence ever experienced by man.  It's not my fault that I fan it away from myself.  I'm certainly not going to sit there and marinade.  By the time Nick realizes what has happened, he yells "Oh Jesus!" jumps up, and runs from the room.  Then when the room has cleared and Suzy's trying to figure out what happened, she lets out an impressive burp that vibrates the glass in the window panes.  Nick and I stare on in disbelief that such a cute and graceful little dog could be so offensive.  Suzy lays back down and resumes licking her feet.    

Nick and I have spent a few nights discussing whether or not the eviction story was true.  I have my own theory.  I believe the owners chose not to keep Suzy because she is a handful.  She is a bundle of energy and the gas thing is enough to evoke fear in the faint of heart but we love her.  If you have no experience with dogs and are not a critter person, Suzy would NOT be the dog for you.  She would alpha dog out on you and make you her bitch.  With the right amount of discipline, however, she is a total goofball and manages to fit right in with our family (except for the gas thing... we all still run from the room while yelling "Damn it, Suzy!")

Why Telemarketers Are Better Off Calling Someone Else

Today was my first telemarketing call in months.  I'm pretty sure there is a warning note that comes up next to my number.  "DO NOT CALL THIS WOMAN.  SHE WILL GO BAT SHIT ON YOU."
Today some poor bastard made the mistake of calling my cell phone and asking to speak to Nick.  The first error came in dialing my number.  The second was in asking for Nick.  Since Nick and I live together and, as such, he has to hear all my bitching about telemarketers calling and asking for him, it's highly unlikely that he would torture himself by giving out my phone number just for giggles.  If Nick wants to talk to someone, one would suspect that Nick would give them HIS number rather than handing out mine.
As usual, upon direct questioning a gentleman with a foreign accent suspiciously named "Bob" refused to disclose how he had acquired my telephone number.  He stated he was with the "Fitness Research Marketing Firm" and that he could only speak with Mr. Deatherage.  "Boob" and I went round and round about this detail for several minutes and he seemed to fail to grasp the facts that a) he was calling the wrong number to speak with "Mr. Deatherage" and b) hell would freeze over before I would provide him with the right number.
In closing our conversation, I asked Boob to remove my phone number from their database and he let me know that he would try back for Nick later.  Seriously?  Did this guy drink from the really good flask before he left for work this morning?  What part of "you have the wrong number if you are trying to reach Nick" and "take my number out of your database" did this jackass fail to understand?  I wished him good luck with that one.
There is only one company that we have recently associated my phone number with Nick's name and if, in my super scattered brain, I can remember who it is, I will never buy so much as a one cent piece of candy from them again.  So take that.

Prediction: At Blogging, I will be a failure.

I'm not sure this is a good idea.  I'm not sure this is even possible.  For one, the name of the page says it all.  My life is a zoo.  Not the fun kind with cool animals with nice stripes where you carry cups of food and dispense it to the friendly animals that are brave enough to approach the two-legged jerks who wrongfully incarcerate them in the first place.  My life is the crazy kind where the zoo keeper got too close to the chimpanzees and got knocked out or his face got ripped off and the wild primates managed to steal the keys and unlock every cage along the way.  I've been accused of being a drama queen or over exaggerating but, in all honesty, I have no imagination and couldn't make this shit up if I tried.  I just have horrible luck.  My saving graces are a good sense of humor, a boyfriend who laughs at me a lot, and a child with the patience of a Saint.  If any of the three were missing, I would've been wearing an "I love me" jacket in a round padded room a long time ago.
The second reason why I think I will be a blogging failure is because I don't get it.  It took me 20 minutes just to figure out how to get to this page.  I have a Twitter but I didn't really get it either so I never "tweeted."  I didn't follow anyone.  I couldn't figure out how to read anything so I just sat and stared at a blank screen and said "Oh screw it!" and went back to watching the main page on Facebook.  I can "like" with the best of them but "tweeting" was beyond me.  My lovely pseudo-sister-in-law Steph obviously gets it.  She has this very lovely main page.  There is a beautiful picture of her and her lovely family.  Her blog is well organized and complete with advertisements.  My blog has a heading.  I was shamed into making this post.  If it develops into something more complete, it will surprise the hell out of me.  P.S.  I was also an abysmal failure at keeping a diary as a kid too.
The third reason is because I have stage fright.  My sister once invited me to read a blog of hers and then (I prefer to believe that she) must have forgotten she sent me an invitation to view her blog some months before because the blog was not very flattering towards me.  Oops.  First, I wouldn't write about my family and friends in an unflattering light...  that's bedroom talk for Nick and me and is not anyone else's business.  I tend to reserve the low blows for folks I generally have no respect for so I don't expect to find myself in a similar situation but I would always be worried that I may offend someone who thought I was talking about them.  If I do mention people that I sort of have to deal with, I will change their name or use my favorite alter ego nickname for them.  Almost everyone has one.  I'm horrible with given names.  I'm much better with the names I choose for people.

Anyway, These reasons are why I predict I will be a failure at blogging.