Our Happiness Journal

It's been years since I've written anything for Tootsie and Bubby, but I am starting anew today with our happiness journal. Each one of us must contribute one happy event from the day in order to bring joy to anyone who reads or feels connected.

Me: I enjoyed a delicious coconut macaroon today!

Tootsie: I ate lunch! We'll do better tomorrow.

Bubby: I played scatterball in gym today and got 15 people out!

My mom is made of spaghetti-put yourself inside the head of an 8 year old

You would think this is weird, but it's actually super cool. She is floppy and wiggly. She smells delicious and can dance like a maniac. She slips under the door like it's nothing, and her hugs are to die for. Nothing beats a mom made of spaghetti.

Ode to Out of Area

Who are you, mysterious caller?
Ringing me at dinnertime,
Or while I am packing lunches.
What ever is your urgency or lack thereof?
Because you hang up
When I pick up.
I'm the one you shouldn't call
Don't want to talk to you at all.

I'm going to sing this into the phone, opera style, next time I get a call. Hope it's not anyone I know because I can't sing to save my life.

Early Morning Friend

Tonight, I got to the privilege of going to bed early, so it only makes sense that one of the smoke detectors would experience a dead battery. The chirping woke me from my restful slumber somewhere around 12:57 A.M. I lay there for a while, my nerves frying up with every intermittent chirp. So I dragged myself out of bed, wandering the house, stargazing at the ceiling.

All better now that I found the culprit and replaced the battery, but I am wide awake in the middle of the night with a ladder and an armful of 9 volt batteries.

Old Posts

I was reading some old posts, most of which I completely forget writing, and I came across one about memory loss. Pretty ironic, right? I thought I would share with you my realization That I now have the memory of a goldfish. The other day I reheated my coffee, in the Microwave for 22 seconds. When the timer sounded, I stood there utterly perplexed and asked, "Who put what in the microwave?" Yup, goldfish, which then reminded me it had been quite Some time since I fed the goldfish.

The Dead Dog Is Hysterical

It turns out that the boy has quite the imagination, and I learned about it in such a way that struck me like a Shirley Jackson "Charlie" moment. He has really had me fooled all these years. Let me first give you the picture:

Then the situation:
So, the boy shared with his teacher and his first grade classmates the heart-wrenching story that his beloved dog was dying. There were tears and prayers and everything. And this picture. How terribly sad... a first grade boy losing his loyal companion, the one that spent every moment at the boy's side. Apparently, the dog had eaten all of the candy and became horribly ill. Even worse, the dog was unconscious on the kitchen floor when we left for school, leaving the children to fear that the dog would probably be dead by the time we returned home in the afternoon. He even drew this picture to deal with his overwhelming grief. Are you crying yet?

Here are the problems:

1. We don't have a pug, and we never will. I have no patience for that constant snorting. Please.
2. Our dog didn't eat any candy.
3. He's not on the kitchen floor unconscious. Never was. Has never even had the consideration to get sick on the kitchen floor. As a matter of fact, if he were to be anywhere unconscious and dying, he would purposely lie down on the carpet in front of my bedroom door so that as I stumble out of my room  in a groggy haze to wake the kids for school, I will step in the mess he leaves behind.
4. I know I have a raisin heart, but I would never leave a dying dog on my kitchen floor, cart the kids off to school, and tell them he would be dead when we come home. I am cruel, but I'm not Mommy Dearest cruel.
5. Here's the biggest problem: the dog is perfectly healthy.

How did I find out about this? My son's teacher stopped me out of the blue to tell me she was so glad the dog was okay. Here's the conversation:
Teacher: "We are all so relieved the dog is okay."
Me: "What dog?"
Teacher: "Bubby told us all about your dog and how he almost died."
Me: "The dog almost died? What?" (I was taken off guard so seriously that I couldn't even play along. And I was desperately searching my mind for any conversations we may have had about the dog's age, his counter-surfing, his obnoxious barking at anything that moves--did we comment that he won't be around much longer if he keeps it up?) 
Teacher: "When he ate all the candy..."
Me: "Bubby ate all the candy?"
Teacher: "No, the dog." (She must have thought I was an idiot and a horrible person. Imagine her working up the courage to mention this to me after the boy had told her I left the dying dog alone on the kitchen floor.)
Me: "Our dog is perfectly fine."
Teacher: "But Bubby told us..."
Me: "I will get to the bottom of this."

It was the next day that I found the picture in Bubby's desk, had a conference with the teacher, and learned all of the disturbingly hysterical details of our imaginary dog's demise. That teacher must have thought I was the worst mother in the world. How awful of me to leave the helpless animal on the floor and tell the kids he'd be dead when we came home! Oh, I am so mean--no wonder the boy wants to please me so much--I'm a witch.

I can't stop laughing about the whole thing. Maybe he'll write some good books some day.

I'm keeping the illustration forever. I'm going to frame it and show it to his children some day. This is why I became a parent--moments like this make it all worth it.

By the way, our dog is not a cross between a centipede and a canine anyway.

Procrastination

Here I am studying for tomorrow night's exam, and my mind has been pretty much reduced to mush. I consider myself reasonably intelligent, but there are so many sentences in that textbook that I have to read three times to understand. One particular set of words, however, made me laugh right out loud, and it's either an indication of sleep-deprived immaturity or information exposure related insanity. I just couldn't get past "antidumping duties." It seems so paradoxical. It made my day.

Celebrity Dopplegangers

1. Jerry Garcia changed my oil

2. Jimmy Stewart repaired my tire

3. Albert Einstein frequents the sandwich shop

4. Elvis manages the nearby Chick-fil-a

I'll add to the list as my encounters grow.

Luck Part 2

Well, I was wrong about snow, and now it appears we will get some, which is perfectly fitting because I have a nonfunctional snowthrower dressed up in a tarp beside the house. With my luck, we will have 2 feet of very heavy shoveling snow. Oh, well, shoveling has worked for me for the past 30-some years.

Since most of us don't really need to go anywhere, I could technically let the snow just sit there until New Year's Eve when the temp is supposed to hit 50 degrees. Everything will melt, maybe. In the meantime, we can just park the SUV at the end of the driveway so that my better half can go to work.

I wonder how many people flew into a panic last night when the forecast changed and they couldn't go to the store for milk and TP because all the stores were closed on Christmas night. I have plenty of milk, but only 5 rolls of TP. Will it be enough? What if we have a TP emergency?

Speaking of TP, I am still waiting for my back yard to spontaneously bubble over since I found that empty bottle of antibacterial dishwashing liquid in the sink. Who poured the whole thing down the drain? Oh, my poor bacteria. I am certain the septic system is freaking out as I type. When the snow eventually melts and the ground is soaked, we will be able to track each other through the yard by our sudsy footprints.

Luck of the Irish

Ok, so I am not Irish. It turns out after all of these years of leprechauns and shamrocks and Irish Blessings (memorized, by the way) that I am Welsh. Not being Irish, I have no luck. See what I mean:

On the news of an approaching snowstorm, we were gifted a snowthrower. It had been sitting in a shed for a few years, so I expected some difficulty getting it started. First and foremost, I knew that as soon as the thing hit our garage, the snowstorm would be called off. I was certainly right on that one. Bummer--I love snow, but there will be little to none for us. It's just as well, though, because the snowthrower has turned into a vehicle of fuming frustration.

After finding the model and serial numbers, I downloaded the user manual so that I could buy the correct oil and mix it in proper proportion with the gas. Of course, I cannot do this without slathering myself in eau de gasoline. I followed directions to the letter, with the half gallon of gas and the oil and the shaking vigorously and the addition of the rest of the gas. I poured carefully. I turned the ignition, set the choke, pulled and pulled and pulled on the rope, but there was nothing. I then decided the carburetor must need to be cleaned, and I would approach that after Christmas.

Last night, I noticed an intense odor of gasoline in the house after the garage door had been opened. I thought it might have been the gas can, so I took it outside and left it there. This morning, the fumes were still there. I was a little afraid to start the car because I thought I would ignite the fumes and die horribly in a fiery inferno the day before Christmas. Obviously, I survived. As I walked around the car, there it sat: the snowthrower of gloom in a glistening puddle of 50:1 fuel mixture. Everything I had poured into that thing leaked right out on the garage floor. My world now smells like gasoline: the car, my clothes, the groceries.

I know it will all eventually evaporate, but for now my greatest concern is the smell attached to the Christmas presents hiding in the garage. How do I explain that Santa's reindeer drawn sled spilled gas all over our gifts?