A Little Help, Please

Hugh and I are planning to do it up right when we celebrate our fifteenth anniversary in September. We would like to do it somewhere tropical. With nice beaches, snorkeling availability and good food, preferably all-inclusive.

We don’t want to cruise, though.

So? Any suggestions out there? One of my girlfriends raves about St. Lucia. Is there anywhere that any of you would recommend?

Please, feel free to de-lurk if you have a suggestion. I promise I don’t bite.

What the Doctors Don’t Tell You

Every year at my annual groping, my gynecologist asks me a series of questions about my health and habits and, each year when she asks if I am taking a daily calcium supplement I smile brightly and lie through my teeth; yep!

I am determined not to be a liar this year and have thus started choking down two giant horse-pill-sized calcium caplets each day. I was feeling quite virtuous about it, too. That is, until I started to notice certain, um...difficulties in the bathroom arena.

Without going into too much detail, allow me to be the first to inform you of a little known fact that the doctor will not share with you; calcium causes constipation.

Like, really.

Never fear, after much research on the topic I learned that a simple magnesium supplement counter-acts the plugging properties of the calcium and is required by your body for muscle repair, etc, anyway. So, now I swallow a dainty little magnesium tablet after gagging myself on the giant horse-pill-sized calcium supplements and all is well in Pooperville.

Thank goodness for Doctor Google.

Also, my damn body had better appreciate my efforts; if I wake up twenty years from now with a spine that is doing an S-curve after all this effort, I will not be a happy camper.

Oh, I will exploit my unfortunate condition for purposes of creating truly creepy Halloween costumes (think, Igor) but I will not be happy about it.

Perhaps I Should Clarify (Because I Just Can't Embarrass My Son Enough)

Yesterday’s post about the Man-Cub’s old underwear prompted several people, including my mother, to comment about how odd it seems for a school to ask for underwear donations. I explained to my mother that the underwear is given to kids who have accidents in school and, while the Cub is nine years old and most kids his age are clearly past the stage of accidentally crapping their pants, the underwear in question was a size 6/8 and I imagine that there are six-year olds who still have accidents (and a few who are large enough to wear a size 8 boxer short).

And yes, I realize that the fact that my nine-year-old son was wearing underwear designed for children ages six to eight probably contributed to the whole wedgie issue. In my defense, my son is a skinny little monster with nonexistent hips and absolutely no butt; larger underwear slipped right off, which could prove far more embarrassing for him than wearing underwear designed for a second grader. You know, should a playground de-pantsing incident ever occur.

I’m just sayin’

And It Goes Without Saying That I Labeled Everything

This Saturday was the first in recent memory that Hugh has not had to be away from home for wrestling or other job-related tasks. It was nice to have him around and you can be certain that I put our time together to good use.

Welcome to Honey-Do Saturday, Hugh! Glad you could make it.

We Hugh accomplished almost everything on my Honey-Do list; he cleaned out the garage and the attic above it. He installed the new drop-down staircase thingie to the attic so that I will no longer have to pull out a ladder every time I need to get up there. He put away all of the boxes of holiday decorations and cleaned most of his junk out of the office in preparation for installing our new computer.

Did he actually get to the part where he installed the new computer? Not so much. But, I have high hopes for it happening sometime this week.

While Hugh methodically checked items off the Honey-Do list, I transferred home videos from VCR tapes and super 8 cassettes onto DVDs. It took hours but I feel like a huge chore is out of the way. Also, it was a lot of fun to watch the videos (I cannot believe my children were ever so small. And, delicious, my god, the cheeks! I just wanted to reach through the television screen and eat them. And, I digress).

While the videos were transferring, I cleaned out the Man-Cub’s drawers and bagged all of his old underwear to donate to the school nurse (the last newsletter from the Principal practically begged for underwear donations as the school’s present supply was dwindling which? Ewww. But, mine is not to question why, mine is to replace the Cub’s wedgie-creating undies with new well-fitting undies so that he might refrain from constantly picking at his ass. Having somewhere to send the banished wedgie-producing undies is a bonus. Also? Digressing, again).

This morning, I handed the Cub the bag of old underwear and asked him to drop it off at the office on his way to his classroom. You would have thought that I had handed the kid a pistol and told him to bring me a few hostages instead. He was practically in tears when I relented and agreed to take the Bag o’ Panties in to the school myself. Of course, I had planned on doing it myself all along but I needed some entertainment this morning and nothing says “good times” like torturing a small child.

I like to start the day off right.

It Doesn’t Take Much To Make Me Happy

Yesterday I purchased an electronic hand-held label maker. I’m not sure what it says about me that I am so giddy over such a thing but, that’s how I roll.

When I was a kid I desperately wanted a label maker, you may remember them, a gizmo that punched out labels on plastic strips? That thingie? Yes, well, I always wanted one and now I have an even better one; life doesn’t get much better than that.

Except, it does! Guess what I did all day today? I bought merchandise for the store. I spent my day shopping and I got paid to do it. Nirvana? Xanadu? Shangri-la? However you want to label it; it’s paradise to me.

Get it? Label it?

Ha! I slay me.

Nuts

Last night Hugh, Emily and I attended a Business After Hours held by the Chamber of Commerce (Oscar is out of town so we willingly obliged Emily’s offer to escort her to the event; hey she paid!).

The After Hours was held at a new bank in town and, having heard a lot about the artwork that one of my friends had been commissioned to do for the building, I was looking forward to attending.

I was also very much looking forward to taking a small break from the sugar detox and thus joined the line to the dessert table, eyeing a plate of chocolate-raspberry brownies; my god, they looked good.

Too bad they tasted like ass.

Seriously, my brownie crumbled into dust the second I stuck a fork in it. I was so disappointed and, at that point, the other desserts, which may or may not have proven more promising, were already gone.

I could have cried.

I complained mightily about the injustice visited upon me by the asslike brownie for the remainder of the evening and I’m sure Emily was happy to be done with my whining when we finally dropped her off at her house.

Hugh wasn’t so fortunate since he does live with me and had to listen to my continued bitching the rest of the way home. At least the conversation was entertaining:

Chelle: That brownie sucked. I can’t believe they would actually serve something so vile. It was totally dried out.

Hugh: Of course they were gross, they had nuts in them.

Chelle: Whatever, nut-hater. I’ve had plenty of brownies with nuts in them and they were just fine.

Hugh: Maybe they were moist nuts. Ha! You like moist nuts!

Chelle: You wish.

Who Cut the Cheese?

I love French Onion Soup. The golden broth, the caramelized onions, the low-fat crouton smothered in low-fat cheese and broiled ever so slightly; my mouth waters just thinking about it. So, I ask you Oh Wise Internet, why does something so delicious have to produce gas so rank?*

Inquiring minds want to know.

Inquiring minds also want to know why I am typing this entry surrounded by jungle animals, AKA: Webkinz. Do my children not know how to put their toys away?

That was a rhetorical question, by the way; I know my children know how to put their toys away. They just don’t.

Plus, if someone had found the time in his busy schedule to actually install our new computer I wouldn’t be sitting here surrounded by a dog, a monkey, a tree frog and an elephant; they would be clustered around the children’s computer clear across the room.

I’m just sayin’.

*Um, you know the gas to which I am referring emanates from other members of my family and not from my pure-as-the-driven-snow digestive tract, right? Just so we’re clear.