happy halloween

Halloween is over. Thank God, but at the same time, boo. When we were kids, you put on your costume, went trick or treating, inspected your loot for razor blades, threw out the candy corn and then Halloween was over. I was excited about it, sure, and I loved going to Fabric World with my mom and picking a pattern out for my costume, but Halloween was confined to a single day. Now, there is this huge lead up involving festivals, zoo-boo, costume play dates--one neighborhood here even trick or treats the night before. Everyone's yard has been full of ghosts and mummies and monsters for weeks and in one particularly disturbing case, since mid-September. It's insanity.

I had a rule. No trick or treating until you can say trick or treat. You might say I am a Halloween Grinch. In years past, I was the one who would inwardly groan when invited to a costume party. I never decorate--just some mums, which promptly die. But a couple of weeks ago, Annabelle started to notice jack-o-lanterns in people's yards, which she calls "spookies." She seemed to really like the scary houses and was always craning her neck to look for the "spookies." So my rule totally went out the window. Plus, being able to say spooky is as impressive as saying trick or treat, in my opinion, at least. I was still annoyed with all of the festivities, but of course caved to the mom pressure of participating in the neighborhood Halloween play date/party.

So I was at the play date hanging out with one of my favorite moms, a totally laid back lady, really positive and fun to be around, and she has great kids. Her daughter asked her if she could have a cookie and my friend said "You know what honey? It's Halloween, so you can have as many cookies as you want." I was watched her daughter try to comprehend this information-- the look on her face was of utter shock and joy. And that moment made my little grinchy pumpkin heart grow and grow until it blossomed into the Great Pumpkin of pumpkin hearts. It made me remember how fun Halloween is-and I for a second had that feeling of frenzied excitement I used to get when I was a kid because it dawned on me "it's Halloween, we can eat ghost cookies with sparkles on them, we can eat candy, Annabelle is going to dress up, we can make a jack-o-lantern, we can go to a carnival, and trick or treating!!!!!!!!"

And so we did all of those things. And tonight I was a sexy mama witch in orange and black tights and a black dress--a perfect compliment to Strawberry Shortcake. Even Hyphen got into the spirit by wearing an orange shirt and black sweater. I told him he was a sexy warlock, but really he was just Hyphen getting bitten by mosquitoes as we were walking down the street.

Happy Halloween!

moo cow

Quick visit to granny and ba-pa's. Annabelle and I got there on Sunday and left today (Wednesday). Annabelle loves cows, they are second only to fish in her love of animals and "moo" was one of first words and so on Sunday, we decided to take her to their neighbor's pasture to look at cows. While there, we did the following things that we really bad:

1. We rode in a pickup without a carseat

2. We rode in the bed of said pickup

3. Annabelle sat in my dad's lap, while he was driving, and messed with every knob she could get her hands on.

4. We stared death in the eyes and lived, and when I say death, I mean a pregnant cow that got a little too close to the truck.

Items 1-3 are usually illegal, except that I think if you look deep in a code book somewhere you will find the affirmative defense called "we were on a dirt road so it don't count."

My dad has a special gift for calling cows and can moo in a really realistic manner and get them all stirred up and then they moo back and head over to where we are. I guess it comes from growing up on a farm. And although Annabelle has spent her infancy in Houston, which is the exact opposite of a farm, she appears ready to pick up on ba-pa's talent yelling moo at those cows, and being delighted when the moo-ed back.

When you bring your boss over to dinner, you don't talk about hermaphrodites and undescended testes

My sister is in town. She is attending some architecture conference. So is her boss. I picked her up from the conference and brought her home to a clean house and a semi-prepared dinner of butternut squash lasagna rolls and arugula salad with figs(can you tell today is mother's day out?). While we were waiting for Hyphen to come home, her boss texted her and asked if she had any plans for dinner. I told her to invite him to come over. So he agreed and he said he would be at our house in 30 minutes.

Now, I have never in my life seen my sister, or any pregnant woman, for that matter, move around so fast, scurrying around to tidy up my house. You would think her boss was coming to her house. She got positively mom and hyphen-like in her preparation for his arrival. Meanwhile, I laughed my ass off and made some brownies. I was looking forward to it, because I have met her boss (coincidentally he and Hyphen worked together on a project for hyphen's work) and he is totally hot and has curly hair and likes soccer.

Audrey is one of those weird people who have a work persona. Her work persona is very serious. She is very much like Hyphen in this way (why God am I surrounded by anal -retentive type freaks?) and she gave us a short lecture about not embarrassing her. What, us? Embarrass?

So he gets here, we start to chat and I open with something like this: "so you architects are real serious about this CLE stuff, not like attorneys who just check in and then go get drunk at the hotel bar."

We ate dinner, and then dessert, and talked and eventually Hyphen drove him home.

Then the list of grievances began:

Audrey: "This is a professional person that I have to work with and talk to every day. Talking about penises and hermaphrodites. I have never been so embarrassed in my enitre life."

Me: "it's midnight. He stayed until midnight, obviously he was having fun. And he was the one talking about hermaphrodites."

Audrey: "the English language rip-off school for third world countries? "Ha-vad"? Why did H____ have to bring that up? He just stayed because he was shocked. And now I know he likes weirdo music and goes to clubs. Argghhh. And why did you have to tell him you have a crush on pirates? And I am not a grumpy pregnant person."

In summary:
1. Audrey's boss is a hottie
2. He stayed at our house until midnight
3. Audrey is the grumpiest pregnant person of all time.
4. shiver me timbers

camping

I could say a lot about camping with a 19 month old child. There were highs and there were lows, but to bottom line it, I will say the following (which is just good advice for life):

when your kid pukes in the tent and the dog eats it up, it's time to go home.

2 lovely things

So, I wasn't going to write until I got back from the frio, but I saw two things today that warmed my heart, and I had to share them with someone.

1. I was packing the van today (usually Hyphen does this and it involves lots of sweating and gnashing of teeth) and I saw a butterfly. I noticed that it was flapping its wings. It had caught a breeze, kind of like a surfer catches a wave and was just letting the wind take it where it blew. And I could tell that this butterfly, and it was one of those big huge black and yellow ones, was just having a good time. Like its hair was flowing in the breeze and it felt young and free and alive. And it made me feel young and free and alive. Don't you just love God's creatures?

2. My friend and I are at war with the sippy cup. They are disgusting things that stink and drip. But for Annabelle they are the last vestige of nursing. She likes to drink milk in the morning and after her nap from her sippy. And she likes for me to hold her and she likes to stroke my arm or my face while she is drinking her milk. In our house we call this and most other snuggly time "get cuddles." When Annabelle gets cuddles with her milk, she only wants mama. She really is vocal about her displeasure when papa tires to take my place. The only other people she has let hold her while she is drinking her milk are my mom and Hieu's mom. Even if we are on the go, like at Target, she will drink her milk and stroke my hand as I push the cart.

Today, as we were driving to Castroville, she asked for her milk. This was after her shoe meltdown, where she wanted her shoes on and then off for about 20 minutes and also after I saw wheels on the bus, row, row and where is thumbkin for about 30 minutes straight. She got quiet and Hyphen asked what she was doing. I looked back and saw her sucking on that damned sippy with one hand and stroking the dog's ear with the other one.

We chuckled about this and then I remembered the butterfly and said "thank you God for all the lovely things I got to see today."

On a distinctly un-lovely note, Hyphen, and I am not exaggerating about this, lasted one minute in the car before complaining about how I had packed it, in the heat, in the rain...uphill, both ways.

Do you see how kids f*!@ your life?

Today I had the pleasure of dining with an elder "gentleman," under whose tutelage I thankfully never was. We caught up on old times and he asked me if Annabelle was talking yet, to which I replied in the affirmative and then he asked me if she had said MotherFu*!@* yet. Do what? Apparently he remembered me as somewhat of a curser. I told him that I didn't curse any more, just an occasional outburst of "balls." His response: "Do you see how kids f*!@ your life?"


Now, to say that I was somewhat of a curser is like saying that the Mona Lisa is a little sketch housed in a small building in a dreary city. That made me wonder, do I miss cursing? Was that something that was so intrinsic to my personality that I am less because of it? Because let me tell you, there is nothing for blowing off steam like letting a string of the foulest obscenities you can think of, roll off your tongue like butter. I had one sequence I liked to use in particular that was so raunchy that I can't put it in this blog because it shocks my dad and he cringes when he hears "you girls" say foul words.

My mom says you go through stages in life. She calls them etapas. And when one is over, ya bastante--you move on. And you don't move on and forget, you look wistfully back, but you move on. For instance, before we had Annabelle, we once went out for drinks at one restaurant and then headed over to Cyclone Anayas for Margaritas. At some point, something disagreed with me and I ended up in the bathroom, vomiting profusely. I thought I had a stomach ache, but then Hyphen came into the bathroom and informed me that I would get arrested for PI if I didn't pull it together, it was only then that it occurred to me that I was drunk. We drove home and I was furious with him for being so unkind to me that it was only a small consolation that I puked in his beloved car.

The Cyclone Anaya time of our marriage is over. Ya, bastante. I am glad it happened. I look back on it fondly. But I can never go back. Does this make me sad?

I don't want my baby to say "I said no, god dammit!" as one of my friends' kids did. So I stopped cursing.

I was good at cursing. I loved cursing. I am glad I did it, it was wonderful while it happened, but I can never go back to that time, even if I wanted to. That was one thing about me and does not define me and did not make me who I am.

Somehow, I don't think I am talking about swear words anymore.

Oprah once gave some advice (shocker) "You will create new normal," she said. And you do that. You do that when you have kids, when you change jobs, when you leave a job you loved, even when you quit cursing.

My current etapa leads me to the frio river where I will be camping this weekend with family and friends. We are leaving tomorrow and so far Hyphen hasn't had his usual travel meltdown, but the night is young.

If you had not of fallen....

Phone call to Hyphen at about 4:30

Me: "oh, babe, can you and Annabelle spend the moring together tomorrow? I am feeling so frumpy, I need to get my nails done and my lip waxed, I just look so bedraggled."

H: "Yeah, I've been meaning to tell you that you're starting to look like Willie Nelson."

Me: "Red-headed stranger Willie Nelson or I-won't-even-carry-a-tune-to-the-songs-I-wrote Willie Nelson?"

H: "the latter."

Hmm. Either way, it's not good. I'd better stay away from bandanas, for now, anyway.

my kind of neighbors

Tuesday was Texas night out, moved form August to combat the heat--ha! We had an off the grid party at our house, off the grid, because it wasn't one of the official neighborhood ones. We invited some neighbors and had Kobe beef hot dogs, chips, cokes and beer. The party was rolling along, and I went to the garage to get some more lawn chairs. I came back and saw the po-po parked in front of our house, with lights flashing. I thought "oh crap, are we making a noise disturbance?" Then I realized it was National Night Out and they were probably just chauffeuring some local politico around and handing out McGruff T-shirts, which they were.

They left and then my feisty old lady neighbor and her husband came ambling up the driveway. She owns a flower shop, has a beehive hairdo and wears horn-rimmed glasses with rhinestones bedazzled onto them. She walked up with a barbie for Annabelle in one hand and a Miller Light in the other.

Fiesty: "we were coming earlier but I saw the cops and I thought I'd wait 'till they left."

Me: "Why? Because of your open warrant?"

Fiesty:"How'd you know about that?"

We shot the bull 'til way after dark.

hi hooooooooooooooo silver, a-way!

So I have a cold. I feel like an alien has sucked all the nutrients out of my body. And when mama is sick, well, to be blunt, nobody really gives a shit. Well, that's not exactly true, Annabelle just doesn't get it, but she does say "Bless you," so that's nice. Needless to say, there was no baptist song camp, no story time--I didn't even make the bed. I just sat on the couch and read the same story to her about a 100 times, and I was happy to do it, because it meant I was sitting still. By dinner I was feeling a little better and I cleaned the kitchen while Hyphen mowed the lawn (on a side note, Hyphen has been mowing the lawn twice a week, which is a marked improvement from twice a year and thus far, no trips to the emergency room). I bathed Annabelle while he got cleaned up. After bath time, Annabelle frequently goes to find her dad in her birthday suit. Then he yells, "Naked baby!" and they laugh. Tonight was no exception and there was the added bonus of what was playing on the ipod, my favorite country song of all time: Elvira.

So there they were, an asian, a naked baby and my idiot turned country-ass dog, all dancing to Elvira. Sometimes, no matter how bad you feel, you got to join in and giddy up a-um-ba-pa-um-ba-pa-mow-mow.

my mom went home today, boo.

Having a house that was built in 1941, before there was a super-walmart, and therefore before there were super-walmart sized closets, causes you to be creative with storage. For instance, my rubbing alcohol is in my bathroom closet on the very top shelf behind my very heavy cleaning caddy. I put it, and all the other medicines, there because we don't (thankfully) need them very often. Last night, after our afternoon trip to the Y pool, my mom needed it for her ears. I groaned when she told me she needed it, because I knew where it was and I am lazy and tired and I didn't feel like digging out the step ladder from the behind the vacuum cleaner in the hall closet to get it. Right as I climbed onto the ladder my mom decided to thank me for my efforts by pantsing me for the second time that evening. I looked at her with the pj's around my ankles and used the insult I had been saving for such an occasion:



"your butt's so big, it unravels you underwear."