The Truth Comes Out

The Kid is super smart.   She taught herself to read before her third birthday. We walked in the room one day and there she was...reading a book we'd never read to her.  She looked up smiling, proud of herself.  

Freaky.

She's also practical.    If something doesn't make sense to her logical little mind, it can't be true.   This can be good or bad.  When she was little, I explained that Momma cooked things on the stove and made them hot.  This made the stove hot.   She never messed with the stove.   

 Easy.

The Kid is compassionate, too.  Since she's our only child and is the only grandchild on one side and since her mother is a big bawl bag when it comes to things dealing with her only child growing up, The Kid often does things to make her mother happy. It's not just me.  She's this way with her grandmother, too.  She'll let us buy things that make us happy, not her.   She'll see a little kid movie, WE want to see, not her.   And apparently, she'll believe in things, L-O-N-G after she knows the truth, just to make us happy.

Love that child.

The Kid is now 12.   She and I are now navigating the waters where half the time she hates me; the other half she just doesn't like me that much.  There are occasional glimpses of the little girl I used to know, and I know she'll come back when she's older when I'm not so stupid, but in the meantime, it's a tentative coexistence.  

I may have to kill her before she's 20.  

The other night Big Daddy was out of town with his brother, so I took her on a Mommy-daughter date.   As we settled in the booth, our respective meals chosen, the strangest topic came up... when she stopped believing in those magical tenets of childhood:  The Easter Bunny, The Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus.   

Apparently, the answer is a long dang time ago, and I've been wasting money for years on stuff I didn't have to buy, because the Kid thought it would hurt my feelings to know the truth. 

Years ago, when the child was about five or six, she was eating a cinnamon roll during children's church.  Our church had two services and the idea was that you went to one and served in the other one.   I was working with the two and three year olds when they brought my child to me, distraught.   There was snot hanging off her chin, and she could barely speak through the gasps for breath. I saw no blood, so I quickly ran my hands over her wrists and checked her legs, sure she must have a broken bone for this intensity of crying.  I was wrong. No broken bones... a lost tooth.  Her teacher told me she had been eating her food, when she accidentally swallowed one of her baby teeth.  The Kid was upset because now the Tooth Fairy would never know.   

Being a resourceful, scrapbooking mom, that night I wrote the cutest little, decorated note from The Tooth Fairy herself, saying that The Fairy had seen what had happened and it was quite all right.  The Fairy didn't need that particular tooth and would just leave the money now, rather than in a few days after The Kid has sifted through and found the tooth, which was The Kid's plan. 

Now The Tooth Fairy only left fifty cents a tooth, usually.  After a particularly bad experience at the pediatric dentist when my first-grader had to have four teeth pulled at one time, in preparation for braces later, The Tooth Fairy did leave five bucks, but that was extreme times.  A month later, when they pulled four more, she got ten dollars.  For this particular tragedy, three dollars were left.   

The next morning, the Kid was happy, I was thrilled that she didn't know the behind the scenes, and we went on about our lives.     

Until the other night. 

There sat my almost teenager explaining that she was ecstatic the day she got the note and crushed soon after when she saw me write the same scrapbook-y handwriting on a scrapbook page.    

And that was when she stopped believing in The Tooth Fairy.

Before the pediatric dentist tragedy.   Before several other costly extractions.  Before she was so dang melodramatic about leaving her tooth out for The Tooth Fairy, that I just KNEW she still believed.

Before.

I asked her why she never mentioned any of it.

Her answer?   "You were giving me free money.  Are you stinkin' kidding me?"

Okay.  Fine.  What about the Easter Bunny?

Her verbatim response, "Well, I've never really believed in him."

Seriously?  Was it the eggs?  The chocolate?  A bunny breaking into our house? The fact that we're teaching her about Jesus and a giant bunny didn't really fit with that?

Nope.

"Mom, a rabbit doesn't have opposable thumbs.  How would he ever carry that magical basket of chocolate-y goodness without thumbs?  How did you people ever expect me to believe in *THAT*?"

So sorry, reader of all things National Geographic. I thought you might have gotten caught up in all the free candy, chocolate rabbit ears, and FUN.

Brat Child.

"So, what about Santa Claus?" I queried.

In our house, I made the mistake of saying, when The Kid was in third grade and a little girl told her Santa wasn't real, that "if you don't believe, you don't receive."

Don't tell your kids that.  She's gonna be 40 expecting gifts.   

I think she doesn't believe, but just wants the expensive things.  "Santa brings better gift than you do,"   she says.

*Sigh*

Anyway, her response on Santa was rational, well-thought out, and total blarney.   "I'm kind of torn on the whole Santa issue.   On the one hand, time goes so slow Christmas Eve.   Scientifically, he has to cross the time zones, and he's doing two different hemispheres, so daylight here, dark there.  Totally doable.   On the other hand, he breaks into your house, eats your food, leaves crumbs everywhere, and then leaves.  I don't know.  I do know if you don't believe you can't receive, so...."

And she grinned.    

Santa presents 'til she's 40, I know it.  

An Almost Episode of Cops

There it was around two in the morning. I was sick with pneumonia, running a fever only a couple of degrees lower than the surface of the sun, and  sleeping on the couch so as not to give Big Daddy my sick germs.

I was having those crazy fever dreams when you're not sure if it's a dream, a nightmare, or if the giant rose bush really is trying to eat your face while Roger Staubach watches, when I heard unfamiliar voices.  I roused myself a little as the voices got louder.

"Damn, did you see his face? He never saw that coming."

A bunch of laughter burst forth and a second voice answered.

"Watch out! Here they come."

I realized this was not a dream, and the voices were coming from my flowerbed, right outside my window.   I heard running feet, and then the voices continued around the side of my house.

"That was close! Let's go."

I drug myself from the couch and peeked out the side window in time to see two young guys run up my driveway and into my unfenced backyard.  About that same time, my living room flooded with light bright enough that my fever-addled brain truly thought for a second that the mothership had arrived, and I was about to be abducted by aliens. I ran to the front door and there was a cop cruising down the street with a search light. I opened my front door, gestured like a crazy woman swatting bees, and exaggeratedly pointed to the side of my house.   The policeman stopped the car, whispered for me to get in the house, drew his gun, and started up my driveway.

Not knowing what to do next, I woke up Big Daddy.  Now, Big Daddy is macho.  He's an awesome shot and very protective of what is his.   However, he also only sleeps about 4 hours a night, and during those four hours, he is dead to the world.   A plane could land in our living room, and he would keep on sawing logs.    And woe be unto anyone who dares to wake him up during his "nap."   He doesn't have the quickest reaction time.

I wasn't thinking of any of this, though. I was waiting on a shootout at the Ok Corral to bust out at any moment in my driveway, so I woke him up.

"Babe.  Babe!! Wake up there's a couple of guys in the backyard."

"Huh?  What?"   And then he sat straight up in bed.

I explained again.   "I was asleep, and I heard voices.  These two guys were in our flowerbed and then ran to the backyard.  The police were going down the street and one of them drew his weapon and is in the backyard now."

Big Daddy popped out of bed like his butt was bread in a toaster.   He rushed to the closet put on a pair of Justin steel-toed workboots to go with his Spongebob Squarepants boxers and grabbed the gun.

"What are you doing?  Stop!  The police are out there!"

"So?   It's my property.  They might need help!"

"Not from someone in Spongebob boxers! Seriously!  Stop!"

Big Daddy wasn't listening, though and rushed to the backdoor where he proceeded to flip on the light in the backyard, blinding the surprised officer who was about five feet away from our backdoor, and illuminating his position for the hoodlums to see.

"Are you crazy?" I screeched.  "Turn off the light! They'll see the cop!"

Big Daddy stepped out onto the back steps in all his just woke up, creases on his face, crazy hair,  Spongebob-boxered glory and flapped his ungunned hand at me in annoyance as he asked the officer, "Is everything all right?"

The officer looked a little pissed to see him--can't imagine why--- and told him to go back in the house.   Big Daddy bristled at that, but did as he was told.   I told him to turn the light back off, so the officer could be hidden again.  Of course, he'd also be night-blind, but hopefully so would the suspects.

I learned two things that night.

First, while novelty boxers seem like fun at the store, in an emergency, they redneck you up.  We were *this* close to being on an episode of "Cops." Heaven knows, Big Daddy was dressed for it.   If the policeman had seen Big Daddy's gun, I know things would have gone bad.   With Big Daddy's sleepy brain and belligerence, we might even have made the first-part highlight of the show.

Secondly, next time there's an emergency,  I'll go Annie Oakley on the situation.  I'll grab the gun, let Big Daddy sleep, and just tell him later about what happened while he was blissfully asleep.

I am much more photogenic, after all.

I Fell Into a Burning Ring of Fire

As regular readers know, I have colitis, and am under a miraculous colo-rectal doctor's care.   He literally saved my life.    He was the only one in a four state area who did a surgery I *had* to have.    He's amazing.    If you have problems that need to be remedied, email me and I'll send you his name and number.    Love that man.   Forever.

Enough with the gushing.

The other day, I had a check-up appointment with him.   Now being a colo-rectal doctor, you would think that his office would have more bathrooms than Seattle has Starbucks.

Au contraire.

There is one in the waiting room and about fifty gazillion in the back.  

Since I was early for my appointment, I waited for the one to empty out and finally went in to take care of business.  There, sitting on the back of the toilet, was the sweetest thing.    A container of wipes for the patients.

So stinkin' kind.

See?  That why I love that doctor.  Always thinking about his poor patients who are coming in with a myriad of messy, nasty issues.  I grabbed a couple and wiped.

Sweet baby Jesus in a celestial bassinet being rocked by the angels.

Not butt wipes.  

Cleaning wipes.

Cleaning wipes soaked in battery acid and rinsed with the devil's tears.

I literally squealed and jumped off the toilet.  Tears began to run down my face as I danced from foot to foot with my pants around my ankles and fanned my ass with my hand.   I grabbed some of those lovely brown paper sacks disguised as paper towels, wetted them down, and pressed them against my flaming flesh.  

Mother. Of. Pearl.

I went down, down, down and the flames went higher.     The pain actually intensified and shifted to my girlie pieces.
 
How can that be?

I heard my name being called out in the waiting room.

"Just a minute!" I choked out in a strangled voice.

I wet toilet paper this time and dabbed.  And dabbed.  And dabbed.   And dabbed some more.

The pain lessened a bit, though I could still hear my heart pounding in my ears.

I sat there on the toilet for a minute and took deep, cleansing Lamaze breaths.  You know the ones they tell you will work when you're in labor and trying to push out a watermelon?  Those breaths they swear will help, but totally don't?

Newflash...those breathing techniques don't work when you dip your ass and hoo-ha into flaming chemical lava, either.

I grabbed the tub of wipes and looked closer.

Yeah...  Thanks for the warning.

Moon Pie Pig Face Girl

As I mentioned in my last post, Big Daddy likes to scare me.   I LOVE to scare him back.   Before his brain injury, you could NEVER scare him.  I tried for years to jump out at him from around corners, sneak up on him when he was in the car, pop out of closets.  Nothing ever worked.

Then he got smashed by the 18 wheeler, and with all the bad things that happened to him mentally,  I  do like that he gets frightened  more easily now.  Does that make me a bad person?

Because so many of his scares against me happen in the shower, I felt it only fair to repay him in kind.    Especially since he's blind as a bat without his glasses and he has to take them off to bathe.

*insert evil laugh track here*

There he was taking his shower, soaping up his face, eyes closed, when I quietly entered the bathroom.   I pulled the clear,  plastic shower curtain tight against my face and leaned in, waiting for the moment when he would rinse his face and see me.    He kept scrubbing up his face, and I leaned in further.   His elbow brushed the side of my head.  I stayed motionless.  He moved his elbow again, exploring.  His hands stilled and moved from his face.  His eyes opened.

Big Daddy screamed like a little girl and tried to climb up and out of the back of the shower.   He screamed again, and screeched, "No, moon-pie pig face girl, no!  No!" as he tried to climb higher up the shower wall.

I started laughing.  I couldn't help it.    I have been called so many things during my life, but Moon-Pie Pig Face Girl has never been one of them. I laughed until tears rolled down my face, my stomach hurt, and I had to sit on the bathroom floor since my legs would no longer support me. Realizing it was just me, Big Daddy started laughing, too.

Moral of the story:   You've got to be careful with showers.... If Anthony Perkins doesn't get you, the Moon Pie Pig Face Girl might.

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting

When I was young, my parents were protective of us and never let us see Rated R movies, especially horror movies.  

I saw my first scary movie, Psycho, at Beth's house in the seventh grade at a slumber party.  During the  movie, her mother went outside and scratched on the window.   Of course we looked, and there she was wearing a mask and  holding a huge butcher knife.

Because of that movie, I have certain OCD compulsions  precautions that I have in place when I need to bathe.   I refuse to take a shower when no one is home.   I have to have all doors locked even if someone *is* home.    I never close my eyes in the shower.  Ever.  Not even when  I'm washing my hair.  We have a clear shower curtain and I never, never turn my back to the door of the bathroom when I'm in the shower.    Ever.

Needless to say, the movie left an impression.

I've mentioned before how much of  a big weenie I am, and how I hate to be scared.   You can read that blog post here.  It was not one of my finer moments.   Neither are any of these.

When Big Daddy and I started dating when I was in my early 20s, he was shocked by the number of scary  movies I hadn't seen.   One beautiful early summer day, he introduced to me to Jason and Friday the 13th.   I was transfixed.  Big Daddy lived out in the middle of the the woods just like in the movie. The living room had floor to ceiling windows that had a beautiful view of woods, woods, and more woods.   You couldn't see a neighbor, a car, or a living soul anywhere.  

Right after the first murder of the movie, Big Daddy had to go outside to smoke.  It was just starting to get dark, and I wanted to see what would happen next, so I stayed inside.   He'd been gone for a bit, when I  had to go to the bathroom.  As I sat there doing my business, there was a scratch at the bathroom window, and then Big Daddy started making the noise from the movie, "Tsch, tsch, tsch, tsch, ah, ah, ah, ah....tsch, tsch, tsch, tsch, ah, ah, ah, ah...."

"Not funny!"  I shouted at him.

I washed my  hands and went back to the living room, just in time to see someone else die at Jason's hands.   As I began to get more into the movie, something caught my eye from those huge windows. There stood Big Daddy motionless in coveralls, eyes wide, face frozen in this crazy Farmer Fred face.

 I screamed bloody murder.

Of course, that was the payoff Big Daddy wanted and all was right in his world.  There is nothing  he loves more than for me to scream like a crazy woman.    

Years later, because of his evil, black heart and the depth of my paranoia, Big Daddy loves to jack with me when I'm in the shower.   He scrapes on the screens.  He presses his face to the window. He pulls back the shower curtain and says, "Boo."    Sometimes, he squeals a noise we like to call "Demon Pig" because it truly sounds like an animal from the depths of hell.

Usually, I scream and back away, he laughs, I wet myself a little, and we move on with our lives.

Except for what happened a few months ago.

There I was carefully taking a shower, when suddenly the shower curtain was ripped back and a man I didn't recognize made the most horrendously, frightening noise.

 It was the Demon Pig and he was coming to carry me to Norman Bates at the Bates Motel.  I just knew it.

He wouldn't take me alive.  Oh, no.   I stepped one foot out of the shower and  slapped the Demon Pig with my right hand, and made two punches with my left.   One, two, baby.    Don't mess with me.   Momma don't play.

Big Daddy stepped back.  "Dammit, Kristi!!   You hit me in the nose!  I've got soap in my nose and eyes, and it burns. Why'd ya hit me?"

Everything came in to focus.    It wasn't a Demon Pig.  It was Big Daddy, his face red and soapy, eyes watering.

Oops.

Moral of the story:  If Norman Bates ever does come for me, I will Kung Fu his ass.  Hiiii-ya.

Spring Break is for Relaxing...Don't Judge

Today, I went to get my hooves tended.  

It's 61 degrees.  The bluebonnets are starting to bloom.   Yellow Box flip-flops are on sale.   It's time for a pedicure!

Some of you may recall what happened the last time I got a pedicure.  If you haven't read it, you can click here to catch up.    Against my better judgement, I decided to go to the same place.  

As I was waiting for one of the chairs to open to up, I visited with a couple of former students, one of whom reads the blog (Hi, Taylor!). She told me how funny I was and that she liked the blog and was waiting for the movie about my life.  (Hear that Hollywood!  People like me.  Get your asses in gear on this!)

Little did I know, I was about to have a blog post happen to me.

I got called back to a chair and settled down with a little Adam Levine crooning in my ear.   I cranked up the vibration and massage in the chair and prepared for a good afternoon of relaxing.  I decided to splurge for the Deluxe Pedicure since it has been over a year since my last one.  That poor woman was *definitely* going to earn her money today.

My feet soaked in the that snowcone-blue bubbly water, and I began to relax.  She rubbed my calves down with sea salt scrub. My eyes closed.   Then she busted out with some organic seaweed mask and hot towels.   I felt myself sinking deeper into that space where you just melt and you're nothing but sensation.   Then she rubbed  warm oil all over my legs and gave me a 20 minute leg and foot massage, and that's when it happened.

 I dozed.

But I didn't realize it.

I could still hear Adam telling me to give him one more night. Oh I will.  I could hear Dr Oz on the salon TV talking about how to properly check your husband's testicles. Good to know.  I could hear the chatter of the all the nail techs.  I didn't think I was asleep. Yeah, there were some weird floaty thoughts going on, but I knew I wasn't asleep.  Just relaxed.

At least, that's what I thought until the sound of my own moan scared me and woke me up.  

That's right.  She was massaging my legs and feet, and I fell asleep in a full salon, only to wake up moaning.

My eyes jerked open and my sweet little attendant just smiled and said, "You feet feel good?"

The other Vietnamese lady working at the chair beside me was smiling at me as well.    And then they spoke to each other.  

I didn't have to know Vietnamese to know they were talking about me.  

I just smiled, turned up some Maroon 5, and went back to sleep.

Eating Pizza with the Amish.... 'cause I'm cool like that. Or a stalker. Whatever.

Seems like every time I turn on the tv, one of the channels that promote discovering new things or learning is showing another "real" Amish show.


Um, yeah...  so, the Amish have a Mafia.    Someone swiped someone's apron from a clothesline and now Levi is going after them with his Grandma's rug beater.

Yeah.

Yep... I am sure that all these people on these shows who have had police records for DRIVING A CAR while intoxicated or who have had Facebook accounts for multiple years are fresh-off-the-farm Amish.

Oh, yes. I am truly that gullible to believe those people are really Amish.

I also truly believe that the people on Jersey Store are naturally that color of orange.

NOT.

For years, I have been obsessed interested   no, obsessed is the right word, with the Amish.   During our cross-country road trips, we've gone into dozen of truly Amish stores.  Not the tourist trap stores where they have a radio playing in the background, but real stores with no electricity but skylights and a generator to work the cash register.  Stores where the Amish actually shop, too. I've bought Amish cheese.  I 've shopped in true Amish-owned, Amish-worked hardware stores with Amish people milling around buying their signature hats. I've bought their homemade jam and bread. And I have purchased dozens of cookbooks from the Amish and Mennonite community. Consequently,  I  now have a recipe for making bologna for 400. 

All I need is like five pigs' heads, an outdoor fire, and a metal tub the size of a Jacuzzi.

I'll loan the cookbook to you the next time you have a church picnic.  Or kill a hog.  Whatever.  

I've read books about growing up Amish. I know about Rumspringa. I've read books about the religion, the practices, the rules.   I checked out the use of straight pins as a form of fasteners for their clothes.  I know the name of that funny little hat the women wear.  I even understand the difference between the string being cut or hanging free.

Deep in my heart I know, if it weren't for my love of my iPhone, my Eagles CDs, and my red lipstick, I could totally be Amish.  Seriously.

For like 5 minutes, until they made me butcher something or work really hard, I could be Amish.   

Imagine my delight, when on a cross country trip called the Ashes Tour to sprinkle my father-in-laws ashes over our great land, we went through Amish Country in Indiana.  I was tickled pink.

I was excited to head  to Elkhart and LeGrange County, home of Shipshewana and Middlebury and LaGrange, the heartland of Amish and Mennonite communities.   I could envision white-covered heads, solemn colored dresses, barefoot children.  Long-grey bears, buggies, and beautiful quilts.   

I was vibrating with excitement.

When we rolled through town, however,  I was crushed. It was six o'clock on a Saturday.   Everything was locked up tight and the parking lots were empty.   

Except for the local Pizza Hut.

There were tons of buggies parked neatly around it.   

Are. You. Stinking. Kidding. Me?

I quickly proclaimed I was famished and only pizza would bring me back from the brink of starvation.    

My sweet, sweet husband seeing how important this was to me said we could stop for dinner.

I have never loved him more than in that moment.  Not our wedding day.  Not the birth of our child.  Not even the day his brain was scrambled.

Before he would let me go in, Big Daddy warned me that I could do nothing that would bring shame on our heads.   

No taking pictures.   Well, duh.

No staring.   Okay, that one was a little harder.

No talking to them.   Not that they'd talk to me anyway.

Just act normal.   Really???  You want me to act like I normally do?   Excellent.

Big Daddy shook his head then, realizing what he'd done.

I almost floated through the air to the door of the Pizza Hut.

I was going to eat pizza with the Amish.

We walked to the stand and waited to be seated.   I looked around in my excitement.  The restaurant was at about half capacity... everyone was Amish except for a Mennonite family and a confusing table that was half Amish and half English (what Amish call the non-Amish).  I was surprised to see CNN on several TVs around the restaurant.  Every Amish woman sat with her back to the television talking quietly to the women around them.  Every Amish man was glued to the screen.  

We were told the wait would be about 45 minutes.   

I said, "Great!" and took a seat.

I knew they were trying to bluff me out.    I knew they didn't want my tiny English family in the restaurant for Amish date night.     I knew they thought I would get frustrated and leave.  

They were wrong.  Wrong.  And wrong.

After 30 minutes,  they seated us at a table that had been empty all along.

And we ordered and ate I my pizza with the Amish.

As I listened to their Pennsylvania Dutch, I could almost pretend I was Amish too..... 

When I wasn't checking my iPhone or watching the TV or enjoying my jogging pants.