August 20, 2022

My Major Award

My husband and I are competitive with each other, to say the least. We trash talk and we swagger when we win. I won’t play him in pool, ping pong, or pickleball, mainly because he has perfected the art of “putting a little English on it” and I have yet to crack the code on how to defend against that. He refuses to play Wii Fencing with me, intimidated by my “shock and awe” tactics which consist entirely of becoming the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes cartoon lore. We’ve raced cars, go-carts, and remote-control vehicles. He out-runs me and I out-yoga him. He usually beats me on the mini-golf greens, but I’ve improved my game in the past few years and have won a few times. (Turns out that when I’ve had a few glasses before and during putt-putt, I stop caring, relax, and turn into Tiger Freakin’ Woods. Ironic, no?) Competition is an ongoing thing in our house. Our child has been drawn in, competing regularly with her father in rock-paper-scissors with the defeated having to hear “You went down in a blaze of glory” upon their loss. Because RPS, as we all know, is absolutely filled with glory.

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August 16, 2022

Happy Birthday to Me

This is the first day of the last year of my 40s and one of my birthday gifts is being given time to write. Which is great because that doesn’t always happen but which I also suspect was given with ulterior motives: Zoe has homework and M wanted to leisurely peruse eBay in search of vintage beer lights for the bar. Well, no gift is selfless, so I shall take this in the spirit with which it was intended.

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April 16, 2014

Jealousy and Fear

I’ve been looking for – and finding – a shitload of inspiration out here in the Internets. Lots of amazing, talented, gifted writers who blow me away in 500 words or 4000 words of whatever. Fiction, non-fiction, blogs. I’ve even found one writer who is currently being celebrated while I think she’s just kind of bitchy. One of her adoring fans, a fledgling writer, asked her how to deal with jealousy, and she responded that the girl didn’t have enough experience yet to be jealous. WTF. Jealousy is jealousy. It’s illogical and irrational and shitty and you can’t help the way you feel. That’s what makes it so awful. “Hey there, green monster. It’s not time for you yet! Wait until I’ve sweated and toiled for 10 years and gotten nowhere. Then come back for only then I shall be worthy of harboring jealous thoughts.” Get over yourself, already. And stop making women feel like their feelings aren’t valid. That’s not cool. It’s like eating your young.

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April 14, 2014

A hunt, and a surprise

We went to Palm Sunday Mass and the Alumni Family Easter Egg Hunt at M’s alma mater today. We tried to go last year but the event was snowed out. We had rain this year, but they hid the eggs in the hallway of the high school and the kids had a blast. By “hid” I mean someone threw a ton of plastic eggs down the main hallway and called it a day. M said, “It looks like the Easter Bunny had a blowout!”

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April 10, 2014

Make new friends, and…lock the others in the closet

Most of the time, I love being a Girl Scout troop leader. I like planning meetings and thinking about what will help the girls learn while they have fun. I like the moms who are involved as my co-leader, cookie chair, treasurer, and April Showers chair. I like that my daughter is continuing a tradition that I started, that she’s proudly building her sash like I built mine. I love that she loves Girl Scouts just as much as I did. I love that her grandmother was a Girl Scout, and is now helping at all of our meetings – ensuring three generations of my family at these meetings (you gotta admit that’s just damn cool).

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