Friday, March 20, 2009

What was that again??

So...I've been musing this week over a number of episodes of recent brain flatulations and I'm getting a little frustrated. Allow me to vent here...

How is it I can remember that stupid radio jingle from 1980, recite the entire "Return of the Jedi" movie, complete with sound effects and vocal inflections, and play the "Beat Simon Says" game at the pizza hut and win free pizzas, but I can't recall what I ate for breakfast, or what you just said your name was, or how old I am?

When an important event is imminent, I've got the date and time practically stenciled to my forehead but my brain periodically, and unconsciously, reverts back to the day/time I THINK it's supposed to be and my actions follow accordingly. I literally can be looking at the calendar with Tuesday at 6 chiseled into it, saying repeatedly to myself "remember, it's SIX o'clock on TUESDAY!" and I will get in my car on Wednesday at ten minutes to 7! Aaargh! And I'll drive to the wrong place, the place where Sara's soccer game was played last week but this week it got moved to a different location, and I KNEW all this, but I don't realize what I've done until I'm pulling up to the wrong place. So I'm a day late and several miles short.

The worst is when I let other people down with my memory farts by forgetting about an important event, or when I repeatedly can't recall a good friend's name, or am constantly late for appointments. I've forgotten weddings, funerals, baby showers, graduations, birthdays, bar mitzvahs...well, maybe not bar mitzvahs, but I'm sure if I had more Jewish friends (which would be really cool, btw) I'd be forgetting those as well. People end up thinking I just didn't care enough to remember, at which point I just want to go hide in a hole somewhere. ...

I've tried beeping electronic planners, paper calendars, writing on my hand, asking people to call me, post it notes as wallpaper...all of these things help some, but have yet to prevent the steady stream of memory mishaps.

Were I a genius who spent all their time in a laboratory curing cancer and an army of lab assistants to assist, or in a board room with a personal secretary to arrange everything for me and run my schedule, I'd totally rock! People would pass me on the street and say "That Liz Paulin, she's a regular scheduling fiend!" As it is, being a stay at home mom whose job description includes "multi-tasking" and "home secretary", I'm afraid I'd be more apt to get a tomato lobbed at me than receive adulation at my time management prowess.

Did I mention I'm the spouse who forgot her own wedding anniversary?

Anyhoo (I've picked that up from April recently) I just thought I'd vent this morning. And FYI, if I ever forget your name, or your anniversary, or you gave me the top secret government files on UFOs and where did I put them @%$#??!! just pretend I'm really an ingenius, yet eccentricly mad scientist who is on the verge of uncovering the meaning of life.

...and please don't be offended!

Friday, March 13, 2009

Kentucky Fried Paulins

Saturday, Lunchtime:

We were only supposed to have ham sandwiches for lunch; nothing big, or so Aunt Adele claimed. What we had in reality was a scrumptious, home baked gargantuan ham, almost too big to fit in the oven, roasted to perfection. We did slice it and made sandwiches, but that's not all we had. She also baked a lovely pound cake with a delectable, crumbly melt-in-your-mouth crust. To top it off she threw in homemade baked beans, some chips and dip and a heaping bowl of grapes, lest we were still hungry.

Saturday, Dinnertime:

We go to the local Fish Fry restaurant to partake of their famous catfish and hushpuppies. Everything was battered and fried (I suspect even the water was.) We had all the catfish and hushpuppies we could eat, in addition to heaping bowls of wonderful house coleslaw. I think I may have detected some cabbage particles in the coleslaw, but of course I can't be sure.

Sunday, Lunchtime:

We eat at Grandma Rhodes' house. She makes awesome fried chicken, like my Grandpa used to make. I'd heard somewhere his secret was he reused the same oil over and over. I'm tempted to ask if she used old crusty oil but decide that might not be wise. We had crowder peas from her garden - SO good! She had baked a lemon cake, made with fresh lemons, and pecan pie, made with fresh pecans from a tree in the yard. I'm beginning to believe she truly did walk uphill in the snow both ways to go to school.

Sunday, Dinnertime:

We have our first taste of southern diet food: GRILLED burgers and hot dogs (not fried).

*burp*

(excuse me)

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Battle of the Bilge

(disclaimer - not exact dates; the last few weeks all kinda run together, like...well, nevermind.)

Saturday, 4pm
2 yr old loses his lunch all over loveseat and onto the floor. So not feeling the love right now.

Saturday, 6pm
Has moved his "operations" into the living room - the floor, to be precise. And the chair. And a pile of clean laundry.

Sunday, 3pm
2 yr old leaves a trail of vomit down the hallway. Beginning to wonder if, like a dog, he is marking his territory. Tempted to yield it to him.

7pm
9 yr old makes it to the toilet in time. Yay! You go girl!

Monday, 4pm
Couch moved out to the dumpster trailer to be discarded. It was already nastified; this was merely the final straw. Sunroom smelling much better now.

Tuesday thru Saturday - Nothing to report, captain.

Sunday, 2 PM
Sitting next to my 5 yr old playing a game with him, when out of the blue he lets out a burp from the nether most recesses of blackest Mordor. *cough*cough*gag*
15 minutes later he's throwing up on the carpet in the sunroom. Wondering how he managed to swallow so much food without actually chewing any of it ("Oh look, peas!" he exclaims.)

Monday - All is quiet on the western front.

Tuesday, 2 AM (Grand Finale)
11 yr old produces projectile vomit from the top of his bunk bed onto the hardwood floor - walls, dresser fronts, railings, furnace grates, bedding of children from lower down...wishing the Cat in the Hat would show up with his mobile cleaning machine.

3 AM
No such luck. Heinous clean-up (with "help" from 2 yr old) followed by anti-bacterial soap and water scrubbing, followed by full body shellac with hand sanitizer.

9 AM
Currently suffering from post traumatic heebie-jeebies.

=P