Prattle Inc.

The Fucking Fish Weighs More Than Four Pounds

My step sister, the hair stylist, has a brand new baby! Aww!

You didn't know that she was having a baby? Well neither did we! Or, for certain, she.

For years my brother in law and she had intimated that they were pretty much d-o-n-e done with the baby-brewing since they already had a 19 year old severely autistic son and 15 year old daughter and were quite happy with that kid to parent ratio. So when she told me two weeks ago that "Your new niece has been born," I was more than a little taken aback. More than a little, like a lot, as in "WHAT THE FUCK are you talking about?" We're fairly close, we talk weekly, she cut Bratface's hair just three weeks ago - how could she NOT have mentioned, and how could we NOT have noticed her pregnancy for all of these months?

Well, she wasn't pregnant. She had taken a teen-aged client with an unwanted pregnancy under her wing and she and her husband even agreed to adopt the baby if the teen parents decided to give her up, but didn't tell any of us because she wasn't 100% sure it was going to work out that way. Then the baby came early, and now my sister is a new mother and we are all happy and surprised and everyone and their dog (doesn't this make you crazy?) has been scouring the planet, but mostly Target, for bassinets, and glass bottles and onesies and sleepers in preemie size.

The sweetest little pea in the entire pod was born at just 34 weeks gestation and is perfectly perfect and healthy in every way except that she is SO INCREDIBLY TINY but she is a whopping (in Preemie World) 4.7 pounds now and is at home with her family right this second!

I get to babysit once a week while my sis works.

Damn straight there will be photos.

Panic at the Disco, If My Kitchen Table Can Be Called the Disco

I like to say I work better under pressure but that's really just an excuse for Procrastination being my middle name.

Thirty days from now I will be on a plane with a jumbo sized bag of "popcorn" a.k.a.nicotine gum for the eight hour ride to Italy. (I think it's 8 hours. Somebody help me out, math and conversions are not my thing. We leave Kennedy in NY at 7p.m. and arrive in Rome at 10 a.m. Did I do the time change right?) Sure, I could try to quit smoking before the trip, but I hear Italy is very smoker-friendly. Why torture myself my family in a country where smoking seems to be embraced? Anyhoo, it has suddenly dawned on me that there are VERY IMPORTANT things that must be accomplished prior to the trip.

Like my teeth. Sure, I haven't been to the dentist since 2004, which I didn't realize until the receptionist tsk-ed me when she pulled my chart, but all of a sudden it seems imperative that I have the two wisdom teeth pulled that came in when I was pregnant with Tee, ahem, 19 years ago.  Because who goes to Italy with two whole extra teeth in their mouth? So declasse'.

Also, I notified the school that the kids would be absent for the trip. Thinking that thirty days prior would be plenty of time, I hadn't exactly sweated this detail. Turns out that the principal has to personally approve the trip and that I will have to explain why it is so important that my children are not sitting mindless and numb during Standard of Learning reviews, instead jet-setting to a foreign country and completely wasting their public education. Item: Compose letter to principal  without an ounce of sarcasm included that pleads for excused absences for this potentially once in a lifetime opportunity. Note to self: Do not point out that Italy has no legal drinking age and that Tee anticipates a big majority of his cultural education to include such phrases as "Youthful, leggy, deeply colored." or "Heavily beaded. Pale, cool climate." 

The across the street neighbor is keeping Sadie while we are away. He's a Dog Park kind of guy. We are not Dog Park kind of people - love the dogs, despise the owners. Also the dog catcher routinely patrols the Dog Park and fines those who do not have the city enforced dog tag. Item: go down to City Hall and pay the fracking $5 for the little tin tag shaped like the state of Virginia already.

Bratface has needed an eye exam since December. I felt no guilt whatsoever and blamed the procrastination on thrift and frugality (she still had three pairs of contacts left in the box!) until last week when she took them out for the night - then dropped and stepped on her only pair of glasses. Seriously, the poor child needs a cane and seeing eye dog to navigate from bathroom to bedroom. Item: optical appointment asap.

You sure got some pretty teeth, boy. Tee heard about my impending dental exam and begged me to schedule a cleaning for him. WTF? Whose kid is this anyway? Item: self-employed, non-insured, self-pay VANITY cleaning scheduled for the same day as my appointment. You'll be proud that I offered no retort whatsoever to the receptionist who noted the irony of the mother who neglects her own dental hygiene until a problem, or a trip, occurs and the son who would gladly show up weekly if permitted.

P.S. This is not procrastination. After a total of 11 new test-patches, I'm just tired.

Dare I Say I Had Fun?

Whew! One wedding down, three to go.

Little sister is hitched!

She made it with only a slight crimp in the program. The tiny problem that was realized exactly 2.5 hours before the wedding was that all of the hydrangeas in her bouquet and all of the hydrangeas, which were the ONLY flower used, for the seven bridesmaids' bouquets had died overnight.

Scene: Seven bridesmaids on cell phones, three soliciting husbands to Save the Day, and four calling every florist, grocery store with a floral shop, and maybe even one of them tried a cemetery in town attempting to round up enough hydrangeas in the exact shade of blue that would be needed to remake eight bouquets.

Simultaneous Scene: Bride bawling and inconsolable in the bathroom.

In the end, it all worked out and the whole thing turned out perfectly.

*Note: Hydrangeas are so delicate that they must clipped underwater. Remember that from now on.

**Also, I'll be back to the posting soon. At this time my every waking moment is being spent stuffing my face with the leftover 5 gallons of the most delectable spinach-artichoke dip on the continent and paring down the 14 bottles of wine that I was left to dispose of. I'm drinking as fast as I can. (Don't judge. Is it my fault that this house doesn't have enough cabinet space?)

I'm 9 Years Old All Over Again

If you lived in the DC metro area during the 70's and 80's you're going to appreciate this. Otherwise, it's still so catchy that you'll have to sing the theme to the "Love Boat" ten times* to get it out of your head.

* That's the cure for getting rid of that song that just won't go away. Sure, you end up with "the Love Boat" theme stuck in your head then, but it works.

Mission: Make A Decision Already

This has gone on far too long.

I MUST make a decision RIGHT NOW. The fam will be here in four days, flying in from all points North and South to behold the spectacle of little sister Keebo's wedding. For four months the areas currently paint-patched by purple (Flexible Grey? Very flexible. Don't get me started...) has been sampled by no less than seven different colors.

I need help and I need it badly.

Fact: This is an interior room, our mock living room to be exact. There are no windows whatsoever. On the brightest, sunniest day a lamp must burn at full force in this room.

Fact: I'm over the current yellow paint. It doesn't match the acquired artwork I wish to hang and it is hard on the eyes when reading at night.

Fact: I am a big reader.

Fact: The fucking fish is STILL a bone of contention. Can I tell you that I painted the front door? The one that a person, such as my husband, walks in and out of forty times a day. Can I tell you that it only took him five days to notice that it was no longer blue, but burnt orange? Now the fucking fish? SEVENTEEN MINUTES. That's how long it took him to notice that I had stealthily removed it from it's out-of-the-way spot last week while he was out in the yard and hid it in a closet.

I implore you, my artistic friends, please,
please give me some advice on a color for this room that will flow with the rest of the wall colors.

I'm this close to calling it a day and just going with basic and boring antique white.

For Now

When the black walnut and oak trees are bare I see the man I've never met walk to the bathroom in his boxers about thirty times a night. He, or his wife(?), hang pants to dry on hangers on their screened in back porch. The teenager at the house beside the old man's performs choreographed dances over and over again in her bedroom. This house's screened porch is filling up quite nicely and I'm sure they call it a storage room. Six houses behind and vertical I can tell when a couple of my friends are up or if they have gone to bed for the night.

The white blooms of the "popcorn trees" all around town have already begun to wither. The flowers are beginning to green and leaf out and now it's called the "pee-pee tree" because those gorgeous bursts of spring turn out to have the absolute worst fragrance - ammonia, and it is strong. Once the Bradford pear trees start going to leaf the bigger trees are right on their tails.

Soon my "friends" will be invisible again until fall.

Oh, Hi

Windows open. Temps in the 60's and 70's for over a week.

Spring, come to Mama!

I don't know the name of these flowers. Do you?