Bikini Bottoms and Shotguns

The Olympics have finally arrived!

What an amazing gathering and display of world human talent and character! The competitive spirit and logistical management of people from over 200 countries is truly the exhibition of homosapiens performing at our best. (Well, save the opening ceremonies… James Bond excluded of course from that comment). This is the complete opposite state of the same group of homosapiens at our worst, or as we like to acquiesce, the reality of what is, the U.N.

Watching the games is always incredibly enriching. After only a few days, I am faster, stronger, higher… well, okay, I am none of those things, but I AM smarter about some aspects of the Olympics.

Let’s play, ‘Things I Knew and Did Not Know About The Olympics’….Part One.

·         I did not know…There is apparently a rule in volleyball, beach or team play, which requires a zealous display of excessive fondness for your teammates after each point scored. This occurs whether or not you succeed or lose the point.  High-fives, hugs, kisses, butt-slaps, it is a sport for lovers!

·         I did not know…If you are of Indian decent, it apparently qualifies you to walk with Team India in the opening ceremonies.

·         I did not know…There is a country named Tonga.

·         I did not know…There is a country named Micronesia (You may not have heard of it, it is quite small). Ha! Sorry, had to do it!

·         I did not know…That the United States has a gold medal winner who looks about my age who can shoot the hell out of little clay Frisbees.

·         I did not know…that I am almost best friends with gymnast Jordyn Wieber. She is the second cousin of my son’s best friends’ father’s cousin.

·         I probably did know…That based on the physique of most of the women I have seen competing thus far,  the ladies do not spend numerous evenings gorging on packages of dual-wrapped Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls. (Not that I actually know anyone who does that …)(Insert nervous laugh here).

·         My kids did not know…That water polo is a sport. No high school water polo teams here in Northern Michigan, too dang cold, no outdoor pools. The kids have missed that fact that the idea of the game is to throw the ball into the net and have decided to throw volleyballs at each other’s head while swimming in the lake quite regularly.  Nothing can go wrong there.

·         I do not understand…Why we can send men to the moon, but we are unable to invent a leotard, bathing suit, or beach volleyball panty (g-string really) that does not ride up on the athlete. Thus, the extreme yanking.

·         I do know…When China takes over the world; we are all going to be freakishly good at gymnastics and synchronized diving.

·         I do know…When China takes over the world; we are going to have consistently fantastic opening ceremonies at the Olympics. Not now, just when China takes over the world….although I give Kudos to the Queen on her incredibly awesome sense of humor.

Take Care! Go Red, White, and Blue!!! (For now…)

Scary Christmas In July

They put out the Christmas at the Hobby Lobby last week.  It is July.

The folks that live around the block still sporting their last season icicle lights and the El Rancho strip mall adoring two giant wreaths in their entryway obviously concur that the holiday either never left or has arrived six months early.

Exemplifying my blonde (store bought and proud of it), for a moment I thought perhaps I had missed autumn completely.  Summer has been busy. I was relieved to immediately notice that across the street workers were installing the banner for the Halloween superstore. So basically we have fall and Christmas starting in the second week of the summer. It would have been tragic to miss my favorite scariest holiday, Halloween. (The second scariest holiday, as we all know, is Easter….mostly due to the fact that I still have not located one of the hidden boiled eggs my kids painted back in ’09)

I love Halloween, but scary movies really scare me. (Recall the blonde)

In my youth, yes back in the Byzantine, as my son claims, I tried to be cool with my pals and saw all the classics, like Halloween, Rosemary’s Baby, and Nightmare on Elm Street. The scenes kept me awake many a night fearing a good slashing by crazy dead people. Ironically, what I have discovered as I have aged is that life experienced these last subsequent thirty years, pales in comparison to Jason and his extracurricular activities.  I now have a collection of horror movies of my own. Night of the Living Dead has nothing on my personal anthology.

My scary movies are below…coming to a theatre near you…

Night of the Living Interns ~ One woman experiences the horror of a group of Obstetric Interns learning how to measure pre-birth dilation by crowding into her tiny delivery room….twenty male and female students, one awkwardly positioned mom in the stirrups….pure gruesomeness.

Marie’s Baby’s Diaper ~For the love of Pete! What is that? Do we call the after-hours pediatrician or go to the emergency room stat? It is terror on the changing table.

Nightmare on My Street ~ Junior is in a 3:00 a.m. wake-up pattern….you may never…sleep…again…

Cujo( In The Family)~ You have to babysit the In-laws dog….he has a disorder that causes him to vomit sporadically if he drinks too much water….It is ninety-eight degrees, Cujo is thirsty…

Night of the Living Interns 2 ~ They‘re bahaack! This time to discuss appropriate treatment for post-birth trauma….to awful to go on…you simply must see the movie.(Actually, please don’t , we will have to avoid eye contact in public)

My Poltergeist~ The toilet seat is mysteriously agape; mom falls in and is lost to the other side…

Husband of Frankenstein~ She's not your usual maniacal PMS partner, welcome to menopause! You can run, but the wife will hunt you down…

‘Thanksgiving’ ~No, that’s not Michael Myers’ knife going through you…that is the veggie dip you made with two-day old sour cream. Stay away from the bathroom Nana…

Since its Christmas, you may have some vacation time to hit the theater. Enjoy!

Great Expectations

I have been doing some research.

There have been many psychological studies that state that if we set exceptionally high expectations for ourselves and others, we and those around us will rise to fulfill those expectations (or maybe Oprah just said that).

Many successful and famous people must have set great expectations around their lives to become who they are, for example;

Heidi Klum: “I expect to look ridiculously fantastic, even though I have given birth to three dozen children, in order to make pre-menopausal insecure women feel poorly about themselves.”

Mitt Romney: “I expect to have more money than God and I will bail out the Euro all by myself.”

Darth Vader: “I expect to rule the universe and dominate the dark side.” (Oh sorry, so not Darth Vader, my bad, that was Nancy Pelosi)

Thus, as I am now faced with mid-life and a myriad of unfulfilled low expectations, today I have decided to swap my old set of expectations and formulate some new, higher expectations for myself, my husband, the children, the dog, and some total strangers around me.

For Myself

I now expect my body to decay at a slower rate. I expect to look like Heidi Klum in the morning. (No, not while she was nine months pregnant…well, okay I am good with that either way.)

For My Husband

I expect you to treat our bedroom as the sanctuary that it is and pass gas at least twenty feet from the bed.

For My Children

All three of you are expected to become Valedictorians of your high school. This will be expected for no other purpose than my sheer pleasure on multiple occasions to be able to say, “Yes, all three of my boys were Valedictorians”

I then expect you to stay out of prison as it would be humiliating to have to say, “Yes, all three of my boys were Valedictorians and now two out of three of them are serving five to ten in the Jackson State Penitentiary”

For The Dog

I expect you to stop eating the poop of the roaming forest creatures, and to stop givin’ me the puppy eyes while I am eating my ham sammich.

For Random Strangers

You are expected to remove your offensive rear-window stickers when visiting the child drop-off at the elementary school. It is distressing to explain to a seven year-old that the ‘mini-vans a rockin’ sticker does not have musical connotations. Nor is it pleasurable to explain why Calvin is urinating on a multitude of objects.

There you go; we are now going to rise to these expectations for a well-lived life of happiness, harmony, and bliss.

Bubonic Days

It is festival time in Michigan!

It is the height of summer and it is time to pay homage as we do in our great state each year to a variety of fruit, vegetables, meat, herbs, and cheese.  We gather by the thousands in almost every major city in the land to parade around town with our particular vegetable on our heads, contribute to the athletic association’s beer tent (best invention by the Catholics ever!) and eat fried food carried around on a stick.

Not to be excluded from the festiveness are an assortment of animals and fish.  We celebrate the brown trout, (not the rainbow….just the brown trout. To me, it seems like the rainbow people need to form a coalition around the discrimination and exclusion of the rainbow trout, maybe I should contact the current administration), salmon, moose etc… all are distinguished by the gathering of humans to make complete fools of themselves in the name of a good party. I maintain these activities are vital to basic happiness.

Some of the merriment is centered on celebrating a particular town’s ethnic heritage. Honoring the original settlers (other than of course the real original settlers, the tribes of many nations), I find myself at the mid-summer becoming Polish for a night in Boyne City, German for a night in Frankenmuth, and Greek in Detroit, denying my Scotch-Irish ancestry in a heartbeat for the sake of a good brat and some flaming saganaki.

So what of my home-town, Gaylord, Michigan? Well we all gather together once a year to pretend we are Swiss.  Every July, girls costume as Swiss Miss and the boys look like they hopped off a Hummel figurine in authentic lederhosen. No, we are not actually Swiss. I discovered this fun fact as I was curious as to why we have chosen to be Swiss each summer for over forty-five years. I discovered we were not settled buy a large population of chocolate and clock manufacturing pioneers.

Our county was first laid out in 1840 and given the name Okkudo; a Native American word for "sickly" or "stomach pain" by Henry Schoolcraft. I can envision the Okkudo chamber of commerce gathering together to discuss their first festival around this theme.

Zeke (Because most folks pre-1900 were named Zeke): “Well, I think our county is ready for a festival, we could use the tourism here in Okkudo”

Henry: “Yes, there are seven of us here now.”

Zeke: “This will be tough for marketing Henry. Come to Okkudo! The place to feel under par and vomit! Our celebration could be called Bubonic Days or Summer Small Pox Festival.

Henry: “That may have been a bad choice for a county name…”

Zeke: “No sh** Sherlock!”

Luckily, someone at a later date changed our name and found a sister city in Switzerland so that now we can be Swiss.

I have to go now…off to the Yale, MI Bologna festival to see who will be crowned the king and queen of Bologna. I hope they have Bologna on a stick!

….of course they do!

Curse Of The Pelosi

My poor husband.

In addition to dealing with all of my maladies, such as neurosis, dementia, pre-menopause, and general flakiness, the man is charged with supporting me in the life style that I have decided to become accustomed to. I am very high maintenance and absolutely refuse to eat generic mac and cheese or store-brand ketchup. I feel personally responsible to keep Teresa Heinz in the life style she has chosen for herself, which apparently involves mail-order Senators and mac and cheese prepared by a workforce of twenty-seven chefs.

Traveling is a large part of his position, and one thing that nationwide travel is teaching him is that people like us, in general, are loony tunes. Last week, he had the privilege to visit San Francisco. Now I was worried about him traveling there because I was certain that Nancy Pelosi had placed travel restrictions on folks from the fly-over states. I have also heard that conservatives have been known to spontaneously combust within the city limits on multiple occasions. Alas, the worry was for naught and the business was good. He had a great meeting and wonderful seafood. Who does not love a meal that appears with a mallet in order to whack- a-mole the crab before consumption?

 I fear Nancy Pelosi placed a curse on him because the trip home was absolutely hateful. It is not nice to laugh at his pain, but we will.

The day went something like this, from his point of view, my voice…

8:45 a.m. On the plane, ready for takeoff, sitting between two tiny, older ladies from India in the last row of coach.  Grateful to not have any human spillover in my lap for a three hour flight. This departure will be a piece of cake.

8:50 a.m.  Bad gas…it that me or one of the nice old ladies? Would prefer that it was, but fear that it is not me. Why is the plane not leaving?

8:55 a.m. That was not my gas, smells like curry; I have not had any curry. Now that was a belch. Definitely not me. Pilot apologizes for delay, plane is broken. Text wife that plane is broken, just to cause needless worry.

9:00 a.m.  How does gas find itself on a perfect five-minute deployment schedule, alternating ends without fail?  Send wife silly reasons that plane is broken as she will believe anything and it will humor me.

9:05 a.m. Truly remarkable feat of the human digestive system. Incredibly accurate, there is a science paper to be written here.  Every five minutes…

11:10 a.m. Breathing through mouth for hour and a half, still have not departed….may vomit as I actually taste curry…at least close to tiny restroom.

11:15 a.m. One old lady residing in tiny restroom. Losing humor…text wife that gas cap was left off plane.

8:15 p.m. Finally off plane, standing in line for hotel voucher as all connections were missed. A sneaky man seems to think he can cut the line….Apparently his trip to Germany is more important than where we are all going…..wife auditory witnesses of verbal fist fight with German…I am sailing high on curry gas, love of airline courtesy, and jet lag.

10:20 a.m. (Next day) finally home. The Indian lady with gas is flying high above Dubai, German dude, publicly humiliated, still in Chicago, and I am exhausted listening to an earful from the wife about why it is NOT funny to tell her that the gear shift knob is broken on your airplane.

Curse you back Nancy Pelosi, curse… you… back.

ShamWow Shortage

I will be forty-five years old next month.

 I am not prepared for this birthday.  As a child, I was certain that people most likely evaporated after they turned thirty. Thirty was absolutely ancient. Turns out, thirty, PLUS fifteen years later, I am still here. So I have decided that since survival appears to be my only option, (The break down I attempted to have was thwarted by my husband who spouted off all this, “The children need you, we love you” blah, blah, blah….that evil guilt monger) thus, I will need to procure a few items to support a positive attitude during the middle years. I of course, have a list entitled:

Things I will need in order to survive my mid-life crisis (listed in order of importance)

·         A pool boy named Hernando Palermo Fendino who will work in cut off shorts, never a Speedo.  (I know it could be an excellent first line of a great limerick!)  He will be required to speak English, as a vital element of his job description will be to read all installations of the Shades of Grey Trilogy to me aloud by the pool.  (Now, to be fair and keep peace in the home,  I will also allow my husband to have a pool “grandma.” Her name will be Helga Armstrong and she will be dressed in fashionable moo-moo and will give us both extensive backrubs at our will.)

·         A pool.

·         A large fanny pack that contains two giant bottles connected to an IV that feed estrogen and Mint Mojitos directly into the bloodstream.

·         A ‘ShamWow’ to soak up all of the random tears provoked by various major life milestones accomplished by the children.

·         A ‘ShamWow’ to sleep on for pre-menopausal night sweats… (Disgusting! I know!)

·         A ‘ShamWow’ to soak up all of the random tears provoked by nothing other than low estrogen and  a Dad with his kid eating together during a sensitive McDonald’s television commercial.

·         A large supply of prescription medication for driving with pre-licensed teenagers.

·         A large supply of prescription medication, just because.

·         A personal HBO channel that feeds twenty-four hour a day ‘Chic Flicks’.  Twenty hours of viewing will be “Pride and Prejudice” (NOT the Colin Firth version) the remaining time can be sated by anything starring Mark Ruffalo. (Note to self: Will need extra ShamWows.)

·         A semi-truck load of Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls.

·         Liposuction and augmentation surgery that only requires a twenty-five minute recovery period, because that is all the vacation time I have left at work, as well as the maximum ‘me time’ allowed by the children.

Convinced that all of these offerings will sustain me, I am officially searching through Craig’s List for many of the items (yes, even the pool grandma).

Now, to begin on the list for next year…

Someday, This Will Be Hysterical

What a mess.

I had an ‘incident’ happen this past weekend that I am certain will become comical, and something I will most likely blog about in the future, but currently, at this writing, is not so much, really not all, funny. (Let’s just say it involves a turtle, root beer, a fluffy dog, small explosions, and new carpeting) While meditating to calm down, the situation caused my mind to embark on the remembrance of different 'happenings' in my life that were not funny at the time, but are fodder for hilarity in present time. We all have these situations deeply embedded in the psyche of our brains formed as distant memories. To enjoy them now, we simply need to channel our inner therapist, or in my case, the one I have on speed dial, to pull these recollections out for enjoyment. (In some cases, my therapist refers to this process as ‘closure’.)

So as the situation warrants, I have a list….

1. My grandmother giving me giant pink cotton undies for a Christmas gift in front of my entire family and high school boyfriend.

2. Almost being drowned by a portly gentleman floating over me in an inner tube at the water park when I was twelve.

3. My sister ‘loaning’ my father’s car to a friend (who did not have a driver’s license) and my dad coming home early.

4. My parents coming home early on multiple occasions when we were young. (Really deserves its own spot on the list)

5. My girlfriend finding loose change in her mashed potatoes while she had dinner at my house one Saturday night.

6. My mother telling my father that I would “so float away’ if he let me play in the canoe…and then me floating away when he did.

7. My four year old blowing up the diaper of my two year old with a bicycle pump and pushing him into the deep end to see how far he would drift.

8. My husband gnawing on my arm while watching the movie “Alive” just to annoy me and the people behind us in the theatre.

9. My bachelorette party thrown for me by my thirty-seven GM-UAW line workers on the night shift. (What an array of paraphernalia that party produced! I lent my son the handcuffs for his prison costume last year…..yes; I kept a few items, DON’T JUDGE ME!)

10. What happened last weekend with the turtle, root beer, fluffy dog, explosions, and new carpeting….well, not yet, I may give it a few years…

I Survived The Fourth of July

If there are lakes, they will come.

During the first week of July, one-third of the entire population of Michigan shifts approximately one hundred and eighty miles north. Without concern for public safety, speed limits, or personal space, vehicles from Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Grand Rapids come for the holiday.  One by one, travelers settle in Gaylord, Cheboygan and Harbor Springs. People who live in Gaylord, Cheboygan and Harbor Springs move north over the bridge into the Upper Peninsula.

Now this a truth for all in the state save the actual Yoopers, as they already live in heaven, and folks from Traverse City, as they are required to get permission from Michael Moore if they are to travel outside city limits and the paperwork gets backed up. (Ha! Oh settle down Traverse City, I’m just messing with you, don’t be so sensitive!)

I love this holiday, great purpose, great family time, and most of all I love a good parade.

This year it was extra hot, and the 4^th of July assemblage in Boyne City, MI paraded for an admirable extended amount of time in over ninety degree temps.

Four indications that your 4^th of July parade may be a tad too long:

1. Children are not crying with shouts of joy and wonder, they are simply crying.

2. The heat index on the spandex-encased woman on the curb across the street reads “T-M-I”.

3. The Veterans are taking a nap; their firearms precariously balanced just enough to make you nervous as they pass by.

4. The Shriners in their Fez hats are egging-on a fist fight between the Democrat and Republican running for county prosecutor.

Surviving the parade with a minor case of heat exhaustion, you move onto the local food fair. Nothing says happy birthday to our great nation more intimately and deeply than food on a stick. Everything simply tastes better skewered and carried around town. My personal favorite is a stick of butter dipped in sweet batter, deep fried, and then covered in powdered sugar and raspberry drizzle.   Of course, in order to purchase one, you must sign a waiver saying that you are okay with forfeiting three years of your life by clogging your carotid arteries. I signed. It was worth it.

The scorching sun compelled us to move toward the art fair and the covered tent store fronts. One particular booth that caught my attention donned a huge banner sporting giant letters that read ‘STONED’.  Interestingly enough numerous people (many of them wearing tie-dye shirts and Rastafarian hats) were clamoring to get into the enclosure. To the dismay of the Rastafarians, it was not a traveling medical marijuana salesman, it was an artisan who was selling multiple items covered in river rocks….lamps, bowls, tables, curtains, just about anything, yep, all covered in stones. The depressed left to find some munchies.

They had a great T-shirt I was tempted to purchase that simply had their logo printed across the front, but it would probably not go over well at the church picnic. I better stick with one that simply reads,

‘I survived the 4^th of July, 2012’.

Four Out Of Five SuperModels Recommend

Teeth cleaning day here in Northern Michigan.

I detest having my teeth cleaned. Not for the reasons that you might think.

Not because it is unnatural to have someone cramming their hands in your mouth for a half an hour. (If you cannot relate to this, get help weirdo)

Not because there is no gritty toothpaste in preferred flavors like Mint Mojito or Tequila Shooter.

Not because of the inevitable spit in your eye from the water squirter deflecting off of your front teeth.

No, I hate having my teeth cleaned because my dental hygienist looks like a supermodel and makes me feel badly about myself.  I mean this woman is unnaturally gorgeous. Perfect skin, perfect figure, perfect hair, perfect teeth (well, everyone who works there has great teeth) but still, disgusting.  And her name, well of course, it is ‘Misty’ and on top of it all she is always happy. (For sure, if I looked like a supermodel you would not be able to wipe the ever-loving grin off of my face either.)

Misty has a picture of her two, equally photogenic, grown children off to college displayed next to the spit sink. Thinking she must be much younger than I, I asked, “So having kids at 14 must have been tough going for you?”

“Oh no”, she replied, with a knowing smile, “I am in my late forties, I am sooooo old!”

Now with the knowledge that Misty is even older than me and looks that fabulous brings out the passive aggressor in me. I must bring this woman down. Game on. I fire the questions relentlessly to wipe that smile off of her attractive mug.

“Wow, humid out today, I bet your hair fuzzes up real bad like mine, eh?”  She launches back at me, “Oh yes, curls it right up. I simply love it like that!” She was going to be tough. Water spits into my left eye.

“How about that stock market, say goodbye to retirement until your ninety right? That’s a whole lot of chompers and gums…” Her smile rock solid, she shoves her fingers into my mouth with something especially sharp and says, “Oh I am so lucky, my husband’s companies are really doing well, I just work to meet nice people.”

Now she has gone too far. I did not want to take it to this low level, but she left me no choice, no other options.

“I saw your next patient there in the lobby; pretty sure he had a wad of chewing tobacco going on…I bet that guy has some bleeders.” Victory!  Her smile into a frown, she knew I had her. Suddenly, the entire office went black. Power outage. The entire south side of town in the dark.

She turned on the flashlight app on her cell phone so that I could just make out her perfect Cheshire Cat grin.

“Well, what a bummer. I guess I will have to reschedule Mr. Shloter and give him to Alison for tomorrow. So that is a day off for me!  I think I will go try on bathing suits for the fourth of July.” She escorted me to the door and slapped me again to let me know who had won this epic battle.   “Mrs. Sarchet, you have a good day at work now….see you in six months.”

Oh yes, worthy adversary, we shall battle again, and I am taking this free brush, floss, and toothpaste with me.

This Is Your Brain On Boats

My brain has a mind of its own.

I tell it every day to run the body at least two miles, write a novel, eat fruits and vegetables of multiple colors, call my mother, clean out the trash cans, and learn Tae Kwon Do. It rarely cooperates; it has not obliged with the Tae Kwon Do command since September 8^th of 1989. (I took a lesson from two Keweenaw Peninsula Byzantine Catholic monks that teach Tae Kwon Do and make killer thimbleberry jam. If you think I am lying… http://www.societystjohn.com/store/ )

Instead, what usually happens is that I walk to the end of the driveway , write this blog, eat a bowl of Capn’ Crunch, call my train wreck of a cousin, (see blog ‘Plumbers Night at the Races’) clean nothing, and we already know what happened to the Tae Kwon Do.

Cognitive Science states that if we deliberately set intent before we participate in any activity, then our brain looks for opportunities to live up to the intent. My brain must be the ultimate rebel. It is its own personal Marlon Brando… (For those of you too young for this reference, too bad, stop making me feel old).

For example, even if I intend to exercise and I see Richard Simmons sweatin to the oldies or that body-Nazi Jillian, my brain does not get up and groove, it rebels and hollers, “Stuff it Richard! Your hair is unnaturally fuzzy!” or  “I hate you Jillian, no YOU are the biggest loser!” and I get in the car, head to the 7-Eleven for a bag of Cheetos and a Coke slushy.

Many of us struggle in this manner. Consider the complexity of the battles that rage in that treasure trough of Lindsey Lohan’s mind:

Lindsey: “I really should not drink that bottle of Grey Goose before heading out on my ocean view drive.”

Lindsey’s brain: “Oh peeshaw! That is a great idea! Get the keys to the Mercedes!”

Lindsey: “I really should pay for this necklace I slipped on in the store”

Lindsay’s brain: “Bad suggestion...shiny object ….let’s rock and roll outta here!”

Yesterday, my brain took our eighteen-foot Boston Whaler boat out for a joy ride. I had driven four miles, made three left-hand turns, and passed numerous Gaylord citizens (yes, maybe even you) before realizing the boat was attached to the SUV. Thinking the car sluggish, I glanced into the rear-view mirror and there it was…..what a shocker!  I yelled, "Holy (Insert your favorite expletive)!" and proceeded to freak out. My brain does not even care for my wellbeing!  Safely home, my incredibly  patient husband tried to calm me by saying that this happens to people all time, random hauling of boats without driver knowledge. I am trying to believe him.

So if a short, blonde lady in the car next to you, waves you down while you’re driving with your boat in Northern Michigan and mouths the words, “You-have-a-boat-behind-you” as a public service;

She is not a lunatic, it’s just her brain!