Wild Things

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We live in the woods. I mean, not like the Alaskan wilderness, but some pretty legit woods with wildlife, and big trees, and lost hikers who have resorted to cannibalism. Also, yetis. This bug was on our screen door one day last summer:
Moth

It is hard to get a sense of scale from this picture, but he is approximately six feet wide. That hairy neon-colored bastard clung to the screen door for two days before it soared away above the trees. And probably carried somebody’s dog with him. Also, one day when my husband was traveling (well of course he was) I went down to the basement to do the laundry and was greeted by this mother-effer, sitting right by the dryer:
Spider

I wet myself, ran screaming upstairs and did not go back to the basement for a week. My husband took that picture when the evil wolf spider (which Google says is harmless but CAN JUMP VERY FAR) re-surfaced. And no, my husband NEVER says, “Aww, look at this cute picture!” and then shows me the spider picture. Because that would be mean.

Then, just last week, I was relaxing on the couch, watching The Bachelor a thoughtful PBS analysis of the sequestration and its effect on the middle class. Suddenly the gate to our back deck creaked open and a raccoon the size of a PONY walked on to the deck and right up to the sliding door. And then he stared at me and screamed, through his foaming, rabies-infected mouth, that he was going to open that door and come in our living room and eat my feet and then take the remote and watch nature shows in high def. At least I think that’s what happened; it was hard to tell, since I immediately did a kind of handstand on the couch so that I could get my feet as far as possible off the ground.

This is exactly what he looked like, except about 80 times bigger with more foam around his extremely sharp teeth:
Raccoon

So, in a nutshell, I am often a little on edge about what creature is going to visit us and try to attack me next.

Wednesday during dinner, I had to run to the fridge in the garage for some milk. I was convinced that the raccoon was going to come sneaking out from behind the fridge and go for my feet again, or that he was going to drive the car at me or carbon monoxide poison me, so I was on high alert. But instead of a rabid attack on my feet I WAS ATTACKED FROM ABOVE.

No, I am NOT kidding you. Just as I opened the refrigerator door, I hear a rustling above my head and feel a slight breeze. I turn and see a flash flying though the air and immediately know it is a bat, because a bird would not be scary enough. And then I think it is probably a vampire bat because I still don’t know if those are a real thing or not, so I slam the refrigerator door, put my hands around my neck (so as to avoid vampirization) and high-knee it into the house (to avoid the rabid raccoon foot attack) and I don’t stop running until I hit a wall. My husband asks me what the hell is wrong, and I tell him SOMETHING IS IN THE GARAGE SOMETHING THAT FLIES AND SCREAMS!! He is unphased, probably because he knows that I exaggerate a wee tiny bit occassionally I am totally fine. So he goes outside, opens the garage doors, and waits for the bat to fly away. And now that he is free, the vampire bat can meet with the rabid raccoon in their coven to plan their next attack on my feet and/or sanity.

I am determined not to pass my anxiety about our neighborhood wildlife on to my kids, who love all things nature-related. So instead of telling them that mommy lost her mind because there was a bat in our garage, I tell them it was a cute little baby bat – OR MAYBE IT WAS A FAIRY. A beautiful, sparkly fairy, with little wings and a wand! Because, frankly, I would like to believe it was a fairy, and my daughter certainly wanted to believe it was a fairy, and my son always enjoys a good argument with his sister. So, win.

If that fairy gets too close to me, though, I will cut her.

I Have Eyebrows, Too

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I had just started to feel a little big in my britches about having 40 subscribers, and then I read that a cat with eyebrows has over 31 thousand followers on Instagram. And then I started following that cat with eyebrows, because he is really something. What will he do next?! Something adorable, I bet.

In other news, many people have asked how my Insanity workout is going. OK, maybe they asked, “Are you INSANE?” when I was telling them about something and I just assumed it was about my workout routine. You know, because crazy people never admit they are crazy. So I have finished four weeks of the workout and it is really hard but effective. I now look like something like this but with more veins popping out of my forehead:

Bodybuilder

In addition to looking like a finely tuned machine, I also feel stronger, I have been introduced to my “hip flexors” (did you know they are a real thing?), and I just found a long lost ab muscle. On my body! And the videos are entertaining. I love hearing the trainer dude talk about himself in the third person (“Shaun T is getting tired! Shaun T has huge quads! Shaun T could crush you with his finely sculpted calves!”), and I like when he yells at me while he jumps around all sweaty and shirtless. Sometimes I sit down in our recliner and eat cookies while he just goes on and on about pushing yourself, blah blah blah. But yesterday my husband and I started the more intense “max” phase of the workouts, where I immediately learned that the previous workouts – the ones that I had barely survived – are, in fact, for total pussies. If I make it to the end and still have the use of my arms and fingers, I will let you know how it went.

This update on my workouts reminded me to update everyone on the progress of my New Year’s resolutions, too. Um, I have done absolutely none of them. In fact, I had to look back at the list to even remember what the hell they were.

Well, that was easy.

Be Mine. Or Not. Whatever.

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In honor of Valentine’s Day, I am going Huffington Post style and collecting my favorite love stories from around the interwebs to share with you. This is mainly because it is easier than writing my own material. Don’t worry – these are not the predictable, romantic love stories with contrived gestures and rose petals. Those always make me a little ill. For example, I have seen this one all over the place in the past couple of days and am 100% sure it is a lie.

Dead Valentine

Who knows, maybe it’s totally true. But I can think of at least one reason why it is not romantic at all: what if this lady had moved on and found a new guy to be her Valentine? Imagine she was getting dressed up for a fancy night out, feeling all excited and lovey-dovey for the first time in ages, and then BAM, a note from her dead husband reminds her that his love is ETERNAL. “I am stalking you from beyond the grave. Enjoy your date.” Eww. Which is why I prefer my romantic gestures a little more like this:

Valentine Bear

In your face, to the point, and in my case, totally true.

The romantical stuff on Valentine’s feels fake and weird to me, but these little stories about all kinds of love make me happy.

First, meet Banana Joe, the winner of the Westminster Dog Show’s coveted Best in Show award. His furry little head makes me happy, but look at how happy Banana Joe’s handler is:

Banana Joe

That is love. Of course, the cynical side of me is imagining the handler thinking, “This hairball just got me PAID!” But no, on this Valentine’s Day, I am deciding to believe that they love each other and are the best of friends, and that the handler will love his sweet Banana Joe even after he is no longer the ideal representation of the Affenpinscher breed.

Second, prepare to cry, because those bastards at NPR’s StoryCorps have done it again. This is a sweet story about the love between a mother and daughter despite lots of challenges (or maybe because of those challenges?). You can find the story here. Also, I’d like to point out that this girl is 15, right in the middle of those years when most daughters spend half of their waking hours screaming about hating their awful moms because they won’t buy them a slutty shirt at the mall. So she is really amazing.

Third, Piney Porky McHedgypants has apparently found love, right under his big pointy nose. I discovered him and Blue Bolero Bunny (that name is self-explanatory) holding paws in my son’s room last night. To be clear, “holding paws” is not a euphemism for anything. They are very happy. And as long as they don’t gang up on me and try to kill me in my sleep (which everyone knows is what giant stuffed animals do eventually), I will support their stuffed animal love affair.

Piney + Bunny

And finally, here is my current favorite love song. It took on a new, beautiful meaning when I saw the video – instead of a guy pining away over a girl, it’s a bunch of dudes showing their manly love for their buds by smashing bottles on each other’s heads. If that isn’t true love between besties, I don’t know what is.

Happy, happy Valentine’s Day, everyone. xoxo

I Only Wanna Be With You

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As you may have guessed, I’m not great at getting rid of stuff. This has worked out well for some things, such as my husband, who I have kept around for more than half of my life. But it does not always work out so well. For example, I may have kept my son’s umbilical cord stump in a drawer in his nursery for a few months. That’s right – I couldn’t bear the idea of parting with the black, hardened remains of my first child’s bellybutton. Luckily I got some sage advice from a mom friend of mine about this situation. When she saw the stump laying in the corner of the diaper drawer, she recognized it immediately (it still had that hospital clip thing on it) and said: “OH my god, what the hell is wrong with you, that is so effing disgusting, throw it AWAY!” When I began to protest she said, “Look, it’s not OK to hoard rotting body parts.” Which is just good advice for all new moms, and people in general. I sadly wrapped the stump in tissue, said my farewells, and placed it gently in the trashcan.

I still wonder where it is today.

But what about hoarding things that are not rotting body parts? Despite what you might think from watching TLC, there is just no clear-cut rule. Right now I am trying to come to terms with getting rid of a sentimental piece of furniture in my house:
Rocking Chair

To people who do not attach emotional value to every inanimate object in their lives, that is just a banged up rocking chair and footstool that could probably get $50 at a garage sale. To me, though, that is the place where I learned how to be a mom, where I fell so in love with my little babies and their long eyelashes and chubby cheeks, where I learned how to soothe them and make them giggle, where I cursed everyone who told me that breastfeeding was natural and beautiful, where I fought sleep and lost hundreds of times. I have the clearest memories of my husband passed out on the nursery floor, a chubby baby sleeping on my lap, and rocking back and forth in that chair for hours, convinced that all the goodness in the world at that moment was right next to me and wrapped up in my sweet little family.

So maybe you can understand why I don’t just want to sell it to some a-hole scammer on Craig’s List.

But the chair just doesn’t fit in our house any more and I know its days are numbered. The kids are on to their new big kid furniture, their new toys that need floor space. And I’m slowly starting to realize that that is what little kids do: they push you forward, constantly on to the next thing, excited for what is to come. And most days I go along happily and share in their excitement, but sometimes I just cling desperately to those sweet, fleeting moments that have already come and gone and won’t come again.

So in honor of my milk- and snot-covered rocking chair with the deflated cushions and wobbly right arm and matching broken nursing stool (I will not put any of that in the Craig’s List ad), here is my favorite song about rocking. If you are as scared of old-timey carnies and tattooed ladies as I am, just avert your eyes and listen to the bluegrassy magic.

Apparently Hootie from Hootie & The Blowfish (not the OTHER Hootie) covered this song, and really enraged some of the commenters on this video. Hootie is not the first person I think of when I think of sentimental songs, so I chose to link to this version. But I do think of Hootie quite often, and fondly, because once I danced with a boy to a Hootie song. It was Let Her Cry.

Thank you, Hootie. I think I will.