The Cleaning Lady: Part II– But is it Really Clean?
So, my second new cleaning lady actually quit the job before she even started, she said, because she got a full time job. Ok, bravo. Glad we could help you.
So, I have continued to resort to my own special rub and scrub talents, which, while it’s not my favorite way to spend a Saturday after working 50 hour weeks, it’s not the worst either. Call me crazy, but it’s kinda therapeutic. (Alright, maybe I shouldn’t have dumped the shrink but it’s a hell of a lot cheaper. BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO)
So meanwhile, Bella gets asked to clean her room as well as her bathroom. NOTE TO ALL PARENTS WITH CHILDREN UNDER 5: Do NOT, under any circumstances, I repeat DO NOT have your cleaning lady clean their room. Make your kid do it. This is the most valuable advice you will ever get from any parent to another. Forget about all those pre-school applications. Forget about reading, forget about building blocks, coloring, and ABC’s. Cleaning their room is the most important skill they will ever learn as a 5 year old. Because, if Vilma cleans forever, they grow up with this sense of entitlement there is never any cleaning in the home to be done by them. And if, in the unlikely event, the cleaning lady resigns, and through a series of happenstance you can NOT replace her for anything, and you expect your very capable teen age daughter to Read the rest of this entry »
The Pool Picture Police
Saturday was not too friggin’ bad. Hot, 95, and awesome outside.
So, I go up to the roof pool where the view is, as so eloquently spoken by a stranger passing, “holy shit.” Yes, it is, it is indeed, which is why I have spent the last 15 years throwing money after this rented apartment, rather than moving out of the big dirty apple where I could afford something somewhat larger than a 500 square foot apartment neatly divided into three bedrooms and a den. And a stall shower. In the hall. If you can call it that. Well, anyway, back to the pool. As I turned to dip, I noticed the new lifeguard, sleeping. Or at least he appeared to be sleeping. So I whipped out my Cannon to show you guys how terribly dangerous roof pools are when the lifeguard is snoozing and suddenly, he POPPED TO LIFE. “No picture taking in here. No picture taking in HERE!” What?? I’ve lived here for 15 years and I always take pictures in here. “Well, you are NOT SUPPOSED TO!” Where is the manager? (My usual kneejerk reaction: SPEAK TO THE PARTY IN CHARGE.) Barefoot and bathing suit clad, I composed myself to ask her: “What the FUCK?” To which her response was, “well, I don’t know why exactly. They think that maybe you could make money selling pictures of the Empire State Building.” What???I’ve never heard anything SO RIDICULOUS IN ALL MY LIFE.
So, There.
And THERE.
Walmart? Schmalmart. It’s the thought that counts.
So, not everyone’s a rocket scientist. I sure as shit don’t claim to be. But, um, hell, it’s one fat hell of a going away cake!
So, here’s what we think the conversation was:
Walmart Employee: “Hello ‘dis be Walmarts, how can I help you?”
Customer: ” I would like to order a cake for a going away party this week.”
Walmart Employee: “Whatchu want on the cake?”
Customer: “Best Wishes Suzanne” and underneath that “We will miss you”.
Thanks Natuba, for having this gift on your site.
The Panty Police
I am really, really sorry. But is there a REASON someone has to roll their skirt down so low their panties show? OK, now I KNOW I’m getting old.
I know this picture is a little blurry, but I haven’t quite figured out how to set my shutter speed to taking motion pictures. So sue me.
With My Heart In My Mouth
Saturday, the end of a long friggin’ nightmarish week…you can tell from my LAST POST that, well, things could be a little easier on the home front. Teenagers have a way of wishing you could take every lie back you told your mother, (like that one about sleeping over Debbie Zinder’s house when you were really going out with Alex,) so that the god’s would reward your good behavior and anoint you with the perfect child who doesn’t make you go gray and gain ten pounds and become addicted to chocolate and wine. But I might have lied. Once or twice or ten times, but even so, couldn’t they cut me a little break?
Anyway, so Bella had this sweet sixteen party to go to. But first a science experiment that dredges up that all too familiar feeling of I HATE SCHOOL and homework, and why they hell are they making ME repeat ninth grade? I mean wasn’t once enough? Well, apparently, NOT. So, I helped her set up the power point , while she tests the decomposition of H2O2 on a piece of liver, (although why anyone gives a shit when H2O2 turns into H2O and what environmental factors influence it is beyond me which is exactly why I am still sitting in a cube and not making a $500K a year as a doctor which is what my mother wanted me to be.)
But back to the point, The Sweet 16. So, she gets dressed and looks anything but SWEET 16, more like HOT 18, and she hops in a cab to go the to the party with me calling after her to RING ME WHEN SHE GETS THERE. Which she doesn’t. But I don’t panic. I decide on this warm Saturday night in almost June to take a ride out to Jersey where a friend’s band is playing in a country pub and it smells so nice and the air so clean, I’m actually enjoying myself for the first time in weeks, but I still haven’t heard from Bella and I don’t think I will ’cause by now she’s at the party and can’t hear her cell phone. Ringing. And Ringing. So I have some wine and it’s 10:06 and the party is supposed to be over by 10. And I call and her voice mail answers and I leave this message: “Bella, I’m a little worried so call me when you get this please”, which over the next HOUR turns into: “I am REALLY ANGRY THAT YOU HAVEN’T CALLED ME YET, GODDAMMIT AND I TOLD YOU TO CALL ME WHEN YOU GOT TO THE PARTY AND WHEN I COME HOME YOU ARE GROUNDED CALL ME NOW”.
Did Aliens Take Her?
Where did she go?
That plump little baby that chewed on her toes.
My, oh my, oh where did she go?
The one who blew bubbles and built men out of snow.
She seems to have fled, right out of my head.
And into her room, an alien instead.
Someone who’s feelings I must lightly tread.
Lest I keep banging the wall on my head.
Her clothes are all scattered,
her tears they do shatter,
the boys they all flatter,
her music clatters,
her makeup splatters.
Getting through this moment is very tough
could not imagine it would be this rough,
Did YOU know all about this stuff?
Compared to this, terrible twos were marshmallow fluff.
Will I look back on this time and say,
Whatever happened to all THOSE days?
Or will I just wonder why I didn’t run away?
Dear God help me through, however I may.
Even if it means that I yell and shout,
Or demand to know “where are you going?” Whenever she goes out.
If I don’t collapse first and then freak out.
The aliens will return Bella, of that, I have almost …no doubt.
Back Seat Driver
Can you see out this windshield? Well neither can I. And it really bothers me… because I AM IN THE BACK SEAT OF THIS CAB! I know gas prices are high, but does the wiper really use up that much gas??? Will someone please tell this driver to use the God Damn windshield wipers. Who ME?
