A Political Coup and a Dang Lucky Cat

A few years back my family staged a political coup. I played the part of the usurped leader, while the others in the house were the unruly radicals who had become increasingly displeased with a certain parental decree. A  meeting was held by the dissatisfied members of the household and in turn they decided not only to gain the confidence, but more importantly, the voting power of the weakest member our home's bureaucratic elite---their father. They held a secret meeting with him where they confessed their grievances, gained his loyalties, and devised a plan.

The whole coup took place before I even had a chance to prepare for combat.  Mark surprised ambushed  me one afternoon by coming home early and announcing it would be fun to go and pick up all the kids from school. Once all the children little militants were in the car and tucked safely in their seat belts and beyond my reach, the following conversation ensued:

Mark: Hey Honey, the kids and I took a vote and there is nothing you can do with what is about to happen. It's beyond your power to veto.

Me: Huh?    
(isn't that just like an outgoing dictator? Always the last to know his her people are dissatisfied with current regime policies!)

Mark:  Seriously, you're not gonna like it and I'm just reminding you now that your vote is only worth two and the kids and I together make a total of six votes.  (In a household with four kids, each of the parent's votes are always worth two, it's a built in safety net, though sadly, only when both parents vote ALIKE.)

Me: Huh?

Kids snickering in the back.

Mark:  The kids and I decided it's about time we get a pet.  We know how you feel about having to take care of pets so we decided we'd start with something low maintenance...

Me:  Huh?

Kids beaming with wide smiles.

Mark: We decided on a cat and we're headed to the Humane Society right now.  The kid's promise to help take care of it and...
(blah blah blah blah blah-I sort of stopped listening at this point-just like a REAL dictator would have done, only I forgot about adding a shout such as, "down with the people!", which I think would have been perfectly appropriate.)

Things took a drastic turn for the worse when we arrived.  The kids decided to throw me a bone, so to speak, and tried to ease my pain by giving me the "privilege" of choosing our new cat.  I think they were in cahoots with the lady who worked there because when I chose two different cats that I thought I could tolerate and told my little band of marauders that they could have the final say and pick between the two, the lady then exclaimed with a bit of suspicious glee that both cats had been brought in from the very same owner.  It was destiny she said.  So, instead of riding home with ONE yowling box of cat, I rode home with TWO!

And that was it.  A successful coup resulting in one overthrown mother, two new cats, four happy children, and a disloyal husband who slept on the couch for a few days!  (I still had a little power left!  Tee hee! ) 

It took me a year to not despise the cats.  I almost bonded with the one cat that would come hang out with me on summer mornings in my garden while I weeded.  But the other cat is a scratcher!  Totally mean.  You pet it and it'll give off a decoy purr, and then suddenly it will gouge a limb right off!  Sadly, the one I came really close to liking, it met with a tragic accident on the road.  Now we're left with "Edward Scissorhands" who claws at everybody. Just my luck.  The kids all love him despite all the scars he's branded them with.  I have learned to tolerate him and to buy lots of Neosporin and band-aids for the kids.

They say dogs have masters and cats have staff.  Totally true in this case.

Today, during a blustery winter afternoon,  I was watching ol' "Scissorhands" (with much contempt) lounging about INSIDE the house, completely oblivious to the wicked weather outside and flamboyantly flaunting  the ease at which he yields ALL the power inside our house.  If it wasn't for the revolt, he'd of never made it out of the pound, yet he consistently ignores all forms of house rules and pet etiquette!  Where's the gratitude?   The following violations all happened just today...

Here he is making himself at home on the coffee table right in the middle of a serious Lego construction project, Rude!:

Here he is making it hard for people in the house to read (with or without glasses).  This cat's specialty is kid's homework, he loves to sprawl on homework when they're busy writing on it.  And if you should try to reclaim your papers, he'll claw you!  Just look at those beady little eyes daring you to touch the magazine:

And here, the darn cat is sprawled out in a rather indiscreet position, and mind you,  taking up as much room on the couch as possible, very selfish, lazy, and uncouth indeed:

I may have lost the "Cat Coup" but I am taking steps to safeguard myself from further household rebellions.  I just bought a copy of Sun Tzu's  "The Art of War"!  

In the meantime, this is one dang lucky cat. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Killing Me Softly with Her Blog

I made the mistake of perusing through my favorite blogs the other evening while I was suffering from a persistent malady I'm often cursed with...food cravings.  And not just any food cravings mind you, the worst of its kind, the sort of craving that can't be resolved without hopping on a plane.  I was craving REAL Italian food.  So I got online to distract myself.  When what to my hungering eyes should appear?  My niece Danielle and her preposterous post on Italian food!  Bad timing!  I died!  Then I went into my kitchen and made the bruchetta you see pictured above.  Nice, but thanks to Danielle, who blogged all of the deliciously fresh and mouth-watering ingredients of Italy that you just can't find in the states, like bufala mozzerlla and gelato, I was still left with more cravings!  Shame on you Danielle, it's not nice to tease!  Sono Affamato!

There's a Grampa in My Bed!

I should have known it was bad karma to make fun of the aged.  Somewhere deep down inside I knew it was wrong, and I did it anyway.

It all started a few years back when Mark and I were somewhere out in the middle of the ocean, me happily reading,  and Mark intensely studying navigational charts in preparation for a test.  Across the table sat our friends Keith and Kathy Williams who, ahem, are our "older" friends (they're grandparents even, but in case they're reading this, I should add they're also hip and cool for being so old).  Kathy was reading too and Keith was studying his own charts preparing for the same test.

Suddenly, a very annoyed Mark looks up from his charts and says, "Can you read this?!!  How do they expect people to read this when they make these chart notations so small?"

His big mistake was that he handed the chart over to me, the youngest crew member on board with the keenest of eyes.  I took the chart, and read off the small notations without any hesitation whatsoever and handed it back to him.

Puzzled, he looked up and said, "Why can't I see that?"

Both Keith and Kathy simultaneously looked at each other, knowingly grinned, then silently answered him by each pulling off their reading glasses  (I call them "grandpa glasses")  and offered them to him.  He grabbed at Kathy's pair with extreme skepticism and put them on.  He looked at the chart and he immediately bore that giddy expression you see so often on a child's face on Christmas morning.  Then, ever so slowly, the cheer began to fade, replaced by the grim horror of a man who realized he had just crossed a threshold that would soon promise a decrepit future full of discounts.

Over two years later, Mark now sports a pair of grampa readers in every room of the house.  He could care less about what I refer to as his "recent handicap".  If he's gotta read, there they are, perched right at the tip of his nose.  I, on the other-hand, am a bit more alarmed at the situation.  At the onset of his alarming discovery, I was a youthful and spry 37.  This is way too young to be married to a man proudly sporting grampa glasses.  Way, waaaaaay too young.

Then, one horrible evening (which has scarred me for life)  while I innocently sat up in bed cheerfully reading something or other, I looked up to speak to my beloved husband and to my alarm, when I looked up I beheld a grampa-looking figure with spectacles perched on the tip of his nose laying in my bed!  "Ahhhhhhh!"  I hollered, "What are you doing?"

He looked up totally puzzled, "What?"  

"What do you mean what?" I say.  "Your old man glasses!  I am WAY too young to have a grampa in my bed!" 

He just looks at me and shakes his head.  "Ridiculous."

This is an every night occurrence now which means I've had to re-invent my insults.  Sometimes I kid him by saying in a low and sultry tone, "Man you look so sexy in those."  Occasionally, this gets him to trade his glasses in for the remote.  Other times he just says, "Listen girlfriend, your day is coming," and he returns to his book.

About six months after that jarring episode, apparently the whole grampa gig became so second nature to him that he unabashedly decided to take the big leap.  There I was, again, minding my own business, this time sitting on a church pew.  I look over at my dear husband and there he is, reading the program with those dang glasses perched on his nose!

I leaned over, wide-eyed, and whispered in a not-so-very reverent tone,  "When did WE decide to take this public??" I gave him the look of extreme dissatisfaction.

He simply rolled his eyes and returned to reading.

Seriously.  Now EVERYONE knows I married to an old guy!

No matter how much shame I try and bring upon the man, nothing works anymore.  He's fully embraced the situation.  Apparently that's what happens to old people.  They don't care.  What's next? Suspenders?  Comfortable shoes?  Senior Discounts?  If I'm married to an old guy, what does that make me?  My youth is spiraling.

Unknown to me, while I've been recklessly making fun of the old man for over a year or two now, there must be some Greek God called "Speck-ti-cles" that my professors failed to mention in my Greek Mythology classes.  This would have been very important information to be forewarned about to be sure.  This is one greek god you don't want to upset, and apparently I did.  This is the only explanation I can reasonably come up with to explain the following event.

Just two short weeks after turning 40 the worst thing imaginable happened.  "Speck-ti-cles" went on a rampage.  I went, as I do everyday, to read the carbohydrate count on the side of a box so that Chloe could calculate her insulin shot, and darn if my arm didn't pull the box away from my eyes!  This happened THREE times in ONE DAY.  Suddenly my heart sank.  My eyes!  My eyes!  Seriously, my eyes quit working OVERNIGHT.

Quickly I ran to grab a pair of Mark's readers (we're not calling them grampa glasses anymore!) and put them on, hoping to confirm that they didn't do a thing to remedy my problem.

Oh crap.

I could see.  See the clear, bold letters and see my youth clearly and boldly fading.  After a month in denial, I got tired of pulling nutritional facts away from my face so I could read them (when it comes to insulin, you've got to get your numbers exactly right).  I surrendered and went out and bought a pair of, well you know.  But, just to read nutritional facts.  Okay, and maybe a few other things I am suddenly not seeing so well.

And now, in a meeger attempt to console myself into thinking that I haven't crossed that threshold of youth I'm clinging so dearly to, I solemnly promise before the Greek god Speck-ti-cles that I will not grant him the satisfaction of catching me doing any of the following:

• Perching them on the tip of my nose
• Going public with them 'till I'm 50
• Ever, ever, wearing them with a chain!
• Claim they are missing when they are on top of my head
  
• Make fun of my husband again (at least for a while)

You Call That a Love Note?

Years ago I got tired of our rushed morning routine of getting the kids out the door and off to school on time.  It was a real miracle when there wasn't at least one kid who left for the bus half-naked or shoeless because we couldn't get our act together.  The craziness reached its apex the year I was getting the kids out the door, properly dressed, homework signed, hair combed-all off to FOUR different schools...I think I could have gotten through a NASA launch sequence with less glitches.

Smartly, I realized with a little pre-planning, we could get most things ready the night before (yes, I know, most of you have been doing this for years, I'm a little slow at this mom-game).  With this new routine, the kids were ready every morning on time and out the door with no cursing on my part.  The only problem was that now the cursing happened each night as I would growl at the kids over each and every thing they needed to do before bed.   It didn't take long for this routine to earn me the prestigious title of

"The Night Nag".

So  I turned to my trusty ol' mac and came up with a solution-call it neurotic and even fastidious but it works!   I had notepads made with a checklist and gave them to each of the kids.  Now, for the last few years, each night I just tell them to do their list and off they go...no more nagging.  This quirky, and yes, admittedly obsessive-and-control-freakish checklist of mine has liberated me from most of the general parental tantrums and cursings I am famous for.

It has also created a few interesting rituals around our house that Mark and I have found quite amusing.

The Check-Off:

Notice that Chloe likes to self-congratulate her finished list by embellishing it with a sticker before she hands it over.  She also likes to make notes on the side such as, "smell breath" as if to insure and guarantee the accuracy of teeth brushing.  She'll even list her blood sugar number and note which book she is currently reading.  Connor on the other hand, will do the minimal mark-off as required and usually skip parts of the check list he'd rather avoid.  You really have to check the list for room cleaning, sox getting, and teeth brushing, he is not particularly fond of these.

The Delivery
The delivery of the finished checklist is another interesting ritual.  Connor, who often turns in what we call an "incomplete", likes to deliver his through devious methods which require as little human contact as possible.  Then he will wait for an hour after its submission before he dares to come and give us a good night hug in hopes that we've forgotten any violations on the list.  Two of his favorite modes of delivery are:

...via airway:

...or by remote control car which has a camera built-in, this enables him to drive the car while safely tucked several rooms away:

The Love Note?

The next curious development is Chloe's nightly ritual of flipping her checklist over and writing what she calls "love notes" on the back.  A few of the love notes are really nice (keep reading, I saved the weird ones for last!):

Even Connor sometimes writes a love note (granted, this is usually when he is trying to distract a parent from the lack of check-marks on the other side.  Whether he gets away with it or not all depends on how genuine and nice his remarks are.).  Notice the lovely addition of hand-drawn of hearts which he thinks will earn him bonus points.

Sometimes Chloe's notes amuse us with her rather bizarre confessions of love:

uh...does that mean you love us a little or a lot?

Oddly, she likes brushing her teeth and the nightly checklist, so we'll take that as an endearing profession of love.

cockroaches?  Why thank you.   Oh, and ewwww, whatever does cockroaches have to do with movies and popcorn?

Not sure here either.

uh...thanks for that mental image. ewww!

On this day, Connor  must have been feeling especially amorous to take the time to make this lengthy list:

wow...more than a tick and snail??  Why that's love.

And The Occasional Complaint:

And then other times Chloe uses the backside to jot down household complaints, as if it were to be stuffed inside one of those comment boxes:

I look forward to our nightly routine these days because we never know how it'll get delivered or what kind of professed love it's gonna bring.   The Night Nag is resting comfortably most evenings, totally retired and busy reading silly love notes.