The Odd Broad

Throw your hands in the air! Pause. Kick the ballistics, Santa Claus!

I was sipping a pomegranate martini at King's on Friday when I glanced up at the television screen and saw a lovely, familiar face: Donnie.  Donnie Wahlberg!  Donnie Wahlberg was at the Celtic's game!

Oh, Donnie.  Why do I immediately revert to being eleven years old whenever I think of you or any of your boyhood cohorts?  There is a good deal of giggling involved.  Hubby will go on record as saying it's "weird."  I don't disagree.

I watched intently and read the words aloud as the captions flashed across the screen: House of Blues, this Sunday, performance to benefit Toys for Tots.  Holy crap!  The New Kids on the Block were playing right in my neighborhood, and not only that, they'd be performing their Christmas album.

Reader, are you familiar with this album?  I can still recall the day it became mine, or ours rather, Sissy and me.  Uncle John had taken us to the Pheasant Lane Mall and was driving us home in his red jeep.  Resting there on my lap, inside the plastic Strawberry's bag, was a little piece of Heaven.  It was dark in the back seat but as I glanced at the liner notes I couldn't help but wonder, "Funky dope jam...Sissy, what does ballistic mean?"

I'm pretty sure she didn't know, either.

It was one of the finer artistic creations of the twentieth century, with riveting lyrics like:

"Did you ever really start to cry over something that was said?

Well I'm writing you, Dear Santa, it's the saddest thing you ever read."

...and...

"Many people are happy, and many people are sad.

Some people have many things, that others can only wish they had.

So for the sake of the children, show them love's the only way to go; cause they are tomorrow and people, they've got to know..."

(It's imperative that one sings these excerpts in a Boston accent while simultaneously using Jordan Knight's falsetto.) 

The show was sold out.  It effing killed me not to be there.  Truly killed me not to hear the New Kids sing Funky, funky Christmas:

"Slipping and sliding through the city streets, of Bean Town, gettin' down to the Christmas beat.  It's Danny D, I'm here, with Christmas cheer, no feeling to end the party of the year.  It's going, I'm showing, fresh rhymes I'm throwing, it's snowing outside but we ho ho ho-ing.  Santa's on the way, sleigh bells are ringing, swinging, everybody start singing..."

Curse you cruel fates!  Why was I not there!  How could I not have known!?

I won't lie, around 9pm on Sunday I turned to Hubby and announced that I should probably be waiting outside the House of Blues at that moment, stalking the New Kids, if I were to consider myself a true fan.  But alas, I was far too cozy, curled up on my red couch, by the tree...

JOEY!!!!!!!!!  Danny!!!!  Jordan!!  John!!  Donnie!!!!

I wish I could have seen you. 

I'll be loving you, (Forever),

Sincerely,

The Odd Broad xoxo

Away in a manger...

In an effort to further convince my friends and family that I've gone completely out of my mind, I've put the cat on my Christmas cards this year.

Oh yes, I went there.  I frigging went there.

And why not?  The Wonder Cat had a most trying Fall; doesn't she deserve to bask in the limelight every now and then?  Doesn't everyone else do it, with their children?

I won't lie; part of me secretly delights at the negative response I am certain to elicit from certain player haters.  (What can I say?  It's the little things in life...) 

And with a mug like this, how can I resist showing her off to all and sundry?

Reader, I call it Kittie in the manger.  Sweet little girl, gazing at the Baby Jesus.  This photo shoot is two years old, and was entirely spontaneous.  (And was previously posted in Odd Broad Land back in 2007.)  I was coming out of the bathroom when I discovered her, and she waited patiently as I went and got the camera.  Mommy's little diva, working the nativity.

It was destined to go on my Christmas card. 

O Tannenbaum...

Last night we decorated our Christmas tree.  Kittie helped.

Lately we've been so broke we can't even pay attention.  (Ba-dum-bump, ching!)  So broke I've done virtually no Christmas shopping.  So broke my mother paid for my groceries last weekend which very nearly made me cry.  Thank you, sweet Mommy.

It's humbling, living paycheck to paycheck again.  I know it won't be forever; Hubby has less than a year left before finishing school.  Also, Friday was payday, glorious payday, and so this weekend the Cratchit's were finally able to purchase a tree.  (And a new crutch for Tiny Kittie.)

Christmas is my favorite time of the year, but being tight on cash was beginning to turn me into a Mrs. Grinch.  But by the time we got that tree I was bursting with pine scented excitement: "Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling, too..."

We got home and poor Hubby's hands were about ready to fall off, partially from the cold and partially from carrying a large, sappy tree.  We'd purchased it at a nearby indoor farm stand.  (I was carrying a butternut squash and three bananas.)  In my defense, Hubby refused my many advances to help carry the tree.  He's very gallant and stuff.

After we'd warmed up a bit, I rummaged around and pulled out our vast collection of ancient Christmas lights.  They were dead.  All ten million of them.  Hubby put his jacket back on.

He returned with two small boxes of clear LED lights, the only two boxes CVS had left.  As we pulled out the strands of lights, we soon realized they weren't going to be nearly enough to decorate an entire tree. 

Hubby put his jacket back on.

He returned again, this time with three boxes of colored LED lights.  A most festive selection!  Let the merriness commence: "Our cheeks are nice and rosy and comfy cozy are we..."

Last weekend Mom let me take home a snowman tree topper that I've always admired.  She didn't even know it was a tree topper, in fact; she just thought it was a cute little snowman with angel wings and a halo.

"Is that what this thing is, a tree topper?"

By way of explanation, I turned the snowman upside down to reveal the hole in its bottom.  "Well, it's either a tree topper or..."

"...a sex toy."  Sissy finished the filthy sentence for me.  (So inappropriate.  We're dirty pigs.)

Car Luvin'

My older sister is forever trying to coerce me into watching trash television.  Case in point: Rock of Love, Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, Sex Rehab, The Two Corey's, Strange Love, the 2003 Michael Jackson interview with Martin Bashir...

Often times I fold.  But not the other night.  For nothing could convince me to watch what my sister was witnessing.

Sissy and I recently discovered the joy and wonder of Blackberry Messenger.  We're already pretty much in constant contact throughout the day, but somehow this has enhanced our communication even further.  I BBM chat with Sissy while walking, shopping, at work, on the toilet...

Received on Tuesday, 8:16 pm:

Sissy: "Okay...Luke is not allowed to love cars anymore.  Watching "My Car is My Lover" on BBC America.  These guys that have sex with cars...they find them sexually arousing.  One guy even did a helicopter.  So fucked up."  

Had my sister just said someone "did" a helicopter?  I asked her how, exactly, does one "do" a car?  She told me to use my imagination.  (I tried but I still couldn't figure it out.)  Apparently these lads hump cars.  Sissy said one of them molested a car that looked exactly like Kit from Knight Rider.  Poor thing.  These car fuckers are referred to as "mechaphiles;" men who are sexually obsessed with cars.

Sissy: "He did a helicopter.  He became visibly sexually aroused at a car show...he was kissing the cars and rubbing them."

Sissy went on to explain that the helicopter he did was from Airwolf, that 80's TV show.  Oh dear.

Sissy: "They had him on surveillance camera f-ing his bud's car.  The one man wore a hat with bear ears and decorates his car with stuffed animals.  And he did a helicopter." 

(Again with the copter banging!)

Apparently the other gentleman spoke of f-ing his car like a rabbit as well as raping cars.  Very, very disturbing.  He also does a punch buggy.  A white punch buggy named Vanilla.  He likes to lick her.

Poor Vanilla.  At this point I asked Hubby if he could try and pull up some of this nonsense on YouTube, if only to appease my sister, who was tired of experiencing it alone.  We saw the man licking Vanilla, but after about three seconds I had to look away. 

The other dude's "car lover" is named Todd.  (It was Todd's reliability that first attracted him.)  I asked Sissy if these people only do their own cars, or if they'll eff just any old car, in any old parking lot.

Sissy: "Vanilla and Todd are their cars, but the older guy kind of crosses boundaries with other people's cars."

Ah.

Yesterday I texted Sissy: "Gotta run.  Gonna go fuck the coffemaker."

Sissy: "The Keurig is a good lay I hear."

So, so wrong.  On so many levels.  Happy Friday, Dear Reader.  xoxo

The Odd Broad...

...Spent most of her day with her leggings on backwards.  Never even noticed the tag.

Golden showers

My brother-in-law and Sissy recently took Lukey the Wonder Nephew to the car show and he's still talking about it.  "Cah show!"  For a boy who just turned two, he's a real motorhead. 

I babysat for him on Saturday and we spent a good chunk of time watching the online demo videos for the Toyota Tundra.  "Toyo Tunda!"  Lukey D loves to watch Toyo Tunda haul logs at the ranch, the quarry, the job site...

We had a nice time.  When I laid him down on his changing table he immediately asked for "paste!"  (He brushes his own teeth.) 

"Okay, DD, Auntie's gonna change your diaper now..." 

Dear Reader, I've never gotten a golden shower before, but it was around this time that Lukey D honored me with one.

"AHHHH!  Lukey D!  You're peeing on your Auntie!  What the?" 

He laughed.  I laughed.  I decided it was time for a bath.  

We watched Christmas movies.  We played on his keyboard.  We both giggled so hard we threw our heads back in raucous laughter.  Lukey D was getting pretty slaphappy, and around 8:30 it occurred to me that I'd better try and put him to bed.  He hid under the red ottoman, laughing maniacally.  "DD, mommy's gonna kill me if I don't get you to BED!"

I picked him up and he instantly rested his head in the crook of my neck.  I walked down the hall into his room and just stood there for a moment, feeling the rhythm of his little heart beat against the center of my chest.  I attempted, just once, to put him into his crib; but I can't let Lukey D cry, not on my watch.  Instead, we rocked together in his chair, and although I did sing him a number of showtunes, after awhile I fell completely silent.  We rocked and rocked and rocked in the dark.

So he gave me a golden shower.  So I applied the Desitin to his ass cheeks instead of doing it right.  So I forgot to put his nappie on underneath his flannel pajamas.  Auntie Sissy did the best that she could. 

I'm not sure if I'll ever be a mother.  And I'm not saying that so you'll tell me what a great mother I'll be someday; I'm saying that because it's true.  I can't foresee my future, and I'm honestly not sure what it will hold.  My opinion fluctuates from day to day.  All the same- I'm auntie Sissy, to my only sister's baby, and this never fails to delight and amaze me.  Again and again, it was so worth leaving New York for.  xoxo

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's sock

In college there was a dance teacher named Andy who'd put us through a merciless sit-up routine while making us sing:

"Black socks, they never get dirty; the longer you wear them, the blacker they get...

Someday, I'll probably launder them; something keeps telling me,

Don't do it yet!  Not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet..."

A catchy tune, though the sentiment was kind of filthy.  Sometimes I'd tell Andy I had cramps. 

Speaking of dirty laundry...Hubby and I accumulate it at a shockingly rapid pace.  It perpetually seems to be piling up.  I don't envy my homeowner friends and loved ones their abodes.  I do, however, covet their washers and dryers.  You would too, if you lived in my building.  The path to the laundry room is a bit like a fairy tale: "Down the steps, through the door, beyond the courtyard...(down the ominous looking hallway, past the indoor chain link fence containing the sinister water heaters...)

It's a crime scene waiting to happen.  I refuse to go down there alone.  Freshly laundered linen is lovely, but I'm not about to go all Law and Order for it.

And then there's the local laundromat, where a quarter buys you five minutes of dryer time.  I spent $20 there last weekend.  As I unfurled a sheet from the dryer, I noticed a sock had fallen to the floor. 

I removed the matching fitted sheet and suddenly saw a second black sock pop out and fall to the ground, landing between myself and the girl next to me.  Her arms were brimming with a heaping pile of clothes she'd just pulled from the dryer.

This could be potentially awkward.  Gingerly, I picked up the sock, then realized it might look like I was doing something creepy. 

"This sock was stuck inside my sheet," I explained, in a friendly voice.  "Just didn't want you to think I was stealing your laundry!"

Heh heh.

"Oh, is that yours?  I think it may be mine?"  (So we were going to play this game, were we?)

"My socks keep hiding inside my sheets..."  As a momentary solution, I hung the sock up on the laundry cart between us and got back to my folding.  Minutes later, the girl had bundled up her things and reached out for my sock.  "Um, I found the match, so I guess it was mine after all."

Now this was just weird.  I glanced at the sock.  My sock.  The sole said "HUE" on it, and her "match" did not.  They weren't even the same size!  "Oh, do you have socks that say HUE, too?" I asked, "We must have the same ones, then."  (Liar, liar, pants on fire!)  Oh yes, I could see right through her little ruse.

Was this broad actually lying to me over a measly sock?  Should I stand my ground?  Did I really want to cause a scene over one black sock?  I wasn't sure if my inner child could withstand such humiliation.  And then again, what if the sock wasn't mine after all?  My resolve began to waver. 

Who was I kidding, this wretched girl was a sock snatcher.  Was she not?  

A few days later I was rifling through my dresser and pulled out a single sock with the letters HUE on the sole.  I could only find one of them.  That rotten little sock pilferer!  My only comfort is the hope that she will one day realize her blunder and feel very penitent and bad about herself.  Until that glorious day...I continue to pine for a washer and dryer to call my very own.

Maybe Santa will bring me some black socks for Christmas. 

Sultry cat

As I mentioned earlier, The Wonder Cat's diabetes is blissfully under control.  She's ready for her close up.

Meow.  xoxo