Well, it's been several weeks since Jo from Tangled Me, being swept up in a meme tagging frenzy, charged me and several other good women to reveal five things about ourselves of which people were unaware.
I must admit, this tag left me looking like a deer caught in the headlights: what was a meme? what five things about myself have I not already long-since revealed in my postings? why on earth would anyone want to know any more about me than I've already been nattering on about for the past year or so? But I value Jo's friendship, and I've honestly been wracking my brain to come up with these five items to comply with the tag challenge.
Wracking my brain wouldn't seem to be such a difficult task considering the hollow sound resulting from a sharp rap on my skull with the knuckles. I mean, there ain't much in my cerebrum but a grocery list and some fond childhood memories! But, DANG! What five things does no one know about Priscilla?
*squint*
*frown*
*remember mint-flavored M&M's in kitchen cabinet*
To be fair, the holidays were upon us, and there was so much work to be done. Christmas was oddly difficult in that I felt so prepared and confident right up until a few days before. Last minute wrapping sessions, a delayed tree snatch and a frantic Christmas Eve meal prep left me exhausted and confused.
I needed Mr. Pseudonym to help with the tree, but he works far away from home with nary a day off ever. He does get vacation and personal time, but he doesn't like to leave the defense of the country to others at Aircraft & Other-Stuff-You-Don't-Need-To-Know-About R Us. So the tree had to wait until the last minute, finally being decorated as part of the frantic Deathmarch Houseclean which always precedes our parties.
One of our Christmas Eve guests is a compulsive talker, and trying to get a holiday meal on the table when she's here is like trying to shampoo a hairless cat on a rubber sheet.
The bright spot of the Christmas Eve was getting to see J.Q.'s other grandma, #1 Daughter's soon-to-be-ex-mother-in-law-but-hopefully-lifelong-family-friend. J.Q.'s grandma was sweet (and brave) enough to attend the festivities at Casa Pseudonym, which helped balance out the psychic drain of my compulsive talker friend's monologue.
The evening ended with a weary plop on the sofa and a protracted, wide-eyed stare at the tree. One holiday down, a coupla more to go.
Christmas Day up at Pixie's was, by contrast, soothing and comfortable. Pixie has turned into a really good cook, and she executed an excellent holiday meal. We opened gifts one-by-one under her illegal evergreen while listening to the Spanish-music station on the radio ("RRRRRRRRRRRRUMBA-CIENTOS-CUATRRRRRRRO-PUNTOS-CINCO! HA-HA-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, AMIGOS!")
Mr. Pseudonym's 60th birthday was three days later, on the same day I was keeping J.Q. My dear friend and neighbor, Kathy, comes over to help with J.Q. each week now. Caring for a wall-climbing toddler who calls her "Cassie" and begs for hugs just to get out of getting his diaper changed seems to reaffirm her faith in life while dealing with her mother's progressing Alzheimer's. With Kathy keeping J.Q. from destroying NJ, I was able to throw a partial turkey in the oven for Mr. Pseudonym's birthday dinner. All of the kids were here, and the baby got a kick out of everyone singing to grandpa.
New Year's Eve came all too soon. I burnt the breadcrumb topping on the mac and cheese to a black devastation while, once again, listening to Mrs. Compulsive's rambling. And, to my astounding great fortune, she and her husband had apparently stuffed some festive dried herbs into their hookah on the way over, so her stories were frequently punctuated by a magestic rise up onto one buttock and the expulsion of several cubic feet of intestinal gas in a long, alarming screech. While she was obviously delighted with her own talents, my friend's performance left me drained of holiday spirit almost until the big ball dropped at Times Square.
But I got out the good crystal and served the two bottles sparkling cider brought by two different guests. Two different sparking ciders, so it looked as if five of us were drinking champagne and three of us were drinking urine.
OK...the purpose of this post is to fulfill my obligation to Jo. So here goes:
- I wanted children from the time I was a young child.
- I am math phobic
- I believe human beings are meant to be carnivorous, but not necessarily cruelly carnivorous.
- *pauses to pick meat shreds out of teeth*
- I am not an atheist or an agnostic.
- I plan to do away with all of my pets by attrition, because...DAMN!...every time I finish cleaning, I dump out a whole catsworth of hair from the vacuum cleaner!
Oh, ALLRIGHT: My kids are aware of most or all of the above, which is frankly boring, but let's face it--I'm not that complicated a person! I will admit to being empathic till it hurts, overly emotional, way too naive for my age and wicked smart, but I don't think about much more than going to the supermarket, watering my plants and feeding my pets!
Oooooo0o! Ooooooooo! Oooooooooo!
- When Mr. Pseudonym retires, I want us to buy a Winnebago and travel the United States!
- I have always dreamed of seeing the aurora borealis! Literally! I sometimes have dreams about bright, undulating, colored lights in the sky. Sometimes, the lights spell out words or form pictures!
The kids keep saying I need a therapist because I've never fulfilled my potential, but how much damned potential does a woman have at my age? Wasn't the starting bell rung...uh...say, four decades or so ago? And what if I'm basically happy dropping Mr. P's shirts off at the cleaner, throwing the frisbee for the terrier and waiting for the spring planting season? What if I don't feel the need to rush out and get a degree in microbiology? Is this wrong thinking?
Me tired. Head hurts. Will tag others next post, OK?
4 comments:
Great description of the holidays, but poor tagging content, ma. You are totally more interesting than you make yourself out to be: We want coolio info like I suggested to you. For everyone's amazement purposes and to pay some long-overdue homage to the awesomeness that is Priscilla, here are a few more things you didn't know about her:
-She likes techno music, in particular the Prodigy and Underwold, as well as young-people music like Sublime. She sings "Smack My Bitch Up" at innappropriate times, but it is also very cute.
-She has recurring dreams about giant robots, and cannot listen to "One of these days" by Pink Flyod because of the scary robot voice in the beginning.
-She wrote all of her own songs for her children, including the smash hit "I'm gonna Kill My Sister," which goes, I'm gonna kill my sister, I'm gonna stomp her dead, I'm gonna hang her by her heels and laugh all the time she's hanging there and squealing, I'm gonna beat her buns off, I will make them REEEEED! I'm gonna kill my sister, dead, dead, dead!
-She is the best cupcake chef in the whole state. If you wish to dispute this, you have not tried her cupcakes. She has perfected the art. Perfectly raised, seamlessly frosted, so many layers of flavor and moisture... drool!
-She is the most understanding, compassionate, epathetic woman I have ever met, and probably that you will ever meet, too.
-Complete strangers confess deep dark secrets to her out of nowhere because of how inviting, friendly, and understanding she comes off- which she really is!
-She still writes in shorthand, and has been known to take accurate shorthand notes in her sleep.
Give yourself more credit for being awesome and unique and interesting, ma! Showcase it!
*crying*
Aw, sweetie! Thank you! Now I feel guilty about following you around the house hissing, "Pick it UP...Pick it UP...Pick it UP!"
I guess I couldn't say anything that might have come off as immodest, but I coulda fessed up to the cupcakes, song writing and robot phobia!
Thanks again, Junket; this was so sweet of you. Oh, and it was "I'm Gonna Kill Your Sister." I used to sing this song to let off steam when you were all very little. These days, I would be carted off to jail for such a faux pas.
Hi Priscilla,
I'm so glad you dropped by my site -- your profile info is pretty special too. I'm not sure if hypersillyism is contagious but I think I'd like to catch it anyway. Thanks for leaving your heart-warming story on my site!
Andrew (To Love, Honor, and Dismay)
Priscilla, your writing skills are unparalled. I love it! And I agree with Junket, her list is better. Maybe you should get a cockatoo also, birds have fewer feathers than cats have hair.
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