Big Road Trip: Day One

I have a dream.  It's something that I've wanted to do since I was in high school.

I want to go on a cross-country road trip with my two best friends. 

I want to do this for many reasons.  Because I miss the old days when we'd pack into my old Nissan Maxima station wagon (with a sunroof!) and drive to the beach, to my Dad's, around our hometown 1000 times on a Friday night.  Because I road trips are the epitome of freedom; where to go, how to get there, what to do on the way, it's all completely up to the traveler.  And mainly, because I LOVE the West, and I want to share the experience of being there with my friends....and also so the crazy looks will stop when I gush about how badly I want to live there. You can see all the pictures and movies in the world that show you the West, but until you stand beside the Grand Canyon, or you put your hand on a Redwood tree, or you listen to the waves of the Pacific hit the cliffs of the coast............you just don't feel it like it should be felt.

So.  I'm saving my money.  By then end of the year, I will have $1500 set back for this trip, even more by the time we finally get to go.  And I'm going to detail my tentative plan for our big road trip over several posts.

Day One:  We will leave South Georgia and head to New Orleans.  Not a very long trip, in comparison, but a good way to ease us into trip.

We're gonna peruse the French Quarter and be all tourist-y.  Try to find a restaurant that both me and Krystle can eat at.  Seeing as she's allergic to shell fish and I'm allergic to the peppers in most Cajun seasoning, this might be an exercise in futility.

Maybe see if we can hunt down celebrity houses....don't Sandra Bullock and Brangelina live there now?

And we'll buy Mardi Gras masks to commemorate our stop.

Blah

My life is kinda boring right now, and my comedic talents are completely wasted without two-person interaction.  SO.  I will regale my one reader (Hey Krystle!) with funny pictures from my stash.

I saved this one when my youngest brother was thinking of joining the Army.  Someone needed to warn his fellow troops.

This has always been a personal favorite.

And then:

My husband thinks that I'm a nerd for this one.  He's probably right.

The Internet has traumatized me again....

Today, while happily and innocently perusing Facebook, one of my favorite websites (Cracked.com), posted a link on my wall for their new Top 5 List.  This one was The 5 Most Spectacularly Unsexy Workout Videos Ever.  The #1 Most Spectacularly Unsexy Workout Video:  Angela Lansbury's Positive Moves.

Sweet Baby Jesus.  

They detail this video, where Angela Lansbury....of Murder, She Wrote fame.....is generally long-winded and oddly hump-ish before hopping into her large tub and talking about how women her age are still sexual while her hands mysteriously disappear into the water.

I didn't believe them.  So I clicked on the video link. 

Why, why, oh why did I choose to open that link?  The vision of Angela Lansbury (possibly...more than likely) masturbating ON FILM! is going to haunt me forever. 

I've delayed my plans to build my teleportation device in order to give me time to invent some sort of memory scrubber thing-a-ma-bob in order to save myself a few hours of therapy. 

Dear Cracked:

Mardi Gras!

Thursday morning....way too early for this chick.....I loaded up my munchkins and drove through four states to my best friends' house.  Spent the night and got up at a slightly more acceptably early hour to driving through two and a half more states to kick off the first weekend of Mardi Gras in Louisiana. 

No one's boobs were exposed for this bounty of beads. 

I have had the good fortune to have experienced Mardi Gras once before....prior to marriage, kids, and most of the other adult responsibility stuff....but my husband and children have not.  One of my surrogate mothers lives in southern Louisiana, not far from New Orleans, and we've been wanting to get down there for some time, but things just never worked out.  This year, it mostly did.  We had a few hurdles thrown at us in the form of my husband's dickhead boss taking all his scheduled leave from him at the last minute, but we overcame. 

And we are so glad that we did.

We enjoyed ourselves immensely.  The boys got more beads then we know what to do with and got to spend a weekend with children other than just each other.  Me and the hubs got to interact with adults other than each other....and most of those adults were fucking hilarious to boot.  As we drove home last night, we discussed our weekend and how much we miss just having friends to hang out with.  Having that socialization and connection with other people who we've known forever and have history and shared interests with is something that we really miss out on with our military-issued lifestyle. 

Unfortunately, that seems to be out of reach for us.  Definitely for the time being, and possibly forever.  So, we'll happily snatch whatever time like that we can get, whenever we can get it. 

Even if it means going back down South and subjecting ourselves to ridiculous heat, and sometimes infuriating culture, and a ridiculous sunburn in the middle of fucking February.  I mean really.  I should have been safe from second degree burns from the mean, cruel sun for AT LEAST three more months.  It's not even an even sunburn!!  I look like a drunk Apache warrior.

Before I get any hate mail, let me assure you, I have nothing but the utmost respect for Apache warriors.....even the drunk ones. 

 Damn my extremely Caucasian-ness. 

A lot of bullshit going on out there....

What the hell is going on with women's rights out there lately?

There are always states looking to circumvent a woman's right to choose using infuriating methods like mandatory counseling and wait times, "personhood" amendments, mandatory viewing of sonograms, and even forcing doctors to recite often blatantly false information from a script before allowing the woman to receive an abortion.  These are all admitted attempts to make abortion so expensive, inconvenient, and challenging that most women will not be able to go through with their decision to abort.

Now, thanks to the Republican's in Congress, we have to deal nationally with things like the (ironically named) "Protect Life Act" that allows publicly funded hospitals to refuse any care or treatment that they feel might harm the fetus, and it allows them to refuse to provide abortions even in cases where the abortion is the only way to save that woman's life or transfer her to a hospital that will help her.  This will effectively nullify the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act for pregnant women in need of lifesaving abortion services.

**The Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act, passed in 1986, requires publicly funded hospitals to provide emergency services (abortions included) to anyone who comes through the doors OR they have to stabilize them and transfer them to a hospital that will provide those services.**

Basically, they are admitting that they'd rather watch a woman die than allow her full control over her own reproduction.  And that is all it amounts to....because abortion is not the only reproductive choice they want to curtail, Republican also want to eliminate Title X - federal funding that helps low-income women get their yearly check-ups, needed women's health appointments, and birth control; allowing them to stay healthy and have responsible sex lives (gasp!).  And their outright disdain for civil welfare programs like Medicaid, food stamps, WIC, etc, shows that once that fetus exits the womb, they couldn't give less of a shit about it.

This Act comes right on the heels of another, even more disgusting measure like House Republicans attempt to redefine rape so that an even smaller margin of women qualified for federally funded abortion.

REDEFINING RAPE!

The Daily Show
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Luckily, enough people threw a fit about the redefinition that the House GOP retracted it.  But the simple fact that they tried.............it's thoroughly repulsive.

And now, to top it all off, South Dakota - one of the hardest places to get an abortion in the entire US -  is trying to make killing a doctor who performs abortions TOTALLY LEGAL.

Mother Jones reports:  

"A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus—a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state's GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights, alters the state's legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person "while resisting an attempt to harm" that person's unborn child or the unborn child of that person's spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman's father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion—even if she wanted one. "

 Ugh.  I have a headache.  And I need a drink.

It's family meetin' time....

In November, my family found out that my meth-head sister-in-law was 6 1/2 months pregnant with their third child. She and my brother had been keeping it a secret for a myriad of reasons....they are out of work drug addicts who couldn't be bothered with taking care of the two children they already had......there was a good chance that my brother was not the father because she had been sleeping with their suppliers for their drugs....and mainly because my mother is a nurse and SIL hadn't had any prenatal care because she couldn't pass the drug tests she knew they'd run.

December came, and two days before Christmas, SIL's drug usage caught up to her in the form of an aburpted placenta (brought on by her meth use...she had already had a bad scare two weeks earlier and before she left the hospital and refused further treatment, the doctors told her that further use would cause EXACTLY WHAT IT CAUSED.).  She had to have an emergency C-section and the baby, who was only 7 months along in its gestation, was airlifted to Albany, Georgia to the NICU at Phoebe-Putney Memorial.  SIL almost bled to death, but was quickly stabilized and doing well.  The baby, not so much.

My brother and SIL's first acts as new parents was to refuse to allow anyone to go see the baby or to ask about the baby.  They threw a huge fit because they didn't think anyone was showing appropriate amounts of affection and worry for my SIL - who almost died! - because we were all too worried about if the three-months-premature baby, who was still strapped to a ventilator struggling for her life, was doing ok.

Parent of the Year Award:  You won't be getting it. 

Of course, SIL popped positive for drugs while she was at the hospital.  And lucky her, she was down visiting family when all this happened so her drug report went to Decatur County DFACS instead of the Upson County DFACS who would had been waiting on the report so that they could finally take the first two kids from SIL and Brother's custody.  As soon as SIL found out about the report, she checked herself out of the hospital AMA.

Decatur County called her in for a "stern talking to" regarding her drug use, and then warned them that they were required to send the report to their county of residence -which was Upson.  Knowing that Upson has been waiting for a solid reason to take the kids, my brother and SIL drove up in the middle of the night, packed up and moved Decatur County where SIL's family is in law enforcement and the court system and goes out of their way to protect them from trouble.

Once they got down there, they started putting out feelers for "help" and "support" and quickly realized that, with the exception of SIL's family (who won't help them monetarily much at all), their network of "help" and "support" was fed up with their bullshit.  Emails and phone calls were launched attacking those of us who weren't only fed up, but really fucking pissed that those poor children were being kept in danger by the very people that were supposed to protect them;  and begging those who still hope and pray that they will turn their lives around to not listen to us mean ones who think that the kids safety should come first - "and please help us and support us!"

Which leads us to today.  My mother IMed me, letting me know that Decatur County DFACS, after one and a half months of watching Brother and SIL (and not popping one drug test, surprise or otherwise), wants all of the family to come together for a meeting where they will discuss what we can all do to help and support Brother and SIL so that they can close out their file on them. 

WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?!???!

These fucktards have three, innocent, beautiful little kids who have had to fend for themselves and their siblings since birth.  My SIL has drugged them, abandoned them, starved them, and put them at constant physical risk while cooking meth, inviting random strangers into her house to get high with her children there, and left various drug paraphernalia laying around where they could get it.  They are never adequately dressed for the weather.  They don't get bathed.  My brother is marginally better when he is there, but he is equally to blame because he is equally responsible for them and could easily take them and raise them in a better environment.

Why doesn't anyone care enough about them to put them before their parents??

UGH!

So, while I wasn't officially invited to this family get-together with DFACS.  I plan to be there.  I plan to offer my support by being willing to get their children to safety until such time as they can finally get themselves together and provide a healthy safe environment for them.  That's as much support and help as they will be getting from me.

Katie Makkai - "Pretty"

Nightmares suck.....

So the vast majority of my day has been royally shitty.  And it started at 2am, when I woke up because my husband was shaking me and begging me to tell him what was wrong because I was sobbing.  Like loud, I-haven't-cried-like-this-since-my-grandfather-died, sobbing.  It was bad.

I had been having this horrible, and very realistic dream...nightmare....that I had an evil entity in my house that was literally driving me crazy.  At first, it was just annoyingly scary.  But then this entity was trying to make me hurt my kids.  And in my dream-state, I felt myself losing my mind and it was SCARY, and it would tell me to hurt my children and I would walk toward them and they would cry and I would come to my senses and beg someone - anyone - to take them and take care of them and protect them from ME.

And no one would.

No one would take my kids, no matter how hard I begged, and pleaded and cried because I was their mother, and I needed to suck it up and deal.  Everyone was sure I could handle whatever I was going through if I just tried a little harder.  But I could feel myself losing it and I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop myself from hurting them if someone didn't take them soon.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, I started really crying and sobbing.  And I woke my husband up out of a dead sleep (which is no small feat).  And I drenched him and the pillows in tears and told him all about my nightmare.  Which was probably a horrible mistake because he spent the rest of the day blaming himself for my nightmare.

He thinks that my nightmare was a subconscious manifestation of the added stress that his new job and long hours have put on me.  Personally, I think it was a bad mix of too many news articles about two mom's that have recently killed their children, the book I'm currently reading that deals with Celtic mythology-specifically an evil, mind-twisting elf/fairy/forest creature of some sort, and the bowl of Shepherd's Pie that didn't sit well after dinner.

And now, instead of just dealing with the migraine that always comes after a sobbing fit, I'm also trying to assuage his guilt over something he has no control over and keep him from adding to the stress that his new job has given him. 

And then to top it off, I ran over a nail and my back tire was flat when I started to leave from picking my boys up from school...stranding me and my kids, in my PJs with no shoes (because I'm that mom) in the parking lot.

But this bad luck brought on the one good aspect of my day.

My husband's asshole boss let him leave work early to come get me and the boys and he got to take them to a school dance that they have been desperately wanting to go to for two weeks, and we all got to eat dinner together.  And he's taking a nap right now, so there's a very decent chance that I might get laid tonight.  Yay for weekend booty calls. 

Just because I love this and I can't think of one single place it will ever truly fit....and this post needed some levity....and if you read this like Robert Di Niro and Joe Pesci are saying it, it kinda hilarious. 

Three things I learned from listening to Taylor Swift's new CD

I recently bought Taylor Swift's new CD off iTunes and have had it on "repeat" for a few days.  Here's what I've learned:

- Lesson 1 - 

I SHOULD NEVER DATE A SONGWRITER.  I tend to be a private person.  I don't want mine and my significant other's intimate moments broadcast to hundreds of thousands of people...or even ten or twenty people.  And if I break up with said significant other, I damn sure don't want all the ways I fucked up being broadcast either.  Two of the three guys have moved on to other girls - as people their age often do - and they probably want to just put all the shoulda, woulda, couldas of previous relationships behind them. 

- Lesson 2 -

IT WOULD BE SUPER FUCKING COOL TO BE A SONGWRITER.  Seriously.  It must be one of the most cathartic experiences in the world to write an emotional song like these, hear it played a million times in a million places, and even get to meet other people that have felt the exact same way and connect with that song on such a level.  It would be amazing.

- Lesson 3 -

NEVER DATE JOHN MAYER....OR OTHER DICKHEADS LIKE HIM.  I didn't feel the slightest bit sorry for was John Mayer (Or Kanye, but his song was nice and forgiving IMO).  He's got a reputation for severely fucking with the chicks that he dates, regardless of their age.  And having met way too many of those angsty, "complicated" guys whose answer to every argument is "You just wouldn't understand!!", "I've got a lot on my mind!", or some variant of those two answers, I can say with authority....after about the third meltdown where these excuses are used to blow-off or belittle your feelings, you want to stab a motherfucker in the eye.  Taylor Swift saying what several of his other girlfriends have danced around in the press just earned her cool points in my book.

To save your eyesight, I'll paraphrase:  "I'm a moderately talented musician with the emotional maturity level of a pre-pubescent male baboon." x10

M&M's were the key the whole time....who knew?!

So.  We are one week and two days into Operation Potty Train, and don't look now, but I think we're actually making headway!  Holla!

My middle son had a "100 Days of School" project due this week where we had to send in ten groups of ten of something small.  So this weekend, we went out and got a HUGE bag of M&M's (because I drastically overestimated what 100 M&Ms would look like) and his dad taught him how to aim at marshmellows in the toilet (because that's a talent I just don't have) and - wha lah! - instant potty training success!

I didn't even know The Tyrant liked M&Ms.

He hasn't had a pee accident in days.  He's even wearing big boy underwear now!!


 Poo, on the other hand....

We had our first and, so far only, poo accident last night.  I noticed him hunched over something he was hiding in his hand, slinking towards the bathroom, and I asked him what he had.  He looked at me all seriously with this hilarious disgusted look on his face and said, "Don't looks Momma, it's so gross, just don't look." 

Aww.  Thanks for thinking of me, Little Man.  Neither of your older brothers ever did.

File this under: WTF?!

Desperate to Be a Grandma, Woman Hires Man to Rape Daughter

And sadly, he succeeded in raping the young woman before the plan was found out.

Seriously.  What the fuck is wrong with people?!?!??  I understand that I will not be able to understand that whole amazing "grandmother feeling" until/unless I actually become a grandmother.  But having dealt with my fair share of grandmother insanity.....I'm fairly positive that I will be able to hold on to my sanity when my time comes to take up the mantle of "Grandmother".

 

If not, please euthanize me for the good of humanity.

I have a HUGE list of "fucking crazy grandparent stories"......luckily most of them aren't from my own personal experience.  It's really very lucky....because if some of the shit that I've seen happen to friends and family had happened to me....my kids wouldn't have any grandparents.  (I have epic grudge holding abilities.)

But this one really, really, really takes the cake.  I really hope that this young woman does not end up pregnant from this horrible experience.  But if she does, and if she decides to keep, love, and raise the child, then I fervently hope that she keeps it as far away from her mother as possible.  Especially if it's a girl  Because we all know what she's capable of if later down the road she decides that she just has to have a great-grandchild before she dies.

Shhhh....I'm listening to Ian McShane's voice rumbling in my head.

The Super Bowl commercials kinda sucked this year.

My favorite part of the whole thing was when they showed the new convertible Camaro that is coming out this spring.

I wants it.  I needs it.  My Precious.

My second favorite.  My brief flash of the the next movie that will get obscene amounts of my money....because I plan on retreating to the theater as often as possible to spend 2 hours in heaven with two of my biggest celebrity crushes - Ian McShane and Johnny Depp - in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

*excuse me...my hubs just informed me that I was drooling again.*

My third favorite part of the Super Bowl.....eh.  I got so distracted by the sound of Ian McShane's voice, I kinda forgot to pay attention to the rest of it.  Sorry. 

*I don't care if anyone else likes this....I'm linking it simply so I can come back and listen to it as much as I want without having to track it down every time.*






Seriously.  Watch Deadwood.  Something about the way that man says "fuck" makes you just want to. 

Neglectful

I have been slightly neglectful of this blog for the past two days.  I'd apologize, but it'd be a lie.  Because the reason that I've been MIA is because I became slightly obsessed with this fanfic novel that I've been reading online called "Wide Awake" (by AngstGoddess).  It was really, REALLY good.  I'm serious.  Hands down, The. Best. fanfic I have ever read.

It's technically a fanfic based off the characters of Twilight.  I very rarely like fanfic (to be completely honest, I only like the smutty short stories about my favorite fiction couples.  Don't judge.  A girl's gotta have her literary porn).  But the names and couplings are the ONLY things that this story has in common with the original.  It is dark.  And sad.  Of course there's a happy ending, but I literally cried my way through 1/2 the story.

This.  Except Bella's covered in knife wounds and Edward is covered in burn scars.  And no one is a vampire.  And there's no obnoxious Jacob. Which is really the best thing about this book.

After all that angst and darkness, I'm ready to move on to somewhat lighter fare.

LIKE THE SUPER BOWL!!

I don't have a dog in this hunt, but I'll be lovingly providing my hubs and sons with spinach dip and drinks while my hubs cheers for the Steelers and my oldest son cheers for the offense.

 

But really, I'm just watching to see this dude.  He's hot.  And I really want to play with his hair.

Oh, and as an update:  I'm pretty sure we're gonna be rolling into Mardi Gras with a 3.5 year old still in fucking diapers.  The kid is stubborn.  I don't know where he gets it.

What the hell?!

A few weeks ago, I asked my oldest son to pick up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from his school library because I really want to read it....but not enough to go buy it.  After getting smacked in the back of the head because he made some smart ass comment about me not being able to read a book that size, he agreed. 

Fast forward to Friday, his library day at school, and he tells me the incredibly ridiculous news.  Harry Potter books are banned from his school library.

What. The. Fuck??

I'm sending my children to one of "those" schools.  Where the idiots have taken over the village.  Banning Harry Potter?!  Jeezus, where's a secular, liberal homeschooling kit when you need one.

The first thing out of my son's mouth was, "Why would they ban Harry Potter?" And instantly I was taken back to one of our family trips home a few years ago.  We were riding down the country highways that connect my father's house in Bumfuck, Central Alabama, to my mother's house in Bumfuck, Central Georgia, and passing more church buildings than actual houses.  My husband and I were laughing and shaking our heads in mild disgust because on several of the church marquees were warnings about the evils of Harry Potter.

On that same trip, we had been handed pamphlets about how Harry Potter was secretly teaching our children about witchcraft.....J.K. Rowling had used actual magical language (It's Latin people...granted, it's not the Southern drawl you usually hear in that particular region, but that doesn't make it of the "debil").....reading these books, or watching the movies, was allowing the Devil into your home where he would gain ultimately gain control over your family!!! 

Instead of unleashing my fury at the alarmingly large amount of dumbasses who want to spread their dumbass-ness to the rest of the world, I simply told my son that some people think Harry Potter is bad because he's a wizard.

My son, being....my son, rolled his eyes and said, "That's stupid.  Don't these people know Harry Potter is just pretend?"

I laughed and told him no...that some people didn't seem to realize that fact, and he rolled his eyes again and said, "That's so dumb."

It's nice to know that my 8 year old is already so much smarter than so many others, despite the obviously sub-par educational system he is having to deal with.

Fuck that, I'm blonde.

Have you ever seen "What Women Want"?  Specifically the very pivotal scene where Mel Gibson's character gets drunk and tries out all those women's products?  He slathers some hot wax on his leg, and yanks that shit off....and once the pain died down he says, "Why would women do that more than once??"

Today, for the first time in my entire life, I waxed my eyebrows and 'stache.

Gratuitous Mel Gibson pic....mostly because I miss the days when I didn't know he was batshit insane.

And I completely agree with Mel.

The eyebrows weren't that bad.  I think I prefer waxing them to plucking.  But the mustache.  Holyfuckingshitthathurt.  And my upper lip is STILL numb.

And as I sat there, trying to will myself into finishing the job and not running around like an idiot who got 1/4 of the way into a waxing job and then ran away like a big baby, I asked myself, "What the fuck were you thinking???!  Yes, you have a mustache, but no one can see it because it's light blonde!"

So with that single act of complete dumbass-ness....I have proven myself, once again, to be the blonde that I am.  Take that Mike Berry.

One more for the road...because he was the first in a long line of celebrity crushes....and he started the trend of them all being much much too old for me.