Dear old Uncle Morty

So as any parent knows, once you have children nothing is yours anymore.  What's yours is your children's and what is your children's is your's.  In my house that is a half truth.  What's mine is my children's, what's Chuck's is still Chuck's.  With 3 girls my things go missing all the time; I have found high heels in Emily's room being used as a bed for Barbie, on a recent cold day I went to reach into my jacket pocket for my gloves only to have my cold hands met by an empty pocket.  Lately there is a whole subgroup of missing shit; grooming items.  Now I know what you are all thinking; I have free and unlimited access to their bedrooms and bathrooms just go in and get your crap back.  1. Yes, I do have free and unlimited access to their rooms but, 2. Two-thirds of my children live as if they are auditioning for an upcoming episode of Hoarders, I take my life in my hands going into those deathtraps.  I have a hunch I know where those U.S. cases of the Coronavirus that are of "unknown origin" originated.  Have no fear though, the antidote to the Coronavirus lives within those 4 walls as well.  The mold growing in their rooms is so abundant the CDC can cultivate enough penicillin to keep this pandemic in check.  Thank Christ, Mike Pence can now stand down.

So let's take a little inventory of all the missing items, shall we?

My nail clippers were one of the first to go missing.  I don't need them so much for my fingernails-they don't grow anyway but I do need them for my toes.  I used to get pedicures on a regular basis but since having kids it is an expense I just can't justify.  I did however invest in a decent pair of nail clippers, lest my toenails turn into talons.  I know TLC airs a show about crazy addictions and from time to time there is someone with toe nails as long as Rapunzel's hair but, umm, yeah, NO!  I personally subscribe to the belief that one's toe nails should never have the opportunity to grow past one's toe tip.  Call me crazy but if I am snuggling with someone and they can scratch my head with their little piggies sh*t will go down real fast.

So back to my fingernails.  Again, I used to get bi-weekly manicures before I popped out my kids and again, it is an expense that I just can't justify.  So every Sunday while watching America's Funniest Videos I give myself a proper manicure.  Well, that hasn't happened in a while.  My cuticle tool is missing!   I am sure it is being used to dig a wick out of a candle or to stir some concoction I find in their bathroom sink. I had the pleasure of cleaning their bathroom last weekend.  I was on strike for about 6 months and refused to clean it.  I broke down and finally did it because I was afraid our dog Mary Alice might contract some dreaded third world disease from drinking out of their toilet.  The girls get typhoid, serves them right but once you add Mary to the equation all bets are off.  I would lay down my life for that dog.  It took hours and almost a full can of Comet, yup I use chemicals to clean, no vinegar and water here-I want my house to smell like a pristine operating room not a goddamn douche.  I was almost done, I just had to clear the drain on the sink. I worked in an ER, I have seen it all; blood, guts, pus (my favorite-seriously), burnt flesh, brain matter but nothing, nothing could have prepared me for what I pulled out of their bathroom sink drain.  The smell coming from the ball of gelatinous slime I pulled out made me dry heave so violently I think I may have broken a rib.  I seriously considered sending it off to the CIA.  The most hardened terrorist would give up their next plot the second that ball of death entered the room.  Yes, it was that bad and mind you, I lived with a rancid, decaying hole in my belly for months after Emily was born.  I thought the smell of my own rotting flesh was bad, that, that my friends was a bed of roses compared to this malodorous, noxious, sphere of necrosis.  But I digress.  Back to my DIY manicures.  I bought a new nail polish and of course it just walked away.  No one knew what happened to it.  Well I knew where to look.  I went straight to the Nail Polish Graveyard.  Anyone with little girls most likely has such a graveyard.  Bottles of once slick polish now look like a washed up queen after partying a little too hard at the Pride Parade. Dried up glitter dripping down the side of the bottle, the handle is crusted half in/half out of the bottle at such an angle to allow enough air inside to dry it out or the more horrifying brush stuck to the table next to the opened bottle.  Either way they brush bristles will never be used again, they can't--they are clumped so tightly together that no amount of polish remover can penetrate them.  Of course it couldn't be my $1.97 Wet & Wild polish, nope it had to be my $6.87 bottle of Sally Hansen.  Doesn't seem like a huge expense but when you are paying for these lacquer funerals on the regular it adds up.
 
Another day I went looking for my Nair hair remover and of course it wasn't where it should have been.  I set out on a one person search party.  I found it in the girl's shower. It was the pump style bottle. Christ's sake that's all I need, one of my kids mistaking it for shampoo or cream rinse.  Can you imagine if one of my kids came out of the shower looking like Steve Wilkos?  I would try my best to be understanding, supportive and compassionate but you know what would come out instead? "Stand up, you don't deserve a chair" all while doubling over in uncontrollable laughter. Steve Wilkos fans will get that reference.

While looking for my Nair I found cold wax strips all rolled in a ball under their bathroom sink.  It looks as if an attempt was made to use them.  I would've paid money to be a fly on the wall when that all went down. To whichever of my girls that experimented with those;  be grateful it isn't tank top and shorts season.  Your cover would be blown when you show up to the BBQ with super raw legs and armpits that look like they are ready to be thrown on the grill.

So you can probably gather I was trying to winterize my legs; shaving ones legs is such an arduous chore.  I hate it and truth be told, and I can almost guarantee I am not the only female to do this; in the winter I may or may not on more than one occasion shaved only the bottom 3 inches of my legs whilst skipping the rest of my upper leg.  You know, shave just enough that will show when wearing pants and add 2 inches to be safe in the event you cross your legs and your pant leg rides up a bit.  I am sure half of my readers are nodding their head knowingly.  I am not a complete animal and to not run Chuck off completely I will Nair my legs a few times in the winter so I don't turn into a sasquatch, you're welcome Babe.  Since the wax and Nair were gone I figured I would just shave but, alas my razor was missing.  Well technically I still had the razor, just the set of replacement blades were missing.  How the hell can one use just the blades with no handle?  You don't need to be Olivia Benson to figure that one out.  Whoever comes to dinner with a thousand tiny little slices on their fingertips will be the culprit.  Guess I won't be serving finger foods any time soon.

My deodorant has gone MIA on a few occasions too.  Please know I purchase my children their own deodorant and any other age appropriate personal hygiene/grooming tools they need or want so there is no real reason for them to take mine other than to drive me bat shit crazy.  So I was at the store the other day and I picked up a new deodorant for myself; Secret Brand Coconut Breeze.  Hey I figured, why not?  Every time I wear it I will be transported to a deserted island and can have a brief escape from reality.  Now, if you know me in real life you know I am not a fan of the heat.  If it is over 50 degrees I am physically uncomfortable.  I don't believe in much; ghosts, psychics, Bigfoot, Donald Trump is a stable genius, but I wholeheartedly believe in spontaneous human combustion and there may come a day soon that I just burst into flames.  So unfortunately I have my sweating working against me.  Instead of smelling like an ocean breeze on me, the coconut deodorant smells more like an old, dirty sand bucket you find in your trunk at the end of the summer with dried up snails and starfish in it.  Still no drain rot but close to it.

The one thing missing that really ticked me off was my tweezers.  They were missing for about a week and I swear to the walking, upright Gods it was as if I had Miracle Grow on my eyebrows.  Everyone has that one crazy uncle with a rogue 3 inch hair sprouting from their brow.  That was me.  I was Uncle Morty.  But that wasn't the half of it.  Now that I am a woman of a particular age I have these gross, blond (really grey, but humor me) whiskers growing on my chin.  I was without my tweezers for over seven days!  I'm over here like Rip Van Winkle and to top it off my magnifying mirror I need because I'm blind as a bat is cracked in 3 places!  So now I have 3 reflections, insult to injury when I look in my mirror I look like one of those biker dudes that parts their beard down the middle.  For F's sake, leave my sh*t alone!!  Tweezers are an important part of my life.  I invested in the good ones, no Walmart Equate brand tweezers for me.--I went straight to the man, all the way up the food chain to the Tweezerman!   I loved them, it was double ended and had the most perfect point to it.  Sadly they never turned up.  I had to replace them.  They didn't have the ones I wanted and was forced to get the subpar ones they had.  I tried them the other day and it was like trying to pull my eyebrows out with salad tongs.  No grip, they kept slipping off the hair.  So upsetting.  I came very close to just shaving them off and buying the Tatbrow micro brow pen that keeps showing up on my Facebook feed.  But since my razor blades are still missing I wasn't able to.

I just wish there was something of Chucks they would take, just so he could understand my frustration.  I don't foresee this thievery ending anytime soon.  I am thinking of investing in a loss prevention system for my bathroom, you know like the ones they have in stores.  I will put little tags on all my stuff and when they try to leave my bathroom with it an alarm will go off.  Though, I believe most of the thefts occur when I am not home so that won't work.  Maybe I can design a system kind of like the Ring Doorbell system so when someone tries to enter or leave my bathroom it will ring my phone and I can see the culprit.  I'm just blue skying here but maybe I can just cut out the middleman and straight up hire Shaq to guard my bathroom.  Until then just call me Uncle Morty.

Rage Against the Machine

I know, I know it has been a minute since my last post.  It's this whole working full time thing that kind of gets in the way.  However, I do have something I want to write about.  Something that has been simmering under the surface for some time now and I finally have a free morning to tell you about.  I wrote that last statement as if; 1. Someone is going to read this and 2. As if anyone really cares what I have to say.  Despite the unknown of my actual readership, I push on.  I have to push on you see, because in our society it is becoming abundantly clear that no one will do it for me.  Our society is rapidly changing and I am not a huge fan of the changes I see.  Bearing witness to what I consider the decline of our society can be heartbreaking. I have seen the strongest of relationships crumble when one person chooses one side and their partner is diametrically opposed.  Our country has become so divisive lately and unfortunately we are forced to pick a side.  I have picked my side and I dare any of you to convince me otherwise; SELF CHECKOUT LANES ARE WRONG!  Hear me out on this one folks;

The takeover has been gradual; first it was self-serve gas stations.  Yeah at first it seemed like a good idea, you jump out fill your tank and you are off.  I was a lot younger when this petroleum revolution took place.  I was driving a Chevette and could hop in and out of the car with ease.  Most stations had a self serve lane and a lane with an attendant.  When it was raining or when the frigid New England winters were just too much I could go to the manned side.  He would fill the tank, check the oil and wash the windows, remember that?  Seriously, they would check the oil and wash your windows while your tank was filling.  I swear to Christ I can't remember the last time I cleaned my car windows, I'm sure Chuck has done it from time to time when he borrows my car.  It was gradual but full service gas stations are pretty much non existent, though we do have a few in our town but I have had issues at both-one the guy filled it when I clearly said $20 so I had to pay for a full tank and the other one I have been a victim of attempted proselytizing, neither of which I want to fall prey to again so I am forced to purchase my gasoline elsewhere.  The majority of stations in proximity to where I live and work are all self-serve.  Now that I am a woman of a certain age, I can no longer hop in and out of my car with ease, it takes some effort these days, forget about it when I was pregnant, there is no longer an option of staying in a nice warm car when a Nor'easter is raging or snow is piled high.  It's all on me now.  In addition to being a wife, mother, daughter, friend, Child Care Director I am also a part time gas station attendant.

Next up in the revolution came online shopping.  Not a fan, yes it comes in handy when I need to purchase items for work, and I was bitten by the Walmart Grocery Pick-Up bug for a while but I am not in the online shopping camp.  I like to go into a store and see, feel and try on what I am buying.  Yeah, I know free shipping can be enticing, but I find it all impersonal.  Plus real people are losing jobs, real brick and mortar stores are closing down and people's online shopping has become so pervasive in their everyday lives that it can now be classified as an addiction.  I just read an article about it in Psychology Today.  I may or may not know someone who purchased a family members birthday card through Amazon.  I have since broken up with the Walmart Grocery Pick-up and went back to my weekly trips to the Basket and all is right in my world again.  Which brings me to my next point-self checkouts in stores.

Yup, we have all seen them.  Walmart was the first one I ever encountered.  I get why people like them, you just have a few items and you want to get in and out.  You feel like you can scan the items quicker than the cashiers.  I will admit there are a few cashiers I have come across that look at each individual item, ask about it and take time to bag it with like items.  Yes, that can be frustrating- just scan and bag please, scan and bag, no need for conversation-a few pleasantries absolutely-no one is above a "Hi, how are you", a comment on the weather or local sports team sure but when you scan garlic, tomato paste, meatball mix and a box of spaghetti no need to ask what I'm making.  Tuna Casserole obviously.  Just scan and bag.  Shaws, Price Chopper and most of the other grocery stores have self-checkout too.  So far my local Market Basket hasn't sold out to the man, but I honestly think I will succumb to broken heart syndrome the day I walk in to the Basket and have to check out my veggie sausage myself.  Stop & Shop makes you scan your groceries as you add them to your shopping cart.  The f*ck is that about?  They want you in and out so fast they don't even want you wasting their time by loitering around their self- check out.  Here is something to think about, a way to stick it to the man, if you are so inclined, I am not because I don't like to break the law.  If you put your grapes on the self checkout scale who's to say you have to hit the picture of the $.69/pound bananas versus the $2.99/pound green seedless grapes?  Or tap regular apples when you in fact are weighing your organic apples?  Hmm, just like Ed Sheeran I'm thinking out loud.  Oh, so along the lines of me not liking to break the law here is a semi-short digression; on the way to and from work I drive 12 miles down a long, winding somewhat rural road.  9 days out of 10 there is a police car somewhere along those 12 miles watching for speeders.  9 days out of 10 there is always someone who flashes their lights at me to warn me of said police car.  The light flasher is making some pretty broad assumptions about me; 1. That I am a scofflaw and I am speeding to my destination,  now my kinfolk may be from Southie but I am no means a descendant of the Winter Hill gang and 2. I want to be part of their criminal enterprise.  I know most people would love to get the universal police are ahead signal but I do not.  If I am speeding that's on me.  I should take ownership of my actions, whether right or wrong.  Do I look at the speedometer and adjust accordingly when I get flashed.  You bet your ass I do, but I am against it on principle. 

Back to my original post.  I went to our local CVS recently.  I hadn't been for a while and sure as shit they have self checkout now too. Our CVS is on the smaller side and the checkout area is already heavily congested so it makes absolute sense to add a few self-checkouts right in the most obnoxious spot possible.  It was like a scene out of Black Friday; a mob of people pushing to get ahead of the others.  One more store I can't go to now.  Our McDonald's was closed for renovations.  Was it to upgrade the 70's looking facade or interior?  Nope, it was to add self serve kiosks.  McDonald's is a fast food place, do we really need to speed up the ordering?  Plus, our McDonalds is the meeting place for every octogenarian within the Blackstone Valley.  I wouldn't want to be in line behind them on a Saturday morning.  I would be there until the dinner rush.

The final straw for me happened over Christmas vacation.  We took the girls to see Frozen 2.  Now, granted it had been a while since we have been to the theater, all 5 of us going to the movies is pretty much the equivalent to a car payment so we don't go often. This may have been in place for a while but it was the first time I saw it.  You now are responsible for getting your own drinks.  They have a few of those huge Coke kiosks.  If you have ever seen one of these behemoths you know there are at least 16 different screens with each screen having at least 20 different drink choices.  You now need to add an extra 45 minutes before the movie starts to get your concessions.  You have the elderly who don't understand the concept of touch screens, you have young children taking 27 minutes to look through each screen (sometimes more than once) to pick what they want and then the ever annoying teenagers trying to come up with the most ironic drink combos to impress their friends.  So yeah, there's that.
But what really got a hair across my ass and made me come out against these machines is the buttered popcorn situation.  I ordered my popcorn the way I always do, and really the only way a civilized person should, with butter throughout.  So back in the day they would fill your popcorn bag half way, drizzle the golden nectar over it, add the rest of the popcorn and give it another drizzle.  Well my friends, those days are gone!  You now have to add your own butter.  So I had to get the full bag of popcorn and take it over to a disgustingly dirty table and add my own butter.  I am not employed there, I have not been trained on what popcorn to butter ratio is appropriate and to top it off they would not give me an extra bag to dump some out so I could properly butter my popcorn throughout.  Oh the humanity!  So I had to butter just the top and take a small plastic condiment cup, without a cover, and fill it with the melted butter to add as I ate.  Now 2 things wrong with this, 1. If I am paying almost $10 for a bag of popcorn there should be a butler that comes with it to feed me, short of that I should be able to get my goddamned butter throughout and 2. the condiment cup had no cover so I had to precariously balance it on my armrest and spent the whole time making sure it didn't spill, thereby missing the whole movie.  Oh and another thing, so I guess that make 3 things.  The "butter" never solidified in any way.  Now I am not so naive to think it was real butter but science would lead me to believe that when a warmed liquid cools down it would solidify in some way, shape or form.  There wasn't even a skin on top of it.  So not sure what kind of scientific voodoo they use to create that stuff but I don't believe there is any edible components to it.  That being said, I will still use it to butter my popcorn throughout on the rare occasions I go to the theater.  And for the record, I did teach my girls the proper way to eat movie theater popcorn.

Why am I taking the side I am?  That question deserves a multifaceted answer.  These machines are supposed to simplify life for us.  How many times have you been in a self check out line behind an old person who is figuring out how to scan their hard candy?  Or where they can insert their check they just spent 10 minutes writing out?  Or the incompetent teenager that is trying to discreetly buy condoms and is so nervous they end up scanning the box so fast it throughs the machine into overdrive.  Then we must wait for the pimply faced teenage manager to come over with their key, only to type in 792 buttons to no avail.  Or have to wait in the self checkout line for 20 minutes because no real lines are open just to ring up my $.89 roll of paper towels.  My favorite is the overly permissive parent that lets their snowflake scan in all of the items in their basket.  Drives me nuts!  I am all for teachable moments and if there is no one else in line I let my kids do it, but the instant someone else enters the line I take over.  I refuse to be that person someone will snarkily blog about later.  My biggest reason is due to our hurried lifestyle we are putting real people out of jobs.  Walmart used to have multiple lanes open at a time, now you are lucky to see one lane open and an employee or 2 at the self checkouts.  What happened to all the others that used to work there?  McDonalds used to be a great place for teens to enter the workforce and earn spending money.  Those jobs are all being phased out and we are losing out on human connections.  There was a cashier at Walmart that used to ring me up when I was buying stuff for my Girl Scout troops, she would give me great activity ideas from when she was a troop leader now I have no idea where she is or what happened to her.  Dora from our local McDonalds would always tell me how to order things separately instead of combos so I would get more bang for my buck.  Now with my math skills and those computers I am almost certain I will overpay everytime.  Take a minute and think back to the way things used to be; I am sure you will realize there was someone along the way that you would connect with on a regular basis and over time they just disappeared and you never even noticed.  Do you wonder where they are?  Do you think they are happy self checkouts took over so many facets of our daily life?  So there is my argument, no convincing me otherwise.

Once I was 7 years old...soon I'll be 60 years old

Not only are those are some lyrics of one of my favorite bands; Lukas Graham but it is how I have been feeling lately.  I feel like my life is flying by way too fast and there isn't anything I can do but watch the sands of time slip away.

Oh, so Lukas Graham is coming to Boston, of course it is at 8 p.m. on a Sunday night in November and no one wants to go with me.  UGH!!  I just love their music and the lead singer is so stinkin' cute.  He is such a great storyteller, he is the only one who truly captured the shit storm of feelings from losing a parent, what true love really feels like and the desire to make your life mean something.  The one caveat to my declaration of him being a great storyteller would be the 9th song on their self titled album.  Maybe ignore his song 'Strip no More".  Not about wanting someone to stop stripping and create a better life for themselves but he missed watching his favorite stripper once she quit.  So yeah.  Lukas and I were about 2 songs in to our set; Take the World by Storm is the one that really gets the crowd going, L.G. and I put on a pretty intense concert each morning while I drive to work, when my unassuming mini-van smoked a Maserati-completely left it in my dust.  A Lays potato chip truck may or may not have pulled in front of the Maserati and technically I may have only been doing about 67 but you know what?  My mom mobile didn't disappoint that day!

But I digress, back to the reality that every day I wake up to my body failing me a little more;

*My skin has started to betray me.  Insert sad emoji face here.  I had a tank top on recently and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and sure as the day is long I have bat wings.  F-ing bat wings.  You know I then spent the next ten minutes staring in the mirror as I flapped them.  I may have T-Rex arms but those wings have an impressive wing span.

I wish the melting skin ended with my arms, which due to my wonky rotator cuff I can't really do too much about it.  Halloween is coming and I am thinking slap some black body paint on those bad boys, throw in a pair of plastic white fangs and I got myself a costume!  So like I said, the skin melting is working its way down my body.  Long time blog readers are familiar with my skin apron, the large flap of skin that hangs off  the front of me covering all the important stuff-kind of like an apron.  Chuck lovingly came up with that name.  I recently decided to get healthy, lost some weight and now the apron could cover an old Russian farm lady's body.  The good news is I can just pull it up over me like a blanket and tuck myself in to keep warm when the sweat from my awesome night sweats starts to cool off and make me chilly.  I interrupt this regularly scheduled blog post to discuss night sweats. Friggin night sweats suck ass.  I wake up drenched and my room smells like the God Damned HHS bus ride after a hockey game.  Now back to the the skin apron blog post already in progress.  If my family and I went to a sporting event together, which we would most likely never do, but in the event we do and my children are sitting on the bleacher in front of me I can lift it up and throw it over their shoulders to keep them warm during the crisp, fall nights we have in New England.  Who needs a plaid, wool blanket when you got momma's built in throw?  The melting continues down over my buttocks.  My ass has this weird little roll of skin under it now.  Kind of reminds me of a window shade.  Unfortunately it doesn't roll up into itself when you tug on it like a shade does.  I know because I have tried.  I am fascinated by this roll and whenever given the chance I pull on it.  I would never be called in for a Special K commercial because I can definitely pinch more than an inch.  One recent day my betrothed and I were riding in the car when I saw the oddest thing; there was flesh colored crepe paper on my leg just above my knee.  Now I don't know how it got there, I hadn't been on a spending spree in Party City but there is was- peach crepe paper on my leg.  It disappeared just as soon as I adjusted my legs and I haven't seen any since thank Christ.  I tried to recreate it many times and I can't but it is very disconcerting to know my legs have the capability within them to get all dolled up for a party and disguise themselves as crepe paper streamers.

I am also losing hair at an alarming rate.  So much so Chuck has to dig out the shower drain on a weekly basis with some long, barbed, flexible stick that looks like it belongs in Christian Grey's Red Room rather than my suburban en suite. 

*Moving on from my skin issues that would have Vincent Price in awe, we will now discuss my eyes.  My beautiful, sky blue eyes-- my physical feature I would say is my favorite if I had to choose.  I went for my regular eye exam.  My eye doc retired so I was seeing someone new.  He was a tiny wisp of a man, almost elfin.  He did the exam and we had some easy, breezy conversation.  He had such a soft, kind, mellow voice when he was describing I was 'glaucoma suspect'.  Knowing only that Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong fame smokes pot due to glaucoma and not much else I asked the good doctor what glaucoma was exactly.  He had a steady, even-keeled voice telling me the optic nerve is involved and is slowly affected.  Out of the blue his voice aggressively speeds up, gets louder and with an almost evil tone says, "then it gets completely strangled, dies and you go blind".   His voice went back to center and he said I would need an ultrasound of my eyes to see the receptionist and she would schedule it.  Da fuck just happened?  I stuttered out, "is there anything to treat this?"  He calmly and rationally said, "there are eye drops that can slow the process down but there is no cure".  Okay then.

So I have an ultrasound of my eyes book, that sounds fun and super comfortable!  In the mean time I have spent a lot of time thinking about the fact I may be blind in about a decade.  While it is soul crushingly heartbreaking to think I might not see my girls on their wedding days or see my grand children, the day to day struggles are what have me losing sleep. 

I am not a super model by any means but I like me some eye make up.  I will have to trust either Chuck or my children to glam me up.  All I envision is Mimi from Drew Carey or Tammy Fay. People of a particular age will know who I am talking about.  For the record, neither would be a good look for me.

I have long suspected Chuck might be color blind and he is not a huge fan of going out of his way.  For the love of God I am scared to think about what he might dress me in.  I imagine he will just throw on whatever is next in line in the closet.  Just thinking out loud here-should I glue gun shapes on my clothing labels?  Like tops and pants that match would have different shapes and I would just need to feel the label and match tops to bottoms-glue gun circles match glue gun circles, squares go with squares, etc.  Though I have already nixed that idea because I will need to stay the exact same weight for my entire life and that is just way too much of a commitment. 

*I have another fun issue.  I go to the bathroom all the time, like all the time.  I pee constantly.  I swear I love my girls fiercely but man they ruined my body.  The girls and I joke about it at work but you know you have a problem when the facilities worker gives you grief for always being in the bathroom when he wants to clean it.   I do have a certain sense of guilt taking away from the bottom line of the business, pun intended, for all the toilet paper I use.  I feel like I should be bringing in my own toilet paper so as not to take away from the center's profits.  I have another ultrasound scheduled to see why I am always visiting the Governor as my Poppy used to say.  I am tempted to call our health insurance company to get a 2 for 1 deal.  I told my friend Lisa about my ailments and unlike most people that give me a supportive head nod or some words of compassion she said. "Jesus WTH, you're going to need Depends and a service dog to help you navigate around" with a laughing until you cry face emoji.  And that right there is why we are friends!!

*Last but definitely not least my heart has been acting like an asshole lately.  I have a congenital heart defect, Bi-Cuspid Aortic Valve.  This is separate from the heart surgery I had when I was a toddler.  There has always been the potential that I would need a valve replacement in the future.  I am hoping that it will be in the distant future.  I have been having a lot of palpitations lately, dizziness  and what really made me take notice was when I got winded from doing the Hokie Pokie with the kids at work.  That was an interesting call to the cardiologist.  Them: So what were you doing when you felt short of breath?  Me:  The Hokie Pokie.  Them: Excuse me?  Me:  No, you heard that right.  I was doing the Hokie Pokie and when I went to turn myself around that wasn't what it was all about.  Like, seriously, why couldn't it be something glamorous?  Like hiking a glacier, swimming with dolphins, climbing Everest.  The Hokie Pokie.  Come on, for F's sake.  That is an embarrassing way to go and if God forbid something does happen to me, you all better do the friggin Hokie Pokie at my graveside service with gusto or I will come back and haunt you all. The failed dance off between me and the toddlers at work bought me a 24 hour cardiac monitor-which I may want to get a replica one made to wear around the house.  My kids slightly listened to me that day and slightly listening is way more than their norm.  Before any of you get nervous and tell me to get to the hospital stat, I have some tests and appointments tomorrow with my cardiologist and I have a very low threshold as to what I will go to the ER for.  I may seem like I joke around and take things lightly but I am all business when it comes to my heart.  As per usual with me I can't have a normal medical team.  Nope I am followed by the Boston Adult Congenital Heart Clinic which is pretty impressive until you realize they are housed out of Boston Children's Hospital.  So I get to sit in the tiny chairs in the waiting room and when they call my name they ask if Erin is in the bathroom.  Nope, it's me.  I get to look at princesses and fishies on the wall while they man handle my boobs to try and get a clear echo of my heart.  If I do end up needing surgery you know I will be an ass and have the unit's Child Life Specialist come in to prep me for the procedure.  The surgery is a pretty intense one and the thing that scares me the most isn't being on a vent, it isn't a chest tube or being away from my children-it is when I come home with a fresh surgical scar and our asshat dog Ollie comes zooming through the house and jumps up on me.  My neighbors will understand why that is such a real fear. 

Chuck has wondered out loud on several occasions if he is married to an 86 year old instead of 46-but I keep reminding him, hey at least I only look 36.

I was at my primary care doc the other day.  She asked why I thought all of this was going on-what had changed.  I looked her dead in the eye and said, "I should have stayed fat.  I didn't have any of these symptoms when I was laying around on the couch and eating burrata cheese". 

I have been trying really hard to be present with my children, soak in as many memories as I can.  I no longer have time for one sided relationships, I have cut toxic people out of my life, I have even left the Facebook Mom's groups because someone was always getting butt hurt and I can't be bothered.  I am eating healthy, lost close to 30 pounds and I am trying really hard not to yell, I am longer swearing like a sailor or Adele but no one has noticed for fuck's sake.  The past year all of this has made me realize just how precious our time is and I am trying to make mine count.

My beloved Freddie sings who wants to live for ever?  I do Mr. Mercury.  I do.

Remember life and then your life becomes a better one~ Lukas Graham

Pop Goes the Weasel? More Appropriately, Pop Goes My Back!

It is fitting that today is the last day of the year as this is most likely the last blog post I will

ever write.  I am sad to report I am about 3 minutes away from death. So on Friday afternoon

I started with a sore throat, slight cough and cold.  Not awful- but enough to be annoying and put

a damper on my weekend plans. As if the cold wasn't bad enough I start with vomiting Saturday

morning.  Great, so now I have the stomach bug and a cold. Bad, but still not the end of the world.

Oh and as I posted on my Facebook page, if you have the stomach bug ditch the weighted blanket

and go for a regular cotton throw instead.  I was in bed when the urge to purge came over me.

I try to jump up out of bed but my legs are wrapped up in about 20 pounds of fabric.

Not an easy feat when you are already weak from dehydration, it was like an off Broadway version

of Cirque du Soleil gone horribly wrong.   I'm trying to leap off the bed, the weight of the

blanket has my ankle contorted into some ass backward check mark tied to the bed causing me

to fall flat on my face with vomit rising up my throat by the second. Good times. Just when I

think this GI nightmare is over, since there is nothing left in my belly,  in addition to the

"throwing" I start "going". So here I am now Sunday morning alternating between throwing and

going, even better times! But let's be honest at this point when i "go" the stink is then triggering

my "throw" response. It is like a cruel, cruel sadist version of the chicken and egg theory.

What came first?  Was I still throwing with going added in? Was the throwing phase supposed

to be over and it naturally transitioned into going and if I my super human sense of smell didn't

exist would it have just been going and no throwing? It is just an enigmatic moment in time that

will most likely never be solved.

This being me, long time readers can guess that my travails didn't end there.  Oh no my friends,

it gets much worse. Much, much worse...You see, I am sitting in a chair in my living room but I am

not sitting like a normal 46 year old.  Nope, I have a few throw pillows propped up behind me like

a grandmother. Why am I sitting in the dark like a Nana? Oh, that's an easy one to answer; as

if they cold/GI bug weren't enough misery for one person the cosmos thought it fit to strike

e down with another ailment.  So about 22 hours ago I had just finished another round of

bathroom roulette, you know spin the wheel and see what end it comes out of. Oh, never played

that game? It is a fun one, I am thinking of going online and purchasing some Giardia bacteria

and making a ginger ale/sherbet punch with it, I think it would make an excellent party game.  

Anyway, I am out of the bathroom and heading back to my quarantined spot on the couch. I am

about 2 steps away from my comfy cloister when I am hit with a coughing fit. I am coughing away

as I am clearing my airway I feel AND hear this god awful pop in my lower back. It feels like

what I would imagine being struck by lightning to feel like.  I get this sharp, shooting, tingling

sensation through my whole body. It sounds like there are bees swarming in my head, I instantly

feel nauseous and I can't move. I am stuck in this contorted position, yet my whole body feels

numb. I swear to God as the lightening bolt coursed through my body I hear Freddie Mercury

belting out "thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening me..."  I think I may have technically

died from the pain for a few seconds. "Bismillah! We will not let you go, let me go, we will not

let you go" On a side note, did any of you see Bohemian Rhapsody? Once you get past the over

the top mouth they made for Rami Malek it was amazing! I loved Queen when I was younger and

I remember sitting watching Live Aid hoping the rumors were true that Queen was reuniting.  

Just like every time I watch the movie Selena, even though I already know the ending I was

hoping it would turn out differently. Rest in Peace Freddie. But as always, I digress. So after

my little cardiac interlude the pain sets in and I am shocked back into life. So there I was stuck

in the middle of the room. Then I sense something rising up from my toes, past my knees, over

my thighs, belly and into my throat and then the most guttural sound comes out of my mouth.  

I can't even describe it. It is almost zombie-like, apocalyptic if you will. It takes a few moments

but then my kids come to see what that sound was. Was it one of the animals? Was our house

coming off its foundation? Was there an undead coming in through the chimney? The realization

that it is their mother, the one that gave them life, birthed them was in trouble. Did they come

over and help me? No. They gave me such a look of disgust and called into the basement for

Chuck.  So it takes a minute for him to come up. Now he didn't take his time because he is an

ass. Our kids cry wolf so often he probably thought the major emergency they were summoning

him for involved removing a juice box straw from its plastic wrapper or something of similar

urgency; not his wife twitching in the middle of the room from some electrical malfunction within

her skeletal system. He helps get me back on the couch where I catch my breath. Emily comes

over to check in to see that I am OK.  Once she has proof of life she then starts in with, I have

to say a pretty spot on imitation of me the moment whatever it was inside my spinal column popped.

She said, "mom you were making a weird noise and bent over and I didn't know if you were

pooping, farting or having a baby".

I hang out on the couch for the rest of the afternoon/evening and try everything in my power

not to move.  The pain was unbelievable! Now, if you remember back a few paragraphs you will

remember I had just left the bathroom after a bout of the drizzly trots.  I was terrified another

round was coming my way. Thankfully after a morning of the McSquirts the shoot was pretty

empty but as a precaution I kept my ass cheeks clenched as tight as Fort Knox, afraid a rogue

fart might cause a breach of epic proportions, kind of like if the Hoover Dam got a crack it would

flood the Grand Canyon, yeah, like that kind of epic proportions.  The sounds that were rumbling

through my intestinal tract would have made the perfect sound track to a horror movie. Had I

been in the right state of mind I could have recorded them, sent them to Universal and profited

off of my misery for once. Oh well, opportunity wasted.

Since I had the stomach bug I was loading up on soup water, or as most people call it broth and

Popsicles so I had a lot of pee that needed to come out.  I waited until I couldn't hold it anymore.

I knew it would be like a when you are out drinking and you "break the seal" then you are

committed to the bathroom in 15 minute intervals for the remainder of the evening.  So I make it

onto the throne, albeit delicately. Well, as is well documented I have T-REX arms, shout out to

Susan for the amazing T-Rex necklace!! So T-Rex arms and the inability to move more than 2

centimeters in any direction had made the traditional female reach around, front to back wipe

virtually impossible.  So if you are of the betting ilk I am odds on favorite for a UTI when all is

said and done. You could make a killing on the over/under of that one, if you do financially gain

from my misery can you at least spring for the co-pay on my antibiotics? Hey, with the insider

tip it is only fair. So now that wiping my ass is out I have had to resort to drastic measures.  

Putting the theory of gravity to the test I have taken to wading up enormous balls of toilet paper

, I figure with the sheer volume Charmin placed gingerly in the general area something is bound

to be absorbed. I used to think Europeans were so pretentious with their bidets. I mean,

seriously they can't wipe their own asses? Oh how the mighty have fallen. I wonder if Amazon

sells bidets?  Let me answer that for you; Prime can have a southern shower here by tomorrow.

Yeah, I checked, I'm not too proud to admit it. This is the first time I have cursed the fact

that neither Chuck or I inherited the hoarding gene. Had we not been minimalists I would have

no fewer than 3 peri bottles on hand, those are the plastic squirt bottles you get at the hospital

to keep your lady bits clean after you deliver a baby; AKA the poor man's bidet.

I did make my way from the couch to the recliner chair.  Once I am up I can shuffle around the

house-straight lines are best, stairs and any type of bending are my enemy right now.  I have

managed to kneel down and get essentials like my slippers. It is a process though. I have to keep

my back super straight and do a one knee dip/kneel kind of like a Catholic does when kneeling in

reverence in front of the altar.  So with each dip I can't help myself, dip to get a slipper and in

my head I automatically say, "Body of Christ", kneel/dip to get a sock, "peace be with you"...you

get the idea. I am on the chair and Chuck comes home with pizzas. As much as the smell of

cheese and sauce is calling my name I am chair bound.  I need them to bring the food to me.

Now, you might think this is somewhat glamorous like subjects bringing their queen grapes but

in all reality it is more like Honey Boo Boo bringing Mama June some 'Sketti'.

Getting out of bed this morning was a difficult task.  It took 16 minutes from the time I started

until I cleared the side of the bed.  I know because I timed it. At times I looked like the Grinch

slinking along the sides of the bed using my feet to push me along, other times I looked like

Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible trying to navigate under the laser wires.  It was not a pretty

sight. 16 minutes and in the end I was a sweaty, painful mess.

My kids have been trying to take advantage of my situation and lobby for things they want.

 "Mom, since you aren't puking anymore can we have the cousins over for New Year's Eve?"

"Mom, can I have my friend over, you don't need to get up from the chair"...they are trying to

wear me down.  The older 2 have been campaigning hard for the past 24 hours to get another dog.

They have pulled out all the stops; typed up letter, made a whole marketing package including

flyers and a stop motion video.  Way to kick me when I'm down. I mean I can't even effectively

wipe my own ass and you are barraging me with pictures of pugs? Not fair!! Tears are flowing,

doors are slamming but as of right now I have held my ground.

It is not only the kids that have been taking advantage.  My cat Gracie has been less than

supportive this weekend. She will be 17 on Thursday.  We are on borrowed time with her.

She is not well. Lately when I am watching TV she comes and lays on me.  The way it usually

goes down is she comes and stands on my boobs, kind of like they are a shelf. Now with all my

faculties present I can gently nudge her down and she will tuck in and lay down on my belly.

Now with my faculties out the window she stands on me and there is nothing I can do about it.

I can't gently nudge her down. I have made a conscious decision that her last days will be filled

with nothing but love.  I could roughly knock her off but that would go against my ideal of her

only feeling love from me in her final time. So now as I watch TV I can hear Chip and Jo-Jo

talking about the Silos but all I can see is Gracie about 5 centimeters away from my face.  If

I am lucky she stands with her tail end close to my eyes so I can maneuver my face so I can look

at the screen under her tail, but then again that may not be so lucky after all. Gracie is a long

hair cat and in her old age her grooming habits have not been as fastidious so there may be a

dingle berry or 2 hanging from her ass.

Where did my life go so sideways that I am literally faced with a shitty cat ass in front of me

on New Year's Eve?  I hope this isn't a metaphor for 2019? But then again, if this is how it is

going to play out maybe this won't be my last blog post after all!  Happy New Year Everyone!!

Is it just me? Oh, it is? OK then, yeah...

So the other night I was enjoying my nightly bowl of buttered popcorn, some people have a glass of wine or a beer, me, I have my popcorn to help me unwind.  For the record I was eating popcorn alone, at night, in the dark way before Olivia Pope was.  So there I am with a mouth full of my buttery goodness when I realized I am watching a murder mystery.  I swear to all that is Holy I have seen Every. Single. Episode of Dateline ever produced.  Including all the ones with Stone Phillips, yeah I'm a super fan.  The fact that I am watching a murder mystery show is nothing new.  But here I was enjoying my evening snack while watching some families worst nightmare play out for my entertainment.  Now I know they sign waivers and have to consent to their story being told but I felt like such a turd eating popcorn.  Popcorn is a fun snack, it shouldn't be consumed while learning someones loved one was chopped into bits and thrown into an old mine shaft.  It felt so disrespectful.  So now the joy I felt eating my popcorn was destroyed.  I changed the channel and watched House Hunters and when my popcorn bowl was empty I went back to the episode of 48 Hours I was watching which I had DVR'd in the interim.  Then I felt like an asshole for DVR-ing it.  The person is dead and I don't even have the compassion or consideration to watch the show in real time.  Am I dead inside?  Do I have a black soul?  My popcorn couldn't wait-my snack was too important to put aside and honor this poor person's life?  Then I realized for F*ck's Sake Erin, do you have to overthink everything?  Can't you watch a murder mystery and just enjoy it.  I mean Keith Morrison makes a decent living off of these people's misfortune, the least I could do was support his employment and keep his ratings up.

Then I got to thinking; am the only one that does these weird little inner monologue rants?  Are there other things I do on a regular basis that might not be practiced by society as a whole?  Are my random thoughts odd or do others have them too?  Here are a few of the ones that immediately come to mind;

It has been well established I love all of the murder mystery shows; Dateline, 48 Hours, See No Evil, The First 48 and anything on the ID channel.  To be honest I think it makes Chuck a little nervous that I may just be able to pull off the perfect murder, but I digress...so all of these shows make me suspicious of everyone.  When I am out in public I always wonder if the person next to me is a murderer.  With the sheer volume of these shows it stands to reason that I have, at some point in my life been in close proximity to a serial killer.  I am always giving strangers the once over, sizing them up to see if they have it in them to snuff someone out.  I bet dollars  to donuts I have profiled more people than the FBI.

Along that same vein every time I see a nondescript box truck I wonder if it is being driven by a human trafficker.  I make sure I give them the side eye, letting them know I'm on to them.  The other night I was leaving work and there was a small white box truck parked right next to my minivan.  There was no one in sight.  Now they very well could have been on the up and up maybe they were making a delivery to the dentist office right next to us, or they could have been a driver for Amazon but before I got in my van I looked over my shoulder and back again, knocked on the side of the truck and asked if anyone was in there.  Total silence.  I felt confident there were not scores of teenage girls packed in there waiting to be sold on the black market.  I know I sound crazy but there isn't going to be a trailer full of humans suffocating on my watch.

Another weird habit I have is turning the news on the second I get up.  I have this odd obsession of finding a typo in the scrolling headlines on the bottom of the TV screen.  Now if you have been reading my blog for any length of time you know that I am far from being a grammatical scholar.  If I don't know the proper punctuation for the situation I just end the sentence with 3 dots and call it a day...but to me there is nothing funnier at 5:36 a.m. than seeing them scroll "a body was found in the Pubic Gardens" across the screen when it clearly is supposed to be "Public Gardens".  Then I set an internal timer to see how long it takes them to correct it.

When I am in the grocery store line I watch what the people in front of my are putting on the belt then I try to guess what recipe they are making.  Are they using the fish or hamburger meat with the Old El Paso Taco Kit they are buying?  Do they really like kale or are they buying it because they think it is the right thing to do?  What is their thought process when buying organic fruits and veggies but have an equal amount of Hostess products in their cart?  I put entirely too much thought into other people's grocery purchases but I guarantee you the next time you are in line you will start trying to figure out what they are making with their ingredients.  You're welcome!

Here's another one; every time I see the commercial with the old lady in the walk-in tub with the door on it I always think she looks way too excited to be sitting in the tub.  Maybe she is just happy to see another day but I can't help but think she is freezing in the tub as the water drains out.  It must take a few minutes and in theory she is sitting there naked as the water level decreases.  I am constantly amazed she isn't shivering from hypothermia.  I have this incredible urge to buy one just so when one of my family members is happily sitting in the tub I can open the door and run.  Yeah, I'm an ass.

I also spend an exorbitant amount of time wondering if my dog Mary Alice knows my name.  She loves me so much.  I am her favorite and feet to the fire she may be my favorite family member too.  But does she know my name?  When I come home does her little dog brain say, "oh Erin is home", or "oh mom is home" or is it more like, "that white blob that pats me a lot and feeds me is back".  Science tells me it is the latter but in my heart of hearts I like to think she does know my name.

Would Forensic Files be as intriguing if they had a different narrator?  Yeah, that is another thing I perseverate on.  While watching it I always try to imagine the narrator is Sarah Palin-I mean it would be scary for a different reason but I don't think it would be as creepy.  Or maybe they have Ozzy Osbourne stand in for an episode.  Again, it wouldn't have the same feel to it.  How about Sponge Bob?  Not so much.

Lastly there is one other weird thing that happens to me, who we kidding the list is endless but I have to end the post somewhere.  Anyway I will be flipping the channels and stop on an idiotic show and kind of watch it ironically.  Then without fail 3 weeks later I inevitably find myself up at 3 a.m., 6 DVR'd episodes in,  toothpicks in my eyes trying to keep them open to find out if Mia is really a bat shit crazy stalker or just misunderstood.  Is Mohammed really marrying Danielle for love or a green card?  Somehow it becomes of the utmost urgency to see how it all ends.  Before you go and Google it Mia is from the latest episode of Married at First Sight and the jury is still out on her mental health status and Mohammed from 90 Day Fiance did marry Danielle for a green card but you know what?  She totally deserved it-there were so many red flags that were pointed out to her but she went through with it anyway.  So yeah, she should have known better.

You would think I have a ton of free time the way I go on about these things.  Honestly I have had insomnia for years and these are the ridiculous things I think of a 3:43 a.m.  Man, I need to get some stronger sleep meds!

Hey Mustache, what's up?

Only a few of you will get the reference in the title.  If you are one of the select few then you are my people!  So I just had a birthday the other day.  I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I am now closer to 50 than I am to 40.  Or as Chuck so gleefully pointed out I am now closer to 70 than 20.  I get the urge to forcefully vomit when I say the actual age so let me just say this past Tuesday was the the 25th anniversary of my 21st birthday.  I'll give you a minute to do the math.  46.  I'm 46.  That is gross.  I still can't believe I am 46, it seems like just yesterday Chuck took me away for my 40th.  If you are new to my blog and need a refresher scroll back through my blog to December 4, 2012 and read about the 40 year old mom.  It was a great weekend and and ended up with the BEST souvenir EVER from that weekend; Emily!

Anyway, here I am 6 years later somewhat wiser but mostly older.  I feel like I am very quickly turning into an old lady.  It is as if my body is starting to fail me.  So a few years ago Chuck bought me a lighted, magnifying mirror.  It has been great for helping me see when I am putting on my eye make-up.  My friggin eyes are the first to go.  I swear everyday my eyesight gets worse.  My t-rex arms are now virtually useless when it comes to helping me move things the proper distance away.  The other day I was at work when I realized I forgot my glasses at home.  We have this great maintenance guy at work who is incredibly helpful.  He needed me to go over some of his paperwork.  I sh*t you not he had to hold it for me and had to back up little by little until he was just far enough away for me to actually read the words.  I think we may need to put one of those moving sidewalks like they have at the airport on the school's Amazon Wish List, oh, or better yet I could install one of those target movers they have at gun ranges.  I could attach the "target" aka the document I am trying to read and I can push a button to have it move back to read it, push the button again and the page will come zooming back to me to take off and file away.  Genius!  I think I am going to contact Shark Tank about that before one of you steals my idea!

So back to the title..."Hey mustache, what's up" is a quote from Impractical Jokers, for those of you who didn't Google it to see what the reference was.  But this my friends is no joke.  My magnifying mirror is so powerful I can see things I would rather not.  When I turn the light on it is as if I have a pair of those Blue Blocker/ Amber vision glasses from the early 90's.  Or for those of you who really enjoyed the 90's when I look in the mirror my face becomes as crisp and clear as if I were a club kid looking in a mirror after taking Ecstasy. Now, all you women of a particular age that do not have one of these magic mirrors are most likely blissfully unaware of all the facial hair you have.  I am doing you all a solid when I tell you DO NOT under any circumstance purchase said mirror E.V.E.R!  You're welcome!  You see if I look in a regular mirror I look pretty good.  But in my magic mirror I look like the old hag married to Billy Crystal's character Miracle Max, from The Princess Bride.  My face is covered with this short blond hair, you know the kind elderly ladies get.  Yeah, apparently my face has lost the youthful glow it once had and skipped right into the geriatric stage.  Oh and I recently noticed that I have a mustache!   Now, to the naked eye no one would ever notice it-and I have not done anything to it for fear of it growing back thicker,  Freddy Mercury style.  You would only notice it if you had very up close contact with me.  Currently the only one who fits that bill is Chuck and as I frequently remind him he made a vow 12 years ago in front of all our family and friends that he will love me in sickness and in health.  Now, if it came down to it I could get this hairy situation in under the "health" piece of that vow on a technicality- perimenopause is the most likely the culprit and that is related to my health.

I am not an overly vain person.  Yeah, I do like to brush my hair and put a little shadow and mascara on when I go out in the world.  I heard a quote once that went something like, 'when you go out to see the world, the world sees you too'.  Now, I do have days that I could make it to the top of the "People of Walmart" page but for the most part overall I try to maintain a 'People of Target' look.  I'm not totally classless for f*ck's sake.  Oh, and as a side note apropos of nothing, Scottsdale, AZ was named the vainest city of 2016, the last year from which statistics are available.  Now, my blog may not be the most educational but I am good for throwing in at least one nugget of useless trivia per post.  Again, you are welcome.

So in addition to the mustache I have also become a bearded lady. I remember the first time I saw a chin hair.  I was putting make up on I saw what I thought was a piece of lint on my chin.  I went to brush it away and it just popped back up into place.  I tried again and again it popped back up like one of those  flippin blow up smiling clowns that keeps coming back for more every time you knock it down. Holy sh*t!  I am growing a beard! What the actual F*ck? OMG, I am super extra.  Ugh.

Again, this not an Abraham Lincoln beard, it is just some blond, or God help me maybe grey wisps along my chin.  I am all about female empowerment.  I fist pump to P!nk's What About Us, I Roar along with Katy Perry, Rachel Platten's "Fight Song" was my anthem in 2015.  I love the Greatest Showman's message as much as the rest.  I belt out "This is Me" whenever I get the chance, but I refuse to be the next Lettie Lutz!  She was the Bearded Lady from P.T. Barnum's original Traveling Circus.  I recently read an article that many women are opting to go au natural and let their mustaches/beards be.  The new trend is to just go with what is meant to be.  Umm, nope, niet, nein, nahi, non and any other way I can say Hell NO!  I am going to pluck those suckers until the cows come home.  So if you hear me singing;

         "I am brave, I am bruised.
           I am who I'm meant to be, this is me.
           Look out 'cause here I come!
           And I'm marching on to the beat I drum.
          I'm not scared to be seen
          I make no apologies, this is me"

Please know those words are about as hollow as if I sing Madonna's "Like a Virgin".  I am fighting that until the day I die and then some; Amy Lee you are on whisker duty!  If you see me lying in my casket and I have a stray one you stop the procession and pluck that Mother F*cker.  If you don't I swear to all that is Holy I will come back and haunt you!

Another aging process I am fighting is that super thin crepe paper skin.  I have always had old lady wrinkly hands.  For the past 30 years my hands have been craggy looking.  The fact that my hands look like a farmer's wife's hands is one I have just accepted.  I am so thankful my face has stood the test of time.  I have my mom to thank for that.  Back when I was a freshman in High School my mom took me to a make-up counter at the mall.  The Clinique lady told me to moisturize my face everyday so I don't get wrinkles.  I have slathered my face night and day since and it has worked like a dream.  I am pretty confident in saying my face doesn't look 46, I would conservatively say my face looks 10 years younger.  Sadly I can't say the same for the skin that resides under my neck and down to the top of my bra line.  That is starting to get crepey.  I have started moisturizing that but I think it is an exercise in futility-I think that is going to be like chasing a boulder down the side of a mountain.  Oh well, fortunately it is only a swath of skin about 6 inches wide.  Thank Christ I had that breast reduction/lift 16 years ago.  If not my boobs would be dragging on the floor like a Neanderthal's knuckles.  I am just going to have to head to Icing or the Paper Store and stock up on  some of those hip old lady scarves/shawls to cover that sh*t up!

My taste in television has shifted as well.  Instead of current shows like the Bachelor or Empire, I find myself gravitating to things like Forensic Files, Family Feud, Chronicle and 60 Minutes.  As I realize with each passing day that my life is more than half over I feel this sense of urgency.  I feel like I have to teach my girls as many life lessons as I can squeeze in each day.  I feel like I have to be conscious of making as many memories with them as I can.  I know I should frame it as if I should enjoy each day and I do, but I can't help but feel this impending sense of doom.  Now don't get me wrong, I am not a Debbie Downer curled up in some End of Times bunker, I just feel like I have to squeeze as much in as I can.  Now, before you all get nervous about my mental state I do have a wonderful therapist and some pretty good meds to help me enjoy the here and now.  When all is said and done, even at my age I am not too senile to appreciate the fact I have a pretty great life; I have 3 healthy children who are the most amazing kids around, I have a husband I am so in love with, who by the way is  pretty lucky to have me too, a family I can count on when I need them, I have a comfortable home, great friends and a job where I feel valued.  So as long as I have a sturdy pair of tweezers and a bottle of Nair, I'm good!  So as Murr says, "Bitch, I'm Fabulous!"