Driving down the street the other day, I actually broke away from my IPod and clicked on the radio. That’s unusual for a few reasons. 1.) Music today, to me, (this is me being old) has lost a lot of its originality. Instead of being unique, they try to mimic and then one up their musical influences. Boring! I know this is nothing new but it just seems much more prevalent. 2.) The typical radio stations around here play the “hits” aka crap or country or Christian…also, crap. 3.) The few classic rock stations that I am able to get around here (and I use the term “classic” loosely since it plays songs from the 80s and 90s) are so static-y that half the time I don’t even bother.
My kids, on the other hand, are typically like any other generation. They think the “new” music is so amazing and original. I have to bite my tongue sometimes because they tend to get really offended when I insult their musical preferences. I have to remind myself that my parents probably hated my choices too.
My son has a pretty decent grasp of music…in my opinion…as in he likes many of the things that my husband and I enjoy. Although, he does like Katy Perry. Of course, he reminds me every time he sees the Addidas or Proactiv commercials that it’s just because she’s hot.
My daughter on the other hand has definite elementary school girl taste. She likes to listen to Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Justin Beiber, and Ke$ha (yes, the chick with a dollar sign in her name…how the fuck do you even pronounce that???). I don’t think this group is talentless. I just think that their songs lack substance. Counting Crows they are not. Again, elementary school girl taste...I mean, I liked New Kids on the Block when I was her age.
There is a fourth reason I end up listening to the radio. 4.) I forgot my IPod at home. Oops! This is exactly how I gotstuck listening to the radio this time.
So, yeah, the car ride…
We end up listening to this…
Oh, Gaga! Even though, you try to capture us with your shock and awe, I can’t help but feel like I’ve seen and heard this all before…most recently Madonna. To be more specific, isn’t “Born This Way” just an updated cross version of “Express Yourself” and "Vogue" anyway? Seriously, have you listened to this, Gaga?
Last night, I had another weird experience. Part of me wants to blame my lack of sleep and, of course, my vivid imagination for the unusual dream. If you’ve been keeping up with my blog you know these sort of things are nothing to which I am a stranger. See here and here.
I had dozed off around 2-ish and woke up to a light tapping at my bedroom door and no it wasn't the Raven. This isn’t an unusual occurrence as I have two children that from time to time come to my room during the night because they have had a bad dream or what not. I have my kids trained to not walk into my room…to always knock first. This is just a precaution. I’d hate for my kids to see a nip slip or something. Who knows what happens when you rigamaroo (wiggle around) in your sleep?
“What do you want?” I said. No answer. I sat up and looked at the faint light streaming under the door. Normally there is a shadow there if one of the kids is standing on the other side. There was nothing. I'm not sure exactly what would be scarier...a knock, no shadow, and no answer or a knock, a shadow, and no answer. The verdict hasn't come back yet on that one. A shadow would mean there's a chance of a demon clown.
I managed to convinced myself that I dreamed the knock but just to be sure I got up to go check on the kids.
Now, I love to watch scary movies and the whole time I was walking to the bedroom it was like a scene from a movie…slow motion of a hand reaching to turn a doorknob.
Enter Friday the 13th soundtrack here.
Even the walk across the house to their rooms was a bit surreal. When I peeked into their rooms, both of them were soundly sleeping. Even the dog was snoring, loudly I might add, curled up next to my daughter. So, I went back to my room and cozied back into the bed under the comforter. After a while, I fell back asleep.
In my “dream”, I was sleeping on my side when I felt a presence. I tried to roll over to see what was behind me. The presence seemed to put me almost in a half nelson. I fought with it to a point that I toppled off the bed and hit my head on my dresser. During the time I was wrestling with whatever it was, I must have sensed it was all a dream. I tried to convince myself to wake up, trying to will my eyes open.
When I finally managed to force myself awake it was around 4 in the morning, my heart was racing and my head ached. When I reached up to the spot throbbing on my cranium, I found a knot the size of a quarter. I had that fuzzy “I just woke up” feeling. Of course, in my experience that feeling is the same as the “I’ve been knocked unconscious” one. I guess it's possible that I was thrashing my sleep and may have hit my head some way on the head board.
I tried to settle back down in my bed. Then I heard the familiar sound that always seems to accompany dreams such as these…the hoot of an owl. I looked out of my window to see if I could see the culprit. It took me a few moments to locate it in the darkness outside. I saw it as it in the tree as it turned its head around to face me. It seemed as if we made eye contact just before it spread its wings and flew away.
As I’ve stated a lot lately, sleep and I just aren’t getting along well right now. So just imagine my disappointment (also known as utter terror) when this event transpired and I was left on the verge of a panic attack in my bed trying to settle myself back down to sleep. My body and mind were just beginning to relax enough to drift back to Land of Nod when there was a knock at the bedroom door again. It startled me to a point that I nearly jumped out of my skin. It’s probably good that I had used the restroom just before climbing back into bed or I would have been changing the sheets.
This time when I called out, “What do you want?” My daughter answered back. She said she had a bad dream and wanted to sleep in my bed. How sad is it that I was relieved she wanted to sleep in the bed with me? I mean, good thing my seven year old is here to protect her scaredy cat mommy.
After a short hiatus, I bring to you another Fantastic Friday Five. A post where I share a few topics that really don’t fit anywhere else and/or I just feel like getting out into the blogosphere. Enjoy!
1.) I’m having trouble sleeping. This is common after my husband leaves. During other deployments, I went through this same circumstance. The first night after he left this time, I actually slept on the sofa because lying in the bed made me cry. I’m normally not the emotional type but every so often I get bit by the crybaby bug. Jeez, I hope I’m not pregnant. I just want to sleep again.
2.) During my husband’s visit, my super smart son decided to see what would happen if he held a Kleenex over a lit candle…in my living room. I was laying on the sofa “burrito-ed” up in a fuzzy blanket on the loveseat, in the fetal position, burning up with fever. I deliriously fell off the sofa trying get to the burning tissue ON MY CARPET, which I JUST had professionally cleaned. The blanket was full of static and I couldn’t get it off of me. Luckily, my husband was home. He stomped it out. The look of terror in my son’s eyes as he stood there frozen was enough to restrain me from killing him.
When questioned as to what the fucking fuck was he thinking, he concocted an elaborate story about how he was on the computer, NOT PAYING ATTENTION. He said he reached over to grab a tissue and he doesn’t know why it caught fire because it was nowhere near the candle. Needless to say, he had to say good-bye to the computer. Now, there is a gray spot on my carpet about the size of a stick of butter and there is also a black, burn spot the size of a dime next to it. Can anyone tell me when I can expect my boy child to develop common sense??
3.) The lawn guys cut my internet wire. Of course, AT&T originally rigged it up in way where the wire sticks out the ground and runs through my kitchen window. I pay for this?!?! The reason AT&T had to do this was because for some reason all the phone cords leading to the house were cut. Weird… The AT&T technician that installed everything said the cable companies sometimes do that if the prior occupant had phone or internet service through them. Great! Now those ugly little phone jack boxes throughout the house are truly useless.
Currently, this post is coming to you via stolen internet. Yep. I’m a freaking criminal.
4.) In addition to #3, I loathe calling customer service for most companies. I can even get past the fact that many companies outsource to guys like Peggy. (Watch the video if you don’t know what I’m talking about.)
What annoys me the most is the lack of understanding of the situation at hand. If it isn’t on the cue cards in front of them, they have no clue how to help you. (Read this post by Tricia at Confessions of a Recovering Cynic for some giggles on this topic.) I also hate being transferred all over the place from one department to the next. I think a lot of times when the representative you are speaking to doesn’t know how to help you, they transfer you…anywhere. If I have a technical support problem, why are you transferring me to billing? I don’t work there but that doesn’t sound right to me. The icing on the cake, of course, is when they disconnect you and THEN you get to call back to start the process all over again. Oh, what fun!
5.) Thank you mailman for occasionally bringing me useful junk mail. Well, I guess it isn’t really junk mail if it is useful. I’ve yet to have to write my return address for months thanks to places like VFW. They send me assorted labels, cards, pens, pads of paper, etc. I love free stuff, except the free “keys” the local car dealerships send. I don't love those. The only uses I can think up for those is taking them over to the local car dealerships and keying that snot out of every car on the lot.
During the time my husband was gracing us with his presence, I actually allowed him to leave the bedroom from time to time to spend time with our children. In the midst of this visit, we had a few small adventures locally that are worth sharing.
Too much sexy in one place
First and foremost, a friend of mine was kind enough to watch my kids for a few hours to give the husband and I time to go on a hot date. My husband took me to a fine dining restaurant (or at the very least the finest I’ve ever been to) called Rinie’s Kitchen & Wine Bar.
Rinie's Kitchen & Wine Bar
We had been there once before for our anniversary. Unfortunately, we had the kids with us so the experience wasn’t as pleasant as it could have been. We vowed to try it again without kids. We finally had our chance.
On the way there my husband joked that we would be sat near all the crying babies and fighting children since we didn’t have our own. He laughed as I suggested that we’d get stuck between a family with crying infant triplets and another table of fighting six year olds. So to prevent that situation from becoming our reality as SOON as the hostess asked where we would like to sit, I immediately asked to sit in the lounge in hopes we could avoid being anywhere near children. I actually asked her if kids could sit in there. My husband said she probably thought I was being snotty. I’d be lying if I said I gave a shit.
We got the night started with a bottle of wine. I chose a delicious Chilean Carmenere. It’s sort of a cross between a merlot and a cabernet sauvignon. It was Asunto from 2007. We ended up knocking out two bottles of that stuff. We also got the appetizer sampler platter. The platter contained fried calamari, bitterballen, chicken satay, and crab cakes. Sadly, I did not photograph the beauty that was the mere presentation of the food. Being the type of restaurant, I felt rude snapping pictures of the things I was about to consume. I mean after all, this wasn’t Long John Silvers.
We both had Caesar salads. I’m not sure if they made their own dressing but it was very tasty. As a main course, my husband got the Bacon Wrapped Filet Mignon with Grilled Shrimp. It was no surprised my husband got something that was “bacon-wrapped” because he lives by the same philosophy as I do…everything tastes better with bacon. For my main course, I ordered the Ahi Tuna with a Skewer of Grilled Shrimp. Needless to say, there was no room for dessert. I told my husband that was what the wine was for. wink wink
While my husband was here, he took pity on me allowed me to get a new camera since my old one was on its last leg. Isn’t it pretty??
He also purchased a few gifts for the kids and me while he was in Dubai.
My lovely earrings
a Hello Kitty purse
his very own Manchester United soccer jersey
The best gift of all (besides the obvious that my husband was home to share time with us) had to be my brand new shiny wedding ring. When my husband and I originally got married, we didn’t even have rings. I’ve mentioned before that we were young and stupid. Well, we were also broke as fuck. When we finally got our first set it was probably made of gold plated tin for all we knew. I think the whole set ran us under $100. Even in 1999 that was stupid cheap!
Years later in 2004, my husband purchased us a new set because he had lost his and I refused to wear the old ones. It wasn’t because I was being a materialistic twat either. We had gone through a rough patch that involved about a yearlong separation that left the symbolism of those rings entirely meaningless to me. The set he picked out for us was fairly inexpensive as far as wedding rings go. It didn’t have one solid diamond; rather it had four pushed together to give the appearance of one single diamond. I was as happy as a fat kid in a candy store.
My old wedding ring
One night a few years ago, I told my husband that one day when we had the money I wanted to get the stones switched out and have them replaced with one small diamond. I meant YEARS from now…like for our 50th wedding anniversary or something. However when my husband (did I mention he was freaking awesome??) came home, he said he wanted to purchase a whole new ring for me. He wanted it to be something I loved. He kept saying he wanted to get me the ring I “deserved”. Now as far as deserving a materialistic object goes, I want everyone out there in the blogosphere to know the only thing I want from my husband is his love and companionship. With that said, who am I to argue with him wanting to shower me with gifts? Feast your eyes on this gorgeousness!
TA-DA!
Another adventure we had involved taking the kids to the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. As always, the husband and I enjoyed it more than the kids. It’s hard to convince them that they aren’t learning anymore. I guess we foiled their lazy Spring break plans. MWUHAHAHA! Here’s some shots of our experience.
We also took the kids on an ice cream excursion to McDonald’s. I couldn’t wait to devour a hot fudge sundae. I’m not sure which of us came up with the genius idea to take the kids for ice cream at 8 o’clock at night and then try to convince them to go to bed since they had school the next day. All I know is whoever came up with the idea was able to convince the other that it absolutely made sense. I suppose the separation has made us both slightly loony.
My family enjoys going out to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. We always start the adventure atop of Mount Scott which we did this time as well. It’s sort of a ritual. It’s a beautiful site to overlook Lake Lawtonka as you can see from the photographs.
We’ve been out there a handful of times and in the distance we always see this tower. On this visit we were determined to locate it as it wasn’t advertised on any of the maps. Ok and we are pretty nosey.
Breaking rules is how you make memories, right? We ended up hiking along Lake Jed Johnson and finally made it. The majority of the hike was a winding trek uphill but we finally made it.
To our disappointment, the tower’s lower windows and doors were boarded. Apparently, the park rangers really didn’t want anyone up there. There was a sign posted declaring it a federal offense to enter. They even went the extra mile to pile boulders up in front of the door to prevent people from being able to pry it open. Bummer! Breaking a few rules is one thing but prison is a whole other ball game.
I joked with the kids that Rapunzel was in there waiting on her prince charming. My son said he saw someone in one of the upper windows. Maybe he did. Nothing surprises me.
I was able to snag a snapshot of a buffalo finally and a Longhorn. My old camera’s zoom wasn’t as good to take shots very far away. Take a gander.
During my husband’s visit I was a cooking fool! Be sure to make a trip to my new blog where I share some recipes and food related antidotes. I managed to master his favorite dessert which is pecan pie (pronounced pe-cawn, not pee-can for all you non-New Orleans folks out there).
Sometimes he actually shared with the kids which allowed me to get this gem of a photo.
My husband enjoyed being the grill master again. I did too since I hadn’t had a good steak since he left in September. I know, sniffle, sad isn’t it?
He was also home just in time to see the beginnings of springtime in our gardens. There were some blooms already taking place.
The children were extremely entertaining as you can see. They were very excited to have dad home.
We even went bowling and I have to tell you. The Wii makes it seem much easier than it is. Even though none of us will be bowling a 300 anytime soon, we did have fun.
My daughter lost one of her first front teeth while her dad was here.
Kids look so goofy in an adorable sort of way when they are missing teeth. Adults on the other hand look scary. Like this guy…
I really enjoyed the visit with my husband and I am looking forward to the next visit. In the meantime, I have to readjust to him being gone all over again. Ambien would be nice right about now.
