dear alegre

I know.  We should have spelled it AlegrA so the vet techs didn’t mispronounce your name EVERY TIME they see you.  I’m sure you’ve heard your name butchered in ways we cannot even imagine.  Had we kept the name the Humane Society gave you, you would have been set.

But we didn’t much care for “Snow White” and as your parents who adopted you, we had the final say.

The fight for the ottoman is over.  It’s yours. You win. But we get to keep the bed.  You can yell at everyone else to stay away from your “spots” but you already know that Gracie will come up anyway and Maddie will continue to harass you because she thinks it’s a game while you think it’s just flat out annoying.  But don’t think we didn’t see you playfully swipe at her tail like you would a big feather.  You cannot hide the fact that deep under that facade, you’re a big softy.

Yes, we said it.  Big Bad Ms. Alegre.  A softy.  And that’s ok.  Don’t be ashamed.  We won’t tell anyone.

And embrace your inner goofball.  It really is completely acceptable to pounce on something or sneak behind the plants or roll around on your back or carry toys out in the open when it is possible for us to WATCH you.  You don’t have to always be Miss. Prim and Proper.  Go ahead- let your hair down.

You helped fill a huge hole in our lives and you know it.  We can say without a doubt that we were meant to have you and someone or something told you to turn your back and act bratty and fling litter in the faces of every single person who stopped by to look at you in Petsmart except us.  When we saw you, you were sitting front and center in the awful cage they had you in, staring intently at us like, “I AM THE ONE.  TAKE ME HOME.”

And we did.  And you got to be the only child for a time and relish in all of the attention and the toys…

And then came Gracie and Chloe.  You begrudgingly adjusted.  Introduce Maddie…and you freaked out like, “WHAT IN THE HELL IS THAT AND WHY DOES IT CHASE ME? I DO NOT APPROVE. TAKE IT AWAY.”

Over time, you set the boundaries and adjusted to her, too. 

You’re still the “Mama” and the one we put in charge when we leave.

But, come on, just admit that you love them all now.  That you ENJOY the company and ENJOY being the boss.

You can only hide it for so long.  Eventually you’ll have to come clean.

we suck at following up

It isn’t because we don’t like you.  Or think you smell funny.  Or are offended by that crass joke you told the last time we saw you.

It isn’t you, at all, actually.

It’s us.

We are the worst when it comes to keeping in touch. 

If we had a great evening and then you don’t hear from us again,  it doesn’t mean we don’t like you. We probably do. We just…well…forgot to call.

And we are truly sorry.  We had a good time, too.  Really.

We don’t prescribe to the whole “wait three days to call” or “don’t seem too anxious” rules…we’re just out of practice and then life gets in the way and then it’s six months later and Tim or I will be all, “weren’t we supposed to CALL so and so?  WHEN was it that we last saw them?”…

And then we feel bad that is has been so long…so we don’t call at all.

That’s what happens.

So while we still have our social get-together training wheels on, it’s probably a good idea to call us.

We’ll get it.  Eventually.

graduation party

My mom threw a graduation party for my brother, Jeff, yesterday.  He finished his art degree this year.  After year three of college with no diploma to show for it, everyone started asking him: when are you going to finish?/are you almost done?/how much longer will this degree TAKE?

And Jeff would then say to me, “WHY did you have to finish in three years?!  Now they have an unrealistic expectation.  Thanks, sister.” 

I guess I just got impulsive.  I don’t know.  Sorry, brother.

We call each other that – the ‘brother’ and ’sister’ thing – it’s never ‘Jessica’ or ‘Jeff.’  Not sure when it started…but it stuck.

So the party.  We took Maddie – who my mom ADORES but some attendants are always less than thrilled to see her.

My mom says she’s part of the family, so she goes and everybody WILL LOVE HER AND TELL HER SHE IS THE BEST. DOG. EVER.

There were lots of people at the party from my past as a child…and it is always a little strange to see everyone again…especially the parents of my friends.  They never change very drastically…while the “kids” change every day until they are set into what they wanted to do when they grew up.

Most of us haven’t gotten there yet…

This time, though…I felt really out of place… like I had been on some distant planet for a few years and just came back to a world stranger than this one.

Maybe it was the bangs.

At one point during the “hi, how are you’s?” and “we’re doing fines” I finally connected a last name of a couple to an old acquaintance I had in school.  I heard my mom say “The Beine’s are here!”  And I’m all…BEINE’S?  As in the Beine I KNEW in grade school?  You are FRIENDS with her PARENTS?  When did THIS happen?

Apparently it happened all the way back when I was in grade school.  Somehow I missed that.

Mrs. Beine, my mom and I talked for a few minutes about the old days…more specifically about a sleepover party that happened in like…fifth grade.  The second it came up, I threw my hands up in the air like, “I DID NOTHING!”

You see…what happened was…Party Thrower decided that skinny dipping would be a REALLY fun idea at 1:00am.  So did everyone else except me and another girl who had already fallen asleep.  Her vote apparently didn’t count because I wasn’t allowed to raise her hand for her.  So I sat and watched the chaos that went along with the skinny dipping experience.  For some reason there was this mad rush of girls in and out of the kitchen, filling buckets of water and then racing back outside.  I have no idea why…the pool was full already…

Well, as enevitable things like this tend to happen, Party Throwers Mom wakes up to all of the commotion and has one of those self-dialogues a mom tends to have when trying to sleepily put the pieces together, for she knows something is out of place but hasn’t quite put her finger on it…

It went a little something like this:

Party Throws Mom, as she is racing downstairs to the back yard in her nightgown: “WHAT IS ALL OF THIS NOISE ABOUT?….thump, thump thump down the stairs…

….”WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU DOING?”…rounding the corner in to the kitchen…

…”WHY IS THERE WATER ALL OVER THE FLOOR??…WHERE IS EVERYBODY?!?”….turns around and looks at me with dagger eyes, for innocent little me had come out of hiding to see what was going on…then turns toward the noise in the back yard…

…”WHAT ARE YOU GIRLS DOING OUTSIDE?!?!”….opens the back door…

…”WHAT IN THE?….ARE THEY?…WHAT IN THE?…YOU ARE NAKED!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING NAKED?!?  GET INSIDE! RIGHT NOW!  I’M CALLING ALL OF YOUR PARENTS!”

Let’s just say Party Thrower didn’t have anymore parties for awhile.

But when that story came up yesterday, my mom was telling us how she had to console Party Throwers Mom…because she couldn’t understand WHY they would go skinny dipping.  My mom tried to tell her kids sometimes do stuff like that.  And Party Throwers Mom was all, “but YOUR daughter didn’t DO it.”  My mom had no rebuttal for that and good thing this was a phone conversation because the look on my moms face when Party Throwers Mom was all, “my daughter needs to hang around YOUR daughter” would have said more than words required.

Maybe I didn’t do it because I had no boobs…not even the START of boobs…I have no idea.  But I was quick to tell Mrs. Beine that HER daughter was absolutely in the mix with the skinny dipping.  Absolutely she participated.

Mrs. Beine just looked at me like, “Thanks for the reminder.  I know.  So sorry she didn’t have as much SELF RESTRAINT as YOU.”

Probably should have just stayed mute on this one…really can’t make a bad memory better.

And that’s how it went.  All afternoon.

When we left…my car had an almost flat tire with a screw in it.  So at 7:30pm I’m frantically calling places to see if they can help us because what wouldn’t make a more perfect ending to the evening than us with NO CASH and as we drive up to the only gas station with a free air machine we see a single, hand-written sign plastered on the front of the machine saying  ”out of order.”

Thanks, Pep Boys for staying open until 8:00pm AND being about five miles away AND fixing my tire while Tim, Maddie and I baked outside in 95 degree weather, watching the sun set and a grown man race his remote controlled car in the parking lot.

I even took a picture in the parking lot of Pep Boys to commemorate the experience.

squeaky clean

Maddie is MOSTLY an inside dog.  She doesn’t eat poo.  She doesn’t do the whole tootsie roll thing anymore (as described here).  She doesn’t even LICK her own…you know…”lady bits” incessantly.  I get it – sometimes you gotta do whatcha gotta do…

But none of that really seems to matter.  Her mouth is like this disgusting, black cesspool of nastiness that leaves its mark EVERYWHERE.

Her toys suffer the worst of it.  Brightly colored plush ends up dark brown and crusty with dried slobber-goo.

So we wash them. 

In the washing machine.

And we tell Maddie that her toys are getting a bath…because she knows what “bath” means…so she’ll also  know we haven’t taken her toys away forever…because she tends to have issues with the whole object permanence thing (Thanks, Psych Degree…you finally came in somewhere…).

Once her toys are shiny and clean and smell like the lavender-scented detergent (don’t worry PETA – it’s organic)…we lay them out to dry on the balcony ledge upstairs.  This method was great when she was a puppy.  All the toys would dry and fluff up and have a second to just be still and relaxed instead relentlessly shaken in the maws of dirty dog.

But now….she’s learned where the secret drying place is…and knows the sound of the dryer opening…then realizes she’s still missing tigger and pinky and the rest of the gang…and races up the stairs two at a time.

To do this:

new look

I got bangs. It’s a new look… And Tim says it will take some ” getting used to.”

Me: “just look at me like I’m someone you’ve never seen before.”

Tim: “That’s why it’s awkward.”

I put a picture on Twitter… because I still haven’t figured out this whole iPhone thing…

I’m sitting at the hair salon waiting for Tim to get his “summer cut” … whatever THAT means…

Just saw the pic Jessica posted on Twitter…doesn’t do her new “do” justice.  Here’s a better one – she looks incredible!!! – Tim

 

Jessica's Bangs

 

they do exist!

So….guess what?

We FINALLY got our iPhones today.

They’re busy charging.  We’re following ALL of the instructions in the EXACT ORDER because we’ll be damned if we go and mess them up now.

Oh – the Apple People… I did talk to them… but all they wanted was “feedback” because they were concerned about my outstanding experience with one of their “partners” (note the dripping sarcasm).

In the same breath they also said they couldn’t DO anything because they had no control over their ordering system.

Funny…AT&T said the same thing about Apple when we were having the AT&T-phone-war-who-in-the-hell-has-the-authority-to-do-ANYTHING-to-HELP-US cancelling and RE-ORDERING our iPhones after YOU, AT&T, made a TYPO!

Whose driving the train here?  I really have no idea…but whoever “they” are managed to get our iPhones shipped to the right address.

Now we just have to worry about activating them….

And making sure AT&T follows through on all of their “compensation” promises…

Did I mention that my contact who is supposed to make sure all this transpires smoothly went on vacation?

FOR A WEEK.

Got any apps to recommend?

the blackberry farm

At some point in time, a bird left a little present for us in our side yard.

But it didn’t come to fruition until this year. 

Because the bird’s present was a little seed disguised in poo. 

The thing with seeds – in case you didn’t know - they tend to take awhile to grow into an actual plant…

And this bird must have REALLY enjoyed blackberries because there are about five different spots within a few feet where the bushes are growing.

So, now, every day after work I go out with Maddie and we pick blackberries.

I love them.

And Maddie likes to help.

Actually, she likes to nose her way through the underbrush like she’s discovering uncharted territory and then plop down next to me in the grass while I’m still busy plucking the fruit off the bushes because she’s gotten all hot and uncomfortable.

expedition africa

Tim and I were all excited when we watched the first episode of Expedition Africa.  It looked different and new and exciting.  It’s on the History Channel and is about four “explorers” traversing the same route that Stanley and Livingstone blazed oh so many years ago.

Then we sat down to watch episode number two.

After hiking through mountainous terrain for a few days, the explorers came upon a little village in the middle of nowhere and among the inhabitants of the village was this cute little goat who kept “bahhhing” and eating leaves…minding its own business and not hurting anybody.

And then they apparently decide the goat doesn’t NEED to be in the world of the living anymore and lead it away from its nice shady spot….all nice like, “Come little goat.  Come with me. I won’t hurt you…”

And then before the unsuspecting goat knew any different,  THEY KILLED IT AND ATE THE KIDNEYS.

I had already pulled a throw pillow over my face and was doing the “la la la’s” so I couldn’t hear anything – looking sideways at Tim like, “IS THE CARNAGE OVER YET?!?”

Finally they finished their goat barbecue and I got the go-ahead from Tim to watch them do something non-violent.

So I remove the pillow from my face and see the camera pan out to show a large group of people dancing around a fire along with another fun member of Africa.

A GIANT PYTHON.

Not in a cage.  Not on a leash.  No muzzle. No restraints.  It’s just SITTING on the ground like it’s part of the party.

And to top it off, this ten foot long  python is being taunted by someone and so, as any python would do, it LUNGES AT THE PERSON, MOUTH COMPLETELY OPEN like “I AM GOING TO EAT YOU SO HELP ME GOD STOP POINTING THAT STICK AT ME!”

The second the snake rocketed half its length off the ground, aiming straight for the person’s throat, I jumped about ten feet in the air, landed on top of Tim and looked at him all wide-eyed like, “WHAT ARE THEY DOING?  THAT IS A PYTHON!”

He just looks at me all, “Didn’t you see them bring it into the village?  They’re playing with it.”

I’m sorry, NO, I was busy getting over the whole goat murder. Guess I didn’t see the whole bring-a-snake-to-the-party-day bit.  And did I miss something here?  Aren’t you supposed to run AWAY from snakes?

Tim somehow managed to unwrap my arms off of his shoulders and set me back down next to him.  I kept my feet tucked up under me for I was convinced that there was another python just waiting under the couch to grab my ankles, mad that I had even WITNESSED such an act.

Thankfully, the snake game ended fairly quickly, as did the episode.  Then the preview of episode three popped on and all I see is a large animal on its back, flailing on the ground with about ten people surrounding it, holding long, pointed objects and hopping up and down excitedly.

At that point I jumped up off the couch and was like, “THAT’S IT!  I CANNOT TAKE THIS.  FIRST IT’S KILLING INNOCENT GOATS AND THEN THE SNAKES AND NOW THIS?!  NOPE. NO MORE. I’M DONE.”

Tim starts laughing uncontrollably and manages to get out, ” I wish I had a camera for THAT reaction.”

Africa – you’re beautiful.  But I’ve decided I’m not visiting.

happy fathers day?

I guess it was a happy day for my dad because well, we weren’t INVITED to the festivities.  So what would I know?

I found out by accident when my mom asked me if I saw my dad on Sunday (“Michael” she calls him.  They’re divorced).

No.  I didn’t.  Actually.

She goes on about how he had something going on over at his house and was surprised we weren’t there.  I told her not to worry about it.  She’s off on a cruise with a friend – first vacation she’s taken without children since I’ve been around – and I had called to tell her to have a good trip, NOT to bring up the drama she is escaping for a few days.

I’m the oldest.  So it’s been awhile since she’s done something for herself.

And writing is my life.  It is what I do.  It is how I DEAL with things.

So when I found out that Father’s Day WAS celebrated WITHOUT including Tim and I…you can imagine I was more than just A LITTLE perturbed.  The problem is my dad expects ME to ask to come over or ME to initiate something or ME to plan a get-together.

And I did that.  For a LONG TIME.

And he never did anything in return.  He’d just wait for me.  And then get all, “why didn’t YOU invite me” or “why wasn’t I INVITED” or “why don’t YOU come over to MY house.”

Well, maybe because I’m tired of initiating.  I’m tired of being the “bigger person.”  I’m tired of trying to MAKE YOU WANT to do what a father is supposed to do.

You’re too busy taking care of yourself and complaining when it doesn’t go the way you think it should.  You plant little bomb-lets in my brothers so they ASK ME why I’m not doing SOMETHING for you – like you’re all left out in the cold, freezing to death.

Whatever.  You left US.  Remember?  Did you forget that part?

So I’m glad you had a happy Father’s Day.  I sent you an e-card – which is more than you can say for what you did for Tim.  Not even an “oops I forgot your birthday and my daughter reminded me a month later so here’s at least recognition of my mistake” card or email or phone call.

Can you not man up and own up to your mistakes?  Admit them?  Accept them?  And NOT go the round-about-backdoor route to make someone feel guilty – like they’ve completely screwed you over?  When – in reality – they haven’t even DONE anything and rack their brain to try and figure out what could POSSIBLY be wrong.

I’m done with the pretending and the trying and the doing nice things.  We’ve realized we’re off your list – and frankly, I don’t really care at this point.  I shouldn’t have to TRY to be ON the list.  It should just be.

But it isn’t.  You seem to have some kind of problem with me or Tim or both of us…I have no idea.  But can’t you just BE HAPPY for me?  Can you resist making snide remarks that somehow magically-I-have-no-idea-HOW-that-happened make their way back to me?

Seriously – what is your problem?  What’s the grudge?  What have I EVER done to you to deserve this?  And for that matter, what in the WORLD has Tim done?  I don’t think you’ve built up enough history to even HAVE anything to hold against him.

I’m tired of trying to say something to you about it.  So I’m not going to.  I’ve tried talking to you….writing you letters for various retreats you’ve gone on…tried making attempts at doing special things on birthdays or whatnot.

And the funny thing is…I cannot remember a single time you’ve gone out of your way to make a birthday special for me.

I can’t do it anymore.  The residual effects of your example to approaching problems and dealing with issues and treating people are interfering with MY life and I’m not going to continue to let that happen.

I will not let MY life crumble because you couldn’t figure out how to make it work….couldn’t figure out how to SELFLESSLY put others before you and not expect something in return….How to not be jealous or callous or envious of what others have.

I WILL NOT BE THAT PERSON.

I will be happy. 

And if my happiness means excluding you – then so be it. 

You are not going to change.

And I’m not going to try to change you anymore.

my idea of ironing is the dryer

I hate ironing more than I hate doing laundry.  And that’s saying something.

When I go shopping, I will search out clothes that don’t need to be ironed.  Because if they need to BE ironed then they will not BE WORN unless Tim offers to iron for me… which isn’t often, because even he, KING OF THE IRON, has a hard time with them.  You see, Tim can iron so well even his mother liked him to iron her clothes because his creases were so crisp and perfect.

I don’t even attempt that kind of advanced maneuver when I iron.  I tried once and ended up with about four separate creases all within a centimeter apart from each other…never could figure out how to get the iron on the SAME crease each time.

Tim irons EVERY MORNING.  I have no idea how he stays sane.  Probably because his clothes are straight and easy to iron.  Women’s clothes, on the other hand, are all crooked and curvy and every time I try to iron the front I wrinkle the side because it folds over on itself.

Stupid design, really.

But, because of my severe aversion to the iron, I have a closet FULL of great shirts for work…but I never wear them because to do that  means I have to use the iron.

And I don’t like the iron.

But this weekend, I decided to take action and iron EVERY LAST SHIRT.  I have no idea why because it was one of the most regrettable ideas I’ve ever had.  Worse even than trying to carry home a broken bike while I was still wearing a surgical boot from foot surgery (Why was I even ON a bike in a boot? No reason, really.  Just felt like riding my bike…)  My little project only took an entire day and a gallon of water for the steam option because the wrinkles have been so deeply set.

I  mean really, I’ll just be wrinkled.

Or I’ll wear spandex.  That doesn’t wrinkle.