Dr. Strangemom (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the blog)

(Second) Best In Breed

I wish you had been on my walk with me today. I wrote the BEST blog post. In my head.

I said to Phila, "okay, don't let me forget this. I'm going to tell it to you." And I did.

She cracked up. It was really a great post. We had a great walk.

I love having a Poodle. They are so smart, and you can teach them anything.

When Phi and I got home from our walk, we were starving. And by the time we figured out what we were in the mood to eat, and ate it, she had forgotten what my blog post was about. 

I should have made her sit there until she remembered, but I'm just not a Tiger Mom. I'm not even a Poodle Mom.

Right now, I'm on the living room couch, where Phila is not allowed. She is next to me (on the couch. Where she is not allowed), her stinky, funky river-water wet head in my lap. I was too hungry after our walk to towel her off before we came into the house. And now I'm too full to get off the couch and dry her. Plus, the couch is already soaking wet and funky. And we're so cozy right now.

It seems easier to just buy a new couch at this point.

Maybe sixty years old is too old to raise a puppy. I've let all my standards and expecations lapse. It's hard enough for me to be to be housebroken when I laugh hard.

Although, truth be told, I was pretty much a slacker mom even when I was young and raising my human children. I was just so tired all the time. I always had a headache. It was the 80's, which were an exhausting decade. Being angry at Ronald Reagan took almost all my energy. And any energy that was left, I needed to keep my shoulder pads from slipping down to my boobs.

I let my kids watch TV as soon as they woke up in the morning because when they were little, they woke up at five a.m. and fuck if I was going to jump out of bed and start my day. So I had them crawl into bed with me, gave them, I don't know, pork rinds and chewing tobacco, and turned on the TV so they could watch The Farm Report, which was the only thing on TV at five a.m. in the early 80's. I'd doze on and off for an hour while they watched, and then I'd wake up up and we would discuss commodity costs and milk production estimates and livestock gross margins over breakfast.

After breakfast, we'd linger over coffee and then we watched Donahue together. 

My toddler used to run around the house with a microphone, working the empty room.

"Is the caller there?" he'd ask the walls.

"Women need to be responsible for their own orgasms!" he'd tell visitors. Precious.

I was too tired to raise them to be Poodle smart. I am Basset Hound lazy, at best. However, they were able to sniff out the kale I tried to hide in their peanut butter sandwiches. So there was that.

Phila is just going to have to raise herself, I suppose. Donahue is off the air, and anyway, Phi prefers The Lifetime Channel.

Oh, and one more thing: if you don't mind, would you please "like" me on my dr. strangemom Facebook Page? Even if you don't like me in real life. Thanks. I've been told I need to create more buzz. Whatever the fuck that means. 

 

 

(Not) Getting To Know You

Oh God. Robin's birthday is tomorrow and, so far, all I've done about it is write this  sentence. And eat two slices of carrot cake I found in the back of the freezer. To get in a festive mood. For Robin's birthday tomorrow.

I have no idea what to get Robin for his birthday. I don't know what he wants. Or what he likes. Or if he has any life-threatening conditions. I really don't know much about him. I''m not even completely certain how old he's going to be tomorrow. I know we both use Sensodyne toothpaste, so he's probably around my age.

The secret to our long marriage is that we keep to ourselves. We're on a strict Need To Know basis with each other. 

As far as I'm concerned, knowing each other is the death knell for a marriage. Knowing each other kills the mystique. Plus it leads to going out on dates with each other, which results in having to get out of your pajamas and put on a bra with the underwires still intact, and leave your house to go places. And you know how I feel about going places. Don't care for it.

I like not knowing why, for example, he uses, like, five dozen Q-Tips every week. He leaves them on the floor as if they were radioactive or something. It kinda pisses me off that he doesn't throw them into the trash basket, but I'm just glad that whichever recesses of his body require that kind of weekly cleaning, he's got it under control.

And he doesn't need to know that when he pisses me off, I give him decaf coffee and tell him it's real, so he'll get a headache. And when I am really pissed off at him, and he asks for an Advil for his headache, I give him an Immodium instead.

Hah. If you are Jewish, you'll think that is a hilarious joke to play on someone. Constipation is cryptonite to old Jewish men.

Robin doesn't need to know that I blog about him. Or that I have a blog.

Or that I forgot until today that tomorrow is his birthday.

Or that I just checked with my kids, and his birthday was yesterday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kardashiageddon

 So, first of all, there's this:

I get to my Dr. Strangemom site by Googling "Typepad". I've been doing it that way for, like, nine years. I know it's probably a circuitous route, but I'm a technoboob and don't know any other way to do it. It's probably tantamount to going out my front door, driving around the block, coming back, parking my car in the driveway, walking around through the side gate to the backyard and going in the sliding glass door off the deck to get from my bedroom to the kitchen, but when I learn one way to do shit, I'm pretty much set forever. Lucky Robin in the boudoir, right?

Anyway, every time I want to blog, I type in "Typepad". And then Google directs me to "Type 2 Diabetes" and then to "Type A Personality", and then, finally, to my blog site. Which is very time consuming. And very judgemental. Who the hell is Google to remind me of my core issues? It harshes my mellow when I'm ready to write. 

I've been meaning to deal with my core issues but it seems like a lot of work. And having to, you know, change. So instead of dealing, I believe I am going to simply embrace my issues. And by "embrace", I mean, getting out in the world and accepting myself as I am.  And by "getting out in the world and accepting myself as I am", I mean, drinking. At home. Alone.

Having a plan is the first step to mental health. I read that in Psychology Today. Or maybe it was on Facebook. A Buzzfeed test, maybe. Something real.

My mental health plan includes accepting that no matter how much money I spent on that Eileen Fisher open weave linen tank dress, I will not wear it in public anymore. Or in private. It's waaaay too sheer and my signature Playtex longline minimizer bra and size 8 cotton Lollipop high waist briefs just don't cut it as peek-a-boo fashion. Also? People keep mistaking my back fat as boobs. They think I'm facing them and backing away.

Wearing Spanx under an open weave linen sheer tank dress seems, I don't know, sad. And ridiculous. And then those judgmental bitches at Google who keep reminding me that I am a candidate for Type 2 diabetes, will have won. And then the Kardashians will have more babies. And then it's just all Armegeddon.

Plus, WHY do they think I overeat, anyway? They know I'm a Type A personality. AND I can't get to my blog site. 

Which brings me to the point that it's been a while. Maybe a year. 

I had a lot of shit to do. There were weevils in my rice and I think I ate one by mistake. So I was nauseous for about a month and had to lay down a lot. And then there was that whole Khloe Kardashian pregnancy scare last winter, which took up a lot of my hand-wringing. Because, I swear, if one more Kardashian comes into this world, I will move to Canada.

Oh, and then there were those three months during early Spring when I forgot my password to Typepad. Which is "gefilte", so you can remind me next time. Or maybe it's "gefulte". You know, to fool the Gentiles.

So, yeah. I'm back.

Oh wait. Also, I'm tweeting now. It seemed right now that my kids tell me Twitter is already over. If you want to follow me on Twitter, you'll have to ask my kids how  because I have no fucking idea. I think you have to spit three times, turn to the East and swing a chicken or something.

God willing, we'll see each other again before another Kardashian arrives.