Ch-ch-ch-changes

Never ones to spend much time with their grandchildren, my now ex-in-laws were always notorious for the “drive- bys”, zipping past the house, slowing down only to toss birthday gifts out onto the lawn for my then small children.


This annual drive-by was to cover all past birthdays for three grandchildren with clearance rack gifts tied up in Wal-Mart bags.

Usually it was raining.

Sadly my kids would shriek with pleasure seeing the blur of their Grandparents van go by, then run outside to collect the bags littering the rain soaked lawn.

This year is the first year I never have to worry about spending time with my in-laws again, and I would be lying if I said I felt guilty about it. We were always polite to each other, but sometimes you just know when you see life out of a different window.

The holidays were a little odd...a picnic table in a living room for the occasion with several card tables attached, covered with food in bulk containers. A dog on the table surfing the butter, and nobody seems to notice. “Go ahead, pet him so he goes away” my MIL would yell, with chip dip dripping from the corners of her mouth and down her shirt while on her 4th beer.

I fantasized about stabbing her with a Tide Pen.

She is the only woman I know who sets off a smoke alarm before a stove timer.


A paper plate with an entire loaf of white bread is stacked into a teetering tower, exquisitely placed next to a tub of margarine donning a knife jammed into its center. Generic potato chips and a warm six- pack of Cream Soda add to the holiday sparkle. Expired and mutilated olives float lifelessly in a jar next to green Jell-O with shredded carrots, looking like someone’s aquarium froze up.

I am thankful for one thing, if it were a degree above freezing outside, we would be eating in the garage on her set of mismatched TV trays with space heaters. Minnesotans love to entertain in garages. It is actually considered an “outdoor” activity.

With her ever present cigarette dancing from side to side displaying it's amazing three inch ash; I actually witnessed this monstrous ash give up its fight and break off into a bowl of potatoe salad. I watched in horror as she whiped it and the last of the mayonnaise together in one fatal stir.

And all these years I thought it was pepper.


My anger jolted with each visit I always promised myself, “this is the last time I am spending the holidays with the Clampets....who think Chardonnay is a fabric.”

My FIL thought I was an elitist because I had been to a museum, and have 400 per square inch thread count sheets from T.J Maxx.

“Art is for queers, sheets are for sissy’s” he’d say.

He loved to inform me that he had just eaten dinner over the sink, farted in church, drank from the milk carton, and has a urine flow issue.

Because he was into wood work and furniture refinishing, I’d inform him back that I am painting “good wood”, pounding nails into sheet rock and planning to hang pictures without measuring all before getting my nails done.

I say this in jest (who me)? But looking back over the years,I always felt we were not worth the effort to them to make it a special day, wrap a gift, or share a visit with my kids.

I have never met a selfish person who is truly fulfilled with no regrets.

I have noticed something about relationship worthiness. As Antoine de Saint-Exupery said most eloquently ~“The one thing that matters most in a relationship is the effort put towards it.”

Yep, you can measure relationships by one thing: Effort

People may not remember what you do or say to hurt them, but they will always remember how you made them feel.

When someone feels insignificant, they feel undervalued and hurt. Be a giver of more than you take. (Why does "under promise and over deliver" lead to sales success)?Take time to connect with others and cultivate relationships. Relationships require a balanced amount of time and attention.Relationships need continuity.

My in-laws were so sporatic with efforts, they have no foundation with my kids. Everyone looses.

Effort in the dictionary says: An earnest self-less attempt.

The best gift you can give someone this new years season is time and effort.

Lisa ~

PS: Yes. That really IS a real photo of butter from her house and NO they dont read blogs and NO I don't care if they did (evil smile)!

Franny Got New Drapes

I think insanity runs in my family and I am frightened.

Many of my relatives, living or dead, I am starting to see.... are freaks.

My Grandmother, until her death several months ago insisted that "Franny," her next door neighbor for 30 years, would steal the tulip bulbs from her garden at night and replant them in her own. "Nobody has that shade of a Tiger Lily but me." She would scream.

She also insisted that Franny would systematically cut the buttons off my Grandfathers winter jackets in the back hallway when she came to borrow a cup of sugar. Grandma would disappear into the kitchen to fetch the "cover up condiment," and Franny would apparently be madly hacking off buttons with a scissors she brought just for the occasion.

"They were expensive brass buttons, and her son had a military uniform she could use them for....." Grandma would snap after she left.

She began hiding the jacket.

Franny was a red headed Lucille Ball look-a-like who was drunk 100% of the time and smoked three packs of Camels a day. She could hardly stand up let alone cut a button off a coat without amputating all of her fingers.

I clearly remember being about five- years- old sitting on the back stairs watching Franny teeter back and fourth against the door frame smiling at me through watery eyes with lipstick smashed on her teeth.

As a kid, when I would be telling my Grandma a story, thinking she was listening to me and that I had her undivided attention, she would look out the porch window and say "I see Franny got new drapes"...

I also remember sitting on the floor at Grandmas with my brother watching television only to hear my Grandma scream..”I know what you two are doing! Get those hands out of the cookies”!Not even near the kitchen..we would just stare at each other, shrug our shoulders and continue to watch Scooby-Do.

Grandma had many quirks. She used to insist I sleep with no underwear on (only loose PJ pants) because “a vagina needed to breathe..if you don't, you'll just tear that thing right up"

She also refused to leave the house until she had “a good healthy BM”. We would wait for hours playing games on her front porch until we heard her light a match. Then we could leave.

I often wondered what constituted a “healthy BM” in her eyes. A floater? A diver? A sinker? Did it go according to shape, size or color? Smell or length? Did she measure it? Weight it? Poke it with a stick? Photograph it? Chart it? Make a list of averages?

She was consumed with stools and GAVE my mother and her sisters caster oil enemas (key word here is GAVE) until they were 15 years-old. I asked my Mother why she never refused.

She blinked and said “I guess I never thought to”. (Twighlight Zone music playing here…)

I also have a cousin named Karen, whom back when I was about 19, thought that Satan spoke to her through the kitchen table and that her OBGYN was following her a week after giving birth to her son.

Did no one think to themselves… “Gee, maybe we should call a doctor? Maybe she has some postpartum depression, or that she is just frickin INSANE”?? Rumor has it that she ran away with her children and was never seen or heard from again. Did anyone call the police? Was there an ongoing investigation? Hell nooooooo…

Here’s my Mother on the phone with a relative: “So.. Karen never showed up at either of her parents funerals…ya…sure, no idea. Sort of rude donch know?? Ya alrighty, you betcha…bye-bye.”

God help me if I was ever kidnapped.

"Yeah did ya hear? Lisa never showed up after school??... geez...been three weeks now, sorta rude dontcha think? Teenagers..she's such a rebel”….

In the meantime I would be found 30 years later as a maggot infested bag of bones in a 6 foot hole at Black-Dog Park, found by some horrified jogger whose dog stumbled across my skeleton still sporting a plastic head-band and a monogrammed sweater from 1982.

As for Karen, personally I think her equally freaky family or illegal immigrant ass of a husband killed her and she is buried in her a yard in Vienna VA.

I may have been born into a freaky family tree, but thank God I grew my own branch.

Truth or Hair; Are You Pristine Down There?

If you are feeling "kinky" down there, "hair no evil" girlfriend.

I just learned of a new product today from another savvy sisters blog. Ok, when I first heard of "Betty hair Dye...for the hair down there, I have admit to laughing.

I guess The drapes should match the carpet..right?

Then I got to thinking about my own situation. Now I have always been a natural Blonde, with the last several years off admittedly highlighting my hair for some shine, golden highlights and added body...(somehow the extreme damage we pay big bucks for makes styling easier.) But just when I thought I was "up on things," I had an enlightening conversation with my "in the know" sister-in-law. Everything I know about any current trend, I glean from our 20 minute phone conversations griping about carpooling and our combined relatives. It went something like this:

SIL: Oh I have a landing strip now, did I tell you?

Me: A what?

SIL: A landing strip...ya know..down there??

Me: You shaved?

SIL: Noooooo, I had a wax, a semi-Brazilian done at the salon today...it's amazing! Everyone is doing it...sexy, clean, feels nummy in lace....your brother LOVES it!

Me: (Gagging at the visual of my brother even having sex...) "Did it hurt"?

SIL: I don't remember. They gave me lots of Chardonnay while I waited.

After hanging up I immediately raced to the bathroom and stripped naked from the waist down. God dang, is this even acceptable? I mean, I keep the garden trimmed but how much better can a wax job be for $35 plus tip?

I had an appointment within five minutes.

I had never given my pubes much thought with the exception of the regular "gray pube" check because apparently this is where they will spring up first, and when that happens I will simply shit.

The next day, while laying on the wax table I found myself with the same jitters of first time sex, not knowing what to expect, or if my parents would walk in.

I sat in a teeny pair of paper panties with bees imprinted on them, while listening to a vat of 200 degree wax bubble in the corner like a cauldron. The tech walked in, explained the procedure and with the ease and skill of a surgeon began twisting me into impossible positions while slathering me with hot honey wax with a wooden tongue depressor.

Watching this would be every guys dream I thought. I could put this on U-tube.

She next began pressing several (I'm taking like 30) strips of fabric over each tiny wax application, rubbing it and........ R-I-P-P-P....... tore it back. My eyes started to tear up when she moved towards the back end....geez!

I asked for a spinal block. They didn't have one. She gave me more wine.

Now with my new found partial wax jobs (Yes I have done it three times since) I am hooked and cannot imagine NOT doing it. She was right. Something about sliding on a Victoria Secrets lace panty afterwords is an amazing feeling.. even jeans feel great.

Now, apparently there is more work to be done....so I relented and ordered my very own "Blonde Betty" kit tonight. I am going to drink three glasses of wine, get a cab to my next wax job, treat myself to more underware and promptly come home and finish off the landscape myself.

I will blog about the results unless I damage myself beyond repair.

Here is what the owner of "Betty" had to say on her website at: http://bettybeauty.com/our_story.html


"...WOW! Thanks to everyone for your support. Betty is getting so much love and attention! From Vogue Magazine to Daily Candy, fans have been finding out about Betty and reaching out. We have heard from young and old, male and female, from New York to Sydney Australia! Once you try it, please let us know how you like Betty -- your feedback is important. Get your Betty ready!"

Back in New York, I told a salon-owner friend about it. She responded, "I'm sure my clients would love a product like this, and I'd use it myself!" Not only did she like the idea of matching her chestnut brown hair, but also - she confessed - she desperately needed to cover some grays she'd recently discovered down there!

My next stop was to ask a gynecologist friend to estimate the percentage of her clients whose hair down there didn't match the hair on their heads. As it turned out, almost no one matches!

The Mystery of HGUG
 

Every woman knows what HGUG is.

Its the ongoing mystery of "hot guy ugly girl" syndrome. To me it is right up there with other universal mysteries such as "why do bath towels smell funny after one use" and  "why do I always get seated next to people who smell on airplanes".

Women just don't understand what vibes these unattractive mavens emit to gain the undying devotion of a guy who looks like he is a district manager for Hermes or Chang, writes her love letters as hipster Haiku's, knows just how she likes her coffee, rubs her back during a football game and washes her car every Saturday morning in a tight black tank top.

Here is a prime example. Years ago there was a really good looking guy in my department at the airline I worked for.Any of us girls would have licked his spit off the floor just to get a taste of him.

When we heard that Felicia "face-picker" Johnson was engaged to Mr. "we want to smell your neck and taste your spit", none of us believed it, that is until she showed us the rock on her pudgy little finger. Watching her beam from ear to ear in her Christmas sweater with light up snow man, was when I heard the sound of my nervous system collapsing.

I have since wondered what these girls do to get these guys. These girls who are sweet..... but come ON people, we are talking ugly like what happens when first cousins have kids kind of ugly.What do these girls do to get these guys?

Do they make a mean lasagna? Acrobats in the sack?

OK, here is the scary part. I have always thought the guys I dated are hot.But what if I am one of these UG's with an HG and nobody is telling me? What if I am only a 2 on the 1-10 scale? (Yes, every girl secretly wishes she knew her number but is to afraid to ask).

The trick here is to ask a guy what he thinks of another random girl in a restaurant. We choose a girl who is better looking than what we think we are. When he says she's a 9 we can rest assured we are near 7 (If he says 5 it takes a full 30 minutes and two more Gin & Tonics to lubricate my brain that I am a 3.

There is also the reverse problem of HGUG (Hot girl-ugly guy) The beautiful girl with a killer body who laughs at everything "stinky bald guy" says, rests her hand on his arm and swings her flowery smelling tresses, but we all know the answer to that one.

Money.

So with that said, I will continue to wonder what is up with HGUG as I see these mismatched couples frolicking and kissing in the park. And if I am one of them... I never want to know.

Exorcism and Pound Cake


Most of my yoga friends are into the occult on some level; it seems the two go hand- in- hand. Just because you can bend funny, do you need to become a witch?

I'm not much for the stars, it scares me and I know why.


Call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from all the deliverance attempts I watched my mother perform in our living room as I hung over the banister watching at age nine, with my clueless pajama-clad brother next to me, excavating his nose.


I always knew when Mom made coffee and pound cake; Satan was coming to visit.


I guess if you "found Jesus" back in 1974 you must have received some sort of certificate giving you the go ahead to drive out dark forces in a twelve-by-thirteen living room with worn green carpet without a second thought.

I think my mother expected dramatic results of head-spinning-mouth-foaming-seizure-inducing proportions to manifest,but all she got was some lost soul sitting in one of our plaid Lazy-Boys with a cup of coffee in hand, waiting for something to happen.

She would try to practice her new "spiritual gift" on others, sometimes cruising a party listening for any mention of illness. New catch phrases became commonplace in our household. Words like "church split", "seeker friendly church", "prayer circles", "rapture", "second coming", (has nothing to do with sex) "slain in the spirit", "under the blood", "tithe" "redeemed", "and "spiritual warfare".


These deliverances were new and exciting to my now "Earth Shoe clad" mother, but they didn't stop at mere mortals.

It soon became apparent as a handy venue for broken appliances, lost keys and attempts to raise our three dollar gerbils from the dead.

She once walked around the house in a frenzy verbally rebuking Satan and demanding he return her lost sunglasses, claiming "spiritual harassment."

(I always doubted that Satan got-off on screwing with sunglasses in all his spare time down in Hell.)

My skeptical father walked outside and located the glasses in her car,shaking his head. She insisted an angel returned the bug-eyed-wonders swearing they were not there before.

I wondered why an angel wouldn't have just put them back in her purse.

My Mother eventually started leaving tiny booklets in public bathrooms all over town, which outlined in grave detail "How to be Saved" with cartoon pictures of colorful hippie's in bell bottoms burning in hell.

I could never imagine someone dropping to their knees in a Walgreens restroom reciting the sinners prayer under a hand dryer.


Our home was also stripped of all remnants of a "secular" life.

Shot glasses were removed along with yarn "God's Eyes" from our trip to Mexico, all "Woman of..." calendars, Sonny & Cher, the Cowsills and Neil Diamond found their new home in the attic. Gone were all brandy sniffers,Donny Osmond records (including matching lunch box), Native American Art, poker chips, dice, family Vegas photos, questionable movies or books, and any Far Eastern furniture (unless we were prepared to say we picked it up on a Missions trip)

Christian magazines replaced lingerie catalogs in my parents bathroom and Bible quiz trophies magically appeared on our dressers (I think Dad had them made for the occasion..as I have never won a thing in my life).

Halloween was strictly off-limits replaced by fake substitutes called "Harvest Parties" meeting at churchs or "Home Group", decorated with scattered hay bales and cornstalks instead of witches and ghouls.

Every child showed up as a generic "Bible Character" in a sheet, belted with a rope from the garage, wearing borrowed sandals. If we chose not to go, we sat in the dark in the basement eating burnt home-made popcorn balls until all trick-or-treater's were safely back home with their pillow cases full of chocolate.


Soon my parents bought matching guitars for prayer meeting worship sessions. (The last thing I ever remember they bought that matched was a set of red-white and blue bowling balls for the "beer-n-bowl" league a year earlier.)

Always the Euntrepreneur, I quickly figured out that storage unit companies should market to newly converted Evangelicals to hide their crap so kids from other new Evangelical families won't accidentally stumble on their booty.

Then there was the time our washing machine broke.

I found Mom in the laundry room, kneeling on top of the groaning metal mass laying her hands on its bubbling lid, rebuking demons at the top of her lungs, with rollers in her hair,and her blue smiley face earrings swinging madly back and forth while forcefully demanding Satan to take his hands off the Maytag, restoring it in whole in the name of Jesus.

Looking on with a friend, taking in this washing machine revival for a minute or two, I decided I needed to get her out of there fast. If she told her parents, I was doomed. Any future overnights or birthday parties would be out of the question.

Walking upstairs we grabbed a handful of cookies, taking full advantage of Mom's dealings with the Devil.

Normal just was a setting on a dryer in our house.

Some years later my parents had a garage sale and got rid of the "Bible on tape" series, dozens of eight tracks of the Gaither Trio Singers, three worship tambourines, sandals, earth shoes, the miracle sun-glasses, guitar sheet music and mass amounts of literature and VCR tapes on The End Times.

Later that summer I saw Jesus at Walgreens wearing my Mothers old sunglasses, buying a Gaither Brothers CD.

He winked at me and walked out.

He was wearing Earth Shoes.