November « 2005 « Sharp Corners

It’s times like these I wish I lived in a high-rise

November 16, 2005

It’s a gorgeous day here in sunny Florida. The temperature is hovering around 75 degrees, the humidity is low and the skies are blue with just the faintest whisper of a cloud here and there. It’s a lovely day to throw open the windows and air out the house, yes? Yes.

I’ve been enjoying the fresh air for a few hours as I frantically write a book review that should have been done by now. When I’m lost in thought I gaze out the window at the river or watch the palm trees gently rustle in the breeze. It was precisely at such a moment that I happened to observe my next door neighbor pull into her driveway and exit her car. I watched idly as she reached into the trunk to retrieve a package and then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It seemed my neighbor was about to be struck by a comet! A large, black comet! And it was racing straight for her!

Then I realized the comet was traveling parallel to the ground. And rather low to the ground, I might add. My neighbor must have sensed trouble was afoot, for she turned just in time to be greeted wildly by a huge dog. My dog. My dog that had jumped out my living room window when she drove up.

You know, people always stare incredulously when they see I have three young sons. They act as if I should be awarded a medal or something. Hell, it’s not my ability to handle my three squirmy boys that should impress them. It’s my willingness to live with the most ~~obnoxious~~ challenging dog on the planet.

After getting my neighbor her heart medicine, I enticed the dog back into the house by pretending I’d let him eat my shoe if he came in (seriously). Once he was in the door, I slammed it behind him, launched my prized footwear on a high shelf and said, "Nyah, nyah….you aren’t getting the shoe!" I guess I showed him.

Dog. Window. Runaway. My god, I need Xanax.

2 Comments | Sharpest pets | Permalink
Posted by Lisa Hoover

I am wise beyond my years. If I were nine.

November 15, 2005

Holley says I have to do this. She’s so mean that I’m afraid if I don’t she’ll hit me with a ruler and make me stay after class to clap erasers together for an hour. I only like her because she has a cool dog.

Holley says:

We all have useful words o’ wisdom from which the world could clearly benefit. Here’s five of mine [and then tell us yours]:

Ha. Ha, ha….HA! HA! HA! Ooooohhhhh, hahahahahaha. *snort* Oh boy, that Holley’s a laugh riot.

Me? Useful wisdom? She’s kidding, right? I am the last person anyone should ever come to for advice. I’m the type that thinks unmatched shoes are okay as long as your belt and pants are coordinated. I’m the one that says as long as he’s been out of prison for at least six months, he might be a good candidate for marriage. I’ve been known to recommend running into a kite store during an electrical storm because, really what’s the worst that could happen?

But if Holley wants pearls of wisdom to drip from my fingers, who am I to deny her?

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Posted by Lisa Hoover

How can you miss me if I won’t go away?

November 15, 2005

All right, I give up saying I won’t be around for the next couple of days. How can I not write something when Colleen makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside? I always wondered where my grumpy karma goes when it takes leave of me. Now I know.

Speaking of grumpy (how’s that for a segue?), wait until you hear what happened at the Sharp house last weekend. My middle son has a classmate that lives down the street from us who we’ll call Katie. Katie and my son get together as often as possible to ride bikes, play outside, and so on so I’ve been seeing a lot of Katie lately. In fact, when I was at my son’s school Halloween party, the girl stuck to me like flypaper and told me she wants to move into my house. I’d be flattered but, frankly, Katie is a pain in the ass. At six years old, she is more forward than most adults I know. She quite brazenly helps herself to whatever she feel like around my house, wanders from room to room inspecting things and just generally makes herself right at home. Which would be fine if this was her home. Which it is not. Which she does not seem to realize.

I’ve taken to only letting her come over if everyone is willing to play outside. That seems like a reasonable request since we have a huge yard, lots of outside toys, they have bikes and there are sidewalks and Florida weather is beautiful this time of year. Still, Katie feels she can just pop inside whenever the mood strikes. I’ve been pretty laid back about it though re-direction doesn’t seem to work very well with her (meaning: I politely ask her to go back outside and she tells me no).

Sunday she and her mom walked over to see if my boys could play. I said sure but they’d need to play outside. Her mom reinforced "No going in the house" and left. About five minutes later, here comes Katie streaking through the living room. She said she needed the bathroom. Okay, fair enough.

When Katie didn’t turn up shortly, I went looking and found her rummaging through toys in the playroom while my kids waited outside. I asked her what she was looking for and she replied, "Oh, nothing special. I’m just gonna play in here for a while." Just then, two of my kids came in the room and asked her to go back outside. Then I asked her. Then I told her. Then I insisted.

She continued to ignore me, then got up and went upstairs to the loft in the playroom to mess with toys up there. The next sound heard in the room was me popping a rivet.

I verrrrrrrry calmly said, "Katie. You need to go outside right now. Your mother said you were not to play in the house, I have said you can’t play in here and the boys have asked you to come outside as well. Would you like to use the front or the back door?" I’m sure the steam coming out of my ears wasn’t quite visible yet.

Katie looked over the railing, dropped a stuffed animal over it and sat down on the floor to play. I wanted to take Katie by her scrawny little neck and throw her over the railing. I managed to squeak out in a modulated tone, "Katie, you will need to go home now. I have been asking you for ten minutes to go outside but you have refused. You are welcome to play with my boys anytime but you may not come back in my house until you are ready to follow my rules."

Instantly, she started with the waterworks (those of you with little girl drama queens, I fall at your feet in total awe that you haven’t taken your own life with a knitting needle to escape the histrionics). She whined and cried all the way outside and then got on her bike and rode to the end of the driveway. Then she…

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Posted by Lisa Hoover

He ought to stop or he’ll go blind

November 14, 2005

Didn’t I just get done saying for the second time that I wasn’t going to be posting much over the next few days? My overloaded brain has suddenly amassed much more input than its equipped to handle so I thought a few days of tending to only the necessary things might keep me from a nervous breakdown. I have a feeling they don’t allow Internet access in the psych ward.

So then why have I turned up again? Well, this evening while attempting to put my head in neutral for a few minutes I came across the most coincidental site. Over the last few days, J and I have been watching the Star Wars movies in order, something I’ve been dying to do for twenty years (Pause while we consider just how geeky that is. Okay, get over it.) We’ve stalled at Number Five because we’re waiting for it to get returned to the video store (I don’t own the whole set. Yet). I’m sure this little break in the action suits J just fine because he’s not that big a fan to begin with. I know he’s just humoring me while I constantly burst out with insights like, "Did you hear that?! Remember how that comes up with Jango Fett but then when Han Solo is talking to Jabba and they’re discussing…!!!" Well, you get the idea. I’m sure it’s not much fun to watch this series with a gal who takes it all so seriously. Not that I do. Take it seriously. I’m just sayin’…

Anyway, I stumbled across a site today where a guy talks about how he’s watching all six movies simultaneously. Oh cool, I thought. A guy after my own heart. Watching them back to back to gain a full appreciation for the plot line. As it turns out, he’s watching all six movies literally simultaneously. At the same time. All at once. All together. Seriously, it’s very weird. See for yourself.

The guy’s an uber-geek. I guess that makes us kindred spirits.

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Posted by Lisa Hoover

At this point, I actually would cut off my nose to spite my face

November 13, 2005

I know I said I wasn’t going to be able to post for a couple days but I thought I’d share what happened to me today for two reasons: A) You all seem like a group that would ~~give me crap~~ appreciate this and B) Hey Scrivs, this is pretty much indicative of, well, me so you can’t say you weren’t warned.

Remember how prepared I was for Hurricane Wilma to drop into town? One of the things I did was tie down and secure all of our garbage cans, several of which were empty. The empty ones I stacked and wedged underneath an overhang near where we keep the cans. Today I needed one from the top of the stack but it was stuck. No matter how I tugged or pulled, it simply would not come loose. I finally jiggled a few of the lower cans around and saw that the tower o’ cans was finally free. I reached wayyyyyyy up over my head and pulled the top one down.

Which turned out not to be stuck.

But was instead filled with 45 gallons of putrid, festering rainwater that’s been collecting in it for weeks.

Which tsunami-ed all over me.

It even splashed my son who was four feet away. I think the last time I used that garbage can I must have been collecting roadkill and mixing it with a few gallons of frat party vomit and the anal glands from a skunk. It, and I, smelled disgusting. As an extra added bonus, I learned today that millions of mosquito larvae really can grow in still water.

Son One tried very hard not to laugh, I tried awfully hard not to barf and we both headed for the house for our respective showers to get the stench off of us. I scrubbed with a bath poof, then a loofah, then sandpaper and then I simply flayed the skin off my body with a vegetable peeler. Yet, the smell remains.

Wanna go to lunch tomorrow? I’m sure I’d make a great dining companion and all the other customers could appreciate my presence as well.

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Posted by Lisa Hoover

Info

November 12, 2005

There won’t be any posts here for a few days.

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Posted by Lisa Hoover

At least I wasn’t getting a pap smear

November 10, 2005

Something very unusual happened to me today and I feel sort of strange about it. Though I live in a fairly large city, I tend to frequent the same places all the time. I always use the same gas stations, supermarket, library branch, dry cleaners, etc. As a result, I’ve gotten to know quite a few owners, managers and employees at the places I go. One woman (whom I’ll call Terry) I’ve always enjoyed seeing is the manager of my local video store. We have a few things in common and we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well over the past year.

Today I pulled up to the drive-through teller at the bank (the one I always go to, natch) and handed over a deposit. I did a double take when I saw Terry standing behind the teller who was handling my transaction. It seems Terry is being trained for her new job at the bank. As the teller pulled up my account on her computer to make the deposit, there stood Terry, staring intently at my personal information. Now, I do believe she was watching to learn, not watching to be nosy but…all the same, it felt very weird to have a casual acquaintance perusing my financial information.

Now, my bank balances are nothing to sneeze at so I’m not embarrassed at what she saw. I just feel like my privacy has been unintentionally invaded and she now knows much more about me than I do her. I’ll be seeing Terry again because I knew from a prior conversation she was getting a second job to supplement her video store income. I don’t think for a minute that the next time I walk into her store she’ll blab my business to the other employees and even if she did, so what? And, granted, it’s not as awkward as if she had been a medical tech helping out during a visit to the gynecologist. But still. It’s weird.

It makes me want to rummage through her purse or something just so we’ll be even.

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Posted by Lisa Hoover

Pandemonium

November 9, 2005

Why don’t I ever get invited to stuff like this? I would have even made the trans-atlantic flight already dressed for the occasion.

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Posted by Lisa Hoover

What do you have to say for yourself?

November 9, 2005

So, my mom calls the other day. "I need to talk fast because I’m walking into the hospital right now," she says. I nearly drove off the road in anticipation that she was going to the ER to have an emergency spleen transplant or some such thing. It turns out what she was trying to say was, "I’m over at the outpatient center of the hospital. A friend of mine is having a routine test and needs a ride home. My cell signal is choppy so I might lose you but I wanted to tell you I saw the coffee grinder you want at Dean & Deluca." Ohhhhh, okay then. I guess I can put my heart medication away then.

I’m used to people saying things to me out of the blue though. Here are a few things I’ve heard lately that are really honing my skills at being non-chalant while biting the insides of my mouth into hamburger and trying not to scream.

From my four year old: "Mommy, why are people alive?" It was 6:00 in the morning and way too early for existentialism.

From my seven year old: "Mom, what’s sex?" Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit…I told him it was short for sextant and he’d need one for science class next year.*

From a grocery store cashier: "Oh! Fresh kiwi! You know, I was just reading about how some tropical fruits carry a type of larvae that turns into a worm inside your body and eats its way out through your leg. Be sure to wash these well, honey." Oh, yes, I will. And then I will invite you over for dinner and serve you spaghetti. Lots and lots of spaghetti. With no sauce. Just noodles curled up all over your plate. Eat up.

From my doctor: "I’m sorry, Lisa. I’m just not really sure what’s causing that persistent numbness in your extremities but I…I…well, I don’t think you’ll end up paralyzed or anything." Um, okay. Thank you for the educated guess that you’ve arrived at after subjecting me to $92,836 worth of tests. No clue on the numbness, you say? No, really, that’s all right. I’ll just pretend it’s perfectly normal! to lose sensation in your hands and feet but start secreting money away for that motorized wheelchair just in case.

From a total stranger: "You have three boys!" (Establishing that she can count, I suppose.) "Sons just love their mothers. You’ll be so glad you have them when you’re old and they can take care of you and help you out when you’re too feeble to do things for yourself." Oh, thanks for that mental image. I’m sure my sons think you’re talking about mowing lawns but I’m seeing them brushing my dentures for me…or worse.

From a cashier when I attempted to buy a bottle of wine: "Can I see your ID please?" Me?! I’m 37 years old! Why, yes you may see my ID! And then I will french kiss you for ten minutes for thinking I might not be 21.

So, you see, the phone call from my mother was just one of several things people have said to me that have caught me off guard. By the time I spoke to her I was ~~numb~~ immune to being surprised. At the rate I’m going, today someone will probably want to tell me about a new treatment for bunions that involves the eye stalks of snails and spit from a yeti. People are just funny that way.

*I did not, people. It was a joke. I know better than to miss a teaching opportunity where I can instill values and virtue in my children. I told him we’d watch Cinemax After Dark this weekend and everything would be clear.

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Posted by Lisa Hoover

Smarter than the average bear, and cuter too

November 8, 2005

I don’t fancy myself a Mensa candidate by any means. I have enough intelligence to get me through life and a little leftover in case of emergency. I consider it unsportsmanlike, however, to engage in a battle of wits with mental midgets so I tend to avoid those scenarios. Sometimes, it’s just not possible.

A couple weeks ago Wanker decided he had some free time and wanted to come visit the boys sometime in November. I said that I’d be willing to rearrange our plans on all but one weekend and even throw in Thanksgiving if that would work for him. He chose a weekend and that was that. Until yesterday.

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Posted by Lisa Hoover