Happily Ever After, Another Meltdown and My Toilette

Read any good books lately?  I have.  I thought I'd share a few thoughts on what I've read recently.  And if I've shared my thoughts on these before, please have the good grace to pretend that you don't remember because I sure don't.

If you haven't read these and you plan to, just know that I'm going to ruin the ending of all of them so there's that.

This is a peculiar little novella about a boy with a cuckoo clock for a heart whose mother told him that if he feels extreme emotion, such as love, the heart will explode and he will die.  Obviously this was her way of keeping her son from falling in love and leaving her but it also has a good message of how we let fear hold us back.  What I liked best about this book was the descriptive prose the author uses.  He paints gorgeous word pictures that completely suck you in and make you feel like you're part of the story.  I could clearly see each scene in my mind and I'm convinced that Tim Burton needs to grab this and make a movie out of it...starring Johnny Depp, of course.





This one is going to be a movie soon and deservedly so.  It's set in Mississippi in the 1960s and is the story of 3 black maids who work for upper/middle class white families.  A white woman who is an aspiring writer and is in the Junior League with the maids' employers convinces the maids to tell their stories for her to put in a book.  It was heart breaking to read about how these black women were treated by the white wenches they worked for and how they feared for their lives just because they were telling their stories.  But there were a few white people, like the woman who was writing the book, who were upset by the injustice.  If I had lived during that era, I hope that I would have been like her.

This one was so-so.  I think there was a made-for-TV movie about it but I didn't see it.  It's set in the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s and is about a doctor whose wife gives birth to twins, a healthy boy and a girl with Down's Syndrome.  He tells his wife that the baby girl was stillborn but he actually gives her to his nurse and tells her to take the baby to an institution.  The nurse can't do it and instead runs off and raises the the child as her own.  Through the years the doctor and his wife both suffer a great deal...him from the secret and the lies he told about his baby, and her from believing she'd lost a child.  Sad, but there's a little happy at the end.

This book just pissed me off.  I didn't see the movie so I didn't know what to expect but I thought it was a love story.  If you read it with that in mind, you will be disappointed, trust me.  They do NOT live happily every after in the end.  It's about a 13 year old girl whose misinterpretation of events causes her to falsely accuse her sister's boyfriend of raping her cousin.  The book starts out in 1935 and ends in 1999.  Like I said, it sucks as a love story but it's a brilliant depiction of the mind of a writer and how we tend to view events as part of a story and can often believe our own embellishments.  I cried like a baby at the end and was mad at the author for not letting everyone live happily ever after, but even so it's an amazing book and I highly recommend it.  Oh...it has a very (VERY) distasteful word in it that's only used twice, I think, but is an integral part of the story.



Just in case Atonement didn't rip my heart out enough, I decided to follow it up with this one. It's is a love story set in 1899 and is about a 40 year old married-with-children doctor who falls in love with a 15 year old girl.  The author somehow manages to make you forget that the man's a pedophile, which obviously wasn't a crime back then, but there are all kinds of consequences for the relationship which produced a child.  You end up hoping the couple will end up together in the end, which they do, but at the same time you feel really, really badly for the doctor's family and the baby that was taken from the girl and all that.  So basically, they live happily ever after but you're not really all that happy for them.  It was an okay book I guess, but the conflicting emotions it produced caused me to have a meltdown.



I know better than to read books that make me emote which is why I tend to stick to really trashy romance novels.  I can read 2 a week and there's always a happy ending.  The way God intended.  But they tend to get boring since there's only so many variations of the boy meets girl, conflict is introduced, then they all live happily ever after scenario.

Shortly after I finished Fortune's Rocks, which like I said was okay but not a spectacular read, I had an unexpected 12 hour crying spell.  This is unusual for me since I rarely cry, or emote in any way really, and I couldn't even identify what I was crying about.  But let me tell you, it was the ugly cry...the wailing, hiccuping, covered in snot kind of cry.

It started around midnight on Friday night and didn't end until noonish on Saturday.  Jayson was on his way into town so I sent him a text message and warned him of the state I was in.  To my surprise, he showed up anyway.

By Saturday afternoon I had calmed down and collected myself enough to be able to take my daily medications, without which I simply cannot function.  I have several pills I have to take for my heart and my blood pressure, I take a daily allergy pill, a pill for my narcolepsy, and a mild antidepressant that keeps me from killing my husband and driving my car off the nearest cliff.

As I was opening my little medicine bottles, I glanced down and saw a pill lying on the floor.  It was my antidepressant.  I usually just dump all the pills in my hand and knock 'em back at the same time like any other experienced junkie.  As I stared at the little Effexor on the floor, I decided it must have fallen out of my hand the day before when I did my knock 'em back thing.

That explained a lot.

I walked into the living room with my handful of drugs and told Jayson the story of the fallen Effexor.  We determined that was probably the cause of my excessive emoting since it's happened before, if you remember The Missing Watch Meltdown of '07.

I took my meds and Jayson made me open my mouth and lift my tongue like I was a mental patient.  Oh, wait.  I am a mental patient.  And I'm the poster child for anyone who has doubts about depression being biological...or physiological.  Whatever.  It's not just a lack of coping skills.

Since I consider myself to be of slightly above average intelligence and certainly capable of learning from my mistakes, I chose my next book very carefully.  It's another turn of the century Anita Shreve romance called "All He Ever Wanted".  It's about a professor who becomes obsessed with a woman and convinces her to marry him even though he knows she doesn't love him.  He ends up doing some really bad things to get what he wants so they don't live happily ever after either. 

I'm not sure why I picked this one other than the early 1900s setting.  I love the way they talked back then.  Instead of saying, "I finished getting dressed this morning," they say, "I finished my toilette".  I'm going to start saying that.  When Jayson bangs on the bathroom door and asks what I'm doing (which is a super stupid and dangerous question because I will tell him in graphic detail), I will say, "I am completing my toilette".

It's good to be a vomit person.

Yesterday when I was talking about my going away party at work I forgot to mention the best part!  My vomit card!  And this is no cheesy card either.  It was printed on the finest 18 pound see-through bond with absolutely no cotton content whatsoever and I am sure those are the sturdiest steel off-brand staples that money can buy. 




But what I'm most impressed with is the artwork.  Someone searched long and hard for a picture of realistic vomit, complete with corn.  Although I think all vomit has corn in it whether you've recently eaten corn or not.  It's one of those mysteries of the universe.

Joel, our worship arts leader, was responsible for this card and he even told me that he went to Spencer's in the mall to look for some fake vomit.  Evidently he hadn't been in there in a while and didn't realize that even if they did have fake vomit it would be wearing a lacy thong.

There is a good reason for the vomit card.  A bunch of church members and staff attended the Global Leadership Summit this past August, just shortly after I had announced I would be leaving.  Bill Hybels offered up this little tidbit regarding resigning staff members:

If you got notice that a staff member is resigning, you’ve got one of three reactions:

1. Whew! Whoo hoo!
2. Ugh! Rehiring is hard work and who wants to go through that?
3. Complete and utter despair; I want to vomit. They are, by all human means, irreplaceable.

If this person resigned, what would you reaction be? You want all “vomit” people on your team.

I was told that I am a vomit person and for this I feel greatly honored.

Binging And Getting My Geek On

If you're too young to remember when this commercial first aired, I don't want to hear about it.

This is my last week at work and to celebrate I went to lunch with all the office girls this afternoon.  We had a very good lunch at Athena, the restaurant one not the gas station.  I wonder if other states have really good food at gas stations or if it's just Louisiana?  I know I would never ever eat anything from a Texas gas station that wasn't prepackaged and contained enough preservatives to embalm a rat.  But here in South Louisiana you can get some excellent home cooked meals at a gas station whose bathroom is not clean enough to pee in.  I've had Greek food, plate lunches, fried chicken and one place even made the best homemade doughnuts and kolaches I've ever had.

In keeping with my recent efforts to eat a little more healthy, I had a big plate of tabbouleh and vegetarian yebrat.  I even passed on the hummus and pita bread.  Even though it was a celebration, I felt I should still try to observe my new healthier eating habits (I REFUSE to call it a diet) since I had pretty much blown it all weekend.  

Friday night I went to Riverside Inn with some friends for Lisa's birthday.  Have I talked about Lisa here before?  I know I have but I probably just referred to her as "a friend".  She is a very good friend of mine who I used to work with.  I think we get along so well because we are polar opposites.  She's very loving and caring and nurturing and thoughtful and she taught me what it looks like to love unconditionally.  I am very distant and cold and cynical and sarcastic and I taught her what it looks like to disrespect authority.  We're a perfect match!

To celebrate Lisa's increase in age (which is somewhere between 34 and 81 according to the 4th grade class she was subbing for) I had the shrimp and catfish pirogue which was outstanding.  Here's what it says on the menu:

SHRIMP AND CATFISH PIROGUEA plank of fried eggplant loaded with shrimp stuffing, topped with a grilled filet of catfish then topped with a creamy pesto sauce swimming with baby shrimp. Served with green salad and choice of potato.
Une tranche de brème bourrée avec far de chevrette, recouvert avec un filet de barbue grillé et une sauce pesto crémeuse avec des petites chevrettes. Servie avec une salade verte et choix de patate.

Lisa had a coupon for a free order of their crabbies appetizer and they were really good too.  So I pretty much cleaned my plate then we had these delicious little strawberry cakes for dessert that another friend made.  All of that was on top of the red velvet cake balls that I had made earlier that day and gave some to Lisa for her birthday.  They were quite delicious as well and of course I had to continually taste them while making them to ensure quality control.
 
Saturday I felt guilty about what I ate Friday night but I was over that by Sunday so we went to Fat Pat's (no website, sorry) for lunch after church.  They have pretty darn tasty burgers and hot dogs.  I got the Mile High Burger, which was very good, and some onion rings.  We all had their fried pickles for an appetizer and I have to say they were probably the best fried pickles I've had.  Their sweet potato fries were good too.  If you have kids, one of the best things about Fat Pat's is that they have TVs in every booth.  It took the kids about 3 minutes to find the Cartoon Network and after that I forgot they were even there.  Of course, they're not my kids so that helps too, but still.

On Monday I ate the leftovers from Fat Pat's thinking I was being really healthy because they were leftovers.  Seriously, it wasn't until today that I realized I had confused healthy with cheap.  I knew there was a good reason to eat leftovers but it wasn't the reason I really needed at the time.  Oh well.  That's why I had tabbouleh for lunch today.

And a banana split for dessert.  I have no willpower.  And even when I eat stupid stuff like that I eat it in stupid proportions too.  Look at Lisa's dainty little bowl on the right.  She got a sampling of all the ice creams with whipped cream and a cherry, too.  Now look at my bowl on the left.  That's my idea of a sampling.  And I wonder why when I look at my backside in the mirror I see my mom's butt staring back at me.

After dessert, everyone in the office shared a favorite Shannon moment or memory that they had.  It was nice but very awkward for me since I loathe being the center of attention.  And it was a little bit like hearing my own eulogy so that was weird.  There was a consensus that I'm not nearly as frighteningly freakish now as I was when I first went to work at Trinity 7 years ago.  I might disagree with that.  I think I'm probably the same as I was then, it's just that everyone else has acclimated to me. 

After all the celebrating was over I settled at my desk to evaluate all the loose ends I need to tie up this week.  It was then that I was struck with the horrifying realization that I will leave "my" computer at work on Friday.  Forever.  I've known this was coming and I've already prepared for it by removing all of my personal files and putting them on an external hard drive.  But I think it just now sank in that this is it.  

I will be computerless for the first time in....wow.  Probably for the first time since 1980.  I had a TRS-80 "microcomputer" back then which was fancy because of its 2 BUILT IN 5-1/4" floppy disk drives and a whopping 16KB RAM.  Those of you who are geeky enough will be appropriately appalled.  Then a couple of years later we started using Commodore 64s in school and those had a ginormous 64KB of RAM which caused me to be frustrated with my little TRS-80, despite its state of the art disk drive.

So for my birthday in 1984 my mom bought me a Macintosh.  They weren't called Macs back then, it was an Apple Macintosh.  It had an unheard of 128KB RAM, some kind of brand new 3-1/2" floppy disks that weren't floppy, and I'd heard rumors that you could draw pictures on the screen.  I got one, and it was all true, and I will forever regret selling that machine in a garage sale about 10 years later.    

After that I went through PCs like underwear until finally coming full circle a few years ago when I was given a Mac to use at work.  Now I can't go back but the Green family budget can't support a computer purchase right now cuz we just bought furniture.  And actually it's not the computer I will miss so much as it is the software.  I use Adobe CS4 for work and I love it but it's insanely expensive. 

All I can say is thank God for Santa Claus who brought me a new iPhone for Christmas, otherwise I'd be in sad shape.  I can do pretty much everything I need to do from there...except blog.  Text messages are challenging enough, I simply cannot type out a blog post on my phone.  A lot of people have said they're thankful for my blog so we can stay in touch after we move but I might have to find out just exactly how thankful they are.  I should ask everyone who reads to make a donation to my computer fund so that I can keep writing.  And no, I can't write on a cheap PC so don't even try to suggest it.  It would squelch my creativity.  I must have a Mac.

There are few things that I'm snobbish about but that's one of them.  I'll wear second hand clothes, pull furniture out of dumpsters, drive used cars, and buy generic groceries but there are 2 things I will not compromise on: My computer will be a Mac and my sheets will have a thread count of 400 or higher. 

Are you here for my butt?

My life has been unusually boring over the past few days so I have to grab my excitement through other people's misfortune instead of my own.  Today my sister Shamayn got to have all the fun.  She bought a pork shoulder from Wal Mart and when she opened the package she found it still had the skin attached underneath. 

She's on chemo and has to be really careful about bacteria so she called the USDA (I wouldn't even know how to do that).  They told her not to eat it because bacteria could have gotten into the meat from the skin.  Ya know, if that had happened to me, I'm pretty sure I would have just whacked that skin part off and eaten the rest.  Well, unless it had fur.

Anyway, they also told her not to throw it away.  She has to keep the pork butt and the packaging because they're sending out a representative to seize it.  How fun is that?!  I've never had my groceries seized before.  I'm dying to know what that will look like. 

Maybe it will be a bunch of guys in black suits and sunglasses with the cords in their ears like the secret service.  They will put a black hood on the offending butt and throw it in the back of a black SUV.  Or maybe it will be a team of scientists in hazmat suits who use giant tongs to put the pork in a special bag that will hermetically seal itself and cause the butt to go into indefinite stasis.

Okay, fine, it was a pork shoulder not a butt.  But butt's funnier, right?  Shamayn said she's pretty sure she'll get some guy in a flannel shirt named Bubba with 2 missing front teeth and a glass eye.  I told her that wouldn't be so bad as long as when she answers the door she asks, "are you here for my butt?"

Barbie clothes, multiple orgasms, roadhouse manners, and the cupcake face

To celebrate Taylor's 20th birthday, she and I spent the day together doing girlie stuff like buying bras and eating.  I always enjoy spending time with my favorite (and only) daughter despite the fact that we were doing one of my least favorite activities.  Shopping.  At the mall.  On a Saturday.

When we spotted this uber tacky redneck truck in the parking lot, I decided that I don't ever want to live in a state where a sight like this isn't commonplace.  We're not a classy bunch, but these are my people. 

Taylor wanted to get a couple of pairs of jeans which I knew would involve a trip to Hollister.  I generally don't enjoy Hollister because the music is so loud I can't hear myself think and the employees, whose average age appears to be 14, are less than helpful.  Or maybe I'm just bitter because I can't fit into any of their clothes.

We struck out this time because Hollister didn't have any jeans in Taylor's size, which is 00.  That's double zero.  And yes, it's a real size.  The challenge of finding jeans in that size is compounded by the fact the she needs 00L.  That's double zero long.  And yes, you can sometimes find that size if you walk into the right store at just the right time and all the planets have lined up in your favor.

Evidently the jean gods were smiling on us today because after stopping at a couple of more stores we had scored 2 pairs of jeans.  We went to a store I'd never heard of before called Forever 21.  I loved their decor, lots of chandeliers and candelabras done in a casual way, and their clothes were as cute as can be.  The store is huge and caters, obviously, to those who are Taylor's age and size.  The clothes are cheap and probably not very well made but it looks like a good place to buy fun stuff that you can treat as disposable.

Taylor had a gift card from Victoria's Secret to spend and wanted to get a couple of new bras.  She wasn't even sure what size to get so we just guessed, she tried them on, they fit perfectly and I was pissed.  Not at Taylor but at the forces of nature that have been so unkind to me over the past several years.  Okay, snack cakes are probably as much to blame as the forces of nature for part of that, but not all of it. 

I can't remember the last time I just picked up a bra off the rack, tried it on and it actually fit.  I need to write a letter to bra manufacturers encouraging them to accommodate those of us who need options other than just the standard sizes that bras come in.  I'm not talking about super large or super small...those areas are well covered.  I'm not even talking about those who are between cup sizes.  Some bra makers have figured out that A, B, C, D, etc. won't cover it so they offer A/B, B/C, C/D, etc.

But there are those of us out there (please, God, let there be more than just me) who are even more breasticularly challenged and would benefit from some kind of modular bra situation.  I would like to be able to buy each bra component separately: the left cup, the right cup, and the strap configuration that I want.  Then I want to assemble those pieces into a lovely, yet supportive undergarment that is both functional and comfortable.  How hard can that be?? 

That's probably a million dollar idea and I'm throwing it out there for free.  Now somebody take it, run with it, make it a reality, then send me the free bra of my choice.  I won't tell you exactly what size I need, but if you know the name of the band who released Back in Black in 1980, you're on the right track.

We topped off our shopping excursion with a trip to Sephora where we both needed to pick up a few things.  I don't wear a lot of makeup and I'm perfectly happy with cheap, drugstore brands for everything except one item: blush.  About 10 years ago, after a long history of tragic blush mistakes, I finally stumbled upon the perfect color for me.  It's not too pink, not too brown, not too frosty, not too dark...it's perfect.  It's made by Nars and the color is called Orgasm.  I don't question it, I just buy it.

I was standing at the Nars display reading all the blush names over and over and over and nearly working myself up into a panic because there was no Orgasm.  Cosmetic companies are notorious for discontinuing my favorite colors and I was afraid that was what had happened.  As I turned to grab the nearest saleslady and demand she find me an Orgasm, I caught sight of the "Orgasm Collection" and my knees buckled with relief.  When their Orgasm blush became such a big seller, Nars made several other products to match so now there's a whole collection worthy of its own display in the store.

I grabbed my Orgasm, checked out and Taylor and I headed out for lunch.  As we were leaving the mall I had two thoughts.  One is that it isn't so bad shopping with Taylor because it's like dressing my own personal Barbie doll.  The other thought I had was that since I hate the mall and avoid it at all costs, I probably should have bought multiple Orgasms.

Taylor wanted Texas Roadhouse for lunch which suited me just fine since I'd been eating healthy all week and was bored with it.  I got the sirloin kabobs which aren't exactly healthy, but I got rice and vegetables for the sides which is better than the chili cheese fries I usually get so I felt pretty good about that. 

I tried, and failed, to get Taylor to make the cupcake face so I could take a picture of it.  I asked her if she wanted me to make her some cupcakes and she gave me this adorable look that made me want to buy her a car.  But every time I asked her to repeat it she started laughing so you'll just have to trust me on how dang cute that look was.

At some point during the meal, the conversation turned weird when Taylor said, "Mom, why did you make me go to cotillion?"  I explained to her that I didn't "make" her go, she agreed to go...only because she really didn't know what it was.  I would never force something so heinous on my child without her permission.  Besides, it wasn't real cotillion.  It was like junior cotillion for 5th and 6th graders.  I thought it would be good for her to learn ballroom dancing and manners and etiquette and other important crap like that.

Fortunately she was not scarred by her cotillion experience, she was simply reminded of it as she watched me butter my Texas Roadhouse roll incorrectly.  She said I should tear a bite sized piece from the roll, butter that piece then eat it.  Then tear another bite sized piece, butter it and eat it.  My method of slathering half the roll with butter, biting off the buttered part then rebuttering what's left, was incorrect yet I felt it was much more efficient.  When I asked Taylor what else she remembered from cotillion she said she remembered which direction you're supposed to pass the salt.  I told her that since it was just the two of us, it was probably okay to just pass it over the top of the bucket of peanuts on our table.  Yeah, that was money well spent.

We topped off our day by stopping at the library to return some things and check out some more.  A few of my writing friends were there and I was glad to be able to introduce them to Taylor since I talk about her all the time.  We visited for a few minutes, commenting on how glad we all were that Will wasn't there that day since he insists he's going to marry Taylor even though they've never met.  It's creepy really.  Okay, maybe I'm the one who keeps telling Will that he needs to marry Taylor but that's just because he's a nice young man.  And every time I say "nice young man" it sounds like I'm 85 years old and he's a loser, neither of which is true.  He's just a nice guy and will be a good catch for someone as soon as he gets a job.

I can't remember what else we talked about but it wasn't until I mentioned the cupcake face that Taylor reminded me that it was time to go.  She wasn't embarrassed that I'd been trying to marry her off to a perfect stranger, but apparently the cupcake face crossed the line.

After we got home I thought it was best that Will was reluctant to commit to her (even though I've offered to take care of everything, all he has to do is show up for the wedding) when I saw this picture on Taylor's Facebook wall.  Yeah, it's gross, but it just cracks me up the way Barbie is smiling and holding up that bottle like she's doing a commercial for floor cleaner. 

Then I remembered how I always call Taylor my Barbie doll because of her size and when you combine that with the picture and Taylor's slightly "off" parents, I guess it can look a little frightening from Will's perspective.  Or anyone's really.  Maybe I should actually make her those cupcakes now.