Tuesday, September 25, 2012

You're swallowing your own throw up you know

So recently I posted this and it made me remember the 1990 not-mega hit, Coupe de Ville.

Brotherly Love or something like that

Its another unknown movie favorite of mine.  Although it is based in 1963 and about three brothers, being the youngest of three sisters, there are so many aspects of this movie that superseded time and gender. When I first watched this when I was young, I laughed at the brothers and felt a connection to them.  As an adult man-alive I cried feeling that connection so much deeper. There are so many movies that my middle sister and I watched over and over that they have become engrained in our sister-speak and the sound track of our lives. This movie is in my head, in the back floating around and randomly comes out.

I know that when we first watched this movie I mentally assigned each character to each sister based on birth order. I saw us like these characters. I tried to be the Bad Boy Bobby, I tried to make my middle sister the dreamer Buddy and tried to make my oldest sister the tight-ass Marvin. Which none of us were but that didn’t matter to my teenage brain. When I recently stumbled upon it on like TMC or Bravo or ABC Family I watched it and realized that we are all three of them. Intermingled and sharing these traits.

This could also be part of the birth order theories not applying to my sisters and me, which is probably due to the same reason I go to therapy but I digress….

My oldest sister, AJ, is a bit of a dreamer and goes with the flow like Buddy. At times she is fun loving like Bobby and most always duty-bound like Marvin. My middle sister, The Teacher, can be the over achiever like Buddy and the problem child like Bobby but above all else she can be hardcore like Marvin. I know that others see me as the rebel like Bobby but I know that deep down inside I am Buddy trying to keep it all together and accept that I have a temper like Marvin. As adults I know that each of us are so much more than these characters or the traits that I’ve assigned here.  For the purpose of this post. 

Bottom line, love love love this movie. If you have siblings you must watch. Someone on IMBD suggested watching after Thanksgiving dinner but that just begs for Xanax, wine and a late-night call to your therapist. Perhaps thats just my family. 

I’m pretty sure people my age associate Daniel Stern with Home Alone but he will forever be Marvin in my head. And I have no idea if anyone knows who Ayre Gross even is (he was on Ellen before she was gay – wait that sounds suggestive. He was on the TV show Ellen had before she came out. There that’s better) but he is Buddy, Buddy Boy. And Patrick Dempsey. Pause and salute to good genes right there.   This young Patrick Dempsey, is the reason I loved bad boys because underneath the jeans, boots, pack of cigarettes and a whole lotta snark is a boy with a coin collection who wants to be accepted by his brothers (or her sisters).

When I watched it again years later I not only realized that my sisters are not these characters but a mixture of so much more. I also really want to take a road trip with them just like this so that we can get to our physical destination and a new place in our relationships as sisters. And learn some auto body repair skills.

And now, because they plague my mind and rule my speech, my favorite lines:
“Our leader.”
“Ahhhh, the whole damn front end is screwed up!”

Whenever I hear the name Bobby for a grown man I will forever hear Marvin saying “Get in the Goddamn car Bobby!”
“It’s not a dance and it’s not a make out song. It’s a sea shanty”

And thanks to the glory of YouTube here is the entire damn movie. 

Monday, September 24, 2012

Traits of our Fathers and coming soon our Mothers!

Remember when I was blissfully pregnant with The Boy and we would snuggle together and talk about what we wanted for our unborn son? Our hopes and dreams of our future.

Both of us glowing in pregnancy hormones and final accomplishment, we fantasized about what he would do for a career. You want him to be an wealthy explorer. I want him to be an environmental engineer who will save the planet and come home for the holidays. We talked about how we hoped my super round face would counter-act the never present jaw line in your genes. We hoped that he would have the stature of our fathers, who are both 6 foot and taller instead of the freakishly short women in BOTH of our families. I hoped that he would have the easy going, carefree nature of you. And you hoped he would have the quick wit and sarcasm of me. I joked those two traits would make him an asshole. He would have a sharp tongue like me and would not give enough of a shit to filter.

I am realizing more and more that The Boy did get Juanito’s carefree attitude. There are times when he is quite content to do his own thing. He lazily picks through rocks and sees what is under this or on top of that. Never too much in a hurry. Content to watch the wheels of his car navigate the terrain of the walls, counter tops and stairs.  Unfortunately any sense of urgency he might have doesn’t kick in until closer to noon.  Which means that mornings are nothing but a struggle.

It is more fun to going through the contents of Mom’s vanity, trying every single brush and little pot of colored stuff. And these what must be crayons stuck in this bag on the vanity are so easy to use on the wall. Wish there were more colors than black and brown. And what is in this cabinet or this basket or the refrigerator is far more interesting than brushing our teeth. Oh, the baskets of toys have some how made their way into the living room and their contents spilled all over.  And look!  Do I want to brush my teeth?  Not really, but thanks for the offer.

And because wishes do come true, I have a feeling, in time, with the help of speech therapy, he will soon be brandishing his sharp wit and inherent sarcasm.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Who's your daddy?

I married my father. I did not set out in a Freudian attempt to make that happen. And a part of me wonders if this is a natural progression for Juanito since he does admire my Dad. None the less, the transformation has begun.

Let me give you a little back story. Growing up we had a family dog. She was a miniature Schnauzer and her name was Muffie. To my sister and me, she was the youngest sibling we never had.  She was also the single best doll we had (which is saying a lot in comparison to the Cabbage Patch craze we grew up in) because we could feed her and put her in real baby clothes and make her sleep in our old bassinet and drink from a bottle.  Ah, such fun!

Unfortunately my Dad did not recognize her as his fourth daughter. When we first got her, from the Easter Bunny, she came with a fake, plastic turkey leg that squeaked. And she was known for lying around, gnawing on it which meant there was more often than not, an incessant squeaking sound. We speculated that she loved the sound more than the chewing.  My Dad’s solution was to duct tape the squeaky end. She still gnawed away on it but eventually the pressure of the trapped air and her chewing blew a hole in the leg. She eventually chewed that hole to a bigger hole, which we would hook our finger into in order to get that damn thing away from her. Over time the hole grew to the point that the once squeaky end dangled like a scab and eventually fell off. She loved that leg until the day it died.

My Dad’s approach to small problems like that has always been practical in nature but perhaps absurd in execution. Years later another dog joined Muffie, my dog, Mickey. Apparently there was too much nocturnal activity for my Dad because he would bitch and moan about their tags on their collars. They were always clinking together and waking him up. Perhaps, looking back on this, Dad needed some medicinal sleep aid??? So the practical solution, again involving duct tape, was to tape their tags together. (which reads to me "tape their legs together" which is absurd but not practical)   When the tape got matted into Muffie's chest hair, the tape was removed but quickly replaced by Dad. Probably a good thing that both dogs were fiercely loyal and never strayed far.  If they had no one would have been able to read the oh-so-helpful tags of information in such event.

Fast forward to current day and socks have replaced duct tape as the practical tool with an absurd implementation. You see, apparently Alfie and Cassidy have been doing some nocturnal grooming. And the constant slurp, slurp, slurp has woken Juanito one time too many times. The other night while getting ready for bed he starts talking to Cass while opening the doors on his dresser, telling her he loved her but the night time bathing had to stop. He pulls out an armful of rolled up work socks and puts them on his bedside table. I asked him if he was loading up on ammunition and he nodded. He is tired of the early morning antics (or middle of the night) and is willing to fire off a set of socks at the first sound.  No warnings. Which by the way the antics are not limited to just grooming. Cassidy has a delightful way of letting you know she is ready to eat, at any time. It involves spinning, panting, occasional nudges and a grunt/pant mixture whenever you twitch or move. It is hands down one of the most annoying things I have ever had a dog do. And Muffie used to eat sanitary napkins out of the trash can.
So the past few mornings I have woken up to a few pairs of socks scattered about the room. I haven't heard if this is a successful endeavor or not. But I did just get an email from Juanito…..

From: Juanito
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 12:54 PM
To: Likethewrap
Subject: RE:Dogs

I think Cass called me a dick when I threw my sock at her last night.
________________________________________

From: Likethewrap
To: Juanito
Subject: RE: Dogs
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 19:58:39 +0000

Probably. I saw two sets on the floor this morning.  What is she cleaning? Or is this just her spinning?
________________________________________

From: Juanito
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 12:54 PMTo: LikethewrapSubject: RE: Dogs

They both were cleaning
________________________________________

I see this as the first step to Juanito morphing into my Dad.  One practical step at a time. 

I will let you know when I go to bed later than him and get hit with a pair of socks, which might happen next week.


Thursday, September 20, 2012

Eternally a 12 year old boy

I may be a lot of things, wife, mother, friend, woman, but above all I am eternally 12 years old and deeply inappropriate.  As I have aged I have just learned to keep my inappropriateness under wraps.  As much as possible. 

There is a local radio station that has a morning show which is purely for adults.  I pray that The Boy stays blissfully unaware while in the car in the morning and continues to love the work trucks and cement trucks and garbage trucks and barrage of school buses of our morning commute and doesn't catch on to the radio conversation.  The DJs will frequently talk about anal sex but they refer to its as BFing.  You can figure that out, right? 

Now switch gears, I'm on the PCOS boards of the super supportive women who are all struggling with fertility and PCOS.  Now that I'm trying for our second child I have jumped threads to MOMS, which was just odd to me at first.  The other surprising thing was the number of acronyms that they use and how quickly I had forgotten this secret language.  TTC = Trying to Conceive AF = Aunt Flow DTD = Doing the deed (aka having sex because we're adults) CD = cycle days POS = peeing on a stick OPKs = ovulation predictor kits so on and so forth.  There is a thread that deciphers all of them for newcomers.   But the one that makes the 12 year old boy in me fall apart laughing and point (at pretty much nothing) is the one for breast feeding.  you can see where this is going right?

So often there will be a post from a distraught, sleep-deprived mom about how she's having the hardest time BFing.  Oh dear.  How sad that you're not able to have anal sex.  I am seriously sorry that you're having these problems despite my incessant giggling. 

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Must See TV

I don’t know a person my age that can’t agree that television has shaped our lives, unless you’re Amish. But then I would wonder why you’re reading this. Perhaps you’re Breaking Amish?? Anyways, TV has shaped me to the extent that I’m not even sure if I would be who I am today had it not been for TV. And personally I think that is not a bad thing. At all.

Growing up we had basic cable. That meant as kids we were living high on the hog watching lots of Nick at Night. Our summers were defined by Dobie Gillis reruns because “he wants a gal who’s dreamy; Dobie (!) wants a gal to call his own!” I know the entire theme song to The Patty Duke show. Test me. (There's Cathy who is be most everywhere…..) Oh and my middle sister started her obsession with aprons because of Donna Reed. Needless to say I guess TV ruled our summers along with late night swimming, swap coolers battling AC and ice cream straight outta the tub. Later in life it was MTV where I watched the first season of The Real World when one of my best friends at the time came to middle school saying “I get to be a whor-rah.” Oh and glued to the Kurt Cobain suicide coverage even though my sister and my Mom made fun of me! I digress.

There were also blips on the cable memory where one of premium channels would do a free weekend as a sampler. So for an entire weekend we were glued to HBO or Cinemax or whatever else was free. This is where we first watched Soap Dish, Just One of the Guys and The Burbs, which easily is one of the most quoted movies of all time between my sister and me. In fact I would bet that if I called her right now and said “Hey, Pinocchio, where’d ya think you’re going?” She would respond with “It came with the frame” or “What’d ya think they’re eating over there Ray?”

So anyways, it was during one of these lovely freebie weekends I discovered this….
If you have never seen this movie, stop right now and go find it on Netflix or Hulu or wherever else you find random movies on. John Waters brings together Johnny Depp, Rikki Lake, Iggy Popp, Tracy Lords, Polly Bergen …so much random hilarity!
Crybaby, which can only be said in a hillbilly yell “CRRIIIIIIIBAAAAYAAABEEEEE”, was my first introduction to satire comedy and I fell in love. And it’s my favorite John Walters movie (not that I can think of anymore….). The first time I saw this movie I started watching it probably 20 minutes after it started and was confused. Was it supposed to be funny or was this just a really bad movie? Well it was hilarious, and silly and stupid and there were songs! Great wonderfully stupid songs! Looking back from the vantage point of time I realized that this movie impacted me more than it should have. I realize that I thought flirting was what Lenore did (“Look Crybaby you scorch me man”) and I’m pretty sure that my innate dancing skills came from the entire cast. Which would explain why I dance hideously.
Kinda like this….
So many great lines from this movie!Hysterectomy pants I call them!”Whiffles!” (Which was a haircut according to my Mom)Inga’s mater and vater will treat you just like one of the family, ja Inga? Ja? Ja? Ja?”“Ya caught me in my burday suit! Butt neckette!”“I’m gonna see you in hell my friend. HAHAHA Go on and get on out there!”“Wanda, honey, you sure are pretty in those tight close all painted up like trash!”I will forever announce people like Grandma Ricketts, in my head that is. And oy and when he drinks the cup of tears I gag every time! I love reliving old movies and TV shows.  Its a nice warm trip down memory lane.  Back to a time when we were silly and funny and not too judgmental.  What is your favorite movie from your younger days????

Sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky to have married someone who can make me laugh.  While talking last night in bed (it was a cute little pillow talk kinda moment), I commented that I wanted to record our conversations so that I could relay them in my blog.  Thats because I think we’re pretty damn funny but I can never for the life of me remember the conversations when I get here to write.  We have always been fantastic at entertaining ourselves but we tend to get into trouble when we do. 
Juanito doin' a gig!

Us.  Drunk and fun. 




















 I look forward to getting into trouble for years to come with this guy.  Love you Juanito!

Monday, September 17, 2012

Round One – A Recap

So we completed our first round of Clomid. That was back in August. I hemmed and hawed about writing in the midst of it all but decided to hold out. There were some revelations that I think need time to percolate and distance to digest. I want to document this process but I don’t want it to be all doom and gloom and hormones, which in the moment it can be. Apparently.

To start with there are a lot of things that I forgot. There was a reason I forgot them too because they suck. For example it was the second (maybe the third) day of the pill, which by the way is so super small it’s hard to wrap my mind around how we are putting our hopes and dreams into something that I could easily drop down the sink, but I digress. I got into bed that night while Juanito was reading and I threw my limbs about the bed, kicking off covers and loudly complaining that it was so damn hot. Yes, it is Phoenix and it was August but good God! I felt like I was on fire. Melting from the inside out. Juanito very nonchalantly mentioned that I was on the drugs. And then it dawned on me, he was right. Clomid has a way of sky rocketing my body temperature making me feel like I’m boiling, slowly. I’m a hot-blooded person by nature coupled with living in the Valley of the Sun Stroke which means air conditioning and me are like the sorority sisters I never had with a secret handshake and everything. So when you throw in some Clomid I’m a four alarm fire of whining. Juanito offered to bring a fan into the room that would be directly on me, which is what we did when I was pregnant. I declined because it would throw my temps. Which brings me to my next complaint.

I hate taking my temperature every day the exact same way. I hate that if I move too much in the morning to try and get my thermometer that it will affect my temps. I hate that if I forget to take my temp and instead focus on my screaming bladder of screaming son then my chart is all off. It seems so simple and even petty when I’m writing this but truly and honestly I forgot about the temperature tether.

Oh, I tried OPKs this time around. (OPKs = ovulation predictor kits) They never worked for me the first time around but I thought hey, I’ve got some under the sink why not. I also found my Satin Hands kit from Mary Kay under there and might do a little Satin Hands treatment on my feet. Maybe even Cass’ feet. And while I know that they don’t work for me (OPKs not Satin Hands), I was still sad to pee on a stick (POS) and get a negative. For anything. It was disheartening to not see a double line.

I never got a positive-OPKs. I never got a temperature spike on my chart. I never got a positive home pregnancy test. I never ovulated during my first round. I wasn’t expecting too much because logically I know my body. But I did have a lot of hope going into this. Hope that I need to bottle for the forthcoming rounds. I did get to go see the doctor mid-cycle for him to ensure that I did not develop cysts (which I didn’t) and they checked my hormone level to see if I was even close to ovulating (which I wasn’t). They will up my dosage for the next round.

I’m a little sad. I’m a little less excited. I think we started this time around thinking well we did it before we can do it again. I guess we forgot to tell my ovaries. The value of hindsight, ya, I’m still waiting for that. I know that we are doing everything we can to make this happen. I know that in time it will happen. I find myself wondering if this is what my family is supposed to be and to be happy with what is in front of me. I need to remember to not settle for what I have but believe that there is more to our family.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Middle of the Road Lunatic

So I have been back and forth on what to do with this blog. I’ve re-read many of the posts from a few months ago to a year or so ago. I’ve been pondering what to do.

Do I keep writing? I really miss it funny enough. Or do I start over somewhere else? That's not really an appealing option. But I love some of the foundation that I’ve started here. I would rather put my time and energy into writing new rather than moving old. So I guess the change lies within me. (Again!) What I write and how I write, all that stuff.... That makes me sad that I have to censor myself on a site that so very few people look at. I’m not sure if I’m sad with the audience or with myself though. So until I sprout some balls I’m taking a cue from Florence + The Machine and trying to be a lion-hearted girl when it comes to my writing.

I have been dumbfounded one too many times with someone saying that something I did six years ago (give or take a year) somehow hurt their feelings and they just now are bringing it up. So, if you’re friends or family reading this, I would love to have some feedback as to what you think, sooner rather than later. Even if it’s a text that says

"you're such a liar"  or

“I read your post and I think you need more professional help than you’re currently getting.”

That’s cool. Feedback is feedback and then at least I will know that what I’m writing is coming across like a deranged lunatic. I’m really aiming for just a middle of the road lunatic.

So I guess I’m back to writing here, which is a good thing for so many reasons. Mainly I was really tired of looking at those boobs. Poor photo layout for future reference.