You Ruined Christmas Charlie Brown

Everyone is blogging about Christmas and joy and love and magic and Santa and yadda yadda yadda. My Christmas is going to suck. I just know it. I got word today that since my Brother-In-Law is fresh out of rehab where he's been drying out for the last 5 weeks, there will be no booze on Christmas.

Well Hell.

I don't know about you, but getting liquored up on Christmas is the only way I can get through the day. I love my family, I really do. But the thought of being there all day with all of them cooped up in the house with the thermostat cranked up to Jesus because there is a baby who can't get cold (I'm not sure why its okay to let the rest of us freeze) without a glass of wine or even a damn cup of egg nog to get me through the day just horrifies me.

Christmas is typically unpleasant anyway. After being awakened while it is still dark by my kids, who by the way are too damn old to be waking me up at 5:00am, we go see what Santa brought and open gifts. By the time the gift opening is over, I'm fairly alert. Unlike my Big Sexy. He usually just hangs out on the edge of the fray trying not to succumb to his overwhelming desire to curse out the children for waking him up at 5am. Meanwhile he is expected to watch them make a mess in the living room and he knows that he's going to have to bitch about it being a pig sty for 2 days until I force everyone to put their new clothes away so I can fold up the shirt boxes to use again next year.

We usually try to get a little more shut eye before it is time to go to my mom's for breakfast. We are also usually late for breakfast along with my sister and her family. This in turn causes my mother to go off on to the first of many tirades we are obligated by familial bonds to endure throughout the day. After those of us who don't care enough about her or the trouble she went to making that damn hashbrown casserole we all insist on her making every damn year finally get to the table, we get to the business of eating the best damn hashbrown casserole in the world... and bitching about the fact that Mom refuses to make scrambled eggs for us anymore because Dad's cholesterol is off the charts high. I personally think she uses Dad's health issues as a way of getting out of cooking stuff but that's between her and God.

Then come the gifts. My parents are hard to buy for. They have everything they need. If there is something they want, they can afford it a heck of a lot sooner than I can. So I usually get them booze and a gift card to a semi-nice restaurant. I was told not to get the booze this year. So not only are we not drinking, I'm having to revert back to the days before I realized that my Dad was so much happier with a half-gallon of Crown Royal than he was with another velour robe. So here I am again having to try to figure out which drill bit set my Dad needs and which Chia pet my Mom would like best.

Now the gift exchanging is over and we're all starting to get tired of one another. We can't just go home...dinner is to come and the ham is the best part of my day. But by this time my sister is usually bitching about her mother-in-law/job/neighbors/price of gas (take your pick), it's nap time for my niece but she's too wound up to sleep so she's just walking around with a snot bubble crying for no reason, Mom is bitching about her back hurting because she's been standing at the stove cooking for 3 days, the teenage kids are all fighting over the computer because they have to send all of their MySpace friends a Merry Christmas comment, and all the men have settled in front of the tv to watch some kind of sporting event at full volume. At this point I'm really going to need a cocktail. So is everyone else but are we going to get to have one??

NO! Why? Because my brother-in-law is not a functional alcoholic like the rest if us and now, because he's on the wagon, we all have to be on the wagon.

I just hope my mom doesn't try to stab anyone with a carving knife and my Dad doesn't spend the entire day hiding out in the garage with my Uncle Billy. Of course, if he does seem to be disappearing fairly often, I may have to follow him and spend a little time in the garage myself because anywhere my Dad and Uncle Billy go, so goes the booze.

Bah Humbug everybody.

Why I need a new job

When I arrived at work this morning, I was greeted with a box sitting in my chair. Upon closer inspection of this box, I found that it was wrapped in exam table paper. On the paper was a magic marker drawing of a tropical beach scene with a rainbow. I assume this was there to remind me of more pleasant times. I opened the box to find a pillow, an ice pack, Xylocaine Jelly, Astroglide, a band-aid and a Huggies Diaper.

A kind of care package from a bunch of smart asses really.

See, I had to have a Colonoscopy yesterday.

I don't know if you've ever had a Colonoscopy or not. If you have, then you know from where I speak. If you haven't, let me try to give you a run-down of the process.

Day Before Procedure:

Clear Liquid "Diet"-That means you don't eat the day before. Chicken Broth is not real food and apparently taking Jello Shots at lunch time is frowned upon by not only by my Doctor but also my employer.

Co-Workers torment you- Everytime you leave your desk, you return to find Turd Cartoons or Jars of Vaseline in your area.

4pm take Laxative- I'm having this God Forsaken thing done because I have the trots all the damn time....Like I really need a laxative.

6pm Start drinking the 2 liters of Liquid Death. 8 oz. every 10 minutes. There is nothing I can say about this stuff called Halflytely Bowel Prep except it is straight from the Devil. This stuff is the consistency of milk, it's salty and if you're lucky, you get to add a yummy flavor to it. I got to choose between cherry, lemonade, orange or pineapple. I chose orange. I'll never eat citrus again. I can not even begin to tell you how gross this stuff is. After about 24 oz. of this crap, it started coming back up. I never did finish it all.

Sit on the toilet with a good book and soft toilet paper the rest of the night.

Day of Procedure:

Don't eat anything, Don't drink anything.

Go to where you are having the procedure done. Tell numerous strangers you're there for a Colonoscopy, ask them how bad it's going to be, be told by all of them that they themselves refuse to have one regardless of what may be going on up their own ass.

Have a minor anxiety attack.

Get an IV started

Get wheeled down the hall with your ass hanging out of your dress.

Get parked in the middle of a cold sterile room with several people buzzing around talking to each other like your not in the middle of the room...with your ass hanging out of your dress.

Have a surly nurse pump you full of Versed.

Pledge your undying love to surly nurse because you are higher than you've ever been.

Wake up in the recovery room feeling a little violated and hung over.

Go eat everything on the right side of the menu at Logan's Roadhouse.

Nod off in the car on the way home from Logan's

Sleep the remainder of the day and night.

Day After Procedure:

Come to work to be the "Butt" of the joke by Co-Workers who are evil and must be destroyed.

Jag är en vampyr

Well, there is a first time for everything. My newest gay and I have plans to go read a movie tonight. That's right, I said read. He and I are both going through aVampire phase right now. Don't ask me why. Apparently there is a Swedish Vampire movie playing at the local theater that plays all the indie films. Since neither my friend or I speak Swedish, we'll have to utilize the sub-titles. I've never actually paid to see a movie I can't understand. I usually stay away from foreign language movies altogether if I can help it. Except for the Kung Fu movies that are dubbed in English. Those are great. I'm a little anxious about this outing. We're meeting at the bar for a drink(s) beforehand. Hope I don't get drunk and end up reading out loud or asking everyone in the theater "What the hell did that say?"

Wish me luck.

What ever happened to Chachi anyway?

Sweet Braja asked me where I went...

I'll tell you where I went.

I went completely around the bend.

I have a TV crush.

That's right I'm 38 years old and I have a crush on an actor. Not only that, he's a relatively unknown, fairly obscure British actor that until the last few months, I'm sure no one on my side

of the pond even knew existed. Now I can't seem to get enough of him.

I'm completely addicted to True Blood on HBO. If you haven't seen it, watch it. If you don't have HBO, get it. It's that good. It's all about Vampires and sexy men and killers and fun. I just love it.

Meanwhile, Stephen Moyer plays a Vampire named Bill on this show and he is more yummy than any one person should be. I haven't had a crush on an actor this bad since I vowed to marry Scott Baio in 1979. So I've been searching the Internet for any little scrap on this guy that I can get. It's sad, I know. And to make it worse, apparently this guy is extremely private cause there ain't nothin online about him except for boring stuff like press releases and the occasional interview. I want dirt! I want naked pictures! So frustrating.

Since I'm not married to Scott Baio, I figure my TV crush won't work out this time any better than it did the last time but that doesn't seem to deter my efforts to find the perfect picture of the GOD that is Stephen Moyer to use as my wallpaper.

So that's where I've been and that is where I shall return.

By the way, I like to imagine myself standing directly in front of him in the picture above.

Love, Peace and Chicken Grease

-T

The Ugliest Shoes in the History of the World and why I have to buy them.

I don't get why something that is so ugly is so expensive. Nor do I get why my child MUST have it.

This happens every Christmas. My kids get to choose their one BIG gift. Now this gift doesn't necessarily need to be large or even that expensive, but it is usually the one thing they really want that at any other time of the year I'd advise them to either get a job or go sell plasma if they want it so damn bad. But at Christmas, I figure it's time to splurge a little on the one thing that is usually out of reach for them under normal circumstances.

One year they all decided they wanted a trampoline. Against my better judgement and regardless of the horror stories of broken limbs and head trauma, my stupid ex-husband and I spent over an hour on Christmas Eve in the back yard in below freezing temperatures putting together a trampoline. It was awful. I couldn't find but one of my gloves so there I was, stretching metal springs in one glove and an oven mitt. Under normal circumstances, I would not have done this. But it was Christmas so being the good parent that I am, I did it.

Another year, my little one wanted nothing more than to get a puppy. She didn't just want any puppy, she wanted a puppy from the litter my friends mom's dog had just had. Not only was this particular puppy not one I would have chosen, no one in their right mind would have chosen this puppy. First of all he barely qualified as a puppy. Mom was a Great Dane and Dad was a Rottweiller. My current wonderful husband brought him in on Christmas eve stuffed down in his coat. He looked like he had a parasitic twin. I don't know why he was trying to hide this beast but it didn't work. But he came in and surprised my little sweet potato and that is how we came to own a Gorilla dog named Tiny. My choice would have been a cat but again, it was Christmas.

In order to Feng Shui your home, the first rule is to get rid of everything that is not useful or beautiful. The freakin boots I purchased for Her Magesty for Christmas are neither. They are clearly not beautiful and as far as I'm concerned, suede boots are not really useful either. Even thought these things appear to be mukluk boots, you can't get them wet without having to spend an awful lot of time later trying in vain to clean them back to their original color. But even though, for $159.99 + tax and shipping, I could have bought myself at the very least 2 pair of really cute shoes, or even bought cute shoes for her, these God Forsaken things are what she wants. I'm not sure what it is about these things that girls like so much. She was telling me how comfortable they were. Hell, I have pair of old man paisley print pajama pants with the crotch ripped out that are the most comfortable things on this earth but I wouldn't wear them outside of my own bedroom and I damn sure wouldn't pay someone else even a nickel for them. But, it's Christmas so I guess in the spirit of it all, UGGS (the most appropriate name of anything I've ever heard) it is. Uggggg......