Palm Sunday

I went to Mass with a friend on Sunday. About two-thirds the way through, my peripheral vision picked up an image I had to confirm. The tiny woman in front of me had put some change in the collection basket and, wait a minute -- did her hand look really huge? The Seinfeld episode of the beautiful woman with the "man-hands" came to mind. I mustered up an image of what I thought I saw and decided for certain I was exaggerating it with my own mind. No, those thumbnails surely were not the size of quarters. I waited for another glimpse, but her hands stayed concealed. I thought of mentioning it to Catherine, but decided against it -- that would be wrong, especially in church. Then suddenly, without warning, it was time to recite the Our Father and everyone raised their hands to shoulder height and clasped the hands of their neighbor. Lord, I had not made it up. I swear, her thumbs were the size of mice. They didn't look like diseased hands either, they weren't twisted or frozen, just otherworldy-large. On a petite little lady. I glanced at Catherine, her eyes wide with disbelief and her mouth hanging open, and she was taking in the woman's right hand, then her left, and then she looked at me and we both knew what the other was thinking and we just lost it. There's a special kind of laughter that is so inappropriate, so out of control, so difficult to smother, that it's usually reserved for funerals. I shared that kind of laughter with Catherine on Sunday. We never said a word to eachother as we shook violently, somehow managing to stay relatively quiet. We could not look at eachother. I had tears streaming down my face as I frantically searched for a kleenex and gasped for breath. We could not speak, we dared not let this lady wonder why we were laughing. Because she had to know. She had to know she had freakishly large paws on the ends of petite, graceful forearms. Then it was time to give eachother the sign of peace -- which means shaking the hands of everyone around you. Next thing we knew, her meaty stumps were reaching out to us and we had to muster Academy-Award-winning performances to protect her from our obvious shock. This woman could feed a small family Thanksgiving Dinner with the meat from one hand. I couldn't look at Catherine until we got outside.

Unfortunately, after reading this over, it appears this is one of those stories where you had to be there... Man, it was so damn funny when it happened...such a shame.

I Wanna Live In His World

Nicholas turned three today. Wow. It seems like only yesterday when... (flashback comes into focus here) I was big as a house, in my third trimester with Nicholas, and I found myself shopping at Walmart one evening. I was very happy, because I was all by myself, having left Gabriel (two at the time) at home with his dad (probably the ONLY time that ever happened). I was shopping, which is different from running through the store replacing what you've used up. You see, you get to "shop" when you don't have kids with you; you simply "replace", as fast as you can, when you're towing kids. Anyway, I was really enjoying this, though exhausted, because it was a true luxury to get to shop. So, I called Craig, to ask his opinion on a purchase I was considering, and the exchange went something like this:

"Hey, Honey I just --"
"I CAN'T TALK! OMIGOD YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE --"
"What's wrong?!"
"GABRIEL JUST SHIT ALL OVER THE PLACE! HE GOT IT ALL OVER THE CARPET! IT WENT ALL THE WAY UP HIS BACK! UP TO HIS SHOULDERS! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT -- IT'S EVERYWHERE --I GOTTA GO!"
"Wow, sorry --"CLICK.

At this point I found myself grinning from ear to ear. I continued to stroll ever so leisurely through the store, sighing happily, truly in ecstasy, knowing that my dearly beloved was suffering what I had come to know as EVERYDAY LIFE. I even found myself laughing aloud, while taking my sweet time. No, I was in no hurry to get home.... yeah... Let HIM handle it.

Well, I arrived at home only to discover how well he "handled" it. As I approached the back door, the smell of shit smacked me right in the face because Gabriel's pants had been tossed outside. That's the way my husband "puts away" everything -- he just lets go of it, and it ceases to exist in his world. Well, in my world, there was a small pair of pants full of shit at my feet. I stepped over them and went inside only to find the smell was in there as well. "I was afraid to clean the shit off the carpet because I don't know how to," Craig offered. My head began to fill with raging blood at this remark, and I began to yell. "NOBODY JUST KNOWS HOW! YOU JUST DO IT! THAT'S HOW YOU LEARN! YOU'RE NOT BORN KNOWING HOW TO CLEAN SHIT OFF THE CARPET! YOU JUST DO IT!" I was ready to pop a vein. "YOU JUST LEFT IT FOR ME, DIDN'T YOU! WELL, YOU CAN JUST FORGET IT! I'M NOT CLEANING IT! AND I'M NOT CLEANING THE PANTS!"

My words were still hanging in the air when Craig said "Call Ralph." Whaaa?... Ralph is our carpet cleaning guy. You see, if Craig doesn't want to do something, he just throws money at it. Of course, that's only after he can't get his wife to do it for free. Nice world he lives in. Ralph said he'd do it for forty dollars. "Just keep it moist with wet paper towels." Ewww...

And the pants? Craig told me to just throw them away. End of story. Wow. I like his world. If I behaved like that in my world, we wouldn't have anything left and I'd have to go replacing all the time with the kids. No thanks. In my world, I clean the shit off pants with no help from anybody. And that is true to this day.

Today, Nicholas turned three and gave me a present... A large, stinky piece of shit in his pullup. Happy Birthday.

Spiderperson

I took Gabriel to a schoolmate's 6th birthday party today with a Spiderman theme. About 10 or so boys were playing together when the grandpa yelled out that there was a Surprise Guest outside. I stood in the foyer looking outside with some of the other parents and saw the boys talking to Spiderman himself. Or so I thought. The foam muscle under the suit didn't seem to fit very well, so I asked the mom if he was a friend or a professional. She laughed and said "Professional". I looked back outside and thought he just looked odd. And short. We all joked that he was really Toby McGuire.

So Spiderman herded the children into the house to sit in a circle on the floor. As he made his way through the doorway, we adults heard his voice for the first time. No, that would be wrong. We adults heard HER voice for the first time. That's right, folks -- it was an Equal Opportunity party gig featuring a Super Hero who was most certainly getting 75% of what a man would get doing the same job. And I didn't help matters much when I suggested to the parents to demand a discount.

Next, the hormonally-challenged Spidey did magic tricks and sang songs and danced with the kids. Although she tried to move like a man,
her moves were somewhat effeminate. She didn't look exactly like a woman because of the fake muscles and flattened boobs; she just seemed like a really, really gay Spiderman. (Now, the name Peter Parker seemed kind of fitting.) Most of the parents were either trying hard not to laugh or trying hard to pretend this wasn't disturbing. We all shuddered when she threw around the name "Mary Jane" to up her credibility. It was painful to watch. There were two boys who didn't participate at all -- they just weren't buying it. They simply looked on with a high degree of annoyance like some giant fraud had invaded the party... A giant fraud who shouldn't be wearing a skintight suit that gave away the fact that 1) she had carried at least one child, 2) she had the hips to birth that child, and 3) she did not have the equipment to be the father of said child.

Afterward, I asked Gabriel what he thought of Spiderman.
"Mom, that wasn't really Spiderman."
"Why do you think that?"
"Well, Spiderman doesn't have that weird voice", he said.
"Whattya mean?"
Exasperated, Gabriel just looked at me like I'm some kind of a dumbass, and declared "MOM. SPIDERMAN'S NOT REAL. THAT WAS JUST A COSTUME."

Oh YEAH? Well, let's talk about SANTA, shall we?

Fear Factor

Today, Gabriel fell asleep in his carseat with a handful of live earthworms. Yecchhh! They died there in his palm after dehydrating for 20 minutes. I had to use a baby wipe to clean them off his hand -- they were kind of stuck to him. I am so grossed out.