Most of my days are spent thusly: I wake up and grab a cup of coffee, start rooting around the kitchen for breakfast, and then begin the ritual of taking out the carrying tray that I take up to my mother. Mornings are hard for her and I bring her food to her since it’s hard to get up and moving. She usually needs her water bottles refilled because, as a person with congestive heart failure, she tends to retain too much water. With a weakened heart, it’s difficult to get a lot of exercise and without circulation to her heart and body and then the process begins of holding onto too much fluid. It’s a vicious cycle and this disease is a real mystery. The procedure of bringing her food starts again at lunch and then once more at dinner. In between those times I can be found doing things that summer is made for: laundry, tennis, bike rides, reading, and writing. I’m really going to struggle when I have to go back to work, but that’s nothing compared to what she’s going to have to do in order to make her meals when I’m gone.

This morning when I went upstairs I stayed a while to chat while she got situated in her big comfy chair that she eats in and we started talking about the books we are reading. I made a confession to her.

“This book I’m reading, The Help, is annoying me to no end. I’m not even halfway done with it yet and I hate it. HATE it. I’m tempted to write a review of it and I’m not even finished.”

“Don’t do that. Finish the book first. You know better and plus, it might get better. You never know.”

She asked me what it was that I hated about it and I admitted that I’m fearful that Skeeter, one of the three characters narrating the book, will end up being the Great White Savior to the Black maids in the story. I’m so bothered by the fact that the author IS MY AGE and grew up with a Black maid. Her characters have great voices (I’m listening to it on Audible, but I mean that in both ways) and she makes convincing cases for their interactions with one another. One of the white women asks some of The Help, Aibileen, about educational integration:  “You wouldn’t want to go to a school full of white people, would you?” As expected, the Black maid agrees with everything she’s asked and by “agree” I mean that she tells them just what they want to hear. No one is asking her the important questions, though. In 1962 Mississippi we are to expect that when blacks start disagreeing with their masters employers they will find themselves jobless.

The other thing bothering me in this book is that I’m not at all convinced that Skeeter’s romance is anything but convenient. Not for the lackadaisical nature of people getting romantically involved when it’s advantageous, but it seems too convenient for the plot and where I think it’s heading. (See what I’m doing here? I’m trying not to give any spoilers for those who haven’t read it yet even though I’m not done reading so it’s like a unspoiled unspoiler.)

So then I started reading the surrounding controversy of this book (the ones that didn’t offer spoilers) and was astounded SIMPLY ASTOUNDED at how many people were defending the complicated loving relationships between Black maids and the White families they served. It was all very we-love-them-and-they-care-for-us-and-then-we’re-expected-to-care-for-them-when-they-get-older-that’s-just-the-way-we-do-things-you-wouldn’t-understand and it made me want to vomit. Attachment and dependence are huge themes of this book so far. So, I should be glad that someone like my grandmother got to raise YOUR family and then you’ll take care of her health bills later on when she gets sick? Excellent plan. Let’s write about it and glorify it.

Honestly, I want to rip out my own eyelashes over this nonsense.

Even before I finish this book (and I will finish this book because I have to do that once I start and I’m also doing it for a book club I’m in) I will state my distaste for the fact that a White author is doing the speaking for her Black help. Kathryn Stockett probably had in mind to force this to meet somewhere in the middle and I’m finding that a hard pill to swallow. It reminded me of a quote that I can’t attribute to anyone at the moment that reads: “You can’t make both ends meet while you’re sitting on one.”

“Colored people and white people are just so…different.” one of the characters, Miss Hilly, naively and foolishly points out. While I would hate to naively and foolishly call Stockett a racist, I will just offer this video from the incredibly pointed and opinionated Jay Smooth (whose videos I keep up with on his website Ill Doctrine) to speak for me.

Mallory came over last weekend to help take care of her grandmother while I was away.  Mason was also here in between his work shifts. They made sure the dog was taken care of, too, but they really helped by making sure the routine was kept up to keep their grandma on a schedule. They watched movies and when they stopped to see that “Corrina, Corrina” was on my mother joked, “That’s what I need. A Black maid.” to which Mallory replied, “Umm, Gramma? You’ve already GOT one of those.”

Which reminds me. It’s time to go get dinner made, take it to mom, and finish reading my book. I’ll let you know how it ends.

Summer madness is most definitely here and the bugs are out. Bugs love me. There is something magical and unicorn-like in my blood that makes them flock to me and stick their prickly things into my skin and feed off of me. One of my sons (and I can’t say which one) (even though I’m fairly certain that they think my blog is entirely stupid and don’t read it) has the same unicorn-like blood and got extremely bitten while he went swimming the other day. He kept bugging me (PUN! PUN! Attention: PUN!) about finding him some anti-itch cream and since I’ve busily putting things away in my new house and trying to find logical places for them I found it difficult to focus on this task. He followed me around the house asking for the cream and he was like Could you find the stuff, mom, I’m itching a lot and I was all Look, I’m trying to make my own likeness into a bobblehead, can’t you see I’m busy? Now, where did I put those purple paper clips? but he was not at all amused and kept following me so that I had to turn around at different intervals just to see if he was standing there behind me all creepy-like and clucking his tongue and putting his hand on his hip to show his displeasure.

This is how you know you’re a mom. When people won’t leave you alone and you haven’t been able to pee uninterrupted since the Clinton administration. See also: stretch marks and a mini-van cluttered with sports equipment and bandages and tampons. So it’s only logical that I would get flustered with my son’s pestering and go into my bathroom closet that my friends helped me organize which means I don’t know where ANYTHING is and I began throwing things out of the closet behind me in a heap while my itchy son stood there scratching his bug bites and then I threw something at him that had the words “itch cream” on it and the next day I realized that it was vaginal itch cream and I doubled over and howled with laughter because I helped spread it ALL OVER HIS BODY. I’m pretty sure that I’m never going to tell him this story but that’s what you get for hounding me about itch cream when you knew I was otherwise engaged in a meaningless project, son.

Let this be a lesson to you, oh children of mine. Don’t mess with momma when she’s busy.

Everyone knows that person who loves to talk. They have the same things in common with which you may use to identify them. Most people are walking away from them at a rapid pace with a purposeful gait, they have spittle in the corner of their mouths from all the talking, and they probably have a little halitosis. Well, I’m not scientifically certain about that last one but it seems to be a halfway decent approximation.

So. There’s this guy. He yaps all the time. He won’t shut up. He won’t let you out of his oral grip and you’re forced to try to extract yourself from him by using your wiles. But the problem is that I don’t like to be mean. I like to do things delicately and have a peaceful end to all encounters. It’s the middle child in me. I may have mentioned this before.

One time, several years ago, Yappy McWon’tShutUp trapped me. We were both dropping off our children at VBS and he stopped to talk shop with me. When my children were little and went to VBS it gave me a solid 2-hour window to get shopping done or mop the kitchen or do laundry. It was a blissful 2 hours that I had to myself in the summertime when I’m off work and they’re off school. Back then when I taught middle school I was anxious to snatch that free time because 9 months of the year belonged to students during the day and the other 3 months were concentrated time with my own kids. This conversation took an ugly turn and we discussed a dozen topics before I knew it. By the time I realized that I was caught in Yappy’s snare almost the entire time had passed and we had 15 minutes left before we had to be back at the church to pick up the children. We were standing in the church parking lot this whole time.

Back then I was young and stupid and polite and naive.

I’m past 35 now. I don’t have to put up with that crap.

So, recently, Yappy McWon’tShutUp was the target of a question that several people needed answered. I didn’t know anyone in the group had dealt with him until I heard them discuss who was going to go ask him a question.

Oh, no. I don’t want to go talk to him. Every time he talks I’m more confused than before!

I’m not doing it. He can take the most mundane thing and make it so convoluted that you don’t know your own name by the end of the conversation!

I don’t even understand him. It’s like he speaks his own, weird language.

It was a weak moment for me. After all, it had been years since I dealt with him and I had learned a few things in that time. First of all, you make the question simple. Easy to answer. Don’t give Yappy any opening to burst forth the dam. Second, start walking away from Yappy once you think the question is answered so that you are already in the process of leaving. Third, well, there is no third. There is just this: MAKE IT SNAPPY, YAPPY!

“I’ll go do it.” I heard myself say. “No one else wants to and I think I can do this now.”

It was at that point that I recounted the VBS story for them and some of them frowned and some laughed and others practically looked at me like I was a saint for having dealt with him in the past. There was a halo growing from my head because I decided to take one for the team. I set myself on a course to go speak with him and work my magic.

Me: I need a question answered. Can you tell me (super simple request inserted here)?

Yappy proceeded to expound on the need for policies and protocols and why there are seventeen different answers available for the one question I asked.

Me, to myself: Jesus, Mary and Joseph this is going to take the next twenty minutes!

Me, to Yappy: Uh huh. Yep. I get that. Sure. I know. Yes, of course. Yes. That makes sense. Ok. Ok. O.K.

As I’m beginning my exit strategy of backing away and getting to the door frame I start to end the conversation. I am pointed, direct, and there is no second guessing that I am about to leave. I’M GOING, YAPPY. YOU HEAR ME? I’M PHYSICALLY WALKING BACKWARD AND SEARCHING BLINDLY FOR THE DOOR WITH MY HANDS BEHIND MY BACK.

And that’s when he threw me for a loop. Yappy pulls out the Whopper. The Big Dog. The Ultimate Move to suck me back in and shock the hell out of me.

Yappy: So, that’s the first part.

Me, to myself: The first part? WHAT? Motherf…

Yappy: Yeah, so here’s the second part.

Yappy: 1

Kelly: 0

In celebration of the Chinese New Year Valentine’s Day I decided to stay completely OFFLINE for the weekend because I just about can’t even take the ridiculous amount of posts, pictures and updates that people write. I mean it, people. Some of you are downright jerks with all that noise. “Oh, I was spoiled rotten with a seven course meal” and “Jacob is the man of my dreams and he finally bought me that condo I’ve been wanting in the Carribean!” and “Woke up to crepes and espresso and then my hubby sent me to the spa for every imaginable service!” Quite frankly, I want to wring their necks for taking pictures of crap and posting it.

That’s probably why I’ve always loved Hilly’s idea of a Self Love Day.

Except I decided not to do one again this year due to time constraints and a full house over the weekend. Even though it wouldn’t be considered “traditional”, I had a pretty good day, too. Take that, filet mignon and lobster eaters!

7:30 a.m. woke up with a migraine headache. Fingers were swollen. Made the assumption that I needed to drink more water today.

8:00 a.m. did my normal Sunday routine of watching CBS Sunday Morning, reading Post Secret, and entering to win the HGTV house. I enter every day, actually. Because that house? With all it’s amenities and the green living lifestyle and being out in the desert where I can actually breathe easily? It should be mine. I want it to be mine. I love that house and have already named it but I won’t tell you the name unless I win the house.

9:00 a.m. pushed on my temples and wished for the Pancake Fairy to visit so I could feed my sons and my sister and her son and his friend from college. Lucked out and got an awesome sister who took everyone out for breakfast.

10:00 a.m. heard from my sweet Valentine that he wanted to come over and cook for me in the new deep fryer he bought. I won’t tell you his name either. Not unless I win that house. Decided to take the migraine medicine after all because what I was doing was NOT working.

The rest of the day was spent at a cheerleading competition my niece was in and let me say, there’s nothing like getting rid of a migraine and going to a convention center where thousands of girls are screaming and stomping their feet and clapping and squealing and MY GOD, THEY ARE LOUD. They are also weepy. Lots and lots of crying. Oh, and fake hair pieces. Those curly snap on pieces that look incredibly silly bouncing on top of their heads. Somewhere around 4:15 p.m. I wished for the Pancake Fairy to wrap me up in a giant pancake so the sound would be muffled. When it was all said and done we came home where my sweet Valentine and my son decided to deep fry a Twinkie. I’m not even kidding. They got Twinkies and Snickers and Mounds candy bars and deep fried the hell out of that stuff. Then we settled in to watch that graphic masterpiece Inglourious Basterds because hey! I’d already spent the day with screaming teens and artery clogging goodness and why not?

Who needs the Pancake Fairy on Valentine’s Day anyway? I had migraines and deep fried Twinkies and a sweet Valentine who spent the day with my family.

You’ve gotta be a little bit crazy to do all that.

I was waiting for this.

Not really all that safe for work. You know, the work that the men in the Dodge commercial were sooooo upset about going to for fear that they’d be, like, responsible or something.