I'm Stalking You On Facebook: A Guest Post

Today's post was written by Aunt Becky at Mommy Wants Vodka. 

I wish I could take credit for the awesomeness that you are about to read.

But you guys are smart. After the first sentence you would know that something this funny and well written could not be mine.

Are you shocked that a Somebody like Aunt Becky would post for a nobody like me? I was, too. But here she is:

Okay, so the title is a complete lie. Sure, I do have a Facebook account and yes, I’m probably friends with you on there, because if I already pour my heart and soul out (stop laughing)(no, I mean it) on my blog, why the hell can’t you see the meaningless bullshit I post on Facebook?

(answer, as always, is: because, obviously)

Because I rode a dinosaur to school back when I was a wee lass, I had a Myspace account well before I had a Facebook account and before that, because I think I even had a Friendster account. But then Myspace got all blinky and annoying and so I stopped going on there because it took my computer 4 hours to load your stupid profile.

Eventually, I succumbed to The Facebook empire and got myself an account. People were ALWAYS (read: maybe once or twice) telling me how CRAZY COOL Facebook was and how many AWESOME people they’d reconnected with there. I logged on, signed up, and promptly refriended all my friends who’d similarly abandoned Myspace for less blinky pastures.

And then….

…..

….

….

Nothing whatsoever happened.

A year or so after the fact, I can appreciate that it does connect me with some of my blog friends, there hasn’t been a single soul from Back In The Day that I’ve found through there that has blown me away.

I’ve often bemoaned that I can’t stalk my exes through Facebook so that I can feel smugly superior towards them because everyone freaking ELSE has some “this was my first grade boyfriend,” “this was the first person I got drunk with when I was nine,” story to rub in my pathetic face. It appears the only ex with whom I am to have contact is my least favorite: Nat.

Dave is one of the frequent gloaters I put up with on a semi-regular basis. He’s always reconnecting with someone or another: exes, family maybe, old friends, old not-so-friends (because we all know that we’re judged on the amount of friends we have on Facebook and Twitter), and whatever. Maybe a prostitute or two.

I don’t really keep track. He’ll occasionally pull up a profile to show me someone’s kids or whatever, and I look, tell him the kid is cute, and then go about my day. It’s never dawned on me that Facebook could be seen as a den of intrigue and tomfoolery.

(Why yes, yes I WAS looking to use tomfoolery in a sentence! Next up, I’m looking at YOU caterwauling or cacophony)

But apparently, there was even an ARTICLE on The Internet, which has to be true, because it’s online, that made mention of Facebook being kind of bad for marriages. According to the article, people are rekindling old romances through Facebook, while fitting in endless games of Bejeweled and/or Which Vampire Are You? Quizzes.

(my result: An Asshole)

For someone whose relationships prior to meeting The Daver ended after my boyfriend decided to use another vagina as a tea cozy, I’m shockingly trusting.

I’ve never read his email, I’ve never gone through the recently dialed calls on his phone, I’ve never considered logging onto his facebook account, and I have no plans to. To me? It just seems really boring. And he’s honest enough that if he is having cyber sex with someone (or whatever crimes against marriage these people commit), he’d probably tell me whether or not I cared to know.

And likewise. I’m not positive, but I do leave my email open 99% of my time and my phone around the house, and I’ve never caught Daver going through it. Probably because, like his, it’s very, VERY boring to anyone else. Plus, I firmly believe that he deserves privacy just as I do. Everyone should have small secrets, right?

(I will mention here that I absolutely CANNOT stand when someone stands behind me while I’m on the computer no matter if I’m surfing old lady porn or writing a blog post or checking Twitter. I’d be fine if you looked at it WITHOUT me there, but for some reason the hovering just drives me nuts)

But reading the article and hearing other people talk about how they guess passwords and check up on their significant others makes me wonder: am I in the minority here? SHOULD I be checking up on The Daver? Am I being naive?

Should I really be stalking him on Facebook?


**The comments have been turned off. Please visit Aunt Becky at Mommy Wants Vodka and give her your opinion on the Facebook stalking debate. Also, tell her how much you adore her.

**While you're over there you should read her Blogging For Dummies post. It should be required reading for every new blogger.

One Down, One To Go

If you are a card-carrying-throw-red-paint-on-bishes-in-fur PETA freak, do not read this.


Seriously, go away. You won’t like what Mama Stir Fry has cooking today.

I have a little confession to make.

(Shout out to MJ who was doing the confession linky but stopped when I finally had one!)

I may have committed a murder.

A tiny murder.

We have had a pet mouse.

It lived in the basement with the pet hamster. Somebody was having trouble sleeping at night with all the wheel running going on. Therefore, the critters were banished to the bowels of the house.

That took care of the noise. But one HUGE problem remained.

The smell.

Holy Mother Of God, that smell.

Not since my children were babies, have I wondered how something so little and cute could produce such a foul odor.

We’re talking the morning breath of a thousand hung-over husbands. The inside of a hoarder’s broken refrigerator. The secret hidey hole of a serial killer. That is how bad the little effer smelled.

I put up with it as long as I could. But my mother (the clean freak) is arriving and I didn’t want to give her one more thing to bitch about.

So, I very sweetly asked the boys if they would like to donate Cheddar to one of my preschools for a class pet.

Jackson was all for it. Zach, the hoarder of all things that annoy me, didn’t want to do it but he was promptly bribed convinced that it was a good idea.

People, no preschool wanted the stupid thing. I asked them all. 

I had to do something.

After the kids went to school, I loaded the hamster and the recylcing in the car to make a deposit. I took the cage out of the car, opened the door, and sat it beside the car as I filled the dumpster with a week's worth of Diet Dr. Pepper cans and Little Debbie boxes.

(That was my passive-aggressive way of handling the situation. I couldn't be blamed if he happened to escape into the big, wide world.)

Cheddar refused to budge. He looked at me and sniffed his nose as if to say "Thanks, but no thanks".

I waited till someone noticed me as long as I could and he never tried to get out. I shut the door to the cage and stuffed him back in the car.

I had some other errands to do so the little guy rode around in the car beside me. He was running in his wheel at a feverish pace. I tried to talk to him calmly and explain that I was sorry but he had to go. He was unimpressed.

After I finished my errands, I decided to find a more rural area to do the deed. So I drove around some more babbling like a crazy person while begging Cheddar for forgiveness.

I was so distracted that I had to slam on the brakes in order to avoid a crash. Cheddar's cage went flying and landed upside down. His bedding ended up all over my car.

I thought the impact might have killed him because he wasn't wearing a helmet or a seatbelt and hoped I was off the hook. No such luck. The little guy peeked up at me from under a mound of cedar chips and seeds.

At the next red light, I turned him right side up.

Now I had a car full of evidence but the mouse was still with me.

I drove to a remote-ish church. I took the cage (with a very nervous mouse inside it) sat it in the grass, and opened up the door. Cheddar moved as far away from the door as possible and, I swear, stared at me defiantly.

(Please note that I was not going to actually touch the rodent. That's why I didn't just grab him by the tail and toss him out.)

I took the entire top off the cage. At this point, the top of his water bottle also came off and drenched me.

Cheddar burrowed into his bedding.

I made a little trail of his delectable seeds from the cage to a tree.

Cheddar wrinkled his nose a little bit but didn't take the bait.

At this point, I had been trying to dispose of  return this mouse to a life of freedom for 2 hours. It was him or me.

I tipped over his cage till he tumbled out. Lovingly, I told him to scram scamper to the woods. For a minute, I thought he was going to jump in the car. (I know he was thinking about it.)

Cheddar sat there and looked at me for what felt like a minute. I jumped in the car and drove away leaving him with a little pile of seeds and a dejected look on his face.

I disposed of the evidence cage in the bottom of our trash at another secret location. The car was swept free of seeds and cedar chips. Then I showered away my guilt and shame the mouse germs.

The kids assume Cheddar went to live with the preschoolers. (Honestly, his chances of survival alone in the world are probably equal to his chances of survival while being surrounded by preschoolers all day.)

Hubs doesn't know what happened to Cheddar and said he doesn't want to know.

**Don't harrass me in the comments. Cheddar's days were numbered anyway with my mom's upcoming visit. Once, she "accidentally" killed a kitten by excessively bleaching his bedding and spraying him with Lysol.**

**Farewell, Blog Friends. My break starts today. The rest of the day will be spent doing crisis cleaning. I will be back the Monday after Thanksgiving.**

**I have guests lined up for next week. Be sure to check them out. I think it is a good variety and they are all awesome bloggers and great friends.**

HAVE A GREAT THANKSGIVING!!!

What Would Freud Say?

The one time I was scared shitless, I was in a convenient place. I was sitting on the toilet.

Approximately 100 years ago, when I was still young and cute and had elasticity in my mommy parts  boobs skin, I exercised every day following work. My boss also owned a gym and had a wee crush on me. So I tanned at lunch and worked out at the end of the day. For free.

Sometimes The Boss and I were the last two people in the building so I didn’t stick around to use the facilities because after work shenanigans led to his hookup with wife number two and she scared me. It was a 40 minute drive back to my house. The first thing I did when I walked in the door to my swanky paneled apartment was hit the shower.

(The bathroom and kitchen were the only rooms that didn’t have paneling on the walls and ceiling. One bedroom had red and white paneling. For realz.)

This particular day was like any other weekday for me. I pulled in front of the apartment and ran inside still singing along to the radio.

(Most likely Semi-Charmed Kind Of Life. I still lurve that nasty little tune. I used to have pervy dreams about Stephan Jenkins, a cabana, and a bowl of coke the size of a steel drum. But I digress. )

Anyhoo, I plopped the 90’s version of my fat ass down on the toilet seat to do my bidness. I looked down and what is on the floor?

A SNAKE.

A REAL LIVE SNAKE IN MY BATHROOM.

BETWEEN MY BARE FEET AND THE WALL.

Good thing I was already on the toilet.

I was scared to death.

He wasn’t moving. Just laying there all docile like. 

But I could sense that it was alive and that it wanted to eat me. I sat very still waiting for the imminent attack.

Waiting.  Looking at the snake.

Waiting. Looking at the door.

I didn’t have a phone with me to call for help. And I didn't want to scream for the neighbors because I was afraid that would make the snake active and angry.

I probably would have sat there with my pants down until Hubs came home if I had my smokes with me. Or the latest issue of People.  Any form of entertainment really - other than imagining my death. (And how embarrassing it would be to die on the toilet like Elvis.)

I decided to make a run for it.

I jumped up and ran out of the room.

(Yes, I left my pants. Modesty was the least of my concerns.)

I shut the door to keep the snake inside the bathroom. Because the only thing worse than being trapped in the bathroom with a snake would be having a snake loose somewhere in my apartment.

I sat outside the bathroom door chain smoking and guarding it. (In case he tried to pull a fast one by slipping under the door.)

I was waiting on Hubs to swoop in on his white horse and rescue me from certain doom. 

He showed up and was not impressed by my predicament. 

I tried to convince him to kill the vicious predator but he refused.  He scooped it up in a bag (while I cowered in the corner) and released it into the woods.

And that, my friends, is why I always look around the bathroom floor before I sit down. I check inside the toilet and in the shower, too. I will not be caught with my pants down again. (Not by a snake anyway.)


**Disclosure: As per hubs, it was a non-poisonous Racer snake. And it was less than a foot in length.**

**In regards to snakes, size does not matter.**

**Blog Break: I have 4 guest posters booked for next week. That leaves 2 weekends and Thanksgving Day open. If you are interested, let me know. **

I'll Have A Side Of Happy Pills With My Turkey, Please

My parents will be arriving at the Notso Awesome abode on Friday. They will be staying here for over a week. Please send booze and xanax asap.

Dr. Phil says A wise counselor has been quoted as saying “The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior”. True dat.

Here are some of the criticisms I will be hearing during my family bonding time:

1. I’m lazy and waste all my time on the internet. Mind you the last time they were here, I was wasting my time sewing. Previous time wasters have included reading, watching tv, and anything not involving 1950’s housewife duties.

2. Several philosophies as to why my kids are batshit crazy so high strung. These will include (but not be exclusive to) my use of Febreeze air fresheners, their diet, lack of parental attention, excessive parental attention, and/or genetics.

3. I put the kids them to bed much too early. They should be allowed to stay up when their grandparents are visiting.

4. Three days later, I will be told that the kids are sleep deprived and need a good night’s rest.

5. My dad’s entire family was obese. This will be preceded by the remark that I remind them so much of his mother.

6. My hair is too long/"stringy"/streaky. (Please note that when I actually had shorter hair and got it styled every 6 weeks, I was spending too much time and money on myself. Also, it was sinful for me to support my hairdresser’s “lifestyle”.)

7. I don't spend enough time on my appearance. (An oldie but goodie: When my oldest was a 2 weeks old, my dad told me that Hubs was going to have an affair with a nurse if I didn't start wearing makeup and dressing better.)

8. I waste money by turning lights on, leaving the garage door up, buying books, buying things for the kids, and eating seafood. (Apparently, grilling tilapia is “fancy”.) Mom and Dad will spend the week sitting in the dark.

9. Kentucky is a horrible place to live. It is dreary here, there is too much air pollution, the people are fat, it rains too much, and it’s too cold.

10. Hubs doesn’t like them because he never talks to them. (To which I will insist that he doesn’t talk to me either. Nor to his own family when they are around.)

11. Also Hubs related are the continous "jokes" about how much time he spends at work and what he is really up to. If he is home for a few days, I hear "His girlfriend must be having her period".

12. I will get to take a wonderful trip down the road to Hell Memory Lane in which I will hear all my crimes against humanity since the age of 2. Peeing the bed when I was 3. Throwing a doll when I was 5. Sticking my tongue out at my 3rd grade teacher. Wrecking cars in high school. Racking up  credit card debt in college. All these incidents and more will be highlighted.


I could go on and on but it's time to take my meds I'm late for work. I'm sure there will be lots to tell my therapist to blog about after the visit.
 
Are your parents critical of your life? Do you find yourself regressing to your childhood when you are with them? How do you handle extended periods of time together?
 
**I love my parents so don't get all preachy with me on this one.  
 
**I'll be taking a Blog Break during this time of family bonding. If anyone wants to post on Stir Fry, let me know.

Post It Note Tuesday: Blog Rock Love

It's that time again.

Visit SupahMommy to link up.

The comments have been turned off for this post. Please visit Mary at Blog Rock and tell her what a great job she did.

It's Fa-boo, Baby

Carma from Carma Sez  and Holly from 504 Main have given me this:

It has rules that I'm actually going to follow for once.

They are pretty simple like my mind.

List five obsessions and pass the award on to 5 bloggers.

1.  My DVR. I can't watch television when my kids are screaming and annoying me awake. If I didn't have  my DVR, my life would be void of Shrutisms and I might be under the illusion that Saturday Night Live is actually funny this season.

2.  Doing laundry. I admit it. I have a problem. I do an average of 3 loads of laundry every day. The furniture may  be dusty and there might not be any food in the fridge but by-golly we all have clean socks and underwear.

                                                                   

 3. Blogging. (duh) I get very stressed out about the number of blogs in my reader. I'm trying to cut back. I really am.

4.  Audio books. I listen to audio books on my ipod every time I'm in the car. (Not with the ear phones - obvs.) I was listening to  them when I did my daily 3 mile walks. Until I had to give those up for #3.

5.  Fighting off the aging process. Whether it's Retin-A, covering my gray hairs, plucking errant signs of the M-word, or watching the WB, I'm doing what I can to avoid the inevitable. At this age it can be very time consuming.

For the 5 blogs that I'm passing this on to:

1. mama-face at Blog-Ignoramus

2.  shortmama at Family Of Shorts

3.  Cameron at Conquer The Monkey

4.  Stacie at Stacie's Madness

5.  Stacey at Stacey's Respite

*** I have more awards that I am shamefully late in acknowledging and passing out. I pinky swear promise that I will do that soon. Right after I figure out a way to do without sleep work, clean, cook, help my kids with their homework, do the laundry, read 372 blog posts, take some medicine for my carpal tunnel, and spend time bonding with my husband. (Which one of these is a joke?)***

Memoir Monday: Grandma Bill

I'm participating in Memoir Monday at I Like To Fish.

The state of West Virginia was 19 years old when my great-grandmother, Minnie Shaver, was born in 1882. She grew up in Braxton County and resided in Calhoun County for most of her adult life.

(Where we come from there are few towns or cities and you are simply from the the county.)

Minnie was only known to me as Grandma Bill. To her friends she was "Aunt Minnie".

Grandma Bill was a woman of many contradictions. She was a devout follower of a religion which did not allow music or card playing. Yet, her first husband was a popular local fiddle player.

As a teenager, Grandma Bill would sneak out of her house to go to dances and meet boys. The result of one of these rendezvous was my great-uncle Russell.

Grandma Bill wore dresses because pants were considered too risqué and sinful. Yet, she was quoted as saying, “You kids talk about parking. In my day, we just climbed in the back of the buggy. The horse knew the way home”.

Her first husband, Lawrence, was a veterinary surgeon and a blacksmith. They were married in 1904.  He died in 1937 after being kicked in the head by a mule.

Grandma Bill was a nurse midwife for most of her life. She traveled throughout the hills and hollows delivering more than 400 babies for little or no pay. Grandma Bill was very proud of the fact that all of  "her" women and babies survived their deliveries. She loved seeing "those bright little eyes of the babies".

Supposedly, Grandm Bill was the first certified nurse midwife in the state of West Virginia. Also, I was told that she delivered the first set of triplets in West Virginia for whom a record exists. She said, “I named them as they came out. Faith, Hope, and Charity.”

My mother has many fond childhood memories of time spent with her grandmother. Together, they traveled throughout the state by train or bus. Sometimes they would hitch rides on the mail truck.

Mom and Grandma Bill would stay away from home for up to a week and would sleep in a different house every night. They were able to do this because Grandma Bill had friends all over the state. They enjoyed shopping and Grandma Bill entertained Mom by telling ghost stories of Appalachia.

My mother says that their good times together came to an abrupt end in 1949 when Minnie reunited with a long lost lover, William Kelly. They were married that year and the entire family hated him. I never heard him referred to as anything other than “Old Bill Kelly” unless it was “That Damn Bill Kelly”.

In fact, everyone referred to Minnie as Grandma Bill because they refused to acknowledge her marriage by calling her Grandma Kelly. (As a side note, I don’t know why the heck using his first name was less insulting than using his last name.)

Following their marriage, the happy couple moved to a ranch in Plains, Montana. Grandma Bill wrote many letters to my mother during this time. She wanted Mom to come and visit them. In each letter she wrote, “There is peace and love in every corner here”. 

Eventually, Mom’s longing to see her grandmother won out over her fear of traveling alone (and her resentment of the man who took her companion away). When she was 12 years old, Mom boarded a train and traveled to Montana.

Upon arrival, Mom found that life at the ranch was not as her grandmother led her to believe. Grandma  and "Old Bill Kelly" were arguing and bickering continuously. He was a mean, ugly man. Reportedly, Grandma Bill kept a packed bag by the front door so she could leave her husband at any time.

"Old Bill Kelly" died before she had a chance to divorce him. Upon seeing him in the casket, Grandma sighed, "Isn't he a pretty corpse?".

Grandma Bill returned to West Virginia to live with my grandparents. She had an agile mind and body until she was in her late 90’s. It was then that she fell while gardening and broke her hip. Eventually, Grandma Bill  moved to a nursing home where she resided until her death at the age of 101.

Not long before she died, one of the nurses asked Minnie, “I’ll bet you made some men very happy in your time, didn't you?” She replied, “I don’t know but I sure tried".