Just Yikes!

My aunt calls me tonight.  The conversation goes something like this.

Me:  Hi Aunt Carolanne.

AC:  JoanneMarie, I'm glad I reached you.  What's new over there? Is it just you and Mickey?

Me:  Yeah, what's up?

AC:  I'm going over Louise's because I have no where to sleep tonight and I just thought that you might want me to come stay over at your house.

Me:  Of course you can sleep here, you are always welcome here.  Wait!  Why don't you have anywhere to sleep tonight?

AC:  Something ate all of my jellybeans last night.

Me:  Okaaaaay.  Wait. What?!!?

AC:  Last night I poured a bowl full of jellybeans and put it on the counter and went to bed and when I woke up they were all gone.  Now my house if full of poison and mousetraps.

So, I assured her  that our guest room was available to her and that she could come any time.  But, she was worried that cousin Louise would be disappointed if she didn't stay over there.  She was going to figure out what she wanted to do and she'd call back and let me know.

While waiting to find out what she decided to do, I filled Mickey in on the situation.  He figured that she couldn't have possibly filled a bowl with jellybeans and they just disappeared. She must have forgotten to do it, but forgot and then thought she had done it. I told him that as far as I could figure, you'd need a little fire line of mice passing the beans one at a time to each other down the line and off to wherever they came from.  Mickey wondered if maybe Aunt Carolanne sleep walked, or if Uncle Camillo had eaten them.  But, she only said that she had no where to sleep, which meant that he had to be away on business.

When Aunt Carolanne called back, I got to try our new line of questioning.

Me:  Are you sure you put the jelly beans in the bowl?

AC:  Yes.  Since Cam is away, Louise was going to come over tonight and she always has a bowl of candy at her house. I had off from work yesterday and I went to the store and picked up some stuff and cleaned the house. Last night I put the few bananas I bought on the counter in the kitchen, near the double doors to the deck.  There's also a candle there.  I took out a bowl and poured the whole bag of jellybeans into the bowl.  It was really full and I did eat a few of them, but the bowl was stilled all the way filled, just not spilling over. I shifted the bowl and the candle on the counter a few times.  I went to bed after 11 o'clock and that bowl was completely filled with candy.  This morning when I went downstairs the bowl was completely empty. Not one single jellybean in it.

Me:  Are you taking Ambien or anything like that?

AC:  You are the third person to ask me that today!

Me:  Well,  they say people who take that sleep- eat and sleep- drive.  Is it possible you went downstairs at night to eat them?

AC:  I asked myself that , but I've never done it before.  I have to keep explaining it to everyone so they know I'm not just crazy.  the bowl was filled last night and was completely empty this morning. I thought someone came in the house while I was asleep and ate all the jellybeans, but that doesn't make sense. Now, I'm not sure which is more disturbing, that someone came in or something.

Me:  It just seems crazy that a tiny little mouse managed to take every bean out of the bowl and leave no trace. Was the bowl disturbed? Not a single piece of candy on the floor?  Nothing?

AC:  No, the bowl was exactly where it was. The bananas weren't touched. Every single jelly bean was gone. That's 175 jellybeans, because I bought another bag today and that's how many are in it.  This morning, I saw it, gasped and then I got ready so fast, grabbed my stuff and got out of here. All I could think was that the mouse should have gone to sleep in his nest after he spent the whole night running back and forth hiding those jellybeans, but instead, he's all hopped up on the sugar and going nuts. I couldn't stay in the house.

It turns out that she called a handyman from the driveway, after she evacuated the house as quickly as she could. He couldn't make it there until tomorrow. So, she called an exterminator and he went this afternoon.  At first he said he couldn't imagine a mouse doing all of that. Later he said he saw a video of a mouse that systematically emptied a bowl/plate/dish of something, one piece at a  time, over the course of a night. He filled every nook and cranny in the house (after my aunt has spent the last 25 plus years filling every tiny crack she's ever seen with steel wool and some kind of mouse preventive powder before she caulked them closed) with peanut butter flavored poison cubes. Now, she's afraid it will just attract more mice.

I'm afraid of what this mouse will look like. I'm picturing human looking hands and, well, now he's got to be morbidly obese. He ate three/four times his weight in jellybeans last night.

Yikes!  Just yikes!

The Bait and Tackle Shop

It was another Friday night in the sun room, drinking summery drinks and getting silly while we enjoyed the glow of the palm tree and flames licking up in the fireplace.  Now, the sun room is 3 walls that are mostly window and one wall that's, well, wall.  There were a lot of nails to hang things, but all pretty low on the one, the only wall from when we moved in.  Mickey had an old girlfriend who must have really gotten into Americana, because he hung some little flaggy thing on every nail. He admired his handiwork, informing me how pleased he was, because it looked just like a gift shop.

I don't collect anything I have to dust or clean. I just plain refuse. Yes, I collect books. Now, that my bookshelves and all the extra new bookshelves in the new house are filled to the brim, I collect nook books. I really never have to dust them!  Okay, I have two walls of our coat closet have bags displayed on them. But, these are useful things, so I don't think they count.

Little by little, we've been switching over from the Americana.   The sun room looks out at the pool area and our pretty patio with the outdoor kitchen and I love all of that. I had a box of my mom's old stuff and she was decorating with a lot of palm trees and lighthouses.  Mickey started putting the lighthouses on the tables and the high window ledges of the room.  A few framed pictures, of lighthouses and other seashore like designs got hung up there as well.  Lately we added a painted seashell I got in Wildwood and a Palm tree ornament he picked up for me.  

As we are sitting enjoying the ambiance of our happy cozy little sun room, Mickey looks around and suggests that we hand crab and lobster traps, maybe some fishnets in the room.  As I look at him like he's grown a second head, he says, "it'll be just like a bait and tackle shop."  Now, that's how he refers to it.  I told him that I draw the line at worms!

In his defense, he loves my mermaid painting and  it is now framed and displayed in the sun room. 

In My Next Life...

This morning, in an email from BBC America there was an article about the most British names for celebrities and it was awesome! You can find it here.  Do not skip the comments. There are so many more awesomely wonderfully British names in it! Of course, the number one name is Benedict Cumberbatch. I swear, I could walk around all day just chanting that name.  If I could find my ex-husband, I would tell him that when he hits his next identity crisis, he should totally change his name to Cumberbatch.  I'd even consider remarrying him (albeit incredibly briefly) just to take the name.

Of course, being all about the having of cake AND eating of same, I would not for a second consider leaving my sexy Latin lover, Francisco! I'd marry him in an instant and do it for keepsies!!

Mickey and Jammie: Under the Influence

Under the Influence

So, Mickey and I were having our Friday night Happy Hour, enjoying the snow falling in our sun room. The room was mostly dark, with the only light coming from the fireplace, the palm tree and the back patio light to show the snowfall.  We were drinking summery drinks to fool ourselves about the outside temperature and, as usual, we were getting kind of silly.

Mickey had lasik vision correction surgery a couple of weeks ago and he's not only getting used to being able to see far ( he only wore his glasses at night for driving and to watch tv), he has to get used to not being able to see as well up close.  He's been on a reading glasses mission, trying to find the right quantity, style, placement around the house and magnification. We got into a discussion about reading glasses and bifocals, etc.  It started fairly normally, for that conversation, and then it got weird, as many episodes of the Mickey and Jammie show do.

Mickey insists to people that I wear bifocal contact lenses, which don't actually exist. No matter how many times I explain multifocal lenses and monovision correction, and all the other things I, quietly, use to see the best I possibly can, he goes around making loud declarations about bifocal contact lenses.  No one really cares about the correct details, so I just nod and smile and let him say whatever.  But, at home, alone, we tend to have more detailed conversations.

Mickey:  Are your glasses bifocals?
Jam:  No. They are single vision?  The difference is too small to bother with bifocals.  I just slide them down my nose when I need to see better up close.
Mickey:  How does that work?
Jam:  My glasses prescription is different from my contact lens prescription because of  the distance between the lens and my eyeball.  So, I can kind of change the way I see by adjusting my glasses.  I'll be fine this way... until I run out of nose, I guess.  Then, the eye doctor will have to write a prescription for bifocals, I  guess.
Mickey:  You could always get a nose job.

The Mickey and Jammie Show, Episode 1

My Mickey says the darndest things. It's just a tiny little piece of his great big charm.  The fact that we find ourselves laughing uncontrollably over the most ridiculous things, never ceases to amaze us.  Between my theories about the way things should be and Mickey's self-described "outside of the box thinking" we definitely keep each other amused.

About a month before we made settlement on the new house, we were trying to figure out how we were going to put the furniture. I had a houseful of new and pretty furniture, but the new house is considerably bigger.  Of course, I had girl sized electronics and an entertainment center that they fit in.  Mickey has one of those jumbo flat screen tvs that definitely didn't fit into the 4 foot or so hole in the center of my wall unit.  Therefore, the wall unit would not be part of the new family room.  That left the living room, where we weren't considering putting a television (although, even after we gave a few of them away, we were still overstocked with tvs).  From that line of thinking the following conversation occurred.

Mickey:  We can put the entertainment center in our room.  We'll put it on the wall opposite our bed.

Me:  But, it's so big and doesn't really match the bedroom set.  Do you really think that would work?

Mickey:  Yeah, it'll be great. Our bedroom will look just like a motel room.

Me:  .........

I mean, really, there are just no words.  This was the first of many conversations in which my wonderful and very loved boyfriend wanted our bedroom or parts of our house to resemble extremely nontraditional home decor schemes.  Who dreams of making their bedroom look like a motel room?  Not a room at a fancy resort, or even a hotel, for Pete's sake, but a motel room.  

First Meetings

Freshman year of college at good old GSC is filled with almost as many memories I've held onto and cherished as those I've blocked out... or at least tried to. It was an exciting year.

I was young when I started college and even young for my age. I'd been pretty sheltered and my parents probably took great pride in the fact that they'd protected me from so many "evils".  And then I went to college. The freedom! The Possibilities! It was all so thrilling and heady and the pull of adventure was strong.  Of course, there was also plenty of down time. Those moments when boredom set in and a girl just wasn't sure what to do with herself.

It was one of those times.  Bone and I were bored and not sure what to do next. We wound up walking off campus, up the road to the Wawa where we wandered the store in search of, we knew not what.  We wound up buying a jar/can of chocolate cake frosting.  Once back at that dorm, we didn't feel like being cooped up in the room so, we grabbed a couple of spoons, popped the top off the frosting and headed out into the hallway. We were quiet, for Bone this was exceptionally odd, just walking down the hall, taking turns scooping out spoonfuls of frosting.

About halfway down the hall, we saw two blonde girls come out of the laundry room and look our way.  One of the girls, looked at us and said, "We've got some peanut butter in our room." and turned and headed the other direction.

We followed them down the hall and into their dorm room, still not speaking.  Then, we stood around, four girls eating peanut butter and chocolate frosting.  Introductions came some moments later.   That was the first time we met Monko and Chauncey and began a decades long friendship. The next semester we became sorority sisters and the school year after that we rented a house on Eben Street, where we became 4 of the infamous nine Eben Street Girls.  To this day, no matter the distance or the time spent apart, we are all still the Eben Street Girls and their friendships are some of my most cherished.

I can't remember the day I met Bone. I'm sure it was at the Hot Spot on the boardwalk in Wildwood, but it never stuck with me as much of a momentous occasion. Those all came afterward as we navigated the good and bad adventures and dramas that we faced together.  Now, we've reached the years where we've begun losing parents.  Two of the girls have each lost one and both of mine died far too young. It didn't occur to me that we'd bury each other, at least not for a really long time.  In some ways I feel like that same 17 year old girl who started college all those years ago.

I know that we aren't really going to all be 90 year old bitties rocking on a porch somewhere together.  Then heading in for our chandeliers quarters game, although, we might have to switch out the beer for prune juice some days.  At least that's the idea you get from watching tv now, but that's a story for another time.  I really did think we were far too young to even consider this as a possibility.  The being little old ladies someday was a fanciful little joke between women young enough to not feel any reality in it.  We're certainly too young to be saying our final goodbyes to each other.  And yet.  Less than a week ago I went to my first Eben Street Girl funeral.  I certainly hope it is the last for a very long time.

Rest in Peace, Boneman

I met Bone when I was 16 years old. She was the loudest, most boisterous person I've ever known.  When we wound up at college together, we became very close and remained so for years.  It wasn't always easy, but it was always interesting.  Bone was a year older than I and an inch taller, which when you are 5'3" as opposed to 5'2" I guess you get bragging rights.

Over the years we went to school together, we took road trips and vacations together, we worked together. Not all of those all at the same time, but we spent a lot of time in each other's lives. Bone was with me the night I met my ex-husband. She was maid of honor in our wedding.  I'm still working at the law office job she found for me.

At some point, our lives diverged drastically.  As she started to spiral out of control and away from the world we'd usually companionably shared, I started to go in the other direction, I got married, went back to school, bought a house and raised a dog. The split must have been hard for her in a way I couldn't understand.  In her opinion, the direction I was headed was like an assault against her.  It wasn't. How could it have been?  What way she took her life was totally up to her and I would've been her conscience and cheerleader as I'd always been if she was looking to improve her lot in life.  And, even though she sat 40 hours a week, about 10 feet from me, she took the path I'd least like to travel on some seriously rough roads, without anyone knowing just how much trouble she was in.  Then, one day, she just stood up, and walked out the door. No goodbyes, no looking back, literally.

When it was obvious that I was the focus of her anger I let her slip away.  When she was doing her worst, it was better for me. When she was doing better, I didn't think it was healthy for her.  She identified me with the ways things went wrong for her.

For the last 10 years or so, she's been in and out of trouble, as well as in and out of her friends' lives.  Until last week, when I got word that she was gone, forever.  It didn't really matter how long we'd been estranged. Bone and her family had been part of my life for twice as long as they hadn't (if that makes any sense).  I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that she's really gone.  Despite the darkest parts of our history, I like the idea that she was still out there, and I really wanted things to get better for her.

On the most dismal day imaginable, unseasonably cold, gray and rainy I drove the hour plus to the shore to say a final goodbye to Boneman and pay my respects to her family. I can not possibly describe just how terribly sad the day was.  I spent some time talking to her family and the couple of shore friends who were there. With each conversation, I pieced together the heartbreakingly sad tale of a life wasted.  She was a woman in so much pain, she spent every day trying to find oblivion, all while trying to convince herself and every one she spoke to that she was doing better and going to pull herself out of the hole she'd wound up in. At that point, it didn't matter how she'd got there, whose fault it was that she'd fallen so far.  All that mattered was that she couldn't see a way out and slowly, but surely she found one. Not with intention, though.  She was just trying to escape the pain she was feeling right then, just as she'd been doing for months. She succeeded all too well.  That was not the success I'd hoped she'd have.