Sundays with Stretchy Pants

And I like tattoos. My friend Kristen just got her first-ever tattoo. If you follow me on Twitter, you know she regrets not getting inked while she was in prison, but now she has no regrets. Her tattoo is beautiful. And I don’t use that word lightly. I only use it for things that are truly beautiful, like donuts delivered right to your door. Oh, and babies. Some babies are beautiful. All of mine were. Some of yours probably are, too. Anyway, Kristen’s tattoo is beautiful. And now I want a new one.

I have a dumb cherub on my shoulder. It needs to die. When I was at Thrill Vulture with Kristen, I searched and searched for something  that I liked enough to cover up that cherub. I asked myself, “What do you like? Why don’t you know what you like?” I finally realized that I like faith and I like humor. While faith lends itself naturally to the tattoo art, humor really doesn’t, which is a bummer.

So me and Jesus? We tight. But, I don’t know if you can tell by reading my blog, I’m not really comfortable with Christianity as a whole. I have some issues. Issues with trust and with people and with arbitrariness and with, oh, lots of stuff. In spite of my many, many issues, I think I’m going to go with the classic nice-looking cross with one of my favorite verses on it. Here are my choices:

John 8:7  Jesus says, “What, like you’ve never done a shit thing? Line up, we’re gonna stone you too. That’s what I thought. Don’t be a dick.“

Matthew 7:1 Jesus says, “Dude, you’re an ass, too. I can say that about people because I’m the Son of God, but you can’t say that cuz you suck. Don’t be a dick.“

Matthew 5:3-12 “It’s so much more awesome to not be a dick than it is to be a dick.“

Romans 14:22 “Believe stuff, but don’t be a dick about it.”

I’m not sure what translation that is. I think maybe it’s the “Jesus, what’s your favorite curse word?” edition by James Lipton from “Inside the Actor’s Studio.”  Jesus’ favorite curse word is absolutely “dick.” Or maybe “Jesus H. Christ.” Either way.

So now I’m saving my pennies and looking at tats. I suppose I could always go with Snowman Jesus, but I don’t want to offend anyone. People are touchy about that kind of thing.

Our hamster died several days ago. Maybe a month ago, but nobody paid any attention to the thing so we’re not really sure how long ago. I discovered Choji lifeless in his cage while I was doing laundry. Usually I can hear him burrowing around or biting on his cage, but I didn’t hear him at all. So I kicked the cage. When he didn’t peek up at me with his beady little rat eyes, I summoned Bryan because I do not play with dead animals. He had only days before extracted a dead possum from under our porch, so I knew he’d know what to do. He poked at Choji and reported, “He’s really stiff. And kind of deflated.” I gagged and ran away. We couldn’t tell the kids right away for a couple of reasons. 1. It was very near bedtime and I knew Maya would use it as an excuse to stay up forever and I couldn’t just say, “Yeah, I know you’re sad, but go to bed!” 2. I couldn’t say it with a straight face. I might have been a little bit happy.

So we waited a couple of hours while I rehearsed in the mirror and Bryan put Maya to bed. Then we told Lena and Liberty. Liberty said, “That’s ok, I was kind of sick of him anyway.” Lena cried a little bit and then, Digital Native that she is, said, “I’m going to make a slideshow of Choji and put a sad song on it and post it on my blog and my Facebook.” She’s very proud of it, so I’m posting it here, too. By the way, when she posted it on Facebook and received condolences, she responded, “Yeah I miss Choji, but doesn’t the song go good with the slideshow?” I can’t wait to see what she does with my funeral.

In the morning when we told Maya, rather, when we remembered to tell Maya, she cried a tiny bit. We had the funeral that night and she cried more. Choji’s death has made her more concerned about when our cat Kisa dies or when Kristen’s dog Rudy dies, though. She wonders how they’ll bury a big old lab, she wonders if we’ll get another cat (yes), and all three girls want to get another hamster. ??? The answer is no. We will all just have to wallow in our grief over our one and only rodent. I will never miss seeing him put his butt up against the cage in order to pee or poop outside of his nest. That just ain’t right. I can deal with a lot of things, but an ugly, smelly rodent is not one of them.

April is just a month full of celebrating around here. Well, celebrating and saying things like, “Really? Is this how old we are? Do we have kids who are going to be 10 years old on Friday? And did we just celebrate our 13th anniversary on Monday? There must be something wrong with the maths.”

The maths are wrong, baby, cuz your hotness is rockin’!

Easter was lovely, except it needs to last much longer so my family can stay much longer and we can have, like, an 8-day feast instead of a weekend binge where we drink and eat too much and hurt ourselves. If we knew it would last longer, we could pace ourselves. I promise we would pace ourselves. My sister and I discovered that it doesn’t really matter what kind of wine a person drinks. If that person drinks too much of it, that person’s belly gets mad at them and punishes them. In other words, it’s not the quality, it’s the quantity. My sister-in-law is wise and she knew that already. She and my brother and brother-in-law, along with Bryan, were able to go to the Ohio Deli (as seen on Man vs Food!) and eat and eat on Saturday, while my sister and my mom and I stayed with the kids. Well, my mom stayed with the kids. Tracey and I just laid around and said, “Shhhh!” But now we know. Damn.

My Columbus friends were able to meet my family and that was lovely. I felt like I should be more nervous about it for some reason, but I wasn’t because Kristen, Dawn and Lynne are just Ohio versions of me, my sister and my sister-in-law. I don’t branch out much in my friendships. And the husbands? All of the husbands are beaten down by perfect matches for their loud and lovely wives, so we love all of them, too. Even my brother. I never found the bellybutton lint he hid here, but I have a feeling he hid it on my pillow. Just thinking about it gives me chills. Or, maybe he unscrewed the screen on the showerhead and put it in there so I shower in lint leavings every morning. Ew!

With that, I’ll leave you with another disturbing image. Everybody knows that My L1ttle Ponies love Easter. I just didn’t know how much they love it until I walked in the bathroom and found this little filly enjoying Maya’s Easter basket. In front of the mirror. Seriously, H@sbro, who designs your baskets*?

*I didn’t buy this basket. My mother-in-law bought it for Maya 2 or 3 years ago. I didn’t even notice what the little pony was doing until I saw her watching herself in the mirror with that look in her eye.

P.S. Don’t ask me what Maya’s basket was doing in the bathroom. Nobody wants to know.

Yes, the baby is fat, but look at that bathroom! Isn’t it gross? But still, I turned out ok. Sort of.  I say this because we’re buying a house with awesomely dated bathrooms. Maybe. You never know until you actually close. We have a closing date (March 19th), time, and location, so we’ll probably close. But still. It’s a great house, great location, just a little dated. The bathrooms are especially dated, with seashell-shaped sinks in one of them. The other one has a dark brown toilet. And those bathrooms always make me think of that old bathroom in that picture up there.

Oh, and! There’s a Florida room. My friends and I get to play Golden Girls in it. I get to be Betty White because she always had a story about back in St. Olaf and I always have a story about back in Chesaning. I’ll let those of you who know Lynne, Kristen, and Dawn guess who gets to be lusty Blanche, straight-talking, offensive Sophia, and steady-eddie Dorothy. It’s hard to pick because they’re all so slutty and offensive!

Anyway, I’m packing. All the time packing.

I’m trying to blog but I keep getting distracted by Mario Kart. And I’ve been doing laundry, making food, and packing for the unschoolers conference thingy at Kalahari. And Maya puked a couple of days ago so I had to snuggle on the couch.  And Kristen’s son broke his arm yesterday so I had to fret over that. And I have nothing to say, but I usually don’t let that stop me. I looked for a funny video for you, but I couldn’t find one. Why isn’t anybody making funny videos anymore?

We’re going to the Unschooler’s Winter Water Gathering at Kalahari Resort  tomorrow morning with some of the weekly potluckers and other locals, so that’s fun.  Dawn has to work, but we’re making her son come with us because our children cannot bear the void caused by Noah’s absence.

Oh, I know! I read this book called I See the Moon by C. B. Christiansen and I got choked up on every single page and then I cried through the last 3 chapters. It’s about a 12-year-old girl whose 15-year-old sister is pregnant and placing the baby for adoption. The little sister dreams of being an aunt and she’s so excited and she wants to be just like her favorite aunt who now has dementia and it’s just so sad. Every page. Read it and tell me what you think. But lower your expectations because when I finally got around to seeing the movie Titanic, I did not shed a tear. For weeks everybody kept saying, “It’s sooooo sad! Bring a whole box of tissues!” And then it was soooo lame except for the musicians’ continued playing and the images of the old people and parents and children holding each other on the bed and waiting to drown. That part was sad. Oh, and the part where Rose didn’t die. That was sad, too. Don’t judge me.

Anyway, that book was sad, but maybe you won’t cry. It doesn’t mean you’re cold and dead inside. Probably.