See that group of people? We go back. Further than high school. Further than grade school. My brothers and sister are in that group. I’ve known them all their lives. The others? They shared cribs and playpens with my siblings. I babysat them. I changed and fed them. We lived next door to each other, around the corner. We knocked on bedroom walls and giggled in the middle of the night.

I remembered my brother’s first kiss with Debbie. We teased that they would marry someday. Instead they ended up going to prom together.

I remember Anthony eating worms and sticking turtles in his pants.

I was jealous of the Barbie’s and accessories that Donna and Diane had. I had a knock-off  ’fashion doll’.

I played wiffleball with all of those boys in the playground behind our houses.

See the guy front and center in the dark hoodie? His name is Joe and he is the baby. He will be 40 on his next birthday…..if he sees his next birthday.

Joe has cancer. His bills have started rolling in and his insurance has just ended. Isn’t that the way things like this happen? We threw a beef and beer to raise money for those bills.  Tickets were sold out. Raffles and gift auctions raised even more.  There was lots of dancing and drinking and laughter. And food! Good Lord, I’ve never seen so much food! Almost all of it was gone by the end of the night.

More than the money, Joe’s spirits were raised. It’s been forever since all of us were gathered in one room. We hugged each other repeatedly and caught ourselves just staring across the room at each other, smiling with memory.

I remembered our mothers as being taller. Now they are beginning to bend with age. I remembered seeing them coming home after a ‘date night’ with their husbands, slightly flushed and tipsy. Now…..wow, how time flies.

As the holidays come, we will gather with our own families. Maybe one or two will show up at another’s home. We promised to get together more often, but will we? I hate the thought that the next time we will be together, one of us will be missing…..not just somewhere else, but gone.

But damn, it was cool to be little kids again…….if only in our memories.

Okay, so yesterday I was a bitch. I mean BITCH. I was annoyed at everything. All that stuff going on with Penn State was everywhere….Facebook, Twitter and television. I flicked off the television.   I logged off of fb.  I was on Twitter for a bit. It was nice chatting with everyone and taking my mind off of the craving that was slowly grinding away at my willpower. I walked away from the laptop and cleaned the kitchen. I came back and got some support and left again to clean the bathroom. Back and forth I went, twitter and clean, twitter and clean.

Around three-ish, I hit the craving of a lifetime. I decided to light a candle and read for a bit. It took me six matches to light that wick. I needed to go into the office for a second pack. There on the desk was an opened pack of cigarettes.  I reached for it and looked inside.

Four cigarettes.

I could easily take one. God knows, I wanted it bad enough. But I didn’t because of something I had read earlier on Twitter. “I gave in and smoked. I will try again tomorrow”. My smoke buddy had fallen. I had answered her comment with “We can do this!”  Remembering that, I broke the smokes and threw them away.

Hubs came home a short time later. It was his bad luck to come in just as another craving struck me.

“Motherfucker! You left cigarettes here! Were you trying to tempt me or test me?!! Wait, don’t answer me! I don’t want to know. I hate you right now!”

He apologized profusely. He couldn’t say enough.

I cursed him up and down. I wouldn’t let him say a word. He asked where paperwork was. I told him to look for himself. He asked if the mail had come. I asked if he saw it on his desk. I made him chicken for dinner. I made it the one way he dislikes it, and I was happy about that.

I hated myself for acting this way. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t do anything to deserve this. I wanted to kick my own ass.

He went out after dinner to check on something. He came home after an hour and went to his office. He took a shower and sat next to me on the couch. Just looking at him I could feel that switch flip again. All the sorrow I felt for being a bitch disappeared. I wanted a fight again.

Before I could do something I’d regret, I wanted a shower. I hoped that I could wash away the anger. But a shower meant wetting my hair and that was just one more thing that I didn’t want to deal with.  I looked into the bathroom and was overcome with a sudden desire for a  BATH. I began to run the water.

In my old house, I had one of those big, deep bathtubs on claw feet. I would take a bath as often as possible. Candle, music, head pillow…..the whole nine yards. When we moved, I was once again the owner of a standard tub. It wasn’t as deep. The water barely covered my boobs. My chest and shoulders get cold while the rest of me soaks. I gave up the baths in favor of showers.

Tonight, however, I wanted that bath more than anything….except a cigarette. The peach scented bubble bath I used to use had a layer of dust on it. I no longer have the bath pillow. Undeterred, I poured in the bubbles and watched them foam up.

It smelled heavenly. My body began to relax before I finished undressing. I eased myself in…..and floated away. The candle added an undertone of vanilla to the peach steam filling the room. I lay in the tub soaking, basking in the warmth. After about forty-five minutes, I was pruney enough and tried to get out of the water. No bath mat plus bubble bath equals a slippery tub. I needed help so I called for Hubs.

“I need someone to hang onto. It’s too slippery and I’m afraid that I’ll fall.”

He came into the bathroom and placed a towel on the side of the tub. I pulled myself up and began to step out of the water. He held my arm with one hand and reached for a second towel with his other hand. I was totally out of the shower and he began to gently dry my body. It felt so good. I was like putty.

“I didn’t leave those cigarettes on purpose. I’m sorry you felt like I let you down.”

“No, I’m sorry I took things out on you. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was itching for a fight and you were the closest  to me. I’m sorry.”

We kissed and moved into the bedroom.

Because Babygirl still reads my posts, I will spare her the details of what her parents did next. (made love…LOL)

This is the reward for thirty-one years of marriage. He can take what I dish out. Today I was a raving lunatic. This will get better. I know it will. It will pass.

But our love for each other will not pass.

I am his lunatic.

Truth-I hate housework.

Consequence-I tried to fit something in my cabinet and discovered that the shelf liner had been pushed to the back, thus creating a lump that took up space. My ‘full’ cabinet wasn’t as full as I thought. Now I have to clean my cabinets.

Truth-Boredom is my eating trigger.

Consequence-I find myself getting bored and then I pace. Suddenly I look up and realize that I am in the kitchen looking for a snack. This is horrible because my house has lots of chips, cookies, ice cream and candy. I am not the only that eats that stuff so I can’t just hide it or stop keeping it in the house.

Truth-I like to cook.

Consequence-I made two different things to eat for dinner (for myself) and there are leftovers that just don’t taste the same when they’ve been frozen. Now that my desire to cook and eat them has been fulfilled, I find myself looking at the leftovers thinking “I have to eat that before it gets bad.”

Truth- I started smoking again in July. The fact that Hubs knew and was buying me the cigarettes, made me feel less guilty. Less guilty=smoking more.

Consequences- I started the patch on Monday in order to quit. Today is Day 3, or is it #4? I don’t know and I don’t care. I am bitchy as hell. I am cleaning my house, cooking, and eating.

But not smoking……so I guess there’s that.

As my husband’s business partner, I deal with a myriad of things. I send out emails, write up the billing, catch the faxes that come and go, and search the internet for supplies that are hard to find at our local supply houses. The most important thing, however, is answering the phone. I am the voice of the company. Customers call me to ask if this is the correct business for their needs. They call when they electrical emergencies and even for something as trivial as flipping a switch on their fuse boxes.

Today, I got a call from a guy who needed to reschedule an appointment. This isn’t usually a big deal. It wasn’t a big deal in this case either. The big deal stemmed from the attitude I subjected to.

This condescending asshat used words like ‘honey’ and ‘sweetie’. There was also, the “Can he call me between 2 and 3? Not earlier because I’ll be at lunch and not later, because I’ll be going home. I don’t take calls because I will be working at home this evening.”  Worst of all, he said “I’m sure that you can have him call me back. I’d rather talk to him. I’m pretty sure that you’re not the one who can tell me what the scheduling looks like.”

EXCUSE ME?

This guy doesn’t know me from Adam. Who calls a business and talks to the employees like this? Just because we are a small business, it doesn’t give a person the right to assume so much. I guess he doesn’t realize that I wrote his number on a napkin which I promptly used to blow my nose. Too bad his last name was a little too complicated for me to remember. Oh, and as for the Friday afternoon appointment? Hubs will be enticed to stay with me for a little ‘afternoon delight’ and on Saturday, we may need to visit the baby.

Hey, guy! Find someone else to put your fancy flat screen on the wall for you. You wouldn’t be the first one I’ve kicked to the curb. Even millionaires need to learn a little respect when they call this company. We have a reputation for being clean, polite and respectful to all of our customers. We only ask for the same in return.

Alas, poor blog, I have again been neglectful. However, I must beg your forgiveness for this time, it was neither mere laziness nor lack of inspiration. It was an event so momentous that it will change my life forever.

I have become a grandmother.

Shortly after the last post, while raking, Hubs stumbled upon a nest of wasps. In their anger, they stung him 8-10 times in the back of his left shoulder. In his haste to pull off the shirt, he tweaked his tendonitis and damaged rotator cuff. This meant a week of taking him to the doctor and MRIs and x-rays. Next stop will be orthopedist because we fear that stings have exacerbated damage that we have ignored for many years.

As we were coming to terms with all of that, we were also awaiting the birth of the grandson. Babygirl came home for her 20th birthday, and we took her out for a family dinner. Shenanigans came too and she broke the news that she had been having contractions for the past 24 hours. We were so excited. Son1 had even been running errands and doing his soccer coaching with her emergency  bag in the back of his car! Two days after dinner, we got a call that she was at the hospital.

Oh the excitement!! It was 6:30am.  I rushed to shower and change. Hubs rushed to get a job started so that he could be available when it was time for us to go to the hospital. The phone rang at 11. The doctor was sending Shenanigans home because she wasn’t quite done baking. The adrenaline crash was maddening.

The following days were spent making sure that the house was clean, that laundry was done and meals were ready in anticipation of a sudden day spent with Son1. Doctor visits occurred on Tuesday and Thursday and still, the doctor said she wasn’t ready. Thursday’s appointment even included pre-op forms to prepare for inducing labor on Halloween.

I was sitting home on Friday, relaxing with a book and a cup of coffee. It was cooling off and the weathermen were calling for snow–IN OCTOBER! What a rare occurrence! The phone rang at 3, dragging me from the book. Son1 was heading to the hospital straight from work. Shenanigans had gone to the hospital at noon and didn’t call anyone until she had made sure that it was time. This time, her water had broken and things were starting to progress. I called Hubs, texted Babygirl and Son2 and by 5, I was headed to the hospital.

Son kept us informed. “She’s getting an epidural now.” “It’s progressing nicely” “Can you pick up Jazzy?”

WHAT??

Jazzy had been in school when her mom left the house. She was with her Pop-Pop and was waiting for word about her new brother. We raced to get her through the rain which had started, past our own home, to Son1′s house. She jumped into the car, and told us how excited she was. And then I got a text.

“He’s here!!”

We made our way back to the nursery and signed in. We were ushered to a room where we found my son, cradling his own son in his arms. He looked at me and tears began streaming down his cheeks. “He’s beautiful Mommy!  Jazzy, come see your brother!”

This is Logan Gibson Hutton. He is only one hour old.

I beheld a perfect little boy, his eyes wide and alert. His head turned to follow my son’s voice as he moved around the room. Shenanigans was glowing, even in her discomfort and exhaustion.  The love in the room was almost overwhelming.

With a great effort, we dragged ourselves away to leave the little family to bond together. Snow had begun in earnest and it would continue for the next ten hours. We went to dinner to celebrate and have a few drinks.

As we sat at the bar, one of our favorite bartenders came over and said “I haven’t seen you guys in a while. What’s new?” And then it happened…….

I became that grandmother…..

“Let me show you a picture of my new grandson…..”

Now I need a bumper sticker and a shirt that states “Ask me about my grandkid.”

Oh Lord, SAVE ME FROM MYSELF!!!!