Puss in Boots

Well it is still March and I am posting again. I have lots of ammo because I have just returned from my parents house where NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS. While there, I attended a going-away costume party. I wore my red cowgirl boots, some cat ears, and a tail, so I was "Puss in Boots." My friends went as the cast of Brokeback Mountain (complete with stuffed sheep) and won the "Most Creative" award. During their acceptance speech they dedicated it to me because it was my idea. One of the guys had to be tricked into dressing up like a gay cowboy (he thought he was going as "Bud" -- as in "Bud & Sissy" from Urban Cowboy).

ION ...

I am wearing glasses ALL THE TIME now because next week my eye doctor is making a topographical map of my corneas in order to determine whether or not I am a candidate for lasik. I was very disappointed that I had to wear spectacles to a costume party, but, surprisingly, I had fun anyway.

It was the other aspects of my trip home that were ... ummm ... trying. First, The Goose got a cold and coughed all night every night which is what he always does in an attempt to get his grandmothers fired up about bird flu and the fact that we have chickens. Everytime we go to grandmas he coughs and of course I have to deal with all of this grandmotherly concern about his bronchials and allergies and humidity and mold and my mother's best line of the whole weekend, "I'm just gonna HAVE to get a better maid ... this house must be DUSTY."

Second, just before we arrived my dad poured gasoline in a mud puddle in my parents yard and forgot to warn me about this. The Goose of course got in the puddle and it was the biggest mess you have ever seen. Who pours gasoline in mud puddles??? Why would anyone pour gasoline in a mud puddle. This kills me. Besides a grandson, they have a CAT for crying out loud.

And then on Sunday I took him to their church. Lord help us all. I have gotten to where I hate going back to my hometown because I hate the pressure to "go see so and so." My Dad has always liked to show me off and now it's double trouble because of The Goose. So I practically have to go through a receiving line at church and this is so very painful. It is even more painful when you have a writhing 18 month old who is STARVING and anxious and exhausted from coughing all night. When we arrived at the child-care area we were met by approximately 14 women oohing and ahhing about how he was "just too perty to be a boy." And then I happened to have parked by Jill & Daryl Mabry (not their real names). I really was having to ask myself WWJD, because what took place as I was trying to get the heck out of Dodge nearly put me in the hospital. Here's how the conversation went:

Jill: Well look what the cat drug up and she's got that perty baby.

Kim: Yes, he's 18 months now, and quite the handful, as you can see. (Picture The Goose writhing and screaming in my arms as I try to carefully walk in my open-toed two-inch heels with FROZEN feet -- my mother was quite disappointed that I had to wear my glasses and asked that apply a little extra blush and lipstick to make up for it.)

Jill: Do y'all still live in Xville? You know who used to live there, right? She went to that big Baptist church over on X Parkway. Did you see my grandbabies here in the back of the van? (Picture me straining to hear any of this because The Goose has now ripped my glasses off my face and flung them. They land underneath the Mabry's front passenger tire just as Darryl puts the van in reverse. I am legally blind without my glasses and was suffering from temporary deafness due to the screaming.)

Darryl: Do y'all still live on that plantation?Isn't that off of X Road?

Kim: Ummm ... I can't, ummm, really talk because of ... well, as you can see, I sorta have my hands full. The Goose has now head butted me by using his back-arch move in an attempt to get down and carouse the parking lot. My blood pressure is skyrocketting. My mother is standing there smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding, smiling and nodding.

***********************************************

Maybe that doesn't really sound as annoying as it really was. It was really really annoying to have someone trying to talk to me while I have this screaming baby. I cannot stand crying. I just cannot stand it. I can't function when there is crying going on. I am getting an IUD because of this.

Y'all, I grew up there but that place is insane. They don't even have leash laws. You walk down the road and all these dogs come out and follow you around. It's insane. It's totally insane. And then there's the Mabry's. And it's a dry county and the liquor stores are not open on Sunday and so I couldn't just go get a drink and anyway I had to drive back here after church and I seriously thought I was going to disintegrate into a big heap of Sinaberry hair with a pair of glasses poised precariously on top. Luckily The Goose slept for an enormous time period on the way home. I drove 90 in the rain just to get out of there faster. Do y'all think that's healthy? Safe? Sane?

I do not care.

Here is a cheesorama picture of The Goose. Delicious.

That's all for now. See you next month.