keep passing the open windows

A post that Jadegirl wrote made me think about my own situation with my kids’ paternal grandfather, Larry.
Larry has always been an asshole. My husband did not have an easy childhood; his parents divorced when he was young, then remarried; Larry was a drug addict, often unemployed and often cruel to my husband and his [...]

Friday night I met some friends for dinner at the Rhythm Kitchen. One woman, an engineer at Cat, is selling her house, quitting her job, and going to Australia for four months before returning to the states and seeking a job in the Chicago area. Wow.
Almost a bigger “Wow” [...]

Watching a program about obsessive compulsive disorder, I glanced around our messy living room and told my husband “I bet you wish I had OCD, then our house would finally be clean.” Chris’s reply: “No, but how about obsessive compulsive fellatio disorder?”
“But, honey, what about when Fred comes to fix a blown fuse* and [...]

Shouldn’t “Family Feud” really be “Families’ Feud?” Because, really it’s not a feud between the members of one family, but 2 families feuding against one another…
And where do they get the random hundred people they question? Are there 100 people employed just to give random answers? If so, I think I’d [...]

Yesterday afternoon I walked to the nearby grocery store to buy a snack; approaching the lane, the cashier was absent and a case of cheap beer was sitting, waiting to be bagged. Shortly the cashier returned with a customer in tow…a haggard, booze laden older woman, carrying a giant bottle of ibuprofen and clutching [...]

When I was young I rarely swore. I had this hoity toity idea that it made one sound stupid, that it showed a lack of command of the English language. Lately, I’ve been letting the “Damn!’s” fly; I’ve also grown to love the word “douche bag,” a term I used to cringe at [...]

Recently I had a job interview at a local mass
merchant of books. Actually, two interviews. The
first, with an assistant manager, asked me typical
questions about past employment, my interest in books,
and asked me to “sell her” their awards card. I
mentioned my book club and then froze on the title of
the last book, [...]

Sunday’s paper had an article about a local “Purity Ball.” Basically, it’s an evening for girls and their fathers, in which the girls present their dad with “the key to their hearts” and the dads give the daughters chlamydia. (Oh, crap, I just veered into Sarah Silverman territory, didn’t I?)
The key is [...]

The other day I noticed the lack of a front license plate on my husband’s car. I mentioned it to him and he said “I’m not going to put it on.”
Uh, what? Isn’t it the law in the state of IL?
And his justification is:
“I don’t want to….” (follow the law.)
“It’s stupid”
“You won’t get [...]

My son is almost 14 and while I miss the lovely enthusiasm of toddlerhood, I also appreciate the depth of our conversations and his sarcastic sense of humor and sardonic wit. We have also developed a number of sayings that serve as a sort of personal shorthand, such as:
“Here take the magic stones, they [...]