As Susan left for work this morning she went to hug her son goodbye and ended up throwing stuff and calling him a f*cking *sshole.

It's been two entire days since Susan drank any liquor or ate any goodies.

The absence of liquor is completely unintentional, she'll be back to it on Friday night, but the lack of sugar is agony. Agony!

It generally takes three, four, five days of abstinence before her cravings depart, she's halfway through her detox.

Her eyes are rolling back in her head and she's covered in bugs. She'd love it if someone would please mop her brow and make her eat some hot soup like they do in the movies.

Wild Bill's been drinking the Irish cream, in fact, it's going home with him on Tuesday because Susan finds it so completely disgusting that she can't even stand to have it in the house. Currently it's outside in the snow.

Champagne and Chambord have made Susan's Christmas weekend happy.

Starting Monday she's going to cut out the goodies and sugar and a little bit of the drinking.
Next Monday.

Susan's got so many cookies in her house that her kitchen is like a bloody mine field. She added a new biscotti to her baking repertoire and has been tapping the big tin of rainbow cookies that her little sister made.
Rainbow cookies = almond paste.

Before the snow started making the roads really hairy, Susan, her son and Wild Bill went to the BIG, new, organized, clean thrift store. Susan's son went under protest but managed to fight through his lack of enthusiasm and find stuff for his mother to buy him. Wild Bill scored another twenty pounds of books about WWII and Abraham Lincoln as well as some cold weather gear. After 45 minutes Susan started to sneeze so they left.

Susan's posting this picture even though she looks heavy and is wearing a forced smile.

Susan made a gallon of Irish cream last night. It required ingredients with such horrifying fat contents that it might as well have been made of butter. She doesn't even want to drink it except that she poured a bottle of whiskey in it, so she will.

Susan drank the last of the real Bailey's over the weekend which got her thinking about making her own. She knew it would be a good holiday craft so she washed out the Bailey's bottle and took great care to safeguard the twist top while the bottle dried. Within an hour the husband demonstrated his talent for throwing out things that Susan tries to save.

Susan made him look through the garbage can for the little twisty top.

Who wants home made Irish cream now?

Susan saw somebody's ass today.
She walked through a door and saw the ass four feet in front of her. She turned immediately around, flagged down the first available person and showed them the ass.

The ass was chubby and belonged to a male bent over looking through a bag or a box or something. He was bent over a long time so Susan stood there for a long time.

The ass had an ENORMOUS cleavage. Susan soaked it all in because she didn't know when she'd see something like that again. Eventually she had to get back to work so dragged herself away even though the ass was still out.

She made a stop, told people about the ass then had to double back when she realized she left something behind in the previous location.

Behind in the previous location. Ha!

Anyway, she went back & saw that the ass was still out although it was now facing east.

Other than the ass, it was a regular day.

On Saturday night Susan took a ride with her little sister into the greatest city in the world. They were on a mission to move out ninety eight percent of her niece's belongings from the dorm she occupies at sleep away art school.

While the other two were packing everything up Susan's job was to read the paper and chase panhandlers away from the car.
She did an admirable job with both tasks.

The niece kept only what she could transport home on the train the next night; a change of clothes and an iPod. Shortly after goodbye kisses and begining their drive home, Susan and her little sister witnessed a bicyclist smack into a couple as they all crossed paths at a corner.

Somehow, no one hit the ground.

The bicyclist managed to get knocked off the bike, but stay on his feet, propelled by the energy of the collision into a sort of fast walk toward the line of cars waiting at the red light. He didn't stop, he just kept walking like an over-wound robotic Frankenstein until it became evident that he was drunk.
He was wearing a mohawk hat.

The girls roared with laughter and tuned the radio station to Xmas music.

Susan has been poised over her keyboard for the last eight days, uninspired.

During that time she attended Acme Sweatshop's swanky holiday party, sat in an auditorium filled with mom jeans to watch her daughter play clarinet, made a fantastic smoked oyster and shrimp gumbo and read through three weeks of saved Style sections.

She also received a wonderful musical present from Patti, went Xmas shopping with her little sister, and forgot to bring her lunch to work a bunch of times.

Here's Susan's Xmas wish list, already provided to the husband;
Wish #1
Wish #2.

Susan's friend Fire Ball sent this to her upon learning Susan's age.

Anonymous asked if Susan ever found her wedding ring.
Not yet.
Susan is currently wearing a $20 silver ring. It's an adequate substitute.

Susan and the husband went at it on Saturday. She was so sick of the sound of his voice talkingtalkingtalking and offering opinions she didn't ask for. Even when she said OMG, will you shut up! he wouldn't.

It all came to a head when the husband called Susan's son back into the room to tell him the same thing that Susan had just told him two seconds earlier.

After a brief discussion concerning the superfluousness of his added commentary the husband became disgusted with Susan and left the room, saying something under his breath as he went.

She threw the TV remote at him which was stupid because if she broke it she'd be back in 1979 unable to change a channel without getting up off the couch. The husband responded by throwing a chunky candle which put a dent in the wall & sent Susan shrieking.
Susan can shriek.

Anyway, by bedtime it had all blown over because Susan & the husband are soulmates and never go to bed angry.

Susan got undressed for bed and discovered that she hadn't put on a brassiere that day. Susan went to work without a brassiere!
She has a collection of stretchy tank tops with shelf bras that she wears underneath many of her tops, always in conjunction with a brassiere. But today there was only a stretchy tank holding her boobs up.
She's going to have to add
Wear your brassiere
to her daily tasks immediately following
Watch for two little Pinkett Smith junkies.

Can we discuss how much Susan hates the Jada Pinkett Smiths? Susan is counting the days till the kids start shooting heroin. Susan apologizes to anyone who is acquainted with children shooting heroin, she knows it's tragic and nothing to make fun of, but she can't wait until the Pinkett Smiths start.

She even put it on her daily task list of things to look out for. In fact, that's what she'd want for the second day of Hanukkah if she were Jewish.

Why does that family think they can earn all the money in the world? Other people need money too, twisted people who write BLAHgs definitely need money.

Susan's got 22 days to figure how to squeeze out enough non-existant cash for Xmas presents. Just for her kids. Nobody else.
Just the same as last year and the year before.
But, what's sadder than a grown woman with not on single present under the tree? Nothing. So, she's got to get the husband something if she expects him to get her anything.
Oy, it's complicated already!

Susan is very HAPPY to say goodbye to NaBloPoMo!
Thirty posts in thirty days all constructed between 11pm and 1am have taken their toll on Susan's beauty sleep. Now that this grueling task is behind her she's going to attempt quality over quantity, catch up on reading everyone else's blogs and focus on hating Xmas.

Kisses everyone!

On their last night in town the old folks funded a Chinese takeout banquet for all available family members, and one guest.

After dinner Susan busted out the little 20 Questions ball and amazed everyone with its magical guessing powers. She asked her father to think of a word and the little 20 Questions ball set to work asking questions for which the answer could be either YES, NO, SOMETIMES or UNKNOWN. Susan's father thought of seaplane and the little 20 Questions ball came up with robot.
Stumped!

This prompted Susan's father to tell his favorite seaplane story;
Back before they were married and Susan was on hand to illuminate their universe, Susan's father piloted her mother around in a seaplane. After he landed the seaplane it had to come out of the water which was done by pulling it up to land on a set of rails. As this occurred the pilot had to be in the plane but the passenger could not be. On one occassion a large, handsome man assisted Susan's father by carrying Susan's mother from the plane, through the water, up to dry land.

Upon hearing the story Susan's mother smiled broadly and added; His name was Steve, he wasn't big, but he was well built, blonde and tan. He carried me a couple of times.

Susan slept till 10:45 am on Sunday morning. She hadn't slept that late since that magical time before she had kids, back when she regularly slept off hangovers.

A few days earlier Susan's mother had admired a necklace Susan was wearing,
it was one of those five dollar Murano glass necklaces that they sell in the mall.
After breakfast Susan's mother drove her two daughters & one granddaughter in her rental car over to the mall so everyone could buy five dollar necklaces. Susan's daughter didn't want one but she put herself in charge of picking one out for her brother's girlfriend.

Sidebar: Susan met her son's girlfriend over the weekend. Assessment; Adorable and confident and tall.

Other than purchasing her son's girlfriend's necklace, Susan had no additional money for shopping and wouldn't allow anyone to purchase anything more expensive than a coffee & mini cinnabon, after which they went home.

Susan's family was enjoying cranberry cheesecake after dinner when Susan's father asked, Did I ever tell you my favorite cranberry story?

Susan didn't have a favorite cranberry story of her own so she was intrigued.

Many years ago, back before Susan's mom stopped letting Susan's dad do anything fun, he used to fly. There was a private airfield in Cape Cod that ended in a cranberry bog. If he landed when the field was flooded he'd have to wear his rubbers.

That's not really a story, Pop.

Yes, it is.

No, it's more like a description.

Okay.

Susan only has seventeen minutes with which to throw together her mandatory BLAHg post.

Did everyone have a good Thanksgiving?

Susan was disheartened to find that 68% of women who responded to an online survey were anticipating holiday drama and fights.

Who are theses women?

Susan's family takes a break from fighting while at the Thanksgiving table then they start up again on the ride home.

People are crazy.

HAPPY Thanksgiving to all Susan's bloggy pals.
She'll be at her Aunt Eileen & Uncle Joe's today eating, drinking & yukking it up with all her cousins.
Enjoy, everyone!

Susan's old dog has been dead one year.
She can hardly believe it's been that long since she was gassed out of a room by extreme flatulence.

Susan gets all misty thinking about how she'd watch the old dog eat too fast, throw up, then eat the vomit.

It seems like only yesterday that she stepped in dog pee every damned day, and that sometimes the pee seeped through the floorboards & dripped onto the basement floor below.

Memories.

Susan woke up this morning and Wild Bill was on the couch, in town to see the old folks. This is how Susan's going to refer to her parents from now on, the old folks.
She's in the habit of using folks to describe people in general & has got to be able to differentiate her folks from regular folks.
The old folks won't like it but this isn't their blog now, is it?

Susan's not a people person in the morning, she barely tolerates her husband and he helps her get out the door with all her stuff and a cup of coffee. This morning there were too many people up and talking.
Too many.
Perhaps later, after she arms herself with a glass of wine, she'll be better able to withstand all the talking.

As it turned out she was correct.

Susan came home to find that the old folks went shopping, Wild Bill prepped the chicken cutlets & boiled the potatoes for mashing, the husband walked in the door with a gallon of sangria & salad, and little sister brought the ginger ale and all the fixin's for apple crisp. Everyone got to work frying, mashing, setting, clearing, peeling, baking, washing and enjoying each other's company.

Susan's been working on her own Xmas list, this is what she's come up with so far:

Love's Fresh Lemon
A nap
The ability to make people disappear
Enthusiasm

Susan would like to invite her bloggy pals to read her tweenly adorable daughter's Xmas list :

Dear Mom,
I added more to my Christmas List, and added links to the things I want.
In order of how much I want them:
1. GHD IV Styler (link)
2. iTunes Giftcard $25
3. Pink with a Splash Fresh & Clean (link)
4. Prismacolor Double-ended Markers 24 pack (You can get it at Michaels and on Amazon)
5. BH Cosmetics 88 Color Matte Eyecolor Palette (link)
From,
The most amazing daughter ever,
Lily.
Yay.

Please be aware that the daughter referred to herself as amazing because of the way her mother feels about that wretched song from last week at the mall.

Instead of reading one of Twisted Susan's BLAHg posts, read Three In The Bed, hers is much better and Susan didn't actually write anything today.

Come look at Susan's current fave blog, she challenges you not to love it.
Go ahead, try.

A cowboy opened the door, tipped his hat and smiled at Susan tonight. She doesn't know what he was doing in her neck of the woods but she loves cowboys now.

Susan's husband continues to bug her about her BLAHging and she continues to ignore him. He's obviously jealous of her talent and all the important things she has to say.

Susan recently purchased three tins of chocolate covered nuts which she's kept hidden behind a bottle of coconut rum. Every day she pops a few of the toffee almonds on the sly but pressed her luck when she took them out to share with the husband. The daughter heard the crunching and came in to investigate. She ate a few then returned the candy to Susan's secret hiding place leaving Susan no other choice but to wait till she was gone and eat the rest.

Lastly, Susan would like to leave you with Foxy Baby Boutique. Tre fabu!

Susan has just about had it with the amount of apostrophes she finds where they don't belong. She's perplexed at the widespread misuse of something that is so elemental in writing. Apostrophes are used to indicate that something belongs to somebody, such as Susan's exasperation. They're also used to help make one word from two words, such as didn't we all learn this in grade school?

I know that Susan went over the apostrophe thing in a previous post and doesn't understand why she is being made to revisit this topic.

There's a particularly sweet and adorable blogger who adds extra apostrophes all the time, which is very unusual because Sweet & Adorable has a substantial readership and someone should have brought it to her attention long ago. If any of Susan's bloggy pals think that she's referring to them, she's not. Although some of her bloggy pals do indeed commit this annoying sin, Susan is positive that Sweet & Adorable is not a reader.

Susan knows she's not perfect with the grammar herself and can tolerate a bit of constructive criticism. She's all about self improvement.

Susan thinks her husband resents her being on the computer all the time.
Well, f*ck him!

Susan's mother would do her ironing on Sunday afternoons during the Million Dollar Movie, she'd have the damp clothes rolled up in a towel and squirt them with water as she went along. She didn't have a fancy spray bottle, she used something closer in design to one of those ketchup bottles you find on picnic tables, cylindrical with a pointy spout. She also dipped her old fashioned fingers into a glass of water and sprinkled the clothes that way.

While her mother ironed Susan watched Trapeze and The Two Mrs. Carrolls and
I Want To Live!

Susan knows people who don't iron but can't understand how they manage to escape that particular chore. Susan likes to wear clothes that require ironing, so she irons.

Instead of having the substantive sex talk with her son Susan made Jessica's pumpkin lasagna. Everyone liked it except Susan's niece, who's a pill about food anyway. Some went for seconds although Susan and her little sister strategized about adding a layer of vegetables or sausage next time.
After dinner Susan reorganized her closet. She needed more space so she took over half of her husband's closet, which she also reorganized. They aren't big closets so it didn't take her very long. She hemmed a few pairs of pants and ironed about five shirts in between loads of laundry. She can't iron too many shirts at one time because they'll get squished in the closet. She tries to arrange her ironed shirts so that they don't touch each other although that's not always practical. Susan went to bed knowing that she was totally prepared to get dressed for any occassion, except something fancy,
and slept soundly.

The Mall

Today's a special day, Susan is going to give you two BLAHg posts!

Susan took the daughter and the girls next door to the mall, each a representative of either 7th, 8th or 10th grade. The girls are mature enough to be unsupervised as long as Susan is no more than half a mall length away. Susan even carried their shopping bags so as to relieve them of the responsibility for not losing them.

It was relaxing for Susan to shop the clearance racks in solitude then rejoin the girls and their chatter. They're nice girls, noisy and happy, the way they should be. Susan saw more than her share of mutated Ugg-like bootie things, very unattractive. She assumes the wearers don't have full length mirrors at home. Perhaps they'll get some for Xmas.

As they were preparing to leave, Susan and the girls walked past a store and saw a pretty girl with an even prettier smile leaning against the front facade engaging the customers. She was wearing little plaid shorties and had a reasonable amount of cleavage exposed. OMG, it was a hooker! Susan walked past a second time to get another look. The hooker was so pretty and relaxed and young! Susan was stunned!
Look at all the exclamation points she's using!

On her second pass Susan came to the uneasy realization that this young lady in glorfied underwear was just an employee of the store using her tits and ass to advertise their wares. A hooker lite.

Susan looked up their website as soon as she got home and saw that she was correct. She sent the company an e-mail congratulating them for their marketing strategy indicating they should take pride in all their important work because we don't have enough half dressed young women standing around in the mall.
Then she wrote a couple of other things.
Knowing they likely wouldn't be interested in Susan's opinion she wrote a second e-mail to mall's property management indicating that until they can guarantee that she wouldn't be encountering a contracted employee of their mall in her underpants Susan would have to abstain from shopping there. And she will. She doesn't need the mall for her shopping.
She doesn't need the mall at all.

Susan's not done.
Please indulge while she backtracks a bit.
Driving home the girls were in control of the radio and were singing along to Just The Way You Are by Bruno Mars. Are you familiar with this song? It's a rather limp and soulless song about a girl who's amazing just because she's beautiful.

Susan doesn't like the word amazing because she never hears it used to describe anything amazing.

Susan asked her girls about why the girl in the song was so amazing. They sang louder. Susan asked them if they felt comfortable being judged soley on how pretty they were, not how smart or funny or caring or honest, just how pretty.
They totally tuned her out and very wickedly sang at the top of their lungs.
When they got home Susan went next door and told on the 8th & 10th grader.

Don't Expect Much

Susan is currently bereft of all inspiration. Her feet hurt. She wasted twenty minutes this morning trying to find the proper necklace for her outfit. Twenty minutes.
Then she got all mad and threw stuff out.
She got her hair cut then went food shopping and bought more goat cheese. She left her notes for the substantive sex talk at work. It's scheduled for the weekend so she'll create an outline from memory.
Her neck gets in the way when she looks down. She wonders why people read a Kindle when they could read a book. She can't even keep up with her pals' blogs.

Susan peed on her sweater.
She got it a number of years ago from one of those clothing stores that sell everything for $10. It's probably lasted so long because it's ninety percent synthetic.
Byproduct of petroleum.
Susan's sweater is nubby and long with a hood that used to have a pom pom until she cut it off. It's used as a bathrobe, as blanket, and as something she actually wears outside the house, but that's rare.

The other morning Susan got up, and since she won't turn the heat on the house was freezing. She put on her petroleum byproduct sweater and went to the potty. While she was sitting there she had time to consider whether she had gotten her sweater completely out of the line of fire. She's had tons of experience wearing the sweater to the toilet so she felt confident that everything was fine. She concluded her business and as she was turning toward the sink she realized that she had miscalculated the ratio of synthetic nubbyness to toilet seat circumference to urine stream trajectory.
She had peed on it.

Susan's husband got mad at her last night, he accused her of being rude and left the room. She was thankful for the break because she was trying to construct her mandatory BLAHg post and he kept talking.
She listened while he had something to say but abandoned him with extreme prejudice as soon as he didn't.
She doesn't like it when he's mad at her because he's usually right about whatever it is and then she's got to apologize.
She doesn't mind apologizing, it's part of being in a mature, functioning relationship, but sometimes the territory is murky. Was she really rude? Wasn't he hyper sensitive?
The next morning she gave the only apology she could honestly support;
I'm sorry that I upset you.
The husband understood that it was watered down. Susan shrugged, It's all I got.

Susan started doing research for the substantive sex talk she has to have with her son.

She started by consulting a coworker with similarly aged boys. The coworker's focus was primarily on disease transmission and pregnancy. Susan thanked her and jotted down some notes.

Next Susan spent some time on the internet and took more notes.

Susan remembered things she's seen in documentaries, conversations with other moms over the years, an episode of Oprah; notes, notes, notes.

She also appreciates all the support from her bloggy pals, she'll be ready by the weekend.

Susan's son has a girlfriend.
She found this out when he posted it on FB. Susan's son is a boy of few words, so she took advantage of his online self disclosure and asked him some simple questions, all of which he answered.

The following day, Susan had a separate conversation with her social worker girlfriend and as a result has to have a substantive sex talk with her son.

Susan told her son that the sex talk was imminent and allowed him to choose which parent he'd prefer to have it with.

Neither.

Susan's in the batter's box. She'll let you know how she does.

Susan and her little sister enjoyed watching Tom Jones dance. Stay with it, he really lets loose halfway through.

Susan was reading this post at Mama's Losin' It and was inspired to participate in Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop. The topic that grabbed her was to look up a favorite childhood actor and tell us where they are now.

Susan was surprised at the speed at which she chose her fave.
It only took a second to bypass Danny Bonaduce even though they he was funny and they shared the same hair.
Then Bobby Sherman, even though she still sings some of his songs.
Then Johnny Quest and Bandit, who were ineligible anyway because they're cartoons.

Susan travelled back to her eleven year old self; back to her 7:30 bedtime, back to getting spanked, Shake & Bake pork chops, riding her bike and stealing quarters from Grace's mom's purse.

Susan chose Pete Duel but she can't tell anybody where he is now because he never made it out of 1971.

Pete Duel was impossibly handsome, charming and on TV every week in Alias Smith and Jones. He had one eye that sort of didn't look in the same direction as the other eye, but Susan liked that slight imperfection. She loved him.

Susan and Grace played a very unsophisticated game using the letters in the AS&J actors' names while they walked to the deli for a bag of BBQ potato chips and a big dill pickle.

During Christmas vacation children all over the land were home from school.
For Susan there were no math tests to fail and no punishments for missing book reports or talking in class. There was only Dark Shadows, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, The Mod Squad as well as The Munsters,
I Dream of Jeannie and The Rifleman. Susan loved the Rifleman too.

While Susan watched that week's AS&J the flames of her crush were fanned. The cuteness of Pete Duel was almost unbearable but she knew how to live with her longing. She rearranged the pictures on her corkboard, she made little dolls out of clay attaching their heads to the bodies with toothpicks, she sprayed her Avon perfume and played Everything Is Beautiful by Ray Stevens on her record player.

Susan remembers walking into a lonely depression when she heard that Pete Duel killed himself on New Year's Eve. She didn't call Grace to find out if she heard about it. She didn't tell her parents. She kept to herself. She felt horrible and confused. She felt completely alone.

When Susan went back to school she finally talked to Grace. Grace felt horrible too. Susan remembers the feeling of her sadness being lifted, the same way her sadness is lifted now anytime she shares a burden. Anytime she thinks I'm going to keep this to myself but doesn't, because she needs to talk about it. She doesn't talk to find answers, she talks to feel less alone.

She learned that from Pete Duel.

On Day Six Susan's daughter tracked dog sh*t into the house.

She didn't make it through the entire house, but she went far enough. All on her own the daughter compiled the supplies necessary for the clean up but fell into a confused trance when she realized the enormity of the task.

Her 8.5 mother stepped in, I'll take care of it, and released the daughter from her obligation.

The daughter ran out the front door and into the sunlight.

Day 5 is almost over and Susan has nothing prepared beyond this sentence, but it's all she needs to fulfil her NaBloPoMo requirement.
See you tomorrow.

Susan's niece assisted in the creation of this mixed media piece of art cleverly disguised as a mop head with tissue paper stuck to it. It's currently hanging in a gallery and available for purchase. No kidding.

Susan feels comfortable making fun of it a little because she quite likes much of her niece's art. Much, but not all.

If you're up for some more art

here's one of the niece's friend's blogs

and here's another.

Susan's wonderfully funny friend, GP sent this to Susan with a sticky note attached on which she wrote See, if you lived here we could attend this event together.

GP sends Susan all sorts of fabulous objects, most recently was a box of adjustable buttons with a sticky note;
As seen on TV. Susan threw the buttons away & kept the note. Susan's fave from GP was found in a parkinglot. It's a matchbox, a wee bit crushed, painted dark green with gold sparkly stars, gold sparkly lace and a picture of the Virgin Mary set inside. Susan keeps it on her fireplace so she can see it every day.

Many years ago when Susan was worried about having cancer GP told her quite dismissively, You should live so long to get cancer. During Susan's bout with panic attacks GP was the person Susan called in the middle of the night.

Once or twice a year Susan is lucky enough to have GP as her houseguest, her room is always ready although sometimes other people are sleeping in it.

Did Susan ever give you her recipe for NaBloPoMo Black Bean Brownies?
No? Well, today's your lucky Day Two.

All you need is 1 box BROWNIE MIX and 1 can BLACK BEANS.

Open the can of black beans, drain & rinse the beans. Drain and rinse the can.

Put the beans back into the can, fill the remaining space in the can with water.

Combine the contents of the can with brownie mix & bake as directed on the box.

Susan likes to take an immersion blender & really mess up the beans & the water before she adds it to the dry ingredients, but that's completely optional.

Susan just made these for her Ohio road trip and everyone in the car ate them even though they knew what they were made of.

This time last year Susan's dog was dying.
The dog wasn't popular outside of her immediate family but that didn't seem to bother her. She had an enviable confidence and never sought extraneous approval.

She carried herself with feminine grace even though she wasn't considered classically pretty and most folks referred to her as him.

She made no apologies for her few shortcomings, she had as much right as anyone to lie on the floor and fart.

When she was permanently banished from Susan's bed she didn't waste time whining, she showed her adaptability by jumping into then next available bed down the hall.

Susan really misses warming her feet under that formerly alive dog at the end of her bed.

Susan hates to answer the door.
Once it's opened, that's it, she's stuck with whoever's standing there; drunk neighbors, political pollsters, teenagers selling magazines, costumed children seeking candy. She hates all of it.

This is not to be confused with the Drop In. Susan loves the Drop In. Please, drop in anytime. She hates to hear Oh, I was going to drop in but I didn't. Please, drop in!
Call ahead, don't call ahead, whatever.
Although, she wouldn't mind if you gave her ten minutes notice to clean the toilet.

Susan's not going to mention NaBloPoMo. Maybe she'll do it, maybe she won't. It'll be exciting to find out what she decides.

OMG, did anyone catch this horrible thing that Dawn made the other day?

Here's Wild Bill holding his birthday gift from Susan's son.

Wild Bill is big on flags and history and politics and is in the habit of opining at great length on each*. He carries a copy of The Constitution to keep him occupied when he has some free time and has been known to liberate a flag when incorrectly displayed.

Wild Bill enthusiastically educated Susan's children on the history of this particular flag; the Gadsen flag.

It was named for Colonel Christopher Gadsen who was involved with the first mission of the Navy in 1775. Accompanied by the Marines, the Navy was established to grab incoming British ships carrying war supplies to their troops in the colonies. The Marines carried yellow drums on which a coiled rattlesnake with thirteen rattles and the motto Don't Tread On Me were painted. Afterwards, Gadsen made up some flags and gave them away to a bunch of important people.

The first reference to the rattlesnake was made in a satirical commentary by that smart and funny guy, Ben Franklin twenty five years earlier. Four years later he used a picture of a snake cut into eight sections, representing the colonies, with the message Join or Die; the original political cartoon.

Wild Bill, fun and informative.

Footnote:
*A habit he picked up from his old man

Susan liked these illuminated peace signs that she saw in the window of a store in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. They were very primitive in their construction, just light bulbs held within a cardboard form, but they pulled Susan up the block with their inviting glow.

Can you believe that Susan's teeth still hurt? Not as much as a week ago when she slept in her clothes for two days, but enough to still require ibuprofen. Right now she's making her jaw ache by fiddling with the remaining stitches and when she opens her mouth wide enough she can feel where the BIG needle went in.

While she's on the topic she'd like to thank everyone who took her dental procedure seriously and made nice comments so she'd feel better. Same with the blog photo recommendations.

Y'all rock!

Susan and her daughter took a road trip to Ohio this past weekend. They were invited by Susan's little sister to accompany her on the eight hour drive she has to make in order to visit her husband.

He's not in jail, the current economy just dictates that in order to be employed he has to live and work two states away from his family.

Ohio is so pretty! They saw trees in full autumn splendor and rocks and waterfalls and beautifully rusted machinery in apple orchards and rolling hills with ribbons of fog and tons of dead things on the side of the road.

Susan took pictures of her trip and has been f*cking around for the last two hours trying to post them instead of sleeping because
it's already tomorrow and she's tired!

She can't get them to appear in the order of her preference and she knows that there is some simple solution but she doesn't know what it is right now!

Before she left, Susan's hardrive selfishly killed itself as well as all her pictures and music. This has nothing to do with her current problem, but she's very frustrated and just wanted to mention it.

One side of Susan's face is still swollen and a little black & blue. She's been using her tongue to play with the disintegrating stitches in her mouth but has been able to downshift from vicodin to ibuprofen for the pain.

Wild Bill came out to spend the afternoon which forced Susan to take a shower and change her clothes, something she hadn't done in 36 hours.
His daughter met them for lunch at a local hippie cafe, Susan ate the carrot ginger soup. Afterwards they walked a few doors down to the used book store where Wild Bill purchased forty pounds of books on WWII for nineteen dollars.

Their little sister came over for dinner and Susan ate some real food; soft chicken breast on top of salad greens with cranberries and goat cheese.
Again with the goat cheese.
She spent the rest of the evening farting.

Vicodin and farina.
Amoxicillin and yogurt.
Ice and a kitchen towel.

The pain in Susan's mouth woke her up during the night and she found herself spending a portion of that time in the company of the Hollywood Housewives.
All nice ladies.

The smell of coffee got her out of bed in the morning. It was her son's coffee, he's fourteen and he drinks coffee now.
Did you know that? Well, he does.

Susan made herself a small pot of coffee and a bowl of farina. While she waited for each to cool down she applied a towel filled with ice to her face and turned on her birthday laptop. Only it wouldn't turn on. Ultimately it was ascertained by Taufiq J of HP that the hardrive was defective and he's sending Susan another one. Ugh.
For the next few days she'll have to fight her way onto the old laptop, or she could avoid the line and sit down at the regular computer.
At least she has options, could you imagine if she were totally offline? It's too upsetting for her to even think about.

She baked a wonderfully soft batch of carrot applesauce muffins which she was able to eat without chewing.
And took a nap.

Susan hadn't notice that June's Bye Bye Pie was left off Sharing Is Caring. She doesn't understand how this omission eluded her for almost two weeks because she looks forward to checking in with June every day.
Or every other day.
Or as often as her schedule will allow.
Susan would apologize to June but it's apparent that June doesn't know Susan exists and wouldn't know what Susan was talking about.

Well, June gets alot of commenters so it's probably easy to overlook Susan even though she leaves June comments about how much she likes her hair everytime she gets it cut.

Or maybe June purposely overlooks Susan because there is never anything worthy of her commentary. Susan doesn't comment on every post she reads either, and she reads everyone on Sharing Is Caring. Anyway.

Susan's enjoying her mid-morning BLAHging in her pajamas, next she's making chili with sweet potatoes and later she's going to the health food store for more vanilla beans to make her own vanilla extract.
Then to the dentist.

Susan is taking a three day vacation from Acme Sweatshop during which she'll get some teeth pulled, go to the library, read, bake stuff, stay up late, listen to music, watch old movies, play with her dog, make curry and hopefully finish up an art project.

She put a boring Sunday to good use by making Deb's roasted eggplant soup because she had all the ingredients, including the goat cheese. Susan loves goat cheese and will argue that it enhances everything that it rubs up against.
She made a serving's worth of quick croutons & had a lovely lunch alongside her friend the laptop, of whose companionship she never tires.

Susan asked her daughter to rate her as a mother using the standard one to ten scale; one being awful and ten being wonderful.

An hour earlier Susan made her daughter cry when she yelled; 'You go out and work fifty hours a week, not make enough money, come home, and I'll b*tch at you the way you b*tch at me.' Anyway, what do you think Susan's number was? You're going to be surprised.

Susan was awarded an 8.5!

The daughter thought Susan would be upset that she didn't get a 10 but Susan is a realistic person with imperfections and knew she couldn't possibly score a 10. She inquired of the daughter what she might have to do for a 10 & it was recommended that she eliminate some yelling.

The daughter's gonna have to be happy with an 8.5 mom.

Alright, Susan tried to slide Batman by instead of thinking up something to BLAHg about. What, you've never done that?

She continues not to have anything to say unless you want to hear how she's having three teeth pulled next week. Or maybe it's two pulled and one grinded down. Grinded? Whatever.

She wore an outfit today that she didn't like, is that interesting?
This isn't going to get any better.

Susan used to drive a minivan.
She was totally taken by surprise the first time she ever drove a minivan because she immediately fell in LOVE with the minivan.
Immediately.
In LOVE.
She doesn't even remember what she thought of minivans prior to falling in LOVE with one because the LOVE was so transformative that it completely obliterated all previous abstract thoughts and feelings about minivans.
There was only LOVE.

She filled her minivan with small children and their stuff. Then with girlfriends, their small children and their stuff. Then everyone drove somewhere together laughing and talking and being very comfortable.

Susan no longer requires the seating and space of a minivan and drives something reliably utilitarian that looks like every other car in the parking lot. She has a favorite bumper sticker advertising a local bookstore which she has been happy to slap on a number of her cars. She also has a least favorite sticker that makes her wonder about the person who chose it.

Always on a minivan.
Rear window, driver's side.
You know which one it is.
The cartoon lineup of the van owner's family and pets.

It starts out with the emascalating figure of a husband in shorts and mouse ears, then the bland mother in shorts & mouse ears and so forth.
Susan wonders what woman sees her husband as a sexless one dimensional line drawing and if she sees herself that way too.

Susan was clearing out some of the unattended blogs over at Sharing Is Caring and managed to remove everyone.
Jerk.
She's put a bunch back but needs all her bloggy pals to take a look & let her know who's missing. Everyone who leaves a comment gets included, today and always.

Susan and the husband were invited to watch a movie at Cousin Lisa's on Saturday night. Susan planned to make olive tapenade because she knows how much Cousin Lisa loves it. Sometimes Cousin Lisa loves the olive tapenade so much she eats it till she's sick. Anyway, after spending the afternoon in the thrift store with her little sister Susan didn't leave herself enough time to remove the pits from a pound of olives so she considered her options based on what she had in her fridge.

There were two beautiful mangoes and a big fragrant bunch of cilantro into which she could make a spicy sweet salsa. Unfortunately, the mangoes revealed themselves to be unripe little bastards and there was no way they could be the base for something anyone would want to eat.
That's ok because Susan had a third option.

She always has the ingredients in her cupboard for Layered Bean Dip. Amost everything comes out of a can & then gets put into the oven for 20 minutes.
It's fantastic.

Susan started putting the dip together.
When Susan climbed up on a chair to reach one of the multiple jars of salsa she keeps expressly for this purpose, she found none.

She came down off the chair screaming like a crazy b*tch. There was no f*cking way that every last jar of salsa was gone because she has lectured everyone in her household to the point of madness on how they must
PUT THINGS ON THE SHOPPING LIST
when they eat the last of it.

Susan knows that her son likes the salsa. She's had seperate conversations, explaining in detail that the salsa is stored along with all the other Layered Bean Dip ingredients so that they are always available when she needs them and she doesn't mind if he eats the salsa as long as he ALWAYS ASK HER if he wants to eat the last jar.

So, to recap, there is a long standing rule that Susan's family;

• UTILIZE THE SHOPPING LIST which is always hanging in plain view on the cupboard door
• and a secondary, salsa-specific rule that she be forewarned if there is only one jar left and that she must grant permission for that last jar to be eaten.

Susan's screaming was long, loud, hysterical and punctuated with balled up fists and spitting.

A Letter From Nanny

Susan's niece asked to borrow a book last week and tucked inside were two letters from Susan's Nanny.

They were written well over twenty years ago, before any of Susan's nieces were born, back when Susan could still lose ten pounds in a week by staying away from sugar and white bread.

She was a good Nanny; quick to bust out a song or a story about the old days or scare you off with a glimpse of her arthritic toes.

In this letter, Nanny's sending Susan three dollars for her birthday and reminiscing about the weekend the family was together to bury her son, Susan's Uncle Butch.

Somewhere there's a picture of Wild Bill holding eggs up to his eyes and making everybody laugh.
Thanks for the memory, Nanny.
Catch you later.

Susan thinks she's going to enforce a limit on how many words a person can speak to her per conversation. There's just too many she's got to listen to and half of them aren't necessary. This rule is applicable to many of her relationships but she's thinking of a few specific people.

Often she just walks away.

Susan doesn't need to hear extraneous details or listen to the conversator make their point more than once or provide a political opinion or speak on a topic with which they are unfamilar. It's obvious.
Don't make sh*t up and don't brag.
OMG, don't brag.
You will be evicerated.

Recently Susan was present while two co-workers were having a discussion involving space men vacationing on planet earth and a government cover up. Susan recommended that they continue the conversation in private because they sounded f*cking insane.

Susan stole this from Nick Holmes.
She thinks she loves him.

You know Susan was just kidding about the soul mates, right?

Susan was reading this post by NieNie which made her recall when the UPS man saw her naked.

Stop her if you've heard this story already.

Well, Susan was totally alone in the house.

Fresh from the shower she went into the kitchen to replay a telephone message. The sunlight was streaming through the windows as she bent over the answering machine,

ass to the door
and heard a quick knock.
She turned around just in time to see the UPS man walk away.

Susan and the husband recently completed sixteen years of marriage and boy, they just flew by. Flew by.
She likes to think of herself and the husband as soul mates. Isn't that romantic?
Soul mates, indeed.

Would you believe her if she said that they haven't had a bad year yet?
Not an entire year.
Portions of some years have been bad
and Susan has not always been happy with her soul mate. Not at all.
But, she she sticks it out with him day after day the same way he sticks it out with her. They have things in common, like watching The Pope of Greenwich Village together, liking half & half in their coffee and having two children.

He's funny when he tells Susan
They are all jealous of our love.
Susan and the husband even made a video of their love. Twice.
Then erased the uninspiring evidence immediately after the initial viewings.

Susan still hasn't found her wedding ring. She stopped looking although she offered the kids $100 if they could find it. Susan assumes that one day a replacement will have to be purchased after which she'd like to renew her vows. The soul mate has already agreed to this.
From that day forward Susan will pay attention to where she puts things.

Susan's daughter told her that she was mean.
It was a few weeks ago while they were standing outside the Chinese Food Buffet,
of which Susan is not a fan, and she was speculating that the size of the patrons' asses would match their plates of greasy spare ribs and fried rice. Susan preferred to think of herself as accurate although she definitely inserted a bit of meanness for her own entertainment.

Days later Susan's daughter told her that she was critical.
The family was sitting at the dinner table and Susan was criticizing someone who didn't think or feel or do things exactly the way Susan does.
Susan is aware that she's critical but to hear it stated so simply from the twelve year old she was teaching by her example was a little startling.

The meanness she could do something about but what would be left of her personality if she could not be critical? There would be nothing for her to say.

Children ruin everything.

Susan is going to give a negative review of George Clooney's new movie, so get ready.

It wasn't as bad as Inception because that would be impossible.

Susan would more accurately liken it to sitting in a waiting room for an hour and forty five minutes without any magazines.

The movie starts out good when George Clooney has to shoot his girlfriend in the back of the head. Oh, no!
Then he builds a gun for over an hour.

At the very end he booby-traps the gun which blows off the side of a pretty face. Neat!
But that was it.
Five good minutes in the beginning and another five at the end. Then he dies.

Susan's going to watch Michael Clayton again.

Let's all say thanks to Linlah for sharing this.
Thanks, Linlah!

Susan took a quick spin thru the thrift store right around dinnertime and found it overrun with Spanish people and their screaming children. Well, it's always overrun with Spanish people and their screaming children but on this particular trip the kids were out of control. One little boy was in negative blood sugar meltdown and the mother's response was to drag him across the floor yelling What's wrong with you?
It was quite entertaining.

Moments later a very aggitated voice came over the loudspeaker demanding that parents keep their children by their side, there were to be no children running in the aisles, no jumping, throwing or rolling. The list of prohibited behaviors went on for a good forty five seconds followed immediately by the sound of a microphone being slammed down.
Tre adorable! Grown men and women were scolded by a public address system.

Oh, and the husband located Susan's green ribbed top, it had fallen behind the dresser. Now her wedding band is gone.
Really, the f*cking thing was on the bathroom vanity and now it's gone.
She's managed to hang onto it for almost sixteen years so she's not going to panic yet, but she's getting ready.

Susan hasn't figgered out where her green ribbed top is yet. She looked in a few more places where it wasn't then tried to badger the huband into a confession.
He wasn't cracking.

In the meantime Susan's getting ready for her three day vacation which is really only two days because she has to leave on the third day. But, they'll be two full days of waking up and going to sleep between which she'll be enjoying the company of her favorite vacationing companions, Cousin Lisa and her husband.

After she gets back she'll get to pal around with her recently absent brother in law who left his family behind and moved to another state in order to find work. More on this later when Susan's not so tired from late night blogging.

Has anyone seen Susan's green ribbed top?
It's sleeveless with a V neck and she likes to wear it with one of her black and white skirts. There's not too many places it could have gone to, it's either in the closet, somebody's drawer or the laundry,
except it's not. She extrapolated that the husband must have disposed of it after he washed & shrunk it, or poured bleach on it. Susan has enough anecdotal evidence to support her theory and dismissed the husband's claim that she's paranoid.
What nerve.
Susan needs all her clothes and can't go sacrificing even one little thing. She has a personal relationship with each top, bottom and inbetween. They do their best every day to prop her up and send her off feeling good.

She's launching an investigation.

Later this month Susan and her family will be going away for three days.
Yes, you read that correctly, three days!
No more b*tching about never going anywhere because Susan's going somewhere and she's bringing rum, mint and limes.
She's going to have herself a little vacation after all.

Susan had the opportunity to watch Lindsay Lohan's mom on TV the other morning. Susan observed her to be a very unsophisticated thinker with limited conversational skills, and possibly a little bit of a fibber, who is determined to push her daughter farther toward a Valley of the Dolls ending. Very sad.
But sadder still was her hair.
Stop doing it at home, Lindsay's mom.
Get out to a salon already.

Uh-oh, Susan missed a day of blogging for boring NaBloPoMo. She assures you it wasn't on purpose, it was that tricky day nine. Damn that day nine!
Well, she can't in good conscience continue knowing that she broke the rules. She's off to punish herself by eating potato chips in bed. She'll see you soon!

Do you know who I am? I'm Mo Green!

Go, green Bobby Lee, go!

OMG really, who saw Inception?
Not saw. Wrong word choice.
Who endured the punishing monotony that was Inception?

Was there anyone from Susan's modest fan base who was able to sit on their asses for the entire ten years it took for that movie to play out?

Susan will admit to liking some of the effects, particularly when Juno folded the city streets up and over her head, or when that guy was weightless and trying to kill those other guys. That was neat.
But the rest, oy.

The way Juno talked and talked and talked;
I know what's going on, you put everyone in jeopardy, blah, blah, blah. Enough!
And, DiCaprio and his dead wife being so in love. Really? They must have met in a teenage girl's fantasy.

Who cared about anything in that movie especially the end. Was it reality or a dream? Here's Susan's question for you;
WHO CARES?

Let's talk about something that Susan is totally interested in, Jersey Shore! She's got so many fave parts from last week's episode that she doesn't know where to start.
The tranny clothing store was fantastic, JWoww's outfits are the best, Susan is completely mesmerized by those boobs.
If JWoww's boobs had a show Susan would watch. Roni and Sammi are always good fun but Angelina is showing real talent for entertaining behavior. Susan knows that someone's going to get punched real soon but she doesn't know if she can wait that long. Oh, the agony of Jersey Shore angst!

Day 7 is a fave in our house

Day 6, even better than Day 5

Day 5, enjoy.

Day 4

Susan was not filled with envious green rage on day three of boring NaBloPoMo but she found some forgotten tomatoes in her fridge and fed them to her family instead of throwing them in the compost. This is her offering for the day, she knows it doesn't even make sense but she's tired.

Day two and Susan is already bored with NaBloPoMo. She's hasn't shaken her pathetic envy of people with money and all she wants to do is fight with her husband about it. Thus far she has resisted but five minutes from now is up for grabs.

Susan has a compost pile in her yard,
here's a link go make one.
Day two, green.
Done.

Susan was all set to ignore NaBloPoMo as she does each month because really, wasn't once enough? She can BLAHg every day on her own if she wants to, and she never wants to.

However, while experiencing the sudden uprising of some extreme jealousies Susan noticed that Green is the topic for this month.
Green
The color of her BLAHg
and all the money absent from her life
and her seething envy.

She took it as a sign and suddenly saw the topic for a month's worth of posts.

Susan doesn't consider herself a jealous person, I mean, she b*tches alot but that's different. Susan views jealousy as being sad, like having an essential discontentedness with things. Susan is just frustrated and a little TWISTED.
Just a smidge.
The teeniest little bit.
You may not have even noticed.

Susan has things pretty good.
She's got a husband & children she still talks to, a house with two new shower heads thanks to a decaying bathroom wall,
people who love her, a job she likes and reliable transportation.
All of this has been temporarily obliterated by vacation envy.

Susan hasn't had a proper vacation in a while and it didn't help that she hated the last two. She generally suffers from a mild form of vacation related jealousy which is easily dealt with by getting up and leaving the room whenever anyone starts talking about theirs. Unfortunately, during this season of vacations there is no escape because that's all everyone talks about. Susan has actually sought refuge in the bathroom to keep from overhearing the unsolicited details of a summer vacation.

Over the weekend Susan's family found themselves knee deep in other people's vacation conversations. Susan's daughter, who Susan thought knew better, asked quite aggitatedly why they couldn't go on vacation as if it were something Susan was witholding from her on purpose.

Susan chased the daughter away by throwing a pound of macaroni salad at her.

Susan loves Jersey Shore. LOVES it.
She can't understand what everyone's so crazy about;
who cares that they're dopey and bronzed and get arrested for public drunkenness and have hot tub hook-ups and don't wear underpants and have big boobs and fist pump and tawk like dis and vomit and have questionable decision making skills.

As for making Jersey look bad...it's friggin' Jersey for Crissakes.

Snooki, JWoww, The Situation, Ronnie, et al are delightfully entertaining and Susan will punch you in the face and pull your hair out and talk sh*t behind your back if you don't believe her, b*tch.

No really, Susan was watching it with smoking, Pabst drinking Jesus.
He totally LOVES Jersey Shore too.

Don't you love Susan's smoking and Pabst drinking Jesus? She saw him over at Friggin Loon and dragged him off with her because she takes whatever she wants (just like when she was twenty three). Plus, a one dimensional Jesus has no power over Susan. None at all. 

And, may she update you on the fake birthday nun? She's been subpoenaed by the NYS Attorney General! Susan may yet get her three dollars back. Susan's biggest fear, aside from getting Lou Gehrig's disease, is winding up on the front page of the NY Post. Susan can't even imagine how awful it would be to read about any of the stupid things she's done combined with having to look at an unflattering photo of herself. Maybe one showing her jiggly upper arms or waggly neck or just wearing a bad outfit, although that rarely happens. It's guaranteed that she'll provide them a quote she wishes she hadn't. A few years back Susan quite enjoyed reading about the well paid civil servant targeted by the Post. The reporter stood outside his office building & documented how many breaks he took, how long they were and where he went. This poor slob was fired & eventually sentenced to 366 days in jail for bribe taking. Last month reporters woke up transit workers sleeping on their graveyard shifts and photographed them. Fired. 

Susan much prefers to live under the radar.

Remember last week when Susan's family was in NYC for the daughter's birthday?

Well, while they were walking in Little Italy they gave three dollars to a nun in a real old school get-up.

Look who ended up on the front page of the NY Post along with this story.

Susan's normally seasonable corner of the universe has been horribly hot and muggy for such a long time she can't even remember when she didn't feel like she was dipped in oil and rolled in salt.

Susan panicked when she found out there might be some record breaking temperatures over the next few days.
Oh, for the love of God.
Enough already!

She created a heat management plan which involved mangoes, ice and extended periods spent floating in the pool. Then she painted her toenails.

Alright, so nobody liked Susan's street art. That's fine, she likes it enough for everybody.

Whip 'Em Out Wednesday

Happy Birthday, Miss Twelve!

Susan's daughter is turning twelve this weekend and has requested to go to the least interesting place in the world;
Times Square.
Specifically she has requested to visit the Hershey's and M&Ms stores.

The weekend promises to be hot and muggy, perfect for carrying five pounds of melted chocolate, eating crappy grease drenched food and generally being in a bad mood.

Susan, not her daughter.

Susan's daughter will be in a fantastic mood because her mother is going to shower her with fake enthusiasm and treat her like the sweet little queen that she is by letting her do whatever she wants until the budget breaks.

Wish Susan luck.

Susan had no idea when she woke up this morning that this would be the first day of her emancipation.

It started quite normally with blue skies, the Sunday papers and children grumbling about having to go back to the church of their mother's experiment after a lengthy absence.

When the family returned home Susan changed into something more appropriate for the summer heat and set about the business of enjoying the day. She took her new birthday laptop out to sit under the shade on the deck and check her e-mail.

Ugh, a message from Facebook;

Somebody posted something on your Wall and wrote something boring.

Susan f*cking HATES FB and is sorry she ever let her little sister sign her up for it.
She originally thought that it might be a good way to keep track of her nieces who were not always accessible because they had better things to do than anything Aunt Sue could offer them.

Pretty soon some of Susan's cousins had profiles, and her out of state girlfriends, and her children, which started a war with the husband but he backed off, and then everyone else in the universe including Wild Bill's much loathed former spouse who used FB to spy on everyone until they figured out to change their privacy settings.

Unfortunately, no one ever wrote anything interesting unless one finds misspelled tedium with lots of exclamation points interesting.

Susan does not.

As a coping mechanism she would prowl FB after hours writing nasty comments on deserving friends' walls, unfriending them one by one.

Today was the day that she reached her limit for insipid blathering and deleted her profile.

Goodbye FB friends, some of you weren't friends anyway, as for the rest,
she'll see you in real life.

Susan was reading a story in the local paper about a man who commemorated the 4th of July by stuffing some explosive shells down a length of pipe and blowing his shoulder off. The arm went too.
Later, she caught the drunken eyewitness interviews on the news.
Oy.
Susan can think of few things more embarrassing than having to tell people that she blew her arm off on the 4th of July.
Yeah man, we were all drunk!
It was a great party up until the arm thing.
You gotta come next year.

OMG guys, Susan was so busy last week throwing out food spoiled by her no longer functioning refrigerator that she never told you about the husband's eldest daughter's visit over the weekend.

The last time Susan saw her was here, and that was a long time ago. Normally Susan is very entertained by the husband's daughter but Susan practically didn't even care that she was coming because Susan was really only interested in the daughter's twin boys. Twin boys!

The parents walked through the front door each carrying a chubbly wubbly nineteen month old in need of a haircut. Interesting distribution of genetics resulted in each boy resembling one of the parents but not each other.

Very quickly it was revealed the neither was going to fall in love with Susan during their short visit.

It was a hot day, Susan was sweating and behind schedule, as she usually is, so she jumped in the shower then ran out to the supermarket. Upon her return she became reacquainted with what it's like to have toddlers in the house. Each was stripped down to a diaper and beyond adorable.
They very suspiciously eyeballed Susan,
one was intrigued but the other wanted nothing to do with her.
Susan knew exactly what he was thinking, Forget this b*tch, mama.

The mother of the twins offered them some hummus, the boys displayed their discerning palates by dipping in their crackers, sucking the hummus off, then dipping them in again until the crackers became too soggy for another trip. This didn't bother Susan, it takes more than sloppy babies to turn her off to food. However, wiping their sticky hummusy fingers all over their bare baby chests was a little yukky. When they climbed up on mommy to wipe their fingers all over her clothes, Susan moved away. That was her limit. The delicate Susan is barely able to hold herself together in the summer heat and found it too hot for twins with messy fingers.

The twins were very charming toddling all over the deck, babbling mama mama mama mama mama mama mama, both hoisting themselves up on her lap at the same time using her shirt for leverage, rubbing their little faces with their chubby hands. Susan made herself an alcoholic beverage with a lot of ice.

A short few years ago when the generation immediately behind Susan began having babies Susan felt sort of pushed out of the way, even though she couldn't have any more babies and she really didn't want any more. Susan understands that she no longer has what it takes to do the grunt work.
That's ok.

Susan and her family attended her youngest niece's high school graduation over the weekend (Hooray Liz!) and came home to a house that smelled like dog diarrhea which had been baking in a hot airless environment for hours because Susan, ever paranoid of home invasions, locks the windows every time she leaves the house.
Was that sentence too long?
Well, she's not changing it.

The source of the stench was located behind the couch, a cleanable area. Susan walked away and let the husband clean it.
In the meantime, she sent the kids over to be nice to the dog who was cowering in the hallway with her tail between her legs.

As Susan listened to the sounds of dog diarrhea being cleaned off the floor she reflected on how how lucky she was to have a husband who takes on dirty tasks without being asked.

When he finished they retired for the evening.

A few hours later the dog requested to use the restroom by sticking her wet nose in a sleeping Susan's face. Susan let her out into a dark yard then went over to investigate the cleanliness of the crime scene while she waited. Gasp! It was splattered with diarrhea again!

It was Susan's turn to clean.

On Monday Susan knocked her son's brand new Old Spice bodywash off the shelf in the shower and onto her foot.
Ouch you m*therf*cker, ouch!
She watched as a monstrous red bump rose immediately from the instep of her delicate size 10 foot.
She wore flip flops to work even though Acme Sweatshop does not observe a flip flop dress code.
Every day she watched the mark on her foot get larger and purpler, eventually it began to reverse course and get lighter because, how much damage could 16 fluid ounces really do? By Friday her foot was back to normal.
The end.

Susan thinks she fell asleep in front of an Excel spreadsheet. Late in the day she rested her eyes for the teeniest moment, the next time she opened them three columns of information were missing and her head was about to crash into the desk.

She's fallen asleep in public before, but that was back in her twenties and she was usually drunk.

Her old man used to fall asleep in church all the time. He'd listen devoutly for as long as he could before his attention span gave out and sweet sleep came to rescue him. Slowly he would tilt forward in his seat until his head jerked back and he'd wake himself up. A teenage Susan found this horribly embarrassing and poked him awake as often as was necessary.

Susan has always been a BIG fan of the nap. The ability to remove oneself from consciousness for an hour is the height of luxury. The absolute tops.