Every time Susan uses the restroom she sends a little prayer of thanks to the person, or team of persons who invented plumbing. OMG, plumbing is so fantastic!

Imagine if we couldn't flush our bodily filth away?
It's too horrifying to even consider. Plumbing is the number one necessary component to any decent quality of life. Let's say we were all rich and beautiful and in love,
that would be pretty fantastic, right?
Now, what if we also had to live with our own pee and poop? Horrible!

Susan's almost gotten into fist fights with people who didn't pick up their dog poop from in front of her house, imagine if she had to run after people who didn't pick up their personal poop? She'd have to become one of those full contact fighters or risk getting her ass kicked every day and that's no good because Susan's a lover not a fighter.

Well, Susan's only a lover after her husband reminds her of her marital obligation, but you get her point.

Susan is lucky enough to have two bathrooms in her modest, architecturally bereft house. Two bathrooms means one is for her and one is for everyone else.
The one that's for everyone else has a wonderful vintage 1986 aesthetic; frosted glass and mirror shower doors, peeling flowered paper and big round lightbulbs sent into a mirrored medicine cabinet. She's got plans, but for now she just keeps it clean and stocked with nice smelling soap and plenty of reading material for those who won't just be in & out.

Thank you Romans or Greeks, thank you.

Not too long ago, like last Friday night, Susan pretended she was thirty and went out to a bar to hear a band.

For many years Susan was no stranger to bars and bands. No stranger. Her current status as a grown-up and positive influence to her children really doesn't allow for this sort of recreational activity. But, she doesn't miss it because she's able to get her drinking and loud music listening done at home.

A co-worker of Susan's little sister was the lead singer, the band was in Susan's age range, Beatles songs were in their repertoire and the evening was shaping up to be unremarkable. But, beggars can't be choosers and there would be Guinness on tap for one post-menopausal suburban beggar with a potty mouth and a big birthday coming up.

Little sister's childhood girlfriend, code name Hot Widow, met them in the parkinglot. Inside was m*therfucking LOUD, it was so loud that the bartender couldn't hear Susan even though she was screaming her drink order in his face. Eventually the band took a break and Susan got a chance to interact with her companions.
The crowd was mature. Was that Max Von Sydow in the back of the room? There were an abundance of nice boobs and bad hair. When a drunk grandmother dressed like Madonna tried to insinuate herself into the conversation Susan removed herself to get a second pint.

The band came back on, Susan withstood their racket until she couldn't tolerate another second and fled outside. Outside into the cool, quiet refuge of the night, under the illuminated Guinness On Draught sign. She wasn't alone, the bouncers and smokers were out as well as a highly stylized girl's motorcycle. It was zebra striped, very low slung and had long fringes hanging from the handlebars.
It was pretty. After a short time she got bored looking at the bike and walked across the street to buy a vanilla cigar at the gas station.

Susan stood outside smoking her cigar and signalled to her sister to join her. Little sister was out in a flash.
Things were much more lively for Susan then.
They shared the cigar and watched everything going on inside; the band screaming, Grammy Madonna bothering patrons with her drunk nonsense, a big unstable Lurch looking guy standing in Hot Widow's personal space blocking her view. What fun it was outside!
Eventually Max Von Sydow came out too. He got on his zebra striped motorcycle and rode off.

The band ceased their racket and the sisters went back in.
The band came back on and Susan went out.
She returned with beef lo mein and signalled to her sister to join her. Little sister was out in a flash.

The beef lo mein got Susan noticed. One gentleman inquired if she had beamed in from somewhere because the Chinese food seemed like it came from outerspace. Susan didn't want him to be afraid so she assured him that it only came from down the block.

This time when Susan was outside she saw a normal looking motorcycle on which rested a minimalist helmet with a HELMET LAWS SUCK sticker. Susan wondered about who owned the helmet and why helmet law sucked. Surely helmets only wanted to help people, not become the object of derision. Susan ate her lo mein, joked around with her sister and eventually the owner of the bike and helmet appeared. Paul. Susan asked Paul all her questions, learned all his answers and had a nice exchange of information. In the midst of their conversation Drunk Larry stumbled over and steered the sisters' attention his way with questions like are you as smart as you look? and have you always been pretty? Drunk Larry was funny in a charming and sad sort of way. Eventually it was time to leave so they rescued Hot Widow and went to the diner for some essential grease, starch, sugar and caffeine.

Susan attended a seminar one day this week instead of going to work.

Before she left, the husband handed Susan a modest number of bills for lunch money which she combined with what she had in her purse. She counted it then walked directly into the kitchen and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Susan arrived at the seminar, eyeballed the complimentary breakfast bar, signed in then made the acquaintance of those sitting nearest to her; Raul, Kim and Virginia.
During the first break she went into the hall to get herself a cup of coffee and maybe something to eat. She picked up a plate, considered her choices and was poised over a muffin with the tongs when a uniformed gentleman stopped her. This was not Susan's food, it belonged to the other conference room. Holding her head a little higher than usual she returned to her seat and ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The lunchbreak came, Susan packed up her belongings and was headed toward her car when Raul, Kim and Virginia invited her to join them in the hotel's cafe. Susan was charmed by their offer and impulsively accepted knowing that she didn't have enough cash for a proper lunch.
What the hell, she had more than enough for coffee.

Susan read the menu in reverse, searching for the lowest number then following along until her lunch choice was revealed; Soup Du Jour for $5.
Alright! Susan would have minestrone soup with her coffee.
A mature twist to the liquid lunch.

The four acquaintances had a friendly lunch with plenty of interesting conversation. The bill came, Susan pulled out her bankroll and Kim started figuring out how much each person owed by dividing the bill into quarters.
Susan couldn't do a quarter of the bill, she could do exactly what she ordered + $2.75 for a tip.
Um, I have ten dollars.
Kim accepted Susan's money and recalculated the bill. Everyone was very nice and Susan spent the rest of the afternoon filling up with gas from her minestrone.

Susan got up early on Saturday morning to watch her son play lacrosse. The husband carried and set up a foldable chair so that Susan would have a comfortable place to sit. It was a lovely misty morning, the field was surrounded by pine trees and Susan couldn't imagine anywhere she'd rather be than sitting with a cup of coffee watching her boy (whichever one he was, they all looked alike) in the full flourish of his youth.
Simple pleasures surely are the best.

Then the parents showed up.

They were unassuming in appearance wearing jeans and windbreakers, bearing Snapple bottles. They came in twos and threes, greeted each other and then took their place along the edge of the field.

Susan would like to take this opportunity to mention how ferociously she has argued with the husband over his need to yell from the sidelines.
You're not the coach, why are you yelling?
The son backs her up, We can't hear you anyway, Dad.
A compromise was struck; If he feels he must yell then he is to position himself as far away from Susan as is practical, otherwise he is to completely refrain from yelling while she is in attendance.

The game started and the parents yelled.

They f*cking yelled like they were being overcharged at the butcher. They yelled at their kids, they yelled at the coach, they yelled at the referee, they all yelled at once. The women yelled like men and the men yelled like baboons.
Susan was horrified.

During periods of inactivity the parents chatted quietly, one scratched his private area in full view of anyone unlucky enough to be facing him. Another, aided by his spouse, gave incorrect directions to the field through his cell phone. Shortly thereafter the game was called because of lightning and Susan was returned to her calm universe.

Susie Booty Humps wants everyone to give themselves
a new RAP name this weekend. She and P Patty Trip are just gonna be kickin' it with their gangsta ass niggaz Furious Seanny F and Wicked LL Money.
Maybe they'll bake cookies.

Susan wakes up each morning a full on TWISTED b*tch. She puts on her TWISTED b*tch face and stomps around the house making her TWISTED b*tch comments about everything in her line of vision.
Was that light on all night?
Nobody fed the dog again?
How long is that pile of sh*t going to sit on the table?
Is that a wet towel on the floor?

It's the husband's function as her life partner to receive the full force of her anger. Well, not the full force, but certainly a large portion of it. Disclosing every last thought in her head would likely be de-motivational for the relationship. In the same way, she doesn't want to know every opinion the husband holds about her. It's enough that she's got to be in the same room with him during the periods that she can't stand him. Like now.
She particularly can't stand the sound of his voice.

She would love to make a list for her modest fan base of all the things she can't stand about the husband.
OMG, she'd love to! But she won't because everyone in a committed relationship knows what she's up against.
On Wednesday we're plodding along being a supportive spouse and by Thursday morning we've reached our saturation point. Critical mass.
Even someone as special and giving and wonderful as Susan is given to fits of miserable TWISTED spousal hatred.
However, we all know that hatred signifies one still cares.

Susan was temporarily drawn out of her tiresome depression over being broke by this
NY Magazine article about bed bugs.
Thanks guys, you're awesome!

Susan gets totally TWISTED anytime she's near people doing things she can't do;
Buying new clothes? Good for you
Going out to dinner? Fantastic
Planning a vacation? Go f*ck yourself

She can't enjoy her favorite fluffy sections of the newspaper anymore because she's only interested in articles about people living in poverty.
She's been having trouble regulating her bad moods and has to coordinate them with the husband so they don't have one at the same time.

This morning she stayed prone long past her alarm watching a silent movie because she didn't have the strength to throw her legs over the side of the bed and crawl toward the shower. She got to work an hour late, forgot her pocketbook, couldn't get her computer working till 4pm then came home to a broken window (Mom, I fell in that hole in the yard and my lacrosse ball popped up and broke the window) and not a drop of sangria left.
She can't take much more.

Haiku

While brushing her teeth
She hears a rumbling outside
And investigates

Through the open door
She sees the husband engage
The man with a truck

The cars! she panics
Still wet and in a towel
She runs to get dressed

Hands shaking she thinks
Which car are they here to hook?
Or will they take both!

She calms herself down
And works it out in her mind
It's only a car

Dressed, she walks quickly
To join the husband outside
And remove her things

Wait, that's no tow truck
But a PODS container truck
Here for a neighbor

Barely averting
A f*cking heart attack sets
Her mood for the day.

Susan farted in front of a lady in the supermarket.
She ran back to get the two boxes of Pop Tarts she abandoned on the shelf and farted as soon as she got there. She didn't even know that she had to fart, it just happened.
Susan is normally flatulent but this was different,
like a little surprise puff of air passing through her anus.
It was almost cute, like a quick Bronx cheer.
That was quite unexpected she said out loud, not directly to the woman searching through the breakfast bars, but for her benefit. Susan took her Pop Tarts and ran away.

Why is it that nobody in Susan's house can;
Do anything without a television on
Lock the back door
Indicate that they've used the last of something by putting it on the grocery list
Refrain from leaving their fingernail clippings in the bathroom
Put the cereal away
Shut lights off
Engage in any requested action without saying in a minute
Feed the dog
Throw a wet towel over the top of something to help it to dry
Keep small electronics from hitting the floor
Hide the dirty clothes when company is over
Quit talking when Susan's had enough of listening

Susan's back to being a redhead again;
RR07 Intense Copper Red.
She cut her hair to within an inch of its life too.
It's so short now people say Oh, you got your hair cut instead of Oh, I love your hair cut.

Tonight Susan and her daughter made dinner together. Susan did most of the grunt work like shopping for tomatoes, scallions, parsley & basil then doing most of the chopping but the recipe and enthusiasm came from the daughter. It's got all the food groups as she learned when she made it with her Family Consumer Science class
(that's Home Ec, old timers) and only requires boiling the water for macaroni. Dare Susan bore you with the recipe?
She thinks she will.

1 lb pasta
2 cups fresh tomatoes
8 tblsp fresh scallions, just use fresh everything
4 tblsp parsley leaves
4 tblsp basil leaves
1/8 cup olive oil
4 tblsp Parmesan cheese

Chop tomatoes, scallions, parsley & basil, put them & the olive oil in a bowl. Set aside.
Boil pasta, drain (reserve 1/4 of pasta water) and toss into the tomato mixture. Add Parmesan, toss again and serve.
Feeds 4.

After dinner Susan was making fun of her son for misplacing his cell phone. He got even by reminding her of the time she put the rental car keys in a Slim Jim container and then had a melt down in the Florida heat when she couldn't find them. Florida is not a good place for Susan. Her first exposure to that sunny hell was when she was 15 and had a f*cking stroke because a palmetto bug the size of her fist was running rampant in the motel room.
Her second exposure was two summers ago when she took her kids to Disney and lost the keys.
The final time will be to bring back her parents' bodies.
Maybe she'll make her little sister go instead.

Susan had a very short interaction with a sheriff of the county in which she resides. She wasn't getting in trouble or anything, she just had to accept a legal document on behalf of someone else. As part of the interaction the sheriff had to write down a description of Susan including her date of birth, weight and hair color. Susan breezed through the 6-9-60 and 165 lbs but then hit a bumpy patch.

Sheriff: What color is your hair?

Susan: Um, it's supposed to be red.

Sheriff:

Susan: I know I'm past due for my L'Oreal.

Sheriff:

Susan: It was orange when I was a kid.

Sheriff: Let's just say brown.

'Mom, your breath smells so bad, I'm not even kidding.'

Susan was reading Jessica's blog, (she's very funny take a look) and Susan decided to lift Jessica's topic of her worst date ever and use it.
Susan's dating experience was limited because she went right from being a virgin to having affairs. In high school she didn't understand what going all the way was.
Really!
But, she did have two dates with the best friend of a co-worker which qualifies as her worst date ever.
This is what she remembers from thirty years ago;
Her date told her that he had a 'sexual problem' as Susan ate her salad,
When they walked along the street her shadow was like five feet longer than his shadow,
and she spent the whole drive home thinking of a way to avoid kissing him which she did by agreeing to go out with him again.

Susan's in between paychecks and got caught doing her food shopping in the dollar store tonight.
She stopped in for burritos and a bag of peppermints but ended up getting Hamburger Helper, tomato sauce, frozen cubed potatoes, green chilies, kosher salt and 48 ounces each of iced tea and a fake orange juice drink.
Horrified?
She would have bought more but she ran out of cash.
She went home to drink sangria and fix her third day of chicken leftovers.

Susan had a painful bump on her eyebrow yesterday.
A hot compress made it feel better but she went to bed knowing that it was the beginning of something bad.
She woke up with a real old fashioned ugly high school pimple, the sort of thing she would have taken care of if it were anywhere else. She hit it again with a hot compress, a dab of concealer, eyebrow pencil then threw on a distractingly large necklace and left for work.

She looked in a mirror every chance she got, it was getting bigger and turning purple. She avoided her coworkers and kept her conversation to a minimum whenever she was in their company so they wouldn't look at her. All day long she daydreamed about going home and popping that thing.

Eventually she got her chance then hid her work underneath a modified band aid.

The next morning it looked better but still required a bit of camouflage; concealer, pencil and multiple strands of wood and glass beads. She gave herself a headache from poking it every hour to see if it still hurt.

Susan was rewarded for being up very late the other night with a movie from her teenage past, Burnt Offerings.
She propped herself up in bed to watch Karen Black in all her '70s glory transform from wholesome mom on vacation to crazy lady in the attic. A creeptastic hearse driver was on hand to keep Oliver Reed from enjoying a good night's sleep and Bette Davis was collecting a paycheck for being cheeky and adorable until it was her time to die.

Susan made it through a good portion of the movie but
3 am is her cut off for being awake. Anything after 3 am and she risks having an anxiety inspired episode.
Susan formerly suffered from panic attacks, totally debilitating panic attacks which she controlled through sheer force of will. Really.
Since that time she carries around a certain amount of residual anxiety which she sidesteps by employing proven strategies, like not staying up all night long.

The last time Susan was on a plane she felt herself declining into a state of overheated claustrophobia. She adjusted the nozzle above her head and directed a stream of cool air directly onto her face. Immediately she relaxed. The claustrophobia, which does not generally reverse course before pushing the host to the brink of hysteria, disappeared. Banished by cool air.
Fascinating.

Well, tonight was the night that Susan was unable to join Bossy and her bloggy posse in NYC. She assumes that they were all able to enjoy themselves without the company of Twisted Susan and she'll catch them next time.

Susan likes to see her children getting bigger. She never wanted to keep them little like some mothers she knows. She never engaged in any boo hoo this is my last baby behavior because it's silly. She liked watching them figure stuff out. Giving up the breastfeeding was a little sad, but she wouldn't want to still be breastfeeding them. Plus, the breasts were sort of taken out of circulation for other things during that time period if you know what she means.
And you do.

She likes that they have lives away from her, relationships and experiences that belong only to them. She wants to see what they'll do because she trusts them. To a point. She knows that  when she's not screaming at two lazy kids to do their homework, feed the dog and pick their sh*t up from the livingroom floor, she's forming adults.
Susan accepts that they're not as cute as they used to be. They used to twirl and sing and jump and talk, and get lice and pee in their beds and trade away their brand new birthday toys to the kid on the bus and spill nail polish on their feet eight hours a day. Adorable.

Now they're sarcastic, dramatic and loud when they're not being totally silent. They're within sight of bringing home boyfriends or girlfriends and smelling like pot.
Susan's waiting in the dark lacing up the gloves.

Susan had the most delightfully entertaining conversation with Wild Bill this afternoon.

Earlier in the week he sent Susan a series of texts related to something about which he was a little apprehensive.
A few days had passed so Susan sent him a follow up text while she was running an errand. Wild Bill responded immediately! with question marks? and exclamation points! and wanted to know why she was asking?! Sensing some underlying hysteria Susan thought it would be fun to mess around with her brother a bit and was formulating an appropriate text when he called.

Without breaking any HIPAA laws Susan can safely reveal that Wild Bill's not like regular people his age. He's smart without being mature and everything about him is extreme; his views, his humor, the tone of his voice, his recreational activities, everything.
He's consistently maintained the same personality characteristics since he was five and can be tons of fun until one reaches their saturation point.
He has no fear of consequences and the more you try to get him to do something the less likely he is to do it, that's why it was so funny for Susan to find him in the middle of a full on panic about the possibility of impending consequences.

In the past he's told her I always bring a book to court in case I end up in jail.
Oy!

Wild Bill couldn't wait for Susan to text him back because he was hiding behind the sofa and had to know right that instant what she was talking about. Susan assured him that one Dumb Yankee Assh*le didn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world and he should redirect his time toward less paranoid pursuits. During the course of their conversation Wild Bill tried not to have a heart attack and Susan roared with laughter at her brother's expense then spent the rest of the afternoon with a happy smile.

Susan found out that she'll be unable to make the acquaintance of Bossy during her road trip through Susan's home state two weeks from now. Que drag.
Susan was apprehensive about being immersed in bloggy peers to begin with because she's still in fifth grade and everyone's better than she is. But, she was going to ask two old pals Margarita and On The Rocks With A Rim to accompany her just in case. Oh well, she'll have to see them another time.

So, what has everyone else been up to?
Susan's been sick which she knows is boring to read about because Sevedra told her. Alright!
Not another word about how she still can't f*cking SMELL or TASTE anything after an eternity! Oy, you've heard your last complaint from her on that topic.

Susan has been aware of American Idol noises coming from the living room. American Idol has never been watched in her house until recently. She thinks the daughter has been turning it on just to bug her mother because how could anyone possibly enjoy watching such an insipid show? Even an eleven year old? Susan, still perplexed by where Seacrest came from, googled him and found he originated from one of those Amazing Sea Monkeys kits in the back of a magazine.

Over the past two weeks Susan has received her music CDs from Dawn, and Meg and Cutie Judy! Susan has not yet listened to all of them because she's been a little funky, and not in the George Clinton way. She wants to have an open accepting brain to receive the musical gifts that were made for her. She doesn't want to run the risk of thinking I hate this shit, she wants to hear each song the way her lovely bloggy CD makers hear them. In the meantime she has made 2/3 of the reciprocal CDs but has not yet mailed anything.
What a loser.

She's getting ready to be a productive person again.

Susan's also been contemplating her impending birthday, not the age, just the commemoration. How does a person celebrate a milestone, alright fifty, on a budget without looking cheap?
Thus far she's come up with NO KIDS, especially hers.
The rest is under development.

A week later and Susan is still sick, she even went home early on Friday to take a nap in the middle of the afternoon. Susan loves naps as long as her brain doesn't use them as an opportunity to remind her of all the bad things that could happen in the world, or specifically to her. But, if she's living a healthy life and her anxiety is in check she loves naps. There's no day that can't be improved by a nap sez the husband and he's right.

Susan's kids are sick too, they came back from the doctor with antibiotics for bronchitis and stayed home from school for two days. The doctor also prescribed an inhaler for her son even though he wasn't having any trouble breathing, but because the doctor mentioned it the kid wanted it. Then the husband climbed on the inhaler bandwagon, which is unusual because he doesn't normally get involved in stupid arguments. Susan observes a zero tolerance for stupid arguments, unless she's arguing that position, and quickly shut them down. No inhaler.

Susan made another batch of her white bread chili and since she still can't taste or smell she doubled everything hot & spicy. Pow! It blowtorched her tongue and cleared up her stuffy nose by the second bite. Other than the sensation of heat and a faint acknowledgment of cumin, she couldn't taste it.

Susan has a recipe she'd like to share for home made Italian Cough Syrup which is favored by the daughter.
No pencils necessary, it's easy to remember:

1 tblsp LEMON JUICE (as an antiseptic)
1 tblsp OLIVE OIL (coats the throat)
Mix together, shake, sip by teaspoonfuls as needed.
If you're phlegmmy then add SALT as an expectorant.

God bless!

Susan has nothing to blahg about. Nothing.
There's not a thought in her head.
Nothing interesting has happened. She's bored.
Her blogging has been erratic. She still can't taste or smell and now her throat hurts. What a cruddy St. Paddy's day.
Susan is overpowered by funk.

Susan's had a little cold this week, nothing terrible but she can't smell anything or taste her food.
This morning when the husband mistakenly put sugar in her coffee she drank it instead of pouring it down the drain. She made a pot of chili with extra garlic and chipotle peppers but it may as well have been white bread.
Even her dog, whose smell Susan always has to wash off her hands after playful interaction, doesn't smell.

Susan thanks everyone for accepting this in lieu of a real post.

Susan's hand shot out and grabbed a jar of marshmallow fluff as she walked down the marshmallow fluff aisle in the supermarket last week. It wasn't her regular supermarket which made her sort of disoriented and led to the suspension of her regular rules about such things. Marshmallow fluff is outrageously sweet until you're in the mood for it then it's sugary bliss. And when paired with peanut butter a certain TWISTED person could sit alone at the dinner table every night with a jar of each and a spoon and get in trouble.
Susan's in trouble.
She's been eating sweet things
which means she's been craving sweet things
which means she's been eating sweet things.
Vicious cycle thy name is sugar; beautiful white gritty sugar spun into Fruit Loops and miniature Almond Joys
and red pepper jelly.

Susan hasn't grown out of her pants yet but she's been cutting off the circulation near her belly button.
Tonight she ate a grapefruit.
Tomorrow she'll start writing everything down and calculating points. But she's not going to meetings.
No f*cking way.

Susan was sitting around on Sunday morning lamenting the lack of anything to blahg about when, on his way to the toilet, her husband asked her if she'd seen the recent Architectural Digest.

I threw it out.

Susan loves magazines because they bring together her two favorite activities; looking at pictures and sitting. However, Architectural Digest is big, shiny and soul-less,
if it were lying face down in a muddy puddle in the street Susan would jump on it and keep going.

Architectural Digest made its way into Susan's life completely uninvited one year ago when the rotten publishing company that killed off her beloved Domino magazine substituted it for the balance of the subscription period. Oh, Domino!
Susan still has her last issue from March of 2009 wrapped in the original plastic propped up on a table surrounded by candles, crystals and incense.

Domino was all cheery sunshine filled with colors and ideas that Susan could incorporate into her own home if she felt like it, and sometimes she did. Domino was pure potential wrapped up in sedentary joy.

Never once did Susan rip a page out of that inspirationaly-bereft other magazine for future reference.

All this thinking about that other magazine drove Susan to her breaking point she and called up the rotten publishing company's 800 number to tell them that she couldn't stand their magazine and to please refrain from sending her any more. They were very polite and asked her if she'd like to replace it with another publication or would she prefer a refund? Susan said that she did like their Lucky magazine even though she was twenty years beyond their target demographic. They said that they would be happy to make the substitution and even tacked on another six months for all Susan's pain and suffering.
Indeed.

Susan's good mood at having Dawn and Cutie Judy and Meg send her some music has been temporarily obliterated by having to make nervous poops all the time because she got in trouble at Acme Sweatshop.

Susan works sixteen hours a day and sleeps on a little cot in the back but her boss still isn't happy with Susan's work. Susan understands that she's always in the middle of her own conflicts so she's not going to blame anything on anyone else, she's just going to figure it out. Until she does, she'll be sitting in the potty feeling like a failure.

In the midst of all this personal misery Susan missed her first bloggy anniversary! Was it really a year ago that her little Twisted Susan was all cute and brand new? Feel free to check out her virgin post, it's not very exciting but it was a start.

And, Susan's not done campaigning for her musical reciprocity project. She went to the library today, paid her $4.65 in fines and came home with a crap load of CDs, didn't like any of them and forgot to look in the magazine recycling bin, drats.

Susan needs some new music.
She's previously asked two of her three nieces to make her a CD and thus far all they've done is nothing. Thanks girls, guess who's Aunt Sue's favorite now?
Anyway.
Susan has a idea involving musical reciprocity,
if any member of her modest fan base wish to make a CD for Susan she'll make one for them.
Don't be shy bloggy pals, hip Susan to your fave music but hurry up because she's bored.

Karma blew Susan a kiss and arranged for her to be able to sit on the couch and spend ninety minutes with her new dandy best friend, Ruggles Of Red Gap.
No one except the dog was interested in watching a movie from 1935 about a English butler who ends up in the 'land of slavery' after his boss loses him in a poker game. So, Susan snuggled up to her favorite family member and watched an adorably charming Charles Laughton reinvent himself.
The End.

Sunday morning Susan got her family out of the house by 10:30 am and spent the day at the most wonderful place in the world, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Susan can't f*cking stand the sight of the husband right now. The whole f*cking day he's been irritating her in an undefined but very real way and she'll blowtorch the f*cking house if she hears his voice.

She first notice that he wasn't looking at her this morning when she spoke to him. What the f*ck's wrong with you? He didn't answer her inquiry but that was alright because she wasn't interested in his answer anyway.

They got into a little silent angry thing when he said that he was going to pick up the daughter at Brittney's house. The husband is always saying Brittney when he means Marina, which is where the daughter spent last night. Susan assumed that he was headed to the wrong house and told him so only to find that the daughter really was at Brittney's house. How the f*ck is Susan supposed to know anything if no one tells her and you can't tell the difference between Brittney and Marina anyway, assh*le.

A little later, after Susan mis-heard a portion of an anecdote the husband half mumbled to her he adopted a bristly demeanor.

The gloves came off during a conversation about what time they wanted to leave in the morning,
Susan suggested 10:30,
and the husband smirked.

Susan's response to the husband sounded similar to the way Kate Gosselin used to speak to her former spouse only with a lot of cursing followed by total silence.
All night.

Nineteen years ago Susan suggested that her little sister, brother in law and cousin Lisa accompany her to a movie. Little did she know that this Mad Max knockoff starring Rutger Hauer would win her an award as the chooser of the worst movie ever. Susan's companions didn't even wait for the movie to end before they presented her with a plaque, organized a parade and carried her around on their shoulders then made fun of her for two decades.

Even though their assessment was correct Susan's personal favorite most awful movie had already come out two years earlier, again cousin Lisa was present as witness. That one was a first date love story set against nuclear war and was totally unbelievable because Dr. Mark Green was the leading man.

Susan can tolerate a number of unpleasant things; dog sh*t in the grooves of her snow boots, enthusiastically chatty co-workers, having to dry herself off with the bath mat but she cannot endure bad movies.

She and the husband have a lengthy history of walking out as soon as a movie bores them. They even walked out on Sting in a very expensive concert although it serves Susan right for being there in the first place.

Susan does not watch bastardized Hollywood versions of foreign films.
Susan will fistfight her way out of a romantic comedy.
Susan has napped through every movie she ever took the kids to. Every one.

During her last visit Susan's mother brought a number of movies popular with people who don't care what they watch including one with two surefire elements for a new contender; Richard Gere and Diane Lane. Susan's sorry to report that it wasn't bad enough even though everyone broke out in hoots and hollers when Richard Gere died at the end.

The husband planned the most marvelous gift for his favorite valentine, Susan. He got up early, went to Home Depot & purchased whatever was in the bag that he used to fix the bathroom sink. Susan assisted him by stuffing a pillow under his head, locating a channel lock and holding a screwdriver in place for a few minutes. When he was done people were once again able to brush their teeth & wash their sudsy spit down the drain.
As if this weren't a wonderful enough gift, he accompanied Susan food shopping then made meatballs just the way she likes them.

Susan spent the day in her PJs, a combination of the
t-shirt she wore yesterday underneath her work clothes, minus a brassiere, plus sweatpants.
Very comfortable for having nowhere to go.
Every once in a while the son would come in to bore her with details of the game he was playing and Susan noticed that he'd check out her t-shirt lightening fast without missing a beat of his monotonous, uh, monologue.

Susan just fills out her B-cup and that's only because she's gained some weight in her forties, she used to be able to go without a brassiere completely, but no more.
An unrestrained B-cup is a little sloppy but it isn't going to distract anyone for more than a split second.

Up until two years ago Susan used to walk around the house without clothes, not in front of windows or company, usually only because she was interrupted after her shower, before she got dressed.
Her kids didn't pay any attention, they'd seen it before.

Years ago when Susan was pregnant she thought about the type of mom she wanted to be. She wasn't warm & cuddly, she was a little stiff and had personal space issues.
Susan wanted to locate her inner hippie, she wanted to be comfortable with her unclothed body and all natural-ish. She wanted to be like the pictures in Joy Of Sex only with babies and motherhood and stuff.

Susan figured out how to create a much less stiff self and after a period of total discomfort with breast feeding found that she kind of liked it. She was much better being the mother of toddlers than she was as the mother of infants even though she let her son eat a screw and her daughter fall off the dining room table. She liked being naked when the kids were little and found it funny when they'd have entire conversations while staring at her pubic hair. Slowly they got older and still didn't give Susan a second look if they found her naked in the kitchen making coffee before work.

One day she mentioned this to her social worker friend and OMG, Susan had better quit that right now! because she was in danger of making her kids all twitchy and ax-murdery. Later when she told her husband about the ridiculous opinion of her social worker friend he agreed.
So, that was the end of Naked Susan.

Susan's always on the prowl for a good blog,
kind of like hers only interesting and funny with big words and smart ideas. Unfortunately there's some powerful stinky blogs out there.
Stinky winky.

Susan declines to badmouth all the moms hitting the keyboard for obvious reasons but there's plenty of boring family blogs with misplaced apostrophes;
Hello From The Smith's. Ugh.
Double Boring Wedding blogs, we're in love!
Twenty-Somethings Living Life to the Fullest blogs.
Let Me Bore You With My Political Opinion blogs.
I'm Me And There's No One Else Like Me! blogs.

All the musings and journeys and ramblings and musings and random ravings and musings and Carpe Diems gave Susan a stomach ache.

Susan was reading Deidre's blog and totally stole her idea, um, was inspired to write about her own first crush. Susan was already thinking about using her first crush as fodder for a BLAHg post anyway but since she told her fourth grade flashback story last week she didn't want to tell two fourth grade stories so close together.
But, she's going to.

Sidebar: Susan's pretty sure that fourth grade was when she figured out that teachers generally call on the kids who don't make eye contact. So, whenever Susan didn't know an answer she looked right at the teacher and was spared.

One day a new girl was introduced to the class. Lynn.
Lynn sat next to Susan.
Susan shared her textbook with Lynn.
Lynn invited Susan to come to her house after school. Alright!
Susan would escape the monotony of her family for an entire afternoon.

Susan can remember the details of Lynn's house to this day; center hall colonial, front door opening to a black and white tiled floor, sunny kitchen in back, a spinning wheel in the livingroom, a big golden dog and a scary third floor.
Everyone in the family was very nice to Susan and even asked her to say grace at dinner. Say what?
Susan sat with her head down until someone bailed her out by reciting a simple prayer.

Susan and Lynn became quick friends and stayed that way for a while. Little by little other classmates elbowed their way in, Susan didn't mind until it became obvious that Lynn preferred another's company.

Susan was miserable and tried to regain her position by hounding her former best friend into submission. When that didn't work she'd cry, think about what fun secrets Lynn was sharing with her new best friend and cry some more. All her weekends were spent wallowing in her personal pit of agonizing sorrow until she eventually decided to knock it off.
Later when Susan embarked on a career of being rejected by boys on whom she had crushes she recognized the feeling; it was Lynn all over again.

Fourteen years ago Susan was sitting on a toilet with instructions to pee into a little cup. She was doubled over in so much pain that she couldn't even say
'Arrrrgggghhhh!' when she heard a knock on the door. Neither could she turn her head in that direction when an unsuspecting stranger walked in on her.
Or the next stranger or the stranger after that.

How is it possible to be in so much pain and not be dying? Holy crap! It's like all her years of menstral cramps were rolled up into a single contraction reoccuring every five minutes.

Eventually Susan got a stretchy waist band monitor strapped to her belly and found out that this crushing pain was normal for the circumstance. After pushing for three hours she had a baby. Susan didn't even think to ask what type of baby it was, she just asked for a can of Coke.

Three mornings later she woke up in her own bed, tiptoed to the basinette at the other end of the room and was almost suprised to find her teeny baby still there, right where she left him. She knew logically that he would be there but until she peered in and made visual contact she feared that he might have evaporated. This was made possible by a grant from Demerol, hormones, lack of sleep and regular old paranoia.

Keep your eyes peeled for related future posts;
Susan sits around with her top off all day long breastfeeding
Susan has a crush on her OB-GYN
Susan can't get out of the house before 4pm
Susan has another baby and learns how to cook.

In honor of Susan's son's fourteenth birthday this weekend here's fourteen things she likes about him:

• He's not mean
• He eats his vegetables
• He doesn't take crap from people
• Often he's cooperative
• He gets right out of bed when his alarm goes off
• He tells the truth much of the time
• His toilet cleaning skills are improving
• He's respectful
• He got into a tussle coming to the aid of a girl
• He's trustworthy within reason
• He's still affectionate, unlike his sister
• He likes to smell good
• He can be funny when he's not just making noise
• He's been the most delightful company since 1996

Saturday morning Susan's family did something they never did before, ever. They got up, brushed their teeth and went to the mall. Now, Susan's been to the mall with the daughter and she's pretty sure that the husband has been to the mall with the son, but they've never gone together in a pack.

They divided by gender as soon as they got there and went in different directions. Susan was happy to follow the middle school daughter around as she looked for clothes. She favors a wholesome sporty style so there's no arguing with her mother over fit or length and there's no boobs yet to hang out.

Susan spent the afternoon immersed in pre-teen girls, most shopping with their mothers, and saw that they all shared the same body language. First, everybody played with their hair. Many made eye contact but held their heads slightly downward and most moved as though they didn't want to disturb the space around them. One looked disapprovingly at another's choice in footwear, but Susan does that too.
Sidebar: Susan recalls eyeballing a fellow class mother in cleavage and heels during a trip to the ecology center at the local beach.

The son only needed wrestling gear and tee shirts with skulls, so he & the husband were done quickly. Most of their time was spent on comfortable seating in the middle of the mall. This didn't stop the son from texting
r u almost done? repeatedly making Susan move that much more slowly.

Susan was driven out of a stinky specialty bath and body shop by the intolerable stench of too many candles, plug in fragrances and lotions. She tasted the smell in her mouth.

Susan drank a seltzer while watching her family eat Food Court food then broke free long enough to fall in love with a pair of tall appliqued boots that didn't come in her size. She consoled herself by purchasing Patti Smith's book, and her beloved expensive decorating magazine then ran into a favorite girlfriend while standing on line.

On the way home there was a trip through Trader Joe's where Susan stocked up on a six month supply of Spicy Peach Salsa as well as bags and bags and bags of frozen dumplings.

The day ended with double sleepovers allowing Susan & the husband to escape to cousin Lisa's house for the game of unspeakable fun, Taboo where Susan discovered something that the husband can NOT do; give clues.

Lucky Dog

Susan's modest fan base is well aware that Susan likes to bake. Susan is in the habit of keeping a decorative box filled with biscotti for her personal dunking enjoyment. Biscotti is an outstanding cookie choice because they're good enough for company, you can't tell when they get stale and no one in her house ever paid attention to them. Until recently.

Susan has a short repertoire of biscotti she bakes.
No one gave them a second thought until she added chocolate biscotti with cranberries (feel free to refer back to this post for the recipe, it's very easy) and found her family lined up outside the oven. Of course Susan likes to see her family enjoy the proceeds of her baking talents but she gets TWISTED out of her f*cking skull when they eat everything up in one day. Susan has no patience for folks who can't control themselves and this goes double for the husband and kids.

Anyway, she shared her thoughts on portion control in her b*tchy mommy voice then removed the cookies from her family. She hid them and then was forced to change the hiding spot everyday because the kids have plenty of time to look for cookies after school and the husband can reach all the high spots. Unfortunately hiding spots are in short supply so Susan found herself stuffing the cookies into drawers where extra towels are stored.

Susan baked some chocolate biscotti tonight. As she put the ingredients together she included two teaspoons of cayenne pepper. Susan likes her chocolate spicy while her family does not.

Twice this week Susan has had a kind of flashback to fourth grade, she's only approximating that it was fourth grade, it could could have been fifth grade. Or third.
She thinks it was initially triggered by the fluorescent lights at work combined with the rain and maybe a teeny bit of deep internal anxiety. Anyway, her flashback came on and ended within a few seconds and took the form of a feeling combined with a memory, like she slipped back into herself as a kid.
The memory was of a trip her class had taken. Nothing really happened; everybody got on a bus, went someplace, sat around & went home. And they all got airline pilot wings in a little manila envelope.
Susan found herself experiencing a long ago insecurity, different from the way any current insecurity feels, and a little sadness. This was accompanied by a blurry mental photograph.

The second flashback was triggered by a lunchroom smell. It came and went so fast Susan couldn't identify it but she was catapulted back to the East Lake Avenue Elementary school. She let her mind wander to the classmate who ate egg salad every day for years, the ammonia that the lunch ladies used to wipe down the tables, her brownie troop meetings, the Mary Hopkins record she liked.

Susan was raised in a fend for yourself climate, things weren't all warm & cuddly like today. Teachers didn't fall over themselves to make sure kids were happy, Susan was scolded once for wearing a store bought Halloween costume to school instead of a home made one.

She remembers going to the beach with someone's mother and coming home fried to a crisp. How do you let a long white stringbean of a kid with orange hair get redder and redder without grabbing her to sit in the shade or slop on suntan lotion? There was plenty of suntan lotion in 1969 because Susan's mother used to bathe her in it. Well, Susan doesn't want to turn this into a grade school bitch fest although she's got more than enough material.

Susan had a previous flashback experience while she was sitting in the car listening to the radio. A song came on that reminded her in a very vivid way of the double married boyfriend period in her life. The feeling disappeared almost as soon as it came but Susan tried to hold on to it. She hoped to use the song to channel herself during that time and figure out why she found such an insane lifestyle attractive. She still doesn't know.

Susan worked up a total sweat trying to figure out how to add the little Bossy's (No) Book Tour square. She's draped across a chair fanning herself right now.

Susan is displaying an unusual amount of faith by thinking that she can even get out of the house to go socializing with a bunch of bloggers. And, it's quite possible that she'll have nothing clever to say when she gets there. Sure, her BLAHg's filled with plenty of nonsense if you like reading about meatball hysteria and mangled grammar and bags of Craisins. Susan hopes that you're thinking; but Susan, you're so fabulous and funny! While that's true, she'd like to hip you to her secret weapon; editing. Susan edits the living crap out of everything she writes because she's not this entertaining right out of the gate. Really.

What happens if she's in a bad mood on blogger night? Susan's got some effective tricks for bad moods, but bad moods are still organic & take on a life of their own. She never knows what she's up against until she's up against it.

Neither does Susan know anything technical about blogging. It's tough enough to weave her magic using words, she doesn't have the mental capacity to include pictures. Oy, pictures bring a whole other level of involvement that Susan doesn't have time for.

What if the other bloggers want to talk politics? Susan truly isn't interested in hearing anyone's political opinion, plus she gets Libya and Iran confused all the time although she knows where Yemen is thanks to a map from Doctors Without Borders.
Susan's tuckered out from all her negative projection.

The husband makes a pot of meatballs & sauce every other week. While they're still hot he runs half over to the neighbor's and comes back home to feed the other half to a table full of people. Leftovers are turned into lasagne.

The husband made Susan fall in love with his meatballs years ago. She and the meatballs were very happy until the husband had a little fling with a few of Carmine's meatballs and everything fell apart. Susan didn't understand the fuss, Carmine's meatballs were no big deal but the husband disagreed and set on a path to replicate them.
Susan was mad!
She yelled any time he made a stupid pot of sub-par meatballs. She refused to eat them.
She made mean comments about them.
She argued with everyone who said they liked them.
This went on for months until the husband finally said alright already! and agreed to make them only every third pot and to let Susan know well in advance.
Susan found this arrangement agreeable.

Now things are back to normal, the husband has given up his quest to make ordinary meatballs, Susan has simmered down and everything's good in the kitchen again.

Susan has been having trouble with her words lately.
Like, for the last thirteen and 11/12ths years.
She remembers the day she couldn't summon ceiling fan and found herself pointing upward demanding that someone turn on that thing that twirls around!

Sometimes she comes up with words which are similar in definition and other times it's words that sound similar. Sometimes all they share is the same first letter.
Susan finds it easier to start from scratch and describe the thing she is trying to remember rather than search her brain for the word. This doesn't happen just every once in a while, it happens every day. Every day a few words temporarily evaporate and leave Susan with an empty space where they used to be.

She's good with extrapolate and pontificate and obfuscate. She can play Bananagrams standing on her head.
She can read until the cows come home but she can't think of the word tomato.

For the better part of the last decade Susan and her little sister, their cousins and aunt have maintained a Superbowl ritual; they ignore it completely and go shopping at Macy's in Herald Square.
Macy*s is amazingly gigantic, totally immense.
Susan and her aunt used to work for unrelated agencies in the same building located down the block and became very well acquainted with which floor held what and where the sale racks were. That was a magical time for Susan who was fond of running over to pick up a pound of dark chocolate almond bark whenever she felt like it.
Whenever she felt like it!
Anyway. Last year Susan had to beg off because she was unemployed and didn't have the necessary money for train fare. That was sad because Susan didn't even have to shop to enjoy herself, she just looked forward to spending the day with her cousins. This year will be just as sad,
but it's not the lack of cash that's ruining her plans.
Her son's fourteenth birthday falls on that Sunday and there's no way she can use her hatred of all things football to get out of the house.
Susan hates the Super Boring Bowl like crazy. Last year she tried to read the newspapers through it but still managed to catch her family laughing like a bunch of a**holes at the grotesquely un-funny commercials.
For a few minutes she thought that the entire country had conspired to mess around with her because how could anybody think this sh*t is funny?
However, there was a little bright spot during halftime when she saw Bruce Springsteen teabag a cameraman.

For a half hour Susan was in a room with a television that was tuned to American Idol. This isn't something that's ever on in her house. Ever. She's familiar with the judging panel through cultural osmosis but she's never seen them in action. She will admit that she liked the juxtaposition of a cockney accent against the android perfection of Victoria Beckham. Or V.
Susan was struck by the the lack of depth in their commentary and their solicitous and superficial manner. The girls sort of nod their head to indicate that they're grooving along with the music.
And, where'd Ryan Seacrest come from anyway? It's as if he was left on our doorstep ten years ago and then mutated into the form we see today.
Alright, that's enough. Susan's done thinking about them.

Susan got the opportunity to see a Broadway play over the weekend, it was very bright and musical and Susan was all set to take a nap but the seats were too small.

Halfway through the first act a new character took the stage, he was very average in every way except for
his package which was unrestrained beneath woolen leggings. Susan's eyes did that cartoon thing where they pop out of their sockets and get really big like balloons then get sucked back in.

For the rest of the time the actor was onstage, which was most of the play, Susan could see nothing else but the dangly thang. The jiggly wiggly.

A chain reaction of thoughts started knocking each other over in Susan's head like; Was this on purpose? How could it not be? Did Gilbert & Sullivan endorse this unexpected twist? And, why wasn't anybody in charge of monitoring underpants?

The TWISTED Susan Family Annual Update

OMG, it felt like last year went by so fast when in reality it took an entire year to drag its sorry ass across the finish line.
Things started out with lots of excitement;
Susan was unemployed, her car got repossessed and the family lost their medical benefits. Wow!
But, laughter is the best medicine and, boy did they laugh. LOL!
Did they let any of this stop them from going on vacation? No they didn't. Twelve hours in the car got them a long weekend in North Carolina visiting the husband's daughters.
Susan knows that she's kind of making fun by insinuating that this may have been a less than glamorous trip.
She wants to say it loud & proud that she had a terrific time and hopes to be invited back again, although it would be nice to fly there.
Like all proud homeowners behind on their mortgage payments there were home improvement projects during the year. The husband hung some shelves and Susan bought new towels. They're looking forward to Phase II when they repaint a room.
Let's not forget about the kids, they had their own busy schedules of going to school followed by a summer of putting pizza rolls in the microwave and watching TV.
Susan served as juror number 6 during the home invasion trial of a drug dealer. She loved jury duty because it was like criminal justice theatre. Plus, she had nothing else to do and they paid her $40 a day.
There were blessings for the family too, and everyone knows just how much Susan adores the word blessings. She can't hear it enough.
Blessings.
In an economically desolate environment Susan got herself a new job. And eventually a new car payment. And payroll deducted medical benefits. And contributions to a 401(k). Then the IRS played a little trick on them, but it was all in good fun and everyone had a big laugh. LOL again!
There was a visit from Wild Bill which is always fun and frustrating and maybe a little chaotic. This trip he delivered his daughter safely back to her New York family.
To stay, hooray!
The year ended with a coupla things and blah, blah, blah.
The end.

Fish sticks and spaghetti was Susan's most hated childhood dinner. She still doesn't eat spaghetti.
Why?
Because of her mother!

Susan's curious about your most hated childhood meal, won't you tell her all about it?
She even changed the settings on her comment moderation so now everybody can comment without having to jump through hoops.

Comment away, darlings.

Susan's mother did not like what Susan wrote in her previous post and pointed out a pair of inaccuracies. Susan told her mother I took it easy on you knowing that there was so much more she could share about the meals of her childhood but will have to wait until her parents are dead.
Inaccuracy #1: Susan's mother never used a crockpot, it was a pressure cooker.
Inaccuracy #2: Cream of Mushroom soup was only used in the Tuna Casserole which Susan was able to keep from spitting out but her little sister was not.
Some nights they have entire conversations in the hot tub just about Tuna Casserole.
Susan is sorry that her mother was unhappy and hopes that this has helped a little bit.

What does Susan have against her crock pot?
(Thanks for asking, beechie).
To provide the answer Susan has to travel way back to the '70s and describe the sort of food her mother made her eat. Stew-like things with soft carrots, soft potatoes and stringy meat all held together by cream of mushroom soup. Susan used to excuse herself from the kitchen table to go spit her dinner into the toilet. There were plenty of corn, peas and diced vegetables slopped out of cans, the peas even smelled like pee. Every dinner was followed up by a dessert of fruit cocktail and three kids fighting over the lone cherry in each can.

Susan's pal Cyndi (yes, she really spells her name that way) always had her crockpot humming on the kitchen counter. Susan liked the idea of being removed from dinner preparation but couldn't stomach the idea of soft meat. And, she certainly couldn't have her children complaining about their dinners forty years later.

This notwithstanding, Susan bought a crockpot in a fit of doomed enthusiasm and immediately started looking for recipes that didn't involve red meat. Chicken thighs were promoted as being more flavorful, so she used them and learned that she doesn't like her chicken squishy and fatty. Cousin Lisa provided a recipe for pork chops crockpotted in V8 with onions and potatoes. That was nice of her is Susan's only comment. Chicken crockpotted in salsa and peanut butter ended up in the garbage, bypassing the table completely.
Susan might consider crockpotting some rice pudding.
Dare she?

This new year Susan resolves to;
Care more about world events
Find her silver hoop earring
Make some CDs for the car
Find her black and tan gloves
Try tomato juice again
Be a better person
Watch that Netflix movie she got in November
Think about using the treadmill
Serve antipasto more often
Use her creative abilities to make money
Give the crockpot away
Show her children as much love as she shows the dog.

Susan had no expectations that the new year would be any different than the old year. She understands that this is a very pessimistic attitude but she's been riding a bad mood for months and is not going to change just because it's a new f*cking decade.

All she wanted to do on the eve of the new year was sit in her sister's hot tub and b*tch about her life for a while then go watch all the Thin Man movies on TCM.
Instead she ended up as the guest of a family who liked to cook, eat, drink home made wine, dance and listen to their Portuguese music turned up to 11. Even the family dogs were pressed in to service as dance partners.

Susan eventually exiled herself to the darkened living room where she found the TV clicker under a pile of coats and watched William Powell and Myrna Loy drink their way through the 1930s. Susan was only able to watch because the music was so loud she couldn't hear the television. Before long Susan's brother-in-law joined her and was making up names, dialogue and a story for the movie which put Susan into fits because her brother-in-law is crazy funny.

Midnight came and went so Susan's family slid home,
crawled into bed and woke up to a new year's miracle. She's typing on the drunken laptop!

Susan was all prepared to write about her resolutions for the new year, or more accurately about how she's still categorizing them by personality flaw because there's too many to choose from.

She's definitely got to cut down on her beloved sugary sweets now that cookie season is on the way out.

She's also going to consider how often she's been drinking. Not about how much, just about how often.

Anyway, Susan was seated at the dining room table, poised over the laptop, thinking her thoughts when the most HORRIBLEST thing in the world happened. The daughter came in to the room and was immediately invited to sit on Susan's lap for a little snuggly hug. In doing so her ungainly pre-teen body knocked Susan's glass of sangria all over the laptop.
OMG!
All over the laptop!

Susan beat at her chest and tore out her hair but neither helped. She flipped the laptop over in an attempt to have gravity pull the sticky poison away from the works then went to tattle to the husband on the Laptop Killer.

Everyone in the house just stood around in disbelief, staring at the upside down laptop, waiting. And if this weren't bad enough, that was the last of the sangria.

Susan found herself in the supermarket early on Sunday morning. She had originally intended to be in church at that time but due to a month long absence she was not aware of the new holiday schedule and pulled in to an empty parking lot. No matter, she'd put her time to good use by standing on a line with onions, sugar, anisette extract, the papers and hair product.
While she waited Susan noticed a mature woman a few aisles over engaged in an animated conversation with the cashier. Nothing crazy, just animated. The woman was facing away from Susan but she appeared to be trim and neat in her holiday themed sweater, little hoop earrings and styled hair. Good for her, Susan likes to see when her suburban sisters take a few moments to put themselves together. Eventually the woman turned around so Susan could see that her chin was directly underneath her nose because she had forgotten her teeth.
She combed her hair, chose an outfit and put in her earrings but not her teeth.

Last year Susan made it through Christmas while being unemployed. She had help from a girlfriend who hired Susan to do office work and then organize her house.
And they only fought once.
This year Susan is back to full time employment but the recession made sure that the husband sees no payday, which is bad because he's the breadwinner. So, they're out on the high wire until things pick up.

In the meantime, except for her children and her three nieces, any person she has ever bought presents for in the past has been slashed from the list. There'll be none for little sister, none for cousin Lisa, none for her friends,
none for the husband, none for her next door neighbors.
None for anybody.

Christmas morning Susan and her little sister's family always meet for breakfast. Forget about it this year, even the price of eggs at a diner is not in the budget.

Susan had previously told the kids that they'd be getting only one gift this year and they'd better choose judiciously.

The morning before Christmas, coinciding with the availability of Susan's paycheck, the husband went out to purchase each child's solitary gift. He was done by 9 am. Did Susan mention that they both wanted the same thing? It's handheld, electronic and not at all shabby, so don't feel bad for them. Feel bad for Susan because she's not getting sh*t except the bottle of wine that she purchased on the way home from work. That, and the knowledge that she pulled Christmas out of her ass for a second year in a row. Hooray for her!

Happy Christmas everybody.

The other day Susan was reading Vanessa's blog, wondering how anyone in the universe could possibly enjoy anything about Disney when she spied bedjump.com and had a childhood flashback.

Susan, her little sister and Wild Bill were forced to endure a vacation with their parents every summer, mostly it was places they could drive to like Mystic Seaport or D.C. or Colonial Williamsburg. Every once in a while they got on a plane, but not on this occasion.

Susan's family was on vacation somewhere with cousin Lisa's family, the only thing she can recall is that cousin Andrew was allowed to bring a friend. Susan's parents would never have brought another kid along with them on vacation. Ever. Even if it was a well behaved kid like Jesus or one of President Obama's girls.

Anyway, Cousin Lisa's family and Susan's family had adjoining motel rooms connected by a door. Susan and her siblings were in bed for the night when their mother opened the door and Susan saw into the next room.
Her cousins and their guest were jumping on the bed!
Jumping and laughing as if they were the happiest children in the world, which of course they were because they were jumping on the bed!

Susan felt like she had just glimpsed an alternate universe, one she would never know.

3 pm on a snowy Sunday is one of the reasons Susan did her best to keep a lid on her alcoholic tendencies in her twenties and halfway through her thirties.
Susan and liquor were an enthusiastic couple and she wanted them to be together for the long haul, not just flare up and die out like many of her contemporaries.
To this end Susan maintained all sorts of rules to stay in control; she observed a pre-determined drink maximum, was a practitioner of six months on the wagon and six months off and employed a buddy system. When she wasn't strictly following her rules she was getting drunk as often as she could without missing work and then going to sleep on the kitchen floor.

Susan had a lazy weekend of playing in the snow, baking chocolate biscotti with cranberries, green cleaning two bathrooms top to bottom, hosting a girlie sleepover and discovering that her Fuckleupagus of a son remained a lazy liar. By 3pm Sunday Susan was ready to transform an unpleasant bottle of red wine into a cold, sweet and tarty pitcher of sangria.

Just in time for holiday guests Susan would like to share her recipe for CHOCOLATE BISCOTTI:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 teasp baking soda
1/2 teasp baking powder
1/2 teasp salt
6 tblsp butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup dried cranberries, Susan chops them up a bit
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

350*
Mix together dry ingredients.
Beat butter & sugar till smooth then beat in the eggs.
Mix in dry ingredients till blended.
Fold in cranberries.
Divide dough in half, shape each into a 12 inch long log, 1/2 inch thick.
Place on a buttered, wax paper lined baking sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes.
Let cool completely.
Slice into 1/2 inch thick cookies, stand them up on the baking sheet & bake for 15 minutes.
Makes 38-48 cookies depending upon how thinly you slice them.

Susan walked downstairs to put something away in the guest room closet and was immediately met by a foul yet familiar smell.
She saw that the door to the guest room was open. Susan has previously expressed her preference that it remain shut when no one is bunking there.
Susan took a few steps in and gasped.
Dog poop!
She went back upstairs and looked at Lucy who was already in full-on cowering mode; head down, tail curled between her legs, slinking away toward the back of the couch.
Susan rubbed the top of Lucy's head then set about gathering supplies to clean the poop from the cheap area rug that was mistaken for a toilet. Halfway through Susan had a better idea, she rolled the rug up & handed it over to the culprit who left both the basement and guest room doors open last night.
The daughter took it outside and left it with the garbage.

Susan has fallen into a pit of lethargy.
After two weeks the husband peered over the edge and requested that she start behaving like everything's normal. Bake something he said.
They're both exhausted from having no cash for an extended period of time and neither has done any Christmas shopping. The husband strung colored lights in the windows a while back but that was it, no internal seasonal decorating has been done, including no tree. Susan likes having no tree, she didn't have one last year and Christmas still managed to trip up the front steps and fall into the house.

Susan has been letting the incoming Christmas cards pile up on the table, she doesn't care about them.
She's not mailing any out either.
Boxes of decorations have been stacked on top of each other since last weekend when the daughter asked that they be brought up from the basement.
The thought of decorations gives Susan a headache, oy.

Anyway, a week before Christmas Susan cracks open the boxes, pulls out some stuff and decorates the fireplace mantel. She hangs a bunch of sparkly things from the ceiling. She plugs in the little light up Santa that she bought at a yard sale in Maine. She likes the little Santa.
She can live with this much.

Christmas
I wouldn't mind if you missed us
and lobbed your trees and tinsel and elves
at someone else.

The cheer, oh dear
Feel free to disappear
don't forget the grab bag and the reindeer.

Cross me off your list
I insist,
No cards or gifts
Lest I get pissed.

I abhor
Carolers at my door
Douse them with the eggnog
Until they remain more.

O Christmas tree
O Christmas tree,
bite me.

Susan had the sort of weekend that only comes 52 times in a year. It began Friday after dinner when she and the daughter made sugar cookies. Susan's daughter is now old enough to do many things almost completely on her own while Susan drinks a glass of wine and reads the paper. Like any good team Susan filled in where the daughter was weak, in this case it was with making sure some of the cookies got burned.

Saturday morning Susan helped a chicken keep her job by purchasing some eggs from a girl who knocked on the door. Not long ago Susan had seen this girl's family out in the street chasing chickens, it never dawned on Susan as she watched the silliness of the scene that she might have chickens as neighbors.
In the afternoon, and under protest, the daughter accompanied Susan to the thrift store where her expression alternated between looking as if she were smelling something rancid and absolute misery before allowing her mother to puchase a purple hooded sweatshirt. The day ended with Acme Sweatshop's holiday party where Susan drank three glasses of champagne and managed to say not one stupid thing all night long.

Sunday morning Susan and the daughter took their mutt Lucy for a long walk around the neighborhood. It was a lovely pre-winter walk, just cold and gray and empty enough to be enjoyable. When they got home Susan washed the last of the dog shelter smell off Lucy then hugged and kissed her enough for two dogs,
the other being her recently deceased boxer.

After dinner Susan submitted to the daughter's badgering and dragged out the Christmas decorations. Oy, is it really time for Christmas again? Susan is never in the mood for Christmas. Never. She doesn't even understand why anyone even needs Christmas, aren't Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve enough? But, she will admit to loving Christmas music, the bigger and churchier the better. Choirs of angels? Yes, please.
Twelve more days till Christmas and Susan hasn't purchased a single present although she came close when she found a light up Infant of Prague in the thrift store, she reconsidered when she thought it might scare the recipient instead.
Christmas. Sweet baby Jesus, help Susan get through it!

Susan's family's new used dog is a pit bull mix named Lucy.
Lucy was pretty low key and not much of a tail wagger her first night, it probably had something to do with the big shaved patch & row of stitches near her lady area.
However, when Susan's little sister's family came over with dog cookies Lucy revealed herself to be a humper.
She smelled like a dog pound dog so Susan dipped a washcloth into warm water mixed with a little bit of dog shampoo and gave her a sponge bath. Later on Lucy rolled herself into a ball on the couch next to Susan and they watched Dogville Shorts on Turner Classic Movies.

Susan wonders how anyone could have passed by her lovely little Lucy in her cage at the shelter without taking her home.

Susan went to the thrift store this afternoon and waited her turn for the dressing room. Ahead of her was an older woman with no top on digging through a shopping cart filled with clothes. She was wearing a pink brassiere but she was no Madonna. Maybe a Svetlana. The dressing rooms are right in the middle of the store, not in the back or tucked into a corner, so people are walking by. Svetlana's husband came out wearing a pair of pants pulled up to his ears, she offered her opinion on the fit, they chatted back & forth but her missing top didn't seem to be an issue. So, it wasn't an issue for Susan either,
she was just waiting to try on an armload of slacks.

All week long Susan and her kids counted off the days until they could bring their new used dog home from the animal shelter. Susan cleared her normally empty schedule and resisted the urge to personally tell everyone she knew that she was getting a dog because she knows how boring it is when she has to listen to other people talk about their dogs.

Like a prospective boyfriend she imagined them cuddling on the couch, going for walks, sharing secrets and just generally being in love.

She also wondered if it was a mistake to hastily choose just any dog the first time they went out. I mean, they only spent like ten minutes with the dog, how is that any way to pick a companion for the next ten years? OMG, and the dog is part pit bull, Susan's family doesn't even like pit bulls for crap sake. What has she done? She wants her sweet boxer back, not this rabid mongrel that she got from the pound. There's probably a good reason why it was there in the first place and now Susan's going to bring it into her house, give it a cute girly name and pray it doesn't kill anyone. OMG, and what if it chews her table legs or shreds her couches or digs up her yard?
Susan doesn't feel good.

Anyway, the dog wasn't spayed this week so she won't be ready for the family to pick up until Tuesday. Drats.

Susan still thinks she sees her previously alive dog in the house. She walks into the livingroom and habit makes her look to the spot where the dog used to lie. A chenille blanket bunched up in a corner of the couch tricks her for a second. She still closes the bathroom door to keep the dog from drinking out of the toilet and maneuvers around the large plastic bin holding her food in the laundry room. The husband reports to hear the dog walking through the house in the morning. Mercifully, no one smells the dog.

Susan's not a grief purist & didn't think she needed to wait an appropriate amount of time before she allowed another dog into the house. She views the situation more simply; her family needs a dog and they found a dog who needs to live somewhere other than a cage. It's like a Hallmark card, one that bites.