An Apology

Susan would like to apologize to her modest fan base for her recent period of lax posting and explain why it's not her fault.

Her job as a sweatshop seamstress keeps her away from home for so long each day that her family no longer waits dinner, instead she finds a plate covered with tinfoil on the dining room table. If she has a glass of wine with dinner then there's no hope of posting for the evening or doing laundry or anything else. If she doesn't then she's got to get in line for the laptop behind three people who don't give a crap about her BLAHg schedule.

There is a noticeable difference in the quality of her posts when she begins blogging after everyone's gone to bed and doesn't end till 1am. Her brain grinds slowly, recollections elude her and creativity sez screw you, I'm tired.

Access to the computer doesn't guarantee anything because there's plenty of times that Susan has absolutely nothing to say. I mean, her topics are pretty slim to begin with. She was toying with the idea of substituting recipes for actual material. In fact, she was thinking of the simple salsa Cousin Lisa made the other day; mango, tomatoes, black beans, onion, cilantro, lime juice. Who knew that mango & black beans could inspire someone to eat until they were sick? An avocado was supposed to be added but Cousin Lisa used it for something else.

Anyway, please forgive Susan if she falls behind every once in a while. She really tries her best and hopes that you'll stick with her as she slowly cranks out her exciting true life adventures.

Little Sister's Birthday!

The other day was Little Sister's birthday. As little sisters go, Susan thinks hers is the best. She can't vouch for the absolute accuracy of her statement because she hasn't met every last little sister in the world, but Susan figures hers is close.
She's Susan's best and only.

Now, Susan's little sister isn't perfect; she's a bit passive-aggressive, likes to take charge of everything and engages in political pontification, but Susan manages to navigate around these defects by taking a nap on the couch. Or by telling her to shut up on her birthday.

Susan's little sister is pretty smart, very funny and can still retain most of what she reads in the newspaper. She can can throw a punch, feed a house full of people with no notice and still likes to play soccer even though she should have been retired years ago.

Little sister is a model of self sufficiency; she works a full time job, runs a business of her own, troubleshoots the computer, builds steps to the hot tub, fixes any number of things that break in the house and digs the hole to bury dead pets.

Susan's little sister has let pre-approved family members flop at her house without departure dates,
including Susan. Twice.
It is now the permanent residence of Wild Bill's daughter who they are all happy to have near. Wild Bill is still in the vicinity, although contact of late has been minimal.

Susan's little sister is talented at gift giving. Recent favorites include the assortment of Jesus sticky notes, a wooden wick candle that smelled terrific and lasted all winter and the big orange pocketbook that Susan wouldn't allow her to buy from a guy on the street last weekend. It was a nice oversized pocketbook in a favorite color but Susan's little sister is just as broke as Susan, plus they were verging on being late to see Carrie Fisher at the old Studio 54 and couldn't dedicate any more time to the transaction.

The sisters had a full weekend of togetherness; Friday night for birthday cake, Saturday night with Carrie Fisher and then all the next day at a soiree with their beloved girl cousins. By 10pm Sunday night the sound of little sister's voice made Susan's brain hurt.

Lock the F*cking Door Already

Again Susan came home to find that her family left the back door unlocked. Sometimes she finds it open, but usually she just finds it unlocked. Susan expects her medium sized children to not give a crap about doors and locks but apparently the husband doesn't either.

She doesn't hide her frustration when she tells him that the f*cking back door was left unlocked again. Of course he's got something to say about it. What is there to say other than I'll never do it again.
Why does she have to tell a college educated man that he didn't check to make sure the f*cking back door was locked? Again.

Doesn't he think that one day his family might come home to find somebody in their house who doesn't belong there? Is Susan being paranoid? She will admit to having a bit of leftover paranoia from her twenties, but she didn't think that was bad.

Susan has a recurring fantasy where she opens a big beautifully wrapped box to find a flamethrower. She takes it out and totally f*cking annihilates everything in sight.

Church, Week 3

The Church of Susan's Experiment is interactive which is something Susan is not comfortable with.
In that other church, one could slip in unnoticed, sit in the back & scoot out early.
Not here.
The building is small and a family of four arriving late will have all available eyes upon them as they take their seats.
Up front, because the back rows fill first.
In addition, someone will come over to let them know that bored youth might prefer to go downstairs to Sunday school. Susan's bored youth want no part of this.

Early in the service the congregation turns to greet one another, they do this with a handshake, a nod or by walking over from the other side of the room to say hello. After service the pastor hotfoots it outside to chat as everyone exits just like Susan has seen done in the movies. Anyway, her point is that she's not getting out of there before having to speak with a person or two every week.

On the plus side, the Church of Susan's Experiment is adorable. A real charming white clapboard country church set on a winding road with a cemetery. The lady pastor is interesting to listen to and Susan likes the church's inclusiveness and charitable projects but she's a long way off from joining anything.

Fifteen

Susan and the husband made it across the finish line to their fifteenth wedding anniversary. What stamina!

What is their secret?
Be nice, tell the truth, apologize as soon as you figure out you're wrong. This is all pretty obvious. Susan has also established some bad behavior standards that she will not sink beneath, such as calling him names or embarrassing him. This has nothing to do with yelling & screaming at him like a crazy shrew, because making him mad is ok.

Susan has figured out how to keep her low libido from eradicating the romance in her marriage by limiting the amount of I'm too tireds in a given period.
Sometimes Susan even does things that she never did before, like make the bed every morning, just because she knows the husband likes it.

Susan doesn't keep quiet, she sez whatever she needs to say and she won't back off from a fight, but this only extends to the husband, with anyone else she backs off.

After so many years manacled together Susan is still interested in hearing his opinion on a range of topics. She might also request that he refrain from offering his opinion because she's trying to read the paper or listen to the TV or she just can't stand to hear him say one more word.

Fifteen years and Susan's not tired of her man yet,
but there's always next year.

Church, Week Two

Susan woke up early again and made her children to go to church, they weren't happy but Susan didn't care. Nobody cared that Susan wasn't happy when she was their age. The circle is complete.

This church doesn't bug Susan the way that other church did. Going to church has already begun paying dividends in Susan's life; she unloaded the 1993 Volvo!
Thanks, God.

Something Else Susan Hates

Banks.
Susan had some banking to do today, something that required her to walk inside and seek assistance from an uncooperative drone behind a desk.

Susan has a long history grappling with passive-aggressive bank personnel. If they can tell Susan NO they find a way to do it then ask with a have a nice day smile on their stupid face if there's anything else they can help Susan with today.

Susan felt anxious during the drive over, by the time she got to the parking lot she was full-on aggravated. She walked into the bank with the same look on her face she probably has when she picks up dog poop.

The bank was hopping. Tellers were informing bank customers of their eligibility for a bank credit card that offers points for some bullsh*t or other. Susan knew that they were only eligible to be tricked then brutalized, poor slobs.
She wanted to scream Don't do it! but she's not crazy so she didn't scream.

The bank was set up with the tellers in full view and the customer service offices down a hallway, out of view. If the offices couldn't be seen, neither could the customers be seen by those in the offices.

There was no one assigned to say Hello, how may we help you?
No one assigned to give a sh*t.

Susan stood around with her arms folded across her chest and her dog poop face on. She descended into TWISTED anger at the prospect of giving the last & only bit of her money to people who ignore her.
F*ck them, she walked out.

Tune in next week to hear Susan's opinion of doctors' office staff.

Eight years ago Susan worked in New York City.
After five years of staying home to yell at her children Susan got the opportunity to wake up every morning at 4:45, sit on a train for two hours and emerge on the street to find there were people already drunk and arguing with each other.

At first, Susan wasn't all too enthused about working in New York but little by little the city chipped away at her until she got used to it.
In no time they were going steady.
Susan ate Indian food, sushi and falafel for lunch, bought Italian boots on sale and watched elephants walk down Eighth Avenue. Plus, she made friends and grew to understand that New York was a series of neighborhoods just like anywhere else.

Eight years ago Susan stood at the window with her co-workers and looked three miles south.
They saw a sliver of a tall building on fire.
Later she stood on the street with a million people all trying to get home.

Susan has her own thoughts and feelings about that day, as does everyone. She doesn't want it designated as Patriot's Day or a national day of service or anything other than what it is, September 11.

Church, oy.

The other day Susan did something that she never does; she woke up early on her day off and went to church.
Anyone who knows Susan is familiar with the depth of her distaste for the pedophilic society and hypocritical hierarchy who inhabit the church of her youth. The former altar boy she married shares her viewpoint, their children are unbaptised heathens doomed never to see the Gates of Heaven. Tough luck, kids.

Anyway, thirty years ago Susan studied orthodox Judaism for a little while. She must mention a significant twist to her studies; the community she spent time with believed in Jesus. But, they kept the sabbath, kept kosher, read both sides of the bible and so forth. She really liked Judaism but got a little burned out by it so she took a long break.

She tried going back to church after she had her kids.
The only requirement was that it be pretty on the inside to give her something to look at for an hour, but it still made her squirm. Then she did the best she could to teach them about God and Jesus on her own, but she knows just enough to raise them in a Godless universe.
Susan needed help.

There's a Congregational church two towns over that Susan and her family have attended on the average of once a year. It's as different in style from that other church as necessary to make her feel comfortable, sort of, although there's plenty of discomfort for Susan being in church.
Susan views it as an experiment and will keep you posted.

Susan Can Smell Her Dog from the Other Room

Susan's elderly, deaf, flatulent dog is inching toward the end of her life. She's just short of 84 but still pretty spry. She doesn't use a walker, smear her lipstick across her face or repeat the same stories over and over, but she has a bit of an incontinence issue and needs help with her personal grooming. Susan's not cleaning poopie off hineys yet, just some boogery eyes and blood.
The dog has been drinking more water than usual lately and has required entire afternoons of beauty sleep although the latter has done nothing to improve her looks, poor girl.

The dog's always in a good mood unlike some TWISTED people she lives with and will hop up from a dead sleep to follow anyone going anywhere in the house hoping there'll be food at the end.

Susan's hipped her medium sized children to the impending expiration date on their dog and watched as they've been extra sweet to her or reward her with cookies for doing nothing and then talk with animated excitement about replacing her with a furry puppy.

Tattoo You

Susan grew up in the seventies when girls didn't get tattoos. At least not girls in her neighborhood or the next few adjoining neighborhoods. Susan considered getting a tattoo through the eighties but she couldn't figure out where to put one, then she was afraid of getting AIDS then she went back to not knowing where to put one.
She ultimately gave up because there's so many reasons for Susan not to be tattooed.

The one thing above all else that has kept her unmarked is the blue ink, she doesn't like how the black ink turns blue. Another thing is Susan's fear of pissing herself at first sight of a long haired guy with a vibrating needle.

Susan remembers the first tattoo that impressed her;
a large, open winged eagle spread across the bicep of a young woman. This was eons before girls started showing up all sleeved out.

The silliest series of tattoos Susan saw were bands inked across the upper arms of some pretty young things in bridesmaid attire, forever branding them 1995.

This evening, Susan's (relationship deleted to spare their mother) paid a complete stranger to stab her in the hip with ink filled needles. Susan is thankful for the decision of (relationship deleted) to confine her body art to a personal spot, one that wouldn't be peeking out from anywhere forcing Susan to roll her eyes.

Barefoot

Susan never walks in her bare feet. Ever. Anywhere.
If she sleepwalks in the middle of the night she puts something on her feet first.

Susan can't tolerate stepping on the dog hair, crumbs & sticky bits of she doesn't even want to think about what that carpet her uncarpeted floors.
Just thinking about it now makes her all cold and shivery.

In her youth she ran barefoot like everyone else, she even attended a wedding in her bare feet, she was nineteen of course. She got splinters from the boardwalk, stepped on glass, in dogsh*t and on a slug, which required an unusual amount of scrubbing off.

Susan's very protective of her feet, they require a lot of maintenance just to stay in working condition. The summer is particularly brutal, if she doesn't keep to a daily lubrication schedule her feet will quickly transform into a miserable mess. It generally takes two full days to recover from one afternoon spent at the beach.
She's never even had a proper pedicure. She's given herself plenty but has only fantasized about having someone else do it for her. She came close to a pedicure a few years ago, but it didn't work out.

Common is the sound of her screaming 'Stay off my FEET!'
Dogs step on them. Her medium sized children drive shopping carts into the back of them. Susan even managed to scrape all the skin off her big toe a few years back when she was teaching her daughter to ride a bike.
It bled and bled and bled then took the entire summer to heal.

Susan loves shoes, all sorts of shoes.
She's got many in-store tests they must go through before she brings them home. However, she thinks nothing of handing off a pair of brand new beautiful shoes if they don't make the cut. Just ask the husband's daughter,
the one who shares a size 10 foot.

Susan knows some folks who are going through dark times. Not to denigrate divorce or foreclosure, but they're not dark enough. Imagine being chased off a cliff by monsters and you're in the ballpark.

Currently Susan's wrestling with being broke. But who isn't.
It's like having a boil on her butt, a throbbing, angry, miserable boil. But it's temporary. She's still free to enjoy the simple pleasures that each day brings, like the breeze thru a window, the smell of coffee brewing or the sound of the dog drinking from the toilet because the kids have neglected to fill the water bowl.

Susan is lucky because she's got a family who needs her.
The husband needed her to assist in picking him up off the driveway yesterday after he tripped over a bicycle.
The emotional, pre-menstrual daughter has needed her every night to make a space in bed when she comes in crying. The son just needs her to keep on buying food.

Susan doesn't know what the future holds she just knows what she has right now. She hopes when it's time for her to go over the cliff she'll do it the best way she knows how.

Hands Off Susan's Breakfast!

Susan practically stabbed her son through the hand with a fork as he tried to snatch from her plate a piece of English muffin saturated with egg yolk.
Susan doesn't share her food ever. She doesn't care if you're one of those Biafran babies with distended bellies from her childhood. Get away from her plate NOW.
Susan has to eat at regular intervals or her symptoms will be many and her decompensation swift.
Aging hasn't helped either.

Susan's bottom right desk drawer at work is filled with oatmeal packets and Luna Bars, her upper right drawer has hard candy & dark chocolate covered espresso beans. Susan carries emergency sugar packets in her bag which she once downed with such a crazed ferocity she scared her children. Sugar packets are her big needle filled with adrenaline.

Susan knows what everyone is thinking,
go to a doctor!
She went to an internist earlier this decade and his diagnosis was 'Maybe you're just hungry'. Maybe she is.

In the meantime, Susan's able to manage her symptoms by eating properly and regularly. So, as long as she's not living outside a society with supermarkets she'll be fine. She's not forgetting the little candy bar thing she kicked earlier this season, that was due more to accessibility than actual addiction.
But, she doesn't take the little candy bar thing lightly,
no she doesn't. She understands the warm, happy sugar high and how it applies to her. She once heard an interview with Eric Clapton, the epic heroin addict and guitar player, identify his first addiction as sugar.
Can Susan have an Amen?

The Cupboard Is Bare

Susan was between paychecks last week so she didn't go food shopping. There was still plenty of paper towels and laundry soap but every day found less and less to eat.
Susan has an emergency meal for such a situation;
linguine and clam sauce. The sauce is totally from a can, but it's quick to prepare and everyone likes it. If she plunges a head of broccoli into the boiling pasta water, chops it up then artfully places it on top of the sauce she could serve it to company.

She put the water on the stove to boil, retrieved the clam sauce from the shelf but when she reached for the linguine she found there was only half a box left. No way was half a box of linguine going to feed four people, two of whom don't know when to stop eating. The only other macaroni available was mezzo ditale which Susan uses in her pasta e fagioli because it's the same size as the beans.

The husband told Susan to break the linguine in half so that it will seem like more, Susan knew it didn't make sense but complied because she wanted to believe.
She went to open the clam sauce but couldn't locate the can opener. When she inquired as to where it might be the husband said 'Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you.'
The can opener was no mas.
This of course started a ruckus over how the f*ck is she supposed to know anything if nobody tells her and why wasn't it put on the f*cking shopping list?
The shopping list is a constant complaint of Susan's.
At least once a week someone makes Susan scream about something that needs to be replaced but that's not on the list. She'll scream as much as she has to because logic dictates that when people get tired of being screamed at they'll figure out what to do to make it stop.

In the meantime, except for the husband's plan to try busting open the can with a knife, there was still nothing available for dinner.

Susan had onions, so she began sauteing some in a pan. Susan had garlic. Wait, no. Susan didn't have garlic anymore.
Susan had very garlicky salsa that her little sister brought over last weekend when she came three hours late for dinner. Susan also had a roasted eggplant and tomato dish from the same time period sitting in a tupperware in the back of the fridge.
Everything got sauteed with the onions then poured over the linguine and eaten with alot of Parmesan cheese.
It was great, even one of the kids agreed.

An Eleven Year Old With A Cell Phone

Susan's very minor daughter has a cell phone.
Susan refused for more than a year to be baited into any sort of premature cell phone related conversations. Unfortunately, when it became time to change from one disappointing wireless plan to another Susan let the husband talk her into doing something she didn't want to do. He has a much more lenient policy toward giving unnecessary nonsense to children and was able to influence Susan when she was tired.

The daughter accumulated extra charges the very first month because texting every minute of every day adds up.

She also got into the habit of calling Susan at work to find out when she would be leaving. Susan doesn't normally keep her cell phone handy, so the daughter would just call and call and call until Susan noticed the 15 missed calls and called her back.

Another call would usually follow a half hour later to make sure that Susan was en route. Once again, if Susan didn't answer because the phone was lying in the bottom of her bag, the daughter would call and call and call. Then she'd call using someone else's phone.

Susan hates taking calls in the car. Since she doesn't have air conditioning she rides with all the windows down and it makes quite a racket. Rolling the windows up to take a phone call will trigger a total f*cking heat-stroked meltdown.

The other day Susan had already handled the when are you leaving? and are you on your way? phone calls when the phone rang with the where are you? call.
Susan tried to explain that it didn't make any difference where she was because it had already been established that she was on her way home. The conversation lasted until Susan walked through the front door, cell phone in her ear and met the daughter in the livingroom, cell phone in her ear.

22 Things Susan Likes About The Husband

Susan's husband had a birthday the other day, and even though it ended in a zero Susan didn't feel compelled to do anything about it other than make him coffee in the morning and submit to a personal request later on.

Susan isn't much for ceremony, she doesn't require it for herself and she doesn't provide it for others. She's not running out to spend four dollars on a card at the store, so don't wait for one. And, if you've told her more than every single time that you don't like the gift she's chosen for you, she's not giving you any more.

But, after so many years manacled together in wedded bliss, and even though she's got to force him to sit down and read her BLAHg, he still makes her happy.
Here's some reasons why;

• He makes fantastic meatballs
• Describing the birth of his son he said 'I never knew how exhausting it was to yell at someone for four hours'
• He sings
• He is very adept at winning arguments, but takes it easy on Susan
• He runs around in the yard with the kids
• He can be counted on to complete any disagreeable task
• He tells funny stories from his youth about neighborhood brawling
• He apologizes by saying 'I've decided to forgive you'
• He cracks Susan's toes
• He doesn't build himself up by making others feel small
• If he doesn't know something, he knows a guy who knows
• He ingores Susan when she gets all TWISTED and acts like a baby
• He doesn't worry about things he can't control
• He makes Susan's coffee exactly the way she likes it
• He can Lindy
• He liked the same moody 1975 album that Susan did
• He thinks Susan is funny
• He ordered a bushel of clams and didn't know what to do with them so he called up his friend George for suggestions & ended up making fantastic garlicy, steamed clams for Susan's birthday
• He's impressive with a yo-yo
• He sez that being mad at Susan is like being mad at a puppy
• He turns Susan's compost heap every week
• He raised two smart, independent, caring & wonderful girls before he was married to Susan that have always been terrific big sisters.

Let's Learn About Susan's Folks

Susan's parents were married fifty years ago the other day. In lieu of a big party, or a card, or even a timely phone call of acknowledgement Susan is going to redeem herself by writing something nice about them.

Susan's parents created a very stable home environment. Some might say rigid, but Susan's not sayin' nuthin'. Even though a portion of Susan's decisions are based solely on doing the opposite of what her parents would have done, they created a sturdy framework for Susan to live her life.

Susan's parents didn't care if their children got mad at them and proved this by saying NO! as often as they wanted. Thanks to this Susan doesn't take any crap from her own kids.

Susan's parents like to read, so does Susan. Susan's old man used to buy so many books that her mother made him build a little room to keep them in. Unfortunately, it didn't keep her from yelling every time he brought home more.

Susan's old man fixed airplanes for a living. This meant he also fixed cars and bathroom sinks and whatever else was on the list in the kitchen. Susan doesn't actually fix things but she married a man who does.

Susan's mother sews, crochets, hangs wallpaper and has put the colors turquoise and orange together. Susan is very artsy fartsy herself.

Susan's old man has been a practitioner of Transcendental Meditation for thirty years. Susan took after her mother and relieves her stress by using filthy words.

Susan's old man had panic attacks. Susan had panic attacks!
Susan's mother likes blue cheese. OMG, Susan adores blue cheese!

Susan's parents like church.
This is where Susan and her parents part company.

Happy Anniversary, folks.

Summer Vacation Thus Far

Except for the barbecuey smell, Susan has barely noticed summer speeding by. She has yet to accumulate vacation time in her new career as a sweatshop seamstress and the combination of cool weather & being broke have conspired to make sure that she does nothing.

Susan's children do slightly more than nothing.

For the first month of summer Susan's son had a non-paying gig as a camp counselor at the local intermediate school. His former English teacher assisted him by writing a wonderful letter of recommendation, one which Susan keeps folded up in her pocket and takes out to read whenever she wants to brain him.
The second month of his summer has been spent either as a guest at various friends' homes or lying on his bed playing Call Of Duty 4 until he's requested at the supper table.

Susan's daughter is dropped off before work at Uncle Erik's Summer Program where she hangs with her cousins to swim, play video games, watch TV and eat chicken salad.
Susan's house guest was nice enough to take Susan's daughter and a companion to the mall one day and then reported back to Susan everything that the girls talked about.
The library & local branch of a formerly thriving video rental corporation have all played their part in keeping the daughter occupied.

Susan's summertime recreation has consisted of drinking sangria after dinner or anytime she's not required to do anything remotely responsible. The end.

Is It Hot Or Is It Susan?

Susan decompensates when she's hot.
Absolutely everything in Susan's universe falls into an angry pit of fire. The same breakdown occurs when she's hungry. She'll fling f*cking sh*ts and motherf*ckers quicker than a regular person might say I feel hot.

Susan wasn't always this way, but pregnancy and a surprisingly early menopause took their toll.

All in all, Susan's made friends with her menopause. It's enabled her to trade in the tiresome maintenance of birth control for the simplicity of sex, although she's noticed the tiniest little bit of a diminished libido. Luckily, Susan's like an old lawnmower and the husband doesn't mind yanking the cord over & over until he gets her running.

The bloody, crampy misery of her menstrual cycle is also gone, leaving in its place some hot flashes.
Pretty Chinatown fans are all she needs to cool herself off but if she can't get to one fast enough, watch out.
The contents of her bag will be dumped, with extreme prejudice, into the middle of whatever she's doing.

The standard three days of heightened emotions? Goodbye. But Susan welcomed a sort of reactive hysteria which is disbursed over the course of an entire month. Hardly noticeable, just ask the husband.

Scary Snacks

Susan has been enjoying the company of a house guest for the last few days. Her house guest often drives across the country by herself, but this trip took along the smallest of her dogs for company. Susan's elderly, deaf, flatulent dog is not in the habit of sharing domestic space with another of her kind, yet has done relatively well. Susan would not classify them as friends, but neither are they combatants.

Susan's house guest also travels with snacks, which are then incorporated into Susan's diet. Currently there are Chips Ahoy Peanut Butter Chunky cookies in the cabinet and Reese's Peanut Butter cups in the fridge, two boxes of donuts & a crumb cake having already been eaten by the occupants of Susan's house. Susan is unaccustomed to being in such close contact with so many scary snacks, she'll eat them in other people's homes but she doesn't keep them at hers.

Last night Susan's house guest took everyone out for ice cream then made a crack indicating there might be something wrong with Susan for opting out. Susan will admit that there was an underlying hysteria in her voice when she rolled herself up into a ball and repeated 'No, no, no, no, no' in the middle of Carvel. But, except for the lack of a 'thank you', Susan doesn't think her behavior was all that unusual. For her.

Susan thinks nothing of baking biscotti at 11 o'clock at night or blueberry-lemon bread or glazed anisette cookies or a simple cake with halved plums dropped into the batter. She's comfortable having these in her house and has a plan in place to keep from eating them all at once. She has no such strategy for the Chips Ahoy.

Pooped

Susan no longer has the stamina for:
Drinking alcohol in the heat
Long newspaper articles
Answering Why? questions from her medium sized children
Service fees
Staying up late combined with getting up early
Sullen cashiers
Searching for sh*t in the bottom of her bag
Tweets
and holding her head up.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

Susan was reading cuisinenie when she saw a stack of Jane's peanut butter cookies.
Oh, the joy that is peanut butter!
If Susan weren't so tired she might have started a cookie baking project right then because she knows her peanut butter cookies would totally mop the floor with Jane's.
Susan's cookies are flourless, which is much better because nobody needs any extranneous ingredients to get in the way of all the lovely peanut butter and sugar.

2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups chunky peanut butter

350* oven
Combine sugar & soda; stir in eggs & vanilla, add peanut butter. Stir until combined.
Does everyone know the water displacement method to measure peanut butter? Fill a large measuring cup with 2 cups cold water, add peanut butter until the level of the water is raised to 4 cups.
Form into 1" balls & drop onto a cookie sheet three inches apart.
Bake for 10 minutes or until bottoms are golden brown.

Thanks, Pop.

Saturday morning Susan's old man phoned her to say that
this movie was on TV later that evening.
Susan immediately invited her little sister's family over.
After eating a big meal, shattering some glassware, breaking a table leg and making a pot of coffee
everyone sat down and peed their pants.

Look, a Picture!

Susan has decided to reward her modest fan base with a profile picture of herself and apologises for taking so long.
Under normal circumstances uploading a photograph to a blog should be no big deal unless there doesn't happen to exist a decent photograph of a certain TWISTED subject, even when her little sister is a professional photographer. The biggest factor working against Susan is that she just doesn't know how to smile for a photograph. Plus, Susan's face is often shiny, which is why she has few wrinkles for her 49 years, but it also makes her appear as though she's rinsed off in olive oil.
Susan's little sister was nice enough to make up a disk of recent family photographs and when Susan got tired of looking for the perfect representation of herself she cropped out Cousin Lisa and used the one you see above.

Susan's Dress Goes to the Opera

Four years ago Susan purchased a dress to wear for her husband's daughter's wedding. It was off the rack from a nice store and Susan was very excited because it was everything she wanted in a dress. The neckline was flattering, the fabric was the proper weight to glide gracefully o'er her bumpy parts and there was enough support in the bodice to get away without wearing a brassiere.

The other evening while conversating with the husband at the dining room table, Susan was casually looking through an Arts section from the New York Times that was two months overdue for the recycling bin.
Down at the bottom of page C 5 was a big, beautiful soprano wearing Susan's dress.

Fruit Salsa

Susan has a friend named April who moved far away back when the Go Gos were playing on the radio. Sometimes Susan flies on a plane all by herself to go visit April and during one trip April made some fruit salsa.
Here's her recipe.

1/2 ripe cantaloupe, diced (Susan substitutes cantaloupe for the original papaya)
1 onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 red pepper, diced
1 can crushed pineapple, drained
1 15 oz can black beans (any sort will do), drained & rinsed
*hot peppers (please see note below)
juice from 1 lime
Mix everything together and serve with tortilla chips or as an accompaniment to fish.

*Since Susan can never figure out which peppers in the supermarket are hot she uses a few spoonfuls of crushed red peppers from a jar. She also adds a few shakes of Tabasco sauce and might add some black pepper. She tastes as she goes along to make sure she doesn't over do it with the heat.

This is a staple in Susan's house during the summertime, she makes it every weekend along with a pitcher of sangria because she lives in hope of company.

Ow. Hugs Hurt.

For the length of time Wild Bill is in NY he has a home at Susan's house and a job ninety minutes away. After a few weeks of getting home in time to sleep for four hours before he has to get up again he's taken to bunking at a buddy's house. This is a nice arrangement for him, at least until the buddy's wife decides she's had enough of the loud, guitar strumming stranger sleeping on her couch.
In the meantime both Susan's kids ask 'When's Uncle Billy coming home?' until someone answers them.

His current schedule is to show up every three or four days, stay a day or two, then split. Even with this abbreviated arrangement his sisters are happy to have him close because this is the most amount of time they've spent with their brother since they were all kids.

Wild Bill wears a khaki fishing vest, it's got a crap load of pockets that he fills with all his belongings.
It's like his pocketbook.
Anyway, the other night he shows up just shy of midnight and gave Susan a crushing bear hug which drove something bumpy and metal into her chest.
By the time she realized that she was being impaled by something in his pocket, she was released.

The next day Susan was sporting a bump just south of her collarbone, a little inside. Ow, she couldn't resist pressing the bump making it hurt.
The day after that the bump still hurt. Ow.
Three days later the bump is a little smaller but still hurts. Ow, because Susan keeps pressing it.

Frank's Brother

Frank McCourt has gone to meet his Maker and even though Susan didn't like any of his books ('Tis true)
she wishes him well in his new endeavor.

Susan much prefers Frank's brother, Malachy the author of 'A Monk Swimming'. Malachy makes Susan laugh and uses words like spifflicated, querulousness, concomitantly, promulgating, desultory and avoirdupois. Susan knows what promulgating means because it was part of a couplet in a junior high school bathroom stall and has stuck with her for three decades. Some of the other words Susan has seen around the neighborhood but she really doesn't know them and two are flat out strangers.

Let's make friends with some new words, shall we?

SPIFFLICATED
1920s slang for drunk
Damaged beyond repair

QUERULOUSNESS
A related form of QUERULOUS; inclined to find fault,
often complaining

CONCOMITANTLY
Occurring simultaneously, accompanying,
existing with something else often in a lesser way

PROMULGATING
Announcing, making known

DESULTORY
Lacking in consistency or visible order, disconnected

AVOIRDUPOIS
Excess body weight

Is Anyone Interested In A Potato Salad Recipe?

Susan's little sister was over for a certain eleven year old's birthday party and had nice things to say about Susan's potato salad.
Susan doesn't like her potatoes cold and slathered in mayonnaise, but she likes this recipe because it uses sweet potatoes, garlic and balsamic vinegar. Susan's recipe allows for all sorts of substitutions but she will stick close to the original form.

1.5 pounds of small red potatoes (or any potatoes really), scrubbed & quartered
1.5 pounds of sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced (add more)
1/2 onion, finely chopped (use the whole thing)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro, basil or oregano, whatever's handy
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
3 tablespoons plain yogurt (feel free to use fat free,
Susan does)
1/4 teaspoon salt
pepper

Susan has also been known to chop up a red and/or green pepper for a little crunch.

Simmer potatoes 15-20 minutes until tender. Drain & rinse under cold water.
Combine vinegar, oil and garlic in a LARGE bowl.
Add the onion and potatoes, toss to coat.
Combine the cilantro, basil or oregano with the mayonnaise, yogurt, salt & pepper.
Pour over the potatoes and toss to coat.
Refrigerate until cold.
Susan finds it tastes best the day she makes it.
Will anyone be put off to learn that it's a WW recipe?

Happy Birthday, Sunshine!

Susan is lucky enough to have two children who she prefers over all other children, except maybe for children who don't whine when they're told to do something,
but she has yet to meet any.

Susan's son was born in the winter and every year she has to hold an off-premises birthday party because she can't accommodate a braying herd of boys in her house.
Her daughter was born in the summer and thank goodness for backyard parties. Susan loves backyard parties because although they require that she cleans the house, they also require much less money. Assuming she pays attention to how much she spends.

When her daughter was little Susan had to shame mothers into RSVP-ing or beg them to bring additional offspring in order to ensure a decent turnout.
Now that her daughter is eleven, chasing after guests is no longer necessary. The eleven year old took on the responsibility of writing all the invitations and each invitee called up to accept or decline on their own.
What mature girls!
Mothers' involvement is now limited to transportation,
not communication, which is fine with Susan.

In the past Susan has had to provide a series of games or crafty activities for the party guests, but not any more.
A simple above ground pool, water balloons and music is all that's necessary leaving Susan free to sit on the deck and drink sangria while her husband makes hamburgers.
Even when the party guests turn into overnight company a PG-13 movie and green nail polish keep them happy.

Susan was unsuccessful in abolishing the goody bags. Drats!
The eleven year old allowed Susan to simplify the contents to a gimmicky toy, a deck of cards and candy.
Happy Birthday, Sunshine!

The Car's Got To Go

Susan's new old car has an oil leak which means that she can't park it in the driveway.
It also means there's a smoky exhaust smell.
She knew it had no air conditioning, but discovered it had no heat when she tried to dry her hair by aiming the blowers at her head.
It squeaks and rattles but that's almost not worth mentioning.
Susan walked in the door this evening with the taste of a city bus in her mouth and approached the husband.
'We have to sell the car.'
He didn't object.

Susan Telephones Her Daughter From Work

Hello, sweetie.
Hi, mommy.
What are you doing?
Nothing.
Did you have fun today?
It was okay.
Did you see your cousins?
No.
I thought daddy was dropping you with your cousins.
No.
Did you go to work with daddy?
Yes.
Were you bored?
Yes.
How come daddy didn't drop you off with your cousins?
I dunno.
Was Uncle Erik home?
No, he was a witness to a bank robbery and he had to talk to the police.
Huh?

Twisted Susan's Car

Recently much of Susan's life has been eaten up by her new career as a sweatshop seamstress.
As a result she hasn't had time to do anything other than work like a DOG.
But, she's managed to squeeze in a few things over the last twelve days, such as;
paint her toenails
plan a backyard camping trip
watch a movie with her brother
take a nice drive
bake eggplant, tomatoes & garlic in olive oil @ 500 degrees for 15 minutes
and participate in the purchase of a car.

For the last few years Susan and the husband had been in the habit of driving new cars. This was nice for a while but ultimately became a terrible burden which was relieved,
to some extent, by a tow truck. Immediately afterwards, Susan was happy to drive her little sister's van until it required too much money to repair. Lately, Susan and the husband had been sharing one car while they searched for a suitable used car. Susan was enthusiastic when the husband showed her a reasonably priced Volvo.
It was reasonably priced because it was made in 1993.
That's older than Susan's marriage!

The privilege of purchasing this car necessitated a trip one state over because there are no 1993 Volvos for sale in Susan's home state. This notwithstanding, Susan was excited because she would have her own car again. So, one evening last week Susan & the husband went to pick it up. Susan approached her new old car, stuck her face in the window and said 'It smells'.
Susan was not allowed near it again until yesterday when she spent an hour scrubbing the inside with one of her green cleaning cocktails. Then she drove it.

It runs good and goes fast. It doesn't have air conditioning but there's a working sun roof and power windows.
It doesn't have a cup holder but there's space to wedge her coffee cup between the center console and the seat.
It doesn't have a CD player but the speakers are good and Susan likes listening to the radio too.
Susan likes her new old car.

Wild Bill's Car

Wild Bill and his daughter drove up from the mountains of N.C. in a gigantic Buick. It was purchased the week they left and it's the sort of car his parents would drive.
In fact, it looks exactly like the car they drive.

It's not a new car, but it's larger than some of the rooms in Susan's house and very comfortable. It has many switches to do things like move seats and regulate the temperature.
Of course such a wonderful car has an alarm system.

Just before 9 on Sunday morning Susan was standing at the kitchen window. She was able to be in that location at that time because she does not attend church. Not unless her little sister makes her go to hear Susan's niece sing like an angel. Like an angel!

Anyway, Susan was standing at the window when a car alarm went off. It took her no time at all to figure out that it was Wild Bill's car. She ran downstairs to inquire as to the whereabouts of his keys. They were in his pocket.
He stumbled up the steps & staggered outside like Frankenstein on four hours sleep and turned off the alarm. Susan was relieved that it wasn't any earlier,
her personal viewpoint is that no apologies are necessary at 9 am, even on Sunday.

Monday night was warm so Susan and her husband slept with all the windows open in their bedroom.
At 4 am Susan slowly became aware of a rhythmic beat. Oh no!
All at once she sprang up in a panic and ran to the living room to verify what she already knew. Luckily Wild Bill was right there sleeping on the couch, keys in his pocket.
He staggered outside to turn off the alarm and Susan went back to bed.

A half hour later Susan bolted upright from a sound sleep and ran like a crazy woman into the living room.
The f*cking alarm!
She twisted her brother's toe and opened the front door then stomped back to bed where she tossed and turned for the next 90 minutes until she fell asleep again.

Susan Eats Guacamole

When Susan was growing up people in her neighborhood didn't eat anything exotic like guacamole. She was probably in her thirties before she even knew what it was made out of. But, now one of the perks of summer is mixing together avocado and cilantro and tomatoes and garlic and lime juice and salt and cumin.
Did she forget anything?
She doesn't add onion, but wouldn't discriminate if someone put some in there & gave it to her to eat.
A year or two ago she'd smash up an avocado, add a packet of store bought spices and call it a day.
But, now she knows better. And she likes it chunky, not whipped like her little sister made it that one time.
Today Susan made some guacamole then ate more than her share. During the course of the afternoon her stomach expanded so much that she had to change into her stretchy pants.

Family Fun

Susan and her little sister have a brother named Wild Bill
and Wild Bill has a daughter.
Two days ago Wild Bill and his daughter drove from
Dueling Banjos, N.C. to Suburban Civilization, N.Y.
for an open-ended visit.

Wild Bill is a true middle child who remains faithful to many of the behaviors and activities he enjoyed growing up.
This makes for some lively debate between his sisters in his absence.
But, for a brief period all the siblings and parents were together to make fun of each other and eat Chinese food. Then the parents went home because they like to leave as much as they like to visit.

Susan's going to miss having this conversation with her mother;
'Your coffee is too strong, Susan.'
'No, it's not.'As much as she'll miss having this one with her father;
'You want some coffee, Pop?'
'Yes, please.'

I Feel Badly

Susan has noticed that people say 'I feel badly' all the time, even smart people with good jobs. Jobs on TV.

When someone says that they feel badly, what they're really saying is that their mechanism for feeling has been compromised.
They're bad at feeling.
Sorry man, can't feel. I don't know, it's just bad.

These people might think that badly sounds smarter than plain old bad. If so, then Susan feels bad for them.

Strunk & White's 'Elements of Style' advises us not to 'dress words up by addling -ly to them, as though putting a hat on a horse.'
Susan agrees.

Susan would like to help steer people from using badly in an improper manner by asking them to consider that if one can feel badly can one also feel goodly?

Ouch

Susan's parents drove up from the heat stroked wasteland of eastern-middle Florida to bunk with her family for a week. Susan's little sister had been hosting them for fifteen years and now it was Susan's turn.
She doesn't mind because you know, they raised her.
Anyway, they're pretty good guests.
They play cards with her kids, put up with the deaf, flatulent dog and pitch in with the chores, even the ones Susan doesn't want them to do.
Susan's old man washes the dishes by hand although Susan has explained that the dishes go in the dishwasher. This isn't an arbitrary rule, if the dishes start getting washed by hand then there won't be enough dishes to run the dishwasher and then they'll all have to get washed by hand. This is a scenario Susan avoids at all cost.
The last time Susan caught her father at the sink he was washing a lasagne pan and she gently reminded him to knock it off.

The next morning Susan was in the kitchen preparing to make a cup of coffee when she saw the lasagne pan.
She picked it up & walked toward the cabinet to put it away but she hit a wet spot. She slid across the floor and didn't stop until all 160 lbs of her, and the lasagne pan, crashed into the wall.

Susan's daughter was reading in the next room and surely heard the sound of the wall stopping her mother's trajectory, yet there was no inquiry. As Susan sat there, she reviewed whether she heard a bone snap. She did not. Eventually, the daughter came in and assisted Susan by taking the lasagne pan so that Susan could crawl across the floor, hoist herself up and make coffee.

Ogred Weary

Susan was thinking about Edward Gorey today.
He first caught her attention here when she was a young teenager and she's crossed paths with his artistic talents often enough since then. Last summer, while on a Cape Cod vacation with Cousin Lisa's family, Susan's husband made a wrong turn & they found themselves directly in front of Edward Gorey's House.

It's Edward Gorey's house!
Susan was both excited and accurate.

A quick hop out of the car to peek in windows and rattle door knobs revealed that it was now a museum which had closed for the day. Susan took note of the location and made a plan to return.

Susan's family had rented a cottage on the beach with Cousin Lisa's family for a week. However, Susan prefers to characterize it as a beachfront sh*t hole. It was too small to comfortably fit both families, the appliances appeared to be original prototypes and there wasn't so much as a fan to assist in moving the stifling air about.
Who knew Massachusetts got so hot?
Every morning thousands of tiny spiders could be found sleeping out on the deck after a full night of spinning webs & embedding themselves into everything in sight.
Susan could write volumes about how much she hated the sh*t hole, but she won't because she really just wants to write about Edward Gorey's house.

Susan and Cousin Lisa returned to the house two days later without kids or husbands. It was during this trip that Susan discovered that she has more confidence in maps than talking boxes giving directions.

Edward Gorey's house was old and creaky with a fresh coat of white paint. Mr. Gorey had been a collector of much and a particular pack ratter of books which Susan learned through the photographs on the walls and by talking to the docent. He kept so many books while he lived there that certain rooms were un-navigable. Even with much of the contents removed, Susan found there was plenty to look at and all of it was entertaining.
Cousin Lisa however, was not down with the whole musty house experience & retreated to the outside pretty quickly leaving Susan to poke around undisturbed.

Susan liked Mr. Gorey's tongue in cheekiness. She was especially fond of a hand sewn doll displayed on a windowsill with its head underneath a large rock, and another visible only as a set of legs sticking out from beneath a rug.

Before Susan left she rewarded herself with a few of Mr. Gorey's books, her favorite of which 'The Curious Sofa' made her laugh out loud as she read it, in his house.

Procrastination

Susan's had the same Netflix movie sitting up on top of her television set for a ridiculously long time. She took it with her when she went here and that was months ago!
She has no clear recollection of what movie it is although she's sure it was an interesting choice.

Susan's had a pile of neatly folded clothing sitting on top of the dryer since last summer when she thought it might be a good idea to sell them on eBay. Susan doesn't understand how she's lived for such a long time without being able to use that space for the storage of any number of other things, like her current laundry.

Susan keeps piles of reading material at the ready just in case she finds herself with any time at all to read.
She's fond of keeping her favorite sections of the NY Times folded in quarters for upwards of two months or longer, until she gets around to them.

It's almost summer but Susan hasn't removed her winter coats from the hall closet yet. Neither has she gotten rid of the large plastic bin which holds gloves, ear muffs and woolly winter scarves. All she has to do is make one of her kids carry everything downstairs where there's adequate room for off-season storage.

In Susan's defense she has;
switched her winter/summer clothes and footwear
recycled a ton of magazines/newspapers
reorganized two closets
and generally managed to keep her house stocked with food & toilet paper

Grrrrrrr !

Susan hates it when she bangs her shin into the hard plastic container in which she stores the elderly, deaf, flatulent dog's food. Particularly when she kicks it out of frustration and knocks everything all over the floor and onto the piles of laundry she's been throwing into the machine all night.
And, why is the husband in the room asking what she's doing as she's flinging dirty clothes and dog food all over the place?
He's obviously there to make her scream at him to
leave her alone and she'll take care of it, a few times,
and bang sh*t before stomping off to drag the wet/dry vac up the stairs from the basement.
She hates all of it, including catching the kids in the crossfire by yelling at them to clean their room
and go to bed
and vacuum the house
and brush their teeth.
The last thing she hates is the sore throat she gets when she's done.

Guess Who

Susan and her husband enjoyed an evening out at the home of one of her co-workers. They had fun talking and eating and drinking Polish beer.
Eventually they returned home to find an idling van partially blocking their drive way.
The husband tapped the horn.
The van moved up a bit.
The passenger door swung open and a leg came out, followed by another leg.
Shortly an entire disheveled female body came tumbling out backwards. Susan immediately became aware of a bit of extra flesh as the Disheveled Tumbler's skirt had ridden down far enough to expose some ass cleavage.
Can you guess whose ass Susan was looking at?
Sure you can.

Susan Had A Stinky Birthday

Susan learned a few rotten things about herself on her stinky birthday.
Sure, she woke up to find an adorable hand made card from her sweet daughter.
And everybody was nice to her all day, even the folks who didn't know it was her birthday.
And, what could be better than ending up at her little sister's house for a cocktail and dinner and a funny card and a home baked cheesecake?
But somewhere in between all of that she got her
fat birthday ass kicked at work.

Susan spent the bulk of the day alternating between wanting to die of embarrassment and wanting to cry,
but since she couldn't decide, she did neither.
She did, however, get a stomach ache that still hasn't gone away and she enjoyed a bad night's sleep.

Anyway, Susan values introspection particularly when it's jump-started by having her nose rubbed in her own mess.
She can't wait till she's 50.

Saturday Night

Susan's birthday is imminent.
She's wanted nothing more in the way of celebration than to sit in a movie theatre with the husband's arm draped over her shoulder on a Saturday night.
Simple enough.
However, over the 13.4 years that they've been raising children it has been almost impossible to
(a) find a movie worth seeing and
(b) get out of the house to see it.
History has revealed that Susan will most likely detest what she watches but she has chosen to live in hope.

Susan had no argument with the price of the tickets.
Why bother? She may as well argue about the price of everything in the world. But Susan had a tremendous TWISTED response to the foul assortment of television commercials she was exposed to before the movie began.
Television commercials at the movies, Mary, mother of God!

Susan has taught her children that commercials are packaged lies used to manipulate money from hardworking people. She makes this point at every available opportunity drilling it into their soft, impressionable brains.

Susan complained bitterly and without restraint to the husband as each deplorable and unimaginative commercial assaulted her. In the past Susan has boo-ed the movie screen at the first whiff of a commercial, only to be boo-ed back by an audience of brainless zombies. She hopes they're happy to have gotten what they wanted.

Oh, she liked the movie.

A Lifetime of Stubble, Enjoy.

For weeks and weeks Susan's sweet little crybaby of a daughter had been requesting to shave her legs.
Each time she did Susan stuck one of her own legs up under her daughter's nose and screetched 'This is what they'll feel like if you shave them!'
The very popular 'I don't care!' was offered back.
Followed by, 'All the girls in my class shave them.'
Susan knew her days in control were numbered.

She reviewed the situation;
Shaving was inevitable. How long did she really think she could put her daughter off with summer just around the corner?
Susan is very sedentary, did she have the energy for a battle over leg hair?
Oy. Susan was talking herself into it.

The daughter had been wearing her brassiere.
Susan noticed but said nothing.
The daughter knew that Susan knew.
And Susan knew that the daughter knew she knew.
They had sort of an unspoken understanding and this is what ultimately tipped the leg-shaving scale in the daughter's direction.

Susan's daughter was on her way to the shower. Susan stopped her and handed over a well worn down razor. Susan retrieved her Trader Joe's Honey Mango shaving cream and handed that over too. Then she went off to sob into a load of laundry.

Susan's Blog List

Is everyone checking out Susan's Blog List up there to the right? She hopes so because her blogging sisters need readers. And, who knows, maybe you'll fall in love a little, the way Susan has.

This one is sort of an exception, but it's written by the meanest girl in eleventh grade and Susan insists that you read it.

i am bossy kept Susan company during the last few months of her unemployment and hipped her to a whole new universe from the dining room table. Thanks, Bossy!

Dawn In Austin was next. Currently she's on her way to Greece via Abu Dhabi with the husband.

Cupcake Murphy, Vanessa and Sunny Side Up all have a big fan in Susan.

Best of Craigslist has a deceptive format which only makes it funnier.

Isle Dance is all ballsy adventurousness and led Susan to Veggie Wedgie.

Lost and Found in India is Susan's next reading project.

finslippy is brand new for Susan and bloody hilarious.

Mrs. G is an entire sisterhood rolled into one feminist hallucination.

And lastly, Susan would like to leave you with Sevedra and Stephanie.
Kisses, ladies!

Fuckleupagus is back

Things had been going well for Susan's son.
She kept him under the microscope by maintaining weekly contact with the bulk of his teachers (the reader will forgive her for being unconcerned with gym or Family Consumer Science), monitoring his assignments and eventually re-thinking her disciplinary strategy.
She gave him a few short term goals so that he could win back one of his precious electronics and as soon as he did all available attention was diverted away from his schoolwork.

Susan does a pretty good job keeping on top of all the grown up things she has to do, but she's not above getting sidetracked. It's the byproduct of a life filled with trying to do too many things at once. It doesn't help that advancing decrepitude has taken it's toll on her memory, like when she sticks her head in the fridge & has no recollection of what she's looking for or can't remember words like regulation and garbage can.

Middle School Progress Reports were mailed out last week.

Some of the son's grades were impressive, as is expected, but a smaller amount made Susan want to throw up.
She immediately reinstated his Fuckleupagus status, stripped him of every available liberty, even ones he never had then started with the threats. When Susan was finished jumping up & down and screaming her head hurt, she had a twitch and needed a big glass of orange juice. With vodka.

A Little Drunks Story

Early Saturday evening Susan borrowed her little sister's membership card & set out with her children to the local discount warehouse to purchase $170 worth of olive oil, dog biscuits and Craisins. The husband was left in peace to watch his beloved Yankees from a favorite seat,
the chair in their bedroom. It's a nice set-up, the chair is close to the TV and next to the window, the ledge of which he uses as a perch for his cup of tea and whatever trash he produces while he sits there.
The view from the window looks diagonally across the street to the front of the Drunks' house.

Susan recalled that she had seen Mr. Drunk earlier in the afternoon, shirtless and slightly unsteady as he stood in the front yard surveying his newly varnished fence.

The husband soon became aware of a small commotion in the street. Apparently, Mr. Drunk had wedged himself into a child's Big Wheel. Susan doesn't understand how Mr. Drunk could fit himself into a Big Wheel, but this is what the husband told her, which was later corroborated by her next-door neighbor, so obviously this is possible. Anyway, Mr. Drunk rode the Big Wheel between his house and another house a few doors down the hill connecting them, which triggered a shouting match.
It's Susan's understanding that Mr. Drunk and the resident of the other house have a history of mutual aggitation, so it's natural that Mr. Drunk would wheel himself back home cursing and yelling.

The object of Mr. Drunks' adolescent tirade did not follow him up the hill, so Mr. Drunk stood alone in his yard spewing a sloppy soliloquoy of threatened ass-kickings.
At some point Mrs. Drunk came out to calm him down. This was a new role for Mrs. Drunk, she must have been a few cocktails behind her husband and therefore held on to some semblance of normal thought.

Susan's husband reports that Mr. and Mrs. Drunk continued yelling at each other for 20 minutes. Susan doesn't know how it ended because when the husband realized she was going to blog about it he stopped giving her information.

Blessed? Shut Up.

Blessed is the word that bugs Susan the most and unless Jesus is speaking she doesn't want to hear it.
Other things that bug her are;
modern baby names
the bagels in her neighborhood
TV news
when she breaks a tooth
the price of the NY Times
being interrupted
Drew Barrymore
LOL
wet laundry left in the machine long enough to be washed again
the bastardized American version of any foreign movie
political pontification
small dogs in shopping carts
Frank McCourt's books

To be continued...

Susan Likes Kate Gosselin

She's not saying that K8 isn't a b*tch because she certainly appears to be one.
Susan likes K8 because she's not a fawning idiot like everyone else is on TV.
Susan likes K8 because she's real and frustrated and personally limited, and knows it.
She's scared of surprises & doesn't like the outdoors.
She gave vomiting children their own pails and set them up for naps on the floor in the laundry room.
She washed clothes based on which kid they belong to, not by color, for organizational purposes.
Susan likes that K8 drove the very pleasant Steve Thomas to say she was hard on the outside, like her oatmeal cookies.
Most of all Susan likes that K8 cracks the whip,
she's no cool mom.
Susan doesn't like cool moms.

Where's The F*cking Craisins?

Susan bakes to relax. She likes things in loaf pans because then she can take a slice with her for breakfast.
Susan's current favorite things to bake are cranberry orange bread, zucchini carrot bread and banana bread with Chinese 5 spice powder.

Lately she's been in the mood for soda bread,
it's moist & sweet with lots of raisins & caraway seeds. Susan ran out of caraway seeds around St. Patrick's Day for obvious reasons and hasn't been able to pick any up, particularly when they're $3.99 for a few teaspoons. Anyway, she eventually found caraway seeds for a price she could live with and was all set. Except for the flour, she only had whole wheat in the house. She would be making whole wheat soda bread.

Susan keeps a bag of Craisins in her cabinet because she likes the option of throwing them into her baked goods. There's always a bag up there. Sometimes her son finds them, or the husband and then it's not unusual for the entire bag to be eaten in one sitting. Susan has gone f*cking insane often enough when someone eats the last of something & doesn't include it on the shopping list,
it shouldn't be an issue any more. I mean, she's not asking for anything crazy, just write the sh*t down on the list. It's always in the same spot, centrally located, not hard to find.
And where's the bag of Craisins?

Susan went through her normal TWISTED hystrionics; shouting, slamming, cursing, slamming and cursing. When she was done she cut up some figs, or dates, Susan gets them confused. She threw them into the whole wheat flour and baked her soda bread.
It came out good.

Susan's A Weight Watcher Again

Susan is back in WW but she doesn't mind. She doesn't fight the process; the meetings, writing down what she eats, watching her portions. Susan draws the line at weighing her food though, that's a bit too much.
She eyeballs things.
Susan's on board with the whole healthy eating scene anyway, she just veers off course every once in a while. Like, from Thanksgiving to spring and all summer.

Susan is attending the same meeting she's been to in the past. Even with a whole new group of participants she's noticed an unusual pattern.
Oy, they're boring.
Now, Susan can sit and talk about food endlessly. No manner of food related conversation has ever bored her. Tonight, one girl told a painfully detailed story about how her husband speculated to a stranger purchasing a large brownie that it likely had many points. Everyone roared. Susan wondered if she were being watched from Heaven by Allen Funt.
No one who spoke had any thought for those who were listening. At one point two people were speaking at once, no one was listening and all was chaos.

The last time Susan joined WW she shared the weekly meetings with a thirty-something woman who talked oppressively. Susan cut her alot of slack because the the thirty-something woman baked 1 point treats for the group and gave out good recipes. However, a terrible thing happened; the thirty-something woman's husband died suddenly leaving her with two young children.
Everyone felt bad, including Susan. How could she not? Nonetheless, Susan enjoyed the silence for the short period of time that the thirty-something woman stayed home from the meetings. When she came back she was angry, sad and didn't bring treats.

Susan couldn't take it. Every time the WW widow began to talk Susan covered her ears and dove under her chair. This wasn't therapy, Susan had no obligation to listen to the person who was slowly driving her mad. Ultimately, the WW widow was responsible for chasing Susan away.
Susan ran fast and hard.

West Side Story

Susan has already bored her family talking about West Side Story, so they can just skip right over this post if they want.

Susan is able to trace a few aspects of her personality back to their roots in her childhood. For example, Susan's parents used to drive their children down to D.C. during the steamy month of August to stand on long lines and be dragged through museums. The grown-up Susan loves museums and architecture and cities.
Loves them.

When Susan's mother wasn't screaming at Susan or breaking a wooden spoon across her ass, she would let Susan sit with her and watch the Million Dollar Movie on Sunday afternoons. The grown-up Susan loves old movies.
Loves them.
She also loves tragic movies, the sort that leave her with real grief for fake people.

When Susan was in Junior High she sat downstairs over the course of two nights to watch West Side Story.
She doesn't recall what attracted her to West Side Story, she just remembers that it took two evenings and left her devastated. Wrecked. Destroyed.
Susan walked around for weeks with a broken heart. She knew what tragedy was because she FELT it. Deeply, like a suburban thirteen year old.

Anyway, fast forward thirty five years. Susan is lying in bed late one night and finds West Side Story on the TV, three quarters of the way through. Susan hasn't watched it since that first time when it left her broken and crying in silence, praying not to be discovered.
(Sidebar: the grown-up Susan will still not cry in front of anyone unless it's completely unavoidable).

Susan was powerless to change the channel.

Tony had already killed Bernardo and was in Maria's room. The next scene found Tony in Maria's bed without his shirt on. Maria was draped fully clothed, cross intact, alongside him.
Susan knew what had just happened. Good for Maria!
Tony sings then Anita knocks on the door.
The lovers arrange to meet later that night and Tony jumps out the window. He's running down the street as Anita is let in and figures out what just happened.
Anita angrily sings to Maria about her choice in boyfriend and Maria sweetly sings back that she's in love and Anita should be able to relate, even though Anita's boyfriend was just killed by Maria's boyfriend.
Oy!
Guess who's lying in bed crying?

The End Of A Long Week

How is it possible that as soon as Susan pours herself a glass of wine there's a dead fruit fly in it? There's not even any fruit in the house unless you count limes.
Susan removed the wee fly undeterred & continued as if it were still in flight.

Long ago Susan drank a whole collection of fruit flies in the bottom of a glass of sherry. She mistook them for some fruit pulp. It took a few sips to realize there's no pulp in sherry. But, that was back when she was more in the habit of drinking and a little slow-witted. Now she's right on top of the situation & aware of what's floating dead in her glass before she drinks it.

In her youth Susan had a few bad habits, but let's just stick to drinking and smoking tobacco for now.
Being Irish, Susan was in love with alcohol. She was also in love with cigarettes although that was more love-hate. Susan has alcoholism in her family and wanted to avoid that route so she entered into a drinking awareness partnership with her friend *the undertaker, who has a similar background. Together they helped eachother emerge intact. Then came motherhood for Susan and the cigarettes went out the window.

Nowadays Susan is happy with her reduced alcoholic intake, as long as she can still have some sort of intake. Susan never missed the cigarettes although she likes to smell the dirty smokers as they file back in from their break.

*Susan's friend used to be an undertaker now he does this.

Susan Has A Monkey On Her Back

And it looks like little bags of peanut M&Ms.
She's been hallucinating because sometimes her monkey looks like Hershey Kisses or teeny bars of chocolate with crispy rice inside, none of which she really likes but neither does she really care.

Susan was toying with this bad habit during her sabbatical from the working world. She used to have a problem back in the day, but thought she could handle it this time.
Poor sap.
Susan fell face first into back into the life around Xmas cookie season. Lately she's been scoring during regular business hours, it's easy to get strung out when the hard stuff is all around her.

Susan is going to reach out before it's too late, while she's still a size 12. She knows some people the next town over who can help.
Every Tuesday night at 7pm, up on the scale.
It's going to be tough but if she's lucky she'll lose a pound a week and be outta there in two months.
God help her.

More Sloppy Sisters

Over the last few days Susan has seen some appalling examples of fat ass peek-a-boo, nipple protrusion and boobage overspill.

Susan hopes that she doesn't offend anyone who might object to the term fat ass, she'd just like to make the point that this particular ass was truly fat.
As were the boobs. Neither was fat enough to attract attention on their own, not unless they were completely unrestrained beneath the most threadbare combination of
t-shirt and capri pants, held up by a worn-out elasticized waist band, of which the ability to function properly had been extremely compromised.

Susan could not take her eyes off the large woman,
sans brassiere and underpanties, who was removing something from the trunk of her car,
as her bosoms slapped against everything within reach,
and her pants slid so far south that Susan was actually looking at the top half of an ass in broad daylight outside her son's Tae Kwon Do school.

The nipple protrusion, in tandem with boobage overspill, was witnessed by Susan in the middle school auditorium. The perpetrator was a mature woman, one who should already know how to determine the fit of her brassiere or use a mirror to assess her outfit before she walked out the door.
Unfortunately for everyone she didn't and left the house with two sets of busoms and one gigantic set of nipples, which presumably had been drilling their way to fresh air for some time.

The final, and most egregious example of boobage overspill was provided by a perfectly lovely young woman,
adorably attired in jeans and clingy layered t-shirts.
There is no reason why the upper portion of her boobs should spill so far out over brassiere that they rival the amount of boobs contained within the brassiere. Be assured, Susan's not talking about cleavage here, she's talking about sloppy boobie muffin top.

Ladies, check yourselves. Check each other.
Don't let your girls travel sloppy.

Save The Date!

Does anyone else hate these vile little things?
Susan doesn't need to be told, eons in advance, that she'll be getting an invitation to something she doesn't wish to attend.
Another wedding?
Spare her, Sweet Jesus!

Two smiling, hopeful, untested faces peeking out from within a refrigerator magnet imploring us to Save The Date!
As if.
The only thing Susan might be even remotely excited about is the cake.

Her childrens' dentist should send her a magnet, it takes six months to get an appointment.

New love.
Susan's husband is fond of saying that it turns to old hate.
It's a little pessimistic, she knows.
But funny, considering how happy he is being married to Susan.

Save The Date!
But don't let Susan find one of these things in your kitchen.

Mother's Day

Susan spent a lovely Mother's Day with a number of her girl cousins at the New York Botanical Gardens,
located within the borough of her birth, The Bronx.

Susan's cousins are one of the great joys in her life.
They see each other quite regularly even while having to sit in a car for an hour or two to do so. They've been lucky with the two who married into the group and all enjoy a pleasant camaraderie although Susan will admit that she's not the first one to warm up to anyone new.

Anyway, the gardens.

Susan hates the tropics but loves all manner of palm trees and the conservatory at the gardens was filled with them;
towering palms and big leafy things.
There were beautiful, colorful, fragrant flowers, a few with very suggestive looking parts.
Impressively pointy succulents, some tall, some round but all BIG. And orchids everywhere.

Susan really liked the carnivorous plants and discovered a centipede trapped inside a pitcher plant.
The pitcher plant is sort of test tube shaped with a little lid, anything making their way in won't get out again
and may look forward to being digested.
Except for this little sonofab*tch.
Perhaps spurned on by the attention, he extricated himself, hit the floor and legged it out of there.
Very exciting stuff for a garden.

Afterwards everyone met back at Aunt Eileen's house where they sat in the late afternoon sun eating, drinking, telling stories, taking pictures and having fun.

Sangria

Susan loves sangria.
She makes it exclusively with cheap red wine and whatever fruit she happens to have on the kitchen counter, except bananas.
She adds plenty of orange juice.
Her little sister prefers to use orange soda.
Lately Susan has been adding some homemade limoncello, which is essentially pure alcohol infused with lemon peels, and simple syrup. It adds a wonderful tarty sweetness. However, Susan's little sister commented that it made the sangria too strong. So, in went more orange juice.
Susan has a bottle of Portuguese firewater
which is totally undrinkable and when added to sangria,
it makes that undrinkable too.

In The Dressing Room

Susan's daughter has been requesting new clothes for weeks. The weather is getting warmer and the kid is still wearing her winter clothes. Plus she's growing out of them. Last week, in an effort to buy a little time, Susan cut off some sleeves and turned a pair of jeans into capris, making nice hems and everything.
Eventually Susan could put her daughter off no longer and took her shopping after dinner.

Susan likes to shop with her daughter because she's a good kid, doesn't beg or act bratty, and is generally a pleasure to be around. Do you know why that is?
Because that's how Susan raised her.

Susan's daughter was extra modest in the dressing room trying to conceal the teeniest little beginnings of breasts. Susan is sure they weren't there last week.
Susan waited until the end of the evening to mention her observation. She took her daughter over to the juvenile underwear aisle looking for a 30A brassiere with just a whisper of padding.
The daughter was not happy but went along because Susan's will was too strong to resist.
Plus the daughter was tired.
Two brassieres were tried on as if they were made of sandpaper. However, when Susan asked if she could purchase one 'just in case you want to wear it later'
her daughter replied 'I don't know', which meant yes.

Susan bought her daughter her first brassiere and used the short drive home to discuss close mommy-daughter things even though her daughter's participation was minimal.

The Drunks Were At It Again. Oy!

Susan was up very late last night reading.
She read without a care for the hour, or her bladder or what she would wear in the morning to her recently acquired job. She was happy to have only the quiet of a Tuesday night to keep her company.

Susan was comfortably situated near an open window in her living room when she became aware that Mrs. Drunk was out in the street. Mrs. Drunk sounded sloppy and stupid, which means she was speaking in her normal conversational tone.

Since Susan was not being directly addressed she was able to put aside the moderate disturbance caused by Mrs. Drunk and continue reading. Susan is able to tune out all sorts of background noises thanks to training provided by her children. Anything really loud like the sustained shrieks of a toddler or something heavy crashing down the stairs or a car alarm will be impossible to ignore and demand investigation. So, one can imagine how much attention two car alarms going off in the wee hours of a Wednesday morning would require.
Lots.

The first alarm went off directly in front of Susan's house. She expected the car's owner to fly on winged feet to quiet the ear splitting racket, but this didn't happen. Instead, the alarm of a second car began to clang and crash and roar. This made Susan hop up and walk outside where she observed someone resembling Mr. Drunk, illuminated by flashing headlights, dancing to the monstrous beat of the dual alarms.

Susan was joined outside by her husband. The two watched in quiet unison as each car was eventually rendered silent with the turn of a key. A 'sorry' was tossed in their direction and once again the street became just what it should be, quiet and dark.

Susan and the husband went inside, shut the door and went to bed.

It's A Motion Sensor For Crissakes!

Susan takes the expressway when she drives home from work. Every day she encounters a line of cars backed up at the entrance ramp. They're all waiting for the traffic light thing to turn green. Susan is sure you've seen one, it has a red light which remains illuminated, and a green light. As each car rolls up to the traffic light thing it will turn from red to green allowing the car to proceed and Susan to inch a little closer to home. However, if the car does not roll far enough to trip the motion sensor the driver will just sit there staring at the red light while the top of Susan's head explodes.

Susan gets all twitchy just anticipating the entrance ramp, she doesn't need to wait until she gets there. She finds it difficult to believe that people don't understand that the traffic light thing employs a motion sensor.
Even after they sit there for forty or fifty minutes.
Her only hope is that their foot falls asleep and slips off the brake so they roll forward unintentionally.

Why is it even necessary to interfere with people merging onto the expressway? Merging is easy, just drive fast.
People need help backing up. Susan has a terrific and smart girlfriend who won't back up at all. Ever.
Help Susan's friend and stop screwing with Susan's drive home!

Lovely Spring

Susan lives with seasons.
Real seasons where everything is either blooming or dying or covered in snow waiting to bloom again. Sometimes a season comes early, or stays late, or seems to forget to come at all.

Currently, Susan's immediate area of the universe is experiencing the first warm weekend of spring.
Susan hasn't had to wear her winter coat for a while but neither has she been able to leave the house without some sort of protective outerwear. And maybe a scarf, which is mostly for decoration, but one does not wear scarves in warm weather is her point.

However, this weekend everything was transformed.

Windows were opened, wind chimes were hung, elderly mongrels were shampooed, patio furniture was scrubbed clean, sunscreen was busted out and the yard was turned from a giant toilet back to a restful retreat.

Oh, and a tick was removed from a middle school baseball player.

Susan had never seen a tick before because she doesn't go places where ticks are. And she doesn't check her children for them either. This particular tick was red and looked like a teeny little boiled crab.

The baseball player was a friend of Susan's son who showed up with the thing already embedded in him. He was very casual about the situation impressing Susan who was busy coordinating the tick extraction while trying not to hyperventilate.

Susan has read that ticks burrow into the skin and if one just yanks them out they will leave the submerged portion of themselves behind. That's no good. She has also read that if one places a heat source, such as a lighted cigarette, up to the tick it will reverse course and back the hell out of Dodge.

Susan has not had a pack of cigarettes in her house since that long ago day when she peed on a test strip and it made her pregnant. However, she and the husband like to smoke cigars periodically and he usually has one or two in the house.

The husband lit his cigar, took a few draws and held it close to the baseball player's skin, burning it ever so slightly. The tick began to move but met an untimely end when it succumbed to heat stroke. Susan removed it with a pair of needle nosed pliers. Even in death he hung on like a sonofab*tch.

Susan would like to say a few things about her son's friends;
That she has yet to meet one she hasn't liked. Well, there was one a few years ago that she wasn't too crazy about but he moved away.
That the son's friends are polite, helpful and very boyish. Susan has listened undetected while they've interacted and has always been happy with what she heard. Fortunately for them she doesn't care too much about conversational cursing.

Boys and warm breezes and lilacs just beginning to bloom,
is there anything better?

Bleach

The other evening Susan's daughter showed up for her goodnight kiss wearing bleach stained flannel pajama bottoms.
Susan is directly responsible for most of the laundry done in the house and the last time she saw those pajama bottoms they were fine.
The husband pitches in with laundry duties but that's usually when there are no more clean towels.
And the kids are complaining that they have no pants.
Or underwear.

Based on a series of previous laundry related episodes
the husband knows to remove Susan's clothing from anything he puts into the washing machine.
That was a hard won battle for Susan.
If you think she goes crazy when he hand washes the glassware, you can't imagine the level of hysteria unleashed in the house when she finds that he's washed, or dried, any of her clothing.

Mercy! It used to drain Susan of all her energy.

Susan takes great care with her clothing because most of it is either moderately expensive or very cheap and can't just be tossed into the machine all willy-nilly. Back during the dark days of the husband's laundry involvement Susan was able to open the dryer door and know immediately that it contained something it shouldn't.

Back to the pajama bottoms.

Susan pondered the bleach stain but decided to let it remain a household mystery because she was working on the computer and didn't have any mental space available at that moment.

The next day Susan was taking laundry out of the dryer.
A load of purple and red laundry, similar to the color of the pajama bottoms. She pulled out her daughter's purple shirt and found it had a large bleach stain.
Then a red shirt. Bleach.
Then two more purple shirts. Bleach, bleach.
She was getting woozy.
Susan removed one bleach stained carcass after another until she got to the thing she dreaded most; her own shirt.
Bleach.

Susan steadied herself as she surveyed the destruction lying at her feet. Not one item spared.

The husband was sitting quietly at the table watching the scene unfold and offered the following explanation;

That he undertook the consolidation of two open containers of bleach into one
directly over an open washing machine
which had recently completed it's cycle.

Susan maintained her composure. Her shirt had been destined for the Goodwill bag after one last washing,
there was no need to over react. Most of the other clothes belonged to her daughter and could be discarded quietly, a cover-up if you will.
Susan set upon this task quickly then moved on as if nothing had ever happened.

Getting Ready For Menstruation

Susan has a deliciously sweet and delightful daughter, sometimes known as The Crybaby, who is going to get ambushed with a talk about menstruation.
Soon.

Susan took a run at this topic already & was met with a profound lack of enthusiasm. It's as if the daughter unplugged herself. All interaction stopped, the eyes dimmed, the body slumped slightly and then she started to drool. But, once the subject was changed she became reanimated; lights back on, motor humming, all functions restored.

Susan's own mother left her under-prepared for maturity.
A few pamphlets about menstruation were flung at her, then nothing else ever again.
No conversation about tampons, birth control, sex. Nothing. The End. Thanks for coming!
That's why Susan stayed a virgin till after menopause,
she didn't know what to do.
There was also a period of time when Susan thought she had to remover her tampon to pee.
How sad.

Anyway, Susan does not fear the embarrassing talk with her daughter. Susan does research. She confers with social workers. She makes an outline.
She knows that brevity is essential.
And a relaxed attitude.

Everything's good, it's only menstruation.
It's natural.
And beautiful.
Oy. Susan's already shovelling the propaganda.