LIVE BLOGGING From Dysfunction Junction

One of the most common things I read on the internet about myself, Serge and our marriage is that we're dysfunctional. It's written about in threads and on message boards and blog posts as if those who write the mean comments have uncovered a huge secret. Like we didn't intentionally write the blog posts for you to read and on which these people base their negative opinions. Posts like this one and this one). They write about our "dysfunctional" marriage and speculate on when the divorce will be announced like it's a secret that we've had some serious doozies up in here. Like they stole our diaries and are revealing our marriage secrets to the world as if we didn't write the shit specifically for you to read.

We read that kind of trash talk and laugh because, um, DUH. If this blog has a brand (brand talk: puke) it would be dysfunction - not dysfunction simply for entertainment's sake although it can be entertaining, I suppose, but we write as a part of a combined furious attempt to understand our unique madness and ultimately maybe transcend the dysfunction and arrive at a better place. Isn't that concept the point of life, really? Yet these people talk about our dysfunction and giggle about the wonderful trainwreck of it all as if we should be ashamed of ourselves or aren't aware of how we are perceived or maybe they think we're masquerading as this really together couple who wants the world to glory in our amazingness and they get off on revealing the "truth"?

If I admit right here, right now that I am one of the most dysfunctional people around and I know it do you think all the shit talk will stop? Nah. They'll find something else to bitch about and that's cool. It's the way this internet game is played, I get it.

But listen, dude, we totally fight and we admit it. So the fighting, the dysfunction, it's no big secret. But we're trying, dammit. We're trying to become better people even if it's a process during which I feel like I take two giant steps back for every step forward. We're trying. And that's really the only point. We're trying to do what our parents couldn't. We're slogging along, trying to figure it all out one step at a time and bringing you along for the ride, sometimes imparting a few things we've managed to learn during the madness and sometimes asking for your opinions or experiences from your own relationships and sometimes it's just nice to hear your words of encouragement. And hey, if reading about our shitty fights helps you feel a little less alone in your situation then I think that's fantastic. If reading about our shitty fights helps you feel superior because you don't fight as much, well then that's great too. Whether you're rooting for us or against us isn't our concern, although placing bets on when someone divorces and rooting for a couple to break up is its own brand of dysfunction - that's your scene to figure out.

I'm looking forward to closing the book on May. It's been a tough month for a million reasons that maybe I can share with you when more time has gone by and I am able to acquire some perspective that I just don't have yet. In the meantime, join us for our day-to-day nonsense over on He Said/She Said. Apparently we're live blogging the holiday weekend as we put the fun in dysfunction! Meaning, I'm sure there will be some fights and finger pointing (Fingerpointing is our trademark! We excel at finger pointing!) but also hopefully some really lovely moments as well. See you there and Happy Memo!rial Day.

LIVE BLOGGING FROM DYSFUNCTION JUNCTION! An American Family's Memorial Day Weekend.

CowJoy

Violet likes nothing more than to stand around staring at a bunch of cows. It's something we do on a daily basis 'round these parts as there are several cows we must bid good day to while on our afternoon walk. The cows you're seeing there live a few miles away over near Pop-Pop's house. He feeds them his grass clippings and if we're around we head on down with him to check out all the sexy, sexy cow action. I am telling you what, these cows can be miles across the field but when they see us pull up they run faster than Olympic sprinters. Which, well, it makes me feel bad for enjoying a burger every now and again so damn much. But I'll be damned if I can figure out what I'm supposed to eat. Meat is murder, one group says. I'm all about Paleo, all the cool kids seem to now be saying. Carbs are made from devil farts! And sugar! Eat them and you're going to hellllll!!!!

Eh. Who the hell knows? I miss the good, old days when I thought a granola bar was good for me and had no godly idea what a carbohydrate was. I mean, rice? Rice is bad? Rice? You're telling me a million diminutive Asians have it wrong? Hellfire, I don't know what to eat anymore.

Fairytail of New York

Speaking of pets... Serge recently started writing for a new section of Babble called Babble Pets. A week or so ago he wrote this piece about Max that I didn't notice until today.

I got Max when I was 25-years-old and coming off a really bad break-up. The worst break-up of my life, really. We always had little mutt dogs like Spliffy and I had longed for a big, goofy dog and Max was just the ticket. Max has been with me through everything. Single girl partying, meeting and marrying Serge, moving to New York, moving back to Utah, adopting Milo, having two kids, and now moving to Pennsylvania. He is with me pretty much every second of every day and my heart constricts to the size of a marble if I contemplate life without my guy.

In Fairytail of New York: Pictures of a Big City Dog Serge really beautifully captured our time together in New York City. We walked everywhere and I always carried a camera. All over Brooklyn, across the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan. Max has splashed around in the Washington Square fountain in Greenwhich Village while ambitious drama students staged fake fights to eager crowds who thought they were for real. From chasing mule deer in the mountains of Utah to chillin' in bars with Brooklyn hipsters, dude is a well-traveled dog.

The Cat Lady

I think the universe is trying to tell me something about my decades-long opinion of cats.

I never really hated cats, I'm a sucker for all animals, even the ugly ones. Dead skunks and possums at the side of the road make me tear up. Cats have just never been my thing. Who wants a snobby cat when a boundlessly happy dog is ready to cater to your every need? Who needs a silent, stalking creature when there is a goofy, loyal-to-a-fault licking licker ready to fill your love tank?

And yeah, okay, I may have made one or two cat lady jokes in my time but only after one too many creepy hoarders featured on Buried Alive were found to be living among the carcasses of cats who died when Justin Timberlake was still synchronizing dance moves with Joey Fatone and the gang by day and schtooping a teenage Britney by night.

Dog living has always been the life for me. Dogs are eager to please and cats are all me, me, me, what can you do for me? I know, I know. Your cat is different. Your cat is totally amazing. But I'm sticking with dogs, I said whenever the dog vs. cat conversation arose. Show me a cat who will kick a stranger's ass for acting aggressively toward you or show me a cat who can catch a Frisbee and I may have reconsidered.

Then, a few days before our house fire, a bright orange cat showed up on our doorstep. It wasn't the first time I'd seen this cat. Once, about a week before the cat turned up on our porch, while returning home from somewhere at night, my headlights flashed across this very same cat huddled at the side of the road.

This is farm country so cats and even the occasional dog roaming around isn't highly unusual. Now, I wonder if that first roadside sighting occurred very close to the time someone exited the main roadway into our little village and ditched the poor thing but I'll never know for sure. Anyway, the little one turned up on our doorstep, Christmas night, I think it was, and, against my better judgment I sat down there on the porch and gave it a good rubdown. Perhaps the spirit of Christmas moved me, who the hell knows? Regardless, worried about the cold temperatures, I woke up a few times that night to see if the cat was still sitting on the porch. First time I checked, it was there and the sighting sent me into a tailspin of Should I bring it inside? Should I put it in the garage? Should I feed it? They say never to feed strays but what if it's hungry? Later it was gone. Vanishing into the freezing night. I surprised myself by feeling disappointed but was also relieved not to have to wonder what to do with the poor animal.

A few days later our house burned and we had to move. The day after the fire some friends of ours told us about a house for rent in a small town about a half hour away. We immediately came to check it out and one of the first things I saw was this:



The photo is taken from the kitchen. The window looks into a natural spring that bubbles up in the backyard. The cat was sitting next a trickle of water looking directly at me through the kitchen window.

"He comes with the house." The landlord, who was giving us a tour of the house, said when she noticed me watching the orange cat. "He's a stray but the neighbors feed him. They call him Charlie."

"Charlie." I replied while staring intently at the cat that looked identical to the one I had seen on the porch of our home that had burned not a week earlier. Of course, it wasn't the same cat, our current home is more than thirty country miles from our old house. Odd, though, that I go for years without noticing cats, with no cats crossing my path for any reason and the week before my house burns down a fire-colored cat shows up on my doorstep (A harbinger of what was to come?) and then an identical cat "comes with the house" I am forced to rent in the wake of the fire.

Charlie came withe the house, all right. Within days of moving here it got to so I'd look for him out the back window every night before I'd go to bed and first thing in the morning when I woke up. More often than not, this is the sight that would greet me:



Charlie, getting in his morning slurp before settling down to sleep off a night of cat debauchery. He'd curl up in one of the chairs we left on the back porch and close his eyes until we'd all troop out for the dogs' morning romp. Once they made it clear they were big, dopey goofs, overly friendly sheep in wolves' clothing, Charlie wasn't afraid of Max and Milo at all. If anything, it was the other way around. The first few times we were all out in the yard together he made it clear they could run around and play but he'd get straight up crazy on their asses if they tried to pull anything funny. Eventually he allowed them the pleasure of sniffing his ass every now and again but he made it clear that would be the extent of their relationship.

The kids were a different story. Even though he hailed from a lawless land of homeless cats where hisses, bared fangs and claws rule, he loved nothing more than to roll on his back and get a nice rubdown. His time on the battlefield would never allow him to really relax, though, he was always watchful even under the gentlest of hands.



Violet and Henry were crazy about him. They've grown up with two big, lumbering black labs all the time in everyone's way which makes the dogs about as interesting as the couch. But what is this slinky, mincing new creature before us? A cat was foreign, fascinating.

Before long we were regularly feeding Charlie cans of tuna fish which Violet demanded to give to him. She would carefully walk out onto the back porch, slowly and deliberately stepping toward Charlie, holding the opened can of tuna aloft in both hands like a tiny wise man presenting the Christ child himself with a gift of exotic oils on the day of his birth. Charlie would warily (but not unkindly) watch her approach, not moving until she placed the can on the cement and backed away slowly, ultimately screaming and jumping with happiness when the flame-colored cat would deign to hop down from his chair perch and gulp her tuna offering.

"Look, mama! He's eating! He has hungry tummy!"

"CHA-WEEEE!" Henry would growl in delight and bang starfish hands on the screen door that separated him from the object of his affection.

It got to the point that Charlie would come running from next door or the woods that border our house whenever we came into the backyard. He liked us, this warrior cat whose personality made me think of a vet who just returned home from his second tour of duty in Iraq. Watchful, jumpy, yet happy to sit in a safe place among friendly folks. And it was just what we needed too, this new friend. After the house fire we also felt jumpy and watchful and so it was nice to sit quietly together in the backyard and watch the days go by.





He allowed me to pick ticks off his body and silently listened when I'd finger the huge gashes torn into his head and body, war wounds from nightly battles with other strays.

"Oh, Charlie," I'd say while inspecting a bald patch where slashing claws had apparently ripped out hair and a generous amount of flesh. "You've got to stop fighting with other cats. One day you'll get really hurt." He'd just stare at me intently (and appreciatively, I like to think) and then continue drinking from his private well of fresh water.

Charlie's presence became a part of our day, this new routine we settled into after the house fire exiled us to this unfamiliar territory. He was an ambassador of sorts for this new neighborhood and I'll admit, I felt a sense of pride that this wild-ish animal liked me, liked my kids and seemed to enjoy hanging out with us and I even started fantasizing about keeping him and taking him with us when we move back to our hold house once the construction is complete.



I haven't seen Charlie in a month.

It took three or four days of trying not to look at his empty chair before I voiced my fear to Serge. "Charlie hasn't been around lately." I said, my worst fears lurking in my unspoken implication.

"Eh. He's probably just out on a cat bender or something. I wouldn't worry. He's a stray, doing his thing."

The days melted into weeks. I asked the neighbors, who also feed him and presumably named him Charlie, if they'd seen him lately. No. Nothing was said aloud but it was clear that they too feared the worst.

For the longest time I've been waiting and hoping and peering out the back window wanting/needing to see him curled into his usual chair sleeping off an epic bender but I suppose the fact that I'm writing this is finally me acknowledging that I guess he's gone. And I'm really upset about it. Devastated, actually. For weeks I've been imagining him bleeding to death in a field somewhere after another one of his bloody battles. Or worse, suffering along a road somewhere after being hit by a car.

Aw, Charlie guy... Did one of your battles leave you mortally wounded? I just don't know.

******

A week ago I decided I was going to plant some trees and bushes in the backyard of the house that burned. Liven up the barren stretch of grass so it's a nice place to spend time this summer when we finally move back. I was watering a just-planted tree when a flash of orange darted past me and disappeared between a broken piece of lattice that adorns the rim of the deck.

"CHA-WEEE!" Henry shouted with violent joy and Violet came running.
"Mom look! It's Charlie".
"That's right, there he is." I said, stunned. I got down on all fours with my daughter and peered between the diamonds of lattice. There, in the darkest shadows under the deck crouched the orange cat I saw a week before the fire, before Charlie.

Had it been living there all this time?

"Here kitty, kitty, kitty. C'mere, kitty, kitty, kitty." Ten minutes of coaxing brought the reticent feline out into the sunlight where I again noted its striking resemblance to Charlie; fiery fur and green eyes. We let it bask in the sunlight in peace while we worked in the flower bed, to show it we meant no harm and to our great pleasure it stuck around for the rest of the afternoon.

I make the twenty-minute drive to the house every day to water plants and see how the construction is coming along. The cat is there most of the time. I'll sit on the back steps and stroke its slender, body and think about this strange, sudden influx of fire-colored cats into my life.


_Charlie.

Cinco de Mayo

This is the last in a series of three posts sponsored by Sauza tequila. This is also your last chance to win a gift card for a stay at a quaint inn here in Central Pennsylvania.

So remember my boyfriend? The sexy firefighter who likes kittens AND tequila who was featured in that funny Sauza commercial where he waxes poetic about jeggings and antiquing and likes to sympathize with women about how hard it is to walk in heels? Well, the commercial apparently went crazy viral, scoring something like three million views on YouTube. I'm certain 2,999,899 of those views were you guys. And I can't say I'm surprised. Seriously, dude is so fine. If I had to make a man that is what he'd look like, beard included. I mean, of course he'd look like Serge. Yeah, that's what I meant. If I had to make a man he would look like Serge first but then the second guy I made, he would look like the firefighter.

Where was I? Oh yeah, sexy firefighter. So the commercial was such a hit that Sauza released a funny little clip of some firefighter/kitten outtakes that you can watch here. It definitely earned a chuckle from me. I guess it's true, you can't go wrong with a hot dude or an adorable kitten that has a penchant for wearing kicky berets.

I wanted to remind you that there is still a visit to a quaint little inn in the country to be won. The inn is quaint, trust me, The reason I'm not mentioning the name or posting a link here is because it is across the street from my house. My old house that burned that I'm moving back to, hopefully in June sometime. So I don't exactly want to give you a detailed map to my house or anything because some of y'all are cuh-raaazy and not the good kind of crazy where 3am after a night of debauchery finds you standing on the roof shouting "I can fly, you guys, I know I can... WATCH!" but the kind of crazy that makes me wonder if you've printed out pictures of me to tape to your bathroom walls so you can stare at me with hatred while you poop or brush your teeth. ANYWAY, if your comment is randomly picked you'll get a gift card for a night at the inn. You can use it on your own or you can save it for when I throw my housewarming party sometime in late July-ish and then you can come party with me! There will margaritas. And maybe blood. But only if we abandon margaritas for tequila shooters and you're the good kind of crazy previously mentioned.

All you gotta do is watch the outtakes video and leave a comment on this post telling me your favorite part and leave your email so I can contact you if you win. Sorry for all the clicking around. But that previous post is where everyone else has already left a comment so that's the way it's gotta be. If you've already commented then you're good to go. In the next couple days I'll randomly pick a winner so YEEHAW and all that.

Now, on to the tequila!

I ended up throwing a small Cinco de Mayo party with a few friends and family. We had regular margaritas and strawberry margaritas and Pop-Pop, who is known 'round these parts for his monogamous relationship with Miller Lite, had himself so many margaritas this happened. The strawberry margaritas were absolutely my favorite and I'm not throwing another summer party without them.

Drink cart ahoy! Technically, that's where our record player usually goes but it's actually a snazzy little cart on wheels that makes for an excellent margarita station.



Come in closer, you know you want to...



What kind of fool throws a Cinco de Mayo party without chips, salsa and guacamole? Not I, said the pig who ate most of the guacamole by the end of the night.



My very subtle nod to decor.



I told you it was subtle. But on to the festivities!

Below you'll find me preparing to get my drink on. Shortly after this photo was taken I mixed the first batch of margaritas and in typical form I forgot to put the blender lid on before pressing blend. Yeah, awesome.



This is my landlord (Remember how I told you I struck landlord jackpot? This is her!) Shawna. I'm going to have to stop calling her my landlord and just call her my friend. But yeah, I really dig Shawna.



She's cute, isn't she? Wait, let me see if I have a better photo. One that isn't covered in margarita mist. Oh, here we are!



And here's her husband Shawn (holding my Henry guy). Yes, I swear to God: Shawn and Shawna. If you can believe it we have next-door neighbors named Jesse and Jessie too.



Pop-Pop and Grammy also stopped by to swill some margs.



Serge, who is generally a red wine kind of guy, really dug the strawberry margarita as well.



Yeah, so I was saying - the guys really got... uh... into it.



Here's Violet, working the appetizer table like a pro. Mama done taught her good.



And here's Hank, eyeballing the next thing he can climb on top of or climb inside of or dump out on the floor or use to somehow get wet and/or dirty. He has a special knack for using everyday items in extraordinarily messy and dirty ways.



Here are a couple more shots of the festivities:







I think I posted most of them but you can see all the photos here.

Mad Max

Yesterday, as I was sitting on the couch (watching TV, DUH) Henry was messing around with me, climbing on and off the couch, jumping on my lap, you know the drill.

About ten minutes tick-tocks by before I realized he was using poor old Max as a ladder, stepping all over his body so he could climb onto the couch. Aside from an occasional glance back to see what all the commotion was about, Max didn't flinch.

10-years-old, long-suffering as hell, constantly dealing with two crazy-ass toddlers pulling his ears, his tail, using him as a stepping stool, trying to ride him like a small pony and groping his genitals in an uncomfortable way and all he does in reply is roll mournful eyeballs at me as if to say: Seriously? Can't you maybe do something about this?

Seconds of Today

Love Means ALWAYS Having To Say You're Sorry

In the wake of our separation throughout the end of March and most of April, making any videos for He Said/She Said felt awkward. Feels awkward, I mean. Or maybe that's the wrong word. But the prospect of talking some more about it all on video feels overwhelming to me right now and the idea of not talking about it and maybe focusing on some specific aspect of our relationship, like sleeping habits or the silly things that bother us felt disingenuous, somehow. That's not to say we're not doing it anymore. Just... Well, I can't speak for Serge but, like I said, I just haven't felt like making any videos. We're still writing over there, though.

Here's what's doing this week:

From Serge there is Big Daddy and the Life and Times of a Beating Heart:

People like to think that they know things, but mostly people don’t know anything at all. Or at least, they don’t know much worth knowing. Life is over in the time it takes a butterfly to piss down in an old toad’s eye, but we act like we have so many answers about how to master the art of living.

Do this, we say, do things like this.

Look at me!/Watch me dammit!, we cry out as our fingernails are scraping down the metal slide, our bodies/our souls just a few feet of summer’s day from slipping off the edge of that thing, down into something a super whole helluva lot different than the little renovated two-bedroom walk-up on a cloud where we kinda convinced ourselves we were going to spend eternity hanging out with the old gang when all of these goofball lights finally went out.

People like to squint through their eye-holes at you when you are pushing your stroller down through the mall, bud. Some people like to take a swift gander, size you up as if you were the silhouetted enemy sneaking out from the rice paddy mist with a machine gun cradled in your arm dip, and shoot you down with just a few words that they speak to themselves.

It’s called judgement and it’s what makes human beings so weak and exhausting and exhausted in the end.

My little contribution is called Love Means ALWAYS Having to Say You're Sorry - Since most of our photo albums were burned in the fire I spent a lot of time this past week going over old photos from my Flickr account and decided to throw together some of my favorites of me and Serge from throughout the years. Stuff you maybe haven't seen. Like this:



Bad reindeer! BAD!

Collision Repair

Every Day is Groundhog Day

Lately I've been living my own little version of Groundhog Day, the epic Bill Murray movie wherein he relives the same day over and over and over again. Except I'm reliving specific moments of the day over and over and over again. This is due to Violet's newly discovered independence. She must do everything by herself and if I slip up and get the milk out of the fridge or put her potty seat over the toilet on my own, God help everyone, including the dogs who have bore the brunt of her resulting rage on more than a few unfortunate occasions. After her rage subsides we must redo the task until it meets with her very stingy approval.

Most recently I had the unmitigated gall to pour her a cup of milk and serve it to her at the table. How dare I? In response? A milk boycott of epic proportions. She couldn't be near the tainted cup of milk, couldn't even have it in her eyesight, so ruined was this cup of milk that mom had the nerve to procure without Violet's careful instruction and subsequent assistance. Her highness has ruled the milk disgusting, UNDRINKABLE, therefore it must be sent into exile. And I am the worst mother ever what with all my willy-nilly, permissionless milk-pouring.

The aforementioned milk boycott manifested in Violet leaving the dinner table in tears and placing the small cup of milk on the floor of the living room, like some sort of shrine or offering to the Milk Gods, where she wouldn't have to see it and where Max would immediately gulp it down without regard for the Milk Gods. And then, AND THEN, 30 seconds later she calmly requested "Cold milk, please." in a no nonsense tone that implied No more shit from you, lady, or there'll be hell to pay. As if the whole thing never even happened. Cool as a cucumber she got the milk out of the fridge and assisted in the pouring and returned to the table to drink it down, lickety-split.

This kind of thing happens all day long. If I dare pour milk (or attempt to accomplish any other similar task involving Violet) without express permission and assistance from her highness the milk is tainted, immediately rendered undrinkable and we must painstakingly repeat the milk-pouring routine to Violet's satisfaction. Same goes for snacks. Hand her a cookie from the container and it's no good, asshole. She must choose which cookie from the package on her own. Therefore, the offensive cookie mom grabbed from the package is put directly back and then she must wave some kind of magic wand in her brain to erase what just happened because she then proceeds to pick a cookie as if one wasn't just given to her. Sometimes the cookie she chooses is the very same one I just handed her and sometimes the cookie choosing process involves up to five minutes of handling seven to ten cookies before her little fingers settle on just the right one. As if the fate of the planet rests in this one decision. Violet is Ben Affleck and the cookie is a giant asteroid headed straight for Earth. Minutes tick by, months tick by, Jessica Simpson gets pregnant for forever again and gives birth in the time it takes Violet to pick a cookie. It's like she's mentally communicating with the cookies, determining whose time is up. Back and forth between this cookie and that. Back and forth, this one or that one?

Finally, after what feels like three hours, when my insides are begging for mercy, screaming for the kid to just CHOOSE A FUCKING COOKIE ALREADY she plucks one from the pack and utters the sweetest "Thanks, mama!" you ever heard and, like the Grinch, my heart immediately grows three sizes. Of course, it immediately shrinks like a dick in cold water ten minutes later when she tries to kick Henry down the stairs, but, well, you gotta take these small mom victories where you can get 'em.

She's also turned into a big ol' know-it-all. But she's twisted. For example, if we're driving through the woods I'll say, "Look Violet, we're in the woods." Her immediate disgruntled response is "That's not woods, it's a forest!" The fact that I'm an ignorant asshole is implicitly implied. Okay, all right, I'll go with your forest, kid. The difference is negligible. But recently she's just started fucking with me. "Look, chickens!" I'll say in feigned Mom Excitement as we pass a bunch of scraggily chickens meandering down a country road. "That's not chickens, that's cows!" She'll yell at me as if she finds my stupidity astounding on levels that I couldn't even possibly understand. That's when some inner need to prove to a 3-year-old that I'm not an asshole takes over and i respond "No, those aren't cows, they're chickens, silly."

Big mistake. Huge.

"NO, NO, NO! Cows! COWS! Not chickens!" I mean, she's just messing with me like some tom cat batting around a defenseless little mouse, isn't she? We're both looking at an assload of chickens, clear as day. She knows these are chickens, dammit. If I'm feeling feisty (suicidal) I'll try one more time. "No, look, chickens. What does the chicken say? Bawk, bawk, bawk!" My confidence is faltering and the forced joviality backfires. The kid smells fear like a cadaver dog closing in on remains.

NO NO NO NO NO. That's not chickens, IT'S COWS. COWS! COOOOWS! Then she checkmates me with the waterworks. There we are, arguing over chickens and cows and Henry's gawking at her like, Oh for Chrissakes, what kind of shenanigans are you trying to pull here? Even I know the difference between a bunch of chickens and cows. But it doesn't matter, people. Those chickens are cows now as far as this family is concerned.

"Okay, all right. They're cows!" I'll say.

The tears stop immediately and I swear to God I see her smirk and then, as if nothing untoward just occurred, in the sweetest, kindest voice you ever heard she says "Ice cream?"

Mom - 0, Violet - WINNING



You can read Serge's version of the same scenario here: Conversations With A 3-Year-Old Part II