I was sitting in my office today when a friend of mine sent me a text message on my phone that had little hearts and said “I love you”.  At the bottom it instructed me to send it on to all of my friends.  So, I did.  I sent that bad boy to everybody, including my teenaged boy, who hates that kind of crap.

About 20 minutes later, my phone rang.

“Hola!”  I answered. I have caller ID so I knew it was my boy, Matt.

“Hey!  Guess what!!!!” He said, all giddy and excited like.

“Uh… what?”  I played along.

“My phone’s workin!!!” He exclaimed.

You see my boy has a really bad habit of tossing, flipping, pitching his phone..(along with other various forms of abuse).  About two weeks ago, the phone, in an act of ultimate retribution, just up and quit working.   He could still send and receive text messages, but not talky talky.

“No shit?!?!”  I get giddy with him.  “You mean the phone you called me from works?!?!?”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.”  he retorts. “But I wanted to let you know.”

“Well, very cool, baby. I’m glad its workin.”  I tell him.

And I am genuinely glad it’s working because he’s been on an “I want a new phone” kick for about 2 months now.  So right at this second, he’s thrilled to have one he can speak into and hear from.

Then it hits me that he’s calling from school, because I can hear all the chatter of teenaged boys in the background.  So I ask him,  “Why the hell are you in school?”

“Cuz we’re rednecks and apparently we don’t vote up here.”  He says as serious as can be.

“Did you get my text message?”  I ask him all lovey dovey.

“Yah. Yah.” He says trying to put me off like teenage boys do when they are confronted with the “L” word.

“Well?  Do you love me, dammit?”  I push out of sheer enjoyment knowing he was squirming in front of his buddies.

“Come on, Matthew.  You can say it.”  I prod.

“Oh, God.” He said.  “I gotta go.”

“Fine.  Love you.”  I tell him.  He knows I really do love him.

“Ya. Ya.  Bye.”  He said and hung up.  I’m pretty sure his eyes were rolling in back of his head too. 

I really do love the brat and I’m really super proud of him.  That’s ok. He has to come home sometime.

You know, for the past decade, I kept thinking to myself “Damn. Christmas seems to come earlier and earlier every year. I thought it was only in my head because I am simply annoyed by how commercial Christmas has become.

I took note, back in August no less, that as soon as Wal-Mart took out the swimming pools and other summer items… in came the Christmas stuff. IN AUGUST! Before even halloween had time to come and go.

Pisses me off, the money-grubbing devil stores peddle as much as they can for as long as they can. And what really slays me is the fact that, everytime I’d pass through lawn & garden, even back in late summer, there were people buying that shit up. It wasn’t on sale, it was just out on display and for sale at regular prices.

Now I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want my house decorated with little elves and the like that early in the year. I’m the type that as soon as Christmas is over, I’m ready to jerk the ornaments down and sling the tree in the yard.

What I think should happen is, since the the stores have all the Christmas crap out that early, the Salvation Army should round up sexy bell ringers and have them out there in the heat of summer in a Santa-like underwear  made of red velvet with white trim and an excellent and yummy tan.  Then maybe I could swallow Christmas that early in the damn year.

Bah!  Friggin Humbug!

I’m working on finding my sarcasm again after losing it somewhere between the altar and Germany.  In hindsight, I don’t actually think I ever lost it.  I think somehow it got kicked in the corner, or under my dresser with the dust-bunnies when I started having girl problems.  Nothing like some girl issues to jack one’s system completely up.  None-the-less, I started to feel my sassy self coming back to life.

One week to the day after I was wed to my prince, I was on a plane to Germany for a business trip that would keep me away for 10 days.  I can’t say I’ve ever been happier to be home than I am now.

I realized there are so many  little bitty things I manage to take for granted every single day.  You better believe the following is a tribute to those things.

Ice
I never really realized just how damn much ice  meant to me until I didn’t have it in my drink, for 10 days.  No friggin ice.  Luke warm yacky soda with no ice to chomp on. Damn.

Soda
Well, the German people have soda.  But they don’t have a friggin clue what Diet Coke is, no.  They call that shit Coke Light.  It’s super sweet and it tastes like real Coke.  And without ice it is simply undrinkable to my spoiled American palate.  And Diet Dew?  They don’t have Dew at all, let alone Diet Dew Light.  Damn.

The Dollar Being A Dollar
The US dollar is nothing more than a flipping piece of paper at the time of this writing.  I’m here to tell ya, by the time I paid the currency exchange fees and the exchange rate being as it was… my damn dollar was worth less than 47 cents, my friends.  It was extremely apparent to me just how bad it was when I came home to do my expense report and found that for 10 days, with exchange rate, I had spent more than $400 on food and drinks alone. Damn.  Wait!  Rachael Ray would be totally impressed, that would be $40 a day.  Go me!

Courtesy on the Road
Well, not that we have the most courteous drivers in the US, especially in the states that start with “I”, but even those numbnuts are courteous compared to the asshats on the autobahn.  Hello dickhead, get out of my tail pipe and learn to use a signal other than the bird!

My Man
Now this es muy imporante.  I never in my life thought, with all the traveling Diva does, that I would be homesick for my man.  I thought, I’m gone all the time.  It’ll be no big deal.  WRONG!  After more than a year of seeing his face and hearing his voice every single day… I realized how much I need those things and how much that he means to me.  Oh God, I’m getting all mushy again.
But seriously, doing without Diet Dew with ice on the autobahn was enough to make me want to walk to the coast, buy a boat and start paddlin my ass back home.

“Baby!”  I hear Tony calling out as he comes down the stairs to the bathroom where I was in the shower.

“Baby?!?!” He calls out again before bursting into the bathroom.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him reaching for the towel.

“Well, that damn cat.  That damn cat keeps on bothering me.”  He says shaking his head.

“What’d she do this time, baby?”  I asked, as this is quite a normal conversation in our combined domicile.

“Well, I went up there to see if the cheesecake was thawed out, and she was trying to get it.  I had to push her fat ass off the table just to get to it.  She went down swingin. It was like she was trying not to let me get it.”  He says, serious as can be.  “I think she’s got something against me.”

“No baby, she’s a psycho.  It’s not just you.  She attacks anybody and everybody.  She’s an equal opportunity hater.”  I try to mend his feelings.

“That’s not all she did, baby.”  He laments.

“Ok.  Tell me.”  I roll my eyes as I towel dry my hair.

“Then I decided I had to pee, and she followed me in there.” He goes on, “She jumped up on the toilet as soon as she saw me go in there.  And I shewed her down, so she jumped up on the sink and she started swatting my butt while I tried to pee.”

“She’s always hung out in the bathroom, Tony.  She’s not out to get you.”

“But the cat violated me.  She was grabbin my ass while I was in a vunerable position.  I was tryin to pee!”  He protests.

“Well, baby.  All I can tell you is to keep your back to her or she’s liable to swat somethin else.”