ammogirl

This is a picture of my hand:

What is up with the veins? Gross.

Please ignore the general elephanty-ness of my hands, and bulging tendons/veins.  I have man hands.  What are you gonna do.

This is a picture of my hand with a faux flower Lindsey has in her room:

Comparison of my hand in regards to Lindsey's faux flower, size-wise.

You will notice that the flower is approximately 70% of the size of my hand.  Which…wow, my index finger is crooked, isn’t it?

THIS IS A PICTURE OF THE GRASSHOPPER IN LINDSEY’S ROOM LAST NIGHT:

GINORMOUS MONSTER GRASSHOPPER

YOU GUYS.  That thing is HALF THE SIZE OF MY HAND.  My MAN hand!  Meaning, THAT BUG WAS FUCKING MONSTERISH!  And here’s how THAT little scenario went down:

Lindsey and I had just finished up an episode of True Blood (LOVE IT), Taylor was getting ready for bed, and John was DD-ing his friends all over the place.  It was about midnight-ish, and I was just finishing up a last check of Facebook, when Lindsey came rocketing down the stairs, sobbing and screaming and jumping around.  Taylor was hot on her heels, wondering, you know, what the hell was going on with her clearly possessed sister.  I jumped up from the couch in a panic because hi, my child was clearly insane or being pursued by rapists, and we all met in the middle of the dining room.

After a full minute of Lindsey hyperventilating, we calmed her down enough for her to say there was a giant grasshopper in her room.  Well, when people (my daughter) say GIANT grasshopper, you (I) tend to downgrade it a bit, into the range of regular size grasshopper, because, well–you just do.  So we all headed back upstairs so I could save the day, and I boldly walked into Lindsey’s room…and immediately froze in horror because OH MY GOD GIANT GRASSHOPPER!  It was just…crawling all over her wall!  Like it owned the place!  And it was GIANT!  We all knew there was no way in HELL I was getting that thing out of the room, so I just asked Lindsey what she needed, because oh hell no she was not sleeping in there.  She asked for her pillow, blanket, and laptop, which I retrieved, but then she asked for her laptop charger, which happened to be plugged in on the other side of the room…with the grasshopper.

I was like, Uh, no, share with your sister, girlfriend, because this momma ain’t going anywhere close to THAT, but then she was all, MOMMM! PLEAAAASSSEEEE!  And I caved and went tip-toeing in, eyes firmly plastered on the creature, both girls crowded around the door watching with wide eyes.  And as I reached the plug and yanked the cord out of the wall, not caring if to do so resulted in cord-ruining or electrocution, the grasshopper…STARTED FLYING.  TOWARDS ME.

I screamed:  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  And the girls screamed:  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  And I threw myself out the door into the wake of the girls, who had ran as soon as the first wing moved.  I slammed the door behind me, did a quick dance to make sure that thing wasn’t on ME, and ran into my bedroom where the girls were cringing in terror.  We all jumped around screaming for a moment and then realized the window was open and it was 1230 am.

John was called, and when I finally got ahold of him, I said, “EMERGENCY SITUATION!  Come home quick!”  And he said, “What?  Why?”  And I said, “OMG GIANT GRASSHOPPER!”  And he said, “…ohhh, giant grasshopper, huh?”  And I heard the rolling of his eyes and the giggle of his drunk passengers and I said “YES!  IT IS GIANT, you just wait and see.”  And he said, “…mmhmmm.  I’ll be home soon.”

I got off the phone and told the girls we were being highly doubted by the man of the house and we all agreed that he would not be doubtful when he was faced with getting rid of the bug.  We then travelled downstairs to my bathroom so I could brush my teeth and wash my face, and yes I needed to have them there  because WHAT IF THERE WERE MORE and they snuck up on me as I was rinsing my face off?  WHAT THEN?  And then John came home, all uh-huh big bug, huh and grabbed a PAPER TOWEL and when I told him that a PIECE OF ABSORBENT PAPER was not going to help him in anyway he was like, I’m a MAN and giant bugs do not exist and then he walked in Lindsey’s room and was like, “Whoa.”

I said “I TOLD YOU SO” and then shut the door on him and then grabbed my camera and threw it in at him and shut the door again.  He rustled around in there for awhile and then took the faux flower picture and then the grasshopper flew at HIM and he ducked because man or not, that thing was FREAKY, and when he did so the grasshopper found some portal to the dimension of hell and went into hiding for awhile.  I was like, well, Lindsey, sorry you no longer have your own room because as far as I’m concerned, it now belongs to an insect and she agreed and then we all went to bed.

Except for John, who went upstairs to brush his teeth and afterward went back into Lindsey’s room and  found the grasshopper and put him outside, STILL ALIVE, which is thoughtful and all, if you aren’t talking about GIANT GRASSHOPPERS.

It was quite an evening.

Tschuss!!

So the funniest thing just happened.  ALL the power in this area suddenly went out–and I mean ALLLLL.  Not just in our little town, but in Matt’s town, who is about 10 miles away.  I know this because cell phones still worked THANK GOD WE COULD HAVE DIED.  Anyway, so immediately after it went out, it was quiet for like, 30 seconds while all the neighborhood was doing, I’m assuming, what we were doing: checking the breaker. Then came several declarations of “It’s out all over!” and THEN?  Do you know what happened then?  PEOPLE WENT OUTSIDE!  Lawnmowers started up!  People were checking flower beds for weeds!  Kids were playing!  It was funny–OMG NO POWER WHAT DO WE DO WHAT DO WE DO?

The bad thing was, I actually had a legitimate and DESPERATELY IMPORTANT need for the internet at that particular moment, because I have one more paper that is due tonight, and man that really would have sucked had I procrastinated for two weeks and then in the final hours I was screwed.  Fortunately the POWER OUTAGE OF 2009 ended quickly and here I am…not writing the paper I need to write.  But it was a funny story!

Actually the funny story is that when the power goes out, I get REALLY WEIRD and run around waving my arms in the air and yelling nonsense and generally acting like a small child high on sugar.  John loved it.  Really.

NOW, I gotta write that paper.

Tschuss!!

(This has turned into an annual tradition of sorts; I first posted this on Father’s Day 2004, and I think every Father’s Day since. )

My mom and dad own a candy store. It really is the world’s best candy, and believe me, I’ve eaten a LOT of candy in my life. As a result, my dad is a candyman. When you’re a little girl, that is the coolest thing in the world.I spent a large portion of my childhood at that candystore. Most of my childhood memories are there. I grew up, not so long ago, no, but in that different time when you could send your six year old daughter two blocks down to the corner store and let her sit there for half a day reading comics, and not worry about her getting stolen. I did that a lot. I knew all the neighboring shop owners… and there were quite a few over the years, in the big building next door that first held a junk/antique shop. I hung with the owners of Catch the Wind long before they were internationally known in the kite world. I’m sure my love of reading was forged in the library next door.

I also spent a lot of time with my parents. Mom was all right to watch, but her job was dipping the chocolates or working the cash register. Either it got boring or I was underfoot… you have no idea how busy a candy store can be in the summer. You can’t entertain your kid when you’re working the counter. So most of the time, I hung out with my dad.

I’d watch him make candy, not really consulting the always open recipe book he had available at all time. Those recipes were ancient, given to him by the previous owner, made his by time. I’d watch other people watch him, the whole kitchen encased with windows so the customers could see the old fashioned way of making candy. When it was caramel day, he’d send me down to the store to get evaporated milk, cans and cans of it. On stick candy and sucker day I’d get my own place, along with everyone else that worked there, rolling it, making suckers, jamming the handles in. I stood on my little can and thought I was so cool, how jealous the tourist kids must be… So many other memories… smelling all the flavoring oils, dad reaching up to the high shelf and getting the one I wanted over and over, so I could smell it just one more time. Driving to Jerry’s Ice Cream store to get the big buckets of ice cream, back when the candy store was also an Ice Cream store. I was about 4, and my dad would have me read the menu for Jerry and his wife, proud that I could. Getting Ooga-Nooga burgers. I could go on forever.

I told my dad once, when I was about 8, I think, that I loved him more than I loved my mom. He just laughed. You won’t always. That’s all he said.

Of course he was right. I grew up, and what teenage girl loves her dad? I certainly didn’t. I couldn’t stand him… anything about him. We fought, I moved out, moved back in, moved out again. Came in the military. Had my own daughters. My relationship with my dad has been, shall we say, turbulent. I don’t know why, except that maybe we are so alike and it’s hard to see that, to admit you’re like your parent.

I always tell everyone I had a weird childhood. I didn’t have friends, I spent a lot of time by myself, I wasn’t a normal little girl. Maybe I didn’t have a childhood like everyone else; my parents owned a business in a tourist town, and because they are who they are, they wanted that business to not just succeed, but to thrive, and they wanted to do it themselves, not let someone else do it for them, even if that did mean they didn’t spend a lot of time at home. But I realize now how lucky I actually was. Because what I did have was a father who always loved me, no matter what. Who taught me to be silly, not serious. Who showed me that the little things are more important than the big things. And who made sure I knew one thing: that no matter what, no MATTER WHAT, he was always proud of me. Always.

I’ve always been proud of you too, Candyman.

I love you dad. Happy Father’s Day.