Charlie the pilgrim also says, "Please, please take this stupid hat off."
Charlie the pilgrims says, "Fine, if you won't take it off, I'm not speaking to you."
Things I'm thankful for: torturing my dog with tiny felt hats, two full Thanksgiving dinners in one day, wonderful family, fantastic friends, and the fact that while I have to work tomorrow, I don't have to work RETAIL. It's the simple things, people.
I know you’ve been storing up questions and discussion topics and bits of information to give me ALL DAY LONG and you just need to get them out NOW NOW NOW and you’re talking and chattering and asking questions and expecting me to respond and make decisions and, seriously, I can’t do this.
I don’t know what we should do about our health benefit re-enrollment, I don’t want to discuss selling one of the motorcycles, I don’t care what we eat for dinner tomorrow, I know the dog needs his nails cut, and no, buy your own damned deodorant.
I am tired. All day long there are people talking at me, demanding my time, my attention, my ability to be a walking thesaurus and there’s noise and words and ringing phones and emails and conversations and this constant bombardment from which there’s no escape, not even in the bathroom and I just want five minutes where no one wants anything from me.
No questions. No mail to read. No discussions. No demands. No talking. No shopping lists to write. No noise. No paperwork to review, no messages to listen to, no phone calls to make.
When my brothers and I were in high school we were that house, the one that had a revolving door. Neighbors, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, our house was constantly full of people that didn’t live there.
Looking back, I realize how huge a pain in the ass this was for my parents. My mother worked nights and my dad’s work schedule was non-standard and they must have just wanted their evenings to themselves, to be quiet and relax. After a few years of working, a couple of rounds of houseguests, and a more grown up life, I understand how incredibly precious quiet time can be. My poor parents never got any.
Instead, the driveway was full of other people’s cars, the house was full of teenagers, and there was no quiet to be found ANYWHERE. There was never any Coke in the fridge, the toilet paper was always gone, and somebody was always squabbling with someone else. Our six-person dinner table nearly always had a couple of folding chairs or barstools snuggled between the normal chairs to make room for visitors.
I am grateful that we were that house, that my parents were so welcoming when they didn’t need to be, that my mom treated all my friends like her own children, nagging and laughing, and my dad cracked jokes and talked cars and told boys to get their damned hair cut already.
Dinner time must have been an adventure for my mom. She never knew how many people would be showing up at the table. It could be 3 out of our family of 5, it could be 12. Who knew? I did a lot of quick-fast running to the grocery store to get a salad or some more vegetables so she could extend whatever dinner offering she had, but she got really good at cooking meals that made for great leftovers if we had fewer than 12 people eating.
One of them was mostaccioli. I’ve taken the recipe and adapted it a bit, making the red sauce from scratch rather than use Ragu, but it’s still pretty much hers.
Mama Buster’s 10 Pound Mostaccioli
1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. hot Italian sausage
2 lbs. mostaccioli noodles (2 boxes)
1 lb. shredded mozzarella
2 28 oz. cans crushed tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes
3-5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 medium onion, diced
5-10 leaves basil, chopped
1 tsp. sugar
salt and pepper
olive oil
Brown Italian sausage and ground beef, drain and set aside.
Regardless of potential video surveillance in elevators, I unabashedly adjust my clothing in there. Slippy bra straps, tights with those annoying rolling waistbands, or wedgies, I’m fixing it in the elevator.
I grocery shop in my parents’ kitchen. It’s a habit that developed during the Ramen years of college, when I’d come home for breaks and systematically steal everything that wasn’t nailed down in my parents’ kitchen. Now, I am more selective, but the habit still persists. A box of brownie mix here, a handful of cookies there. More often than not, I leave my parents’ house with a bag of goodies culled from their cupboards.
If I work out at the gym and shower there, it’s a safe bet that I’m going commando when I leave. I am incapable of remembering to bring a clean pair of skivvies and the very thought of putting on a pair of sweaty worked-out-in undies grosses me out.
I talk to myself. Like, I will hold an entire conversation with myself in the car.
I have several highly annoying verbal tics, one of which is the overuse of the word “so.” I know it. I cannot stop it. Another is the use of what my friend B refers to as “Buster-isms.” Quirky little sayings that my family and I use but normal people apparently do not. Referring to Bemidji as “the armpit of the state” for example, or saying someone is “busier than a cat on a hot tin roof.” I don’t really want to stop this tic because the looks on friends’ faces when I say something ridiculous always makes me smile.
Until a few months ago, the mister and I did not have nightstands. We had two mismatched barstools that we balanced our clocks and water glasses on.
I don’t clean so much as I quick-fast race around for half an hour, seeing how much I can get done. I have a short attention span and a hatred for household chores, so this blitzkrieg approach to cleaning is the best method I’ve found.
I once used my Swingline to repair a torn hem on a pair of pants. I then continued to wash and wear the pair of pants for 6 months with the staples in the hem, rather than actually fixing it.
I never finish a bottle of wine. I’ll pop the cork and have a glass, then put the remainder in the fridge where it will sit for 3 weeks until I just pour it down the drain.
I wait for the mister to go out of town so I can do projects he would otherwise disapprove of. For example, the purging of video cassettes happened while he was gone. (We don’t even own a VCR, but he would not let me toss the tapes. Has he missed them since they’ve been gone? Nope.) This year, the crab apple tree in the front yards is getting chopped down as soon as he and his friends take off for a weekend trip.
I start knitting projects and never finish them.
I drop farts in store aisles and then hurriedly bolt for some other part of the store.
I am terrible at staying in touch with people.
I listen to embarrassing music – it’s a bizarre mix of classical, oldies, soundtracks, and really irritating pop music. Britney followed by Bach followed by Damien Rice.
I have read literature. Hemingway, Faulkner, Conrad, Shakespeare. I have read philosophy – Rousseau, Locke, Machiavelli, Nietszche. My preferred reading? Trashy romance novels, usually those featuring feisty heroines.
I own lots of t-shirts, but I don’t wear them to workout in. Instead I steal the mister’s. My favorite one is his D.A.R.E. shirt from the fifth grade. (Yes, he still owns it, and yes, I steal it on a regular basis.)
I don’t like any meat on my pizza but will not say this when a group of people is having the what-kind-of-pizza-should-we-get debate, so I always end up picking pepperoni and sausage off of mine.
I have come to the conclusion that no matter how hard I try, no matter how much care I put into selecting my wardrobe with an eye towards looking chic, put-together, and fashionable, I will ways look like I pulled my clothes out of the dryer and got dressed in the dark of my basement.
