Sometimes the best thing for a hot mess is a warm bed and silence

Last week I found out the job I’ve had for 10 years is laying me off. I was and still am devastated about this. I love this job. I gave up ten years of my life to this job. I sacrificed time I could have spent watching mini mess at her activities doing this job. I have met great people at this job. I’ve always felt like I was more than just an employee at this job. Now I just feel foolish. Don’t get me wrong, now that I’m past being bitter and angry, I still think the company is a great company to work for, I just realize that no matter how great a company is, it’s never worth sacrificing for because in the end, I’m just an employee number. I’m not bitter anymore, but I’m not over it yet. I’ve completely sunk into a depression. I keep asking myself what I did or didn’t do that put me in the half of the people with my position that are getting laid off, why after 10 years, they didn’t find me a valuable enough resource to hold onto. It’s really been rough.
Last night I found out that one of my very close friends from elementary school who has been fighting a rare form of brain cancer is officially losing this fight. It’s metastasized in her throat and lungs now. We’re too young to be battling diseases like cancer. Just thinking about it makes me weep. Being a military brat there aren’t many friends that I have that I can say are dear friends from elementary school because we move away so much and you learn to always keep a little distance from everyone because either they or you are going to leave soon, so for it to be one of the few military brat friends makes it extra tough.

I know these blogs, usually when I write them, are usually not doom and gloom, so I’m sorry I am so depressing today but I needed an outlet. Hopefully next time I write it will be better.

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Joyce Meyer! ‘Murica just poked your grandson’s eye out!

So, back by popular demand, I present another crazy story of Seasoning formerly known as Kumbaya, Butt Dialer, and myself…

It was a hot and sunny morning (because, let’s face it that is what any day is in Texas during the summer). The three of us hadn’t seen each other at all all summer because Mini-mess is not home, Butt Dialer didn’t invite us to her block party cuz she didn’t want to be embarassed and Seasoning formerly known as Kumbaya almost went down country roads turning the  Kiss-your-ass corner on two tires yelling “YEE HAW!” Now that summer is wearing down we decided it was time to get back together, so we met at the Chick-fil-a in town so that the kids could play and we didn’t have to end up smelling like pigs that had been on the smoker way too long.

While the kids were playing we noticed that there were a bunch of flags the kids were playing with, you know the type you see when you’re in a parade and the guys with the beer bellies and wife beaters are sitting in their lawn chairs wearing the hats that hold a can of beer on each side with an elaborate straw system are watching the parade. Now, kids will be kids. You give them something and they play with it. But as adults our job is to teach them that playing with the flag and letting it fall on the ground is NOT acceptable behavior. We called the kids that belonged to us out and told them to leave them alone and it was disrespectful to be throwing the flag on the ground. A minute later what happens? Joyce Meyer’s look alike comes charging in like a bull in a china shop with her hen-pecked husband and grandson, who at this point has two working eyeballs. The grandson and the husband go in and start playing in the play area. First thing I find wrong= The dude was 60 in a room full of kids that were not his. Second thing we all see wrong, the dude is throwing the flag around too.

Now before I go further I have to explain. Our neighborhood is heavily populated by military and retired military. We live right next to a huge Army base and most people in town either work there or have worked there, so patriotism runs rampant here. And disrespecting the flag is just not something you do. Butt Dialer’s husband has been injured in combat defending it. Seasoning formerly known as Kumbaya’s husband is enlisted and ready to go whenever called and my father, grandfather and sister have all been enlisted and ready to serve at any moment. So we’re not three people you want to mess with when it comes to patriotism.

Well, after sitting there and trying not to pay attention to it, and the husband practically popping the grandson’s eye out with the flag, Butt Dialer had had enough and started talking about how disrespectful it was to sit in there poking kids’ eyes out by using the flag as a rocket. Little did we know at that point that Joyce Meyer was right behind us…..but it didn’t take long for us to find out. She started telling us how it was disrespectful for them to be in there in the first place. Obviously she was right on that mark also, but she hated it when Butt Dialer didn’t let her off the hook that easy. At this point, I was sitting next to Butt Dialer and on the outside so at this point I slid my legs to the side, just in case Butt Dialer or Joyce were feeling extra spicy and decided to throw down in the middle of chick-fil-a. Unfortunately, neither one wanted to add to the entertainment bill that day. So it pretty much ended there with Joyce Meyer storming out the same way she came in, just angrier, which was funnier.

Moral of the story: Don’t let us eat together. This time we got in a fight with Joyce Meyer at a Christian chicken place over using a flag as a rocket.

More important moral of the story: Teach your kids how to treat a flag! It’s not that hard!

‘Murica! Mickey! and the Midget Mafia!

So today, 242 years ago “our fore fathers”, as they say, were probably our age, stepping out on their own on a crazy adventure that their parents, who were probably our parents’ age, thought was ridiculous. They signed a pact stating they were going to be free and independent. They weren’t going to be told what they could and couldn’t do by a government and monarchy that didn’t hear their voice. Their parents were probably rolling their eyes thinking “These kids are too old for these stupid clubs and pacts. When do they outgrow this stuff and just start acting like normal adults?” Little did their parents know that their crazy rambunctious adult kids’ crazy adventure would really take hold and they would actually give birth to this wonderful, crazy, proud, strong, powerful, opportunistic nation we call ‘Murica! Just thinking about it makes me wonder what we’re doing that our parents shake their heads at that will make a positive impact on the world?

I can say for certainty that Mini-Mess’s girl scout troop and us grown adults are making a difference. The midget mafia boss and the mean mom decided that our one girl scout in the troop who doesn’t have nearly as good a home life as the rest was going to Disney with the ones already signed up to go.  Now, to explain how crazy and off the wall people from the outside would see this, let me explain. These girls have literally been like the mafia all year earning money. They’ve sold tickets to breakfasts, cookies, nuts, They’ve been paid to sabotage people’s yards with plastic flamingos, working all year to save money to go on this trip. We go in 3 weeks. And all of a sudden we’re adding one more person to our trip and paying for everything out of our pockets.  Now is this crazy? Oh yeah…. But this is one of those times when the craziness is going to make a difference. This is going to be one of those times when this little girl will make memories that really will last her a lifetime.

So while the crazy young’uns who signed a paper, starting a brand new country that would become the best in the world definitely helped to make this country great. While the military fighting for our independence make this country great. While the bill of rights make this country great. I think what really makes this country great are the people. People who do random acts of kindness, who pray for each other, who go out and meet people and who decide three weeks before a trip to meet Mickey Mouse to take a little girl that would never get to go any other way are what really make this country the best. So let’s hear it for ‘Murica!

Ed Mercer, Star Ship captain and….crooner?

So, I’ve been sick for a few days. Now, any of you that are moms know this means absolutely nothing. Moms can be DYING and yet we still have to get up bathe kids, feed kids, pack lunches, take kids to school (making sure they actually brushed their teeth and not just ran their toothbrush under the water and that they put new clean socks on and grabbed a jacket), do laundry, do dishes, pick kids up from school, get them to do homework, take them to whatever crazy activity that you signed them up for when you had way too many ambitions, feed them dinner and get them to bed. So, even though being sick means nothing, I haven’t been doing my workouts or blogging for a bit while I’ve been fighting this. Today, however, I feel like I might finally be on the mend again.

I decided since I’m starting on the upswing I should take the time to give credit to a great man….or dog….or mouse….or cartoon dad…. Oh for crying out loud in the night! I don’t even know what to label him as. Seth Mcfarlane is amazing. His comedy is definitely not for kids and not always clean, so if you’re one of the well put together Stepford Wives kind of mom, scroll past this blog. You won’t agree with what I’m saying. However, when I’m feeling extremely crappy and can’t seem to get anything right, put on a family guy and I can feel better about my own parenting abilities in a matter of seconds. And to me that is invaluable. Friends can tell you all day how great a parent you are to make you feel better. But you and I both know that your stove looks like you haven’t wiped it down in 3 days because you haven’t and that your 8 year old hasn’t had a shower in 3 days because it’s a long weekend and you weren’t going anywhere anyways.  But when you watch a show where one kid is trying to kill the mom, one is an idiot who can’t see that the pervy old man he delivers papers to wants to play find the pickle and one is just weird, it makes you feel like maybe you’re not that bad a parent after all.

Then you have his new creation, The Orville, which, I warn you ahead of time I feel strongly about. It combines all the best things about Star Trek that Eugene Roddenberry and J. J. Abrams DEFINITELY missed, and his real life humor into one show. While the comedy isn’t always for kids, the stuff that isn’t for kids, for the most part goes right over their heads. It’s a great sci/fi and comedy show that I can sit down, ignore the piles of laundry and the full dishwasher for an hour and enjoy no responsibilities for a while.

But wait! There’s more! He sings!!! Yes. He sings! You remember the mouse from “Sing!”? Well, if you are a mom of anybody under about 9 years old you know what I’m talking about. Yeah, that was him. And it’s not the first time he’s sung. He sings as the disillusioned dog “Bryan” on Family guy, but he ALSO has CD’s out. So if you like to close your eyes and imagine a disillusioned dog or a poser mouse singing at you or you really like that crooner style music, you should listen to him. He’s actually very good.

Well now that we’ve given him his due, I’m going to wrap this up because the Netflix Bandit is sitting here talking through my show, making it clear he needs more attention, because who care’s that I’m sick as long as he gets his attention?

When you walk into a room what song should play?

Yes, This is the type of questions that come up among grown women while we’re volunteering at a school. Seasoning formerly known as Kumbaya and I have been fighting over which boy band was better: Backstreet Boys or ‘Nsync. Today I came back from making some laminade and before I even sat down she asks me the question above. Of course my answer was “Backstreet’s back” which almost ruined our friendaversary. The only thing that fixed this was doing a medieval toast with reeses cups and watching Seasoning almost choke to death.

If you don’t know what a friendaversary is, honestly, not to be mean but where have you been? The book of faces likes to pop up on your newsfeed every time you and someone have been friends on their page for a year or 2 or 3. Today was one year for Seasoning and I.

If you don’t know what a medieval toast is, basically you link arms at the elbow while you, normally drink something. But when are we EVER normal right?

Of course this set us up into a fit of giggles which Egg Rub appropriately recorded and uploaded. Because, why wouldn’t you upload your friends at their most undignified moment when one of them is about to die for the second time in one day? Yes, the second time. About an hour before this, her eyes started watering, then she couldn’t open them because she was standing near a cedar tree. When Mrs. HerbaOil asked her, she insisted she wasn’t allergic. Then the eye bleeding started. So now we all know when Seasoning says she is not allergic she IS allergic.

So after Seasoning was for sure safe and sound I left to venture forth into the wild wilderness of our small town to fed ex something that the Popcorn Kernel needed sent out for our latest fundraiser. I get all the way to where the evil twin suggested and they can’t even send it. (Thanks E.T.)  Now I am one of those people that doesn’t always bite her tongue so well when she’s frustrated and tired, as surprising as that might sound. At this point I was tired and they were making me frustrated.  So, being that this was not for HotMessMom; it was for PTO, I probably need stitches in my tongue now, but I walked away, drove the WHOLE mile back to the school to drop the fedex package back off, and went home to “nap” ( I call it preparing for my afternoon shift). And it’s a good thing I did too because when I picked up Mini-Mess, who shows up at her old haunt? None other than Shower Cap.

Now for those of you who don’t know who Shower Cap is, she was the PTO president last year. I’ve known her for several years, and while I think she’s a good person, she has a strong personality…..like Hulk Hogan strong…..like running three marathons in the same shirt strong. And so between her personality and mine, sometimes it was very entertaining to watch me instigate until she was exasperated.  (I admit I usually did this on purpose to keep her grounded). But I digress.

So back to the song, we were never able to figure out the perfect song for when we walk into a room, but I found them.

Seasoning, here is yours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct6BUPvE2sM

Stripes…Tigers Have Them

So today Seasoning formerly known as Kumbaya came by to pick up some money that the PTO owed her. With her came Egg Rub. While we were standing outside talking about how Egg Rub has rear view mirrors and a back up cam and STILL hits the curbs, I made a comment about not hitting the trailer in front of my house because it belongs to our good neighbor. I then pointed out the bad neighbors….  These are the type of neighbors that you run to work or, in this instance, your blog and start with “Guess what my crackhead neighbors did…”

Of course with Egg Rub and Seasoning formerly known as Kumbaya telling them that I had a crackhead neighbor could not be the end of the conversation. We danced together….because I was showing them how the crackhead walks around and it looks like dancing. We laughed together…..because it’s funny when the crackhead is outside cracked up and dancing around. Then we appraised a bootleg homemade computer from the outside without being able to see the harddrives or if it even booted up.

Well, I guess we weren’t very quiet because as my dear compassionate friends were leaving, Crackhead Dawn came out, pointed at them and yelled something in crack-speak so nobody knows what she actually said. Thank God they made it off of John Wayne Dr. alive!

Why do I say thank God? We’ve had people and dogs jumping our fence from over there. We’ve seen guys out there beating themselves with baseball bats. We saw the across the street neighbor (who isn’t all that psychologically stable herself) come storming across the street at some 17 or 18 year old girl yelling about human trafficking. That’s only a few things but you get the jest. And being my house looks like it threw up on itself, had a tornado come through and then threw up again, we had to brave the jungle of John Wayne Dr and hope for the best.

Why did I name this blog “Stripes….Tigers have them?” Oh it’s a blog about crackheads so the name doesn’t have to make sense. Just pretend Crackhead Dawn titled the blog.

A little Kindness Can Change the World

So, as I was scrolling through facebook tonight, trying to pretend that scrolling down the never ending timeline of kermit the frog memes, political arguments and dirty laundry being aired was productive, I came across a video of a guy and his band on a street corner singing one of the all time greatest songs, performed by two different amazing artists: “I will always love you” (If you’re from the south, just fyi..Whitney Houston did a version of this song AFTER Dolly….if you’re from the north, just fyi…this was Dolly Parton’s song way before Whitney sang it). The singer had a great voice but that wasn’t what caught my eye, because, quite frankly, you can go to any small town carnival or festival and find probably 85 people with great voices. What caught my eye was the little red headed girl next to him and their interaction.

The girl had downs syndrome, and was just loving this song. But this really didn’t catch my attention either, because what little girl would not love that song? What really did it is the singer making her feel special, holding her hand and singing it to her the entire song, then telling the crowd to “give it up” for her and hugging her before sending her back to her family. And, even though normally I’m nothing but laughs and giggles and craziness, these videos always make me cry. Maybe it’s because I’m a mom, because Mini-Mess definitely screwed my emotions up permanently while she was setting up house in my womb.

Now this act of kindness he did probably didn’t change his day hardly at all, other than a few extra tips in his big orange bucket, but that little girl got to feel like a super star, and that feeling probably lasted a few days if not longer. It got me to thinking how important little random acts of kindness are. Things like buying a book for your child’s teacher can open up an entire new world for some kids. That $5 you spent on a book instead of a pumpkin spice latte might be the book that gets a child interested in reading, who will then decide he is interested in space and will start to read everything on space, who will then be the first man or woman to captain a spacecraft that really will “boldly go where no man has gone before”. That little girl that your daughter shows around the school on her first day might go from feeling all alone to feeling like she belongs and has friends and feeling safe and secure at her new school (just a shout out to mini-mess who actually did do this). Having a shoulder for a friend or acquaintance to cry on might even be the difference between life and death for that person.

You have no idea what that one little act that takes no time at all might change in the course of history. With so much hate and ugliness in the world, I think we as mothers, whether you’re a hot mess mom like me, or a spicy super organized controlling mom like the midget mob boss, or a crafty mom like Butt Dialer, need to be that light of kindness. Remember, we’re raising young women who will one day be mothers and wives, or young men who will one day be fathers and husbands. We need to do everything in our power to keep this world as kind as we can, even if it means skipping a pumpkin spice latte one day, or learning a song with all the counties of your friend’s state to make her feel good, or even holding a little girl’s hand and singing to her while she jams out in front of a crowd of people to make her feel special.

I know this wasn’t all that funny and it was super long but it really hit me how important this topic was. Even God mentions it; “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23.