Oh, it sucks to be me...

Bearing in mind that this blog is where I blow off steam sometimes -- nothing that you read here should be taken back to the real world except with a 50-lb bag of rock salt -- I must bitch for just a moment about J's mom JoAnne.

Nice woman in so many ways. Thoughtful and kind. Always wants to help. God bless her.

That being said:

OMFG, somebody hold me back before I say something out loud that I may regret.

Moving party Saturday, many fine friends and family set to help us, including J's parents Larry and JoAnne. We intend to load everybody up, schlep the stuff to the new place, and have a big pile of steaming hot pizzas waiting there with a cooler of sodas to wash it all down. Then we unload and bid everyone a fond and grateful farewell as they straggle home to their usual routines. Everyone happy, many hands make light work, full bellies, contentment, hearts and flowers, kittens and puppies, cookies and sunshine. It's all good.

But! Because J's mom is the queen of the enormous crock-pot, we are trying very hard to fend her off with requests that she just bring a nice salad. And maybe some of those breakfast-cereal cookies she makes at the holidays. Really.

She called the other night and offered to bring chili. Okay, I for one do not like chili, I never have, and I don't want to deal with it on moving day. I would be hungry and unhappy. And J can't eat it for digestive reasons. I sat right there and listened to Julianna tell her we were ordering pizzas. Right. There. Just bring a salad how 'bout, Mom?

She calls back yesterday afternoon. J is napping. I am preparing to go shopping while J and D nap. JoAnne tells me she had talked to J who told her she couldn't eat chili, so how about bean soup? I told her, We're having pizza. We're ordering pizzas. Oh, she says. She didn't tell me that.

ARGH!!!!!!!

Yes, I say, we are just going to order a pile of pizzas and have sodas in a cooler and maybe she could bring a salad? Pizza is just so easy, everyone likes it, etc. Well, you still have to have plates and forks and stuff for salad, then, she says.

ARGH!!!!!!!!!

JUST BRING SOME FUCKING SALAD AND MAYBE SOME OF THOSE BREAKFAST-CEREAL COOKIES AND SHUT UP ABOUT THE STUPID CROCK-POT FOR ONCE!!!!

But I said, well, pizza is easy and that's what we are doing and if you want to talk to Julianna about it I can have her call you when she wakes up?

Okay, she says.

So I politely say goodbye and go to the store and nearly get rear-ended by some stupid kids because there is still slush and gravel on the road and they were dogging me all the way down 72nd. Luckily (and I will congratulate myself on this for some time to come) I heard the scrunching of the gravel as they skidded and I rolled the car forward a few extra feet and they would have hit me if I hadn't. I'm bloody brilliant. Thank you, thank you, no really, it was nothing.... :)