Wednesday night, I bribed Shortman with a trip to McDonalds if he’d accompany me to MomandDad’s house. See, The Golden Child and his wife and kids were in town. And although I love my brother - even though we see eye-to-eye on, oh, nothing - his wife (aka “The Bitch Who Stole Christmas” or TBWSC for short) and his kids make me certifiably crazy. Seriously. Like I grind my teeth if I have to be around them too long.

I know that’s a terrible thing to say about your niece and nephew. After all they’re kids. They’re generally well-behaved kids. They don’t scream - they’re 11 and 12, so it’s not like they’re not old enough to have some reasoning ability. They just skeeve me out. Because they’re exactly.like.their.mother.

Let me give you some background first. I’ll try (note: try) to keep it somewhat short.

*****

My brother and his first wife had one daughter. She’s a year older than Shortman and one of the sweetest girls you’d ever want to meet. I love her to death. My brother had custody when he and Wife-1 first split, but after marrying TBWSC, his daughter decided she’d rather live with her mother. So she moved out (this, obviously, tells you something!)

TBWSC had a son from HER first marriage who is also a year older than Shortman. In fact, her son and my brother’s daughter were born two weeks apart. This son (my brother’s stepson) is banned from my parents’ house for stealing money out of my father’s dresser.

Then, they had two children together. A boy and a girl. These are the two we saw.

Sooooooo, annnnnyyywayyy, back to Wednesday’s visit.

*****

My mother wasn’t there when Shortman and I pulled into the driveway. Thankfully, my Dad was - otherwise, I’d have been stuck with The Golden Child and his crew. Alone. With only Shortman to protect me.

We walked into the kitchen to find the table laden with food. Sandwiches, fruits, vegetables, and cookies. My brother called his two kids into the room (that’s when I found out that they’d also brought my other niece from Virginia with them - so three kids all together), and told them to eat their dinner.

He then looked at me and Shortman and said, “You guys can go talk to Dad in the family room so we can eat.”

Y’know, not that I would have wanted any of his overly-mayonnaised tuna sandwiches, but let’s call that Eyeroll #1.

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Eyeroll #2 happened after they were done scarfing their dinner and joined us in the family room. My Dad was talking about a tree in his yard that he had cut down. It was a beautiful tulip tree at one time, but I know that it had been slowly dying away. My Dad has a friend, “Tom the Treeman” - and it was Tom who came to do the deed.

I asked Dad if Tom knew what had killed the tree. Dad said, “Hell, he just comes with his chain saw and chops them down.” (Now you know why I talk the way I do.) I remarked that I thought Tom was a Tree Doctor.

From behind me (while we were still carrying on our conversation), I hear “There’s no such thing as tree doctors.”

It was the nephew. I looked right at him and said, “Tree doctors are usually botanists who specialize in diseases that trees get. They’re also known as arborists. Just like veterinarians are called animal doctors.” All the while giving him that “What ever happened to ‘children are to be seen and not heard’ look” that my aunt had perfected.

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MomandDad have become members of their local recreation center. It offers water aerobics (Mom’s specialty) and a weight room that my Dad loves. Dad asked The Golden Child, “Why didn’t you come with us this morning when we went over to work out? You said you’d be up and ready, but we waited and then decided to just go.” TBWSC decided to answer for The Golden Child (he’s also the most pu$$y-whipped man I’ve ever known). “We wanted to spend some family time so we decided to get up this morning and go for a long walk ourselves! It’s so good to have family time. It brings us closer together as a family. We looked so cute with all 5 of us walking down the road.” (Eyeroll #3 and a puke in the mouth thrown in for good measure.)

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Alas - soon after my mother arrived home (she’d been at dinner with a couple of girlfriends…), my Uncle stopped by with his wife. The rest of the evening was spent with TBWSC trying to compete with the Uncle for the most long-winded story. Shortman was sitting off to my left and slightly behind me, and I had my hat pulled down low so no one could see my eyes. I kept glancing over and Shortman and performing eyerolls #4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. I think I strained a forehead muscle.

—- But I did my duty as a good daughter and sister. I lasted 90 minutes. Shortman cleaned me out at Mickey D’s. —-

Quick updates today!

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I went to MomandDad’s to see the Golden Child and his family last night. That will be the subject of tomorrow’s post. There’s plenty of rolling of eyes involved. Snort.

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The people who decided that they had to have pictures of my house? Haven’t been back. So I can’t ask them “WTF dudes?”

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No neighbor saga updates. Must be boring in the summer. The Husband and The Wife seem to both be around - taking care of the boys, but they’re never there together. And there’s been no sign of Not The Husband since school let out. Check back in September! (Of course, if there’s any developments, I’ll let you know immediately!)

*********lalalalalala*********

Now, before I head down to dinner, and spend some time catching up with y’all’s blogs (No time…I missed all the BlogHer recaps even!), here’s a little poem I wrote while I was waiting for the interminable meeting to end.

I have a little groundhog,
living in my ditch.
He’s short and fat and wobbly,
I think I’ll name him Mitch.

He runs up to my front porch,
bravely coming near.
Sniffing the air all around him -
Mitch seems to show no fear.

Silly little Mitchell,
watching him is fun,
But what he really doesn’t know -
I’m not the only one.

There are some others here,
interested as well,
they sniff the air and watch real close,
no telling what they smell.

Mitchell must have sensed it.
These two want to play.
He raises up his tiny face,
then scampers fast away.

—- And y’all? Will you all please come to my house so I can hug you and kiss you and ply you with wine and chocolate (or beer and chips) and take complete advantage of you? Because the response to yesterday’s Wordless Wednesday was entirely unexpected and will warm my Hotfessional heart forever. I thank you so very, very much. —-

My friends.

Nancy, Sonia and me.

A Song.

A record that I’ve done this.

—- Hitting Publish will be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and one of the best things that ever happened to me. —-

Oh mah holy hell y’all.

6:50 a.m. - Something is going “beeeeeep beeeeeep beeeeeep” in my ear. I crack my eyes open and reach for the alarm. Silly me, I committed to go to the track to run with Mr. Hot. What the fuck was I thinking? I can barely walk before coffee. I’m gonna run? Snort.

8:05 a.m. - Swigging water after our 12 revolutions of the track. Walk on the odd-numbers, run on the evens. We call it “old people’s interval training”. Today, though, we did 3/4 of the way around walking, 1 1/4 running. Yay us! And I never even fell over once! Shit - soccer destroyed my knees and my toes. (And did I mention? No coffee yet.)

8:30 a.m. - Shower. Breakfast. Grab some coffee.

9:00 a.m. - Attend a conference call covering “Career Planning”. Put phone on mute and say sarcastically to the presenter, “I already know what your career plan is for me. The freakin’ unemployment line! Bastard.”

9:50 a.m. - Flip the bird to the phone when the presenter uses that time worn phrase, “We finished early! I’m giving you 10 minutes of your life back!” Apparently we should all kiss his ass. The Hotfessional declines to do so and heads to the bathroom to pee.

9:51 a.m. - Begin working on my mid-year Performance Review. Go to get more coffee and figure out that the pot shut off and it’s lukewarm. Decide I’m too lazy to microwave a cup - and get a bottle of water instead. (Too lazy to microwave a cup of coffee. Obviously the whole running thing scrambled my flippin’ brain.)

10:00 a.m. - 5:45 p.m. - Participate in the Process call from Hell. Manage to get 3 bathroom breaks. Since the asshats decided that I was going to be the presenter, I had to have my laptop screen “shared” the entire time. No blog reading. No email reading. No fuckin’ Twittering. (I missed you!) I did manage, though, to finish the trim on a baby sweater and bonnet that I’m working on. And though I couldn’t tell them all how fucking stupid they were, I did stick my tongue out and make liberal use of my middle finger. On both hands.

5:45 p.m. - Hang up (until we reconvene tomorrow for round 183,276 283 17 4). Eat my ‘dinner’ of brown rice, green beans, and pine nuts. Feel like a squirrel.

6:30 p.m. - Sit on porch with Mr. Hot debating whether his 321 calorie glass of red wine (this is not a wine-glass glass, obviously) or my vodka/limeade (215.5 calories) is more satisfying. Of course, since I’m sure I won’t stop at one…it all depends on who has more willpower.

7:55 p.m. - Decide that I need (NEED) my internets fix and plop down on the couch to write this post.

8:06 p.m. - Remember that I left out a part. And I have to tell you all! Dudes!!!

While I was sitting there (around 5:00) trying not to stab my pen through my right eye (the left one was stabbed around 1:23 p.m. as near as I can tell), a car drove down the street. Light-greenish Subaru wagon with a cargo carrier on the top.

I saw this car yesterday while Mr. Hot was cutting grass. They stopped at the end of the driveway, as his back was turned to the street. I thought maybe they were trying to ask him directions. (Ohhhh, poor lost old people. If I wasn’t up on a phone call, I’d come help you!)

Since he wears earplugs when he cuts grass (and y’know, he was cutting.grass. With a loud.ass.mower), he couldn’t hear them, so they went on up the street. They turned around and went on back down the street. And - they were gone. (Bye bye!)

Sooooooooooo, annnnywayyyy, that was yesterday, right?

Today, the same car comes back! And stops. Right-the-fuck in front of my house! And they start taking pictures! Of the front of the house. Of the driveway. I’m completely dumbfounded by what I’m seeing. Stunned. Silent. (Shush. It does happen.)

Shortman was sitting next to me up in the office. I punch “Mute” on my phone and start pointing. And bouncing. “Get my binoculars, fast.” , I finally get my mouth to start working. (I’m going to take down this ass’s license plate number. WTF? Taking pictures of my house????) “Get ready to write this down.”

I try to follow the back end of this car. I bash my head on the window because of the angle I’m turning my head. The only way I could read the whole plate would be to punch out the screen and crawl onto the roof. Even though I considered it as an option, I figured I’d lose my cover if they came back by. (Or would they not notice a bald woman in a neon green tank top sitting on the roof spying on them?)

I can only get the first three numbers - I think they’re 096. I think it’s a Michigan plate. But then the new Michigan plates have the letters first. So maybe it’s not a Michigan plate. Or my binoculars are cheap…

Or I’m just freakin’ blind.

(I did stab that left eye earlier.)

So the car goes down the street and then turns around and drives REALLY slow back past my house. I have my useless-ass binoculars trained on the car. There’s a giant Lab in the backseat and a giant woman in the passenger side.

Annnnnnnd.

That’s it. They drove away. With pictures of my house!

Y’all? I have to say it again. What the fuck?

—-8:38 p.m. - I can’t figure it out. So I decide to go pour that second drink. Damn. I’m gonna have to run again in the morning. —-

The pretty new washer has been delivered. Funny thing though. After the Sears delivery guys were through carrying out the broken one and carrying in the improved version (and they hooked everything up, too!) - they handed Mr. Hot a bag of bolts.

Really big bolts.

They told him that they were the “stabilizing bolts” that should be used in case we ever need to move Washer Version 2.0.

Move? As in from one house to another? ……………… Huh.

Well fuck a duck and make him quack. No one gave us any bolts when we bought Version 1.0. in 2002. And we moved that sucker twice. Y’know what y’all? The bolts stabilize the washer drum. And it was the washer drum that broke last week. Hmmmmm. Methinks maybe the washer would have lasted longer if someone had given.us.the.stupid.bolts. the first time!

I’m smart that way. Cause and Effect. I see it.

I am not, however, all that intelligent in the way of volunteering for projects. Like the process development team I bitched about here? Last week, while I was in Chicago, I spent 12 hours over two days trapped in a conference room with these people. Face-to-face.

They didn’t even supply coffee or chocolate. Seriously. Like they expected me to be able to think?

We went through this process with a fine toothed comb. Turned it upside down and rightside out. We ripped it to pieces and put it back together. We made it black and white, then gray, then pretty pastel colors. (Puke. I changed it back to gray.)

Today, I got an email invitation to two more meetings with this group. The first is from 10 a-freakin’-m to 6 you’ve-got-to-be-shitting-me p.m. Tomorrow. The next one? Wednesday from 9:30 (yes!!!! in the morning) to 6. AGAIN.

I’m not going to Chicago for those though. I’m going to sit right here in my office (which you can check out at Blissfully Domestic in my “Working from Home” articles - Part 1 and Part 2) with my own coffee and chocolate stash. I’m going to put my phone on mute and make snide comments and rude sounds when someone says something I don’t like. I’ll probably repeatedly (and then again for good measure) flip them the bird.

Cause and effect? Volunteer = Work your ass off and get no chocolate. (for me) Cause and effect for them? Piss off Hotfessional = being blogged about in disparaging manner.

But right this very instant, I’m going to go get ready to meet Sonia Sunshine and Nancy for dinner. We’re going to make Nancy tell us all about BlogHer and hope that she doesn’t fall asleep in her hummus.

—- And if they talk me into it, you may get pictures of me pretending to be Demi Moore. —-