One more recap...

So I know Christmas was weeks ago, but I still feel there are a few rather amusing things that happened in December that need to be written down for posterity. So here we go, (I do realize that despite my best efforts to not do dumb stuff - things like this just seem to happen to be despite my very best efforts!) Here we go:

PRINCESS AND THE PEA

So, like every year Dax asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and after the usual "I don't know", "what do you you want? I don't know." conversation I really hoped that he thought I deserved anything from Santa. So having said that, a few days before Christmas Dax comes to me and says, "Okay, so I decided to get you a Christmas present, and I thought you might want it a few days early, so I hid it in what I thought would be a really obvious place, and it's now been 2 days and you still haven't found it." My first thought is "crap", is it in my underwear drawer or in the shower or someplace where some personal hygiene should have happened in the last few days, but due to the craziness that is my life I bypassed? "Well, is it a little box?" hoping that it's a miniscule gift that could have slipped passed my eagle-eye, and therefore preserve some of my dignity. "Well, it's bigger than... (looking around the kitchen) this can of formula, and it has a big red bow on it." "Crap", my eagle-eyes are totally letting me down! So the search begins. I start in the bathroom, next to my toothbrush, and in the bottom of the shower - no luck. Into my underwear drawer and out in my car - no. I come back to my room and realize that Liv has spilled a cup of dry cereal on my bed and I go to sweep them off and straighten my bed, because of course my beds not made, and low and behold, there it is, in plain view under my pillow -a brand new camcorder - red bow and all. So the answer is yes, I slept on it all night and didn't even notice! Now, in my defense, which I know will sound weak, Dax had put two pillows on my side and I slept on the smaller of the two. And let me just remind you all that Gage doesn't think as a 10 month old that he needs to sleep through the night, so my sleep deprivation really is something to be considered, but all in all I really am the idiot who slept on the new camcorder!

DISAPPEARING CAT

So, a few days later I'm in my car on my way to my mom's house. Gage is home asleep and Liv's with me, so my time is golden before he wakes up from his nap. I'm running over to my mom's house to pick up a return that needs to go back to Costco, and I have to admit I'm driving even faster than I normally do down my mom street. Out of the corner of my eye a black and white cat darts out from my mom's neighbors sidewalk on the passengers side. I slam on my breaks, but hear this horrible thud from my bumper. I immediately look in my rear-view mirror waiting to see what I've done. No cat. Now I'm in front of my mom's house and I run in leaving the car running with Livi in it - horrified. I'm convinced that the reason the cat didn't resurface behind my car is because it's mangled and and tangled in the undercarriage of the car. I'm totally freaking out. I run into my mom in the hall, and between hysterical sobs tell her what's just happened. She of course is as calm as a cucumber, and tells me to call down and she'll go out and get it out from under my car. Megan, also catches the commotion and puts shoes on to help with the rescue, I'm so impressed, who volunteers to help scrape a cat out from under someone's car? So I finally compose myself and look out the front window. I can see my mom literally lying on her back in the street under my car looking to see where the cat is. I see her crawl out, walk around and look under all four tires and brakes. I see Megan walking up and down the street calling and looking under bushes and parked cars - no cat. I finally feel brave enough to help in the search and so we scour the street looking for now what I assume is a fatally wounded cat. No cat. So what is the final word on this story - yes, I must be crazy, or the cat vaporized into thin air, or he really is still lodged under my car somewhere and will eventually work it's way out, which by the way is my biggest fear - at some point I'm going to be at the mall and come out to find a mangled cat under my car. So the moral of this story is - watch out for disappearing cats that are made to teach you to slow down!!

VISITING BIRD


So this is the bird that was trying to build a nest in the evergreen wreath on my front door. Every time you'd go out the front door he'd whiz passed your head. Well of course, the night of Phillip and Melanie's wedding reception as I'm frantically trying to get me and the kids ready to be downtown in time for pictures, he decided that he'd fly into the house. Well, of course my cats go crazy, running around jumping on furniture trying to get the best vantage point. Livi, the smart girl that she is, runs to her room to find her fishing net. We spend the next 25 minutes running around frantic, tripping over hyper cats who thinks it's Christmas with a bird in the house. I open all the doors in the house, while I finish getting ready, hoping by some miracle he'll just fly out by himself. No luck. The bird keeps flying into lights and windows bumping into walls blinded by the light. He finally perches himself on the down rod of the chandelier in the entryway. I come to the frantic conclusion that I don't have time to deal with this, Dax will have to catch him when we get home from the reception. So off we go, knowing there will be a huge mess to come home to. I can only imagine that the bird will get up into my red pottery and my clumsy cats will follow. I'm just sure I'm going to come home to one of those cartoon episodes of Tom and Jerry where the house looks like a bomb went off. Anyway, to make a long story short, when we got home, we found him perched in my fake christmas trees up on my ledge, holding as still as he possibly can. The cats have obviously given up, or at least can't seem to find him. We turn off all the lights in the house and open the front door and turn the lights on in the garage, hoping he'll fly toward the lights. After 20 minutes of 'encouragement' and a last feeble swat with Liv's fishing net, Dax nabs and sends him on his merry way.

ALWAYS THE UGLY BRIDESMAID

So for the last two of my siblings weddings I've been pregnant, and not like, oh you know, in my first trimester, no like 7 and 8 months pregnant, not cute. Yeah, great. Megan, bless her heart wanted us in pink, so I was a vision of bubblegum bliss, bursting at the seems in June, swollen like a beached whale. And at Andy's wedding I was in a "fitted" yes a fitted red satin skirt. Not pretty. So this year I was thrilled to not be pregnant for Phil's wedding, I can just hang back and relax and not have to stand out in any way shape or form. Anyway, all is well until we decide to take pictures. Imagine a flight of stairs that we've decorated with lots of candles, I mean lots. They look beautiful cascading down, and we're taking lot of pictures as the staircase in the background. Well we decide to sit and take some of just the Bourne siblings. I'm still trying to lay low, off on the side, not front and center. Sure enough, I'm sure you can all see where this is going, I feel my leg getting warm. Sure enough my skirt is smoking, and yes flaming. I swat and scream and immediately have my brothers smothering me and my skirt. I now realize I'm melted to the stairs. I peel myself off the stairs and inspect the damage. A 6-8 inch hole in the back of my skirt - nice. So in my attempt not to stand out, that is exactly what I did. Lucky enough for me the hole was in the pleat of the skirt, so it wasn't totally obvious when I stood, but I was pretty much the butt of most of the jokes of the evening, including liar, liar, pants on fire, you're smokin', you could have just told me you didn't want to wear the bridesmaid dress again, at least you can wear your skirt to church tomorrow, it's holey, and so on - they go down hill after that. Yeah, so much for the laying low tactic. Anyway, the moral of this story is, don't ask me to be a bridesmaid! And mom I promise, next time I'll wear a slip under my skirt, but just for the record, Megan and Jen didn't have one on either!



I have reproduced these stories as accurately as possible. I have not spared the feelings of relatives and acquaintances, I have not changed the names and physical characteristics or minor characters. No animals were injured during the retelling of these stories, at least not to my knowledge.

Thank you.