Category Archives: Family

September 20, 2012 · 0:00

Secrets of a pretty damn good marriage

This week, John and I are celebrating our 26th anniversary.  Seriously!  He has put up with hearing my stories repeated, time after time, and still has not run screaming from the house.  Well, actually he has, but he comes back, so I don’t worry when I see him heading out the door.

Twenty-six years.  Not bad, huh?  It started with the Ode to Joy, which was played at our wedding.

Sadly, no Muppets came. Or maybe it would have ended badly had any Muppets shown up.  We’ll never know.

The anniversary has gotten me thinking.  What makes it work?  Why is my marriage so perfect pretty damn good?  Once I answered myself,  I decided to post my good marriage tips for anyone thinking of getting married or trying to figure out if they, too, did it right.

  • Do not marry an asshole.   You should not just love the person.  You must like the person, too.  Yup it’s true.  It’s the first, the most basic, most fundamental criteria.  Assholes make poor husbands/wives.
  • Never argue.  John and I never argue.  That’s because I let John make all the major decisions that impact our lives.  I agree with him.  On those times I disagree, well, then I do what I want to anyway.  He rarely notices because I haven’t argued about it.  Trust me, this technique is worth its weight in gold.  Or jewelery.  Or whatever it is you want that your husband thinks is stupid.
  • Admit your faults.  I am a kleptomaniac, and always have been.  I steal blankets.  Every night of my life I have taken them from whomever is fortunate/unfortunate enough to be sleeping with me.  Friends, lovers, children, husband, dogs, repairmen.  You name it.  If it is cold, I am toasty.  If it is hot, the blankets are on the floor on my side of the bed.  Otherwise, I am damn near perfect.
  • Make the bed with separate sheets and blankets for each side.  It looks like hell, but it is the single factor that has kept my husband in that bed.  Well, maybe not the only factor.
  • Use Gax-X.  I’m not saying who.
  • Pretend to like baseball.  Seriously, it’s not that hard.  I mean, they only play 7 days a week for more than half the year.  Unless the team is really good and then they play longer.  An occasional “what a hit” is the wifely version of “no, it doesn’t make you look fat.”  All bets are off, however, when he discovers a second team that he also needs to follow.
  • Have more than one TV in the house.  See previous tip and accept your limits.
  • Appreciate his gifts.  They are from his heart.  I am particularly lucky in this regard.  John generally gives me either books or jewelry.  In 26 years, he has given me approximately 300 books.  He’s given me only 2 duds.  Not bad, huh?  He chooses books that he doesn’t secretly want to read – just ones that he thinks I will like.  And he’s right nearly always.

John’s taste in jewelry has also been fabulous.  He gives me simple, tasteful pieces.  Yes I am lucky.  No gaudy jewelry for me!  Except that once.

  • Never tell him that that 10th Anniversary Ring He Gave You Was the Ugliest Thing You’d Ever Seen. When someone gives me a gift, I think of the love and effort it took to go out, choose and purchase that gift.  Whether I like it or not, well, that’s secondary.  So I lie.  I tell them I love it.  Every time.  It’s usually not too difficult.

Our finances improved significantly just around the time of our 10th anniversary.  John was able to buy me an expensive piece of jewelry.  Now I’m not an expensive jewelry kind of girl.  (If I am ever had to sell my jewelry to live I would last approximately 3.5 days.)

But that year, well, John went all out.  He bought me a HUGE ring.  It was a 400 carat emerald ring with baguette diamonds swirling around and around and around the center emerald.  Lots and lots of baguettes.  Yes, it was a grandma ring.  Picture a large emerald losing a fight with a diamond paisley.  When I told John that it was beautiful, well, I should have gotten an Oscar (it would have been my 3rd!).  Sadly, the ring was too big and I had to take it to the jewelry store to have it sized.  That day I cashed in a whole bunch of my lucky stars.

  •  Never admit that when the jeweler shattered the center stone of that horrid ring, that tears streamed down your face because you were desperately trying not to laugh — happy in the knowledge that you would never have to wear that horrible thing.  And that you didn’t have to hurt his feelings by telling him it was ugly and you hated it.  Shhhhh.  Don’t tell.

 

  • Never, ever, ever, call him “Baby.”
  • And never, ever, ever let him read your blog.

91 Comments

Filed under Books, Family, Humor

Tagged as ,

September 18, 2012 · 0:00

So There!

The memory is still sharp.  Clear.  Painful.

I don’t think my brother Fred ever hurt my feelings as much as he did when he laughed at me that day.  When, as a 4- or 5-year old I shouted at him:

“You’ll be sorry when I wake up DEAD.”

Instead of being cowed, well, Fred laughed at me.  I was devastated.  Confused.  I didn’t understand what was so funny.  Later he explained it to me:

“Lease,” he said patiently, “You can’t ‘wake up dead’!”

“Why not?”

“Because if you’re dead, Lease, you don’t wake up.  You can’t.  Cause you’re DEAD.”

“Oh.”

It was the first time I understood that I had done something incredibly stupid.  I learned my lesson, though.  Never again did I threaten anyone with the possibility that I’d wake up dead.

So imagine my surprise when I read about high school nurse Terry Collins in this article.  I learned that I wasn’t so dumb back then after all.

You see, Ms. Collins woke up dead one day.  Yeah, it’s true!  She got a letter saying that she was taken off the voter registration list because she is dead.  She was quite surprised because, well, she felt just fine!  Coincidentally, her 80-year old father was equally surprised when he got a similar letter.  He had woken up dead, too!  Even more coincidentally, they are both African-Americans registered to vote in Texas!  Or they were until they woke up dead in a state where the Governor is a Republican and the legislature is run by the GOP.

Apparently, there is an epidemic in Texas. An epidemic of waking up dead!  And the number of folks who are caught up in this, umm, problem?  According to NPR, there are about 80,000 Texas voters who woke up one day and found out via the US mail that they were dead.  Most are African American or Hispanic.  Imagine that, they were members of minorities who tend to favor Democrats, and they woke up dead.

I’m calling Fred.  He’ll be so sorry he made fun of me.

*     *     *

The creativity of the folks who try to keep others from voting is quite impressive.  If only they used it to govern, the U.S. might be in much better shape today.

Here is a link for online voter registration

 

64 Comments

Filed under Awards, Campaigning, Childhood Traumas, Elections, Family, History, Humor, Hypocrisy, Politics, Stupidity

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 17, 2012 · 0:00

Sins of the Father

My head is exploding and there is no visible evidence.  Nope.  Not a bit of gray matter on the walls.  Shouldn’t there be serious cleanup involved here?

What could cause this explosion?  This combustion?  This sharing of gray matter with my surroundings?

You might think that it is this video of Mitt Romney insulting about half of the country (47 bloomin’ percent!), by saying that

  • they are “dependent” upon the government — it doesn’t matter that they have been paying into Social Security and Medicare for DECADES!
  • they are essentially lazy folks, unwilling to work for a living, and
  • if you’re not wealthy, well, who the hell cares about you ’cause you’re not gonna vote for Mitt anyway.

Well, certainly Mitt Romney doesn’t care about them.

Now normally, this video would get me pretty damn riled up.

But, of course, there’s more.  Yes, it gets better.

You know how Mitt is always preaching about how he made it on his own?  How he and Ann struggled, eating tuna and pasta.  I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago.  Yeah, it is so very difficult to just live off the interest and dividends from your stock portfolio, Mitt.

But did you know about George Romney?  Mitt’s Daddy?  The guy who gave Mitt and Ann the stock that eased Mitt and Ann’s struggle?  He wasn’t always the successful businessman he became later.  He wasn’t born the CEO of American Motors.  Nope.  He wasn’t always rich and well connected.  Really!  Who would have thunk it!

Still, George Romney was by all accounts 10,000 times the man his son is.  He was an important member of the Moderate/Liberal Republicans that made up that impressive generation of politicians.

And do you want to know a secret?  One that you won’t hear Mitt talkin’ about?

George Romney was on Welfare!

Yup!  It’s true.  When he was young he was a refugee from Mexico (where he was born and automatically became an American Citizen because his parents were American Citizens — but I digress.) And when he was a child, a refugee who fled back to the U.S. with his family, well, the United States Government helped him survive.

Here’s a clip of his wife saying what a good governor her husband George would be.  And you know what?  She was right by all accounts.  He was a good man, a good governor, and would likely have made a good president.

One of the reasons he was such a good governor is that he had compassion all people.  For the poor and downtrodden.  Why?  Well, partly because he was once poor.  George Romney was once on welfare.  And he understood that being poor doesn’t mean that you are lazy.  That being poor doesn’t mean that you want a hand OUT but might just need a hand UP.  And that’s what George Romney got from the United States Government.

So some questions for U.S. voters:

  • Do you really want to elect a man President of the United States who courts the elite by denigrating the rest of us?
  • Do you really want to elect a man President of the United States who pretends his father’s past didn’t happen?
  • Do you really want to elect a man President of the United States who would have let his own father fail?
  • Do you think these folks whom Mitt Romney has just identified and insulted will continue to cling to their guns and their religion?
  • Do you really want to elect such an asshole President of the United States?

I can hear you shouting “NO!” from here.

 

*     *     *

Many thanks to my friend Lisa of Big Sheep Blog for telling me about this video.  I was actually working …

35 Comments

Filed under Campaigning, Elections, Family, History, Humor, Hypocrisy, Law, Politics, Stupidity

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 14, 2012 · 0:00

Good Karma Needed!

Calling good Karma!

A beautiful girl, don’t you think?

This is Sophia.  She is the brand new granddaughter of my friend, colleague and right arm at work, Yenny.  Sophia was born on Wednesday, and her mom, Jessika, had an infection.  That infection was transmitted to Sophia during birth.  Today Sophia was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis.  That’s not good.

I’m just sending you this to ask you to send good Karma, prayers, happy, healthy thoughts to Sophia.

The prognosis is pretty good, even though meningitis is really nasty, especially so in a newborn.  But the doctors immediately put her on antibiotics and they are taking good care of her.  They seem to be doing everything right.  Folks in my office immediately rallied to reassure Yenny (and by extension, Jessika and their extended family).  Still, it will be a long couple of weeks for Sophia’s family.

Anyway, I just wanted to have you all thinking good thoughts in Sophia’s direction.  No baby deserves this.  Especially a baby with such a loving grandma.

Thanks.

Elyse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

55 Comments

Filed under Family, Health and Medicine

Tagged as

August 20, 2012 · 0:00

Twisted Knickers

Ladies, ladies, ladies.  Please.  Don’t get yourself extra-cited about this news item from yesterday.

Just because this man who clearly has never gotten a proper “birds and bees” lecture is possibly going to be the next Senator from Missouri is no reason to get upset.  Besides, there are a whole bunch of Senate and House candidates who feel the same way as Todd.  But don’t worry your pretty little head about it.

And another thing.  Just because the nominee for Vice President, Paul Ryan (R-Neanderthal) agrees with Todd, well, that is no reason to worry either.  Here is a link to some of that cute Pauly’s positions, but I’m sure you have dishes to do.

Trust me.  Not a thing will happen if these guys are elected.  Nothing will change.  Not with abortion.  Not with birth control.  Not with Medicare.

“Now how can you be so sure about all of that, Elyse?” you wonder.

Well, just now I got an email from CNN that reassured me that we ladies just made huge progress in equal rights.  So much so that we no longer have to concern ourselves with issues of birth control, of abortion, of violence against women.  About equal pay for equal work.  Because this is HUGE:

Augusta National Golf Club admits first female members

Augusta National Golf Club has admitted its first female members, the private club announced Monday.

The decision to admit former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and business executive Darla Moore of Lake City, South Carolina, ends a longstanding policy excluding women as members of the exclusive Georgia club, which hosts the Masters.

So ladies, don’t get your knickers in a twist about Todd Akin.  Or about Paul Ryan.  Or about any of the other crazy right wing candidates who may directly impact your life come November.

Wait a minute.  On second thought, maybe getting your knickers in a twist would be a good thing!  After all, doctors have told me privately that “twisted knickers” is a great method of birth control.

62 Comments

Filed under Campaigning, Criminal Activity, Elections, Family, Health and Medicine, History, Humor, Hypocrisy, Law, Politics, Science, Stupidity

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,