Da Agony of Da Feet

I was channel surfing on Sunday when I came across an old episode of Sex and the City on E! I hate to admit it, but I know the plot line of every episode - all I have to see is the episode title and I can tell you who sleeps with whom, what kind of shoes they wear, where they have drinks and whether it's Carrie and Big, Carrie and Aidan, Carrie and Big Part 2 or Carrie and Aidan Part 2 (or Carrie and Big Part 3 or 4).

One of the creepiest episodes ever was when Charlotte went shoe shopping and didn't have enough to pay for the shoes. The creepy sales guy told her if she let him feel her feet, then he'd give them to her for free. Now, I'd heard of foot fetishes before and laughed my ass off with my friends when imagining a guy asking to fondle my foot.

Never in my life did I realize it would actually happen to me one day.

The guy in question was a friend of a friend who I'd met many times before. With his wife. The night of the Foot Incident the wife was no where to be found, but the guy (we'll call him Cheater) had another women hanging out with him (we'll call her Slut). Little did my naive heart know. After leaving a local bar, we all went to the mutual friend's house to sit by the pool and drink wine.

Pretty soon, people were shucking off their clothes and heading for the water. Not me, of course. I've only been skinny dipping once and that was with a boyfriend. Group skinny dipping? Not for me. Any way, one thing lead to another and soon they were all out of the pool and drying off (I couldn't help but look at them - I mean, they were 2 feet away from me). One woman was so hairy that the only word that came to mind was . . . pelt. Bleuch.

And that's when the other shoe dropped. Cheater sat at the feet of Pelt and Slut, one of their feet in each of his hands. I just thought he was being friendly at first. Until he took one of their feet and started sucking toes. I believe I spit wine in the face of my friend's husband at that moment. But the real highlight came when Cheater sneaked a hand under the umbrella table and inserted his index finger in between my big toe and my second toe. And started stroking me. I jerked my foot out of his grasp so hard that I hit my knee on the underside of the table. I felt violated, I felt creeped out, I had just knee capped myself!

I jumped up as Pelt, her husband Giant Schlong (I told you, I looked), Slut and Cheater all laughed at me. I tried to maintain my cool but decided it was time to hot foot it out of there.

When it comes to feet, I'd rather have mine massaged by my local pedicurist, who I know is always telling her buddies how disgusting my feet are in her sing-song-y Vietnamese.

I guess I'm just not a Foot Girl. These feet were made for walking. But not for toe sucking. Bleuch.

It's Freezing Cold and I Hate Everyone

Happy New Year!

Hope your year has gone well so far - I mean, it's been 14 whole days, so what could possibly have transpired that would be that good or that bad?

Here's whats been going on with me:

Atlanta got 7 inches of snow on Sunday night and we got Monday off from work!

Atlanta got 2 inches of ice on top of the snow and we got Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off, too.

I almost ran out of cat food on Wednesday (but not wine, ahem), so I braved the icy roads and idiots to make it to my local Publix, where I grinned foolishly at the other humans in the store, talked to all the grocery clerks and told a complaining woman in the (not very long) checkout line that if she thought this was bad, she should have seen the checkout lines after Hurricane Katrina at the only grocery store open in Uptown New Orleans. What a lightweight.

I slid my way home (who knew that you could use a Honda Element as an oversized sled!) and have been inside ever since, working on developing summer promotions for that big soft drink company in Atlanta, and yelling at the dogs when they start playing their new favorite game, "Furniture Jump."

I've cooked non-stop for the last 6 days, including Soupe a l'Oignon (Julia's recipe, of course), Chicken Biryani, omelettes, one fried egg sandwich and countless chicken breasts for les chiens. The soup and biriyani lasted for several meals and I can officially announce that I will be eating neither for a very, very long time.

Have limited alcohol intake during my time on the inside to a cocktail at 6PM and the odd glass of wine here or there. In fact, I've only put one empty wine bottle in the recycling bin all week!

On the up side, I did finally take down my Christmas tree. I know, I know, it should have been before January 5th, but who's counting?

Anyway, I'm going so stir crazy (along w/ the rest of the city) that I'm about to risk life and limb to have lunch outside of my house today. I am SICK of watching people slide down my street, sick of helping people figure out that they have to slide back down the hill if they get stuck in front of my house, sick of falling on the ice (my knee!) and sick of working in my house. I want to go to the office! Anything to get me out of here.

Now I am totally sympathetic to people who live in the snowy north. And I hope that I will soon stop being a cranky shut-in.

House Guest Part 2

Stories from the Pokey . . .

Me, having never been in jail or a cell of any kind, asks what it was like.

"Well, the bitches who checked me in were certainly full of attitude."

Yes, one would expect that the people checking you in (it's called "processing" for those of us who haven't been in the pokey) wouldn't be overly welcoming. After all, it's not the Ritz. You're IN JAIL.

"The first one was totally rude and asked me 10,000 questions so I just made shit up after a while."

"What's the highest level of education you've completed, Miss ______."

"Um, I have my MBA in English."

Yes, she really did say that.

Then B was asked to sign the documents admitting her to the pokey.

"Ladies, I can't see this document because my glasses are locked up in my car. So, unless one of you lets me use your cheaters, then I'm not signing anything."

Processor 1 looks at Processor 2: "I told you."

B is put in the general population holding cell. There were, by her description, lots of "rough looking, really skinny women." Yes B, We call them Crack Whores (CW for short).

A skinny CW sits down next to B.

"The Hef Officer coming for you."

"I'm sorry?"

"The Hef Officer coming for you. They gonna stick you."

"No one's sticking me with anything."

"Uh huh. They gonna stick you to make sure you don't have the TB. I'm not sayin' you has it, but they gonna stick you to make sure you don't get it from anybody in here who might have it."

Next, B meets a woman who's a yoga instructor on the outside. The yoga instructor does a yoga move which B copies while saying, "yeah, yoga!"

Immediately, the officer on duty throws both B and the yoga instructor in the drunk tank for disruptive behavior.

At 4:30AM, the inmates are given bologna sandwiches. Another inmate sits down next to B, who is now back in the gen pop cell (see? jail lingo!).

"You gonna eat that?" she says, staring pointedly at the sandwich in B's hand.

"Nope, here you go." B wisely hands over the tube meat and bread.

Sometime after 5AM, B's ex-boyfriend arrives and bails her out. Fast forward to my house and the long afternoon of drinking and shopping that commenced.

I really do feel sorry for the girl because she's very nice and it could have happened to anyone who has a few drinks and then blows through a stop sign while a State Trooper happens to be hiding around the corner. Of course, I think she might have been a bit argumentative, which could explain why she was given two separate tickets, minutes apart. But whatever. She's good fun and is welcome back at my house any time!

But watch out: the Hef Officer might be coming for you next.

House Guest, Part 1

What do you do when a friend asks if someone can stay with you whom you barely know? If you're me, you say, "yes" . . . and then have a great story to tell.

No names here, since the person in question is very nice, but I told her I was going to write about our time together and she didn't object, so . . . here we go:

"B" was due to arrive at my house late afternoon last week. She was coming to Atlanta to be re-certified as a __________ instructor. I texted her at about 4PM, asking what her ETA was since I was in the throes of final clean-up in my fur-filled house. "Stopping in Macon to cool off. No AC in car. See you 5:30." was the reply.

"Great, see you then," I replied. "May be closer to 6" came just a little while later.

When B arrived, she was red faced and sweltering from the heat of the ride. What I didn't know at the time was that the red face was also the result of her stop in Macon. Three quick liquor drinks and she was back on the road to Atlanta. No lie!

We spent the first night chatting with my Aunt Athena on the deck. B had an early start the next morning with her ____________ class, so we were in our respective beds by midnight. The next morning, I invited her to join me and some college friends for dinner at Fritti. She wanted to see her ex-boyfriend, so she'd join us later at the restaurant.

Dinner was great, catching up with Breck and Martha on family and friends. B joined us and we were there until about 10PM, when I walked down the street to the Albert and B went back to see the boyfriend at his restaurant one more time.

I texted B at 11PM, letting her know I was home and to use the key I'd given her, no worries about the alarm system or the dogs (my back-up alarm system). No response, so I figured she was hanging with the ex.

Next morning, B was supposed to be leaving for home, but by 9AM I still hadn't heard from her and was getting worried. I sent her another text message, telling her my work schedule for the day. No response. I was just about to call our mutual friend when the phone rang. It was the other B, the one who'd asked if B could stay with me in the first place.

"I was just about to call you. What's going on?"

"She got arrested."

"Shit. Is she okay? Does she need me to post bail?" (like I've ever done that before!)

"Her ex-boyfriend bailed her out, but her car is impounded and her phone is in the car which is why she doesn't have your number."

"Ok, well I'll hang here and try to get in touch w/ her at the boyfriends (whose number she'd just given me)."

"Sorry about this. It figures that something would happen while she's staying with you. Really sorry."

"Don't worry! I'm just glad she's safe. I was getting ready to start calling hospitals."

Three hours later, B rolls in. She is red faced, swollen and dirty. And who can blame the girl? That's what any of us would look like after spending the night in the pokey.

B's first words: "God, I need a drink."

Next up: House Guest Part 2: Stories from the Pokey

The Meanest Nun in the World

The meanest nun in the world stood less than 5 feet tall. She wore a terrible gray wig that sometimes had the tag sticking out at the back (we loved those days). Although she was an older nun in the 1970's, she had adopted the modern dress that almost all the nuns who taught at my grammar school wore. They must have been specially made for them because they were the most god-awful polyster crap you've ever seen. Those poor women. As if it wasn't bad enough that they had to be married to Christ, they also had to wear brown and blue feed sacks made of non-breathable material in the Deep South.

Her name was Sister CC* and she slapped me across the face one day in the 4th grade because I looked at her "the wrong way." Now, when you're a midget with a bad wig and you teach 9 year olds every day, you must expect that you're going to get some odd looks now and again from those brats. Especially smartass white girls who have active imaginations and a face that gives everything away.

Didn't matter that I loved her english class and our writing project - "Tales of the 4th Grade - Everything!" (a rip-off of the Judy Blume book, very progressive in those days) - I must have seen her wig tag or started thinking about everyone in the room being bigger than she was (except for a black boy who I think really was a midget) and given her a vacant look. That's all I can think of, any way. But after that slap, it was open warfare as far as I was concerned.

I was on constant wig surveillance - if it was askew, if she used a pencil to scratch underneath it, if the tag was sticking out, I alerted the troops. God, but I was a horrid child.

She threw chalk at kids, hit them with rulers on the hands (like it was 1937, not 1977) and generally behaved like a little dictator. I guess she had the female form of a Napoleon Complex.

I have no idea what happened to her - she probably ended up at the Sisters of Notre Dame home somewhere in Maryland. Hell, she might even be alive still. If I was nicer, I might even look for her and send her a new wig.

I really thought she was the meanest nun in the world until the day that Sister Regina walked into the joint. Now that bitch? She was seriously disturbed and hated children. Again, it could have been the heavy polyster giving her chub rub, but I think she was just plain mean.

And don't get me wrong, I had some great nun teachers, too. Sister Rose Lally, Sister Margaret Thomasine and Sister Marcella (a hippie who later left the order, so rumor had it) were all awesome teachers. But CC and Regina - MEAN!


*Just her initials - my old classmates will know who she was. Of course, I actually ended up liking her. I mean, if I had to teach 4th graders every day, I would be a raging alcoholic instead of just a mild wino, so kudos to her.

What A Week!

I vowed last week that I would start each day at The Swamp House w/ a cleansing smoothie and would try to eat healthy for the whole week.

Well . . . I did well the first day. I had the smoothie for breakfast (I have pictures!), a fat free latte and a tomato sandwich on double-fiber wheat bread. And then, and then, 2 vodka tonics, 3 glasses of wine, bacon on my salad, a Thai noodle dish and a dram of Baileys when I got home. Really bad.

But that was nothing compared to what happened the next day.

July 4th dawned bright and blistering hot on the Georgia coast. I had planned to cook a few Southern classics to celebrate the holiday: okra and tomato macque choux, blueberry pie and fried chicken. I made the first two and they looked great. Now, this would only be like the second time I tried to make fried chicken, so I was worried about the chicken cooking all the way through from the outset.

I didn't do such a good job w/ the chicken. Let's skip the boring details and suffice to say that by 7PM, I drank an entire bottle of Perrier because I didn't feel very well and then, well, I basically puked my guts up for the next 5 hours. Seriously, I was so sick that at one point I considered calling 911. I thought I was choking on my own vomit, a la Mama Cass.

The dogs were horrified. So was I. I went through 3 nightgowns before I finally pulled myself into the shower and cleaned up. I couldn't lay down for fear that something would come burbling back up, so I sat up on the couch and stayed awake all night. I couldn't even keep down the two saltine crackers I nibbled on. Life was not good.

I stayed in the fetal position for most of July 5th. My ribs felt like I'd been kicked by a donkey. I couldn't laugh or cough for the next two days without feeling extreme pain.

On Wednesday night, my chest started itching and I thought I'd been bitten by a spider. But no, I developed a terrible case of poison ivy all over my stomach and chest. I used calamine and tried not to itch, but by Saturday morning, I couldn't even wear a bra. I was headed home and figured that my Technu would do the job, but ended up at an emergency clinic on Sunday for a shot of cortisone after my 3rd sleepless night of itchy hell.

Thought my week of bad luck was over until Monday afternoon when my boy dog, Murphy, got into a yellow jacket's nest and, when I tried to get them off of him they swarmed onto me, causing me to shriek and jump into my friend's pool where I drowned the little bastards. But not before two had stung me, one right in the lower buttocks.

I've come to the conclusion that either the necklace I bought at the estate sale on Saturday is cursed or that all of the above is my subconscious effort to avoid dieting. I did lose 5 lbs last week, but it sure was the hard way.

Echoes of the Past

Sounds like a heavy subject, doesn't it? But it's not my past that seems heavy today. No, it's the past of the dead woman whose home I went to at eight o'clock this morning for a sale of her life's possessions.

God, it was depressing as hell. She had a few nice pieces of furniture (I loved an enamel topped kitchen table, but resisted), many kitchen things, several sets of china and a lifetime collection of strange odds and ends that included the most disturbing clown painting I've ever seen in my life. And that's saying something because I HATE CLOWNS.

I ended up buying a wicker rocking chair that will live on my parents' front porch, a Mexican silver necklace (she traveled!) and a $3 bunch of aluminum kitchen tools that includes a butter pat cutter, the coolest thing I've seen in a long time, probably from the 1940's or 1950's when butter wasn't a National Villain (it still isn't in my house).

But as I was walking through her rooms that had plywood on the floors and a distinct air of despair, I grew sadder and sadder. Clearly, this was a woman who loved to entertain because she had three sets of china, a large number of serving pieces and pots and pans and lots of other hostess-y things. And this was just what the family left to sell - the good stuff had already been picked over and allotted to members of the family.

I'm starting to be reminded lately that life has an end date. I've lost my grandparents and assorted friends, but I think I viewed life with a very cavalier point of view through my 30's. Now that I'm about to turn 42 (in 10 days!!), I find myself reflecting more and more on how we live our lives, the things we find important, the things we collect and how we leave this life. I spent a weekend not long ago worrying about dying alone, being alone, dying a Spinster with no one to witness my demise except my beloved pets.

I imagine my nephews, all grown up, sorting through my folk art collection, deciding who will take the painting of the purple and green cat, who will take the signed Jazz Fest poster from 1995 that's already worth $1,000, and what will become of all the other bright and cheerful works of art that I've collected over the last twenty years.

Frankly, it depresses the shit out of me.

But I don't often allow myself to wallow in such self-pity. I have a full life with family that I adore and friends who I would literally bleed for. In my 42nd year, I've finally had an epiphany about what I want to do with this life. What I want my "legacy" to be (which sounds so pompous it makes me want to throw up in my mouth (LB!)).

Henceforth (what a word!), I want to spend as much time as possible with my parents and my brother and his family. I want to spend time with my friends. I want to travel to the ends of the earth, experiencing new cultures and people. I want to eat great food, real food, not processed weird food. I want to write. I want people to read what I write. I want to make them laugh.

I don't want to be in the box (see previous post - Long Time. No Blog.).

And I really hope to divest myself of most of my crap before I die. I hate to think about people digging through my collection of junk, feeling sad or saying awful things about them. Maybe they'll like my cobalt glasses, the tea cups that Sylvia gave me (our neighbor when I was a little girl), the Eiffel Tower collection that has grown from statues to lamp shades to paintings. Guess it's time I stopped that collection.

Any way, not to be too morbid, but today made me sad. I'll get happy again, but it made me pause and think about life. It's funny when that happens.

But enough about all that crap. I'm off to the fireworks on the riverfront in Darien, Georgia w/ my friend Billy.

Happy 4th, Everyone!!