In the late summer of 2014

In the late summer of 2014 I stood in my kitchen making sauce. A cool, yet gentle breeze ruffled my curtains, the husband was watching college football while eating pretzels that were so good he told me to buy them again, Boy #3 planned to cut the grass after playing video games and the dog, she sat regally on the front steps watching over the neighborhood. Not one Jehovah Witness or encyclopedia salesman would get to our front door on her watch, not one. In fact I stopped a moment to watch her watching the cars go by. The leaves had just started to fall from the trees, letting us know that autumn was on it's way. I would have to sweep the steps because the dog seemed to have a little pile of them between her paws. Isn't she cute, I said to myself, she's playing in the leaves.
At that specific time when all was well I squinted at the dog, took a few steps closer to the front door. The birds stopped singing, the wind became still and the blood rushed from my face. This is when pandemonium invaded my almost perfect day.
"Oh no. No. Oh my, holy, Boy #3. Shit, Oh, Oh. Boy #3, Boy #3!"
I waved my hands in the air like a girl. The husband asked with is mouth full of pretzels,
"Is it a spider babe?"
"No. Oh my God. It's a bunny, it's a bunny. Boy #3 do something. It's a bunny. The dog killed a bunny. Oh shit. Boy #3!"
"Seriously?"
"Yes I'm serious. What the hell? It's a dead bunny!"
The husband made no attempt to remove himself from football. But the kind gentle hearted Boy #3 that wants to be a veterinarian sprang into action. That's why in my state of hysteria I called him because I knew who would move and who wouldn't. After 29 years with the husband I knew he would laugh at me and tell me,
"That's what dogs do. They hunt and kill. She probably brought it up the steps for you. Rabbit tastes just like chicken. When I was a kid on my aunt and uncles farm...."
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph, don't start talking about the farm right now because I am so earning this nervous breakdown I'm having right now, I having it, right now. Oh damn the windows are open, the neighbors are hearing my 19th nervous breakdown."
While I freaked out man, I kept looking at the dead bunny and Boy #3 trying to bring the dog in, who wanted to bring her kill with her. I thought to myself, well at least I didn't kill this one. See this post here for an explanation of that thought popping into my head.
With the dog in the house, I calmed down long enough to give her her treat for going outside to pee and kill. And then I went back to, as Boy #3 is now referring to it, my little melt down.
"What? How? Wha....."
"Mom." Boy #3 rested his hands on my shoulders and said,
"I'm going to need some bags."
Blank stare. I just stared at him. He suppressed a smile,
"Plastic bags mom, plastic bags."
"Yes, plastic bags. I will get you plastic bags. Several plastic bags."
And then I looked at the front steps,
"Oh my God, it's still there."
"That's why I need plastic bags."
I ran to the drawer of plastic WalMart bags and started to frantically throw them towards the boy,
"You should double bag, NO, quadruple them. What's after quadruple? Sixtuple them."
The husband interupted,
"Now you're making up words, you're going to hurt yourself."
"Shut up, shut up, shut up."
I flung more bags towards my dear, sweet, youngest child and told him,
"Don't touch it. I have to say that because it's in the being a mom rules, but do what you must to get rid of the poor thing. Here's another bag."
After the removal and disposal, oh eff, garbage day was yesterday. It has to stay in a sixtupled bag for a week. After the removal and disposal I poured Pine-Sol straight from the bottle on to the spot, there was......gah, there was some blood there. I dumped buckets and buckets of hot water on the steps and scrubbed with a broom, more hot buckets.
In the late summer of 2014 I stood in my kitchen making sauce. Instead of driving the neighbors crazy with the delicious smell of my spaghetti sauce, the pungent smell of Pine Sol streamed into my front windows. Not one person would be jealous of my cooking today, not one.

Spider!

Last month on FaceBook I penned a post about a spider web in my car. With that glaring evidence I deduced that a spider was living in my car. I received about 18 'likes' with that post, that translates, to me anyway, that I have a few heartless friends or they felt sorry for me and gave me a thumbs up?
I shook that confusion out of my head. I didn't know if I should burn just the inside of my car or the whole damn thing. My friends comments were an overwhelming decision to burn it to the ground. I had to agree with them. The problem is I'm a procrastinator.
So a month later, living under threat of a spider in my car, the nightmare that I could have avoided had I set my car ablaze in my driveway, came to fruition. In other words, shit got real.

The rest of this post is not for the squeamish. Several of my friends come to mind but I won't name them because they were in the group of the 18 'likes'. I will let them squirm.

In the car with the husband on our way to our daughter-in-laws graduation,
congratulations Karla, I sat in the passengers seat. The husband was navigating his way out of a parking lot. I looked out my window and saw a spider on my shoulder. It had to be at least 1/4" in diameter. The car was moving. I had my seat belt on. I was trapped. My only recourse was to have a spaz attack and make some kind of horrible sound come out of my mouth. A sound that can never, ever be made again, even under hypnosis.
Now I can not remember if I actually touch the spider but after a frantic search I saw it on the floor. I stepped on it until it was ground into the floor mat. Here is the conversation that ensued after my nervous breakdown.
The husband was somewhat alarmed,
"What?!"
"A spider!"
"Jesus."
"It was on my shoulder."
"Christ."
"It was on my shoulder."
"I thought something really bad happened."
"Something really bad did happen. A spider was on my shoulder."
"You scared the shit out of me. I could have gotten us in an accident."
I narrowed my eyes at him and talked through my teeth so he new I was serious,
"Tell me you can look at your shoulder, see a spider and it not startle you, tell me that."
His demeanor waned ever so slightly and with a grin,
"Maybe I would be startled but I wouldn't need a rubber room and a straight jacket."
"I'm burning this car down tomorrow, if you have and CD's in here that you want to keep I'd take them out when we get home if I were you."
"Yes dear."

My September 11th Post. Any Other Day

I post this every year and hope that some day I won't have to any more.

September 12, 2001, I walked down my steps and opened the garage door to take out the garbage. The sun was going down and it would be dark soon I was going to make sure the big garage door was closed too. In our garage I found my 12-year-old middle son. He had on everything Army-ish. Camouflage pants and t-shirt, the only boots he owned, snow boots and an Army helmet from a Halloween costume. He also had his toy rifle and when I stepped into the garage, he appeared to be pretend loading it.

“What are you doing baby?”

This annoyed him, he rolled his eyes at me, I guess in my surprise at running into him down there I made a critical error in calling my little soldier, baby.

“Mom, I’m securing the perimeter of the house.”

Any other day this one little story of mine would have found itself in my humor blog. Any other day I would have sent him off to play soldier. Any other day I would have smiled at him instead of having tears well up in my eyes.

But this day I asked him to go upstairs and told him we need to talk. I had to find out what was going on in that 12-year-old head and try to ease his obvious concerns. And after all I couldn’t have him walking around the house with a toy gun in the dark, everyone was on red alert, someone would have called the police, I know I would have. We were all on edge, uncertain and scared.

I was able to send my baby back into the security of our home and thanked God for that. I had been praying just about non-stop since the day before, September 11, 2001, when Islamic extremist flew our airplanes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

This anniversary of terrorism is difficult for me, I have a hard time looking at the pictures, listening to the stories and seeing the videos. Maybe it’s because that day has become just that, an anniversary. To me, September 11, 2001 is unresolved and unfinished. The threat is still there. Mothers are sending their babies to war. Mothers are trying to explain Army isn’t a video game. And with each “anniversary” that goes by I ask myself what has to happen to change the uneasy feeling I get every September 11^th?