ASAP OMG

"Are you making fun of Russian people?"
"Absolute.......ly not. I love Russians and vodka. The Russians invented Vodka didn't they? If they did, the Lord should watch over them in a special kind of way."

I have made progress on my dog walking/Russian watching mornings. Somethings going down. Check this post if you haven't been keeping up.
I saw the round woman one morning and she was dressed up again heading for the ishkabibble bus stop. As she drew near I engaged her in conversation,
"Good morning."
And in her thick Russian accent she replied,
"Good morning."
Stepping closer I asked,
"Have you been to the pool lately?"
"Pool?"
This is when I realized that she was a different round woman. The original round woman has a stunt double. A doppelganger. Or she has been replaced for phase 2 of the world domination mission. Dear God.
I don't know if she realized I might be on to her but she adapted quickly to her new role,
"The pool, yes the pool."
By this time we were passing each other. I didn't look back but braced myself for certain annihilation, as I may have blown her cover. I lived to see another day though to continue my watch.
The next week, faux round woman was on her way to the ishkabibble bus stop again but this time she was on the phone. No eye contact was made. I heard part of her conversation,
"Yes. No. No as soon as possible."
Mommy!

Here's what happened

I'm not a wine person. Everyone knows I have a weakness for orange juice laced with vodka. And now that they started putting fruity flavors in vodka a whole new world has opened up to me but I digress. Let me explain the wine bottle and the events that followed.
I was baking yesterday, applesauce cake. It's an old family recipe. Quite a few of our ancestors didn't bother to write their recipes down on a little recipe card, I suppose they just thought we would channel the ingredients and amount from the great beyond. My mom managed to get the 'Christmas Applesauce Cake' recipe from my grandma and most of it is clear. Except for the vague ingredient 'small glass of red wine'.
Year after year I make the said cake because mom gave up on it, she really doesn't like baking and throws rolling pins across the kitchen if she tries to make cut-out cookies. Every year I buy a bottle of cheap red wine with a screw off top. So you can imagine my surprise when I tore off the foil wrap on my cheap red wine and found a cork. The pursuit of a cork screw began.
One year the husband received a gift at work with a cork screw in it. It was in a lovely box and also had a bottle topper and a couple other things I have no idea what they are used for. I dusted off the box and grabbed the cork screw. There were several people in the house but I felt confident that I could screw that thing in the cork. Which I did. The problem, yes we finally got there, I couldn't pull the cork out. After about five minutes of swearing and being totally ignored by the people in the next room, I gave up.
I took the bottle to the husband and ask,
"Did I put this thing in right?"
Without speaking he took the bottle from me. I didn't want to give up the bottle because I knew he'd try to open it while sitting on my couch but it all happened so fast. While he inspected, I looked up at Boy #2 and Boy #3, who were putting up the Christmas tree and trying to get the amazing invention of a pre-lit Christmas tree to, you know, light up. That's when I heard the glass break.
"Give me the bottle before you spill cheap red wine on my couch."
"I have glass in my hand. There is a shard of glass in my hand. I need my glasses and a flashlight."
This is when the almost daughter-in-law slash nurse got up, grabbed his hand and took the shard of glass out before the husband could ask for a band aid.
"Give me the bottle before you spill cheap red wine on my couch."
I went back to the kitchen followed by the almost daughter-in-law slash nurse who told me,
"I'm a wine drinker now."
I responded,
"Really? Grandma and Aunt Erv are going to be so happy."
My mom and my sister-in-law are avid wine drinkers. That's why I took the picture of the mutilated cheap red wine bottle with a happy smiling snowman head, to ease their pain. So I asked the almost daughter-in-law slash nurse if she would like a glass of wine. I'm not going to dump the whole bottle into 'Christmas Applesauce Cake' it only needs a 'small glass of red wine', she said,
"Let me just taste it first."
As I turned to get a juice glass out of the cupboard I bumped into Boy #3 who asked,
"Can I have my very first taste of wine ever mom?"
We gave him a 'OMG you are only 20 years old' fake surprised look and I got two juice glasses. I poured them each a glass. They both decided they were wine connoisseurs, they held their juice glasses up and swished it around, brought them to their noses and smelled the wine, took a sip and spit the cheap red wine into my kitchen sink. My kitchen sink!
"Get the hell out of my kitchen. I'm stressed. Holiday stress has sunk in. Get your fathers credit card and order Sunday dinner, I'm not cooking for you people."

The Russians are here

Well it just doesn't get any better than this. I got to the pool minutes before the woman that takes my spot did. Minutes! In your face pool spot stealer. HA! I was still setting up when she walked in. This has been my spot for years, I don't know who the hell she thinks she is. We have had an unspoken fight over this spot all summer. She's even brought a friend of hers into this, some muscle, if you know what I mean. Today is a small victory for me, hooray for me and my awesome timing.
And if this wasn't enough fun, the Russians are here, speaking Russian and everything. They could be talking about me right now and I wouldn't know it. Hell they could be talking about world domination and I'd be clueless. So as I write I keep looking over at them. My reasoning is they'll think I'm taking notes. These Russians will not take over the world on my watch. They talk funny. They have the same house address as we do just a different street. I found this out a couple years ago walking the dog. I suppose getting their mail by mistake would be a post just waiting to be written. But if you are a steady reader of my blog you know that I have foreignpeopleaphobia. I would probably make one of the boys take their mail to them and Boy #1 would do it, he has no fear of foreigners. Catch him in the right mood and I could get him to knock on anyone's door.
Jeez, I wish I could catch some of these words that are coming out of their mouths, it's just a bunch of ishkabibbles. I haven't heard them say vodka yet, they like that right? I'm going to go swim some laps and see if I can catch anything that sounds like, "Our plan is coming along very nicely Victor."

............................

Back....... I got nothing to report to the Feds.

Are You Sss....Sss....Stupid or Somepin?

After screwing up my blog template yesterday and then today I leaned over in my car to turn down the stereo because I thought I smelled something and I wanted to, I don't know, get a better wiff with the music turned down? I decided I should start eating more fish. I mean it's the middle of the week, I should have a head full of active brain cells. Papercages suggested vodka, more vodka, but alcohol enhances stupidity and I've done somepin stupid two days in a row. I still have to straighten out my blog template.
Actually the blog looks like it did before the last time I screwed it up, this might take me a week or so, it needed updating anyway.

Luckily There Was Vodka

Maybe it was a little bit of poor planning or maybe we were just in a state of dumbstruck confusion, but putting a bunch of diabetics in a room for 5 hours with no food wasn't a good idea. That's something funeral directors probably don't think about when planning a weekend of mourning. It's a shame too because they had everything else covered, we had kleenex out the wazoo. Now don't get me wrong there were danish and brownies downstairs, but it was downstairs and the constant stream of "paying their last respects" people were upstairs and food wasn't allowed upstairs.
The husband was the first to feel the effects, because he's in diabetic denial and ignores early warning signs. By the time we got to the house he was shaking like a leaf, one brother-in-law was chasing him around with a roll of glucose tablets and our niece with orange juice. I, on the other hand, couldn't help but notice the case of booze someone sent over. Now that's a wonderful idea. We had sub-sandwiches, rigatoni, pizza, cakes, fried chicken and Jo-Jo's and even a crock pot of Elk Stew, but dropping off a case of booze, now that's thinking. So I made myself a vodka and orange juice while the husband fought off a diabetic coma.

Those two evenings we celebrated Becky's life and the way she touched ours. We laughed, we cried, we reminisced, we gave insulin shots and we drank too much. Our dear sister will be missed. And I do appreciate the well wishes from everyone.

No one went into a diabetic coma, the husband helped himself to 2 big bowls of Elk Stew. I'm a little bit worried he's going to ask for the recipe, he really liked it. I've never seen Elk in the grocery store. Pretty sure it's wild game and needs to be hunted. I don't even know what an Elk looks like, is it like a big deer?