Lisa Gerardy's Blog, page 6

The Things my Mother did Right

One of the things that a lot of people, including myself, love to complain about is their imperfect childhoods.  We sit on many a couch in many a therapist office talking about it.  We seem to blame our parents for a lot, and our mothers usually take the brunt of that.  So, to get away from that Freudian way of thinking, I would like to share with you some of the great things my mom taught me.

Mom taught me to dress nicely when going to the hair salon.  If you dress like a slob, they will think that is how you want to look. Actually, my mom has always dressed nicely to go anywhere.  There were no sweatpants and Crocs on her.

Mom told me it is better to be slightly underdressed than really overdressed.

Mom pushed me to go to college.  After high school, the last thing I wanted to do was go to school.  I wanted to nap, read, and cuddle kittens.  I still just want to do these things, but now I do them with a master’s degree and an online job.

Mom moved to Florida before I was born.  My father got a job there, and even though they were not getting along, she decided to make the move with him.  I’m glad she did. This enabled me to grow up with people of many cultures and religions.

Mom taught me to tip generously.  She tips everyone, even the cashier at Wendy’s.

Mom taught me to make a family out of friends.  My mom was never one of those “blood is thicker than water” folks.  She taught me that if someone did you wrong, even if they were family, it was ok to get them out of your life.

Finally, Mom taught me to treat myself sometimes.  My mom was not a saver.  She would rather have the better product than the cheaper one.  This is a trait I have inherited.  It is why my husband is in charge of our money.   : )

I learned a lot of great things from my mom.  These are really just a few of them.  Let me hear from you in the comments.  What are your favorite lessons that you learned from your mom?

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Mama and the Manchild: Tap that at the Tap House Edition

The boy, the husband and I are sitting at the table having bagels and coffee on a Sunday morning.  The husband is going through Open Table and finding a dinner spot for when we are in DC for our nephew’s wedding.

Husband:  Here’s a good one — Tap House. It looks like it has something for everyone.

Me: You mean plain things for boring eaters like me.

Son: Tap House – why do they call it that?

Me and the husband:  Beer on tap.

Son:  OH! I thought it was like a tap dancing place.

Me: (feeling hyper from the coffee and getting up from the table)  HI! Welcome to Tap House. Follow me to your table.  (fake tap dancing and walking out of the kitchen)

Son:  (laughing)  YES!! Oh my God! Let that be real!! There needs to be a place like this.

Me: (Still fake tapping) What can I get you guys to drink?

Son:  Yes! See, you’re making it kind of a cheesy, campy place, which is great. I pictured it as a really exclusive place.  You know, it would be really classy and there would be a pianist playing on a stage and then a really serious tap dancer.

Husband: You guys are scaring me.

Me:  Either way, the shifts would have to be short there.  Their feet would hurt.  What if someone called in sick and your four-hour shift became eight hours.

Son: That’s why they would have understudies.  If someone called in sick, the understudy would work.  I can just see him backstage calling his mom.  “Mom! It’s finally my time to shine!”

Me: (laughing)

Son: So, what would we call it?

Me: Tap House!

Son: Ok. I was thinking we’d call it I’d Tap That.

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Mama and the Manchild: Couch Potato in Crime

 

The boy and I have a mutual friend that he works with.  She is young, funny, smart, pretty, and single.  She has not had much luck with the usual dating apps. She wants to date, but she is also introverted and doesn’t get out much.  As she says, “I don’t bar hop or climb mountains.  I want to find my couch potato in crime.”  So, the boy and I were chatting about her in the kitchen, and the husband was on the couch commenting.

Husband:  Well, she’s never going to find a boyfriend watching Netflix.

Me:  Wait a minute! What if she could? I bet we could design an app for that.

Husband:  Tinder already exists. You can date from your couch.

Me and the son (at the same time) – No!! No!! You could match people by shows.

Husband looks a bit scared because sometimes the boy and I share a brain.  He also looks confused because he’s really not a big fan of movies or TV unless it’s Shameless (American and UK).

Me:  Yes!! People could choose the shows they stream and the movies they like.  We could call it Netflix and chill.

Son: Mom, I’m pretty sure Netflix would sue us for that.

Me: What about Hulu and hug?

Son: No, mom. No.

 

Friends, does such an app exist?  Can you find your partner based on your streaming preferences? If not, can one of you invent this?  We can go on Shark Tank together.

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t Fart in “A Quiet Place”

When I first heard about “A Quiet Place” I was intrigued.  I thought, really?  A QUIET movie? Most movies today are SO LOUD.  Scratch that.  The special effects and music are loud; the dialogue is usually too quiet for me to hear, even with my hearing aids.  Whenever my son watches movies in the basement after my husband and I go to bed, I often wake up thinking that we are being invaded by cyborgs or whatever the current alien/monster/robot is.  The floor vibrates as the booming effects enter our bedroom through the air vents.  So, when I heard Jim from “The Office” (That is who he will always be to me) talking about his new movie with a real, live deaf girl and almost no noise at all, I wanted to see it.

 

On Sunday, the family and I went to our local “have some booze and eat before you see the movie, heck you can even have booze and food in your reclining seat in the theater” movie theater.  I love those.  It seems like they are everywhere now.  Unless you live in a town where “turn left at the third barn” is one of the directions to your house, you probably have one of these magical theaters.  So, my husband, my son, and my son’s girlfriend got to the theater early and had drinks and tasty food.  Then, we entered the quietest theater I had ever been to in my life.

Well, actually it was loud at first. We found our group of pleather recliners while the previews were still going.  We had to inch past the people that were already in full recline mode, including a man who was at least as tall as Shaq.  His feet hung a good six inches over the edge of the recliner.  With the previews going, it was still a normal theater.  So, we slurped on our drinks and the kids (they are 21 and 22, but still kids to me) crunched on their candy.   This all came to an end rather quickly when the movie started.

The great thing about “A Quiet Place” is that it is, well, quiet.  Most of the movie is nothing but sign language, sub-titles, and bare feet.  Since I can’t hear for shit, I usually have the sub-titles on at home.  It was a real treat to have them at the theater because, as I mentioned, I usually can’t hear the dialogue.  If you are hearing impaired, “A Quiet Place” is THE movie to see in the theater.  Because of this, I LOVED the movie.

The downer to “A Quiet Place” is that it is TOO QUIET.  You can hear EVERYTHING in the theater.  My ice shook when I took a drink and I felt bad because EVERYONE in the whole damn theater could hear it.  Once this fact hit me, I got anxious about the possibility of farting.  I literally broke out in a sweat just thinking about gas. In a normal movie, you can get away with a little fart, here and there.  I’m not talking about one of those “for the love of fuck somebody light a match; something died in here” farts.  I mean your garden variety toot or rubber band snappy sounding fart.  In a normal movie, you could totally let loose.  DO NOT attempt this in “A Quiet Place.”  One time, I changed positions in my pleather seat and it made that sort of fartesque noise that denim scooching across fake leather makes. Two people in front of me looked at me and I wished I knew the sign language for “that was not a fart!”

And then I had to pee.  Usually, I can hold a pee for a while if I’m watching a really good movie, but this was one of those pees where your bladder feels like a water balloon that is about to pop.  I had to try to quietly walk to the bathroom.  So, I lowered my recliner.  That made a noise.  This woke my husband who always sleeps in movies, so I signed “P P” so he knew where I was going.  Then, I put my rain jacket, which crinkled, over my purse in the seat, and walked quickly to the exit.  Of course, I ran right into Shaq’s feet and the bottom of his shoes dragged across my new Stitch Fix jeans.  Now, I had to wash them or burn them when I got home.  I could visualize the germs. When I came back from the bathroom, I did the sideways crab crawl plie to get past Shaq without soiling the other leg of my jeans.

I was able to watch the rest of the movie without causing any distractions, aside from making the fartesque noise again while sliding into my seat, and uncrinkling my rain jacket as I moved it to my lap.  My husband went back to sleep after I sat down, and he was able to keep his snores to an acceptable level.  I stopped drinking my drink so I wouldn’t make any more ice noise or have to go to the bathroom again.  I was ready to sit silently and watch this movie.

And then it ended.  Just like that.  Really suddenly.  I hated the ending.  I’m a typical American when it comes to movies, I guess.  I don’t want an artsy fartsy make you think ending.  I want to know what happens to the characters.  I want to know if they live or die.  I want to know if they solve this pressing monster issue that has plagued them and caused them to risk ringworm, tetanus,  and a number of other things by running around barefoot.  The ending of “A Quiet Place” did not tie things up neatly.  Office Jim and his co-writers left the audience hanging quietly in their seats.  Perhaps there will be “A Quiet Place Two” or “A Quieter Place” or “Seriously, Be Fucking Quiet” movie in the future.  If there is, I’m watching it at home.  I can’t take the pressure of putting all bodily functions on hold.

 

 

Mama and the Manchild: The Vibrator Conversation

The boy, the husband, and I are having breakfast.  The boy massages his shoulder and upper back.

Me: Does your back hurt?

Boy:  A little.

Me: Did you hurt yourself at work or something? (He works at the library so this is not likely.)

Boy: No.  It’s fine.  I think I just slept wrong.

Me: Do you want to use my vibrator?

Boy: MOM!

Me: I don’t mean that! I don’t even have one of those.  It’s a back massager!

Boy: MMMHMMM.

Husband: This conversation is making me uncomfortable.

Me: But you bought it for me!

Boy: OK. I definitely don’t want to hear any more.

Me: It’s for those knots I get in my back.  It’s HUGE!

Boy: OK, mom.

Husband: You’re not making it any better.

Me: Come on! You know what I’m talking about.  It has these big balls on it.

Boy: MOM!!

Me: Massaging balls!! It heats up, too.

Husband: That sounds painful.

Me: I give up.

Later, the boy’s girlfriend comes over after work.

GF: I moved a lot of stuff at work today.  My back hurts.

Me: You wanna use my vibrator?

Boy: Mom, just don’t start.

Universal Truths for Pet Owners

Today, as I washed my hands in the margarita scented foamy hand soap, and followed that up with some nice vanilla hand cream, I knew I was doomed.  As soon as that vanilla creaminess hit my hands, I thought, “Shit! I should’ve checked the laundry room first!”  You see, in our house, the laundry room is where the litter box and the puppy pad is.  Lola, our Maltese, does not use the bathroom outside.  She is too small and too white for that.  She goes on a puppy pad near the litter box, and she usually misses the pad when she poops.  That, of course, was the case today.  As soon as I washed my hands, I had to clean up shit.  So, in my head, as I was cleaning up dog shit, scooping the litter box, and then rewashing my hands, I started to come up with this list of universal truths for pet owners.

You don’t really want to know what that wet spot is.

The cat will always make it to the carpet before vomiting.

The dog will help you clean up the cat vomit.

If you have just washed your hands and put on the good, nice-smelling hand cream, you will need to clean up some sort of animal excrement from the floor within two minutes.

Always use a paper towel when picking up that unknown brown chunk from the floor.  Don’t lose a game of mud or shit with yourself.

There’s really no need to buy new dog toys.  Just move the couch.  Your dog will think it’s Christmas.

If your dog is barking as though the SWAT team is in your yard another dog is probably walking down the street.  Or a leaf blew by.  Or there is a bird sitting on the bush.  Or it’s the evil mail carrier.

Use earplugs if you ever want to take a nap.  See above.

Just have someone else express those anal glands.

Ditto for trimming black toenails.

And cat bathing.

You could make your millions by inventing cat-ass flavored dog food, and the cat really wishes you would.

What am I missing, pet owners?  What always happens in your house? Leave me a comment so we can build this list.

Mama and the Man Child: The Rock is Jesus Edition

Son: [sitting at the table with his egg sandwich]  Mom, I know we are boycotting the Today Show because you hate Kathie Lee, but I need to see Megyn.

Me: You know that you are the only person under 42 who likes her, right?

Son: Yeah, I know.

Me:  OK, well it’s only 8:45 now.  Kathie Lee doesn’t come on until 10, so it should be safe.  [I change the channel to NBC.]

Savannah Guthrie: [On TV – she doesn’t live with us.]  Now, we are going to talk to our own Kathie Lee Gifford about her new book on faith – The Rock, the Road, and the Rabbi.

Me: Oh, fuck my life.  I can’t get away from her.

Son: [laughing]

Kathie Lee:  [On TV – I would NEVER invite her to breakfast.]  Blah, blah, blah. Trip to Israel.  Blah, blah, blah.  My faith.  Blah, blah.  The rock is Jesus.

Me: What did she just say?

Son: She said The Rock is Jesus.

Me: Did you just picture a metal band with Jesus as the singer?

Son:  No. No, mom.  I just pictured Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in a Jesus robe and sandals.

Me: YES!! He would make a great Jesus.

Son: [gets up from the chair and begins mimicking Rock Jesus]  I’m here for you, my child.  [Gets louder]  Now, it’s time for a pec pump!  [grabs his chest and makes his pecs go up and down.]

Me: [laughing and choking on coffee and then attempting a Rock voice]  You can crucify me but you will never take my strong 8-pack abs!

Son: We’re going to hell.

Me: Totally, and all of the fun people will be there.

 

 

A Letter to my Friends and Family about my Hearing Loss

Hi there,

I know you don’t quite get what it feels like to hear like a 90-year-old WWII veteran who was stationed next to a cannon for 5 years, even though I have tried to tell you.  So, please allow me to clarify things.

I can’t hear so good.

Nope, not even with the hearing aids.  You see, the hearing aids magnify ALL sound, not just you. So, if we are in a restaurant, or if the TV is on, or if music is playing, or if there is running water next to me, I can’t fucking hear you.

Especially when I’m in another room, with the door closed, even if you yell. Nope.

If you are my salon person, or aesthetician, and you do that cute, atmosphere keeping, spa whisper thing you all do, because heaven forbid someone should raise their voice in an environment of wax and hair color, I can’t fucking hear you.

My hearing loss is not temporary, and it’s not exaggerated.  I really can’t hear well at all.

No,  I don’t read lips. So, stop doing that.

No, I don’t know sign language beyond the basic alphabet.

It’s not something I enjoy either. Believe me.  It is frustrating.  I hate saying “what?” or “huh?” over and over again, and then shaking my head no to let you know I still didn’t get what you were trying to communicate. At this point, I usually just say, “uh huh” and fake like I heard you. Who knows what I have agreed to.

So please, have patience.  Look at me in the eye when you talk to me.  Talk louder and a little slower than you normally would.  Don’t do that high pitched, “I’m a little lady” voice. I don’t hear that pitch.  I’m trying to hear you, but I need your help.

Thanks,

Your middle-aged, geriatric, hearing impaired friend

Gump Trump

Mama and the Manchild: Forrest Gump Trump Edition

Son: I love me some cheese curls. [Sitting at the table with a sandwich and a little bag of Aldi’s Cheetos knockoff.]

Me: You should bring some of those fake Cheetos to your training class tonight.  [The boy works at the library and they are changing computers systems.  He has to attend two four hour training courses.]  You could get orange dust on the keyboard and people will think Trump was there.

Son: [chuckles]

Me: You could trick a kid like that on Christmas.  Instead of putting fake reindeer footprints you could put Cheeto dust footprints and tell the kid that President Trump is the new Santa.

Son: Yeah, and there would just be a piece of chocolate cake under the tree.

Me: A BEAUTIFUL chocolate cake. [Attempting a Trump impression.  Alec Baldwin’s SNL gig is safe.]

Son:  [Takes over and does perfect Trump impression with hand gestures]  It would be a BEAUTIFUL piece of chocolate cake. [switches back to his regular voice] And it would have one bite out of it because Trump feels the same about chocolate cake as Forrest Gump feels about chocolate.  [Does perfect Gump voice] I ate some.

Me: What, like Forrest Trump or something, or Gump Trump?

Son: YES! That would be perfect.  Can you just see Donald Trump sitting on a bench with his suitcase talking to some woman saying, “And then my father gave me a small loan of a million dollars and I bought a shrimping yacht.”  [The boy somehow manages to combine Gump’s and Trump’s voices and mannerisms.

 

Hey, Lorne Michaels, are you reading this? You need to give the boy a job!

No, God did not save the survivors at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

It’s really easy to play armchair quarterback with the recent school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.  A lot of people who were not there have all sorts of opinions.  For example, most people are calling former school resource officer Scot Peterson a coward because he did not enter the school during the shooting.  I can’t really say I would have either, even if I were a cop.  The entire shooting lasted six minutes.  There was really not time to do a whole lot of thinking.  And what would have happened if he had gone in?  Would he have really had the opportunity to save those 17 kids?  Perhaps, he would have died, too.  Would that have been a good thing?

And now some folks want to arm teachers.  Let me tell you as a former middle and high school teacher, I would have been useless with a gun in that situation.  First of all, I have stress induced IBS attacks.  So, as soon as I heard gunshots and saw kids running and screaming, I would have shit my pants.  Then, I would maybe think, “I should get that gun in the drawer.”  So, I would probably start shaking from the stress and the fact that I am running around with shitty pants on. I would grab the keys to the gun drawer, because I’m assuming it would be locked, and then I would probably drop them three times.  If I did manage to get the drawer open, I would probably drop the gun and end up shooting myself somehow, or I would maybe shoot a student by accident.  Then, I would be bleeding, shitting, and crying.

Aside from the people who want to arm teachers, there are the religious people who want to arm the schools with God.  Just like with every school shooting, the religious folks are saying this happens because God isn’t allowed in school. In fact, the Florida House just voted to put “In God We Trust” on all school buildings.

What does an in god we trust sign actually do?  Does it give God permission to enter schools and stop bullets?  Because to some religious people, the separation of church and state is the reason kids are getting shot.  So, God is pissed because the faculty and administration are not allowed to push religious views? He sounds like a jerk.

There seems to be a common misconception that prayer in school has been outlawed. This is not the case. The school FORCING students to pray has been outlawed. Students can pray all they want. I’m sure a lot of people have prayed for the shootings to stop. It doesn’t seem to be working.

I have heard people say that God was in fact in the building in Florida because so many students did not die.  So, who is responsible for the people who did die, the devil? I’m sorry, but in my ever so humble opinion, that is just not rational.  It kind of reminds me of when Potsie Weber lived under my bed when I was 7.

As an atheist, I’m often asked if I’m afraid of going to hell.  The answer is no.  I am pretty sure I’m already living in hell.  I live on a planet where people are murdered daily and the majority of people are waiting for an invisible man in the sky to save us.  I’d be more likely to believe that Batman is coming to save me than God.

I don’t have an issue with my friends having a religious practice that brings joy and peace to their lives.  I have an issue with the concept that someone having “faith” is a better person than someone who is skeptical of things that are not supported by facts.

Even now in 2018, there seems to be this belief that people who believe in God are somehow better or more moral than those of us who don’t. I have finally given up on The Today Show as I’m a little tired of hearing Kathie Lee talk about “good people of faith.” She does this daily, in different conversations. They could be talking about Twizzlers, and it would end up being about her and her faith.

During the Billy Graham segment, she said Jesus was the cure for “malignancy of the soul”. I switched over to Good Morning America. Kathie Lee perpetuates the myth that you have to believe in an invisible person in the sky to be a good person. This is just not logical or correct. It is a shame that Kathie Lee is permitted to proselytize on Today.

My point is, and I do have one, that you really don’t know how you would react in a fast-paced life or death situation.  You can imagine and you can hope, but you don’t know.  So, you shouldn’t judge the people who were actually in that situation.  Also, we need to start doing something real about all of these shootings.  Whether God is real or not, he’s simply not showing up to help.  So, as many people have said already, I am going to join whatever political party those kids in Parkland are starting.  They are actually working for change and I hope a bunch of paid-off old white guys do not stand in their way.