Point of View

My sisters-in-law are both lovely and talented women but with opposite outlooks on life.
My sister-in-law Hatesme invited our family for dinner but Hunneypunkin declined because I wasn't feeling well.  Hatesme was offended, told everyone she knew that we'd snubbed her, got us permanently excluded from the annual clan chili feed and fashion show, and in twelve years has never extended another invitation.
My sister-in-law Lovesme invited our family for dinner too but Hunneypunkin declined again because I wasn't feeling well still.  Lovesme sent me a giant get-well card, a dozen balloons, a whole herd of flowers, a case of 7-Up, a box of Bugs Bunny Band-aids, a zebra-print body pillow, a quart of Vick's Vapo-rub, a cauldron of Campbell's condensed chicken noodle soup, a year's supply of vitamin C, a thermometer, a ten-pound box of Saltines, a hot water bottle, a private nurse, a life-size cardboard cutout of Jeremy Renner, and a raincheck for dinner when I felt better.
The difference in point of view intrigues me.  Both sisters-in-law were raised, as I was, in properly dysfunctional, perfectly lower-middle-class families so neither should be more predisposed to being positive than the other.  Their political stances, religious views, and family lifestyles are similar enough that one would expect their perspectives to be similar.
Because of being chronically fatigued and therefore often unable to get off my butt, I've had a lot of time to reflect on people's behavior.  I haven't reached a practical, logical conclusion as to the reasons for the differences in people's attitudes, but I've decided that it is a choice, and I've chosen my own point of view.  Perhaps if I sent Hatesme that life-size cardboard cutout, her outlook on life could be different.

Sugarless

The doc says these recurrent sinus troubles I've been suffering for a brazillion years now may be fungal rather than allergic.  Things that make you go, eeew!  I have a mental image of moss, mold, and mushrooms growing in my face.  (Mosses aren't fungi, but we're talking imagination here, not biology class.)
The doc recommended using a neti-pot.  I don't want to!  If I pour liquid into myself, it should be in my mouth, and it should be tasty.  My mom suggested a neti-pot some time ago.  I told my mom I was hesitant to try any home remedy from someone who grew up in the sixties, particularly a remedy using the word "pot".  My mom slapped my caboose with a kitchen utensil.
Fungus, naturally, feeds on sugar.  So guess what I'm not supposed to ingest?  SO unfair.  I'll discuss my indignation at this outrage with my uncle tomorrow morning during our weekly sixteen-ounce sweetened caffeines.  He will understand, and we will drink lattes in protest.
Meanwhile, I need to decide what to do about Pixie and Angel Doll.  They incessantly produce sugaries.  Pies.  Cookies.  Brownies.  Cakes.  Bars.  No-bakes.  They make up their own recipes, for heaven's sake.  As Mama, I am obligated to be supportive of my daughters' endeavors, and taste-test said sugaries.  There are sugar substitutes out there, but none of them like me and that hurts my feeling.  (I only have one.)
Should I compromise my conviction that nothing should ever be poured up my nose?  Will I lay off the sugar and starve out the fungus?  Must I spurn my children's talents in the kitchen?  Might I die from dessert deprivation?  Am I willing to put Nesquik, Hershey's, and Reese's into decline?  What Would Jeremy Renner Do?

I Do My Own Stunts

"Delegate," I'm told.  Like I can really get people who don't do their own stunts, to do mine.  I get these questions like, "Where is my underwear?"  What am I, the Panty Keeper?  Hey, I track my own boxer briefs and you can track yours.  (Hanes Her Way makes those for ladies.  Practical.  Logical.  Also comfy.)
I remember back in the late 1900's asking Hunneypunkin to cook supper while I was folding socks with one hand, bathing an infant and a toddler with the other, scrubbing cabinets with my head, mending shirts with my teeth, vacuuming the carpet with my left foot, and setting mouse traps with my butt, and he complained from his recliner that he didn't know how and anyway he was busy drinking a Coke.  I failed to find a non-condescending way to say, "Read the directions on the BOX."
Sometimes I can't even bring myself to ask someone to turn the TV up because I can't bear another dillweed excuse like, "I can't reach the remote."
I'm uninspired to seek assistance outside my household.  "I can't lose that last forty-six pounds from when I was pregnant with my sophomore," sips from third triple-shot five-flavor mega-vente latte that day.  "I don't know how I'm going to pay the power bill.  I'm going to pick up cigarettes and a lottery ticket."
I'm even hesitant on rare occasions when sweet people offer help.  Can you vacuum my carpet without sucking up the cat?  No, don't lift the whole stack of plates into the cupboard at once...ohhhh, (shatter-shatter) cool, I get new dishes.
I didn't realize till too late that everyone forgot to water the salamander, and a dehydrated lizard does NOT come back if you just add water.
That's why I, like Jeremy Renner, do my own stunts.
I can't even get anyone to do something as simple as going pee for me.

Dewdrop in September

Once upon a time in September, a dewdrop landed on a blade of grass.  When the first rays of the morning sun touched the dewdrop, it turned into a fragile baby pixie.  Everyone knows that baby pixies touched by human hands never grow wings; nevertheless I caught the fragile baby pixie and gave her to The Precious, Lefty, and Angel Doll to be their pixie sister.
In spite of her wingless teensy fragileness, Pixie makes every effort to rule the family and occasionally the universe with an iron kumquat-sized fist.
Grammie has dubbed her "the little activity director".   The Precious calls her "the little terrorist" (while he's poking her in the side with his finger).  Angel Doll used to come to me sobbing because Pixie had hurt her in the feelings.  It didn't seem to matter that Angel Doll was a year and a half older and three times Pixie's size. Even Hunneypunkin is often left bewildered in Pixie's aftermath.
Lefty, in contrast, simply forgets that Pixie exists due to the vast difference in their heights.  She's just too small to register on his radar.  We constantly have to remind him to watch where he's walking or he'll blaze a trail right over her.
Fortunately, Pixie has not yet figured out that the only being standing between her and ruling the galaxy is, in fact, me.  With each of her birthdays, and there's one coming soon, I fear she may discover this fact, and in my chronically fatigued state I might not have enough reserves against the power of her doubled-up kumquat-irons.  I'm not sure even Jeremy Renner could save me.  My only hope is that I can teach her to always use her powers for good, while she still believes I'm her superior.

How I Got an Angel Doll

Once upon a time, a totally awesome Mama had two little boys.  Heaven looked down on her and said, "That Mama needs help," so they sent her an angel.  When the angel was all done being a kleptomaniac, she was very helpful.
Lefty and The Precious were 14 months and two-and-a-half years old respectively when the angel came.  She was so tiny with such pale skin and dark hair and big eyes that she looked like a china doll, and that name stuck.
Angel Doll absorbed information as quickly as she could, to fit herself to fulfill her heaven-sent mission to be my helper.  She thoroughly examined everything I owned by stealing, touching, squishing, tasting, squeezing, shaking, stretching, tearing, and stomping.  Or, as in the case of her 1-year-old 10x13 portrait, folding.
The Precious took good care of Angel Doll, so much so that she would stand in her crib when she woke up and call for HIM, not me, her own Mama.  Angel Doll and The Precious were inseparable until Angel Doll turned three and became independent of The Precious.  This angered The Precious, whose wrath remains on her to this day.
Now Angel Doll is big enough to steal my clothes, which is a small price to pay for someone who cooks our breakfast, bakes homemade bread, makes me pies, builds me bead jewelry, quilts lovely throws, cleans the house, rubs my shoulders, buys me popcorn at Jeremy Renner movies, sews escapee buttons back on Hunneypunkin's jacket, and looks like a cherub while she's at it.
I'm unsure how heaven gauged me worthy of such an angel, but I'm certain that if everyone on earth had their own angel doll, there would be peace on earth, and sugar would be good for you.

The Thing About Cheetos

I think the thing I like best about Cheetos is that they are dangerously cheesy.  I'm a little bit embarrassed by the fact that I'm thirty-nine years old and I'm sneaking Cheetos from a secret hoard in my desk drawer where I hide them from my peeps because I can't bear to share them.  But not embarrassed enough to stop doing it.
The problem with sneaking Cheetos arises when someone walks into the room and I'm still crunching.  Theoretically I should just be able to slam that drawer and swallow, but it's more complicated.  I mean, I can totally close the drawer with one hand and wipe the orange powder off my face with the other because I'm an amazing multi-tasker like that, but it takes some serious shuffling of papers to cover up the crunch.  And no matter how tidy I try to be, there's still cheesy goodness all over my fingers.
For health reasons, I'm supposed to be avoiding stress as much as possible, so I just wait until I'm alone to sneak into my secret stash of Cheetos.  Then I hear a noise--lick the fingers, chew faster, stuff the bag, swallow hard, shut the drawer, wipe the face, close out of all the windows of Jeremy Renner pictures on my computer so I don't look like the stalker that I am, blow the cheese powder off the keyboard--and then I see it was only the cat.
I almost gave myself a heart attack over those stupid cheese flavored corn snacks.  Those things are dangerously cheesy.

Lefty and The Precious

Once upon a time, God wanted to build an orange-headed boy.  So He did!  When He was all done building him, He looked at him and said, "Sa-WEET!"  And then He gave him to me.  That, my friends, is the story of how Lefty became little brother of The Precious.
There's a story about how The Precious came to be my little elvish firstborn too, but it's classified.
The Precious was a responsible and attentive big brother...many years ago.  Today I broke up a fistfight between Lefty and The Precious.  Heaven only knows what that was all about.
Back in the late 1900s I was often asked if Lefty and The Precious were twins.  I always wanted to say yes, identical-- except for the part where they're nineteen months apart, different heights, one red haired/blue eyed and one brown haired/brown eyed, The Precious being left-handed and Lefty being right-handed.
Through the years Lefty and The Precious have taken turns being taller, which disturbed The Precious who assumed that since he was eldest, Mother Nature was obligated to make him tallest.
Hey.  Where were we?  I got distracted when Hunneypunkin turned on the TV.  Jeremy Renner is on the Stand Up 2 Cancer 2012 telethon.
Oh, yes.  The Precious has come to accept Lefty's now being a head taller than he, and they affectionately refer to each other as "little brother".  They call each other a lot of other things too, like right now, so perhaps I should go slice up a nice cancer-fighting tomato to stuff in their sweet little faces.

Christening the Cat

Some humanoids despise house cats, but I refuse to be without one.  A cat in the house will eat its own food and go to the bathroom in its own spot.  A mouse in the house will eat MY food and go to the bathroom in MY FOOD.  A cat in the house prevents a mouse in the house.  Practical.  Logical.

Or, I could be some sort of codependent who therefore needs someone to rule me, and who better to rule than a cat?  But I’ll stay in denial and stick with my original reasoning.

I do draw the line at the number of cats in the house.  One.  Only one.  Naturally we currently have two housecats plus three newborn kittens, and a little one recovering from a broken pelvis who can’t move out till she’s spayed because labor and delivery would re-break her pelvis if she ever had a family.

Since we live on a small piece of rural property, we like to keep a few cats outside.  They stop the mice from getting into the house in the first place, and if we have enough of them around there’s always at least one providing an absurd distraction as needed.  “The Precious, did you finish your term paper?”  The Precious: “Umm…look at Teaspoon and Chewables, they’re executing the dog!”

Today we discussed naming a new cat we took in yesterday.   I suggested Newton, because the cat is, well, new.  The Precious suggested Clint (Barton) after Jeremy Renner’s Avengers character, but I’m pretty sure the cat is a girl and I’m pretty sure The Precious is mocking me because he thinks I’m obsessed with Jeremy Renner.  Lefty, diplomatic fellow, decided to name it Barton Newton.  It really doesn’t matter what we name the cat because Hunneypunkin frequently re-names and nicknames the pets anyway.

Did you know Jeremy Renner sings?

My Opening Argument

First off, Jeremy Renner is hot, yesno?  Ca-RAZY hot.  (Don’t tell Hunneypunkin I said so, or I won’t get Bourne Legacy or Avengers for Christmas.)  Can’t say I want to meet Jeremy Renner though.  I would have nothing to say so I’d just stare, which would be super fun for me but probably awkward and possibly boring for him.  Now that we’ve established Jeremy Renner’s hotness, let’s move on to lesser topics.

My health, for instance.  I feel like crap.  Figuratively.  I mean I’ve never literally gone out and intentionally experimented with comparing multiple textures of crap.  But I feel so stinking tired that I have to take a huge breath to even be able to say “chronic fatigue”, especially if I’m going to pronounce it the way it’s spelled because the correct pronunciation is way too boring.

Apparently my heart muscle is weak and that’s one of the reasons I feel so tired.  That thought is just foreign to me because I am of German descent.  We German folk don’t need hearts.  We have brains.  We’re like the Vulcans of Earth.  Practical.  Logical.  Drunk.  Wait—what?  Hey, for the record, I’m not now, nor have I ever been, drunk.  I understand there is some tendency toward alcoholism in my ancestry so it seems practical and logical to avoid excessive boozedness.  And practical and logical is what I am.  Not drunk.  Now or ever.

So to take care of my heart I’m on a restricted exercise regimen of non-brisk walking, up to one mile every other day, and a little bit of weight lifting when I feel up to it.  Also I’ve been going to the theater far more often than usual because I’ve noticed that my heartbeat feels a little stronger during a Jeremy Renner movie.