Friday, September 8, 2006:
Woohoo! Happy Birthday to me! I slept a lot longer into my birthday than I wanted...but that's because I was at Wendy's a lot longer the night before than I wanted to be. In fact, work is where I began my birthday at 12:01 AM. I was there till 2. Anyway...rough night. So I slept in.
Day's Agenda:
--Haircuts
--Cliff's Grandparent's Day Party at school
--Go see Granny and Grandaddy
--Dinner with Brad
--Packing
--After dinner activities not to be discussed further
OK, so, first of all, my grandparents were up our arses about every 30 minutes...calling and wanting to know when we were getting there. I got up around 10 AM, and went with my mom to get our haircut. I got mine cut fairly short, and it's an adjustment after having long hair forever. But I think I am getting used to it...it's much easier to dry now, and that's always a plus. I think we got 2 calls from Granny, Grandaddy and company during this hour.
After haircuts, it was off to Cliff's school. I'm glad that my mom was here to be able to go to the party for him. Heaven knows none of his other grandparents showed. We had fun, and Cliff thought it was the most novel thing that we were visiting him at his school. Momma had some mixed nuts, Cliff had some chips and Sprite, and I had a sliver of cake that stopped just short of being transparent. Several text messages here from Shereela. Bless her heart, she just wanted to see my mom.
Brought Cliffy home from school, got his backpack and assorted school paraphenalia into the house, and I call Brad. He's going to be done with work around 6, and seeing as it's 3 pm now, we probably won't be back from Bryant (where my grandparents live) till after he needs to be picked up from work. I offer to drop the car at his store and leave the keys in the glove compartment, so that he may bring himself home when he's done. Momma and Errol follow me to drop the car. And then the birthday girl (read:me) does something so completely blonde, it's a damned shame that I'm not so I could blame it on being a blonde. I put BOTH CAR KEYS in the glove compartment (does anyone keep gloves in there, BTW?), and promptly lock the car doors, thus locking all the keys up tight inside the vehicle. I actually stopped in the parking lot, stock-still, like a freaking cartoon character, and realize what the hell I've just done. And then I start swearing. A lot. I call Brad and, surprisingly, his will alone isn't enough to make the car doors pop open.
Momma drives back over to my house, and I get a wire clothes hanger (no Mommie Dearest 'round here), and a phone book. Errol tries to pop the locks to no avail. Mind you, it's hotter than seven hundred hells. And I hate nothing worse than being hot. So, I'm ill as a hornet (as we say down South), and decide, screw it...I'm calling a locksmith. I do, and get all that arranged. Shereela calls while I'm waiting on the locksmith to get there and I think I said something like: "Dammit, I've locked the f**kin' keys in the car, and I can't leave till I get it open. I've called the locksmith and he's on the way, and everybody up there is just going to have to suck it up and wait till we friggin' get there! Sorry I've ruined everyone's damned day!"
While I'm waiting, and chain-smoking, to boot...a guy that Brad works with that we'll call "Funny Guy", pulls in and finds my dilemma quite amusing. He offers a hammer to smash in the window. I offer to smash in his skull with said hammer. He laughs. I think he thought I was kidding. The locksmith arrives and gets the car open (thank Heaven), and I get the keys out of the glove compartment, take one off and put it on my keyring, and slip the other under the driver's mat. Funny Guy yells to me "Make sure you don't lock the doors!" Guffaw, guffaw. I flip him off, get in Momma's car and off we go to Bryant. It's now after 4 pm.
Bryant, Alabama is somewhere on the other side of the world. Or, at least that's what it feels like when you are driving there from Fort Payne. Longest freaking day trip ever. When we finally pull in to my grandparent's drive, I see an unusual (to me...the car's normal, just wasn't my grandparent's) vehicle sitting in the yard. The Tennessee tag tells me all I need to know. It's my least favorite aunt in the whole world. And her daughter, my least favorite cousin. Awesome. They know I can't stand them, and they also know it's my birthday, and they ALSO know that my mom could've gone the rest of her life probably without laying eyes on them ever again. In fact, those are the exact reasons that they came. Bitches. Before I even get out of the car, I'm ready to head back to Fort Payne on foot if necessary just to not have these Hagathas ruin my birthday. Grrrr....
Granny and Grandaddy are as hospitable as always. Granny's cooked way too much food. Grandaddy pulls out all his puzzle toy things. They fight over Granny's smoking. They make me feel guilty for not visiting more. There're little kids underfoot everywhere...most of them mongrels. Shereela, Dewayne, and Keisha (my cousins) are the bright spot of the visit. They are all good kids, and fun to hang out with even though they are all in the throes of severe adolescence. I manage to be civil, if not polite, to my aunt and her vile offspring and her vile offspring's spawn. (I think that was pretty decent of me since bad behavior on one's birthday is lauded by my family.) They manage not to be the complete and utter psychos that they are for the half an hour it takes for me to make them feel uncomfortable enough to leave. Oh, hell, I'm just flattering myself, there. These nut-jobs have never picked up a hint in their lives. My side of the conversation mainly consisted of muffled grunts and raised eyebrows. Anyway, we somehow disentangle ourselves from the clan, and get out of there after a couple hours time.
Back to Fort Payne. I'm excited because Brad and I are going to go to dinner together kid-free. We don't get to do that a lot. Like ever. And I haven't seen my husband for more than 15 minutes a day in the weeks preceeding this event. We are as indecisive as always, and don't know what we want to do for dinner without the constraint of making sure chicken nuggets and french fries are on the menu. So, we decide to drive around for a bit on some backroads and think on it.
While tooling around somewhere close to Crossville, we see a small animal jet across the road. I recognize the ball of fur as a kitten and stop the car in the middle of the street. Brad, without saying a word, gets out and rescues the tiniest cat I have ever seen in my life. Poor little thing. She was scared to death. So, now we have a cat. We then decide to go to Mi Casita for dinner, so that we can nip out to the car to bring the new addition some Mexican goat cheese and water.
Normally, Mi Casita is one of the quietest places you can go to eat. The wait staff are wonderful people who never let your glass get more than half-empty, but otherwise leave you the hell alone. But, as luck would have it, now that Fort Payne has gone "wet", Mi Casita has "Open Mic Night" on Fridays. Hoop-dee-hoo! I love me some bad karaoke. And I wasn't disappointed. It was bad...real bad.
Apparently, the event hasn't really caught on yet, so the crowd consisted of: Karaoke Guy, Karaoke Guy's sullen girlfriend, Throaty Broad Chick who thinks she can sing, Throaty Broad Chick's Friend/Groupie, and Friend/Groupie's Mom. Mom and Friend/Groupie are done up in full denim finery. Friend/Groupie is dripping with gold jewelry and is perfectly manicured and flat-ironed. They are sitting at the booth directly behind ours getting loose on Silver Bullets. Karaoke Guy sets up Throaty Broad Chick to sing Faith Hill's "It Matters To Me." He says "This will show her true talent!" He wasn't kidding. Throaty Broad Chick then moans her way through the song, hitting notes that sound like they are coming from a motorcycle engine. At the end of the song, Friend/Groupie (who refuses to sing at the microphone, but sings loudly enough at her table so that she can be heard throughout the restaurant without the aid of amplification) says at the top range of her redneck voice, "That was great, girl! That was freakin' awesome!" I'm beginning to wonder if they are somehow related to Anna Nicole Smith. Mom then stands up in her booth and announces raucously "It's Open Mic Night at Mi Casita, and I am NOT going home! WOO!" The crowd WOO's back at her, and I look at Brad and try not to pee myself with joy that this scene is playing itself out in my presence.
Throaty Broad Chick decides to sing another, (be still my beating heart) but decides to sing something a little more male and a little more redneck. "Sweet Home Alabama" starts twanging through the speakers. Through her rockin' rendition, I am literally about to cry under the effort of not laughing. She bends and shimmies, and every once in a while, she twirls the mic like a lasso. It was priceless.
Alas, the novelty of the situation had worn thin. I went to the bathroom and saw so much body glitter on the floor around the toilet that I could no longer suffer the festivities with a straight face. We pay the bill and go out to the car to drive home.
Cliffy's still awake when we get here, so we tell him to come look at what we brought home. Brad has made the kitty some warm milk and egg, and she's hungrily lapping it up. Cliff comes around the corner of the kitchen and stops dead, slack-jawed. "It's a cat!", he says. "I knew I was going to get a pet!" We ask him what he wants to name her. He thinks about it for a while, and says he wants to name her "Cat Junior". Brad and I find that hilarious. My mom explains that Junior isn't really a girl's name, and asks Cliff if he would like to call her "Junie" for short. He is agreeable to this.
Everyone gets ready for bed. Momma, Errol and I have a long drive ahead of us in the morning.
Insert "after dinner activities not to be discussed further" here.
Saturday, September 9, 2006...coming soon.
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