Slime

It’s one of those things that you find out is in your lane after you sign up for the job. It’s like pick me, pick me! I want to be the HausFrau! Man says okeedokee and hires me for the job (after all, I'm worth every penny I don't make, who wouldn't hire me?). I happily eat bon-bons and watch Oprah care for the children and maintain our home. Then one day, MiniMe brings it to my attention. Not feelings spared, no beating around the bush, I am in charge of the slime.

It was innocent enough on her part. We were in the kitchen this morning making banana nut pancakes – you know I whipped out the whole wheat pancake mix & sprinkled in a generous amount of wheat germ and some Benefiber for good measure. It was just the two of us since no one else would drag their butts out of bed to tend to MiniMe’s early morning demands. I’m hungry. I want to watch Cartoon Network. Can I play Wii? I’m thirsty. I want water . . . with ice . . . and a lid. Not that cup! The other one.

Then the princess wants to know if I can flip pancakes up in the air and catch them with the pan. I painfully admitted the truth, that no, I can not and I’m not going to make a pancake flippin’ debut this morning. She insists that she’s seen pancakes being flipped in our house and since admittedly, it isn’t me, it must be Daddy.

Yes, that’s it! Man, the pancake flipper.

I don’t want to burst her bubble and have her think any less of Man’s Iron Chef status, so I don’t mention that he has not cooked anything pancakes since well before she was a twinkle in anybody’s eye.

Note to self: I must have the fantasy/reality talk with her again. Sweetheart, just because Daddy is a pancake flipping fool in your dreams doesn’t make it reality – or even remotely believable.

A n y w a y . . .

She was super eager to help out and suggested that it should be her job to pour the batter and flip the pancakes – since mom’s a complete moron when it comes to flipping & Man is still snoring sleeping upstairs.

Hmmm. Let’s recap: sticky batter, electric heat, MiniMe, and my relatively sparkling clean kitchen.

Uh, no, sweet pea, Mommy, hasn’t had enough wine yet but you can mix the batter up for us.

Eeeeewwww, it’s slimy.

Yes, that’s the egg & that’s what cooks do, we take the slime out of food.

That’s when it occurred to me. I’ve been the household POC for all things slime related for years. I just never thought about it – denial, who really wants to admit that this is what their life has been reduced to?

I’m the Culinary Godness personal chef & short-order cook around here. I’m the one who makes raw meats (fish, beef, poultry & pork) less slimy by charring them to oblivion grilling, baking, broiling, occasionally frying, roasting & sauteeing. I scramble, beat, whip, fry, boil & poach eggs to remove any evidence of raw slime. I rinse the slime off past-its-prime fruit & freeze the non-slimy parts – the secret ingredient in my kick-butt fruit smoothies (that and two shots a shot of vodka).

Come to think of it, the only food that is slimier after it’s cooked is boiled okra. And, I can honestly say with conviction that I never.

I am quick to wipe snotty slimy noses of my children (when they were younger!) with whatever available, including but not limited to ArmorAll Pop-Up Leather Cleaner Wipes from the trunk of my car.

I fearlessly reach ungloved hands into shower drains to clear out the slimy glob of hair gunk. Hey, in Man’s defense, he’s been known to do so on occasion too. I just can’t say as much about the snot noses and leather wipies.

And, for some reason everyone in this house looks to me when it comes to any kind of:

Vomit, loogies, poo, hairballs, rotten food, curdled milk.

We have a marital agreement that Man is in charge of any dead animals that invade our home (my hero), but then he looks to me to clean up any slimy goo that they might leave behind (my reality).

I’m not certain where I went wrong. Perhaps, I should have grown some balls stood up for my self when slime first entered the equation. Perhaps, I should have delegated loogie duty to the cat. Maybe more processed food and take out is the answer.

What's done is done. I can finish out this job proudly wearing the Slime Queen Tiara. But, no doubt, a painful lesson has been learned. I will be ballsy, upfront, demanding & certainly leave no room for ambiguity next time.

HausFrau seeks employment. Does the occasional windows and floors. Does not flip pancakes but does flip out. Does not do slime . . . or slimeballs.

Hair

Have you ever noticed how hair obsessed we are? We love it. We hate it. When it behaves badly, we punish it with a ponytail.

We are envious of the alpha-protein, amino acid, fortified, silken shine of hair models on Pantene commercials. We pay big bucks at the Beauty Shop in hopes of achieving more good hair days than bad. We purchase conditioners, creams, gels, sprays, spritzes, mousse, heat protectors to compliment our high heat appliances, various brushes to be used with our hair dryers and we make for darn sure that our little girls have a nice stash of bows, barrettes, headbands, ribbons, clippies & scrunchies. More importantly, we take notice and are downright intrigued by effortless herbal orgasms – in our showers! Just by using the removable massaging shower nozzle shampooing our hair.

Especially when it is sparkling clean, shiny, coiffed to perfection and limited to just a few mentionable areas of the body - we love hair. However, just wait until one of those protein-enhanced, radiant strands is found swimming in the special sauce of a Big Mac. Hair instantly loses its appeal.

There are other occasions where hair makes us gag and say “eeeeewwwww” & “gross” as well as other words that would violate "terms of service" I can’t even begin to spell.

There are also times where you don’t want to think too much about hair. Like at the Twat Doc's Gynecologist’s office. We want to rest assured that ours is sparkling clean, shiny, waxed, tweezed & coiffed to perfection, so we take the necessary measures beforehand. Our legs (also shaved, waxed & sparkling clean) rest a little easier in those medieval torture devices stirrups knowing there’s not a hair out of place. We lean back & scootch down. We scootch down some more. For those of you who are stirrup-virgins, or who are less experienced than gyno-groupies like me, you will be aiming for that hoohah-suspended-in-space, falling-off-the-exam-table kind of feeling. Once you’ve achieved that, scootch down about another inch. There. Now relax – go to that mental place on the beach . . .

Well, that’s all fine and dandy until you just happen to notice that your physician has hair on his nose. Not talking uni-brow, but on. his. nose. Some of you reading this know precisely who what talking about and you just involuntarily crossed your legs, didn’t you? Please tell me, how can one be expected to deal with stirrups and hairy noses simultaneously? Seriously, this is how neurons short out and women step out onto that slippery slope of sanity. These are the important stories that 20/20’s investigative reporters should be chasing, not mundane topics like the skyrocketing rate of sub-prime foreclosures or gas prices.

Again, I digress.

Why all this rambling about hair? Well, let me tell you, it all started with Man (Fess up. You are not surprised.) when I noticed for the second time in one week that a stray nose hair the Lone Ranger was performing surveillance out his left nostril. I brought it to his attention (again) and begged him to just yank the darn thing out – or better yet, let me. Oh, noooo, he whined like a baby, it’ll hurt like hell. Sorry, dude, but your pain will be my gain, because I can’t intelligently engage in an argument a serious conservation while I’m focused on that. It’s much too distracting.

Then it hit me in a slightly delayed reaction – he said “hurt like hell”. Wait a minute here! Hurt like hell?! It’s ONE little nose hair. Does it take Lamaze breathing & a local anesthetic to help him push through the millisecond of excruciating pain that will accompany the yanking out removal of the delinquent hair. In my opinion, “Hurt like Hell” statements should be reserved for bikini waxes childbirth and traumatic amputations, not one little plucky, tweezers job.

Anyway, to momentarily pacify me, Man poked the offender back up his nose (I kid you not, this is the life I live) and tells me that I am more than welcome to trim it for him when we get home – since, obviously, it’s bothering me way more than it is him.

Has he lost his (freakin’) mind?! How smart is it to annoy your Frau and then ask her to come at your face with a pair of scissors? I swear, it’s possible that Lorena Bobbitt was just trying to clip a stray spousal pubic hair when he pissed her off an accident happened (speaking of traumatic amputations . . . ) Just a thought people, but I see where it might be admissible in a court of law.

Anyway, back to Man. Just for kicks, and to get a dumb answer that is blog-worthy, I asked him what scissors he’d like for me to use while doing the deed. The good ones, of course. I think not.

I guard my Friskars with great HausFrau enthusiasm. I growl at MiniMe who wants to take them outside to cut the trampoline netting roses & irises. I hide them from the same child should she once again get a bug up her butt to snip her hair into something less-than-fashionable, like a mohawk, or worse, another mullet. I protect them from Laze-E who wants to take them to her pig-sty room for no other reason that to see how they look sitting between the week old curdled glass of milk & dirty gym socks. And now, I promise to defend them against snot-encrusted adventures in Man’s respiratory tract.

While I would really like to just yank the darn thing out by its roots with a pair of tweezers in a well planned and executed surprise combat maneuver while Man is sleeping on the couch watching TV, I must be just a little more subtle. As I sit here typing the words that question my sanity document my life as a HausFrau, I have the perfect idea; the solution to my problem. I know which scissors I’ll use. Genius! Why didn’t I think of it before?

I will snip-snip the nose hair with the scissors I keep hidden in my bathroom drawer. You know, the ones that have the exclusive function of trimming Tulips in the Netherlands. I must admit, it’s the perfect pair for shoving up his nose delicately and loving trimming the wayward nose hair for him. Beer in hand, NCIS on TV, while he leans back in the recliner and scootches down . . .

Our Posh Bedroom

We all knew it had to happen. Eventually. Sooner or later our bedroom furniture had to be replaced. I actually had envisioned it dying a painful death on a future PCS; perhaps splintered into oblivion in the bottom of a shipping crate; perhaps packed securely into a crate that fell into the Atlantic.

Sturdy, waterbed, particle board furniture. How many PCS's would it take to totally take it out? We've often wondered. Apparently, the number is more than 8. Eight PCS's (& umpteen years) only scratch, mangle, water damage & otherwise mutilate the compressed saw dust. Would it have taken 9, 10, 12? The world may never know. We gave it away, and amazingly enough, didn't have to pay someone to take it off our hands.

Here's a reminder of what was removed from the honeymoon suite:



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However, as of last week, the aforementioned furniture is (thankfully) no more than a distant memory (for us - some other sucker is now in possession). Man and I no longer hold the title of Owners of America's (or Belgium's or Germany's) Trashiest-Tackiest Bedroom Furniture. As a matter of fact, we may have surpassed all of you and now have the classiest boudoir on the block.

All thanks to a "for sale" ad in our local paper, we now have 6 pieces of solid wood, beautifully stained, king-sized, sleigh bedroom furnishings. Very posh. Tres cher.

The night we got it all set up, I was ready with freshly laundered sheets. Every inch of the 500-thread count was smelling of Downy freshness. With the bed made to wrinkle-free perfection at 8pm (who makes a bed at bedtime anyway?!), I even drug out the Czech crystal candle holders - because, now crystal actually looks like it might belong in the bedroom. Real wood, crystal and candlelight . . .

Darn it. New bedroom, clean sheets, Yankee candlelight, ambience. I felt, but stubbornly resisted, the overwhelming urge to take a bath and shave my legs. Come on, this is not stubbly-leg bedroom furniture, people. This is prim & proper, Bree Van de Kamp Hodge kind of decor. It takes a while for one to adjust.

OK, it doesn't take that long. I slept like a baby that night (thank you Benadryl & Spaetlese). But, for the official record, I did bathe and shave the following night.

The end of last week was busy, then we popped on over to Dublin for the weekend. Some how, we never got around to Christening the new-to-us bedroom set (I prefer not to think about its previous life). I suppose between sleeping and HausFrau tasks (for me) and real work (for Man), one (or both) can get side-tracked and distracted (or just fall asleep on the couch). No excuses, just the truth, plain and simple.

Finally, night before last, we decided it was high time to take the bed out for a spin. Maiden voyage. The first night of the rest of our lives, a new beginning. We are in the throws of mad passion. OK, not really. . . but we are in the middle of "doing it" when all four of the support beams (freaking) fall out of place. We are not talking wild gorilla sex, just, you know, enough movement to get the job done & the (freaking) bed just about falls apart.

Come to think of it, the sturdy, but tacky furniture never gave us this problem. What's up with that? Can't I have my cake and eat it too?

Incidently, while we are post-coitally reinserting the support beams and putting the bed back together, the metal end of one of the box springs gouges a nice, deep scratch into the foot board. In my defense, I was . . . well, post-coital and sans contacts. Man was just mission oriented - get bed fixed, go to sleep.

Anyway, it's just a little scratch, and if I don't look at it, I hardly even notice.

Again, we never had this problem with the other furniture. Oh yeah, that would be because we didn't have a foot board. Who knew one could be such a liability?

So, last night rolls around. After a hard day's work, Man was all prepared to eat a wonderfully prepared, delicious home cooked meal, watch TV (& fall asleep on the couch) and then retire to bed to sleep motionlessly, as not to disturb the precariously perched support structures.

Until I informed him that it was cycle day 11 & this week is our last ditch effort to avoid the fertility clinic appointment on the 18th. Just whispering the words "semen analysis" was enough to move mountains, so to speak.

Admirably, Man stepped up to the plate, skipped re-run TV (& a nap on the couch) in order to fix the gravity/friction problem.


With duct tape.


Yes, I said duct tape.


And, a cut up card board box.

It was inevitable. There was no way for us to have a totally classy, snazzed up bedroom. It's just not possible. Plus, it just would have been a stark contrast to other rooms in our house - like, well, all of them. Ecclectic is one thing; oxymoron is totally different story.

We now have a noticeable scratch in the foot board & the bed is upheld with duct tape and cardboard (and non-slip kitchen cabinet liner foam). Not to mention, there are still three Army standard-issue wall lockers on one wall of the bedroom.

Our bedroom has lost a smidgen of its classiness, and the universe, once again, is at peace with itself.

I know it's been said time and time again, but I must reiterate, duct tape works -- very well.

And, I'm happy to report that the duct-tape-fortified marital bed now stands stoic against the wildest gorilla sex imaginable . . .