AHEM! I'm kind of a big deal

I'm a guest blogger baby!

Yep. I received this very flattering  appeal  via my friend Scarlett's blog the other day. How cool is that? She is a fabulous diva and team blogger (or is it co-blogger?) with Scout, another fabulous diva, and they have a pretty darn awesome blog which you should definitely check out here:

http://wildandprecious1.blogspot.com/

But mostly you should click  here,  so you can see how funny and awesome my dearest JS is because he is the true star of my FIRST GUEST BLOG!

Photo credit: Jibjab.com

Special notes:

G Money:  I need you to simmer down now. I promise I'm working on Mexico. I put in 2.5 solid hours today. We're getting closer but Bella needs fine sweaters and squeakys (which means she makes me go to work) and Mama is trying too pay off her trip to Brazil... Add in a dose of beach withdrawal/ mainland depression, two more Steig Larson novels that needed reading... You get the idea. My day job/ book addiction is sorta getting in the way ;)

Bro 5-0:  There is a question for you at the end of my guest blog. I think a comment may be appropriate. It's time for you to come out of the shadows my fren.

All:  Smooches.

Update:  I have posted the original text below to appease Bro 5-0. Here it is:

Tales from JS' Hood

My dearest JS was raised in the frosty suburbs of Lansing, Michigan. (JS is my fian-hub, or hub-iance. Which rhymes nicely with Beyonce.) I’m pretty sure that it stays really cold there all year round from his accounts of childhood. Like, I don’t think they even have summer. When I think of Michigan, I can only think of car production and miserable cold because when asked about Michigan, JS just shivers a little, wrinkles his nose and says, “Eh. It’s cold. Lots of snow. If you don’t cover it up, it’ll freeze off.” Stuff like that.

Until now.

So I’m at the office the other day, finishing up with my last patient visit when I hear my phone vibrate in my pocket. I sneak a quick peak and I see a text from JS that reads, “Remind me to tell you about the story of the tentacles and testicles.” I couldn’t help but giggle and then I decided NOT to share that tasty little morsel with my patient. Although it was really tempting.

Fast forward: 2 days later. JS takes me out on a romantic dinner date to the Brick Oven where we split a dried cranberry, gorgonzola and greens salad (with candied pecans) and killed a large oven fired pizza all by ourselves. There may have also been a double coffee and tiramisu incident… But really, that’s beside the point.

Back to the point. So JS finally decided to explain about the tentacles and testicles. He said that when he was in the fourth grade his teacher, Kitty Hoke, had read a book to his fourth grade class about an octopus that attacks a ship, and then they were tested over the material. (Ms. Kitty was also a member of the infamous duo known as ‘Kitty and Steve with pigs on the bottom of their pool’) When trying to answer a question JS became confused because the answer he was looking for was not on his paper. He bravely approached Ms. Kitty’s desk and asked, “Ms. Kitty… Does an octopus have testicles?” To which she calmly replied with a stone cold straight face, “TENTACLES.” And then he walked himself back to his tiny desk and died of embarrassment, and I spat tea out of my nose. In the middle of a restaurant.

And then, he was off like a race horse jumping out of a starting gate.

“Did I ever tell you about the big boot, little foot story?” “Ummm… No.” So he told me that this one time, his brother and the neighbor kid had worked all day on making a rabbit loop, catching device. Like the kind that grabs you up by the leg. “You mean like a human snare?” I asked. “Well, yeah. But more like a brother snare.” So JS bravely volunteered to step into the loop as his big brother jumped from the tree, activating the pulley. “So I fly up into the air and I’m hanging by one leg swinging a little, and my other leg is all hanging down (insert finger and hand motions). And then my boot slips off because I’m all like FOUR and I’m wearing these big boots and I crash onto my head. Well it hurts a little, but I shake it off. You know, I don’t cry or anything. Well, right about the same time as I’m brushing myself off a neighbor lady sees the entire scene unfold. She races across the street screaming and dropping the F bomb and goes to knock on our front door. She was all like, “Do you have ANY idea what your kids have been UP TO!?” And my Dad was all like, “Yeah.” In his white undershirt eating his pop tarts. “Just watched the whole thing.”

“And then, this other time, I was out sledding with a friend and the street lights came on. Well, we were supposed to be home before the street lights came on. So I am FREAKING FLYING to get home and I’m zipped up in my snow suit. Those snow suits were really hard to get in and out of so if you had to go to the bathroom you would hold it for EVER. Like FOREVER and EVER (insert big crazy eyes). So I’m flying home and I had to go to the bathroom like REALLY bad. Like, I probably hadn’t peed all day and as I’m rounding the last corner my brother jumps out from behind a big bush and scared the piss right out of me.”

“One time, my brother thought it’d be awesome to tie our golden Labrador Retriever’s leash to my belt loop. Then he ran off and started calling the dog. Our dog dragged me for a few blocks before my belt loop finally gave way.”

Me: “Oh my God. Where you like running, or mostly bouncing on your face?”

“Well, I made a few good (swish, swish) fast strides before I started the face bouncing,” he motioned with his fingers like a little man running while simultaneously making the swish sounds.

Me: “Were you having fun?”

“NO. That was mostly terrifying. Not a lot of fun.”

So you know me and my brother were also in Karate, right? Well, the first day we show up to the Dojo and there’re a few high school girls, some other high school dudes and just a bunch of kids of all ages. My brother’s all playing it cool because he’s like 6 years older than me and I’m all decked out in my little karate gear. And then I see my friend John Hawkins standing in line. John and I were as giddy as a bunch of little school girls. Just basically losing our s-h-i-t all over the place. So John and I see each other and we run across the grass screaming. Like totally geeking -out and naturally we jump into each other’s arms. Like in the movies. So this became our little karate ritual. Sometimes we would collide so hard we’d fall to the ground still in each other’s arms. And then I’d go stand by my brother and Dad and my poor brother couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t related to me. I’m also pretty sure John had a perm. All the Hawkins had perms.”

“This other time, my brother and I were wrestling over the remote and I was wearing my head gear. Yeah, that didn’t go over too well. He pushed my head into the carpet so hard that my head gear was totally jammed and flipped over my upper lip. And then he had to put his foot on my chest to pry my headgear off of my face.”

“We were living in a condo once, for about 4 months on a private lake. My brother and I were swimming when these two couples took off all of their clothes and got in. We were really close but they didn’t see us because it was dark. So we swam real quiet, got out and went home. Then my brother dressed all in black, took a big flashlight and pretended to be lake security.”

“Also, when I was little, I remember collecting these little balls from the yard and thinking they were berries. I walked around all day with a handful of these freaking cool ass berries and I really wanted to know what they were. My brother promised to tell me what breed of awesome I had discovered if I did his chores for the day. So I finish up his chores and he tells me my new discovery was plain old Rabbit poop. POOP! I was kind of devastated.”

And the stories went on, and on….

...So now I know that Michigan is NOT just a frosty tundra with lots of excess snow. Now I realize Michigan is a land with multiple seasons. Seasons for gadgetry experimentation with the help of one’s little brother. Seasons for geeking-out in front of large crowds, skinny dipping, berry picking and more. But mostly I think of Michigan as the land of ill-behaved, unmonitored and sort of awesome hooligans.

I also think these tales would make a fabulous new version of ‘A Christmas Story.'

And I’m also supposed to ask Brother why you don’t try to climb a tree with gloves on…

Brother's Response:  Tree Climbing with Gloves

(a) you can get to the top of the tree just fine but when trying to navigate to the center of a huge limb approximately 30 feet off the ground, you will fall immediately to the earth. (b) you cannot go inside and request needed medical attention because you were told not to climb the tree with your gloves on. (c) therefore you must lay on the earth that you just crashed into for about an hour hoping to recover the feeling to your legs and some relief to your pain in silence, rather than listen to Big Mike give you the “I told you so, dumb ass lecture," over which I would rather choose death.

Ask JS about the time we threw tennis balls in the basement and the time we did laps around the house on a snow day.

Bro 5-0


JS' Response:

Tennis balls in the basement really equated to a cheap shot to the stones. (His.) Excellent mean big brother material. I think it's very fortunate I had no younger siblings as the guilt and the humor from all the past injustices would collide in an uncomfortable fashion inside of my body.

Snowy laps:
According to JS he and Big Brother had been stuck in the house for roughly a week without laying their eyes on civilization or the sun due to a really bad snow storm. 8 to 10 inches of snow kept the school buses from running. He states it was very likely the extreme boredom, the high sugar content in the cereal/ pop-tarts that were eaten for breakfast, and the fact that he and Brother had most likely been wearing the same housecoats and undies for most of that week that combined to make up the worst case of cabin fever EVER.

Picture the scene: A warm tub of bathwater was drawn just in case something went wrong. Housecoats were tossed to the floor. Big Brother was going through a bikini brief stage and young JS was still stuck wearing whitey tightys. Both boys were undoubtedly sporting 'the butt crack mullet' of the '80's. They shot outside into the snow and made a valiant effort to run a full lap around the house barefoot and NAKED except for the aforementioned undies.

After an initial determined sprint they made it to the corner of no return, which placed them in the direct path of the unsuspecting mailman. JS slammed on the brakes and Big Bro knocked him into the snow as they both back pedaled in a less than manly fashion (apparently there was a lot of girlie screams as well as some clawing and shoving). Surprisingly JS was not allowed to share the warm tub of bathwater but he obviously survived to fight another day ;)