Return of the Allamanda!

This is what it looked like back in January, after all that freezing weather:

I was devastated. But the golden trumpets have rallied, and this is what it looks like today:

And to think Mr. Lucky talked of ripping it out and replacing it with a bench or garden gnome or a colored ball or . . . something. I believe our sunny little bells have earned a reprieve!

I wish I could say the same for the jasmine tree in the back yard, but alas. It's nothing now but a giant twig.

I refuse to replace it with anything other than another jasmine tree.

Most Dreaded Phrase in the English Language (Second in a Series)

“What do you want to do with this?”

Uttered by Mr. Lucky when rerun season starts and he gets it into his head to clean out the garage, a closet, or his man-cave.

“What do you want to do with this?”

My heart sinks like an anchor into the pit of my stomach every time he says he’s going to “clean out” something, because it means I won’t get anything done for the rest of the day. Every five minutes he’ll crash into my office holding up something he’s unearthed and—

“What do you want to do with this?”

Most of the time I tell him to put it back where he found it—especially if it came out of a closet. “If I wanted to do anything with it,” I say, “I would have removed it already and done whatever it is I wanted to do with it.”

But no, he’s trying to create more space in the closet/garage/man-cave by moving everything into my office, till I can’t even budge from my chair for all the spoils of nearly twenty-three years of marriage piled around me like the inventory from Charles Foster Kane’s Xanadu—

“What do you want to do with this?”

—Or what they found in the underground chamber in National Treasure, though I’ve always thought it looked like the same old junk minus the sled.

“What do you want to do with this?”

Trouble is, we’ve only accumulated the kind of stuff that would get us laughed off Antiques Roadshow and Pawn Stars.

“What do you want to do with this?”

I told you, every five minutes. See how annoying it is? He barges back into my office, nearly impaling himself on that cheap tarnished brass knock-off of Anubis that’s supposed to double as a “beverage butler”, and proceeds to empty a bag full of little odds and ends across the keyboard of my computer, even as I sit here typing an opus.

“Look what I found,” he says, thrusting a snow-globe under my nose. As “Lara’s Theme” plays, glitter swirls around a snowy tableau of Yuri Zhivago stealing scrap lumber from a dilapidated Moscow structure while his Party stooge of a half-brother contemplates shooting him for it. “Did you know we still had this?”

“Yes, now please—”

“What do you want to do with this?”

I tell him I had the snow globe put away to keep Baby Bear from dribbling and shooting hoops with it. It is, after all, made of glass and that kid has a thing for breakables. A destructive thing.

“I’ll just put it here for now.” And Mr. Lucky places it on the last square inch of space remaining on my desk.

For now, he says. I know how long “for now” is. Why does he think I can’t get out of my chair anymore? The room was already near capacity from junk he brought in here “for now” the last time he cleaned out another part of the house. I remember that well. Bush was still president. Bush 41.

Okay, so I’m exaggerating, since we haven’t lived in this house that long, but it really does seem as if—

“What do you want to do with this?”

Finally I lose it and yell at him to do whatever he wants with it, just leave me alone.

Why doesn’t he ever seek my input on the really important stuff? Like the time he waited till after he destroyed the receipt to announce he blew all our lottery winnings on the Bioflex 2000 Ultimate X-Treme Digital Family Gym for Home, Office, or Still in Its Original Box Under the Bed. We already had one that’s been holding up our mattress since, yes, Bush 41. With that lotto ticket we could’ve bought a brand new bed frame and paid someone to haul the Bioflex away.

Or the time he traded in my car for a handful of magic beans. That wasn’t what I had in mind when I told him I wanted something “that gets better gas.”

Funny how he never asks, “What do you want to do with this?” in regards to the Bioflex or beans.

Possibly he already knows what I’d say.

(For the first Most Dreaded Phrase in this series, click here.)

Why? WHY?

Ever since we switched back to Daylight Savings Time, I’ve had a devil of a time getting Baby Bear to wake up in the morning. His school bus usually comes around 8:30, and I’m lucky if I can get him even halfway out of bed before 8:00.

But now that school is out for spring break, guess who’s up at 6:30 am playing Frogger with the volume turned up full blast, and the place lit up like Vegas?

I had to check the other side of the bed to make sure that was Mr. Lucky, and not some Elvis impersonator I didn’t remember picking up in the casino bar the night before. No one was there. Then I remembered he’s up in Georgia with the Crown Prince.

And there is no chocolate in the house.

At least I’m not waking up to find my bed floating in overflow from Baby Bear’s bathroom. Let me be grateful for that!

What the Easter Bunny Brought Me

I woke up Easter morn to find this on my dining room table:

At first I thought that was a doily beneath the usual spoils, until I scooped up the bunny and chocolate kisses to find it was a sexy polka-dotted unmentionable with pink lace trim.

I must admit, I like that better than the stringy fake grass. For one thing, I won't be picking ladies' underwear out of the carpet between now and next Christmas.

Notes From the Teacher

Baby Bear’s teacher and I communicate about the cub’s behavior and other issues via handwritten messages in a spiral notebook kept in the boy’s backpack. I like that this particular teacher takes the time to write detailed notes—no mean feat, considering the number of special needs students in his classroom.

One recent entry made me dizzy just reading it—and I don’t know why, since this is nothing our ursine terror doesn’t do at home every day:

[Baby Bear] used up a lot of energy today. He did not get into trouble but he did not spend much time on anything. He moved constantly from the keyboard to the computer to the television to the bathroom to the refrigerator to the door to the cabinets to the kitchen sink to the sofa and on the bed we use for changing.

You’d think he’d fall asleep from exhaustion at that point. I refer, of course, to the teacher. Baby Bear? Not bloody likely. It was the teacher’s energy he used up; Bear’s own reserves never run dry. If only I could figure out how to harness the power of that boy and sell it, I might rule the world.

In the meantime, the teacher stays on his toes just as the Bear stays on his paws and goes for another lap . . . and another . . . and another . . .

Seen Around the Neighborhood . . .

While perambulating around the perimeter of our subdivision the other morning, I happened across a huge, rectangular cardboard box sitting in front of someone’s house.

Fools! Everyone knows that when you’re fortunate enough to acquire a big flat screen television, you don’t announce it to the world—and especially burglars casing the neighborhood—by giving its cardboard box pride of place in front of your house. Why, these people made no effort whatsoever to deface the box and break it down into unrecognizable little pieces. In fact, the box looked as if it had never even been opened.

Then I drew closer to it, and saw that it wasn’t a TV at all, but merely one of those objects As Seen On TV.

I refer to one of the many manifestations of the Bioflex 2000 Ultimate X-Treme Digital Family Gym for Home, Office, or Still in Its Original Box Under the Bed. Or in this case, on the homeowner’s curb.

Ah yes. Beware the Ides of March. Two and a half months since New Year’s and the accompanying resolutions that are seldom kept. Clearly someone’s wife was sick of stubbing her toe on this box.

I see variations of this thousand dollar “Look! It’s also a clothes rack!” advertised in the weekly Flyer all the time, with any one of the following interchangeable qualifiers: Barely Used. Rarely Used. Never Used. Free—Please come and get it out of my house!

Okay, so this neighbor—or at least the lady of the house, who probably had to push this behemoth out the door herself even as her husband sat in his recliner, swilling his beer and bellowing she would do no such thing because he had every intention to start using it for at least an hour each day beginning next week—isn’t so foolish, after all. No one was going to steal this thing, let alone burgle their house. Not even Mr. Lucky, the King of Scavengers, would bother with this waste of titanium and polymers.

Not when I’m still stubbing my toe and hanging clothes on the one he has already.

Baby Bear's Newest Weapon of Mass Destruction: The Banana

The battle of wits continues. A better Bear trap has given rise—like a higher tide, heaven help us—to a better, more devious Bear.

Nearly two years ago, we removed the plug from his bathroom sink after we caught him soaking his backside in the basin while water poured over the edge of the vanity onto the floor.

The other day, Baby Bear was in his room playing a video game. Mr. Lucky was in his den playing a video game. And I was in my office—well, I wasn’t playing a video game. But I got up to use the master bathroom on the other side of the house.

When I emerged a short while later, Baby Bear had moved to the family room, where he was now watching TV, all innocence and nonchalance. (Yeah, I know—that should’ve been my first clue he was up to no good.) On my way back to my office, I noticed his bathroom door was closed and I could hear water running inside. I figured it was Mr. Lucky—but then on a hunch I went to Mr. Lucky’s den on the other side of the family room (some days I think this house is too big), only to find him at his desk, destroying planets and asteroids in his daily quest to become galactic overlord of twelve systems.

Now I dashed back to Baby Bear’s bathroom, just in time to see the water seeping out from under the door.

I threw open the bathroom door to find the sink overflowing. I turned off the water and saw what was plugging the drain.

A banana.

He peeled a banana, then shoved it into the bathroom drain. It was a perfect fit. Barely ripe, it was quite firm, and I could not pull it out; I could only break it off, leaving the lower half still clogging the drain.

I started bailing water, while Mr. Lucky got a long fork from the kitchen to try and extract the rest of the banana. It was going nowhere. Eventually the water softened it up enough that the sink slowly drained on its own.

How did that kid come up with the notion to do that? And WHY?

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he must’ve conjured up this idea well in advance, and was just waiting for the right moment—i.e., for Mom to leave her office next door to his bathroom—to do it.

At least we caught it before we had another repeat of the Great Flood of 2006.

What to do now? No way are we going to ban bananas. They’re good for him, and he loves them—so much that I have to buy a bunch every day. He comes home from school, finds the bunch, and devours it till it’s gone:




Cheese doesn't last very long around here, either:

Baby Bear Becomes Baby Octopus

The other morning, I spotted Baby Bear slowly making his way from kitchen to family room while carrying the following items all at the same time:

1. His bowl of oatmeal.

2. A DVD he'd selected for viewing.

3. His electronic keyboard, which is about three feet long.

4. A sensory ball that he's become very attached to. He had it wedged between his legs, which I've seen him do when he needs to free up his hands for other things, like standing at the bathroom sink to get a drink of water. He doesn't seem to want to lose contact with it. However, with every step he took, the ball would slip, and then he'd pause to try and reposition it--all while balancing the other three items.

Clearly he had plans, and wasn't about to waste time making separate trips to transport all the items he needed for his comfort.

I can't begin to describe how he did all of this. How he managed it for the length of time he did, I have no idea. I didn't have the camera handy to catch a photo of this amazing juggling act, but even if I had, the flash might have startled him into dropping a couple of things I'd rather not see crashing to the floor.

At the very least, I grabbed his bowl of oatmeal. I tried telling him to let the ball drop and kick it forward as he went on his way, but now that he was free of the oatmeal bowl, he just picked it up and continued on his precariously merry way.

I told him he needed more hands. But don't we all?

Too Tall For the School Bus

I’m referring, of course, to the one known as Baby Bear.

Lately, I’ve noticed that when he comes home from school, he has to duck his head as he steps off the bus. I’m amazed as well as thankful that he has yet to conk his noggin on the top of the door (she writes as she knocks on wood).

Yesterday, the bus driver pointed out that he can no longer stand up straight on the school bus, that when walking down the aisle to or from his seat, he has to bow his head.

Before long he’ll be hunching over and stepping off the bus looking as if he’s ready to shake hands with an Imperial Majesty or two.

Eventually we’ll have to buy a convertible, or a car with a sun roof that allows his head to stick up and out like a giraffe on a circus train.

“Baby Bear” seems such a misnomer now, but that’s how I think of him. It’s that or Godzilla.

He’ll always be my Baby Bear even when he’s thirty years old, has a beard like one of the ZZ Top guitarists (oh, how we are so not looking forward to the sprouting of whiskers!) and stands I don’t want to think of how many feet tall.

But the fact remains he is still only twelve years old . . . and is now over six feet tall.

Not My Jasmine Tree!

Once upon a time, in its most glorious full flower, it looked like this:

At the time I posted my last blog entry, my beloved jasmine tree was still very green and leafy, with only a few hints of brown here and there. In fact, it was in such splendid condition following the big freeze that I suspected it of being a weed doing a very convincing impersonation of a jasmine tree.

But my jasmine is--or was--quite real. Look at what's happened to it since:

A stark, reverse oasis amid the verdure of lush crabgrass and flourishing dollar weed!

Now, before anyone clubs me over the head and hollers, "Deciduous!" let me say we've had this tree for several years and it's never done this. In fact, the last time I saw a jasmine tree like this was several days after a certain beagle who shall remain nameless dug up the tree we had before this one. Mr. Lucky, knowing how much I love jasmine, drove all over the county before he finally found a nursery that had another jasmine tree.

When he planted this second one, I wanted him to dig a moat around it and stock it with gators to keep the dogs away. Instead he put some rocks and a decorative wire border around it until it took enough root to stand up to the dogs.

Whenever it bloomed, Mr. Lucky would break off small sprigs and bring them to me so I could have sweet smelling jasmine at my work space.

Now what? Say it ain't so! Say it will rally and come back.

And if not, just club me over the head.