Category Archives: Family & Friends

The people who love me in spite of myself.

Motherhood (Abridged)

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As she pushed from her forehead a curtain of frizzy bangs — coaxed into prominence by tendrils of steam emanating from the pot of homemade tomato sauce and meatballs over which she had labored all afternoon — she heard a small voice: sweet but insistent.

“But, Mama, I want hot dogs for dinner!”

In that moment, her consciousness leapt from the fragrant and disheveled kitchen to the dinner table — not of this hour, but of many years hence. A table no longer littered with toys and crayon drawings, but host instead to a young man of whom this small boy was only the promise. Gone were the dimples, the piping voice, the disheveled curls, replaced by a man of stature, his voice resonant, but with the lingering ebullience of the boy she knew so well. Perhaps he was home from college, tarrying in the launch of his inevitably brilliant destiny for a long-anticipated reunion with his parents.

As they congregated at the table, he beamed at his mother, announcing: “I’ve been looking forward to a homemade meal for a change.” And his mother could not help but notice how he dwarfed the chair which once seemed too big for him. Where had her tiny boy gone? And so quickly?

So it was, with both a tremble and a thrill, that she set before him the evening’s repast. The plate was larger than of yore — for his appetite had grown, too — and heaped with the fruits of her admittedly truncated labors. “Dig in, sweetheart,” she said. And if his face seemed a trifle disappointed, it did not disturb the serene smile of a woman who, having enjoyed rising late, lingered over her lunch, and spent the afternoon savoring a good book, closing it just in time to prepare dinner.

“I thought about making spaghetti, but I remembered how much you always liked these,” she said. If he wanted to protest, he wisely smothered the impulse and reached for another hot dog.

With that, her mind returned to the pungent kitchen. And she smiled and was content.

The End.

Jimmy Kimmel is a Sadist

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There.

I said it.

I’m sure I’ll catch flak for this post. Fine. I can take it. I put on my big girl panties this morning.

For those who missed it, late-night guru… couch jockey… whatever Jimmy Kimmel asked parents to tell their children, post Halloween, that they, the parents, had eaten their child’s entire Halloween candy stash. The resultant video, featuring much weeping and gnashing of teeth on the part of the kids, has been making the rounds on YouTube since it aired.

I watched it. Meh.

Was it funny? Not particularly. Kimmel admits at the beginning of the video he expected rather more outrage and rather less crying (for which he apologized). Since neither crying nor outrage are exactly novel at my house, I didn’t find the video all that entertaining and dismissed it as misfire late-night schtick: a bit mean-spirited but mostly harmless.

I guess that “apology” was all TV posturing because Kimmel decided to up the ante for Yuletide. This time, he challenged parents to wrap up some useless crap and tell their kids it was a Christmas present.

Few people who really know me would accuse me of being overly sensitive or deficient in  — admittedly dark — humor. But.

This crosses the line.

From Balloon Boy to Jon and Kate Plus Eight, we know some parents will do eh-nee-thing to get themselves or their kids a television show. Evidently, now it doesn’t even take a whole show. Even a twenty-second blip on a second-tier late night program will motivate parents to parade their children’s emotional trauma for the “pleasure” of the viewing audience.

Sick, depraved and illuminating.

If there is one thing that should motivate our compassion as a people, shouldn’t it be the tears of children?

In case you’re thinking that’s a rhetorical question, the answer is yes.

In fact, I’m going out a limb here and suggest the treatment of children is society’s barometer. The pathos of a crying child should be universal in this day and age. But all you have to do is skim the headlines or browse a few books of recent history to know it is otherwise. Between abusers, molesters, traffickers, genocide, abortion, famine, and people who blow themselves up in public places, I’d say our world is pretty nonchalant about the sufferings of children. Maybe that’s why I don’t find this stunt amusing.

Kids cry. And sometimes it’s funny. Sometimes I even laugh when mine are crying. Occasionally, I laugh because it’s the only way I can keep from falling on the floor beside them and crying my own eyes out. But I don’t coax my kids into crying so I can have a few yuks. Here we have a manufactured scenario, created for the express purpose of provoking a gut-wrenching emotional response in a child. For the amusement of strangers. On TV. And now YouTube. At the behest of a guy who gets paid for a ratings spike.

Why not just jab the kid with a sharp stick and film him while he bleeds? Hilarious, no?

Let’s say you call up a bride-to-be the week before her wedding and pretend you’re from the bridal salon. Tell her you knocked over a unity candle. Her dress burned to a crisp but, not to worry, you’re sending over a replacement picked out by her mother-in-law. Hang up the phone. And hide. Actually, change your name, dye your hair, ditch your cell phone and then hide. In a tiny motel that only takes cash on the outskirts of Temecula.

I give you about twelve hours before an angry bride is at your door with pliers and a blowtorch.

Adults don’t appreciate having their emotions toyed with. Why is it okay to do it to a child? Oh, right, because they can’t fight back. Where I come from, we call that bullying, which Jimmy Kimmel is apparently against.

And while we’re at it, what about privacy? If you’re in Target and the two-year-old flashes her panties to the entire crowd at Register 9, don’t you yank down the hem and tell her some things are not for public display? Should we be less concerned about our kids’ emotional privacy?

But, alas. Now we have YouTube, enabling us to milk our kids’ peccadilloes for web traffic. Even better, let YouTube put up a few ads and you’ve got a whole new revenue stream. In other words, monetize while you traumatize. As parents, we’re supposed to protect our children from exposing themselves (physically and otherwise) until they are mature enough to self-censor. Instead, we’re getting our licks in early, encouraging our kids to expose their emotions to the scrutiny and perhaps ridicule of the world.

Notice Jimmy Kimmel did not film his own children. No, no — a celebrity’s children are entitled to privacy. Instead, like a phalanx of mindless drones, his viewers manipulate their offspring and made sure to get in on film.

I suppose I’m not really angry at Jimmy Kimmel. I can’t blame the sideshow clown who gets paid for making people, um, cry. I can, however, take serious umbrage with the complicit idiots who treat their kids’ emotions like a banjo to be played for popular amusement.

But forget society, forget bullying, forget privacy. Here is my real problem: this kind of machination compromises the integrity of the parent.

Being a parent is a sacred trust.

Trust doesn’t have to be earned from our children: we receive it, lock-stock-and-barrel, the first time our son or daughter is placed in our arms. Look into the eyes of your newborn baby, feel her little fingers clenched around your own, listen to her sigh as she sleeps against your heart and you will hear her say, without a single word, two things. First, “I am completely dependent on you.” And second, “I know you’ll take care of me.”

Absolute trust.

The tragedy is that in every moment to follow, we have the opportunity to chip away at that trust. Most of us don’t mean to. But it happens.

We promise a trip to the zoo and then the phone rings. We say shots don’t hurt. We exaggerate. We make empty threats. We generalize. We tell polite fibs. We get angry and say things we don’t mean. Sooner or later, kids start to realize their parents don’t always mean exactly what we say. A wise parent manages to teach good manners and flexibility without compromising our dedication to telling the truth. But it’s hard — one of the many highwire acts of parenting.

So why, by all that is holy, would anyone want to hasten their child’s discovery that mom and dad don’t always tell the truth? More importantly, that Mom and Dad will casually lie in order to trick them for a TV stunt? Because if Mom and Dad will lie, who won’t?

You are, in a way, everyone your child will ever meet. Your interactions with him tell him what to expect of other people. Should he expect truth and integrity or manipulation and trickery? Our living, daily example also trains our children what to expect from God. Will they see Him as a loving and sacrificial father or a heartless trickster ready to laugh at their misery?

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”    — Matthew 7:11

Do you think those children will ever open a Christmas gift again without wondering if they will find another half-eaten sandwich inside? A pinprick in their innocence and sense of wonder may seem small now, but that hole doesn’t close: it only widens as they grow.

I am outraged by I pity the parents who casually undermine their child’s trust. Or innocence. Or sense of wonder. Or even the excitement of Christmas.

Someday my little ones will be mature, experienced adults who sleep soundly on Christmas Eve, don’t mind waiting to open presents if it means they can have a second cup of coffee, and appreciate the boring underwear and gift cards they find under the tree.

I know I will be proud of them. And I know I’ll find myself wishing they had stayed children just a little longer.

That’s the way it should be.

It’s The End of the World (As We Know It)

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Yes, it’s been awhile.

If this post had musical accompaniment, it would be REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.”

Except I don’t feel fine. I’ve had every symptom in the book.

And it’s hard to blog with your head in the toilet. (Bad wi-fi signal in there.)

Meet The Bean.

I’m not sure why, but each of my children developed an in utero nickname.

Griffin was Ruprecht. As in Ruprecht, The Monkey Boy.

That’s no reflection on him, I swear. As first-time parents, we were a little alarmed by the, er, simian profile of our darling offspring during the ultrasound. I’m relieved to say the resemblance ended at 18 weeks’ gestation. Whew.

Tristan was dubbed Twitchy because the little punk never stopped moving. Some personality traits are apparent from conception.

As for The Bean, the first BabyCenter description I read of our latest addition’s developmental stage posited that the baby was about the size of a lima bean so that’s how I came to refer to our little expectation — in my head, at least.

For reasons of common sense in this degenerate age, I won’t be sharing certain pertinent bits of information such as my due date. Even if I don’t have a deranged stalker lurking out there, I get a little annoyed by the incessant badgering of well-meaning people. (When I was almost full-term with my first child, the sweet old lady from down the street asked me: “Are you sure you’re still pregnant?” Um, pretty darn. True story.)

And for the deranged stalkers among you, should you be tempted to make an unannounced visit with wicked intentions, please note:

  1. I am armed.
  2. I’m also protected by a ravening duo of vicious preschoolers who are always looking for a fight. (If only I were joking.)
  3. Finally, not only have I enrolled in Master Ang Roy Da’s Prenatal Ninjitsu, I’ve been fast-tracked into his advanced class. We’ve already learned how to strangle the enemy with a Bella Band. Next month: Weaponized Estrogen or Making Hormones Fight for You.

I will, however, announce with enthusiasm and trepidation that The Bean is, in fact, a She-Bean.

I’m excited. And nervous. I’m not sure I know how to mother a girl. Poor kid.

I imagine all the arguments we’ll have about… oh, everything. Modest clothing. (Will they even make one-piece bathing suits sixteen years from now?) Calling boys. Or not calling, I should say. Acting like a lady. Reading good books and not fluff. Being independent but without carrying a chip on your shoulder. Accepting your physical flaws. Living life with a sense of humor, even when you yourself are the latest joke. Being confident. Embracing a Biblical standard of womanhood. Coping with hormones. On second thought, poor me.

I had a great teacher in my own mother. On the other hand, I’ve slept since then.

Why is it so hard to remember how I was well-parented? It’s easy to recall times I thought I’ll-never-be-the-kind-of-mother-who [insert teenage grievance here] — although I’m willing to bet the farm most of us are exactly those kinds of mothers, and sometimes even on purpose. Why, then, do the good moments seem so effortless when you were on the receiving end? I know they weren’t without blood, sweat and tears on my mother’s part. But I can’t seem to distill them down to “how-to lessons” for myself.

I feel like a pretty well-seasoned mother of boys (at least, boys up to the age of six). But a few days of packing away rompers and jeans and polo shirts and button-downs and hanging tiny, pink, fluffy, flowery, girly little outfits — bona fide outfits, not separates — in their place, I am becoming aware: we are headed for uncharted waters.

I suppose I have to hold fast to the lesson that God uses each of our children to teach and mold and shape us. Each little life, in his or her individuality, strengths and weaknesses,  is another opportunity to be molded more closely into His image. It’s for our sake as much as for theirs.

Which begs the question, what does this little girl have to teach me?

I wonder. And wait.

Blinds Leading the Blind

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Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

Not that November didn’t try very hard to kill me. December had a whack at me, too, come to think of it.

Nevertheless, I have emerged on the other side. Tired, disorganized and cranky, the chatelaine of a disheveled palace, and the mother of wild, scruffy, utterly descheduled children who can recite every line of dialogue from Toy Story 3, word-for-word in its proper sequence.

Oh, and lately my husband has been calling me “Amy.”

I suppose I should have a cure for some terminal disease or, at the very least — and probably more true to my character — an exhaustive plan for world domination to show for my long absence.

Well, I don’t.

Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

So, sometime back, I got inspired. Before very long, I made something I wanted on my own wall, my very own Tulsa destination blind.

With encouragement from a few friends, I experimented with selling a few of these creations. The result was encouraging but by no means overwhelming.

I’m not really a gambler by nature. I don’t know what came over me.

But I bought a ton of supplies. The UPS man delivered six enormous boxes and I started hyperventilating. Thirty-six canvases. I was obviously insane.

I hid them in an upstairs closet and spent a few weeks engaged in a mental kickboxing match, chastising myself for following an impulse — a whim, really — with such a price tag.

You. Stupid. Idiot.

To make matters worse, it occurred to me, in my full-blown dementia, that I couldn’t make a booth with just destination blinds. So I bought other stuff.

And then my computer crapped out. Cha-ching. I started to panic.

I did eventually start painting, realizing that maybe I could cover at least some of the supply costs (never mind the new computer, but whose counting?) by selling a painting or two.

Or a kidney. Either way.

By the time Holiday Market rolled around, I had used and abused my friend Neil, who shares my mania for all things cottage, for painting help, pricing advice, merchandising and even a little last-minute babysitting . Thanks to a cadre of Junior League volunteers, I managed to throw together my booth just before the market opened for Preview night.

As I watched shoppers flood through the doors, sick with anxiety, I remember muttering to Neil:

“I just hope I sell a painting.”

And then this mob of people rounded the corner.

Within six minutes of the market opening, I sold seven paintings. Three of them were bought by one lady. I could have spent the next two-hours-and-fifty-four-minutes shrugging my shoulders in disbelief.

But I didn’t have time.

I was too busy. Selling. Twenty paintings. In three hours.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday passed. When the smoke cleared, I had sold 48 paintings. Along with lots of other items, both handmade goodies I’d cranked out and the ready-made things I’d bought.

I took these photos on, I think, Sunday morning after every painting except one had already sold. (This was my first attempt with the iPhone camera, and in poor lighting to boot, so be kind.)

Supplies covered. Computer paid off. I even paid for the iPhone I “had to buy” when the venue’s WiFi went on the fritz.

I don’t know how to spell “relief.” But I know what it feels like.

Bar none, my favorite part of the weekend was hearing people speak well of the things I’d worked hard to make or chosen with care.

You see, Tulsa is “French Country” Country. Home of Charles Faudree. Home of toile. Lots and lots of toile. Some time before Holiday Market, I did a little market research to see what was selling, and “cottage” wasn’t it. Not even close. I started questioning my instincts. Do I stock things that seem to be popular even if they’re things I would never buy for myself, or do I stay true to my own style and possibly not sell anything?

In the end, I decided to stick with what I loved, knowing that if I didn’t sell anything, at least I wouldn’t be unhappy with the inventory. Can I say how glad I am that I did?

If half the battle of making a sale is getting people to stop at your booth — and it is — the other half seems to be offering merchandise shoppers haven’t seen anywhere else.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

One lady had seen one of the blinds on a morning show TV spot and told me the only reason she came to Holiday Market was to buy one.

While I was inhaling an infrequent meal in the cafe, my booth was visited by an interior designer who loved the blinds and said she had clients who would be very interested. Neil confided in her that we were a little afraid cottage taste was anathema in French Country Country, whereupon the designer told her we were just “ahead of the curve.”

I got lots of encouragement to open a store of my own — uh, thank you, but no — and the great compliment of having a couple of people try to knock off my designs and method.

I’m not the sort of person who needs constant reassurance to function, but I have to admit: having people say nice things about your work for four days straight was a heady experience.

As for where I’ve been lately, if this were a (very long) story math problem you might have noticed I didn’t have 48 blinds on hand. Which means I’ve spent the last two months finishing the other 12 paintings I sold at Holiday Market — along with another 14 I sold after the market ended. I finished the last batch on the Tuesday before Christmas and have been in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber trying to recover ever since.

Lessons from this little jaunt?

  1. I’m exhausted.
  2. Trust my gut. Even when all evidence suggests that I’m insane.
  3. Taking the occasional risk doesn’t, in actual fact, kill me.
  4. I need more sleep.
  5. No matter how busy I am, dropping everything to play with my kiddos is always a good idea.
  6. Being on your feet all day after only two hours of sleep really stinks.
  7. I have the best husband in the universe.
  8. I don’t hate working retail. But it’s still a stretch for a misanthrope like me.
  9. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
  10. Having a friend who shares your enthusiasm for zinc place cards and burlap bags is one of life’s unexpected blessings.

I’ve managed to get all my destination blinds on my website and hope to add the rest of my merchandise soon. But the most pressing issue at the moment is unearthing my house from the debris. It’s ugly. I think I’ve already been reported to Hoarders.

In summary, for those of you who visited my booth to cheer me on — and buy things — thank you from the bottom of my heart! I would be remiss in my gratitude if I did not also acknowledge the help of my amazing friend Neil and the dynamo Junior Leaguers who put on such a fantastic Holiday Market. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Last but most importantly, my sweet husband did things like staying up four hours past his bedtime to help paint, watching the kids by himself for three days straight, and putting up with a spate of Crabby Abby-ness unparalleled in recent history.

Honey, thank you for your help. And your patience. And your support. And your patience. And your love. And your patience.

I love you. And your patience.

P.S. My name is Abby. Not Amy. Remember?

Curbside Carryout

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Let’s say your phone rings on a random Tuesday afternoon.

The voice on the other end asks: “Will you drop what you’re doing and meet me on the side of the road right now to help me lift something heavy, dirty and awkward into my car?”

What would you say?

I’m too busy.

I don’t do manual labor.

I don’t really like you that much.

Who is this?

All of the above?

Or, as my friend said: “Can I bring my mother?”

Um, yes please.

Those who know me well know that I’m not too great at asking for help. I’m getting better about accepting help when it’s offered, but I’m still more likely to slog through on my own — even if it kills me — than admit I’m not Supergirl.

(Or Wonder Woman. I always liked her better than that cocky blonde Kryptonian anyway.)

Which is demonstrated by the fact that I did try, at first, to lift and load this behemoth on my own:

Honestly, I didn’t even expect to need help. I assumed this thing would already have been scooped up by the roving hoards of furniture gypsies who seem to get every other CraigsList “curb alert” I’ve ever seen.

But when I drove up, lo and behold. A nine-foot-long, solid-wood primitive church pew. For free.

It only took me about seven minutes to breakdown the interior config of our Odyssey so that I could fit nine feet of pew and still have both children securely belted and in rear seats according to law.

But how to load nine feet of pew into said minivan?

I did ask my five-year-old to help me. It was worth a try.

[Insert Desperate Phone Call Here]

My friend Neil has already made an indentured servant of herself as I plied her with zinc place cards, soap dispensers, monogram stamps and artwork in hopes she’d help me out with all of my market events. (She did.)

It’s not like the woman hasn’t done enough.

But the impossibility that I could carry both ends of this beast while loading it into the minivan prompted me to make said desperate phone call even though I knew, in the end, she’d probably be busy and I’d be able to do nothing but drive away, benchless and in defeat.

Cue the trumpets: she came.

She never hesitated. Admittedly, I primed her with the words “old wooden church pew” — there’s a certain magic in those words for people like us — so that may have helped. Regardless, I feel decidedly blessed to have a friend who is willing to bail me out when I get in over my head. (Again.)

As for the church pew, it’s now sitting in my dining room awaiting a spell of warm weather so I can drag it outside and perform a little Spanish Inquisition with the PaintEater. Judging by the copious amount of pet hair — a little bonus, if you will — it’s most recent life was outside as lounging furniture for a pack of feral dogs. The elements did their work: it’s distressed, cracked and weathered. Or, as my husband might say, firewood with a superiority complex.

Oh, but the glimpses of wood under that peeling dark paint are tantalizing. It’s a thing of beauty. At least, it will be. Picture it: weathered raw wood with that gorgeous horizontal planking, banked with plump grain sack and ticking pillows and flanking my dining room table. Ah, sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found thee.

Neil, I can’t thank you enough, dear friend.

Ah! sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found thee!

On the Table

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I feel somewhat guilty for reducing a holiday of the significance of Thanksgiving down to the food we plan to consume. Maybe if it were Secretaries Day, I wouldn’t feel the shame.

Still, I trust everyone to know I understand that the personal and historical importance of Thanksgiving Day dwarfs the paltry meaning of something as petty as what we eat tomorrow. Right?

Perfect. On to the food.

The beauty of having Thanksgiving two hours away from your kitchen is that the expectations for your contribution to said meal go way down.

Wait. Check that.

I don’t really know that the expectations of what I will provide go down. But my delivery of actual food meets a pretty low bar each year. Whether that’s because the expectations are really lower or only because I’ve been married long enough for my in-laws to be acquainted with the unburnished realities of Me: you be the judge.

In any event, you deserve the reckoning of my contribution to our gathering.

Pecan pie. Simmie’s Pecan Pie, to be precise. This recipe is, by my calculation, completely perfect as long as you round up that 1 1/2 cups of pecans to an even 2 cups of pecans. (Okay, with a few extra throw in. How could that hurt?)

Cranberry Orange Relish. I know there are people out there who would rather have so-called “Cranberry Sauce” that comes schlumping out of the can just like a batch of gelatinous Alpo contaminated by a vat of Red Dye #5.

But I choose not to dwell on the idiosyncrasies of the insane. Life is too short.

Listen to me carefully. Put 1 package of fresh cranberries and a seeded orange (with the peel still on) into your food processor. Pulse until minced. Stir in 3/4 cup of sugar. Then spread this on your turkey and say good-bye to the can forever.

It’ll be good for you.

Finally, because we’ll be staying at my parents house overnight, I’m bringing a couple of pans of Caramel Pecan Rolls — an incarnation of Pioneer Woman’s Caramel Apple Sticky Buns, except without apple and with loads of pecans.

These will not be good for you. Or me. At all. Except maybe for our souls.

And who couldn’t use a little caramel-and-pecan-doctoring on their soul once in a while?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Paging Oceanburger

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When we last left our heroine, she was contemplating her bookish tendencies and their prevalence among the females of her clan, a curious tribe called:

[No, Spellchecker, it is not a typo.]

Firstly, the facts. Oelschlaeger is German. The literal translation is “oil beater” or “oil hammer,” the implication being that the Oelschlaegers of old pressed olive oil and probably wine. (Our forebears immigrated to the United States in the mid-1800s and settled in Hermann, Missouri, not so coincidentally the “Heart of Missouri Wine Country.” Which makes no excuse for my extremely low alcohol tolerance, but that’s off the point.)

The pronunciation is simple if you pay attention to the phonics:

Ol-shlay-ger. Oelschlaeger.

As to the spelling, the key is to learn young. It’s actually got a very phone-numberish cadence to it. The nicely symmetrical twelve letters probably help.

O-E-L(pause)S-C-H(pause)L-A-E(pause)G-E-R.

Rattle it off a few times to a preschooler and he or she will have it in no time.

I should mention I think there are many positive character traits groomed into children who grow up with unusual names. Patience. Forbearance. A good sense of humor. Precise diction.

(If you find yourself puzzled by this point, please remember that I relinquished the name almost twelve years ago, so some of these traits no longer apply…)

For example, I’m sure it took some patience on the part of my parents when my preschool teacher taught me how to write my name all by myself — albeit spelled incorrectly.

By the time I was about ten, I was demonstrating patience in public forums. The local Dillards put on a Spring fashion show that year and my sister and I modeled. As each girl walked “the runway,” a commentator introduced her, gave a quick bio — or whatever passes as a “bio” for a girl who has yet to hit puberty — and described the outfit she wore.

At least, that’s what was supposed to happen.

When my turn came, I remember being a good distance down the runway before the commentator began, which should have been warning enough. But I was blissfully unaware of any mishap until:

“Up next we have Abby…uh…Ocean…Oceanburger from Springdale, wearing…”

I didn’t stop or collapse or start to cry. But I was crushed. (It doesn’t take much at that age, does it?) My modeling debut belonged to someone else. Oceanburger.

In hindsight, I kinda feel bad for the commentator. Maybe someone should have invested the time in a little phonetic spelling to make his life easier, huh?

As a homeschooled high school junior and senior, I took classes at the local community college as part of “concurrent enrollment.” I know it took some forbearance to endure the first roll call of each semester, watching the instructor rattle off the first ten or fifteen names before: “Ols — Osh —Oshagayger — uh, Abby? Is that you?”

Yes. That was me.

College was a bit better. I was a little more confident, a little less of a freak. (After all, I was in the Drama Department.) College also seemed to be the incubator for nicknames. Several of Scott’s fraternity brothers called me “Goldschlager.”

On the upside, my last name make junk mail and telemarketers extremely easy to spot. “I’m calling to offer Abigail Oceanburger dramatically reduced interest rates on a no-fee, high-limit credit card —”

I’m sorry. There’s no one here by that name.

I always knew when a guy got serious about me because he learned how to say and spell my last name. It’s all about commitment.

When Scott and I got engaged, someone asked me if I planned to hyphenate my name.

Um, no.

I think that would be carrying familial pride a little far.

Be a Follower

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As you may (or may not) have noticed, I finally delved deep enough into the coding of my blog to figure out how I screwed up my Google Friends Connect widget — and fixed it.

And now I’ve finally managed to remember to point it out to you. That’s it over there to the right. → → →

Consider this one of those times it’s okay to be a follower. Just click “Join This Site” and follow the prompts.

If you’re on the fence, you have no idea how ridiculously happy I’ll be to get followers who aren’t related to me. (Not that family member followers aren’t appreciated. But they kinda have to follow me — if for no other reason than to safeguard the rest of society.)

Disclaimer: There are no actual benefits associated with becoming a follower of my blog, at least as far as I know. On the plus side, there is also no prerequisite of any kind, such as signing over to me all your worldly possessions, getting audited, or drinking any Kool-aid you didn’t mix for yourself.

I run a very low-commitment cult.

A Little Confession

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This will hurt. (Some of you, anyway.)

In fact, I’m a little choked up. I can barely get the words out of my fingers. I’m so afraid this will be the end.

The end of us. But I respect our relationship enough to be honest, even when it’s risky.

I … well… I sort of…

… watched the Arkansas-Alabama game last Saturday.

I’m sure you expect an explanation. Just give me a moment to loosen the noose around my neck.

As per my quandary of a previous post, I elected not to watch the game at all. I didn’t want to chance it. Instead, I spent most of Saturday in the garage working on a little building project. I used power tools. Pneumatic ones. It was a real She-Ra Princess of Power moment.

But it was hot. I was flecked with sawdust. Pestered by mosquitos. All I wanted was a drink. Like any other tragic collision of circumstance, it must have been preordained.

Kind of like the iceberg that sank the Titanic.

I was on my way to the kitchen. My eyes locked onto the TV and found the scoreboard before I could stop them: 20-17, Arkansas. Just 5:55 left to play.

My heart leapt before I could stop it. I turned away, skidded for the kitchen, muttering: “I didn’t see anything, I didn’t see anything…”

The euphoria lasted the 90 seconds it took for the announcer to call: “Interception!”

In case you missed the game, allow me. The Razorbacks led the #1 team in the country for nearly the entire game. Until I happened to look at the screen.

My work in this field is unprecedented.

24-20, Alabama.

I’m sorry. (Again.)

Fellow Razorbacks: If you’re going to kill me, I ask only that you make proper burial arrangements on my behalf.

Thank you.

The Bama Dilemma

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The plot thickens.

Last week, I pledged my collegiate football loyalties to the Crimson Tide of the University of Alabama, with the sure and certain belief that their season would implode with the magnitude of a supernova.

Okay, so there was a little snag.

In my defense, last Saturday’s Alabama vs. Duke was only televised on pay-per-view. Not feeling equal to explaining to my husband:

  1. Why I (of all people) was paying to watch a college football on TV, and
  2. Why said college football team happened to be ALABAMA

I thought it best to just postpone my loyalties, insofar as watching was concerned, for another week. Maybe I couldn’t watch the game, but I would still be routing for the Tide in my heart. What difference could it make, really?

Yeah, well, we all know how that turned out. Sorry, Duke. That 62-13 really smarts.

So here we are again. Game Day. Ready to start over. Except that today’s match-up is…damn.

Alabama at Arkansas.

Number 1 vs. Number 10. Tide vs. Hogs. Goliath vs. David.

What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?

As evidenced by fifteen years of Arkansas loyalty, my team of choice always loses if I watch (or listen to) the game. As further evidenced by Alabama’s cruel and unusual crushing of Duke last week, if I don’t watch the game, my team of choice goes on to a landmark victory. So do I watch? Or no?

The fate of the universe rest on this one decision.

Okay, maybe not. It just feels like it.

I would love to watch this game. Almost as much as I would love to be at this game. Walking down the hill from a tailgate, following the surging crowds down Stadium Drive, climbing into the stands to be enveloped in a sea of red-and-white-clad fans.

But I think I’d better not watch.

I don’t want to be haunted by visions of that sea of red-and-white turning on me like a lynch mob because I was solely responsible for a humiliating defeat on our home field when I could, instead, have handed them a decisive victory over the Number 1 team in the country. At least if I don’t watch, it’s harder to hold me accountable.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Oh, except: ROLL TIDE ROLL. And I mean that. With every fiber of my being.

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