jingle all the way

I’d like to apologize to my faithful readers, all two of you, for the late submission this week. It’s party season and I’m the type of girl who can’t say “no” to an invitation. Which means I end up attending some of them stag, because Maverick is not the type of girl who can’t say no. I even dragged myself to one party with a 100 degree fever, a fact that I’m sure the hostess and her guests were thrilled about, but I assumed the alcohol she was serving would kill off my germs. Nonetheless, I’ve made it through the pre-Christmas parties, and I have several days to recover before New Year’s Eve, which is a good thing because my family is getting a little fed up with my galavanting, having to eat cookies for dinner, and digging their laundry out of the dryer. To which I have to say, must you dump the rest of the clean clothes on the floor when you are looking for your sock, and do the rest of you have to step all over them when you walk by???

Anyway, I will admit that the excessive partying has taken somewhat of a toll on me, and it appears I’ve reached an all time low: this morning I offered my 12-year-old a glass of Sprite with his breakfast. On purpose. The contents of my refrigerator have become meager, because if I’m out at parties, I’m not making dinner. I meant to pick up some orange juice yesterday to go with those two heels of toast, but I got sidetracked by one of these parties. I opened the fridge this morning to “make” Max’s breakfast, and was disappointed to see only a moldy piece of cheese, some old meatloaf (I think), a container of apple juice and a bottle of Sprite. I knew what I had to do. I figured soda was more fun than a glass of apple juice, basically because he would think I was awesome, instead of a loser, and in the spirit of the holidays I figured I had better err on the side of awesome, as he hasn’t done his Christmas shopping yet. Maybe it was the alcohol seeping out of my pores from the night before clouding my judgement. However it turned out to the be right choice because that apple juice was actually chicken broth and if he had tried to drink a glass of that, he would have been pretty pissed off. I remember when I made that mistake with Miles and not only was he mad at me, he projectile vomited all over my kitchen and that was gross.

So with the kid off to school, and no party on the schedule, I decided to stick around the house, catch up on my domestic duties, and finish up my Christmas chores. But I should have made other plans, because this just wasn’t in the cards. Speaking of cards, you might be realizing about now that you haven’t received a Christmas card from me yet. Well, don’t hold your breath. Sure, we’re still friends and all that, but I took a hiatus from the Christmas cards this year, and it’s a good thing too, because with my social calendar busy as it is, I would have had to miss at least one luncheon if I was home licking envelopes.

Anyway, I started by washing the pots that were left “soaking” in my sink. It makes me nuts when my kids don’t wash the pots they use when they make themselves dinner, but considering I hadn’t been home to make dinner for them in a week, I figured I shouldn’t complain about the pots. Until I dropped a big lid and it fell like a guillotine on the top of my naked foot and holy crap that hurt like a mother and I don’t think I was overreacting by screaming like I did, although my dog might disagree.

At this point I said to myself, “D. Parker, just hang it up. Make yourself a nice cup of tea, hit the sofa and sleep off that hangover.” But I rarely listen to reason, and started feeling guilty that I hadn’t really done anything to mark the occasion of Miles birthday last week (again, parties….) so I decided to bake him some cupcakes. It wasn’t until I had (almost) all the ingredients in the mixer and the oven preheated that I realized I was out of sugar.

Annoyed, now, and limping, I made a dash for the market, while wishing my next door neighbor was the type that I could borrow 2 cups of sugar from, instead of the type that repeatedly calls the cops on me. As I was pulling out of my driveway I got distracted by the trash on the floor of my car and the next thing I know WHAM! there’s a bike on the hood of my car and a Mexican guy lying on the ground. WTF???? In the next few seconds, which felt like an hour, I imagined my life on Rikers, fully aware that I’m not tough enough to fight off the mean lesbians that would want to rape me with a broom handle, wondering if would I take up smoking once I was in there and would I ever move my bowels again if I had to do it in a toilet in the corner of a jail cell? Probably not. But then I snapped out of it and realized that the guy was not dead, not even bleeding (at least externally) and didn’t even need an ambulance. But I had pretty much destroyed his bike so I figured while I was in the holiday spirit, and before anyone else noticed what had happened, I had better offer him a ride to wherever he was heading in such a hurry. Which was his job, it turns out, although I’m not completely certain, as his English was pretty awful. Once I had him in the car with me and was heading 20 miles up the road to the KMart, I took a look at him and started to wonder if it was all a hoax on his part to get me alone so he could have his way with me. Or maybe he was just using me for the ride to finish up his Christmas shopping.

This started to freak me out and now I wanted to dump this guy on the side of the road. Also I was starting to worry that my house might be burned down by the time I got back because I had left that oven on, and even though people do that all the time it still makes me nervous. I was pretty confident this guy was an illegal alien and wouldn’t risk getting deported by calling the cops on me, but he did know where I lived and what if he was in a gang and wanted to seek revenge? I decided to try and find out if he was in a gang, but I don’t speak Spanish and I guess the word for gang isn’t “gango” because he just looked at me like I was crazy. So I kept driving, and then thought maybe he would do me a favor when we got to KMart and run me out a bag of sugar, which would almost make it worth the trip if my house wasn’t on fire.

He nodded when I asked him to grab me a bag of sugar, but he must have been toying with me because I waited ten minutes and he never came back out, not even to thank me for the ride, which, I’m sure you’ll agree was pretty rude. But I thought it best to put mileage between me and the KMart, so I headed back to town, stopped for the sugar and was headed back home to finish up those cupcakes when my phone rang. A shot of adrenaline coursed through my veins for a second when I thought it was the fire department calling about the house, but, thank goodness, it was my friend Joelle. “Hey D. Parker,” she said, “I’m pulling together a little cocktail party this afternoon.”

The cupcakes can wait.