New Wallet

So I was chatting with my dear sweet Kevin in Danbury this morning and shared with him an all true tragic story. Yesterday afternoon while at the market, my wallet, made of bacon, that I purchased during our summer vacation to NYC, literally fell apart at the seams. Every single thread on the wallet came apart. I was sad.



When I got home I took a look around to see what I could use as a new wallet. The empty Altoids tin had been used previously, but it's a bit uncomfortable to sit on. I couldn't find any binder clips, so that was out of the question. An envelope wouldn't last quite as long as the bacon wallet. I remembered that ADRIAN has THREE wallets. So I went to find one of his. The only one I could find was his "Tow Mater" wallet...and so I made it mine.

December Challenge Day 30

I committed one of the 7 deadly dressing sins this morning and have been mostly ashamed all day. I wore basic dungarees with my cowboy boots. I know this may not sound like a big deal to most of you, particularly anyone north of I-40, East of Slidell and West of Albuquerque, but it’s one of my many clothing pet peeves. It’s more offensive to me than “skinny jeans” on men. I can always tell when attorneys from New York or D.C. are visiting the office because they always come into town and stop by Cavenders to pick up a pair of “authentic ostrich skin cowboy boots” (cuz NOTHING says Western like OSTRICH) and they wear them with a standard pair of 501’s. For those not in the know, it is AGREGIOUS to wear cowboy boots with any jean that is NOT specifically boot cut. DO NOT wear, especially, PLEATED jeans (or khaki slacks) with cowboy boots in my presence or I will ridicule you, for real.

This morning I got up UBER early…which means I got the kids up uber early. Which means they had me rushing around at to get them out of the house before they drove me crazy. I KNEW, when reaching into the closet, I had grabbed a standard pair of dungarees, but I didn’t have time to look for MY pants (Jed don’t wear boots, only (F)reddy)…cuz Jed had been doing laundry and when Jed does laundry there’s one of 50 places my pants can end up. So I put on A) a pair of dungarees and B) a pair of LOW RISE dungarees at that (DIS-GUSTING). The top 2/3 of my ass crack was hanging out of the back of my jeans all day and to top it off I looked like I was wearing MC Hammer pants with my cowboy boots. I looked like those visiting attorneys from the north MYSELF today and I deserved every disapproving glance I got.

I mentioned I got a new dining room table from Ikea the other day. I also purchased an “occasional table”. Those damn Swedes are so funny. Here in Texas we call it a buffet. Nonetheless, I put the occasional table together and placed it in my dining “room”. I should explain that my technical dining area of my house is a 4 foot by 8 foot space off my living “room” (which is also tiny, but that’s a whole nother story…just one of the joys of living in a 1940’s era “bungalow”). For the last 10 years I’ve had my previous dining table (which was a wedding present for my grandparents 80 years ago) along the length of my 4 foot wall in my dining space. Every night at dinner we’d pull it out from the wall so the two wall seats could be seated (Jed and Nathan) and then Adrian and I would take the two non-walled spots.

Our new dining room table is actually a slight bit longer than our previous 4 foot table (6 with the leafs). But it occurred to me to position it horizontally against the four foot wall leaving it off the back of the other four foot wall. Thus creating an adequate sitting space on the back side of the table for two chairs and two seats directly across with the backs of the chairs facing the living “room”. This way we don’t have to constantly move the table back and forth betwixt meals. AND, if we ever have more people over, we can just flip it back the way it was to add the leaf to give us more space. So the new configuration, though it has more furniture IN it actually gives us not only the APPEARANCE of more space, but it’s more user friendly as well. I couldn’t be more pleased with the new layout of my space.

I got a HUGE package from my sister’s husband today. He drew my name for the holiday gift exchange. He went BALLS OUT for me. He’s really an awesome bro-in-law. I got a new watch (honestly, my VERY FIRST WATCH that I’ve worn in 19 years!); Oz Seasons 4 and 5; The last Pirates of the Caribbean movie; NEW UNDIES; and an official White House souvenir Christmas Tree Ornament. NOT TO MENTION, the kids got a HUGE (and I mean HUGE) assortment of musical instruments (an accordion; a triangle, a tambourine; and some mariachis and some other things. They went ape shit crazy with the instruments and we’ve been singing since we got home. Seriously, my bro-in-law rocks socks.

I’m off for the next 5 days again. Tomorrow I’m going to spend the day with my kids making party wands filled with confetti and some noise makers too for an early NYE evening with them. I’m so looking forward to spending quality daddy time with them tomorrow. We may even go to Chick-A-Fil for lunch!

December Challenge Day 20

There is a phenomenon sweeping this great country that needs to be addressed. It also needs to be stopped. I fully realize I am about to alienate at least two of my readers, and one of my favorite. I'll let y'all fight it out amongst yourselves on who my fav is…that, in and of itself is it's own blog.

I'm talking about yard art. Basically, if it hasn't shot out of mother earth's own vagina, it has no business being in your yard. I honestly think a garden gnome here and there is cute. Perhaps a faux stone wagon strategically placed amid your bed of pansies might even be cute. An angel here and there? Knock yourself out. These types of adornments don't really bother me that much. In fact, I'd be lying if I didn't say that I don't have one or five of them.

I am, however, talking about this pervasive usage of these hideous holiday monstrosities that are hand sewn nylon creations (hand sewn by 4 10 year olds in a Thailand sweat shop) with the motorized blowers assembled by some equally inept 8 year old in Taiwan. If your yard decoration has a blower as part of the display, get rid of it. It's not cute, it's not festive, the neighbors are not "going to love it".

Jed's mom was here a couple of weeks ago. She found one such yard display at a local Hell-Mart. She told Jed she was going to buy it. I wasn't there, but the exchange went something like this:

DIVA: OH JED! Look at that! Isn't it adorable? I want to get it for the boys.

JED: Uh, mom. I'm not really sure we're inflatable yard art people.

DIVA: But the boys will LOVE it.

JED: I'm not so sure Freddy will.

Jed was ABSOLUTELY right. There is no way in hell that I would allow an 8-foot tall (and equal diameter) blow up carousel with real spinning horses be blown up in my front yard. Forget the tackiness in my own yard. My neighbors, Hot Tommy and his wife, Hot Sarah, would kill me. RIDICULOUS. So they return from the local town killer and Diva says, "Jed's a joy killer. He wouldn't let me buy a blow up carousel for the boys. He said 'Y'all weren't YARD ART people' and I told him phewy." I told Diva that Jed, apparently, knew me better than I gave him credit for and that I was, in fact, not "yard art people." Good save Jed! I owe you one.

So I'm driving around the neighborhood and I would like to give you some visualizations of exactly what it is that FREDDY thinks is tack-y. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present to you exhibit 1:

This here happens to be the EXACT same carousel that Diva wanted to purchase for me. You tell me, readers. Was I being unreasonable?



Now I'm not sure I even like little snow globes in my house. They fall. They break. They're messy. Children cut their fingers on shards of broken glass. Why would I want this in my front yard?



After, what? 15 years on television, isn't it time you had him blown up in your front yard? And look how festive he is all dressed up in a Santa suit.



In case your children don't get enough of "It's a white Christmas Charlie Brown" on television, you can always send them out to your front yard to recreate it.



Why decorate ONE tree INSIDE your house when you can put 15 artificial trees OUTSIDE your house and import some metal deer to give it an added "country" feel to your city house.



Cute, tastefully done authentic candy cane archway to frame your walkway to your house with an inflatable chimney on top of your house with a Santa popping up and down. Now why didn't I think of that?



Don't have time to decorate a tree inside your house? Just blow one up outside.



This photo is a little blurry, but I wanted you to see the 6 foot tall bear "with gifts"…and it may actually clue you lazier readers into where I'm about to go next…



Don't want to go to Church or the theater this year to see the story of Jesus' birth? Not a problem. We've got you covered.





But the most amazing thing of all folks, in case you haven't figured it out yet…the common thing all these lovely inflatable pieces of art have is their location. Yes, you may have figured it out. They're all at the same house.



And I shit you not. This particular family must shop every post holiday sale throughout the year at every store in town looking for nothing but other inflatables. Because this is the scene in their front yard YEAR ROUND for every frickin' holiday. In fact, catch me in February for the 14 foot tall inflatable cupid and heart.

That's all I got. And frankly, it's enough.

December Challenge Day 9

Yet another Christmas post, this is a tour of some of my more favorite ornaments on the tree. This isn’t an inclusive photo blog, but some of my more favorite ornaments…

A parent’s tree wouldn’t be a parents tree without handmade ornaments from daycare from the kids. This is one that Nathan made last year.



This is one of both of our favorites. This was Adrian’s second year of daycare. He was, apparently, sick the day the photo was taken, but it gets put on our tree every year cuz it’s so fucking adorable.



And until this just completely falls apart, this will ALWAYS be our tree topper. It’s a reindeer made out of a toilet paper roll. The antlers of the reindeer are cut-outs of Adrian’s hands.



Every German household has a pickle ornament. It’s a tradition. I like my pickle.


Our dear friends, Leslie & Kevin, have made us ornaments for the last two years. I hope it’s a tradition that continues, because I truly look forward to them. (NO PRESSURE LESLIE!)





My folks picked up this one for us in Hawaii. Who doesn’t love a guy in a skirt?



A comic geeks house wouldn’t be complete without passing on the tradition to the kids. This is Nathan’s favorite comic book character.



And Adrian’s favorite???



There’s a Mexican game called “Lotteria”, which is a complete rip off of Bingo. Instead of letters and numbers though, they call pictures. There was a vendor at a street fair here in town a few years ago selling Lotteria ornaments. I liked this one.



Mukwanago is a small town in Wisconsin where my favorite of favorite relatives, Uncle Clyde, lives. It also happens to be very near the one horse town my mom grew up in. When we went to visit Clyde for my aunt’s funeral a couple of years ago we picked this one up.



Jed’s aunt started buying us the Radko collectable ornaments a few years ago. I think people are crazy for spending this much on single ornaments, but I really like them. They, of course, go at the very top of the tree so the boys can’t reach them.

Radko’s cupcake.



Radko’s Satan in a hammock.



Radko’s Satan checking his list.



Radko’s bionic dog.



We picked this one up earlier this year in Gruene (pronounced “Green”) Texas at a market days event. It’s a very simple collection of stars cut from a steel drum. Because nothing says Christmas like stars cut from a toxic waste drum.



And finally, I don’t even know what to say about this one. It’s so awful that I think it’s one of my favorites. The legs on this little fella are slinky like, so you can stretch them. I LOVE my hairy monkey boy.

December Challenge Day 8

Christmas Vomit:

Christmas threw up over our house on Thanksgiving weekend, here’s a little tour for ya.
We’ll start with the stockings that we will all find our Satan gifts on Christmas morning. NOW I KNOW everyone is saying, “Where’s the ‘f’, where’s the ‘j’”? THINK ABOUT IT FOLKS!



Somewhere along the way Jed managed to start collecting Satan. His mommy gets him one a year. The problem is, if you’re doing the math, he should have a lot more. We think one of our former roommates accidentally took a box with them when they left. What’s left over are the Santa’s you see on top of the bookcases. Some of them I really dig.









This is our finished tree product. I don’t have the lights on in the pic, but the lights are colored. BJ I was a HUGE fan of the white lights. Jed likes colored lights, and this is a compromise I have accepted. ALSO, I like big gay trees, but Jed feels like my trees resemble more of a Liberace fingerset rather than a Christmas tree. So I’ve lost the gold wrapping. BUT I’ve also not found anything I like better, so I don’t wrap anything around the tree.



This bookcase is our main focal point in our living room. Therefore this is where we’ve staged quite a bit of our stuff. I’ll get down to the specifics below.



This is our countdown to Satan.



Jed, apparently, also collects Nativity scenes? Weird. Actually, now that I’ve said that out loud, I think one of them is mine! Bygones.



This is Jed’s nativity scene. I “like” it, but we don’t GET IT. Toothpicks? Toothpicks for a stable? For real?



This be the last of our Christmas vomit. My sister made me one of the trees a few years ago and I don’t recall where the second one came from. The Santa is another of Jed’s collections.



We’ve got some shit outside of our house too, but you may have to just cope with the loss, or perhaps I’ll do an outdoor blog in the next couple of weeks.

Oh what a great holiday weekend…so far. You’re most especially welcome for the break from my blog postings since Wednesday. You’ll have to forgive me, I’m not sure what came over me that particular day. I know it wasn’t Jed.

I spent my Wednesday having fun with the kid, who was out of school that day. We ran a bunch of errands during the morning (shopping for poppa’s birthday pressie, which I can tell you, cuz my kitten don’t read my ramblings, was a “Don’t Break The Ice” game that Adrian “just knows poppa is gonna love it”.) I got him a few other things too…a pair of invisible underpants, and a bottle of lube, but I’m sure “Don’t Break The Ice” will be his favorite. For lunch we met Leslie and Jed up at Chipotle for a little burrito action. Side note for you Yankees, there’s no such thing as a “burrito” in Mexico OR Texico. “Burrito” translates into “little ass”, if you will. And not the kind that you make love to, the kind you beat with a riding crop to get him moving with your cart of vegetables you just picked up from the market. So if you think reciting the menu from Taco Bell makes you bilingual, all you’re doing when you order a “burrito” is calling the employee a little ass.

After lunch Adrian and I started working on preparations for the side dishes for Thanksgiving dinner. It was fun for him for about 3 minutes before he washed his hands and went to watch something on the idiot box and left me alone in the kitchen to cook and clean…much like his poppa does now that I mention it. The folks were on their way down from OKC and got caught up in multiple traffic jams. The usual 6 hour trip ended up taking them a little over 10 hours. Needless to say, they weren’t NEARLY as happy to see us when they finally arrived as Nathan was. The squealing of “DAAAAADDDEEEEEE” when he got out of the car made me want to send him to the grandparents EVERY week just to hear him scream my name when he returned. I don’t think the folks even turned the car off. Just dropped the kid off and headed to their hotel.

Thursday morning I woke up at 6 and didn’t leave the kitchen until about 9 that evening. That’s not entirely true…I was allowed out for 20 minutes to eat with everyone before getting back in there and finishing up deserts and loading the dishwasher. It was so nice having the folks on my turf again. Our very good folks, the Fenders, joined us as well. It was good food and great conversation. After lunch dad took a nap with Nathan while Adrian entertained himself and the rest of us played a rousing game of Phase 10. Some interesting conversation came up during the game:

Leslie: Babs, do you know what tattoos your son has?

Babs: Well I know he has a _____ on his arm and a ____ on his _____.

Leslie: Yeah, but what and where’s his third one?

Babs: Uhhhh, I didn’t know he had a third one, but it doesn’t surprise me.

Leslie: Well Jed tried to draw it one night while we were all eating out together and I know what he drew was the tattoo, but it looked like a sea dragon or something and they were both laughing so hard we couldn’t get it out of either one of them what it was.

Babs: A sea dragon, huh?

Leslie: Yeah. Just so you know Babs, when your son dies, I’m most definitely going to be pantsing him at the funeral. I just don’t want you to be alarmed when I’m pulling his pants off him. I’m not a pervert or anything, but I have to know what that tattoo is before he’s put in the ground.

And then, my most favorite conversation.

Babs: (F)reddy, can you show me how to create a MySpace page? I think I want to start a blog.

(F)reddy: (Spewing his beer across the table) WHAT? WHAT ON EARTH WOULD YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT FOR:

Babs: Because I find them entertaining. In fact, I’ve recently found yours and I’ve been quite entertained by your stories. In fact, you know which one of your blogs was my favorite?

Folks. I nearly died. FOR REALS.

Babs: The one where you took pictures of my house and made fun of me on your blog was my favorite!

OH MY GOD.

It took us all a good 20 minutes to stop laughing.

After the Fender’s left mom and I spent a couple of hours on the internet trying to find things she wanted to buy for all the grandkids for Christmas. Having found most of the stuff on Amazon, she was delighted how easy the whole thing was…but then we noticed that Wal-Shart had one of the Madden NFL games on sale for Black Friday morning at about ½ of what it was on line. She asked if I’d take her up there in the morning. I told her I wouldn’t do the “door-buster” thing, but that I’d run her up there so she could get them. So…

Friday morning I woke up at 430, ran to pick her up at the hotel and ran her to do her shopping. Things were not nearly as hectic here as they were in other areas of the country. We got in, got her stuff, and got out. We celebrated with “breakfast” back at the hotel afterwards. I ran home to grab a shower and the family and then met back up with the folks to drive to New Braunfels to hook up with Jed’s family (aunt, uncle, cousins, cousin’s spouses, cousin’s kid, grandmother, and red-headed step-child). From there ALL SIXTEEN OF US caravanned from New Braunfels to Fredericksburg, Texas to do some Hill-Country shopping and eat some German food. We had a lovely time co-mingling the families and choking down some beer and schnitzel. I’m so glad pappy drove on the way home, cuz (F)reddy was a little more than sleepy. When we walked in the house I collapsed in my La-Z-Boy just as my mommy says, “Hey, why don’t you put your tree up”? Huh? What? NOW?

Folks, my house is tiny. It’s 1100 square feet if you’ve got the windows open. Jed and I are big boys. We have two very active toddlers, and two very needy dogs. Add 2 parents who are a little more than twice our sizes, and it’s a very crowded house. So of course I…

Went to the garage and dug out all of our Christmas stuff. Granny wanted to see the boys’ faces as we put up the tree. Moreover, she wanted to take pictures of them “helping me” put the tree up. And, I’ll have to admit, as exhausted as I was, the boys really did have a great time setting up the tree and pulling off the ornaments as I put them on.

Saturday morning we got up early again and met the folks at Waterloo Icehouse of breakie. I had my standard Chicken Fried Steak and eggs with hashbrowns, toast, and copious amounts of coffee. After breakfast was over, we did our kiss n’ cry in the parking lot and said farewell to the folks. Jed and I ran the boys to the theater to see Madagascar 2. It wasn’t as good as the first one, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. After the movie we ran home and I got to take a much needed nap with the boys. After the nap, Jed CHALLENGED me to take Nathan to get his haircut. Never one to back down from a challenge, I accepted.

You should know, Nathan HATES getting his haircut. He considers any hairdressers to be his arch-nemesis. I once saw him (when he was two) snatch the scissors out of a woman’s hand and stab her in the eye with it. Another time, I watched in horror as he grabbed the clippers out of a guy’s hand and shave his balls with them. The hairdresser’s, not Nathan’s (cuz Nate’s only 3 and don’t got no hair on his balls yet.) To say he doesn’t like getting his haircut is an understatement. You would think Nathan is Superman and haircuts are his kryptonite. OR, you could simply believe that Nathan is Sampson. We just don’t take him that often because it is THAT horrible of an experience. The woman today certainly did a fantastic job AND deserved EVERY CENT of her 120% tip. I REALLY hope her hair grows back quickly, and I’m VERY sorry for handing him the lighter AND the hairspray at the same time.



Tonight I made some Turkey Tetrazini for dinner with some of the left over turkey. It was delicious. But now I’m tired. I’m sure not half as tired as you are reading this, but tired nonetheless. I have one more day tomorrow to “relax”…but it’ll be spent studying for my last week of school. That’s good for you, cuz it gives you a week to read all this crap.

Don we now our gay apparel

I have a somewhat embarrassing confession to make. I have personally ordered from the International Male Catalogue. In case you haven't checked out out the Catalogue, you should (www.internationalmale.com). It's embarrassing because A) I think 1/3 of 1% of people out there can wear any of the clothes in this magazine, and B) I certainly wasn't in that winning percentage! While the clothes, or lack of, look good on the models in the magazine, you MUST possess certain attributes which, sadly, Freddy didn't. I'm not talking about my dick y'all, I GOTS that. No. I'm talking about the six-pack abs, the 16" discs a/k/a "pecs", or the bulging biceps. Okay. Maybe I had the biceps, but my abs were more like a keg than a six pack and we may as well just call my pecs what they are, moobs. You got to love a magazine that has an underwear section called "Problem Solvers"…IE: Your dick is so small, we can keep you from looking like a Ken-doll.

Now I'm not saying that I ordered from the catalogue last week. No, dear readers, it was many, MANY moons ago. I was very single at the time and I was, what you could call a "gym bunny". Though I never lifted weights, I did spend many a long afternoon in the gym on an aerobic type machine and/or a step-class or three. I was taking a trip to San Francisco under the mistaken impression (from having watched Full House on television) that San Francisco was a warm, sunny, metropolis. Who knew that it only got into the highs of the 80's during the summer with lows dipping down into the 40's when the sun went down. I should have watched Miami Vice instead.

So I purchased a pair of shorts and a swimsuit for my adventure out west. Please hold all snickering to a minimum.



The shorts, as you can see, are still in "high fashion" today. These are the EXACT same shorts I purchased 13 years ago. I don't recall them being this long though. They did have the split up the side, and nothing screams "gay" like a pair of Daisy Dukes with a 2 inch split up the side of your leg. To accentuate the outfit, I often wore these shorts with Camel hiking boots (which not only showed off my amazing calves, but also made the hem of the shorts look that much higher!) and a brightly colored knit sleeveless button up sweater vest without anything on underneath it. HOT, I tell you, NOT.



I also purchased this lovely swimsuit thinking that I would be spending an ample amount of time in the warm ocean waters of the Pacific. HOLY JESUS. Do people actually get in that water? I've had Cherry Limeaide Slushes warmer than the waters of the Pacific. I don't know what I was thinking with this swimsuit. It was not quite a Speedo, because they weren't briefs. Additionally, the ones I purchased were as brightly colored as the sweater vest I had to accompany my shorts. My "jewels" looked FANTASTIC in this suit, however combined with my keg, it wasn't a pretty sight. I did manage to attract some attention wearing these things, but I'm sure I ended up on some "what the hell was he thinking" website.



On a trip through a mall in Wichita, Kansas with an old friend of mine, I stopped in at one of those mall leather shops. I forget the name of it now, but I think they used to be a national chain. It wasn’t one of those leather shops that sold assless chaps and ball-gags. Rather they had all styles of leather jackets. Why I thought I needed a warm leather jacket in the ‘Bible belt’ of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, I’ll never know. It’s not like it ever got cold enough to wear it. It did, however, look stunning on the dance floor when I was able to get all the fringe moving at once. I didn’t get the shiny polished version above. No, I got the black suede. I did, however, look JUST like the boy above. Except I was 140 pounds lighter, I had hair, and I hadn’t yet been able to grow facial hair.



Lastly, when I was in Junior High, Wham had just come out (not figuratively) with George Michael and his dual pierced ears. As we all know by now, Freddy was full on Guhay at that point and followed George's example and pierced both of my lobes, along with the cartilage at the top of my left ear. High style. I may have even owned this sweater. It was back in the day before Brian Austin Green made having both ears acceptable for straight men and the saying was still, "Left is right and right is wrong." I think that applied to the ear piercing for men anyway. Now that I think about it, maybe it was my political leanings??? I'm not sure, I'll get back to you on that.