A little Chardonnay makes the medicine go down

I hate flying, but I love airports. I don't mind waiting at the airport as long as I have a couple glasses of wine, an appetizer and a People magazine. I'm excited to get to wherever I'm going, but I absolutely hate take-offs. I feel like that's when all of the bad things happen with flying, and I hate that I have no control.
Not that I'm any better of a driver when I'm in control. I went skydiving in Lake Perris, CA, with my friends Angela and Jason on my 26th birthday. I'm overtly paranoid that I am going to rear end the driver in front of me so I'll slam on the brakes if I see red brake lights even a football field ahead of me. As I was dropping off Jason he turned to me and said, "the scariest part of today was your driving." Not even jumping out of a plane at 13,000 feet rattled Jason as much as my driving. I guess that's what you get when you grow up in a small town and learn how to drive from the woodshop teacher.
I was flying recently, and didn't have any cocktails before take-off. Big mistake. I'm sure that we were never in any real danger, but for the first half hour of the flight we were engulfed in a sea of whiteness. 'How can they see?' I thought. I secretly started praying that somehow Captain Sully was our pilot. I was next to the window, with a businessman in his mid-thirties next to me. He was completely unaffected by our, in my mind, impending doom. He had his laptop out and was putting together some sort of power point presentation. I squeezed my eyes shut, and gripped onto the armchair next to me. A few minutes had passed when I noticed that the armchair shifted a bit. I cracked an eye open, and looked down to see that I was not gripping the armchair, but the leg of the passenger next to me. My eyes flew open, and I looked over at him, immediately releasing my grip.
He looked at me and laughed. "Nervous about flying?"
"Yes. I'm sorry if I left fingernail marks on your leg."
"Yes, well, I'll try to hide them from my wife."
How embarrassing. "Could you grab the beverage cart when it comes by again?"

If you wait til Thursday, my check will be good...ish

I don't know the exact root cause of why I'm physically incapable of saving money, but I am. I would think that it was a gene passed down from my parents, but they are smart with their money: making wise investments such as cutting me off financially right after college.
Starting with my very first credit card, I would look at a maximum spending limit like a goal. Right after I left one job, I received a credit card in the mail that had a $10,000 max. The first words out of my mouth were, "I'm rich!" followed by "I'm going shopping!" or "Drinks are on me!"
Then a peculiar thing would happen. Once a month I would get an unwanted gift. Well, two unwanted gifts but the one that I'm referring to here is my credit card bill. Say what? They want me to pay them back?!?!?!?! And with interest?!?!??! What nerve.
To punish myself I started to cut off the magnetic strips on the cards so that they would be unswipeable. This slowed me down from everything but online shopping and the desperate bartender who would offer to punch in the numbers for me. I also put most of my checks into an investment account that I cannot get to so that I will not spend my hard earned money at Chili's like I want to.
A couple of weeks ago, my friend Chris and I went out for drinks, a local hole in the wall that did not take credit cards (magnetic strips intact or not), and naturally, I had no cash. I used my best sales technique on her, and offered to write her a check with the promise that "if you cash this on Thursday, it will be good...ish."
"What do you mean 'goodish?'" she asked.
"I mean the more time you wait past Thursday to cash it, the less likely that it will have viable funds." I often write a lot of checks around my pay day, but do not enter them into my checkbook. One of these days I will grow up and be a responsible check-writing adult that learns how to use their check register properly. But until then, may the first check to the bank win!

A Boy Named Rex

I have always been attracted to muscles and to the guys that wear them. I remember dating a personal trainer once , Mo, who had a "surprise" for me for my birthday. You can imagine my discontent when we pulled up to the gym where he worked, and he pulled out a key. The gym was not a 24 hour gym, and closed early on the weekends, which is when my birthday fell that year.
"My boss is letting me borrow the key for the night," he said, his voice quivering with excitement as he unlocked the door.
I stared at him. "Is this your birthday present or mine?"
He looked at me blankly, his mind being totally incapable of grasping that this would not in a million years be fun for me.
To his credit, later that week he took me to a park and tried to teach me mixed martial arts, thinking that I would enjoy working out more if we were outdoors. That turned out to be our first and last session, as he tried to tell me as nicely as possible on the car ride home that I had been "his worst student."
When he was getting ready for bodybuilding competitions, he would expect me to diet with him, but could never figure out why I wouldn't lose much weight. It was because after he left my apartment where we had dined on fish with asparagus (again), I was f*cking hungry. I would wait for 10 minutes to make sure that he wasn't sitting in his car on his cell phone or lurking somewhere around the corner, and then I would drive to the nearest Taco Bell for some Nachos Bell Grande.
I met Rex while working at Enterprise. He came in wearing a tight white shirt and bad boy from The Karate Kid good looks, and I was smitten. His car was down the street at the bodyshop, and as it turned out, he knew my Assistant Manager Dario from high school. Dario gave him a big hug, forgetting that like most Enterprise people, he had just graduated high school a few years ago so not as much time had passed as he had conjured up in his head.
After Rex had left I tried to act cool as I asked Dario how he knew Rex, and what he was like in high school.
"He was popular, on the football and wrestling teams. He's a trainer for the Family Fitness in San Pedro...you think he's cute, huh?"
"What? How dare you...yes, he's cute. Why don't you ask him to our happy hour at the Blue Cafe on Thursday?"
If Jersey Shore would have been on back then I would have known then what I know now...Rex was a bonefied Caucasian Guido juicehead. And better suited for the likes of Snooki than me.
I wasn't sure if Rex was going to show up that night, but Dario had given him my number (he must have thought that I was crazy when he first saw me. I spent most of my time in my office doing paperwork or reading People magazines, but seeing how cute he was, I busied myself around the office, watering rubber plants and making coffee even though we were out of filters), and we had texted throughout the week.
I was a few Bud Lights in, and having a good time playing pool with my co-workers when preppy as could be Rex walked up. His right arm was in a sling. He said that he hurt it wrestling with someone at the gym, but instead of being frightened, I was kind of turned on. I have a weakness for neanderthals.
The night progressed with Rex not drinking much (of course he was watching his figure), and I drinking enough for the both of us (that's how I cope with dating anxiety). I am a social smoker, and wanted to smoke so badly, but knew that health conscious Rex would not approve. I told him that I had to go to the bathroom, and then ran downstairs and outside to join my boss Renee, and co-worker, Craig, outside. Craig is one of the funniest people you will ever meet. He had a belly full of beer, and probably had not seen a gym since being called last for dodgeball games in elementary school. But what Craig lacked in physical aptitude, he made up for with wit and impecial comedic timing. I was searching for a lighter when I saw the flame of a lighter coming towards me out of the darkness. Rex was standing there; he had apparently produced the lighter from its hiding place inside of his sling. Not knowing what to do, but not seeing a disgusted look from Rex, I went ahead and smoked my cigarette. He sat down in the chair between Craig and I, and embarked on a conversation that made me lose respect for Rex but gain respect for Craig. Out of the blue, Rex turned to Craig and said, "I have 6% body fat."
Without skipping a beat, Craig looked at Rex and said, "that's great. I have 96%."

"Items" by Judy

Another great email from my mother:

Sorry to keep playing phone tag with you. First time you called I was talking to my sister Karen (granted it was about how f'ed up our family is). Second time a co-worker (granted it was about how f'ed up our family is).

We support Luke Air Force Base and went to hear Senator John McCain speak. Was able to shake his hand, chat with him a few minutes, and get our picture taken with him (hello 2010 Christmas card). He's a nice guy.

I included a recipe for Brocolli Cheese Casserole.

Have a good day.

Love,
Mom

Old people are funny

And by old people, I mean both of my grandmothers.
My Grandma Joanne is my mother's mother. Looking back, it explains a lot. Graham Cracker, as I came to call her, was nuts. My uncle retold a story at her funeral about a phone conversation that they had. My aunt was not home, and my grandmother was happy to talk to anyone who answered so she began telling stories (picture Estelle Getty in Golden Girls saying 'Picture it. Peoria IL. 1945.)
"You know, when I was a waitress back in the day, men used to slap my ass all the time. One time, a guy slapped me on the ass so I slapped him in the face."
My uncle later recanted the story to my aunt who, without blinking an eye, said, "My mother was never a waitress."
I had a fetish when I was in high school where I loved to prank call Graham Cracker. I almost think that in some sick way, she looked forward to these calls. My favorite was where I was Gloria from Dallas Texas, and I was calling from the National Bingo Association. I was doing a poll where I was trying to see if Bingo Players across the United States wanted a second Free Space. "Sapphire...Sapphire, is that you?" She would be so excited that I would admit that it was me, and I would settle in for a round of embellished half-truths about her life.
My other grandmother, Mary, was the practical and silent type. She was the kind who wouldn't say a word, but when she was ready to leave, you would find her standing by the door with her purse on her arm. I would often wonder how long that she had stood there before anyone noticed.
Mary had a roatary phone that she had up until she was 90 years old. Normal children would let idiosyncracies like the fact that she had a collection of thimbles from different states and a cookoo clock that after thirty years sounded more like a frog than a bird, go. But not my dad or his siblings. They decided that after ninety years on this earth, that my grandmother needed a regular phone. The ultimate kick in the proverbial balls came when they not only got her a phone, but the kind that had the enlarged numbers on them. I stopped counting how many calls that we would get on the weekend mornings that would begin with "Charlie? What the hell? Did I dial this thing right? I can see that that number is a 3. People on the moon can see that that number is a 3...Charlie?"
If these are the Golden Years...then welcome.

I'm turning into my mother

There have been ever so subtle signs as I've grown older that I am in fact becoming my mother. The first incident happened about a year ago. I found myself (sadly) grocery shopping on a Friday night, and (even more sadly) in the produce section, squeezing a cantaloupe to see if it was ripe. I had never before squeezed fruit, and even now, when the realization of what I was doing dawned on me, I found myself frozen in between a row of watermelons and pita breads. I was squeezing as if I was an old pro, as if I knew what I was looking for.
The second time was when I was Christmas gift shopping at Barnes & Nobles. I had forgotten to print off some 20% off internet coupons that I had received, and even though it would only have saved me two or three bucks, I put the books back on their shelves, vowing to come back, coupons in hand. That's right. I will gladly pay $400 for a Diane Von Furstenburg Jersey dress for myself, but only $20 for Christmas gifts for my loved ones.
My mother is both loving and cold at the same time. She's kind of like a taco with mild sauce and sour cream. She has the best intentions, but they are quickly followed up with statements like, "Honey, it's so good to see you. Let's bond." This is followed by a few minutes of awkward silence and her staring at me. Another of my favorites is the last time we went to the grocery store. My grandmother had just passed away, and we needed to buy enough groceries to feed 30 clinger-on family members for the weekend. As soon as we walk in the door, she grabs a cart and pushes it towards me. This is my sign that I will obviously be the cart pusher. She then says, "Honey, pick out whatever you want." Walking through the meats area, I tossed two Rotisserie Chickens into the cart. She abruptly took them out, making a sour face. "Sapphire, who likes chicken? No one eats chicken. Who will eat this. It will just go bad." Umm... "Actually, mother, most of America eats chicken. How about soup? Kroger's has some fun soups. Let's get the won ton one." I get another face like the woman just stepped in dog poo. "Who likes soup? It will just go bad." I abruptly stop pushing the cart. "Mother, I thought that you said that I could get whatever I wanted?" My mother paused for a moment. Then without saying a word, she walked back, picked up the Rotisserie Chickens and the soup, and put them in the cart. Sapphire 1, Mom 0.