Off the hook . . . . for now

Okay. So. He's off the hook.

No. the game did not break on its own. I just committed what I found out is a first year faux pas. Apparently I broke a cardinal rule of returning a gift my husband got me before the five year time limit of truth in a marriage.

See. I hinted HEAVILY that I wanted a necklace I saw at Tiffany. Anyone who knows me knows that subtlety is not a strong point of mine so hinting heavily means asking if he got it everyday and then tiling a picture of the necklace and making it his background.

Christmas morning, before i even started opening my gifts, I asked where my card was. He told me I could have it AFTER I opened up my stocking stuffers. So. I did. then I asked again for my card. He told me to just open presents. I opened present after present, none of them looking like it could contain my necklace.

Exasperated (and surrounded by paper) I asked again for my card. I was ready to call off Christmas if I didn't get a card. He handed me my card. Finally. It was cute and he doctored it up to fit us. And it contained a riddle. A riddle that led to my necklace hidden in the room. I danced about and hooted and hollered. However, upon seeing it in real life I did not like the necklace as much as I thought I would. It didn't fall right and the double chain was not as dainty as I like my necklaces to be. Within 10 minutes I asked if we could return it.

I found out later that what i did was rude. That I should never ask my husband to return a gift he bought me. Whoops. But most womyn aren't married to a Stew. One who could laugh (although through gritted teeth) at his wife. And one who would rather spend the money on something i really like. Of course I picked out a necklace that was far too close my favorite $7 Target necklace he got me 2 years ago that i couldn't justify making him spend more than 25 times that when this necklace is still perfectly fine. So. He ended up taking a credit on his credit card for a necklace I asked for and he went through hell to get and even more hell trying to surprise my inquisitive ass with. I feel bad.

But. Not not bad enough to tell him my plan. All I need is another few Tiffany credit Christmases like this one and maybe I can get some diamond studs.

An open letter to my Husband:

My darling,

I love you. Every morning I wake up and look at your face hovering over me (as you are the one waking me up) and I find new reasons to love you. Lately it feels as though something is coming between us. It's not the football that occupies most waking moments from August until the Superbowl. It's not the late night poker games. Or, the other months chock full of Fantasy Sports orgies with your friends. It's not even the weeks spent planning when you 're about to embark on an occasional Dungeons and Douchebags campaign. It is none of these things.

See, call this what it is. I guess one might call it a thinly veiled threat. But. One of the problems with having a wife who more technically advanced than she lets on is the fact that, if pushed to the point, she will begin uninstalling things that seem to hog up a large amount of your time. Yes, dear, i am talking about your Guild Wars.

You see, so far the past two weeks have gone a lot like this for me:
Work every day
Do most of the Christmas shopping
Wrote out and sent all of the Christmas cards
Did all of the wrapping
Baked 12 dozen cookies
Cleaned the entire house
Did my laundry (which I only started doing AFTER you washed my cashmere sweater)
Vacuumed and dusted every room
Took home and completed SEVERAL transcripts.
Took care of a dog

And here are the things I asked you to do to help me out:
Take the dog out at least every two hours
Pick up the bread for Christmas Eve
Pick up my mother's gift certificate at the nail salon which you offered to do MULTIPLE times.
Clean the downstairs bathroom (which I eventually did)
Empty the dishwasher

As of 1:37 p.m. Christmas Eve here is what you have done of all the things I have asked in the past two weeks:
Emptied the dishwasher

Maybe it will help you to see this in black and white. Maybe I should bold it. I know you will say that baking the cookies and doing the Christmas cards and cleaning are my choice. But you remember how the cashmere sweater got washed, don't you? I believe it was a comment about the bedroom being so messy you weren't sure if was in the dirty pile or the clean one. Forget the fact that you drove it to and picked it up from the dry cleaners for me several times in the past 4 years.

Here is what you have done for NUMEROUS hours:

Played Guild Wars

Do you see how I might be a little frustrated? And hey, I know I mess a lot with my Sims games but that is after I have done everything else I am supposed to do. I'm being pushed to the brink of uninstallation and here's why. The topic of kids coming into the picture is now a reality. But. I swear to God, I will keep this IUD in for the rest of my life and pretend like I have NO CLUE why we're not getting pregnant if you don't start pulling your weight. And the only way you will wise up to what I'm doing is if you take me to get an x-ray and I know you won't make time for that much less remember the appointment.

I recall when my patience broke the first time. I was inundated with typing and was complaining how I had to type all weekend but now I was even more stressed because I told my nephews theyc ould sleep over. You told me not to worry. That you would watch them. I trusted you and went upstairs to type. Things were good for a while until I heard tiny footsteps coming up the stairs and to my office door and then it opened. And soon I knew his brother would follow. I peeked down the stairs and what were you doing? You were on one couch with your laptop firmly planted in your lap playing your gime while the little one was racing cows but the other one was bothering me. One little thing. Do you see how this might worry me that if we have kids I'll end up doing EVERYTHING until the resentment spills over and I start taking a meat cleaver to wires?

I am sure if I uninstall your game (which I will do and anyone who knows me knows I'm EXACTLY the kind of a vindictive bitch who will do it) you will find something else to occupy your time. And you know what, that will mysteriously break too. It will all break until you are standing in a pile of broken plastic guitars, uninstalled games, busted CDs (because surely you will attempt to reinstall it) and broken up PS3s.

I'm sorry it has come to this. But. You cannot say you weren't warned. I have been telling you for months now that I'm getting close to breaking all your toys. I've muttered it under my breath. I've shouted it from rooftops. Shape up or pick up your feet when walking among the broken plastic.

Love always,

Lulu

Smoke & Mirrors

** Names have been changed to protect the fraudulent and save myself from a lawsuit **

I can remember when I learned that Santa Claus was fictional.

I can remember when I found out it was really my parents posing as the tooth fairy.

I expect, as an adult, I'm going to experience some of the same letdowns on a different scale. However, I feel as tho' I have been duped twice. And frankly, I am sick of it.

I can't mention names because I'd probably get sued but if I've learned anything this past year it's how to artfully dodge the truth and not implicate yourself while doing it. A couple of years ago a very successful chain BBQ restaurant opened a few towns over. The gimmick of this place is down home BBQ cooking and leads you to believe that the owner and his wife are overweight, artery clogging hillbillys who live in a double wide and she sends him off to work everyday with a mason jar packed with pulled pork, slaw, mac and cheese and biscuits. And heavens forbid he cut himself on the job he'd bleed three different kinds of BBQ sauce.

So, one day we were eating in said restaurant for a family dinner (who am I calling a hillbilly here?) and the owner comes over and introduces himself just like any good businessman would when he $ee$ a party of ten. The menu leads you to believe the owner is in the back wearing a raccoon tail cap standing over a smoker in a wifebeater and jeans slick with grease.

At least that's what i want to believe when I bit into the smokey goodness of a my "burnt ends."

But "Big Billy" comes over to the table in his probably cashmere cardigan, khakis and loafers. And he's far from shopping at the Big & Tall. A southern accent isn't even remotely detected and when he finds out my aunt and uncle are from Rye he begins to tell them about all the country clubs he belongs to there and all the golfing he does. My "burnt ends' started tasting less smokey and more burnt as the grungy image of Big Billy evaporated before my eyes.

Enough time had lapsed for me to forget and work up another craving for their ribs. Plus, it was Good Friday and the Boy and I have a tradition of going to meat places that are usually packed on a Friday night on Good Friday because we're under the impression there will be less of a wait.

So, this particular Friday I was about ready to bite into my burnt ends when a well-dressed lady comes over to our table tastefully dressed with enough jewelry to say "I'm not flashy but I have more money than everyone in here" and introduces herself to us as "Miss BobbyJo".

Again, I wanted Miss BobbyJo to be at home eating bon bons while watching her stories and waiting for Big Billy to come home so she can fry up a ham steak. But no. Here she was looking like she fell of a page of the Ann Taylor catalog. She asked us where were from and that led to a few other questions about us and it came out about the wedding and where it was. She went onto say how Big Billy belongs to Country Clubs up there and how he belongs to about 50 different clubs and golfs all the time and how their daughter is getting married at some country club in DC (which i later looked up and found it was like $250 a plate).

Long story short. We haven't been back since.

So. A few times the Boy has tried to coax me back into BBQ food, which, honestly, prior to my low-carb lifestyle I was never into. He started raving about some Cajun place a couple of towns over that had the best food. So. one day I relented and we went there. I read all the articles on the wall and looked at all the pictures and I was lead to believe that I was about to eat some real Cajun food that will rival something I'd find in the streets of the Big Easy. That the owner spent most of his life in the New Orleans cooking for the locals and now he wanted to bring a little of that to Connecticut. It was tasty and I happily devoured everything in my plate while listening to some blues.

We had gone back a few times since that amazing day. And every time we returned the food was more delicious than the last and my desire to see N'awlins was dying because this was just like being there. This past weekend, we stopped in for some lunch and the owner was there (as he usually was). He asked us if we wanted to try some chili and when we said sure he came over with generous samplings piled high over sausage filled jambalaya.

Feel those arteries clog. A slow death never tasted so good.

He asked the boy and I if we've ever been to New Orleans and when we said no he said, "this is what it's like. Good food and jazz playing". he went onto say how so many restaurants in Fairfield County lack hospitality. Amen to that. And how they act like they're doing you a favor to get you more water when you're spending $30 a plate. Amen to that too.

Then he screwed himself. He asked us where we were from and when we said Stamford, he said "I was raised there too. West side." I said "me too" ready to start slinging some gang signs as soon as I moved my Dooney & Burke to a less sauce soaked spot on the table. But faster than i could do that the vision of eating tasty food cooked by a Ragin' Cajun disappeared faster than those FEMA e-mails. *POOF* Gone. Duped again. He told me how he was trained at an Italian restaurant I knew very well because I was best friends with the chef's daughter. Then to add insult to injury he asked if i was around in the 60's or 70's. Oh my god, do I look like I am pushing 50? Most people don;t even believe I'm in my 30's.

Moments ago i was talking to the boy about having him cater our Superbowl Party but now I may as well have been sitting in Chi Chi's.

Duped again. Just for that I threw out the rest of his free sample. Lie to me!!!!