“Heaven’s a bad place.” So says Miss America as we cuddle on the sofa watching Shrek2.
“What?” I say, refraining from spouting my jaded philosophy on heaven with a four-year-old. I stick with the basics. “Heaven’s a good place.”
Miss America shakes her head and looks up at me with big brown eyes that reveal how much she’s learned of life and death in the recent months since my sister died. My sister Dee and Miss America were very close—an understatement if ever there was one.
“I don’t want to go to Heaven,” Miss America says firmly.
“Well, you don’t have to go there now,” I say.
“Only people gets dead there.”
I can’t argue this point.
“So I don’t want to go,” she continues. “Heaven’s a bad place.”
She reaches for her brightly colored spiral notebook, opens it in her lap, and informs me: “I’m going to write that down in my diarrea.”
Some days, that's the only viewpoint that feels right.
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This is a Fragrant Liar rerun from April '09. Thanks for indulging me while I devote time to writing deadlines that actually net me cash.
July 11, 2011
Heaven's a Bad Place
March 14, 2011
Wee Wisdom #12
And many thanks to Hilary of the Smitten Image for bequeathing Miss America and I this Post of the Week award for our Wee Wisdom! We appreciate it!|
October 11, 2010
Wee Wisdom #11
This post was chosen by Hilary over at The Smitten Image as "A Good Laugh" Post of the Week.
Thanks Hilary!
Poignant Pearls of the Week
First up, from Miss America, age 6:
"I want to be a vegetarian when I grow up, so I can help animals."
Next up, my sweet boy Destructo, age 4:
"Nah, you got big knockers?"
I reply, "Uh . . . uh . . . Yes?"
Destructo smiles. "I got big knockers too."
[crickets]
The boy grins and runs off.
What the . . . some man put him up to that. Unless . . .
A short while later, it all becomes clear:
Destructo: Look, Nah. I got big knockers!
Me: Ooooooohhhhhhh!
My, you DO have some
big knockers.
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September 14, 2010
How I Ended My Summer Vacation
The summer of 2010 will go down in Fragrant Liar history as one of the greats. I set out on a new adventure and accomplished some things I'd been working on for a long time. Saw most of my kids on my June road trip and since then my Atlanta girl, TG and her family.
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| Fragrant Liar and Lisa from That's Why |
We have much in common, Lisa and I, most notably our love of writing. She's a talented and fun blogger and an interesting and smart woman. Plus, she's about as tall as me, so she is naturally a super-awesome individual that glows from the inside out. Heh.
I hope to see Lisa on return trips to Atlanta where we can talk about things that always get up people's ire: sex, politics, and novels in progress.
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| I am the Corona Extra (emphasis on the crown, yo). |
Hey, just cuz they're kids doesn't mean I have to roll over. Winning is everything, people. I know you know that.
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| Mmmmm, chunky salsa! |
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| Udder Hysteria, this one's for you too! |
But, Coco, who actually showed up for the partay? Yeah, that's right. Mama rules.
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| Miss America and Destructo giving me a tour. |
Miss America and Destructo showed me around their neighborhood, which is hilly and lush with trees. What a gorgeous area. During the trek, Miss America was indulging in her usual chattery (where does she get it?), and I was paying close attention for her special brand of wee wisdom. (See, I work for you people nonstop.) So it was particularly noticeable when Miss America stopped, covered her mouth and made the gag face, and pointed to this (look down):
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| The sad remains of an inattentive squirrel. |
Note the blue chalk line, which is an arrow pointing toward the street. Forensically speaking, this marker probably misled the little guy into thinking all the nuts were on the other side of the road. This once happened to a chicken.
TG, you'll be happy to know that the kids don't need anymore education, because I personally schooled them in the basics of road kill, decomposition, and where that nasty smell comes from (my creative juices really flowed for that one), and I think maggots. Yeah, there was some talk of bugs that live inside you and only come out when there's no more oxygen or something like that. Whatever. They believed it.
You're welcome.
Foxy, check out that hat! Y'all this is a hat my good Hoo-Ha buddy Foxy made. She's all Etsy over there, and definitely worth a look.
People, I can't wait to take Shaboobka around the 'hood with the other kids. Think of all the wisdom I can impart.
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June 30, 2010
Wee Wisdom #10
Miss America's
Poignant Pearl of the Week
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Upon hearing Audrey sing "Suddenly Seymour," Miss America said, "Mommy, Audrey has such big boobs, she must have a really big heart."
True that, my girl. Nothin' but love in there.
April 18, 2010
Wee Wisdom #9
Miss America's 
January 12, 2010
Wee Wisdom #7
Miss America's Poignant Pearl of the Week
October 23, 2009
Wee Wisdom #6
September 26, 2009
Wee Wisdom #5
Left to right:Baby Bandit, Sparkplug, Miss America, the Pistol, and Destructo.
Like Miss America, my Florida nephew, the Sparkplug, just started Kindergarten. That leaves his little brothers Baby Bandit and the Pistol at home without him during the day for the first time ever in their miniscule history. This new reality came as a shock to the 4-year-old Pistol, middle child and suddenly top dog over his very mischievous 3-year-old brother. Only a few hours into his reign, the Pistol was beside himself. He whined plaintively: "I'm stressing out! I miss Sparkplug, and I just can't deal with Bandit by myself."
This is Miss America the morning of her first day at Kindergarten. I blinked back tears as I snapped this shot. Her mother could cry just thinking about it, so it was up to Miss America's father to ferry her to class.
Miss America's Poignant Pearl of the Week:
On looking into the mirror at herself while trying on some new jeans for school:
"I have a glorious butt."
My, my. Where does she get it?
August 17, 2009
Wee Wisdom #4
Except for anyone who doesn't."
August 12, 2009
Chardonnay and Meteors
I got slightly buzzed last night. Lightweight that I am, it took only one full glass of my neighbor’s chardonnay to get me that way. I always was a cheap date. Oh, but I’d had a long day, and it was so worth it. I just couldn't look one more minute at a computer screen, so I didn’t accomplish the writing I was supposed to. My writing partner -- she of the whip-cracking, slave-driving, that’s-no-excuse ilk -- was none too pleased. She made me compose a limerick on the fly, via text, as penance. It may have been naughty because she is perverse that way. I swear I can’t remember it.
Around ten p.m. or so, Miss America and I went out on the back deck, hoping to get showered with Perseid meteors. But the city lights washed out the night sky and left only pinpoints of hazy constellations. At least I think so. The Great Bear looked more like a gerbil.
As you know, there are few things I enjoy more than hanging with Miss America. This is why:
Miss America: If we were up in da sky, we could see the Milky Chocolate.=================================
Me: Chocolate and chardonnay? Mmmmmm.
Update on Mr. Fine. We have decided to meet. But first, I’ve sent him to the place where my alter ego resides. To the irreverent persona who drives this blog. If I'm lucky, our online chemistry won't crater. And hey, if I can’t be on my best behavior here, I think y’all should be. Say hello to Mr. Fine.
August 10, 2009
Wee Wisdom #3
"I don't really wanna go to school, Nana.
July 24, 2009
June 1, 2009
Do You See Me?
Just when I thought I'd gotten over my bad hair day, this happened:
Miss America asked me to cut her bangs. I'm real handy with the sharp instruments, and I'd make a fabulous hairdresser if only I could control the need to stab finicky customers like me. She said, "I need my bangs cut so the boys won't notice me."
My first thought: This girl cannot be related to me. Of course, the "boys" are her older cousins, so I guess it's okay. "Boys always try to trick me," she explained.
I hesitated to refute that statement, as she has learned one of the fundamental boy/girl conundrums. And you guys wonder why you can't figure us out? We females learn long before puberty to disguise our honorable intentions so we don't get caught up in your evil game of trickery. Are you writing this down?
I pressed for more info. "What does that have to do with your hair?"
She shrugged. "If they can't see me, they won't trick me."
Aaaaahhhhh, here lies the raw pearl. She wants to change her look so the boys don't recognize her and therefore press all her buttons. Her logic makes perfect sense because we females are so attached to our hair and the belief that it defines us in some way. Why else would nice, amiable women threaten to do bodily harm to their hairdressers when they yack and snip a little too much (or a lot too much); over- or under-p
rocess our color; or otherwise pay no freakin' attention whatsoever to what we asked for in the first freakin' place? Where's that C-4 when you need it? Or in the interest of world peace, a recyclable paper bag for your head?
Perhaps my hair obsession means I could use a good intervention (or therapy). But the room would no doubt be filled with men or deeply spiritual people who know shit from shallow when they see it. But tell me if you don't agree with this, girlies: the cut, the color, and the style can create a mood that's reflected in our actions. When our hair looks good, we feel good -- inside and out.
Don't you know, researchers say men report having more and better sex when their women come home happy from the beauty parlor? You don't? Okay, I just made that up, but I'll bet $5 that's true. I can assure you, I'm more likely to do the deed if I feel sexy, and great hair plays a role in that -- maybe too big a role, but we're not here to discuss my neuroses.
Miss America wants to feel different. Not only different, but better, more liked instead of picked on. I get it. It's not reality, but too often it feels like reality. And sometimes you just want to try out a new look and hope the world thinks you are as awesome as you feel. Then you don't mind so much if they can see you.
April 19, 2009
Lint in the Butt
TG brought her daughter, Miss America, downstairs to my bathroom where I was getting ready for work. "Tell your Nana what you found," she said, teetering between empathy and impatience.
In her pleated jeans skorts (and topless), four-year-old Miss America looked up at me with sad, teary brown eyes and a pouty lower lip I could have set my coffee cup on.
"What's the matter, sweetie? You okay?"
Miss America's chin quivered and she clammed up, wiping at her eyes.
"She found lint in her butt," my daughter explained with that exasperated smirk that's half chuckle and half I-can't-believe-I'm-a-grown-woman-talking-about-lint-in-the-butt. You know the one.
"Lint?" I asked.
TG nodded. "She's freaking out."
"But how did she --" My lightning quick faculties assessed the situation: Miss America had found lint in her butt. Rather, she had found lint in the crevasse of her butt. How she managed to find it was not my concern. The important thing is that she was not happy to discover this little treasure and had promptly fallen apart.
"I hate it when that happens," I said. "It's okay. Really, it's just lint. I get lint in my bellybutton sometimes. There's lint on everything."
I could see my little cherub wanted to believe that the offending lint had not emanated from her behind, but then her eyes grew wide, which I took to mean: If there's lint on everything, maybe there's reason to panic on the scale of a planetary invasion.
"Come here," I said. "Let me show you." I took her hand as we wound our way through the house to the laundry room. At the dryer, I pulled the lint catch out of its deep hole. "See?" I stroked the screen with my fingertips allowing the thick, flaccid cushion of speckled fuzz to fold over itself and into the trash can. "Lint is in all fabrics. All the clothes you wear have lint in them. It's everywhere, like germs, but you normally don't see it."
I suspected the wheels of her imagination turned that big swath of dryer fuzz over her crevasse and left an unwelcome hanger-on.
"This like, almost NEVER happens," I assured her, resigned to my matriarchal ineptitude. "It was a fluke that you even found it!"
Miss America nodded and whimpered, "Will you make sure it's off?"
"Um . . . sure?" I led her back into my bathroom where TG was in my adjoining closet jacking my wardrobe. I pulled a rag from the linen closet, ran it under the faucet, and squeezed. "Drop 'em," I said.
Miss America slid down her skorts and undies, and I zipped the rag between her cheeks, then held it out for inspection. "See anything?"
Fingers in her mouth, she mumbled no.
"That's because there's nothing there!"
TG peeked out the closet and rolled her eyes. I tossed the rag into the hamper and dusted off my hands. "I think my work here is finished."
Then I joined TG in my closet. We held up blouses and dress pants, assessing them for wearability based on how skinny we didn't feel. We hopped around without modesty in our panties and bras, trying each outfit on (and off). Miss America watched from the edge of the bathtub. Her small voice stopped us, each with one leg in a pair of pants we had exchanged.
"That's disgusting," she said. The village idiots looked into the big brown eyes of the cherub with the scrunched-up face. "That's disgusting," she repeated.
This, from the child with lint in the butt.
April 13, 2009
What Goes Around . . .
Vacuum cleaners are a real point of contention among the Under-Five set. You probably didn't know that. It's true. They are terrified that some other pre-K miscreant might have a cooler one than they do. They're like starry-eyed vacuum cleaner sales-weebles at a tradeshow. I have seen with my own eyes as two four-year-olds spouted the features and benefits of their respective household appliances, each determined to walk away with the Cherriest Vacuum in Town trophy. (I'm not so sure how adoring they'd be once that vacuum was turned on, but that's another story.) In any case, Miss America's mother donated a real working appliance to the cause, and now Miss America is the proud owner of a Shark floor and carpet vac, which she stores next to our other two worthless dirt suckers in the broom closet.
While painting my toenails one recent morning, I was interrupted by Miss America who requested that I paint her toes too. She took a seat on my bed, stretched out her hairy little legs, and leaned back on her hands to enjoy the home spa treatment, courtesy of Nana. Soon after, little brother Destructo dragged in Miss America's Shark and quietly pretended to vacuum the carpet beside my bed, pushing it jerkily back and forth. It was heavier than he was.
"Brother!" Miss America said sternly. "That's my vacuum. Put it up."
"No," Destructo replied.
"Yes, Brother. Put it back!"
Destructo gave her a smug sideways glance as he continued to pretend vacuum. "No."
Unable to move her, uh, canister for fear of wiggling her toes and messing up the righteous lavender paint job, Miss America looked to me for assistance. But I determined not to waiver from polishing her miniature toenails -- I hate to get into the middle of a domestic squabble, you know? Besides, my in-home demonstrations are limited to whining about burgeoning physical ailments like indigestion, sore feet, and gas, not household machinery.
Destructo pushed the vacuum to and fro, taunting his big sister with the abandon of a self-propelled Electrolux Turbo; and I could see the ire rising in Miss America's neck. She raised her hand toward him, her tiny nostrils twitching and round brown eyes ablaze. Channeling the Great Spirits of Terrible-Two Disciplinarians in the sky, Miss America's small voice firmly issued The Count: "One . . . two-o-o-o-o . . . . . . three!"
Destructo continued, unfazed.
I thumbed off a tad extra polish from Miss America's big toe and muttered quietly, "Now whatcha gonna do?"
With her lips bunched together, she glared impotently at her little brother. "Four!" she bleated. "Don't make me save five!"
I sat back in wonder as Destructo continued to spite his sister just because he could, and Miss America found herself with no alternative but to call in the big guns. "MOM!"
I heard my daughter padding toward my room, and I chuckled. I love when life comes full circle.
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February 20, 2009
Face It
Miss America: "Can I sleep with you tonight, Nana?"
Me: "Sure."
Miss America giggles and smiles. "I love you, Nana."
"I love you too. You're my girl."
Miss America, smiling adoringly as she hops into my bed and slides under the covers: "Do you want to talk about my day?"
This is part of our nightly ritual. Tonight, she tells me about getting ready for their trip to Florida to see my parents and we settle in, plumping up pillows, the light from my headboard shining dimly. She shows me her new doll, which is some variation of a Barbie with long purple hair and flippers instead of legs -- an exotic mermaid with an impossibly flat stomach who bends at the hips. Talk about an unrealistic image of a woman. Who do you know that's purple and bends at the hips? Then I realize I'm laying on something hard and pointy, and discover it is Shirtless Ken. And not the Ken of old.
"Whoa," I say. "Now this is a Ken doll. Surfer dude. Look how buff he is. I could use one of these."
Miss America indicates Ken's bare chest with her chubby little fingers, then scrunches up her face. "But you need a new face first."
I stare at her. "A new face?"
She looks at me like a doctor when all hope is lost. "Mmm, yeah."
Now I practically bust a gut. "A new face?!"
She is pleased that I am grinning and giggling at her statement, which escalates into loud laughter. In response, she says in her small voice, "I do good jokes, don't I?"
"I don't get it. What's wrong with my face?"
"Um, you should look in da mirror."
I look over my shoulder at the mirror on my headboard, then look back at her. "It's the lighting."
She looks at me doubtfully.
"How am I going to fix this face?" I say.
"I'll help you in da morning," she says confidently. "You need makeup."
"I need makeup? That's all?"
Again with the scrunchy face. "A LOT of makeup."
Miss America studies me for a moment and gestures with her hand. "You can laugh now."
"I do good jokes, don't I, Nana?"
I kiss her cheek, set Fish Barbie and K-Buff on the nightstand, and hand her Boudreaux the Bear. "Yeah, real funny. Better sleep with one eye open, kid."
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January 21, 2009
Wee Wisdom #1
Five-year-old Miss America, in her jammies: "You should be nice to me."
Me, dragging my butt in around 8:00 pm after a very long, emotionally draining day: "Oh yeah? Why's that?"Miss America props her butt up onto my bed and points to her nose. "Cuz I got a bloody nose."
I immediately stop brooding and check her, but see no sign of the red stuff. "What happened?"
She glances at the ceiling and then the window and then back at me with her face scrunched up like a hand puppet. "Well, I acceedently had my finger in my nose, and, and den I poked it and sorta scratched it, and den it camed out all bleeding."
"So why did you have your finger in your nose?"
Miss America hesitates, perhaps remembering admonishments to keep her hands out of her messy breathing apparatus. "Um, well, I was on da floor, and um, um, ts, um, my legs was in de air and um, um . . ."
I picture this. "And somehow your finger got up your nose?"
She heaves an exasperated sigh. "I was on da floor doing yoda!"
Okay then.
"So you gotta be nice to me."
I nod, because after the day I've had, this makes perfect sense to me.
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January 10, 2009
It's Not a Wedgie
I have stripped down to my skivvs in my closet, and now stand deep in thought about what to wear, when I hear someone gasp behind me.
"Oh my god!" says five-year-old Miss America. "Don't tell me you got a wedgie! Gross!"
I am relieved to find that it is only a small child who gasps with her face at eye level with my naked gluteus maximus (emphasis on the maximus).
I turn toward her, clutching my arms across my bare chest as she tries to peer around me, determined to get a better look. "It's not a wedgie," I inform her, leading her in circles.
"I's in you butt," she points out with concern. "I's a wedgie. Can you pull it out?"
"It's not a wedgie, and it's not stuck. It's a thong, the kind of undies that are supposed to fit like that."
Her curling upper lip and raised eyebrow portray her disgust. "In you butt?"
"Yes. In you butt. But you don't feel it in you butt because there's not enough material there to bunch up and bug you."
She grimaces doubtfully, and then gives me the palms up. "You can't put ice in you butt."
I gape. Miss America giggles. Takes me a few seconds to get that she has seen somebody put ice in somebody else's pants.
"That's right," I say. "No ice down my pants. A good thing for you to remember."
She skips out of my room. "Cuz you got a wedgie!"
I shout after her, shaking my fist in the air like the distraught Elephant Man, "It . . . is not . . . a wedgie!"
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