Perfect Boyfriend 101

When I was single, I almost always had a boyfriend. I had a pretty much perfect formula listing the requirements to be my boyfriend. I thought I'd share these requirements with you.

Keep in mind, Perfect Boyfriend 101 has no similarity to Perfect Husband 101. They are totally different things and have different requirements altogether.

1. He must have a pulse, be conscious at least part of the time, and be breathing.

2. He must be able to speak a complete sentence, even if it is in a foreign language that you do not understand.

3. He must have at least 18 teeth. And he needs to brush everyday.

4. He must smell all right. He does not have to smell good, but he can't smell bad either.

5. He must bathe or shower at least 3 times a week if it's hot.

6. He must have a job, an unemployment check or be on disability.

7. His disability should not interfere with his ability to do your bidding.

8. He must love to eat and enjoy what you cook.

9. He must not call his mother every morning at 9AM.

10. He must think you are God's gift to men.

Okay, now how simple is that? Tall or short, rich or poor, heavy or slender, smart or dumb, those things really didn't really matter if he had the 10 qualifications. As far as age is concerned, I figured anywhere between 19 and 90 was fine, (and if he couldn't walk, I'd carry him.) I adore men. Each and every one of them! Always have, always will.

Scared of the Dark

I've never been a real fan of being alone overnight. (Uh, you never woulda' guessed huh?) So it makes no sense that I marry men who travel all the time, does it?

Actually, I'm much better now than I used to be. When my children were very young, I would get into a complete panic about someone breaking in. I took to sleeping with a very sharp knife under my pillow, and usually staying awake until dawn.

The sharp knife under the pillow was not my best idea ever. Grabbing under the pillow in my sleep rendered me one bloody mess, requiring a trip to the ER and a tetnus shot plus several stitches. After that hard lesson learned, I opted to put a hammer under the pillow, but I was not sure if I would be able to find a nail when the time came.

And it wasn't a matter of if, it was a matter of when. Now I might add that I had begun reading a lot of bloody mysteries at this point of my development. Turning off the lights after reading about serial killers who climb through windows and do in the whole family is not really all that relaxing.

There is one other consideration here. I did have Willie. Willie was my 125 pound German Shepherd who would not even let my husband touch me if he was in the room. (Yes, I did like Willie better than I liked my husband at this point, but that's another story.)

My husband traveled frequently and so I got used to just not sleeping. I turned on every light in the house every night, and slept with Willie in the hallway on a quilt with my hammer under my pillow for when they came. (They? He? She?) Never mind. I was ready.

We had a 3 story house on the side of a hill, so there were lots of areas that could be breached you understand. One night I was so panicked that I actually called the police because I thought I heard something. A few minutes later, the police arrived, but unfortunately, Willie would not let them come in to search. Kind of laughing, the cops told me I had nothing to worry about. Uh huh. What about the guy who could slip Willie that poisoned meat and then what, huh?

Fast forward quite a few years. I still get the heebee jeebees at night once in a while. When Alex is away, I do sleep with the 357 next to my bed. And, Harry and Honey patrol the yard and the house all night long. Before Alex leaves, he always asks me if I want the 12 gauge shotgun too. (What does the fool man think I'm going to do? Invade some third world country?)

The 357 is not really my favorite gun. I have others that I do better with at the range. The advantage of the 357 is that you do not have to worry about a "safety" being on or off.

I have always really liked the shotgun approach most of all. You do not need to aim really. And people know it means business. The problem is that it's very heavy. And you might end up taking out a prowler but you would also maybe get the guys across the street who are your friends.

Why I get this irrational fear sometimes I don't know. When Alex is home and we hear something, I'm the one who goes to look and see what it is while he cowers in bed and pulls the covers over his head. (Okay, I'm exaggerating. He simply says, "go back to sleep" and leaves it at that.)

It's better than my first husband who told me "You go look. They'll just rape you but they might kill me."

Where The Hell Is Michael?

I was 25 and working for Chevron at their San Francisco headquarters. Since I really had no skills other than knowing how to count and most of my alphabet, I was working in that truly highly skilled area of file clerkery.

Hey, I was supporting two babies with my efforts so don't judge! I am pleased to let you know that although I didn't begin college until I was 30, I did do college and later worked as an executive assistant to the president of a fairly large firm, and later as director of Marketing for a couple of other companies.

When I was at Chevron, I had several close friends including a guy named Michael Hunt. Michael was a FINE big handsome black man who worked in Engineering where I was assigned. Michael, John, Randy, and Steve were my good guy buddies at the time. They were all engineers and pretty cool dudes. None of them was a romantic interest (on their side or mine) and I think all of them were married.

Some of the offices I went into had higher level executives. These guys were known to me as Mr. Whatever their name was. Fine. I know they all thought I was cute (okay, I was cute) but also they thought that I was fairly stupid or I wouldn't be working as a file clerk.

Every day, one of my Mr. Executive guys would ask me to go see if anybody knew where Mike was. They would point me in the direction of one of the other Mr. Executive's offices to check. So I would go into the big shots office and say "Hi Mr. So-And-So! Have you seen Mike Hunt?" The guy would snicker and say something stupid like, "No but I would like to."

In any case, this went on every day for a couple of weeks. Finally, one of my buddies was in the office with the big shot when I came in to try and find the elusive Mr. Hunt. Later that day, my buddy took me aside and explained the little joke that was on me. Bastards!

Okay, maybe I was kind of stupid, but give me a break. That was low.

When I hear people carry on about the "good old days" I remember things like this and think "oh, were they really?" One dog of a man used to make humping motions over me when I bent over a file drawer to amuse the other men in the office. This guy's name was Al Diaz and no, the name has not been changed to protect the innocent, because Al was not innocent.

When I complained to a supervisor, I was advised to have a sense of humor about these things. Uh huh. I'm a girl with a good sense of humor and a very appreciative attitude that the good old days are fucking over!

The Honest Scrap Award

The rules for this particular award are as follows:

1. Brag about the award. I have not gotten an award for a while and I was really pleased to get this one. It's pretty and it makes me smile!


2. Include the name of the blogger who gave you the award and link back to that blogger. Terry at Oh For Pete's Sake gave me this great Award. She is my adopted daughter and I love her to pieces. She's funny, cool, and sooooo savvy! I think she is one of the funniest, and funnest women I have ever known.


3. Choose a selection of blogs that you find brilliant in honest content.

I have read and enjoyed the following blogs, written by wonderful, candid and charming writers.

How Much Longer Till Friday written by Small Town Girl. She's funny, clever, a great writer, and crazy funny!

I also love reading the adventures of Willow Silverhorse, author of A College Witch's Experiences. She is a very talented writer and I think her articles are amazing. (Now you ask her what the Chicken Masks are all about! She won't answer me!)

Gun Diva at Just Another Perfect Day is a great storyteller! This awesome lady wore cowboy boots with her wedding dress and totally rocked both!


Anybody Listening? is written by a deep and mysterious woman who calls herself Middle Child. Some of what she writes is absolutely haunting in its beauty and sometimes stunning sadness.

4. Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with this award.

Will do!

5. List at least ten honest things about yourself.

Ten Honest Things:

1. When I was 11, I wanted to be a nun.

2. When my mom was sick and I was about 8, I made egg sandwiches for my sisters. I dropped one egg on the floor and it killed a spider. I fed it to my sister anyway.

3. I'm addicted to Werther's caramel hard candies.

4. I slept with a cab drive one rainy afternoon because I was bored. (This was NOT when I was married so it's not that bad. I mean, I could have robbed a bank or something. All I did was boink a cab driver!)

5. I almost joined the Air Force when I was 17.

6. I got a two and a half carat marquis shaped diamond ring for our 10th anniversary from Alex.

7. I got a Cartier wristwatch for my 60th birthday from Alex.

8. I have a hard time following directions and people think I'm smarter than I am.

9. I eat peanut butter right out of the jar with a spoon.

10. I talk in my sleep.

11. I love hard core rap music.

12. I drink Diet Coke. I hate Diet Pepsi!

Hump Day With Harry

This picher is of me when I was almost asleep. I look funny, don't I?

Mom threw her back out today so I had to remind her it was hump day. Jeeze! I know she throws balls out for me and Honey sometimes, but I didn't see her throw her back anyplace.

Yesterday something really strange happened. I was in the kitchen (because I really love the kitchen) and I walked place the stove. The most amazing thing I ever saw happened. There was a big orange dog right in the oven. I growled at him and he growled right back at me. I showed him my teeth and he showed me his teeth right back. I barked as loud and scary as I could and he did the same thing to me. Mom kept yelling at me to be quiet, but I guess she didn't know there was a guy in the oven. Anyway, then I got tired and went to my apartment to take a nap.

Next time I looked, that guy in the oven was gone. I don't know where he went though.

Another thing that was funny is when me and Honey went to the Park with Dad, Honey just walked off real fast. I didn't know where she was going so I watched her. Honey hardly ever runs because she has the arth right us. Anyway, she's almost running so then I see it. There is a squirrel right in front of her who is watching her and shaking his tale laughing because he thinks that slow dog can't get him.

So I jerked the leash out of Dad's hands and I went after him. I almost caught him too but he ran up a tree and I could only get halfway up the tree before I fell back down. Honey was glad I showed him up though.

I had a hot dog this morning for breakfast. It was the coolest breakfast ever. And I have to go have shots this week. Not so good.

Honesty, Integrity, and Economics

Last week, I went to the ATM machine at my local bank in the shopping center. There was cash sitting right there in the dispense tray. I picked it up and counted $60. Wow! I immediately walked into the bank and explained to the woman at the desk that the person before me had forgotten to take their money.

No big deal, I thought. I am not hard up for money (although I could use more and yes, couldn't we all?). At this point in my life, I can afford to be scrupulous about honesty and integrity. This was not always the case, I'm afraid.

When I was a single mother of two, and living on a very meager amount of money, my ethics were not nearly as sterling. In fact, I would have taken the money from the ATM and figured "this is my lucky day!". I'm not proud of that, but I'm being honest here. If I found a $20 dollar bill on the street, my reaction was not "who on earth dropped this?", but "Hooray!Finders Keepers!"

If I received too much change at the grocery store, I didn't go back and return the money. It wasn't because I was a thief, it's because I was broke. I would never have taken what wasn't mine, but if a mistake was made in my favor, I let it slide.

I told myself that wasn't stealing, but of course it was. Oh I justified it with telling myself, "they overcharge me half the time anyway" but deep down inside, I knew that I was doing something wrong. Still, poverty makes us do things we wouldn't otherwise.

I did have a job but it was a low paying one. (File clerks were not highly compensated in the old days.) We managed, but just barely. If push came to shove, I would have stolen, whored, or just about anything I had to do to feed my kids. Lucky for us, it never came to that.

Still, I do have such strong ethics at this point of my life that sometimes I have to slap myself down and say, "Yeah, you are honest and ethical now... but that sure as hell was not the case years ago."

Spring Orchids

I've got so many orchids blooming in the garden that I had to cut some for in the house!

I love orchids and have quite a few. For some reason, they do great in the yard, but when I try to grow them inside, they don't do much at all.

If you click on the picture, you can see the flowers better. There are three different kinds in the vase. Cool, huh?

Alex is working from home today because he had to call in for Jury Duty. He didn't have to go in, but since his office is far far away from home, it was better that he stayed here. If you don't go to Jury Duty if they want you, they will put out a warrant for your arrest and sheriffs will come and get you! I HATE it when that happens!

Okay, the truth is, I have been at the jail. I was never in the jail, but I was at the jail. Scare Eye Place!

Driven To Drink

This does not happen often. Today, at 3 PM, I was thinking of getting at the cooking sherry.

Instead, I opened a Corona. It may not stop there either.

Now, at the risk of boring you, I will tell you that I do not drink in the afternoon, unless there is a damned good reason for doing so.

Today seems to be one of those days. I have a mystery on my hands that I cannot solve. I hate mysteries unless I can figure them out. It frustrates and upsets me.

I am a good wife. I do laundry at least once a week (usually twice), I am a good cook, I am fairly attentive to my appearance (in other words, the husband and the guy at the fish market think I'm cute.) Okay, so what's the problem?

I did laundry today. It's Monday and Mondays are a good day for it. It rained cats and dogs here yesterday and since the washer and dryer are in the basement, I figured it could wait. (Besides, who wants to do laundry on Easter? That's when we are going to eat Easter eggs and such, right?)

Now if memory serves, I did laundry about a week ago. Keep in mind that Alex has been traveling so I may have mixed up my days. Still, when I sorted and folded the laundry, I had 7 pairs of my clean panties. Since I am a very pristine sort of girl, this indicates to me that it has been a week since I washed last.

(Bra's, as I'm sure we all understand, do not need to be washed after every wear because by and large, boobs are clean. And that is not to indicate that other parts of our anatomy are not clean, it's just that I always worry about the accidents and the ambulance driver that Mom always talked about being shocked and dismayed about unsightly undies. In other words, I do not want to be wearing the "Wednesday" panties on a Saturday!)

If you are still with me, I'm getting to the point. I started sorting Alex's socks. It seemed to take an hour. I almost always get a rush when every pair of his socks has a match! (This does not happen every time.) In any case, I got through with the socks and thought, man! That's a lot of socks.

Just for the hell of it, I counted his pairs of clean socks. There were 23 pairs of socks. Holy fucking monkey balls! What on earth is this all about? Why would any man have 23 pairs of socks in the laundry when his wife washed one week ago? What in the hell is he doing to dirty all those socks?

Any suggestions or ideas from you would be most sincerely appreciated. Thanking you in advance for your consideration.

You Can All Go Back To Where You Came From!

This is my beloved husband Alex. As most of you might know, Alex is Navajo Indian. He is one of the funniest people I have ever known. Alex is smart too and he's very successful. I'm glad he is my husband.

When we had a discussion with friends over right leaning politics and left leaning politics, Alex said "I don't trust either one of them. That's why I have guns and dogs." Is he serious?

Recently, we had a party and had about 20 friends over for a meal. The subject somehow turned to "illegal immigration". Generally, I feel that political topics are best avoided for obvious reasons. We all have opinions and frequently they are not going to be changed by anyone else. We build our beliefs on our own frame of reference. And we hold to them.

In this case, it was a rather enlightened crowd so the subject took off! In all cases, respect for each others' view points was shown. One woman who works at a hospital said that the illegal aliens put a huge strain on our health system. That may be quite true. Another person interjected that illegal aliens frequently did jobs that Americans did not want to do. That also may be quite true. In any case, the discussion went on for quite a while. It never became heated, but opinions flew all over the place!

Alex had not said a word for about an hour. He just sat there listening to everybody holding forth with opines. He stood up and said "As far as I'm concerned, you are all illegal aliens and you ought to go back where you came from." Then he went in the house to get a beer.

Silence ensued. Was he serious? Uh, who knows? That's Alex.

Quick! In the Closet!

I have on occasion had to hide men in my closet.

This little transgression of mine came about a few times in my single days. For some reason, when I was in love, (really, truly, and madly in love and that happened a lot), I would give the object of my affections my apartment key. All of my boyfriends knew for sure that this indicated my complete and utter loyalty to them.

I did have a little problem in the loyalty area. Now don't get me wrong, I was loyal all right. But sometimes lonesome won out over loyal, you understand I'm sure. For a whole weekend I was supposed to stay home and not entertain guests? I don't think so! And if the "guest" happened to be that handsome fireman, or the insurance guy, or the plumber, well, who knows!

On at least three occasions, I had to request that my guest get into the closet and fast. (Why would I screw up a perfectly good relationship with all those stupid questions and explanations, I ask you.) So obviously, the closet was the only realistic solution.

After my would-be suitor was safely hidden in the closet, I would make a big deal out of "let's go down to the corner coffee shop because I'm dying for a piece of apple pie!" and we would vacate the premises. This always gave my visitor ample time to get out.

Before you start feeling too sorry for my beloved boyfriends, let me assure you, none of them were really worth your pity. They had left me alone for too long a time. Not a good idea!

And before you dial the number for CPS, my kids were with their dad on weekends. I merely wanted to not waste my life sitting home alone without kids waiting for my true love to reappear after his weekend with: the guys, the children, the sports teams, the hunt, or the chickadee that he may have had on the side.

Besides, my closet was a lovely place with at least a hundred pairs of shoes. If my visitor got bored, he could always try those on.