~Mean Mom~

     Ya know, a mom just can't win with a twelve year old girl.  There truly isn't anything that I can do to make my sweet baby girl happy. 

     Case in point:  my daughter is currently in her room sobbing because she has a mean mother that never let's her do anything.   Normally, I would feel some sympathy and agree that she is correct.  But!  The kids and I just hooked up with Diane and her children for a fun filled twenty-four hours of kid bliss.  We swam in the pool, we stayed at a hotel, we bought crap.

    I can prove it:

  And right this very second my daughter is weeping in her room because I am a horrible mother who never does anything fun.

    I need a day off.  As much as I love my children and as fun as it is to flunk algebra tests; I am ready for something else.

   

~One Classy Chica~

     I had an algebra exam today, according to my estimations I need at least a 90% to be able to pass the class.  So!  I studied over the weekend, I studied last night and I left Spanish early so I could set and figure.  And then I went to the test, and I looked at the paper and thought, "What is this '2' thing?  and what does it mean add it to another '2'? 

   I have experienced the testing anxiety in the past and I am aware that the way to get past it is to skim the test til I find something I understand, once I recognize something the rest of the pieces fall into place and the brain is refilled with all of the information that the first scary page erased.

   But today--nope!  Not only did I not recognize any of the strange symbols on my paper (=+-%) I had another problem that I was dealing with:

      Just before I began to hyperventilate because the numbers were alluding me I noticed a suspicious wetness in my nether region.  I squirmed in my seat and thought, "You gotta be effin kidding me--I am a thirty six year old woman who started her period in class?  This does not happen to adult women."

   The cool thing is that I didn't cry.  Instead I worked problems, concerned that I was bleeding all over the chair-but no big deal!  I needed to figure what 15% of x was, and that was much more important.  So important that I decided to hang out in the class until every other person had left.  Me and the numbers, mono y mono. 

    Before getting up, I did a casual leg spread/head down check to see if I was indeed hemorrhaging all over the seat.  I did a secret swipe of the hand for the colored moisture and finally I got up from my chair, pulled my extra long sweater over my pants, handed in the test and made a bee-line for the bathroom feeling like the legendary 9th grade girl who bled all over herself and became the laughing stock of her school.

     When I got to the bathroom I was relieved to find that there was no colored moisture.  It was clear moisture.  I considered bladder control problems and decided that was just effin perfect. Incontinence is exactly the gift I have been longing for.   When I stood up from the toilet a felt something wet smack my leg.  So I looked and realized that the belt of my extra long sweater had been soaking in the toilet.

    Which reminded me that I had stopped at the potty before class. And when I went to class with the wet belt I set upon it, thus creating the wet spot on my jeans.  I was at first relieved to know that I wasn't a break through bleeder or in need of depends...

     ...and then it occurred to me that I had been sitting on a belt that was drenched in public toilet water.  I don't even set on public toilet seats as I don't want the germs and now, today, I became a woman cruising the halls of higher learning dripping toilet water from my belt.

    Classy. 

    Even more classy is my feeling that I bombed the test, and that my grade on the test is going to take me to new levels of bomb-dom.  In fact, I am pretty sure that I set in class absorbing public toilet water while making a grade on a test that will make it un-necessary to take the final.  If I didn't get at least a 90%, there is no reason to take the final as even if I got a 100% on the final I still wouldn't have enough points to pass the class.

     I could be wrong, maybe while I was absorbing public toilet water I was also acquiring math knowledge by osmosis.  Maybe the people who peed in the toilet before me were genius' and their germs infected me with math skills.

     But it is more likely that I failed, and I did it with the remnants of other women's urine saturating my clothing.

 

    

    

      

    

~Let Us Pretend For A Moment...~

   ...That you are a woman who walked out of college feeling as if your body was tied into a knot.  Being a responsible woman, you then decide to skip your next class and instead go to the gym for a little free trial exercise.  So there you are, feeling a little guilty that you are skipping a class to work-out and you see a woman--who looks remarkably like a Mrs that you know--walk towards a giant truck with a handsome man inside of it.  When the woman--who is crazy similar to the Mrs that you know--gets into the truck she leans over to give the handsome fella  a smooch.  A big fat smooch with some groping followed by some neck nuzzling.  After the smooching, the Mrs lights a cigarette AND opens a Mike's hard lemonade.

    You, being a woman remarkably similar to me, laugh because you know that the Mrs you know would never kiss a man who wasn't her husband, nor would she smoke nor would she--god forbid--sips on some Mike's Hard Lemonade.  You know these things to be true because you have had a couple conversations with that Mrs and she has let you know how much you suck because you sip on some beers and suck on some Marlboro Lights.  You see, the Mrs that you know is a Mormon who likes to tell you how very Mormon she is and how very holy she is in her sacred holy life that abstains from cigarettes and alcohol and even that devil caffeine.

     Let us also pretend that she has  gently suggested that your decision to attend college was a selfish one that was detrimental to the well-being of your husband and children.  (It was gentle because it was served with chocolate cake.)  I don't think that we have to pretend overly hard that your relationship with this woman is based upon the working relationship that your husband has with her husband--let's just call him the Mr.  Additionally, we probably don't have to pretend that every meeting you have had with this woman has been a little--shall we say--grating, especially when she (gently) said she would pray for you. (You and your selfish nicotine/alcohol/caffeine addicted soul.) 

    SO you decide that the woman in the truck is not the Mrs and that you are a loon--because that is your theme these days--but you walk past the truck to get a closer look.  Because you are nosey that way.  And when you get close to the truck you see the woman that looks like the Mrs you know take a drag of her smoke and then tip the Mike's Hard lemonade and then--!

    Her eyes meet yours.

    And you know that it IS that Mrs that you know.  And furthermore, you know that she knows you know because her lips move, and if you were a lip reader you would swear her lips say, "Oh <bad word that the holy Mrs would never say  but the word rhymes with luck>".    And then she jumps out of the truck to say, "Deborah!"  (Or whatever your name might be.)  "Hey!  Hi!  How are you?"

    Now you, who are remarkably similar to me but with a different name say, "not as good as YOU."   perhaps influenced by the nicotine and caffeine flowing through your system, or perhaps because you are evil that away you then say, "Who's the good looking guy?"

      And thus begins the sob story about the Mr who doesn't understand her needs and desires.  She let's you know that she has always envied your freedom and the fact that you are so neat and groovy and obviously a good and loyal friend and oh by the way...has she ever told you just how close she feels to you? 

    And then she puts her arm over your shoulder and asks why you are here--you don't seem like the work-out type to her.  She suggests that your life has been one big giant case of the stress and you know what you really need?  A massage.  She thinks you need a massage SO MUCH that she offers to pay for it.  You, being a woman with black lungs and a liver as hard as concrete decide that she is right--a massage is better than a free trial work-out.  So you let her pay for your massage.  (You probably smell like almond oil right this second, and your muscles?  They feel like butter.)  After writing a check from her joint checking account she gently suggests that we should keep this our own little secret because she wouldn't want you to get in trouble--Obviously Martin (Or whatever your husband's name happens to be) wouldn't be impressed that his little lady was skipping school for massages.  And because you and she are such fine fast friend's, there really is no reason to talk to her husband.  Right?

(And close this scene with a hug.)

   So!  Here's my question:

     Would you thank the Mr who's check paid for the massage BEFORE or AFTER  letting him know that his beloved wife is waxing another man's tonsils?

    

~I Need Some Kitchen Cleaner~

    I have a case of the blues that has reached epic proportions and I can prove that I cry about everything:

     Last night I was watching animal planet with my family and a commercial came on for clorox kitchen cleaner (grab a tissue, this stuff is heart wrenching).  In the commercial a family destroys a woman's kitchen; there's an egg that splashes on the counter, a dog that trots through the kitchen and leaves a dirt trail and a father that sits at the table while his son flies an airplane that spills something.

     And in walks the mom to her messy kitchen and she makes this, "Oh, you silly kids!" face.  The commercials ends with the mother blissfully cleaning the mess with a giant smile because she has the clorox kitchen cleaner so her life is returned to cleanliness and bliss.

    The commercial made my cry.  It is possible that my crying reaction had nothing to do with the commercial but everything to do with the fact that I cry constantly these days.  But whatever!  Last night I concentrated on the fact that I was crying because my kitchen will never be clorox clean, and if I came home to the mess the woman in the commercial came home to I would blow.  Not only would I blow, but I would say things that would cause my children to cry and my husband to say, "Why do you have to talk like that?"

     I have decided that I would like to go into advertising so that I could write commercials for real women who want a clean kitchen, but don't smile at their family while cleaning.  In my clorox commercial the woman would walk into the house, drop her bags of groceries on the table and begin to say things that had to be bleeped.  Then she would toss a towel at her daughter, a mop at her husband and while the family was cleaning the kitchen the mother would be taking the big nasty dog to the pound. 

     It would be a commercial that was empowering for women who feel like jit balls (jit ball being the hair ball a cat coughs up) because they lose their shit when they come home to messy houses.  It would have a touch of reality--women are not secretly hoping for a big nasty mess so that we can prove our worth as mother's and wives by cleaning up a mess lickety split with smiles on our faces. 

    At the very least the bleeping of bad words is always funny and it might amuse some other women out there who are caught in the crying circle and dude--we need all the help we can get. 

 

   

   

~Get That Finger Out Of My Face~

     I went to my wailing wall and I realized that I was thinking emotionally about a logical problem.  I heard that it was okay to cry; but it was time to switch it up--give the emotional side of the brain a rest and start working some of that logic.

      So today I got out a pencil and paper and began to write story problems with variables and equations. I need to practice the math because I have an Algebra final and I am currently 4 points below what I need to pass the class.  Contrary to my belief that I was acing the tests, I am actually failing  and now it is crunch time.  If I do not pass the class I will have to take it again and I do not ever want to re-live this semester.  Therefore, I need to do what it takes to earn the points so that I can squeak past. 

     Squeaking past is a blow to my ego: I was extremely proud of my dean's list status last semester.

       I knew that pride goeth before the fall:  I didn't know that they both goeth within seconds of one another.

      My pride has taken such a dip that I asked my husband to help me do my figurin'. I could have done this many times; Martin is a mathematician and if I would have asked he would have helped me. He even offered to help, but when he offered, I said: "Nope!  Got it!" 

    This is because my hackles rise when the man says, "You did that wrong".  When my hackles rise I respond by telling him that he is not the boss of me and I am not stupid and he should just shut his yap.  It's an involuntary reaction (and an ugly display) that I avoid by never asking him to help me. 

     But tonight!  That all changed. 

     I asked for help, and he gaveth. 

     I worked a word/math problem that dealt with speed and velocity and time and destination and acceleration.  When I asked for equations Martin whipped out some pencil magic and we drew equations with variables and percents and ratios and little symbols that he could be making up because they meant nothing to me.

    He also introduced me to the imaginary number "i".

    I said: "Shut up.  Imaginary number named I?  You are making that up."

      He assured me it was true and he showed me how it worked into my equation.  I evaluated his math and found the equation to be sound. (It takes 48 seconds to travel .7 of a mile.)

    I also realized that I had just mathematically and logically proved my foregone conclusion:  Jeff died because I told him I would babysit his daughter. 

     If I would have said no, he would have had to stay home and he would be alive.

      Martin explained to me that the imaginary number "i" didn't mean me as in me--Deborah-- the "i" meant me as in him--Martin.

      He was much older than Jeff.  He should have told Jeff to be a dad and stay home with his child: He could have created an equation that would have shown Jeff how much time he was loosing with his daughter by going out on the town.

     He and I have essentially the same point and so it was clear that the imaginary number"i'"is actually the imaginary number "we". 

   "We" is an imaginary number of astronomical proportions.

     It contains all of the people who think that they are imaginary "i" in the equation of Jeff's death. The imaginary "i" is thick and heavy, but it spreads easily.

      May 4th will begin the trial of the bartender who served Jeff and Guy January 20th.  I would like to go to the trial so that I can see the equation that has the imaginary "i" that proclaims that the bartender is the variable that will take the finger out of my face and point it at someone else.

     The problem with the imaginary number "i" is that it is imaginary. 

    The problem with the finger pointing is that there will never be an "ah-HA!" moment is which all is returned to right.  If the court decides that the bartender is responsible for the deaths and he is convicted for that crime, nothing changes.  The court room is not going to break into applause as Jeff and Guy walk into the building because they have been vindicated and so they get to live again. 

   When Martin and I finished solving the equation I realized that all my fingers have been so busy looking for a place to point that they have forgotten that they should rest in a clasped position.  My fingers should be folded in prayer asking for help accepting that the answer is:

0.

   Blame isn't a game that will end with a name. 

    But life is a constant and I need to factor in some study accleration so that I can pass by this semester and never do it again.

   

      

    

    

~Let's Talk About Music~

      My music of choice can best be described as loud and obnoxious.  I recently had a conversation with my cousin Becky and she suggested that my current craving of the loud angry music was an outlet for my loud angry emotions.  She is probably right, and even if she is wrong--it makes perfect sense.

     I wrote an article for my school paper about my study habits and my desire to take an MP3 player with my for finals: 

    In a perfect world my disability would be understood and accepted and all my hard rockin' buddies would be allowed to come to the exam room with me. They would sing about booze and women and drugs-and me?

I would take "Rosetta stoned" to Spanish with me and I would ace my Spanish final-not because Tool speaks Spanish, but because they are speaking a language that no one understands, but it is the perfect language for the preterit tense.

      So how about you?  What's is your musical choice?  Do you have different music for house cleaning and driving? 

~What Is Love?~

      When I first met my beloved he was just my sister-in-law's brother.  I wasn't worried about impressing him, or seducing him, or amusing him.  He just was a person who was there and as such, he was subjected to many of my habits before I cared what he thought of my habits. 

      One of the habits he was subjected to was my desire to talk to Idaho people while I was in Missouri.  I had a calling card and I knew I wasn't responsible for the bill.  I made prime usage of that privilege until it was cut off; I called my family and I called my friends and I ended every conversation with the words, "I love you." 

    After he and I became a habit he mentioned to me that I was a woman who tossed the "L" word around indiscriminately.  I really can't blame him for thinking that I was an "l" word saying kind of person--his experience of me was that he walked into the house and heard me end all my conversation with either, "I love you" or "I love you too."

     He didn't realize that I am not a person who tosses the 'l' word around--I don't say I love ice cream or black jaguars or tulips.  Love is not a word that I use on things.  Love is a word I use on people and only on people that I love.

     Since the death of Jeff, my "I love you" habit has been in hyper over drive.  I've slowed down on the hugging of everyone I care about, but I have picked up the pace on the "I love You's".  My children and my beloved are the first and foremost recipients of the daily declarations of my love and adoration.  And like a ripple caused by a stone in a pond, the love fest has radiated outwards so that I am currently loving friends of mine and friend's of Martin's. 

       I have said the word enough in the last few months that perhaps the novelty is wearing off.  I know that we are supposed to tell those that we love how important they are; but are we supposed to do that every time we see them or speak with them?

      And I have begun to wonder; what exactly do I mean when I proclaim my love?  Surely there are different levels of love.  The love I feel for my husband is different for that I feel for my mother.  The love of my son is different than that of the love I feel for my son's friends. 

      In the early years of our relationship Martin suggested that my declaration's of love would lose their meaning because I say the words to everyone, and surely my feeling isn't the same for everyone.  (This is obviously a case of him wondering where he was on my love scale.  Did I love him more than I loved the lady who used to live next door to me or my favorite local bartender? ) 

        In the Spanish language they have different words for love.  "Amore" is love reserved for God and your spouse,  you 'encanta' your children and parents and perhaps 'quiero' your lover...but there is a difference in the level.  You don't amore shoes. 

     In English we have the word love and we use it for everything from our favorite tv show to our grandmother.  We say and it we hear it so much that perhaps the depth of feeling is rubbed off. 

      So I have been thinking about the "l" word and I have begun to wonder what exactly I mean when I say it.  Primarily what I mean is, "I adore spending time with you.  You are special and important to me and I am going to miss when you are gone."  That's an awful lot of stuff to pack into one word, but I am glad there is the one word because it would probably be a little creepy for me to recite that to each person on my list.  Especially the part about, "I am going to miss you when you are gone." 

      It's possible that my chronic love fest is the fall out of my desire to make sure that no one dies without hearing the "l" word from me.  It's my reaction to death and my overwhelming desire to make sure I let my loved ones know that they are my loved ones. 

      It's possible that this is a stage that I am going through, and much like the hugging thing it will slow down and I will no longer have the overwhelming desire to start and finish every conversation with the declarations of my love. 

     Just to be on the safe side, I am going to start throwing in phrases like, "I adore you" and "You complete me".  I need to start mixing it up just a little bit so that the meaning behind the phrase stays fresh. 

    And now I am off to use the phone.  It occurs to me that there are a couple people who I haven't declared my adoration for in while.  I would hate for the sun to go down without them thinking, "Deb told me she loved me again--I think her cheese has finally slipped off her cracker."

~Me So Crazy~

     In case you are not in the know:  when a person is buried in the winter, they put a thawing agent on the soil so that they can dig the grave.  When the grave is filled back in, they put the old sod on the grave.  When Spring hits, they have to remove the sod and the top portion of soil as the thawing agent makes the dirt sterile and nothing can grow.  After replacing the soil, they put down fresh green sod so that the grave is purty on Memorial day.

      I only know all of that because of this:

     Tuesday night my husband watched a CSI marathon while I did homework.  After tucking the kids in bed we met for our nightly smoke and gossip session.  My beloved tells me that he drove past the cemetery and he noticed that there was a mound of dirt by Jeff's grave.  I said, "hmm."  He proceeded to tell me that he was fairly certain that Jeff had been dug up so that they could do some forensic work on his body.

     And I began to sob.

      Not regular sobbing, but the ugly sobbing in which you can't catch your breath and snot rushes out of your nostrils and pools on your collar bones.  I insist that can't be right--surely the forensic staff needs authorization for the exhumation of a body.

      My beloved says they don't need family authorization, just a court order--and they can get that without family knowledge.

     I begin to sub-sub and snort.  I insist we go to the cemetery immediately to find out if perhaps someone was just buried next to Jeff and that accounts for the pile of dirt.  My beloved suggests that we can't go to the cemetery at midnight.

    Bright and early yesterday morning Di arrives with crying eyes and a story about Jeff's grave and the lack of grass.  She and I go to the grave site and sure enough--no grass.  Just a big square piece of dirt.  She and I begin to bawl like lost calves.  I call Martin to ask about the grass--was it there Thursday?  (He visits the site regularly, I had never gone.)  He assures me there was grass.  I hang up and tell Di, "Jeff's not even there!"

    And we both dribble snot and tears and bits of drool down the front of our shirts.

     I call my mom and hysterically report that Jeff has been removed and there is only a big dirt pile.  She uses her motherly voice and asks me to take a deep breath, calm down and tell her again.  So I do, and like the ace reporter that I will some day be--the woman who checks facts before reporting them--I state that Jeff has been removed from the cemetery and where he used to be is just a big dirt spot. 

     My mother finds the number of the funeral home and tells me to call them and ask for the sexton's phone number, as the sexton will know what is going on with the grave site.  During this call, Di and I are walking through the cemetery looking for Guy's grave to see if he has also been removed.  We walk past at least twenty other dirt plots before we find Guy's grave--and sure enough.  No sod.  Just dirt.

     And now Di and I are ready to render our garments, shave our heads and run naked through the streets with our sobbing faces.

    I call the funeral home, only slightly less hysterical and I hear the story about the ground thaw chemical.  My mother calls the sexton and gets the story about the sod and also the curt remark, "If you were to walk around the cemetery you would see twenty-nine graves in the same condition."

     When we get the story straight we stop the sobbing and do a little, "oh.  ha ha.  HM.  So maybe the other twenty graves we stopped at should have been a hint that our deceased was still planted."

      In retrospect, the whole situation could have been much less sob free, especially if we had used our logic.  But ya know, logic flew out the window when Jeff died and so every crazy idea now seems as if it is true.

     It's only slightly ironic that Sunday was Easter and Di and I set in church to hear about the resurrection of Jesus and the discovery of the empty tomb by Mary.  That whole story kind of explains why she and I clutched each other when a truck that is the same make and design as Jeff's pulled into the cemetery.  It also explains why we both held our breath when the fella  got out with his face and his hair and his sunglasses that all resembled Jeff.

     Actually, it doesn't explain anything, other than the fact that grief sticks around for a long time and it ambushes with pure crazy from time to time.

   

         

   

      

    

             

~I Can Not Keep A Secret~

     I feel an overwhelming freedom now that I have admitted that I am a big mouth blabber face.  I wrote an article for the newspaper about my loose lips, and now I am going to dip into my vault and bring out some incredibly tasty morsels just for YOU.

      I know quite a few women who work in the medical profession, one in particular works at a doctors office and she is regularly in attendance during the most dreaded day of a woman's year.  You know what I am talking about:"Just scoot to the end of the table...a little more...a little more..."

     For many years of pap smears I have scooted to the end of the table painfully aware that I was 'winking' as I was scooting.  With each scoot I have always thought that the nurse and doctor were snickering behind the drape that covered my knees and hid them from my view.

      Perhaps my view of pap smears is a little more paranoid than that of the average woman.  I am sure that all of us experience the feeling that we are showing something that our mama's told us to never show anyone but our husband. I am sure every woman is embarrassed; but maybe not to the edge of paranoia that I experience.

     But I have good reasons for the paranoia!  At my first pap smear the doctor said, "nurse could you please shine the light in the hole" and the nurse shining the light in the hole?  She was my boyfriend's other girlfriend.

    So!  I have always had this belief that the nurse shining the light in the hole was checking out my girls bits and remembering what they look like.

     After the birth of my third child, I went to the doctor office for the six week check-up.  The nurse in attendance that day was a student, and I was to be her first pap smear.  When my eyes met hers, I began to blush and to consider the fact that I would be the first medical hoo-hah that she had ever seen.  I felt the blush spread to my ears and my neck when I considered that fact that if she ever saw me again--she may remember what I looked liked where no one but my husband was supposed to be looking.

    Because discomfort is not my thing I said, "Uh...oh...student?  Hm.  Can I have a bag to put over my head?  I would hate for you to see my in public someday and remember I was your first pap." 

So.

     The pap was done--I scooted and blushed and winked--and two years later I was working at the C-store and a woman walked in who had a vaguely familiar look to her.

     We began:

Do I know you from somewhere?

Where did you go to school?

Do you have a child the same age as my child?

Do you work in a doctor's office and have you seen my hoo-hah?

   You know.  The regular stuff.

    As it turns out, she was that nurse.  She laughed because she remembered I had said that thing about the bag.   I blushed and stammered and stated that I wished I would have had the bag, because if I would have had the bag, I would not have to have the conversation about me wishing I had bagged my face during a pap smear.

    To bring this full circle and to high-light my inability to keep secrets:

    I told that story to my friend who is an attending nurse at many pap smears and SHE assured me that the nurse wasn't laughing at my six week check-up--she was laughing about the  bag remark.

    Because!

     (And this is the good part.)

     For the nurses and doctors who do the pap smear, it really isn't that remarkable.  Oh sure, your mama said it was special and your partner thinks the sun shines out of it.  But really?  No big.  Doctors and nurses aren't moved by the view of the girl bits.  The bits are mundane--unless a child is emerging from them, and then the only thing interesting is the baby. 

      I don't think I am breaking a confidence of my nursing friend, but if I am, I break the secret under the banner of:"I can't keep a secret!!"

     And to remind you that a yearly pap is a BIG deal. My Aunt Marie had ovarian cancer; she died.  She would want you to know that embarrassment is no reason to avoid the yearly pap.  Put the hoo-hah check on your calendar for this year.  It is important.

(But if the nurse is your boyfriend's other girlfriend, you might want to get another doctor.)

            

~This Disposable World~

    Last week I was on the couch watching the tube and nursing an antibiotic/pain killer cocktail.  I came across a show where people were auctioning stuff from their house in the hopes that they could earn enough money to buy something else.  I paused because the lady of the house was auctioning off a blue Tiffany vase that was appraised at $5000.

     I have an antique collection of carnival glass that is important* enough to me that when we built this house, I had a shelf built that was exactly tall enough to house my tallest vase out of the reach of childrens hands--but not important enough that I dust it. 

Look:

   

     I watched the show because I was coveting the vase--it would have looked nice up there.  I was startled to hear the vase was worth $5000 and I felt kinda bad for the lady when she only got $1200 (or maybe it was $2200--did I mention the pain pills and antibiotics?).  I assumed she was auctioning off all of her good stuff to do something cool--like build a bedroom for her ailing sister or maybe her elderly grandmother.  The next shot was of the mantel that she had cleared of all her antiques so that she could take them to auction.

     She sold all of the stuff for a flat screen TV.

     Basically, the woman sold her antiques so that she could replace them with a TV that will be ancient in one year and garbage in ten years.

     I was flabbergasted that a woman would sell her valuable antique blue Tiffany vase for less than 1/3 of it's value for something that was disposable. 

    Which got me to thinking about all of the expensive disposable things I own.  Like the lap top that I am typing on right now--the one I named Sweet Baby because I love it so much.  In five years, sweet baby will be an old lady and I will probably replace her with something smaller, lighter and faster.  My cell-phone that takes pictures is already two years old and decrepit--it doesn't play music or take video and it weighs almost 24 ounces--not like the slick new chocolate phone.

    Furthermore, my vehicle is a 1999 and while I cried tears of joy when I purchased it and vowed to love it forever, now that three of the windows don't roll down I want to replace it with something else.  Like say a Jaguar. 

     Every article of clothing that I own should be replaced in the next five years, except for the sweater  I stole from my sister twelve years ago that I wore through three pregnancies and an un-knowable number of sicknesses and mental break downs.  (my husband recently suggested that I couldn't wear it to town anymore.  If you knew my husband you would see how laughable this is: My husband is a man who has big chunks taken out of many of his t-shirts.  When people ask what happened to his t-shirt he says, "When a bear shits in the woods, does he wipe?") 

     I just learned that the life-time of my wedding ring was only five years.  I am raising three kids with whole mouth's full of disposable teeth.  When my sons lizard died, I had a replacement in the tank before dark.

      Sheesh.  It seems we are living in a big fat disposable world.  The vast majority of the expensive things that we are longing for right now will be practically valueless in five years--especially if we are talking about electronics. 

      What is your most valuable disposable item, and what would you trade it for?

     As for me--I live in a house that will probably be a pile of rubble in 100 years.  I would trade it for a smaller house if it meant my husband didn't  have to work seven days a week to pay for an acre of disposable property.

      *the glass is valuable because I inherited it from a dear friend, not because it is Tiffany.