My Fave Valentine’s Day Movies

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This took a VERY long time to compile so throw some love my way this Valentine’s Day and check it out..

And leave a comment over there ..

I LOVE COMMENTS!!

Empty Pockets.. Full Heart

Christmas this year was hard.

We literally had no money for anything.. tree, gifts, etc.

I’ve never NOT had a Christmas but I guess there’s a first time for everything and truly, it gave me the opportunity to reconnect with my faith and walk the walk in regards to celebrating Christ’s birth instead of getting all caught up in the commercial holiday. I was also able to give to a family that was worse off then we were and that truly, was the best present I had ever received.

If it was just the two of us, it wouldn’t really have been a big deal but with the kids.. well.. they can only “understand” so much regarding adult situations but they were shipped off to the Crack Whore’s for the weekend since she was loaded down with gifts for them.

Fortunately, my big ol’ Italian family celebrates the Feast of the Seven Fishes and they were more then happy to have me and Chief over. Especially because we’re moving and may not be back here for a while.

My family knows our situation and even though the last thing they would have expected was a gift, I didn’t feel right receiving empty handed. It’s just the way I am.

So a few days before Christmas Eve, I’m sitting in my mother’s living room watching one of her soap operas and it hit me.
The PERFECT gift for my aunts and cousins. I literally jumped off the couch excited and told my mom what I was thinking. She was excited to.

My grandmother passed away at 97 in July 2009. She truly was the matriarch of our family and she is very, very missed by all of us. I’ve said this before but it’s worth repeating.. I’ve realized as I’ve grown older and met different people and joined different families that mine is truly the exception to the rule. There is no dysfunction.. we are close.. we are there for each other.. supportive of each other.. we all get along.. there is no stress when having to do a seating chart..

Christams Eve’s dinner was always at my grandmother’s little South Philly row house. Imagine trying to stuff 40 or more people in a box and you kind of get the idea of what dinner’s were like. It wasn’t uncommon to be lined up on the stairs with plates on our laps!

After she died, my her youngest daughter (my aunt) took over the mantle to keep the tradition alive.. and even though it meant driving an extra hour or so to her house, we gladly do it because gosh, with everybody’s hectic day to day there is no way we were going to miss the opportunity to get together.. eat.. and laugh. The things we do best!

When they sold my grandmother’s house, my mom had given me all different kinds of plates and cups and saucers that my grandmother had collected over the years. Things that no one could really use but things my mother and aunt didn’t have the heart to throw out. The thought was that I would take them to a flea market but I never got around to doing that.

The idea that I had sitting in my mother’s living room was to turn part of the tea set I had inherited into candles and gift them to my aunts and cousins. It seemed so perfect. Something that I could make less then cheap but was priceless.

I also created a tag with my grandmother’s picture and the words “Grandmom’s Cup of Love”

I knew that the gift would be well received.. but I didn’t expect just HOW well..

There were tears .. a lot of them.. and it made me feel bad because the last thing I wanted was for anyone to be sad but at the same time, I felt really good because I know that they were appreciative and that their sentiment was sincere.

Turns out that one of the worst Christmas’ turned into one of the best!

Why Ask If You’re Not Going To Listen?

Ok..

This is DEFINITELY a man thing. And for all you men out there who are reading this YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!!!

So this has to do with the Christmas .. and what I got for Christmas..

Now, let just say this right now. I think I’m the EASIEST person to buy something for because I appreciate anything. It really doesn’t matter what the gift “IS” .. To me, it the thought that you went out and actually looked for something that you think I might like that makes me go all gaga over it.

NOTE: Ok .. don’t do the whole WHAT ABOUT IF THEY JUST RAN INTO TARGET AND GRABBED SOMETHING OFF THE SHELF WITHOUT ANY THOUGHT AT ALL thing. Let’s just stick to the story and how I’m so goddamn noble for appreciating anything!!

So Chief.. having dangling things between legs.. asks me :: rather PLEADS with me :: “… tell meeee whaaaaat I can geeeeeet yooooou!!!”

Ok.. so .. if I have to TELL you what you want, then it really doesn’t meet my “gift” criteria. So the answer is always the same “.. Nope, cuz it doesn’t matter”. And he usually does a good job because you know, DIAMONDS are always a good gift, right girls?

This year, Christmas was a bitch. My unemployment check fell on the 23rd which meant nothing but running around to all ends of the earth.. then bringing everything over to Birds :: because the little heathens would search hell and high water to see what they were getting :: and then wrapping everything then driving all over creation to deliver gifts to the people that I wasn’t going to actually SEE for the holiday :: ie: Mom, Brother, etc. :: .. It was so intense that I’m seriously thinking of becoming a Jehovah’s Witness next year. Don’t mean to be offensive but they don’t do gifts so.. yknow.. that’s alright with me!

The Monday or Tuesday before Christmas, me and Chief were walking home from the shop

ME: I’m like.. really REALLY stressing over Christmas shopping
CHIEF: YOU? I’m practically pissing my pants
ME: Why the hell would you be pissing your pants?
CHIEF: Duh! Were we not just talking about shopping?
ME: Hmph. Like you’re doing any shopping
CHIEF: I have to get you something, dumbass.. and I can’t drive, remember?
ME: Yea.. but you only have to worry about ME.. I have to worry about EVERYBODY else. I’d rather have your deal, Bucky.

So the following day we were in the shop with Weed when the conversation started again..

ME: Hey! Yknow what? You worried about what to get me? Get me a dryer. You don’t even need to drive.. just walk your ass across the street. There. Simple. Done. See how easy that was?

CHIEF: I can’t get you an APPLIANCE for Christmas..

ME: Who says?

CHIEF: It isn’t right..

ME: It’s right if that’s what I want..

CHIEF: I’ve made fun of guys who bought their wives appliances for Christmas

ME: You mean to tell me you wouldn’t think I would be tickled pink if I woke up Christmas morning with a chrome LG Front Loading dryer in the basement with a big ass bow on it?

CHIEF: I’m not getting you a dryer. That’s something that we have to go shopping for together

ME: Are you fucking KIDDING me? You’re saying buying a dryer is a “couple’s” thing?

CHIEF: Nope. Not doing it.

ME: BUT I WANT ONE

CHIEF: and you’ll get one. Just not for Christmas.

ME: But I hate going to the laundromat and I’m backed up on clothes because the kids aren’t in school and I thought you’d be SMART ENOUGH to REALIZE that a dryer is THE. PERFECT. GIFT.

CHIEF: (rolling eyes) I’m going to get you a dryer. AFTER the holidays

ME: I WANT A FUCKING DRYER FOR CHRISTMAS DAMMIT

WEED: I think I’d get her the dryer, Dad.

The next day, Christmas Eve, he was going out to get me my gift and kept getting hung up at the shop. I kept trying to push him out the door, “.. yknow, the longer you wait the crappier my gift gets”.

So he goes and me and Weed are working and he says something about how he thinks he knows what I’m getting. It better be a fucking dryer, I tell him. He gulps and says that he doesn’t think it is.

At this point, I ‘m thinking that I am getting a dryer and it’s this big conspiracy to make me think that I’m not. Chief’s an ass when it comes to doing stuff like that to me.

He’s gone for HOURS. I mean.. HOURS. I actually didn’t think I was going to see him again until after the new year because like.. what normal person goes out on CHRISTMAS EVE to get his woman a gift?

Don’t answer that!

He finally comes back and tells me to NOT look in the back seat of the wagon. Ok. Find. A Dryer wouldn’t fit in the back seat of the wagon anyway.

I tell him that I hope he didn’t look in the back of the wagon because two of his gifts were back there. I already know he didn’t because he’s just oblivious to everything and like a typical man, if it isn’t right in front of his face, he doesn’t see it.

At first he says no.. but I convince him that they would be a bitch to wrap and he concedes only if he can give me one of mine. Yea.. sure.. whatever.

So I bring him in the braiser and stock pot he’s been drooling over for the past 6 months at the restaurant supply place and his reaction was just like the one I would have when I woke up Christmas morning and found a functioning dryer down my basement with a big red bow on it.

He’s all happy and I’m all happy that he’s all happy.

So he tells me to close my eyes and then tells me to open them. When I do, he has a box with this in it:

He tells me that he just SO wants to be done with the divorce and marry me on a cruise to Jamaica.

And yeah, I did the whole misty eyed girl thing because I actually am a girl and you know.. so who cares that he has an alternative reason for wanting our destination to be Jamaica..

So we go home and I’m still looking for signs around the house that SOMEONE had delivered and installed a dryer on CHRISTMAS EVE!! But nope. Nothing.

Christmas morning comes and I’m still hoping upon hope that the gift bag from him sitting under the tree has like, one of those doll house dryers in it. Cause, yknow, that’s something I would do if the situation was reverse.

But no. It was a Tom Tom. Now why the HELL he would get me a Tom Tom is beyond me because I’ve told him countless times that I didn’t see a use for them and would much rather rely on an old fashioned map if I got lost somewhere.

Which seldom happens because I’m good with directions and shit like that.

But .. yknow.. guess it’s that whole MALE LISTENING THING AND THEIR INABILITY TO DO THAT!

And so I didn’t get a dryer for Christmas.. and in fact, still don’t have one because we got into a financial hole because of Christmas and because my unemployment ran out.

But all of the above wouldn’t be nearly a FRACTION as bad if the following conversation held in the car the day after Christmas had never taken place:

CHIEF: You know, I rode up and down the Pike trying to figure out what to get you. I stopped here.. I stopped there.. I stopped at this other place.

ME: (Choking on the smoke that I had just inhaled) WHAT?

CHIEF: Yea.. omg.. you’re SO hard to buy for.

ME: W.H.A.T??????

CHIEF: I know you say your so easy to buy for because you like anything but that actually puts a lot more pressure on a person.

ME: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME YOU MORON?

CHIEF: Geez, Leese.. what are you getting so strung out about?

ME: Did I not tell you I wanted a dryer? The ONLY fucking time I EVER told you what I wanted and you spent HOW MANY HOURS trying to figure out what to get me??

CHIEF: Did you really want it that bad?

ME: You’re an idiot

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Valentine’s Day .. and for the sake of male solidarity, I suggest all you men out there do the same thing.

Tweedle Dee .. Tweedle Dumb… Tweedle Dumb Ass

You figure out who is who!!

Bubba .. Weed.. and Spaz

This was taken Christmas Day night at Bird’s house.

Yes.. Weed was with us.

Yes.. Bubba is really that big for 15

Yes.. Spaz could play a part in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory if he were blue.

This is the only picture that I have :: after 3 years :: of all three of them together so I thought I’d share.

“TIMBER” – The Story On How The Tree Fell Three Times

.. so I was going to get all Once Upon A Time-ish and start spewing this story about a lonely tree in the the Holiday forest that found a home in my house.

But dinner’s in the oven and I don’t have time so you’ll just have to be bombarded with the real story.

You can't really tell from this picture but the tree really is 9 feet

Ok.

First of all, let me tell you that the painting above the gel-canister fire place is a view of  St. Mark in Italy. My mother has had that picture for EONS and thought it was A REALLY REALLY NICE GESTURE to give it to me after I bought my first house. Mind you, this was after my father died and since he was the one that actually WANTED the painting, I think she just wanted a guilt-free excuse to get rid of it.

I don’t have the heart to throw it out.. but I also do not lack decorating savvy so I only hang it when she either comes over :: which she never does :: OR when I have to send a picture of the tree to her cell phone.

This way she thinks it’s on the wall.. I get away with her thinking it’s on the wall and everybody’s happy.

Ok.. with that said..

You have to picture this so that you get the full effect.

This is a picture of the right side of my dining room. The entry way on the left side of the tree leads to the stairway to the second floor.

The fire place is one of those “real flame” ones that use the big sterno gel things. They’re actually pretty cool. You can’t tell from the picture but the fireplace itself is REAL!! wood and even though they market the ambviance .. it really does throw off mega heat.

So normally … like OTHER normal families.. the tree is put up in the living room. However, with the addition of a hand-me-down sectional from my uncle, the 52″ flat screen and 110 gallon fish tank had to be re-arranged. Putting the tree up in the living room meant that everything had to be re-arranged again.

Man’s job.

I can move around the furniture but there was NO WAY IN HELL that I was even going to think about moving the flat screen and forget about the fish tank.

His babies.. not mine.

NOTE: Although our three year old fish, Mr. Pink :: fuck him, I named them anyway :: did not die after all. I think he was just starving to death because I finally remembered to buy fish food and he came right around. Ah, another story for another time.

Anyway.. so we decide to get the tree on Friday because of the STORM! OF! THE! CENTURY! on Saturday. The plan, as Chief tells it, is to take off the webbing on Saturday so the leaves can fall and then decorate it on Sunday.

Fine. Whatever. I just wanted a damn artificial tree anyway.

So Saturday comes.. and the damn thing is still sitting on the front porch with the webbing still on.

Ok.. so he openned the shop amid the blizzard and had to walk home through it.

Big hairy deal.

Sunday morning comes around and since he didn’t cook the big breakfast to celebrate the STORM! OF! THE! CENTURY! like he said.. I figured we’d get to the tree.

Nada.

By one in the afternoon, he was conked out in the bedroom.

Well.. I guess I’ll at least go up in the attic and get the decorations out. Maybe that will spark a fire in his ass.

So I go upstairs in the attic.. now, mind you, my attic runs the full length of the house on either side. So basically I guess I have two attics. And it’s a big space. If the roof wasn’t slanted you could definitely chain a few kids to the beams and keep them there forever a while.

I don’t normally go in there. Ever. But I went in there this time and it was trashed. All the decorations from last year were just thrown around.. broken balls all over the place.. wreaths strewn about.. stocking with all kinds of shit all over them just thrown all over the place.

The kids put the decorations away last year and when I took a look at what the attic looked like I WAS ROYALLY PISSED.

I MEAN PISSED.

REALLY. REALLY. PISSED.

NOTE: OMG.. I just remembered RIGHT FREAKIN’ NOW that the cops were up there when they raided the house last year. Shit! Not that the kids wouldn’t have just thrown the decorations up there but I bet you the police did the same thing to my attic that they did to my bedroom!! Um.. how do you spell “woops”?

Ok. My bad.

Anyway.. so my little pissed off self had a discussion with my little OCD anally organized self and I cleaned the attic. Not quietly, mind you. Cursing and bitching and all of that the whole time.

I bring whatever decorations I can salvage downstairs :: funny how all the ones that broke were from girlfriend’s past, huh? Talk about irony! :: and then stomped to the front porch .. passing Bubba who was playing PS3.. lifted the 9ft tree.. started to carry it into the living room.. felt something go “ccrreeeiinnccchhh” in my 44 year old back.. dropped it.. and then started to drag it across the living room almost knocking down the flat screen tv.

Fuck it, I figured.. if nobody was going to do anything in the living room to make room for the fucking tree that I didn’t want.. then I’m just going to stick it where ever it could be stuck and that’s the corner where it is now.

Who cares if it blocks the stairs? No one is sleeping in the bedrooms upstairs anyway so go ahead… argue with me.. I DARE you!

With all the grunting and dragging and hollering at the dogs to get the HELL out of my way, Chief and Bubba lined up like little Dr. Who robots to help.

Full of fucking Christmas cheer now, arentcha boys?

So the Ultimate Tree-Putter-Upper stands the tree up in the stand and tells me he isn’t going to secure it to the wall until I put the lights and decorations on it.

ME: What are you talking about? I’m only going to decorate the part that everybody sees.

CHIEF: You’re kidding right?

ME: You’re telling me I should decorate the back of the tree? The back of the tree that’s facing the stairway that nobody is going to be able to use? You’re kidding me, right?

CHIEF: But.. um.. isn’t that.. like.. a little .. um.. ghetto?

ME: OH.. cuz we’re so fucking bourgeois, right? I forgot..

CHIEF: Forget I even said anything.

ME: Good call, Bucky.

So he goes and does something.. don’t remember what.. maybe take a hit to take the edge off.. who knows.. but as I’m trying to untangle the icicle lights to put on the tree :: yes, I did say icicle lights. I like a bright tree :: nobody remembered that we have a very curious kitten in the house. A kitten who’s natural instinct is to get into anything and everything that will make my life miserable.

So while Ernie, The Terrorist Puppy is chasing the kitten through the house she jumps.

Onto the tree.

The tree that isn’t yet secured to the walls because Father Uber-Christmas wanted lights behind it.

And it goes down.

Hard.

Onto the dining room table where I have a decorate basket filled with Christmas balls that goes sliding across the table and onto the non-carpeted floor.

I honestly wanted to cry and I don’t cry over stuff like that but I was SO overwhelmed and that just added to the overwhelmed-ness.

Chief comes running out of the bedroom and Bubba comes running into the dining room and I just put my hands out like Diana Ross stopping love and said;

JUST.

GO.

AWAY.

They knew better then to argue and where probably relieved that they got a free pass.

So I cleaned everything up and lifted the tree up. I couldn’t secure it because I’m not tall enough to secure a 9′ tree.. especially when the steps are now blocked. So I filled the base with water thinking that would at least give it some weight and proceeded to put the lights on.

Everything was going well until my OCD self just HAD to do something with the fireplace.

Remember, it takes gel canisters but I do have real logs in there just for appearances. I had bought these lights last year that look like real flames but found out the hard way that they burn too hot to put them on anything that would burn or blow up so I figured HA! I’ll put them in the fireplace.

So as I was monkeying around with them, I figured I would plug them into one of the icicle light sets. Fine. No problem.

I crawl under the tree and as I’m digging around in the branches for the end of the icicle lights, Ernie decided HE wanted to know what was under there and tried to belly crawl around me.

Ha.. ha.. cute.. UNTIL he used MY BARE FLESH to dig his claws into to pull himself under. I howled.. instinctively jerking back and amid the rain of pine needles, felt the tree falling. And me getting soaking wet from the gallon or two of water that I had put in the base.

Again the boys came running and again I told them to get the HELL away from me.

The knew I wasn’t going to be able to handle this one.. being all wrapped up in a tree and everything.. so they helped and I give them credit for trying not to laugh.

So everything gets cleaned up.. AGAIN.. and I go back to monkeying with the flicker lights.. hoping to be enveloped by some kind of holiday zen.

I finally get the lights just the way I want them :: thank you duct tape :: and go to plug them in. You know.. to the icicle lights? Yea.. well.. the only problem with that is that when the tree was re-erected for the second time it wasn’t exactly in the same spot.. so the end of the icicle lights was further way and when I tugged on the extension cord to get more leeway .. well.. you know what happened.

If you don’t.. just take a look at the picture again..

Picture me sitting in front of the fireplace where that nice little glow is coming from .. see that where the tree is? Now picture where it would fall if you tugged a little too hard on the extension cord.

Actually the tree in the picture is pushed back further then it was when it fell RIGHT ON ME the second time.. but you get the idea.

CHIEF: We’re getting an artificial one next year, huh?

ME: I hate you

CHIEF: Oh, come on.. at least I didn’t say TIMBER!!