Too Good To Be For True?

I have a separate email account for my anal retentive biz, and this, as is, arrived in my inbox after I posted an ad on craigslist:

Hello, I am Marian Bacon by name and I need a Household that can take good care of my house before my 3years child birthday party that will be celebrated this month. I really need a General House cleaning in my House and also who can do the cleaning Monthly too, I am presently Out of the country for a while just to handling some New year Company Project Budget which will be lasted till the end of the month,

So I will be coming back home very soon after the Company Project Budget and get myself prepared for my child Birthday Party with my big family. I have been away since January now, and since I will be coming home for my only God sent child Birthday , I want a professional cleaner that will be able to Handle my house for me before I arrive back to state, because Idon't like Dirty Environment for the party. * I will need you to do generally in my House and my home address as follow;- 901 East Thomas Drive Apt 74 Pharr, TX 78577

1) Here are the Part of places I needed to be cleaned

* Living Room: Dust Furniture, Dust Walls & Ceilings

*Floors: Wash and/or vacuum throughout or Vacuum Floors & Baseboards

*Kitchen: Clean countertops, dust and wipe appliances, spot-clean cupboard fronts and wash floors. or Clean & Sanitize Kitchen

*Bathrooms: Spotlessly clean sinks, tubs, Toilets and wipe counters, Clean & Sanitize Bathrooms

* Wood Staining (interior & exterior) and Roof Painting

*Cutting of the Grasses, and if that Grasses cutting is not part of your duty, you can look for someone close to you that will handle that part, because I know the snow will not make you do the cutting of grasses. I will also need a Babysitter for my Three (3) years Child, if you can do that too, but if you can't do that, kindly help me in looking for a caring person to help me out for that. I will like you to tell me your service cost for all this, I will make every provision for you, but I want a prefect job as I said before, I will not like a Dirty place for the Party. Please just make every thing perfect before I arrive, I will be in the state soonest, but I will like everything ready before my arrival time. So I want everything to be well arranged and clean. And I also attached some copies of the pictures for my house below. So kindly check out for the pictures of the Apartment and the bedroom including the kitchen, so I want you to take a look at the pictures and let me know your price per hours or on contract based.

I will contact my Boss to issue a payment in your name and send it to you, the amount that will be issued and send is $2,250 It my (TFA) Travel Food Allowance Payment , but its US Money Order which takes a long time to cash here in Spain , so I will like you to accept it, deduct $500 Advance Deposit for your service, and send ($1,640) to my Traveling Agent, because its for my Flight ticket and my child shopping and keep the remaining balance with you till I arrive to the state and we shall settle for the balance left with you. If eventually your service charge is more than $500, I will pay you the balance when I arrive and if it not up to $500, I will have my balance as well, but I will compensate you if the jobs are well done.

I will need your Full Details to issue the Payment. Immediately you forward the payment details, I will call you and I will send your Full name and address to my Boss and he will issue the payment and send it to you, that means you will receive the payment latest by 4 working days . I will send the Apartment Keys and Address as soon as you receive the check. Through the mailing address which you will be giving me to forward to my boss. You can give me a call too. Looking forward to read back from you.

First of all, yes, I know this is a joke. Clearly, a jetsetter like Marian has the means to hire any Household she wants, so I doubt she would be satisfied with some fly-by-night outfit like mine. HOWEVER, Marian is really appealing to my OCD tendencies, what with all the cleaning and the sanitizing, the dusting of the ceilings, and, of course, the cutting of the grasses. I mean, I also do not like a Dirty Environment and will not like a Dirty place for the Party for Marian's only God sent Three(3) years Child. Not at all. That said, is there no one in Pharr, Texas to get the perfect job done before she returns from Spain, where she's currently handling that New year company project budget? Surely there must be some professional Household who can Handle her house before she arrives back to state. And look, she even included pictures for her house:

I had no idea Pharr, Texas even had a Strip, but I'm not at all surprised that a stepper like Marian has a great view of it. AND a hot tub, y'all. I'm not sure why she included a picture of "Lucky," but if that Jimmy Buffet margarita machine he's sitting next to is part of the deal, I'm in.

Hardy Stock

I come from a line of incredibly strong, and loud, women. Mama Turista is absolutely the hardest working person I know (actually, that pretty much ANYONE knows), and her mother, who is throwing herself a ginormous 90th birthday shindig next weekend, has never shied away from the tough stuff either. My two aunts have put in more than their share of sweat equity on any number of projects, and my cousin, holy hell, could probably lift a burning car if push came to shove, but as a dentist, she couldn't be more gentle as she yanks a tooth out of your head. The matriarch of this proud lineage was actually less than pleasant to be around, but she did pay the taxes with her own inheritance to save the family ranch during the Depression and kept it going after her husband died, which she was all to happy to remind anyone who would listen every day of her more than 100 years on this planet. We actually aren't exactly sure how old she was when she passed because, incredibly vain as she was, she burned her birth certificate and all record of her age when her hairdresser suggested she quit dying her hair at age 80+ and let the silver shine through. She actually burned rubber as she pulled her Caddy out of the parking lot that day, and I believe her choice words left Mr. Juan in a pool of tears. All this to say, I think she lived so long just to spite us.

On the other side of the genetic coin, my dad's mother just celebrated her 96th birthday this week, and other than her "parts wearing out" (her words), she is still as brilliant and beautiful as ever. This is a woman who was married for nine years and had no children, and then had five children in four years (including twins and one more born within 11 months of each other) (Did I mention my whole family is Catholic?). And a year later? Her husband died. Yeah. She went straight to work and unintentionally became a modern woman, raising and providing for her family on her own. Obviously, it wasn't easy, but everybody made it through, and today, my dad and his siblings have great relationships with each other and have worked like a well-oiled machine in caring for my grandmother these past few years.

These gals are strong of mind, body, and spirit, and their intense love for their families is undeniably the driving force that pushes them to do the incredible things they do. So as I sit here tonight, icing my shoulder and reflecting on all the work Mama Turista and I did together this weekend, I am so thankful for all the truly amazing women in my life and in my blood, and when I catch glimpses of their strength in Peach and Olive, I know that they come by it honestly.

I Love Wednesdays

Like today:

• Take Peach to school, with Olive as my co-pilot
• Go to post office, credit union, and grocery store
• Make three beds
• Do four loads of laundry (whites, darks, colors, PINKS)
• Unload dishwasher from last night
• Tape off bathroom for painting tomorrow
• Organize and price stuff for garage sale Saturday
• Lunch
• Reading "lessons" with Olive
• Weed bluebonnets and front flowerbeds
• Find TWO GD snakeskins in flowerbeds and flee
• Pick up Peach from school
• Pay good arm and leg for tank of gas
• Move every licking stick of shit in the garage and sweep
• Busy work - phone calls, emails, bills, school forms
• Bathe two dirty birds
• Shower off my ownself
• Dinner

And now I'm here, talking to you people. I realize it's all very exciting, but I feel like I got a lot accomplished, especially since I'm essentially working with one arm and a neck that can only turn to the right. Yes, a mere month after six weeks of physical therapy, my shoulder has completely crapped out on me again, and I really think I might just pull my arm out of the socket and beat someone over the head with it. Probably someone at Blue Cross, as I wait in breathless (because it hurts too GD much to breathe) anticipation for someone to bestow upon me the golden ticket of an orthopedic referral.

P.S. I saw an awesome play Friday night, and at one point, the two male leads came prancing out on stage, buttnekkid, the both of them, with bouquets of balloons tied to their fishing poles. A little awkward since I was there with my BIL.

Playing Ketchup

So the last week has flown by, my dears. When we last spoke, I was heading out to the pastures of Warrenton and Round Top for the spring shows. Lawsy, do I love the smell of antiques in the morning ... Except for the fact that it was friggin' freezing on Friday, with gale force winds and intermittent rain showers. Boo. Actually, though, that was probably a good thing because I was able to help my sistacuzin spend plenty of her money that day, so I can only imagine if the weather had been at all pleasant. And after two days of tire-kicking, I was quite satisfied with a plate for my travel collection and the mo$t incredible lampshade from Arles for Mama Turista.

Saturday, I took a detour through Smithville on the way home, hoping to catch a glimpse of him or her or even one of them on the set of his new flick. I did find the set, and probably could have stalked my way into the open and unguarded wardrobe truck, but I had things to do, places to be, beers to drink, so I beat it back home. That night, as has been mentioned here and here, I was one of the lucky passengers on a fabulous birthday booze cruise, during which I had some of the bubbly and some of the contraband (but oh-so-chilly) Heinekens snuck aboard the local Miller distributor's party barge. Sorry dudes, neither less filling, nor tasting great to this gal. Anywho, it was so fun celebrating someone else's 40th birthday, it actually gave me hope that it can be a much less than dreadful experience. Because really, it's a helluva lot better than the alternative, and what can we do about it anyway. So. Bring. It.

Sunday was a flurry of yardwork and prepwork for the literacy event I chaired for Olive's school Monday and Tuesday. Let me just say, if you're the Super Supreme Chair of the Overall Committee, and I'm the Lowly Peon Chair for the Smaller Event Committee, please don't tell me over and over again how you want me to "run with it" and "be creative" because you're "SO NOT a micromanager" and then bombard me with emails and phone calls requesting "deliverables" from our volunteers and "face to faces(?)" with our committee members and whatever other bullshit buzzwords you learned in business school because then you come off looking kinda bitchy and control freaky AND you make my modem blow the fuck up and cut off all communication with my blog-reading minions. Not cool.

Horse Cents

Several times over the last month or so, Olive has told me, in great detail, how people can have their own horses even if they don't live on a farm because, see, they just keep them in a stable on someone else's farm, and then they can go ride them whenever they want. And then she always says, "Isn't that lucky?!" She has now added that she can't wait to go to college so she can "buy" a job and earn money to get her own horse. Where all that came from, and why she has yet to ask us, or at least Santa, for a real horse, I have no idea, but I certainly don't want to question the logic. I'm just going to keep my head down, my mouth shut, and my wallet open for more of these:

There was a big round up acomin' so everybody was out in full force. And every blessed one of them has a name, most related to dessert foods.


Meet The Bedtime Crew: Chocolate, Caramel, Pixie, Muddy, and Sugarpop Pumpernickel. (not pictured: Ice Cream, Hershey Kiss, and The Twins, Blackie and Burns).

Also cracking me up lately: Olive's new thing of calling Peach by her name instead of Sissy or Sis. She's always known her name and said it if we ask her, but she's just now calling her that, and I love the way she says it.