From the mouth of a Frenchie: "Bonne fête des mères...oui oui et fromage s'il vous plait!"

Happy Most-Important-Holiday-in-the-World Day!!!  To human mum's and dog mum's alike!  Also soon-to-be-mom's carrying little plankton in their belly, and wannabe moms having lots of sex in hopes to conceive....oh and all the 16 and Pregnant MTV girls...but not so much the pregnant teenager I saw smoking a cigarette with the windows rolled up in the car and a 2 year old in the backseat.  But definitely to all other reproducing species..except the spider.

On the next episode of Hoarders....Puppypalooza.

I have a dog obsession.  I'm like a dog whisperer, only without the whisper part. Because I haven't yet mastered talking baby talk in a whisper.  If C would allow it, I would probably get a Duggar-sized pack of dogs.

I am puppy-sitting for a couple days to a Paul Bunyan sized dog. For the sake of puppy confidentiality we will call him Rod. Because let's be honest..nothing is funnier than a human-named dog. Except a dog named Rod. Or anyone named Rod for that matter.  Rod is supposedly a puppy. I just think he is a wizard. He weighs like 306 lbs and is probably approaching 7 feet tall.  His nose alone is the size of my face. I feel like I'm in a real-life version of Clifford the Big Red Dog with a side of Honey I Shrunk the Kids.  I would love to see the mother dog that birthed this mythical creature. She was definitely porking King Kong on the DL. He must have had to eat his way out of her belly like a savage...leaving no evidence behind.  I am also convinced that Rod's siblings must have been teacup-sized because he has a Buddy the Elf complex.  This morning he tried to squeeze through a miniaturized cat door. I got nervous I would have to go to the store to buy a tub of Crisco.  And then the cashier would think I'm a fat lard-ass who sits around eating Crisco all day with a spoon then rolls around in it in the nude.  Because that's what I would think if I saw someone buy Crisco.  Anyways, Rod is like that illusive fictional man's best friend dog that only exists in Lassie reruns.  If I sleepwalked outside in winter with no long johns and holey uggs and fell in a well right before a giant anaconda swam by followed by J.Lo and some mother fuckin' snakes on a plane....ya Rod would rescue me.  He would do it because he has superhero powers.  He's better than Lassie and Captain Planet. He's Rod. 

Tug-Ahoy!

I've recently discovered the TLC show Strange Sex.  It is my new guilty pleasure.  A man that uses his thumb as a surrogate penis, a married couple with no teeth that are swingers, balloon fetishes, and a woman with two vaginas!  This is like circus freak stuff.  And how could you not love a circus freak?!  However, what I found most fascinating was the man who was TO'd that his greedy mother had stolen his 24k gold plated foreskin.  And his biggest complaint seemed to be that he lasted too long in bed.  Oh his poor wife...tear.  So he decided to be all MacGuyver and build a foreskin-making machine.  I hope we are on the same page here and you are also having a mental image of a cross between an easy-bake oven and the cabbage patch doll whos hair would grow when you pulled on it.  He called his invention The Tugger.  Somebody hand this man a f-ing Nobel Prize.  Like yesterday.  I'm not sure that the end result was a new foreskin, however it did manage to turn his penis inside out.  It looked like it was wearing a stylish turtle-neck.  Wait...turtle-necks are not stylish.  So neither was his penis.  Then this man went all entrepreneur like Oprah and the Donald and got his whole family to mass market these pork tuggies.  It must have been such a bonding experience for him and his pre-teen daughters. Oh and his wife's post-tuggie analysis-it was soft and squishy.  Uh huh...

So this new age Albert Einstein got me thinking about the foreskin battle.  Seeing as it is getting less and less common to be circumsized, it makes me curious what the current baby-making generation think about this debate.


And in case you or someone you know can't stand one more day with his mushroom friend, you can always consider ordering The Tugger. Move over pillow pet, you're getting sent to the clearance bin with the snuggie.  Your endcap must be cleared because Bed Bath and Beyond will for sure order a gaggle of these.

C has the most thoughtful wife...EVER.

So somewhere in the past 24 hours 3 weeks, I unknowingly fell off the blog wagon.  C says the red flags were there all along but he didn't know how to break it to me.  Glad to know he cares.  I'll make sure to jot in my calendar to never develop a drug or drinking problem or attempt a self-induced death.  Because God knows when he'd warn me about those blazing red flags.  I told C recently if I ever died he had to wait at least 10 years to remarry.  I'm thinking of changing it to 15 years...seems more reasonable.  And she isn't allowed to have a tramp stamp. Because that's my thing.  I did however allot him the following options which I think are more than fair: she can be any age above 50, she can be a born-again Christian who has vowed to die a virgin, she can be anyone in a coma or bed-ridden, and...well ya that's about it. There are legal things you can sign for stuff like this, right?   I also know if you are rich enough you can freeze yourself in hopes that you will be revived in the future.    But I think Tupac and Michael Jackson have been secretly cryogenically frozen, which is scary, so let's rule out that option. I think Kim Cattrall was in a movie about this...called Ice Princess or something.  C should be so thankful to have a wife that has planned out his future if I croak in an untimely manner.  I think I'll call him now and remind him of this.  Maybe he will bring me home flowers.

Here are some possible options I have found for C which I think are more than reasonable-

She's exotic..that's always good

Rebound material?

Not sure if this is a woman..but either way...

Everyone loves a redhead, right?

He could even date someone FAMOUS!

Catlady even!

Nothing's too expensive for my baby!!

I am a single wife. I married a Coastie

When I was single I always pictured married life to consist of waking up and going to sleep next to your husband.  Dreading Mondays and so happy when Friday finally arrives and you have the weekend with your family.  Being inseparable.  A typical 9-5.  Now I anticipate every other Thursday and alternate weekends.  I feel  like at my wedding I was awarded joint custody of my husband instead of a marriage certificate.  When I got married, I technically married 1/2 of my husband and 1/2 of myself.  C is in the military and works harder than I could ever imagine working myself.  Three days at a time and on call at all hours while sleeping at the station.  I see him 15 days of every month, and half of every year.  Luckily, for now, the days are scattered and not all at once.  He has a determination I'm not sure I've ever seen before in anyone else.  A determination that definitely wasn't there when we first dated 13 years ago.  I will never fully understand what he goes through, what it's like to pull a dead body out of the water, how he manages to be so strong, or how he can consume 12 and a half pots of coffee in one day.  But he does, and it is one of the many reasons I adore him.  It is this adoration and admiration that keeps me strong through what can otherwise be described as a part-time marriage.  I will be forced to pack up my life every 4 or less years, only to repack and move again.  Most times we will have little say in where we end up and typically won't know where we are moving until mere months before. I had to give up my career and settle for short-term jobs in whatever field is hiring at the time. I have to learn to lead a life with few friends, and the ones I do meet I know I will have to say goodbye to in a few short years.  When we have children, they will have to do the same.  And I will spend much of my time raising our children alone, while C will likely miss many of their important milestones.  I have to be stronger than I ever have before.  I have to fight the urge to scream and cry when I find out he has to leave for a prolonged period of time the night before he will depart.  I have to learn how to fix a leaky faucet, a broken furnace, a clogged drain, and shovel my own driveway every snowstorm.  Because there is a 50/50 chance I will be alone when an issue arises.  Marriage in the military is a fast track lesson in how to become superwoman.  Which I hardly am, but if I was auditioning for the part, I'd be perfect.

I recently found a couple other Coast Guard and other military wives blogs. (So happy about this) It's nice to find people in the same situation as you, who can understand what this life is like, and you know you aren't alone.  It also made me feel somewhat lucky in my current situation and pretty fearful about our future.  For me, C is only gone every couple days for a few days at a time and the occasional month or two for different schooling or disaster relief. But being reminded that any one of our future stations could involve C being out on a boat for a month to a year at a time makes me want to hog tie him, super glue him to me like siamese twins and run off to Uganda.

I know the life I choose is not an easy one.  I will face challenges no married couple should have to face.  And at times I will grow to hate my husband's greedy mistress, the Coast Guard.  But the reality of it is that it makes the time we have together that much more productive.  I'm forced to find out new things about him on warp speed.  To strengthen our love to a level that matches Arnold Schwarzenegger's muscles in Conan the Barbarian.  And to learn how to adapt to just about anything life throws at me.  I'd say it's the best kind of love there is.  And if it can withstand the turbulence of this life we lead, it can withstand anything.

Lily vs Duck

This cute defenseless baby blog goes out to my good friend Lily.  She is a professional bird caller.  Like she competes in competitions, because they have those.  I just figured there was an iphone app for this.  Alas, she goes all Merlin the Magician and secret morse codes some bird braille kinda like Helen Keller did I think.  And abracadabra birds appear.  Poor defenseless fluffy tweety birds.  This is where a normal person would bring them home to play and maybe invite to dinner or a sleepover party.  But no. Lily mass murders them and feasts on their raw meat...maybe even while they are still squawking.   BIG FAT SAD FACE!

I tried to get Oprah to marry us...but she was busy so we hired Gayle instead

tI recently looked through a few different friend's (more expensive than selling my soul to the devil) wedding pictures and started to wonder if a wedding of this caliber was really worth it.  My best friend with benefits, Google, says that the average cost of a wedding is $24,066.  If you are a 20-something new to the workforce homosapien, this is your yearly salary.  Or it is your parent's entire retirement fund-meaning in 15 years you will have 2 new roommates, a closet full of depends, and will have to fashion a homemade coffin out of your closet door, tin cans, and industrial strength bond-o.  All to celebrate 5 hours of adult prom without chaperones?  I get it if money really is growing on your sycamore tree (Tom Cruise, I'm talking to you) and you can afford to pay the hefty price tag to have Jesus himself marry you.  But for the rest of the world, is a wedding worth  $5,000 an hour?  It seems there should be better and less welfare-inducing ways to celebrate the union of two lives.  But in reality, with everyone capitalizing on this wedding frenzy, it becomes quite impossible to find reasonable ways to cut corners without having your wedding in the gymnasium of the YMCA  while the senior citizen basketball team has their weekly scrimmage.  Calling any event service (limos, flowers, catering, photographers etc) and even mention the word wedding or any other word  that starts with a w or ends in an ing and the price suddenly skyrockets by 352%.  And not to mention the cost of a wedding dress.  Even if I had upwards of $5,000 to drop on a wannabe virginal shroud, I couldn't imagine doing so.  I mean unless it came with the deed to Neverland Ranch or something...then maybe we can negotiate.  I developed a nervous twitch for weeks after having to spend $1,000 on my wedding dress. Which mind you is laying on the floor of my closet hating life because I have yet to drop $200 on a preservation kit.  Can't you just lay it between two big heavy objects to preserve it...like you do a flower in a book?  The seamstress even warned me against my idea to switch out of my 7 inch stilts heels into an amazing pair of silver sequined Jack Purcell converse I had found.  She said I would end up ripping my dress and ruin my wedding.  I think she was actually like Miss Cleo or a Wiccan and put a voodoo spell on me.  I did put on my shiny converse as planned and by the end of the night my dress had turned into stirrup pants.  If it had been 1989 I would have been really cool.

My wedding was almost entirely DIY.  I have to say this wasn't the easiest thing to do, nor the least stressful.
I did save a great deal of money, but had to contribute hours on end of my own time to try to make it resemble a wedding as much as possible.  I did all my own decorating, created my own candy buffet, my own fun station complete with costumes disguises and other goodies, I made all the bouquets by hand, boutineers, the list goes on.  Thankfully I had some great family and friends to help execute it all since I have trouble relinquishing control and really convinced myself I could do hair, makeup, get dressed, and decorate the entire venue the morning before the wedding.  Baby Jesus probably didn't bestow upon me the magical superpowers I like to think he did.  My wedding ended up being unique and tailored to C and I.  Was it perfect?  Hardly, but it made us happy and that should count for something.  In the end was my wedding any better than your $100,000 mega-super shrine of love?  Who's to judge?  Oh ya, maybe Kate Middleton.  That fancy bitch.

So for your viewing pleasure here is a few pictures of some of my DIY projects. Feel free to ask questions, or to inquire about how you too can have a Save-Your-Parent's-Retirement-Fund wedding.  Or maybe you want replicas....I charge a nominal fee.  Unless it's for a wedding, then the price doubles.

Diabetes Table

Morocco meets India..meets Burlington Vermont

Sweet boutineer action.  I think this was their Flogging Molly dance

My budget-friendly paper flower bouquet and hair piece

Fun-sized bouquet for throwing or planting in your garden

Complete with mandatory mustache on a stick and chalkboard word bubbles

Okay so maybe our make-shift guest-book/picasso piece didn't make it
to our living room wall, but it is hanging in our basement.

Mmmmm Meat

My fair maidens bouquets and hair pieces. Pros -non decaying. Cons-papercuts