Tales from La La Land

I swear this is not suddenly a mommy blog where everything is “born” from here on out. But, if you had seen the process of Laef and I getting our first-ever Christmas tree, you might understand how it went from this blissful idea to a fucking trainwreck to a beautiful full-grown glistening tree that we are both so proud of!

This will be the first time Laef and I will be home on Christmas Day. We are usually visiting his family or my family. Therefore, I’ve never really gotten into the Christmas spirit at our house. It didn’t make much sense to me because we wouldn’t be home to enjoy the decorations or the tree. Not to mention, our house in Manhattan Beach was tiny, and we opted for a deep freezer in the middle of the living room, which trumped any idea of a Christmas tree. Or dining room table.

DETAILS.

Anyway, us being home + me being sober pregnant = me being really excited to have a project. My project has become Christmas. And when it comes to Christmas trees, I’m all about a real tree. I guess I am sticking to my childhood Christmas tree tradition which means: real tree, rainbow-colored lights and a smorgasbord of random ornaments that have been around for umpteen years. Our ornament collection will start this year and in 12 years our kids will ask about the random stuffed Santa ornament that mommy seems to love so much.

Child: “This is ugly. Why do you always put it right in the front?”

Me: “Bitch, please. Well, sweetie, back in 2010 when we got our first tree, we didn’t have many ornaments. Mommy was at Ralphs, and what do you know? Right there in the middle of the freezer aisle they had stuffed Santa ornaments for $1.99 so I bought one. And someday you will want this stuffed santa front and center on your tree.”

Seeing as I wanted a real tree with lights and a few ornaments, I broached this to Laef. He was on board until he started looking online at trees. Then he started adding in the stand. And the lights, and my midnight sneak runs to Target to build our ornament collection, and then he started wishing we’d be visiting family this Christmas. I politely explained to him that I have spent zero dollars on Vodka, wine, sushi dinners, and that this pregnancy is actually saving us quite a bit of money (for the time being anyway) and that next year we won’t have to invest in all the accessories.

He then tells me that he saw trees at Ralphs. I was thinking more of the Christmas tree lot where you wander the lot in warm mittens and find your perfect tree, and then they deliver it to you.  But the trees at Ralphs were decent looking, so it’s settled. We will buy our first-ever tree at Ralphs.

I might have suggested to Laef that we carry the tree from Ralphs back to our house. I might not have realized that 7′ tall Christmas trees weigh quite a bit. Instead, we will lift the tree onto my car in the middle of the parking lot where old men in white Range Rovers giggle from inside their warm car about the two rookies who are standing in the freezing wind tying a Ralphs tree to their car (TRUE STORY).

But, the joke was on them as they don’t seem to know my husband. Laef. Fucking. Morris. Handyman extraordinaire.

Um. Then we got home. And Laef took his MacGyver complex WAY too far. He said the tree was too heavy for us to carry up our stairs because I’m pregnant. But the true story was that he COULD NOT HELP HIMSELF FROM DOING THIS:

Of course our neighbors thought we were insane. No one thought it would work except for MacGyver so let’s not even talk about the amount of gloating that took place once the tree was inside.

Here’s where my fantasy really took a nasty turn. The tree was nailed into a stand. But we needed to remove it from the stand so that we could put it in our tree stand and give it water. Not to mention, it wasn’t exactly straight at the time of purchase and putting it in our own tree stand allowed us to make it straight. Unfortunately, there were five ginormous nails in the tree stand. Which were extremely difficult to remove. There was a lot of F-bombs and hammering. Then there was some major surgery needed to get the trunk to actually fit into the tree stand. Then there was the issue of the tree lights, which were apparently purchased while I was high because I bought two different kinds, which isn’t the end of the world, but when I originally had this vision of a tree, it never included a mishmash of lights.

No matter, there were enough lights to fill the tree, and eventually I realized that our first tree would be a learning experience. And in the end we were both super, super excited about it. Laef even suggested walking to CVS because we didn’t have a topper for it. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the CVS silver star tree topper won’t be the one that gets brought out for years to come, but it works for 2010.

The only issue now is Sanch. Everyday we will hope to come home and find the tree still standing in all its glory.

Ever since I found out I was pregnant, I have been having wicked flashbacks. And, these flashbacks date all the way back to 1980 when I hit my brother in the head with a baseball bat (it was an accident, btw). Sometimes I will have a vision of myself circa 1999 drinking a jager-bomb at Rennies chased by a Corona and 8 hot wings. And, then, in the middle of the night I will remember that time I walked to the Longeteig’s at 2 a.m. after a quick stop at 7-11 for Nachos.

Sometimes I am able to close my eyes and fall back asleep. Other times – after remembering certain things that can never be mentioned on the internet now that there’s an offspring who could potentially google me, bitch – I have to close my eyes real tight and thank my lucky stars that I somehow survived some crazy, crazy times.

Said crazy times have basically continued right up until the time I found out I was pregnant capped by the family cruise at the beginning of October. I spent three days doing shots of Patron with my sisters and eating sushi waiting for my period to start so that my boobs would stop hurting. I should have known it wasn’t the usual PMS when my sister said, “Your boobs look huge”. For those of you who are familiar with my sister, having HER tell ME that my boobs are huge is the equivalent to Donald Trump telling Laef he is rich.

I came home from the cruise still not thinking anything was up. Sidenote: People will tell you that pregnancy won’t happen if you are thinking about it too much. Which is basically impossible to do when you are trying. But, I had finally gotten to a point where I wasn’t going to obsess every month. I was convinced I would start my period every single month for the next year.

And it never came in October.

I stopped at the store on the way to work. I took the test at work (um, yes, if I could go back and do it again, I would) and immediately texted Laef a picture of the positive test (um, yes, if I could do THAT over again, I would…It would have been great to actually see his face when he saw it).

It took a few days for it to sink in. One day my life was one way, and the very next day it was different. I honestly wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I now drink milk and Juicy Juice while I watch college football. I bake pretty much all day on the weekend’s. Basically, my shit is on lock down while I try and have this baby learn that it is good to stay home and be a good girl.

Speaking of which, these flashbacks have led me to the conclusion that I probably need to have a boy. If I have a girl she will never, ever leave the house. Ever. We don’t need anymore Nacho-eating, table-dancing, shot-taking clusterfucks in our house.

By the way, Gemini’s rule.

I will admit it. I win most debates in our house. Mostly because I’m always right. There are a few ongoing debates where we’ve reached a stalemate, and thus, the winner is still TBD.

When it comes to movies, however, I’ve thrown in the towel. We used to do this thing at Blockbuster where I’d start in the A movies and Laef would start in the Z movies and we’d pick all the ones we wanted to watch, and then we’d meet to see if there was even ONE movie that we both picked (spoiler: it almost NEVER happened).

Now we have Netflix, and I created the account and maintained it, always trying to have a fair balance of movies that I thought we’d both like. For a while we were using all of our Netflix picks for True Blood, so there was no issue.

Then one day someone hacked my Netflix account. I guess it’s not technically hacking when all of my passwords are saved on computers that Laef regularly uses, but imagine my surprise when the shit that showed up in my mailbox went like this: Legion, Star Trek, Super Troopers, Green Zone, and Robin Hood.

Me: “Ummmm…I thought we’d at least rotate.”

Laef: “Ummm…you thought wrong.”

OOOOOOKayyyyy.

To be fair, I am a terrible movie-watcher. If I am watching a movie from my couch, I will likely fall asleep midway through. So, Laef probably just decided to take over, and see if I would notice. I didn’t pay too much attention until one day we got Where The Wild Things Are.

Me: “I could watch that.”

Laef: “Ummmm. I’ve already watched it on InDemand.”

Me: “THEN WHY DO YOU HAVE IT NO. 1 SPOT ON THE NETFLIX QUEUE??”

Laef: “Do you really want to watch it?”

Me: “Not really.”

With that, we opened it, put it in the return envelope and sent it back. It basically never left the mailbox.

Netflix fail.

Laef refuses to see The Social Network for unknown reasons. It’s not like some chick flick that I’m making him sit through. Therefore, our one and only movie theater excursion this month will be Due Date. Laef claims this will be the next Hangover. I think he is high, but I didn’t even try to change his mind.

He can have the movie-making decisions.

Most of which are wrong, BTW.