Posts Tagged ‘ Lexi ’

Felt Like Pooping Lately?

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

http://www.artmojos.com

 

This is not a story about fish. It’s more about toilets, but we will get to that.

One day my daughter Summer and I take the kids to an Asian Market.

It’s true that the kids are overwhelmed by the fish.

Loch, who is five, is fascinated by all the rows of multi-colored dead fish on ice. He is exuberant about the live blue crabs which keep waving their legs in the air while trying to crawl out of their tub. Most of all he is mesmerized by the live lobsters and various swimming fish in tanks, waiting to be plucked for someone’s dinner.

Nine-year-old Lexi is impressed by all the severed fish heads with their frantic bulging eyes and festive teeth, while in another long case I am disconcerted by by all the animal parts. Tripe, brains, knuckles, tongues, stomachs, spleens and splintered bones are laid out in haphazard ways.

I gulp and feel suddenly intrigued by vegetarianism. The animal parts strewn about have made me, a Primitive Meat Eater, go kind of glinzty.

Aside from the fish and the bloody animal piles, there is lots of other stuff, foreign to our American eyes.

Row by row with our rolling cart, we all wander and look at unusual products.

I  toss fish powders and some seaweed soup mixes into the basket.

We get a few fresh but unknown vegetables that we won’t know what to do with when we get home with them.

The store is dirty.

The kids are excited and curious as we wind our way up and down the aisles between fire crackers and bags of various dried mushrooms and jars of fish paste.

Loch suddenly yells, “Why does everyone here have brown skin and we have white skin!?”

Then he begins (and won’t stop singing) Hanuaka songs in a loud voice…and we are not Jewish.

The store is dirty and packed with people and suddenly I have to pee. (more…)

Skeeter Stings Teenager…Outcome Uncertain

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

 

Skeeter Has The Answer For All Of Us

There’s a handsome man in the beauty shop, but when he opens his mouth I realize he isn’t handsome. He’s annoying.

He’s walked in and settled himself in a brown plastic chair against the wall, way behind the one I’m sitting in. He acts like it’s his personal chair.

He’s snortling and saying things about Alaska, trying to get my attention but I’m not giving it. I am not in the mood to amuse a strange man.

My granddaughter, 9-year-old Lexi, is getting her first Beauty Shop haircut.

She’s sitting transfixed in a high booster chair in the regular salon chair in front of a large mirror. The stylist, a sixty-something woman with slicked back long, long, long dragging reddish/gray hair, is snipping and snapping around Lexi with a sharp pair of silver scissors.

I’m thinking the stylist needs a haircut really badly.

The man in the back chair keeps nattering on. Lexi’s beautician, and the other one in the shop, largely ignore him.

Both ladies are methodically cutting, whacking, and curling their client’s tresses.

I’m yawning.

Three young boys walk in. The oldest asks if anyone can cut his and his brother’s  hair.

“Just have a seat,” they’re told. “We’ll be with you shortly.”

The two youngest boys look like they are in early grade school. These two boys grab seats and the older one, about fifteen, sits next to me.

He looks part Asian. The other two don’t.

I’m wondering how this family got mixed and what might be their interesting story.

Lexi ignores the boys. She is too involved in her first real haircut and maybe too young to feel embarrassed by her wet straggly head of hair and her butt on a little’s kids booster seat.

Everybody’s quiet. Everybody except The Man In The Back Chair Against The Wall.

“My name’s Skeeter,” he says. “You sure have nice weather here. I’m from Alaska.”

The boys are very polite. They nod toward the man and acknowledge him.

The boy next to me says, “My name is Ronnie and my little brother’s are Ace and Cash.”

The client who is getting her hair curled is finished now. She’s about eighty and she leaves happily with a tall pile of red curls standing straight up off the top of her boney head.

Ace, who looks about six-years-old, is called by the other stylist to get in the vacant chair for his cut.

The woman asks if the boys are having a nice Christmas holiday.

They are.

Skeeter speaks up. “I wrote a book,” he says. “I got it right here.”

The boys turn towards him to look but I don’t. (more…)

A DISGUSTING CONVERSATION

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

My brother has just finished telling us about the massive gray polyps in his colon, found with a colonoscopy, polyps that, according to Jim “Had their big heads waving around in there on long skinny stalks.”

My sister Candy, my brother Jim and I are sitting in a booth with our 87 year old mother in a Denny’s Restaurant. We’re having breakfast; a Senior Special, one waffle, eggs and bacon and something that sounds like “Eggs Over Hominy.”

We’ve been ‘enjoying’ Jim’s graphic description of what he had to do to clean his bowel the night before the procedure. I’ll save you from all of it except to say that Jim had to buy his laxative supplies at the drug store and he swears that one of them was called “Move-A-Quick,” or something like that,” and he swears it lived up to it’s name.

My mother, my sister and I start clattering our silverware on the table and making little squeeking noises so Jim abruptly changes course.

“So,” he says, “my daughter told me yesterday that all her friends at school think I’m gay.” (more…)

LEXI COOKS DINNER oh my

Friday, October 30th, 2009

Tuesday 7PM:

Bill returns from a full, late day at work. How glad he is to find that Lexi, (six) has laid out a full course meal for him in his studio. The courses sit on 3 chairs lined up in a row. Each chair has a place mat and silverware.

The first chair hosts a large bowl of garden greens with carrots, tomatoes, hot marinated red and green Spanish peppers, orange seasoning, salt and pepper and liberal amounts of tabasco sauce.

On the second chair we have a banana pudding. The bottom layer is an intriguing mix of a (very) ancient smashed brown banana mixed with a small, raw chopped potato and over that is sliced the last perfect banana from my kitchen counter.

The third plate holds a long medium sized loaf of French bread, cut in half. It is covered in raspberry jam.

There is also a cup of water with lime juice squeezed into it.

Bill is surprised to find his dinner waiting. I don’t tell him that it has been waiting out for him since noon. I don’t see anything that will kill him without refrigeration, so I let that knowledge be unsaid. Why upset him?

He makes appreciative sounds as Lexi ushers him to his table and begins to serve him. He starts with the tabasco and hot pepper salad.

I watch intently. He eats it, doggedly.

His eyes water. He looks at me like he might die but he keeps eating. Lexi points out each pepper and details how she collected all the vegetables from the garden and what went into the dressing.

Suddenly, I say, “What’s all that green stuff?”

“Lettuce,” Lexi answers.

“But…we don’t have any lettuce in the garden.”

Bill looks up at me and stops chewing. (more…)

WEED WHACKERS AND CIGARS

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

The trunk of my car pops open and I peer into the cavern as I start to toss in my groceries. Yikes and eeeeh gads! There’s a small black snake in the trunk, a little snake with white spots, an open mouth and wide eyes. It’s looking at me.

I jump back, reach to the ground and pick up a little stick. Carefully, I dish up the snake and turn it over. I know it’s not a real snake. I know it’s a plastic fake because my grandkids, Loch and Lexi are here. I know the fake snake was left in the car trunk when I hauled all their clothes and toys out of here a few days ago…but still, a snake is a snake and I need to make double, double sure.

It’s been three days with Loch and Lexi and here’s how it’s going.

My ex-boyfriend Bill, still lives in my studio and is what we call the kids Extra Grandpa. They love him and he loves them.

Tonight, he huffs into my bedroom at the back of the house and says, “I can’t find my cigars. I just went uptown and got them several hours ago and they cost me $20 and I can’t find them!”

He looks at me, meaningfully.

I rush to defend myself. “I don’t have them!”

Bill says, “Lexi says she saw Loch take them out of my desk drawer and they aren’t there now.”

“I can’t believe that,” I say. “I didn’t see him with any cigars and Lexi doesn’t always get her facts straight. She’s only six.”

The Drama unfolds. Bill asks Loch where his cigars are. Loch says he doesn’t know. Lexi says “Yes, you do Loch. You took them out of Bill’s drawer.”

Loch shakes his white curly hair indignantly and says, “I did  not!” He looks affronted.

Lexi rummages through all the trash cans, Bill checks Loch’s bed and toy bin. He scouts his house and mine looking under books and behind pillows. This continues for at least half an hour with much yelling between Loch and Lexi while Bill huffs and puffs and bangs a few doors open and shut.

Lexi continues to insist that she saw Loch take the cigars while Loch vigorously defends his honor.

I continue to say Loch is not guilty. After all, if a three year old boy found some fresh cigars don’t you think he would be doing something with them? (more…)

COLLECTING A LIFE

Friday, September 25th, 2009

A letter comes in the mail. It’s from my daughter Summer and there is a note stuck on the folded letter inside. It says, ‘Mom, Lexi couldn’t sleep last night so she stayed up late, secretly writing this to you. All by herself! It is adorable. XO Summer.’

I unfold the lined paper and read:

“Hi BABA how are you and Bob and Bill. (Bob is the dog and Bill is the Ex-boyfriend. Lexi is my 6 year old granddaughter.)

“I hav sum great plans for October.

“I am going to hav a lot of fun.

“I will hav a lot of fun with you, Bill and Bob of cors. I am gowing to hav a Super dupr jollygood time.

“Here is a poem I made up.’

(Here’s where I get scared. It’s a poem about me, and oh boy, Lexi is always totally honest in her evaluations of people. I have already heard about my hanging flesh and a few other things so I take a deep breath and resolve to take it like a Good Grandmother would. With pleasure, whatever she says.)

‘Yore eyes are brone.

Yore hair is blond.

Yore teeth are wite.

Yore lips are pink.

That was it.’

“See you in October. LoveLexi. (heart, heart, hearts etc)”

Oh my gosh. I breathe relief. What do YOU think that last line could have been? I know what I think and am so glad I don’t stink. Lexi would have told me if I do. (more…)

LEXI’S WORLD

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

Lexi, my six year old granddaughter, is in trouble, again.

Her mother tells me, “Lexi is at the age where she is fascinated with people’s rear ends. And, she has her own computer. Not a good mix. The other day she came running into the kitchen and asked me to come and look at something.

“I went into her room and she led me to her computer, pointed at the screen and said, “Why are they doing this?”

I peered closer and oh my gosh! I said, ‘Lexi! Where did you get this?!’ She said she had gone to Google and typed in something like BumBums.com!

“Mooom!” Summer wails to me, “It was some Butt Fetish website and there were all kinds of weird things sticking out of people’s bums! And I had to explain to Lexi why people would do this and what the meaning was!”

I’m laughing. I can’t help it.

“Mom, Lexi is coming up to visit you for awhile and I want you to watch her on the computer. I don’t know what she might think to look up, next.”

“Gee,” I say, “I never would have thought of looking for something like bum bums on the net!”

Last time Lexi stayed with me for awhile, it was interesting. Of course.

She looks at me one day and says, “You’re looking a little old, BaBa.” (more…)

A Cheery Day With Venus

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

When my father went blind, I sometimes took him to the Blind Center where he could socialize. One day, I met an old blind lady there, named Ruth.  She was charming but what captivated me most was that Ruth had penciled her bald eyebrows into a surprised arch……. with a bright red lip liner.

I remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, is this my fate in my old age? Will I be doing things like this?”

Apparently so.  I look in the mirror as I’m getting ready for my big Studio Art Tour Event and I notice that I have outlined my eyes, top and bottom, not with a brown eyebrow pencil but with my red lip liner.

Eeeeh gads!!

I assure myself that the light in this bathroom is very poor.

It’s the day of the Studio Tour when hopefully, hordes of buyers will come and purchase my art.

Summer, her father Bumpa, and my grand kids are here to help me. Lexi is six and Loch is three.

Loch has arrived wearing his usual attire. A tee shirt, shorts, high plastic yellow rain boots patterned with some kid design and his large green and white cotton gloves.

He only takes his gloves off when he goes to bed. For several years now he has referred to himself as ‘a hard working man,’ and he likes to dress the part.

Summer tells me he wears the gloves so constantly that they have acquired a rank stink.

“I’ve washed them and bleached them but within a few days, the smell is back,” she says.

She tells me she is afraid that he’s going to get a fungus. (more…)

Watch Out! There’s A Green Onion On Face Book!

Friday, April 17th, 2009

My granddaughter Lexi has been with me for two weeks and she is ready to go home.

We are both emotionally exhausted. 

One day I take her to the movies to see ‘Monsters and Aliens’ in 3-D. I get her a big bag of greasy popcorn and she sits in the aisle seat with me next to her.

The sound from the movie is suddenly like twenty boom boxes going off in a small room. Lexi jumps,sits back down, then keeps turning to me and shouting, Is it too loud for you BaBa?! Are you OK?”

I assure her I am.

“Is it too loud for you, BaBa?!” she persists.

“I’m OK, Lexi, really.”

“Is it too loud for you BaBa?”

Then BAM! There is some kind of movie explosion, Lexi leaps from her seat and reflexively tosses her entire enormous bag of popcorn into the air and all over the aisle floor.

She wails and moans in despair.

Lexi is a very emotional child.

 I suddenly get it. The noise is too loud for Lexi but the only way she can say that  is to keep asking if it’s too loud for me!

Another day I take Lexi to the Wild Animal Park. You might think this would be fun, but the same thing happens to me that always happens to me at that Park. Lexi and I get wound up in the center of the Park and never make it to the animals. We just can’t seem to find our way to the lions or the gorillas or even the screaming birds. We do see a lot of food stands and shops and lots of fat jungle pigs but we keep seeing those same red snouted beasts over and over because we keep ending up at the pig pen.

It’s getting hot so we strip down a bit. This means that we eventually lose Lexi’s little red jacket with the fake rat fur collar. Lexi moans and cries and wishes very loudly that we had never lost it and what will she do without her jacket, forever and ever!

Lexi is a very emotional child.

We eventually find the jacket draped over a fence. It isn’t hard to find because we continue to walk the same damn circle that we have been walking for two hours.

 Lexi does get to ride the merry go round. She always rides the cheetah and by golly she rides it again today, four times. This is how it goes:

 She sits on the big plastic cheetah and straps herself in. Then we wait for maybe fifteen minutes. A bell rings, the carousel starts to turn and around and around everyone goes for about one and one half minutes. Then, it grinds to a halt. Lexi waits on the cheetah for at least another 15 minutes when the fun ride starts up again, and goes around and around for one and one half minutes. Then, it comes to rest and Lexi waits on the cheetah for the next forty years. 

At one point she’s on the other side of the carousel and I can’t see her from the cold stone bench I am sitting on. I get up and walk around the back of the merry go round to check on her and make sure she hasn’t been snatched by people looking to kidnap someone.

She hasn’t been kidnapped but she is hanging up-side down from a spotted horse, because she is strung up and hog-tied in a leather safety belt. She cries out to me and says she can’t get off the horse, that she is caught.

I have to rush onto the carousel and extricate her which isn’t easy. She decides the only safe animal is the cheetah and back onto it she goes. Another fifteen minutes and they’re off. And, then we wait and do it, again.

So much for The Wild Animal Park.

Lexi likes to eat. When we are home there is a constant chorus of “I want olives. I want pickles. I want ice cream, my Mommy gives me ice cream.”

(Yeah right.)

“I need more olives. I need more pickles. I want root beer. My Mommy gives me root beer.”

(Yeah right.)

“I’m hungry BaBa.”

She and I are always foraging through the pantry, the cupboards, the refrigerator and the freezer, hunting for something that she thinks she wants that I will allow her to have. And rarely do the twain meet.

When Summer comes to get Lexi to take her home, her mother and I have a few glasses of red wine (for our nerves) and subsequently decide it will be a good idea to put me on Face Book. Not that we know how to do this or even what it means or why we should be there.

Summer somehow gets me on three pages on Face Book! We are astonished. There is a personal page, a friend page and a fan page.

Summer says, “Mom, you only need one page as you will never keep up, otherwise.”

“What am I keeping up with?” I want to know.

 Summer isn’t sure.

We decide I only need a Fan page as I consider my radio listeners and the people I do phone readings with, my friends.

Good. We agree. But, we can’t find the Fan Page ever again.

 I realize that Summer is going back down the mountain and that I am being left with knowing nothing about how to find the page I want or what to do with Face Book.

I whine, “Summer, what am I going to do?”

Summer doesn’t know and I don’t think she cares as she has sobered up and it’s time for her to scoop up the kids and go home.

The next day I run my car down the mountain to the big book store and buy a manual on how to use Face Book. I am elated. It can’t be that hard to learn.

It is.

The book was published in 2008 but already not much matches the Face Book I have. I want to put my maiden name on a page so some of my old chums might find me, but what the book tells me to do doesn’t work. Nothing works.

I throw down the book in disgust. I think about another project I am trying to master. Energy medicine. Learning to balance  meridians and balance the body and health. It seems much easier then learning Face Book.

There’s also the Art Studio Tour this weekend. I am one of the artists on the Tour. This means I will have my home studio open on Saturday and Sunday for the paying public. They don’t pay me, they pay the Chamber of Commerce.

I will need to clean my studio and my house, price all my paintings, display them artistically in my studio, make huge pots of coffee, put out wine and cake,  and hope that I will make a few sales. Am I ready for this? No.

I have been on the Tour for a number of years and this is what actually happens:

50 gazillion people  come to my house.

They ooh and ahh over my flowers and trees and property, parade through my studio and then into what I call my Chinese Bathroom with the black wall paper with huge white flowers and the bright red floor and from there….

They scatter. Rivers of strangers stray through my house, ooohng and ahhhing and fingering my plants to see if they are real.

They sit on my queen size bed and on my Todo toilets.

They run the water in my kitchen sink and open my cupboard doors to have a better look at the pounded and stenciled tin insets. The remark on my vibrant red kitchen and the vivid bird wall paper.

They plunk themselves on my poofy couches and say things to each other  like, “Hummm, feels good here. Let’s stay awhile.” And they do.

 I decide I need to look better then I do for the wave of lookers this weekend.

So… I finally get my hair done. As you may know, my regular hairdresser ran off to Oklahoma at least four months ago. Shortly after that I got my hair done by a new stylist and she turned it a rabid rat dung brown.  Arrrgh. We must have miscommunicated.

I have since spent a lot of time sitting in the sun trying to get the color to fade, which it has.

I have now at last found another stylist. I have been three times to chat with her about how I want my hair. As of today, my hair color is divine because I have finally convinced her to let some of my natural white hair come into the artificially colored mix. I have also let my hair grow long and I like it.

However, in spite of the color, I do today, look like one of those long green onions with the white peeled knobs, because the woman has managed to plaster my hair to my head. Ah well. It’s humbling.

To further mortify myself I go out in public to an art demo meeting and to the grocery store and I look like hell. The hair is divine but I don’t look so good in it. Thank god I’m not a teenager as I might hang myself.

All of the above (and even more!) is why you haven’t heard from me on my blog, for awhile. When I start getting emails from you and you are saying, “Oh Venus, are you OK? You haven’t written a blog for awhile so I’m starting to worry,” I think, “Dang. Do they really want to know what I’m doing? Or, are they being kind? Do they really want to know that there is now a green onion on Face Book and that they know her?!”

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THE DEAR VENUS RADIO SHOW

Oh my. What a mess it was this past Tuesday. There were problems at the studio and my voice kept doubling back on me and it almost drove me mad. I had to push the headphones on top of my head so I couldn’t hear the feedback. Then I got dropped from the show! But, things finally cleared up and I did readings over the air. However, by that time, because of angst and frustration, I had knocked my forehead on my desk several times which may have made my connection with The Beings better or worse, I’m not sure. Tech problems are to be expected with a new show and all should be mainly good from now on.

I do give away a FREE 15 MINUTE PHONE SESSION with me, on every live show. You can hear the shows for FREE in the ARCHIVES and you have a week to check and see if YOU were the winner. (The live show also has a live chat room where you can gather during the show, that I hear is lots of fun.)

LIVE SHOW EVERY TUESDAY at 1PM Pacific/4 PM Eastern. “The Dear Venus Show” with Venus Andrecht. www.contacttalkradio.com

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NEXT FLOW DREAMING TELE-CLASS WITH VENUS AND SUMMER, APRIL 26TH, 2009  For Abundance and Prosperity and All Good Things.

This is where I work on a wish especially for you and Summer takes you and the wish into The Flow.

For lots of testimonials and to read about and or, sign up for the class, go to www.flowdreaming.com ……………………………………………………………………………….

PRIVATE PHONE READINGS WITH VENUS

For what I do and my rates please go to www.godisalwayshappy.com and look on the Home Page

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*WINNER OF A FREE 15 MINUTE PHONE SESSION WITH VENUS:  *Liza Zanoni* Offer good through April 22nd, after that null and void.

X0 Venus

The Poop Pump

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

Lexi stands in front of my ex boyfriend Bill and me. Her long dark blond braids are looped over her shoulders and onto the front of the pink T-shirt that is soft on the inside. She’s wearing the soft long pants that don’t itch her legs. She is staying with me for two weeks. She is my granddaughter, she is six years old, is in kindergarten and she knows everything.

Every since she was a baby, Lexi has known everything. She reminds us of her vast knowledge with irritating regularity.

We decide to put her to the test.

“What happens to food when you eat it?” we ask.

Lexi takes a big breath and begins. She demonstrates her answer with her hands.

“The food goes down into your bladder. The pee comes out the slit and goes one way. The food goes out another slit and heads toward your butt. There is a poop pump in your lower back that starts pumping and pumps the poop out your butt hole.”

She is totally serious. She tells us she learned this in science class.

When I call her father later and tell him about the Poop Pump and that Lexi learned this in science class he says, “I told Summer we should have put her in private school!”

Bill and I ask Lexi if she is willing to answer more of our questions. Indeed she is. She knows everything and is willing to teach us.

“What makes ear wax, Lexi?”

Lexi thinks for a moment as she trolls the information up from the depths of her great knowledge.

“OK,” she begins earnestly, “Some nose boogers go up your nose instead of down your nose. They go up to the top of your head and than down into your ears where they mix with fluid. That’s ear wax!”

We’re enthralled.

“Next question?” she says.

Bill pulls thoughtfully on his ear lobe and says, “How big is the moon?”

Lexi has the right answer, right away. “The moon is almost as big as the earth and the sun is two feet bigger.”

“Most interesting and astonishing,” I say.

“And,” Lexi says, ” black ants turn into red ants when they eat too much.”

The evening goes like this until Bill and I get tired of Lexi’s great wisdom.  I tell her it’s time for her to go to bed.

She sleeps with me, and as I am pulling up the covers and tucking us in, Lexi brings me up to date on my aging process.

“You’re a little bit old, BaBa. But only a little bit old. You have freckles.”

Oh my gosh, I’m so relieved. Last time she told me the flesh on my arms was swinging.

I can deal with freckles.

She then checks to see if I am wearing underpants under my nightgown as she doesn’t like bare bottoms in bed with her!

I pass the test.

Then The Little Genius kicks me all night.

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VENUS ON XM SATELLITE RADIO MONDAY NIGHT April 6th

Monday, April 6th, 2009.. 7-8 PM Pacific, Venus is live on XM Satellite Radio (Channel 158.) This will be archived at www.rollye.net

It’s a political show! I don’t know what I am doing there but it should be fun. The woman who has the show wants to promote me at the new radio station I will be working from. Isn’t that cool?

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FLOW DREAMING TELE-CLASS for WEALTH, PROSPERITY AND ABUNDANCE

(You get a Wish from Venus and are taken into the Flow by Summer)

April 26th, 2009. See www.flowdreaming.com for testimonials about the class and to sign up for the class with Summer and Venus

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PRIVATE PHONE SESSIONS WITH VENUS

Venus has unique talents. She reads minds and can tell you what the people you know, won’t tell you. For more information on what she does and her rates: www.godisalwayshappy.com

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VENUS IS NOW ON WWW.CONTACTTALKRADIO.COM

Every Tuesday, 1 PM Pacific/ 4PM Eastern. FREE ARCHIVES, POD CASTS, ITUNES. Fewer commercials, so more time with you. Venus does FREE READINGS for callers on the live show.

*One FREE PRIVATE PHONE SESSION with Venus is given away with each show. Make sure you are signed up to have a chance to win. See www.godisalwayshappy.com   Go the the Home Page and click on ‘Free Sessions and More.’

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WINNER OF THE BLOG DRAWING FOR A FREE 15 MINUTE PRIVATE PHONE SESSION WITH VENUS: *Maddy Farnor

Offer valid through April 10, 2009, after that null and void.