Why...hello again

Has it really been over a month since I last posted? Man, does time fly. I keep getting "worry" messages because I haven't posted. Yes,I'm as fine as one could be with a totally dysfunctional family and a daughter that's getting married in two days. TWO DAYS!! Did ya'll year that?? So I'm in vacation mode right now,while my daughter's friends are in the next room chatting...

I've had this thing called pleurisy since mid-February. I had no idea what that meant and looked it up on the internet. It was awful. Just awful. The strange pain around my rib cage whenever I laughed, breathed or coughed. But it's gone now, all gone and for that I'm grateful.

And the wedding preps are basically done. I have the dress, socks, girdle (let's not forget the girdle), uncomfortable fancy shoes, comfortable fancy shoes from Naot, necklace and bracelet. I have it all. So what's left? Just to update on what it's been like living with us.

We've been trying to declutter our home, and my son was going through the cds which had no homes to see whether we still listen to them or if they are absolute junk.

"Rude Stewart?"

"That's Rod Stewart, son!"

"Eat a James?"

"Etta James. ETTA!!"

"Halloween Wolf?"

"HOWLING WOLF!! HOWLING WOLF!"

And he had the nerve to skip out on English class yesterday. Man, did I give it to him. His English is certainly not up to par.

Then my soldier daughter is going to these religious classes and is telling me that baking challah bread is very holy and is mystical and that if you say a special blessing while you burn off a fistful of dough before baking, then you'll have peace in the home and all these other wonderful things.

"I did it yesterday at the school" she told me. "And I said a prayer so that you and dad should get along better."

"Really" I sounded amused. These things/mantras/holy promises/cure-alls, or whatever you want to call it, don't usually work for me.

I was waiting for her prayers to be answered when Hubby calls me. I had typed out a document for him, and called an attachment to the document "Exhibit I" as I do at my job.

"What the FUCK is an Exhibit?" he says to me harshly. I explain what the fuck an exhibit is and then hang the phone up on him.

He comes home and rails about the state-of-the-house, which in his mind is in a perpetual state of disaster and which, in reality, consists of perhaps 5 dishes in the sink and laundry that hasn't yet been hung up.

And I'm thinking that - hey - isn't it much less heartbreaking just to buy the friggin' challah?

My engaged daughter is spending the week with us as it is a Jewish custom to not see the groom until the wedding from a week before. She tells me that things are tense in the groom's home. I smile. I always thought that they were the "together" family, no crazy people, no financial worries, just calm, cool and collected people. And I was always terrified that they'd find out that we're really like the Beverly Hillbillies and have the whole wedding called off. But that hasn't happened and knowing that they can lose their cool makes me even more calm.

She's a bit worried about my wedding guests.

"Are any of them coming in a keffiyah" she asks me, looking rather pale.

"Maybe just Ibrahim. He likes to come to Jewish weddings dressed like an Arab. And why shouldn't he, especially since he is one." It's like asking an Orthodox Jew not to wear his kippah, to leave his identity at home.

"Don't worry", I assured her. "The rest of them will look just like regular people."

And with that she seemed to calm down.

So if I'm not posting in the next few days....you'll know I have a damn good reason why.