I thought maybe I saw a UFO last night, but then I came to find out it was this.

It is both with sadness and happiness that I report…..the Eurovan has been sold.

Greeny was my security blanket. I had this blanket until I was twelve. On my birthday, I took three or four girls to my grandparents’ cottage for a weekend sleep over. I brought Greeny. By that time, Greeny had dwindled from it’s once full twin bed blanket size to about maybe a large hand towel. It wasn’t that conspicuous and I didn’t by any means flaunt the fact that I was almost a teenager with a blankey.

When the sleep over ended, and we all went home, I couldn’t find Greeny anywhere. I searched and fretted and finally asked my mom if she had seen it. Her nonchalant response: “We burned Greeny”. I laughed politely and said, “No, seriously, where’s Greeny”. She told me that Nona (my grandmother) and she had decided that I was too old for a blanket, so they burned it the fireplace at Pine Lake (the cottage).

Wha?!

I’m really grateful to my mom that she had me. Really I am. She struggled through two miscarriages and a pregnancy with me that had her on full time bed rest for the seven months that I would stay inside. Some women are not cut out to be moms. And although I love my mom, and am happy as a clam to be alive…..she is one of those women.

If I had a child that felt the need to keep a security blanket at twelve, I would A) try to figure out where the insecurity and fear was coming from and try to comfort and strengthen my child in a healthy and nurturing way, or B) Tell my child that one of the only small comforts and stabilities that she had was purposely burned up by the most important adult figure in her life.

I can laugh about it…….now.

A few years ago, I was asked to help my friend Pam clean out her parent’s mobile home. Her mom had a stroke and needed to be able to maneuver a wheel chair around the space. Pam’s mom had a huge problem with throwing things away. I’m sure there’s a name for the psychological disorder, but I’ll just say packratism to an outlandish proportion. The entire mobile home was packed to the ceiling with junk. There was a small path through the high piled, precarious, clutter leading to important places like the bed, couch and refrigerator. We spent two full weekend days, pulling stuff out, tossing what we could get away with and boxing other stuff and hauling it to the storage space that her parent’s had rented.

While I was going through the piles of stuffed animals, broken wooden unrecognizable things and various mountains of dollar store purchases, I came across a package of great interest to me. I found two brand new, unopened packages of…..GREENY! The exact blanket from my youth in pristine condition. My hands were shaking when I asked Pam if I could keep them. She said, “sure”, thinking that I just needed a couple of blankets for my bed.

That was about eight years ago. I have Greeny on my bed right now. I am thirty four years old, and sometimes when I’m feeling low, I wrap my blankey around my head and inhale deeply. It may be neurotic, but it helps. I dyed one of the “Greenies” maroon, to match my bedding, to even further disguise the fact that I may not be entirely well. The other is still in it’s pristine white state to take over when it’s counterpart is worn down to the size of a hand towel.

This was me a few days ago.

What I really want to write about is how I feel like I’m breathing air that is thick and unswallowable. I feel puffy, irritated and want to take it out on someone that is not me. I want to blame and kick. I want to eat giant bowls of ice cream until I throw up. I want to shoot heroin and smoke crack. I want to throw a chair through a plate glass window of a high rise building. I want to trash a hotel room after watching pay per view porn and ordering room service for weeks. I’m imagining being in a bell tower looking through a scope on a high powered rifle. I would take candy from a baby, and laugh. I just feel bad.

Today…..much better, thanks.

The only thing I did on the list is eat ice cream. But I didn’t throw up.

Watch out, I’m edgy man.

I sat down tonight to write about the big RV that we bought. We are in the middle of absolutely gutting it. Today we unbolted and pulled all the furniture out. After all the contact paper is pulled inch by inch from the walls, we’re ripping up the cheap, white, fake stone patterned linoleum.

About the contact paper, when I say “inch by inch” I really mean it. It is an annoying, tedious and difficult process that involves a heat gun, a scraper and a painful thumb and forefinger. After we started, we decided to consult mother internet to see if there was a way to make things easier. All sources basically said, “just leave it alone”. We weighed all of our options, and we went with the most painful in the short term but the best choice in the long run. It was just so gross, just knowing it would still there if we painted over it gave both of us the creeps.

Think of the weird thick white wallpaper with mauve and blue cloud puffs in your dentist’s office. Now add in the thought of elderly heavyset, pasty, unhealthy people with tissue boxes everywhere cooking hot dogs and showing the “neighbors” at the campground pictures of the grandkids. We just had to get that crap off the walls.

Things I also wanted to write about but now I’m tired:

1. Baseball

2. Buying a camera off of Ebay from New Orleans and then getting an email from the person saying that he had lost everything. Just so you know that I’m not a complete idiot for buying something off of Ebay from a city that was going to be under water before the auction was over, the seller had his city listed as “Orleans”. After a debate with Andy about whether it was “New Orleans” or not and an internet search showing that there are many cities in the US called “Orleans” I decided to bid, and won.

3. Greeny my blankey I had when I was a kid.

4. People that I have seen in the past week mistreating their kids and how I felt I needed to say or do something.

If you want me to elaborate on any of these last four topics…..comment.