The Ass Bucket List

I asked the lovely Marianna Annadanna to write a little guest post for me. Because she is awesome, she was more than happy to oblige and wrote a funny post for your Sunday evening entertainment. If you’re on Twitter, please follow her @snappysurprise. Please check out her hilarious blog Snappy Surprise!

When Vivi put it out on the twitter that she was looking for a guest poster, I jumped all over it. 
I love Vivi (although I haven't asked if I can call her that - she might hate it, but it's too late now), and I love her blog, and I also relish the idea of posting something somewhere on the interwebs that might not be read by my entire real life social circle.
But because y'all might not already know me, I'd like to tell you today about my wonderful adoring Hubby. 
Hubby's been the light of my life since I was 16 years old (even 10 years old, if you really think about it).  He's clever, relaxed, funny, and he has a cute butt.  And he's remarkably handy around the house.  Several must-haves in any hubby, I think. 
But what an efffing ASS BUCKET. 

Seriously.  He knows I love him dearly, but FRIG that guy is gonna be the death of me.

So.  Behold my list of annoying Hubby habits that have been really PISSING ME OFF lately. 
First, he's been playing a stupid game on his iPhone. 

It's some sort of obnoxious paper airplane game.  Problem is, Hubby is an addictive gamer.  And this game fits his addictive personality perfectly - it has shooting and fighting, and the worst part?  He can TALK to the idiots on the other side.  And they can HEAR him.  Ugh.  Makes me sick.  I have to REMIND HIM to turn off the mic so my words aren't heard by strangers over the internet.  And then he has the nerve to compare it to twitter, WHICH IT IS SO CLEARLY NOT. 
Second, whenever I ask him to do anything, he almost always instantly refuses. 

He doesn't even think about it.  He just jumps right to the NO.  Can you empty the dishwasher? NO.  Can you strip the sheets?  NO.  Can you clean up the kitchen?  NO.  Can you stop being an ASS BUCKET?  No.  He doesn't mean to.  It's just a weird habit.  His usually excuses it by reciting some other recent chore that required a comparable level of time and effort... entirely ignoring the fact that the whole time he's been chilling on the couch prior to my request, I've been cleaning the bathroom, or doing the laundry, or making the breakfast.  Not to mention that he's never once pulled out the vacuum voluntarily. 

Finally -- and this one just came to me this exact effing minute when he walked in with his sushi takeout) -- he eats at the living room coffee table. 

That part doesn't bother me.  I do it too.  It's that he INSISTS on pulling the coffee table as close as possible to his godforsaken knees so he can shovel food into his mouth directly over top of his plate, block my view of the tv, bunch up the rug underneath, "forget" to put it back, and then leave it for me to fix every damn night before we go to bed. 

Forgive me.  I love Hubby more than anything, and I wouldn't trade him for a billion dollars...
But goddess almighty I might ring his damn neck. 
So when Vivien gave me the opportunity to write something on a new corner of the interwebs, and then she even knew me well enough to suggest I write about my complaints? I soooo could not resist. 

Tell me I'm not alone.  Lie if you have to.  Just tell me you can't stand your husband either. I cannot be the only one. 

Frances

The following is a guest post by a wonderful lady from NYC. Please leave a comment- feedback would really be appreciated. If you would like to learn more about the writer, check out @mbneil on Twitter.

Did you ever meet someone you just instantly liked? I mean before the person even spoke or before you knew anything about them? I have someone like that in my building. My neighbor.

I’ll call her Frances.

I met Frances in 2004 when I moved into my building with my new husband. She took the time to welcome me. That can be a rare thing in a place as busy as New York. She immediately started treating me like she’d known me for years.

Frances always has a slight smile on her face. She has beautiful smile lines that say she’s seen a lot, laughed a lot, learned a lot. They make her look wise and happy. She’s not the bubbly type. Her smile seems to be more for herself than anyone else. She’s fairly quiet.  But when she does speak, she looks you directly in the eye and listens to everything you say back to her.

I’m not sure how old Frances is. She has a simple, bobbed hair cut that she’s let go completely grey. It tells you she’s sophisticated but also says “I was at Woodstock and I probably danced in the rain.” I don’t know if she was at Woodstock. I never asked.

She wears drapey clothes that could fit in at a beach party in The Hamptons, but not stand out serving the homeless at a soup kitchen. I don’t know if she goes to The Hamptons, or serves at a soup kitchen. I never asked.

When my daughter was born, Frances showed up at my door with food. She’d made the food herself. It was good food. A wise, thoughtful and very appreciated gift. I let Frances hold my newborn daughter. She handled her so gently. She held her close and looked right in her small face. Frances smiled. She was smiling to herself. I thought to myself, ”What a wonderful grandmother she would be.” Was Frances a grandmother? I never asked.

Our relationship continued pretty much the same. We’d bump into each other coming or leaving the building. We’d make pleasant small talk. We never went very deep with our conversation, but I always liked seeing her.

As my daughter grew to the toddler stage, my husband and I were always looking for places to take her to let her run without danger. One sunny afternoon we took her to a park with wide-open spaces. Seeing as she was a toddler, she bee-lined for the only thing that could possibly pose danger in the area. It was a large cement and steel memorial to New York victims of 9/11. The only thing I thought was. “Great, she’s going to fall and hit her head on cement.” I rushed to steady her.

When I was able to grab her, I noticed names all along the bottom of the memorial. Thousands of names etched in the cement. They circled the whole structure.  They were from every ethnicity, every age, one after another after another. But there in the middle of one of the countless lines, was a name I recognized. I turned to my husband, “Look honey someone on here has the same last name as Frances.” He looked at me stunned and puzzled. “How could you not know?”

That name etched on the cement was Frances’ son. Her only child. He’d gone to a prestigious business school, one I’m sure he worked very hard to get in. He graduated with honors in 2000. He’d moved back home after graduation because his dad, Frances’ husband had just died. It was a good move for him. He could be there for his newly-widowed mom. His mom, who’d spent years caring for her slowly-dying husband and now lived alone.  He could also save money. He was going to buy a place downtown in the Financial District. You see, he’d gotten a great job as a trader for a firm called Cantor Fitzgerald.

If you are a New Yorker, just saying “Cantor Fitzgerald” puts a period on the sentence. No one survived. Every soul, every man and woman who’d worked so hard to make it to that firm vanished when the first plane hit. They were gone in seconds. They’d had bright futures, dreams, loves and their own Frances. At least I hope they all had a Frances.

I saw Frances out the window yesterday. She was walking on the sidewalk in front of our building. She’d been to the grocery store and was carrying a big load of bags. I stepped out of sight and just watched her. She paused for just a moment and looked up. I followed her line of vision and saw a beautiful deep blue sky with one wispy cloud floating by. Frances smiled.

I wonder what she saw when she looked up.

I wonder what she knows that I don’t.

I need to ask.

@mbneil is also a guest blogger over at http://www.mylifeasanofficerswife.com/ today with another touching story. Check it out!