If It's Not One Thing, It's My Mother: OMG

For simplicity's sake, I'll blame this on my mother.
She is, after all, the one who gave it to me. She had been waiting for the right moment to present it to me for years. What is it, you ask? It is a wedding binder. It is by Martha Stewart, no less. It is colour co-ordinated, has sealable pockets for storing extra information and a practical elastic closure to allow for growth. Worst of all? I'm actually using it.
I am finding it quite helpful.
I like the little tips and tricks.
I might even use one of her ideas for fabulous favours.
I'd like to invite her to be my guest of honour.
Hell, I'd like her to be my maid of honour!
How precious have I become?!

If It's Not One Thing, It's My Mother: Back Off!

JE-SUS! I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with my mother, the lovely yet painfully direct and therefore hurtful, June Cleaver-Blogshaw. It was very, very nice of my mother to take me to the hospital to endure a painful medical procedure. It was not nice of her, however, to verbally and emotionally abuse me afterwards...

Having returned to her condo and in intense pain, I took some time to have a rest. After a few minutes, I was beckoned by everyone's favourite mercenary matriarch:

June Cleaver-Blogshaw: "Carrie, can you bring me my Coke?"
(contrary to what everyone might think, she meant her glass of Coke, and not a line of coke, but I can plainly see how her demand could be misconstrued...)
Carrie Blogshaw: "I'll be right there..." (when my head stops pounding and I can heave myself off this oasis of a couch...)
June: "But fill it up with a new Coke from the fridge first - I don't like it to be flat"
Carrie: ~ sigh ~

After delivering Her Highness's libation of choice, she announced that the date had been set for my brother, the provocative planner, Beavis Blogshaw's, wedding. The great news? They chose my birthday weekend. Fabulous. Not only will I have to participate in the wedding and be judged by friends and family alike (while wearing a ridiculous and unflattering meringe-like dress), I will have to suffer through the ordeal on my birthday weekend. Yep, of all the weekends in that whole month, they chose to plan their nuptuals on my big day. This is so 'Sixteen Candles'... To top it all off, as one of my smart single gal pals reminded me this evening, my birthday will coincide with their anniversary for the rest of my life. Great - I'll be overshadowed for eternity!

I mentioned to June that it would be the weekend of a milestone birthday for me. She said she knew, but what could she do? I asked if she had mentioned to them (my bro lacks the capacity to remember anniversaries, birthdays and other important dates - an affliction that most men suffer from) that it would be an important weekend for me and if they could choose another of the 4 weekends available to them in that month. The curt conversation went something like this:

Carrie: "Did you mention that it is my birthday weekend?"
June: "No"
Carrie: "Why not?"
June: "Beavis's wedding is more important than your birthday. Weddings trump birthdays."

That ended the conversation.

The moral of the story? I would like to inform you all that I am no longer scared of getting married. Instead, I am greatly anticipating it. In fact, I am planning it right now. All I know so far is that it will be HUGE, both my bro and his fiancee will be in it and it will fall on the day of either my mother or my brother's birthday!!!

If it's not one thing, it's my mother: too much information

My mother, the lovely yet altogether way too graphic (and apparently arid) June Cleaver Blogshaw, figures prominently in my posts. This is because she is a dominant and overbearing force in my life. Regardless, I do love the woman. Even after what happened this evening…

After a typical Blogshaw Sunday dinner, my mother (having dipped into the Grey Goose, white wine and what looked to be a Vicodin…) started telling jokes about sex. This always makes me nervous, as I have a nightmarish memory of walking in on Ward and June getting it on when I was a pre-teen. The image was horrifying and is burned deep into my memory. I can’t remember what I need to buy at the drug store or what I ate for lunch today, but I sure can tell you their favourite sexual position…

Anyhoo, June made some crack about condoms. Thinking that my parents haven’t had sex since that life-altering, memory-making moment years ago, I jokingly asked what brand she prefers. Well, it turns out she’s a Trojan woman and the convo went something like this:

June Cleaver-Blogshaw: “I like Trojan condoms.”
Carrie: “I prefer the femidom……”
June Cleaver-Blogshaw: “It’s true! Your father and I need to use condoms because I have a very dry vagina.”
~ shock. horror ~
Carrie: “I didn’t need to know that. You don’t do it very often…… right???”
June: “Well, your father does have a heart condition, you know…”
~ barf ~

Now, I’m glad that I have a close relationship with my mother, even if she drives me crazy most of the time. It’s great for mothers and daughters to be able to share stuff, but let me tell you, this sh*t should be off limits. For the love of God, I urge you, no matter what the conditions are, to walk away/cover your ears/hit yourself in the head with the closest iron skillet if your mother ever offers up too much information of that nature. Jeez!

If it's not one thing, it's my mother: Jesus Christ

Obviously, this has to do with my mother, the incorrigible June Cleaver Blogshaw. As many of you have requested more stories about her antics, here you go.
She continues to ask about one of my exes, as if there is a chance that we might get back together (despite all of the information that I have provided her to the contrary). She seems to live under the misguided hope that The Alcoholic Workaholic and I might reunite. There are a few reasons why this is unlikely and I would like to share them with you:

1. I'm over him.
2. He's married.
3. He has a child.
4. He's mentally ill.

As soon as I am able to get her off the topic of reuniting with past lovers, she tries to focus on new lovers for me. This has also turned out to be useless time and again. She spends the summers up north and tries to find men to hook me up with while she's up there. There are usually some problems with these attempts at matchmaking and I'm thinking of one hockey player in particular:

1. He's married.
2. He has a child.
3. He's a hockey player, for f*ck's sake - he probably has the wife AND 20 girlfriends!
4. I'm not blonde, therefore it would never work.

I remember once, when I spent 2 years in London trying to work things out with The Alcoholic Workaholic, I met a man who pursued me and treated me exactly how I wanted to be treated and then told me he was in a relationship. I was very upset and did not want to go there. I told my mother, thinking she would agree, and she tried to pursuade me to keep at it and eventually, hopefully he would "dump the bitch."
No Joke.

God bless her - I know she means well. I'm hoping that, at some point in the new year, I might date someone that would please her and would allow her to brag to her friends... Or at the very least, I could become a kept woman in an adulterous situation which would please her even more!

If It's Not One Thing, It's My Mother

I was 26 years old when I broke up with a boyfriend that I had been seeing for 7 years. My mother was devastated. I clearly remember her sage advice at the time: "You know, Carrie Blogshaw, that it gets harder to meet people as you get older". She was right.
My mother, June Cleaver Blogshaw, is very concerned regarding the state of my love life at this time. Many of her friends children (who I used to babysit, I'd like to add) have gotten married and are now HAVING children. I, the eldest, remain single... This causes her (as well as myself!) great concern. In a passive aggressive attempt to remind me that I should get married, she used to leave the thank you cards from the weddings she attended at my place at the table. Sometimes I didn't recognize or had not even met the people in the pictures staring back at me. I moved out.
Two years ago, she attempted to set me up with one of her friends sons. I had some questions:
"Is he cute?"
"No"
"Is he tall?"
"No, he's short"
"Does he have dark hair?"
"He's bald"
We later found out that he has a terrible drinking problem and gets so drunk that he sometimes can't make it to the washroom and ends up urinating in house plants in the living room. I was shocked. My mom didn't seem so shocked and was quick to remind me that it wouldn't be much of a problem, as I have laminate floors......