Predictions, predictions-- and procrastinations

This week I will be vacationing in Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, and since I am incredibly LAZY-- here are exerts my column published in the Paradise Post for this week.


I usually don’t like to play fortune teller. Big hair, fancy sequined scarves and big dangly earrings always left me with a nasty case of the goose bumps and some heeby geebies running up and down my spine.

And so I avoid Ouija boards, the Montel Williams Show with Sylvia Brown and 976 numbers at all costs. I really don’t want to know what lay in my cards, what the tea leaves say or how Jupiter and Venus are flirting with Mars (much less Uranus).

And so with much stress, I write this column one week prior to publication.

I really don’t like this. It not only breaks with my 8 a.m. tradition of writing on deadline day, but it also assumes that I know what is going to happen-- which in turn is a surefire way to make sure something newsworthy happens.

But my dear readers, I have no choice.

Yes, I am no doubt somewhere on the Las Vegas strip wondering why the heck I came back for a second year of middle-aged crisis-like behavior-- make that slightly older younger-aged youthful revelry.

Then again, maybe I won’t be in Vegas at all. Maybe my husband left me at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and I haven’t quite figured out how to conjure up a rescuable injury so someone else can haul my lazy tush up the big hill.

This whole doing your homework before it is due is so unfamiliar to me.

I’m a procrastinator. If the doctor hadn’t induced my three kids, I’d still be carrying them. I would in fact be carrying 150 pound of kid-dom in my stomach.

I predict that tardies were up at all the schools last Monday and that some kids even skipped a day or two-- and they weren’t even sick. They were in fact at Disneyland.

I predict that all of my peonies will bloom and die before I return-- and that perhaps their blossoms will even be stolen.

I predict that cat will beat incessantly on the windows while I am gone, and that she will yowl for two weeks straight when I return.

I am almost positive that my kids will moan and complain that they miss me and then will refuse to talk to me on the phone.

Nikki the Youngest will most certainly sleep with her Nana every morning and will take at least two bathes a day (and still look like a refugee).

Maggie the Eldest will snore every night but will do all her homework like a good girl.

Abby the Middle who has sworn her entire life that dogs want to eat her will spend the entire time looking for Pepper the Schnauzer.

Ben the Husband will not dress up like Elvis once but will in fact do various Elvis impersonations throughout our stay.

I will buy a new pair of shoes because I would hate for a hurricane to take out Las Vegas. The last time I went on vacation and didn’t buy a pair of shoes Hurricane Katrina paid the town a visit and so now I MUST buy shoes. It is my duty as a citizen. I am just doing my part. I actually think Homeland Security should pay me for my service.

My mother and father in law will continue to be saints but will be so very happy when we come and take the dumplings home.

As for the weather, I predict that we will indeed have weather so dress accordingly.

I hope you all have a fantastic time-- and I hope I do too or rather I hope I did. Who knows what the future brings? Maybe I should call Montel?