So to answer your questions about what Alex saw in our dining room when he ran downstairs screaming in the middle of the night:
Absolutely Nothing.
He said the next morning that he had a dream about monster cows and puppy dogs eating grass, and I don’t know if that’s what had him so spooked or not…but he’s been a little weirded out by the whole “monster thing” lately, and I have a feeling that he saw my shadow when I walked around the corner from our bedroom and immediately went into monster freak-out mode.
The twisted side of me couldn’t help but think of the old “Simpsons” episode where Bart spent the night with the Flanders children and had to sleep in the big clown beds, then was so disturbed by the whole situation that he crawled to the end of the bed and said, “Can’t sleep, clown’ll eat me” over and over again.
Needless to say, I’ve opted not to share the Scary Clown Bed story with Alex just yet.
The grass-eating monsters and cows are wreaking enough havoc on his sleep as it is.
In a completely unrelated item, we ate supper at a Mexican place tonight, and in addition to regular salsa they serve some sort of black bean salsa that is quite possibly the most delicious thing I have ever eaten in my whole life ever, and that includes fried chicken.
I can tell that there are black beans (run through the food processor), onions, garlic, and lots of vinegar in the delicious alterna-salsa, as I like to call it…but I don’t have any idea what the actual recipe is. Do any of you interweb people have a recipe that you think is similar? Because I would LOVE to make this stuff at home.
Also, we haven’t watched TV all week, and even though “all week” is at this point only about four days, I feel that it’s some form of record for me and perhaps someone should issue me a Certificate of Achievement.
Anyway, I have several Paula Deen shows, “The Bachelor,” “Dancing With The Stars,” and three days’ worth of “Oprah” waiting for me on TiVo, and while I would love to write more, I think if I don’t park myself in front of the television here in the next five minutes I’m going to go into full-blown withdrawal.
With the shakes and everything.
See y’all tomorrow.
If this becomes a problem with Alex and the nightmare monsters, may I suggest a solution?
Monster Spray.
Yes, Monster Spray. That wonderful, stuff that gets rid of all monsters. Somewhat similar to bug spray, Monster Spray guarantees there to be no monsters living anywhere in your humble abode. Since parents are the only ones that know Monster Spray is only sold in cleverly disguised cans of Lysol spray, Monsters can’t steal it. All you have to do is spray anywhere Alex thinks there is or might be a hiding Monster, and they magically disappear, never to be seen again for the entire night.
Since, after all, we all know that Monster Spray works at least that long. If not longer.
It was great stuff to have when my kids were little, and my thought is they still sell it at your own home-town Wal-Mart.
BTW, it’s especially good for grass-eating Monsters and alien cows of the Monster variety. Ours worked on witches as well. Very effective stuff.
Happy hunting!
Caleb had one dream or something where he actually ended up on our back porch. Scary. We installed locks at the tops of the doors after that.
We have been without a T.V. for two and a half months. I now have a laptop that can be a CD player. Honestly, I haven’t missed it. Eric misses college football, but he wouldn’t be able to see that here anyway.
Thank you for clearing that up. No wonder he was shrieking. Mommy shadows can be very very scary.
I agree, Monster Spray is miraculous stuff.
We went through a monster phase. It got so bad that my daughter just would not go to sleep. I finally told her that our cat would scare them off. She believed me. That, and a whole lot of prayer, seemed to work. Funny how Mommy couldn’t get rid of the monsters, but our overweight, declawed cat could…
I have a black bean salsa recipe that sounds very similar. I’ll email it to you tomorrow, I’m going to have to dig it up.
You don’t want to play around with a grass eating monster in your dining room. No ma’am.
You made me remember my daughter having a nightmare when she was around six. She dreamed bears were under the stairs waiting to get her and her sisters. It was really hard to wake her because she seemed to be trapped in the nightmare.
I have not heard of a black bean salsa.
I only have recipes for the tomato kind with lime juice, which I love.
I told my girls that monsters were afraid of good kids and that announcing “Oh monsters, I’m being good!” would scare them away forever. It worked, and gave them extra incentive to be on their best behavior. (I did NOT threaten them with monster attacks if they didn’t behave, because that would be wrong.) Of course, they had to know if nice monsters were afraid of good kids (which they aren’t, you know) so they decided it was okay to have nice monsters under the bed. Then Sarah asked “But Mama, what if one pees on the carpet?”
It’s good to be prepared if you’re gonna adopt a monster. :o)
Ooohh… I make a YUMMY black bean salsa. It has some extra stuff in it, but it might be a good base for you to start with!
Black Bean Avocado Salsa
Here is a salsa dip we make often. Very easy, but everyone loves it. Salsa (your choice), can of black beans, and a can of corn (mexicorn, white corn, whatever). Mix and chill. Serve with chips.
I’ve been experimenting with black bean and corn salsa too, but this week I found the easiest (and equally yummy) combination of goods (too easy to be called a “recipe”):
1 can black beans
1 can sweet whole kernel corn
2 cans lime and cilantro Rotel
Don’t forget the Scoops chips, ’cause this stuff is good.
Yes, my kids had those nights of “shrieking with the force of all nature” too! Thanks for the chuckle, as always, my heart enjoys this place immensely.
I’m curious, what was the name of the place?
I had bad dreams so often as a child! It was a real problem for me and, by extension, the rest of my family. I learned how – don’t know how I learned it – to change my dreams while I was in the midst of them. That way when I could tell it was getting scary, I could alter the story. I know that all sounds very vague, but it was so nice to not have to wake up in fear, then try to reason it out. Maybe you could do some research to find out if there is a book that could explain this. For everyone’s good.
I laugh at the thought of sharing a recipe with anyone. But if I can follow up on Phyllis’s Oprah comment: I have a friend who used to work for Oprah. Really. Not that I ever went to Chicago to visit while I had the chance, but then (and I know I’ll have to go into Witness Protection for saying this), I’m not really an Oprah fan. Good luck with the alterna-salsa.
Oh, and the term “brother friend”: love it.
We’ve been dealing with the monster/ghost issue lately. What with all the creepy Halloween previews on Playhouse Disney. Oh don’t get me started. I told my 5 year old in my biggest, meanest Mommy voice, so that the monsters/ghosts would hear me, “MOMMY DOESN’T ALLOW MONSTERS IN HER HOUSE!.” And when Mommy gets mad, monsters listen. It worked. I wished 5 year olds would listen that well.
Hey Toni, or is that your real name? The Witness Protection Program is possibly full of non-Oprah lovin’ Mamas. But I will say that IF you ever MET her(which I HAVE; did I mention that?) you would probably love her like, well, EVERYONE else. :)
I am a long-time Simpsons fan. I loved that episode. My hubby and I can quote so many things from there, and people usually just roll their eyes. I thought I’d just send an admiring comment your way on your Simpsons prowess. Good job!
Okay, because YOU mentioned TIVO episodes of the Oprah Winfrey show….I am just bursting to tell this to someone!! Get ready to hear the thud of a name being DROPPED, because….I just returned to Austin last Friday from Chicago, where…..I went to a taping of her show!!! Yes, I did!! And how sad to say this but it has been a dream of mine (along with promoting world peace, of course) to be at her show. And I was. AND……I MET HER!! Yes! I did!!! It’s too long a story to go into in the “comments” section, but I just HAD to share that with another Oprah-lovin’ Mama.
P.S. The guest that day was Mr. Bill O’Reilly, in case you tivo’d that one. And if you look REALLY hard you can see me in My Very Best Outfit. (Cranberry-red velvet bolero jacket.) Oh my word, it was fun!!
That is all.