BEHOLD MY BRILLIANCE *

Paula Deen and the Pointless Pursuit of Perfection (subtitle: Christmas with the Inlaws)

2011-12-27T23:00:00.000-06:00

If you've ever worked retail, or even if you've shopped at any retail location between Halloween and December 26th, you know that Holiday Season lasts for about two full months. And I should just start by admitting that I'm one of those people that says Happy Holidays to everyone, unless I know for absolute certain that you celebrate Christmas. I remember disctinctly one Christmas when I worked at The Gap and the managers sat us all down and told us that we weren't allowed to say Merry Christmas anymore. "Have a nice holiday" was the preferred valediction during December. Seemed reasonable, all-encompassing and sensitive to all faiths and non-faiths, so whatever. That's I started saying Holiday instead of Christmas. Nearly twenty years ago.

This year, I've felt an alarming backlash of people who are insisting on the Merry Christmas over the Happy Holidays. And some people are really kinda ugly about it. Did you hear about the teacher that got in trouble for changing the words to Deck The Halls because kids were giggling at the word "gay"? Presumably trying to maintain order, she changed it to "bright", and parents were all up in arms about it. Jeez. Well, ummm... maybe you should teach your idiot children that the word "gay" isn't funny, assholes.

At FoodHole we got a nastygram scrawled in scraggly old lady penmanship that said "Shame on you, FoodHole! It's MERRY CHRISTMAS, not HAPPY HOLIDAYS!" What a crabass. In fairness, it was kinda stupid that FoodHole put up a gigantic sign that said Fresh-Cut Holiday Trees when the only tree-centered holiday I know of is Christmas. Eventually FoodHole fixed the signage to say Christmas Trees. Still, I kinda think that Christmas brings out the worst in some people. Why ya gotta git yer grannypannies all up in a knot? Ya got nuthin better to do? Seems kinda Grinchy to hate on the way people wish each other a pleasant Late December.

For me, December 26th does not offer me the chance to uncoil and exhale. For me, the Holiday stress usually continues for a few more days. My parents arrive tomorrow, and then Tito's birthday is on the 29th. This little monkey - who my longtime readers might remember took forever to potty train - is turning NINE.

My little teeny Tito. I can't believe it. The annual reminders of the constant passing of time make me feel so sad and old. But I'm also glad I had this blog going then, to document my good days and my bad days and the sweet things they did and the crazy things that I still can't believe. Remember the picture of Tito's jelly handprints on Pie's back?

I still can't figure out how. Or why.
Good times.

Anyway, so while most people are in post-Christmas relaxation mode after two months of Christmas pressure, my stress is kicked up a notch. I have to figure out what I'm going to do for Tito's birthday because he just got a whole bunch of cool stuff for Christmas. I have to figure out what we're going to do with my parents while they're here. And I kinda have all of that end-of-the-year stuff to work out, like paying the property tax and getting all the money we have left in our Flex Spending Account. I need new contacts, but my prescription is more than a year old and I probably won't have time to get in for a new exam. I need to get the kids in for eye appointments too, come to think of it. Crap. I've got quite a bit on my mind.

Wanna hear about Karma Christmas? I know you do.

I'd worked all day on both the 23rd and the 24th and was physically and mentally exhausted on Christmas morning. I kinda auto-piloted myself through the week before Christmas. I got gifts for the boys' regular teachers, TAG teachers (Tito got into the Gifted program this year, which was a really big deal), and PSR teachers, plus I also got a gift card for the nice lady who gave Beeb rides to and from marching band events (Beeb did marching band this year - and yes, she went to Band Camp and yes, she plays the flute). I even knitted gifts for my Secret Santa from work and for Beeb's band directors. I don't know how I did everything. All I can think about is what I didn't get finished. That's just kinda how my brain works.

The Apes were up at 7am, eager to unwrap their gifts. The boys got video games and Nerf guns. Tito got Alien Conquest Legos and Pie got a Nook so he can read The Hunger Games. I got Beeb a silver necklace with a snowflake on it that says "You're one of a kind." I thought it suited her. Her favorite gift was a unicorn Pillow Pet. I got R a Draftmark system. It's pretty cool. Beer is always a tasteful gift, n'est-ce pas?

My favorite part of the entire day was seeing how proud my kids were to give each other gifts that they'd picked out for them and purchased with their own money. I think this is really the first year that they got into giving almost as much as getting. Tito got so excited when everyone opened the gifts that he'd bought. He got Ryan a pocket Nerf gun and Beeb a Glee CD. He got me a rhinestone letter S on a keychain. All of the kids kicked in some money to buy R Batman: Arkham City for the 360.

After the gifts were opened, I got started cooking. MIL had specifically requested that I bring out the Paula Deen Green Bean Casserole that I took out last year. I got most of the ingredients at FoodHole the night before and was ready to put it together Christmas Morning. I had also got R some superfancy expensive bacon to try, so after I cooked it up for breakfast, I sauteed the onions and mushrooms in the bacon grease instead of butter. I thought that was kinda brilliant of me. Paula would applaud my ingenuity.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it on here, but years ago, when I was brand new to R's family, Aunt Huggy asked me to bring green beans to some massive extended-family event, and it was not adequately explained to me that I would be the only one bringing green beans to feed about thirty people. Honestly, it probably wouldn't have mattered if they'd explained it to me because I can't do that kind of Kitchen Math, but this is why I'm super-sensitive about making sure there's enough for everyone so that I'm not hideously mortified again. So when I poured the Paula Deen bacon fat soaked green beans into my one stoneware casserole dish that is nice enough to take outside the house, and saw that it was just a little more than halfway full, it unleashed a tsunami of emotion. I stood at the stove, sobbing in the green bean casserole and wiping my nose on my pajama sleeve.

I had more beans, but I was out of the chicken broth I needed to boil the fresh green beans in, and I was just sure that FIL would be able to tell which green beans were boiled in the organic chicken broth and which were boiled in water and Aldi chicken boullion cubes. My options were to take a chance and hope that the beans tasted okay when I mixed them in with the ones made with the good ingredients, or to not take enough green beans. It really sucks when every possible choice exposes me to potential criticism.

I know I'm not perfect. I know I don't get it right all the time, and I know that it's unreasonable to expect perfection from myself. More importantly, I know that it's unreasonable for anyone else to expect perfection from me. But don't try to tell me everything will be okay when you and I both know that there's a really strong probability that it won't be. It'll be okay as in no one will suffer as a result of or be negatively affected by my faux pas... except for me. That's not okay. It's about my not wanting there to be any reason for FIL to give me a hard time, even in jest, because I can't promise that I'll take it well. I'm getting bolder and, with the encouragement of friends and the professional help of TheraPenny, making my own happiness a priority in my life. Finally.

After the Green Bean Breakdown, we got all of the gifts and stuff in R's new car and headed out to Chez Inlaw. We hadn't even gotten our coats off when the phone rang. It was R's cousin calling to let MIL know that Uncle Prickly (Aunt Huggy's Husband of 50 years) had had a series of strokes and was not expected to survive. It was weird to watch the family deal with such devastating news. There was a mild freak-out moment, which was really more like "Oh. Huh. Wow. That's too bad." and then it was back to the business at hand. Not that there was anything to be done - I certainly didn't expect to pile everyone back in the car and head to the hospital or anything, but still, it was just weird, and it set an odd tone to the day before anything had even started.

We had ham for dinner (which was excellent) and I'm happy to say that the Paula Deen Green Beans were a hit. I was glad that I made more, using the Aldi boullion. Nobody said anything. I've considered that maybe the possibility of being publicly critiqued exists only in my head, but even if that's the case, it's a 100% learned behavior, taught and selectively reinforced by FIL over fifteen years. MIL asked me about how work was going, and I love talking about my job, so I gladly told her about my Outstanding Customer Service Award and how awesome my store is. We've won a bunch of regional awards and and I'm so proud to be a part of such a strong, inspiring team. But FIL quickly steered the conversation back to something else. Typical.

Now for the good stuff, y'all. The Aldis continued their long-standing tradition of giving oddly inappropriate gifts. They got Pie and Tito a set of Hot Wheels cars, which they're just about too old for, but... meh, whatever. Then it was Beeb's turn to open her gift from the Aldis. She tore off the paper to reveal a pink and magenta striped box from...

wait for it...

Victoria's Secret.

Oh, I thought, there's no way they got her something from Victoria's Secret. She's fourteen. It must just be something they put in a Victoria's Secret box to make it easier to wrap.

No, no. It was something from Victoria's Secret. It was one of those Love Pink t-shirts that high school girls wear. Y'know, the ones that Mrs Aldi won't let Aldigirl wear even though she's less than a year younger than Beeb. Mrs Aldi would probably wear one herself, though. With a leather miniskirt. To a wedding. Think I'm kidding? She wore a black leather miniskirt to MY wedding. When she was pregnant.

Ok, so it wasn't like they bought her lingerie, but it was still creepy to think that one of three equally icky things probably happened:

A) The Aldis intentionally went to Victoria's Secret specifically with Beeb in mind, thinking was the perfect place to find something for their fourteen-year-old niece

B) The Aldis were at the mall already and thought, shit, we need a gift for Beeb while they happened to be standing in front of Victoria's Secret

or C) Mrs Aldi had a coupon and got it free when she bought something for herself.

I kinda want to know whether the idea to get Beeb a gift from Victoria's Secret entered their minds before or after they got to the mall. But honestly, it really doesn't make a difference, does it? It's just pretty fucking gross to think that Reverend Aldi wrapped that gift. Please agree with me that this is completely inappropriate and utterly unacceptable. PLEASE. The fact that one of them thought of it and the other didn't talk them out of it freaks. my. shit. out.

After the cousin gifts, MIL and FIL handed out little cardboard boxes that looked like gingerbread houses along with envelopes with money inside. The kiddos opened the envelopes and counted five perfect, crisp $5 bills. Now, normally they give the kids each $100, usually in some clever way. One year, they gave them each $100 in dollar coins inside a wooden treasure chest. That was kinda awesome.

When the kids opened the boxes and found a cupcake inside instead of $75 more, Pie didn't miss a beat, didn't act disappointed, simply said "Meema's cupcakes are better than money!" Then FIL handed the kids each a plate and a fork so they could eat them. Pie tore into his like he hadn't eaten in days, and a minute or two later FIL stopped him and told him to see if there was anything strange in his mouth. He put his fingers in and pulled out what looked like a little piece of Trident wrapped in foil. Inside the foil was a $100 bill.

Bravo, MIL and FIL. Well done.

After the cupcake reveal, Tito was wiggling one of his front teeth and it was squicking me out, so I told him to come to me so I could yank it out. I wasn't really going to yank it out; I just wanted to flick it with my finger to see what would happen. But I flicked it and it fell out in his mouth! He gasped in horror and I laughed like a jackass because I must have looked like the worst mother in the world, flicking my child in the face. It was hilarious.

Oh, and ya know what? That reminds me that I forgot to tell you a story. A couple of weeks ago, when R was done with his weekly phone call to his folks, he told me that MIL and FIL had been at a dinner party where FIL slipped on, of all things, a toasted ravioli. And not only did he fall on his face in front of who knows how many people, he also broke off a part of his tooth.

I know I'm a horrible person, but I gotta tell ya, I laughed my motherfucking ass off when I heard that they would have to pull the tooth. I was hoping to see a giant hillbilly-lookin' gap at Christmas, but I didn't, probably because the man never smiles. I did, however, find it rather interesting that we didn't take the family portrait that we pose for every year and that somehow never gets printed. I've never seen one.

It's not that FIL's opposed to pictures, clearly, because the next part of the day was the old school slide show of MIL and FIL taking Mrs Lexus, Reverend Aldi, and R to Disneyworld when R was two years old. There were some awfully cute pictures or baby R in there, and it was fun to look at them and figure out which Ape looked most like him in that picture. There were pics of Mrs Lexus' birthday parties and the spectacular cakes that MIL made for them. Weird part, though? There's a bizarre lack of smiles in the four rolls of slides. Really, truly bizarre.

So that was Christmas with the inlaws. Remarkably bearable, but profoundly surreal.

NaNoWriFlections.

2011-12-02T18:16:00.000-06:00

Ah, I've missed you, my global fan base! It's been quite some time, hasn't it? Let me briefly update you on the goings-on in my life.

I'm still working at Foodhole and very happy there. It's a fantastic fit for me and my kooky personality! Twice as many hours than I got at Squish, $1.50 more per hour, better management, don't have to find a parking spot at the mall, much closer to home - it's a total win. They appreciate the work that I do, and the things that I am naturally good at (such as witty banter and talking about yummy food) are the things that are important there. The only thing that's been tough for me is that the days are longer. At Squish my longest shift was only 5 hours. At Foodhole, it's an 8-hour day. That's been hard to get used to. Working all summer and leaving the kids at home made me feel like a jerk of a mom. The kids didn't complain, though. They walked up to the neighborhood pool most days, and on the days that I was off, we hung out and did goofy stuff when they felt like it, but a lot of the time they just wanted to play video games in their pajamas, which was just fine with me.

In other news, I made an appearance (sorta) in a recent episode of the web comedy series BlackBookBerry. I'm ridiculously proud of a ten-second bit. Check out the show! I've also been collaborating with one of the series' creators on another project that is still in the early scribbling-out-characters-and-a-story stage, but I've had an unprecedented amount of fun working on it and I can't wait to unleash it on the world when the time comes. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy writing for an audience.

Speaking of writing, if you follow me on Facebook, you probably know that I spent the month of November attempting NaNoWriMo. If you're not familiar, it's a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. I thought I'd give it a try, y'know, since I've got all this time on my hands. I enjoy writing. And I'm actually pretty good at writing witty dialogue. I like to think I have a snappy Kevin Smith style of writing. So, I thought, what the hell, I'll write a 50,000 word novel in a month. I'd never had a deadline or a goal before, other than the ones I imposed on myself (Wookin Pa Nub Wednesdays, for example), but I write my blog just like I'm talking to someone sitting across from me and it would probably take me, what, maybe an hour to say 50,000 words? How hard could it possibly be?

I started out National Novel Writing Month enthusiastic and confident, and after the first week I got so far behind I couldn't get back on pace and I ended up missing the goal by an abysmal 30,000 words. Ugh. Why did I think I could do this? I should have known that writing a novel is not at all like updating my blog (which I only did four times all of last year). In my blog, I just tell you what happened in my life today. It doesn't have to make sense, and, usually, it doesn't. Most of you know enough of my personal backstory that I don't have to go back and fill in many (if any) blanks. I don't have to create characters on my blog. The Aldis are totally, unbeliveably, real, and I couldn't create a villain like FIL if I tried. I don't have to build a plot on a blog. The Swamp Thing Chronicles wrote itself.

P.S., I STILL can't believe that ill-mannered bitch showed up at my front door.

Anyway, I was extremely disappointed that I didn't make the 50K word goal. I know it's not a big deal, I know it doesn't matter to anyone but me, I know nobody thinks I suck at writing because I didn't make it, I know I should be using semicolons now instead of commas, and I know I should be proud of the 20,000 words I wrote. I just hate it when I don't achieve what I so desperately wanted - and fully expected - to achieve, you know? I wrote, without fail, every single day - even when I was bitter and pissed off and couldn't think of a single word to write. And I wasn't even close. I cut the goal in half, thinking it was more realistic for me, and I was still 5000 words away from the halfway point. And at the end of the month, I looked over what I had done, and there were huge chunks of it that I didn't remember writing. That was kinda surreal.Sometimes it was cool because there were funny bits of dialogue that I kinda felt I was reading for the first time. But mostly I felt like I have some sort of personality disorder or that I took too much Lunesta and was doing crazy shit in my sleep.

Why can't I put this whole stupid thing behind me? Why have I internalized it - a full month later - as a complete fail? Why have I been so deeply affected? I think a lot of it was timing. The month of November included two trips to Chez Inlaw in less that one week. And what makes me feel more totally ineffective and worthless as a human being than an afternoon with FIL?

The first trip out to Chez Inlaw that went reasonably well up until the last two minutes. You may recall that every single time I go out there, I draw some sort of criticism which never comes to me directly - it always goes through R. I personally think FIL is afraid of me because he doesn't know what I'll do. He knows what everyone else will do. Everyone else has endured a lifetime under his oppressive rule; I've only had fifteen years. Having grown up in a loving, encouraging, supportive home, I know that there are other, more effective ways for a patriarch to lead (not govern, not rule) his family - the people he's supposed to love. FIL has taught everyone, through relentless emotional bullying and manipulation, that he's the boss of the world and that the best way to get along with him is to do everything in your power to keep him happy. What has he done to make me (or anyone else) happy recently? I loathe celebrating every single holiday now, solely because of my fear of upsetting him. I make myself sick and crazy trying to anticipate which shortcoming of mine he'll decide to exploit. He has singlehandedly managed to suck the joy out of every otherwise supposed-to-be joyous occasion he is a part of, and I deeply, deeply resent it. I did not sign up for this.

It's more than just the regular stress of family events that a lot of people feel. What I feel is a nauseating, full-on dread that has very real physical manifestations. It's an all-day panic attack. Oh, but if I turn to Xanax for relief, I might get supertired and not have the energy to concentrate while he's delivering a lecture from the vast variety of topics ranging from Obamabashing to Power Tools to Diabetes. Not once in fifteen years has he ever asked me about me. Oh, wait, I take that back. He did ask me how I voted in the last presidential election (even though I am absolutely positive that he already knew the answer to the question and was only seeking to make me defend my choice by picking it apart and making me feel stupid), and I responded by telling him that I do not discuss politics. Ever. Because it's true. I don't. Political debates piss me off. Because really, what good comes of it? If we agree, we agree. If we don't, it's extremely unlikely that you'll convince me to change my mind and if you try to make me feel like I'm an ignorant jackass for having the opinion that I have, I'm probably going to punch you in the face. Why go there?

The name of the game is to figure out which previous criticism you are going to make a ridiculously overt, visible attempt to reconcile. Usually I do this by mentally scrolling through the last several trips out and trying to remember what I did wrong the last time. And whatever you try to fix, he will not acknowledge. Instead, he will zero in on something else that you allowed to slip past you while you were fully focused on making the concerted effort to not repeat the last regretful transgression he bitched about. This time, I was trying to avoid the criticism that I never offer to help clean up, because that was the most recent one I could remember.

It was in every way a typical visit. My kids know how they're expected to behave when we're out there. They're too big to be entertained by crayons and coloring books. They literally just sit silently at the table while FIL talks. For HOURS. Bless their little ape hearts. They were perfect angels. I was so proud and grateful.

So when it finally got to be time to leave, I was straightening up and gathering the kids' things. R said "I think we're going to go ahead and go now..." to which FIL said "And Sarah..." but I didn't quite hear what he said after my name because I was on the other side of the kitchen. Part of me wanted to say "And Sarah WHAT?" But for whatever reason, I didn't. I waited until we got in the car to ask R what FIL had said about me.

He'd said "...and Sarah is getting restless."

RESTLESS? I'd been spot-on perfect the entire day. The kids had been perfect. I'd cleaned, I'd attempted to engage in conversation (as much as anyone can, with him). I was on my absolute best behavior. But this man is somehow able to keep a watchful eye on everyone in the room even while delivering a lecture. I suppose it would be a quite remarkable gift, were he to use it for good and not to single me out as being disrespectful or rude. Excuse the FUCK outta me for cleaning instead of sitting and staring at you blankly while you rattled on and on about something I don't know or care about. We all know that if I'd chosen to sit and feign interest, he'd have found some other failing of mine to point out.

After sobbing the entire hour-long ride home, I got into bed, fired up the laptop, and saw that I had somehow lost about 1200 words of my story. I shouldn't even say "somehow", like it was a mystery, it was really that I wrote several paragraphs and pasted the same set of 1200 words in two different places because I couldn't decide where it fit better into the story. I just about threw up when I made that discovery.

Plus, the knitters will relate to this - you know when you've been working on a project, followed the pattern to the letter (perhaps after a few mistakes and re-starts) and put a considerable number of hours into it, motivated solely by the thought of triumphantly removing it from the needles and debuting it to the world, imagining the countless compliments you'll receive and practicing how to humbly accept them - only to finish the project and have it turn out considerably shittier than you'd envisioned? Are ya feelin' me, knitterz? Yeah.

The project I'd started as my distraction for the times when I wanted to keep my mental agility but didn't feel like writing - the thing that the stupid dog got a hold of, ripped apart and I nursed back to health only to realize I had fixed it wrong and added several unnecessary and preventable hours to the project - turned out really, profoundly not even remotely close to what I thought it would look like. Everything I've knit in the last month has come out hideous. I feel so inept.

Now, the thing I'm struggling with is this - I can't decide if it NANOWRIMO was a good experience. I suppose any experience that you learn from is a good experience, but I can't silence the part of me that wishes I hadn't tried. Because if I hadn't tried, I'd still have the confidence that I could do it, instead of being consumed by the feeling that I've just proven to the world that I can't.

So let's review what I learned. I suck at writing FICTION. I can't make shit up. The reality of my life is far more entertaining than anything my imagination can conjecture. Pretty sure the word Conjecture can be used as a verb.

But, more importantly, I learned that I can find time to write every day if I commit myself to it. I'm not going to promise that I'll write every day, but I feel reasonably certain that I can keep a promise to blog more in 2012 than I did in 2011.

The Best Laid Plans of Fools Like Me

2011-04-20T14:15:00.000-05:00

It's nice to have goals, so I can remember exactly what it is that I'm not doing. Actually, I have been writing nearly every day, but I haven't been writing things that I think are particularly worthy of sharing. And you don't tune in to read single sentences intended to remind me of what I wanted to write about when I had time.

Today is my first day off since last Thursday.
I am so, so, SO tired.

I spent last Tuesday learning about the policies and procedures at The Foodhole and meeting the management team. They didn't give me an actual schedule, but when they offered me the job, they asked if I could come in Tuesday and Friday. I assumed I was going to be trained on the cash register, since I was hired to be a cashier. So, when I went in for my first day of actual work on Friday, I did not expect to spend seven hours wiping down tables, hauling trash, and bringing carts in from the corrals.
I'm not complaining about the actual tasks, but more about the fact that I had no idea what to expect. I came home completely exhausted.

And then on Saturday, I was shopping at Foodhole when my phone rang. It was Foodhole, asking if I could pick up a shift. Thanks to my old pal Megan, I've learned that bad shit happens when you turn down a additional shift, but I also didn't want to set any sort of precedent that would lead Foodhole to believe they could call me whenever they wanted and I'd drop everything to come in and work. I probably could have worked the shift, but I had barely recovered from my first day and I had plans with R that night. So I offered to work 3:30 to 7:30, and they could take it or leave it. They took it.

I spent four hours cleaning tables, hauling trash and rounding up carts again, and then R and I went to see Cutthroat Shamrock at Fubar. That is, we went to see Cutthroat Shamrock, but had to suffer through five other bands until they finally went on...at 1am. I was tired, but it was fun, and I figured I could sleep in a bit on Sunday and maybe make it to church for Palm Sunday so the boys could get some whips.

Cut to 2:30 Sunday afternoon, when R, Tito and I are shopping for Tito's First Communion jacket. My phone rings. It's Foodhole asking where I am, since my shift began at 2. I immediately panicked and stated emphatically that NO ONE had told me I was supposed to work Sunday, but I would be there as soon as I could. I got there by 3:15, exhausted, confused, livid, and terrified that it would somehow reflect poorly on me even though I had had absolutely no idea that my schedule had changed. My name wasn't even on the schedule the last time I looked at it, but when I got in, sure enough, there I was, scheduled from 2 to 9:30. MotherFUCKER, I was pissed.

I never would have agreed to work Saturday if I had known my next day off wasn't going to be until Wednesday. I hadn't seen my kids all weekend. I had shit to do. But there I was, on trash/tables/cart duty, once again. And this time, I got pulled aside by Joan (who I have determined to be the least friendly member of the Customer Service Team) to let me know that I was doing the trash wrong. "I've noticed you're going back and forth with the trash and the recycling. You're supposed to take it all at once. It's just inefficient to run back and forth like that. Haven't you ever waited tables??!!?"

Um, no... I'm sorry, I was just trying to stay busy because I'm afraid that if I stop moving, I'll start crying. Oh, and I had no idea I was even supposed to BE here today...

When I got home Sunday night, I couldn't even bend to take my shoes off. I ached like I haven't ached in years. I couldn't decide if I wanted to cry or throw up, and I didn't have the energy to figure out which would be more cathartic. I took a shower so hot, I don't know how my skin didn't blister. R rubbed my feet and my back and tried to encourage me by assuring me it would get easier, but I knew I had to work two more days before I could rest. And even on my days off, I couldn't exactly rest since I had kinda neglected stuff at home, and one of those days off I had requested so I could go see Beeb's band play the National Anthem at the Cardinals game on Thursday.

I almost called in Monday morning and said there was no way I could do this job. I physically couldn't work five days in a row, and because there is no flexibility in the shifts like there was at Squish, I can't leave my kids home all day in the summertime. That's just cruel to do to kids, isn't it? I was pretty sure I should quit. I'd just gotten used to the thought of being home with the kids this summer when I got offered this job. Apart from Foodhole, I haven't gotten one call about my resume, so I was pretty close to giving up on the whole job search and I wasn't going let myself feel guilty about it. We could get by on one income. We did it for years. We'd have to give up some things, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

I showed up on Monday, jaw clenched and ready to politely explain that working five days in a row isn't what I had in mind when I took this part-time job, and I can clean at home. I don't, of course, but the point is that I could.

And as it turned out, I got to learn something new. I got trained on the registers! Yay! Finally! It's a lot to learn, but it's considerably less physically demanding than what I'd been doing the previous three days. I also learned that typically I'd be scheduled for three (maybe four) shifts a week, non-consecutive, and only one of those shifts would include that Trash/Cafe/Cart gig that was really starting to wear me down, so that was good news. I guess I'll stay.

I'm so relieved that I don't have to work in a cubicle or wear a skirt, pantyhose and heels every day. That's just not me. I get to wear my sexy nose ring and I don't have to cover up my tattoo. I LOVE my nose ring. It lets me wear a little bit of my crazy on the outside. I think it even affords me a bit of slack, in certain situations. Beebie's mom said Shit in a parent-teacher confrerence? Well, the woman does have a nose ring... It's just badass enough to keep lame people from fucking with me, and it quells my social anxiety a bit. I feel like I kinda look like I belong at places like Squish and Foodhole instead of looking like a dorky fat 40-year old woman who only got hired because she's a friend of some manager's mom.

I'm really nervous that I'll accidentally put a water bottle lid into the Recycling bin instead of the Repurposing bin. I also have an irrational fear of using the paging system. I really don't like talking on the phone. I hate how my voice sounds. I'd much rather communicate via email and allow people to imagine that my voice sounds like I was born from the spliced ova of Kathleen Turner and Demi Moore. Really, I sound more like Harvey Firestein's sperm and Gilbert Gottfried's sperm duked it out inside of Phyllis Diller's uterus. You're welcome for that visual, by the way.

Yesterday I got my very own till and I opened register 4, which is actually the busiest lane because it's the closest to the door. I thought EXPRESS would go faster, since everyone would have ten items or fewer, but those people want speed, and I guess it makes sense to put me on a busy lane and put up a "Cashier in Training. Please Be Patient" sign. To my trainers' credit, they showed me a number of possible scenarios that I could run into, but it was by no means an exhaustive list. Most people were understanding and kind, and the ones who weren't, I'd just be extra special sweet to them and thank them for helping me learn. Anybody who'd be a dick to someone who's just trying to learn their new job is, well, a dick.

One of my cashiering nightmares has already come true. I knew I'd probably ring up Fuji apples instead of Gala or Pink Lady or something like that. I'm sure it happens all the time, even to seasoned veteran Foodhole cashiers. I rang a zucchini as a cucumber, and the guy was NOT cool about it. He was the kind of "surface cool", like he wanted me to know that making me feel like an idiot was perfectly within his rights, but he was taking some sort of moral high road and I should be grateful for his benevolence. I wanted to tell him to be sure to use plenty of Vaseline with those zucchinis, but I didn't.

The best part of the day was when the one team member I had not yet met came up and introduced himself to me, and I suddenly remembered that it has been nearly a decade since I had a straight male co-worker. Holy Genitals of Jesus, y'all, this guy was beautiful. Not like Jon Hamm beautiful, but hippie beautiful. He reminded me of James Franco in Howevermany Hours. All rugged, scruffy, hippie, thin, ripped triathlete build... not even my type, for many reasons (not the least of which is the fact that I easily have 50 pounds on the guy because I eat meat and processed foods), but I was in full-on swoon mode when he said, "Hey, Sarah! I'm Franco! It's great to finally meet you! I'd heard great things about you, even before you were hired! I heard you rocked the interview with lots of energy! We love that here at The Foodhole! I'm really looking forward to working with you. I've heard you're aMAYzing!"

I don't remember what I said back. I was concentrating pretty hard on not staring and making sure my jaw wasn't hanging open. Just, wow. Yes, thank you, I know I'm married to a Hall of Fame Husband. And Franco's probably gay anyway, for all I know - not that there's anything wrong with that - but if that's the case, I will gladly just admire the view.

I'm kinda glad I stuck it out.

Squish THIS, Megan.

2011-04-08T14:21:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow, it will be two months since I was inexplicably Squished. I've kinda had to do a complete life reboot. It sucks SO HARD to try to figure out what to put on your resume, especially when what you've done for the last year or so was sell soap, and what you did for eight years before that was the thankless but immeasurably educational stay-at-home-mom gig.

I've been reading back over the archives of this blog recently, and I gotta say, y'all, I'm so glad I wrote this shit down. There were things I didn't remember, and re-reading some of my entries was very uplifting to me. I have come a long way. I like reading the stuff I wrote, especially after it's been so long that I don't remember the story and it's as though someone else is telling it.

Revisiting some of my older posts also reminded me how much I truly love writing. This girl's got shit to say! And I loved blogging because I didn't spend hours thinking of something to write about or questioning the global relevance of any particular topic. I just told shit like it was. Most days, I didn't start out with a topic in mind or a moral to illustrate. I just sat down, started typing, and let the Brilliance happen.

During my hiatus, R and I took the kids to see Doreen Cronin, the author of Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type , and she gave a really inspiring talk (aimed at kids) about the various steps involved in coming up with a story. So I got this idea that maybe I could be good at this writing thing. Maybe. And I used my unemployment money to buy some books for folks wanting to break into the biz. My favorites are Writing Mama by Christina Katz and How To Become A Famous Author Before You're Dead by Ariel Gore, both of which stress the positive creative impact of writing something every day. I should try that. It's bizarre how I used to write more when I had three kids at home to neglect. Now that I'm home alone all day, I don't always hold myself to my responsibilities, as is evidenced by the Hoarders film crew camping out on my front lawn. I watch a lot of Wendy Williams. How you doooo-uhn?

And, after I'd committed myself to this write-something-every-day venture, I got offered a new job! I shall refer to it as The Foodhole. I'll be a cashier, part time, and I'll make a dollar more per hour than I did at Squish. Additionally, The Foodhole is closer to home, I can wear jeans and t-shirts, and I'll get more hours than at Squish. Plus, my bosses are grownups! So, in a way, I'm absolutely delighted to have been Squished. I'm a bit pissed about how it went down and that they still haven't given me a reason why they fired me. None of them have spoken to me since I left. I still wonder what Megan told everyone about me, because no matter what it was, it wasn't true.

But what's the difference? Foodhole is a total upgrade, and I'm free of the spiral of negativity and self-loathing. I feel physically lighter, now that I've found something new - and better - and I've got a goal to focus on for the immediate future. I want to blog at least three times a week. I don't know if I can blog every day, and I'm not sure everything I write will actually make it onto the blog. Some days my writing is just a phrase or a group of words that I jot down in one of my countless notebooks because I like the way they sound. You wouldn't believe how many rants I've drafted and never posted. Some days will be more coherent than others. Sometimes I don't have anything interesting to say. But I hope that those of you who've stuck with me over the years will continue to stick around as this blog takes on what I hope will be a slightly more mature voice.

I'm still gonna say FUCK a lot, though.

SQUISHED.

2011-03-16T11:27:00.000-05:00

Well kids, I have good news and bad news. The good news is, now I have more time to blog! The not-so-good news is that I got fired from my dream job at Squish.

I was completely devastated. I never saw it coming. And even a month later, they still have not given me any legitimate reason why. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I can be quite vocal when I'm pissed off (LUBABA!!). This blog has been a cathartic outlet for me over the years, so I thought I would blow the dust off my keyboard and spew some venom about the bullshit that went down between me and my boss Megan.

After my shift on Wednesday, February 9th, I was told that Katie, the store's assistant manager, wanted to talk to me. I couldn't imagine why Katie would come in on her day off just to talk to me, but I didn't think anything of it. She and I sat on a bench, and she said "We're... um... letting you go."  I asked why, and she said, "Well, you aren't really here very much..." I asked her what exactly she meant by that, and she said it meant that I didn't work a lot of shifts. Katie's the one who made the schedules, by the way.

Katie and Megan had both apologized many times to the entire staff for not being able to give us more hours. In fact, I was sent home on January 27th when we were 8% over in labor (which Megan hadn't checked until I was literally standing in front of her, waiting to clock in). I can't believe that my working one shift a week would be a fireable offense, when I know that there are people on the payroll who work even less than I do.

Katie went on to say that when I was at work, it "always seemed that I wanted to be somewhere else." I objected immediately to the vague, unquantifiable nature of the allegation and to the complete lack of documented evidence suporting it. I asked why no one had said anything to me about it, since something like a sudden change in attitude might warrant a conversation, it certainly is not in itself grounds for dismissal. I asked Katie if there was any possibility that I could talk to Megan directly and maybe work something out, and Katie said no, this was a done deal, adding that Megan had specifically orchestrated things so that Katie would be the one to fire me while Megan was out of town at a Managers' Meeting.

Katie then said, "plus you ask for a lot of time off..." I asked for my 40th birthday weekend off in January, another night for a concert, and for February 10-14th because my parents were coming in town to surprise my kids. I didn't ask for time off during the holidays because we weren't allowed to. Since my hours were minimal anyway, I didn't see any problem with asking not to be scheduled on specific days. It had never been a problem before. If it was a problem, they could have just not approved my request, no big deal, and maybe spoken to me about it. So, again, I want to restate that every single reason I was given as to why I was let go, (which, if you're following along at home, are that I don't work enough shifts; I don't seem to want to be there; and I ask for too much time off) was completely fabricated and bogus.

But the final blow was yet to come. Katie put the termination paper in front of me which listed "Performance" as the reason for my termination. I was flabbergasted.

I have an excellent work record. I believe the one time I was actually formally written in the Coaching Binder was for cutting soap incorrectly, and after the coaching, it never happened again. I was consistently a top seller. I had never once been written up for my performance. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but to my knowledge I was never secret-shopped or the subject of a customer complaint. I am rarely, if ever, late to work. In fact, I have a reputation for showing up early. I've come in when other people were sick, and have never bailed on a shift I was scheduled to work. When it was announced that Katie was leaving to follow a guy to Cleveland, I even offered to take on more responsibility. If it seemed like I don't want to be there, all I can say is that it's difficult for any of us to stay motivated on the countless days when we work five and six-hour shifts without the 15-minute break required by SQUISH (and by Federal Law) when it feels like no one by our shop.

I know I was great at that job, y'all. I brought a fun, unique spirit to the store. I contributed creative party ideas and I always promoted and participated in store events. I turned customers into fans because they could see my sincerity when I educated them about the products and what makes them so amazing. Megan herself said that I was the only person on our staff who could sell things without making it seem to the customer like I was selling. She told me a few times that I was everyone's favorite to work with and that she didn't know what they would do without me.

It pissed me off sooo bad that Performance was on my record as the reason for my termination. I didn't deserve that. If they had just told me that they had to cut back employees because the store wasn't making enough to support the full staff anymore, I could have accepted that. I would even have stepped aside voluntarily, for the good of the company. But for some reason, Megan felt that she needed to make this about something else.

I wrote a letter to HR stating that I wanted Performance to be removed as the reason for my termination, due to the lack of supporting documentation and because it is in no way an accurate assessment of the quality of my work. I have been told that my request had been honored, but I don't know what is now on my record instead. My letter to HR also stated that Megan fired me without cause and did not follow company policy. I wish I could have added my own theory as to why Megan decided I was no longer SQUISH material, because I certainly have one.  Pay attention.

On Monday, February 1st, Megan called me at home to see if I wanted to pick up a shift on Wednesday the 3rd. Megan started out, as she had many times before, by saying "Sarah, you're the only one who can do this." I said that it made me very uncomfortable whenever she begins a conversation that way because I always feel like she's backing me into a corner and I can't say no. She hounded me for a reason as to why I declined to take the shift. My reason was simply that it was supposed to snow all day Tuesday and Wednesday and it seemed pretty likely that my kids would be home from school. Megan snapped, "Oh, it's MONDAY, you already know they're going to be off on WEDNESDAY?!!?"

I said I was feeling pressured to do something I didn't really want to do, and Megan's response was "It sounds like you just don't want to be here. Do we need to have a conversation about you not wanting to be here?" I answered no, because I didn't not want to be there. It wasn't as though I was calling in and saying I wasn't coming in to work my scheduled shift because I just didn't feel like it. Everyone else had been given the opportunity to say no, but because I was the last person she called - and she began the conversation by telling me that everyone else had already said no - what choice did I have? Had I known then that this would be the only time anyone would offer to have a conversation with me to discuss my future at the company, I would have taken them up on it.

I even asked Megan if I could say no, and she said that I could, so I said "Then, no." I can not think of a single time over the last 15 months when I have said no to her.  If she'd said "Sure you can say no, but your employment status might be affected", which would have been extremely unprofessional (and probably illegal), I might have thought about it a little longer, but ultimately my choice would have been the same. My kids come first. Period.  She knew I had kids before she even interviewed me.

Not only did she put me in a spot where I felt like I was being forced to choose between my job and my kids, but she was downright nasty about it. She didn't even say Please. I said no because I wasn't willing to take on the responsibility of leaving my kids at home alone and driving to work on a day that the National Guard was urging people to stay off the roads. I should have the right to do that without being penalized, let alone fired. If I was the last person she called, that essentially means that everybody else got the opportunity to say no. I should have the same right, shouldn't I?

Here's some important backstory: In October, Megan called me sobbing after she realized that Dexter, the $800 puppy she planned to co-parent with a guy who lived 45 minutes away, might have been a bad idea. I was out with my family watching Beebie's band perform at a football game when I spent nearly an hour talking her down from the ledge. I offered to do whatever I could to be helpful, as anyone would do when their boss calls them out of the blue, crying and hysterical. A few members of the staff stayed longer than our scheduled shifts several times so that she could take care of Dexter. I didn't complain when she took a two-hour lunch to let him outside. I ended up driving over to her apartment on my days off and letting him out, at her request, no fewer than four times. The last time she called on me to let Dexter out on Novermber 3rd, I was at an event at Tito and Pie's school. I actually left Parents Day to let her dog out because she told me she had already asked everyone she knew. In fairness, she didn't ask me to leave immediately, but I had to in order to be able to have it work with the amount of time I had available to help her through a personal crisis.

The one time I can recall asking Megan for a little bit of accommodation at the last minute was the week before Thanksgiving, the day after I had to take Pie to the ER with blood in his urine. I explained to Megan that blood in the urine is a major situation, given his birth defect. I asked if I could come in either earlier or later than I was scheduled since I needed to take Pie to see his urologist, and Megan mentioned that it would make things difficult for her because there was a major shipment due in that day. I got Speed Racer to rearrange his schedule and to take Pie the doctor for me so that I could work my scheduled shift and so Megan would not be scrambling.  You're welcome.

Imagine how horrified I was to learn that my commitment to the company was being called into question.

It might have been a week or two after Pie's ER incident when Katie pulled me aside to ask how I was doing, since working four and five days a week during Holiday (including back-to-back midnight shifts) when I'm used to working two or three days a week was clearly taking a toll on me physically and mentally. I don't deny that I was going through a difficult time in my personal life and as hard as I tried to keep it from affecting my work, it did. But I felt like Megan cared about me as a person enough to ask what was going on with me, or at least to have someone else ask me what was going on with me. Katie offered me the opportunity to take fewer shifts, and specifically told me that I take on too much and I need to say no more often. I agreed to take fewer shifts, and once the holidays were over, I honestly thought I was doing much better. No one told me otherwise until I was handed my termination paper.

When I questioned the legitimacy of the claim that my performance was unacceptable, Katie offered me no specific examples, saying only that it was what Megan had told her to write. I kept asking Katie why Megan pulled a punk move and did not confront me herself, using proper corrective action, instead of instructing someone else to fire me immediately when I had had no previous record of inadequate performance. All Katie would say is "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."  Yeah, right.

Here's the bullshit factor - every employee should know that it is SQUISH's policy to use coaching first and termination as a last resort in extreme cases when all other options have been exhausted. According to the employee handbook, SQUISH believes in "a progressive, corrective-action-warning system consisting of one verbal/written and two written warnings, after which termination will take place - for any employee, at any time."

I can see no professional reason why I was fired. None. I didn't violate any store or company policies, and if my performance was truly substandard, no one bothered to document it. The fact that I was fired (after fifteen months of service) so soon after the first time I told Megan no suggests to me that there could be some personal subtext. I gave you guys the facts, and you can draw your own conclusion.

Seriously, there is absolutely no corrective performance-related documentation on my record. I think it's so ridiculous that she allowed me to work my last five-hour shift as scheduled, but had already made the decision that my performance had suddenly become so poor that you had to bypass proper channels and fire me immediately...and yet I'm considered rehireable. What's the logic behind that? Personally, I think Megan kept me rehireable so she could call on me, yet again, if she needs a favor. Fuck that. You burned this bridge, honey. I'm nobody's bitch.

I don't want it to sound like I'm talking shit about SQUISH. I'm not. I love SQUISH. I wish I still worked there, and it's complete bullshit that I don't get to, when I'm not the one who didn't follow the rules.

So, my lovelies, I've missed you all and I'm incredibly sorry for neglecting you. I know I've staged triumphant comebacks before, but I'm hoping that I'll be spending more time updating you on what's happening in my always-fascinating life. Won't that be fun?

Annual Halloween Post

2010-11-05T11:44:00.000-05:00

The Ghosts of Halloweens Past

Despite the fact that the Pevely Flea Market has done away with the Halloween Costume Contest after we won it three years in a row, The Apes continued to KICK ASS in Halloween Costume Contests! The Karmas had a FANTASTIC Halloween weekend this year. Beeb was dressed as...

Justin BEEBer! And the boys were...

A washing machine and a penguin. Pie has boxers on his head.

The boys both won in the costume contest at their school's Trunk or Treat. Tito got Best Homemade Costume and Pie got Most Creative Costume. They also took 1st and 2nd place at the costume contest at Three Dog Bakery, taking home $30 worth of gift cards to a frozen custard place. Luigi was dressed as a Jedi, but he didn't place. I told him if he's gonna be a part of this family, he's going to have to start winning.

On Halloween, The Racers joined us at Grant's Farm for our final visit for the year. Sadly, we didn't get as much out of the parking pass as we have in years past. I've been working a lot more than I expected to (it's been a whole year since I started - can you believe??), and I really love the job, but it does take up a lot of my time, as does keeping an eye on Luigi, who still likes to eat things he's not supposed to. Like sofas. Grrrrr.

After feeding Speed Racer to the goats and getting my early morning drink on, we took the kids to America's Incredible Pizza Company for their costume contest, and Pie won 3rd place - a $50 gift card! All of the apes won a prize, so they got to ride the bumper cars and go karts and play a shitload of video games. So based on about $12 spent on each of the kids' costumes, we more than came out ahead!

I should add that the Pevely Flea Market offered Free Mammograms this year, which is pretty freakin' scary, if you ask me. There was no mention of the professional qualifications of whoever was performing said mammograms. I thought about going, for the sheer entertainment value (if not for the medical value) of it, but I kept visualizing a rusty trailer with some Randy Quaid-lookin dude patting the bed and saying, "Why dontcha whip dem puppies out and let Uncle Eddie take a look-see..."

No, thanks.

The best First Day Of School pic ever.

2010-09-05T11:45:00.001-05:00

Y'all know I'm a bit more lax with my, erm, colorful language around my children than most parents are. Along with the regular back-to-school preparations like buying clothes and school supplies, I subjected my Apes to a little quiz about which words are appropriate for school, and which words are not to leave our house.

Ok, kids - do we say Douchebag at school?
Noooo.
Do we say You Suck?
Noooo. Oh, wait - can we say This Sucks?
Please don't.
Can we say Suck It?
Definitely not. Don't say the word Suck at all.
What if the teacher asks us what we do to lollipops?
Don't answer.

And then this week Pie told me he was supposed to write about a happy memory. I asked him what he wrote about.

Well, actually, I couldn't think of any, so I made up a story about us getting a hamster named Satan.

Fantastic.

WTF????

2010-08-12T14:42:00.001-05:00

I'm sure he's healthier and happier and whatever, but doesn't Drew just look WEIRD?

This is a little something I wrote back when that David-Letterman-and-the-Intern story was the big news. There's a specific reference to Drew that I thought was worth sharing, in light of Drew's new look.

The recent David Letterman drama sparked a conversation between me and a friend of mine. I told her I'd TOTALLY do Dave. Without hesitation. I'd have done him twenty years ago, and I'd do him today.

She was horrified. He has that goofy tooth-gap, she said. And he's balding and he wears white socks with his suits! Not to mention he's a pervy old man who sexually harrasses his staff.

Um, so? Hell, I kinda like being sexually harrassed, personally.

So we started talking about Who's Hot and Who's Not. Predicatably, she went for the Clooney/ Pitt genre of beauty. And yes, I agree that those men are beautiful in a traditional sense. But it came out in the conversation that many of my favorite celebrity crushes do not fit the typical "Hollywood Beauty" mold.

They're in a category I call Unconventionally Beautiful. Tommy Lee Jones with his tenderhearted-badass, rugged leathery sexiness is an example. So is John Krasinsky with his sexy moppy hair and big nose. And Ricky Gervais with his wonky teeth. And Jeff Goldblum's lanky awkwardness. And Queen Latifah's lovely curves. And Ben Folds... sigh... Ben Folds is a genius.

And Drew Carey. If Drew lost a bunch of weight and suddenly had 6-pack abs, he wouldn't be the same to me. I know he'd still have his unique sense of humor and he'd be the same person on the inside, but his physical presence would be different, and I don't think I would like it.

It's not that I prefer bigger dudes exclusively. Vince Vaughn's kinda the opposite. He was lanky and sexy in Swingers, but now that he's a lot more famous, he's pasty and bloated. Jon Favreau's kinda hot in his own way, too. I bet he's got a wicked kinky side. And wouldn't Penn Jillette be a crazy dream date? I'm just sayin.

Listen, I've heard the "you're beautiful INSIDE" speech many times myself. I realize that my beauty lies beneath the surface, under a layer of stretchmarks and cellulite and a C-section scar, which I tell people is the scar I got when someone tried to steal my kidney in Mexico. I've endured many thick-chick compliments (e.g. "you have such a pretty face") from people who love me and presumably mean well. And I'm not even that fat - I'm 5'6", 180ish. I'm overweight, sure, but they make clothes in my size. What's the problem?

I've never been The Pretty One among my group of friends. I'm The Fun One. I'm the one that my friends set up on blind dates marketing me as the girl with the (gasp) Great Personality. And by the way, when did "She has a great personality" become the kiss of death? Most guys hear that and think Oh, great, she's probably a troll. I'm not a troll, I just happen to be an average-looking girl with an absolutely sparkling personality. I kinda like being known as The Fun One. Would you rather I had a face like (fill in the name of the most beautiful woman you can think of) and the personality of a noodle?

I'm not insinuating that beautiful people are stupid and shallow. I wouldn't know. We're really not running in the same circles. It's not like I'm on the treadmill next to them at the gym. This is exactly my point. I don't feel like I have a whole lot in common with the fitness-obsessed hardbodies. They're working out while I'm watching Survivor in my pajamas. They're doing crunches while I'm eating Pumpkin Pie Concretes with my friends at Ted Drewes. They're training for a Triathalon; my idea of a Triathalon is eating a greasy cheeseburger, drinking a beer, and throwing a few rounds of darts. Suffice it to say we have different priorites. What would we talk about?

To clarify, I'm not talking about those who go to the gym to work out because they want to be healthy. I could be on board with that. I might work out if I had a free gym membership, a cool friend to go with, and cute outfits. I'm talking about the people who go above and beyond what is healthy and cross the line into obsession: people who spend so much time in the gym they don't have time for anything else. Those people are motivated by something other than their own health. Clearly, they have a beauty standard in their head that they want to achieve and maintain, and if they have set that standard for themselves, then why wouldn't we expect them to apply it to everyone else?

I realize I'm not necessarily what everyone considers beautiful. I'm not a Barbie doll. Don't even get me started on my Barbie rant about our society's impossible standard of beauty and how it's marketed to children and the subsequent pressure it places on girls to be perfect. Ugh, that pisses me off sooo muthahfuggin bad.

Anyway, I started writing this not because I wanted to "warn" people that I'm not skinny or to send some Yeah, I know I'm fat and if you don't like it, then fuck you, you shallow douchebag message of false confidence. I am who I am, you are who you are, we like what we like. I wanted to talk about what attracts me to another person.

Most of my crushes are people who make me laugh. None of them are illiterate jackasses. They come across as reasonably intelligent when interviewed and don't use non-words like Supposably, Irregardless or Unequivicably. They know the difference between you're/your and to/too (not "To bad your not topless!"). What makes them interesting to me is how well they do what they're passionate about, whether it's acting, or comedy, or music, or whatever. I love what they contribute to the world, and, by extention, to my life.

Don't get me wrong, I love the outwardly beautiful men and women too. I love Johnny Depp's dark sexiness and Drew Barrymore's innocent-yet-sultry charm. I even kinda love those ripped-abs Calvin Klein underwear model guys. Or, I guess it's more accurate to say that I appreciate them aesthetically. They'd make a pretty poster on my wall.

But I'll take Unconventional Beauty over Hollywood Beauty any day of the week.

Pass me a donut, will ya, Dave?

Summer Days and Summer's Eve

2010-07-16T08:40:00.001-05:00

In non-Luigi news, work's going great. I really love my job at SQUISH. I've found my groove and the other girls on the team are fun and cool. Yeah, my boss is ten years younger than me, but whatever. In my 6-month review, she told me I was everyone's favorite to work with. That's the kind of thing I love to hear! I'd rather have that be my claim to fame than being #1 in sales. Frankly, I'd be stunned if I wasn't everyone's favorite. I have no authority to boss anybody around, I get shit done, and fuck, I'm hilarious.

I'm working fewer hours over the summer so I can hang more with the Apes.  Toward the end of the school year my other mom friends were asking me if I'd signed my kids up for any activities or camps. I hadn't. Totally forgot, didn't research, couldn't afford it anyway. How big a loser mom did I feel like?

But then I remembered how much time I spent in summers past (documented for all eternity, thanks to Blogger) driving kids from one thing to the next. I about killed myself, as you may recall. So this year, quite by accident, the Apes and I have been enjoying summer's leisure.

Remember this little girl, all dressed up in her fancy flower girl dress? This is the first pic I ever posted of her on this blog, back in 2005.

In less than two weeks, I will be the mother of a teenager.

Is this bothering me? Am I consumed by thoughts of my own mortality? Nah, not really. But kind of.

I'm so proud of Beebie, and I'm even just a little bit proud of myself for being a pretty good mom. She's such a cool kid. We talk about everything. Seriously, everything. Well, R was the one who explained to her what Boners are (penises and anything penis-related are his domain; menstruation and cooter issues are mine), but I explained what a Douchebag actually is, and how my grandmother used to have boxes of Massengill in her hall closet, and tried to find that goofy commercial about the mom and the daughter and the "not-so-fresh feeling" on YouTube. Here it is.

Then I found some other funny ones. You're welcome.

Sorry, I digress. R and I have a great, ongoing open dialogue with Beeb, and I think it's the one thing I'm proudest of. But when I remember that her turning 13 means I'm going to be 40 in about 6 months, I keep hearing this song in my head -

The competition's getting younger
Tougher broncs, you know I can't recall
The worn out tape of Chris LeDoux, lonely women and bad booze
Seem to be the only friends I've left at all

And the white line's getting longer and the saddle's getting cold
I'm much too young to feel this damn old
All my cards are on the table with no ace left in the hole
I'm much too young to feel this damn old
Lord, I'm much too young to feel this damn old

And can I just say, when you've got nothing but Garth Brooks lyrics rattling around in your noggin, it might be time for an intervention.

Beeb's 13th birthday is as much a milestone for me as it is for her. I'd been dreading her becoming a teenager since before she was born. And now, as the dreaded day looms ever closer, I'm not only at peace with it, I'm overjoyed. I'm excited, even.  And so incredibly proud.

In a strange way, Beeb's upcoming birthday has given me a sense of parental competence that I've never had before. For all the stressing and freaking out I've done over the last thirteen years (the last five immortalized in this blog), I've actually managed to get a lot right. I'm getting better about picking my battles and not sweating the small stuff. I'm starting to get the hang of this Mom thing.

For the first time in my illustrious parental career, I actually feel like I kinda know what I'm doing. Well, that's not exactly right. It might be more accurate to say that I've accepted that no matter how much I stress myself out trying to get everything perfect, there will always be things I'm going to screw up as a parent. There will be numerous Epic Fails. And they'll probably be fuckin' funny. And guess what? The kids are probably going to be okay anyway.

The fact that Beeb has managed to live this long without ending up in Juvie is not just a credit to me, but to every person involved in helping me be the parent I want to be. Yeah, I know I have no idea what lies ahead. Of course I don't. But I feel pretty good about my (and My Village's) ability to handle it.

Beeb is an awesome, awesome person.
Y'all can pat yourselves on the back.

Cousin Oliver

2010-07-13T12:28:00.002-05:00

Remember that classic episode of The Brady Bunch when Cindy overhears a conversation in which it is stated that the Bradys are going to have "an addition to the family" and she assumes that means Carol is pregnant, but it's really just that annoying little dipshit Cousin Oliver?

I hope this doesn't mean my blog has jumped the shark.

No, I'm not pregnant. Meet our new addition - LUIGI!
Doesn't he look sweet?

See that striped chair on the left side of the picture?

Sigh...

Has it really been since May 14th? Seriously? Ugh, I'm sorry I haven't written anything for so long. It's that lethal combination of having too much to write and no time to write it, and then when I do have time I'm too tired to make my fingers move.

I'm going to have to start with the story of how Luigi came to our house from Stray Rescue. You can read about him if you click HERE.

There's also his Rescue Story which might warm your heart, so click HERE for that.

A few weeks ago the Karmas went to a Stray Rescue Benefit Event at Speed Racer's church. I'd told my mom that we were going, and her advice was "Don't get sucked in!" I was on my guard, knowing I'd probably meet some adorable dog that I'd love and want to take home on the spot, and the kids would beg and beg, but I would stand firm.

And then we met this puppy.

His name was Aang. He had an adorable little cleft palate. The kids spent hours playing with him, holding him, and walking him. But they knew how I felt about having a dog. I was the one who would be home with it all day every day, and I kinda value the freedom I've only recently started to enjoy after 8 long years as a stay-home mom. And there is no WAY I'm potty training a dog. I'm just not in the mood. So when it was time to go, the kids bid goodbye to Aang, and we went home. No tears, no "Why can't WE have a dog??" They knew why.

But then, for the next day or two, I couldn't stop thinking about little Aang. I knew he'd have no problem being adopted because he was so freakin cute. And I knew I didn't want a puppy. But it was so nice to hold him and cuddle him and pet him, I thought, just maybe, I might be persuaded to change my stance. So I sneaked little peeks at the Stray Rescue website to see if there were any older (read: already housetrained) dogs that looked interesting.

My favorite was a really cute one named Oliver, but he was on a home visit when I called Stray Rescue. So was Kerby, the Great Pyrenees. The Stray Rescue volunteer suggested I look through the website and come up with a list of 3 or 4 that we might like to meet.  Luigi was on that list, and the volunteer told me that of the ones we were interested in, she thought he'd be the best fit for us. He would do well with a family with kids, and a fenced yard. I'm smart enough to know that this translates into HIGH ENERGY.

I really didn't want a high energy dog.   And I didn't want a big dog. I wanted one that I could cuddle. I'm thinking Pug, Boston Terrier, something like that. Luigi's ad said he was 60 pounds. It's hard to visualize what 60 pounds looks like in a dog you've never seen. Tito weighs about 60 pounds, and he's quite cuddly, so maybe 60 pounds would be all right.

July 3rd, we were supposed to go out to Chez Inlaw for the 4th of July Weekend party with the fireworks and whatnot. (Remember last year when Aldidog pooped on FIL's white carpet?) Stray Rescue called to see if we wanted to meet Luigi that morning, and since all of our top choices had been snatched up so quickly, we thought we'd better jump at the chance to meet a dog that was on our list.

We waited in the Stray Rescue courtyard for Luigi to come out and meet us. My first reaction, when he bolted out the door was Holy CRAP, He's Too Big. And then one volunteer told the other that on their way outside, Luigi had stopped at the bin where they keep all the dogs' toys, pulled the bin off the shelf, rummaged through the toys to find the one he wanted, and gotten it out all by himself.

The most significant moment in my entire life that found me in a similar spot - in which I had to make an instantaneous choice as to whether a particular thing I had just learned about someone should be considered A) adorable and endearing or B) a huuuuuuge red flag - was on my first date with R. We were going to dinner at pub I'd never been to, and literally as soon as we walked through the door, the bartender yelled "Hey, R! Pour you a Guinness?" It's such a fine line between hella cool and fuckin creepy. Obviously, I went with Cool, but I mentally filed it away thinking it would be a funny story to tell our kids someday, and the rest is history.

And, standing there in the courtyard, hearing that this dog had helped himself to something spoke more to his above-average intelligence and playful impishness than to a sense of entitlement or the kind of independence that might present a problem. He already sounded like one of my brilliantly impish children. An evil genius, like Pie. Evil geniuses are kinda fun to be around. He'd fit right in.

The volunteer suggested the five of us take him for a walk. R took the leash. Tito was cranky and pouting because he wanted to walk Luigi.  We tried to tell Tito that it wasn't a good idea. Luigi was pulling hard. Luigi was strong. Tito said he was stronger than a dog. And he kept looking at the ground and shuffling his feet and telling me how unfair it was that he couldn't walk Luigi. I turned to R, and said, fine, show him. You may or may not agree with this style of parenting, but the only way that kid will quit bitching is if you show him exactly why things need to be the way the grownups say they need to be.

Tito had to run to keep up, and Luigi thought he was being chased, so he ran faster and faster. Luigi flew Tito like a kite.

Tito, to his credit, never let go of the leash, despite falling on the sidewalk and being dragged until R could get a hold of Luigi. I was slightly concerned that the Stray Rescue people would see Tito's scraped leg and think I was a shitty mom for allowing my child to learn something the hard, painful way, but they didn't appear to be questioning my parenting skills. We made arrangements to try Luigi out, as part of their Rent-A-Pet program which allows you to bring a dog home and see how things go.

As soon as we got him in the van the next day, I started to freak out. It began with a quickening heartbeat and the faintly cold sweaty sense of panic. And the sense of panic grew and grew to the level of that full-on fetal position anxiety that totally immobilizes me. I wanted to puke and cry and scream, but I felt like I was paralyzed. At this point, I knew it was only a trial basis, but I really wanted it to work out. I didn't want to be the asshole who returns a dog. And I especially didn't want to tell my mom that I should have listened to her and not gotten sucked in.

But as Luigi tore through my house, jumping on everyone and everything, I thought, Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into? The kids are going out of town and I have to work all day Thursday. I can't leave this dog home alone. What am I going to do?? This is insane. I can't take him back; that's so tacky. Fuck. Fuck. Mother. Fucking. FUCK. I was beside myself, sick with anxiety.

The next day, I made R call the Stray Rescue lady and tell her it wasn't going to work out. I felt like such a douche, I couldn't tell her myself. The lady asked if we'd be willing to have the behaviorist come over and give us some ideas.  Sure, I'd be willing. I really didn't want to give up. I'm not a giver upper (so says my Inspirational Tampon, anyway). I wanted to give Luigi a fair chance. But inside, I was deeply conflicted.

He'd shown us many moments of sweetness.  Many. He let everyone pet him, he played in the yard with squeaky toys. He laid on the floor at our feet and let us rub his belly. He really was, and is, an extremely sweet dog. 95% of the time, he's mellow - just chilin on the floor, gnawing on his nylabone.

And we all decided we liked him. Even Tito, after a little encouragement, was on board.

Within the hour, the volunteer we'd been working with and the behaviorist were at my house with a large dog crate and a harness. He hated the crate (the behaviorist speculated a past traumatic experience could be a factor), but the harness made a huge difference in helping me and the kids feel as though we could handle him, and I felt a great deal less anxious.  I actually felt really good. Over the next couple of days, he did very well when he gave him pretty much free reign of the downstairs. I let him stay out of the crate while I was at work all day Thursday, and I came home to no messes. I was thrilled. R was over the moon.

R and I even took him to get sno cones.

He sat in Tito's car seat,

and he let everyone at Tropical Sno pet him.

He's brought R out of his shell, too. R's just giddy when he talks about Luigi. Everybody asks what kind of dog he is, and R proudly says that he's an Akita mix, and that we got him from Stray Rescue. He's more excited than he was when any of the Apes were born. In R's defense, each Ape was born into a swirling vortex of unique drama.

Luigi's a great addition to our family. Most of the time.

But then there's this.

Yeeeeeah. Wasn't Cousin Oliver a jinx?

On the plus side, I am discovering that there is an endless amount of entertainment value at pet stores.

Cellularus Mortus Est.

2010-05-14T13:22:00.032-05:00

It's been a while, hasn't it? I've got no blogging mojo. I don't know if I can bring BMB back to its former glory. I want to, I just... I don't know. Sure, there's stuff to talk about. And most of it's funny. Even the stuff that's kinda sad becomes at least a little bit funny on here. And the stuff that's already funny becomes fucking hysterical.

I haven't forgotten that my last post gave the teaser of Dumpster Diving With The Inlaws. There was a bit of concern about whether or not I'd be able to do the post justice. Which brings me to a sad tangent.

My red LG Shine - my constant companion for the last two and a half years, the always-dependable little snark buddy I carried in my pocket who snagged such classic PK photos as these:

Has gone to Cell Phone Heaven. Just up and died. I can't tell if it makes me feel better or worse to know I didn't do anything wrong, like put it in the washer (which I did with my Nokia, twice). Just one day, right after I hung up with R, the display screen went all wonky, and then blank.

And she took a whole lot of my pics with her, because, like a dummy, I didn't think to put them all on the memory card. I was devastated. R tried to fix her, and it was a valiant effort, but ultimately unsuccessful. I literally wept as she was unceremoniously tossed into the trash. Even now, it's sitting in a trash bag in my bedroom because I didn't have the heart to put it out by the curb today.

I'm not ready to let go. I haven't bonded with my new phone, the Samsung Mythic, yet. It's technologically superior in every way (including a WAY better camera), and I'll get used to it, but my Shine, well, it was like my favorite pair of jeans. Scuffed, stained, beat up, not the most fashion-forward, but a perfect fit.

I feel the same sense of loss as I did when I wrecked the Mazda a few years ago. You really should click the link to that story. It was mangled, the driver's side window didn't roll down and the kids were getting way too big to cram in the back seat, but we'd been through so much together. I hated leaving it in the parking lot to die. Part of me wanted to say a few words, perhaps sing a hymn or two, and then bury it in the backyard.

But that's just silly.

The action, I mean; not the feeling. The feeling's not at all silly to me, because when pictures are gone and you can't get them back, it's sad, isn't it? Pictures of Tito's first day of kindergarten, my dream date with Cam Janssen, vacations, random moments of deliciously evil humor, gone forever. I know the best pictures are here on the blog and on Facebook, and it wasn't like I scrolled through the pictures on my phone very often, but I knew they were there, and now they're not.

I'm in mourning.

And there's an added dimension to why I was so upset by this. We're coming up on Pie's last day of Second Grade. I don't remember if I wrote about it at the beginning of the school year or not, but I know I felt it then as I do now. Pie is now the age that our beloved and dearly missed friend Jack was when he died. From this point on, every milestone in Pie's life will be something that Jack never got to experience. And the last day Beeb and I saw Jack? The last day of Second Grade.

What if I was Jack's mom and all of those pictures on my phone were suddenly gone? What if something happened to one of my kids, or my friends, or my parents, or R tomorrow? I would be absolutely destroyed. Like a picture of a house ripped off of its foundation and torn to matchsticks by a tornado. That'd be me.

I've spent this whole school year with a constant awareness of the last year of Jack's life - the year that we were lucky enough to know him. Beeb's turning thirteen in July. It breaks my heart that Jack never got to be thirteen. Or even ten. It kills me to think of all the things that he never got to do. God, I miss that kid. So yeah, that's a big part of why the loss of a bunch of pictures was so devastating to me.

But, my friends, like the little boy who survived the crash that killed every other passenger on the plane, there is a small bit of good news amidst the devastation. Somehow, I had the uncharacteristic presence of mind to forward the pictures of Dumpster Diving With The Inlaws to myself so I could upload them for this post. So the pictures you are about to see are among the last ever taken with my LG Shine.

Easter Sunday we went out to the Inlaws, as we usually do. But this time it was Large Trash Disposal week in their little town, which means people could take their old furniture and appliances and stuff to the end of a gravel road and drop it off, leaving a giant parking lot full of crap, free for the taking. The Aldis were in Hog muthahfuggin Heaven.

So after a yummy lunch and a bit of quality entertainment when Aldigirl (age 11) intentionally bit her younger brother (age 5), and the Reverend scolded her by saying she was going to be "labeled" as a biter, and did she reeeally want that (shit, she's probably already labeled as a buck-toothed, slack-jawed, skinny-as-a-rail, whiney-ass brat - why not throw Biter in the mix?), we went Dumpster Diving. With my Inlaws.

The guy in the purple shirt is The Reverend. They ended up with a headboard for Aldiboy's room and I think a bed frame and some other random crap.

We got some director's chairs, a carpet steamer, and...

A KEGERATOR.

That's it from the bottom. I thought I had a pic of it from the front, but I guess I don't.

Anyway, we took it home to see if it worked, and it turned on, but didn't cool properly. R looked up the model number on it to see if he could find a manual on it and he discovered that at the time it was new, this thing was state of the art. Even now, a few years old, it retails for over a thousand dollars.

We figured that we'd get it checked out, see what it would cost to fix, and weigh out whether or not we wanted to make the investment. R has a friend whose dad is a retired refrigerator repairman, and he offered to take a look at it.

He got it to work! Total out of pocket? FIFTY BUCKS.
Now we have to figure out where to put it in our basement.

And just think, if I hadn't wrecked the Mazda, we wouldn't have been able to take it home because it wouldn't fit in the trunk.

Isn't Serendipity beautiful?

As Promised - Spring Break!

2010-04-15T09:17:00.007-05:00

So I told you guys I'd write about our Spring Break next. We've been back for a few weeks, but I haven't been able to sit down and dedicate ample time to write about it. I suppose that in some ways that's good, because the stuff I'll remember enough to write about is the highlights; the most important and interesting stuff. The wheat, if you will.

But sometimes the chaff packs some high entertainment value, ya know? If you've been around this blog a while, some of my best stories come from NOTHING. Like if Seinfeld had begun as a blog.

Ok, so we left Thursday evening after dinner, and drove as far into Oklahoma as we could before we felt like stopping. We got to Oklahoma City and stayed at THE GROSSEST motel room I've ever been in - even the hourly ones.

I actually took this pic of the uberscuzzy Motel 6 on the way home, from across the highway. It was as close as I wanted to get.

We asked for a non-smoking room. Well, apparently Motel 6's definition of Non-Smoking is "not currently on fire". It wasn't just a little bit non-smoking. It was hideous. But I was too tired to complain and change rooms, plus I doubted there was a single room in the entire place that didn't reek of smoke.

We asked for two double beds, and we got two double beds - both with mattresses that sunk in the middle, and one of the beds was against the wall. I HATE it when the side of a bed touches the wall. I just can't have it.

And don't even get me started on the bathroom.

We finally got everyone to lay down and sleep, and Tito started wailing pitifully that his ear hurt. Honey, I love you and it breaks my heart to see you in pain, but we're in the middle of Oklafuckinghoma and it's 2:00 in the morning... it's been a long day; could ya please, please, please cut your mom a break?

It was a nightmare. We should have just kept driving.

We got up the next day and continued through Oklahoma, thinking we'd have a super-early breakfast at the Taco Cabana in Norman. I really thought I'd done my research, but apparently not all Taco Cabanas are open 24 hours. Dammit!!! We'd have to wait until Texas.

Fuckin Oklahoma...

We had steak fajitas for brunch-ish, and carried on toward San Antonio.

We also made the traditional stop at the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco.

We got the Oreo Shake made with the Dr Pepper syrup, which I'd been craving for a whole year. The vastness of the English language does not contain words that can sufficiently describe how awesome it is.

Om. Nom. NOMMANOMMANOM.

So a few hours later, we got to my parents' house. That night Tito barfed all over the world. He even threw up in his sleep. It was hideous cuz he rolled over in it and ugghhhh. And then Pie started barfing too. Pie had eaten two whole pounds of red licorice that day, so it had a lovely pink tint and a fragrant sweet aroma.

The next day, R and I spent hours at the laundromat washing barfy bedding.

I worked on the hat I made for Wes. That's Malabrigo Twist in Stone Chat, for the yarnies. Came out gorgeous.

Then Beeb got sick the next day. That's not makeup.

Despite each Ape getting sick, we managed to have a good trip. The boys did pretty much what they do at home.

My mom and I spent hours putting together Playmobil sets that she'd gotten for the boys at a garage sale. I thought the boys would be super excited to play with the castle, the cars, the Native American settlement, the jail, and all the other sets, but they weren't into it, so if you're interested in some really cool Playmobil stuff, Mom's looking to sell it. I can give you more details about them if you're a hard core collector.

I added to my Horrible Christmas Music collection. Have we talked about this collection? Oh, it's quite something.

I checked out the local Squish shop. Only they call it something else.

The boys found a book at Half Price Books that they wanted to buy. I said no, but I giggled a little first.

We walked along the newest branch of the Riverwalk, down by the Pearl Brewery. It's beautiful - kinda artsy and waaaay less touristy.

Since we had all of these sickies, we didn't do a few of the things we usually do, like Fredricksburg and Enchanted Rock and Luckenbach and Gruene. But we did do one thing we hadn't done before - Aquarena Springs in San Marcos. It's a nature preserve or something now, but it used to be a kooky tourist attraction with a diving pig. You can ride around in glass bottom boats, and the water is clear and serene. Everybody loved that, so we'll probably do that again. Highly recommended.

We also went back to another of our favorite places - Landa Park in New Braunfels. I think of my friend Bobby, the Gentle Evil Baritone, my very first actual FAN, whenever we go there. I love riding the train, and inhaling the smell of Mountain Laurel and barbecue. I so wish I could bottle that scent. There's something beautiful and calming about it.

Completely unrelated and inexplicable, but for some reason I got really into wearing pigtails on this trip.

Maybe I like them because they make my shadow look cute. Ya gotta have a cute shadow.

Maybe it's midlife crisis. Perhaps I'll explore that later. I still have my big sexy hat, and it's all ready for Grant's Farm this weekend!

So, the next day we headed home, and I usually post a picture of the kids crying, but this time there were very few tears because the kids are going back later this summer, so they know they'll see Nana and PopPop soon.

I was really determined to stay in a less-scuzzy hotel this time, so we went to Norman and found the Econolodge, which was actually right across the street from the Taco Cabana that had screwed me on the way down there. I knew we were going to want to be up and on the road before it opened at 9 (remember??), but I wasn't upset because I figured we should be in Tulsa (the closest TC location to St. Louis) around 9, and then we'd savor our last taste of TC until next year.

As we were putting our pajamas on, in our non-smoking room inside an entirely non-smoking motel (yay!!!!)

with two queen beds, a hair dryer, clean soft towels, glasses, an ice bucket, two bars of soap and shampoo bottles, we saw the forecast for the next day.

We got up and enjoyed a free Continental Breakfast

Hey look, they even throw an extra W in the Sweet N Low!

and scraped the ice off the van. We didn't bring coats.

But it was cool, because our bellies would soon be warm with Steak Fajita Tacos and Breakfast Burritos.

We searched for the address in the GPS and found the last TC we'd come to on the trip. I was bouncing so excitedly in the seat! As we pulled into the parking lot we could smell the Carne Guisada. We could TASTE it. Our mouths were watering.

The parking lot was surprisingly empty, but hey, if that's the only one in Tulsa, maybe the good people of Tulsa just haven't yet caught on to its awesomeness, right?

No. They wouldn't open for another HOUR.

DAMN YOU, OKLAHOMA!!! YOU'VE FUCKED ME YET AGAIN!!!!!!

Seriously, can you even believe that???? I was so pissed. Those who follow me on Facebook saw my angst in real time.

We took a wrong turn which wasn't a big deal, and ended up coming home a different way than we'd planned - through Arkansas.

It was really quite lovely. It was the prettiest part of the drive. Well, not THAT part in the picture, but trust me, we were very pleasantly surprised by the Arkansas leg of the trip. It was a nice, leisurely ride home, and we got home with time to decompress before having to go back to reality on Monday morning.

Ok, I know this post is not my best work, and I'm sorry to make you wait so long for it, but I wanted to crank it out so I could move on to the next post...

DUMPSTER DIVING WITH THE INLAWS.

You heard me.

DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK!

2010-03-30T14:36:00.006-05:00

She's back, y'all!

Have I really only posted twice since Christmas? How big an asshole am I? I'm sorry. I haven't had time to read anybody's blogs, either, so if you dropped some huge bombshell on your followers in the last couple of months and you're wondering why I haven't chimed in, I haven't seen it. It's not that I don't care; I only work a couple of days a week, but those days mean less time I have to run errands and whatever, and I rarely if ever blog in the evenings, so it cuts into my blogging time more than I expected.

Speaking of work, I've had a job for five months now! SQUISH is such an ideal fit for me. It's the job of my dreams - a great combination of routine elements and endless potential for spontaneous creativity. My unique range of talents is appreciated. I've never had a job I liked so much.

So here's what you've missed, in no particular order.

1. Check out what R made for me for Valentine's Day:

It's my very own Penny necklace!
So creative! I love it.

2. My birthday was January 13th. I'm 39 now. I'm going to go ahead and call myself 40, and then when I actually turn 40, I'll have mentally prepared myself for a whole year and it'll be no big deal. I don't really fear turning 40. I don't really have any concept of how old I am, until I turn on the Kids' Choice Awards and don't recognize any of the presenters (except Los Hermanos Jonas, por supuesto!). I don't feel any age. I definitely don't feel like I look 39.

I'm really more freaked out about Beeb turning 13 this summer than I am about turning 40. More on that in a future post.

3. During a bit of downtime, I finally watched Grey Gardens. I'd been wanting to see it for a while. It had been recommended to me by several friends, and who doesn't love spying on crazy rich people? Last week R and I bought a Netflix-enabled BluRay player for our bedroom, so I would be able watch it instantly.

Anyway, I grabbed a Diet Coke and some pretzel sticks, got under Beeb's Snuggie and pressed Play. See, you can do that with a Snuggie, cuz it has sleeves. I hate myself for loving that stupid thing. But I digress.

I enjoyed Grey Gardens. Really, I did. I love the Direct Cinema genre. It's so real and raw and the people speak freely and unfiltered, from the overflow of their hearts. I love wondering what's going on in the characters' heads; or, at least, I love hearing the subtext of their words and trying to imagine the layers of emotions and the complex personal history behind them.

But it messed me up. Here's why.

I manage it (with varying degress of success) day-to-day, but I live in, quite literally, a CONSTANT state of anxiety when it comes to my children. Their health, safety and well-being are always at the front of my mind. I question almost every single thing I do in the role of my children's mother. I question what I'm going to do in a certain situation before it even happens, I question it in the moment, and I question it long afterwards, imagining my child tearfully recounting the story of whatever stupid thing I did on some psychiatrist's couch.

As I saw Little Edie's wistful reminiscence of the life she believes she could have had, had her overbearing mother not insisted she leave New York City, followed by her sorrowful acceptance of the way things are and the unlikelihood that it will ever change, I thought about how awful I would feel if one of my children missed out on their life's dream because of me. I would never forgive myself if my child didn't become whatever it is s/he wanted to become because of me and my own selfishness. NEVER.

It made me replay in my mind all the hurtful things I've ever said to my kids (Beebie, in particular) in a moment of stress, frustration or anger. It also made me replay all the hurtful things - many of which probably weren't meant to be hurtful things - said to me that I've internalized; filed away and absorbed, but never forgotten. It made me wonder which of those things said to me had a hand in changing my life's trajectory. Would I be a different person if I hadn't been picked on mercilessly in junior high? Even if someone didn't meant to be hurtful (and even if they apologized afterwards), many times the hurt leaves scars that never quite fade all the way.

It made me hyperconscious of the potential to change my children's lives with the things I do and say, and it totally freaked me out. It made me question my parental aptitude.

I've apologized for things that I've said, and I try really hard to be careful in selecting the words and actions I use in response to the childish things they do, but I have this constant sense that everything I do, every syllable I utter, every day, is going to factor into their future and determine whether they become productive members of society or the sort of people who walk into an office and just start firing away, and then, when interviewed by the media, answer, "I just got sick of my mom constantly asking me if I was born in a barn. NO, MOM. I WASN'T."

(You know that phrase, were ya born in a barn? It means, Will ya quit leaving the front door open, for cryin out loud? Do other people say that, or just me?)

I'm trying to remind myself, in moments of doubt, that there are a lot of things I should pat myself on the back about, too, but that's a topic for another post. I will sing my own praises soon. I'm actually doing pretty well, now. Expanding my social circle to include a happy lot of positive influences is helping.

4. Speaking of influences, I have recently purchased and begun reading my very first Fantasy Genre novel. Go ahead and give me shit. I can't believe it either. It's A Game Of Thrones, written by George R. R. Martin and recommended to me by a lovely new friend we're going to call Wes. We'll be talking more about Wes.

My tiptoe-ing into full-on Geekdom has been well-documented on this blog, from my first Pirate Fest, to my first Ren Faire, and of course, the now-legendary Star Wars Trivia Night. My resistance to this conversion from "muggle who mocks the geeks" to "geek who mocks the bigger geeks" has also been well-documented.

The fact that I just used the word Muggle to mean "outsider" is further evidence of my descent into worlds I never dreamed I'd enter. Sigh... the things I do for the people I like.

To wit, I've never read a book with a fake map of some non-existent place on the first two pages. Fantasy's not really my thing. I like reality. I love reality shows, as you know (Ooooh, have you seen my new favorite show, Undercover Boss??). I read a lot of autobiographies, when I have time to read.

I read Kathy Griffin's book Official Book Club Selection, which was mighty entertaining, and if you should ever doubt your parenting skills, I highly recommend Mackenzie Phillips' High On Arrival. You'll feel like Parent of the Year, I promise you. It brought me out of my Grey Gardens funk, that's for damn sure.

That's plenty for you all to gnaw on while I construct my annual Spring Break post! Again, we drove the Odyssexy to San Antonio and stayed with my parents for a week. And, as most Karma Family Events are, the highlights are blogworthy. Stay tuned.

Talk To The Bunny!

2010-03-03T16:52:00.008-06:00

It was Speed Racer's birthday last week. In order to explain what I got for him I have to give a bit of backstory. Heh, don't most of my posts start out like this? As you may know, I lived in San Antonio with my family for a few years after I graduated from college. My mom was transferred there in 1993-ish, I think. While I lived there, I dated a guy named Fred.

Look, I know I'm kinda kooky and quirky and whatnot, but I have to say that Fred had more neuroses than any human being I have ever encountered in my life.

Sometimes a wee bit o' neurotic is kinda charming (case in point - me, the goddess Neurotica), which might explain why I stayed with him for about two years, and sometimes it's just plain FUCKED UP.

If I were to introduce you to Fred back then (and it may or may not still be true, I have no idea), the first thing you would notice is his sweaty armpits. Fred never used anti-perspirant/deodorant because he believed a) it causes cancer, and b) sweat is our body's natural means of maintaining homeostasis. I'm sorry, but when you see a guy with pit stains, do you think to yourself There's a guy whose body is at homeostasis, or Dude, that's fuckin naaaaaasty?

The story that really captures the essence of Fred is the first time he and I went to see a movie together. He bought the tickets and I bought the snacks, and I even sprang for the big ass 50-gallon drum of popcorn so we could share it, cuz that's the just kind of classy chick I am.

We went and found our seats, I set the giant vat of popcorn on the floor for maybe two seconds while I took off my jacket, sat down, picked the popcorn bucket up off the floor, placed said popcorn bucket in my lap and offered some to Fred.

I don't want any, he says.

What???

I'm not going to eat that.

NONE of it? Are you kidding me? You wanted it a minute and a half ago when I bought it! What's the problem?

You put it on the floor.

So?

SO???? Don't you know what people DO in movie theaters??

Um, watch movies while eating massive amounts of popcorn?

Oh my GOD, Sarah! You seriously don't know???

Enlighten me.

People piss on the floors.

WHAAAAT??? Who does?

People do it all the time. Think about it. They don't want to miss the movie.

People piss on the floors in movie theaters. You're serious.

THINK ABOUT IT.

No, YOU think about it! Have you ever been sitting in a movie theater and heard the sound of pee hitting the floor? Or seen someone stand up and whip it out? OR SMELL URINE, like EVER???

Well, the smell of popcorn would mask the smell of urine, and that's how they get away with it...

Bullshit it would! The smell of fresh urine would totally override the smell of... Ican'tfuckingbelieveI'mactuallyhavingthisconversation.

They sit in the back where no one will see them, and with the slope of the theather, it all rolls down toward the front. It's disgusting.

Hang on, let me make sure I understand. So these people - and there are clearly enough of them in the world that there is, according to you, urine on the floor of every single movie theater everywhere on the planet - have the foresight to habitually sit in the back of the theater because they see nothing wrong with peeing on the floor of a movie theater full of people and they want to have that option to pee on the floor surreptitiously, but these same people lack the presence of mind to relieve themselves PRIOR to the start of the movie? What's to keep them from taking a dump? Or do they do that, too? Do they smuggle in a bag of M&Ms AND a roll of toilet paper??

Jesus, Sarah, calm down. You're making a scene. People are staring.

YOU fuckin started it! And second of all, it's not like I threw the individual popcorn kernels on the ground, picked them up and handed them to you; there's about two inches between the lower lip of the bucket and the place where the popcorn actually touches the bottom of it. I'm not disputing that these floors are filthy, but COME ON! What, the germs can just climb up the side and dive in and swim around?

And people jerk off, too.

Jesus Christ, what kinds of movies are you watching???

Well, I'm sorry I don't live in your little fantasy world full of rainbows and unicorns where nothing bad ever happens!

Rainbows and unicorns??

There are more stories than just that one, but that should give you a sense of what I was dealing with. How could I have stayed with such a freak, you ask? Well, there were things that I really loved about him, too.

He valued the silly little things I do. That's a big deal to me. Don't make me feel like a jackass when I write you a silly love poem or something like that. He was really cool about those things; appreicated the time and effort and creativity that went into them. He understood my love language (and if you haven't read The Five Love Languages, you really need to) before I even understood how important that is.

I should interject that Loving My Silliness is one of the countless qualities that I love about my husband R, and the Most Excellent friends with whom I surround myself.

I used to make Fred goofy little animals out of felt all the time. One of the animals I made was a little blue bunny. I made up an annoying voice and obnoxious personality for the bunny, and I'd get Fred to engage in ridiculous conversations with it. The bunny would ask Fred how his day was and give details about his own day, which was pretty much always the same - the bunny had been sitting in the drawer full of stuff I'd made for Fred, which he referred to as The Sarah Drawer.

If you have ever had the catastrophic misfortune of being subjected to The Big Purple Dinosaur Who Must Not Be Named, you may be familiar with the ungodly sound of Baby Bop's voice. The little blue bunny's voice was kinda like that, but mixed with Gir from Invader Zim. Imagine me putting this goofy little blue felt bunny in poor Fred's face and read the italicized lines in that voice, in your mind.

Hey, hey Fred!

(groan) Yeah, Bunny.

Hey Fred! Hey Fred! Hey Fred, howya doin?

Fine.

Hey Fred, guess what! Guess what guess what guess what?

(sigh) What.

I'm a lil bunny, but when I grow up, I'm gonna be a BIG bunny!

Yeah, that's really great.

Hey, can we hang out tomorrow?

Hmmm, I don't know, Bunny. I have to go to work.

Will you talk to me when you get home, then?

Sure, Bunny.

Ok, bye!!!

Look, I'm not saying the shit's normal and I'm not defending my actions, I'm just telling the story.

The best thing about Fred was that I could get him to watch anything I wanted to watch - figure skating, gymnastics, diving competitions, dog shows, the Miss USA pageant, ANYTHING - and he went along with it because I'd watch Cowboys football with him back in the Troy Aikman/Michael Irvin/Deion Sanders/Emmit Smith days. I hate the Cowboys, but I LOVE Michael Irvin. And, for the record, I loved the cerebral sports humor Dennis Miller brought to Monday Night Football, too. But I digress.

One day Fred was in an extrordinarily shitty mood and when I asked him why, he didn't want to tell me. I was genuinely concerned.

Fred, seriously, what's wrong?

(Long pause)

YOU GOT ME TALKIN TO THAT DAMN BUNNY.

I nearly wet myself laughing. But I figured I should hold it for the next time Fred took me to a movie.

Fast forward to the Speed Racer era. My buddy Speed has been subjected to some atrocities himself, such as The Jonas Brothers Concert Experience in 3-D.

And during the Winter Olympics two weeks ago, I got Speed to watch Men's - that's MEN'S, mind you, I'm talking Johnny Fuckin Weir - Figure Skating with me. He wasn't happy about it, but he did it.

So I told him the story about Fred and that Damn Bunny.
And here's what I got Speed Racer for his birthday.

Her name is D. B. for Damn Bunny.
You can't see it, but she's wearing ice skates.
And, AND... (Regis Philbin voice) are ya ready for this???
If you press her hand, you can hear a recording of my actual voice saying "Hey, hey Speed... Hey Speeeed.... come taaalk to meeeeee!"

It's horrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrible.

Kind of a miracle that I have any friends at all, isn't it?

My First Post-Holiday Post

2010-01-07T09:47:00.007-06:00

Christmas is over. But the stress isn't.

Christmas morning Tito barfed in my bed. Sure, it was gross and a minor inconvenience, but since it meant I could stay home with a sick kid instead of spending the day you-know-where, I'd say I got the better end of the deal.

Well, scratch that. I missed the fantastic meal MIL made. And I kinda did want to see the reaction to the gifts I put together for the Aldikids.

Remember the not-so-subtle gifting feud I've continued for years? Basically, the Aldis have a history of shitty gift-giving. When I say shitty, I mean their gifts are clearly bought on Super Duper going-out-of-business clearance and are either ridiculously age-inappropriate, discontinued and therefore impossible to find the accessories necessary to make them fun, defective and almost always unreturnable. They've done this to us for years. I've only been paying attention to it since 2001. It's so obnoxious.

When Beeb turned 4, they gave her a train engine that blew bubbles that, according to the box, was for 18 months and up. She's not a two year old boy, geniuses. So we tried to return/exchange it - at every store in the greater metropolitan area. NOBODY had this stupid thing.

Then we remembered that Mrs. Aldi's creepy dumpster-diver brother and his creepy toothless midget wife used to work at a store called Grandpa Pidgeon's that went out of business years ago. They bought up a buttload of 99% off crappy toys on Clearance and stuffed them in a closet, pulling them out as needed to give as gifts. Mystery solved, Scooby.

This comes from a 2005 post, in which I reference the following email I sent to my friend Renee back in 2002:

Well, I'm sure you remember Mr and Mrs Aldi who are notorious for giving us re-gifted, crappy, age-inappropriate and incorrectly sized gifts (remember my Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt from the Juniors department and the Bubble Train for ages 18 months+ for Beeb's 4th birthday?) that were purchased on clearance and put away for a gift-giving occasion that could be months away, rendering the shitty gift unreturnable and worth about 33 cents in store credit if you can even determine which store it was purchased from? And forget a gift receipt since you'd only get what they paid for it back, which probably isn't much more anyway. We end up giving the gifts they give us to Toys for Tots, which means I have to figure out a place to store it for 6 months.

And I'm sure you remember how we attempted to rise above this gift-giving inequity and continued to buy cool gifts for their daughter (Aldigirl), such as a really cute wooden dollhouse and a Rainbow Princess Barbie, both of which were met with Mrs Aldi muttering "oh greeeeeeeeeeeeaaat, more little pieces for me to pick up..."

Well, we decided we're going to beat them at their own game. We look for toys with lots of parts that are completely annoying on clearance and put them away to give to Aldigirl. It's like a sport, and hubby and I are great at it. In fact, it's brought us closer together as a couple. At one point we found the Baskin Robbins mini ice cream maker on clearance at Target, but then we found it at WalMart for 20 bucks, so we returned it to WalMart (hee hee) and made money on the deal.

Then we found Cootie Jitterbug - a battery-operated, noisy and annoying version of the original, and put it away for nearly a year until Aldigirl's birthday. Thank GOD they didn't have a party for her again this year. Every year they try to cram like 12 grownups and 7 kids in their house. No, Reverend Aldi had a conference in LA, so they actually purchased a plane ticket and took Aldigirl to Disneyland for her 4th birthday. Whatever.

Anyway, we presented Aldigirl with her gift at Easter (in a non-reusable slightly torn gift bag, as I had covered every detail) and to my delight, she shrieked "I ALREADY HAVE THIS GAME!!!" Gleefully I imagined the scenario that we had endured so many times before - standing in line at the return counter "um, yeah, I got this as a gift and I need to return it..." "yeah, RIGHT! we haven't had those on the shelves for 6 months! You can have a dollar in store credit, if ya want it..." "no, thanks..."

Well, apparently Mrs. Aldi knew exactly what it was worth since she probably bought it at the same time we did, and her reaction was "oh...you love that game...now you can have one upstairs and one downstairs..." Hilarious! And the best part was that I was in the bathroom at the time, where I could hear everything and yet freely snicker without fear of an embarrassing social faux pas. I was so tickled by my triumphant victory, I don't even care if she's onto us. I suspect she is.

Over the years they've presented the Apes with some pretty kooky shit. One year they gave Beeb an uncharacteristically cool gift - an MP3 Player called the Juice Box which played little cartridges with videos and music on them. When we went to look for more cartridges for it, we found it at KMart in a clearance bin, discontinued, and we soon came to the realization that it would be a major pain in the ass to find the cartridges and accessories necessary to do anything with it. Thanks, douchebags.

And then last year, they hit a new low. From my 1-6-09 entry:

I didn't think there was anything lower than giving a kid a shitty gift, but there is. It's giving a kid a really awesome gift that doesn't work. They got the boys cool AirHog helicopters and threw in, as a bonus, these cool-looking guns that shoot nerfball-like things.

At least, that's what they're supposed to do. They don't do shit but collect dust. They don't WORK. The boys were so bummed, it was sad. Who wants to see a sad kid on Christmas?

The Aldis included batteries, which was surprisingly generous. So when we got home (of course I couldn't let the boys open them at Chez Inlaw because they'd shoot them all over and I'd be the worst parent in the world) we put them in, and couldn't get either gun to work. R thought perhaps we should get some NEW batteries, as we wouldn't put it past the Aldis to include some mostly-dead batteries that they'd taken out of one of their kids' toys. New batteries didn't work either.

R did a quick internet search, and found these items on Super Duper Clearance at Target.com. We kicked ourselves for not opening them at Chez Inlaw so the Aldis could be exposed as the crappy giftgivers they are.

Anyway, finding out what discontinued tchotkes the Aldis gave the kids for Christmas is one of my favorite things to look forward to during the Holidays. And, because I like to make the magic last all through the year, I am constantly on the lookout for shitty clearance rack gifts to give to the Aldibrats. I don't care if I have to hide it in my closet for eleven months, fuck it, I'll smile every time I see it in there.

This year I totally outdid myself.

About four or five years ago I found a huge Thomas the Tank Engine set with miles and miles of blue track. I really don't know why I bought it, other than that it was a really great deal I found at a toy store called Zany Brainy that was going out of business, and Tito already had a million train sets, so I put it away in the garage at the old house (the one we moved out of three years ago), and then when we moved to our new house I once again hid it in the basement inside a garbage bag.

Maybe a year or so later, I found a Whistle and Go Thomas toy on Uberclearance at WalMart, thinking it would make a deliciously annoying gift for Aldiboy, should we be invited to Aldiboy's birthday party. We weren't. Boo fucking hoo.

This year was considerably leaner than last year when R was making phat commission and Santa brought my Dyson, a bigass TV and an Xbox 360, so this year I raided the gift stash (and the yarn stash too, come to think of it - I knitted crappy garter-stitch scarves for the kids' teachers).

Bottom line: Aldiboy got a gift with a whistle in it AND another with a million little parts. Oh, and if the fact that the train set was in a visibly discolored box doesn't clue them in to its age, just wait till they try to find additional parts for it.

Noisy, check. Little pieces, check. Impossible to return, check.

It gave me the same physical sensation of the shamelessly indulgent bliss that you get when you eat too much on Thanksgiving. So totally satisfying you almost feel guilty, but you don't. It was almost like a food coma, except it was more of a Screw You, Asshole coma. I rode that high for days.

And the best part? Out-of-pocket cost? ZERO. It was a muthahfuckin Hat Trick (for those who don't understand sports terminology, it's when a hockey player scores three goals in a game), muthahfuckers!!!

But there's more - I got a $10 gift card in the mail from Kohl's so I thought I'd see if I could find something for Aldigirl. I found a Ralph Lauren purse for $3.74, a wallet for $6.00, and a set of three little rings with pink stones in them for $2.00. I had to spend at least $10 to get the $10 off, so I ended up spending less than $2.00 out of pocket.

But then the purse looked a little bare, so I got a SnowFairy perfume solid from Squish and, the piece de resistance (yeah, I know it's supposed to have accents cuz it's French) - a cute little case from Claire's with four hideous colors of eyeshadow, three lipglosses, and MASCARA. Hee hee!!! I'll bet you anything she puts it on her eyebrows.

I was so bummed that I didn't get to witness Mrs. Aldi's reaction to the makeup, but R said she rolled her eyes or something.

I don't know if it's irony or coincidence, but the Aldis gave Beeb a purse for Christmas too. It's huge. It's zebra print vinyl with a giant pink bedazzled peace symbol on it. It's CRAZY. Beeb loves it.

But because I was home with sick Tito I missed our semi-annual church pilgrimage and the trip to Chez Inlaw, Christmas didn't really feel like Christmas to me. It was just like any other Saturday. I sat in bed next to Tito all day, which, in a way, was a gift to me.

More Post-holiday posts to follow...

Time to Reflect.

2009-12-21T14:33:00.002-06:00

Shit, it's been a while, hasn't it?

As usual, my life undulates between too boring to blog about or too busy to blog about the craziness. Anyway, I'm kinda glum today and I need to remind myself of all the good things that happened in 2009.

Pie won a trophy in the Pinewood Derby.

Spent Valentine's Day at Urgent Care.

Got my tonsils out, and haven't had Strep since!

Saw the Jonas Brothers 3D movie.

Saw them even CLOSER - 3rd row, baby - AND saw the tour bus!

Went on a Dream Date with Cam Janssen.

Helped out Project Linus.

Killed a colony of Termites.

Had my knitting appear in a national magazine.

Created KICKASS Halloween costumes, yet again.

Attended my 20-year reunion in a smashing green dress.

Perhaps most notably, got a job at Squish.

Well, that didn't help my mood as much as I hoped it would. It seems as though some of the good things that happened this year had a flip side, ya know?

I am feeling BigmotherfuckingTime holiday stress. BIG. For reasons I can't talk about.

Ah, the holidays. What lovely memories. Like the time I bounced a $7 check to a charity just so my kids wouldn't be left out of the class project to send Christmas gifts to an orphanage in Africa. And the two consecutive years that WE were the Adopt A Family family at church. Good times. I hate how Christmas has become synonymous with Financial Stress at my house.

We couldn't afford to do Boy Scouts again this year, which made me feel like a crappy parent, but in the end I got over it. It stressed the shit out of me, and Pie didn't really care if he did it or not.

Killing the colony of termites cost an insane amount of money. Maintaining a termite-free house costs an insane amount of money, but the alternative is that we have more money and more termites.

I have a job, and I like it, but it causes me a great deal of stress at home - getting housework done and juggling appointments and finding rides for my kids to get places has made me wonder if I can emotionally afford to have a job, even though I'm positive I can not financially afford not to have one.

I got my tonsils out, had to remove my badass nipple rings and haven't put them back in so I feel like part of my badassness is missing. And I've gained weight since my surgery. GAINED. You're supposed to LOSE weight after a tonsilectomy.

I was the only person (other than The Grapevine) to have gained weight at our Reunion. I did, however, manage to conveniently forget to pay for our tickets. Suck it, Alumni committee.

Knitting accomplishments were few. The entire year, I purchased a total of 4 skeins of yarn. The rest of my knitting time was spent cranking out crappy garter stitch scarves. I made some money selling them, and the rest became teacher gifts. I've thinned my crappy yarn stash, which felt pretty good.

Oh yeah, and Kevin Jonas got married yesterday.

It's a cyst, we think.

2009-12-02T14:37:00.001-06:00

Even before my Urgent Care visit, I'd spent the last several days calling various medical professionals, trying to max out our Flex Spending by making appointments for myself and my kids before the end of the year, when our health care plan changes. I'm trying to cram as many appointments set up for the same day as I can, so as to minimize the number of days I have to ask off at work.

I am driving myself nuts.

Weeks ago, I scheduled Pie's urologist appointment for this Friday morning, and had emailed my Squish boss last Sunday informing her of my availability for this week, but when I went to get my schedule, I saw that I was still scheduled to work Friday morning.

I figured it would be easier to reschedule the urologist than it would be to find someone else to work for me, and I didn't want to be a bitch and point out the fact that I DID inform the scheduler that I wasn't available to work Friday morning. I'm too new to make a big stink, even if I am in the right.

You should see my calendar. It's covered with scribbles and arrows. I can barely even read it myself. I hope this doesn't present a problem.

It's a darn good thing my ovary conveniently decided to burst on Monday, since that's the only day this week that isn't completely booked. Yesterday I was supposed to have an appointment with my eye doctor regarding my cornea. Remember a couple of summers ago when I had that corneal ulcer? Yeah, I've got more corneal drama. I don't think I'll be able to wear contacts anymore.

Anyway, I was supposed to see my eye doctor at 1:45 Tuesday afternoon, but Tuesday morning Beeb reminded me that she had signed up to go bowling after school, and she said I'd need to drive her from school to West County Lanes. I was afraid I wouldn't be home in time to take her, so I called to see if I could get in any earlier that day, but, alas, the best I could do was Thursday morning at 11:15. I have to work 3-8:30 on Thursday.

As it turned out, she was supposed to ride a bus from school to the bowling alley, so I COULD have kept my appointment, but somehow that wasn't made clear to Beeb or to me. Tuesday evening Beeb had a band concert, which MIL and FIL were planning to attend. The same evening, Pie had an event at his school, so we would have to split the squad. I volunteered to take Pie and Tito to Pie's thing while R and Beeb met MIL and FIL at the concert. Pie's thing was kinda lame, but I was NOT in the mood to hang with the Inlaws.

I knew the evening would be crazy, but I had no idea that the afternoon would be even crazier. No, I did not anticipate that I would be receiving a call from my mortgage company saying that I was thirty days past due. Like hell I'm past due; I made our December payment on November 20th. We're always early, and we always overpay by a little bit. I round up because I can never remember how much we're supposed to pay.

Further investigation uncovered the fact that my mortgage payment had increased two months ago (thanks for letting me know!) and because I had been paying approximately $85 dollars less than the amount due for October and November, they were considered partial payments, and so according to them we haven't paid November or December at all, whereas in reality we were a mere $85 short on each of the last three payments. I'm so pissed.

I mean, it's not like we're deadbeats or anything, I just made an honest mistake, but our credit will be negatively affected. Our October payment was $85 short, then $85 from the November payment went to cover October, so we were $170 short on the next payment, and now we're $255 short, technically, but they're saying I owe for December. So stupid.

I spent the entire afternoon getting to the bottom of this quagmire (giggity giggity!), and it has since been resolved, but mother FUCKER, hearing that I hadn't made the December payment when I know goddammed well I had, and knowing that we can barely afford our monthly payment as it is, just about broke me. Here I am trying to juggle a little part-time job in addition to the other demands on my time and energy, making my best effort to keep my shit together, and clearly, I'm failing. I'm so disappointed in myself. How did I ever think I could handle all of this?

I'm so unbelievably stressed out, I was starting to wonder if my abdominal pain wasn't a stress ulcer. But today I went to my gyno. Here's my annual gyno pic that you all love -

I told her that I'd been to Urgent Care on Monday and that I was reasonably sure I had a cyst or something. She did some poking and decided that I need to get myself in for an Ultrasound next week. I've got it scheduled for next Tuesday, since I was planning to ask off for that day anyway. The kids have a half-day at school on Tuesday, and Pie and Tito and I have been invited to see a movie that afternoon with Pie's buddy John and his mom. I'm not about to go to work after all that.

So I'm going to work in about two hours, working until close, and it's supposed to snow tonight. While I'm out, R and Rip and The Rev are going to be moving the refrigerator that the Aldis are giving us (they bought themselves a new one) to my basement next to the bar, which we also got for free! Soon we'll be able to entertain down there! That'll be good.

But I digress. As I mentioned, I'm working tonight, tomorrow (after the eye doctor), and Friday morning. I'm off Saturday, and then I have to go in for a meeting on Sunday morning at 8. Next week I have the Crazy Tuesday, and on Thursday I'm going back to the ENT who took out my tonsils because I still feel like there's something stuck in my throat.

The following week I'm taking Beeb to get a mole on her neck removed.

The week after that I'm taking the kids to the dentist.

The week after THAT, I'm taking Pie to the urologist.

And I haven't even started stressing about the Holidays.

A blog in three parts, accidentally.

2009-12-01T14:30:00.007-06:00

I know I should blog. I know. I feel like I'm neglecting the global fan base who has made me the international superstar I am today. But really, you haven't missed anything.

I dig working at Squish (although so far I've spent more than I've earned), but I'm still feeling kinda like an outsider. I haven't dropped the full-on Pennytude on them, though, so maybe they don't know I'm cool yet. It's a kinda lonely gig, too. It's a small space inside a Macy's store, and when it's not busy we're supposed to stand outside the Squish counter's walls and stop passing foot traffic. That'd be fine with me, except I'm not allowed to whip out my boobs. What fun is that?

Last week was MIL's birthday, R's birthday, and Thanksgiving. Even though we were already planning to go out to Chez Inlaw on Thursday, R said we'd also go out Sunday for MIL's birthday. I would have been pissed about having to go there twice in one week, let alone in one month, but it was all worth it when my BIL, Reverend Aldi, let it slip that they'd have to bring their dog to Thanksgiving. Since the Aldis have to celebrate every holiday with my Inlaws, PLUS Mrs. Aldi's own totally creepy family, Chantal would otherwise be stuck at home all day.

Please tell me you remember what happened the last time the Aldis took their dog out to the Inlaws. It may have been the best day of my life.

Anyway, I was totally giddy all week, imagining a repeat of this past Fourth of July, when Chantal dropped a huge steaming pile of poo right on the immaculate white carpet in FIL's living room. I even thought about sneaking over to the Aldis' house and feeding Chantal some chili when everybody else was asleep.

Y'all know I'm not above it.

Imagine my disappointment when I arrived on Thursday afternoon and both Chantal and The Reverend were absent. The Reverend was sick, supposedly. MIL said he sounded terrible on the phone.

Shit, if WE were supposed to be there and we had a car wreck on our way there, we'd have the ambulance take us to FIL's house even before we went to the ER because otherwise FIL would give us endless grief. It's happened before. He was a real dick to R when I was home sick with the Strep on Mother's Day one year. He didn't believe for a second that I was really sick. I WAS. And it was still more pleasant than going out there for the afternoon.

Wanna hear my theory? I think The Rev faked being sick so they wouldn't have to take a chance on having the dog poop on FIL's floor again. R agrees with me. There's a good chance the dog will come out for Christmas, I think. Fingers crossed!

So, since The Rev and Chantal weren't there, it was an extreeeeemely boring afternoon. Mrs. Aldi and the Aldikids were there, but they only stayed for a little bit before they had to leave for Mrs. Aldi's sister's house, so then it was the five of us Karmas and MIL and FIL.

I've figured out that if we take a kid-friendly movie with us, we can all watch it together. We get credit for staying a couple of hours, we don't have to engage in any conversation with anyone, and it has a definite end, which allows us a graceful exit. Total WIN.

-----------------

Ok, now we move on to Part Two of this post. Literally as soon as I finished typing "total WIN", I stood up and felt a horrible pain in the lower left part of my abdomen. I sat back down, got on WebMD, and tried to figure out what the problem might be. I didn't have a fever or vomiting or any other weird symptoms, just a hideous stabbing pain that got worse when I went from sitting to standing. I couldn't stand all the way up straight.

WebMD's suggestion was to seek medical attention immediately, so, in gut-wrenching agony, I drove myself to Urgent Care. Actually, I had to wait for Beeb to get home so I could explain to her that Pie's obnoxious friend John was coming over after school because his mom needed to take her other son to a late doctor's appointment and she wouldn't be able to be there when John got home.

Beeb was relatively cool with that, and I called R on the way there to tell him what was going on. He would probably be home before Pie and John got home anyway, so it was going to work out fine. I went to Urgent Care, waited for about 30 minutes, got into a room, had to do the old pee-in-a-cup trick, and yay, I'm not pregnant. If I was, they'd have had to peel me off the fuckin ceiling. Seriously.

Next step, a blood draw. I haaaaaate blood draws. I get all freaked out. I've cried before; recently, even. It's totally embarrassing.

Bloodwork came back fine. Next they wanted a pelvic exam. Ugh.

So, just to recap, I'd already peed in a cup, bled into a tube, and now I was supposed to expose my crotch to someone other those who have been granted prior authorization. It made me think of that classic line from Clerks, "I'm not even supposed to BE here today!!"

Look, I've already got my annual Cooter Rootin' scheduled for Wednesday morning. I'm not aesthetically prepared to spread 'em for a stranger right now. I haven't shaved in a couple of days. I'm wearing panties that say "You Wish" on the butt. Now it's kinda unintentionally comical, obviously, but I wouldn't have worn those on purpose to see my gyno.

Especially if I had known that it would be performed by the same little guy who's done my throat cultures the last five or six times I've been in there with the Strep. Now he gets to swab a much more sensitive part of me.

I decided many years ago that I prefer to see a woman gynocologist. I know different people have different opinions on this very personal choice, but here I was about to flash my crotch for this dude who, up to now, had only seen my diseased tonsils. He only had above-the-neck familiarity, and now I'm granting him access to the Holy of Holies (pun intended). I just felt a little strange about it.

For those of you familiar with the show Seinfeld, Dr. Dennis looks a lot like NBC president Russell Dalrymple, whom George and Jerry stalk in the episode entitled "The Shoes," until they find him in a restaurant. Whereupon Elaine, in a very low-cut dress, walks over to his table to ask if he could help her open her bottle of ketchup. She flirtatiously leans forward and asks,

"Do you have a... Ketchup Secret? Because, if you do have a Ketchup Secret, I'd really, really like to know what it is."

He totally looks like the Ketchup Secret guy.

I hope this helps at least some of you visualize what I was dealing with at this point. He left the room so I could get undressed from the waist down, and a minute or so later I heard him knock on the door to ask if I was ready. I told him sure, I'm all set, come on in.

He re-entered, clad in what looked like a green plastic hazmat lab coat. I didn't know whether to be totally insulted or to burst out laughing. I mean, dude, what is this, a fucking alien autopsy? Am I going to spew florescent toxic oozing zombie fluids all over you? Pretty sure I'm not, but it's best to be prepared, I guess.

I scootched my cootch down to the edge of the table and stuck my heels in the stirrups. And if that information is too graphic for your taste, then you're reading the wrong blog, my friend.

While inserting the speculum, he said, "Ok, now, the key is to just relax." Like I've never had a pelvic before.

No, the key is to keep myself from laughing so I don't accidentally fart at Dr. Ketchup Secret.

Staring into the abyss (while I tried to relax), he stated that he was seeing, and I quote, "a little more discharge than he'd like to see". Well, hell, if I'd known somebody'd be scraping me out today, I probably wouldn't have gotten me some luvin' this morning either. Oops. I don't know what kept me from asking, Well, gee, how much discharge would you LIKE to see?

Thank God my filter was still engaged. This guy would NOT have found it funny in the slightest. Therefore, I'd like to put a simple request out there to any current or potential medical student:

If you're considering a career in the field of Gynecology, please, please, PLEASE get a muthahfuggin sense of humor. I can't possibly stress this enough.

He started poking me from the inside and the outside, and DAMN, it hurt. His diagnosis? Ovarian cyst. He suggested I call my gyno and get in for an ultrasound.

------------------

Which brings us to part three of this post. I'll have to post that part tomorrow. It's still too raw to write.

(The experience, NOT my vagina.)

Workin' it!

2009-11-20T10:15:00.001-06:00

Get this.

I submitted my pitiful, anemic, half-assed resume via email, along with not a cover letter but a very informal "Hey, here's a little bit about me - I've been a stay at home mom for eight years" paragraph, got an email back the next day about setting up an interview, went in, nailed it, and...

I GOT A JOB!

I'm working part time for a well-known 100% vegetarian, Fresh Handmade Cosmetics company that I'm going to call Squish. I've worked for a couple of similar companies over the course of my stellar retail career, so it was a natural transition. They'd have been fuckin crazy not to hire me, honestly. I know my shit.

I get a fabulous discount (jealous??) and I don't have to buy a whole lot of new clothes because I already have a lot of black in my wardrobe. And the girls who work there are pretty cool. So I think I'll like it. It'll be tough to make the transition to working again, though, after all this time. It was reeeeally hard for me not to be at the bus stop at 4:10 this past Wednesday. But Beeb was there for them, R got home about 40 minutes later, and they all did fine.

When we only had Beeb, R and I both worked full time. The boys have never dealt with me not being there when they got home from school. Beeb gets home before they do, and now that R has a job with more regular hours, now was the ideal time for me to get out of the house. And I figured Holiday would be when a lot of retail shops would be hiring. I plan to stay beyond Holiday, if they want me to, and again, they'd be crazy not to want me to. I'm good at selling stuff I like. And I lurrrrve Squish stuff.

So because of this new gig my blogging time might be limited, but please be assured that no matter where I am or what I'm doing,

I SMELL FANTASTIC.

Trick or Treat, a little late.

2009-11-11T10:35:00.005-06:00

Sorry it's taken me so long to post this, my poor neglected readers. I know my annual Halloween post is one of my favorites to write, and it's usually pretty popular, so, with my apologies, here y'all go.

You may recall the bitter anguish I felt upon discovering that the Costume Contest had been inexplicably nixed from this year's Pevely Flea Market Halloween Event.

Such total bullshit. I guess the other people were getting sick of losing out to Team Karma.

I suppose I can understand that. I mean, if my kids' costumes sucked and I was the sort of mother who couldn't stand to see their 6-year-old get her heart broken when her French Maid costume failed to wow the judges, I'd probably be disappointed too. But my kids are good sports, and they have awesome costumes. Why should my kids have to miss out on our annual tradition of kicking your ass just because your store-bought Spongebob costume didn't place?

So this year, we went ballz out for the Trunk or Treat event at Pokey Oaks Elementary. We invited The Racers, and allowed them to see me in my full-on, maxed-out, fiercely competitive thirst for glory. They'd seen glimpses of it before, sure, but NOTHING compares to me on Costume Contest Day, and you need to either get on board or get the fuck out of the way. I'm happy to say that they handled it extremely well.

Kev even snagged a pic of R and me snarking on the competition.

And with that, may I present this year's Team Karma costumes:

Tito was the dog from the movie UP (now available on DVD and BlueRay), complete with Cone Of Shame.

Seriously, how FREAKIN cute is that?!!?

Pie was a classic nerd. He called himself Ervin Ritzensnurf. He was particularly excited about the pocket protector. We took these pics before I slicked his hair.

And, finally, just for the sake of comparison, here's Martha Stewart's MEDUSA, from her website.

And here's MY Medusa.

Martha Stewart can decoupage my ASS.

Tito's costume required some creative hand-sewing (his ears and tail are made from a pair of brown socks), but Beeb's was HELLA labor-intensive. I don't remember how many snakes we ended up with, but they're individually knitted with two strands together, in stockinette so they would have a flat side like a snake, and then twisted and tangled together and attached to the hat.

The hat is basically the Hallowig pattern from Knitty, or at least that's what it would have been if I'd done it right, except I fucked it up (of course) on the decreases and so I had to kinda fudge it a bit. It's not completely closed at the top, so I coiled up a snake and sewed it on so you can't tell. But it turned out awesome and Beeb was so proud. A few people wanted me to make them a Medusa hat too. Not sure I could fuck up exactly the same way again, but for the right price, I might whip one up for ya.

Unfortunately, the costume contest at the Trunk or Treat was only for kids in Pre-K thru 5th grades, so Beeb, being a 7th grader, didn't get to participate. The boys, however, each won a prize for their grade level. Tito was Best Homemade Costume (which, to me, is a totally stupid category), and Pie won for Funniest/Silliest Costume.

TEAM KARMA DOMINATION CONTINUES, BITCHES!!!

Why I Blog.

2009-10-28T09:24:00.003-05:00

I love blogs. I love writing this blog. I love reading blogs.

I read blogs for many reasons. I read the funny ones, the inspiring ones, the ones that show the amazing things someone with mad skillz can make with yarn. I love displays of creativity and craftiness. I love people articulately expressing opinions, whether I agree with them or not.

I read blogs that make me feel normal. The ones where moms want to pop other people's kids upside the head. The ones where people want to tell their bosses to fuck off. I feel less bad about hating certain types of people when I see that other people hate them too. It's comforting to know that I'll have someone to sit next to in Hell.

I suppose that's why I write, too. I put it all out there because I'm an external affirmation whore and I need other people to tell me that I'm normal, or, at least, that I'm the kind of abnormal that's fun and entertaining and not totally creepy.

I also write because I'm cheap. And when I unload a ton of heavy emotional shit on you like I did last time, I almost feel guilty. I'm saving a ton of money in therapy bills. Just so you know, I'm saving it for my kids' therapy fund.

Speaking of The Apes, I blog because I want to remember the wacky shit that my kids do (which reminds me, I need to share a poem that Pie wrote), and I like to look back over my posts from the year before and see how I've grown as a parent.

I blog because I loooove feeling like I this blog is a really big secret and only the coolest people can know about it. I like knowing that people who have never met me know what panties I'm wearing to my Inlaws', and want to know how much butter I'm putting in my desserts. I've even gotten butter-intensive recipes from readers. That's so cool.

I write to entertain, to inform, and to purge myself of all the profane rants that percolate inside of me. I blog to avoid some of the realities of my life (like housework) by confronting and sharing other realities of my life (like depression).

Which brings me, tangentially, to why I'm blogging today:

The honeymoon is over. I need to find a job.

Remember the last time I looked for a job? Here's an excerpt from my post from March 26, 2007.

"Friday I had my second interview at Vandelay Industries downtown, so I figured R and my parents could take the kids to the City Museum just down the street and I could meet them afterwards. I felt great about the interview. Here's one of the highlights. I'm paraphrasing, of course -

So, tell us a little about yourself, Penny!

Well, for the last six years I've been a stay-at-home mom, but I'd always planned to go back to work when my youngest started Kindergarten. So this opportunity has come up a year earlier than I'd expected to go back to work, but I decided that I'd rather pursue it now rather than wait until it was the ideal time and hope that there was a good job available, cuz I'd really prefer not to go back to retail... I mean, there's nothing wrong with retail, but I'm 36 years old and I'm kinda too old to be folding jeans for a living... I did my time at The Gap ten years ago... I mean, if there's a Jean-Folding Emergency, I'm your man. Just a little sumthin' extra I'm bringin' to the table...

I assure you, if I hadn't gotten the inside information that what was keeping me in the running for this job was not so much my work experience but rather my youthful exuberance, I probably wouldn't have said all that, but I opted to just go ballz out and be my lil ol' effervescent self. And I think it went well. The interviewers laughed at my jokes this time. When I arrived, the girl I'd be working with actually told me that this interview would be informal and that they just wanted some more people in the office to meet me. I took it as a good sign.

Anyway, after the interview I was to walk to The City Museum to meet R, my parents, and the Apes. On the map, it doesn't look it was that far from where my interview was. In reality, it's about fifteen city blocks. Not a big deal, I've walked farther than that, I wasn't worried about it. But then it started to rain. No problem, I had an umbrella.

Cut to a shot of me walking down the street in the rain with a broken umbrella. In heels. For fifteen blocks. The good news? I was wearing my Power Panties."

I didn't get the job. I didn't care.

I don't want a job. I have a job. My job is being here in case anybody needs me. I have gotten used to setting my own schedule, for the most part, and answering to no one but me. Since going on bed rest when I was pregnant with Pie, I have been a stay at home mom. This is the first time I've had more than a couple of hours to myself during the day in eight years. I rather like it.

And, in a way, I feel I've earned a sabbatical. The way I see it, I've banked all of the fifteen minute breaks people who have regular 40-hour a week jobs get in an eight-hour workday and I'm opting to take them as a lump sum.

Then there's the fact that I really, REALLY hate writing resumes and cover letters. It's depressing. I hate reducing three years of work experience into a single sentence. I hate trying to summarize myself. I never know what to say. I don't feel like I come across accurately in summary form. I'm way too complex.

I hate seriousness and formality. It's not Me. I don't interview well. I get really flustered and I feel like they can tell how uncomfortable I am. If they had an open bar at a job interview, they'd hire me in half a second. But then I'd probably slip and say, "Oh, I should tell you about my blog!"

I wish I could put Pevely Flea Market Costume Contest Winner 2006, 2007, and 2008 on my resume. If they're not impressed by that, then I don't want to work for them.

Yeah, we skipped Pevely this year. BUT, we're going to Trunk or Treat on Friday, and this year's costumes are some of the best I've ever done. There will be pictures.

Oh, here's a good pic of The Green Dress, before we left for the Reunion.

Should I wear it to my interview?

My Inner 7th Grader Takes a Beating.

2009-10-19T21:00:00.010-05:00

I loved my awesome green party dress. Loved, loved, LOVED it. I loved the color, the fit, the fact that I found it in a thrift shop for $15, and the way Kev's mom fixed it to look absolutely perfect on me. My glorious shoulder freckles looked magnificent.

I really was looking forward to knockin 'em dead at my reunion. I wasn't a bit nervous in the car on the drive to fancypants downtown Clayton, because I knew at least one person slated to attend had gained more weight since high school than I have. There was a deliciously morbid comfort in that.

My only fear - more of a concern than a fear, really - was that given the guest list, it might be a little bit boring. And when I get bored, I get creative. And when I'm drunk and bored, my kind of creativity might frighten some people. It might delight those who know the post-high-school Penny Karma I have since become, but I didn't drink at all until college, so my high school pals have witnessed plenty of Creative Sarah, but not Drunk Sarah.

And I was reasonably sure that the uberconservative George Dubya High School alumni weren't ready for Creative Drunk Penny.

Out of the 85 people in my graduating class, only about 30 were signed up to attend. Of the 30, I only cared about 5 or 6. I couldn't care less what Kimmey Fiero, Stereotypical New Money Stinkin Rich Gorgeous Barbie Doll Cheerleader Snotrag is faring in her illustrious career as a Trophy Wife. In fairness, she was never really outright viscious to me exactly, but that's only because she didn't want to squander her precious Cheerleader Spirit energy on a peasant like myself.

We ran into Kimmey Fiero in the elevator.

She is one of only a handful of people with whom I can't even bluff my way through a fake conversation full of nothing more than small talk and pleasantries. I don't care what she's done over the last twenty years, and I know she doesn't give two shits about me either.

She did that sappy obligatory "Oh, hiiiiiiiiii! How great to seeeeeeeee you! You look fan-taaaaaa-stic!" bullshit. I was smirking through clenched teeth, choking on the words I wanted to say, which were "fuck off, you emaciated twat," or something like that.

We joked uncomfortably about how long the elevator was taking to get to the roof. The ding of the elevator brought an audible collective sigh of relief, and she pranced off to look for her uppercrust kinfolk, who apparently had better things to do that night. Kimmey left after less than an hour because nobody cool was there.

The very instant R and I stepped out of the elevator, Julie Wigglesworth yelled from across the room, "HEY, THERE'S MY LITTLE CEASAR'S BUDDY!!!" in a pathetically overt attempt to humiliate me in front of my husband. See my last post if you don't know what I'm talking about.

She was hoping to out me, I'm sure. It didn't work. I laughed, said, "Oh, Julie, this is my husband R. You met my friend Kev a couple of weeks ago (turning to R) - Kev and I ran into her at Little Ceasar's when we were picking up dinner for the kids (turning back to Julie) - Kev and his wife are so great, in fact, they're watching our kids for us right now!"

Derailed that shit, didn't I?

As the night went on, I learned some interesting things. One of my former classmates ran into another fellow former classmate at, of all unlikely places, a strip club several years ago. The mother of a friend of mine died, which made me extremely sad to hear. FOUR of my friends had each popped out two more kids since I'd last seen them. I've popped out two more since the ten-year too, come to think of it.

I drank. A lot.

I offered (read: threatened) to whip my boobs out as part of a fundraiser for the Alumni Association.

People told me how hilarious my Facebook updates are, and I snickered to myself, because those people have no idea that I'm waaaay funnier without the Facebook Filter in place.

I got defriended on Facebook 24 hours after the reunion.

It was a nice night, really. My effervescent personality sparkled brilliantly. I was really delighted to be able to introduce my husband to people who have known me longer than he has. R, I would like to add, looked dapper and amazing, and he got to know several of my friends, which was really cool.

And the next day (yesterday), the pics appeared.

I look hideous in the pics everyone is posting. I looked horrible in the pics at the ten-year too. I look gigantically pregnant in the pic that wound up in the Alumni Newsletter. I was mortified by how underdressed I was for the ten-year, so I was going to overcompensate this time. I'd been stewing about it for a decade.

Major, MAJOR FAIL.

The invite called for "Smart Casual" attire. What the fuck does that even mean??? People wore jeans. That pissed me off, a little. I glammed it up and wound up with pictures of my backfat posted for the world to see. Look.

Oh, and notice my buddy Newman (who made sexually suggestive remarks to me every single day for six years, back in the days before I would have been as tickled by it as I would be today) making out with his adorable wife on the right side of the pic.

I wish I didn't look so hideous in the pics, because that's what the people who weren't there are going to see and use to draw their own conclusion about how well I've aged. Of course I know that there are some folks who would be ripping on me no matter what I wore, which is why I chose to wear a dress that made me happy. And I was happy... until yesterday's rude awakening.

I really thought I looked awesome. People told me I looked spectacular, and I believed them. And now here I was faced with the reality - and relative permanence - of these wretched, unflattering photographs floating about the internet. I really wanted to blow my classmates away, and instead, I made a complete ass of myself.

Here I was having a great time, thinking I looked bloody freakin amazing, and the whole time I had no idea I looked so Huttish in my shiny green dress. I am totally embarrassed, and there's nothing I can do about it now.

To their credit, R and Kev and Rip and my beloved loves have all reminded me of my beauty. R told me he thought I looked stunning and he was proud to be with me, but it's almost like hearing it from your dad. You know he means it, but you also know he would never tell you that you were anything less than beautiful. I was too deep in a self-loathing funk to listen.

I feel disgusting, enormous, amorphous, gross, and above all, incredibly foolish. I want to throw up. I want to take a scalding hot shower and scrub my skin with steel wool. I want to crawl into bed with a box of Oreos and a bottle of Schnapps.

I know I'm taking it far too seriously. I know I'm totally overreacting. I know I'm making a big deal out of something that's really not a big deal. I know I'll get over it. But right now, I feel like everybody else was in on a big hilarious joke...

and that joke was me.

Heard It Through The Grapevine.

2009-10-15T13:43:00.004-05:00

You might not have known this about me, but I'm not big on the Forgive And Forget thing. I know it's unhealthy to go through life bitter, but I bear grudges against people who have pissed me off FOREVER.

FOR. FUCKING. EVER.

Why do I bring this up? Because I'm still pissed off at Julie Wigglesworth (aka "The Grapevine") for telling the entire world when I was literally - LITERALLY - the only person cut from the girls' basketball team tryouts because I kept forgetting to inbound the ball. And she'll be at my 20-year reunion this weekend.

Kev and I ran into Julie at Little Ceasar's last week when we were picking up dinner for The Apes. I can't wait to see what rumors get started via "The Prayer Chain", which is basically where everyone spills whatever juicy piece of gossip they have uncovered.

"Ladies, we need to pray for Penny Karma's marriage... I saw her last week WITH ANOTHER MAN!!! (insert collective gasp of horror amidst clinking of teacups)" And by the way, whenever you add food to one of these dirt-dishing sessions, it's doesn't count as gossip.

Snark + Snacks = FELLOWSHIP. Just tellin ya.

I was briefly tempted to bring Kev to my reunion, but I think it'll be way funnier if I bring my trophy husband R and try to send Julie silent but comically overt signals to keep mum about the fact that she totally busted me with my boyfriend. Whatever. R and I have no secrets from each other, but I'll take the high road and let her think she got the scoop of the century, because I'm the better person.

And P.S., she's gained at least eighty pounds since the 10-year reunion. I, on the other hand, have lost about forty. And I have a kickass dress to wear that looks absolutely stunning on me, thanks to Kev's mom who altered it for me in exchange for pumpkin muffins that don't taste like pumpkin. Plus I got a Swiss Army bra to go under it. The bra cost more than the dress, hose, and shoes combined.

And my husband's a million times cuter and awesomer. Oh, and get this - she started dating her husband back in high school (married the first guy she ever kissed - how very Barbara Bush) and she was sooooo excited to tell us that instead of going to a four-year college, he was going to go to a tech school to learn both "Heating AND Cooling... so he can work year-round!!" Like it was a double major or something. Mensa material, for sure.

She's one of those people who spin the most mundane shit to try to puff themselves up. When her hubby's grandfather died, they moved into his house, which just happens to be in a very nice suburb of St. Louis (where I just happened to grow up), but the way it appeared in the Alumni Newsletter was that they had "inherited an ESTATE in Kirkwood". Ok, the word Estate doesn't necessarily refer to a giant fancy house, it could also - and, in this case, DOES - refer to an acrid-smelling house full of acrylic yarn and other old people crap. I mean, Hello, ever been to an Estate SALE?

But I'm not one to talk snarky shit behind someone else's back.

Ok, I suppose my sharing all of this with you while eating Cocoa Puffs out of the box technically counts as Fellowship, if you're snarfing a snack too.

Remember back when I was trying to decide whether or not to join my high school's alumni group on Facebook? I've been way more active on FB than on my blog, and I feel kinda guilty about that. But rest assured that this blog will ALWAYS be the place where I unload my profane rants about the things that many of my FB friends won't be able to handle.

My blog is my internal monologue. Facebook and Twitter are my internal one-liners. A lot of them are little situational funnies and snide remarks that come to me in a particular moment, and I don't feel that those moments contain enough substance to warrant a full blog post.

I'm sorry if I've disappointed any lurkers, but I find Facebook more engaging. Feedback is more immediate and conversational. I like when people comment on my silly status updates and pictures and I can know exactly who's reading what I'm writing. Yeah, my Facebook is kind of a watered-down version of my life (which requires some major filtering since my parents and uberconservative high school friends read it), but I love that people still think I'm funny when I'm not dropping a ton of muthahfuckin expletives n' shit.

In totally unrelated news, I've been trying to figure out how I can bring up the subject of knitting to my sons' teachers. Because if they are, in fact, knitters, I'm going to have to rethink my Teacher Holiday Gift plan. Non-knitters are mesmerized by FunFur because they don't know shitty yarn when they see it. I would never knit a gift for someone I knew was also a knitter. If they don't know the difference between a knit and a purl, they're getting a cheesy garter stitch scarf for Christmas. And if they're designing their own lace charts and selling their patterns online, then I'm fucked.

I've been cranking out cheesy scarves for the last couple of weeks. I'm trying to use up all of the crap yarn in my stash. I can't believe how much Lion Brand Homespun I had. And the colorway I had, when knitted up, kinda looks like it was made out of dog hair. What was I thinking??? But I'll knit it up into something that would impress a Muggle, and give it away and then it will be out of my house.

So my brilliant idea is to wear one of the sucktastic scarves to Parent-Teacher conferences next week and see if they comment on it. If they say, "Oh, you knit too?" then I'll say "Well, I just started recently..." instead of "Yeah, I started three or four years ago but I suck, not because I lack skills, but because I lack the ability to focus and commit to a long-term project, so I mostly make hats and scarves and stuff that doesn't require seaming."

It's sad how often I'm forced to find creative ways to hide what a dumbass I am. It's alarming how adept at it I've become.

I'm sure this skill will come in handy at my reunion. Stay tuned.

I forgot to share this with you.

2009-10-07T08:04:00.002-05:00

Look what happens if you type "getting tonsils out" into Google Health.

Scroll down.

I'm thankful that the pottymouth disclaimer appeared prominently. I'd hate for anyone to be unpleasantly surprised.

Heh. No, no. I'd secretly kinda love that.

Follow-Up. And Heartbreak.

2009-10-03T09:47:00.008-05:00

It's been more than two weeks since I got my rotten tonsils taken out. I think I'm the first person in the history of advanced medicine who didn't lose a ton of weight after a tonsilectomy. I lost a bit, but I was kinda hoping I'd lose more before my Reunion. I mean, come on - if you tell me I can eat all the ice cream I want, what do you THINK I'm gonna do?

It's not entirely my fault, ya know. I'm blaming Kev for letting himself get so dehydrated he had to be admitted to the hospital. Hospitals freak me out, and I didn't want that to happen to me, so yes, I prescribed myself massive quantities of ice cream. As preventative medicine. It's SCIENCE, people.

And I also think I turned the corner in my recovery the day I told R that I was totally sick of soup, yogurt and popsicles and if I didn't get a damn cheeseburger in my belly pretty fuckin soon, I was going to hurt somebody. And the Gooey Butter Popcorn, let's not overlook the healing power of that. I willed myself better so I could munch on something solid. Thank you, Steak N Shake and Poptions!

At my follow-up appointment my doctor told my my tonsils were "badly infected" and it was good that we got them out. I'm still recovering, but the worst is over. I'm already glad I went for the tonsilectomy. Oh, and did I tell you what one of the other doctors in the office's name was?

Anyway, I want to write about the heartbreak I experienced yesterday.

This is my favorite time of year. I LOVE Autumn. Pumpkin Pie Concretes at Ted Drewes, Pumpkin Fudge from Grafton, Mizzou football, turning off the air conditioner, making my bean soup in the crock pot, walking on crunchy fallen leaves on my way to the mailbox, not having to shave my legs... love it love it love it.

But my most favoritest thing about this time of year is planning for yet another year of Karma Domination at the Pevely Flea Market Halloween Costume Contest. At least one of my children has won their age group in each of the last three years.

By the way, if you're generally not a "click the link" kind of person, this blog will convert you. You should always click my links.

In 2006 Tito's pirate costume took first place, and Beeb's bloody surgeon took third.

Pie's Harry Potter costume, equally brilliant, didn't make the cut. I don't mean it as a comment on the literacy rate in Pevely, but we stopped dressing our children as literary characters.

In 2007, Beeb won as a bunch of grapes, and Pie won as Larry the Cable Guy (one of my favorite costumes we've ever done). Tito was a spider, and he got robbed.

Last year's contest was TOTAL bullshit. I'm STILL pissed about last year.

Pie won with his Indiana Jones costume, which was a great costume, but I worked my ASS off on Beeb's clever Christmas Tree costume (complete with sewn-on blinking lights), and on Tito's Luke Skywalker costume, and neither of them placed.

This year I was going to set things straight. Righting a past injustice is a-whole-nother level of motivation, my friends.

R and I have been tight with our friends The Racers for a while, and while they have seen glimpses of my competitive nature once or twice, I thought it would be fun to invite them to the Pevely Flea Market Halloween Costume Contest so they can witness the madness for themselves. Last night I went to the PFM website to find out what time the costume contest started so we could make plans. Here's what I found:

This year's prizes will be awarded in a random drawing.
THERE IS NO COSTUME CONTEST.

MotherFUCKER!!!!

My guess is that someone in Pevely Googled Pevely Flea Market Halloween Costume Contest, saw that some obnoxious Suburban St. Louis Soccer Mom with a pottymouth blog took it a weeeeee bit too seriously (which, I admit, I do), and decided to shut the shit down.

I broke Pevely. I broke it with my will to win.

The prizes were getting less and less stellar. The first year we got movie tickets, the next year McDonald's coupons, and last year a coloring book. So perhaps it was a budgeting issue. But still - now what am I going to obsess about for the next three weeks? There's still the Trunk or Treat on the 30th, I guess, but it's not the same. I'm severely disappointed.

Fortunately, the Racers will still get to see my fiercely competitive side today as the newest member of the Karma Crew, Dexter, is running in the Hamster Ball Derby this afternoon!

Dexter's been working out.

And I've been feeding him Hamsteroids.

All The Single Babies...

2009-09-26T08:28:00.004-05:00

If you'd like to learn the dance yourself, try this:

And if you think you're a badass, try this:

I want my tonsils back.

2009-09-22T15:13:00.002-05:00

Just kidding. I don't, really. I've just been recovering from a tonsilectomy for six days and I'm disappointed in my own lack of resilience. I'm superhuman, dammit!!!

I was warned that it would be a long, difficult recovery. I have friends and family members who weighed in on Facebook telling me of their own experiences and begging me to reconsider my decision to have my tonsils removed. But after having about eight blazing cases of Strep Throat in the last year and a half, I figured it couldn't be a whole lot worse than what I had already endured.

The pain itself really isn't the worst part of it. Yes, there's pain, but there's also being hella tired and not being able to sleep. There's also an inability to taste anything. There's desperately wanting to wake up completely healed and instead waking up feeling noticably worse.

This morning I woke up gasping and choking on what must have been a big funky glob of gunk from my throat and it reminded me of a trailer I remember from an 1981 horror movie starring Sharon Stone called Deadly Blessing. Anybody know what I'm talking about?

These are the things that haunt my subconscious, people.

So with the fear of choking to death in my sleep, I don't think I've slept much in the last week. And my poor beloved R has been a prince. He's been working so hard to get stuff done so I wouldn't have to do it, he's exhausted and my tossing and turning and snoring and gagging isn't helping him at all. I feel really bad about that part, but I'll make it up to him. I'm hoping that removing my tonsils has had a positive effect on my gag reflex. (A-Bow chicka BOW!)

Then, there's the pain. And the incompetence of the genius nurse. And how the two have combined forces to prolong my suffering. I called the office yesterday, saying that I'd been unable to sleep for more than a few hours at a time because the pain meds wear off so quickly. The nurse's solution? Try taking fewer, less strong pain meds. That's what I did last night.

Tonight I'm trying something else. Called TAKE AS MANY DRUGS AS I CAN POSSIBLY CHOKE DOWN.

My sleep schedule is so completely screwed up, I don't even know what day it is. I think it's Tuesday. Tonight the boys have their karate class. They each have a ghi now because Beeb took karate for several years and we saved all of her karate stuff, so yay! That saved me sixty bucks!

And Pie has been riding his two-wheeler without the training wheels, so his elbows and knees are all scuffed up but he's determined as hell to ride like the big kids. So that's what's been going on in the world around me while I'm hiding out in my sickie cocoon.

My neck hurts from trying to sleep in an upright position. My throat hurts, my jaw hurts, my ears hurt, and I'm indescribably tired. R took FMLA so he was home with me Wednesday through Sunday, and now he's had to go back to work. Yesterday Kev came over to sit with me while I slept, but now he's back to work after recovering from his own surgery, so today's really the first day I'm completely on my own. It sucks.

I'm lonely and bored and absolutely no fun to be around. And I'm normally such a charming, effervescent person! I hate being boring.

And oh, I haven't even mentioned the other casualty of my tonsilectomy. Remember my mammogram last year? Click here if you missed it. It's a good read, particularly if you're new to my blog.

Remember how I FREAKED for a whole day about the possibility of having to take my tittie bling out for my mammogram? Well, it didn't even occur to me that I might have to take them out for my tonsilectomy. They weren't going to be cutting anywhere near my boobs, right? Didn't even enter my mind.

Fast forward to 6am last Wednesday when Grouchy Nurse - who, by the way, bruised my hand thusly when administering my IV -

asked me if I'd removed all of my jewelry. Wedding ring, earrings, piercings?

Yup, yup, huh??

Do you have Piercings?

Well, yeah, do I have to take them out, really?

What do you have done, your bellybutton?

(Scoffs)Ha, ha, no... that's so Spring Break... I have both nipples pierced.

They're gonna have to come out, ma'am.

Are ya sure?

Let me put it to you this way - Do you want to be electrocuted?

Not so much.

Then yes, they need to come out.

Shit. SHI-hi-hi-HIT.

So she handed me a plastic cup, drew the curtain, and, within a minute or two, the rings were out. The stainless steel rings that have been a part of me for about five years, symbolizing my ability to summon my inner badass and overcome my fear of needles and pain, were sitting, cold and lifeless, in a cup.

And I was really ok with it.

I hadn't spent the whole day before freaking out about it. I hadn't had a chance to stew or lament or even give it any thought at all. It was done. And there were my nipples; plain, unadorned and lovely.

Maybe I'll put them back, I don't know, but for now, I'm enjoying the novelty of Nips Au Naturale.

NSFW Sometimes I go a long way to connect one thing to another.

2009-09-14T08:36:00.013-05:00

Seriously, y'all who have been reading my blog for a while should know that pretty much every post is most likely NSFW. But anyway...

Yesterday we had waffles for breakfast, and I looked at the label on our Aldi syrup.

Aunt Maple's. Got that? Ok.

It reminded me of one of my all-time favorite bits, which was a major bitch to find on YouTube because the only time I ever heard it was on an LP. Record. Album. Vinyl. Those things we had before cassettes and CD's and MP3's.

(I watched the VMA's last night and I felt like I was a hundred. Janet Jackson doing Scream was just incredible. Oh, and P.S. - Kanye, you're a douchenozzle. But that has nothing to do with anything, really.)

To continue. . . Fortunately for us, video footage of Dudley Moore singing House On Fire does exist. I couldn't decide which I liked better. With the first one, it's easier to hear the actual lyrics. But the second one has a much more animated delivery.

Did ya catch the connection? "We have not laughed so much since Grandma died, or Auntie Mabel caught her left tit in the mangle." Who else but your pal PK could relate Dudley Moore to pancake syrup?

I always thought that a mangle was a garbage disposal, which is why I always mind my tits when leaning over the sink. But further research showed me that I've been wrong all these years.

From Wisegeek.com:

"In the 18th century, the first form of the modern laundry mangle emerged. A mangle has two large rollers which are turned by hand with a crank or by an engine, while laundry is passed between the rollers. Historically, such mangles were often powered with steam engines, once the steam engine was invented, and they would have been noisy, hot, and quite dangerous for their users; most modern mangles are electric, a significant improvement.

When used to process wet laundry, a mangle can cut down on drying time significantly by squeezing out as much excess water as possible. For pressing things flat, mangles may be heated so that they will create crisp, smooth creases, and it is not uncommon to see a pressing mangle with a steam attachment for setting pressed seams and creases. In many cases, a pressing mangle is used with a clean sheet to wrap the object being pressed, to ensure that it stays clean.

Modern mangles are much safer than their historical counterparts, but it is still a good idea to be careful, especially around an industrial mangle. These machines can easily severely damage extremities, and users have been severely injured when their hair has been caught up in the workings of the mangle; in some cases, a mangle can actually pull someone's scalp right off, which would not be a pleasant state of affairs."

I'll say.

The ending is my favorite part: "We are miserable sinners. Filthy fuckers. Arseholes." I like to sing that line quietly to myself when I do something blantantly snarky or snicker at someone else's misfortune.

Bad blogger. Bad.

2009-09-12T09:37:00.015-05:00

Sometimes the reason why I haven't updated in a while is because I don't have anything interesting to write about. Other times it's because I've been so insanely busy I haven't had time to sit down and write about all the wacky things I've been doing.

This time, I had nothing interesting to say for a while, and then suddenly things started happening, none of it particularly gripping blog material but still, enough to prevent me from blogging.

To follow up on my most recent post, the people across the street left their trash cans out for four days, and left the fridge there for two days after that. Why that was of such interest to me, I really don't know, but it was neighborhood scandal material for me. I wrote about it on Facebook. Oh, by the way, I've now been de-friended NINE TIMES (you can't hear me, but I'm saying it in the voice of Principal Edward Rooney).

I must be doing something right. Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

Hmmmm... what else can I tell you?

I was sick last week. I had an icky cold and a fever for a couple of days. The worst part of it was that I had offered to go and sit with Mrs. Speed Racer while Speed had his tonsils out last Thursday morning, and I was too sick to go. I knew nobody was mad at me or anything, but I was still bummed out because I really wanted to be helpful.

Fortunately for me (not so much for him), he got seriously dehydrated Wednesday night and Mrs. Racer took him to the ER for fluids and better pain meds, so I got another chance to step in and be a pal. I sat with Speed at the hospital all day on Thursday.

Seeing Kev like this was a bit freaky, when I remembered that I'm having my tonsils out on Wednesday, but he had significantly more done than I'm going to have done. He also had his soft palette tightened and his uvula removed. I thought about asking to have my unruly uvula taken out, but I'd have to give up any endorsement potential as the Swollen Uvula Poster Child, so I'm just going for the Basic Tonsilectomy instead of the Deluxe Package.

We made light of the situation. I tried to throw wadded up paper towels into the plastic thing on his face, until Margaret the nurse told me I had no game. So then we thought of movie quotes that would be funny to say, like, "LUKE, I AM YOUR FATHER!" and from Top Gun, "Ok, Mav, let's turn and burn!!"

Genius had eaten hardly anything in a week. My extensive experience with Strep has taught me that even when it hurts, you still need to suck something down. And I'm pretty sure that's what she said.

But he's much better now. He's home, he's got some better meds and he's well on the road to recovery, which is good, so he can help take care of me next week. I'm starting to get really super nervous about the whole tonsilectomy thing. I bought myself a 2lb tin of Gooey Butter Pop from Poptions to calm my nerves.

In other news, the kids are doing great in school. Beeb's still hanging out with her buddy Elle and, now that Princeton's moved to From Whence He Came, Beeb has a new love interest that I'm going to call Tuck. He's a sweet guy. His mom, however, has some strange fashion sense.

That's a full-on denim suit - the jacket's not like a jean jacket, it's a fitted blazer. Gih. But she's a nice person and Tuck's a good kid, so I support this relationship. For now.

Ooooh! I need to announce the newest addition to the Karma Clan!

This is Dexter. Not named for the serial killer, but for the mad scientist cartoon kid with his own Laboratory. Our Dexter has his own pimped-out 40-gallon tank. The kids love him. We're training him for the Hamster Ball Races on October 3rd.

Come to think of it, we've got stuff going on for the next several weekends. Today R and Mrs. Racer are taking Pie to see that new Tim Burton movie "9" (Kev and the rest of us thought it looked too creepy), and tomorrow we're talking about going out to Pirate Fest.

Next weekend I'll be taking it easy. The Racers are taking the Apes off of our hands for a bit so R can take care of me after my surgery.

The following weekend the Karmas and the Racers are going to Strange Folk. I'm really looking forward to that. We missed it last year.

Then, on October 1st, R will finally - FINALLY - move up to a better job on The Death Star. For the last six years R has been screamed at eight hours a day by crabby people who can't figure out their communication devices or the system through which The Evil Empire receives payment for the communication services they graciously provide to the inhabitants of a galaxy far, far away.

His hard work, dependability, patience and mad skillz have been recognized and rewarded, and we are absolutely overjoyed. It's a pay increase, and, hopefully, a stress decrease.

So, as I mentioned, we're racing Dexter on the 3rd. We have the annual Hayride out at Chez Inlaw on the 10th, and the weekend after that...

My 20-year High School Reunion.

Shut up.

Trash Looting Etiquette.

2009-08-28T15:12:00.001-05:00

Yesterday morning the boys and I were outside waiting for the school bus to arrive. Thursday is Trash/Recycling Day, and the recycling people come at about 6:30am, so the recycling bin was already empty, but the trash people hadn't come yet.

I asked Tito to please bring the recycling bin into the garage. He let out a heavy sigh and said, "Why do you always have to be such a MOM?"

Cuz that's my job. Duh. Why do YOU have to be such a six-year-old boy?

Anyway, I looked across the street and saw that our neighbors were throwing away what looked to be a dorm fridge. R and I are wanting to put a bar in our basement, and we've been looking for a fridge to put in it. Really, we'd like a bigger one than a dorm fridge, but I figured, Hey, for free? Why not?

So I looked both ways (more to make sure nobody was watching than to set the look-both-ways example for my kids), walked over and swiped the fridge from the neighbors' trash and brought it into my garage to check it out.

Notice what's missing? Certainly not the smell of stale beer.
A PLUG. The cord had been completely cut off.

(Ok, I realize this is probably fixable, but this was looking like it would be more trouble than it was worth.)

Crap. Now what? Put it back? No, that's tacky.

I thought that the nice thing to do was to put it with my own trash, so that's what I did. I even tried to obscure it a bit so if the neighbors looked out their window they wouldn't know that I was the loser who stole their trash and then realized it WAS trash and didn't want to put it back.

I left to run my errands for the morning. I put gas in the Odyssexy, took four bags of stuff to Goodwill, exchanged some stuff at Cacique and got some awesome new bra/panty combos (woo hoo!!), exchanged some other stuff at Target, and took the pantry organizer that we didn't need (since we threw 98% of Buffy's rancid moth-filled decaying crap away) back to Lowe's.

I returned home to find that the trash cans were empty, but the fridge was still sitting there by the curb. The trash people wouldn't take it.

Crap. Now what? Put it back?

Well, first I had to wait until my next-door neighbor finished mowing his lawn.

Look, I was fine with putting it with my trash, but once it becomes a bigger matter than just having the trash people pick it up from my front yard instead of theirs and I have to figure out a way to dispose of it? Yeah, I'm thinking that's more responsibility than I'm willing to take on in the name of proper Trash Looting Etiquette.

So I walked over and put the smelly fridge right back where it started, by their mailbox. No harm, no foul, the slate has been wiped clean, we're right back at square one, and hopefully nobody saw me do it. Would you guys please let me know if someone sends you a YouTube link entitled "Crazy Neighbor Steals Trash and Later Returns It"?

And a full 24 hours later, it's still there. Wouldn't it be funny if I reported them to the Homeowner's Association?

Nah, then they'd probably throw it through my kitchen window.

Thanks for nuthin, Buffy.

2009-08-26T14:19:00.009-05:00

Ok, remember last time, when I had that huge pile of stuff from Buffy on my kitchen floor waiting for me to go through it? Well, R and I thought we should empty out the pantry to make space for all the stuff.

Full disclosure - When cleaning out my own pantry, I found this box of chocolate Viactiv calcium supplements from 2007. I'm not perfect. I know.

Now let me refresh your memory a bit. Here's the pic of most of the stuff Dummy gave us, minus the rancid Crisco (which I can still taste, by the way).

Here's what we kept.

Here's what we threw away.

If she just said "Hey, Sarah, throw this box of crap away for me," it would have been so much simpler.

Seriously, look at some of this shit. This is a huge bottle of Teriyaki sauce from 2006.

Here's a box of tea bags from 2000.

Did ya think I was kidding about Folgers Chunks? I WASN'T.

Ah, who doesn't have one of these cans in their pantry?
Buffy had two, both unopened.

One from 2003. . .

and one from the Clinton Administration.

Remember this stuff from the 1970's,
before we knew MSG was a bad thing?

WHY in God's name would you buy THIS much of ANYTHING???

If it's taken you four years to get halfway through this much pepper,

why the FUCK would you buy THIS much????

I'm just speechless.

I'm still taking Buffy's Shiitake.

2009-08-23T08:02:00.016-05:00

So my non-friend Buffy called me last week while I was playing darts with my friends Rip and Speed Racer. Buffy's pregnant, her husband's unemployed, she just moved across the country to start this dream job which has turned out to be a nightmare (they didn't inform her that she'd have to cover her tattoos, for one thing), she's living in a shithole one bedroom apartment in a crap part of From Whence She Came, and in addition to her twelve-year-old son Princeton (who's an absolute doll), she has Perfect Baby who's 15 months and they can barely afford to pay for her child care. She can't figure out where her life went wrong.

She called me because she was hoping to make a deposit into The Great Bank of Karma, after having provided me countless opportunities to rack up a whopping nine-figure balance. In other words, she wanted to do something "nice" for me after having called on me to bail her out of shitty situation after shitty situation for the last year.

Her husband Dummy was packing up their house before he and Princeton and Buffy's sister hopped in the U-Haul and drove all the way back to From Whence. She wanted to know if I'd like to have the non-perishables and stuff from their pantry.

The more I thought about it, though, this wasn't exactly her doing a selfless, nice thing for me. This was, "Here, come over to the house and take this shit off my hands and save me a trip to the church Food Pantry. Make me feel like a good person for giving it away instead of chucking it all." Still, hey, I'll never turn down free food. Unless it's pickles. I fucking hate pickles. But I digress.

Dummy and Buffy's sister loaded up two big boxes and a bag of stuff. It was mostly baking stuff like spices, a huge bottle of olive oil, pasta... this isn't even all of it. This is just the stuff I haven't gone through yet.

In the interest of full disclosure, they did give me a bottle of Crown Royal with about two shots left in it (not pictured), but kids, trust me - if someone gives you a big bag of Shiitake, read IMPENDING DOOM.

I looked through the stuff and found a couple of things that stood out to me, including two-year-old macaroni, which didn't really phase me too much because I've been known to bury things in the back of the pantry and forget I have it, and then I'll buy more so it stays buried. That happens. No big deal.

I have a really awful habit of extending people the benefit of the doubt long after they've proven to me they don't deserve it.

I didn't feel too bad about pitching the 2007 macaroni. Or the Folgers Crystals that looked more like Folgers Chunks.

Or the Cream of Wheat from 2005, which no one in my family would have eaten anyway, even if it was new.

This stuff has been sitting on my kitchen floor for a few days because I don't even have room for all of it. I'll have to re-think the space where I keep my spices and baking stuff before I can put it away, and I haven't had the time or the energy to do it.

Fast forward to yesterday morning. We had plans to go out to Chez Inlaw for the Annual Community Luau, followed by a family celebration for FIL's birthday. So not only did I have to go out there and spend a day kissing FIL's ass (and if you're new to my blog, it might behoove you to check out at least some of the backstory on FIL), I had to do it while wearing a dipshit Hawaiian shirt, surrounded by other people wearing dipshit Hawaiian shirts. Fantastic.

Traditionally, I bake some desserty thing with a pound or more of butter in it to take out as our gift to FIL. He likes my peppermint fudge, my pumpkin muffins, my cheesecake, and particularly my cookies.

You may recall that the last time we went out there, my Snickerdoodles were a smash hit. They're quick, they're easy, I usually have all of the ingredients - Awesome, I thought, I'll make Snickerdoodles. I think I remember seeing some Crisco in the box of stuff from Buffy.

I measured out a cup of the Crisco from the Buffy box, gleefully recalling my long-term homicidal plan to fill my FIL full of as many artery-clogging substances as possible. I sifted the dry ingredients, did everything according to the recipe, and popped them in the oven.

My Facebook pals might recall the status update "It looked like frosting. It was Crisco. Need I say more?" I posted that right after I tasted the cookie dough. I thought I'd just tasted a bit that didn't get mixed in very well and had an abundance of Crisco in it. See what you're missing if you're not on Facebook?

Normally, I love the smell of cookies baking. Who doesn't? But these cookies didn't produce any sort of aroma at all. Weird.

The Snickerdoodles were just beautiful when I took them out of the oven. Lovely, perfect golden brown. FIL would be so impressed. The kids wanted to eat them right away, but I said No, guys, these are for Grandpa. And, of course, as soon as they left the room, I popped one into my mouth. Y'know, just to see if they tasted as heavenly as they looked.

NO. NO, THEY DIDN'T.

Oh, God. It was the WORST, most hideous, repulsive, putrid, foul... words fail me. The Crisco had spoiled, so it didn't just taste nasty like a spoonful of Crisco, it tasted like rancid Crisco. I can still taste it.

Yes, there was a tiny part of my brain that thought it might be amusing to serve them to FIL just to see what would happen. But the more pressing issue was that now I had to come up with something else to take out there. And we were leaving in about twenty minutes. FUCK. You guys know I stress out enough every time I go out there, and this shit, I did NOT need.

Just to recap, I'm about to leave the house to spend an entire day celebrating the birth of the man who has made the last twelve years of my life (and the last thrity-eight years of my husband's) absolute hell, I'm wearing a hideous dipshit Hawaiian shirt, I can't get the taste of rancid Crisco out of my mouth or out of my kitchen (or my garage, since I threw the cookies, the dough, and the tub of Crisco out), and now I have no yummy, cholesterol-laden treat to take out for our Sacrifice to lay before FIL in twenty minutes.

We ended up stopping by the grocery store and buying a forty-dollar chocolate pie. And you bet your ass I made sure to leave the price tag on it.

So, once again, kids, our old pal Buffy has screwed me, this time while allegedly trying to be nice. From a thousand miles away.

Check this out!

2009-08-21T09:40:00.003-05:00

You can get a Motorola Karma...

FOR A PENNY!!!!!

I am soooooooo tempted.

Looks like The Patron Saint of Blogfodder has smiled upon you all.

2009-08-10T07:37:00.012-05:00

Did I not call it??

Guess who's in Pie's class?
SWAMP. THING. JUNIOR.

I totally knew that the abrupt departure of Buffy would leave open the role of Evil Nemesis on my blog, and I figured it was only a matter of time before someone would emerge and claim the title. A certain other fat skanky twat showed some potential, but she's not worth the time it would take to give you the backstory. So we're pretty sure it'll be a Swamp Thing year. Brace yourselves.

I suppose there's something to be said about The Devil You Know. Before Meet The Teacher Night, I'm going to go back and read through old posts just to remind myself what I'm dealing with.

Oh, and guess who else is in his class? The little douchebag who totally wrecked Pie's birthday party last year and gave me a full-on anxiety attack. I wanted to punch that kid.

Oh sweet chocolate Jesus on a whole wheat cracker... Get this shit.

THIS JUST - And I mean JUST!!! - HAPPENED.
Literally just hung up the muthahfuggin phone.
UNBELIEVABLE.

Princeton's been at camp in Canada and Beeb hasn't seen him all summer. He and Buffy sister have spent the last four days on a train from From Whence Buffy Came to get here. So today Princeton calls because he's back in town to help Dummy pack up and get out of St. Louis and he wants to hang with Beeb.

We had planned to go to the Science Center today, so I told Beeb she could invite him to come along with us. We had it all worked out, sounded fun, whatever. I wasn't plananing on spending a goddamn dime today, but now I'm probably obligated for lunch. Fuck.

Anyway, suddenly Beeb hands me the phone and it's Dummy.

Somehow he read "Can Princeton come to the Science Center with us?" as "Sure, I'd be thrilled to pick up Princeton's luggage from the downtown Amtrak station!"

Oh, GREAT! Thank you so much, Sarah! That would really help us out!

Sure. Be glad to.

FUCK.

I will be SO glad when that woman and her sphere of influence are out of my life. And that Sphere of Influence includes my tonsils, which are slated to be removed on September 16th.

I believe the Patron Saint of Blogfodder is Saint Skroomey. And I know somebody's been praying to him, cuz he always seems to Screw Me. For your amusement.

Yes, kids, it's true. I've been cheating on you.

2009-08-03T11:30:00.007-05:00

I'm not proud of myself.

I've been spending a lot more time on Facebook and Twitter than I have here. *

It's not you, it's me.

It's the fact that I find myself coming up with a couple of clever sentences at a time, not enough to create a whole paragraph. It's also a matter of convenience - I can update Facebook and Twitter from my phone, and writing a whole blog post via text... usually while driving ... well, I know you'd want me to be safe so I can keep writing, right?

It's also the fact that the Apes expect to be entertained every day of the summer, and part of their entertainment involves kicking me off the 'puter. And yes, I know they were gone for a full ten days and I didn't blog much then, but during that time I was very, VERY committed to the idea of cleaning the basement and the boys' room before they got back. As it turned out, however, that plan was almost totally derailed when we had to replace the garage door opener, and I was disappointed in myself for not meeting my own goal, which I'll admit was a lofty one, but still, I hate when I don't meet a goal I set for myself.

I don't report to anyone. I don't have a boss. I don't have an annual performance review. I'll never get a raise. I don't get any sort of formal recognition for the amazing job that I do, so my sense of job satisfaction comes from myself and how well *I* feel I do my job. I know the world probably wouldn't fall apart if I didn't get something done that I was hoping to get done, but I'll feel like I didn't do my job. And my job is more than a job to me - it's a big part of my identity, whether I like it or not. So it's important to me to feel like I'm good at it.

But I failed. I came close, but ultimately didn't achieve what I was hoping to achieve by the deadline. And I had a bit of a breakdown over it.

Then the kids came home. And they brought my parents with them.

Now, I love my parents like crazy, and we all have a great time when they're here. They tell me how awesome my kids are, and I feel like a fantastic parent - in stark contrast, of course, to FIL, who points out how poorly behaved my kids are (when they're behaving in a totally age-appropriate manner) and makes me feel like a douchebag.

Again, I love them, and they don't put pressure on me intentionally, but I still feel enormous pressure to be "on" when they're here, if that makes sense. Plus, when we all go somewhere, sometimes Dad takes the boys in one direction and Mom and I take Beebie in another direction, and getting us all to meet up in the same place at the same time is a lot like wrangling squirrels - exhausting and totally futile.

But before my parents left, I told my mom that I was a good mom because of her, I meant it. My kids are good kids because I'm not afraid to parent them, which sometimes includes saying NO to them or otherwise disappointing them. They know better than to ask me for stuff they know we can't afford. They know that there will always be other people who have more than we have.

The boys are still kinda too little to get it, but Beeb's friend Elle, for example, has EVERYTHING. But Beeb's cool about it and she's not ashamed of her family (yet) or the fact that we don't have a pool table or a pool in the backyard or the ability to purchase 3rd row tickets to the Jonas Brothers.

(Which was the FUCKING BEST TIME EVER, by the way. But I digress.)

Anyway, kids, that's where I've been. So now, let me catch you up on what you've missed.

Got a call from Buffy last week. Remember that dream job that was good enough to make her pack up and move across the country? She hates it. HATES. IT. Loves where she lives, so she's glad she moved, but she is absolutely miserable in her job. I've been trying to imagine a job she would be happy in, and I can't. I honestly think she's happiest when she's got something to complain about.

Hmmmm. . . what else? Oh, my Beebie turned twelve on the 23rd. TWELVE.

I know that when one becomes a parent, everyone tells you that the years go by really quickly and your kids will grow up before you know it, but it really is true. Even when some days it feels like they will never learn to pour their own milk or tie their own shoes or ride a bike without me running along side of it or finally drive THEMSELVES somewhere instead of treating me like their personal taxi.

Sigh...

So I went through a brief period when I felt like I was a hundred years old and lamented my own mortality, but I spared you guys that because it was boring and a total downer and I just wanted to push through it. And I did.

I love the show Rescue Me. Sometimes I lie awake at night worrying about Lou and wondering if I'm more of a Janet or a Sheila.

I'm anxiously awaiting the Season 3 premiere of Mad Men on August 16th. Seasons 1 and 2 are available on DVD and you have some time to get caught up and lust over The Hamm right along with me.

See? It's really kinda random thoughts. More a series of one-liners than the monologue you're used to reading from me. I will try to do better about blogging, though. I promise.

School starts on the 18th. Beeb has 7th Grade Orientation tomorrow. And I'm afraid Pie and Swamp Thing Junior are going to be in the same class this year. I just have a feeling. We'll know in about a week. Stay tuned.

* If you'd like to add me on either site, let me know.
EDIT: I'm not PK on Facebook. :)

Mock me all you want, but the Jonas Brothers are AWESOME!!!!

2009-07-29T08:02:00.008-05:00

We were close enough to see Joe's purity ring, the beads of sweat on Nick's forehead, and bulge in Kevin's pants! SO. MUCH. FUN.

Why I Love My Local Meteorologist.

2009-07-28T07:34:00.000-05:00

More Inspirational Tampons.

2009-07-23T09:29:00.014-05:00

This is for Skye, who is in Brilliance withdrawal.

You may remember the last batch of these. They were funny.

Once again, Playtex Sport, you have amused me more than a tampon really should.

I'm supposed to run an extra mile when I'm on the rag? RIGHT.

Ummmm... NO.

Fuck off.

I could challenge myself to see how loud I can say FUCK OFF, would that count?

I don't think so.

We're probably all on the same cycle by now!

I love how they cover their asses on this one - they want me to play to win (and I believe that one of my tampons last month assured me that it was "on my team"), but what if I'm a lazyass who doesn't really feel like challenging myself and I'd just prefer to sit on the sidelines doubled over and cursing Eve?

Oh yeah, see? I told you Winning Isn't Everything.
Thank you, I'll be in the locker room if you bitches need me.

Now THAT, I can do.
I'll be celebrating my bold attitude with a Margarita.

Damn straight!

Particularly when it comes to Stalking.

Restraining orders are for pussies!
Prove your devotion! MAKE him love you!!

How 'bout if I skooch over a little to make room for you, and we get all catty and talk shit about all the other girls? Sound fun?

By "You" I assume you're referring to my Fallopian Tubes?

Sigh... It's almost enough to make me actually look forward to that time of the month.

I said ALMOST.

Ape Vacation Update.

2009-07-12T16:20:00.005-05:00

I just have a quick minute, but I wanted to jot this down before I forgot.

So my kids are frolicking in the Gulf Of Mexico at a family church camp with my parents. They've been having a ball, despite having had no TV, no internet, no Nintendo DS, and no MP3 players for the last four days.

My mom called yesterday to check in and tell me that the kids were learning to surf, and that Tito was awesome at it. She then lamented that not seeing the news for the last few days made her feel like she was cut off from the world.

She didn't ask if Sonya Sotomayor had been confirmed, or if North Korea had unleashed its nuclear fury on the world, didn't even ask what R and I have been up to (but that may have been because she didn't really want to know, which was probably a good call).

No. What was weighing most heavily on her mind?

"Have they buried Michael Jackson yet?"

Best word verification ever.

2009-07-08T08:24:00.002-05:00

ETA: It's from Kev's blog.

You can't see me...

2009-07-07T07:52:00.001-05:00

but I still have a HUGE schadenfreude-eating smirk on my face from Saturday's festivities.

Karma is a BEAUTIFUL Thing.

2009-07-05T07:32:00.026-05:00

This one's a doozie, y'all.

How long have you been reading my blog? This one's definitely going to reward the longtime beholders of brilliance for their loyalty, but I'll try to give enough backstory for the noobs too.

Every year, we go out to my Inlaws to watch the fireworks (to get a sense of my relationship with my FIL, please refer to the Archival Highlights in the sidebar), and usually the fireworks begin before the actual Fireworks, if ya know what I'm sayin'.

Let's look back over the last few July 4th celebrations, shall we?

Last year I was so stressed, I took a Xannie before we made our traditional pilgrimage to Chez Inlaw and I kinda passed out. Then FIL tried to tell R that in twelve years, not once have I ever offered to help clean up after a meal (which, of course, is TOTAL bullshit), and I got on my hands and knees and picked crumbs off the kitchen floor.

Memorable line from my July 7, 2008 post: "You do NOT want to get into a Who Can Be A Bigger Passive-Aggressive Asshole war with me. Have we ever talked about how competitive I am? Not sure if we have..."

The year before was the year that the Aldis left Aldigirl out there while they went to a wedding. She intentionally kicked over a chair with her cousin in it, and we all learned, to our amazement, that she actually DOES behave worse when her parents aren't around. They actually DO have some miniscule amount of influence on her, when they choose to invoke it.

Memorable line from my July 8th, 2007 post: "Do NOT screw with a chick sportin' two pairs of panties and an eyeball ulcer. Especially when it's 100 degrees outside. DO NOT."

And prior to this year, 2006 was the year that would be impossible to top in terms of sheer noteworthiness. That was the year Tito got lost in the dark when we all got up to leave after the fireworks, which scared the CRAP out of me and everyone else.

Memorable line from my July 5th, 2006 post: "I was also offered the opportunity to purchase the DVD of Aldigirl's recent dance recital performance for a mere $39.99. I was on the verge of blurting out that I would rather suck $39.99 worth of manure through a straw than watch that, but fortunately I was cut off by the sound of Aldigirl running shrieking through the house. I secretly love it when she acts like an ass. It makes my kids look like angels by comparison."

Yeah, so the last three years have really, REALLY sucked. And that's just the 4th of July visits. I'm not even talking about the Easter visit when he ripped R and me each a new one when we ordered Mimosas with our Easter Brunch or any of the other times we've gone out there maxed out on stress and come home trembling and sick to our stomachs. Longtime readers know that there are way too many of those experiences for me to count.

Yesterday was far and away the best time I've EVER had at Chez Inlaw. In almost thirteen years.

It was even better than the free beer parties on Memorial Day that I actually look forward to because I can drink as much beer as I want and conveniently escape the obligation of hanging out with MIL and FIL by voluntarily waiting in line for 45 minutes with the kids to get their faces painted.

Ready? Here we go.

Over the years, we've learned how to pace ourselves through the morning on the days when our afternoon plans include a trip to see FIL. Wake up early, do something fun and/or relaxing for as long as possible, and very gradually ease into the day. R and I got up and watched back episodes of Rescue Me while Beebie baked a cake.

We were ready to go and were actually on the road when Beeb announced that she'd offered to watch her friend Elle's hamster Dexter while Elle and her family were vacationing on some island that starts with an M. I told Beeb that was fine, and asked when would we need to pick Dexter up. Beeb said she figured we would just go pick him up on our way home, after the fireworks, since Elle would be leaving at 7:00 the next morning.

Sidenote: We're currently planning Beeb's birthday party which is slated to begin at 9:30am and Elle threw the world's biggest bitchfit about the early start time - that's actually what I was planning to write about today on the off chance that the 4th was uneventful, so I'll have to write about her spoiled little ass next time.

Beeb had forgotten that we probably wouldn't leave Chez Inlaw until 11:30 and that it was an hour drive home. So we made a slight detour, dropped Dexter off at home and hit the road with no idea what was in store for us when we got there, but, as always, mentally preparing ourselves for the worst.

As I mentioned, Beeb baked a cake to take out there. She was so proud of herself. And yet she knew that FIL would most likely find something wrong with it and point it out to her. I really do try to defend FIL when I can because I don't want to influence their feelings for FIL - and because he doesn't really need any assistance from me in shaping my children's opinions of him - so I explained to Beeb that that's FIL's [totally fucked-up] way of showing he loves you.

He tells you every single miniscule thing you're doing wrong so that you can be sure to not make the same mistakes again next time, and thereby inch ever closer to perfection, which is the only standard that matters to him. For example, I baked four dozen flawless Snickerdoodles to take out there on Father's Day, and even though he (and everyone) said they were excellent, he still found a way to criticize me. I hadn't made enough of them.

Mrs. Aldi, in contrast, NEVER bakes anything to take out there, other than steamed vegetables or fruit salad that my children never eat, or perhaps those slice-and-bake cookies with holiday designs in the middle. Nothing that requires effort or time. Most of the time they bring store-bought cookies. I make white chocolate peppermint fudge. I make toffee. I make pies. Of course, I'm secretly administering a lethal dose of cholesterol over an extended period of time and she's undermining my efforts, but that's not really the point.

This time, she submitted her own home-baked cookies. And FIL fuckin mocked her. "OH, LOOK, EVERYONE! MRS. ALDI ACTUALLY BAKED SOMETHING!! WOW! I'M STUNNED!!!" I whispered in R's ear we hadn't even been there an hour and already my day had officially been made.

I've endured his ridicule so many times, I was delighted to see it directed at someone other than me. And really, if that was the only good thing that happened the whole day, it still would have been a great day. But the day just kept getting better and better.

The Aldis brought their idiot dog Chantal. And let me just say that even Beeb noticed that The Reverend puts WAY more effort into disciplining that dog than he does into disciplining his idiot children. And he doesn't put much effort into disciplining the dog.

I personally witnessed Aldiboy eating at least five of his mother's cookies before dinner, plucking them cheekily off the dish right in front of her, while she said nothing.

I know it's a horrible thing to say about a four-year-old, but I really can't stand that kid. I realize that it's not his fault that his parents refuse to tell him No, but that kid's a budding asshole just waiting to fully blossom into full-on colorful doucheitude. If the Aldis would nip it in the proverbial bud, they might be ok, but no, it's waaaaaay more important to protect his fragile little self-esteem and to let him be who he is.

I got news for ya, Aldis. Who your kid IS, is an asshole. And it's YOUR fault. And pretty soon people are going to start telling Aldiboy to his face that he's an asshole, and what's his self-esteem gonna be like then? Huh??

I'll be honest. I know my kids aren't perfect. My kids have had their bad days out at Chez Inlaw. Tito was a holy terror for a while. I've done my time as Mother of the Kid Who's Annoying Everyone. More than once I've spent an entire visit following Tito around making sure he's not doing anything that would set FIL off. And that's why it fills my heart with absolute fuckin glee to see a lazyass parent getting exactly what they deserve - AN IDIOT KID.

Aldiboy was horrible. He's clearly learned that nobody pays any attention to him until he does something he knows he shouldn't do. And the people that do pay attention to him when he's hanging on a glass table, jumping on the floor vents, pulling the dog's tail, running through the house, and generally being a little shit are NOT HIS PARENTS. The most his parents will do, only after someone else calls their attention to their child's behavior, is ASK said child if he WANTS a timeout. What the fuck do they think he's going to say?

Next on the highlight reel is my personal favorite part of the day. I was sitting with Beeb playing Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader (and yes, I am) at the table facing into the living room, and suddenly I looked up and saw a huge steaming pile of freshly-dumped poop on the immaculately white carpet.

I discreetly called R over.

What? he mouthed.

Shit. I mouthed back.
(It's really hard to mouth the word Shit. Try it.)

What??

SHIT, dude.

What?

It was kinda like the tattoo scene in Dude, Where's My Car.

Literally, shit. Look. Right there. SHIT.

Oh, shit. SHIT.

We decided to bite our tongues and wait to see if Reverend Aldi or FIL would be the first to spot it. Seconds later, The Reverend saw it, and FIL saw him seeing it. When The Reverend asked MIL for something to clean it up, I had to get up and get myself to the potty before I pissed myself laughing.

Here's the bathroom where I giggled.

Not only does FIL fully deserve a huge pile of poo in the middle of his house, The Reverend deserves to have to fuckin man up and DO something about it. And to me it wasn't even poo - it was like a big steaming pile of sweet-smelling Karma wrapped up in a big beautiful bow.

But the show wasn't over yet, kids.

At dinner the Reverend asked Aldiboy if he was going to eat his vegetables. Aldiboy said No. And that was that.

Oh, by the way, while the Aldikids were running around being assholes, my boys were sitting quietly and my Beebie offered to help clear the table. Beeb's cake was a smash hit, and FIL had not one snide thing to say about it.

After dinner Aldiboy (and I'm seriously considering changing his name to Aldibrat or Alditard or something similar) was STILL running through the house like a wild animal, and when FIL said something in his typical snarky manner like "Wow, Aldiboy is REEEEALLY wound up, isn't he??" Mrs. Aldi's response was priceless -

"Oh, well, he did have about ten cookies, so that's probably why he's more lively than usual."

Oh, ok. Since he DID have ten cookies... THAT explains it. It does not, however, explain how the child GOT ten cookies in the first place. If you were paying close enough attention to COUNT the number of cookies the child ate, then why didn't you STOP him after, say, six or seven?

He had five before dinner. Oh, and what did he eat for his dinner? Potato chips. And when The Rev said "No more chips, Aldiboy", what did the child do? He stole potato chips off of Tito's plate when Tito wasn't looking. I saw it.

Mrs. Aldi was standing closer than arm's length from the plate of cookies. She could easily have gently smacked him on the hand (as I would have done, had one of MY children been snarfing down cookies before dinner), or even just whispered "I think that's enough, Sweetheart", as I'm sure she's anti-spank, when he reached for one. I don't want to spark a debate or anything if you're anti-spank, whatever works for you is cool with me - as long as it actually WORKS and your kid's not a total dick.

She had no fewer than TEN opportunities to do something, and she did nothing - THEN she blamed his behavior on what was really her laziness. Unbelievable.

After dinner we had about two hours to kill before we walked over to wait for the fireworks to start (which, traditionally, is about two hours before the fireworks are scheduled to start). And it was raining, so playing outside was not a possibility.

I brought my kids' favorite game - Apples to Apples. There's a link to it in the Amazon section of the sidebar. ;)

If you've never played it (and if you haven't, you should), basically there's an adjective card on the table and everyone gets dealt cards with various nouns on them, and then one player is the judge who decides which of the other players submitted the noun card that best represents the adjective.

Can you tell I was an English teacher?

Anyway, Beeb, Pie, Tito, Aldigirl and I decided to play, and Mrs. Aldi said she loved that game and wanted to play too. Guess she needed a break from all that Non-parenting.

At one point the adjective card on the table was Wild. One of the kids submitted a card with the noun Dirty Diapers on it. Aldigirl started this hideous forced laugh that sounded like a donkey being chased by a swarm of angry bees.

Mrs. Aldi told her to be quiet, but it was too late. Aldiboy wanted to know what Aldigirl thought was so funny, so she told him, "Dirty Diapers!! WUHUHHHHUUUUHH", and started the laugh again, this time with Aldiboy adding his own uniquely hideous sound.

The game continued until FIL announced that Chantal had taken a leak on the floor in the kitchen. "Did ya hear that, Mrs. Aldi? So, if you're keeping track, your little angel has gone both a number one AND a number two on my floor."

Priceless.

And her response? "Oh, I guess she's not welcome in your house anymore..."

FIL clarified he wasn't saying that, he was merely pointing out the fact that her angelic little dog isn't such an angel after all.

And her response? "Well, I guess I could take her home then..." which the Rev quite rightly pointed out didn't make much sense, because she'd drive an hour home and then an hour back to pick everyone else home. And fuck if I was going to offer to take them home in the Odyssexy.

Ha, nice try, sister. You get to sit here and suffer with the rest of us. Tough shit.

We kept playing the game and Mrs. Aldi ignored her son hanging on the glass kitchen table until R very gently and with undue sensitivity said something to her about it. Meanwhile, we wished we could ignore Aldiboy toddling about and repeating the words "What about DIRRRRRRRRTY DIIIIIIIAPERS." in the most annoying singsong voice you can possibly imagine. He probably said it two hundred times within twenty minutes.

The Inlaws' kitchen table is in front of a lovely bay window that overlooks the lake. They're the kind of windows that open with a crank. And guess who started playing with them?

Mrs. Aldi asked R if it was ok for him to play with the windows. R said, "I don't think so." At that point she offered a half-assed, barely audible "Aldiboy, sweetheart, maybe you shouldn't be doing that."

MAYBE?

Of course he kept right on doing it, opening and closing them again and again, until suddenly FIL's booming voice shouted, "WHO'S PLAYING WITH MY WINDOW??!!?"

As if he didn't know. He just wanted the Aldis to KNOW he knew. It was so beautifully indirect and passive-aggressively non-confrontational while still getting his point across. I have to give the man mad props - he is the king of the mindfuck.

Mrs. Aldi claimed that she had just told him to stop, and that he was in the process of closing the window. This was an outright LIE. She actually lied in order to cover up her child's behavior. Behavior which could easily have been prevented, if she'd just ACT LIKE A FUCKING PARENT for once. R and I were gobsmacked.

Later on, we were getting ready to walk over to the spot we'd staked out for the best view of the fireworks. The sky was dark and threatening, but the fireworks are held rain or shine, so R and I went out to see if we had an umbrella in the van.

Aldiboy was running around outside. Alone. Completely unsupervised. I don't know if anyone even knew he was out there. And no, we didn't bring him inside. That's not my job. If it was one of my friends' kids (Sheri, you know I'd take care of your kids like they were my own), I'd have done something about it, but I was secretly kinda hoping something would happen that might force the Aldis to wake the fuck up and pay attention.

Anyway, as I mentioned, we always sit there on the hillside for about two full hours before the fireworks actually start, which I've never really understood.

Let's take a child who's been cooped up inside all day and put him outside and tell him to sit still when nothing's going to happen for two hours. Genius.

It was alarming and deeply disturbing to see this child going anywhere and doing anything he wanted. The child genuinely believes that the world and everything in it belongs to him - existing solely for the purpose of his entertainment.

He was running around, throwing rocks, asking What About Dirty Diapers, whining that he was hungry, and I'm sorry, but I'm not about to intervene unless what he's doing threatens the safety of MY kids. If your kid falls in the lake because you're not watching him, then fuck you, that's YOUR problem.

A group of kids in front of us caught my eye when they suddenly turned around and started scanning the crowd. I quickly figured out that they were looking for the parent of the child that came right down front and sat in the little kid-sized chair next to them.

Yeah, he walked his little self down and sat down wherever the fuck he wanted to. And his parents didn't say a single word, until I asked out loud where Aldiboy was, hoping to prompt the grownups to take a look at what a child with no sense of boundaries looks like.

Ok, see the knee all the way over to the right of that picture? That's The Reverend's knee. Because he didn't go down there and remind the child that We Don't Take Things That Don't Belong To Us. Didn't remind him of why It's Important To Stay Together So We Can Be Safe.

No. He kneeled down next to Aldiboy and waited for Aldiboy to decide that he was DONE sitting there. The Reverend SAT there and let the kid dictate to him when he was damn good and ready to give back the chair that he didn't have permission to be in.

UN. BE. LEEEEEEVABLE.

Keep in mind that this the same person we had all seen scolding the dog "Chantal, NO! NO, CHANTAL!! NO!" and yanking the choke chain ALL FUCKING DAY.

I love it when I feel like the best parent in the world.

And then, about 15 minutes before the fireworks were supposed to start, the skies opened up and unloaded buckets upon buckets of rain, along with thunder and lightning, which freaked Tito out really bad, so I took him home in the rain, and we watched the fireworks from the house.

And the absolute BEST part of the whole day? Because so many people had left when the rain started, we didn't have to wait for the traffic to clear out so we got to leave about an hour earlier than we usually do on Fireworks Night. So the day was awesome literally from beginning to end.

I've spent so much of my time at FIL's house feeling like a completely pathetic failure as a mother, wife and human being. The way I see it, I EARNED THIS DAY. It's MY turn to enjoy the fruits of my labor - children who know how to behave. My kids were awesome and I was so, so proud.

Yes, it's difficult, inconvenient, unpleasant, stressful, exhausting, and a major pain in the ass to teach our kids how not to be idiots. But that's part of the job of being a parent. It's very hard work and it sucks sometimes, yes, but there's a reward on the other side that's totally, TOTALLY worth it.

My kids ROCK. And I don't mind taking just a little bit of the credit.

Yes, there is justice.

2009-07-02T07:57:00.003-05:00

Had I not turned my phone off when I went to bed last night, I would have seen the following text message from Buffy when it came in at 11:01 in the pm -

Note to self - do not move across country, send first born to 3 weeks of camp, start new job, send 'new and improved' husband away, start baby butt at new daycare AND start period when you're feel [sic] the most lonely... You know - for the NEXT time I do this!! >)

And my Strep test came back negative.

My latest obsession.

2009-06-30T17:44:00.000-05:00

http://www.nameourholes.com/

BUFFY. MUST. DIE.

2009-06-30T10:12:00.003-05:00

Guess what? I have Strep now.

Well, Tito does, and my Quick Screen came back negative, but I feel like shit. I'll get the lab results on Thursday.

It's the Curse of Buffy. The woman can ruin my life from a thousand miles away, just as if she was living next door.

People really should keep sharp objects out of my hands.

2009-06-28T07:04:00.006-05:00

I cleaned my house so Sandra could come over. Ok, I cleaned the two rooms closest to the front door, but that's more than I usually do. I left the sink full of dishes and the kitchen floor unmopped.

Just to reiterate, I had no idea what I was going to be shown in this "demo". All I knew is that this random girl called me out of the freakin blue, saying she was a friend of Buffy's.

Oh, and Buffy did respond to my text message, sort of. At 9:45pm -

PRESH - AH!!

Shit.

She was calling to chat while she shopped for a watchband wide enough to cover her visible tattoos, which she didn't know was the policy in the office where she just started her new job (for which, she confessed to me, she is grossly underqualified). She didn't mention her friend Sandra. And neither did I.

For all I know, I did unwittingly agree to it. Most of the time I tune her out, wait for her to take a breath and then interject the obligatory fake "uh-huh", so there's a good chance I acquiesced without paying attention.

Given my intense dislike for all varieties of businesses that require "home parties" (based upon my horrid personal experience with the Toy one), the only possible explanations are: A) I wasn't paying attention when she mentioned it, or B) SHE NEVER MENTIONED IT.

Beeb answered the door with me when Sandra arrived. I had the brilliant idea to test Sandra's knowledge of Buffy's life just to see if they were the kind of good friends where Buffy'd want to help her out. If Buffy had another friend in the Greater Metropolitan Area, why didn't she call Sandra's ass to pick her up at the hospital?

As we sat down at my dining room table, I introduced Beeb as Princeton's girlfriend. ANY friend of Buffy's would know Princeton. Princeton is the center of her universe. Princeton has an uncommon name. Buffy has his name tattooed on her shoulder. A tattoo which will need to be covered up when she goes in to work, by the way.

Even Beeb noticed that Sandra clearly had no idea who I was talking about. Interesting.

And then Sandra set a cutting board on my table, and I knew instantly what was coming. THE CUTCO PRESENTATION.

I have seen the Cutco presentation SO many times, I could probably give it. If I had heard, "Hey, I have a friend who's selling Cutco Knives...", I would have shut that shit down instantly. Over the course of my life, I've had so many broke-ass friends lured by the promise of "getting paid to have parties", I swear I've heard them all. I've succummed only once. Never again. Never.

My friends know not to even invite me to those things because they just piss me off. I agree to never to give anyone their numbers or try to sell them anything, and I appreciate the same courtesy. You can tell me if you're selling something, and that's fine - I'll call you when I want to spend $200 on skin care or silver jewelry or adult novelties. But generally speaking, This Girl don't play that.

So I sat through the knife demonstration, pointed out that the group of knives I affectionately call The Dahmer Collection should come with a free bag of lime (Sandra was either unamused or didn't get it), pretended to mentally debate whether or not I wanted to spend more than my Odyssexy payment for the next five months to have The Premium set of really nice knives. Then she showed me the price for my top five favorite knives, then my top three, and finally my favorite knife.

I could feed my family for a week on the price of the Spatula Spreader.

I told Sandra that if I bought these knives, I'd have to use the cleaver to hack off my family's fingers and toes and use the Turning Fork to sautee them in the sautee pan (with lid) so we could eat. She got the hint.

And finally, she handed me a piece of paper with a bunch of lines on it.

"Well, as you know, my business is built by referrals, so if you give me the name of three friends I could call to set up a demo, I can give you the vegetable peeler... FOR FREE!!!"

That explains it. Buffy sold me out for a fucking veggie peeler.

I wish they didn't have the Lifetime Guarantee because I'd love for it to fall apart the first time she uses it.

Now I wish I had bought the Spatula Spreader - just so that when you saw on the national news that a woman from From Whence She Came with visible tattoos was found twitching in a ditch with a Spatula Spreader sticking out of her neck, y'all could have a little chuckle.

Buffy Lives On...

2009-06-26T18:56:00.002-05:00

Yesterday morning at 7:45 I got a call. There's only one person who calls me that early - Buffy - but she's in the Pacific Time Zone now, two hours earlier than here, so I figured it couldn't be her. For an instant I was afraid that it was my mom calling to tell me someone was dead.

It wasn't. It was Dummy.

He was calling to let me know, in his goofy roundabout tongue-tied way (I kinda think he's hot for me, to tell y'all the truth) that his boss needed him to take the work van in to be fixed, and since he'd be up in that part of anyway, I didn't need to take him to the airport today.

Ummm, ok...

Apparently I had agreed to take Dummy to the airport today before Buffy left. I have a vague memory of this conversation taking place on the day that I picked her up from the hospital, but it was more like a "if I get this job that I applied for, Dummy might need a ride to the airport in a couple of weeks, would that be ok?" to which I probably said "sure, absolutely, no problem".

I hadn't heard one more word about it, apart from her telling me she'd taken the job. If she's considering THAT as my confirmation, that's fuckin shitty.

I concealed my total shock, and lemme say it's a damn good thing he was calling to tell me he didn't need me and not calling me and asking me where the hell I was, because there was no possible way I could do it. I had to take all three Apes with me to Beeb's dermatologist appointment.

It's quite a task to keep the boys in line while holding Beeb's hand as she gets stuck in the back of her neck with a six-inch needle and they scrape her mole with a razor. Tough to be a hard ass when you're about to pass out.

AAAAAAANYWAY, I didn't have to take Dummy to the airport, but he did mention that he *might* need a ride home on July 1st, I think. I think. I really wasn't listening.

Apparently, I also must not have been listening when Buffy mentioned she was passing my phone number on to a friend of hers who has to do a bunch of "demos" as a part of her summer job.

My home phone rang, and caller ID showed a name I didn't recognize. Ok, I shouldn't have answered, and had it said "Buffy's Phone" I wouldn't have. But the woman said, "Hi Sarah!"

Hello...

"You and I haven't met, but I'm a friend of Buffy's..."

OH, FUCK.

"She probably told you I'd be calling..."

Um, nooo...

She proceeded to explain that she gets paid just for doing the demo (didn't tell me what it was), and there's no pressure to buy anything but is daytime or evening better for me?

MOTHERFUCKERFUCKINGFUCK.

So I told the woman I have exactly eleven dollars on which five people have to live for the next six days, but if she was cool with the fact that there was absolutely no fucking way I was going to buy anything she was selling, then whatever.

She's coming over tomorrow at 1.

Oh, and before you call me a pussy for not saying no, as soon as I hung up the phone with Total Stranger Friend of Buffy's, I sent Buffy the following text:

Do I remember the part where you signed me up for someone to come over and do some sort of demo in my house?

See? I'm much bolder in writing. Y'all know if she calls me, I'll revert back to pussitude.

Sometimes it takes a while, but eventually I stop missing the douchebags I don't talk to anymore.

Richard Simmons Unfiltered. I'm totally fuckin serious.

2009-06-24T11:27:00.005-05:00

This was on Cary's Blog and it simply must be shared.

I know that normal people would probably be frightened of the words Richard Simmons being followed by the initials NSFW.

But I also know that you're not normal people.
And that's why I love you. Enjoy.

I'm Kinda Sad.

2009-06-22T17:55:00.010-05:00

Buffy is gone.

No, she's not dead, she's just gone back to From Whence She Came. And I'm a little sad.

It was really kinda whirlwind how it all went down. I knew she was miserable in her job. Her boss still owes her hundreds of dollars in commissions. I knew she was torn between looking for another job and quitting work altogether to stay home with Perfect Baby.

Oh, before I continue, I forgot to update you all on the Beeb and Princeton Situation. Remember Skip and Jughead who "asked out" Beeb and her friend Elle, respectively? Remember how Jughead dumped Elle via text message, his reason being that she was "TOO OBSESSIVE"?? Well, get this -

Skip dumped Beeb via email a couple of days before the end of school, his reason being...

(are you ready for this??)

SHE WASN'T OBSESSIVE ENOUGH.

I'll give you a minute to wipe off whatever you just spewed onto your monitor.

So, naturally, Beeb didn't want to hear the I Told You That Kid Was A Douchebag lecture that I was totally prepared to give, so she didn't tell me Skip broke up with her. Pie told me. And I told Beeb that not only was it one of those rare times when I don't relish being right, but also that I was truly sorry that she felt like she couldn't tell me about it. Which is understandable - I am a bit of an I Told You So gloater.

I did point out to her that Skip's breaking up with her out of nowhere was extremely shitty - and that it was EXACTLY what she had done to Princeton. She got it.

Meanwhile, she and Princeton never stopped talking and texting even while Beeb was "going out with" Skip, so between the two of them, really, nothing changed other than The Official Title Of Girlfriend. Still, I found out later from Buffy that Beeb had, completely on her own, sent Princeton a contrite, heartfelt text, telling him very humbly that she knew she was a total jerk and he didn't deserve to be treated that way, and she wanted to go back to being boyfriend and girlfriend but if he didn't want to she would understand. It was written more sweetly than that, I'm paraphrasing, but that's the basic sentiment of it.

And Princeton took her sorry ass back.

I told her she was Fuckin Lucky, because most guys would SO not put up with the "I'm just gonna see if this guy's a better boyfriend than you, and if he's not, I'll be back" bullshit she pulled on Princeton. And it turned out to be a good thing that they were able to part on really good terms, because the parting really sucked.

I took the two of them to see Land Of The Lost on Thursday night (Buffy's idea for the two of them to have a "date", and yet I somehow ended up both driving AND paying, but whatever), took them out to lunch at Steak N' Shake (the boy had lived here almost two years and never eaten there) and then swimming all day on Friday, and took Beeb out to watch Princeton's last baseball game in the BLISTERING heat for two and a half hours on Saturday (he went 0-3, called out on strikes twice - but made a spectacular diving catch).

And get this shit - when Beeb and I got to the game and texted Buffy to find out where she was sitting, she texted back informing me that she "can't take the heat", and she was actually out getting her hair cut. She then asked if I could bring Princeton home afterwards. Classic Buffy.

On Sunday morning (Father's Day, mind you) she texted me to see if I was going to come over to say goodbye. I didn't answer until after I was pretty sure she'd already left. I don't like goodbyes, and I didn't want it to be awkward between Beeb and Princeton since I don't think he's ever even hugged her before.

Actually, Princeton was going to go away to some camp in Canada for most of the summer, so Beeb had already kinda gotten used to the idea of him being gone, but this is more permanent. Of course, the whole thing seems kinda hare-brained and only half thought out in the first place.

Here's the chronology as best I understand it - Buffy had been looking for work and a friend of hers in From Whence She Came said she should come back to From Whence She Came and told Buffy about a job he was looking to fill. Buffy demanded specifics, indicating exactly what it would take to get her to pack up and move back, after less than two years in St. Louis.

By the way, in case you were wondering, the reason they moved here initially was to Princeton could go to a particular religion-based (which I am respectfully keeping private) prep school, which she pulled him out of after less than a year for reasons that kinda sounded to me like the other parents didn't really get her parenting style. I've told y'all she's a rare breed, but I respect her. Whatever she did to get a kid as cool as Princeton worked, as far as I'm concerned.

Ok, so she told the person what would make it worth her while to leave here, and didn't hear back for a little over a week. Then she got that hideous Strep thing that required me to shuttle her around for five days, and then about a day or two after that ordeal she called to tell me that she was having her tonsils taken out. AND that she took that job offer and they were moving back From Whence. In, like, two weeks.

She, Princeton and Perfect Baby took off on Sunday, and left Dummy here to pack up and sell the house.

She's got plenty of family and friends up there, so she'll be ok. She's got a one-bedroom apartment in what she herself described to me as "a semi-shitty area of town (but it's ok because I know way around)" and set Perfect Baby up with daycare, and she starts work today, I think. Buffy's mom (who came down to help out after Buffy's tonsilectomy so I was off the hook) is hanging out with Princeton until he leaves for camp.

Maybe I'm boring or way too cautious or I lack that whimsical, blissful free-spiritedness that some lucky people have, but Jesus knows I would NEVER make a huge whole-family-affecting decision like that in two weeks. In her mind, it all came together in a way that made her feel like it was meant to be. The way my brain works, when shit comes together THAT quickly, it's NEVER a good thing.

I'm surprised at how affected I've been by Buffy's sudden departure. As much as I complained about Buffy, as much as she drove me absolutely fucking batshit crazy, she is who she is, and I will miss her. She made for some great blogfodder, right?

And even though she made me feel like a fucking doormat because I never told her no, she also made me feel like the kind of dependable friend everyone needs, and I loved that feeling. I don't fault her for never really having an opportunity to reciprocate for all of those times I helped her out.

I'll miss Princeton too, both for Beeb's sake and for my own reasons. Princeton offered me a sense of security. I never worried about Beeb when the two of them were together. Then there's the whole element of Beeb's inevitable Abandonment Issues. The two friends who have had the most overwhelmingly positive influence on her life both only stayed a year. The Jack thing was different, obviously, but still, I'm concerned about that being a problem for her later in life.

It's nice of me to make my kids' future therapists' jobs easier by identifying their potential emotionally-crippling neuroses as early as possible, isn't it?

I love it when this. . .

2009-06-11T17:25:00.001-05:00

becomes THIS -

I'm tellin' ya - my life is one Rock Band name after another.

So that I might meet minimum standards. . .

2009-06-08T11:03:00.004-05:00

and still technically qualify as a Knitting Blogger:

There. I made something.

It's the Umbilical Cord Hat from Stitch N' Bitch.
Debbie Bliss Cashmerino.

(Model: Manook Manookawooka Von Mischief)

It's Horrible. And Yet, I Can't Look Away.

2009-06-06T19:39:00.012-05:00

I'm just gonna go ahead and out myself as a Jonas Brothers fan. Kevin is actually my favorite Jonas (sideburns are wicked sexy), but Joe's pretty hot for a dude in a unitard.

That said, this video is the most whacked out shit I've seen in ages. And can I just add that this song has been on a nonstop loop in my head for the last four days?

I can not even wait for the new album. The Apes think I'm cool because I've promised to get it on the 15th at midnight. And anyone who knows me knows I'm rarely up past 10. Such is my dedication to Kevin, Joe, Nick, Beebie, Pie and Tito.

DON'T STOP BELIEVIN' !!!

2009-06-04T08:14:00.016-05:00

Ok, my phone only lets me record 42 seconds at a time (MOST inconvenient), so you're getting this video in three parts. I couldn't choose a favorite.

Here are Tito, Pie and Beebie rockin out in our basement.

I particularly love the pelvic thrust action. And don't be hatin' on my baby for not knowing the word "Boulevard". Homeboy just finished Kindergarten.

Pie starts to get cranky toward the end of this last part.

R thinks I should teach him some Joe Cocker songs next.

FOUND!!

2009-05-29T13:03:00.001-05:00

Beeb's purse was in the gym, with everything in it!

Now that my faith in humanity has been restored, I can restore service to the phone. I am so incredibly relieved.

And I brought Buffy home from the hospital this morning. She told me she's getting her tonsils out in the next few weeks.

Translation: You'll be serving me again very soon.

I wasn't going to write about Tuesday.

2009-05-28T07:40:00.016-05:00

But now I kinda have to. And I have to write about Wednesday. And today.

Tuesday morning at about 11, I got a call from Buffy. From the way her voice sounded, my immediate thought was that someone was dead. I wish I could recreate in writing what it sounded like, but the closest I can come is that it reminded me of when Linda Blair says "Your mother sucks cocks in Hell" in the Exorcist, only she was whispering.

Basically, she was sick, she needed to get to a doctor, her husband was working, and she couldn't drive herself. I said I'd go pick her up as soon as Tito got picked up for school. So I packed my knitting (thank GOD I had the presence of mind to do that) showed up at her house at about 1. And when she answered the door, she looked like she'd been sucking cocks in Hell for about two days. She was clearly very, very sick.

She didn't have an actual appointment, but she had called her doctor's office and they were going to try to "work her in" at around 2. We got there at about 1:20 and they put us in a room right away. But I knew better than to be encouraged by that.

Buffy told me she'd gone to an Urgent Care in Springfield the day before, where they told her she had Strep Throat and gave her antibiotics. She wasn't feeling better and her throat hurt so bad she couldn't eat or drink anything, so she was severely dehydrated.

You may remember that Strep and I have a bit of a history. I asked her if she'd had Gatorade or Propel, which is my standard treatment for the Strep I've dealt with six times in the last year or so. She hadn't. I went to the hospital snack bar and brought her back two bottles of Gatorade. I'm nice.

She asked me to see if I could find her a blanket. The nurse asked if I was Buffy's girlfriend. Um, no, just tryin to help a sister out. Got a fuckin blanket, Anita Bryant?

The doctor came in at about 2:30, wrote her two prescriptions and said to take her to Intubation in the other hospital building where they'd give her fluids for two hours. That was fine, I called to let Beeb know where I was, no big deal. I got her to the Intubation place (which smelled like salsa and B.O.), and sat there while they got her hooked up. Needles and IV's totally ick me out.

She asked if I would mind running down to the hospital pharmacy and getting her prescription filled. Sure, I said. Better than sitting here.

So I walked back to the other building and waited while I got only one of the two prescriptions filled. They told me they didn't have the other one. Um, isn't this a HOSPITAL??

I figured maybe they just had a run on whatever the fuck it was, so I'd just offer to go somewhere else to get it. When I got back and handed her both the bottle of pills that they gave me and the paper for they said they couldn't fill, and she said -

Oh, that's the MORPHINE. That's the one I reeeeeeeally neeeeeeeeded...

Morphine. Cuz she's allergic to both Vicodin and Percoset.

So I figured my choices were stay there and listen to her moan, or try to get my hands on some Morphine. Instantly the immortal words of NWA ran through my mind - "You know who the fuck I am? This bitch is tryin to gank me. Imma slap ya upside the head wit nine inchesa limp dick!!" It's from DOPEMAN, if you're not familiar.

I went to the closest 24-hour Walgreens, armed with Buffy's credit card, her ID, and her insurance card. I don't know how tough it is to score Morphine for yourself, but imagine trying to get it for someone who isn't you when you can't answer the questions the pharmacist is asking.

Ma'am, do you know what this is for?

Um, no, not really. It's for my friend who's at the hospital.

Why didn't the doctor just give it to her there?

No, no, she hasn't been admitted or anything, she's in for Strep and she's really dehydrated, and she's in immense pain, and she can't take Percoset or Vicodin and they've got her hooked up to IV fluids and whatnot...

Are you aware that this is a VERY. UNUSUAL. CONCENTRATION?

I'm not aware of anything, dude, I'm just trying to be a nice person, and the hospital pharmacy didn't have it, so that's why I'm here.

Well, we don't have it either.

Look... is there ANY way you could call the doctor's office to see if there's any alternative that you DO have that would work? Cuz there is NO WAY I'm going back there without her pain meds.

There I was, on the verge of tears, and it wasn't even my drama. Long story short, they eventually called the doctor and got something so I didn't have to return to Buffy empty-handed. I texted Buffy to see if she wanted me to bring her food, hoping she'd say Shit yeah, I'm starving, and get something for yourself too... but she didn't want anything.

I got back to the hospital at around 5. Buffy wasn't done yet. I knew that Perfect Baby needs to be picked up from the day care by 6. Good thing we'd brought the car seat, just in case.

I gave Buffy the meds, and she asked if I could get her some juice because liquid Morphine tastes really bad. The nurse asked me if I was Buffy's girlfriend.

We got out of there at 5:30 and headed to get Perfect Baby. Buffy had called to tell them I was coming, so picking her up was no problem. I dropped Buffy off at 6:30, and told her, "Hey, just give me a call if you need anything", hoping it came across in the kind of way like when you're saying goodbye to someone you don't give two shits about and you're just trying to be polite.

At about 7:15 Wednesday morning, before I was even out of bed, Beebie sent me a text message from her phone asking me to bring her yearbook up to the school for Yearbook Signing. She didn't tell me where it was, so the actual request was Mom, could you spend an hour turning the house upside down, then bring me my yearbook.

I also had to locate a bunch of little trinkets and Happy Meal prize-type stuff for Tito to take for his class' Garage Sale. We were supposed to bring them to school priced, in 10-cent increments.

While I was in the process of turning the house upside down, I found Pie's overdue/assumed lost library book that I'd paid $13 for the day before.

I got Tito's stuff done, emailed the librarian and dropped the book off at the school(and got my check back), and dropped off Beeb's yearbook. Then after Tito got on the school bus, I was about to eat leftover spaghetti - oh, yeah, when I got home after spending 6 hours as Buffy's Bitch, I still managed to make spaghetti for dinner - and then I remembered that Rip was moving into his new house that day, so I thought I'd take some spaghetti over and we could eat lunch together.

The movers had broken Rip's microwave. So there went that idea.

So I'm helping him get his stuff unpacked and moved around, and while I was cleaning his refrigerator and telling him about the 6-hour Buffy ordeal, my phone rang.

Have I told you what her ringtone is? It's Queen, UNDER PRESSURE. Appropriate?

She needed to get to the hospital for a CT scan.

Now?

Anytime before they close at 5. (It was 3.)

Ok...

Oh, and I'd also need to you pick up Perfect Baby.

Well, I've got dinner plans tonight so what would be easiest for me would be to come get you now, drop you off, go and get Perfect Baby and drop her off with Princeton...

Oooooh, I was kinda hoping you could get her as close to 6 as possible, because Dummy's working and Princeton would have to take care of her all by himself, and I don't want to put too much on Princeton.

(And yet, she has no issue with fucking up MY day.)

What would make the most sense to me would be for me to (drop everything and) come get you now...

(sigh) Ok, yeah, I guess that'll be fine.

So that's exactly what I did. I immediately left Rip's house. I went and got Buffy and PB's car seat, and took her to the hospital. On our walk through the parking lot, Buffy suddenly stopped walking and started to cry:

Sarah, I just need to have a breakdown... I am in SO MUCH PAIN... And I still have to be strong and be The Mom because Dummy has no clue how to run the house... And I just can't do it. I can't.

I really wanted to say Oh really? What's that like??? Cuz right now I'm neglecting my kids and I'm fucking sick of taking care of you and everyone else and I haven't had time to eat or even PEE today and I'm kinda wishing I could have a breakdown too, but I'm being strong so YOU can have YOURS. You need to lighten the fuck up on your standards at home, is what you really need to do...

But I didn't. I hugged her. I think I was secretly hoping I'd catch Strep so I could make her MY bitch next week.

I dropped her off, took PB to Princeton, remembered we needed milk and I hadn't had a chance to the grocery store, and called Beebie. I told her that if she got her brothers ready, I'd come home and pick them up and take them to get Cheapie Sodas at Mobil On The Run because the Cardinals scored 8 the night before. Then I was going to fix the kids dinner and get them bathed and jammie-fied before I left for the evening.

We were at Shoplift N' Save when I heard PRESH-AH!! PUSHIN DOWN ON ME... Fuckin fanTASTic.

Hello?

Hi. I got done sooner than I thought and Dummy's at work for a few more hours, is there any way...

Buffy, I'm at the grocery store with the kids right now, and I need to get them home and feed them and head to the city for dinner.

And then I felt like a dick, so I added, If you can't find anyone else, then I'll try to work something out, but I've really kinda got stuff goin on...

Ok, I'll see if the neighbor can come get me...

This would be the neighbor whom she talked to before we left to make sure she'd be home when I drop PB off with Princeton. So she's using her backup, leaving her with no backup if there was something Princeton needed.

I felt like an absolute asshole for leaving her in a bind like that, but fuck, I was looking forward to going to the Iron Barley with Kev. I didn't hear back from her. And I didn't call her to make sure she had a ride.

And the Iron Barley was closed when Kev and I got there. I was so pissed. But Kev's really cool about just letting me just unload emotionally when I need to, and I went home feeling much better. Ambiguity intended.

So this morning at about 9, my mom called. I told her of the last two days of being at Buffy's beck and call. And I know I'm a douche for complaining about it. I should re-emphasize the fact that Buffy is really seriously very sick, and that she and Dummy have no family in town, and that her husband is technically unemployed and so he works odd jobs whenever he can get them and he needs to be at work, especially if Buffy's not at work. And she tells me how much she appreciates me.

Still, taking care of her for two days had taken a physical and emotional toll on me. It wasn't like I had missed a manicure appointment or something for myself; I could have dealt with that. I was putting off household things that I don't relish doing. The everyday things I needed to do - like laundry, dishes, and vacuuming, for example - weren't getting done.

And at that point, my family was becoming affected. Plus I had burned through more than half a tank of gas shuttling her and PB about. I was starting to get bitter.

And literally five minutes after I got off the phone with my mom,

PRESH-AH!!! PUSHIN DOWN ON ME... FUCK.

Hey, how are you doing?

Oh, hey, Sarah, it's Dummy. They kept Buffy overnight and now they're saying she can go home, but the only thing is that I have a job I need to get to...

Ok, I can come get her, no problem. What time?

Well, that's the thing... she's waiting to see an ENT so it might be a little bit.

That's fine, just have her call me when she's ready to go.

Thank you!

Not a problem.

I had a couple of errands to run, so I took a shower, got dressed and went to Trader Joe's. While I was in the parking lot,

PRESH-AH!!

Hello?

Well, it seems they're NOT letting me go after all. I haven't seen the ENT yet and he's the one who's going to make the determination whether I need to stay another day or not. So I have no idea...

Ok, just let me know. Once Tito gets on the bus, I can be there.

(sigh) Thank you so much, Sarah.

It's fine, I'll talk to you later.

I got home, got Tito on the bus, and fell asleep for two hours. I woke up when Beebie got home from her last day of school, crying and blotchy. She had left her purse in the gym and someone had taken it. She reported it right away, and at the end of the day, no one had turned it in. Her cell phone was in it. She was really upset.

I wasn't mad at her, but mad at the jackass kid who would take another kid's purse with a cell phone in it and not do the right thing and turn it in - and even more mad at the loser parent who doesn't teach their kid not to take something that isn't theirs. I can't imagine a parent seeing their kid with a phone that they knew they didn't have the day before and not asking them where the fuck they got it. But I called AT&T and got it shut off immediately, so it'll be useless, and so now whoever took it will probably just throw it away.

She's learned the very important Don't Let Your Purse Out Of Your Sight lesson, the hard way. The phone can be replaced, obviously, but what makes me sad is that it has pictures on it that she's taken of her brothers and her friends, which wouldn't mean anything to anybody else. The phone would be useless anyway, so at that point, why wouldn't whoever had it just turn it in?

I hate it when I am reminded that not everyone in the world is nice. That doing the right thing in a given situation isn't as important to everyone else as it is to me and the people I know.

PRESH-AH!!

Goddammit, NOT NOW.

Hello?

Hey... I'm gonna be here for a while and I'm going crazy, so I was wondering if (laughs) you felt like coming up and keeping me company?

Actually, Buffy, Beeb just got home and told me her purse and cell phone got stolen at school today.

(gasp) You're KIDDING!! Did they shut down and lock the doors and look for it?

Um, no...

Well, I would have demanded that!

She filled out a report and I talked to the assistant principal, and there wasn't any money in it or anything, just her phone and her umbrella, so really it's... I'm just kinda upset...

Oh, of course you are! I was just going to see if you could pick up Perfect Baby and keep her for a little while until Dummy gets done...

I need to call and get the phone shut off and everything, and Beeb's really a mess, but if there's no one else who can, then let me know.

And as of this moment, I haven't heard back. But the last two times I've told the story, within minutes I'm under PRESH-AH!!! So I'm kinda taking a risk by telling y'all about where I've been for the last few days, but I do it because I love you bitches.

And you've seen what I'm willing to do for people I don't even really like a whole lot.

It's Almost Fun To Clean My House. Almost.

2009-05-27T08:43:00.003-05:00

I never know what I'll find when I start picking up papers from the dining room table (which is more often used as the Art Studio).

It appears the boys were hammering out the rules of combat.

I'm impressed that they want to beat the crap out of each other in a way that's reasonably fair. No attacking each other in the toe, stomach, or bladder.

Because someone probably realized that there's nothing more humiliating than pissing yourself during a sword duel.

Here's why I haven't written.

2009-05-21T08:42:00.012-05:00

This probably won't be a funny post. Oh, who am I kidding? It might be a little funny - I can't help it. But if you read me primarily to laugh, you won't hurt my feelings if you click away now. I'll try to have a funny one next time.

Some of y'all have beheld my brilliance since the time when all I wrote about was my sucktastic knitting, long before I gave myself permission to let the F-bombs fall where they may. If you've been with me since before this blog was funny, then may the God you believe in bless you.

Over the last few years, you've been here for potty training, my boys starting kindergarten and my girl starting junior high, phone harrassment, Lubaba, Swamp Thing... and I've truly felt your presence in my life during the good and the bad.

You've kinda watched my kiddos grow up on my blog, and so have I. You've watched me grow as a parent too. And sometimes when I read back over past entries and the encouraging comments you've left, I choke up. From my heart, a sincere thank you.

Anyway, I've been dealing with the full spectrum of parenting this past week.

Being the mother of a junior-high girl is, as yet, the greatest challenge I've ever encountered in my life. I recently found out - from Buffy, no less - that Beebie had broken up with Princeton. Or rather, that she had gotten one of her friends to do it for her. Ugh. Classy move, Beeb.

Now, granted, Beeb and Princeton weren't ever really "Boyfriend and Girlfriend" in the traditional sense, which was why I was perfectly ok with it. They were really just best friends. And Princeton's a great kid. Always had her back.

Turns out, another little boy named Skip told Beebie he'd had a crush on her since last year. And Beeb decided to give Skip a chance, after Skip's friend Jughead (who was "dating" Beebie's friend Elle) convinced her that Princeton was a total loser and a shitty boyfriend, and that "Skip would do anything just to see [her] smile."

Smooth, right? But get this - Jughead convinced Beebie via her Facebook page. The one we told her she wasn't allowed to have, even if she didn't use her real name, even if she only added friends that she actually knows. The one she knew GOD DAMNED WELL was absolutely forbidden.

R and I were LIVID. We deleted her profile immediately and told her to give us all of her logins and passwords to all of her online activities - IM's and email addresses and whatnot. Then yesterday, after she swore up and down that she'd told us everything she'd been using, I caught her creating a brand new email account for herself. And I have no idea what to do about it. She wants us to like her new "boyfriend", but we've told her that if he thinks it's ok for her to do things that are against the rules in this family, we're not going to like him very much.

We've taken away her cell phone for two months (the amount of time equal to how long she's had a Facebook account she knew she wasn't allowed to have), and we've put a keystroke logger program on the computer she and her brothers use. But every time we take something away, she just gets sneakier, and I don't like where this path is leading. I'm scared. Truly scared.

Beeb asked me if she and Elle could meet Skip and Jughead at the park near our house. Actually, Beeb asked if she could go to Turtle Island with Jughead. I should mention that Jughead broke up with an 8th grader to "go out with" Elle, PLUS he told Elle that he loved her, just to give you a sense of the shenanigans I'm dealing with. And I'm also using the " " on any dating terminology as it applies to 11-year-olds because the whole concept of these kids using these words is just fucking ludicrous.

Anyway, Turtle Island. I agreed to take Beeb to the park for just the few minutes before I had to be at the next place I had to be. Then Beeb informed me that Elle needed a ride to get there. Yeah, thanks for treating me like everyone's taxi. So I drove 5 minutes to get Elle, 5 minutes back, and let the two of them meet up with their little boyfriends at the park to I could check the boys out.

I saw the little island-like peninsula (really more of an ithsmus, if I wanted to get technical) in the pond that the park's path circles around. Is that Turtle Island?, I asked a kid who was there with a mom I recognized from the boys' school.

No, he said, THAT's Turtle Island. He was pointing away from the pond, toward a wooded area at the bottom of the embankment.

Where?

THERE.

I squinted and saw that there's a worn path about six inches wide, which disappears into the trees. ANYTHING could happen back in there, and probably does. It's completely hidden from view. COMPLETELY.

And would you like to know what I said to my daughter?

I said, Beeb, YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND IF YOU THINK I'M GOING TO LET YOU GO TO TURTLE ISLAND. OUT. OF. YOUR. FUCKING. MIND.

Yes, friends, I used those exact words and I'm not the least bit sorry. I even told my own mother that those were the words I used.

Anybody else get the vibe that these little boys are bad news? We had the talk about how boys know that you can get a girl to do anything if you tell her you love her, but Beeb insists "Skip's not like that." They're all like that, honey.

Gonna be an interesting summer. Especially since I just found out that Jughead dumped Elle today via text message. Get this - he told her she was being "Obsessive". How does an 11-year-old even know what that means?

So that's one dimension of my parenting woes. The next is the fact that Pie is now the same age that Beebie's friend Jack was when we first met him. Jack, if you're a newer reader, was Beebie's best friend in Second Grade, and he died the following summer right before Beeb's birthday.

Jack's death broke my heart and Beeb's, and that is weighing on me really, really hard. I can't imagine life without Pie, and I imagine Jack was a lot like Pie when he was Pie's age. And both Pie and Jack were born with birth defects. It makes me want to save every single scrap of paper he scrawls something hilarious on, because if something happened to Pie, I'd wish I'd saved more examples of his creative genius to remind myself - and the world - of him.

And this has been a severe struggle for me recently. That's dimension two.

And the third dimension is this: Today was Tito's Kindergarten Graduation. It was precious.

Days like this are when I'm glad I have boys. A lot of the girls were all fancied up in dresses. Fuck that. I don't dress the boys up for shit. Other boy moms apparently feel the same way. None of the boys were dressed up.

I had completely forgotten that Lubaba's mom (in the lovely pink ensemble) was going to be there. I'd like to point out that I still have never seen Lubaba in person. I think that idiot woman made Lubaba up, so people would bring twice as many presents to her son's birthday party.

But I digress. I've been a stay-home-mom since I went on bed rest two months before Pie was born. Next year I'll have no one to keep me company in the mornings. Guess I need to start looking for a jobby-job. I really don't want to.

It's not just because I love hanging out in my jammies and knitting and playing video games all day. It's because there was one little girl in Tito's class whose Mommy couldn't come to the Graduation because she had to work. She didn't want anyone to see her, but she was curled up and weeping. And my heart ached for her.

What could the teacher say? That it's important for parents to go to work too, so we can have money to buy the things we need? Even as delicately as a grown-up could say it, all a kid knows is that something else is more important to my Mommy than I am. I used to work full-time, too, when I only had Beebie, and fortunately my boss was a Mom who recognized the importance of things like this in your child's life.

Then I got an asshole of a boss after that, who was a total douche about stuff like that because she only had cats. (Not a rip on cat people, just saying she didn't have her own kid so she kinda thought that cheesy kid-related stuff was stupid.) So there are some things of Beeb's that I regret having missed.

I'm glad that I've been able to be there for the boys, and I'm loathe to put myself in a spot where I might not be able to be anymore. Of course I fast-forward in my mind to Pie on a therapist's couch explaining how he doesn't know how to give or receive love because his mother missed his 1st grade play.

Incidentally, I forgot to post a pic of it cuz we were so freakin far away from the stage, so here ya go. Pie's in the red plaid, right in the middle.

It was called E-I-E-I-Oops, about the animals on Old McDonald's Farm getting their sounds screwed up.

I remember commenting to R, at the time, that it was like porn for the pedophile who dabbles in beastiality.

Anyway, I don't know if it was the right thing to do or not, but I told the little girl that I knew her Mommy was sad too, because it's really hard for Mommies and Daddies when they can't be there for their little girls. I know exactly what that's like.

So this week has been pretty tough on the Mommy side of PK.

A quick thank you -

2009-05-19T18:02:00.008-05:00

Remember Pie's questionnaire about birds and whatnot? I just wanted to thank everyone who filled it out for him. His class had their Environmental Fair fundraiser this past Friday night and they ended up raising over $2000 for the World Bird Sanctuary!

Oh, and I wanted to share the answer to this question:

Didja catch that?? 350 MILLION.

Eeeeeeeeeeeew!!

In Which Buffy Redeems Herself! Kinda.

2009-05-15T08:51:00.003-05:00

Look what Buffy brought over last night! Two $50 Visa gift cards!

Normally, I'm not a big fan of the Unannounced Drop-By (remember why?) but if you're bringing me money, stop by anytime!

Yesterday was my follow-up Mammodate with Rip, and I'm delighted to inform you that my boobs are just fine, thanks. Details later.