In Good Shape

Weird Stress Dreams

2012-01-26T18:48:00.000-05:00

Andrew just told me that I blog when I'm stressed. I've been gritting my teeth all day. My jaw hurts, but I'm pretty sure I could crush marbles.

I know I'm whacked out when I have weird dreams. Last night, I was a volunteer in an orphanage. I went from room to room and picked up babies. (Weirder still is that I do not like babies. OK, before you send me hate mail, some babies are OK, but they're gooey and smelly and they make funny noises. Yes, I had them, but that wasn't my favorite.) So there I was the baby-phobe manhandling babies. I kind of took a shine to a baby named Derek. Derek suddenly turned into a 3 year old with really broad shoulders and a head that looked like he could smash rocks. But I kind of liked Derek so I picked him up and of course Tim was standing there because anyone can appear at any time in any dream. I said "Hey, I want to adopt Derek." Before Tim could even start to scream, the smart card fell out of Derek and he broke into little lego sized pieced. Poof. Gone. Wow, I said to the orphanage people, I broke your baby. Incidentally, you might want to warn people that your babies are run off of microchips. Then I woke up.

Strange. Not as strange as the recurring elephant nightmare I used to have as a kid. I was in a large circus tent full of elephants that were multiplying at a rapid clip and I was running out of air. Poof, I'd wake up. I think I had that dream like 400 times and it still gives me the creeps. Hopefully Derek doesn't reappear since I smashed his smart card. Again, that was an accident. I'm not homicidal. Honest.

Crazy

2012-01-16T18:50:00.000-05:00

'Tis interesting that in all the few years that I've been slogging through this blog that I've never titled a blog, "Crazy." Considering that I feel crazy most of the time perhaps there's not generally a need to actually label the girl as actually "crazy." I prefer "sanity challenged."

The "management" continues to have issues with the "tenants" (read teenagers). For one, what gives with the locking yourself in the bathroom whenever there's a request to do something difficult like, get up out of the bed you've been ensconced in for 12 hours or to turn off the light in your room? I have keys to the bathroom so locking yourself in there does nothing but make me see those little stars in my peripheral vision (my own personal Leonid meteor shower).

However, the management did have one break- through with at least one tenant this week. I keep saying "You have to have a plan. Have a plan. Make up a plan. Strive for something- for so help me God and as God as my witness and we may be dealing with an angry Old Testament God- if you are living in my basement some day, I will just do something undesirable in your general direction."(I don't know what and I'm not commiting to what thing I might do because I shouldn't be using the energy to think about this.)

You know what? One of them came up with a plan. It's a plan that actually has some potential and it involves cash money and college tuition (not paid by me, although I'll happily pay) and a job and an occupation. Of course, I'm not holding the tenant, I mean kid, to this. But, it's a plan!

The other kid doesn't have a plan and no matter how many conversation hearts I speed eat while I type this, I cannot impose upon him a plan. I suppose he'll come up with something one of these days. I hope it involves cash money and maybe a Winnebago for me and Tim. That would be nice.

Back to the crazy, if I have to explain where the crazy fits into all this, then you don't know me at all. For the record, I feel very sane except for the stars.

The Nun and Some Kleenex

2012-01-09T19:15:00.000-05:00

I met with my very favorite nun again today despite the fact that the world was conspiring against me.

At 7:01 am I pushed the button to open the garage so A&P could catch the bus. Nothing happened. After pounding on the button, still nothing happened. Tim came to the rescue. Thank goodness we can pull the red hanging emergency rope to get out of the garage! It came off in his hand.

By this time, A&P were on the bus and me and Tim were standing in the garage in our robes trying to figure out how to get out-like rats in a one box maze. A few bolts removed here and there and we were free until I couldn't find my keys and I was further delayed. Do you ever wonder if the universe is delaying you so that you don't get wiped out by an asteroid or something while you're waiting at a stop light? No such thing fell in P-burg today, but it could have and I made it to work alive.

After all that, I made it to see the nun too. I asked her if God broke the door and hid my keys. She is so cool and calm. It's probably because she doesn't have children. Although, she does live with other nuns and apparently nuns can be kind of tough to live with. I may have her beat because I'm certain that nuns don't leave underwear in the middle of the bathroom floor for two weeks until the other nuns flip out and demand it be removed or there will be "sanctions" from the "management."

I'm also certain that A&P are funnier than those nuns. We've had a running commentary with A&P for the last week and a half about our trip to the post office to file our passport applications. Next to us at the counter was a lady mailing a very big box. Her parcel was packed into a giant box that had shipped Kleenex at one point in time. She answered appropriately when the postal service representative inquired as to the presence of explosives, liquids or other illegal substances. Good for her but it got Peter to thinking, why was she shipping all that Kleenex. We roared and laughed and pointed at him and made him feel small whilst we hooted. "Seriously," we scolded, "it's the shipping box!"

Indignant, Peter replied cooly, "How do you know that? Maybe she bought some Kleenex online from Amazon, doesn't like it and is returning it."

We chortled some more.

"You don't know that there isn't Kleenex in there! Maybe she has a relative with a cold."

I laughed so hard that I snorted. (I hate it when that happens. I think I did that at work today, but not in front of the nun.)

The Kleenex debate is renewed almost daily. Peter's still convinced the lady was shipping Kleenex, but maybe he's right. Regardless, we still whoop and wail it's so funny.

Nuns laugh, but I bet they don't snort. If the garage doesn't open tomorrow and my keys are misplaced, I'm not going to try so hard to leave. I'll curl up with some Kleenex and call it a day in case the asteroid is coming.

Good Enough

2011-12-20T18:26:00.000-05:00

There's a fine line between perfection and good enough. Or if you ask the nun I've been working with for the last few months (she's been helping me learn how to stop being insane and just "be." I'm not sure if it's working or not- OK, it's not), it's a big chasm between perfection and good enough.

(She's a delightful, very centered nun. Probably perfect although I would get in trouble for saying that.)

Perfection: Eye Liner, mascara, contoured eye shadow and $150 eye cream
Good Enough: Glasses. No one can see the bloodshot eyes because of the glare.

Perfection: Iced martini glass, frozen shaker, filtered water ice cubes with suspended raspberries, Dutch vodka and lemon liquor and sugar rimmed crystal glass.
Good Enough: Mid Shelf Vodka and a straw (note that even in the good enough category, it is UNACCEPTABLE to use the bottom shelf.)

Perfection: Even keeled response to all stressful professional situations. (No threats of homicide or bodily injury on myself or others either for affect or as a true threat to the general public.)
Good Enough: Feeling hateful and occasionally spitting.

Perfection: Dressed and fed children reading "War and Peace" on Christmas break while studying ahead for winter finals.
Good Enough: Out of bed before noon, dressed by 5pm, please A&P. And there are frozen waffles, knock yourselves out.

If I can only pound this into my thick, thick skull: good enough is all that anyone asks of you, me or that lady down the street with the perfect Christmas lights. The little voice in the back of my head is really bothered by the laundry in the bathroom and the fruit flies and the cat hair and the dust on the floor in the hall. Said another way, if God wanted things to be perfect I'm certain we wouldn't be celebrating a stable and some stinky shepherds with their equally foul sheep with the accompanying excrement. Or those wise men? Really, Frankincense, aren't those stinky bath salts that the kid can smoke to get high? A savings bond would be way more appropriate.

Lastly, even without the perfect combo of 5 fruits and vegetables per day, my monster children are 6 foot 3 at age 14. God obviously allows for some wiggle room on the requirements.

I declare this post, good enough. If I say it 100 times, maybe I'll believe it.

Retooling

2011-12-15T20:07:00.000-05:00

Here's what's going on my head.

Should I blog? Nah, it's too much work. Easier to drink at night and then fall asleep drooling on the pillow.

Wait, someone might think I have a problem. (Define, problem? I'm above ground, how bad can it be?)

I can't blog about nearly 15 year old boys because that's embarrassing. Somehow, along the line, I became embarrassing. This probably occurred around the time I dropped some kids off at school in my Christmas pajamas and it was May and sunny at 7:30 in the morning and everyone could see that my jammies had Christmas ornaments on them.

It's been an interesting few months. I won't bore you but suffice it to say we're all still kicking. This reminds me, speaking of kicking, hold one moment, while I scream the following (it's like in real time!)

Me: PETER! ARE YOU PLANNING ON DOING ANYTHING WITH YOUR LAUNDRY?

Peter: Ya, when this show is over.

Me: THAT'S STUPID. JUST GO PUT YOUR CLOTHES IN THE DRYER.

Peter: 5 minutes.

Honestly. Turn off the lights. Pick up the shoes. Push in the chair. Don't smoke dope. Use your napkin. Stay away from whores. It's really rather simple.

I thought if I turned to God that maybe I'd have a better chance of raising the urchins or at least keeping one of them out of prison. I'm pretty sure you have to push the chairs in at prison. I'm pretty sure that God doesn't think I've got this under control.

At dinner tonight:

Me: PLEASE DON'T USE DOPE. I read some article about high school students and reefer and I'm totally freaked out.

Kid: I don't use marijuana, Mom.

Me: Well then stop watching that reefer madness show and telling me how much money you could make if you moved to California and opened your own dope pharmacy.

Kid: It's just a show.

Me: I'm turning off the cable. Don't do stupid stuff.

Kid: Like in college when you hid in the bushes so you didn't get arrested? Dumb like that Mom?

So, to blog or not to blog. What comes out of my head and onto the fingertips may be a problem.

Sex

2011-05-27T17:48:00.000-04:00

I knew that would get your attention. And this post really is about sex, or not having any.

So when you're 14 and on your way to High School in the fall, there's stuff that needs to be discussed. Some people don't like to discuss it and I am sitting in a house of 4 people that would rather debate the efficacy of mold retardants than talk about sex.

After confirmation, the church decided it was really important to beat the confirmands senseless with what they should and should definitely not be doing in high school, or anywhere while in high school. In our case, knocking up young ladies. There were two sessions about keeping yourself pure and A&P were hauled to both of them.

I tried in vain to get information about what was presented. I got nothing. I was getting most of my information from a friend whose son told her everything. Feeling jealous and let down, I figured I was being frozen out of the purity information. But I thought I'd try anyway.

Wednesday at dinner I said to them "Just tell me one thing that you learned at church." Peter replied, "one in four people has an STD." Hey, that's pleasant. I kept myself together and asked "What do you do to keep from getting an STD?" Loaded question, not sure where this is going to go.... Andrew says emphatically, "KEEP YOUR PANTS ON!" Oh good. That's great advice. Every time you leave the house for the rest of your life, I will implore you to KEEP YOUR PANTS ON. They learned something!

Later when downloading with Tim, he confessed that Peter had shared in the car on the way home that one in four people has an STD. This is how this conversation went.

P: One in 4 people has an STD
T: Well, I don't have an STD... so I'm pretty sure neither of you has an STD.... and there are 4 people in our family... who does that leave?

Nice, thanks.

An Open Letter to the Reptiles in my Yard

2011-04-23T18:17:00.000-04:00

Dear Mr Toad,

I know you have a place in the food chain. You probably eat bugs or something. But can I offer you a bit of advice?

When you see a giant hand coming at you in the bush, could you hop aside? Is that too much for a girl to ask? I already have a "Prince" so I'm not going to be kissing you and there's no need to sit still. I also don't have any desire to touch you and I'm pretty sure you have salmonella.

By the way, when you don't move and I see you and nearly touch you while schlepping oak leaves out of the boxwood bush, I scream. This scream echoes all over the neighborhood and everyone things I'm a goofy drunk because two feet behind me is an empty martini glass.

If at all possible, it would be appreciated if you could spread the word to your reptilian friends- snakes and the like. Oh, and the lizards (snakes with legs) could you tell them too? You're all creepy and too closely camouflaged to all of the leaves and dirt and I can't hardly stand the thought of touching you or seeing you creep away like I didn't almost see you or touch you. Can we just be honest? If I wanted to eat you, you were right there. (I have the willies.)

Lastly, I'm prejudiced against reptiles in general but I have a high degree of tolerance for leaf peepers. I don't ever see them but they hang out in the Black Swamp vestige behind our house and I love to fall asleep while they're singing. But, Mr Toad, you might take note that they stay far away and I have never screamed at them.

Thanks for your consideration.

The Idiot in the House

And Now Something Interesting

2011-04-17T19:49:00.000-04:00

A&P were camping and backpacking this weekend in the rain and gale. It's all good and it builds some character- just like when I had to walk to school past the creepy houses when I was 4. This is why I am so twitchy.

Back to A&P, I was concerned that they might get wet so $300 and a trip to Bass Pro later, I felt a little better. Although everything is waterproof, I still had to have the can of waterproofing spray. It felt like insurance.

Long story short, I never had time to do anything with the waterproofing spray so off they went with the manufacturer's statement that they were waterproof. The spray languished on the counter. After A&P left, I said to myself, "I should really put that away in the cabinet." But then I got distracted by some Mexican food and a carload of girlfriends. Nevermind.

A&P arrived home today no worse for the wear until Peter tried to wipe me off the planet. (Let's take a moment and recall that Peter is the clown type offspring who turned my dryer into abstract art. He's been on my list.) I walked into the kitchen, minding my own business, not hollering at anyone or even being annoyed despite having just put in a load of rain and topsoil, soggy laundry. Oh no, who cares about that, it builds character.

When what to my wondering eyes appear, but Peter precariously holding a 12 ounce can of waterproofer. Before I could even draw a breath to swear at myself for neglecting to put it away, he dropped it on the floor where the lid and the white push cap popped off and flew across the kitchen along with a 4 foot stream of high pressure waterproofing silicone spray. With catlike reflexes I lunged for the can thinking I could turn it upside down in the drain of the sink before it turned my kitchen into a glazed toxic waste dump. I grabbed the can and spun around to leap to the sink only to lose contact with the now waterproofed kitchen floor. I went flying and then THUD. Or maybe it was KA-THWACK. Or ARE YOU KIDDING ME, NOW IS WHEN I SELL YOU TO GYPSIES IF THEY'LL EVEN TAKE YOU.

I managed to crawl off my floor which was now a giant skating rink and dump the can upside down in the garbage disposal. Peter says "Hey, sorry about that." Ya, speak up, and me too because I won't be able to move for the next three days.

On the upside, the kitchen sink is wicking water rather nicely.

Head in the Dryer

2011-03-27T15:36:00.000-04:00

Thanks to my Number 2 son, the inside of my high efficiency dryer is purple.

My husband walked in the the laundry room to remove a load of clothes for Peter to fold when suddenly there was screaming. "Oh my Gosh, this is awful!" and "Oh, come quick!"

I thought the laundry room was on fire.

Alas, there were no flames or billows of noxious gas. But the inside of the dryer looked like a monochromatic Jackson Pollock experiment.

"Did you check the pockets?" I hollered.

Indignantly and probably correctly my husband responded "No! I told him too!"

"Since when is a 14 year old trustworthy with any large appliance?" This is the kid who turned chicken nuggets into charcoal by microwaving them for 22 minutes.

After the yelling and accusatory statements, it fell to me to figure out how to keep the laundry from turning blue or purple for the rest of our lives. I briefly thought about buying a new dryer, but then I remembered an old Heloise trick for removing ball point pen with hairspray. So with my head in the dryer and a 14 year old cloth diaper turned rag, I began spraying the inside of the dryer with hairspray. The fumes were off the hook. I think I saw Jesus in the back of the dryer. Miraculously, whether Jesus was there or not, the ink dripped down in long blue and purple lines. It came off, mostly. We decided the next step was to sacrifice a load of kid laundry before we dared wash a load of white shirts. So far, so good.

I read a short story once about a lady in England who became so depressed that she turned on the gas and stuck her head in her oven. I wasn't depressed, but angry, and it wasn't a gas oven but an electric dryer filled with an entire can of aerosol hair glue.

If anyone asks, it's art.

Easy Ways to be Sick & Tired

2011-03-18T18:41:00.000-04:00

I was laying around today catching up on some stuff that I apparently didn't read back in February. I don't even remember what I was doing back on February 7th but it obviously wasn't reading the New York Times Magazine. Lucky for me it was buried under a pile of other junk, including but not limited to a Family Circle magazine that I don't remember buying. As soon as I saw the Family Circle I realized why I bought it. "Easy ways to lose 10 pounds fast." What a crock of cat litter. It was a bunch of stuff like "don't eat the leftover fries that your kids leave behind" and "stop swilling wine like a drunken sailor." Really, Family Circle, you can do better.

Back to the NYT, there was an article about a blogger that reminded me that I haven't been here in like a million years and some people must think I'm dead. I didn't enter a deep dark depression after the Squirrel died, but that really did suck. We cried for days. Stupid $20 guinea pig. I still blame the cat.

Back to the NYT again, so the article about the blogger made me want to sort out why I haven't been here in almost 5 months, or is it 6, and what I plan to do about that. Sometimes this thing feels like a rock around my neck. I have nothing to say, or I'm too tired to say it. Or, I can't say it because calling people names could make some people mad. I like the idea that if I wouldn't say it to your face, I probably shouldn't say it here. Since last fall, there's been a lot of stuff I didn't want to say here, there or anywhere. (This makes a girl's head really noisy.)

So I kind of gave up on the blog thing for awhile because as my mom says if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Just easier not to speak. I even kind of gave up on Facebook other than posting weird things like "I'm sorry I cannot hear you, I have a banana in my ear" entirely in Latin. I get a charge out of the people that can translate it.

Before I knew it was Christmas and I was tired. Really darned tired. Not only was I trying hard not to say inappropriate things in an online format that could haunt me forever, but I was really super tired. I even took naps. Lots of naps. Turns out there was a reason for the tiredness which leads me back up to why I still have reading material laying around from early February. I don't remember much of early February. I do remember that A&P turned 14, but I felt so lousy I'm not sure I really noticed. Then glory be, someone suggested a blood transfusion and wow, that was a good idea.

How do you talk about a blood transfusion in a blog? You don't want to freak people out. What if some readers are objectors to transfusions? What if people think you're channeling "Twilight" even though you've never read it?" I guess if you're sick enough to willingly take on someone else's half used up fluids, you probably don't care what anyone else thinks anyway.

Funny thing about being sick and tired is you kind of don't think about it. You go to work and keep doing stuff like going to the store but all the time self diagnosing with horrible diseases from faraway lands that you're pretty sure you picked up the last time you went to the Pottery Barn at the mall.

So here we are, writing some stuff and aren't we proud that blogger didn't just turn us off out of total frustration for the space we are taking up. I started this whole thing back in 2008 during the financial crisis as a way to avoid looking at my perilously plunging portfolio that started to look like I spent a year in Antarctica on a sabbatical with 10 of my closest friends. So this was a hedge so I didn't look at the crisis and worry all the time. Miraculously, this has been an unexpected outlet except for all the stuff I can't say.

All You Need is Love

2010-10-13T20:21:00.000-04:00

Squeaker, "The Squirrel", Atkins died earlier today after a sudden illness. He was nearly 5 years old and enjoyed every minute of his life with A&P after arriving on a snowy afternoon in February 2006. He was cute and sweet and shook the bars of his cage like it was a prison when he wanted to eat. All he was missing was a tin cup to rake across the bars. He liked to explore and especially loved visiting the refrigerator at our old house. Once we moved, it was more difficult and he tumbled down a step or two and then spent more time in his cage for his own safety. The house was not squirrel-proofed.

We are preparing a backyard service for our pig. I made Andrew dig the hole. The ground is harder than, well, dirt.

Me: Keep digging
A: This is deep enough.
Me: No its not. The only people who dig shallow graves are serial killers.

We tucked him into a shoebox and waited for Peter to come home from his football game. I could hardly get the words out "the squirrel is gone."

"Let's get this over with," Peter said. "I have lots of homework."

Off we trudged through the rain to the hole in the yard which was of course too small. He made it into the ground wrapped in his favorite towel. "You're a good squirrel, " they both said.

I must have been talking to the squirrel for 5 years and never knew it. As I worked around the kitchen I found myself talking to him and he's not there. Now I just sound insane.

Good Squirrel.

A Letter to #54

2010-09-30T20:26:00.000-04:00

Dear #54:

How's it going out there on that field? Things are probably not as good in the stands as you might think, so I thought I'd fill you in on the fact that you playing football FREAKS ME OUT BEYOND ALL REASON.

Here's the thing- I don't know where this football thing came from. One day it was like "Hey I want to play football" and I was like "Oh OK." (because I am dumber than a box of hammers at a rock throwing contest.) I even asked your brother "Hey what's with this football thing, do you want to play too?" Without hesitation, Andrew bellowed "ARE YOU KIDDING, I MIGHT BE SMUSHED LIKE A ROTTEN EGGPLANT!"

So far you haven't been squished like a champagne grape in some linebacker's toes. But today you got knocked around a bit here and there and it reminded me when I let you roll off of the ottoman when you were a baby- it freaked me out but you were sufficiently squishy that it didn't cause permanent damage.

I'm not brave like Gage's mom. I'm a big chicken and I don't even know what to cheer for. I guess it's good when people get mowed down like bowling pins, but I'd rather you stayed upright. And, it's got to be better for your brain and the math homework to stay in an upright-y type position. Should I call the coach?

Anyway, you looked good out there- at least from what I could see between my fingers since I was covering my eyes and trying not to scream like a girl.

Love Mom

Frozen?

2010-09-28T21:04:00.000-04:00

The phone rang on Sunday. It was my mother in law telling us to head for the river bed. She's not Moses and we're not fleeing an oppressive people, but we needed to see for ourselves how low the river was. The Maumee River dumps into Lake Erie and after a day or two of 40 mile an hour winds and some weeks of dry weather the river is dried up like a giant rock filled raisin.

We had to obey so we ran to the car. Actually, me and Tim ran to the car. A&P thought we were insane.

Me: Ma says you can walk across the River. Let's go check it out.
Andrew : Is it frozen?

Frozen? Have you been watching a few too many episodes of "Ice Road Truckers"? Seriously.

Here's Peter inspecting the river bed at Buttonwood. He looks skeptical. And angry. I think you're perennially angry when you're 13. Do you suppose 14 is any different?

We tried to get the boys to go with us to Grand Rapids, but they complained about homework or some such thing. Had I not been wearing flip flops and if it were not nearly dinnertime, I would have walked across.

In Andrew's defense, it does look frozen.

Watermelon Shoes

2010-09-20T20:11:00.000-04:00

Can I tell you a secret? I obsessively read obituaries. I've done this since I learned how to read. I stopped reading them for a while after my Uncle Steve died unexpectedly because I was chicken. Now I'm back to reading them and thinking about what a gift every darned day is.

So there I was, reading the obituaries on Saturday night, in the New York Times. (I am so Tim's dream girl!)The Saturday death notices are easier to tackle and I can read them with less "short attention span theatre" in my brain. At the end of the section was an obituary that commanded me to get up and do something IMMEDIATELY. That's a new one- when have you been commanded by a recently passed away person to get up and do something- do not pass go- do not collect $200 just go do it right that very minute.

The direction? Google "Watermelon Shoes." Fine, I'll google Watermelon shoes.

The first article that pops up is a NYC blog from May, 2009 about a cool old guy from Manhattan that wears shoes decorated like two watermelon slices. Eccentric, yes, but here's the best part, he only wore them 13 times a year.

Tim said, "Maybe he should have bought more than one pair and he could wear them as much as he wanted."

I guess, but that's not the point. He savored his watermelon shoes and wore them only on very obscure days that meant only something to him. The last sighting of the shoes appears to have been some time in August of this year.

Riveted I plastered the instruction"Google Watermelon Shoes" on my facebook page. Not many people saw it or, knew quite what to do with it. I am strange like that. My friend Dan wrote back and asked "what would your 13 days be?"

In my tracks I stopped cold. I have no idea. Boxing day? My birthday? Or something pedestrian like Thanksgiving or maybe historic like April 14th when Lincoln was shot. Or is every day special enough for watermelon shoes?

Got to get me some of those shoes.

The Watermelon Shoe guy just died of a massive heart attack. He was so proud of his shoes and the blog about him that he commanded everyone he met to "Google Watermelon Shoes."

Do it. Now.

Love from me and mine to you and yours.

Carnivale

2010-08-24T20:26:00.000-04:00

I feel like an incompetent, out of control, carnival worker- the one who runs the giant, rickety ferris wheel. The loose wheel keeps whipping by, faster and faster, and I can't make it stop. Everytime it goes by it whacks me upside the head because I'm a stupid carnival worker and I'm standing inside the yellow lines. I should be fired for this. Where is my job description for this mom-carnival worker-slave-grocery fetcher-splinter puller-pole dancer? (I made that last part up).

Climb on the insanity wheel with me and you'll feel like a gerbil trapped in a two by two cage with a python, a bedspring and a small bottle of minibar whiskey.

School supplies in bulk (exactly why am I buying Kleenex and post it notes in 5 different colors when my children are color blind?)- the laundry room is torn apart, there are fruit flies in the kitchen from those awful cherries that looked better than they tasted, I can't open my martini shaker and someone had the AUDACITY to steal the radio antenna off of my car. Seriously, it's a psycho mom's minivan, you sickos.

I bought way too many school supplies. I have a fear of running out of red pens on a frosty night in November when its really hard to find erasable blue pens in bulk. (And this is especially weird because I'm worried about the red pens so why I'm looking for blue pens needs some introspection.)Peter goes through a pencil a day so the effort my family puts into judging me because I have a container with 300 pencils in it is entirely unnecessary. Some people stockpile paper towel (Matthew), I stock pile writing utensils. Odd because A&P have horrible handwriting.

Oh, the laundry room, you must be wondering. I had it ripped apart because it was horrible and needed a makeover and tile backsplash and beverage cooler. Who doesn't? (Are you judging too?) The new cabinets were in place for about 6 hours before the cat opened a base cabinet with his short toes that can't even open a cracked door and barfed right in it. Really, the new cabinet? Wouldn't you prefer the white carpet?

Is your head spinning off yet? I hear I can get prescriptions for this kind of thing. Andrew grew an inch during a 4 hour mid day nap last week. You think I'm kidding but he's nearly 6 feet tall and he wasn't that tall when I left for work that day. I started to wear even higher heels and now my feet hurt. Stupid feet. Dang tall kids. Note to self: buy more coffee and bricks for their heads.

Are you feeling whipped around on this giant wheel yet?

Tomorrow is the start of 8th grade. I remember 8th grade so the fact that I have 8th grade kids is just ridiculous. I told someone at work that I was 32- it went like this- "you need me to work on Section 32 of such and such? Sure, that's the same age as me." Pause- no comment- total silence. She said "You're 32? I could be your mother." I burst out laughing hysterically (that's what happens off the medication) and she said "you look good, but not 32 good." Nice.

So I'm hysterical, hateful and hyperventilating the night before school. At least we have pencils.

Boy Scouts and Girlfriends

2010-08-02T21:52:00.000-04:00

I found my boys at that giant Boy Scout jamboextravaxecellentcy.

I also found some very fabulous butterflies in the gardens at Mount Vernon.

And I found some super fabulous girlfriends, right under my nose. Just like butterflies, if you slow down long enough and shut the yammering skull cave for a minute or two, the gals appear from the nicest places.

I can't explain what happened here. Peter either got very large or the rest of us got very small. My eyeballs are at his bottom lip. Seriously, this is NOT OK.

On the upside, Andrew is on the left so that part of the universe is still completely under my control.

It's hard to see but the t-shirt is a Breast Cancer Awareness shirt created by super fantastic cousin Missy and is worn in honor of my very fabulous gal Cathy S- super fierce, always beautiful and walking last weekend to raise money for research. She is awesome. You probably know someone exactly like her and you should donate your time or energy and maybe both to fighting this disease with Cathy.

Back to the butterflies, I am the luckiest person ever.

I am sending you some giggling, a good deal or two, and in honor of a now deceased blogger I stole this from,

Love, love, love.

Just because

Scout Spy

2010-07-28T21:41:00.001-04:00

I should have been a spy.

I could take off in my top secret spy plane and take my own pictures of A&P no matter where they are. You shouldn't be able to hide from your Mom.

The picture above is from the BSA Jamboree website. This aerial shot is A&P's sub camp- or so I'm told.

When A&P were little I performed various covert operations like stalking the school bus and hiding on the play ground dressed up like pieces of playground equipment (I don't recommend dressing up like tether ball.)

The first day of school I was reprimanded by the bus driver for rip tearing through town, chasing the bus. I made the mistake of pulling up next to the bus at a stoplight. The door on the bus whooshed open in the way they do with that air noise and a squeak and the driver looked down her nose at me in disgust. "Go to work," she commanded. "They're fine!" Whatever, they're only really fine, if I know they're fine with my own two eyes, sister, and you have to go over 3 different sets of railroad tracks. How do I know you don't have a bum eye and impaired hearing that prevents you from identifying a speeding train?

I guess I've gotten over that, sort of (hence the sedatives) but I wish I had a spy plane. A better plan would be to dress as a shrub and work my way around Fort AP Hill a stand of trees at a time. There's only 75,000 acres, who would possible notice the same piece of shrubbery?

The next best plan would be to get in the car and drive 12 hours to Virginia and find A&P on that 75,000 acres and make sure they're OK with my own two eyes.

Good idea.

I leave tomorrow.

Summer Squash

2010-07-25T21:48:00.001-04:00

A&P were about the size of a summer squash when they were born- together. Separately, probably the size of a couple of large sweet potatoes.

Then they got big. So big, I can't really compare them to food anymore.

Big enough that they could pack their stuff into over sized bags and go away on a bus for two weeks.

Eeek. I need a moment.

OK, I'm back.

Then, it's off on their adventure, see ya, thanks for the memories, can I have some more cash, later gator, outa here, ta-ta, TTFN, blow a kiss, gone Daddy gone. Gone.

I need a moment. And a sedative.

OK, I'm back.

Here's the link for you grandparent types that might want to know where A&P are spending the next 10 days. They're in Subcamp 13 (Ohio and West Virginia), Troop 1324 to be exact.

So there's the story. They were born the size of a squash, they got big and then they stepped on a bus and went away to the 100th Anniversary Boy Scout Jamboree. I'm just positively speechless.
*************
I would like to point out that in every single picture, Andrew is on the left!

Suite!

2010-07-23T09:50:00.000-04:00

I got an email on Wednesday, while zipping to a meeting out of town, offering us tickets to the Detroit Tigers game on Thursday. Turns out the tickets were in a Suite a little to the third base side of home plate at Comerica Park in Detroit. A&P thought they had gone to heaven as we surprised them when we picked them up from a week up at Lake Huron. The tickets even included a parking pass and a special entrance so we were parked about a dozen yards from the gate. Wow. And, the suite had its own bathroom. Besides the view, this held the biggest fascination and why wouldn't it?

My only problem here is that Andrew is not on the left. No one listens to me anymore. Seriously people.

Sunday A&P will head off the the Boy Scout Jamboree at Fort AP Hill in Virginia for the better part of two weeks. Here are their smiling faces before camp a few weeks ago. This is when their clothes were clean, their teeth were brushed and they weren't covered with mosquito bites. Andrew is on the left here. Can you see the height difference? We're baffled because Andrew actually eats. Peter seems to live mostly on Oatmeal Creme pies.

*******************************

My new Bible finally showed up. Thanks US Postal Service for rushing it out to me in 14 days. What if I was really having a crisis? I guess the 4th grade Bible would have had to do. I got sucked into Proverbs 31 this week. I'm not sure who this lady is, but whoa, I'm feeling rather inadequate.

I did manage to paint this desk though. A few folks might recognize it as the Muncie desk that ended up in my house a few years ago. I decided to paint it red. Take that Proverbs 31 lady.

Double Stinky Socks

2010-07-16T22:49:00.000-04:00

A&P are home from Boy Scout Camp. Can you smell them from there? I think I may have discovered a new bacterium, or 12, in the pile of macerated socks. So much for paying extra for stink guard socks. What a scam.

Those boys make me swoon. (Camp is actually over tomorrow, but they got sprung a few hours early so we can set them off of their next adventure tomorrow morning, but that's another story. I have perfected the art of arranging activities for children that keep them entertained for weeks at a time. I should get paid to do this for rock stars.) Anyway, back to the swooning...

They have arranged for themselves to have their conference in a few weeks to become Life Scouts. With that, we're one step (and a whole lot of work) from their Eagle. No matter how bright my brother's kids are, surely I'll have done something right to turn out a pair of Eagle Scouts. (Insert humility here).

Here's the best part though- I know they had a good week because they talked the whole way home about camp being the best week ever. They hardly complained about the food they had such a great time. Here's the thing about Boy Scouts, when you can spend your week lighting fires, rolling in the dirt and practicing a tourniquet- what could be better than that?

A maid to wash the socks...
**************************************************
We're heading into another week without the boys and it's hard to know what project to tackle first. I'm working my way through the Book of Ruth, line by line. I've gotten so fascinated by the detail and the history that I ordered myself the Oxford Annotated Bible. I can hardly wait to dig into it if only Amazon would hurry it up and make my delivery.

So very blessed on this Friday evening. I hope you are in a good place and I'm sending you a hug and a kiss, just in case you need it. Feel better?

Home Alone Again

2010-07-08T20:47:00.000-04:00

I called home around noon today.

Andrew: This is Buddy the Elf! What's your favorite color?
Me: Oh Golly, did you eat sugar cereal for breakfast?
Andrew: Mine's yellow, what's yours?
Me: Is your brother alive?
Andrew: Haven't seen him.
Me: Go check, I'll call you later.

It's calls like this that make me find articles online about kids left home alone sniffing glue and shampooing the cat.

Yesterday when I called, Peter answered.

Me: Hey, did you eat? (If I don't ask them to eat, they'll only eat Oatmeal Cream Pies and Fritos making their starvation my fault because I didn't tell them to eat. Seriously, I have nothing better to do than call home and remind you to eat something that isn't shrink wrapped in clear plastic).
Peter: Just getting ready to heat up some chicken nuggets.
Me: Oh no..I left you money. Just go get a quart sized ice cream from Mr Freeze. That doesn't involve vulcanizing your victuals and you can ride your bike.
Peter: Good idea.

It's calls like this that make me question my parenting skills, but least I won't spend the evening blowing out the smoke and vacuuming ashes.

On the upside, I had a Heloise moment when I rubbed the charred chicken part marks off of my good white plates with baking soda. Yep, good old fashioned working mom, stay at home destructive kid, ingenuity.

They leave for camp on Sunday. It's in exactly 60 hours. Actually 60 hours and 45 minutes. I can make it.

Home Alone

2010-06-20T21:27:00.016-04:00

My phone rang around 1:00 on Friday...

Me: What, I'm busy!
Tim: They almost burned the house down.
Me: Seriously?
Tim: Our boys need remedial cooking assistance.
Me: Huh- you can so totally teach them.
Tim: They're beyond help.

Apparently Peter decided to make some chicken nuggets in the microwave. As any good Scout would, he read the package- and then put two plates in the microwave for TWENTY-ONE MINUTES.

Tim: Peter- is the microwave in flames?
Peter: No. But the nuggets are black.
Tim: Get the package and read it to me.
Peter: Cook 6 nuggets for Twenty-one slash 2 minutes.
Tim: How long have you been out of school? Twenty one slash two? Look at it again!
Peter: What, wait, Oh, two and a half. I'm an idiot.

The black charred spots came off of my white plates with baking soda.

The house smells like it was only burning for a short while.

Our microwave is original to the house, circa 1985. I think there was a brown out in Perrysburg around 12:30 on Friday. My electric bill probably doubled for the twenty-one minute nugget cremation ceremony.

****
This is going to be a good week. A&P are at sailing camp during the day on Lake Erie. They love it and enjoy a spectacular capsizing as much as the next sailor. And, I got invited to a Bible study. It takes a brave person to invite another person to a Bible study. What an awesome friend. I love her very much. I guess I'll actually have to study.

I need to study because I'm not good at quoting or remembering things I should remember. I tried to quote a week or so ago, while dissing a coworker about having to walk by the ladies of ill-repute behind our office building. There's something profound about what you do for the least, you do for me- as in Jesus. But it came out something like- "Don't diss the hoes, they could be Jesus." That didn't have the impact I was looking for.

May you have a week full of love and thankfulness for being able to read the freezer packages to microwave your chicken nuggets.

That Tornado and My Home Ec Teacher can kiss my big fat...

2010-06-09T19:06:00.008-04:00

Curtain. They can kiss my big ol' curtain.

First the Tornado. I don't have any pictures of that- would you really want them?

Around 11pm last Saturday night we were somehow spared- not even a twig out of place- but 5 miles east of us is in bad shape. The high school is destroyed. The police station is flattened. They have no school buses and no police cars. Five people are dead. A mom and her little boy were sucked right out of their beds, their house flattened. The neighbors found them in the yard. The dad and a daughter somehow survived.

A&P were at camp about 60 miles west of here. They evacuated to the showers and were well taken care of, but we couldn't help remembering the Scouts killed in Iowa 3 or 4 years ago. We are so lucky, so blessed.

Onto to something less horrendous, aren't you loving that curtain? I made that. With some help from my fabulous friend of course. I haven't sewed since 7th grade and then one day a month back a light went on in my ever misfiring skull "you should buy a sewing machine." What the heck, it's better than starting a crack habit or beating my kids.

Then I got brave and I made this one for Andrew's room. All by myself. My home ec teacher thought I was a disaster. I may be a disaster, but I can plug in a machine. This one for Andrew is made out of fabric that has the Pledge of Allegiance printed on it. The blue is stars. Andrew said "Is this just for the 4th of July and you're making another one?" Don't push it buster.

I have to tell you though, I am a big mess. My dining room is not suitable for eating. I spilled the same box of 500 pins- twice. Several dozen got stuck in my feet. I got another set of teeny tiny pins and I promptly dropped those all over the floor twice. The cat keeps running off with my bobbin thread thing-a-ma-bobbers.

Do you know how hard it is to drink and sew at the same time? Take it from me, you have to be really, really careful not to spill.

Lastly, because I am starting to ramble and the blogger gods nearly made this entire post disappear which would have been tragic, we went to the Indy 500. We surprised A&P and went to the race with family that knows how to manage a giant track with whizzing cars. Fun had by all.

Here's hoping that the 50 or so families that lost their houses pretty darned close to here can draw upon the good times to pull through. All I had to do was pick up about 4000 straight pins and pick the other 100 out of my toes. I know where my birth certificate is and I have a roof. If you think of it, donate to The Red Cross or something- they help people just like them.

Channeling Alice Cooper

2010-06-03T20:20:00.006-04:00

I knew I was doing something right with my children when Andrew relayed the following anecdote..

Kid: Schools out for summer!
Andrew: Oh ya, good song.
Kid: Yes, I really like "High School Musical."
Andrew: OMG. Seriously? That's Alice Cooper.

With 7th grade safely under our belts, or so I'm told, we're off for the summer. I lost the boys for over an hour yesterday. I was pretty sure they were abducted. They resurfaced eventually.

And here's ultimate irony for you. Peter has harassed me for years that he's the only poor sod without a cell phone. (This is absolute crap because he has a phone, but he won't use it. I don't eat leftovers so I blame myself, really I do.)

At dinner after finally finding them again today as they re-emerged from the wilderness that is Perrysburg, I said...

Me: so if I text you and say "where are you?" what would you do?
Peter: Assuming I had a phone, I would text you back.
Tim: We're using GPS, you can't hide from us. I always know where you are.
Peter: Oh please.

My own insecurity is going to result in two children being saddled to phones. I can feel it. I hope my health insurance covers thumb joint replacements.

Last night at 8:45 pm they were out roaming the countryside. I started to freak out, but they did come back.

They are never learning to drive a car, but when they do, they will be blasting Alice Cooper and texting me from stoplights.

The Last Seventeen Cents

2010-05-22T21:00:00.005-04:00

We've been working with a local organization called The Village for a while. We rented some space in a not-so-nice neighborhood about nine months ago with some lofty ideals about changing the world or some such thing. This is really rather daunting, but I suppose you have to start somewhere. So you put a stake in the ground and say "here, is where we start."

There's a lot more back story to this endeavor, but I want to share one little bit with you.

Today, we had a free parking lot party. Tim did a lot of the planning so we rolled in about an hour before the official start time to set up grills and do whatever needs to be done to have a cook out in a parking lot. Miraculously, it stopped raining long enough for this to happen. (It's rained enough that I saw a mushroom the size of a hubcap today. I may grow gills.)

Our South Korean friend arrived just before we did. He saw a man near the intersection for the highway ramp and the main road. He picked up the man and brought him along. Everything he owned, presumably, was in a rolled up pack about the size of a small pillow. He wasn't unkempt, but he was homeless and ragged, so a certain amount of unkempt goes with the territory. He helped unload grills and carry things. He stayed with us nearly all afternoon eating hamburgers, drinking orange Kool Aid and listening to music. Someone said he was trying to get to Pontiac, Michigan.

As I stood behind the food tables to refill bowls of chips or whatever, I saw him slowly approach the table. We had some flyer's down at the end that we were holding down with a small change bank (like the ones you use for spare change during Lent.) The party was free but a few folks had jammed some bills in the coin slot on the top of the can. They didn't need to, but it was nice anyway. The man refilled his water bottle from the orange Kool Aid container and then reached into the little pocket on his jeans. You know the pocket- the little one in the front that makes them five pocket jeans. He pulled out a few coins. From the looks of him, I have to imagine this is about all he had.

He took a silver coin and some pennies and another coin, maybe a dime, and he put them in the can. He walked away slowly. I saw him a few minutes later on the other side of the building lighting a cigarette and then he was gone. Off to Pontiac I guess.

He didn't need to give us his money. For that matter, our friend didn't need to have picked him up. But he got picked up and he fished in his pockets for coins for the can. Do I ever give that much? Do I ever reach into my pockets and rummage through the last few coins that I have and willingly and cheerfully give them away? Am I that generous with my time? Am I that generous with my talents and spirit that even when I'm pretty sure I have nearly nothing left, I give just a little bit more away?

Well Sir, I don't know who you are, but what you did will stay with me forever. I hope you made it to Pontiac, Michigan. Thank you for coming to our picnic.

Knocked Around

2010-05-13T06:55:00.012-04:00

In my quest for some good TV, I stumble around the dial of 200 channels like an inebriated housefly desperately searching the screen for a hole big enough to cram into and escape. Surely TV is an escape for most everyone. After an hour slogging through the machinations that is a VH1 reality show, I flipped over to a narrative of The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex and Hermann Melville. It's one of my favorite stories- gruesome but wonderful language and allegory.

Ever feel like you've been whacked upside the head by a 2 ton right whale? I can't be the only one. But when that happens, there's always the little stuff to get you through, hour by hour, if necessary. Like some of this stuff...

Andrew has a beautiful, young soul. He's not an old soul- I know you know what I mean. He doesn't look at me with those eyes that say "I've done this before, leave me alone." His eyes say "Hey, this is the first time I've seen this and I'm having a wonderful time, thank you very much." It's rather refreshing after a day or two of being knocked about in what feels like a very small, hole riddled boat.

Yesterday he told me that the new shampoo I got him made him so happy because it was a great shade of blue. "It actually made me smile in the shower." How cute is that? It's shampoo so I think that's rather delightful. He never said anything profound when peering into the Grand Canyon a few years back- he said something more like "That's a big hole." I suppose if he can appreciate the small things, I've done my job.

This is what he picked out for me for Mothers' Day...

I've received a variety of opinions about what this means- including one that suggests that he is trying to butter me up should he end up in the slammer. He's not the felonious type generally so that can't be it. Regardless, he was quite proud of the purchase and insisted that I take it to my office. So I did. Hopefully the nuns don't mind the mild profanity. (Incidentally, Peter got me a very nice vase.)

Being knocked about is generally worth it, even when the boat springs a leak, or 12. I found at my local Big Lots a nifty four pack of root beer that helped me focus on what's important even when someone else is yanking the life jacket and pushing my head under water.

It was way up on the top shelf, but not out of reach. Nothing is, if you try hard enough.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to bailing me boat.

Fib Practice

2010-05-05T18:13:00.005-04:00

I have a colleague. I don't like this person one bit. Not one iota.

This person thinks I fib. Either that or she likes to check up on me. If you know me at all, you know that this makes me crazytown insane.

So this is what I'm going to do. I am going to call it out. I am going to call it like I see it. If you don't believe what I say and you insist on going behind my back like a 5th grader to see if I what I tell you is true, then I will call this out.

Here's the thing. If I fibbed or made stuff up, I wouldn't be mundane. I would go big. I would tell the biggest whopper you ever heard. So, if you think, Dear Miss Checkerupper that I am lying about someone being out of town, just see what I might tell you if I was really fibtastic.

No, we wouldn't be out of town at a meeting (which for real! it's the truth!) We would be...

Eating tea sandwiches with flying monkeys at a garden shop in Queensland Australia.

Or wait, this is better. We would be riding blue dragons to a luncheon with the King and Queen of Luxemermia. (That's where I'm from after all. For those of you who don't know me well, I was kidnapped by Russian spies out of my castle in Luxemermia back in 1981. I was only 6 months old and I woke up in an orange crib in Wauwatosa Wisconsin with Paula and Stu. I'm just waiting for the King's people to hook me up with my fortune. Still waiting!)

So here's the deal Miss Checkerupper, if you're too dumb to figure out that I know that you're going around checking up on me like you're some kind of insecure 5th grader, then when I meet you next week, we're going to have some fun. You just won't know it's happening because the whopper will be so big, well, I'll stop there. I don't want to give away my secrets.

Kidnapped!

2010-04-29T12:51:00.008-04:00

This was supposed to be a post about SERENITY and CALM THINGS and KITTIES and PINK PONIES and PINK MARTINIS and SATIN and other HAPPY STUFF!

But Holy Cow, things change fast.

I almost thought I'd never see you again. I thought my blog was gone from me forever. I tried to log in and it didn't know who I was. It was like I had fallen into an alternate universe. I freaked out. My office called while I was freaking out. She said "you sound weird, what's wrong." I said "Oh nothing." How do you tell your office that your blog disappeared while you were trying to post and jam Wheat Thins in your mouth before a 1:00 conference call? You don't tell people that because that just sounds kooky.

I am trying very hard to be calm and not shake someone's teeth out. So I thought, I'll post something happy and nice so I can think of something serene rather than driving 100 miles to shake the teeth out of the skull of someone who is, well, doesn't matter. I'm being serene.

Peace out.

P.S. The picture is my backyard pond. Isn't it DIVINE?! I can hear the waterfall. The splish and splash keeps me from wanting to SHAKE PEOPLE's TEETH OUT!

Lunch Break

2010-04-27T11:52:00.006-04:00

Here's a snapshot of what is floating around in my head (if you watch South Park, I'm probably a bit like what Cartman sees when he closes his eyes). It is nearly noon as I type this. Where does the day go?

I am inspired by the following two things today (beware, things are going to get sappy around here)...

A quote from Moulin Rouge "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love and to be loved in return."
Time spent serving and preparing a community dinner for people who need it on Sunday.

First, the quote... it's just a great quote. I am going to give my boys and the kitty and Timmy and maybe the guinea pig (Not all at the same time) a big squeeze. Peter really needs a big squeeze. He was feeling a little low yesterday. So, if you see him before I do, squeeze him until he squeaks.

Second, the dinner... A&P and a friend needed some more service hours for school so off we went to the community dinner. The boys all worked very hard and made me very proud. They worked for four hours straight to help get dinner on the table for about 50 people who come off of the street once a month for a meal. Some of the people leave prayer requests behind.

I should tell you that Sunday was a miserable rainy day. People came in dripping wet and cold. Some smiled anyway.

I have to tell you about these prayer requests.... if I was homeless or downtrodden and needed a meal... I would be miserable. I would be a pill and a half. I would be pulling my hair out and I would pray for indulgent things like a job and an income and a place to live. This is because I'm selfish and I have too much to learn about how to live my life. Do you know what these people left prayers for? Not a single prayer that I picked up was for something indulgent.

They prayed for...

the missing oil rig workers
miners in West Virginia
peace
beauty
happiness
some signed their names and said thank you
some didn't say anything at all

Remember, give Peter a squeeze.

Worms: An appreciation

2010-04-20T20:38:00.009-04:00

This is a post about worms. If you think worms are icky, you should probably not read this. Although I think worms are icky so I probably can't type anything too gross or I'll make myself sick.

Shall I explain the picture? In preparation for a newsy little post of vermicomposting or some such thing, I decided to find a picture of an earth worm. Instead I found this lovely photo of the Nibelungen Bridge over the Rhine at Worms, Germany. Obtuse? Indeed.

Curiousity got the better of me so I turned to google to find out some more stuff about Worms. Did you know it was founded by Celts and that the people of Worms fight with the people in Cologne about who has the oldest town in Germany? The only thing I ever knew was that Worms was where Martin Luther had his temper tantrum.

Now get this about the name... the Celts back in the olden times before calendars named their little town Borbetomagus which means "settlement in a watery area." How nice and direct of those Celts. Anyway, the Romans came along and started calling it Vormatia and that's just a fancy way to say "worms." I'm not sure the Romans did them any favors with the name change but with Romans stomping around, I'm not sure that the Borbetomagusians had any room to argue.

So there we have it, worms.

I bought a composter. I don't know anything about worms, but I'm going to compost my coffee grounds and my black and white inked junk mail.

All Hail Mighty Worms.

Rapunzel

2010-04-19T20:20:00.005-04:00

How much would you charge me to lock me in this tower?

TCWICRN (The Child who is crazy right now) made me so mad yesterday I could have locked myself into this tower forever. He was ranting and raving and hollering and exhibiting various kinds of buffoonery. I had been secretly congratulating myself for a week that I had not jammed him into a UPS box and mailed him to Russia with a note that said "I know he didn't come from Russia, but it seems like a good place. Thanks."

I tried to wrap my head around the insanity. I said supportive things like "this will pass"; "you are great", "I sure do love you and would never sell you to gypsies." But after 7 days of this nutso wackiness, all I wanted to do was climb into a tower and grow my hair for 25 years.

So I hollered "you can't be crazy anymore! you are driving me bananas! pick a different kind of crazy! if you're going to stay crazy, make it different every time for goodness sake!"

He stared at me. He regarded my red face and snarl. And, he stopped being crazy. I called out the crazy and he left, just like that and in his place was the regular kid.

What did I wait 7 days for?

I still want to be locked in the tower because I think crazy will come back sometime before high school graduation.

A Short History of A & P

2010-04-17T18:56:00.010-04:00

There's a lesson in everything. Today's lesson is: never leave children of any age unattended. This was the story of my life for about 10 years. Then, you get complacent and when you find your kids smoking cigars you slap yourself for not remembering your lessons. Don't worry, A&P don't smoke cigars. They're too busy beating each other up. Peter told me the other day that they only fight in the back yard so that no one sees. Seriously, if you have the forethought to beat the crap out of your brother and plan to do so in the backyard, perhaps you have the brain capacity to engage in some problem solving. Just saying....

While we were on vacation we ran into some new victims who had never heard any of our crazy A&P stories before. While regaling the new, hapless, trapped listeners, Andrew burst out in a guffaw. "You got to write this stuff down, Mom."

Dateline: April 15, 2000
A&P: Age 3
Me: Clueless

I was on the phone with my brother. The boys were locked in the backyard. I could see them as they pushed their toys around the driveway. They were behind a gate. I was 10 feet away, albeit in the house, but I could see them and jump to their aid should an alien space ship land on the lawn.

Suddenly, they were gone.

Seriously. Gone.

Where the heck do two little boys who were happily pushing molded plastic toys two seconds ago, go?

Really? Freaking out.

I slammed down the phone and ran outside in complete panic.

There they were. So cute, so short, so standing in the middle of the flower beds holding handfuls of landscaping rocks. Whatever, I removed the rocks from the boys and the boys from the rocks and scooted them in the house.

It was April in Ohio. It gets cold at night. Our house got really cold that night- inexplicably.

The next morning, Tim ventured to the basement to figure out why if we had it set at 80, the house was 58. The furnace was flashing alarmingly. Yellow and red. "No clue," Tim said. "You should call someone."

Within the hour, the furnace people appeared. Within 5 minutes I had my answer.

My lovely children had, in the 15 seconds I could not see them, stuffed our furnace flue with handfuls of landscaping rocks. About 75, one inch landscaping rocks to be exact. They had completely crammed the flue. Thankfully, our furnace had the good sense to shut itself the heck off or we would have had a serious issue.

I put a squirrel cage on the furnace flue. Days later, I found the boys standing again in the flower bed, one with the squirrel cage and the other with a handful of rocks. I probably yelled. Really loud.

Several years later, we had to replace the furnace. Imagine that? Not sure why a furnace would have trouble when stuffed with stones. When they unhooked the old furnace, more rocks fell from the piping.

Now they just pummel each other in the backyard. Progress? I'm not sure.

A Walk in the Woods, Final Episode

2010-04-13T18:56:00.008-04:00

Greetings Sports fans! Sometimes there's victory and then there's the agony of defeat. If you followed my instructions and read "A Walk in the Woods" then you'll know the agony of the Appalachian Trail (AT) approach trail. Anytime there's an approach to more trail (2,100 miles of it) you may want to think twice. Andrew reminded me that the characters in the book discarded most of their food (Little Debbies and the coffee filters too) in the 7 mile hike on the approach to the terminus of the AT.

We left the Len Foote Inn with some packed lunches and our spirits high since we knew our trail out, although longer, was more down than up. I guess it all depends on your knees whether you like the up or the down, or neither. Me, I'll take any of it because it's not a day bashing my head against a wall at the office (I like that sort of thing, though.)

The picture above is, finally!, what it should be with Andrew on the left. Seriously people. It's not hard.

We had our regularly scheduled Atkins family breakdown about half way down the mountain. This time there was no aggravating incident just some frayed 13 year old nerves. This turned Andrew into a melted mess and Peter into a hiking machine- apparently in an effort to get as far away from the other 75% of his family as quickly as possible. He's a gazelle when motivated like this. We saw him again somewhere near the stream below.

Oddly, I wasn't as worried as I would be in Montana that something would eat him. Either it's that I didn't think something would eat him because we were in Georgia or maybe I was secretly wishing that he would be carried away by a family of wolves. Is that so wrong?

Six miles later, here is the Amicalola Creek that feeds the waterfall. Yippee! We could almost see the car from here! Nothing had eaten Peter and he was perched on a rock not far from the creek with a look on his face that said "I wish you would melt into spring rain sloshed in mountain mud." What a bonus.

Did you make your reservations yet? What are you waiting for? Seriously, you have no excuse.

Did I mention that I would LOVE to do the entire AT through hike? I read everything I can about the AT and through hikers and I met a through hiker named Catfish on this trip. I've been trying to decide what I might name myself- so far the only thing I can come up with is Cosmo (after my favorite drink). I think I can do better than that.

A Stay in the Woods

2010-04-12T18:20:00.013-04:00

Oh my Golly. Why can't we get this picture taking thing right. Peter is again, on the left. No one listens to me, ever. I'm not sure what Peter is doing with his finger and I probably don't want to know.

On Friday afternoon we arrived at the inn. Our legs were a little wobbly since we're flatlanders, but we made it in pretty good time. (Less time than predicted on the trail signs- take that trail!)

We had a great tour of the grounds including their worm farm and the composting toilets. If you really want to know, I can fill you in. I still have the willies.

After a fabulous dinner, we settled in for an evening program because there is no TV!

Folks around these parts come to the inn to volunteer. This particular volunteer developed a completely awesome ultra light camp stove out of a pop can. We were riveted. And screwed up because again, despite my best intentions, Peter is on the left.

The inn can accommodate 4o folks in 20 rooms of 2 bunks. Above is the bunk house. The face peeking out was our neighbor bunkmate who hails from Atlanta.

To the left is the dining hall and to the right is the bath house. If you keep walking into the picture you'll fall off a cliff, so don't do that. And there's snakes. Did I mention snakes? Yuck.

We survived the night in our bunks. I'm going to get a bit personal here so if you're squeamish, skip ahead. I don't get up at night to go potty. I just don't have to. Somehow at the inn all night long, all I could think about was the climb down the ladder, out the door and to the bathroom.

The inn was awesome, you should totally go. Do it.

A Walk in the Woods, Part One

2010-04-11T17:42:00.010-04:00

I think I have a loose screw in my skull. Before you go judging me and trying to figure out which screw is the loosest, lest you are one of those folks who believe that I have more than one loose piece of hardware, I know just which one. The problem I have is that I have to live some place flat. Clearly we could have picked someplace else that was not as flat. Really, I can't dwell on that. So here we are.

Do you notice a problem? Yes, I am the shortest. That is a problem. Do you notice the other problem? Peter is on the left. That is about the wrong-est thing that can happen in one of my pictures. Ten years from now I will be totally screwed on who is who. Andrew is always on the left- except in this picture because no one listens to me anymore. I think I'm going to have a short snit about that. OK, I'm done.

Anyway, here we are at the top of Amicalola Falls in the state park of the same name, Georgia. We were ready to start our walk into the woods. (If you have not done so, you must read, MUST, I SAY MUST READ, A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson. Indeed, required for this blog.)

Off we went. Normalcy was achieved as above you will find Andrew on the left. Phew. I thought Mercury was in retrograde there for a few minutes. This picture was taken right before the half way point Atkins family meltdown, a.k.a. fight. This time it was about a dented metal water bottle. (Sigh. It's not worth repeating.)

A&P recovered from their mutual hatred and found company on the trail somewhere way ahead of us. They tell us we're old. We tell them they hike too fast. Whatever, I'm right.

We arrived late afternoon at the Len Foote Hike Inn. It's fabulous and I will tell you more about it tomorrow.

To the Moon Alice

2010-04-07T21:57:00.008-04:00

If I were going to send someone into space, I suppose the Saturn V rocket would serve as an appropriate vehicle. As we saw at the Kennedy Space Center today, this thing is GIANORMOUS. (That's a very technical NASA term.)

Guess who I might like to send to the moon? You would not believe who I literally ran into today at KSC. Never. Don't even bother guessing. I had this boss one time who was horrid- fairy tale, wicked stepmother, except he was a man, horrid. He personified everything that anyone ever might hate about corporate life working for "the machine." Anyway, he was always slightly clownish, and I have not seen him since I left for greener pastures- UNTIL TODAY. There he was, with his pants hiked up to his armpits in line for some food. How on Earth did I end up at KSC on the same day as this Evil Corporate Tool?

Anyway, that's who I would like to send to the moon. No, I am not one bit bitter.

It was a good visit (except for being shadowed all day by the Evil Corporate Tool) with the space stuff as evidenced by A&P and the lunar node thing . I think they used this node thing on Apollo 11. We were all pretty happy today and our only meltdown involved Mountain Dew at lunch. We did see another family with kids about A&P's age having their own very public meltdown. I wanted to hug them all and thank them for being human.

Tomorrow is another beach day and I'm pretty sure that I need a lobster for lunch. Late in the day we'll work our way up to Atlanta. Friday is when we hit the Appalachian Trail for a hike and an overnight in the mountains with no cell phones, TV or computers. Heaven!

A&P keep asking when we can take a normal vacation like everyone else.

Define normal, then we'll make our plans.

Love, Exciting & New

2010-04-06T20:38:00.008-04:00

Avert your eyes. This is us on vacation. Aren't we sweet? It's a small miracle that no one was thrown from a precipice today. There's always tomorrow.

I made the boys pop a squat on the sand for some pictures. This is how it went.

Me: I want to take your picture on the beach. Sit here.

Them: No. That's dumb. You know what we look like.

Me: Not for long.

Them: We don't care. Pictures are stupid.

Me: I can wait here until dark. You choose.

Obviously we didn't wait until dark. Aren't they sweet?

For this picture at the Fort in St Augustine I said, Hey stand in that door way for your picture. They were trying to make me look like a fool. It worked. Aren't they wonderful?

At the end of all of it, there's the peaceful lapping of waves on the beach. The waves wear the shells down to dust over several million years. Just like my children are doing to me, however it's taken a mere 13 years. Surely that makes me lucky.

Until tomorrow....

More Picture Obstruction & The Beach

2010-04-05T21:49:00.009-04:00

Whilst attempting to pose for a family photo at the UGA Botanical Gardens, we again find ourselves obstructed by an interloper. The raised hand has been used to terrorize A&P since they were very little. Uncle Adam, the obstructionist, used the hand to threaten younger versions of A&P by telling them it was a brain sucker. And, the brain sucker was apparently starving. A&P have often told me "Uncle Adam scares me." Ah yes, he scares us too.
But our visit in Athens was short and we were soon off to sandier places outside of St. Augustine. It's amazing how easy A&P are to spot in the water. They're a bit pale after an Ohio winter.

Cousins make good beach pals and we spent our afternoon digging in the sand for shark's teeth and tossing about in the waves.

We'll report again as time permits and without the interloper, I suppose, unless we can find another one.

Athens, GA

2010-04-04T09:48:00.006-04:00

Family Picture, obstructed. Again.

All Hail, UGA. Or something like that. We're from the North, so we just don't really understand.

A&P at the famous double barrelled cannon of Athens, Georgia. Ingenuity, inspired.

We'll report again from St. Augustine.

Snapshot of Chaos

2010-03-18T20:35:00.012-04:00

I had to buy a minivan. It feels very wasteful to be riding around in an urban assault vehicle. When it is full of long-legged, food absorbing, voice changing 13 year olds, it doesn't seem that it's quite big enough.

The Child Who Can't Be Bothered to Put in Too Terribly Much Effort, heretofore, TCWCBBTOINTTME, has earned back his XBox privileges. Said privileges had been forcibly removed due to substandard English performance. Remarkably, this has resulted in renewed interest in English and a grade that no longer causes me to wince and imagine him toiling in a coal furnace for the rest of his life.

Then there's track practice set up by the brilliant school to end every day at 4:00. How is it that two working parents can somehow manage to knock off at 3:30 every afternoon to fetch the offspring from practice? I'm sure the judge will wait and same with that conference room full of people. Yep, that's career enhancing.

The Other Child Who Is Much More Motivated But Also Moody, heretofore, TOCWIMMMBAM, has suffered from some strange and exceedingly painful leg tendon ailment. This has me gripped with terror as I also had strange leg tendon ailments resulting in surgical intervention. Isn't it amazing how we pass down the inadequacies?

Last but not least, TCWCBBTOINTTME, figured out that substandard academic performance has ramifications outside of school and outside of his removal from the XBox. The consequence was so powerful that I actually saw the LIGHTBULB blink on, slowly, over his 13 year old hormonal head. It glimmered with a bit of recognition that perhaps I am not full of hooey. On the other hand he then attempted to negotiate a cell phone based on his renewed efforts not to be slothful. He then regaled me with his new plan to attend West Point. Whereupon, I suggested that a fantastic preparation technique for West Point would be making his bed and picking up his laundry from the 4 foot radius around the laundry basket.

What? Of course not, said TCWCBBTOINTTME, I don't need do that yet. I've got a couple of years to work out the bugs.

Would like to try a lobster?

2010-03-11T17:36:00.007-05:00

For those of you that worry, I'm not dead. Passing out last week didn't slow me down much. It did curb my martini drinking for a few days, but a large school project with a particularly difficult child cured that.

I was away on a trip the last few days. Not far away, but far enough. The conference sessions were generally good and I only obsessively checked my Blackberry every 4-6 minutes- for an entire day.

After a fairly complicated session on Health Care Reform (don't even get me started), I asked a question of the presenter. I went up to her afterwards because I didn't want to sound stupid by misusing words like "Reconciliation" or "Correction." (Oh, there's so much stupid stuff about these two words lately, surely I wouldn't sound as dumb as at least half of the people on TV, regardless of their political affiliation!)

So I asked my question. It was answered in a way that did not make me feel dumber than normal and I started back to my seat to gather my stuff. A well dressed man approached me slowly. Weird. It's usually only the smelly drunk ones that approach me slowly.

"Hello, " he said.
"Hey." (That's my standard greeting. Informal, it's more fun and not suggestive in case the guy is a serial killer.)
"I've been staring at you across the room the entire session."
"Um, what?" (Now I'm creeped out and ticked off. Do serial killers stare at people across rooms?)
"Did you work at Red Lobster?" he asked warily.
"WHAT?" I laughed out loud, right in his face.
"You look like someone I used to know from Red Lobster."
"No. I have never worked at Red Lobster. However, I do like lobster."
"Oh, " he sighed. "I worked all through college at Red Lobster and there was a girl. You look just like her. Sorry I bothered you."
"OK, no problem. I would be a lousy waitress so I can definitively tell you that I am not your girl."

People are so strange. Maybe he can find her on Facebook.

Lights Out at the Track Meeting

2010-03-02T20:01:00.013-05:00

It was a long day at the ranch. Of course I don't work at or near a ranch, but if what I did, in any way resembled a ranch, I would have misplaced most of the sheep, knocked over the fence, burned the beans and tangled the ropes.

Alas, I came running home from the ranch and ran out again with two kids in tow. I ran back home to work some more (because the sheep were lost and the fence was knocked over.) Then, I ran back out and we went to the 7th and 8th grade track meeting at school.

It was standing room only. We were not even late. There we stood in the back of the cafeteria by the folded up tables with about 200 other people. It was madness.

About half way through the speech on pulled muscles....

I started to feel a little funny.

My ears were ringing.

I started to sweat.

My hands were kind of clammy.

I think I was standing right next to a waterfall based on all the gushing in my ears.

Dressed head to toe in winter white, I made my way to sit on the floor AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. The boys were riveted by the descriptions of track and field events and completely oblivious as I sat down HARD on that Junior High cafeteria floor- in my white pants. Horrors, indeed.I think I sat on a Twinkie wrapper.

I have no idea what happened next because everything WENT COMPLETELY BLACK. I must have started coming back around a few minutes later and I recall realizing that my head was flopped back like a limp octopus tentacle on a stick. If I'm really lucky, my mouth was wide open and I was snoring. But, A&P said no- no snoring. Peter did admit that he glanced over and noticed that my head was bouncing precariously around on my limp neck while I was collapsed next to the cafeteria table. Did he do anything? Of course not, he was busy listening to the coach.

Andrew was similarly distracted. No one noticed me in a heap at the back of the Junior High cafeteria. I think that's a good thing or we'd probably have to relocate and find another school for the boys. Later, Peter offered to call 911 but that seemed a bit unnecessary after I came back around.

I had to drive home and Peter grabbed the phone to call their dad. "Mom, passed out. I want to call 911. I'm pretty sure she's not safe." Nice... from someone who 10 minutes prior could have given two hoots about his droopy, sloppy, unconscious mess of a Mother, who incidentally was wearing winter white while mopping the floor of the Junior High cafeteria with her back end.

Andrew quickly, helpfully and without merit offered a diagnosis of a seizure disorder.

"I don't have a seizure disorder! I just passed out!"

Andrew replied, "That's just what I thought you'd say. You're denying you have a problem. You can't get it fixed until you admit you have a problem."

My first problem is Boy Scouts who didn't jump up to save me. My second problem is that I missed about half of the meeting. Did anyone take any notes?

My last problem is now I have to get my pants dry cleaned again.

Empty- Rambling Meditations on Parental Inadequacy

2010-02-24T19:58:00.008-05:00

I feel like a phony. I think it's because this cold dark winter thing we have going on around here is getting a bit old. Worse yet, I feel like an empty phony. I know this is because I haven't seen the sun in weeks and I've been in the dark like a vampire bat. Seriously, I must hang from my toes at night. I'm pale and pasty and cranky and ugly and feeling like a big phony.

I'll get to the phony part: I have no business, no license, no reason on this earth to be attempting to raise two 13 year old boys to adulthood. Cripes, I can barely remember to pick up my dry cleaning. I can't possibly teach them all the right stuff in the next 5 years. My track record thusfar has been somewhat dismal (although to their credit, every once in a while, something appears to be sinking in. They haven't yet been driven home by the authorities)...

I present the following exhibits of my inadequacies to date which unlike your mutual funds are sure to be predictors, or in this case, harbingers of my future performance...

No one picks up their dang clothes. Dirty clothes are 4 feet (or less!) from the laundry basket
Wet towels are left to pollute the carpet
Cracker wrappers are jammed into the cushions of my couch (This is NOT a fraternity house!)
They make excuses and postpone things all the dang time.... I'll print my report in 15 minutes. Why the heck in 15 minutes? Are you expecting the world to end so you're saving on toner? What's wrong with NOW!?!?!
No one is responsible for their own actions, or lack thereof. Seriously people. The Nobody character only exists in those crazy Family Circus cartoons.

It's pathetic. My attempts to teach them things are met with requests for cell phones and Mountain Dew. In a misguided attempt to make a point I pleaded with a boy to learn from his mistakes. Please, I begged. Just make different mistakes every time so I know you're moving on. At least be creative!

Life does not reward "E's" for effort. If they turn out to be bums and burdens on society, I'll be afraid to show myself in public. Life as that vampire bat is looking better and better. So is that empty milkshake glass. A milkshake should help right about now.

If the Boy Blogged

2010-02-14T19:47:00.014-05:00

I'm fairly certain that we don't want to know what goes on in any 13 year old's head. Clearly, since I can barely remember being 13, the universe must have removed these thoughts (sort of like childbirth where you only remember the good stuff.) Good thing too or there might not have been very many humans. There are a few 13 year old humans that may not make it to 14. If I've said it once, I've said it 50 times since breakfast: I brought you here and I can take you out.

So if one of my resident 13 year olds were to blog, what might that look like? One of them is still nice, so that one might not be worth the effort. The cranky, surly one? Now that's some good reading.

Day 1: I need cash.
I need money. I have to work to get this money and this is a drag. I work here all the time- do this do that stuff all day long. I have a bank account with mysterious money I can't touch. I'm going to buy a Mustang when I'm 16 no matter what they say. My brother can pay for my gas. Did I have homework? Why does she keep asking me? Why am I here anyway? Junior High sucks.

Day 2: Ho-Ho's
I asked her 4 times to buy me Ho-Ho's. I was ignored. Again. No one in this family likes me. I should wear a belt because my pants are loose. I can't find it. This is why I need Ho-Ho's. I guess I could lift the weights that I got for Christmas but that's not very exciting. I'm out of PopTarts too. She never listens. I'm just air. I'm sure they hate me.

Day 3: My brother is a dork
Do you know what a pain it is being a twin? People call me "the Twin." That is so annoying. My hair is so much better than his and he laughs at all the wrong stuff. He walks weird. He took my shirt and ate the last ice cream sandwich. I need a TV for my room. I want to move to California.

Day 4: My IPod
When will my evil overlords give me the IPod back? I don't want to ask because they'll lecture me again about "inappropriate surfing." Everyone has boobs. What's the big deal? When I move to California, I can see whatever I want on the beach. What will they do, blindfold me?

Day 5: I hate Everyone
I am not slow. What is this crap they say "if you're on time, you're late"? Garbage. Why do I have to get somewhere first. It's so stupid. I need time for my hair.Whatever, they hate me.

The morale of this story? Be afraid, very afraid.

Thou Shalt Not!

2010-02-10T20:11:00.004-05:00

This great big world is fraught with peril. Lots of different kinds of perilous things can befall us at any time and I'm not talking about rocks being dropped by roadrunners. I am talking about turning your back for a few minutes and stuff happens. E-gads! How does it happen?

We've had some snow. With snow, there are snow days. With snowdays, there are bound to be a few offspring left unattended out there. One would think that said offspring could be left home alone without short circuiting the dishwasher or eating 4 gallons of ice cream.

So, I have this "friend." This "friend" has twins the same age as mine. Imagine that. So, the "friend" goes to work for a few hours leaving the carbon copied offspring home alone. Everything seems to be fine with my friend and her offspring until the "friend's husband" figures out that someone, we' won't name names, has been downloading interesting applications onto the brand new IPod. The "friend's" kid, really, really, really wanted the IPod. Was it for music? The excitement of google searches for homework? My "Friend" is kind of dumb.

The interesting applications are all BOOBS. Yes, you read that correctly- BOOBS. Free Boobs. Boobs for boobs. Boobs for people wanting to look at boobs. Seriously? My "friend" has died 1,000 deaths since finding the Boob-a-liscious applications.

I made my "friend" a martini- or twelve- and then gave her some advice about locking down network access to BOOB sites. My "friend's husband" had a conversation or two about the objectification of women who are dumb enough to put their boobs on boob sites.

My "friend's" kid is a good kid who likes boobs. Wow. I'm going to bed.

When in Rome

2010-02-08T19:05:00.013-05:00

I don't mean to brag, but I find myself rather amusing. Hilarious, actually. It was one lunch hour last week that I decided that conversational phrases in a supposedly dead language would lilt me through my afternoon. This dalliance into dead linguistics has kept me amused for several days now. It's just too fun not to share.

Have I ever told you how smart my husband is? He's one of those people that knows way too much stuff and will kick your butt at Trivial Pursuit even if he's in a coma or beer induced stupor. Believe me, I've tried (the beer, not the coma, that's a little cruel don't you think?) Anyway, Mr Smartypants took Latin. I did not. I'm jealous. I want to be smart and be able to use e pluribus unum in business meetings. How handy is that? I bet people would run from my conference room and never come back. Something to think about, don't you think?

But, I needed more than a run of the mill phrase like e pluribus unum. Yea, I'm ready to spout "how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood." Take that! (It's
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari? Just in case you needed to know that. And why wouldn't you?

How about...

Aio, quantitas magna frumentorum est (Yes, that is a very large amount of corn.) Useless? No! The county fair? Your local grain silo where Roman immigrants have congregated?

Or...
Recedite, plebes! Gero rem imperialem (Stand aside, little people! I am here on official business.) Do I even need to tell you how to use this? Everything said in Latin sounds more important. Try it next time you're in the back of the line at the bank- sure shootin' you'll be up in front before you know it (or on your butt in the parking lot).

Here's a good one. You're at a cocktail party and you don't want to sound rude so you say...Re vera, potas bene (Say, you sure are drinking a lot.) Instead of being thrown out on your ear, your friend thanks you for your thoughtfulness and immediately hands over the keys. Beautiful, it's almost like Oprah.

And now, for my personal favorites. Are you ready? I don't think they need any explanation...

Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabris, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.
I have a catapult. Unless you give me all of your money, I will fling an enormous rock at your head. (This gives me such admiration for the Romans!)

Certe, toto, sentio nos in kansate non iam adesse (You know Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.)

Now what will keep me from losing my mind this week?

13?

2010-02-04T06:54:00.005-05:00

A&P are 13 today. Actually, they will be 13 at 6:00pm and 6:03pm respectively, but I won't be picky.

They're taller than me, but I still hold the record on mouthy, I think. Andrew told me in the car on the way home from the orthodontist the other day that he was "pissed" about something. And so it goes- you're taller than me and now you talk like a drunken sailor.

I could spend today thinking about all the ways that I've screwed up in the last 13 years- letting them roll off the ottoman and feeding them bacon. We let them watch "The Simpsons" too early and they play too much Xbox. Neither of them can spell worth a hoot and I'm sure that's my fault.

One day about 8 years ago I finally got over the fact that A&P were twins and they were here to stay. After a long day of negotiating with gypsies to take them off my hands, I finally gave up. Those gypsies are smart. They knew A&P would turn 13 some day.

So today we'll have loads of chocolate cake and various forms of deep fried sea food when we go out for dinner. We'll have presents and singing and then tomorrow it's down to business. What on earth do you do with a pair of 13 year olds? Surely it's different than when they were 12. I wonder if they've figured out that I make this up as I go along yet?

March!

2010-02-01T19:31:00.007-05:00

March? I know it's February, probably my favorite month. We've got the groundhog and A&P's birthday and Valentine's Day and my nephew's birthday and sometimes the 29th. What could be better?

March, I suppose. But, I have to confess, I have no idea why.

I got to work this morning, groggy as ever, on a midwinter's Monday morning, Toledo, Ohio. I'd had some coffee and I was la-la-ing through my morning. I made it into my office and switched on my computer and there was a note. Mind you, this note is in my handwriting. So unless my evil twin Refinnej has been wandering around again, I'm pretty sure the note is from "last week me"to "this week me." Apparently LWM really wanted to tell TWM that March was important. Hmmmm. TWM is totally stumped.

LWM could mean the month of March or maybe I'm supposed to practice my fierce "I'm at work" march or some such thing.

LWM even underlined the word March two times- and rather emphatically at that.

I'm so screwed. Is someone coming to visit in March? Am I supposed to turn in a fantastic proposal for world domination in March? Am I arranging a kidnapping of a competitor in March?

No clue. If you see me highstepping and singing along in a tune vaguely reminiscent of Sousa, you'll know exactly why. Or not.

Yep, Still Around

2010-01-26T12:40:00.005-05:00

I'm not trapped under a rock. My feet are not frozen in a puddle two arms lengths away from my computer. I have some excuses for leaving you high and dry since last Monday. Would you like to hear them?

I have this really crazy job where I fire people all the time. It's pretty draining, but I get to fly all over the place and I'm looking forward to receiving my super triple lithium MasterCard. So, I've been pretty busy.... oh wait. That's "Up in the Air."

OK, truly, we took in a high school student and he needs some extra help with his football plays. I'm good at knowing about football because I follow the SEC. Luckily my husband owns a string of Taco Bells so I never have to cook and I can spend my time with our new family member. So, I've been pretty busy...oh wait. That's "The Blindside."

OK, now I won't fib. I promise. I work in a big building and I have a really great boss and a great staff of writers. But none of these people can do anything on their own and we have a production schedule so I toil day and night in my office, but I'm still looking for love. Hold on.... That's "30 Rock."

Perhaps I haven't blogged because I've been up too late at night watching award shows. But then there's the laundry and the kids that came home on Sunday after not freezing to death at Camp Frozen Fritzel that past weekend. I washed their coats three times and they still smell like a camp fire. I think they rolled in the fire pit. Washing the same thing takes time away from washing my own stuff and holy cow, I really need a wife.

And then Peter got some of his braces yesterday and we had Boy Scouts. I have to follow Peter around to make sure he does his chores because he's incapable of setting aside 34 seconds to make his bed. Surely there is a merit badge for "Do It You Dang Self or Yo Mama dun sellin' you to gypsies."

Somehow no one is making a movie about any of this stuff.

My Hero: Lord Baden Powell

2010-01-18T19:58:00.009-05:00

While biding my time until I send my offspring out into a cold, wet, frostbitey winter's night later this week, I figured out a way to motivate them. Calm down, the boxing gloves are not the implement of my success. (I just thought it was a nice picture to show that for once, and for about the next 30 minutes until they figure it out, I'm in control!)

Control? What is that? Ever since the day someone told me that there was two instead of one, I've had no control over anything. Until today...

As I've said before, the Boy Scouts are an amazing lot. Yes, they can start a mean fire and splint your broken foot all while identifying deciduous trees. But that Lord Baden Powell guy? He knew exactly what he was doing 101 years ago when he sent his Scouts out on mules to do whatever he sent them off to do. (He may have been trying to see which ones were too lily-livered to come back.) It's all about motivation. So here's the scheme, er, well thought out parental plan I've hatched...

No Driver's License until you're an Eagle Scout. Evil, huh?

We now have all sorts of possibilities including two boys, who were only fairly motivated, but are now, Eventual Freedom Controlled By Mom, Motivated!

Shockingly, they allowed me to spreadsheet their daily chores for the next 12 weeks.

Guess what happened? They made their beds today- FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. (Yes, that's pathetic, but there are some things that are just not worth fighting about when you can shut a door. But now, I have a spreadsheet.)

Then, guess what? They took the trash out - WITHOUT COMPLAINING.

Right now? They are voluntarily cleaning up the basement family room so they can get a gold star on their charts. This is nothing short of miraculous.

Hold your applause. I need to quit while I'm ahead. But, I didn't. They each wrote a letter to their school principal for a letter of reference that they need. Then, they each wrote a letter to our United States Senators requesting their support for relief efforts in Haiti.

If Lord Powell was alive, I'd kiss him, right on the mouth.

When is Halftime?

2010-01-16T09:17:00.010-05:00

My Christmas present from A&P was symphony tickets. However, the kicker was that they had to come along. Peter has been complaining for a week.

Last night's performance was spectacular and joyous and perfect for a cold winter's night. Before I lose you and you think that I've gotten soft on you, I should regale you with my companions actions during the evening. I was seriously afraid that we would witness Peter completely pop a cork.

We survived to intermission without incident. (A&P called it "half time.") I said "Watch the first violinist all the way in the back by the door- the guy with the long, puffy hair." I've never been able to figure this guy out. Over the years of attending the symphony, he's always there and he's always completely clueless. Not only are his bowings completely opposite from everyone else, he uses about 3 inches of his bow and looks like he's a seat warmer. I don't get it because this is a symphony where people get paid.

So, with A&P playing cello and violin respectively over the last few years, I figured they would appreciate the vision of the violin slacker. We were off to the races with a series of nearly silent giggles and snorts. Once that starts, everything else is riotously funny- the old guy who can't stop clearing his throat right in front of us. OK, not that funny, but the other old guy two people away who physically turns and scowls at the choking old guy every time he coughs? Super hilarious.

The soloist with the high forehead and a penchant for ridiculous faces? When you're nearly 13, it doesn't get any funnier than that. We were a mess of stifled laughter. I couldn't look at them. Peter was biting through his lip. This went on for 45 minutes.

I don't have bladder control issues, but I did last night.

As soon as it was over? We kept ourselves in pretty decent shape until exiting the concert hall (Arena, as per A&P) and stumbled across the loud wife of the trumpet player inviting family back to her house for pizza. "What kind of pizza will you eat?" Peter says loud enough for the loud wife to hear, "Pepperoni!" Andrew adds "Get some sausage and we'll be there in 15 minutes!" We crumbled. We were a mess. We burst into the night air like yelping seals.

Then, to top it all off, you know what we saw on the way home? A very nice house on Front Street in our town has the leg lamp from "Christmas Story" in the living room window. Peter said, "I thought this was going to be terrible, but this was the best night EVER."

Merry Christmas indeed.

Can You Repeat That?

2010-01-13T06:31:00.011-05:00

On the way home from music lessons last night...

Kid: I think I will be reincarnated.
Me: OK, Bhuddist are we?
Kid: I'm coming back as a bumblebee. A bumblebee named Roger.
Me: Roger? I'm not sure that bees have regular people names.
Other Kid: That's just dumb. You die and you're done. Don't you listen in church?
Me: By done, you don't mean done...
Other Kid: Right, heaven.
Kid: I've decided to be Buddhist and I'm coming back.
Me: Something to atone for? Like the towel in a wad on the bathroom floor?
Other Kid: I'll get it right the first time.
Me: You're even worse with the towel. If anyone's coming back, it's you.
Other Kid: That hurts. Can I have a cell phone?
Me: Seriously. I giveth and I taketh away. And your grades need improvement by Thursday.
Other Kid: I'll get them up. You have no faith in me.
Me: That's ridiculous.
Kid: Roger won't have to worry about cell phones or homework. Did you know they have Prince Charles in a can?
Me: What did you say?
Kid: Prince Charles in a can. You call someone and you say...
Me: You mean Prince Albert.
Kid: Oh.

Camp Alaska

2010-01-09T12:50:00.007-05:00

In case you've had the misfortune of following my insanity for the year or so that I've been torturing the world with my thoughts, you may recall the saga of Camp Alaska. For those who are not familiar, you need to know two things. I'm crazy and few things make me crazier than the perceived danger about to envelop my offspring.

The Boy Scouts are a hardy lot. If you are a Scout, you will learn how to rip up your underpants to make fire starter and you'll wander around in the woods for two days to learn orienteering. As a Scout, you also have the opportunity to scare your dear Mom into a deep psychosis by camping outside in Ohio in January with no tent. You get to make your own shelter and try to survive on your wits and beef jerky for 24 hours. And if you do all this? You get a shiny patch. Yep, a patch and the satisfaction that your parents are capable of worrying for 24 hours straight.

Last year, Peter froze his toes together and it was of course, my fault. It was below zero and I had armed both A&P with a mountain of hand warmers. Why, would your toes freeze together if you have plenty of handwarmers to stash in your socks, and mittens and pockets? Because they're HAND WARMERS, not FOOT WARMERS. It says so right on the package. And, had I listened to the child prior to sending him out into the freezing cold, I would have known this. Seriously, my parental license should be revoked.

We have two weeks to prepare for this year's installment of "Am I Really Dumb Enough to Leave my Children Out in the Cold with Nothing But Tarps and Beef Jerky?" Yes, yes, I am.

Last year, I did not sleep. I was frozen in my bed under layers of down and fleece. The heat was cranked up to 78 degrees and I was still frosted right down to my fritzel. Tim spent the night watching the weather station out in Grand Rapids like it was a Red Wings hockey game. Unfortunately the prize was a reading of minus 1 F.

All I have to say is Here We Go Again People. It's going to get kind of crazy around here for a while.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet

2010-01-06T18:53:00.009-05:00

Some people should probably not tweet. (Is that a verb now?) I am probably the type of person that should not. I was thinking today while driving in traffic what it would be like if my stream of consciousness was being reproduced in tweets- kind of like a vehicularly inspired "Ulysses" except I'm in Toledo and not Dublin and I'm not as interesting. (Although seriously, I remember wading through Ulysses. Did anyone actually find that interesting after 1400 pages? I'm just saying.)

All of this tweeting or twittering even made it into the New York Times this weekend with sample tweets. My favorite one asked a question like "Why does my Christmas tree end up on the curb after an eggnog fueled rampage?" I'm paraphrasing, but I distinctly remember the phrase "eggnog fueled rampage." I'd like to have one of those. I'll invite you over to watch if I do.

Back to my original point, here are some things that tweeters or twitter-ers, should not tweet or twitter...

"Intestinal disruption caused by week old rotting clams can be easily avoided by not eating week old rotting clams."
"I want a divorce!" (Don't you think someone has done this? I had a friend of a friend who had her boyfriend break up with her by fax. So rude.)
"You have a booger in your right nostril, Karl." Poor Karl.
"Anyone have a spare kidney?"
"My porch is overrun by woodchucks."
"I have extra guano, anyone want some?"
"I'm on my way to therapy for my pyromania! Sorry about the kitchen table, Mom!"
"My children are currently in the company of gypsies."

At the end of the day, I'm too boring to twitter. Is anyone really that interesting to give updates every two hours?

A Resolution or Two

2010-01-03T18:17:00.010-05:00

Now that I am full up of dining room furniture, we might as well use it.

Andrew was dropped on his head. He thinks that our life somehow is reflected in the picture to the left. I don't get it at all. If I make a turkey or a chicken, he insists that it be carved at the table. He's been at this since he was about four years old.

Sunday comes every so often so I said to Andrew a few days back, "Hey, do you want to eat your Sunday dinner in the dining room?" Of course he did. So that is exactly what we'll do and that leads me to my first of two food related resolutions for 2010.

1. We will eat Sunday dinner in the dining room. Maybe not every Sunday, but how about 3 out of every 4?

2. I will have dinner parties. I will throw at least two dinner parties every month. I will invite scintillating folks to eat with us and regale us with stories of their travels to Uzbekistan or ex-spouses or illegitimate children. I'd like to hear it all. In fact, if you've spent time in a Turkish prison and are free on a Friday or Saturday night in 2010, let me know as soon as practicable. Are you an expert on Medieval monkish manucripts? Call me. Are you an expert on Indigineous peoples of the Alaskan Aleutian Islands? Let me know if Friday or Saturday will work.

There you have it. Last year, I was trying very hard not to swear so much. I've done fairly well, except on days that end in "Y."

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get dinner on the table.

Things that are Dangerous

2009-12-30T09:05:00.002-05:00

Rusty pruning shears, Spider monkeys, Bathtubs and Toasters (together).

This is the public service section of this blog. I would not suggest combining any of the above with either thin ice, martinis or members of law enforcement. There's no need to thank me, but you may want to print this and put this on your refrigerator as a reminder as we go into the New Year.

Furniture stores are beginning to present a danger as well. They suck you in with all of that upholstery and those little swatches of fabric. I'm also worried that the neighbors will start to clue into my "problem" when they see the truck from the same furniture store again this week. Remember last week when I stormed the store and got my table delivered on Christmas Eve? Yesterday I bought a hutch and a smallish sideboard that will be delivered on New Years Eve. Tim is starting to get worried that I will continue to shop on holidays in the new year.

Stay safe out there.

Lots

2009-12-28T09:14:00.008-05:00

This Christmas was the same as many others, but different. The same Christmas detritus of paper and packaging litters the house for hours. Then we leave and go litter my in-laws house as well. It's like we're a traveling, tissue paper wrapped, gift bearing, food devouring swarm of holiday pestilence, but without the disease part.

The day was different of course because the kids are older and they look upon us parental types like we're a bunch of fuddy-duddies. They have their own conversations (read: arguments) about whatever strikes their fancy. (Last night the big discussion was about sentencing guidelines for felony drug possession. Seriously!? Can't we just talk about Rudolph?)

Now I'll settle into a week at home. Note: this did not say "a week off of work." I'm not complaining, much. I have a job and a lot of people don't, so I'll accept the minor inconveniences of shushing my kids for conference calls (and removing the cat from the laptop) and the wrap up of year end projects. I hope the calls go quickly because we're finishing Boy Scout merit badges and teaching ourselves how to play the guitar this week. And, I should probably pick up some of the stuff leftover from the festivities before they start again on Thursday.

Lots for which to be thankful. Lots and lots. Now if you'll excuse me, my left hand is sore from all that guitar fingering.

Christmas Eve Delivery?

2009-12-24T08:14:00.008-05:00

Yesterday, it hit me that I will have 7 people for Christmas Eve dinner and not 6. I think I forgot to count myself.

This was quite a shock. I had washed 6 napkins.

So, now what? The dining table is too small. It has no leaves. We bought it right before we got married and it's been holding court in the dining room since we moved here for lack of any other place to put it or anything to put in its place.

This is not due to a lack of effort. Not a lot of effort, mind you, but I can never decide what I want. Provincial? Stuffy. Country? Casual. Colonial? Too George Washington-y.

I tromped to the basement for my normal "the table is too small solution"- a card table tacked on the end. I was completely non-plussed. This looked awful and I was so totally over the shabby chic. Now what? It's 2 days before Christmas. Tables are big and something that large won't fit in my VW. Nor will the chairs. Sigh. It would be pretty mean to make one of the boys sit in the kitchen alone just to cut out a chair.

I drove to a furniture store and walked in- sullen. I found exactly what I wanted. More depression, why didn't I do this in April? "So," I say sweetly, "any chance this could be delivered tomorrow?" YES!

So, tonight may you enjoy good food at a table that is big enough for all the people that you can cram around it. Merry Christmas.

Top Secret!

2009-12-22T20:36:00.014-05:00

If you repeat any of this to anyone, I swear to you, I will find you. Not only will I find you, but I will place a clothes pin on your nose and I will fill your mouth with peppermint toothpaste. I will wrap you up in toilet paper and chain you to the bench on your front porch. Yes, I will. You will be an example to others.

Now that we have that straight, how are you today? I'm fine and thank you for asking.

I got home kind of late. This is not unusual and the evidence of my lateness (Wendy's burger wrappers) are throughout the kitchen. Wow, did you feel that guilt? Neither did I.

Anyway, in the midst of the wrappers, there was a tin. A Christmas Tin. How cute. I hate tins. What do you do with them? I digress.

The tin was filled with candy and gum. Hmmm. I flashed back to my call home earlier when Andrew excitedly told me that he was the recipient of 6 packs of gum at the candy exchange at school. That's a lot of gum that I'm sure hoping is sugarless.

(Hold on, I will digress again. You thought I was kidding on Monday when I said all they were doing at school was watching movies and eating candy. Hmmm, see why I was miffed?)

So I see the burgers wrappers and the tin full of candy. Suddenly, Andrew appears. Innocently I say, "Hey, what's with the tin?"

I'm sorry dear reader, but I have no idea how, in words to simulate a nearly 13 year old boy being incredibly defensive and goofy all at the same time. It's like a new born donkey on ice skates eating Twinkies while being filmed on PBS. A vision, is it not?

He freaked out and ran away. All I said was "Hey, what's with the tin?" Does that warrant freaking out? We sent his candy for his exchange person in a zip lock bag from Big Lots. We got back a tin-load of gum and candy, all fancy like with ribbons and stuff. I'm feeling guilty, so clearly I am vectoring this back on to my child. (Is vectoring a word?)

A GIRL GAVE HIM THAT TIN.

A girl. I don't know what to say. Girls are yicky. I'm a girl. How do I reconcile that?

Dear girl, that boy is a precious soul. He's not an old soul because he does dumb things, like leave his socks on the kitchen table, but he's still ours. If you mistreat him, I will find you and put a clothes pin on your nose and....

Yawn

2009-12-21T13:20:00.003-05:00

I've got nothing. I hate that.

I slept terribly and I got up on the wrong side of the bed. As I've discussed before, I don't know what that means because in order to get out of the wrong side of the bed, I would have to crawl over Tim. This is not practical at 6am.

For some reason, A&P go to school two days this week. If you ask me, and the School Board obviously didn't, this is sandbaggery of the school schedule. They're watching movies and eating candy for two days. What do you learn from this other than laziness? We're not sitting around work watching movies. We are eating four tons of candy.

My shopping is done. I think. I hope I didn't forget anyone. If I did, you're my favorite and I just love you so much that no gift on the planet could properly express my devotion.

Yawn, so sayeth me.

A Christmas Present

2009-12-16T20:33:00.008-05:00

This is not the conversation I expected to have about Christmas. As a matter of fact, in my wildest dreams I never could have imagined this request or how hard it is to fill it... what a wish fulfilling failure I've turned out to be...

Me: What do you want for Christmas?
Kid: I don't really need anything.
Me: True, but there has to be something.
Kid: I need mittens.
Me: DONE!

Until, I can't find mittens. Why didn't I know this in July when I was cruising art and craft fairs? Why don't I have a neighbor that knits? Why don't I know anyone that knits? Come to think of it, I'd be happy to learn if it's possible to drink martinis and knit. So, who wants a scarf next year for Christmas, knitted by a drunken knitter? That's a sales pitch if I've ever heard one.

In desperation, I called my in-laws. Help me, I said. The kid wants mittens. You're old, you have to have an old friend that knits. I can't let a kid down on Christmas for lack of mittens! This is almost Little Timmy Cratchett awful. The kid has everything. No, he has two or three of everything known to man and all he wants are mittens! He'll freeze his digits waiting for the bus in January without a fuzzy pair of hand knit mittens.

Christmas 2009 is now the holiday that may go down in the book as the Christmas where all the kid wanted was a pair of knit mittens and his lousy, too busy mother can't figure that out. I can feed him sushi and take him to see a Jasper James exhibit, but I can't rouse up one pair of mittens! I'm a failure!

And, now, it's worse. The other kid wants them too. Two pairs of mittens. I've got 9 days.

This May Be the Last Time We Save your....

2009-12-14T18:13:00.009-05:00

Read on and you'll understand why I have included the picture of the lowly donkey. It has another name that rhymes with Bass, but I'm trying very hard to keep bad language out of my blog. (Disclaimer. I think all that bad stuff all the time. My brain was hardwired to mirror that of any average longshoreman.)

This afternoon, I call home.

Me: Hey.
Kid: Hey.
Me: Anything interesting happen to you at school today?
Kid: Ummmm. Not sure.
Me: No special delivery for you today?
Kid: Oh ya, someone brought me an IPod.
Me: Really. Hmmm. An IPod.
Kid: Yes, actually an IPod Touch.
Me: OK, was it delivered by a gorilla playing a saxophone?
Kid: I'm not sure.
Me: What got delivered to you?
Kid: My violin.
Me: And?
Kid: What?
Me: (Hoping, Praying for a scintilla of dread on the Kid's part when he realized he forgot it.) And when did you realize you needed it?
Kid: Later.
Me: So, your Dad killed himself to drop it off and that's all you've got?
Kid: Do you want to talk to Andrew?

It was at this point, that I wasn't even sure who I was talking to. They sound exactly the same. I started to think it has been Andrew all along, yanking my chain.

Kid: What?
Me: Which one are you?
Kid: I don't want to talk on the phone.
Me: (Silent dog scream inserted here)

I can't tell them apart. Even if I could, the kid that got the violin dropped off seems to have cared more about, I don't know, toe lint, than the fact that we saved his, well, refer to the picture.

Good times, had by all. May tomorrow be another day that ends in Y.

A Contained Conspiracy

2009-12-13T18:43:00.007-05:00

I have a cabinet.

I have 5000 plastic containers.

I have 4999 lids and never the lid I seek. Never. Dang.

Tonight, I whipped up some spaghetti with leftover beef. This, in and of itself, is almost miraculous. I never use leftovers. But, this was leftover Wagyu beef and I would have been struck down by the leftover gods had I let it go to waste.

Shortly after serving everyone up and scarfing it down, we surveyed the leftovers. By careful viewing of the approximate volume of food left in the pot, I found the perfect container- A beautiful little Rubbermaid #2. Hmmm, where's the lid?

No lid. Sheesh. I got down on my hands and knees. Then I sat Indian style on the floor and rooted around like one of those truffle seeking pigs in the Italian forest. No lid. Really.

Kid: I hide those in my room you know.

Me: WHAT?

Kid: I'm kidding.

I emptied the contents of the entire cabinet onto the kitchen floor. There was not a single Rubbermaid #2 lid. This is a conspiracy.

Kid: My friends come over and take the lids.

Me: Seriously. You're just rubbing this in.

I don't get it. The lids are like socks except I'm fairly certain I don't have container lids static clinging to my pants.

The Devil Made Me Do It

2009-12-10T17:28:00.005-05:00

Meetings started before 7am this morning and I'm still going at 5:30 pm. I am starting to lose my mind.

I'm not sure I'm still effective because I am starting to want to hurt people with office supplies. (Dear employee, if I am looking at you strangely it's because I'm wondering how I could stuff wads of paper in ...) I think I'll leave that thought to my inside voice.

My assistant accuses me of sniffing white-out. That's got to be better than the rubber cement we spread all over our desks in 5th grade.

Back to the present, I managed to throw dinner in the oven although I was supposed to do it last night for the crock pot. Details!

I think all of this business and year end craziness beyond all normalcy and reason is causing me to lose touch with my children. Andrew told me last night that he wants to be a grape when he grows up. I can only hope he's talking about champagne grapes. Today he reassessed and informed me that he's back on for archeology. I'm glad, but I would have loved him even he was a grape- even a yellowed grocery store grape.

Now that's love, huh? Please excuse me while I undo this string of paperclips that I could probably use to....

This is so Glamorous

2009-12-07T17:42:00.009-05:00

I should be in a magazine

5:15 pm Arrive home
5:16 pm Turn on lights (kids sitting in the dark, too worn out from such a long day to turn them on apparently. Poor darlings.)
5:17 pm Assess homework status
5:18 pm Peter runs to bathroom to lock himself in after having negative homework status assessment; Andrew directed to practice cello
5:19 pm Clean up cat barf
5:20 pm Put dinner in pot
5:21pm Get mail, take out garbage
5:22 pm Save burning dinner from overheated pot
5:23 pm Return mother in law's phone call to confirm everyone is a alive (you can never be too careful)
5:24 pm Reassess homework. Peter still in bathroom. Investigate Andrew's disappearance.
5:25 pm Find Andrew. Thought he was to practice cello recital piece. (Note to self: work on communication skills) Reassess homework and re-evaluate overall status upon determining that "done" meant "almost done."
5:26 pm Return to kitchen and feed cat
5:27 pm Relocate Peter and check status of assigned tasks. Claims "done." Locate other previously unidentified tasks and realign priorities.
5:28 pm Andrew checks dinner progress and menu options. Inquires about TV viewing.
5:29 pm TV viewing rejected and reminder given about cello recital
5:30 pm Head pounding, oh wait that's the hallway clock.
5:31 pm Peter appears in kitchen apparently dying of thirst. Reassess homework priorities. Again question communication effectiveness.
5:32 pm Google Dale Carnegie course
5:33 pm Holler at Peter for ignoring instructions, sandbagging homework and leaving juice ring on the counter
5:34 pm Dinner totally burning
5:35 pm Andrew is practicing his cello. No longer question my reason for being his mother. Still questioning where that Peter kid came from.
5:36 pm Recover from mini crisis and reassess.
5:37 pm Husband running late. Good choice.
5:38 pm Peter still avoiding work. Again drinking juice and I'm about a minute away from seeing stars.
5:39 pm Peter requests dinner status and menu choices. Didn't I already say this?

Needlessly Pleased with Myself

2009-12-05T10:59:00.010-05:00

(Names changed to protect the innocent- Except for mine) Yesterday...

Dials phone number on document

Them: Member Services
Me: What company is this?
Them: Universal
Me: Universal? You're supposed to be Larry's Super Fantastic Insurance Company- LSF
Them: Oh, well, we're really Universal
Me: So you're not LSF?
Them: Who is this?
Me: (Name and Company)
Them: I am going to transfer you.

I get transferred to a phone tree and give/hang up in self righteous disgust. They're busted- they're supposed to answer LSF on that phone number. But, I'll horse around with that later and I go back to my other work.

Two hours later...my phone rings. I don't answer it because someone is in my office and I'm busy and my assistant is busy. The phone rings again. And then again. Sheesh! Is someone calling me from a prison? Maybe I finally won the cruise from the fishbowl of business cards at the mall, I pick it up....

Them: This is George Jetson, CEO at Universal. Did you call a while ago?
Me: Yes.
George: You scared the hell out of our phone person.
Me: Oops.
George: She was so upset all we got out of her was "Jennifer..."
Me: (Silence- but muffling a guffaw. They never call me this fast. Ever.)
George:... and I figured it must be you. You're the only Jennifer in town that would call and scare the hell out of Customer Service.

Our conversation continued with them apologizing all over themselves for the Universal vs. LSF thing which I can't explain here, because it's a convoluted nightmare mess. Needless to say, I am now a ONE NAME WONDER! Like OPRAH or SHAKIRA or MARMADUKE!

Now if you'll excuse me, my family doesn't care one lick about this and they call me the one word name of MOM and someone wants to eat and said something about clean clothes and needing money. Does this happen to Oprah?

An Interlude...

2009-12-03T19:36:00.004-05:00

I started at least four posts today. The office is maniacally busy until the end of the year. My last project for the year will probably wrap up around the time I start popping champagne corks on New Years' Eve. (Yes, shortly after breakfast.)

I needed something peaceful. The creek along the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park did the trick (see above).

This picture was actually taken on a June afternoon around the Bison Range, but it looks like winter doesn't it? The snow is deceived by the little yellow flowers in the field.

I had this picture on my computer at work forever. Then, I went to work for another company that doesn't allow any pictures. I get to look at security warnings if my computer takes a nap. The napping doesn't occur very often, so there's really no loss I suppose. Between those two mountains is Glacier Park. Cool, huh? I love the little yellow house. I wonder who lives there and if they know that I stare at them and look in their windows.

Overactive Bladder? Underactive Colon?

2009-12-02T06:31:00.003-05:00

Every time I ask one of the children to something, do you know where he goes? He goes to the bathroom. He spends hours in the bathroom. He is the only child who does this (Since there are only two of them, that means that 50% of my children torture me with this little game.) It makes me want to scream.

Can I tell you a secret? Sometimes I do scream. This bathroom lock up is so annoying, it makes me sweat and itch just to think about it. EVERY SINGLE TIME I ask him to do something that is not related to eating junk food or playing XBox, he disappears.

Either he has a serious problem with an internal back up, probably requiring the assistance of a skilled surgeon or Fiber One cereal (or both), or it is an evasion tactic. I'm leaning towards evasion. (I would pass out if this kid ever ate Fiber One anything, but I digress. Again.)

Here is how it works..

Me: Hey, it's time to practice your violin.

Kid: OK

Time passes....

Me: I don't hear anything. Where are you?

Kid: I had to go to the bathroom.

More time passes...

Me: Did you fall in?

Kid: Nope, really had to go.

Me: For 2 hours?

This evasion technique, as developed by Kid #2, is so effective it completely subverts or deflects many of the following activities..

Room cleaning

Dishwasher emptying

Dinner table setting/clearing

Lawn mowing/raking/snow removal

Violin practice

Book reading

Homework completion

Aeronautical design

Rocketry

OK, those last two are things that he will probably miss because he's in the bathroom.

And, he's got me right where he wants me...if I yell at the kid in the bathroom I'll mess up his elimination activities forever. Yes, forever.

Is this melodramatic? Oh yes. Now if you would excuse me, I need to go pound on the bathroom door.

Strings of Lights: An Open Letter to Light Manufacturers

2009-12-01T06:31:00.002-05:00

Dear Sir/Madam:

Your products are awful, terrible in fact. The strings I bought last year worked perfectly well until I plugged them in again this year. Poof. Nothing. We tested each light. We changed the microscopic fuses. Nothing. They're off to the landfill. Your light strings are more disposable than paper towels, toilet paper and baby wipes.

I went to buy new lights. Several sets, right out of the box, didn't work properly. Half a strand was unlit here and there. I rallied and used the unlit sections to bridge sections of the landscape. I've nearly given up.

The lighted garland for the banister wouldn't even give us a flicker. We've had this stuff for 3 years. Why now? Are you sending your children to college? Paying for your fishing trawler? Laughing in your secret office while stroking your hairless cat?

I've decided that I will only buy decorations at Big Lots. At $5 a box, I can't go wrong. If they blow up after one season, I could really care less. Go on, go feed your hairless kitty.

Sincerely, Torqued in Toledo

Hey Unc

2009-11-29T20:53:00.005-05:00

I was thinking about you today.

I didn't see you at Thanksgiving and you won't be at Grandma's for Christmas- not any more. If I close my eyes, I can imagine you're way up in Alaska. You're too far away for that now. Up in the stars, I'd have to go to the backyard and look up high to see you. Above the clouds, floating where I can't perceive you, but nonetheless, imprinted on my thinking and my soul.

You aren't supposed to be gone and maybe that's why I still think of you all the time. You should be here, stopping by for a visit and a beer. The boys remember our last time together at Tony Packo's in Toledo. Do you remember? You came to our house and waited on the porch with a six pack of beer. A&P got quite a charge out of that. I was worried the next day because you left without breakfast, but you told me later you stopped at a truck stop.

Christmas with you was always special. It was so far for you to come to visit. You always bought Indiana lottery tickets and posted the numbers on the board in the back hall by the kitchen- just in case some one won big. The deal included a split of the proceeds, but we never had to worry about that, did we? (Stupid odds).

Here's to a holiday season of joy and wonder as we wait for God's gift to us, but we miss you. I see you in the twinkling lights on the trees and in the snow flakes. My hope is that your adventuresome spirit and joy for living will be with us forever. How did you do it?

Love from Me.

A Letter to my Turkey

2009-11-26T09:03:00.005-05:00

Dear Fresh, Never Frozen Turkey:

You may be big and scary, but I'm on to you. You may slide around on the rack and teeter precariously on the edge of your roaster, but I'm watching your every move. So help me if you end up on the floor.

The thermometer is like a nanny cam. You can't hide from me and I'll know when the juices run clear because I'm sitting 4 feet away from the oven and have been since 7 o'clock this morning.

I do have a question. Was it necessary for your Amish keepers to stuff your neck in? I didn't need to see that. I think there's soup I could make with that but the thought of it holding up your head was more than I could stomach so thanks for that.

I have at least 14 cookbooks splayed all over the kitchen and we've obsessively read every turkey cooking article on the Food Network website. Alton Brown? Giada? I can't decide who's better. Betty Crocker? To cover or not to cover? Baste? Where the heck is the baster? You're browing too early! What's wrong with my oven? Are my aromatics, aromatic enough? I grew my own thyme. Does that count extra?

With my arms covered in butter and turkey fat, I massaged you with butter just like Julia Child taught me on the poultry episode. She was molesting a capon, but I think this will work. Maybe I should do a good luck turkey dance in the front yard in my jammies.

Alas, everyone has a first turkey. I've cooked plenty of chickens so I will crown you a giant Thanksgiving chicken. Now, for more basting.

Sincerely, Foul Slayer

Please pass the cranberries...

2009-11-25T14:00:00.009-05:00

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful. Buddha

Thank you for boys who leave their socks on the floor, candy wrappers on the couch and the front door wide open in January. JBA

I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose. Woody Allen

Thank you for Blackberries to keep me busy. JBA

It is another's fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so. Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Thank you for cold nights and a husband who dials the thermostat back to 50 degrees. He is warm and cuddly. JBA

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others. Cicerco

Thank you for grocery stores so I don't have to grow my own food because we'd probably starve. JBA

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. Marcel Proust

Thank you for books to read and argue about. JBA

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. Albert Einstein

Thank you for an occupation that allows me to exercise righteous indignation on a daily basis. JBA

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.
Meister Eckhart

Foul!

2009-11-24T06:35:00.003-05:00

I went to meat market to buy a turkey for Thanksgiving. I wanted a fresh Amish turkey.

I ran into the market 3 minutes before it closed at 6:30 pm. I knew they had fresh turkeys because a friend told me to get off my rump and buy one before they were all gone.

The meat market guy was very helpful and he managed to locate an 18 pound turkey. As he wrapped it up, I said "Hey! How long has that thing been thawing?"

He looked at me a bit strange. "It's fresh. Never frozen." Oh duh. "Yes, ma'am."

My poultry folly reminded me of a story told by my very first boss, Doris. Doris was one fierce lady, but that's a story for another day. Anyway, when Doris was first married she went to the butcher to buy a chicken. She asked the butcher to chop it apart (there's a name for that I'm sure, so that she had parts and not the whole chicken. )

As she watched the butcher work, she snorted "Hey, you shorted me some legs!"

"What?" he replied, amused.

Doris persisted. "I may be young, but I know that I'm supposed to have 4 legs on that chicken and you only gave me two. You're crooked!"

The butcher looked at her from behind the counter and started to laugh. It was then that Doris realized that chickens have only two legs.

I wonder if the chicken was fresh, never frozen?

EABNAJT

2009-11-23T12:39:00.004-05:00

My stitches came out of my jaw today. Hooray!

The follow up for this Exceedingly Annoying But Now Absent Jaw Tumor (EABNAJT) is aggressive due it's friendly nature. Bummer. Apparently the EABNAJT has a tendency to come back. Tim suggested a trap door in my face to keep easy access for its removal. Fantastic idea.

A button broke in half on my suit this morning. I glued it back together and used tape until the glue set. I felt very handy.

I read "Flowers for Algernon" this weekend. I had never read it before even as an English major. Clearly something was lacking. It is a fascinating read. Tim said it made him sad when he read it once a long time ago. I was OK.

I was not OK at "The Blind Side." Obviously I was in need of a serious catharsis and a box of tissue. I cried all the way through that crazy movie. I had to keep myself from sobbing out loud so Peter didn't think I was a crazy person. (I was sitting next to him and some lady. I didn't care what the lady thought. She was too chatty. If she would have said anything to me I would have said "I am sad because you can't shut your yammering skull cave." I'm sure that would have been appropriate.)

So, even with the EABNAJT, there's always fun around the corner.

Right in the Kisser

2009-11-20T06:28:00.003-05:00

Thanks for your patience this week. I feel like I have been conked over the head, dragged into an alley, put in a box and sent UPS to Eastern North Dakota.

So far I've pretty much gone back to work and stopped sleeping all day. I started harassing A&P about school again and I even picked up carry out Chinese food. All of that has left me with zero energy or thought process to post to my blog.

Here's to hoping next week will find me back where I belong. On the upside, I am minus one pesky jaw tumor.

You must be joking

2009-11-17T12:18:00.005-05:00

Phone Rings:

Grandma: Hello?
Kid: Oh Hi Grandma.
Grandma: Is your Mom alive?
Kid: Um, I'm not sure.
Grandma: What? You're not sure that she's alive?
Kid: She's standing here. Mom, are you alive?

Thanks, so nice to be noticed.

Door Opens:

Kid: Hey! You're home from the hospital!
Me: Yep.
Kid: Did you bring your tumor home in a jar so we could see it?

Thanks, but no.

Eyes Open:

Me: Hey!
Nurse: Hey!
Me: Where's my blackberry? I have work to do.
Nurse: Oh boy. Not today you don't. You're in recovery.
Me: Drat.

I can work, really.

Please Stand By....

2009-11-11T14:01:00.003-05:00

Taking a break for a few days. Be back soon... early next week if not before... promise.

Overheard Daily

2009-11-10T06:41:00.004-05:00

As shouting: The bus is will leave without you in 5 minutes
Hollering: You have three minutes!
Pleading: Where are your shoes?
Incredulous: I will not bake 4 dozen cookies for your noon English class today.
Emphatically: You do not have time to make a Josef Stalin costume in the 3 minutes before the bus comes!
Hollering louder: Two minutes people!
Under breath: Don't argue with me about the time. I make this up as I go.
Screeching: Where are you Peter? Andrew I have no idea where your calculator is.
Shouting: Seriously! Are you going to school barefoot?
Pleading: Put on your shoes! How do you have holes in your socks?
Hysterically: 30 seconds! What do you mean you need pencils!? No I didn't buy more erasers.
Conversationally: Have a good day. I love you.

I'd like to go back to bed please.

Family Promise

2009-11-09T05:24:00.005-05:00

Once there was a lady who worked in New York. She was a busy marketing executive named Karen Olson and when running around from place to place she passed a lady- a homeless lady- every day on her way to work. One day, Karen gave the lady a sandwich. Karen was overwhelmed by the needs not only of the homeless lady on the corner but of those in her own community in New Jersey.

After the first sandwich, she went to the city frequently with her children to hand out sandwiches. Eventually, in her own community, Karen found that Sunday school rooms, empty all week, could be used to house homeless families at night. Volunteers fed them and helped parents find jobs and keep kids in school while the families got back on their feet.

Family Promise is active in many communities around the United States. You can follow this link here to find them in your own neck of the woods and volunteer to help. A&P have been hauled away from the XBox to help at Family Promise and other places. Just one meal will help.

When there is overwhelming need, it is hard to know where to start. One of my friends always says that we don't change the world alone and we don't have to do it all right now. Start on one street corner, with one lady and one sandwich.

Stuff I Should Know by Now

2009-11-07T10:07:00.008-05:00

Apparently I'm still learning...

Do not suck the last remnants of tequila out of the ice cubes in the margarita pitcher.
Do not try to disguise burned toast by scraping off the black parts.
Do not ignore the flashing coolant light on the dash board. It's probably not saying hello just to be friendly.
Sunlight shows dust. Only invite people over at night.
That pile of junk mail either needs to shredded or burned before it falls on someone and causes a papercut massacre.
Insurance companies are irrational nightmares. Get over it.
Peter will not empty the dishwasher unless asked 47 times in a row.
Vegetables cannot be disguised in cookies. It just makes the eaters angry.
One hour parking means one hour parking. (Money grubbing municipality, you know who you are.)
I will never find the other 12 black socks I'm missing. Stop trying to match them with each other.

There should be a manual.

Why are you limping?

2009-11-04T06:28:00.008-05:00

(Door Slams. Kid lumbers into view.)
Kid: (Emphatically) I HAVE A BUNION.
Me: What?
Kid: My foot hurts and I know I have a BUNION.
Me: Unless you're 50 years old or have been sneaking around in high heels all your life, you most certainly do not have a bunion.
Kid: Well, this foot sure hurts. (takes off shoe and waves foot in front of me.) Look at the part sticking out.
Me: Look on the other foot. I think you have the same sticking out part. It's just rubbing your shoe.
Kid: Nope. I don't think so. (Pauses to think.) It's got to be a hernia.
Me: (stifling guffaw here) It's not a hernia. Seriously.
Kid: But I can't walk and it hurts all the time- whenever I'm awake.
Me: Go to sleep.
Kid: You're not very nice.
Me: You need a medical terminology class.

GRRRRR

2009-11-03T06:46:00.010-05:00

I should print this sign on a t-shirt.

When I was little, my Mom used to call it "Getting up on the Wrong Side of the Bed."

I couldn't figure that out because my bed was up against the wall.

Once, I crawled out the end of the bed to see if that qualified as the "wrong side." It didn't work.

My sunny disposition has been sullied by a list of things to do as long as my arm which in turn is making me mean. Since my mood was foul anyway, I cleaned out the bathroom closet, the hallway closet, the pantry and anything else I could get my hands on. Our trash cans were glorious.

Back to the bears, I should be locked up in a cage with a tranquilizer dart sticking out of my rear end. I may attack for no apparent reason even if I got out of bed on the proper side.

If It Makes You Happy...

2009-11-02T12:00:00.006-05:00

Another Monday morning breakfast conversation....

Kid: Hey! Basketball tryouts start right after school.
Me: Good Luck- I promise not to forget to pick you up.
Kid: I'm really good at lay-ups.
Me: Try your hardest!
Kid: I want to make the team so I can have a posse.
Me: Huh?
Kid: I'll be the star of the team and I'll have my own posse. They'll follow me all around. I'll be popular!
Me: OK, aim high.
Kid: Actually, I think I'm trying out to keep the seats warm. Do you think I can still have a posse? I have such nice hair...

Get to Work

2009-10-30T19:15:00.007-04:00

Someone needs to rake these leaves....

They do look nice. However, don't come in the house since 50% of the occupants have the flu.

Avert Your Eyes

2009-10-29T07:45:00.004-04:00

Do you see Mr. 92? That's Peter.

The season is over, but Peter LOVED his uniform. He didn't play much, but he LOVED the team. I am so proud of him.

Doesn't that line of boys look cute? I don't think I'm supposed to be looking at that.

Another One Bites the Dust

2009-10-27T20:05:00.011-04:00

Kids are selfish when it comes to Easter candy, ice cream, pony rides and birthday presents. They are not particularly selfish when it comes to GERMS.

With germs, there's enough for everyone. Even if you're standing behind a door, wrapped in plastic, covered with a Haz-Mat suit and using a can of Lysol as a weapon, there's enough for everyone.

Kid Deux got sick today and called from school in a sheepish little voice for a pick-up. Before too long we were off to ambush the doctor with both kids despite only having an appointment for one of them. Kid Deux said "The doctor will be happy to see me because I have nicer hair." Must you be vain even when you're sick, I implored?

Two hours and two boxes of Tamiflu later, they were ensconced on the couch in blankets, surrounded by Kleenex and inhalers and within reach of a remote and glasses of Sprite.

"I have better hair even when I'm sick, " declared Kid Deux. Addressing his brother he said "You just have normal hair. My hair is Spectacular!"

Seriously, you're sick!

Told You So

2009-10-26T19:06:00.006-04:00

One of the boys is sick. This is the one who was kind of sick a few weeks back. It was then that he learned that the normal temperature is 98.6, give or take, and not 95 like he's a snapping turtle or some kind of toad. Therefore, it was with much glee that he spiked a fever and took his temperature today. Aside from feeling too rotten to move off the couch, he seems to have had a pretty good day proving his point. Repeatedly. Every 30 minutes. All day long.

I decided he needed a bath. An entire day of holding the couch to the floor just in case gravity gives out, is rather hard work. So is being lippy while you're sick. This requires extra energy.

Me: You need a bath.
Kid: I'll take it if you fill it up for me and turn on the heater and the TV and get me some Sprite and a big fluffy towel.
Me: grumble grumble
Kid: (peakedly) thanks
Time passes...
Me: There's 6 inches in the tub, stick your wrist in it and make sure its ok.
Kid: Yep. It's fine.
Me: Get in it then. I won't watch.
Kid: I want to wait until it's all the way filled up.
Me: I'm not filling it up. I'll need a loan to pay for the water. And you might sink and drown. Or displace a twelve year old sized amount of water onto the bathroom floor. Just get in the tub.
Kid: I always do it this way. Besides, I have a fever.
Me: grumble grumble
Time passes...
Me: You're not in the tub.
Kid: Ya, it was too hot.
Me: You were supposed to test it so you could adjust the water temperature. You're sitting in a bay window with the lights on, naked, and it's dark outside.
Kid: Oh. Don't say it.
Me: What?
Kid: Just don't say it.
Me: TOLD YA SO! HA HA HA!

That was fun.

Until, he only spent 5 minutes in that giant tub of water.

Marbles Part 4: I wish

2009-10-22T18:29:00.006-04:00

I wish
I knew what to say to your family.
I wish
I wasn't so sad.
I wish
you were not sad.
I wish
you could see the bright blue sky and the colored leaves.
I wish
you remembered that Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter are coming.
I wish
you had called your sister or your mom or your wife.
I wish
you had ten more minutes to think again before you made your choice.
I wish
your choice was not our consequence.
I wish
you could kiss your daughter's cheek on the first day of kindergarten.
I wish
you could walk your daughter down the aisle.
I wish
you had something to look forward to.
I wish
you had more time.
I wish
for strength and prayers for everyone you left behind.
I wish
the shining stars in the clear night sky give you peace.

Marbles- Part 3: Too Many Questions

2009-10-21T20:18:00.003-04:00

Why?
How could you?
What for?
Seriously?
Why didn't you call, someone? Anyone?
Was your phone broken? Were you too broken to dial?
Do you know that God never leaves you alone?
Do you know that we still love you?
Do you know that you're not forgotten?
Did you forget about the stuff you loved?
Did you forget that the sun sets on today and gives us a brand new tomorrow?
Is the pain gone?
Are you healed?
What did Jesus say?
Did He give you the hug I so want to give you?
Can you see us?
Do you know that your pain is ours and we would have gladly carried it right along side you?
Why were you selfish that day?
Can you see your mother wearing your cross around her neck?
Can you see us laughing at your 3rd grade picture in the argyle sweater?
Do you see the pictures of your daughter?
Why?

Marbles, Part 2: A List of Things Worth Living For

2009-10-21T10:50:00.003-04:00

Bacon
Fried Chicken Drumsticks
Hugs
Crunchy Fall Leaves
Country ham and cheddar cheese on toast. with mustard.
Chocolate Martinis
Christmas presents- even if it's socks
Saturday morning cartoons with someone cuddly
Taxes- always got to remember the taxes
Letters in smelly envelopes with lips
Everyone who loves you even when you're not loveable
Reality TV
South Park
Tomorrow. Just because

Marbles in my head

2009-10-21T06:53:00.002-04:00

I have lots of interesting and somewhat disturbing thoughts floating around in my brain. I'll process them and toss them out and around and about. Then, in a day or two, I'll post something worthy of a life, that should be led, with everything you've got, even when you might not think you're up to the task. As an open offer to anyone going forward, if you ever think it's all been too much for you, the walls are closing in and you're thinking of throwing in the towel or turning out your lights, call me first. There's always something to live for. Always.

Why We Bombed the Moon

2009-10-18T18:23:00.010-04:00

What to Expect When You're Expecting has been on the paperback nonfiction best seller list for like 300 years. I read that book and it left me completely unprepared. Not unprepared for the baby thing, although I have admitted to letting my kid roll off the footstool once or twice. No, I was unprepared for all the stuff that comes WAY after the kid is old enough to tell you the ottoman is not a good perch for a roly poly infant or that they need to eat every few hours. Whatever, Lucky Charms comes in an easy open box for a reason.

Walking though a bookstore today, I felt underwhelmed, put-out and generally under-served by the book publishing industry (This means you Random House). I can go into a bookstore and learn how to make my own hominy (pass the lye, please) and then dry it in the sun and whack it with a rock to make my own grits. I can get a book to teach me how to raise sheep, weave my own cloth, dye it with onion peels and sew my own root vegetable clothes. I can learn how to read the Bible and speak Yiddish.

But there are no books called What to Expect When your Kid is about to turn 13. If this book existed it would need chapters like "I Hate You Means I Love You" or "Just Because I Throw Up in Your Car Doesn't Mean I Speed Ate 14 Hot Dogs at the Football Game After You Specifically Told Me Not to."

No one writes these books because what happens when you raise boys to be about 12 or 13 is supposed to happen in secret. No one wants to know how it happens at your house, they just want to see the finished product in the shiny, polite Eagle Scout. And, if someone did write this book and someone else who was considering procreation read the book, there might not be any more people. Come to think of it, I bet the CIA would come and take any manuscript away and fire it at the moon so that no one really knows what goes on in houses with 12 or 13 or 14 year olds.

And, I think I finally understand why we bombed our moon a week ago. Someone had the audacity to write a book about how to raise kids to be decent Eagle Scouts but included chapters about all the crap you have to go through to get there and the government took the book and shot it into a crater on the moon to save humanity. Good thing they did so that I can remain as clueless as ever for the next 7 years or so.

Lucky, Lucky! Everything Comes with Pancakes!

2009-10-15T19:35:00.009-04:00

I spent my formative years in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, not too far from Milwaukee and the locale responsible for my weird accent. It took me until 4th grade to figure out how to spell Wauwatosa or any other Indian type word. Anyway, I loved to watch the TV show "Laverne and Shirley."

I especially loved the L's on Laverne's sweaters and Boo Boo Kitty. At the beginning of every show, the opening song scenes featured a shot of a prominent Milwaukee building. Whenever we drove into the city I used to look for Laverne and Shirley's apartment. Of course, I never found it, but I was pretty convinced I lived about 15 miles from Laverne, Shirley, Squiggy, Lenny and Boo Boo Kitty.

One episode of the show featured the girls in a misguided attempt at waitressing. It had something to do with breakfast because Laverne would walk up to every table and announce flatly and in a way only Penny Marshall could... "Lucky Lucky... Everything Comes with Pancakes!"

This funny sentence or phrase or announcement about carbohydrate laden breakfast food means to me- Hey! Good stuff is about to happen to you! Yes, You! Truly, any time someone offers to give you something for nothing...it has to be good. The only thing that would make it better would be an extra side of bacon, but I think Squiggy was Jewish which would have messed up the plot.

Regardless, today was the kind of day that made me want to climb to the roof and shout about pancakes. It was a good day and good stuff happened. You know why? You make your own luck. You make your own luck by walking into Laverne's restaurant on the day with extra pancakes or by making the right choice or by doing the right thing.

Today was one of those days. I am lucky, I have extra pancakes and I'm looking to pay it forward. Watch out when you see me, if you do. You might just end up with some extra breakfast. And I hope you enjoy it and feel lucky too.

Headlines

2009-10-14T06:10:00.004-04:00

I'd like to see a few of these...

Boy Picks Up Laundry, Cites Mom for Inspiration

Boy Does Homework Without Complaining! Mom Needs Immediate Resuscitation!

Boy Eats Leafy Greens- Says "Yummy!"

XBox Extinct!

DuPont Introduces Self Cleaning White Carpet!

Ten Martinis a Week Recommended by Physicians

Vodka Industry Needs Help- Perrysburg Mom Fills Glass

Self Correcting Cameras Shave 15 Pounds from anyone over 35

Boss Says "Yes, You May Dance at the Office on Fridays!"

Human Body Temperature Corrected! It's 96.7!

Levi's Declares All Adolescent Boys Get Free Jeans Until Age 18!

Sock Company Invents Impervious, Magnetic Pairing, Sock!

Blogger Requests No More Use of Exclamation Points!

Backyard Tomato Plants Sprout Cash!

Your Mom Was Wrong! Your Life WILL be EASY!

If You Have Checks Left, Bank says "You still have money!"

Television and Lucky Charms Will Make You Smart!

Perrysburg Mom Has Nickel for Every time Kid Says "You're Mean!" She's RICHER Than OPRAH!

Chef Boyardee Newest Iron Chef!

Mom Says "I Hope You Have One Just Like You!" and It Comes True, Twice!

Are you a fish?

2009-10-12T06:39:00.010-04:00

Kid: I don't feel good. I have a cold.
Me: You've lounged around all weekend. Eat something. You're fine.
Kid: I'm not fine. I feel oogey.
Me: Tough. You don't have a fever. Eat something and go to school.
Kid: It's awful. I think I could be dying.
Me: Let's take your temperature
Two minutes pass....
Kid: Look it says I have a fever.
Me: Huh? Really? What does it say?
Kid: 97.5. I told you I was sick.
Me: You don't have a fever and you must have done it wrong. Either that or you're an amphibian.
Kid: No. Human temperature is 96 something.
Me: That would be 98.6- that is the normal human temperature.
Kid: Oh.
Me: Off you go!

Pick it up!

2009-10-09T06:54:00.006-04:00

The conversation this morning went something like this...

Me: Holy cow, are you OK?
Kid: Yes, why?
Me: How can you sleep so close to such a powerful force field?
Kid: Huh?
Me: Everything you've worn all week is in a pile 4 feet away from your laundry basket.
Kid: Force field- um, ya, that's exactly the reason.
Me: Do you want me to pick all that stuff up so you don't hurt yourself? You've got football practice and a spelling test. I wouldn't want anything messing up your day.
Kid: Well, watch what happens.
(Kid slowly approaches the basket and just before touching it KA POW! He flies 10 feet back and lands on his bed.) See! It's amazing!
Me: Pick that stuff up or so help me....to the moon Alice.
Kid: Who's Alice?

Things That Make Me Mad

2009-10-08T06:39:00.001-04:00

I am not an easy person to love. Actually, I'm really rather difficult. I'm opinionated, objectionable, self absorbed, surly and at times talk in a way that would make a longshoreman blush.

I know all this. My husband knows all this. Take a few minutes and feel exceptionally sorry for him for the next 15 seconds. OK, that's enough. He has a whole lot of angry, loud mouthed girl on his hands.

Truth be told, I get paid to be surly and loud mouthed. It's perfect. I love going to work and being opinionated and hollering at people that deserve it. My dearly loved assistant functions as my gatekeeper- shooing people away when I'm in the middle of a "smack down." She shoos them away not because she's afraid I'll eat the next person who comes into my office, but because she's listening to my tirade. I do love her so (and she knows it!) Just for good measure, feel sorry for her for the next 15 seconds also. OK, that's enough.

Now for my confession. I got so mad today- boiling over ready to kick the wall, probably need an anger management intervention mad. Yea, that's kind of mad. This person made me so irate that I wanted to come home and play the song I always used to play in college when I broke up with a boy (yes, they were all boys and there were lots of them and they don't know what they missed and I NEVER waited for them to call). When I played the song, you were out. Flat out, way out. (It's a "Stone Roses" song, I have it around here somewhere. I've never played it since I met Tim.) But today, I wanted to pull it out and blast it over a loudspeaker to make sure that this person knows...

I AM DONE AND YOU SUCK.

I am so done that I hope your license shrivels up and falls off your office wall. Yep, so done. You know why? I don't wait for a week to have someone call me back. I don't wait for ANYTHING. (See, I told you I was scary and self absorbed. Feel sorry for Tim and Michelle again.) I have shown self control and complete professionalism and YOU, yes YOU WHO SHALL BE UNNAMED TO PROTECT YOU, THE NOT INNOCENT, are a big TURD.

I feel so much better. Thank you and come again for a visit. I promise I'll be more restrained.

Isn't blogging just a great way to get that out. *sigh*

How do you spell that?

2009-10-07T06:24:00.001-04:00

I love spelling. I love spellcheck. I love everything about words. I love to use big words and freak people out. When I was a kid there was nothing I enjoyed more than telling another kid "Hey, your epidermis is showing." The kid would look around to see what was inadvertently hanging out while I laughed hysterically. I love reading business letters and emails with mistakes missed by spellcheck. I had an email last week where the writer was going to get back with me about my "corns." She meant concerns.

I'm still laughing about that.

As you are aware, this blog is about A&P and my inadequate, often faulty,misguided and all around shoddy parenting. A&P do not particularly like words. (Note: I did not say they don't have opinions.) They have no particular use for spelling words properly or using them in the correct order to construct a nice, complete sentence, perfect for diagramming with friends. No, they have little use for this or my love of words. My inner English major hollers out in silent pain every time they end a sentence in a preposition. "Were you born in a barn?" I scream.

What to do, you ask? How can you raise them to be straight talking, good grammar utilizing boys so that they don't go to dinner with Queen and say something pedestrian? Test them. Test their vocabulary and cram new words into their heads until they cry for mercy and the XBox. Test their spelling until every irregularly spelled French derived English word or commonly used Latin root is jammed into their heads. It's painful, but someone has to do it. It's not abuse so don't even think about turning me in.

At the beginning of every school year, I let out a fair amount of rope. This rope can be used to mess up spelling and vocabulary for about 4 weeks until such time as I lasso them back in. Last Thursday was "Lasso Day." I am now back in the spelling and vocabulary business at the dinner table. They holler and protest, but mysteriously their grades improve by about 30% within 24 hours.

I can hardly wait until they learn about dangling or misplaced modifiers. Good times.

Prodigal Clothing

2009-10-05T12:10:00.000-04:00

Boys go to school. Boys take extra stuff to school. This extra stuff doesn't always make it home. Just like the money I give them. There has to be change. Really. But I digress...In two days, we were missing:

3 sweatshirts

1 jacket

1 pair of jeans

2 pairs of gym shorts

2 pairs of socks

2 t shirts

a violin

This makes me cranky. Given the size of the lost and found box- it's more like a dumpster- at the school, we're not the only ones sacrificing stuff to it. I bet the janitors take loads to the box every night like a Mayan priest approaching an ancient pyramid. "Hoo Ha Hoo Ha. Here's more stuff for your monster sized stomach. Hoo Ha Hoo Ha."

You think I'm crazy. I see torches, dancing the whole bit. Come on, we have no idea what happens in that school after dark. I bet all of Peter's lost 6th grade homework ended up as a sacrifice.

Whenever a boys wears a jacket to school for the first time every fall, I wonder, "will I ever see you again? You were such a nice buy and on sale too." It's cold in the morning so, they wear the jacket. By midday it's not cold and the jacket gets left in science class or on the bleachers or in the hallway or on the bus. I can't explain the jeans or the gym clothes or my change.

Snoopy is dancing because at least some of our prodigal clothing returned to us over the weekend- three sweatshirts and a jacket, some of the gym clothes and the jeans. The violin is not missing (hurrah!). It was left at school so someone could avoid practicing it.

So help me if the violin gets sacrificed. That gives me the willies just thinking about it. Instead I will celebrate the return of the stuff- even the stinky gym clothes- and their escape from the BOX.

Conferences

2009-10-01T15:52:00.003-04:00

I loathe parent teacher conferences. There I said it. Is that allowed? I wrote it and didn't actually speak it. I will probably end up on a bad parent list in the teacher's lounge.

I had to go to a parent teacher conference when I was in 5th grade. Mr Zahn. Yep, I remember it. And, I couldn't spell the word "biscuit" and I was very inadequate at my fractions. Well, I'll show you Mr. Zahn, not only can I spell "biscuit" but I can make them from scratch. And you know what else I can do? I can cut that biscuit recipe in 1/2 and make half as many biscuits. Or, if I'm feeling wild I can double it. So, I conquered biscuits and fractions.

I have not conquered being the Mom at the conference.

I go to every conference feeling like an inadequate 5th grader. I hope they give me a break to go to the bathroom and sharpen my pencil.