July 24, 2004 | At least he pays child support

Two items are rolling around in my brain this rainy morning.

First, Chickadee has her first loose top tooth. She’s lost three bottom teeth, and as soon as I got used to the adorable little gap, two permanent teeth sprung up and she now looks essentially the same as she did before. (When the third tooth decides to make an appearance is when the fun will begin, as her jaw is tiny and the two teeth already grown in have taken the entire spot left by the three vacancies.) Of the three teeth already lost, she lost one in April, one in May, and one in June. She is determined to lose this tooth in July. I fear finding her tying herself to the door or something similar to try to yank it out.

Second, I am trying to be a mature adult. It isn’t working. Because I am a bratty child. I have laid actual money down with several friends on the conviction that if my ex remarries, it will be a mail-order bride type of situation. (He is painfully shy and also has some very old-fashioned ideas about what a woman “should” be.) As he normally takes the kids to Saturday swimming lessons, he conveniently let slip that he was having company this weekend, of the female persuasion. When I offered to cover lessons, he said no, that was fine, because her bus from New York wasn’t getting in until late. Later when I asked if it was someone I knew he said no, it’s someone he’s just met. He’s just met someone who is now taking a bus from New York to stay at his house? The mind boggles. And let’s be clear: it’s not jealousy, it’s more like morbid curiosity. And maybe a wee bit of concern for the girl involved.

Of course, there’s always the chance that this will turn into some fabulous blog fodder….

July 23, 2004 | About

We have a busy day ahead of us, so I’m going to put this post up early today. Please accept my apologies if you meant to ask a question but hadn’t gotten to it yet. There’s always next week! But if I don’t post now, I won’t get to it until late tonight. And why am I explaining this? I’m such a dork. Ahem. Anyway.

Genuine asks, in the book of my life, which chapters are the best reads?

You’ve probably already read about that time when I was two and I fell down a mining shaft… riveting stuff…. (Fiction.)

This may be perceived as a cop-out answer, but I hope that the best is yet to come. I strongly suspect that my late thirties and my forties are going to be the most interesting, yet. But, okay… if I have to stick to the chapters already written, I’d guess my freshman year of college makes the best read thus far. Keep in mind that I’m a sucker for a coming-of-age drama, but there you have it. I turned 17 the week before I started college. I was an old soul but a young kid, and it was my first big grappling with reconciling the two. I screwed it up rather badly, but it makes for an interesting story, I suppose. (Fact.)

Angela asks, what did I want to be, as a child and then as a teen, when I grew up?

I’ve always had a fascination with large axes. People made fun of my desire to be the first famous female lumberjack, but I didn’t care! (Fiction; I’m lucky I can use scissors without hurting myself.)

Oh how I hate to be a cliche, but sadly, that doesn’t stop me. As a child, I debated to myself–often–whether I would settle for a life as a famous actress, or whether I’d take the high road and be a famous novelist. No joke: in fifth grade I wrote a short story for Mrs. Simons (in the first person, natch) about a little girl with an unhappy home situation who considers killing herself, but whose problems are basically all solved because she manages to get to an open casting call for “Annie” and lands the lead. On Broadway. Mrs. Simons disregarded the cry for help that this piece so obviously was, and gave me an A+++++. (Yeah, Mrs. Simons was a little loopy that way. I got lots of pluses in her class despite being a mental health train wreck.)

As a teenager, I decided that nothing would stand between me and the Broadway dream. My older brother wanted to study music, in college, and my parents threatened not to pay his tuition if he didn’t major in something more practical. He got his degree in civil engineering and is now a jazz musician. Having watched my brother’s situation before mine, when I announced that I wished to major in drama I was not surprised when my parents threatened not to pay my tuition. I countered with the suggestion that if I could not pursue my major of choice, I simply wouldn’t attend college. Checkmate. I majored in theatre, and went on to become a software engineer. (Fact, and proof that truth is stranger than fiction.)

Regular Cinderella asks, when the summer ends and I turn back into a pumpkin, what do I plan to do for work?

I was thinking of getting a job at Hooters. I hear the tips are awesome. Heard of any specials on push-up bras over at Fishing For Deals lately? (Fiction!)

Well, it’s been made abundantly clear to me that I will not work as an engineer again. And freelance writing feeds my soul but not my bank account. I am trying to find an entry-level job that could potentially lead to more writing, but so far I haven’t found much. The other possibility is that if I work at the daycare center we’ve used for years–although the pay isn’t superb–I get half off tuition, effectively rendering that a very cost-conscious choice until Monkey starts public school. I’ve discussed working there with the director several times, but so far they’ve had more employees than openings. And, um, barring those options? I may just go work at Target for a while. For the discount. (I need to concentrate on the discount, and not on the fact that I hold a Masters degree from Stanford and I would be working at Target with all the local teenagers.) (Fact, *sigh*)

She also asks how I’m feeling, because she is a sweetie!

I’m feeling pretty darn good, thanks! I’m giving a big shout-out to the Vivelle Dot, as I think for the first time in a month, my hormones are actually regulated again. The anti-depressants aren’t hurting matters, either. Heh. The migraine situation seems to be under control, finally; which is good because I was about one headache away from the padded room. (Fact.)

Aurora asks, did my children understand what surgery I was having and why, and why did I have to have a hysterectomy, anyway?

It was fairly straightforward to explain to the children that they had poisoned my insides when they’d lived there, and that I now had to submit to a painful and potentially deadly procedure thanks to them. (Fiction, don’t get all ruffled. No therapy fund in the world could cover that.)

I discussed the history behind the surgery in this post, if you’d like to catch up. My son is a very happy-go-lucky kind of guy, and young, besides, and so was happy with the explanation that I had an owie the docs were going to fix. Okay, Mama, tralalala, was pretty much his reaction. My daughter–older, and more sensitive, to boot–was a harder sell. She actually remembers several previous, smaller surgeries I’ve had to deal with the endometriosis. So in her case it was a matter of saying, “Remember how Mama gets lots of belly aches and they’ve done some little surgeries before to try and fix it? Well now they’re going to do just one more thing, and it will fix me up for good and after I get better I won’t have those belly aches ever again.” She worried about it a lot, because she’s like that. But they were away visiting my ex-laws for the first week, so by the time they came home I was up and around and they could see that I was moving a little slow but perfectly fine, otherwise. Someday when it’s time to have the birds and bees talk with Chickadee, I will explain what they actually did.(Fact.)

She also asks what state I live in.

I am a proud resident of the Live, Freeze, or Die State. Here in New Hampshire we know how to have a good time… in the snow. (Fact!)

Jennifer wants to know if she should get her own blog.

Well, Jennifer, that depends. Do you like to write? Can you happily prattle on about all manner of minutiae in a way that compels people to read your blather despite its inherent lack of import? Would you like to get sucked in to a huge time-waster? Do you want to be one of the cool kids? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you need a blog! But, uh, don’t forget me when you’re famous.

Chewie is so brain-drained from four children, she asks a series of questions about how I manage my orgasmic Target jaunts, and how do the kids handle them?

I just lock the kids in the bathroom with some snacks whenever I need a Target fix. Cuz shopping with kids is impossible, as you know. (Fiction. I swear that I only considered doing that once.)

As it happens, yesterday I was kid-free for my trip, as the ex takes the kids one afternoon a week. Of course I try to limit my purchasing of stuff for the kids to the trips when they’re not with me. However, I have been known to take them to Target with me, and they know the drill. We get one of those bench carts so they can both ride, and they either ride or walk (but they must stay right beside me or get strapped back into the cart). They know I only buy items with red tags, and further know that if they behave they’re likely to get a small bit of bribery (usually a special snack, because my kids are all about food). And as I rarely get out of Target without a cart full of stuff, I have sometimes bought future gifts for them while they were with me… I just distract them with something and shove the items in question under other stuff in my cart. And I’d love to tell you that they’re perfect angels there, but sometimes they act up. And then we leave. And there is lots of crying. Mostly by me. (Fact. Please pass the Kleenex.)

Janet wants to know what, short of a brain transplant, would make her blog funnier.

Ummmm… a sex change operation? I would come laugh at that. (Fiction; I would never laugh at you. Maybe with you. And please no hate-mail about transgender stuff because I’m joking for crying out loud.)

I don’t know, Janet. My guess is that you just haven’t had enough trauma in your life! I don’t exactly set out to be funny, most of the time. It’s more like I’ve learned that humor is a great coping mechanism. I’m a huge proponent of the “Well, ya gotta laugh or scream, and laughing is more fun” philosophy. My MO is basically to turn all of the annoying aspects of my life into blog fodder, thereby robbing them of their ability to drive me nutty. While I appreciate that others’ enjoy my writing, the truth is that I do this as much for my own sanity as anything else. Humor heals. (Fact. I feel a little bit like L. Ron Hubbard right now.)

That concludes this week’s installment of Friday Facts and Fiction. I hope that you found enlightenment; I didn’t, but I lose things all the time and find them later, so there’s still hope.

July 22, 2004 | Detritus

… Friday Facts and Fiction questions.  As Jules just reminded me.  So leave your questions here and I will address them tomorrow.

By the way?  Tons of people are now doing the open-forum questions thing.  But as far as I know, I started it, and I’m the only one who actively wastes time coming up with fake answers in addition to the real dirt.  So accept no substitutes!  Pick my brain and behold the debris it spews forth!

Retail Therapy

It’s true; I am a wanton slut for Target.  I will do unspeakable things to get to spend half an hour cruising the endcaps there.  Now you all know my weakness.

In addition to the Slip-N-Slide that is going to make me very popular here this weekend, I picked up several other have-to-have deals, and my heart went pit-a-pat as I did so.  How adorable are these??  I didn’t want to make the picture super-gigantic, so you may not be able to see, but those kiddie-sized gardening gloves actually have a different bug finger puppet on each finger.  I may have in fact cooed while I was putting them in my cart.  I mean, the kids’ “help” with my gardening is spotty at best, so they may as well enjoy their gloves, right?  All 4 items shown to you here?  Under $7 for the entire lot.  Because it was all 75% off.  This is why when I grow up, I am going to marry Target and have its babies.  (Yeah, the no uterus thing may interfere, but since it’s a fantasy, let’s just gloss over that part.)  But while I am waiting?  The pictured items are going into the top-secret Mama storage room to await–here is where I confess exactly how twisted I am–next year’s Easter baskets.  (Be gentle; it’s a sickness.  I can’t help it.)

I also purchased the Sid’s Room Toy Story Action Figure Set, mostly because my life feels incomplete without that freaky doll head on the erector set spider body.  But if anyone asks I will claim that I bought it because Monkey is a Toy Story freak and the set was 50% off.

For Chickadee?  Pink rain boots with butterflies on them.  For $3.24.  Are you beginning to understand??  It’s not like I could’ve just left them there.  I’m only human.

There were other things, too, but I’m starting to get all hot and bothered.  I’d better stop talking about it, or before you know it I’ll be back there again tomorrow.  But I hope that this has perhaps elucidated for the un-Targeted why I feel so passionately about The Happiest Place On Earth.

By the way, having spent some time there today?  Made me realize that life is too short for crappy customer service.  I’m going to dispute the erroneous charges from The Great Television Debacle through my credit card company, and leave Excellent Purchase to clean up their own mess, because I am done.  The second defective TV has now been in my house for over a week and despite four telephone calls on my part, they have neither arranged for a replacement nor picked up the piece of crap they left here.  Though they did manage to find time to charge me, twice.  The replacement television?  Will come from Target.  And it will love me like a good television should.

Retail Therapy

Guess who just picked up the deluxe 24′ Slip-N-Slide on clearance?

(I’m not above buying my way into the Mama Hall of Fame.)

Detritus

… that late last night, as I stood in my bathroom, waxing the hair off my upper lip, surrounded by piles of boxes of various and sundry hormone patches, I started hatching a scheme to market said patches as dual purpose for hormone regulation and hair removal?

Just remember, you read about it here first.

July 21, 2004 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony

(I still haven’t figured out how to fix my screwed-up page layout.  So I’m going to do the mature thing and ignore it and hope it goes away.  Carry on.)

Children are a never-ending source of a fresh world-view, aren’t they?  I mean, they just come up with stuff that some of us stuffy old adults would never even think of.  Say you were… oh… I don’t know… say you were perhaps not feeling in top form for weeks on end a few days.  Or that you’d been charged for two TVs–neither of which worked–and found yourself spending all of your spare time on the phone with a large electronics conglomerate trying to convince them to stop stealing your money and, I don’t know, maybe fix their error and give you the TV you thought you were buying.  Should you find yourself in one of these situations (or a similar one), do not be alarmed when your offspring find some creative ways to pass the time while you are sleeping otherwise occupied.

My home is just bursting with new games that I know are going to be all the rage very soon.  And because I love to share the joy, here are some soon-to-be-favorites for which you should all be on the lookout:

• Land mines:  In this game, one small child takes an entire deck of Go Fish cards (the type is unimportant, although the Thomas the Tank cards work well) and strategically places them all over the floors of the house.  Be sure to put at least one card on every stair.  When someone steps on a card, everyone yells “BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!” loudly enough to be heard in Australia.
• Emergency:  A game of skill and cunning, this one requires uncanny timing and healthy lungs.  The object is to appear to be playing quietly until any adults in the vicinity have lost interest; then, one child begins shrieking about an alleged injury at a pitch capable of breaking glass.  By the time the resident adult has come tearing to the scene, all children should be loading the “injured party” (usually a Polly Pocket) into the toy ambulance.
• Pool Party:  If you have anything that can hold water, you can have a pool party.  Extra points for carrying your chosen receptacle out of the bathroom and leaving a river of evidence on your way back to the playroom.  Extra special bonus points for later daring to complain about whatever toy you ruined by putting it in the water!
• Tornado:  When nothing else seems entertaining, just take out everything.  Go ahead, take it all out!  Scatter it to the four corners of the room, or–better yet–across the entire house.  When directed to clean up, plead fatigue.
• Covert Art:  Sure, you’re old enough to know what you can and can’t draw on, and what you’re allowed to use scissors for and what you’re not… but that’s all part of the fun!  Go ahead and use that green crayon on your sister’s school forms!  Sure, cut up your little brother’s prize art project!  He won’t mind!  Or maybe he will, and that makes it even more fun!
• School For The Wicked:  Take great care in dressing all of your dollies–all 472 of them–for school.  Line them up and begin addressing them as their mother.  Be sure to mimic every obnoxious thing your mother has ever said to you, including any swear words you may have overheard her saying on a bad day.  Make the dollies cry.
• Bedding Romp:  This game can’t be played as often as the others, but it’s loads of fun on days you can manage it.  Wait patiently for the one day out of twelve when your mother actually manages to make all the beds in the morning.  Then, don’t just play in your bed, make it look like you had a grand mal seizure in the thing.  Be sure to hide your pillow after ripping up all the sheets!

You’re very welcome for sharing.  No need to thank me.

Detritus

For some reason, BlogSpot has decided in its infinite wisdom that maybe I only really wanted the left-hand side of my page.  I have no idea where the right-hand column is.  Which means I can’t access my blogroll.  *weeping*  Maybe they’ll fix it… eventually.

Edit: Thank you, Keri!  I’m a dork.  Apparently my missing column is at the bottom of my page–I have no idea why–but at least you’ve saved me from my blogroll withdrawal.  Regardless, I am still miffed with BlogSpot.  And my page is Not Pretty which is just going to render me cranky until they fix it.

July 20, 2004 | Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

Second verse, same as the first….
 
Not too much different to report, tonight.  Although it’s worth pointing out that from the time we shopped for VBS supplies (a few days ago) and the children spotted the 10 little boxes of instant pudding, Monkey has talked of nothing else save how much he was looking forward to the night we would have pudding for snack.  What night are we having pudding?  Is tonight the pudding night?  I can’t wait for the pudding!!!!
 
You guessed it.  He took one bite out of his pudding cup and brought it back to me in the kitchen.  “I don’t want any more.”
 
Tonight, by the way, was a Jewish-girl-turned-Christian’s fantasy VBS night.  Tonight’s biblical hero was Esther.  There was pseudo-Purim happening in our Fellowship Hall, I tell you.  Very interfaith and somewhat odd, but fun!  Plus there was a great song about Esther at the end during the rock-out-with-the-band time, and Chickadee got up and sang and danced as part of the backup singers!  Much fun.
 
Apparently, I carried the Holy Spirit home with me tonight, and also it is highly contagious.  This is why you should all go to Vacation Bible School, because IM’ing with those speaking in tongues is quite amusing.  I will leave you with the following.  Upon settling down at the ‘puter to blog and chat with a friend, I experienced this:

Jules : stll no headace
genericmir: So far so good.
Jules : yaayyy!!!
Jules : I’m not drunk btw..I’m havnikeyboarisues
Jules: brb
genericmir: LOL
Jules : I got my ear pieredagain
genericmir: You have pie in your ear?  Huh?
Jules : pierced
genericmir: Oh, where?
Jules : need a second hole inh rightear
Jules : dmnit
genericmir: LOL
Jules : I SHOLD E EAY ONYOU ICE Iave no bttere
Jules : ROFL
genericmir: English please?
Jules : TESTIN
Jules : yay
Jules : I have a keyboard again
genericmir: Oh good, because I thought you were speaking in tongues.
Jules : was more like speaking in thumbs

Health is overrated

(Or, Have! some! more! caffeine!)
 
So impressed was I by the effects of last night’s Pepsi, even though I woke up headache-free (a small victory in itself) I decided! to have! some tea! immediately!
 
It is possible that my caffeine tolerance has changed a bit since all this mucking about with my hormones.
 
I mean, if you need someone to churn some butter with the spasmodic unconscious shaking and flailing of the arms, I’m your girl.  I should probably not be your first pick if you need someone to carry something breakable, at this point, however.  Or if you’re looking for someone calm.  That would not be me.  Because I am about to jump right out of my skin for no discernable reason.
 
Right now I need to go herd the children through showers (we are switching to morning cleaning routines for the week of VBS).  You might want to pray for them, as I suspect there may be shampoo in eyes and not a whole lot of sympathy on my part.
 
But! I! don’t! have! a! headache!  WOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!