Archive | May, 2011

Varying definitions of “relaxing”

by Mir on May 31, 2011 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

I find camping very relaxing. It is only while camping that I do not feel guilty sitting down with a novel and devouring it in one sitting. At home there’s always something that needs cleaning or otherwise attending to, whereas at a campsite, I consider reading and napping to be the two main categories of strenuous activity.

The children, however, do not have a need to loll around and relax. They scoff at relaxing! They are plenty relaxed! They are so relaxed, they need to poke at each other and run around in circles, and then THAT will be considered calm in comparison to what comes next, which is generally the Whining Olympics of She Took That Shell I Found Well He Won’t Stop Humming In My Ear, etc. They are so relaxed that they would like to go swimming now, please, and have a snack now, please, and by the way, when are we going to see Boatguy?

You may remember Otto’s friend Boatguy from our trip last year. He graciously towed my kids all over the lake, and the kids remembered that he is WAY more fun than me and Otto. Fortunately, he was there, too. (more…)

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Many exciting things

by Mir on May 28, 2011 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

Memorial Day weekend is fast shaping up to be a barn-burner, over here. I don’t really even know what that means, but hey, I am taking a lot of drugs, so it seems appropriate somehow.

First, fence update! Guess what! No, really, you will NEVER GUESS. Oh. You guessed. Hmph. Yeah, that’s right—the fence is still not done. Oh, technically there is now fence all the way around the pool area, at least (though even that was looking doubtful until shortly before we left town), but we have yet to negotiate the fixing/replacement of all the damaged stuff, so that awaits us on our return. Awesome. I am planning to take EXTRA drugs before that happens, fall into a deep stupefied slumber, and make Otto deal with it.

Second, camping update! Guess what! Okay, this one you may not guess. We hitched up on Thursday and towed here to South Carolina (state motto: Super pretty, and right next door to Georgia), and then we set up camp and tried to decide what to do first. Only, before we could decide, the heavens opened up and it POURED. But then it stopped, and that was okay, because we figured we would do something fun on Friday. Except on Friday, it poured again! And today is looking decidedly gray. So. I have renamed this camper Our Very Expensive Mobile Board Gaming Unit. (more…)

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I was hoping to go on a diet, anyway

by Mir on May 26, 2011 in Health is overrated, It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

Don’t I look calm? Serene? Nary a care in the world? It’s the drugs.

Just an update on yesterday’s post, because I know you all care VERY DEEPLY: Our missing fence section never showed up, yesterday. Around 4:00 Otto called the fence company to say YES HI I AM WONDERING IF YOU EVER DO WHAT YOU’LL SAY YOU’LL DO and was told that our crew was on another job and then the equipment broke and they were delayed and blah blah blah FIRST THING IN THE MORNING, WE PROMISE.

First thing this morning the foreman of a THIRD crew (just in case you’re keeping count) showed up, and proceeded to sit in my yard just outside my office window—that wasn’t creepy at all—for an hour until his crew showed. They are working on closing the fence off with the final section, now. But it still needs repairs/replacements and we’re not dealing with any of that until next week when we get back from camping. So! Let us now ignore the fence! LALALALA!

Instead, let’s talk about my poor tongue. (more…)

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This is the fence that never ends

by Mir on May 25, 2011 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience", My name is Grumplestiltskin

The work on the fence has been going on for almost a week, which means that even Licorice is pretty much over it, not even bothering to bark at the guys anymore. That’s fine, because Otto has pretty much taken over on the barking, inbetween small head explosions as we traverse this particularly delightful path of home renovation.

When we signed the contract, by the way, we were told “one full day, or maybe one full day and half a day.” That’s all it was supposed to take. And this is not our first rodeo; we figured that meant maybe three days. Heck, I even said it to the fence guy, laughing, and he insisted NO NO, really, it’s pretty much a one day job.

AHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAsob.

But, hey, look. There is some GOOD news. I am pretty sure that by the time this is all over, they’re going to be paying us to take this #*%&+$ fence, so there’s your silver lining, right there.

Let’s review, shall we? (more…)

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More salacious, and yet less horrifying

by Mir on May 24, 2011 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

I meant to tell you the story of the fence today, I really did. But it’s not over yet, so it’ll have to wait.

In the meantime, just to give you an idea:
Number of days the fence was supposed to take: 1, or possibly 1.5
Number of days they’ve been working on the fence SO FAR: 4 (and counting!)

As I often say to my long-suffering husband: If I wrote it out and called it fiction, I would be accused of being ridiculous and unbelievable. But, you know, it actually happens this way. TO ME. Of course.

So while we wait for the fence saga to reach its conclusion (what will it be? A completed fence or a nervous breakdown? I CAN HARDLY WAIT!), instead let’s talk about the end of innocence, via “dirty” books. Today at Off Our Chests I’m talking about the book that signaled the end of my childhood, and I bet you have a similar story to share, too. C’mon over.

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Chickie’s big night out

by Mir on May 23, 2011 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience", Offspring: ecstasy and agony

It has recently come to my attention that there’s the possibility that my oldest child has observed a year of her younger brother getting a lot of attention for repeatedly falling into messy chunks, and that she has since concluded that the best way to get love and affection in our family is by behaving badly.

[This conclusion is fueled by a deep need to believe that her recent rottenness is the result of incorrect conclusions rather than an honest-to-God sociopathic streak, and I AM OKAY WITH THAT.]

So over the last month I have been trying very hard to Spend Quality Time With My Daughter, because I love her, and because I’m hoping that doing so will help to curb some of the behaviors that make me want to rip her face off. And part of that strategy has been to essentially “reward” her for being older/more mature than her brother, by taking her to things he doesn’t get to go do.

All of which is preamble to saying that this weekend I took Chickadee to a cocktail party. (more…)

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Canine brain overload

by Mir on May 20, 2011 in Oh look! Something furry!!

The children have been out of school for a day and a half, and already the dog has gone completely insane.

To be fair, there’s a crew here working on the new fence, and when you are a 12-pound vicious guard dog that requires a lot of running back and forth from one end of the house to the other, barking and whining, just in case the pounding and trucks in the yard hadn’t yet alerted you to the fact that INTRUDERS are AFOOT. The fact that said intruders are hard at work erecting a dog run for your spoiled furry ass is apparently not a deterrent to this behavior, by the way.

But even yesterday, before the banging and clanging began, the dog was already on the edge of clinical insanity. I suspect that she—like me—goes off the rails pretty quickly when her sleep is disturbed. And when the kids are at school, she sleeps almost the whole time. Now that they’re home? No such luck. (more…)

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Sigh of relief, stab of fear

by Mir on May 18, 2011 in Aspi(e)rations, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

I’m the one who’s not sentimental. I’m the one who gathered with the other moms for coffee on that first day of preschool and while they blubbered about how their PRESHUS BAYBEES were growing up and they couldn’t stand it, I was all, “Are you going to finish that scone?” and “This is the first uninterrupted cup of coffee I’ve had in three years!”

It’s not that I’m in a hurry for my kids to grow up, it’s just that… it happens. And so far I’ve only liked them more, the older they’ve gotten. And sometimes, yeah, it feels like a grind—inbetween the rainbows and fluffy bunnies and tender moments, natch—and so passing a milestone is pure fist-pump “We made it!” celebration, with no room for nostalgia about what leaving this chapter of life behind might mean.

And yet…. Today is the last day of school. Today is the last day of elementary school for Monkey, and it really does feel like the end of an era. (more…)

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Endings of eras

by Mir on May 17, 2011 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing about my school days, lately. I guess it’s a side effect of this academic year coming to an end, and the fact that I am about to be Officially Done Being An Elementary School Parent, which doesn’t seem possible. (Seriously, how is that possible when I still have to ask my kid if he remembered to put on underwear??)

Anyway, today I’m over at Off Our Chests remembering my first time, though it’s not what you might think. C’mon over if you ever had an idol who ended up surprising you (or even if you didn’t).

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Between naps

by Mir on May 16, 2011 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

It’s amazing how many things you can pack into any given day between dragging your butt out of bed late and then sinking into a catatonic slump shortly after lunch, and then between wiping the drool from your chin later that afternoon and falling into bed shortly after the children. (Related: I seem to be drinking a lot more coffee than usual. Hmm.)

* * * * *

Our pool is officially open for the season, de-murk-ified, and filled with small, unmarked bills. Oh, wait. That’s not quite right; we filled our local pool supply place with small, unmarked bills, and they, in turn, came and filled our pool with FOUR HUNDRED POUNDS of salt (not an exaggeration, actually). They also removed our old chlorinator and instead attached some fancy doohickey that monitors the salt content of the water (possible readings include “pretty salty,” “very salty,” and “hey, did you know there’s salt in here?”) and spins the salt into gold. Or chlorine. Whatever. It’s all very exciting and so, of course, the weather—which has recently been in the 90s every damn day—spontaneously cooled off and it’s now 56 degrees outside, which is positively arctic for Georgia in May. (more…)

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