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A funny thing happened on the way to the courthouse

I am not really sure how to tell this, so I guess I’ll start back at the beginning.

The first thing you need to know is that when my dad and stepmom decided to get married on our trip, they were thinking we would all just go to the Grand Canyon and then we’d find a pretty place and then my stepbrother (who is an experienced Dude Who Can Perform Marriages, Ordained By The Internet) would do a quick ceremony and we’d all continue on our hike or whatever. Apparently the last time they were there, they saw a couple being married there and thought it would be picturesque. Nice idea, yes?

Well, it turns out that if you want to get married at the Canyon, you need to get a PERMIT. And you have to pay for it, and they have all kinds of rules, and so it was decided in the name of Not Being Complicated that we would simply visit the Canyon, but have the wedding here at the rental house (which is plenty picturesque, too). (more…)

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Comments { 61 }

Wait, what time is it??

I am a great big giant baby when it comes to jetlag. This is, of course, because I am a delicate flower in general, and when you take a delicate flower and plunk her down someplace where time is magically 3 hours different, no amount of “oh, there’s no such thing as jetlag going west!” and “three hours is practically nothing!” staves off the all-encompassing fatigue which I then feel for the next two days, because I’ve woken up at 3:00 in the morning (6:00! time to pack lunches!) and around the time that everyone else is having breakfast, all I want is a 4-hour nap.

So: I was not entirely jazzed when the family vote was that we would arrive and settle in on Saturday, then hit the Grand Canyon first thing on Sunday. Really? By the time we left our rented house here in Flagstaff at 9:30 in the morning, I was wondering how on earth I could possibly last an entire day, much less an entire day in the sun and walking along cliff edges.

I bravely disguised my fear, by the way, by rattling around in the kitchen until I located the coffee grinder, then brewing a pot of coffee so strong that Otto took a swig from the mug I placed in front of him and it singed his eyebrows. Liquid courage! (more…)

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Comments { 29 }

Endings, beginnings, elusive middles

It seems like I should have more to say about the end of middle school, but I’ve been a little too verklempt to manage it. [Talk amongst yourselves! Here, I'll give you a topic: Attendance awards; universally annoying or only to bitter parents of chronically ill children who feel like other kids getting medals and certificates for having good immune systems is bullshit? Discuss.]

In the end, it was sort of anti-climactic. Chickadee hasn’t been feeling great, and in the post-moving-on-no-we-are-most-certainly-not-calling-it-a-graduation-ceremony hubbub as I tried to corral her and some friends for pictures, she finally stopped rolling her eyes long enough to walk up and stand nose to nose with me. “Time to go,” she said. “I need to go home.”

So I bought her a milkshake and took her home, whereupon she slurped down said milkshake and promptly fell asleep on the couch for several hours. Not really the celebration we’d maybe had in mind, but sometimes you’ve just gotta take a nap. (more…)

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Comments { 58 }

Here, let me Google that for you

Sometimes, having a record of our lives is awesome. Every now and then I will go back and read something in my archives and be AMAZED, because I’d completely forgotten said event until reading about it and reawakening that memory. I’m constantly grateful for that when it comes to the day-to-day marvels of raising small humans.

Other times, I have to go silent for several days in a row, because it’s the kind of weekend that ends with a hysterical child and me Googling “how to remove (ripped,partial) contact lens?” and that, my friends, is the BEST thing that happened in those three days. I am counting on these sorts of memories to shrivel and disappear, much like the agony of labor. (We all know it happens, but our brains are designed to let go of the pain, lest the species die out altogether.) Today is a new day! Thank God.

Here’s a memory that I’ve kept and don’t mind: Have you every been skinny dipping? I have, and I think it’s good for your body image. C’mon over to Off Our Chests to see what I mean.

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Comments { 2 }

Foiled again

Once upon a time, on a day when I brought Mario home to our house after school, the boys played and played and played some more, and when Mario’s dad came to pick him up, he said, “Hey, we’re going to Crazy’s for dinner tonight, y’all want to come?” [Crazy's is not really the name of the restaurant. I have changed the name to protect the... crazy.]

Monkey, of course, immediately began begging to go too, so we all went to Crazy’s together and it was there that Mario corrupted my son.

But first, let me back up a minute. We don’t eat out all that often, partly because of cost and partly because we like to cook and also partly because it requires leaving the house, and you KNOW how I hate that. Our food-cooked-by-others preferences tend to run towards take-out (see also: Mexican food, hole-in-the-wall; Chinese food), and while we do take-out once a week, the sit-down-in-a-restaurant thing is much rarer.

So we all went to Crazy’s, which was the first time I’d been there in years. (more…)

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Comments { 29 }

Me dress pretty someday

I am fresh out of magical solutions to the recent Year Of Continuing Suckage, so I did what any red-blooded American female with a weakness for cute shoes would do: I spent a couple of weeks dressing up to see if it helped me feel better.

Read all about it over at Off Our Chests, if you like. Mostly because I’m pretty sure that two consecutive weeks of me wearing mascara every single day is one of the signs of the Apocalypse.

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Comments { 3 }

More of the same

I lamented to Otto this morning that “I don’t have anything interesting to write about!” Otto—deeply embroiled in the home stretch of grading and finishing up the semester—gave me several suggestions of guffaw-worthy student gaffes, none of which I’m actually going to share. That’s mostly because they’re not my stories, but also because I don’t want Otto to lose his job. He’s so nice to the students’ faces; there’s no need for them to know he makes fun of them here at home.* Um. Oops?

See, the problem is that all I want right now is… nothing. No drama. No excitement. I want boring and predictable and utterly ordinary. I’m not sure we’ve quite gotten there, but we’re getting closer. And I like it, but it doesn’t make for fantastic storytelling, in general.

NEWSFLASH: With about half an acre of safely gated area in which to roam, my rotten dog only ever wants to go find (and apparently roll in) the one plant (which I cannot locate to save my life) which immediately spits tiny green burrs all over her fur. That’s what passes for excitement here right now, and I know, it’s pretty boring. (more…)

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Comments { 38 }

A somewhat poodley anti-climax

After eight years of babbling about my innermost feelings online, I’ve learned a lot of things. Mostly I’ve learned that you’d much rather we talk about my hair than my angst. (I’m trying not to take it personally.)

People who know me in real life (a.k.a. Friendship Outside The Shiny Box) generally fell into two camps after I wrote about my hair last month: The first group read that post, called me up to say, “Really? REALLY?” and then forgot about it, while the second group called me up to lobby their specific preference and then came back a time or two (or twelve) over the next few weeks to see what I’d decided. The latter group tickled me endlessly because 1) it’s just hair, 2) it’s not even YOUR hair, and 3) I just can’t get that invested in the process because IT’S JUST HAIR.

And yet, a decision was made, and an appointment was made, but then there was radio silence because I’m a selfish monster. Or because my stylist didn’t have an opening for several weeks. And also because I was sort of tired of talking about it. (See also: JUST. HAIR.) But because I know y’all care deeply, let’s talk about it some more! (more…)

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Comments { 128 }

It’s true, we totally rock (updated with a pic)

You may remember that one piece of my recent weekend of doing pretty much nothing included a landscaping estimate. This is because my darling husband seems to believe that the outside of our house is supposed to look a certain way.

I’m not saying he’s wrong, I’m just saying I’m a lot better at, shall we say, selective visual fields than he is. Why, the weekend before the do-nothing weekend, Otto had declared a family yard pick-up day, and I’m not saying it didn’t look great when we were done, I’m just saying that this is a Mars/Venus issue.

What I think when I look at the front yard: Grass! Birds! Pretty!

What Otto thinks when he looks at the front yard: Maybe today we can pick up all of the sticks and branches that fell up by the big tree and then along the sides, there, and drag it all back into the debris pile in the woods. Then we can trim the bushes, rake all of the leaves and other crap out of the front beds, trim all of the greenery, weed, and spread new pine straw when that’s all done. And finally I’ll ride around on the mower for a while, because the grass has grown a full half an inch since the last time I did that.

(In my defense, I did pick up a LOT of sticks that day.) (more…)

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Comments { 48 }

My big fat gluten-free corneal abrasion

[Thank you for the sweet comments yesterday. I'm pleased to report that the day did indeed improve, thank God, and a good time and a massive chocolate-cake-stupor was enjoyed by all yesterday evening. Go make this flourless cake immediately, whether you're gluten-free or not. I may never make anything else again.]

So I’ve been meaning to tell you this story for a while, but it was while rereading yesterday’s post and saying to my husband, “HAHA! You can’t tell I’m off my meds at all from that! HAAAAA!” that I realized it was time for a good-size dose of levity—the kind of levity that only 1) confused people and 2) me being a dork can provide.

(You’re welcome!)

Anyway, perhaps you have gleaned that due to recent events I am in full-on hermit mode. I mean, I drive children to doctors’ appointments and stuff, but I do not socialize. I do not dress up. I do not go anywhere I don’t HAVE to, because every ounce of energy is currently focused on keeping the particles in my body from spontaneously breaking off and shooting into space due to stress. (Well, no, that’s never happened, but it COULD, right?) Of course in the midst of this, my husband had to go win a big award. (more…)

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Comments { 36 }
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