Six degrees of help me, I can’t stop
Do you know Jen? She’s a lovely woman. Delightful. I enjoy her very much.
Or, rather, I DID. Not anymore. Because now I know that she’s a foul temptress bent on destroying civilization as we know it.
You see, Jen thought she’d be doing me a big favor by inviting me to join LinkedIn, and she raved to me about how great it is, so I went ahead and signed up. And she was right, she WAS doing me a big favor, in much the same way those guys who tell you that you should just try it because one little bit won’t hurt you are doing THEIR friends a big favor. read more…
Love says it all
I am not a Valentine’s Day person. I want to know that you love me, but not because Hallmark told you to say so. And while I do enjoy a lovely bunch of flowers, I like them best for no reason in particular.
So Otto and I had agreed not to do anything specifically for Valentine’s. I was happy to see him this past weekend, and sorry to see him leave on Saturday morning. But when I went up to bed on Satuday night and pulled back the covers, something went clunk. read more…
He’s already thinking like a parent
When Otto and I picked up Chinese food this weekend, they gave us three fortune cookies. We, of course, ate two of them. The third cookie has been sitting on my kitchen counter ever since.
I moved it to a more prominent location this morning while I was packing the kids’ lunches, reasoning that maybe I would see it when I WASN’T running around, busy, and do something with it. I’m not sure what I thought I was going to do. Eat it? Throw it away? Who knows. All I know is that I was tired of seeing it shoved back on the corner of the counter where I stack the diet coke cans waiting to be crushed and put into the recycling. read more…
Not very bright
God, I am so stupid sometimes I want to just grab a frying pan and hit myself in the face. It is only slightly comforting that none of my frying pans are cast iron, but Otto says I am not allowed to live in the south without a good cast iron pan, so I had best do all of my face-smacking now before I buy something I could really break my nose with.
Today I did two things with the very best of intentions, and I am already kicking myself. read more…
Custom pink puffy hearts
I tasked the children’s father with the annual Selecting Of The Valentines for the kids this year, in part because I hadn’t gotten around to it and he had them with him this weekend, and in part because the entire exercise makes me want to shove sharp pencils into my eyeballs.
When it’s up to me, we go to the Dollar Store and have a choice of maybe six different kinds of cards. When the children whine that they want something that isn’t there, I try to look sympathetic. Then I tell them to hurry up and pick because we have to go get groceries.
The REAL stores have entire WALLS of valentines cards, though, and because Daddy is much nicer than Mama, the kids got to pick just what they wanted. read more…
At least there was time for Chinese food
So in the excitement of finding out my son might not just be a gigantic pain in the butt after all, and all of your lovely comments (thank you so much, you lovely pretty people who are pulling for my kid), I didn’t even think to mention that Otto was here.
Was. Past tense. Because he was here for about a day and then he left. I think it was something I said.
It wasn’t anything I said, really. He was just passing through on his way to an adjacent state and managed to stop here long enough for me to give him a haircut and feed him some fried rice. Because he has priorities. read more…
My kind of disorder
It’s been kind of a long road since it became clear that Monkey was struggling, which those of you who’ve been reading along already know. Things at school kept getting worse, we’ve waded through the proper HMO channels and had him (mis)diagnosed as having ADD, we went back to the allergist, we increased therapy, and there continued to be no answers for us.
Until today. read more…
Love requires a steady hand
I’m fighting a cold right now, which is frustrating. I’ve barely been out of the house this week, so where did it come from? Maybe from the orthodontist’s office, where everything is coated with invisible platinum for your bankruptcy enjoyment. (Note to self: invisible platinum is apparently not antimicrobial.)
So I perhaps read a little faster, at bedtime, and tucked the kids in a little more briskly than usual. I did the most cursory clean-up of the kitchen that I could justify, then retreated to my bed with my laptop. I planned to finish up some work and go to sleep early.
About half an hour after tuck-in, Monkey stumbled into my room, squinty and sleepy. read more…
Home on the vague
It has become my favorite way to open a conversation with Otto—after our standard “well hi there” and “how was your day?”—to ask him, “So, did you sell your house today?”
His home has been officially on the market for… a week? Two weeks? I don’t understand why it hasn’t sold yet. Clearly he’s just not even trying. And it’s not like it should be hard to sell a house down there, because my time on MLS indicates that most houses for sale include maybe two pictures, one from the driveway, of the front of the house, and then perhaps a bonus picture of some trees. Either the south is experiencing a dearth of cameras or everyone is just so polite that they’ll take your word for it that a house is simply lovely on the inside. (Oh bless your heart, no, please don’t go to any bother to photograph it. We believe you. More sweet tea?) read more…
There’s a hole in the bucket
Periodically Otto and I discuss the things which we feel will be important to us, as a couple and as a new family, once we’re all living in the same house. For example: Otto feels it a crucial matter of family unity that we all enjoy watching Mythbusters, whereas I am mostly trying to impress upon him the mileage that can be gotten out of regular foot rubs.
One of the things we quickly reached agreement on was our mutual desire to attain a healthier lifestyle, despite the fact that both of us are generally happier sitting on the couch eating pie than jogging. read more…