Uhhhhhh…
If I was going to use my new, expensive screenhouse as an analogy about resilience and then it rained really hard and the thing snapped in three different places, what would that mean, exactly?
Wait. Nevermind. I don’t think I want to know.
Ants and frogs and more
I am a person who is serious about promises. I don’t make promises idly, and once I make them I do everything I can to keep them. Which is why this morning was such a disaster. When I break a promise, the kids know that Something Is Wrong.
And yeah, Something IS Wrong, but this was my first slip with the kids in this particular episode, and I felt horrible about it. A promise is a promise, and I broke it, and there was nothing to do but apologize and wish I was a better, more together mother.
And curse the &*#%@! ants, which aren’t even ants, they’re raisins, which probably wouldn’t be the source of so much trauma if they would just stay dessicated grapes instead of disguising themselves as insects.
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To bend without breaking
Last year, I bought a cheap “canopy” from Big Lots to set up out on my deck, which had the annoying habit of heating up to approximately 3,492 degrees during the summer. I really wanted one of those little screen houses, but I couldn’t swing it at the time. So I bought the cheapie thing that was hard to set up and just meant that now the mosquitoes could come munch on us in the shade. Wasps nested in the folds, and the thing started springing leaks the second time it rained. Still, I suppose it was better than nothing.
This year, I was able to get something nicer, and this past weekend I already had a taste of what the lazy days of summer will be like out back with the kids (“ZIP IT UP BEHIND YOU! YOU’RE LETTING THE BUGS IN!”). However, although I waited until the Torrential Rains of 2005 had passed to set it up, it’s rained a couple of times since then. And on two of the four sides, the rain collects in the canvas right at the edge of the frame. On those two edges, the roof bulges inward as the water pools, trapped between the sloping canvas and the metal framework, until I go outside and push the bulge from the underside, releasing a gallon or more of water in one spectacular gush.
Sometimes I forget to push the water off until there’s so much collected up there, I can’t believe the frame hasn’t snapped.
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Sometimes the grass is browner
I’m so overwhelmed by nothing and everything, right now, that I’m not sure I could write anything coherent even if I wanted to.
Actually, I don’t really want to. And that’s either one of the signs of the apocalypse or that I am in serious need of some Good Drugs. Maybe both.
Anyway.
I’ve just discovered Hell’s Kitchen on Fox, and it’s the first thing in three days that has distracted me from the very busy work of completely losing my mind. This show needs to be on all the time, I think. I mean, I may be freaking out, but at least I’m not trapped in a kitchen with a crazy guy who makes me clean squid at 6:00 AM and then tells me what a worthless idiot I am.
Observation
Dear former yoga teacher,
Remember how you said that it was impossible to feel anxious while breathing deeply? We’d be doing our deep-breathing relaxation stuff, and you’d chirp on and on about how the sensation of anxiety was completely incompatible with a nice deep, cleansing breath.
I respectfully submit that you are on crack.
Well-oxygenatedly yours,
Mir
Hi-YA
“It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.”
–Yogi Berra
It hit 90 here, today. I didn’t notice until late afternoon when I was elbow-deep in mulch and suddenly uuuuuuuuuugh I’m dizzy…. But, um, the front flower beds are weed-free and raked out and ready for planting.
But me being stupid enough to overheat and dehydrate is not actually all that interesting, even to me. So, moving right along!
Did you know that my children share DNA? It’s true, I swear. Though it’s pretty hard to believe, at times. Especially when they’re so unalike, and both can occasionally render me speechless in totally different ways and not even know it.
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Friday Flashbacks: Food Follies
It seems only fitting that while on this @&*$^! Virtue diet (Day 6! No refined sugar! Low carbs! No white flour! Feeling good! But still mourning chocolate!) I take a moment to reflect on some of the most notable food disasters in my memory.
As before: Leave a comment with yours, or go wild with your whole own post and leave me a trackback.
See, there’s a method to my madness. Thinking about all of the disgusting foods I’ve ever encountered will drown out the siren song of the very last sleeve of Thin Mints that I found waaaaay in the back of the deep freeze.
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This is why I can’t take my vagina seriously
Honestly, I don’t even know where to start with this one.
Except maybe it’s with the standard vaginal disclaimer (not to be confused with vaginal discharge! haha!): I overshare. Lots. Turn back if you’re squeamish. Or male. (Which is essentially the same thing.) Luckily for all of us, my father is on a big boat in the ocean somewhere out towards Alaska, so I don’t even have to apologize to him every fourth line!
(Not apologize for having a vagina, you understand. I’m pretty sure that’s okay with him. It could be the talking about it in graphic detail with the entire internet that bugs him. Or just, you know, talking about it where he might witness it.)
Okay. Everyone who’s still reading, strap in tight! I spent some quality time with my gynecologist this morning. And I know you want to hear ALL ABOUT IT.
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Now with less pants
I am a grade-A certified control freak. So far as I know, there is not a diet that addresses this. Though that would be very cool.
“Obsessive? Neurotic? Feeling the need to be in control of everything in your environment? Shed those pesky worries and watch the anxiety melt away as you feel more energetic than ever before! Just one shake for breakfast, one for lunch, and then a sensible dinner. You’ll be feeling more easygoing in no time!”
I suppose that plan already exists… if valium comes in shake form, that is. But I’m telling you I have combed all the stores around here with no luck in finding any such thing. It’s not like I live in California, people.
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Send ice cream
I was once in a particularly campy version of “Anything Goes,” put on by a local community theatre group out in the boonies, where–I swear on my children’s heads–I had to drive past a field full of sheep to get to rehearsal. These sheep were part of a research program at the local university. As part of whatever experiment was being visited upon these poor animals, it was necessary to demarcate them in a way more readily visible than conventional ear tagging. And so, I didn’t just drive past any field of sheep on my way to rehearsal every night. I drove past a field full of pink and blue spray-painted sheep each night.
(The painted sheep are not at all germaine to the tale at hand. I’m just incapable of passing up an opportunity to share about them. Because, sheep! Spray painted! In a field! It’s better than cow tipping, because you don’t even have to DO anything for it to be funny!)
Anyway. “Anything Goes.” It’s a Cole Porter musical; it involves a lot of singing and tap-dancing and tangled love interests and minor intrigue. I don’t remember a whole lot about it other than that it was a very amateur production, I had to pretend I could tap dance, and that I played a character named Virtue and had exactly one line.
Even at my tender young age at the time (16 or so, I believe), I appreciated the irony of the main character and her groupies. Reno Sweeney is an evangelist turned nightclub entertainer and is flocked (constantly) by her “angels” Chastity, Charity, Purity, and Virtue. These gals have a deep love both for Jesus and showing some skin. Nothing could’ve amused me more than to take this role of good/bad girl with such a meaning-laden name and play up the ridiculousness of it.
You’d think that–seventeen years later and maybe even smarter–I would just KNOW BETTER than to try to seriously undertake anything with VIRTUE in the description. I mean… I’m a little old for tap dancing, now. Without a healthy dose of parody, virtue and I aren’t really on speaking terms.
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