Handy household tip
I am all about helping the masses. Truly. My knowledge is your knowledge. Moreover, my laundry is your laundry. Always remember to separate the darks from the lights, and don’t put my bras in the dryer, please.
Anyway.
Know how there are never an even number of socks? The dryer eats them, or the gremlins steal them, or whatever? I have inadvertently ascertained how to avoid this problem. So I will share the solution with you, because no one likes to have extra socks laying around. And the answer is so simple, really.
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Moving right along
Yesterday? Did something happen yesterday? What? LALALALALA! I can’t hear you! Tra la la, with God as my witness, I’ll never eat radishes again or allow people I barely know to mess with my head. Because frankly, I don’t give a damn. Or something. Okay? Okay!
Anyway, yesterday (yes, I’m back to yesterday, but this is something different) I resorted to a tried-and-true method of cheering myself up. I called my dear friend who is also a single mom and made plans for us to all get together for dinner. And by “made plans for us to all get together for dinner,” I mean we had the following conversation on the phone:
Her: Hello?
Me: Hey. Are you in a meeting or something?
Her: Yes.
Me: Oh, sorry. Call me later.
Her: NO! I’m in the hall now, and you just got me out of that stupid staff meeting. Yay! What’s up?
Me: Invite us over to dinner.
Her: …?
Me: Please? You have leftovers. I’ll bring bread.
Her: Ummm… okay. Hey, wanna come to dinner?
Me: You’re the best. What time?
Her: I’m picking up Boing around 4:15.
Me: Okay, I’ll get Monkey then, too. See you around 4:30.
Her: Uhhhh, Mir?
Me: Yeah?
Her: You okay?
Me: Fanfuckingtastic. Seeya later.
Wasn’t it nice of her to invite us to dinner?
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House of cards
Hello from an undisclosed location nowhere near where you suppose! I’m enjoying the Witness Protection Program. No one knows me, here, which I’m finding suits me just fine. All the better to hide me with, my dears.
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Alice Mir doesn’t live here anymore
We regret to inform the readership at Woulda Coulda Shoulda that your intrepid narrator has suffered a rather serious injury and may be unavailable for the immediate future.
Early this afternoon, her brain exploded. Nasty business.
The circumstances cannot be discussed here; suffice it to say that a quick trip to the calendar to confirm the year (still 2004, as far as I know), and the resultant cognitive dissonance created between the date and the nature of the information before her, caused a complete meltdown and subsequent explosion of all brain matter.
Let it be noted for the record that said circumstances caused one normally reserved father to utter the following: “Unfuckingbelievable.”
Mir will be recovering from this injury during her time in the Witness Protection Program. Immediate enrollment was deemed necessary. We could tell you more, but then we’d have to kill you.
I said what?
You know it’s going to be a long day when you’ve said all the following by 8:00 AM:
“Please don’t stick your fingers up my nose.”
“Yes, you’re right, they do make a funny hat, but now I would like you to put your underwear on properly, please.”
“Yes, with toothpaste.”
“Is everything okay in your pants?”
“I would like to meet this ‘Not Me’ fellow and have a talk with him. Tell him to come see me the next time he’s around.”
“Be quiet and eat your pop-tart.” (Remember the days before children, when you and I and everyone else swore never to feed such dreck to our kids?)
“Stop. Talking. Please.”
“Hold still, you have gunk in your eyes.”
Would you like fries with that?
The time has come (the walrus said… don’t call me a walrus unless you’re hoping to be smacked, however) for me to take Any Job. As you all know, I passed Dream Job long ago. I spent some time looking for Pretty Good Job, and after a while settled into the search for Acceptable Job. Now? Any Job.
Wanna know why? Well, I had this fabulous back-up plan, you see. Part of the job issue is that I cannot work later than about 3:30 and still get Chickadee off the bus, and I cannot afford to pay for aftercare for her unless I get a job that actually pays well. A dear friend of mine who is a teacher has been urging me to sign up to substitute teach at the elementary schools.
This is an ideal solution, on a number of levels:
1) They are so desperate for subs in our district, they hire anyone.
2) The pay is not as horrible as you’d think.
3) I wouldn’t need any additional care for Chickadee.
4) I wouldn’t have to work on days that school is closed.
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Happy, happy day!
Y’all, Jay is too modest to say anything self-promoting in his recent post. But lucky for all of us, I am not nearly so demure.
My life is not so very grand right now, in many ways. I mean, yes, I have my health, my kids, wonderful friends. But so much of my day-to-day feels like treading water, often. I used to live a life of accomplishments. Now? A life of waiting.
BUT!
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Payback
Sometimes, I think I’m not capable of parenting my children in a way that will shepherd them into adulthood, happy and healthy. Particularly with Chickadee. I say she’s complicated, which is sort of like saying that skunks have a slight odor or that there are a few stars in the galaxy. Ahem.
Anyway, my children love stories. They will listen with rapt attention to any sort of tale, either real or imagined. But their absolutely favorite stories are personal anecdotes about my misbehavior as a child. They beg to hear certain stories over and over. And in catering to them, and retelling these tales? I’ve realized that I deserve every nanosecond of grief that these children present me.
I was a nightmare. A small sampling of the stories my kids like best:
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Have you ever…
… kinda been a bitch to someone figuring it will make them go away, and it backfires and sort of endears you to them and then you start rethinking the whole “make them go away” thing because what’s not to like about someone who likes you even when you’re being a pain in the ass?
No?
Oh. Me neither.
Look! Over there! Something shiny!
In which I pat myself on the back
As Alektra noted, I can now bid Safari users a hearty welcome. Welcome, Safari users! I do adore Mac users, as they are warm and fuzzy and crunchy and granola-y all at the same time, and I did not mean to exclude you from using my pretty, pretty new site. With a little help… okay, a LOT of help from a kind samaritan, I managed to fix the problems that were weirding out Safari. So! Now! I present Woulda Coulda Shoulda, now with more Macalicious goodness! There are some other little code quirks I’m still working out here and there, so always feel free to let me know when something looks wonky. Really, it’s okay to make me cry….
More reasons we can all admire and adore me today:
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