Real quick…

We finally got the soccer thing cleared up.  The head of rec soccer (for #3 son) responded to my email today… more or less, “oops” came through, loud and clear.  They inadvertantly put him in kindegarden soccer.  He’s a big boy now… completely in 1st grade. 

So, we have practice tonight.  I say “we” because (I’m sorry Nicole, if you’re reading this), I have now joined the team. The LAST time I had to endure soccer was 9 years ago when #2 son was in 1st grade.  He said to me, midway through the season, “I don’t like soccer, all I do is run and I never get the ball.”

Sitting in the heat, rain, heat, rain, and chilly rain are just not… interesting to me.  *sighs*

So, we’ll see how long he wants to do it (hopefully long enough to outgrow the cleats and soccer gear I bought him this summer).

And, before I go, I want to erase the notion of bitchy soccer moms from my mind.  Had a bad experience with a few… one of whom was making bitchy comments about how MY son (he was 6… just barely 6) sucked.  She said sucked.  I laughed for a second, turned to her, in front of all her bitchy soccer mom friends, pointed to my son and asked, “That sucky kid?”  She laughed and said, “YES! Him!”  I smiled, and stared at her full on and said, “That “sucky” kid is MY son.”

I glared at her for a full 10 minutes before she slithered off to her bitchy soccer mom cave.

I hope I don’t have that this time.  I don’t make a good team player when the others are being bitchy.  Then, I become the antithesis of a cooperative parent.  I will become the black spiderman or when superman went over the edge and was a crazy drunken bastard (that’d be me minus the stenchy booze smell).

Since the latter part of last school year, some of the moms chose to speak to me.  I guess I am intimidating?  I like to think that I’m too cool to be a part of the bitchy mom click.

I have briefly spoken to a couple of the moms (briefly, in passing, or at a birthday party)… I know they know who my son is.  I’m hoping he takes some of that athletic energy and transfers it to SOCCER.  He’s been running, kicking, hitting, and yelling since birth (actually, we used to watch his feet push out when he was invitro)… soccer should be easy as pie for him.  I’m actually waiting for lacrosse… but he has to be in 3rd grade.  I’M READY… I sure hope Colorado has lacrosse as I am HOPING to not be here then.

So, I’m going to predict that this season I will be totally cooperative, doing my duty (brining in “healthy snack” and “drink” on my snack day, making sure #3 is dressed properly, and that he has an icy bottle of water at his disposal, as well as plenty of sunblock for both he and I)… and will try to make nice with the other mommies.

But… I do not want to be a “soccer mom.”  My kid plays soccer.  I don’t drive a minivan with little (stupid) magnets on the back.  I don’t put (ridiculous) stickers in my windows.  I also don’t suck up (at all) well.  Hmm…

I guess I’m more comfortable around men.  Not for the reason you’re thinking… I so do not hit on anyone.  I’m antisceptic and asexual.  If they see me as one of them, they feel no need to flirt, act spastic, or worry about their wives yelling at them about me being in their presence.  Men are simple creatures… there are (usually) no pretenses about who they are, who they like or dislike.  Give them food, something to drink, and talk football/baseball/basketball/hockey with them and they are golden.  I don’t have to listen to them bitching about how so-and-so looked at them funny and they called all of their friends so everyone can snub her.

I listen to it all at pick-up after school.  I roll my eyes behind my dark sunglasses.  I murmur under my breath about how utterly catty they are.  I smile weakly as I walk away.  And, once I am home, I realize that although I am not the Homecoming Queen amongst the mommies, but I am also no longer in middle school.  Therefore, if there’s any bitching to do… I do it on MY terms.

And, out of earshot of the catty-bitchy moms.

So… cross your fingers… and wish me luck as I embarque on this new… thing.

Not funny

What bothers me about some teachers is that they will do the least possible so that a) their students like them, b) they don’t have to GRADE anything, and c) make the rest of us look like work-mongers and slave-drivers.

It just so happened that last night, at the faculty meeting, I met a woman in my department who is new.  She is not only teaching at MY school, but is also teaching at my son’s college.  Ask me how I knew that…

Ok, I’ll tell you.

We were discussing the different types of assessments that we use (I’m using on-line quizzes, tests, midterm, final, a paper, attendance, and participation to assess their achievement)… and she says, matter-of-factly, “Oh, I hate tests.  I’m just giving a paper and a project.”

This is where my attention was ALL her’s… aside from the little voices in my head screaming that she can’t effectively assess a student’s ability to understand the material IF she only gives two assignments.  My son had mentioned this to me earlier, before I ran out the door for my meeting, before I realized she is a part of my department, too.  I was floored, and didn’t hesitate to tell him how I felt.  As usual, he glazed over and looked like someone just stabbed him in the forehead with a bbq fork.

So, when she said that last night, I quickly looked at my department supervisor, who cringed.

You can’t miss when he cringes.  I, personally, think he’s one of the BEST supervisors I’ve ever had (though, if you ask the older angry woman who sat next to me, he ranks at the bottom of HER list)… and since I’ve been there a few semesters now, I’ve had opportunities to talk to him.  He’s funny.  He’s nice.  He welcomes suggestions (not that the full-time staffer cares, she hates me, and I don’t exactly have a fondness for her).

Anyway…

She was adamant about not giving tests.  She hates them.  She hates grading them.  She hates writing them.

So, I asked the obvious question that apparently EVERYONE was thinking but was too afraid to ask (because I’m like that), “So, is that all you are assessing them with?”  The look of disgust on my face, as described to me by a fellow staffer, was apparent.  I think I snarled.

I hope not.  It’s HER class, I shouldn’t give a shit how she assesses students.  But, she is grading my son… and even though she doesn’t know his name (because I told her I’m not telling her… we have different last names… and maybe it’ll keep her on her toes a little)… to which she said, “I don’t like parents.”

NONE of us like dealing with parents, that’s why we adjunct in college.  Right?  I have had way too many crazy run-ins with parents who’s sole objective was to either make me cry, quit, and fall apart.  I’m not like that with my kids’ teachers… and have ONLY yelled at two in 13 years of school

One who publicly announced (to parents and his peers) that since #1 son (who was in pre-k) didn’t write his name, he must be stupid, and therefore couldn’t participate in the Valentine’s Day party.  My son was in hysterics and I grabbed him and went for a 15-minute drive to calm myself (and him) before I throttled her into the next millenium.

When I returned to the school a mere 15-minutes later, I marched into the school (after dropping my kids off at my mil’s house, when she lived near the school) and went to the teacher’s classroom (no kids were there) and proceeded to question her about her manner of humiliation.  She said, “Well, that’s what he gets when he doesn’t write his name.”

I FLIPPED OUT.  She told me my kid was stupid.  He was 5 years old. 

I had asked him why he didn’t write his name… and his response was as simple as a 5-year old could answer… “She didn’t say please.”

Fair enough.  This woman was crazy… she started freaking out on me.

So, I left and went to the head master and spoke to him.  He made her apologize to me AND most importantly my son, in front of the parents and students of his class.

This was her apology, “Sorry he can’t go to the party because he didn’t write his name.”

Ever want to slap someone?  I restrained myself.

The second, his 4th grade replacement math teacher, who was like 150 years old and past retirement age, made all of the boys in his class (him included) stand up while she told the girls that the boys are retarded and stupid and will never learn math.  Hell hath no fury like a mother scorned.

Back to his college instructor:

I have beefs with her.  She apparently doesn’t HAVE a master’s degree.  HOW in God’s name did she get that job?  No one would hire me until I had my MA in hand.  She must be blowing someone…

(Yeah, that was rough.  Oh well.)

After our meeting, I asked her a few “assessment” questions.  It more or less went like this:

“So, how do you assess their writing?”  (I’m always looking to glean ideas, anyways.)

“I just look at it and decide.”

(I had to touch my face to make sure my jaw didn’t drop.)

(The other teacher’s eyes grew as he was listening to her.  Even he knew to use a viable and reliable assessment tool.  I use rubrics for EVERY aspect of writing and/or projects.  This way I can SHOW them how I graded and that it was objective… and without emotion.)

“Oh.”

“What do YOU use?” she asked me.

“Rubrics.”

“Rubrics are stupid.”

THIS is the woman who will be teaching my son.

Oh, and she doesn’t use lessons… they just “discuss” history.  I discuss it, too, but I also have what I plan on discussing written down in case the school wants to know what I did that day.  I’ve learned, since my first year of teaching, to keep detailed records.  Apparently, she doesn’t.  Doesn’t keep attendance.  Doesn’t care if the students are late.  Doesn’t care if they don’t show up again.  As long as she doesn’t have to grade much.

The other teacher touched HIS face to make sure his jaw didn’t drop.

Oh, and she lets her students call her by her first name.

Both of our jaws fell.

I’m sorry, but there has to be a line… a professional line, if you may… drawn in the sand between us and them.  Sure, I chit-chat and talk to them on a one-to-one… asking about their weekend, and things… but I never let them call me by my first name.  It’s Mrs. Herstory or Prof. Herstory.  Professional line.  Right there.

He has two professors who have told him to call them by their first names.

During his 1st semester of his 1st year of college.

I told him to call them Professor or Mrs./Mr., and regardless of what they say, there has to be a sense of propriety and professionalism.

I don’t want the students to think they can hang out w/ me at the bar, my house, or go shopping with me.  I’m their teacher, not their friend. 

And, all of that personal shit makes me uncomfortable… especially in light of a teacher in NJ selling grades for money.

YES… selling grades for money she supposedly was going to give to a charity, but instead, kept for herself… and probably used to buy her Coach purse.

Lines, people… I’m sorry there NEEDS to be lines. 
UGH!!

I start school on Tuesday and you can BET your ass they won’t be calling me by my first name.  That’s for sure!  And, my evaluations by my students are 96% positive.  I think that speaks for itself, don’t you think?

A couple of things I forgot to mention…

Before I go to bed… and forget (again) what I wanted to write about, I’m going to jot down a few thoughts before I drag myself upstairs and attempt to beat my insomnia (that kicked in LAST night)…

• Garido… Garedo… whatever the guy’s name is… who kidnapped, molested, and fathered two children with an 11 year old girl he abducted from a bus stop in 1991… is a sick sonuvabitch.  And, SUDDENLY neighbors are telling the media, “Oh yeah, well ONE NIGHT, I heard screaming from that pile of trash and empty broken cardboard boxes that littered the backyard and obstructed that shitty metal shed in the yard.  Maybe they were having sex.”  No, he was probably raping the woman or their two daughters.  Hm.  So, now that the cat’s out of the bag, it seems that the neighbors are all gabby and yappy.  How many of them ACTUALLY called 9-1-1 WHEN they heard the screaming?  One.  And, the sheriffs did jack-squat-on-a-stick about the complaint.  Bravo!  This is how an (inexplicitly ridiciulous and not very) efficient law enforcement machine works.  I love our legal system. (Not)
• Michael Jackson IS DEAD.  He’s been dead nearly 2 months now.  Bury him before he beats James Brown’s record of being held in a refrigerated room until his family and many ex-wives figured out that none of them were getting his money.  And, is it really necessary to muddy up the news with every Tom, Dick, and Harry who find their 32.3 seconds of fame whilst dressed like MJ with the sparkly glove, or a huge courtyard of Russians dressed and dancing to Thriller?  *slaps her forehead*  ENOUGH ALREADY.  This is what we call, “Beating a dead horse.”  In this instance, it’s beating a dead Michael Jackson.  He’s dead enough.  Very dead, in fact.  Bury him.
• The chair is faboo (a word that has since been picked up by my fake-gay-friend who thinks my choice in vocab is just funny, funky, and cute… I’m not cute… I’m cranky, moody, and seldom suffer a shortage of things to say… usually… sometimes).
• It’s OKAY if Tiger Woods doesn’t win something.  You can’t always win.  That’s what I tell my son who is a DIE-HARD Yankees fan.  (I root for them to lose every so often because I don’t believe the same people need to win all of the time… especially since they’ve managed to ignore the public distain for A-Rod, a player who has admitted to using steriods, cheating on his wife, and probably trying to unhinge the Statue of Liberty’s arm (the one with the torch) so that NJ people will die… it’s a conspiracy, I tell you… and I believe that A-Rod needs to be dropped, fired, pushed into early retirement because he is a POOR role model… but kept on the lineup because the Yankees spend a lot of money on him.  I think morality is more important that high salaries.  HELLO… Steinbrenner family… ya hear that?)
• My middle son starts school on Monday, my oldest and youngest start Wednesday and I go next week.  Where did the summer go? *sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiff sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiff*
• OH and did I mention that my mother outted herself to me yesterday on the phone?  The self-proclaimed-force-it-in-your-face-til-you-cower born again Christian mother of mine now tells me that she’s dabbles with wine and other forms of alcohol since moving to AZ… because “all the ladies I go out to dinner with do it.”  So, if someone tells you to jump out into traffic, would ya do it? OH, and thanks for embarassing me in front of my friends at my 40th bday when I had a glass of wine in my hand and you verbally berated me in front of them about hurting God and breaking his “thou shalt not drink wine in the presence of people you know” commandment.  Which number is that one again…?

Ok, that’s it for now.  Sleep tight… don’t let the money-mongering politicians, special interest groups, and Bill Clinton bite…

Era of the Great Chair Hunt has ended…

Early this morning, my husband and I drove to a furniture warehouse (from the company where we bought our one sofa) for an “up to 80% off” sale.  I also had in hand an additional $25 coupon for any purchases over $250.  Now, I’m a skeptic by nature… and didn’t think we’d find anything.

We arrived about 15 minutes after the card said they’d open… and it was a FREAKING CIRCUS… as a matter of fact, 10 cars pulled in behind us within a matter of seconds.  People, children, baby strollers all jammed into this roped off section of this furniture store’s warehouse.

We moved about the recliners… you get what’s there, and there’s no special ordering… and they were in such INTERESTING colors… like babypoo brown n yellow, sage green, royal blue, mauve, you know… most out-dated colors.  We rounded the sofas and began to look for things tucked in corners when I happened upon this beige pillowback chair with matching ottoman.  KA-CHING!!

We bought it… $375 for both, not including the coupon.  The set, which is what we saw when we were on the hunt last weekend, for about $850 with the ottoman.  I sat on it until we found a salesman.  And, since there were two (one on the floor and one plastic-wrapped on the racks), we opted for the plastic wrapped b/c then NO ONE had sat on it (unless they were the inspectors).

It’s in good condition.  It’s taller than the two couches, however, it fits within the theme.  And, as soon as we got it unloaded and unwrapped (again, we did check it at the store), and the wooden feet attached to the chair (the ottoman’s feet were on, probably to show us HOW they need to be)… and put it in the spot, adjusting the sofas and such… #3 son climbs on it and has been immovable since.

I think I got a whole 30 seconds on the chair since we brought it home.

And, it is much cheaper than the purple chair… by at least $200.

HUZZAH!

We have succeeded in hunting down the “perfect” chair.  Now, if the “perfect” kids don’t muck up the chair, all will be golden… therefore, the LAW has been laid: NO FOOD, NO DRINK, NO STICKY HANDS, DIRTY BODY PARTS, OR GREASE on this chair, ottoman, or toss pillows or someone’s paying me to have it cleaned.

So far, so good.

I think the “look” helped…

Potty in the Office

I am getting used to the batcave, with exception to ONE THING: my cat has no problem going potty in my office, or rather… his litter box located just outside the imaginary walls of my office. 

About 30 seconds ago, distracted by what I’m doing here (plus music blaring on my iPod), I happened to catch something from the corner of my eye.

My cat doing a doody.

Then, I smelt it… or rather, it attached itself to the inside of my nasal walls.

So, I grabbed my Lysol (I currently may be a basement dweller, but it doesn’t mean it has to smell like one).

Hold on.  I’m gagging.  Apparently, Lysol is useless.  Let me go get the Febreeze.

Ok… *sniff*

Better.

The cat needs to lay off stinky stuff for a while. *Gak*

——–

Anyway, this weekend was shitty, as usual.  I invited a bunch of people over Saturday night for burgers and beer… and two showed up… and I ended up nixing the burgers for slow cooked pork… which was like butta.

I didn’t get upset.  My two girlfriends showed up and we did crazy shit like… drink some beer, eat some pork, gossiped, then started to take pics… and my husband took pictures of the three of us (which we always have to have proof that we’ve hung out, apparently)… and I don’t know what he did, but all three of us had glowy eyes… creepily glowy eyes.  We nearly PEED ourselves laughing… it was like a vampire sleepover (as someone so aptly described the pic).

Then, we had this bright idea to take pictures of our feet and send them to our friend who posts pics of HIS feet ALL of the time (which, to be honest, are GNARLY… mosquito-chewed-chigger-gnawed-hairy-gnarly-knuckled men feet).

And, I think we ALL peed ourselves…

The idea was to sit on the deck, enjoy my deck, eat and drink ON my deck, and then start throwing shit into my messy neighbor’s yard to see if he noticed.  I invited like 12 people… but in true form, 2 people showed up and it monsooned outside for HOURS.

Finally, it let up about 11pm… and by then, the chairs and table were THOROUGHLY soaked.  So, we went outside and stared at the stars.  Where they are from you cannot see the stars as clearly… because of the lights of thousands of houses and even more buildings, businesses, malls, etc.  We had fun…

———-

Sunday, hung over and sleep deprived (I went to bed around 2AM and up at 7:30AM)… we dragged ourselves to a few furniture stores STILL hunting for that perfectomundo chair that needs to be found so that we can dispose of the shittier-by-day rocker in my family room.

THREE STORES… my butt, during the course of about 6 hours, sat in about 30 chairs, some twice, and more recliners than I knew existed.  And, by the the third store, I was begging to go home.  I’m a furniture shopping quitter.  I couldn’t TAKE much more.. up, down, back, forward, is there a handle… ew, there’s a button, or who needs heat in a recliner.. I just want a GODDAMN COMFY CHAIR.

We hit (big) Bob’s furniture.  I had an overwhelming urge to run into the bathroom and scrub my hands.  I’m not dirty, but I’m not an obsessive germophobe either.

It’s just that… well… in every seat I sat in, in our estimation, at least 100 people have sat in it… dirty, clean, gnarly feet, nice hair, back hair… the whole gammit of humanity.  And, my butt just touched the spots where their butts had been.  And, I didn’t know where their butts had been.  And, it grossed me out. 

I did notice some butts yesterday… frumpy, dirt and mystery-stained shorts with torn pockets with their little mud-eating children in tow. 

The room started to spin… round and round… and the more I looked, the faster it spun until I declared that I was finished with that store. (Sorry, Empress… it was not that impressive, but I know a bunch of people who told me to go there, not just you)

The next store was about 40 minutes away.  My eyes were sleeeeppyyyyy… rolling around in their sockets, head drooping, eyes slosing slowly until WHAM…

My head snapped forward and hit the dashboard.  We must’ve hit one mother of a pothole for my head to lunge forward like that.  I snapped to attention, looked around, and quickly felt my forehead for blood, contusions, or something that needed stitches.

First of all, when I fall asleep in the car, for even a few seconds, I start dreaming AND my head lunges forward.  That’s what keeps me from sleeping WELL in the car.  It rolls forward, then sideways, then snaps backwards with every turn, bump, or stop.

In other words…

THERE WAS NO POTHOLE.  I was just SO tired that my head flopped all the way forward, or at least as forward as my seatbelt would allow, so when my husband hit the brakes (because apparently MEN do not understand the preparing to stop IN ADVANCE concept), my body pushed forward and I just barely hit my dash with the top corner of my brick-dense head.

Son of a…

I hear a CACKLING from the backseat.

My 6 year old, in his booster seat behind me, was able to watch my sleep-gastics from the front side mirror (“Mom, look in the mirror, can you see me?? I can see YOU!!”)… and thought I was just frigging hysterical.

That’s me… hysterical.

After the next two stores, I begged to go home.  I could not look at, sit in, touch, or feel another chair.  I just couldn’t.

Besides… the more I looked, the more the price climbed… from $300 to $1300… and my eyes were crossing and I just couldn’t pay attention anymore.

We had NO attentive salespeople at Bobs.  They greeted us at the door, stared at us from a distance, but no one was around when I had questions.

THEN, the next furniture store, our salesMAN (with a woman’s name) captivated us with his CREATIVE lisp that turned simple words like “recliners” and “ottomans” into some indecipherable word that sort’ve resembled “shiners” and “autobon”.  We gave up when we saw that the SAME chair we wanted last week, but the saleman told us to look elsewhere (because SOMEONE either doesn’t work commission or didn’t NEED his commission)… and it was $200 MORE.

Yep.  I’m not lying.

The last furniture store was more like the first.  A salesman sort’ve stalked us, said hi twice, and then stalked us from a distance.

What ever happened to engaging the customer in conversation?  I know EXACTLY what I want, in what size, shape, color, price, AND material.  Why are salesmen so afraid of me?  I know what I want.  I had my checkbook WITH me… did I need to flag it around?  (Hmm… I think the NEXT time I go into a furniture store, I will take out my checkbook and hold it up and announce that I’m looking for a reclining creamy-buttery yellowish-beige microfiber chaise footrested pillowtop recliner for under $499 WITH a warranty.  Any takers?)

I’ve also been toying with haggling with the furniture guys.  Why not, right?  If I can haggle for a car (except at a Saturn dealership, as I’ve learned, they DO NOT HAGGLE)… why not a chair?  My husband cringed when I suggest we go into furniture negotiations with, “Ok, so what can YOU do for ME?” 

What? It’s my genetic structure to haggle with people.  Although, I am not as aggressive as the other hagglers in my family (one, affectionately calls me the “GOY HAGGLER”)… I get it done.

So, we came home without a chair.  Then, I started to think about how much I’d rather use the $499 for something else… like a new floor in my kitchen… or a new kitchen/dining table. 

*pfh*

Furniture shopping is a lot more arduous then I remember…

———-

Today, I have anywheres between 6-10 teenagers at my house… the majority of whom are starting college and/or going away the end of this week.  My older son starts college in a week, my middle son goes back to h.s. in a week, and the little one needs to get back into the school thing before he drives me bonkers.

#1 son can be like his grandfather, in that, he likes to brag about things.  Showboating.  You know.

He tells me, in front of his friends, that his co-worker is taking my class… and HE TOLD HER that I’m not giving any hard assignments.

I picked up a pan to throw at him, but I thought it might freak his friends out.

“WHY did you do that?”  I yelled across the kitchen, into the family room where he was acting like an ass…, “You have NO idea what the hell you did!”

“Whaaaaat?” Now I’m challenging his manhood.  GLADLY!

“You CAN’T go telling people shit like that, what’s wrong with you,” at that point, I forgot who was there, and frankly my dear, I didn’t give a shit.

“Chill, mom,” he gets all cocky, and I reach for the frying pan again, this time he sees me.

“Get in here now.  NOW!”

The vein that pops out of my forehead is throbbing pissed.

“You listen to me right now,” I had his some of his attention, “YOU cannot go telling MY students about what goes on here because I have to keep it separated.  You also CANNOT tell her anything about the course because I have NOT decided yet what I am going to do.  And, even if I had, who gave you permission to TELL anyone? HUH? HUHH???”

He was TRYING to blow it off like it was nothing, but it IS something.

First of all, I never mix school as my students do not come to my house, they do not hang out w/ my kids, and they most definitely do not get privvy info about shit I haven’t decided upon… because its a conflict of interest.  And, I do not give insider information to ANY student.

But, this semester will be different as my older son’s classmates are also set free to attend classes and I cannot sign them OUT of my class.  In other words, unlike a state university, community college students can take whomever they want without having to get the professor’s signature.  At the state uni, I could’ve removed a kid from my class if it were a conflict of interest (before the semester began), however, here I’m just an underpaid drone with no rights, privileges, or a place to put my shit during the day.

I’m steamed, man.  Steamed.  I don’t go calling up his teachers, inviting them to OUR house, and telling them things about him, do I?

So, my retaliation for his snarky bullshit attitude was this, in front of his friends, I told him I’d post embarassing pictures of him online where his friends can see it if he pulled that bullshit stunt again.

He said he’d de-friend me.

I still know people on his list who’d post it for me.

MANY.

He got all wide-eyed… and I ended with, “This is your FINAL warning.”

I’m sorry, but I don’t like him telling people shit…

Oh, somewhere in the mix, he says to me (in front of his friends), “So you’re gonna let me review tests with you, right?”

“Review? What are you talking about?”

“My mom tries out questions on me,” he started again, and I’m scanning naked potty pictures soon, “and *I* help her grade her exams.”

“GET IN HERE, NOW!” I bellowed from the kitchen.

“Will you EVER shut the hell up?  What will it take?  Me getting FIRED??”

“What?” that snotty goddamn what is going to cause him a world of grief if he doesn’t stop it.

“YOU CANNOT TELL PEOPLE THAT YOU HELP ME GRADE… BECAUSE I WILL GET FIRED,” I whispered harshly, grabbing his shirt and pulling him closely to my face, “YOU NEED TO SHUT THE HELL UP BEFORE YOU GET YOURSELF IN A SHITLOAD OF TROUBLE, DO…YOU…UNDERSTAND…ME??”

I let him help me ONE TIME last fall.. he and his brother, in order for me to get 200 finals graded and all grades posted in 3 days, I needed the family to grade multi-choice and true-false questions… so that I could read their essays… all 200 of them… and finish their papers… all 200 of them.

ONE GODDAMN TIME.

Usually, my husband helps me… because he doesn’t know these kids.  And, sometimes, I will have #2 son help me because he doesn’t fuck up the answers like a certain 18 yr old who can’t follow a simple numbered format of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…

(I had to REDO the few finals HE graded last fall… all 20 of them… from the state university where he doesn’t know anyone.  My rule, if you know ONE person in that class, you cannot help me grade.  Now that’s he has graduated, he will not be helping me… nor will he get to read my tests when I write them or glance at the papers.)

“AND BEFORE YOU SHINE YOUR HELPING TROPHY, LET ME REMIND YOU OF THE PROBLEMS YOU HAD GRADING THE WHOLE HANDFUL YOU WERE GIVEN…” my angry whisper took on a monster of its own.

THEN the doorbell rang and he broke away to let some more friends in, and then I smiled sweetly and said, “#1 son, may I finish speaking with you… NOW?”

The one friend said, “Uh OH,” and I jokingly responded with, “Oh, there’s no blood… THIS time!”

I put him in the corner of the family room, and angrily whispered that he will pay dearly if this shit leaks to my bosses… and if I get fired because he’s trying to be a hotshot, I will strangle him with his bravado. 

MEN… BOYS…MALES… phooey!

One of his friends, the witness to this whole interactions (minus the angry whispered threats to this boy’s life) is ATTENDING MY SCHOOL in the fall… but will not be my student.

This kid doesn’t GET it.  He’s always been this way.  Shoots his mouth off until *I* get pissed off. 

“Learn to keep it shut,” I reminded him with a snarl, “you’ll be happier that way.”

Apparently, now I’m an angry secret agent teacher… Herstory… Herstory 007.

I’m a dreamer, that’s the problem

I’m back in the batcave after a day topside… and I have to say, after sitting at the kitchen table for 6 hours yesterday working, that my back hurt and my butt was sore.  Sitting at the kitchen table needs to be a three-times a day thing, if that, in order to decrease on the amount of food crumbs in the rest of the house.

I decided that since my husband’s working consistently for the past few months that I wanted to get RID of that stupid ancient rocker-recliner thing that my bil dumped off here years ago when we couldn’t afford furniture (after we “acquired” the neighbor’s discarded sofa after we moved in and they were preparing to move OUT)…

What? Like you’ve never done that? (Phssh!)

So, we went out to replace this ancient monstrosity (why do people feel compelled to dump their junk off here? I don’t WANT it, ya hear? None of it!) and visited a furniture store 15 minutes from here that is H-U-G-E.

We knew that the second we walked in the door, someone would be glued to our leg, so we just waited for it as the doors opened (as we were the ONLY customers there)… and WHAM! BOOM! KAPLOOEY!

We were greeted before we even crossed the threshold by a tall salesman who looked as though he could play on the defensive line of a pro football team.  He introduced himself, then proceeded to give us the run-down on the store (as we had never been there… correction… *I* had never been there… before)… and said if we needed him to let him know.

WELL… we saw a chair, walked two steps towards it, and we again were in the company of our salesman.

I can be … um… difficult to please.  I know what I want, what color, which material, what style and such.  I will let you know when a) I see it, b) when I sit in it, and c) when I want to buy it.

I hadn’t even SAT down before I’m given a running history of this chair.

OK, I get it, you know your shit… I’m impressed, really… however, could you just leave us alone to check things out, and when I want an answer, you will let me ask it.  FROM a distance.  Like, on the other side of the store.  Besides, its not like we could put a chair under our shirts and skip out of the store unnoticed.  Right?

I must’ve sat in 30 chairs… none of which caught my attention (I was either distracted by the sheer discomfort or the price… and to be honest, I’m not looking to drop a thousand dollars on A CHAIR that will be misused by my kids, cat, and nieces/nephew… I’m looking for an affordable place to park my ass that is comfortable and comfortable)… for long.

Until we resigned ourselves to the fact that maybe chair shopping is too expensive.  I wanted a comfy chair and ottoman.  The males in my family want a recliner.  I am out-voted and out-numbered.  But, I’m also the one BUYING the goddamn thing.

Chairs with ottomans are too expensive.  I get it.  Ok?

So, after the salesguy FINALLY leaves us alone, we’re in a small room filled with “yo mama” type recliners… you know, the type yo mama would have in her living room… in the 1970s or 1980s.

I sighed and flopped into this purple monstrosity and pulled the handle… and I was in SHEER HEAVEN… like a body pillow whisked me off of the floor and laid me gently on it and hugged me into submission. 

Then, I pried myself out of the chair and let my husband sit in it.  He was like THIS close to falling asleep. 

Could it be?  Could I have found my chair nirvana that is big, fluffy, and PURPLE? I can’t have a purple chair… my family room is yellow… red… black… purple would just be wrong… wrong in an oh-so-right kind’ve way.  I need me a purple….

And, that’s when the salesman told me that the chair could have DIFFERENT material for an additional $75.  The chair, a massive $499, far outshown any that I had seen at double the price.  We knew it was a match… a splendid and comfy match, until, that is, the salesman said, “Is this the first place you’ve visited?”

Here were go… let’s ruin my orgasmic furniture experience… with some bullshit comment.

“Yes, why?”

“I suggest you look around, go to [big chair manufacturer that is VERY expensive] and see what they have.”

Is he not wanting a commission?  Does he not want to SELL something?  I don’t see any cars in the parking lot… except for the 5 on-staff employees.  Is he serious?  He is sending us elsewhere? Did my pickiness piss him off?

“Uh, why?”

“I want you to find the right chair for you,” he started talking, about how he went to this big chair manufacturer, out of spite, because his wife had a “chair” and he didn’t, and the chair he wanted, you know, out of spite, was $1500.

I just want a comfy chair that FITS in the room… size-wise and price and color and omg, it was like laying on a happy body pillow.  Was he kidding me?

So we left.  Without the chair.  And, now we’ll be going SOMEWHERE else, where the salespeople maybe WANT a commission…

From the batcave

Once I moved my entire life down here (i.e. work, blogging, etc), I thought that it would help me to focus.  HOWEVER… I don’t feel very focused.  I’ve been playing around on the Internet for um…2 hours now and worked for 30 seconds.  *sighs*

Our open house yesterday yielded NO activity, but I did come home from the waterpark with a newfound respect for the sun (ouch ouch) and screaming calves that are mad at me for schlepping up the hills (waterpark is at a ski resort) on hour-long lines so I could scream for 30 seconds and I plummetted down the squiggly chutes on a rubber tube.

And, I survived.  But, my legs are PISSED off at me… they don’t like hills… and they definitely don’t like hills barefooted.  So, by Wednesday, they should be less angry at me and a little more sedate.

My sunburn doesn’t hurt as much as my frustration… we are once again the ONLY house in the price bracket we’re in.  We haven’t dropped our price since we took on the new realtor.  Other people have dropped… way WAY low.  Like, 20-50 THOUSAND lower.  I’m not willing to do that.  And, I don’t think that by dropping the price of my house anymore will ensure a sale.  I think it’ll just prolong this real estate agony.

So, I’ve come to (another) conclusion… let it be.  It’ll sell WHEN it sells.  But, I will not freak out and drop the price of my house out of desperation.  It just frustrates me b/c my middle son is going to be a sophomore.  I’d hate to pull him out during his junior year… or, his senior year.

I’m tired of power cleaning for no one.  I like my house clean, don’t get me wrong, but scrubbing baseboards and corners of floors when no one comes… well, its a pain in my ass, to be honest.  If you’ve ever tried to sell a house, it’s a big pain in the ass… always be clean, always be willing for people to trapse through your house at any time between 9am and 7pm.  To play the game, of which I don’t play well.  I hate games.  Games are for babies.  You want to make a deal, then MAKE one.  Don’t play like you don’t like me, my house, my whatever.  You either do or don’t.  Either way, it is what it is.

So, back to yesterday.

We went to a waterpark at a ski resort… where the hills are STEEP, the lines long, and the people rude.

Any of the amusement parks in NJ are frequented by city people (most specifically NYC).  They are rude, disrespectful, and are totally unaware of their surroundings.  For instance, and this has happened in several different venues, not just this one… yesterday, I have #3 son w/ me in the wave pool.  It is a hot day, so there are about a hundred people in here… and men, in their 30s, are doggie paddling… and struggling to swim (in 2.5 foot water with waves), and nearly drown my kid.  I got FUCKING angry, let me tell you… and I said something like, “Be a goddamn man, learn to fucking swim you asshole.”

I don’t think #3 son heard my exact words, he was too busy jumping waves in his little life jacket.

Then, we get hit by a wall of teenage boys who are throwing each other around. The first time, I just grabbed one of them and told him to knock it off.  The SECOND time, I grabbed #3 son and went right in the middle of their little testosterone-fest and ripped  them a new asshole… collectively.  “Watch out, you guys, you have little kids swimming here.”  ALL of their eyes grew to the size of frisbees.  “MY kid is swimming here, and I have sons YOUR AGES, so I “get it”, but just be careful.”  They all dropped their heads and yes ma’am’d me.  Five minutes later, they were back to tackling each other.  And, being one in a pool of a hundred or more makes it hard to motion to the lifeguards.  So, we moved (body pushed through a wall of shit-for-brains) over so we were far enough away from them, but then found ourselves in a pile of people who couldn’t swim IN 3 FOOT WATER (people taller than me, and I’m 5′5-1/2″), grasping to standing people because apparently, the rumor is true… you CAN drown in 1 inch of water.  Fortunately for them, NONE of them did.

Which brings me back around to this point: if you CAN”T swim, then WHY are you in the wave pool? 

Oh, someone must’ve heard me… because I did see a 6-foot something man who outweighed me by a bit, wearing a large kiddie lifevest… and was doggie paddling in the 3 foot water.

Seriously?  I wish I had a camera with me.  I so wish I had one.  I would share that image with the world… and make him the poster child for REASONS TO LEARN HOW TO SWIM.

Yes, I spent the first 9 years of my life living in an urban-suburban civilization… and didn’t learn to swim until I was 9 or 10.  BUT, you wouldn’t find me doggie paddling in water if I couldn’t stand.  And, where I could stand, I would… stand.  NOT act like a retarded monkey.

Needless to say, #3 son caught THAT vision of manliness and said, “Mommy, he looks silly.”

Yeah, ok.  Silly isn’t what I was thinking, but whatever.

And, yes, that’s mean.  I do have to give him credit, though.  At least he had a vest on.  (*coughs*doggypaddlingdork*coughs*)

 I had to dodge water shoes, and bathingsuit parts.  I had been staring at the tramp stamp circus for the past 5 hours, people who throw papertowels on the floor of bathrooms instead of in the pail merely a foot or less away, other people who throw their trash on the GROUND instead of the garbage, other people who act like shitheads (all day long), and a parade of hormone driven 12 year olds.  I was more or less at my edge of reason… and tired of people being oblivious ALL GODDAMN DAY LONG.  So, I did mouth off to a few people… but, none of it resulted in a fight or altercation.

Damn. 

I am quite proud of myself AND #3 son.  He went down (face first) on a mat slide… TWICE.  I was surprised that he would do it as it was HIGH and fast… and last year, I had to bribe him to get on the kiddie rollercoaster (or any ride for that matter)… this year, he’s outdoing me.

I’m competitive.  Maybe I’m TOO competitive at times.  It’s almost unhealthy the levels I’m willing to go to when I want to beat someone at something.  It’s sick.  But, it’s me.

I see my kid go up on a tube ride and think, “Shit, he’s 6 and can do it.  I’m gonna do it, too!”

Ok, I hate heights.  Its not news.  It is something that I deal with.  Granted, sometimes heights do not bother me, it just depends on where I am at the time.  On a 4-story stack of stairs? No can do.  ON a steep hill?  Probably ok.

I climbed up this super steep hill… to do on a 4-person raft ride down a twisty, turny scarier than shit ride that dumps you into a pool of recycled water where lifeguards move you out like cattle.

I (acted) excited… and exclaimed that I’d do it.  I mean, I had just gone on this incredibly crazy single tube ride down a twisty, turny, scarier than shit water ride that dumped me into a pool of recycled water where lifeguards were ushering us out like cattle.  And, I was alone, (screaming like someone was trying to kill me) and wanted to try to go down with someone.

(#2 said he wouldn’t ride on the double tube w/ me because A. it is too slow, and B. he didn’t want me screaming in  his ear)

TOO FREAKING BAD. 

I can’t control the screaming.  I’d probably scream until I passed out had I been on a rollercoaster (or peed myself, lost my voice, THEN passed out).  Some people laugh… I scream. 

We climbed this hill… my husband, #2 an 3 sons (#1 was at SD’s house for a function) lugged ourselves up this steep, long, steep hill until we were finally on top (a mere few hundred feet before the top ski lodge)… and I took a breath.

WHAT THE HELL WAS I ABOUT TO DO? 

My middle son REALLY thought I was going to back out.  I almost did, but then I realized that I’d have to walk DOWN the hill.  And, it was hot and I was getting tired of walking.  Plus, I didn’t wait an hour on a line to quit.

I climbed into the raft, made sure that #3 son was holding onto the straps, when the last thing I heard from the smiling female lifeguard was, “Have fun.”  She pushed us, and backwards, I plummetted down 5 stories of mountain hill and slippy, slide-y, twisty, turny tube hell.  I tried to look behind me TWICE, and each time I regretted it.  All I saw were hills… curves… sheer death.

The first time we went up the wall (on the side), I grabbed #3 son with one hand and the raft with the other.  I did not let go of that child until the lifeguard tried to prybar me out of the raft.  I think I dented the raft by grabbing it so hard.  I think that’s why my forearms ache today.  My grip of death was too much for my poor muscles to withstand.

Yet, I did survive.  And, it was fun.  (#3 son said I can’t sit next to him anymore because I scream too loudly.) 

Fun like, if I were on the edge of death and survived type fun.

Needless to say, there’s no pleasing #2 son.  I go on TWO big rides (once by myself and once with the family) and I get, “You scream a lot,” and “Well, you didn’t go on the CRAZY ride.”

The CRAZY ride is this: you are flat on your back, and go down this vertical chute, into a funnel and are dumped into a pool of recycled water where a lifeguard is there to chase you out so no one comes down and lands on your head.

I don’t go anywhere face first (the big tube where I went down backwards was not a part of the plane).  I have this thing about needed to go feet first.  Maybe its boater’s safety that I took as a teenager.  If you go down the rapids and fall out of the raft, make sure to go feet first.  Ever since then, I have this weird adversion to going ANYWHERE face first.  I think I would definitely die on that ride.  My heart would explode and I’d drown.

And, I’m a good swimmer.  So, drowning scares me. 

Then, I watched #3 son race his dad and brother down this BIG MAT SLIDE… where he went down face first.  At that point, we’d been there about 6 hours and I couldn’t walk uphill anymore.  Barefoot.  On pavers and gravel.  Moreorless, I had joined a herd of people who walked funny.  We all hobbled out to the shuttle bus, then to our car, and I when I climbed in, I had this shot of pain followed by an EXTREMELY loud sigh of relief.

But, before that, we had to get out of our bathingsuits for the hour-plus ride home.

Let me reiterate how disgusting I find most public bathrooms.  I’ve complained about those in Walmart (especially), various fast-food chains, gas stations (when VERY desperate), and other facilities, but I don’t know if I’ve touched on the grossness of the public changing area at a waterpark.

Here’s what I observed:

1. People with no modesty will change ANYWHERE regardless of what they look like
2. they will also deal with their feminine issues without the courtesy of a door, and then discard things without using a garbage pail
3. the water from the “showers” is almost always slimy and grimy and will cause you to slip in flipflops and fall on your ass after you’ve gotten changed into dry clothes
4. the changing rooms will have a bench the side of a child’s hand an a broken hook… causing you to have to balance the bag, towel and other items while trying to put on clean clothes
5. Some little kid will open the curtain to your booth and ask if you’re his mommy
6. Your naked ass WILL get exposed when said little kid seeks mommy (who is standing by the door, calling his name)
7. Someone WILL pee in the changing room, and leave it for you to step in
8. No one knows what a garbage pail is for
9. Dryheaving means you are weak
10. Tramp stamps are equivalent to discount tickets at a fastfood joint… everyone can get them, but not everyone wants to

Next time, I’ll take my chances in the bathroom… where I usually get changed.  Bleh.

I did drum up a mini-convo with two 20-somethings on the bus.  I recognized the girl’s tee as one students at the university that I taught at last fall wore.   (I’m so observant)  I smelled like baby pool, and was sweating my pahdooper off in this standing room only mini bus (fyi, I had two bags and NO man stood up to exchange with me, but the college kid did give up his seat for two little girls, which I thought was admirable)… and at that point, driving up hill while holding onto a metal bar proved to me one thing:  I am not strap-hanger material.  You can tell that I have minimal contact with public transportation.  I drive my own truck.  I don’t carpool (I work 4 miles from my house).  I don’t ride a bus, subway, or in a taxi unless I’m in a city.  (We don’t have them newfangled transportations here in suburbia.)

My forearm muscles hurt.  My calves are burning.  My back muscles are screaming.  My sunburnt skin is the only thing that doesn’t really bother me.  Even my scalp hurts.  And, I’m pretty sure I contracted some rare germ from being in that water yesterday… because today, my voice is super raspy and I sound like an 80 year old chain-smoker.

hehe

And, even though no one came to see my house, I had fun.  A LOT of fun.  So much so that I want to go BACK again soon.  This time, to be sure, I’ll be wearing my watershoes the ENTIRE time.  Yep.  That’s for sure.

Cooter Booter

I think that being a mother of teenage boys is definitely a thankless job… no extra “combat” pay is included with their birth certificates, nor is there ample warning that teen years are a ginormous pain in the keister.

Now, I don’t MIND driving my kids anywhere… well, within time constraints and reason.  Like, for instance, if my 6 year old wanted me to drive him to hell and back, I could save on gas and just load him up n cookies and soda.  Hellaciousness from the comfort of my own house. 

Or, if #1 son wanted me to drive back-and-forth to where he works THREE times in one day, the 2nd being a total waste of gas, time, and energy.  I drive the 15 minutes down a dark, windy road where deer, like Kamikazis, just spring out across the road like they were being chased by… a bear with gnarly teeth and big, sharp and pointy claws.  Hell, I’D run out into the road in front of cars if it meant that I could get away from a nasty, angry bear.

Anyway… I get down there in time to get him after his shift… text him that I’m in the parking lot… and nothing.  TEN minutes go by and I get a call on my cell from a number that I don’t know.  I thought it was my friend from 20,000 years ago whom I just reconnected with.  So, I answer it… “Mom? I’ve been trying to get you….”  I scratch my head.  I’ve been here all along.  No calls on the cell from him.  No calls at home, because I asked my husband later and he said nothing from #1 son came throuh.  “Uh, why?”  I can hear the commotion in the background… “I have to stay til at least 10.”

I put my head down on the steering wheel and listened, “I can’t leave this kid by himself, we’ve getting SLAMMED with customers.”

I get it.  I’ve worked in the service industry before… but, what I don’t agree with is the crappy hourly he gets…

“Ok,” I sighed silently, “What time do you need me to get you?”

At this point, I’m having flashbacks of when he was 16, in that thankless job that treated him like shit and barely gave him hours until he quit out of sheer frustration.

“10 or 1030, maybe 11 or 1130.”

Shitaki mushrooms… really?  I guess going to bed earlier than I have is out of the question.  (Just another reason to stay up til midnight or later, I guess.)

“Ok, I’ll see you then.  Call me and let me know.”

I make the dark, lonely ride back home, squinting into the shadows, looking for that shiny reflection of deer eyes… as a quick warning that they may… or may not… jump into my path.

Deer in New Jersey are like that.  Most people who live here, in New Jersey, understand the implications of plowing into a rebel deer.  No matter the size, they will crumple your car like a soda can under someone’s foot.  CRUNCH!

I must be getting old, or it was the several hours of sitting at the laptop trying to write some lessons… my eyes were all fuzzy-seeing and sore.  I thought about pulling over on the dark, windy road, where the shoulder is WIDE, and just take a nap… and wait for the kid to call.  But, I figured, that may just scare people… a car, idly quietly, on the side of the road, with no motion from within…. AN AXE MURDERER, I TELL YOU… IT WAS AN AXE MURDERER…

If want to remain mysterious and mostly-anonymous, I have to avoid getting my mug in the newspaper… at any cost.

So, I drove him… all 15 miles of it.

During the ride, I called my mother.  Did I mention that I FINALLY received “the email”?  The email, laden with guilt intended to flush me out and make me feel like shit for not calling her.  It said things like, “If you don’t want us in your lives… tell us and we’ll just disappear from your life” followed by “We THOUGHT the boys had a good time here, but they’re not answering phone calls or texts, so we’re thinking they don’t like us” as well as “You have wounded our spirits and our souls.”

*rolls eyes*

I can’t make this shit up.  It’s like my own personal soap opera, I tell ya.  I hate soap operas.  I think I’ve watched a whole day of soap operas once just to find out what I was missing… well, when Jessica told Pace that she was actually in love with Rebecca AND Shawn, and was pregnant with Dr. Melon’s child… I knew I was WAY out of my league.

I wrote her back, earlier in the day, upon receiving that stupid eff’g email (I tried calling, but she avoided answering her phone because she KNEW I’d be yelling)… and wrote, “First of all, just because I do not speak to you daily does not mean that we have written either of you off… however, you are acting in an immature and ridiculous manner.  Seriously, you are too uber-sensitive and am driving me crazy.  Stop it.”

I called her because I knew if I didn’t, she’d tell everyone she could that I was being hurtful to her.  She’s too far away to drive over to her house and yell at her, so I tried calling around 8:30… almost sure she’d be there.  I really REALLY wanted to give it to her over the phone for her middle school antics.

This is what I get,

“Hello?” (Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet and dripping with sugar)

She had caller ID, she knows exactly who’s calling.  What bothers me the most, with her and her drama, is that her sister does the SAME EXACT THING (but tags a little bit MORE crazy to it) and chastizes her for her melodrama.

My mother, her sister, and my (late) grandmother were three drama queens from the planet, “BOOHOO”!

My OTHER grandmother won several hundred thousand oscars… she was drama queen extraordinare in her own right.

Did I mention, she also added to the response email, “Well, YOU are super sensitive too!” ?  That is HER way of trying to take what I said and throw it back to me… like “I”m rubber and you’re glue” stuff.

Yes, when people are trying to make me feel like shit, you know, like my father during my ENTIRE life… with crap like, “You’re so f’g stupid, that wall’s smarter,” “You a stupid f’g bitch,” and things that would make a prostitute at a truck stop flinch.  I get mad, really mad, and I will yell and then cry.  I think crying is my anger release.  Once I do that, I can sleep for days.

Needless to say, she acted as though NOTHINGGGGGG happened.  Et al drama of the highest proportion.

I remember her saying to me once, “Never air our dirty laundry in public.  What goes on in this house STAYS in this house.”

Oooooooooopsie doodle.  I think I broke her carnal rule… um… my entire life.  And, if she knew I’d been leaking tidbits of it on the Internet, she’d FLIP her wig, her gourd, a cow, and probably break everything I’ve ever given her… that is, whatever wasn’t broken by the movers when her stuff arrived in Arizona.

So what.  I’m not afraid of my parents any more.  I’m not some scared kid hiding in her room anymore.  If only I could stop CRYING when I am so angry and confront them… because I get, “You’re SUCH a cry baby…”

I really don’t like my parents very much.  The problem is that I’m the only living child.  For the past three weeks, I’ve been thinking about my brother… and wondered had he been alive, if she would be leaving me alone.  I think she’d drive him crazy once, he’d call her a bitch, my father would threaten to kill him, and a fistfight would ensue.

Not that THAT hasn’t happened in the past. 

If they could act like respectible adults, I’d consider investing more time into our relationship.  But, after years of emotional abuse and bullying, I really don’t want to be close to them.   (Its only because I have kids that she calls… usually to talk to them, not me.)  I just want to feeeeeel freeeeee from parental obstructions and name-calling.

Kick, slap and flip

Its official… #3 son is bored out of his gourd.  I was just kicked (oof) in the leg by a pissed off 6 year old who has decided that he doesn’t WANT to do his last four handouts of the summer.

He is now serving time in his room… and I can hear him screaming from here.  In ten minutes, he can come out and work on an art project, but I will NOT be subjugated to abuse by him or anyone else.

——–

I have decided that I like my job… and was just offered a spot as a writing tutor, for which I will be paid a good sum per hour to work with students to improve their writing, and occasionally a history student (who isn’t mine) to help them prepare for their tests.

Sweet…

I told the head of tutoring, an adjunct grunt like me, that I’ll work on staff during the days I only have one class and as needed for the days that I have multiple classes.  I’m TRYING to keep my sanity… why indulge it for a few bucks.

What I do know is that those four hours a week will be a substantial increase to my peasant wages… upping it by a 3rd.

(Woohoo! Huzzah! Yeehaw!)

Money, at this point, is money. I’ll take it from where I can get it.

——–

I just dropped #1 son off at work.  As he’s without a car for the next two weeks, I’ll be playing chauffer again.  At least he says “thank you” when I do that.  I’m still waiting for him to tell SD that he won’t have a car to drive to his house this weekend for SD’s baby’s christening.  If he doesn’t say something by today, I will call him myself (GOD HELP ME, he is an idiot from the word GO and will probably harass the kid daily over the accident… so, I’ll tell him that he’s getting some work on his car and won’t have it for the weekend.  I’m not lying, but I’m also salvaging #1 son’s sanity for a few)…

His wife, on the other hand, is a pain in my ass.  One day, hopefully soon, I’ll get to tell her that… as my final hurrah!

(I can’t wait… ANT-ICI-PAAATION is making me wait)

——–

TODAY… today, I shall work on lessons.  So far, I have a mockup for the attendance list (for each course, sans the names of course), grade sheet, and attendance/participation breakdown for points (I have to turn these in anyway… I might as well have them ready to go).

I need to figure out how much I want to put on PowerPoint this semester and how much I will post for them at the school site.  Perhaps, I will give them the text outline on the site and make them write their notes.  It couldn’t hurt ya know… right?

Ok, off to work… I’m sure I’ll have something to say later.

5-pack, 1 short

I look out my window yesterday and my heart stopped..

Apparently, I now live nextdoor to a Kmart Special…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A knot in my stomach grew… as I counted the crap they tossed in their yard…and this is only over the course of the past 3 months since they moved in nextdoor (and whatever shit was IN the yard, it QUADRUPLED and won’t stop reproducing). 

To the tune of  The 12 Days of Christmas

A BIG BLOW UP POOOLLLL….
A bar with three chairs
Two swingsets
Three patio tables
Three plastic little tykes slide sets
Two sheds with swingout doors
Two trampolines
Three more plastic play sets
FIVE HUNDRED plastic balls
Some indoor furniture set free to live in the wild
Four stacks of wood, and blocks (which you can’t see)
A jeep under the overhang of the garage
A trailer in the driveway (black thing on top left)
A camper (which is on its way)
A multicolored and beaten up racing something car
Two broken wooden picnic tables
A bright blue toilet
An old tire rim used for camp fires….
And a SLEW of indistinguishable plastic toys…..

*pant pant

AND, the BEST part is that this shit is visible from 2 family room windows…

I’ve been keeping my curtains closed all weekend in case someone comes to see the house, however, no one has and even if they DID, they’d see this shit pile from the front, side, AND back yards.

*sighs*

I don’t want to be this (probably already whispered) bitch who nags them about the shit in the yard.  They are two families living in the house… a young couple with 2 kids (one on the way) and a single mom with a son.  They are related and I knew their parents, who never would leave the yard in this way.

And, it makes me physically ill.

I think I just threw up in my mouth again… bleh!

—–

So, we drove all the way to the police barracks and the officer never wrote the report (its been a week), so now I have to CALL him later this week and possibly pick up the report when, at his leisure, he finishes it.  I say, all you do IS write reports, therefore, you should be super-fucking-good at it.  Write faster, I demand, nicely.  People DO use computers now… it cuts report writing in half.  While you’re at it, maybe you can change the report to read: kid tried to react, but lady was too stupid for her own good. 

I drove down there today… and saw the road… this two-lane motorcross for tractor trailer trucks… she must’ve sped up to get across to beat out a truck coming her way (to her left) and didn’t look… to the RIGHT.

Needless to say, I’ll be nice as long as the officer doesn’t try that, “I’m a cop and I carry a gun, worship me” attitude.  Then, well, things may take a turn…

—–

I took #1 son for his textbooks today.  He earned enough at work this weekend to pay off 1/2 of deductible for the body work to his car.  By the end of this week, since he’s working MORE hours, he’ll have earned $500.  I’m impressed.

HOWEVER… I will also be his chauffer for the next two weeks… (fun-o)… can’t wait!

It came to my attention, the book whore that I am, that I had a (brand NEW) copy of his textbook that I (legally) acquired from the history convention in January.  That saved him $85 used and $93 new.  The SAD thing is, the book probably cost all of $40.  And, I had it sitting in my bookcase (for free).  My only warning, to my dear son, is that the book better be returned in good condition or I will charge him the $93 it would’ve cost for a new book.

It’s soft covered.  I’m anticipating it being beat to hell.

Then, he asked if he could WRITE IN IT.

“No,” I said firmly, “And, you cannot highlight in it.”

“Whyyy?” he is whining and I just saved him nearly $100…?

“Because you are BORROWING it… therefore, I would expect it returned in good condition.”

“F…ine.”

*grins*

We have to shop in MY bookcases before shopping in the SCHOOL bookstore from now on…

Anyway, I have to drag my puked on comforter to the laundrymat soon, so I can wash the bleh out of it.  Hopefully, the laundrymat has a washer that can hold it or I’m screwed.  How many hot and steamy days can I spend driving a stinky puked on comforter around?

NOT MORE THAN ONE.

To the BATCAVE!

Yeah, no, I’m not IN the batcave yet.  STILL waiting for SOMEONE to vacuum up bug carcasses and to take preventative measures that I will not be sitting there grading when something multi-legged, hairy, with little buggy creepy fangs climbs up my legs.  It won’t be pretty.  That I promise.

Well, it was an interesting weekend, to be sure.  I have a short time to post because then I need to go shower, get dressed, and take #1 son to the police department to get his police report and then to college to go buy his books.  Then, we need to come home so that I can go to the laundrymat and WASH my nice comforter (because my washing machine can’t take a queen-size anything) to remove CAT PUKE from it.

Actually, it was like 2am Saturday when I heard this sound coming from between my husband and myself… it sounded like the cat licking himself… but quickly it turned into chaos as he THREW UP an orange-colored hair log and various stomach biles onto my comforter.  I jumped up and switched on the light and my husband fell out of bed, scrambling for a tissue box, while the cat ran away, not to return until this morning (from our bed).

It was stomach-churning gross… at 2am… while I was dead asleep.  Worse than a kid with the dry-heaves waking me up from a sound sleep… informing me, as he towers over my face, that he feels like puking.

We went to my inlaws’ yesterday for a birthday dinner.  No “Eye-talian” comments were being thrown around (interesting– for people who mock Italians ruthlessly, they sure do eat a lot of Italian FOOD)… my mil turned to labeling people.

*sighs*

A relative’s son is mentally challenged.  My guess is that he is not functionally retarded as his mental state is that of a child… even though he’s a man… because simple tasks are difficult for him.  I get it, I do.

Then, she started on his sister… a rebellious (pretty) girl with a learning disability that is not distinguishable to the untrained eye.  “She can’t add or spell, she’s handicapped,” my mil stated as though she knows what the hell she’s talking about.  Now, if that were MY kid, I’d be eff’g pissed that she boxed my kid into an unfair label.  So, I corrected her, “Actually, not knowing her true classification, I’d say she isn’t handicapped, but learning disabled.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said, handicapped.”

I was tempted, for a mere minute, to bang my head on the table and stick a fork in my eye.

“No, being handicapped is different.  She’s fully functional, except she has difficulties in math and spelling.”

She is.  She graduated high school, and tried her hand at college, but dropped out so she could stay at home and take care of her brother while mom works (their dad died several years ago).

I’m sorry, I am sensitive when people start putting ALL people with issues into a neat little box called, “handicapped.”

“My brother was ADD and he had dyslexia, but he wasn’t handicapped.  The state referred to him as “learning impaired.”  And, that was way back in the early-to-mid 1980s.  Today, he’d still be learning impaired, learning disabled, or LD.

“Oh, but he could add, right?”

No.  He was in special ed classes until the year before he died.  He could add, but numbers and letters pretended to impersonate each other and his brain synops didn’t cooperate with what was on the paper in front of him.  That, and he climbed the walls, trees, buildings, and other vertical structures at random…

I just bit my tongue and endured another hour of her stating that this and that makes someone handicapped.  Yeah, sure, in the 1950s… but not in 2009. 

That’s the problem, you know… too many people are being classified with learning disorders… my son included (#1)… and it makes me wonder… how or why they are how and why they are and what did *I* do to contribute to this cycle.

The developmental doctor said that it’s hereditary.  My brother was LD and SD is probably LD (though, I personally would consider HIM handicapped)… and my doctor said I’m struggling with adult ADD.

So, somehow, my inability to focus (oh its a problem alright), has been passed on to at least one (possibility of 2) son(s).

FUN-O…

Anyway…

Not to mention, I had to listen to my husband’s cousin on Friday list the reasons why we can’t move away from NJ/PA area:

1.  She will lose her carpenter

2.  She will lose her carpenter

3.  She will lose her carpenter

*sighs*

She’ll find another, that I promise…

Needless to say, my goal today, in the midst of crazy-zaniness… is to drive by the accident scene and pull into the parking lot, and look for the car my son hit.

It shouldn’t be hard… a large SUV like mine, with beige paint (some of which was imbedded into my son’s hood)… and a little nic under the bumper by the tailpipe.  I haven’t decided what to do next, but if I had no self-control and was a sociopath-handicapped person, I’d smash her windshield with a bat.

But, I’m respectible… and relatively calm (amazing enough).  I harbor no ill-will towards the (dumb eff’g) woman who could’ve killed my son with her (mindless and attention-less) driving.

Ok, off to shower…

*writes on list of things to do… bring bat*

Balls and Bubbles

It’s Saturday.  What have I done today?  Went to store… (check) went to farm to get corn (check)… picked up bread for my mil’s house tomorrow (check, check)… attempting to (seriously) do work today (no checky checky).

BAH!

Why can’t I get motivated to work?  I have a month left before I get to stand before my students and act like I know what I’m doing… and I have nottadamnthing for them.  *hmmpf*

Currently, for my own mental sanity, I’m making an outline of my text for my new class.  I will post the outline (which I took from the table of contents, so its a big DUH if they can’t get it)… and fill in my OWN notes, for which they will have to write.. write… and write some more.

I’ve gained another 3 lbs.  Nothing’s shedding, nor am I (really) doing anything to get it to go away.  I am now at my (unpregnant) height of fat-assedness.  I want to lose weight, but I don’t give a shit.  Is that a bad thing? 

Listening to: Queen Bohemian Rhapsody and singing along (door open and all, don’t care, let them hear me!)

Yesterday, I spent the day at my husband’s cousins’ house.  She’s about a decade older than us and her kids are about -10-15 years younger than we are… ish… After we had our hotdogs and hamburgers (a summer staple I’m really getting sick of), and had dessert (crumb cake for #3 son and cookies for the rest), the cousin starts to talk about weight.

Here we go…

She said, “#2 son is getting thinner, remember how he used to be so FAT?”  in front of #2.  I get ABSOLUTELY dumb-founded when people do that.  I like her, but she has this idea that everyone should starve themselves to be thin.  She’s thin.  Her daughter’s not super thin, but right for her body type.  Her son and husband have pooches, which she’s pointed out to everyone.

I blurted out, “Sorry?”  Ok, I had to clean out my ears.  She’s not a bad person, but grew up w/ a mother much like mine… one obsessed in everyone around her being thin, even if she wasn’t.  I can’t fault her for that, because I do find myself thinking things like that, but trying to catch them before they leave my mouth.  Of all of my husband’s cousins, we’re the closest to them. 

“Well, look at him,” and that’s when my husband jumped in… “Well #1 was like that when he was younger and he grew out of it, and so is #2.  He wasn’t fat… at least not to us.”

BRAVO husband… good show.  You were able to speak before I was able to untie my tongue and close my mouth out of sheer shock.  DO NOT do that in front of my middle son… he’s already having a hard time speaking to me and is very self-conscious about his body… he won’t swim without his shirt… (he’s not fat, let me clarify… between the ages of 9 and 14 he was a little baby-fattish… by no means fat… and I try super hard to not give my kids a complex about their weight… tho, I do make comments to #3 son about being “skinnier than a beanpole,” with “legs like sticks,” but you have to SEE him to understand.  I once showed friends pictures of him, shirtless, making a muscle alongside my older son.  Uh… my little one looks like he’s starving… so, my friend joked, “Feed him a cheeseburger.”

I’m not thin.  I have battled weight my entire life.  I was a skinny kid who was told by my aunt and mother (evil sisters) that I was thin, and everyone in the family was fat, and to not ever get fat.  Well, age 16 came along and puberty hit and I was stress eating because of my nutso parents… and moved quickly to a size 14.  I stayed there for a few years, then dropped to a 10, then up to a 14, then down to a 10… (got married in a size 11 dress)… gained weight and grew to a 16, then down to a 12, up to an 18, down to 16, up to 20, down to 14, up to 16, then 18… and so on.  Don’t you think that I’d LOVE to be a size nothing and wear things that showed my body off?  HELLS YEAH… however, I’d get uncomfortable with people looking at me… because what would they see? (“Oh that bitch is thin and she’s trying to make ME feel bad for not being thin… look at what she’s wearing… damn her!”)

What? I do that (mentally) to thin people.  I check them out as much as they check me out.  It is what it is, I guess.

So, what’s with my poor body image?  I can think of about a dozen and a half reasons why I’m a stress eating carb indulging person with poor self esteem.  Will I list them? No.  They are MY private demons…

I will say that age 14, when I was barely a size 8-10, my mother decided to enroll me in Weight Watchers, so keep me from getting “fatter.”

Every week that I walked to the meeting and walked up to the scale, the white haired women would grab me and tell me that I was fine… asking me what kind of parents would send their daughter to a weight trimming class when she was the right weight for her height and body type.  I’d strug and go on the scale, having the person write my weight on the card so that my father could see it when I got home.  If I lost weight, he’d give me the $6 for the next week’s meeting, and throw in an additional $2 for an allowance.  BUT only if I continued to go to the meetings.

I stopped and he took his money back.

I was NEVER obese as a teen, but maybe 10-15 lbs more than my doctor suggested.

Since then, I’ve been put on an all-liquid diet by one doctor who said if I didn’t lose weight, he’d be signing my death certificate in 20 years.  At the time, I was 50 lbs over my “perfect” weight… and had just had my 2nd baby.

I do not want to be a rail… I want to be happy and what will make me really REALLY happy is seemingly well-meaning people (like the cousin) or image-beasts (parents) who feel that I need to be a size 8, 6, or 0.

Who set these rules?  I don’t dine at fastfood joints (maybe 1 time a month or two or three depending on whether we’re on vacation or at the mall at lunchtime, etc..), I don’t order fries or to supersize my meal.  If I go out to eat, I eat 1/2 of my meal and eat the rest either for lunch the next day or if its big enough, lunch & dinner.

What causes me to gain weight is being unhappy, nagged with condescending comments like, “You have such a pretty face” and “Why have you let yourself go like that?”

The mother of all comments came from my mother, just before I married my husband, “If you gain weight and get fat again, he’ll not want you.”  Occasionally, my mother will ease it into the conversation, “If you lose at least 10 lbs, your husband will find you MORE desirable,” and then adds, “I could stand to lose 10 lbs myself.”

I have NO TOLERANCE for weight nazis.  If I try to shame myself into losing weight, or to make #2 son lose weight, then what service am I providing… what image am I demonstrating?  Not that being overweight is a GOOD image, but I do cook as healthy as possible (always with a vegetable… mostly salad, steamed or grills veggies)… we eat whole wheat bread, low sodium cold cuts (for those who eat sammiches), always have fruit, baked chips, and other essentials.

But, I get bored and stressed and fed up and grab at whatever IS there that’s NOT good.

And, for that, I blame my parents and their mothers, who poor self image has been pushed onto me, shaming me into not wanting to be what they want me to be, only to have my son, who everyone constantly comments about being “chubby”… it just pisses me off.

So, I said to my son, while driving him to his friend’s house to sleep over, “You are perfect in my eyes…”

His response was a snort-like-grunt. 

As usual.

*sighs*

Talk is cheap, it costs $10 an hour

Now that the silence ended between my mother and myself (*sighs*), she’s back to calling me multiple times a day asking me mundane questions about nothing, “So, what’s new”, “So, anything new,” “So, anything different”… which amount to me having to REPEAT myself fifty times a day.  If she ends up like my grandmother (suffering from demensia for 4 years before she died), I’m going to go absolutely MAD.

My friends make fun of me because I can remember little details from my childhood… high school years… but can’t remember what I had for breakfast today.  So, I get it… my long-term memory is a steel trap and my short-term isn’t enough to get me a bag of peanuts and a soda.  What to do, what to do… Well, I guess nothing.  It’s a blessing AND a curse, because I get called out for purposedly not wanting to remember something (So, I’ll say, “nope, don’t remember” and then I’m harassed until I suddenly remember that I remembered that thing they wanted me to remember)… constantly!

I need a little kick in the pants to get motivated enough to STAY on track and not let my brain wander into other things … like updating my diary.

*sighs*

I feel like such a boring person.  It’s muggy out.  I don’t do muggy.  I’m tired of showering a few times a day so that I don’t have to worry that I’m going to offend someone with my sweatiness.  My hair is beyond bad… the humidity is turning it into a Gilda Radner type hairdo…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

err… minus the thumbs up.

I am growing my hair out… it’s currently dropping past the top of my shoulders.  I freaking hate having fine and wavy hair… it’s like the Magic 8-ball hair: Will my hair be frizzy today? (No doubt about it)  Will my hair do what I want it to do? (Unlikely)  Will I suddenly turn into a bad rendition of some 70s hair mistake? (Wait and see)

So, when I broke up my friendship with the uberneedyandlesssophisticated T, I replaced her with a T who went to h.s. with me and would have graduated with my brother had he lived long enough to wear his cap-and-gown.  Her sister graduated after me and her brothers before me… you get the idea.  Needless to say, I like her a lot… but she’s a bitch.  I mean that in all niceness… she even embraces the idea.  However, she never wants to do anything… #3 son and her oldest daughter went to school together… and like playing together.  But, T doesn’t have a/c in her house (oh wait, now she does, but she has a demon-dog who eats through doors when company is over)… and she’s allergic to my cat (boo… I’m not even allergic to cats, but I have to admit, he loves rubbing his face on mine after I put on moisturizer… then I spend the next hour wiping his fuzz off my face).  I don’t goto her parties (she sells stuff, and I have no money nor do I want to feel pressured into buying something when I know I have no money to spend on that stuff)… and I think she resents me.  My other friend, S, whom I have been friends with since college is married with a baby now.  She doesn’t have time to talk to me as much as she used to.  Chica/Senora is going through her own shit… and I get tired of her never answering her phone (cell or home)… and I know if I go over there, her shiftless-bastard-almost-was-an-ex-husband of her’s may be there… and I cannot guarantee that I will not grab a big stick and proceed to pummel him with it.

That leaves me with my teacher-friend from grad school.  She recently moved an additional 30 minutes away to a town I can barely find on a map much less find in my car (I’m probably one of a few who do not have GPS-something in their car or on their person)… and she’s never home.

Hmm… my high school friends have their own stuff going on… leaving me to chit-chat with a guy I went to school with who has dubbed himself my fake-gay best friend because HE likes to shop, look at girl stuff, and chitchat.  He’s leaving soon to go to a training school to learn a new trade, and that’ll put him about 6 hours from here.

*hmmpff*

I can usually find something to do, but I’m getting frustrated because a) my kids hate going anywhere with me (even when I pay for lunch) because it requires them to walk around, look at stuff that they would never look at, and give an opinion about whether or not it would look good on me.  Ok, example.  The other day, I drove an hour to the big mall with #2 and 3 sons (#1 was working a double) to get my sil a birthday gift.  I knew what I wanted, but I wanted to also just look.  I like window shopping, plus it gets me out of the house.

#2 started in with, “Are we done yet?” and “Do we have to still be here?”

He wanted to GO HOME and PLAY his friend on his videogame…

That caused #3 to meltdown with, “I don’t wanna do this anymore, too!”

If there’s ever a reason to kick a 15 year old in the pants it is when he says something that he KNOWS will cause his little brother to go bezerkers… like, “Let’s go home, I’m tired.”

He’s 15 YEARS OLD… and he’s TIRED?  Seriously?  I’ve never seen a kid so… blah before… not having an opinion or a concern… he’s just … well, boring.  (Ok, I said.  Yes, he’s my middle child and I just called him boring.  What I neglected to say, is that he’s REALLY boring and does not engage in any manner with me… talking, playing a game, cooking, nothing.  And, it makes me sad because its not like I haven’t TRIED to get him to interact with me.  I’m TIRED of dragging him around just for him to LOOK bored and whine about not wanting to be with me.  And, to be honest, it hurts… a lot.)

So, there ya have it.  A nagging mother with nothing specific to say.  A raucous 6 yr old.  A disinterested 15 year old.  And, an 18 year old who NEVER shuts up (lest I forget him).  NO friends to do anything with.

My summer sucks… that is, AFTER my most spectacular visit to the Rocky Mountain State.  Its all downhill from here on out.

 

My question.. as I’m thinking of something inparticular to write about…

Anyone know a female veteran from WW2?  If so, does she have an email or contact info?  I’d like to get a female veteran’s perspective of the war.

And, *yawns*, that’s it for now… much rechain myself to the stove (making dill potatoes and chianti braised short ribs for dinner)…

Fifteen leagues beneath the parking lot

My life is boring again… sorry for the lack of updates.

I took #2 and 3 sons to the mall today to get a gift for my sil (birthday party this weekend) and #3 his soccer equipment as his practices start soon.

Cleats, shinguards, soccer socks, and a pair of soccer shorts = $56

Not bad, considering I bought him Adias soccer cleats.

My older one was in a minor fender bender on Monday (definitely didn’t like the “Uh, mom, I was in a car accident, but we’re ok” phone call)… apparently a woman pulled her GIANT SUV out of a parking lot, across his path, and he couldn’t stop in time… hitting her in the rear by her muffler (which left a WONDERFUL tear in his bumper).

The state police, who said her story didn’t mesh with his (and three cars of his friends following him), so they laid the blame on him.  I called the insurance company, and my agent said that’s bullshit as the state police are assholes (yes, yes they are) and usually like to blame the teenagers, whether its their fault or not… especially male teenagers.

So, we’re letting the insurance companies battle it out… he’ll have between $1500-2500 in damage to his front end (the car is still drivable, but depends on whether the radiator frame needs replacing)… and said they do not listen to the police report about who’s right or wrong as the police sometimes unfairly target teenage driver. (He has a $500 deductible that he’ll have to pay regardless of the ruling by the insurance companies, which is a super big bummer for him… almost all the money he made this summer will be shot to hell repairing his car.)

I’m glad I wasn’t there… after impact, the woman didn’t even ask if the boys were ok, but instead said, “Oops, sorry, I didn’t SEE you.”  Somehow THAT comment (which makes her culpable and shows her admittance of blame) was missed by the state trooper (which my father always called the gestapo because of their uniforms), who listened to a 60+ year old woman versus 8 teenagers (all of whom are 18 or older).  Whatever happened to collecting testimony before reporting facts?

At least no one was hurt, nor was he issued a summons (by the way, apparently you need skid marks to show that you attempted to stop abruptly… do all cars always make skidmarks?  And, if he wasn’t going the limit, but slower, and hit her at a slower speed, would there BE skidmarks?  I tend to doubt that it happens every single time…)

My face is itchy… bleh.  Now what…?

Anyway… mom broke the ice (our silence war ended, sort’ve) on Monday when she called amidst the accident chaos.  She gave me the interrogative questions… “Why haven’t you called,” “What is wrong with you,” and, “You should’ve called ME.”  Sorry, but sometimes life is more important than being grilled daily (sometimes more than that) by my mother.

It is what it is…

Anyway, I should go…

Crashing waves and fluffy pillows

I just spent 20 minutes responding to comments at my this-here-blog.  Hmm.  I need to do that more often.

ANYWAY… I popped my head up out of bed this morning, changed my sheets, took a shower, cleaned my bathroom, dusted a little, grabbed the laundry and brought it downstairs, cleaned up the kitchen a little, then made pancakes (a mountain of them)… all before 9:30am.  What is happening to me?  AHHH…

Then, after cleaning up from breakfast, I went foodshopping (after #1 and 3 sons got out of bed)… and it is HUMID and MUGGY outside… like I could stick tissues all over my arms without wetting them first.  It’s also dark out, and feels like nearly nighttime… oh wait, I know why… it’s POURING outside.  No wonder.  Heh…

Last night, in the middle of a dream, I was abruptly woken up by the sounds of rocks and sledgehammers hitting my house.  (Ok, not really rocks and sledgehammers… more like HARD RAIN hitting my skylight and roof HARD… VERY VERY hard.)

Scared the beegeezus out of me, that’s for sure.

Here’s something else that scares me… GIANT CHEETOS.  Have you SEEN them?  They’re HUGE (like bigger than a golf ball huge).

 

This is  fullsize crayon (a little worn at the top)… next to a monstrous cheetos ball.  They say on the package, “it may be too big to put into your mouth.”

I was able (barely) to get it in my mouth.  What does that mean?  Is my mouth extraordinarily huge?  Should I be worried? Or, are the Cheetos people trying to scare us?  *looks around*  Are they watching me??

 

The rain kicked in again… like a truck hiting my house.  Oh wait, it stopped again.  This is going to be a LONG day.. weather-wise.

Am currently listening to a weird song by Sugar Ray, called “Burning Dog.”  I feel like surfing… don’t ask me why… surfing while drinking a slushy from Sonic.  Hmm…

So, this is day 2 of staring at my computer, hoping that by some miracle, stuff will get created… like school stuff.  I’m going to have my husband go in the basement and vacuum out carcasses of dead creepy crawlies (and perhaps some LIVING ones) so I can officially relocate back into the batcave for the semester.  This way, my school stuff won’t congregate on the dining room table and (possibly) hinder real estate visitors (if they ever come).

House update: No new real estate stalkers.  The last came through about three (3) weeks ago… when the woman emphatically bitched about my kitchen.  I have a smokin’ hot kitchen.  If my kitchen were a woman, it’d be smokin’ hot…

I don’t swing that way, but I have a hard time envisioning my kitchen as a hot guy.  It just seems… wrong.

Anyway, I’m going to attempt to get some work done (hahahahahahahahaaa!) before my back begins pinging with “why are you sitting on these shitty kitchen chairs instead of that comfy desk chair you bought last year for your office that you’re STILL not in??” pain.  Stupid kitchen chairs.  They’re older than dirt and are starting to fall apart.  I sort’ve found (partially) acceptible chairs in W-mart… 2 for $59… or was it Target?  Hmm… Everything out there is a bench or stool.  I just want PLAIN wooden chairs w/o cloth seats (our’s are beige and about 16-25 years old and are falling a PART… like when you sit for dinner, you don’t know how long you’ll actually get to SIT in the seat for before it crashes to the floor).

Ok, that’s about enough of my insanity for the day.  (What ever happened to Dangerspouse? *sniff* I miss him.)