Re-launched, but still slightly under construction. :-)

Monday, February 27, 2006

Epistolary Envy

Monday, February 27, 2006 By , No comments

To:
El Primo Cheesemosto

Date:
Feb 26, 2006 6:03 PM
Subject:
RE: ALREADY FOUND A BAR. THANKS!!!!
Body:
You had to find a bar for an emergency photo shoot? Your life is so much cooler than mine. The last emergency I had was: "Scott! Where the hell did you put the diapers?!"

Oh, no, wait: there was my leek-and-Gruyere emergency at the grocery store tonight. Can you believe I'm going to have to drive to Publix to get them? Oh, and the emergency of Must Order Harry Potter Now. Will there be enough copies?!

Dear God what happened to my LIFE?!! Do you remember that I used to be cool? Or, at least some semblance of cool? Or, at least I ASPIRED to be cool? Maybe? Have I always been this domesticated? Am I mooing in my sleep and why has no one told me?

At least I blog.

Wait - is blogging cool? SEE?! I don't even KNOW anymore! Gah!

Sunday, February 26, 2006

A Bad Thing

Sunday, February 26, 2006 By , No comments

Ya'll, generally, I'm okay to be around... a little self-conscious in public, a lot obsessed with being a mom, and quite obnoxious with my nervous-talking thing during which, one day, I will find myself blurting out to "I just love wine, sex, rock music and porn!" in church or at a meeting of the Republican Party, and then I will add something like, "But never on Sunday," as though that makes it all better. Or true. Since I only like some of those things. Guess which.

If it were that day, I could just go to the nearest bar and drink the embarassment away. This is not that day.

This day served me a harsh warning of things to come.

There is nothing you can do to make this better for me, unless you are a lawyer willing to take an employment case pro bono, because this experience has left us reeling, financially, to the point where the fact that my husband smokes makes a huge difference in our solvency. The only thing that would make me feel better is if Jesus, himself, stopped by to tell me that he is proud of me for doing the right thing. Because, ya'll, I did. I did everything I was supposed to.

It was very After School Special. I had two choices:
  1. The easy way, which is ignoring Big Wrongnesses and keeping silent though ethics, morals, and laws are being flouted;
  2. and, the hard way, which is reporting Big Wrongnesses and possibly getting reamed for it.
I chose the hard way.

When I chose that path, I was afraid; but I felt that maybe the Universe has some kind of karmic insurance that protects people who live by ethics and morals. Note to Self: It does not. The Universe let that policy lapse.

That is what makes the Very Special Choice so hard (and not so special). I may know for the rest of my life that I did the right thing, the right way, and for all the right reasons; but I still have been the only person to suffer any consequences.

I know: savvy people ask: "What did you expect?" The answer is that I expected nothing.

And, in the end, that's what we're left with.

Friday, February 24, 2006

The Perfect Gift For Anyone (like... me?)

Friday, February 24, 2006 By , No comments

Ya'll! This is the most amazing invention EVER! I'm buying two of them: one to use, and one to keep just in case I do something stupid like knock the first one out of our second-story window.

http://www.automaticshowercleaner.com/

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Cloud City

Saturday, February 18, 2006 By , No comments

My apologies to the extremely nice Food and Beverage Manager for [name withheld], but his first name is "Landeau," and all I could think was "You sold out Han Solo to Darth Vader! Chewbacca is going to kill you!"

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

I Like Cheese

Tuesday, February 14, 2006 By , No comments

Emerson is snacking on apples and watching Barney. They're singing a song about colors that freaks me out for a moment.

Creepy Barneykids: "Yellow, it's the color of lemons and our wonderful sun, sun, sun.
Green, it's the color of cheese and of beautiful things that grow."
Me: "The color of cheese?!"

It was "trees."

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Let me tell you about my life

Sunday, February 05, 2006 By , 1 comment

My life revolves around four things, in this order:
  • Emerson - daughter, 12 months old, ferocious and precocious
  • Scrabble - mini fox “terrorist”, 18 months old this month, nervous and untrained
  • Work - neverending, sometimes household, sometimes writing
  • Scott - husband, 34 years old, harried and studious (sorry, Scott, but you can feed and walk yourself)
But most stories do not feature my husband, because he is normal. It is the rest of us who are mad.

Scrabble is a HUGE baby. I took him to get his quarterly cleanings and flea dip (and they do something with his butt that I don’t ever want them to tell me about again), and he refused to go near the nice groomer.

When they took him in the back, I could hear him shrieking at the top of his lungs. His shrieking set off all the other dogs and Emerson, who gets really freaked out when Scrabble howls.* Their nice quiet morning turned into canine mania. Thank you, Scrabble; we didn’t even have an appointment.

He’s lost his mind since we found a home for Halley (a fosterdog we took in from an abusive home). We keep taking in little doggie friends, and then sending them off into the great unknown, but it’s not as though he lacks for stimulation.

Por ejemplo, Emerson views him as her own personal horse-and-carriage. She latches on to his fur and he drags her around the floor trying to get away while she laughs hysterically and I chase after them shouting, “Scrabble! Sit! Stay! Come here! Gah! Emerson, no! Let go of Scrabble’s fur!” none of which either of them acknowledges. This is because Scrabble is 100% deaf, we found out from the vet, unless we’re holding a treat. Then God creates a miracle until we feed him. Amazing.

Inevitably, Emerson loses her grip and slips onto the floor, sometimes smacking her head, or her hand, or nothing, and whether or not she’s landed on or injured some part of her, she freaks out like we just slammed her hand in a door or are playing the harmonica.

FYI: Emerson does not like harmonicas. I do not know why, but I do know that it is funny. She doesn’t mind them being there. It is the playing that upsets her.

Good times.

* Last week a little shi tzu (sp?) wandered into the yard and I took him in until his owner got home. This little dog almost did not survive his stay because Emerson was going to kill him.

Scrabble is a nerd. He has no social skills and thinks Humpfest 2006 is rad. He is wrong. Brownie tried to tell him so, by yipping at him to get him to leave him alone. Then it was yapping, then nipping, then snarling. Y'all, Scrabble does not do subtle. He does not do requests. He only does Scrabble on 10 (but he goes to 11).

After four hours of sexual harassment, Brownie lost his shit and chased Scrabble into the kitchen, snapping at him. Scrabble howled but here wasn’t a scratch on him and, frankly, sometimes lately I want to chase him into the kitchen and bite him, too.

But Emerson, seeing this, let out a mighty roar and tried to kick her way out of my arms to go after Brownie, whom she had previously found highly amusing and super furry. “Now,” Emerson said, “It is ON!” Of course, I did not let go of her until I was sure her combat skillz were until control.

But thereafter, whenever Brownie came near, she would reach out as if to pet him, then shriek “NAH!” and swing at him. My one-year-old was trying to start sumthin'. I had a mental picture of her in a bar at the ripe old age of five, sitting in a fog of cigarette smoke punctuated by tequila shots, scowling at other patrons and inisiting, "Yeah, I was in the shit."

She produced the shit, I can tell you that...