Saturday, October 31, 2009

18 days

I have to make a list of all the things I have to do before he gets here. I had assumed he was just a figment of my imagination and would never really buy a plane ticket. Ooops. Now I have to
  • Lose 20 pounds
  • Get a haircut
  • Clean the underside of the toilet seats
  • Stop chewing my nails
  • Stop chewing my nails to lose 20 pounds
  • Stick butter in my hair to make it shiny
  • Stop eating black beans entirely
  • Only drink water
  • Clean out my car
  • Make all kinds of plans to see everyone
  • Teach the kids some manners
  • Get rid of these dark circles under my eyes
  • Will Oil of Olay take ten years off if I use it right now?

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

And THIS is why I LOVE my children!

He sent me a care package with several interesting things including this huge spider. He knows me too well. Or maybe we share the same stupid sense of humor. I decided to leave the kids a little surprise when they got up this morning in the middle of the living room floor.

And they must really be my children because instead of shock, outrage, and pathetic crying over the cruel treatment of the beloved puppet they just rearranged the scene better.


I think we'll all get along just fine.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

The Thing about Candy and Me at Halloween and a Happy Birthday to You

First I would like to say Happy Birthday to my LURKER. It's a few hours early, but hopefully you have something better to do this evening than to lurk on my blog. Always remember that you will always be older than I am. Always. Anyway, Happy Birthday and I hope the second half of your life is WAY more exciting than the first half. :)

Now let's talk about candy. CANDY. CANDY. CANDY. I'm pretty good with a weekend of candy, especially if I bought it for the kids because they're having friends over and I just have a couple of pieces and then it's GONE. But it's only okay because knowing there is an end to it means that I have enough willpower to not make myself sick and then I can spend Monday detoxing.
It's like bumming one cigarette off my little brother. I know I'm not going to go buy a pack, so I enjoy it and then I cough for a couple of hours, and then I wake up all stuffy and I go on with my life.
But if there's candy Monday then I'm in trouble because then the sugar low I'm experiencing from withdrawal needs to be fed. And if it gets fed then it becomes an addiction.
The WORST part of it is that I already know that an hour or two after eating chocolate or anything with corn syrup or dye I'm going to bloat up like I've swallowed a balloon and have cramps and feel like I want to die. And the withdrawal the day I stop eating candy leaves me fatigued and depressed, which is why it is dangerous to have any around because I'm eating to feel better and not because it actually tastes good anymore. And that's a bad sign.
I can write all this BUT the thought that there are m&m's in my hall closet is killing me right now. I spent the day dragging my ass around, laying on the floor holding my stomach, and hearing Billy Idol sing Dancing With Myself over and over in my head until I annoyed myself half to death and Abrah along with me.
That bumper sticker the kids put on my car makes sense to me now. If I must die, let it be death by chocolate. I just though that meant I'd accidentally drown in a vat of milk chocolate. Now if I see that vat I'm going to turn around and RUN.

Monday, October 26, 2009

It would be funny if it wasn't so accurate.

Well, I've finally discovered the solution to sibling rivalry. Only the word rivalry is too NICE. It's more like sibling bickering over absolutely nothing until mother goes downstairs and raids the wine box. For a while I was trying to interrupt their arguments and give them something even more absurd to argue about, but they can go at it just as easily when the topic is whose shorts are shorter and what color the sky is at night.

So today the youngest was in my bed, reading a book, when I yelled "time for bed."
"Not yet, Mom. I have ten more minutes," she demanded.
"By the time I get you in there and you're done the whole bedtime routine, IT WILL be bedtime," I said.
Then I did a fifteen minute skit playing myself, her, and the sister she shares a room with, mockingly showing her what bedtime looks like in my house. Nothing at all like the Walton's Goodnight JohnBoy, Goodnight Grandpa.

No, this was more like:

Me: Goodnight Gina.
Gina: But Mom, I just thought of something. Then I forgot. No, don't leave. It was important . . . while gripping my hand.
Mom, I feel like something is watching me all the time. Do you believe in ghosts? Why are some people bad? What happens to stars when they die? One hundred and fourteen days ago someone took my hair tie and I can't find it. Emily took it!
Me: It's late Gina, go to sleep.
But Emily took it! I hate her. She's a retard!
Emily from the bottom bunk (in a squeaky high voice): I'm not a retard. Mom, punish her. Why don't you ever punish her? She hit me forty-two times today and you didn't do anything. I swear I'm going to hit her if she says one more word.
Me: No, you're not. Go to sleep. You can fight tomorrow.
Gina: But I had a really bad day at school. What are they going to do at the Doctor's tomorrow? Hmmmmmmmhmmmmhmmmm
Emily: Mom, she's humming. Make her STOP.
Gina: Hmmmmmmhmmmhmmmm, I am not humming. You retard. You never should have been born.
Emily: I am not a retard. You're an IDIOT. I'm going to hit you.
Gina: Mom, mom . . . she's calling me names. I'm uncomfortable. Can I switch pillows with you? I know this was yours. I want mine back. Fill up my water bottle. No, don't go. I remember what that was I wanted to tell you. No, wait. I forgot again. Will you come check on me in fifteen minutes?
Emily: Wasn't it easier with just two children?

I thought this was a pretty accurate representation of what goes on in their room when I shut out the light and say goodnight. Especially when I walked in there with Gina to really say goodnight, after she laughed hysterically at my version, and the first thing Emily said was "Mom, I hate you. Now go heat up my rice bag, turn the fan on low, and tell that little idiot to shut up."

We're not the Waltons. That's for sure.

My Life of Entropy: Broken by a LUMP of Peanut Butter

I am doing the same chores over and over and over. I move things downstairs that end up upstairs: shoes, recyclable containers of shampoo, dishes. And then I take things upstairs that end up downstairs: clothes, pillows, books. I pick crayons up off the desk and put them back in a big can, knowing they'll just get dumped out again. I carry things to and from different rooms no matter how many times they sneak back. Every week I hang the same twenty pairs of shoes on the back of the hall door, sweep the same dirt and leaves out the door that just come in with the next herd of children, put the same games back in their cases, and vacuum the same crumbs that sneak back out of my vacuum to reappear one morning when they get up before me. I do the same laundry that will just reappear in a pile on the bathroom floor the next morning. I wash the same dishes that will end up under the couch cushions. I spend at least 2 hours a day "cleaning" the same things I cleaned the day before and that I'll clean tomorrow.
It would seem to me that I'm fighting against some universal rule. That everything in my home tries to become disorganized and that I am expending a lot of energy trying to keep it at a level that it does not naturally like.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in a closed system (my house) everything runs from hot to cold (from organized to disorganized). This says it all (from a University of Idaho paper on entropy): An ordered entity requires a quantity of energy to create and maintain itself as an entity. Once it reaches an ordered state, it will, without further infusions of energy, gradually become disordered.
This should also, however, include a clause about the energy infusion going on strike and the DIRE results of pissing it off and causing it to resign itself to watching the disorganization to occur unchecked. Who am I to fight against the natural state of things? For example, I am sure that that tablespoon sized lump of peanut butter belongs on the floor beside the trash can.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Formal Dressup Day at the High School?

Dress up day is hard enough. Twice now on early Monday mornings she has called me because she forgot to dress up and she needs clothes. Now she's being told that Formal Dressup means she has to wear a GOWN. Not a dress, a GOWN.

Yes, my closet is full of GOWNS. I wear them to many events: Balls, the Opera, and around the house cleaning. I wear them to therapy appointments, the dentist, and in my mom-taxi. I wear them when I take the trash out to the dumpster and while carrying in a fresh box of wine. I wear them to the bus stop to do my happy dance when the kids leave for school. I have a closet full of GOWNS.

So while I'm thinking about my gown collection, she's on my cellphone talking to a friend and I hear "I have a black dress that's kind of like my mom's hooker dress only without the sequins."

Sigh.

Friday, October 23, 2009

A good daughter

A good daughter will post random bloggy things while your setting up appointments for her :)
I have to sneeze.
A CHOOOOOOO
I cant spell Monket
Monkey
I GOT IT RIGHT.
Gof is scary, very scary.
I dont know what to write, you still havent asked me what i am typing... Oh never mind you caught me and told me not to publish anything.
IT WAS AN ACCIDENT I DIDNT MEAAANNN TO HIT THE PUBLISH BUTTON

~Haley~

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

I'm a WINER!

I thought I'd written a blog at some point about me being a winer, but I looked back and I can't find it anywhere. I probably wrote it in my own head one night while dreaming about Johnny Depp and thought I really had. You know how realistic my Johnny Depp dreams are!
So today I received this (censored) email from the ex husband. He really should know better than to send me things he wants to keep private, including finally telling me I win!

Subject: Wining

Stop posting things about our divorce etc. on Facebook. This thing about the 2 checks that allegedly bounced. And you cant believe that ppl who bounce checks to the govt. aren't put in Jail. That was over a year ago and it was The Tavern. And you still got paid. This only makes you look like a winer, at least that is what the ppl who contacted me said.

Until I opened it I thought maybe I'd finally won something! Of course, after reading it I came back down to Earth and remembered that I have an ex who bounced child support checks, can't keep a job, and tries to tell me what to do because he'd rather keep it a secret that he's a deadbeat and he wants me to help him keep that secret too because it's embarrassing for me to tell people that he's such a deadbeat. But what he doesn't get is that I DON'T CARE.

Oh, I'm sorry, I look like a winer. Which must be a winner or someone who drinks wine OR BOTH, because that would make a whole lot more sense than me caring about whether the world knows he's $20,000 or more behind in child support. Shhhhhh, I'm supposed to keep that a SECRET.
I'd better get on with the wine part of wining, cause I'm a bit pissed off that he would tell me what to post on my Facebook page. Oh yes, he thinks he's ENTITLED to privacy about his abuse, but I'll tell you the huge secret men like him don't want to share with the world. Telling people about it is the only way to make it end! Now where's my wine. I've got to start wining.
And what is he doing anywhere near my Facebook page anyway? And who are these people? Oh yeah, that's right! He's always got these imaginary witnesses to back him up, like his little mafia. Only I've never seen them. But hey, if they think I'm a winer too, well I kinda like them!

Some happy thoughts to erase the image of NickAngel

I feel like I owe my audience some pleasant thoughts to make up for my last post. That's the problem with being a zebra. I can use my powers for good or evil and some days evil is just more fun. So here are some pleasant things to think about:
  • Rainbows
  • Butterflies
  • Unicorns
  • Fairy Sparkles
  • Finding your true love

Ah, hell, where's the fun in that? Let's talk about how I always look like I'm dressed for a funeral when I go to work and how despite my desire to become a vampire, I've decided it wouldn't work now that I'm middle-aged because I would FOREVER be stuck with these boobs. Let's talk about that!

Monday, October 19, 2009

What is Gof anyway?

Gof first contacted us, and by us I mean me and the one other follower that I know of so far, through gchat. Contact was in the form of what would otherwise be seen as typos, but gained importance as Gof's true nature became apparent through the following clues, which alone are meaningless but when looked at from a distance through scratched lenses, paint a picture of the next great religion.

  • No one can truly know Gof because Nglish is too hard to follow.

  • Followers of Gof can be found cracking themselves up alone in their offices.

  • For everything there is an opposite equal, so in this case gmail is the anti-gof.

  • If you think you are Gof, you're not. You're just schizophrenic.


And this is the ultimate proof of Gof, a picture taken of one of the Angels of Gof:



That horrified, disgusted, and strangely amused feeling you have right now is actually bliss. You just haven't been truly happy in so long you get the feeling confused with wanting to vomit. It's so awful that it's kindof awesome. Just like Gof. Follow the bliss!

The Theorems of Pathetics

We've all been taught that assertiveness is the key to getting anything, getting the job, getting the girl (or boy), getting the A, or just plain old getting ahead. But the theory of relativity teaches us that there is an opposite and equal reaction and we all know that correlation does equal causation when arguing with a mother of teenagers, so I offer to you the Theorems of Pathetics (like callisthenics without the exercise). Pathetics offers you the opportunity to use the opposite of assertiveness to get what you want without all the effort to be direct and firm.
Those of us who struggle with assertiveness need to stop trying so hard to say what we want, and instead embrace our pathetic spirit and make it work FOR US.

Thus the Theorems of Pathetics was created.

1. When given an opportunity to succeed first whine for 15 minutes to lower expectations.
2. Make it look like you're doing the WORLD a FAVOR just by continuing to breathe.
3. When asked to defend your position, pretend to be on the edge of a major breakdown so that if people don't take your side then your three year stay in a psych ward is their fault.
4. Agree with them that it is all your fault. Everything. Its all you. And since it can't be 100% anyone's fault they will most definitely assure you that they are partially to blame.
5. Always have a disheveled appearance, that way everyone knows how busy and overwhelmed you are, but that you will STILL help them. Even if it obviously will push you over the edge.
6. Whatever you do, don't allow sunlight to touch your skin so that you always look like you haven't slept in days. Accentuate the dark circles. And acne.
7. Carry Rescue Remedy in your purse. Offer it to people, then use it yourself. Often.
8. However, the Golden Rule of Pathetics is that you must never TALK about how hard your life is because then you just look like a whiner and no one wants to hear it. Pathetics is all about giving the image that your life is extremely difficult, but never sharing the details because no matter what they are you just appear annoying.
9. Spend some time at the Humane Society and mimic the body language of abused dogs. Almost anyone will treat you really well if you cower.
10. Never do anything productive if no one is watching. Save it up in piles. Sigh alot. Look overwhelmed. Never complain. People love to help. It makes THEM feel better to make YOU feel better.

Pathetics are the road to a new life, a creed by which to travel the highway to Gof. I don't really know what Gof is, but I do know that it's so indescribbleable that it must be good.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Breaking Up Isn't Simple Anymore

It used to be so simple. Boy meets Girl, falls in love, does something stupid, and the Girl's parents make them break up. A few tears.

Now it's much longer because of the whole internet, facebook, texting, voicemail crap that connects us all even when we don't want to be connected.

Boy meets Girl, Boy and Girl do stupid things that are spread all over Facebook, Girl's mom wants them to breakup so Boy's mom tries to tell her that it won't work, then Girl's therapist breaks up with him for her, then Girl's mom breaks them up on Facebook, but Boy passes notes to Girl and Girl passes notes to boy, and Boy keeps calling Girl's house, and Girl steals Mom's cellphone and texts Boy, and Boy's mom tells Girl's mom she's a bad parent for keeping them apart although it's none of her business, so Boy's friends tell Girl's sisters that they are still together although it gets Girl in trouble every time because it's all over Facebook, and Girl's mom asks Boy's mom to tell him not to call anymore, but he still does and so does she, and then they read her entire blog, and Girl's mom blocks them on both her phones and Girl's Facebook account, but apparently this is still confusing to someone, but not to me.

I miss the simple days of a few tears.

Honestly, I have been trying to figure out how I attract these people and I think Abrah is right when she says "you KNOW when people are acting like psychos." Between the ex husband, the screwballs there are to date around here, and some of my family, my psycho meter is very well-tuned. In other words I have excellent boundaries from years of practice and I call other people on their lack of good boundaries.

Up next: The ten theorems of Pathetics, the Path to finding Gof. And other great typos.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Halloween is not for PORN

I'm off work today! Can you tell? For the first day in forever all I have to do is write a letter and make a couple of phone calls and be a traitor. That's a day off!

My oldest daughter wants to have a Halloween movie night with her friends. Her choice of movies: The Unborn and Last House on the Left.

I don't want to be here when they're watching these movies. I don't even want to think about anything Unborn. Or something crawling down a hall with its head on backwards. Ick. And how am I supposed to watch her and her friends if they're watching this movie and I've got gum in my ears and a paper bag over my head? She has 4 boys and 1 girl on her list of friends. One boy being the boyfriend she really hasn't broken up with anyway. Hmmmm. No.

So I suggested renting sappy love movies. The theory being that if I start far to the left the compromise ends up in the middle. "Love movies are for Valentine's Day," she told me. I thought Valentine's Day was for uncomfortable dinner dates with people I should have dumped back on Election Day. One of the other girls yelled out "How about some porn then?" And then all three giggled and said "Mother's Day is for Porn!"

Children never forget anything you want them to, and they only remember anything important long enough to repeat it back to you and run out the door.

Benedict Me

I am a traitor.

How come it seems to always work out that the right thing feels so terrible and heart-wrenching? Shouldn't the right thing be easy and floofy, and thank you kindly when you're done.

My oldest daughter is not going to thank me today when she gets home from school. I'm going to throw her weekend bag in my car, have a huge fight with her that'll end with her threatening to leave, and drop her off at the one place she might dread more than her father's. Ouch.

It's nice to have other people freely offer their services as the bad parent. But it's so hard for the good parent (me) to do something she'll never forgive me for. If I could send myself for the weekend I would. I would LOVE it there.

Instead I'm going to spend the evening house-sitting at Dad's with a bottle of whisky and my arthritic dog and my blind cat, and a golden retriever I have to carry up and down the stairs. I'll fit right in!

And when Haley comes back hopefully I'll be able to whistle and she'll come right over so that I can throw a saddle on her.

I cannot take her to Wyoming with me while she's being all defiant. She blames her attitude on how hard teenagers have it now. I can't say I blame her. Every other generation of teenagers had it so easy, so much respect and freedom and opportunity. I feel sorry for all her friends with their cell-phones and their playstations and 175 channels to choose from every night.

I think the feeling of being a traitor just passed and now I'm pretty pissed off that she looks at me and says "what are you going to do about it?"

Now I'd love a live web cam at Kath's. I owe that woman alot.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

My Food Pie Graph for Today

I want to share this because of the utter patheticness of my eating habits. I ate well all day, yogurt, salad, an apple, a chicken sausage. And then I completely screwed it all up because I was so stressed out from the stomach cramping caused by HUNGER that I drank two glasses of wine and completely killed all the great healthyness I'd done to myself!
I mean, look at that big black triangle. That's my wine consumption compared to the other things I ate. Holy Shit! It's huge! And BLACK. And glaringly BLACK. 17.4% BLACK because I drank 10 ounces of wine. I just don't know anymore (shaking head sadly). What's there to live for?

My Father's Fascination with Old Age

My father called me this morning at 7:30 to tell me how old my Great Uncle Roy is getting which included a long story of how Great Uncle Roy has trouble walking 10 times around his kitchen like he's supposed to do for exercise every day. And how he shouldn't be driving anymore because he's gotten too dangerous.
Firstly, I'm completely jealous of Great Uncle Roy and his exercise regiment. I circle around my kitchen at least ten times every morning looking for something more entertaining than oatmeal to eat. And that's without lifting one foot, because my kitchen is too small to actually take a full step in any direction.
Secondly, I assume that this is the habit of people new to retirement. Calling me to tell me how old everyone is. How Jack the dog must have had a stroke and can't remember who he is. How Ollie the cat is blind and falls off things now, like the stairs. How Zoe the dog is lame in the morning. Dad seems to be giving aspirin to everyone.
When I visit he talks about people from work dying in accidents or distant relatives who are in their eighties and can't travel anymore.
The first thing he looks at in the paper are the obituaries. But not for people he knows. He looks at the ages everyone died and compares them to his age. If people are younger he seems to think he's overstayed his welcome and if they're older then he still has hope of another year or two.
Even as I walk away carrying the four loads of laundry that I just did at his house for free (because I firmly believe that if I ACT young I will stay young) he yells down the stairs that some 85 year old man just came down with Parkinson's.
As I spent my weekend comparing middle-ages ailments with my best friend, I suppose I shouldn't think myself too different from the gene pool I grew out of.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Halloween Candy House--the best Walmart Find Ever

Yesterday morning I was in Walmart spending $130 on stuff I would never remember buying later, when I found the best thing in the Whole World!

Forget Christmas gingerbread houses. This was made for me! Purple frosting does stick things back together better than superglue! But it also stains everything it touches, the table cloth, the floor, Haley's elbow, the bathroom ceiling.
I don't have much else to say today. Except maybe that Abrah's visits come in 3 parts: the actual visit, the rush to upload pictures to Facebook while she's driving home, and the chatting on gmail about the pictures later. Right now she's on her way home, so I am posting as much as possible so that when she gets there she can walk into her place, say a brief hello to Bill, and then spend the rest of the evening sitting in front of her laptop giggling about our eerie trip through the cemetary at night, the Halloween Candy House Massacre, and the disastrous trip to the Fallen Rock sign.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Handicapped Drunken Pirates

So this article was on MSN today about the 5 SUSPECTED pirates who somehow accidentally thought this hugeass refueling ship was a commercial boat filled with gold bullion. Maybe it's just me and my adoration of Captain Jack, but you'd have to be really drunk to think a big refueling ship was a happy little trade vessel.
The 5 SUSPECTED pirates in their tiny little row boat, along with another pirate laden skiff, shot their little pop-gun rifles at the GIGANTIC refueling ship. Which means they must have been really really drunk. I mean, what are the bullets going to do, bounce off?
And the absolute worst part of the whole deal? They weren't just 5 drunken SUSPECTED pirates in a row boat. They were 5 armless drunken SUSPECTED pirates in a row boat who just realized that they accidentally shot the WRONG people. This is what the article said: "There were five suspected pirates on board. No arms, no water, no food,"
Poor pathetic drunken mistaken pirates. After looking at the picture of the HEROIC capture of these powerful villainous handicapped pirates I just want to adopt one.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

How to Not Have A Complete Mental Breakdown

Even though at times I appear to be losing my sanity and putting it here for all the world and my friends to see, it's actually the other way around. I use this space to KEEP my sanity. And here's how:

That whole bullshit saying "Fake it till you make it" is bullshit, just as much as this sentence is circular reasoning. Pretending to be happy until you are can be a dangerous thing. Now if you're just pretending in certain situations throughout your day, but you vent to your next door neighbor who just happened to be walking by as you were crying on your front lawn--then maybe it's okay. If you want to smile at work so no one really knows you're hearing voices--then maybe it's okay. There is a certain time and place for putting on a professional face. Like if your mother drops by unexpectedly and you REALLY don't want to share with her why you're still in your pajamas and bunny slippers at one in the afternoon, cause she'll just tell you that you're depressed and that you take after her. That will only depress you more so it's perfectly understandable that you pleasantly say hello, take the muffins, and close the door-with her on the outside.
HOWEVER, if you pretend all the time and have no outlet for all the anger, anxiety, pain, frustration, guilt, and confusion-- and you get up in the morning pretending and you go to school or work pretending and you go home and pretend to family and friends and your doctor and your counselor--this is a problem.
The vast difference between the way you want things to be, wishing so badly that everything is fine and that nothing is wrong AND what your intuition is telling you about the situation and the way you feel--this is where one day soon you're going to lose your grip in a big bad way. If you push all those doubts right down inside and try so hard to pretend that you are perfectly happy then they are going to continue to grow and you're going to have to work harder and harder to push back and pretty soon the incongruence between what you feel and what you pretend will cause a HUGE SNAP.
So the best way to be is just to be REAL. To not try to pretend. And to accept the small tragedies for what they are, normal parts of the human condition. And share with others, as I do here. So that we can all laugh together. So if I'm talking to a Peruvian Onion and I tell you about it, then I'm really okay. Right?

Peruvian Onions and Sanity go Together

I have two things to say today and one is about Peruvian Onions and the other is about Sanity.

Let's take the easy one first. I bought a sweet onion and I was peeling it for lunch (No, not like I was gonna take a sweet onion to work and just gnaw on it!) and it is already moldy on the inside and I just bought it last night at the local grocery store. And I just happened to look at the sticker on it and it's from Peru. Is this the closest place on earth that makes onions? How long did it take this onion to get here? What kind of hardship did this onion go through before it arrived all moldy on my doorstep?
Maybe it took a trip like Dave on the Early Show's No Way Home, except I'll bet my onion didn't have 50 bucks and a Blackberry. I think it's cheating to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere and have 50 bucks and a way to connect to the internet! I think he should be dropped off with no money, a six-day beard and in his blue striped pajamas, like the rest of us were in the nineties or was that a flashback from the sixties in my head? Except I didn't have a beard, cause I'm a girl. No offense to all the girls with facial hair of course (just to cover my ass incase my pagan friend Pink also sports a soul patch). Laugh girl!!!
You shouldn't be able to connect with people on twitter who want to pick you up for their 15 minutes of fame. Instead you should have to beg and plead total strangers on the road who have never even heard of you. You should have to ride with large creepy men who ask you for a kiss before they let you out of the car. You should sleep on the floor of bus stations without a pillow. You should be thankful just to wash your face with soap once a day.
But I was talking about this ONION of mine. Don't they grow onions somewhere closer than Peru? What ever happened to onions from Washington state? The poor thing has been on quite a trip.
Can you see how bored I am, spending a couple of days a week at home alone. Worrying about the trials of being an onion?
Sorry, I'm not sane enough right now to talk about Sanity, which was the other thing this post was supposed to be about. I was going to talk about signs that you might be on the verge of a psychic break, and I don't mean lottery numbers appear in your head. There are signs that a person is going to crack completely. And I swear this has nothing to do with Peruvian Onions. But it might have something to do with the Early Show, which I swear I don't watch. I just don't like to feel all alone in the morning and it's nice to have someone talking to me who doesn't live in my head.

Monday, October 5, 2009

If there was a god, gods, or something out there forever playing jokes on me I would say to her:

Stop Giving me Signs!

because obviously this all-powerful, all-knowing thing would be reading my blog to know exactly how to make me crazy and then setting it up so that the sound of bagpipes is coming from cemetary hill as I take a walk along the street. Bagpipes alone don't mean much to me (except some painful flashback of someone playing them in a closed middle school gym and having to hold my hands over my ears), but they seemed to imply that some significant moment was about to occur. Which I was unprepared for in my sweatpants, sweatshirt, and dirty old sneakers. However, I was carrying my cellphone in my hand in case some really important phone call came in, like Haley calling from the school to tell me that her shoes finally fell apart and that NONE of the twelve other pairs in the closet fit her anymore.
Anyway, so I left my usual comfortable place in my head and looked around me to see what that significant thing might be and there was another Wyoming license plate on a big truck in the driveway I was passing in front of.
That makes 2 in 2 days. I discovered the other while taking the trash out yesterday morning. It was attached to a tan midsize car in the visitor parking lot next to the dumpster and although it had the number 22 on it, which is not Cody, I looked around thinking maybe Nick was lurking somewhere and about to jump out at me. Although why he would drive 2600 miles just to lurk, I don't know.
Just so you don't think I'm crazy, there have been other signs as well, of this huge life-changing time coming at me. Old friends from out there finding me on Facebook, the National Geographic article on Yellowstone, my sudden urgent desire to poke Nick hard enough so that he'd talk to me, and the new bathtub that I HATE that's not big enough to be a bathtub for a normal human-sized person.

Enough signs already!

On second thought, keep sending them my way. I need to keep thinking that I'm not going to live in the ghetto forever, all alone, and drinking wine.

Which leads me to my other thought today: Wouldn't God (if there is one) be on Facebook? It's just such a great way to keeps tabs on everything that I can't imagine she wouldn't be. Has anyone found her yet?

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Have I talked about Virtual Villagers before?

There's this really stupid downloadable game called Virtual Villagers and I guess we have the 3rd one.
My youngest wanted me to buy it for her and she and I worked on it until we got to the end. There were some things I was a little iffy on, but she seemed to enjoy it.

NOW THE PROBLEM: Haley has rediscovered the game on this computer because she is so bored by not having any life at all. And those things that I ignored for Gina are SO OBVIOUS for Haley.

Like the sounds the characters make when you pick them up. OOH, AAH. It's like an Herbal Essence commercial and not in a good clean way!

And I pointed out that she could name her characters and it would be funny to name them what they are. So then she named one "Retard" and one "Whore" which wasn't quite what I meant. But "Retard" keeps running away from the tasks he's supposed to learn. And "Whore" keeps ignoring her duties and running off to breed.

Somehow I find it amusing that Haley spends her time virtually chasing after these people and saying things that sound a little like what I keep saying to her.
"Get back to work!"
"Why don't you learn after I tell you twenty times?"
"Kissing again and again makes you want to breed more."

Okay, not that last one. Not quite like that. But why have a game in which one of the skills you have to teach them is how to embrace each other and head off to the Love Shack to have babies?

Haley was mad when her doctor got pregnant. Well, not really pregnant. They go into the Shack and come out with a baby that they breast feed for two years (Two years!) and during this time they can't work for the village at all.

And I'm all like "SEE, Haley! That's what I'm talking about."
And she ignores me.

She should pay more attention to the game. Then she'll understand why she is to have NO CONTACT with any boys until she's 35.

Friday, October 2, 2009

New Age Parenting Has Created Teenage Idiocy

Teenagers are entirely different in this generation. I know every . . . ahem . . . older generation says that. But I really think a major shift has occured after the new-agey bullshit crap of the nineties. We were told to never yell, never spank, never take control and instead just have conversations with our children and let them make their own choices and learn from the "natural consequences" of their actions. If your kids hate you, then you're a BAD PARENT. Be their friend or they won't come back for Christmas when they're older.

So we have created our own NATURAL CONSEQUENCE which can be seen everyday in small interactions with the new set of fledgling teenagers.

For example:

A barely 13 year old boy thinks he can debate with me about whether or not he should be allowed to date my daughter. Which he's not. In my generation, no child would have ever imagined calling, texting, or emailing an adult to argue anything EVER!

Part of me wants to give him my reasons for not allowing continued communication with my daughter, but I find that debating with a 13 year old little boy to be, well, RIDICULOUS. At 13 he does not have the capacity or ability or language or life experience to understand what I would have to say, even IF I cared to tell him. It seems that children now think they are equals to us and have the right to share their opinions. Humph. His opinion seems to be that It's Not Fair!

Maybe I'm just not SCARY enough. I have yelled at him in front of a crowd of teenagers at the movie theater. I have thrown my daughter into my car when I find her walking down the road with him. I have given him the STINK EYE. I have talked about placentas and played country music in my car. How much scarier can I get? In my day (here I am sounding old again) adults were scary because they were ADULTS. That's all it took for them to maintain authority. There's no authority now.

And no grasp of the English language either.

All of this texting and email and chatting online is turning proper English into some kind of shorthand gibberish that everyone makes up differently. Did the tower of Babel story in the Old Testament say anything about computers or cellphones? Fledgling teenagers in middleschool have gone past the boundaries of anything decipherable and are now making up words.

For Example:

"do you think im a pesation or somthing cus every time she gets in troble you take me away and thats not fair to me cus i didnt do anything."

Now seeing as I spend some time on the internet and I can now text fairly well without spelling errors that turn boxes into boxers when I'm sending a text to my daughter's therapist, I can decode most of that sentence into something that makes sense, EXCEPT for the word PESATION.
Is it short for Compensation?
Is he a Superstar Sensation? With an ego so big that he dares email me?
Does it have to do with PEZ, as he's 13 and should be into PEZ right now?
Pest?
Truthfully, I appreciate that he's given me this new word to play with. I LOVE new words.

But if you're going to try to argue with an adult by hiding behind an email, cause you know that if you try to argue to my face I will SMACK YOU DOWN like the little punk you are, then at least show me that you're smart enough to not be a pesation.

It's not his fault really. It's the fault of parents who give a kid a cell phone without teaching them social rules. It's the fault of a parent who will tell another parent that they don't understand how not letting the kids keep seeing each other is going to help the situation. It's the fault of a parent who says things like "If we don't let them see each other they are only going to do something worse."

Sounds like you're a hostage to your teenager, and not a parent.

Which would be why your son thinks he can argue with me. To take me hostage as well.

Perhaps pesation means CHILD. I think he's a child and that's why he has to follow my rules concerning my daughter or not be allowed to speak with her.

Imagine that!

I can hear all those NEW AGE people coming after me with their robes flying and their crystals and their electronic music playing the Age of Aquarius.

I'm just going to yell out "Pesation" and shut the door now.