Princess Zurg and Madhousewife discuss artificial insemination (until they get side-tracked)

Madhousewife: Did you know that sperm from men with Ph.D.s costs more than regular sperm?

Princess Zurg: What? Why?

Mad: I don’t know, I guess people assume their kids will be smarter or something. But it’s a rip-off. Your dad has a Ph.D. and look at you kids.

PZ: Yeah.

Mad: Just kidding. I mean, you’re smart enough, but you’re not, like, geniuses or anything. Well, except for you.

PZ: Yeah, I’m kind of a genius.

Mad: But that was just luck.

PZ: Albert Einstein said everybody’s a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, the fish will spend its whole life believing it’s stupid.

Mad: How profound.

PZ: Yeah.

Mad: I don’t have a Ph.D., and I’m pretty smart. I mean, I’m not a genius or anything. But I won’t judge myself by my ability to climb a tree. Or my ability to swim, for that matter. I’m a little better at swimming than climbing a tree. Like, if I had to swim to save my life, I would probably make it, but if I had to climb a tree to save my life, I’d probably die.

PZ: I know what you mean.

Mad: I guess it would depend on the tree.

PZ: Yeah. Maybe if it were a really short tree. Like, if it were a tree stump.

Mad: Yeah, I could climb a tree stump.

PZ: All you’d have to do is step up and say, “Ta da! I climbed a tree!”

Mad: Even a fish could do that. If it flopped high enough.

PZ: Or if the tree stump were underwater. But that wouldn’t really be climbing. But at least he’d get to the top of the tree.

Mad: That’s what counts.

PZ: Yeah.

I will now blog before April is over

Madhousewife: How was Dress for Success Day? Were you successful?

Mister Bubby: Yes. I was the only one who succeeded. Everyone else failed compared to my glory.

.

The Madhousehold now boasts three orthodontic patients. Or, I suppose I should say, a very lucky orthodontist in the Portland area now boasts three orthodontic patients from the Madhousehold. Princess Zurg is still in braces, two and a half years later, with no sign of having them removed in the near future. I am entering my twenty-seventh month in braces with probably 3-6 months left to go, depending on when I get my jaw surgery. Make that 4-8 months. Or another year. Really, who knows. And Mister Bubby just got fitted for the device that hooks him up to his head gear, which he has to wear for 10 hours a night for the next eight months. He doesn’t get actual braces for another six months or so. The head gear is to move his upper jaw while he’s still young and impressionable. It fits over his face and looks like a torture device. I’m sure he thinks of it thus. It’s hardcore, though. He looks like Hannibal Lecter in it. Of course I don’t tell him that. He already knows. That is, he doesn’t know who Hannibal Lecter is, but he knows he looks like a freak. I feel really bad for him. Not only is it very uncomfortable right now, but hello, he has to wear it 10 hours every night for eight freaking months. He can skip an occasional night here and there, but he has to go to scout camp for a week this summer, and there’s no way he can get out of wearing it for a full week. I’m hoping that his considerable self-esteem will pull him through this trying time.

Would you like to see what it looks like? Here’s a picture I googled.

My son does not look this happy when he is wearing it.

Speaking of teeth and torture, Princess Zurg had her wisdom teeth out on Friday. She made a rather speedy recovery, for which I am grateful. Now what do I do with all this Percocet? Hmmm.

What else is going on? Oh, all sorts of things. But nothing worth discussing. I should really be making dinner right now. What can I tell you in three minutes? I am seeing the super-gynecologist in about three weeks or so. Did I tell you about my impending visit with the super-gynecologist in my last post? I’m too lazy to go back and check. See, it’s one of the things that my psychiatrist is having me do, see a super-gynecologist who knows about all the hormonal stuff, to make sure my mental problems are not actually hormonal problems, which they could be. I made the appointment last month, but now it’s getting close enough that it actually counts as an impending visit to a super-gynecologist. I just like saying super-gynecologist. I should probably say “super-gyno”–that sounds a little snappier, but would you know what I was talking about? I haven’t seen an actual gynecologist in ages. Not since my first child was born, I think. Well, whatever. I hope she’s nice. That’s all.

I’m having a little bit of anxiety over the children’s impending summer vacation, but I just got a refill on my Valium, so I should be okay. Plus, there’s the Percocet now. Just kidding. Some moms joke about martinis and wine, but that won’t work for me because I’m a Mormon, so I have to joke about abusing prescription drugs. Just lighten up. Jeez.

And now I should really make dinner. Will you see me again this month? Next month? I don’t know. We’ll just have to live with the uncertainty.

.

Mister Bubby: Sometimes community service is a punishment.

Mad: Yes.

MB: But you get to wear an orange jumpsuit.

Mad: Yes. That makes it all worth it.

[Silence]

MB: No, it doesn’t.

Fun facts about Princess Zurg

1. She is still obsessed with My Chemical Romance, but she handled the news of their recent breakup with much more maturity than I expected. Not that she hasn’t grieved. People are still offering her their condolences.

2. She has discovered the Aquabats, and they are serving as sort of a side obsession. Nothing can compare to the MCR obsession, but the Aquabats are definitely in second place, even if it’s a distant second.

3. Her favorite part of The Avengers was Loki because she thinks he’s hot. She has a Loki action figure. She has always had a thing for bad guys, starting when she was four years old and obsessed with Bowzer in the SuperMario video game. I don’t think this bodes well for her future with men.

4. Speaking of Bowzer, we still have the Bowzer Christmas ornament she made out of copy paper when she was four. I told you she was obsessed with him. She really was.

5. Her first major crush—as in I-think-I’m-in-love-and-I-don’t-know-what-I’ll-do-when-he-graduates-from-middle-school—was on a boy who is now a girl. At least he identifies as a girl now. I suppose I should say she identifies as a girl now. PZ has a hard time with the pronoun issue, too. It’s cool, though. They’re friends on Facebook, and she’s totally over him/her now. But I’m not sure how this bodes for her future with men, either. Or women.

6. She still doesn’t like church, but she likes her Sunday School teacher because, as she says, “He’s off his trolley.”

7. She has a talent for asking unanswerable questions right before it’s time to go to bed.

8. She’s not stalling with the questions. I think that’s just one of the few times she doesn’t have to compete with her siblings for my attention. She’s actually very keen to go to bed. She’s asleep before anybody else, including her seven-year-old sister. Not a night owl, she.

9. She is remarkably responsible about doing her school work, considering how incredibly disorganized she is.

10. She enjoys making jewelry. She made herself a Gerard Way charm bracelet.

11. She has a Gerard Way pillowcase. She jokes about making out with it every night because if she didn’t, her father would just tease her about it anyway.

12. Her dentist said she was the youngest patient he’d ever seen with wisdom teeth. I mention this because it seemed like a pretty big deal to him. Dentists can get excited about some weird things. PZ has noticed she gets everything about two years before everyone else does (breasts, menses, wisdom teeth). I said maybe she’d get early menopause, too. She didn’t know whether or not to be excited about that.

13. She likes Batman and enjoys playing Arkham Asylum. Or is it Arkham City? She has both. I can’t remember which is which.

14. At a planning meeting for our church’s girls camp, she got ticked off about something and I had to escort her from the room, but not before she yelled, “This is why women should have the priesthood!” and “That’s right, I’m one of those craaaaazy feminists!” Which was a little embarrassing at the time, but totally awesome in retrospect.

15. She is fifteen years old today!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PRINCESS ZURG!

I am at a crossroads in my life

My psychiatrist helped me to see this. Well, I kind of already knew I was at a crossroads. Chatting with my psychiatrist has helped me to see how I might conceivably choose a path rather than make like Tom Hanks in Cast Away and stand at the crossroads until the credits roll. I’m only 41 years old. Even if I only live as long as my mother did, I’ve got at least another 12 years until the credits roll. That’s a long time to be standing at the crossroads. Much longer than the seven months I’ve already been standing here. My psychiatrist, in her way, gave me permission to forgive myself for wasting the last seven months of my life. She also gave me permission to take a while to figure out what exactly I’m going to do next. Here’s the progress so far: I accept the permission to do both of those things. I’m going to actually do them…eventually.

Two things: I am a very impatient person, especially when it comes to making decisions. I don’t like the decision-making process. I like the end result of decision-making, which is having made a decision, even if it’s wrong. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made ill-considered decisions simply for the sake of not having to make the decision anymore. You might recall that’s how I ended up with my fourth child. I love my fourth child dearly, and she was definitely a right decision, but I couldn’t call the decision to have her anything but ill-considered. “I’m going to do this even if it’s wrong” is not the hallmark of a well-considered decision. That’s all I’m saying. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. The intermittently-rewarded action is more likely to be repeated than the consistently-rewarded action. Did you know that? I learned that in my high school psychology class. Where was I going with this? Oh, yes. I had a fourth child even though it might have been wrong, but it worked out, so that’s validated my habit of making ill-considered decisions.

Unfortunately, sometimes I can’t even make an ill-considered decision because I can’t discern what my options are. This is the problem of my future right now.

Here are some things I’ve already decided: I’m not going to be a dental hygienist. I’m not going back to school. I’ve already wasted tons of my parents’ money on a useless bachelor degree and a not-small chunk of my own change on two ill-considered attempts at graduate school (attempts at graduate school being even more useless than a bachelor’s degree in English), and I’m just not going to waste any more money on school. There are way too many people in school as it is. Higher education is overpopulated; I don’t want to add to that. I know what you’re thinking: “I didn’t even know she was thinking about being a dental hygienist.” I wasn’t, really. It was just one of the things that occurred to me while I was thinking about useful careers I could enter. It happened while my dental hygienist was cleaning my teeth. I thought, “I’ve been a parent for fifteen years, so I’ve seen a lot of gross stuff. I could totally get past the ick factor and probably enjoy cleaning people’s teeth. That seems like a satisfying job.” Why? I don’t know. Maybe because I would be allowed to finish cleaning a person’s teeth and not have to do it again for another six months. Not that same person’s teeth, I mean. I wouldn’t have to go home with them and brush and floss their teeth twice a day while living inside their mouth. That’s the difference between cleaning a stranger’s teeth and cleaning your own house. Maybe I was working through some other issues at the time. That’s neither here nor there because my husband says I’m not perky enough to be a dental hygienist, and I totally agree. I’m not really perky enough to be anything but a DMV employee, and I don’t want to work at the DMV. That seems like a very unsatisfying job, in addition to a demoralizing one. But I digress. The point is that I’m not going to embark on a new career. I’m not qualified for any of them, and I’m not going back to school to get qualified.

I’m also not going to go back into journalism. Once upon a time, when I was young, if I hadn’t started having kids when I did, I probably could have enjoyed a fair-to-middling career in that industry for a number of years. But having been out of it for quite some time, absence has not made the heart grow fonder. I have absolutely no desire to do that sort of writing anymore. I mean, no one really cares anyway. I’m old and I’ve been unemployed for 15 years. No one would want me to write for them. Writers are a dime a dozen, anyway. Actually, by now they are probably absolutely free. I’d have to be some kind of go-getter. I’ve never been much for go-getting. I’d have to really, really want it, and I really, really don’t. This might be related to the perkiness issue. Or it could be a coincidence. The point is, I’m not going down that road again.

Which leaves me with the following options: 1) finish the novel I started six years ago, 2) start a new novel, or 3) become really, really good at cleaning my house. I know which option my husband would prefer. Which option has the greatest likelihood of success, however? I just don’t know. Two problems: 1) I fear failure—like, I’m deathly afraid of it, it’s a debilitating fear, and 2) I really, really hate housecleaning. I just feel like it’s time for me to succeed at something. It has been a very, very, very long time since I’ve succeeded at something, and I’m feeling very success-deprived. This is where you say, “Well, duh, Mad, no guts, no glory, nothing ventured, nothing gained, blah blah, you can’t succeed until you try,” but you don’t get it. I’m looking for something I can definitely succeed at. Then I can feel free to try something else that I’m going to fail at. I know, I’m making excuses for myself. Don’t you think I know that? Do you think I can keep a blog for nine years and be so lacking in self-awareness? I’m not telling you how I ought to be. I’m telling you how I am. You should know that about me by now.

I can’t tell you how many times I have advised other writers to give themselves permission to write crap, to give themselves permission to suck. I give myself permission to suck at a lot of things. Housekeeping and parenting being chief among them. Also, public speaking. Social interaction. Teaching children’s Sunday School. Coloring my own hair. The list goes on and on. Permission to suck at the thing I’ve always wanted to do more than anything else since I was a little girl, I cannot seem to give myself, no matter how hard I try. I know I have to. Don’t you think I know that? I’m like my seven-year-old, who currently has a bladder infection and has to drink two teaspoons of antibiotic twice a day and it tastes like hell. She knows she has to drink it. She knows it’s better if she just chugs it down and gets it over with so she can have a Scooby Snack. She knows if she doesn’t drink it, it’s going to start burning again when she pees. So she’s motivated, but…gah, it just tastes so horrible! She brings it to her lips and remembers how bad it tastes and she just shudders and puts it down again. Rinse and repeat, for about 10-20 minutes. That’s me, only instead of 10-20 minutes, think 10-20 years. I’m not sure where I’m at in the journey just now.

So that’s why I find myself considering things like being a dental hygienist, even though there was never any danger of me actually becoming a dental hygienist. If I can’t succeed at this totally useless thing I’ve always thought I was good at and meant to do, I need to have a back-up plan. That is why I’ve managed to maintain this blog for nine years, even though at this point it is really only just barely, technically maintained. That’s why I still blog at BCC even though I don’t really have anything to say about Mormonism anymore. It’s not the kind of writing I want to be doing, but it’s something, and if it’s not great, who cares, because it’s just blogging anyway, and moreover, if I give it up, I will be writing nothing. That’s what I’m afraid of.

Did I mention something at the beginning that seemed somewhat optimistic, like I was going to choose a path instead of remaining at the crossroads indefinitely? I was just kidding. No, I was actually just more optimistic when I started than now, when I’m ending. For now I am ending. Tomorrow maybe I will post something cute that one of my kids said. Or I will tell you about how I’ve become an expert on Regency romance novels. Or I will just skip blogging for another eight weeks. I think I said that six weeks of not posting was the magic number for a blog dying, which means that this blog is officially dead, no matter what I do. It can never be resurrected again. This is just Zombie Giraffe talking. Eventually someone will do the thing to me that you have to do to kill a zombie. I don’t know what that is.

Fun Facts about Elvis

1. He’s still obsessed with garbage trucks. He still gets up at 6 a.m. every Wednesday morning to watch the garbage truck and follow it around the neighborhood. Neighbors are less likely to express their concern about him being out there by himself in the dark now because a) they’re used to it, and b) he’s not six anymore. He still comes home from school every Wednesday and recreates the garbage route in our neighborhood by making trash cans out of paper and placing them about the living room in the formation of our street and the neighboring streets and pretending to be the garbage truck emptying the trash cans. It’s a very involved process.

 

2. He has a crazy-good memory. He’s especially good with dates. He remembers everyone’s birthday. He remembers that I forgot to pack Girlfriend a snack on March 15. He remembers that Daddy was sick on June 20 and June 21 in 2011. Now that he’s decided to learn his times tables, he remembers all of those too. He remembers all the ways to make 84 and 64. He also remembers how to spell things. He does very well on his spelling tests, even if he doesn’t understand what most of the words mean. He likes to talk about these things that he remembers.

 

3. What can’t he remember? To hang his towel back up after he takes a shower. In fairness, I’m not sure if he forgets to do this, or if he just enjoys having me come into his and Mister Bubby’s room and say, “What are all these towels doing on the floor, you jerks?” That cracks him up.

 

4. He likes to sing in our church choir. He doesn’t particularly carry a tune. But he’s totally committed, unlike most of our choir members. Last month we sang “Count Your Blessings,” and there’s a line in the second verse that says, “Are you ever burdened with a load of care?” and his father (our choir director) was singing it around the house one day:

 

SD (singing): Are you ever burdened with a looooad of—

ELVIS (singing): CRAAAAP!!!

 

We shouldn’t have laughed, but we did, and now, well, that’s just how the song goes in our house.

 

5. He’s beginning to know a lot about football. It comes from playing NCAA Football on the PS3 and watching Ducks games with his dad and older brother. He could probably play football someday. He’s built like a freaking truck.

 

6. I think his favorite subject at school is science. I don’t know if he understands anything he learns in science, but he talks about it a lot.

 

7. He talks in complete sentences most of the time now. His syntax is not always accurate, but you can more or less get his meaning 95 percent of the time. He can answer questions and carry on a reasonable conversation for several turns before losing interest.

 

8. He always rinses with mouthwash after brushing his teeth. I don’t remember how or when that started, but he’s very particular about his mouthwash. He’s got to have it. He prefers the minty fresh variety. He tried the eucalyptus once because it was purple and he was curious, but he didn’t care for it.

 

9. He’s developed a taste for sparkling water. He has to buy all the different flavors when we go to the store. Arrowhead now makes a black cherry flavored sparkling water that tastes like cough syrup and none of the rest of us can stand it. I’m not sure Elvis himself cares for it, but it exists, so he insists on having it in our sparkling water rotation, even if he has to drink the whole liter himself. It’s the principle of the thing.

 

10. He is ten years old today!

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELVIS!

So I think I’ve established that I’m mentally ill

And also resistant to treatment. My psychiatrist admitted that she pretty much didn’t know what to do with me, the last time I was there. I was there, like, six months ago, I think. Before I went on our family vacation. I don’t think I went again after school started. I’m making my psychiatrist sound like kind of a not very useful psychiatrist. It probably isn’t fair to put it in those words, that she didn’t know what to do with me. I’m sort of reading between the lines, in retrospect. Actually, I may have read between the lines at the time. Who knows? It was ages ago. I thought that maybe I needed to do weekly chit-chat therapy, like my daughter does. I mean, it seems to help her, more or less. Well, that’s what I thought at the time. I did it for a few weeks, and then I went on vacation, and then school started and I never made any more appointments. Because I think I convinced myself that I was just wasting the insurance company’s money. I shouldn’t need to chit-chat with a trained professional once a week. Isn’t this what I have a blog for?

The Effexor that I’ve been taking for the last few years doesn’t seem to be hurting me. I’m afraid to stop taking it–although I do manage to stop taking it for days at a time, sometimes, and that can’t be helpful. That is how I’ve ended up with a six-month backlog supply of Effexor that I’m probably not going to get through before it expires. Don’t worry, I’ve turned off “worry-free refills” with the pharmacy. I’m not completely irresponsible. I think I will continue to take it until it runs out, which at the rate I’m going may be next year. I still have about a month’s worth of Valium, if I took a Valium every day, but I don’t (believe it or not!), so it’s probably a three-month supply of Valium. I’ll have to go to the psychiatrist again if I want more of that. Maybe I should just take a whole bunch and go to the psychiatrist tomorrow. Wait, that’s not safe, I don’t think. Well, it might be, actually, considering what a low dose it is. I could probably take the whole bottle and be okay. Not that I’m going to do that because that would be wrong! I’m just saying.

I have lost interest in all of my usual activities, except for reading. Reading is probably what’s keeping me from taking the whole bottle of Valium. That and duty. I have not lost my sense of duty. Everyone’s still getting fed and crap. Although I wonder with increasing frequency why I bother feeding the children, given their responses to my cooking. There’s probably some legal reason. Anyway. Where was I? Oh, yes, reading. I’m reading a lot. It’s to keep my mind active, like I would do if I were in prison. I should probably take daily walks, too, now that I have hit upon my metaphor. I am less interested in eating than I usually am. That is to say, I have entered the not-eating stage of depression, which I usually take as a bad sign. That and crying for no reason. Or any reason. I was crying for no reason the other day. The other day before that I was crying because I was reading a romance novel and the heroine thought her husband was dead and she had just realized that she loved him but never actually told him in so many words. I mean, he didn’t know. He was supposedly dead without ever knowing that she really loved him. I’m tearing up now just thinking about it, and I already know how the story ends. Of course he wasn’t really dead. I knew as I was reading about her thinking he was dead that he wasn’t dead because it was not that sort of book, and yet I still cried. Well, in my defense there was a small possibility that it may have been that kind of book. It didn’t have the usual cover with the shirtless guy and the lady with her dress falling off–the cover art was actually very tasteful, so it was possible that maybe he really was dead. It could have turned out to be that kind of book. It would have been a little weird, but possible. But it wasn’t. He was alive, which I already knew, but like I said, I was still really sad about it. That is not normal. I knew at the time it was not normal. Don’t you think I know these things?

I don’t even want to tell you what the Downton Abbey 3 finale did to me last night. Not only because I’m ashamed but because it’s still too upsetting for me to talk about. No! Don’t say anything! I know that Downton Abbey isn’t real. It’s just television. It’s not even American television. So what am I on about? I don’t know. I’m just reporting the facts.

I don’t want you to think that I’m only reading romance novels to escape. I mean, I am reading to escape, but not only romance novels. I’m reading real books too. Like right now I’m reading a book about these guys who were held hostage by the FARC in the Colombian jungle. Has it made me cry? No, but it hasn’t made me happy. How could it? And yet I would rather read this book than engage my own life. Don’t tell me I’m not self-aware.

Incidentally, I’m also aware that it’s not funny to joke about taking a whole bottle of Valium. I wasn’t joking or trying to be funny. I was just saying that the Valium is a very low dose, so if I did take a whole bottle of it, it would not be a very serious suicide attempt. I mean, it might kill me, what would I know? But I’m not sure it would qualify as a cry for help. I wouldn’t try to kill myself anyway. I’m the sort of religious person who could never kill herself. Sometimes I wish I were. That is how depressed I am. I don’t even find the afterlife appealing.

Everyone who reads this is going to think, “Girlfriend, you really need to go back to the psychiatrist.” I should probably tell you that I’m at that stage of my menstrual cycle where I shouldn’t make any kind of decision. That can’t be helping matters. I’m sorry if that’s TMI, but if you’re that sensitive, you probably shouldn’t be here in the first place. It’s not like I’m sharing this on Facebook or something. Lighten up. Listen to me, the clinically depressed person telling you to lighten up. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve just lost the thread of this particular paragraph.

What I’d really like to do is get all these children in bed so I can stop thinking about my duty and legal obligations and start catching up on the sleep I couldn’t get last night because I was too depressed by the not-real-and-actually-kind-of-lame Downton Abbey. Sometimes I can sleep when I’m depressed, other times not. It depends on whether or not I take a Valium at the right time. If it’s late enough in the evening, i.e. technically early morning, there is no difference, in the end, between taking the Valium and going without the sleep. I’m a zombie either way. There’s probably some health difference, actually, but feeling-wise, it is all the same. But I digress. I think I am tired enough now that I can probably sleep, maybe. Maybe I won’t sleep. Maybe I will stay up and do some other mind-numbing thing like Free Cell. I switched from Spider Solitaire to Free Cell so that I could pretend I was making meaningful changes in my life. Now that I have publicly admitted to playing Free Cell to numb my mind, I realize I can never play it again without making my loved ones worry about me. So maybe I won’t play Free Cell. Maybe I will just go to sleep or read another book.

(Insert un-corny title here)

I had kind of a hard morning. Not because anything in my life is so very hard but because I am basically incompetent. This morning my husband asked me to go to the music store and buy a trombone snake for Mister Bubby. I thought, okay, that will be easy enough. I had a lunch date at 11:30, and the music store was not at all anywhere near anywhere else I had to go today, but I had a couple hours to play with. I was so cocky with my couple hours that I waited an unconscionably long time to take a shower, so it was about 10:45 before I got out the door. In theory, though, still plenty of time to go to the music store and get back in time to meet my acquaintance for lunch.

The key words being “in theory,” because in the middle of all this I somehow forgot the most important variable in this equation, i.e. me. I had only been to the music store once before, and as I was saying to myself this morning, “It’s a good thing I’ve been to this place before because if SD had just told me where it was without me actually having been there before, I would not know that it is actually tucked away in an obscure part of this shopping center, its precise location not unlike Platform 9 1/2 at King’s Cross in the Harry Potter books–although it isn’t exactly invisible, it can seem that way, unless you know where to look.” In my memory, it was somewhere on the other side of the Big Lots, so I went to the shopping center with the Big Lots, and I went to the other side of Big Lots, but I couldn’t see the door to the hallway that would lead me to the music store. Remembering that it helps to know where to look but not actually remembering where exactly to look, I was unable to find what I was looking for.

At that moment I was about to give in to despair, my cell phone rang. It was my husband. How lucky was that? He would be very disappointed that I couldn’t find the music store despite having been there before, and I would have to sacrifice 100 percent of my pride to admit it, but at least with his help I had some hope of finding it in time to go inside and buy a trombone snake and make it to my lunch appointment on time. Unfortunately, the act of answering the phone exhausted what little battery life was left inside it, and that avenue was shut off for the foreseeable future. I thought to myself, “Well, that’s that. I can’t see it here. I don’t even know if it really is here, or if this is just me misremembering where it is, so is there any point in continuing?”

Well, SD had reminded me this morning that the music store was down by the game store where MB plays his Magic tournaments. The game store is close to the Big Lots but not in the same shopping center. Did SD ever say the words “Big Lots” to me, or was that just my brain making things up because I’m almost 42 and going senile? How would I know? So I went to the shopping center where the game store is to see if I could find the magical doorway I was looking for. I didn’t see it there either. I decided that rather than waste time looking for something I was obviously incapable of seeing, despite the fact that it was there, I decided it would be a better use of my time to go buy myself a car charger for my phone before going to lunch. At that point I saw my lack of car charger as the source of all my problems, or rather, a cause of my problems that I could actually do something about. (My brain, of course, being a lost cause.)

So I went to a Radio Shack to buy a car charger. Why Radio Shack? Because it was on the way and I was in a hurry and knew I could walk right inside, ask for a car charger, and someone would know exactly where one was and I could be out of there in two minutes instead of the fifteen it would take me at Target (if I was lucky). I knew my husband wouldn’t approve because car chargers cost more at Radio Shack, and he had already told me, many times (every time I said, “I really need to get a car charger for my phone”), that he thought we already had a car charger that would work with my phone. Well, whatever. I was not in a good mood. I had hit every. single. red light on the major thoroughfare I had to travel between the elusive music store and the place I was supposed to have lunch, and I had probably undone six months’ worth of orthodontic work with all the teeth-grinding I had done in the last half-hour, and it was already 11:30, so I was really perturbed when traffic just came to a halt for no discernible reason. Seriously–major thoroughfare, in between lights–what the hell was the problem this time? And then I saw what it was.

Six fat geese crossing the road. And guess what?

INSTANT. HAPPINESS.

They were just so freaking cute.

Getting religion at the chocolate cafe

Atheists of Portland Suburbia used to meet every fourth Wednesday at the chocolate café. I don’t think they meet there anymore. I haven’t seen them for a long time. It has occurred to me, however, that we have a lot more Christian book clubs meeting there now. There’s a Christian book club meeting there every time I go in (and I go in every Wednesday). It’s not the same Christian book club, either. At least I don’t recognize any familiar faces. When I’m not sitting next to a Christian book club, I am sitting next to a pair of Christians who happen to be in a deep discussion about God. I’m not kidding. I don’t know if these are budding Christians meeting with their sponsors or what. But there are always Christians there. Always. I wonder if that’s why the atheists stopped having their meetings there. Maybe it was becoming a hostile chocolate-eating environment.

I confess that I prefer the Christians to the atheists, but only because the Christians are quieter. I wouldn’t have minded the atheists if they’d been quiet, but they were always very loud. It wasn’t really their fault; there were just so darn many of them. They took up the whole back room. The Christians are in pairs and small groups, so naturally they are quieter. But it seems kind of funny. When did the chocolate café become the hot spot for Christians? It should be the hot spot for Mormons, since Mormons can’t drink coffee and therefore are less inclined to meet at Starbucks. But there are no Mormon book groups meeting there that I know of. Well, there might be. Maybe they’ve staked out Thursdays. I don’t go to the chocolate café on Thursdays very often.

It’s possible that the atheists became such a large group that they could no longer fit in the chocolate café. Maybe they’ve had to start holding their meetings at Red Robin. Who knows? Or maybe they all realized there’s only so much you can say about not believing in God. (I know, because I had to listen to them saying the same three things very loudly every month for three years. Or was it four? Time flies when you don’t give a crap.)

When the atheists first started meeting at the chocolate café, they were a relatively new group with some definite goals for influencing the greater community. An evangelical atheist group, if you will. I suppose it was destined to fail, in that case. As time went on, they talked a lot less about their goals and a lot more about just being atheists. Let this be a lesson to you aspiring atheist missionaries: less chocolate, more pounding the pavement. Keep your eyes on the prize.

I don’t know, maybe with Barack Obama getting elected, they were all less scared about the country becoming a fundamentalist Christian dystopia. That is also a distinct possibility. Maybe that is the explanation for all the Christians now! I know that I have more reason to drown my sorrows in chocolate these days. But that’s just because I’m a Republican. It has nothing to do with my religious beliefs.

When Jesus comes again, will he visit the chocolate café? I hope so.

 

Reporting for duty

So I had some goals last week. The first goal was to get my eyebrow(s) waxed. That was my #1 priority. It didn’t happen. I started out all gung ho–it was Monday, I’d set a goal, and I called the salon to make an appointment…but the salon was closed on Monday. So I had to wait until Tuesday to call. Did I call again on Tuesday? No, because I didn’t think about it. I was thinking about other stuff, like finishing The Count of Monte Cristo by Wednesday evening.

That was another of my goals. Did I finish The Count of Monte Cristo? Yes, I did. Did I do it by Wednesday evening, in time for my book club? Weeeeeeellll…mostly. I mean, I’d read 96% of it, meaning I was only shy, what 40 pages or so. I was fifteen minutes late for book club because I lost track of time while frantically trying to finish it, but I’d say I got the flavor of it. And I came home afterward and finished it 100%. It’s a very good book. You know, I saw the movie–the one with Richard Chamberlain–a million years ago, and I remembered it having kind of a sad ending. The book doesn’t really have a sad ending, so I don’t know where I got that memory from. Anyway, it’s a great book, all 14,000 pages of it. Now I’m reading trash to cleanse the literary palate, as it were.

What else did I resolve to do last week? I was supposed to do twelve loads of laundry. I think I only did four. I was supposed to dye my roots. I did that! Of course, I left the color on a little too long and now my hair is unnaturally red in the places it is naturally gray, but that will sort itself out in a couple weeks.

So that was two out of four goals. If I count the four loads of laundry, that’s 2.3/4–not too shabby. If I gave myself extra points for dying the living crap out of my roots, I could even call it 3/4. That doesn’t make particular sense, but now we’re talking numbers, not reality, so sense doesn’t really matter.

I might be a little bit tired. I stayed up late last night reading a novel, but I didn’t finish it. It was just getting too late. I hate when I stay up late to read a novel and I don’t even finish it. What was the point of staying up late, except not to go to sleep? I guess that’s a worthy pursuit, staying awake amusing oneself, but it doesn’t feel that way in the morning. If I were smart, I’d go to bed now instead of staying awake blogging (or trying to blog), but I think we’ve established that I’m not very smart.

I had some goals for today: 1) Reschedule a doctor appointment for Princess Zurg. 2) Find a babysitter for Girlfriend for tomorrow afternoon. 3) Call the salon about my eyebrow(s). I set goal #3 before remembering that the salon is closed on Mondays. But then I remembered that I also needed to reschedule a dental appointment for PZ, so I swapped out salon for dentist and I accomplished all three goals. But then I realized that the date I rescheduled the dental appointment for was no good either, so I will have to do that one over again tomorrow. Tomorrow I will also have to call the orthodontist to schedule appointments, as well as the salon. Also, as long as I’m making phone calls, I may as well call the martial arts academy about the ten lessons we won for Elvis back in June 2012, since they haven’t called me back yet from the last time I called. I think three weeks is a reasonable amount of time to wait before hassling them again, don’t you? It has only been three weeks, right? Not a month yet, surely? Time flies when you’re putting crap off.

This is apropos nothing, but you know what really bothers me? When people watch a TV show and then post what happened in that particular episode on the Facebook, as though a) anyone gives a crap what you just watched on the TV and b) no one else might have been waiting to watch it for themselves. I’M TALKING TO YOU, PEOPLE WHO WATCH DOWNTON ABBEY AT 9PM SUNDAY AND GIVE AWAY THE PLOT ON FACEBOOK AT 10PM OR SOMETIMES EVEN 9:40 BECAUSE YOU JUST CAN’T WAIT TO RUIN IT FOR ME. Yeah, I know Downton Abbey sucks this season, but I’M STILL GOING TO WATCH IT JUST NOT AT 9PM ON SUNDAY SO STOP POSTING ABOUT IT.

I get very annoyed with my Facebook friends sometimes. Spew your childish political rants all you like, but STOP SPOILING MY STORIES.

You know it’s late and I’m tired because I’m yelling a lot. Getting capsy on you.

Not writing complete sentences.

You know what my other goal for tomorrow is? Tidying the house for the housekeepers. Can I do that and make all those phone calls? I may have to cut out the one to the martial arts academy. I mean, considering that I also have to wash a lot of towels. I’m only one person!

My goal for Wednesday is not to forget to pick Princess Zurg up early from school for her doctor appointment, like I did the last time she had a doctor appointment on housekeeper day.

My goal for Thursday is…I don’t have a goal for Thursday yet. Probably more laundry.

Oh, crap. I forgot I also have to make dinner this week. Like, every night. How will I manage??? Feel free to leave some recipes in the comments section.

Absence of pestilence

I haven’t really been sick all this time. Actually, I went to bed around 4 p.m. on Tuesday and woke up Wednesday morning feeling pretty good. The bad news is that I let two of my pears go to waste because I waited too long for them to ripen. I have to act when I think of stuff; otherwise, I forget and it doesn’t happen. Like I forgot I wanted to eat my pears because I couldn’t eat them when I first thought of eating them. I mean, I could have, but I didn’t because I was waiting for the optimal time. When will I learn that I can’t wait for the optimal time? If I think of something, I have to do it immediately, even if it involves unripened fruit. There’s an object lesson here with the potential to screw up a lot of lives, if I let it. I’m just going to move on.

The good news–the other good news, I mean, besides me not being sick anymore–is that I may be able to start outsourcing some of my parental duties. This morning I heard Elvis say, “Please, Girlfriend! I don’t have time for this!” Now, if only I can teach him to say, “Have you done your homework, Mister Bubby?” and “The world does not revolve around your needs, Princess Zurg!” and “Elvis, stop talking about poop for five seconds!” we’ll be in business. Trouble is, if I outsource the nagging, all that’s left for me is drudgery. But at least I’ll save my voice.

I have a few goals for this week. The first goal is to get my eyebrows waxed. The second is to finish reading The Count of Monte Cristo by Wednesday evening, when I’m (planning on) going to a book club meeting (discussing that book, which is why I’m reading it). The third is to do twelve loads of laundry between now and Thursday. The fourth is to touch up my roots before Friday. Do I have a fifth? Probably not.

The Count of Monte Cristo is actually a terribly readable book. Which is good because I think it’s about 400,000 pages long. I’m not sure because I’m reading it on Kindle, but it takes me about 20 minutes to get from one percentage point to the next. I exaggerate, maybe. A little. I’m at 30% right now. I’d be farther along, of course, if I were reading right now instead of trying to blog and mostly failing. Like, I might be at 31%. Every little bit counts! I’m not a slow reader, either, lest ye get the wrong idea. I’m a pretty snappy reader. Unless I lose the will to read, which is what happened with Wuthering Heights and, to an extent, with Middlemarch (although I haven’t given up on Middlemarch–we’re just “taking a break,” honest). No, I’m just reading my guts out with this book and making good time, all things considered–and I’m enjoying the book very much, but it’s going to be a marathon. I probably should have trained first.

Speaking of training, I was clogging this morning for the first time in two weeks. (We took last Monday off because of the holiday. Not that clogging would be an inappropriate way to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy. I’m sure we could work up a civil rights-themed routine or something.) I thought I was going to die. Maybe because I’ve been sick and haven’t practiced. I mean, I usually feel like dying the first half-hour or so, but once I’ve warmed up, I’m good to go the rest of the day. Today I just pretty much felt like dying the whole time. Maybe I should have been at home reading. Or at the beauty salon getting my eyebrows separated.

I was teaching Primary at church yesterday. I have the eight-year-olds now, instead of the eleven-year-olds, and it’s been an adjustment. I used to teach with Sugar Daddy, but since the PTB made him the big Sunday School mucky-muck (la di da!), I’m just by myself, and it’s kind of a drag. The kids are all lovable (except for possibly one of them, but even that one I have to admire), but they have no attention span. “Attention span” might not be the term I’m looking for. “Ability to half-way pay attention to stuff that is not remotely interesting to them–or anyone, really” is more what I mean. This year we’re studying church history and it’s reasonably boring. For me, I mean. Well, for them too, but they’d probably be bored regardless. Well, I’m bored, though, and that’s just making things worse. I was kind of dreading yesterday’s lesson, which was even more boring than the three previous lessons we’d had, but it turned out really well in the end. Of course, that may have been because we spent half the time playing Hangman. But, you know, I take my victories where I can.

My complexion has been reasonably clear for the last ten years or so, but over the last month I have been getting all these angry zits in the most inconvenient places on my face. (Nowhere else, thank goodness. Didn’t mean to alarm you, if I did.) I wish I knew what was going on. Is it perimenopause? I’ve decided to blame everything on perimenopause. Just now, that is. I mean, I’ve been working up to blaming everything on it, but just now I realized I’m probably finally ready for full-time. Yesterday I was in the car with Princess Zurg and she asked why women are so obsessed with their appearance. I told her I didn’t used to be before my body started falling apart. I remember being very un-obsessed with my appearance as a teenager. Probably to my detriment. Well, I don’t know. I guess I was just intermittently obsessed. I had periods of caring, I suppose. This paragraph came out of nowhere and appears to be going straight back there as soon as it can.

I should eat some lunch and do a load of laundry and try not to feel my eyebrows growing together while I read my book. Gentle readers, adieu.