Category Archive

I have a headache this big, and it has “twelve-pack of super-size Reese’s peanut butter cups” written all over it.

I’ve had this recurring headache for several days now.  It could be caused by any number of things:  stress, premenstrual syndrome, actual-menstrual syndrome, the unseasonably warm weather (90+ degrees in Portland, in July?), or good old-fashioned lack of sleep.  Also, I could have a brain tumor, but that is unlikely.

Also, I am fiddling around with my psychopharmacological supports.  Although my recent trial of Vyvanse did not go as well as we’d hoped, my psychiatrist does not want to give up on the augmenting-antidepressant-with-stimulant route, and so I am currently on a trial of Aderall–actually, I’m on a trial of generic Aderall, in an attempt to circumvent my insurance company’s pre-authorization requirement for ADD/ADHD drugs when they are prescribed for adults.  (I don’t have ADD or ADHD, incidentally.  Apparently stimlants aren’t just for spazzes anymore.  Hey, is that a chicken?!)  It was folly, of course; the insurance company still required the pre-authorization, but eventually I did get my generic stimulants.

What’s funny about taking generic stimulants is that your prescription bottle just says “AMPHETAMINE” on it.  Woo-hoo!  You’d think with a label that scandalous, it would work better.  Actually, I’m finding this experience similar to the failed Vyvanse experiment.  I felt irritable and anxious, and my appetite decreased, so I stopped taking it, and now I just feel sad.  Of course, I could chalk all of this up to my menstrual cycle–everything but the appetite decrease, of course–so how would I know how the amphetamines are really affecting me?  Maybe they aren’t affecting me at all.  Maybe I need to take more of them.  Except that if I’m losing my appetite on a mere 5 mg per day, I shudder to think of what my body would do on 10 mg or more.  I might never eat another Reese’s peanut butter cup again.  What profiteth it a woman if she gains the world but loses her appetite for it?

The other thing I don’t like about experimenting with stimulants is that in addition to it being a pain in the neck to fill the prescriptions, they are expensive.  I have prescription coverage, obviously, but I don’t like the waste.  I mean, this one’s generic, so it’s only $100 for a month’s worth (yes, I said “only”), which is a small price for my insurance company to pay for my health, I’m sure, but I only took maybe a week’s worth before deciding that they weren’t for me, and now I have a fistful of amphetamines I can’t return and don’t know what to do with, unless I sell them to a meth lab, which is against my personal ethics, and anyway, why would they buy amphetamines from me when they can steal Sudafed from their local pharmacy?  Not that I’ve thought this through or anything.  I’m just talking.

And now I have this headache I can’t get rid of.  Maybe it’s withdrawal.  That seems kind of ludicrous, considering that I was only taking 5 mg for about a week, but I suppose anything’s possible.  Even a brain tumor is possible.

And now, some random thoughts.

There’s a lady in our neighborhood who walks her dog, or rather, “walks” her dog by driving around in her truck and having him run beside the truck on a leash.  This just doesn’t seem right to me.  In point of fact, it just seems like it’s not safe for the dog.  Not that I’m a dog person, but unlike my husband, I don’t wish them any ill.  I keep thinking that the person must be disabled or have bad knees or whatever–I don’t want to be uncharitable and assume it’s just laziness–but maybe in that case one should just have someone else walk the dog.  You know, by foot.  Maybe she can’t afford to hire someone to walk the dog.  On the other hand, with the price of gas these days, you’d think it would be about even, so what’s the deal?  Maybe the dog likes running beside the truck on a leash.  Maybe the dog likes living dangerously.  Who knows.  It’s really none of my business, I guess, and moreover, if I’m not willing to offer to walk this lady’s dog myself for free, how much do I really care about the dog?  Enough to be judgmental, not enough to stick my nose where it arguably doesn’t belong.  There’s a profound lesson in here somewhere.

In the same vein, I used to notice, on my route to Mister Bubby’s school every day, another home in our neighborhood that sported two American flags hanging over its porch.  Both flags were extremely faded and ripped nearly to shreds.  I don’t think the person was making a political statement.  It’s not that kind of neighborhood.  I think they’d just left their flags up there for several years, and now they were hosed.  The flags, I mean.  Well, maybe the flag owners, too, I wouldn’t know, I never saw them.  I don’t think I’m particularly persnickety about flag protocol, but it does seem a shame to me that Old Glory should be left to rot in this manner.  It disturbs me.  Or rather, it would disturb me, during the school year, when I actually drove past that house every day.  It made me want to go out and buy these folks some new flags.  You know, maybe they’re older people on a fixed income, and they can’t afford new flags and maybe they’re also disabled or have bad knees and can’t climb the ladder and take the old flags down.  I wouldn’t know because I only cared enough to be judgmental, not enough to stick my nose, etc., etc.  I’m learning new things about myself that I don’t like.  On to other subjects.

Tomorrow is our neighborhood’s annual Fourth of July Gala.  We will be attending, as usual, even though I really don’t like the Fourth of July Gala.  It’s not that I hate America–I love America–but the Fourth of July Gala combines several things that I don’t enjoy, namely:

1) Crowds
2) Eating outside
3) Eating with children
4) Parades
5) Fun

So why am I going?  Because my family makes me.  Also, because I love America and I’ll be damned if someone holds a party for her and I won’t show up.  While there are brave men and women making the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, by golly, I can endure a few lines and cutting up my children’s pancakes with a plastic knife.  I can even stomach a parade.

This reminds me of a random John McCain video.  I have work to do now.  Enjoy.

Conan Presents John McCain’s Deepest, Darkest Secrets

Dude, when did they raise the first-class postage stamp ONE CENT to 42 cents?  Didn’t they just raise it to 41 cents, like, six months ago?  And why the freak are they still selling 41-cent stamps, as if they were still useful?

Mind you, I am not complaining about the price of stamps.  They’re still totally cheap by global postal standards.  I just don’t like missing the memo.  I especially don’t like it when I get a notice in the mail from my bank asking me to confirm my contact information for an account I haven’t touched in several years within the next thirty days, and I can’t mail my response because I can’t find any stamps and I never remember to buy any when I’m out, and then I finally find some stamps, at which point I decide to just buy some more online because I’ll never remember to buy them when I’m out and about, and that’s how I find out that they’ve gone up ONE CENT.  And no, I don’t have any one-cent stamps left over from the last time they raised the postage stamp one cent–or at least, if I do have any, I don’t know where they are–and I don’t have any more of those “FOREVER” stamps they were selling the last time I had to go out and buy new stamps.  Bah!  I have to go out and buy new stamps.  Which is fine, since I had to go out and find a mailbox anyway.

Can you tell I don’t mail stuff very often?

It’s totally Dullsville around here.  I’m blogging about stamps.  Anybody know some jokes?

Happy birthday to my husband, thirty-three years young! And by “young,” I mean “still younger than me.” No, honey, I haven’t forgotten. It seems like only yesterday I was robbing the proverbial cradle. Actually, it seems more like eleven years ago. You’re no spring chicken anymore, Jethro!

And how is my beloved spending his birthday this year? Well, he’s knocking around our nation’s capital, catching the sights and hob-knobbing with the likes of Abe Lincoln’s memorial statue. It’s been about fourteen years since I last saw Washington, D.C. (the city, not the airport). Hopefully it’s still Abe in that memorial and not that freaky monkey statue like we saw in that Planet of the Apes remake. I’m still mad at Tim Burton for making that movie. Because seriously, what in the huh-wha was that ending all about? Eh? Charlton Heston’s cameo was pretty awesome, though. And now that Chuck’s no longer with us, at least I have another movie to remember him by. So okay, I forgive you, Tim Burton. But just barely.

You might be wondering what the hell just happened back there. Well, let me explain: I did not sleep well last night. First of all, my husband had to go out of town unexpectedly earlier-than-originally-planned because his scheduled June 4 morning flight was cancelled, and he had to book a last-minute flight last night. Which was fine, because who needs him anyway, right? Well, I need him. I need him to tell me when to go to bed because when he’s not here, I take it as my excuse for staying up until 2 a.m. watching Law & Order on the Netflix online. Netflix is my new master, by the way, in case you were wondering where my spiritual journey was leading me. Anyway, I was staying up late to get the house ready for the housekeepers, who were coming this morning (did in fact come this morning, but this talking about the past in the time when it was still the future is confusing for me, so just try to keep up–also, I’m tired, as I was about to explain). And since hard work must be rewarded with something more tangible than the satisfaction of a job well done, naturally I had to eat some of my leftover ice cream pie, the one that’s jam-chocky full of espresso beans whilst watching some L&O. Because nothing screams, “You must watch four episodes of Law & Order back to back!” quite like a coffee-chocolate-caramel ice cream pie. Actually, it may have just been three episodes. I don’t remember. It’s all a blur now. Because here’s what came next:

I go to bed, see (note that I’ve switched to the present tense even though I’m still talking about the past; it’s just a stylistic technique to help you feel like you’re there in the moment with me; yes, you’re welcome)–and Mister Bubby is already there because when I put him to bed, he said, “I don’t want to sleep in my own bed,” and I said, “I don’t want you to sleep in my bed because I already know Elvis and Girlfriend are going to come in the middle of the night and want to sleep with me, too, and it just gets too crowded.” And he said, “Come on…pleeeeeaaaase?” And I said, “No, man, don’t start with me.” And he said, “Come onnn–it’ll just be easier to get me up in the morning.” And I said, “You know, whatever. I don’t care. Sleep anywhere. Just go to sleep, I have work to do.” So he went to sleep in my bed, and so–switching back and forth between tenses like they were interchangeable widgets–there I am and there he is, and it was all well and good for about fifteen minutes, and then Girlfriend woke up screaming. Which she does every night at about this time. So I go to her and try to get her to go back to sleep in her own bed, which she isn’t having any of, and so I let her come sleep with me and MB in my room. And that’s all well and good, too, until about half an hour after that, when Elvis comes running in and decides he wants to be part of this happy family, so he crawls in, too.

This is where things start getting uncomfortable because MB isn’t usually in the bed and Elvis is somewhat confused as to where he belongs. He thinks he wants to be between me and Girlfriend, but Girlfriend is not hip to that action and wakes up and starts crying–which makes him cry, which makes MB wake up and tell me that I need to kick Elvis out of the bed already because there just isn’t room for him, and Elvis finally decides that he is just going to burrow head-first under the comforter and go to sleep with his feet between MB’s and Girlfriend’s heads. Well, this is okay for maybe another half-hour, but since I’ve gotten approximately zero sleep so far, I decide to be pro-active and I leave the big bed with the three gangly children and migrate to Elvis’s bed, which–despite what you might think, given his aforementioned nocturnal habits–is actually quite comfortable, thank you very much. I was blissfully asleep for what seemed like at least two-and-a-half minutes, it may have even been seven, when Girlfriend notices that I am missing and starts running down the hall screaming. Yes, she ends up in Elvis’s (twin) bed with me. After a few minutes of tossing and turning and rolling and tossing, she finally gets comfortable and we both go to sleep again. Until–wait for it!–Elvis wakes up and thinks we must take him for some kind of chump if we think we can get rid of him that easily, and he comes back to reclaim his rightful place in his own rightful bed. Girlfriend, predictably, sees it differently.

What transpired over the next hour would be somewhat tedious to relate, and it would also require heavy usage of this word: #&$*(! I don’t know how you all feel about that, but I’m uncomfortable repeating that word repeatedly in a story that involves children. I’m not sure I’ve ever been proud of my actions during the hours of four and five in the morning, but last night was definitely a candidate for the All-Time Worst Sleep-Deprived Mothering Malfeasances hall of fame. I’ll let your imaginations do the work for me.

So yeah, I finally went to sleep sometime between 5:00 and 5:30 a.m.–yes, I know it’s karma because I gorged myself on coffee ice cream pie and police dramas, just get off my back–and at approximately 6:40 a.m., my alarm goes off. I hit the snooze button. But about four minutes after hitting the snooze button, MB starts nudging me and telling me it’s time to get up. “Come on…come on…come on…” And nudging becomes shoving and telling becomes nagging until finally, FINE, IT’S 6:55 AM AND I’M UP, ARE YOU HAPPY???

I functioned surprisingly well for a dead woman. Speaking of which, I’m surprised the housekeepers didn’t fall down dead of shock when they saw that the six boxes which have been stacked against my bedroom wall since January had miraculously been removed. Hopefully, my husband isn’t reading this or he might fall down dead himself. Honey, avert your eyes! I guess it’s too late now. Never mind.

So, yeah. I’m feeling a little punchy. You know what that means, right? I get insanely drowsy in about five minutes, but somehow I manage to stay awake for two-and-a-half more hours and get the kids in bed, at which time I will have my second wind and can finish the rest of my ice cream pie and watch more Law & Order! (Duh.)

You know, this post was going to be about my visit to McDonald’s today, but instead it went in totally unexpected directions. You might say I took stream-of-consciousness blogging to a Whole. Nutha. Level. Actually, I think this post is nothing compared to some of the crap I published when I was still in my prime. But it might be my personal record for crimes against grammar. Well, there it is, then. I have to decide what to make for dinner. Remember that fully-stocked fridge I showed you a few posts back? Well, it turned out to be mostly a variety of barbecue sauces. Not that I can’t use that, but I’m going to have to be creative. I might be taking white-trash cuisine to a Whole Nutha Level. Which is permissible when my gourmet husband is out of town. Did I mention that I’m also sick? I’m also sick. But that’s a Whole Nutha Blog.

The brain is going, my friends. Going, going, almost gone. Last night I was in a rush to get ready for my dress rehearsal–splattering foundation on my underwear and poking my eye with the mascara wand–and then I was in a rush to get out the door and actually attend my dress rehearsal. I was in full costume. Before I walked out the door, I double-checked to make sure I was wearing my garter. My husband found that funny. He should have seen when I was double-checking to make sure I was wearing my briefs (which, to my credit, I did not do in the front doorway).

Anyway, off I went, wearing the costume, carrying the tap shoes, had the keys, had the purse, yes, everything was there, so off I was–driving, driving, driving, and the mascara was already starting to bug. Big time. I swear, it was like there was this huge clump of black gook just hanging from my outer lashes on my right eyelid, and I kept checking in the rearview mirror to make sure that there was no black-gook mascara monster hastening the demise of my vision. There was no noticeable hunk of black gook, just regular old mascara, sitting on my regular old eyelashes, not doing anything particularly noteworthy. “Volumizing,” my butt. Anyway. The knowledge that the mascara was under control did not stop my eyes from feeling like they were under attack by some unfriendly entity, and I just kept looking in the rear view mirror and pulling at my eyelashes, hoping I could dislodge the invisible plague, and that’s when I noticed that my lipstick was looking kind of off–lipstick being something I can ordinarily apply with competence, but apparently not under duress–and that’s when I went to double-check that I had brought the lipstick with me, so, careful to keep my eyes on the road and one hand on the wheel, I rummaged around my purse with the other hand–because really, it was so important to know at that moment if I would be able to re-apply my lipstick that evening–and that’s when I realized that I am an effing idiot because I had my lipstick and had ONLY FORGOT TO BRING A MAJOR PROP FOR MY SECOND NUMBER. Bah!

So I called Sugar Daddy, who, being the gallant and longsuffering husband he is–and perhaps feeling a teensy guilty for insinuating earlier that I looked like a vintage American hooker? no, probably not–agreed to pack all the kids in the car and bring me my forgotten item, and he didn’t so much as sigh over it. Probably because he did not yet realize that I had also forgotten to bring our ballots for the better-late-than-never-Oregon-primary, which I promised I would drop off at the official ballot drop inside the rec center, and this after I had harassed him to fill the darn thing out already. You know, I didn’t even vote. I harassed my husband into voting, and then I disenfranchised him with my forgetfulness, but me, I never actually filled my ballot out. I kept meaning to fill my ballot out, but golly, there was just so much to do, and so many stupid things to vote on–U.S. senator, U.S. representative, secretary of state, precinct commissioners (or whatever they’re called, whatever they are), and circuit court judges, plus three esoteric state measures–I never did get around to it. Isn’t that awful? I’m not fit to call myself an American, am I? I apologized later to SD, but he said I should really apologize to the great people who fought and died for my right to take part in the democratic process. And that’s when I told him to shut. up.

The housekeepers are supposed to come this morning. They used to come around 9:30 a.m. Then they started coming around 10:30 a.m. Last time they came at 12:30 p.m. I’m really not keen on this creeping schedule change. It’s just that I work so hard to get everything off the floor and off the counters and out of the sink before they come, and then they don’t come and then the kids start throwing stuff on the floor again. I mean, I should just pack them in the car and take them someplace, but I don’t know how long to be gone for, because when the heck are the housekeepers coming, anyway? I should take them on a day trip, but I’m not in the mood. Stop trying to solve my problems, okay? I just want the housekeepers to go back to coming between 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. That’s all I’m saying.

I’m still kind of embarrassed about having housekeepers. Most ladies I associate with don’t have housekeepers; they keep their own houses. They think it must be nice to have someone else come keep your house for you, and why on earth would you complain about that? See, that’s the thing. It is nice, and I don’t like to complain. I just like predictability. Also, not having to pick stuff up off the floor more times than I have to in a twelve-hour period–that’s also something I like. But back to my original point–you didn’t know I’d left my original point, did you? Well, I did, but here it is again. I’m kind of embarrassed about having housekeepers. I’m not only embarrassed in front of my peers, but I’m embarrassed in front of the housekeepers themselves. Not because I’m class-conscious and feel bad about having money to pay people to do something distasteful that I could very well do myself–but because I get the distinct impression that these housekeepers don’t consider my house worth cleaning. I feel like they look around and think, “What the bleeping hell is the point? This is a losing battle, why can’t she just accept that?” I might be projecting a little bit. I don’t know. But there’s something there–something in their tone, in the way they wield those feather dusters, that just makes me feel inferior. Probably the fact that they have feather dusters in the first place–because Lord knows I have never owned one. It never occurred to me to own one. Historically, I have always had bigger fish to fry than dust. When other ladies tell me how much they hate dusting, I think it must be nice to have so few problems that you actually have time to think about dusting and whether or not you enjoy it. I always thought I might enjoy dusting, if I ever had the leisure. But so far that life experience has been elusive. Perhaps this is what I’m sensing from the housekeepers–resentment over having to dust, when I clearly have no appreciation for the task. It must be very frustrating for them to try to dust my desks and bookshelves, which are crowded with items not intended for dusting. It makes me want to tidy some more before they get here–whenever that will be–but you know what? I’m tired. And I’m just tired of tidying. I want it to be too late for tidying.

I tidied a little bit last night after my rehearsal, but I got tired then, too, and I left the rest of it for this morning. So naturally this morning did not go smoothly. Mister Bubby had a field trip today, and he needed a sack lunch and also $5 in cash. We were out of bread, but he agreed to take a sandwich roll instead. I scrounged up four dollar bills and four quarters. Then he told me that he needed to turn in his jog-a-thon pledge sheet and money because it was due today. His pledge sheet consisted of two donations–one from Grandma and one from me. I suppose I could have written a check, but I didn’t know who to make the check out to because I couldn’t even remember what the jog-a-thon was for in the first place, and I was tired, and I didn’t want to think about it, so I decided we’d just stop at the grocery store for bread and some cash on the way to school. So we left early, and I stopped at the Albertson’s, where they don’t sell any good bread, but I got some mini-bagels for the younger kids, who like bagels more than bread anyway, and there was exactly one checkout line open–which is always the case at this Albertson’s–and there was exactly one person in front of me, who was having a frustrating back-and-forth with the checker over how much money his groceries cost. For the love of Mike. At least he wasn’t paying with a check. Anyway, that finally got resolved, and I bought my bagels and bought my cash, and I dropped Mister Bubby off at school, and then I came home and hurried to get Elvis ready for his bus. I got Elvis on his bus, and then I proceeded to light a fire, figuratively speaking, under Princess Zurg, who was still not out of bed, despite my repeated nagging of the previous 45 minutes. I told her she had less than fifteen minutes before her bus arrived, and that got her attention, but then she tried to accuse me of oversleeping. She just really needed it to be my fault that she was still in her pajamas.

So PZ finally got dressed and was eating breakfast, and I was trying to get Girlfriend her breakfast, when the phone rang. I saw on the Caller ID that it was the school. Thank goodness for Caller ID because otherwise I would have had NO IDEA what was going on. I answered the phone, and there was a lot of background noise and this immature voice speaking not-directly-into-the-receiver, saying what I eventually discerned as “Is my lunch at home?” I am somewhat embarrassed at how long it took me to figure out that this was in fact my own child calling me to tell me that he’d forgotten his lunch (which was my fault, naturally). Everything I said, everything I asked, he just answered with “Mom? MOM! Hello? Hello???” What is it with men and the phone? Why are interpersonal telecommunication skills so difficult for the testosterone-laden mind to master? Anyway, we finally came to an understanding, that I would drop back by the school with his lunch, despite the fact that I had so many other freaking things to do this morning. (That last part was unspoken.) After PZ miraculously made it onto the bus and Girlfriend miraculously finished eating her breakfast in a timely fashion, I was able to deliver MB’s lunch and come back home to work on the house-tidying, which was really getting tiresome at this point.

I did it. It’s done. In a manner of speaking. I’m sure the housekeepers won’t be impressed. They’ll flick their little feather dusters at my bookshelves and frown, but I am done. I am all done for today. Except that I will pick up all the toy food Elvis just dumped on the family room floor. I don’t want them frowning while vacuuming.

As I said earlier, I am sure I’m forgetting something important, but I can’t think for the life of me what it is. I paid the mortgage, I know where the kids are, I checked under the beds for stray undergarments–but I haven’t changed the baby’s diaper. I don’t know if that’s what I’m forgetting, but I’m going to do it anyway, just for giggles. Happy Wednesday.

When I was growing up, my parents informed us that we were allowed two (2) birthday parties during the eighteen years we lived under their roof.  So every year when the birthday rolled around, you’d have to think really hard, Is this the year I want to spend one of my two birthday parties?  In my case it helped to be anti-social.  I had my first birthday part at age 11.  It was a slumber party.  It was fun.  I had my second party at age 13.  Only one of my friends could make it.  It was still fun.  (Yes, I know it sounds pathetic beyond reason, but I had less than a handful of close friends at that age, and it was really okay.  The rest of being that age sucked, but the friendships were okay.  It helped that I was anti-social.)

My oldest child had her first birthday party at age six.  I didn’t want to throw her a birthday party because Princess Zurg being Princess Zurg, I knew we would have to throw her one every single year after that.  But she had asked for a birthday party–I think–and my husband thought we should give her one.  As I said, I didn’t want to do it because a) it was raising the bar for future birthdays and b) I’m not a party person.  This is one of those times when it doesn’t help to be anti-social.  Fortunately, my husband is not only a fan of raising the bar, but he’s also a party person.  So he basically planned and executed PZ’s whole birthday party.  His mother was in town, and she helped out, too.  I did almost nothing.  I baked a cake.  From a box.  Seriously, almost nothing.  It still stressed me out.

Every year since then, we’ve thrown birthday parties for each of the two older children.  This year Sugar Daddy wanted to throw a party for Elvis, but I strongly discouraged it.  I do not need the bar raised for any more children at this juncture.  I would rather wait for Elvis to decide on his own that his parents need to jump a little higher.  Anyway, as far as Elvis is concerned, every day is a holiday.  SD seems to think we need to correct disparities among our kids before they become aware of them.  Me, I’m from the “in my day, we didn’t have birthday parties–we made cake out of dirt and set our hair on fire and we liked it!” school of parenting.  Because I’m lazy, number one, and number two–well, it’s really all about number one.  Does there really need to be a number two?

The problem is that I am just not an “event” person.  I like routine and consistency.  My idea of mixing things up is to…you know, I tried to come up with an example, and I just couldn’t.  I don’t like to mix things up.  I like things to stay the same as much as possible.  Except for the things I want to be different, of course.  I colored my hair Saturday night–a different color.  It’s like I went crazy.  I need everything else to be stable for a while so I can adjust.

Although my husband has consistently done the lion’s share of the work for our kids’ birthday parties, I still feel a tremendous amount of stress over them.  I think what worries me is that the kids won’t have fun, and then they’ll want me to do something about it.  And obviously I’ll be screwed because if you haven’t been paying attention, “fun” is not my strong suit.  “Fun” is SD’s department, but I have a feeling that were we to have a “fun” emergency and I looked to SD to solve it, he’d say something like, “Geez, is it not enough that I’ve done everything else?  Can’t you make a single contribution?”  And obviously I’ll be screwed. 

So I’m especially anxious this year because PZ wants a party (again), and my trouble is two-fold:

1.  She’s turning 10, and neither SD nor I know what most 10-year-old girls are into, or at least what they won’t scoff and turn up their noses at.  We can’t use our own child as an example of a 10-year-old girl because if there’s one thing we do know about 10-year-old girls, it’s that they are not like our 10-year-old girl.  If they were, Barkis Bittern would be bigger than Mickey Mouse and Hannah Montana wouldn’t have a career.

2.  If by some miracle we could come up with something 10-year-old girls would think was cool and wouldn’t bore PZ to tears (or alternatively, incite her to violence), it wouldn’t matter because PZ is also inviting boys to this year’s party.  It makes sense because the vast majority of her classmates are boys, and I’m glad that she has co-ed friendships, but it sure does throw a monkey wrench in the party planning machine, which is not exactly humming along in the first place.  If it were a party just for boys, that would be one thing, but girls and boys?  Between the ages of eight and eleven?  Addendum:  Make that 14 neurotypical girls and six autism-spectrum boys.  Most of the girls already know each other (as they are either from church or PZ’s old school) but don’t know the boys (who are from her new school), and vice versa.  (No, we’re not expecting 20 children to show up, but past experience has taught us to cast a wide net.)  You can see why my brain is about to explode.

So I did what any modern parent in this dilemma would do.  I consulted the internet.  It was not helpful.  The internet told me to provide a lot of snacks and play a lot of popular music, and the kids would just mingle as kids that age are wont to do.  Really?  Truly, internet?  I’m no expert on tween-age kids, but methinks you are trying to pull a fast one on me.  Anyway, PZ doesn’t like popular music, and the sound of her complaining would drown out any mingling that might miraculously occur under those circumstances.

The internet also told me I could throw an American Idol party.  Um…yeah.  This may sound, well, un-American, but we actually don’t watch AI at our house.  I don’t think PZ knows what an American Idol is, and even if she did, I doubt she’d approve.  The internet also gave me a lot of ideas for destination parties.  Like bowling–bzz! try again.  Or a swim party.  In April.  In Oregon.  Moving right along.  “Have each guest bring a can of cat or dog food in lieu of a gift and take a trip to the local animal shelter.”  Who are these people?

The internet also had a lot of advice about co-ed slumber parties.  For tweens!  Not that it would be any more appropriate for older kids, but still–what am I?  Am I some kind of sick fuddy-duddy because I would not in a million years if you paid me throw a co-ed slumber party?  Won’t they have plenty of time for that when they’re in college?  It’s no wonder I’m socially handicapped.

The internet also told me that all tweens “live for the mall,” and a good idea is to give them all some money and set them loose on said mall.  That’s when I began to suspect that the internet didn’t know what it was talking about. 

Which brings me back to my own expertise, aka the Blank Slate.  I went shopping with the younger two kids this morning so we could buy decorative birthday plates and napkins for Elvis’s birthday, which is tomorrow.  Elvis is still at a low-maintenance age.  All he needs is a cake and some fire, and he’s good to go.  I was hoping to get some Thomas the Tank Engine merchandise, but would you believe it, they were all out of Thomas.  Oh, they had some Thomas blower-thingies and some Thomas stickers and a few of the world’s cheapest and most pointless Thomas “party favors”–I say “party favors,” because had the package not informed me of its contents, I would have had no idea how to label them.  But all the useful stuff was sold out. 

The pickings were slim in general, and the only thing I could interest him in–besides the red lawn signs which said, “The party STOP’s here!”–were the Barney plates and cups.  Fortunately, I am not Barney-averse.  Unfortunately, since I had Girlfriend with me, too, I ended up buying probably twice as much as we needed.  I briefly considered throwing PZ an Ironic Barney Party, but I thought that might be too meta for the tween crowd. 

So I decided I’d ask some real people–like you folks who are on the internet, but not of the internet.  Tell me what you think is a good party idea for tweenage boys and girls.  Something low-maintenance and on the cheap.  If you can’t say something non-sarcastic, don’t say anything at all.

On second thought, say whatever you want.  It will toughen me up for when the tweens besiege my house with their pre-adolescent discontent.

This morning I was slicing a bagel for my son, and I SLICED MY FINGER WITH THE BREAD KNIFE!  No, I didn’t slice it off, but dude, IT REALLY HURT!  Correction:  it STILL hurts!  Who knew that one little knife–okay, kind of a big knife–could do so much damage?  Why isn’t there a label on it that says, “WARNING:  If you cut yourself with this bad boy, it will hurt like a sonofameanlady.  USE CAUTION!  NEVER LEAVE FINGER UNATTENDED”???  Gollyfreakamazoid this smarts!

So okay, I’m applying pressure to the wound so I can stop the bleeding and get a bandage on it before my bagel pops out of the toaster.  But it won’t stop bleeding.  I hold my finger high above my head to slow the blood flow, but the darn thing just won’t quit bleeding long enough to get a bandage on it and darnitall if my bagel hasn’t already popped up and started cooling.  Have you ever tried to butter a bagel with one hand while the other hand is bleeding?  And don’t tell me that you’re not supposed to eat bagels toasted with butter–it’s the way I like them, okay?  It’s not like it’s even a real bagel; it’s some “whole wheat” Oregon bagel from the flipping Safeway, or maybe it’s WinCo, how the hell should I know?  I’m bleeding to death and you’re going to tell me how I can enjoy my bagel???

Meanwhile, my son’s bagel–the source of all my misery–is just lying on the counter drying up, waiting in vain for someone to spread cream cheese on it.  Are we allowed to put cream cheese on our bagels?  There’s some lox in the fridge; if I slapped on some of that, would you be satisfied?  Did I mention that my finger still REALLY HURTS?

Okay, if by some small chance you are concerned about the health of my vital appendages, I’ll tell you that I finally found some gauze pads and taped them really tight around the offending ouch, and hopefully this finger can be saved.  Seriously, how much blood can come out of a single finger?  I must have sliced a major artery.  Who knew there was a major artery in the third finger on the left hand?  They don’t tell you that on the box the knife came in!

The worst thing is that I’m going to have this stupid bandage on my finger for who knows how long, and I hate having bandages on my finger because with two children still in diapers, I wash my hands approximately 300 times a day, and I have to keep putting new bandages on.  Yes, I suppose I should invest in some “waterproof” bandages.  I’ll do that just as soon as I’m sure that it’s safe for me to drive. 

Oh, the humanity!

Dear Madhousechildren,

If you want to take your shoes off, you must place them in or on the shoe shelf by the front door.  NO OTHER SURFACE OR REGION OF THE HOUSE IS ACCEPTABLE.  NO EXCEPTIONS.  If I find one of your shoes residing in an unapproved location, I reserve the right to beat you over the head with it.  Thank you.

Love, Mommy

Today was garbage day.  A few hours ago the garbage truck came and emptied our garbage can.  It is now 3 p.m.  The garbage can is full again.  The garbage truck, on the other hand, does not come back until next Wednesday.  This is a serious problem.

How is it that six people can make so much garbage?  Even with two of us in diapers (I’m not naming names), there really is no excuse for this volume of waste.  I am deeply disturbed by this trend.  I should also mention that I am highly annoyed by the fact that we seem to be the only household on the block that not only requires the extra-large trash can but which also regularly overfills it.  You people with your tiny trash cans, what must your lives be like?  Even your recycling bins, which only get picked up fortnightly, are neatly under full capacity.  Ours was overflowing within five days.  I can’t imagine producing that little garbage in seven days.  How is it accomplished? 

We pay $62 a month for this giant trash can.  The waste disposal company does not, to my knowledge, offer dumpsters for single-family residences.  More’s the pity.  But we’re already bringing our neighborhood’s property values way down just by living here.

I am tired of changing poopy diapers.  I am tired of cutting other people’s food.  I am tired of pouring juice.  I am tired of hiding the knives.  I am tired of taping the freezer door shut.  I am ready to move on to the next stage of life.  Check, please.

So we are back in our house, and it’s great and wonderful, blah blah, but I am disheartened because I unpacked about 100 boxes last week (and when I say “100,” I don’t mean “I unpacked a lot of boxes and 100 is a big number so I’ll just say 100″–I mean “100″) and I was finally starting to feel like the house was going to be livable and normal soon…and then my husband brought over the last of the crap from our rental house.  I just want to cry.  I don’t want this stuff.  I don’t want any of this stuff.  I don’t want to find a home for it.  I just want it to go away.

One of the silver linings I tried to see in this cloud of fire-and-displacement was that it would be my opportunity to experiment with minimalism.  We’d be living in a rented house with rented furniture and rented housewares, and I would only buy or bring with me those things I absolutely needed.  Stop laughing.  I swear to God I will cut you if you laugh at me again.  I am not in the mood.  Anyway, yeah, I did okay for the first several weeks.  I tried to have a camping mentality.  I stopped doing real camping when I got old enough that my parents couldn’t force me to go with them, so a 2,500 square foot house in the suburbs was about as close as I’d come to roughing it for about twenty years, what can I say?  Where was I?  Yes, I was doing okay.  I was using rented housewares–cheap pots and pans, none of the usual kitchen amenities I was used to.  No garlic press, no food processor, no rotary cheese grater.  Whenever I started to feel discontented, I would tell myself, “I am camping.  I am discovering what I can truly live without.”  And I would feel very proud of myself every time I chopped an onion by hand.  I got pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. 

Then Sugar Daddy brought over the non-stick cookware and the cast iron skillet.  I brought over a decent cheese knife.  And the garlic press.  And the rotary cheese grater.  And the food processor.  And I don’t remember what happened after that.  It was just a deluge of consumption.  It carried me away.

What I discovered about myself:  I am not a minimalist.  I buy, I hoard, I cram, I pile.  I am burdened by possessions.  I am the raccoon with its hand caught in a trap but I refuse to let go of the shiny object that caught my fancy in the first place, though it enslaves me.  I am, in sum, an overfed white woman living in a landfill of my own creation, and that landfill will be my grave. 

Other than that, I feel great.  How were y’all’s holidays?

Speaking of consumption, I should probably clarify something in my last post.  I don’t hate Barbie dolls.  I think Barbies are fine.  We have a colony of them, both clothed and unclothed.  I don’t even care that she has a body type that exists nowhere in nature.  She’s a freaking doll, she’s made of plastic.  What I regret the purchase of is Princess Zurg’s Barbie Girl®, which is an MP3 player that is also the key to unlocking all of the cool features on the Barbie Girls web site.  It was launched last spring with a price tag along the lines of $65, which wouldn’t have been too steep a price to pay for something that was also an MP3 player, but PZ already had an MP3 player, and I just couldn’t bring myself to pay $65 for a Barbie Girl so she could do cool stuff on a web site she already spent too much time on. 

Then my babysitter found one in a store for $20 right before Christmas.  What can I say, it seemed like a good idea at the time.  The problem is that my laptop, which is the only functioning computer in the house right now, won’t read the installation disc.  It’s not Barbie Girl’s fault.  My laptop won’t read Mister Bubby’s new computer game, either.  I don’t know what its deal is.  I’m not even mad at the computer.  I’m mad at my own consumerism because freakazoid, this is such a frivolous, fat-American item and the fact that I can’t get it to work should not be causing me this much grief. 

I liked when Barbie was just a veterinarian and a Malibu sunbather, without delusions of iPodness.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to “enjoy” another weekend in which I tunnel through the gargantuan trash heap of materialism that is my life.  Brothers and sisters, adieu.

Dear Windows Vista,

You suck.

Sincerely,

Madhousewife

Yours truly,

Madhousewife

You were supposed to clean my rental house Monday afternoon.  I went over there Monday morning to leave a check and clean out the refrigerator.  I made one trip back to my house to put away the frozen food, then returned for everything else.  When I came back to my (real) house, I found a note on the door from your cleaning team indicating that they had missed me and I needed to reschedule my move-out clean and by the way, the house should be emptied of furniture and boxes, etc.  When I got inside my (real, not-rental) house, there was a message on the machine from one of your supervisors, indicating that the cleaning team had come by my house but found it unprepared for cleaning, i.e. there were boxes and furniture and all manner of non-emptiness abounding. 

When I called you and told your representative that there had been a misunderstanding and you had sent the team to the wrong house, she didn’t quite understand.  I talked to her for several minutes.  She put me on hold, spoke with the supervisor who had left me the phone message, got back on the phone and told me that yes, indeed, they certainly had gone to my house that day but found that it was not empty.  I spoke to her for several more minutes, repeatedly insisting that the house they were supposed to clean that day certainly was empty, and if they had found it not so, they were at the wrong house. 

I tried using logic–as in, why would a cleaning team visit my rental house three or more hours ahead of schedule (before I arrived to leave the check), find it not empty, then wait several hours before leaving a note at my other house (the one that wasn’t empty and that they weren’t supposed to clean)?  I think my argument was too subtle, because she didn’t seem to follow it, so I just came right out and said, as explicitly as I could without using swear words, that I didn’t believe for one moment that they’d ever gone to the rental house, that they’d gone to my real (not-empty, noy-supposed-to-be-cleaned-that-day) house by mistake, and that I expected and felt entitled to an immediate correction of that mistake.  She seemed sympathetic and told me that the supervisor would call me back and resolve this matter with me.

An hour later I realized that it was getting to be 3:00 on an afternoon before a holiday, and if I wanted to be certain I was getting a resolution of this matter before the new year and before the scheduled walk-through with the landlord, I was going to have to call again and insist on speaking with the supervisor then.  A different representative answered the phone and informed me that the supervisor, whom I shall refer to here as Ms. Snotty Know It It All, was about to leave for a meeting but she would try to catch her before she left.  Ms. SKIA came to phone and told me that the cleaning team had gone to the house that morning and there was no key under the mat as per agreement, but they could see through the windows that the house was unprepared, i.e., there were furniture, boxes, a vacuum cleaner, etc.  I was surprised that no one mentioned the freaking Christmas tree.  I told Ms. SKIA that if the team saw furniture, they were peering in the wrong window because the furniture was moved from the rental house last Thursday, and the reason there was no key under the mat was because they were at the wrong stinking house.  The key was under the mat on the front porch of the rental house, the empty one that was supposed to be cleaned that day.  Ms. SKIA sighed deeply and looked some more (I presume) at her computer records and eventually concluded that the person who’d done the maps that day, who just happened to be the gal who’d answered the phone, who was still standing right there, had keyed in the wrong code on the computer, thus sending the team to the wrong house.  Imagine.

I’m not upset that someone made a mistake.  It was a simple, human mistake by someone who was obviously new.  Big deal.  And fortunately there were still teams out cleaning and you sent one right away, fulfilling your obligation to me.  So whatever, no harm done.  I don’t care about the initial mistake.  What is niggling at me is that Ms. SKIA obviously had no intention of calling me back that day, as she did not believe that any mistake had been made–unless it was the mistake of agreeing to clean the home of some crazy person who didn’t know the meaning of the word “empty.”  I’m sure you run into your fair share of such people.  However, remember me, the customer?  The one who’s always right?  If I had waited patiently for Ms. SKIA’s phone call, it never would have come, you never would have cleaned my house, and I would have had to postpone the checkout with our landlord another day or more, depending on whether or not I could secure child care so that I could clean my own stupid house (the empty one, I mean).  That would have been inconvenient.  A rather high price to pay, in my opinion, for being on the receiving end of your mistake. 

And it’s not like I require groveling, but an apology would have been nice, too.  The first representative I spoke to seemed sorry enough, but what else was she going to say when she didn’t have a clue what was going on?  Ms. SKIA was the person who should have been apologizing, for disbelieving and/or ignoring my claims–based entirely on reality, as it happened–but she didn’t.  She seemed quite put out, actually.  I noticed, too, that she didn’t make any attempt to cut me out of the conversation she had with the underling who’d made the initial error, just so I’d know whose fault it all was.  I thought that was tacky.  The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth, and I don’t think that’s entirely due to the fact that I’m coming down with a wicked head cold.

Still, I’m conflicted.  Today you sent another cleaning team to my real house–the non-empty one, the one with the furniture and the Christmas tree–and already I feel all of my anger and annoyance dissipating.  I can’t stay angry at people who clean my house, regardless of what I’m paying them.  I am at your mercy.  I hope you’re satisfied.

Your loyal patron,

Madhousewife

My husband collects hotel key cards.  I just found another one, honey.  In the back pocket of the jeans you wore in San Jose (I’m assuming)–in case you were wondering where that pesky thing went.

As the Supreme Director for the Disposition of Dirty Clothes in the Madhousehold, I am responsible for going through everyone’s pockets to make sure that I am not accidentally laundering money, important receipts or phone numbers, candy wrappers, gum, facial tissues, ball point pens, crayons, or any other non-launderable and possibly destructive thing along with the items that have legitimate laundering needs.  When I say “everyone’s” pockets, I really mean my husband’s pockets because no one else in the house utilizes pockets to the same extent he does.  Most of my children’s pants don’t even have pockets, and those children whose pants do have pockets are wont to put in them things unlikely to escape my notice during a casual search–things like rocks and their parents’ cell phones and such.  (For about a week Girlfriend was carrying in her jacket pocket a sales tag that had a picture of a baby on it, and she’d take it out and look at it fondly every so often, but that is not a usual occurrence.)  I put things in my pockets now and then–stuff like change or ponytail bands or keys–but really only in my right front pocket, because I am right-handed and apt to pick up or handle things primarily with my right hand, and it would be awkward to put it in any left pocket, and it just never occurs to me to put it in a back pocket.  Why would I do that, when I’ve got a front pocket?  That is the question.

I think that men use their pockets more than women do.  Maybe because women have purses.  But I don’t know.  It isn’t necessarily as convenient to stuff something in a purse instead of a pocket, but then, what is the justification for carrying around a purse if you’re not going to stuff things in it?  And too many things at that.  But I digress.  My husband sticks all kinds of things in his pockets, and not just in one particular pocket, but every single pocket he has.  While I was growing up, my dad often extolled the virtues of pockets, and specifically the virtues of clothing articles which contained more pockets than the average.  My dad definitely didn’t carry a purse.  But it wasn’t because he was too macho for one.  He would have carried one, if he thought it would be more convenient and practical than using pockets, but obviously he didn’t think that, because who would?  Besides a woman, I mean.  Because to us it’s less about the utility than the accessorizing.  A cute handbag is a good accessory.  Pants full of pockets which are in turn full of keys and rubbish do not qualify.

Back to my husband’s pockets, which I’ve just finished emptying, and here is what was in them (every single one, mind you, not just one or two):

money
receipts
hotel key
multiple candy wrappers
paper napkin
assorted hardware

This is about par for the course–the most dangerous (in the laundry sense of the word) item being the paper napkin, which is really not so much “dangerous” as “filled with potential to be highly annoying though not as annoying as a paper tissue”–but there have been times when I conducted less-than-adequate searches of the pockets and missed things like a tube of Carmex (not pretty) and a USB flash drive (takes a licking and keeps on ticking!) and a black Sharpie marker (fine point, not that it matters–I mean, how do you miss an entire pen?).  Sometimes if I find items such as these after the laundering cycle but before the drying cycle, I can still divert disaster, but that’s neither here nor there. 

I used to resent Sugar Daddy for not going through his own *#$*&* pockets before putting them in the laundry (particularly when the pockets contain valuables–though I admit I’ve never been upset about finding the money), but that was just so much wasted energy and bad karma.  This is not meant to be a rant against my own honeybunch or men in general.  For one thing, I can totally understand why SD would be putting lip balm and USB drives and marking pens in his pockets.  Sans purse, what else should he be doing?  I can’t blame him for forgetting about these things when they’re out of sight, either.  As often as I’ve turned around and forgotten what on earth I turned around for, I can hardly judge anyone else harshly in this department.  No, what I don’t understand is a) the vast amount of trash that accumulates (is he never near a garbage can?) and b) all the usage of back and left pockets.  Lots of usage of the left pockets for a right-handed person.  I guess if he’s not carrying a purse or a child on one arm, he has more occasion to feel ambidextrous.  I don’t know. 

As I type this, I am wearing jeans with pockets, and in my right front pocket is a nail clipper and a quarter.  I picked them up off the floor and haven’t put them away yet.  You see, I don’t carry my purse around the house.  Anyway, the other pockets are all empty.  If I were to take my best guess, I would say that right now my husband’s pockets (all of them) contain some combination of money, keys, wallet, cell phone, iPod, receipts, business cards, candy wrappers (always with the candy wrappers, this one) and possibly a small piece of machinery.  If he were out of town, I’d guess that he was also carrying a hotel key card–in his back pocket, where he’d never remember putting it, as many times as he’d be sitting on it. 

What’s in my purse, on the other hand?  Besides my keys, wallet, cell phone and check book, there is the following:

lip balm
hand lotion (2 tubes–no, make that 3)
pens
pencils
pictures of children
daily planner
unsent invitations to Mister Bubby’s birthday party
subscription cards to Newsweek (I’m quite certain I didn’t put those there, as I have no reason not to recycle them)
receipts galore
diaper wipes
3 stage 3 diapers
subscription card to Discover Kids magazine (that I did put there…about two months ago)
notes on the tap routine I’m learning this term
2 pipe cleaners (long story)
hair scrunchy
deposit slips
expired auto insurance card with the claim number for the fire written on the back
2 tampons
chewy granola bar (still wrapped–it’s for the baby, should I need it)
Spiderman fruit snacks wrapper (empty)
snack-size Ziploc bag with Goldfish crumbs inside
half-full box of Tic Tacs, most of which have been dumped on the ground and put back in, courtesy of Elvis
Neutrogena On-the-Spot acne treatment (I take this on-the-spot stuff literally and figuratively, obviously)
hand sanitizer
generic stain pen (doesn’t work–seriously doesn’t work, as in “performs no function”–never has)
small Tonka car
postage stamps
emery board
bacon-flavored toothpicks (another long story)
2 packets of moist towelettes
small comb
Tide-to-Go stick (does work)
1 roll undeveloped film
1 bandage
hair barette

And for some reason, it is all wet, despite the fact that I haven’t accidentally laundered my purse.  Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

What’s in your pockets?  What’s in your purse (if you own one)?  Be ye male or female? 

And just for curiosity’s sake:

What’s the worst thing you’ve accidentally laundered, and who did you blame for it?

My husband collects hotel key cards.  I just found another one, honey.  In the back pocket of the jeans you wore in San Jose (I’m assuming)–in case you were wondering where that pesky thing went.

As the Supreme Director for the Disposition of Dirty Clothes in the Madhousehold, I am responsible for going through everyone’s pockets to make sure that I am not accidentally laundering money, important receipts or phone numbers, candy wrappers, gum, facial tissues, ball point pens, crayons, or any other non-launderable and possibly destructive thing along with the items that have legitimate laundering needs.  When I say “everyone’s” pockets, I really mean my husband’s pockets because no one else in the house utilizes pockets to the same extent he does.  Most of my children’s pants don’t even have pockets, and those children whose pants do have pockets are wont to put in them things unlikely to escape my notice during a casual search–things like rocks and their parents’ cell phones and such.  (For about a week Girlfriend was carrying in her jacket pocket a sales tag that had a picture of a baby on it, and she’d take it out and look at it fondly every so often, but that is not a usual occurrence.)  I put things in my pockets now and then–stuff like change or ponytail bands or keys–but really only in my right front pocket, because I am right-handed and apt to pick up or handle things primarily with my right hand, and it would be awkward to put it in any left pocket, and it just never occurs to me to put it in a back pocket.  Why would I do that, when I’ve got a front pocket?  That is the question.

I think that men use their pockets more than women do.  Maybe because women have purses.  But I don’t know.  It isn’t necessarily as convenient to stuff something in a purse instead of a pocket, but then, what is the justification for carrying around a purse if you’re not going to stuff things in it?  And too many things at that.  But I digress.  My husband sticks all kinds of things in his pockets, and not just in one particular pocket, but every single pocket he has.  While I was growing up, my dad often extolled the virtues of pockets, and specifically the virtues of clothing articles which contained more pockets than the average.  My dad definitely didn’t carry a purse.  But it wasn’t because he was too macho for one.  He would have carried one, if he thought it would be more convenient and practical than using pockets, but obviously he didn’t think that, because who would?  Besides a woman, I mean.  Because to us it’s less about the utility than the accessorizing.  A cute handbag is a good accessory.  Pants full of pockets which are in turn full of keys and rubbish do not qualify.

Back to my husband’s pockets, which I’ve just finished emptying, and here is what was in them (every single one, mind you, not just one or two):

money
receipts
hotel key
multiple candy wrappers
paper napkin
assorted hardware

This is about par for the course–the most dangerous (in the laundry sense of the word) item being the paper napkin, which is really not so much “dangerous” as “filled with potential to be highly annoying though not as annoying as a paper tissue”–but there have been times when I conducted less-than-adequate searches of the pockets and missed things like a tube of Carmex (not pretty) and a USB flash drive (takes a licking and keeps on ticking!) and a black Sharpie marker (fine point, not that it matters–I mean, how do you miss an entire pen?).  Sometimes if I find items such as these after the laundering cycle but before the drying cycle, I can still divert disaster, but that’s neither here nor there. 

I used to resent Sugar Daddy for not going through his own *#$*&* pockets before putting them in the laundry (particularly when the pockets contain valuables–though I admit I’ve never been upset about finding the money), but that was just so much wasted energy and bad karma.  This is not meant to be a rant against my own honeybunch or men in general.  For one thing, I can totally understand why SD would be putting lip balm and USB drives and marking pens in his pockets.  Sans purse, what else should he be doing?  I can’t blame him for forgetting about these things when they’re out of sight, either.  As often as I’ve turned around and forgotten what on earth I turned around for, I can hardly judge anyone else harshly in this department.  No, what I don’t understand is a) the vast amount of trash that accumulates (is he never near a garbage can?) and b) all the usage of back and left pockets.  Lots of usage of the left pockets for a right-handed person.  I guess if he’s not carrying a purse or a child on one arm, he has more occasion to feel ambidextrous.  I don’t know. 

As I type this, I am wearing jeans with pockets, and in my right front pocket is a nail clipper and a quarter.  I picked them up off the floor and haven’t put them away yet.  You see, I don’t carry my purse around the house.  Anyway, the other pockets are all empty.  If I were to take my best guess, I would say that right now my husband’s pockets (all of them) contain some combination of money, keys, wallet, cell phone, iPod, receipts, business cards, candy wrappers (always with the candy wrappers, this one) and possibly a small piece of machinery.  If he were out of town, I’d guess that he was also carrying a hotel key card–in his back pocket, where he’d never remember putting it, as many times as he’d be sitting on it. 

What’s in my purse, on the other hand?  Besides my keys, wallet, cell phone and check book, there is the following:

lip balm
hand lotion (2 tubes–no, make that 3)
pens
pencils
pictures of children
daily planner
unsent invitations to Mister Bubby’s birthday party
subscription cards to Newsweek (I’m quite certain I didn’t put those there, as I have no reason not to recycle them)
receipts galore
diaper wipes
3 stage 3 diapers
subscription card to Discover Kids magazine (that I did put there…about two months ago)
notes on the tap routine I’m learning this term
2 pipe cleaners (long story)
hair scrunchy
deposit slips
expired auto insurance card with the claim number for the fire written on the back
2 tampons
chewy granola bar (still wrapped–it’s for the baby, should I need it)
Spiderman fruit snacks wrapper (empty)
snack-size Ziploc bag with Goldfish crumbs inside
half-full box of Tic Tacs, most of which have been dumped on the ground and put back in, courtesy of Elvis
Neutrogena On-the-Spot acne treatment (I take this on-the-spot stuff literally and figuratively, obviously)
hand sanitizer
generic stain pen (doesn’t work–seriously doesn’t work, as in “performs no function”–never has)
small Tonka car
postage stamps
emery board
bacon-flavored toothpicks (another long story)
2 packets of moist towelettes
small comb
Tide-to-Go stick (does work)
1 roll undeveloped film
1 bandage
hair barette

And for some reason, it is all wet, despite the fact that I haven’t accidentally laundered my purse.  Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

What’s in your pockets?  What’s in your purse (if you own one)?  Be ye male or female? 

And just for curiosity’s sake:

What’s the worst thing you’ve accidentally laundered, and who did you blame for it?

The keys to the rental house have been turned over to us.  Our furniture comes tomorrow.  Right now I am trying to catch up on a week’s worth of laundry in half an afternoon.  Will I make it?  It remains to be seen.  That is not what I meant to say.  What I meant to say is that I am sitting in the furniture-less rental house doing laundry. 

This is very difficult for me.  Not because there’s no furniture to sit on, but because this house is so nice.  The downstairs is no better than ours, really, but the upstairs–oh my sweet providence, the upstairs.  I want to cry.  It is so beautiful.  It is so much better than ours.  Granted, my perception of its beauty is skewed somewhat by the fact that our upstairs has not looked its best for the last ten days, what with the ceiling parts missing and all–but even accounting for that, there’s no denying that this upstairs is simply a superior design.  The walk-in closet in the master bedroom is much bigger.  It’s a walk-in-and-walk-around-and-keep-grandma-in-there-if-necessary closet.  And the master bathroom has both a shower and a bathtub.  Make that a Bathtub.  A Very Large Bathtub. 

And the laundry room is also upstairs, be still my heart, but if that weren’t enough in itself, it has a front-loading washing machine. 

Sigh.

Sugar Daddy knows how I’ve longed for a front-loading washing machine, for oh so many years, and he has assured me that I shall never have one, as they are too expensive to ever pay for themselves.  Never mind the fact that they use less water, are more efficient, clean your clothes better, wear out your clothes more slowly, and allow you to wash your bedspread in your own home because there’s no agitator–in other words, never mind the fact that they’re awesome–they simply do not meet his price-to-good ratio specifications.  So fine, there are certainly worse deprivations, said the woman with her own car, indoor plumbing and housekeepers that came fortnightly.  I was happy enough with my perfectly serviceable, extra-large capacity Kenmore top-loader in the laundry room next to the garage and my bedspread that got washed every eight months whether it needed it or not–but now I am going to be living and doing laundry in a perfectly laid out upstairs with a front-loading washing machine and enough closet space to house our collective wardrobes twice again.  The temptation to covet is almost more than I can bear to resist.

I’m like a heterosexual man who’s been married several years to a very nice and reasonably attractive woman who may have put on a few pounds of late and needs a boob job one of these days, but being that she is the mother of his children and a decent cook and loyal spouse, he can honestly say he has no regrets.  Visiting other people’s nicer-than-mine homes is like going to the beach and seeing all the hot young babes in bikinis–I can look but I can’t touch, and that is okay because I am a happily married man who knows there’s more to life than buxom bikini babes.  Also, I know those buxom bikini babes aren’t particularly interested in my paunchy belly, slightly balding head and hair starting to grow out of my ears, even if I do make six figures, but that’s another story.  That’s visiting other people’s homes.  Sure, their carpet is newer and their washer doesn’t have an agitator, but my back yard is bigger and my walls are prettier colors.  I can be content.  

But actually living, for several weeks, in this house of the awesome upstairs and spacious closets and laundry room with front-loading washer–it’s like going to the beach without my dear wife of blah-blah years and having one of those hot bikini babes walk up to me and say, “Excuse me, sexy balding man who makes six figures–would you please rub suntan lotion on my perfectly toned body?  Do you mind if I go topless?  Did I mention that I’m a nymphomaniac?”  I know I should turn and run the other way, but you see the strength of character that requires?  I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to live here and remain my content, unspoiled self unless I spend the entire time blindfolded and have my laundry sent out.

Well, this whole experience has been an exercise in character building.  This is just one more opportunity to become a better person.  Last week my friend was joking with me about the possibility of liking the rental house so much better that I’ll try to talk SD into buying it.  I thought that scenario highly unlikely, but I imagine that for the next several weeks I’ll be repeating the following mantra to myself on a daily basis:

Our real house has a much bigger back yard.
In our much bigger back yard is a brand-new play structure that cost a lot of money and a lot of man hours to build.
We can always add on above the garage.
There is no way in hell I am moving again.

And I will just be very grateful that I’m blessed with such sweet accommodations during my time of displacement, and that I am no longer in a hotel.

I may not be so grateful that I have to do dishes again.  But, you know, baby steps.

So yesterday the toilet in our hotel room overflowed and flooded the bathroom.  I called the front desk and they sent someone up to hand me a plunger and a towel.  That’s a towel.  I thought, are they kidding me with this single towel?  I don’t mind plunging my own toilet, but I have a good half-inch or so of toilet water on my bathroom floor, and I don’t think a towel will do the job.  But being the resourceful and patient woman that I am, I unclogged the toilet, lowered the moisture level in the bathroom from moderate to damp, and waited for housekeeping to do its job three hours later.

Today Sugar Daddy and Mister Bubby are down in Eugene for a Ducks game.  They’ve been looking forward to this for quite some time, so I’d hardly begrudge them the trip, but I was not enthusiastic about entertaining three young children in a hotel room for an entire Saturday.  I could not possibly do that.  It’s impossible, right?  Of course it is.  But where could I take them?  Two words about my last trip with them to the zoo:  Never again.  We still have a Children’s Museum membership, but the last three times I’ve gone there, Elvis has wanted to spend the majority of his time at the vending machines in the front lobby.  I don’t have that much coin.  No one does.  And OMSI is off-limits until that creepy Body Works exhibit leaves town.  ::shudder::  Then SD suggested that I take the kids to Safari Sam’s.  I was skeptical at first because I seemed to recall that Safari Sam’s was a) expensive and b) a whole lot of way too many different venues for children to amuse themselves, requiring me to be in three different places at the same time at any given time.  But then SD pointed out that without MB clamoring to do the mini-golf, I could easily get away with paying for only the use of the jungle gym and bouncy toy area, allowing the children to run (and bounce) around like ninnies and possibly me to sit down at some point.  Wow–that was an awesome idea!  SD is brilliant–that’s why they pay him the big bucks.  So I was actually not at all dreading the next morning when I went to bed last night, which is more than I can say for most of my bedtimes for the last week.

Then at 12:05 a.m. I heard Elvis crying.  SD went in to see what was the matter, and it turned out that Elvis had thrown up.  He was mostly asleep at the time, so it only got on the sheets and the floor and a little bit on the wall.  He didn’t have the energy to run around the room flinging vomit hither and yon, as per his usual MO.  So that was a blessing.  We got him cleaned up and he went back to sleep and proceeded to wake up puking every 20-45 minutes for the rest of the night.  By the morning he was all out of puke but was still going through the puking motions.  SD advised me against the Safari Sam’s trip.  I told you, he’s brilliant, so I trusted his judgment and called off the expedition.  Now I actually am stuck in a hotel room with three kids for an entire Saturday, but it’s okay because I only have two and half more days of this until we move into our rental house and the rest of the family can start puking on carpets that we don’t own.

Actually, this part is starting to feel a lot like vacation.

Right now we are all in the “master” end of the “family suite” we are staying in.  Elvis is watching Toy Story.  Princess Zurg is designing outfits for Barbie and asking me which movies I think are as good or not as good as Corpse Bride.  (No movie is better, in case you were wondering.)  The baby just poured Diet Coke on my purse, and I think she will have Oreos for lunch.  Ever hear of the Impossible Dream?  Dear readers, I not only dreamed it.  I am living it. 

“I feel so…clean.  Something’s not right.”

“Quick!  Somebody spill something!”

“Something sticky, preferably.”

“Yeah, something sticky.  Sticky but mostly transparent, like apple juice or lemonade.  Ah, that’s better!”

“I don’t know, I think I need a little more color.”

“Red Kool-aid?”

“Yeah, maybe.  I was wondering, maybe something with a little texture?  I’m feeling very tactile today.”

“How about fresh fruit?”

“Oooh, yeah, like cherries or strawberries–throw ‘em down and crush them with your heel!  That’s the stuff!”

“You know, this is great, but it’s still all sugar.  We should have something more substantial.  Like dirt.”

“Yeah, dirt!  Dirt’s good.  Mud is better, though.  Someone ought to play in the mud out back and then track it back in.”

“Yeah, get on that, somebody!”

“You know, this is nourishing, but I’m feeling a little parched again.”

“Someone should really walk around eating watermelon.”

“Great idea!”

“Or make some chocolate milk.”

“No, no, get this–make some chocolate milk, and then drop the chocolate milk–”

“Yes, yes–”

“Drop it from several feet up so that it gets maximum splatter effect!”

“You are a freaking genius!”

“I dunno, I’m still craving salt.  Why doesn’t somebody just knock the big bottle of soy sauce off the top of the fridge?”

“Man, that would be so awesome.  But how are they going to climb up there?”

“They don’t have to.  Mom will do it.”

“Heh heh heh.  Eh, she’s such a klutz.”

“This is sooooo much more comfortable.”

“Nothing like letting it all hang out.”

In the old days–say, two or three weeks ago–I would chase Elvis around the house all day in a vain attempt to stop him from climbing on the stove, spraying all available kitchen surfaces with PAM, flooding the bathroom, turning off the pilot light on the furnace, hosing down the living room, playing shuffleboard with the DVD’s, dumping yogurt on the carpet, etc., until he finally got tired of me thwarting his master plan and settled down on the couch to watch Monsters, Inc. for the millionth time.  Today, I have been running around the house in a vain attempt to stop him from doing all these things, PLUS my vain attempts to stop him from filling and refilling (no emptying required) the little bottle of soy sauce with the contents of the big-industrial-sized bottle of soy sauce and also diluting aforementioned (big bottle of) soy sauce by holding it under a running sink faucet (it must be full, mother!  it must be full!), but so far he has not gotten tired enough to watch a movie.  Not even if I ask nicely.  You see, the good news is that Elvis isn’t into watching movies anymore. 

That’s also the bad news. 

Some other bad news is that he has replaced his Monsters, Inc. habit with a popsicle habit. 

It takes much less time to eat a popsicle than it does to watch Monsters, Inc.  Even those slow-melting kind.

I am tired and would like to watch a movie now.

You all should know that PZ is being sent home from school for hitting staff members.  Students are, quite properly, not allowed to do that.  They have to be suspended if they hit staff (or, presumably, anyone).  So as the principal was telling me yesterday, they’re sorry to call me down there when it’s so inconvenient, but they just really can’t have her hitting the staff.  Which is so thoroughly, totally reasonable.  I have no argument with that principle (or the principal, for that matter).  I just wonder how I could make this a consistent-discipline issue.  You know, so there’s reinforcement at home that supports what they do at school.  I’m always getting the impression that I am simply too permissive and that PZ will never learn to control her aggressive tendencies so long as I fail to provide appropriate consequences for her actions.  Do you think that the next time she hits someone at home, I should kick her out of the house?  Call the cops on her, maybe?  “Sorry, officers, I know you have burglaries and illegal lane-changes to investigate, in addition to being short on jail beds, but I just can’t have her hitting the staff.”  Hm.  Maybe there’s nothing I can learn here.

I assure you that I am not being sarcastic.  I am simply musing out loud.  You see, I’m at the end of my rope, but unlike in the school’s case, I can’t send out for more rope.  Believe me, I’ve looked into institutionalization.  It seems that is frowned upon these days. 

There is all this pressure to put PZ on medication–and it’s not wrong to put one’s child on medication, if she or he needs medication.  I want my child to be successful.  I am, in fact, much more personally invested in that scenario than anyone else I’ve met thusfar.  So I am not opposed to some pharmaceutical support–or as they say in education-ese, “the pharmaceutical piece.”  (Good lord, the principal said “piece” yesterday, and I thought I would deck her–and I wasn’t even angry, it was totally Pavlovian.)  Anyway, as I was saying, I have already gone down the pharmaceutical road.  We’ve tried a couple of different medications.  What they don’t tell you, or what I wasn’t prepared for, is that once you’ve succumbed to the pressure to put your child on drugs, there is the whole new pressure to get your child on a drug that will work instantly and not cause any additional problems.  The last drug we had PZ on appeared to make her more aggressive.  We don’t really know if it was the drug or not because there were so many variables at play, but I was not getting the message that it would be okay to give the drug time to build up in her system and know for sure one way or the other if it was working.  Because she was hitting the staff, you see.  And if she hits the staff, she can’t be at school.  But she has to be at school.  Because if she doesn’t go to school, she won’t get the benefits of school-going.  So she must go to school and not hit the staff, and I must find the magic happy pill that will make it happen, post haste. 

It isn’t that PZ’s teacher or principal or anyone really expects me to perform the aforementioned miracle–or rather, they would certainly deny having such an expectation, because it is obviously ridiculous.  But the pressure, I assure you, is there.  It ain’t going anywhere.  (Sort of like PZ’s behavior plan.)

1.  My father’s surgery went very well.  He’s expected to make a full recovery.  He has to use a walker for the next six weeks, something he finds humiliating, but at least it will keep him off the scooter for the time being. 

2.  Our anniversary was lovely.  We went to the fanciest restaurant of our restaurant-going career.  It was not as fancy as the fanciest restaurant of my solo career, which was when I went to the Rainbow Room in New York–on a friend’s expense account, I assure you.  I didn’t like the Rainbow Room.  It made me feel like scum.  And I didn’t think the food was all that.  But food tastes worse when you’re scum.  By contrast, the food at this Portland fancy-restaurant was worth every freaking penny–and we were paying for it ourselves!  I was also slightly more at ease in that atmosphere than at the Rainbow Room.  Probably because this was Portland, where even the rich are really laid-back.  Also, the wait staff was wonderful–although I remained quite convinced that they were better than I was, I didn’t feel like scum in their presence.  A good time was had by all. 

My husband has told me that after we pay off the minivan, we will be able to afford a housekeeping service twice a month.  Naturally I am stunned, inasmuch as I am not able to respond meaningfully to statements like, “Let’s go ahead and set that up.  I’ll leave the details to you.”  Part of me must think he’s playing an elaborate joke on me.  An elaborate, sick joke, of course, but it wouldn’t be the first time.  But no, he’s completely serious.  I actually need to set that up.  I need to manage the details.  So what is the problem?

The problem is that I can’t figure out for the life of me when someone (or a team of two someones) could come over here and clean my house.  I really don’t want to be here while they’re here.  More to the point, I don’t want Elvis here when they’re here.  (I myself am really not such a handful.  I’m very good at staying out from underfoot.)  The last time I had to work my schedule around a housekeeper (not my own, but a housekeeper for the family whose house I was housesitting), I only had two children, neither of whom were in school.  It was no big deal to take off and go gallavanting about town for a few hours, maybe even take a road trip–oh yeah, I was a regular free-wheeling hippie in those days.  Today it is not so simple.  The hours between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. are relatively calm.  But after 10 a.m. I have to get Elvis ready to go to school, put him on the bus, feed lunch to the remaining children, get Mister Bubby ready for school, put MB on the bus, put the baby down for a nap, and then Elvis comes home and it’s already 1 p.m.  Then it’s relatively calm until 2:20 p.m., when I have to throw everyone in the car to pick up MB, and after we get home there are about 40 minutes to kill until Princess Zurg’s bus arrives.  Then it’s 3:30 p.m.  It seems much simpler when I type it like that, actually.  But basically there’s 5 1/2 hours of prime daytime during which I find it difficult to go away from my house.  My house is such a handy location for feeding and clothing children and putting them on buses and down for naps and welcoming buses home.  I feel very constrained in my scheduling abilities.

Theoretically I could suck it up and make it work once every fortnight, especially if it meant that I was coming home to a house I did not clean.  I mean, there’s really nothing “theoretical” about it.  I can suck it up and I will.  I just can’t make the phone call wherein I say, “Please come and clean my house.  No, no time is good for me.  Come whenever and I’ll suck it up and make it work.”  I actually lost sleep over this last night.  I wouldn’t have lost sleep over it if the baby hadn’t already woken me up for the second time in four hours, but since I was already awake and my brain was turned on, it just kept being on and refusing to shut off and I kept telling myself, “Gaahhh!  It’s no big deal, just suck it up and make it work, it’s a freaking housekeeper, for the love of Mike, what is your problem?  You must act now before your husband loses his job or changes his mind!”  But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

I’m sure some of you will tell me that subconciously I am afraid to have a housekeeper because I have wanted one for so long and now that I’m finally getting one, I will have nothing left to long for, no luxury to which I can aspire without feeling excessive guilt over my increasing sloth.  Is that what you’re thinking?  Well, you’re wrong.  It’s really all about my baby’s nap and the stupid bus schedule.  Feel free to beat me over the head with your comments.

By simply pressing random keys, my baby has discovered keyboard shortcuts for functions I didn’t even realize existed.  Usually they are not functions I approve of.  You know what happens when I press random keys?  Nothing.  Not a damn thing.  She’s magic.

Homekeeping ABC Meme

Aprons - Y/N This reminds me of when I started feeding my first child real food, and I lamented, “Why don’t they make full-body bibs?” and my step-mother said, “They do.  They’re called clothes.”  No, I don’t wear aprons.  Not only does it require more foresight and planning than I am capable of on a typical day, but it ends up being just one more thing to clean.

Baking - Favorite thing to bake:  Chocolate chip cookies.  And carrot cake.  I make a very good carrot cake.

Clothesline - Y/N?  A clothesline is nice in theory, but not terribly practical for Oregon, except maybe in July and August.  Also, my kids would probably pull down all the clothes and run over them in the mud.

Donuts - Have you ever made them?   No.  My husband made fake doughnuts out of refrigerator biscuits once.  Those weren’t bad, but I don’t think the calories to good ratio was at all satisfactory.  I like my doughnuts made by others. 

Freezer - Do you have a separate deep freeze?  Yes, I do! 

Garbage Disposal -  Yes.  I lived in an apartment without a garbage disposal once.  The sink had a perpetual rotting-organic-matter smell that could not be combated with any tool of sink hygiene.

Junk Drawer - Y/N?  Dude, if only there were just one.

Kitchen - Color and decorating scheme?  The people who lived here before us decorated it country style, which isn’t our style, but we’re too lazy to change it.  We have some subtly ugly wallpaper with a border of stylized geese in the center of the wall that runs around the entire room.  Well, they were stylized, until a couple weeks after we moved in, when Princess Zurg decided to draw eyes on all of them.  I thought that was funny.  Then a couple days later she put wings on all of them.  At the time I found that less funny, but it didn’t take long to get over it.  I’m really not fond of the country goose theme.

Nylons -  Yes.  I’m old-fashioned.  But I don’t wear skirts very often, so I don’t feel the need to wear nylons most of the time.

Pizza - What do you put on yours?  Pepperoni because that’s all the children will eat.  Well, they’ll eat olives, too, but olives are DEESKUSTING, so I make the kids put those on themselves.  I don’t like to touch them.  The olives, not the kids.  The kids are okay.

Quiet -  That’s when I worry.

Vacuum - Kenmore.  It was a great vacuum up until it broke yesterday.  I think my husband put a temporary fix on it, which was very clever of him, but I don’t know how long it will last.

Wash - How many loads of laundry do you do per week?  About 12.

Zzz’s - What is your last homemaking task before going to bed?  Putting out for the husband.  Just kidding.  Um…the nighttime is kind of a blur for me.

So Girlfriend came out of retirement at last, but only briefly.  She had the decency to wait until both her father and I had been through the worst of the stomach flu ourselves, just as her siblings had the decency to get well before their parents became incapacitated. 

I’m still not sure about Elvis, though.  He acts fine.  He looks fine.  But yesterday evening he threw up a Cherry Slurpee.  I know, that’s not remarkable, as Cherry Slurpees are disgusting, but he’s only three.  He shouldn’t have such a sensitive palate.  The remarkable thing was that he threw up only the Cherry Slurpee and not the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he had consumed at around the same time.  It’s as though he’s mastered the art of selective puking.  Whereas I seemed to throwing up everything I’d eaten in the last week and a half.  That’s the only way I can explain the sheer volume.  I’m sorry, were you having breakfast?

So everyone’s well again–I think–but the house still reeks of vomit.  Fortunately the weather has been nice, so I’ve been keeping the windows open, but it hasn’t helped that much.  I suppose I should welcome your tips on neutralizing bile odors, but you should understand that I’m still finding places where Elvis threw up.  I know.  Ew.  Ew, ew, ew.  How can I live this way? you ask.  It’s a reasonable question, one I might have asked myself a child or two ago.  The answer is that you can live any way if you have to. 

The problem with getting behind on one’s laundry is that one is apt to find one’s entire family coming down with the stomach flu and expanding the volume of dirty clothes and linens far beyond what would occur with a normal growth rate.  Thus I find myself with two weeks’ worth of accumulated laundry in only five days.  I managed only to keep up with what was being hurled on.  (Well, all the stuff I could find, anyway.)  How did we manage to dirty so many other clothes in ways that did not involve stomach upset?  How did Lance Armstrong win all those bicycle races?  ‘Twas more than hard work and perseverence, children.  We are like the nightingale.  We cannot not sing. 

I very much want my children entirely out of my sight for the next 48 hours so I can get some work done.  Naturally, this means that no one has school tomorrow, so all children will be entirely in my sight and in my hair and under my feet and on my back for a very long weekend.  I suppose I shouldn’t worry too much about the house, since it will be a while before anyone wants to come over for dinner again.  I have a theory, anyway, that it’s cleaning of the house that makes any or all of us sick in the first place.  I’m starting to think it’s God’s plan for me to live in squalor, just as it’s his plan for me to be continually scrambling for babysitters at the last minute and exploiting my friendships for all they’re worth.  This humility thing can be a real b-word. 

Can you tell I vomited some crucial doses of Zoloft this week?

When someone asks you if you will do something, and you don’t want to do it–indeed, have no intention ever of doing it, in a million years–it’s okay to just say no.  You don’t have to make up an elaborate excuse, or even a lame one.  “No” works perfectly fine.  “I’m sorry, but that’s just not possible” also works fine.  They both have the added advantage of being true, as opposed to lies or “misleading statements.”  If you don’t want to do something and have no intention of doing it in a million years, then your doing it is most certainly not possible.  You see?  True and to the point.

It is not rude to tell someone what they’re asking is not possible for you to do.  It is rude to pretend that you really would do it, but you’re just not sure and um-you-could-get-back-to-me and then go behind my back and get some other person to tell me that you don’t really want to do it and could I please never ask you again in a million years, since you won’t even be considering the possibility until at least then.  For one thing, it’s not as though I’ve been harassing and/or pressuring you to do this on multiple occasions.  I asked you once, you did it, and implied that you would be willing do it again.  So I asked again.  Once again.  Not more than that. 

For another thing, I get from your tone of voice and mannerisms–which are never as subtle as people think they are–that you don’t want to do something, are indeed rather upset that I’ve asked, and I have adjusted my expectations accordingly.  If you really feel the need to make something explicitly clear to me, you owe me the pleasantry of telling me to my face, “Sorry, no.”  Even “Sorry, no, I am not able to do that ever, ’tis not in my program” is more pleasant than asking a mutual acquaintance to grind the sentiment into my face because you are too cowardly to do so. 

I don’t care if you’re young and easily intimidated by my general decency and implied desperation.  If you’re brave enough to have it done to me, you should be brave enough to do it yourself.  Yes, even if it seems mean.  I promise you, it is way less mean than what you actually did, which was a) pour salt in my wounds, and b) have the salt administered by someone who actually preferred to stay out of it and whom I would have preferred to stay out of it also.  That’s not nice.  Just in case you were wondering.

The bottom line is that life is not comfortable.  If you can’t face the discomfort of being honest with someone, you have to risk the discomfort of that person not reading your mind.  The irony is that years of experience have made me quite adept at reading people’s minds.  You would have been risking very little. 

You know what I hate?

I hate it when I’m cleaning up dinner at night and I think to myself, “That kitchen floor really needs to be swept.”  But I don’t want to sweep the kitchen floor because to sweep the kitchen floor, I would have to remove all the random toys and shoes and socks and papers that are for some reason living on my kitchen floor instead of someplace that would make sense for them to live, and it’s late and I want to watch Alias Season 5 or read a book.  So I say to myself, “I will sweep that kitchen floor tomorrow.”  And I watch Alias Season 5 and go to bed.

Then I get up the next morning and while everyone’s eating breakfast, my six-year-old spills his bowl of corn flakes all over the kitchen floor–and not that part of the floor that doesn’t have all manner of kitchen-inappropriate debris living on it.  No, he spills it right on top of debris central.  And that’s when I think to myself, “Why why why did I not clean the kitchen floor last night so that when my six-year-old spilled his bowl of corn flakes, I could clean it up with a few paper towels in a matter of 45 seconds?  No, I had to watch Alias Season 5 and go to bed, and now I will be spending some amount of time significantly longer than 45 seconds cleaning milk and soggy cereal off of all this crap.  And I hate hate hate soggy corn flakes.”

That’s what I hate.

As a single person, I cherished my alone time.  I h