Summer Remorse

I woke up Monday morning with a grump in my gut. You know that unidentifiable unease that can't be explained away by eating bad leftovers? Like maybe you slept through your birthday or forgot to wear underwear to church. I finally recognized it as opportunity lost... a bad case of the shoulda-woulda-couldas.

School started here last Monday and the Labor Day weekend is upon us. That means summer is pretty much over. Not every mother looks forward to the start of school like those office supply advertisements would have you believe. Some of us are just too contrary for that. For me the school year means a big bag of extra responsibilities - time grabbers and money suckers. Understand that I do love my kids, and I am proud of their accomplishments, but parenting is a much full-er time job during the school year. Put that in the blender with the other full-time jobwithbenefits and the need for sleep and you get School-Year Jane, who is no one's favorite person.

As the school year drags on I get behinder and behinder. So I tend to lower my standards a bit, which helps for a week or so. Then the holidays loom and I go through the great ideas -> lesser ideas -> buy gift cards and slap a bow on them cycle... for which I suffer immense heaps of guilt. Then comes the new year, with new hopes and ideas for projects... but there are always things that must be done before the projects get started... and then I'm out of time.

As spring arrives I start looking to the horizon - June!! School is out!! Life will be simpler! Time will be mine! Hahahaha. Even now I see the naivete of my thinking. But still I hope. I tell myself that when summer comes I'll finally have time to:

• Dejunk the house
• Organize the storage
• Clean out the closets
• Scan and albumize pictures - OMG, the millions of pictures
• Transfer and edit movies, YEARS worth
• Empty the dishwasher... kid-ding
• Clean out the garden shed where everybody dumps their $^&* sh!t!
• And the patio... can no one put away their perpetual piles of effing sprinkler parts?
  Refinish this, paint that, repair all those other little things

But then summer comes and the day job becomes intense... and vacation looms, and then the post-vacay recovery period lumbers on... and on... And very soon the retail freaks are all 'Back to School Time everybody'! And I start to panic... so I grab something... ANYthing off the list. This year's winner was the garden shed. It is clean... it is organized... it is a thing of beauty. But it won't stay that way. *sigh*

And now summer is almost over and you might just as well put me in a dark cupboard and feed me left over pizza crusts because sometimes I feel like that would be a much more productive life for me.

Okay... pity party ends.... now.

What a crime

This morning as I headed toward the master bath to zip through my pre-work beauty routine, I was assaulted by a horrific cloud of post-intestinal Indian Curry odor. My toenails curled and my shadow (PepperAnn) whimpered as we popped a quick 180 and ran for the safety of the hallway... where we met up with the alledged perpetrator.

I said "Dude! Have you no mercy? THAT toxicity coming from the bathroom is exactly the reason some brilliant woman invented the vent fan. For the sake of keeping the paint on the walls, please use it!"
Notice I said please.

I think Homer started to apologize but caught himself and took the more traveled route. "I can't do anything right in your eyes, can I?"

Well, as long as he'd opened that door, I was about to mention the fact that he only poured me a measly little half glass of Diet Dew to lure me out of bed this morning, when he jumped in with "I even gave you all of the Dew this morning while I drank the ice tea that I planned to take to work instead."

"Um, hun-nee... there was a full 2-liter bottle in the door of the fridge and you can take those cold-brew tea bags to work and make yourself some ice tea in like, 5 minutes." I rebutted.
He looked like he was thinking and opened his mouth... but it was just a false alarm.

Case rests.
'IN YOUR EYES' shall be stricken from the record.

Procrastination Incorporated

I know I keep saying I'm going to move over here for good. Really... I am... I can feel it getting close.

Blaaahg!

I’m thinking about starting a new blog called ‘On the Verge of Widowhood’ or ‘ALMOST a Single Mother’. What do you think? It would probably have to be replaced eventually by ‘Jane on the Chain Gang’ or ‘Tales from the Pokey’ because that is the way my luck is rolling these days. I won’t bore you with the details right now because I am still unable to laugh about the situation and I am not in the mood to cry.

In other good news: my car is falling apart. Remember the hit she took last year from the parking lot rager? The 4-second backstory: guy in parking lot backs up to shake a finger at dude who almost hit him and succeeds at hitting me. I don’t know if that is relevant but anycrap, yesterday I noticed a rattling coming from the front passenger side of my car. After I picked up Omega, I asked her to listen as I drove through the parking lot. She rolled down the window, looked out and pointed out that what she thought should be a small crack between two car pieces, was now a gaping chasm. Translation: front bumper falling off. Upon closer examination at home, I noticed that the entire wheel well liner thingy is GONE! And the bumper is, in fact, detached. There doesn’t appear to be any damage to the bumper or any of the other remaining parts of the car. Anyone out there know how something like this happens? It is not old or rusty or American made on a Friday or Monday and I don’t believe I have run over anything. WTH?

Is it not even possible to buy corded phones anymore? I am so sick of not being able to find a phone at home. People take them, use them and then leave them to die so that the locater beeper fails to function, the phone doesn’t ring and voice mails pile up.
Some people just don’t ‘get’ the cell phone concept. If I give you my cell phone number and I say ‘that’s the best way to reach me’ I mean ‘USE THAT NUMBER, RETARD!’
Ahem, sorry. That was uncalled for.

The forecast for the next 4 days looks like a March flashback… again.

Open enrollment for health bennies ends today so I need to decide whether to stay with our current coverage or go back to the old, cheaper plan, and I need to estimate how much money to put in my Flex account. I socked away $1000 bucks last year thinking that I could surely squeeze out a pair of glasses with the leftovers… yeah, not. With two months to go, I am fundless and blind, and that means I won’t get reimbursed for all the over-the-counter meds that I have purchased in the last 10 months. Yes, I know, I should track this kind of stuff so I know for next year. If you were my real friend, you would know that on this particular paragraph here I am just looking for pity, not advice.

It is looking like another weekend where I won’t make much progress on the Patty potty project. She is gone again and the daughter’s crackhead boyfriend will be staying there to babysit the pitbulls – none of with which I want to deal. She is under the same graduation deadline that I am, and yes, I know I could just say ‘screw it’ but that’s not the way I roll. I committed to the project and I will do my best on it… IF I ever get the chance.

So… that’s most of my sad story, not including my bad hair day… and the fact that my pants, socks and shoes are 3 different colors of khaki. I know! You see how pitiful I have become?

Meeting Madness

Brain Dead
byJane

I sat in a meeting today.
So much of nothing to say.
They all droned on
As I did yawn.
This job is not worth the pay.

Acronyms and jargon did fly.
Too many letters to try
To grasp all the crap
That they shoved in my lap.
Could somebody just tell my Y.?

My eyes they started to glaze.
My mind got lost in a haze.
I just wasn't able
To keep my head off the table
So they said 'Is that how she prays?'

'Yada, yada... yada some more.'
'Eighty, 6%, 3.4'
Stop talking you guys!
I'm beyond sounding wise,
Cuz my brain has slid to the floor!

I'm a bit sprung

I'm almost happy to be back to the office job today... almost. I'm not going to say 'back to work' because that would make it sound like the rest of my life is just naps and needlepoint.

Saturday was pretty swell. I punished myself with a few hours of housework and then spent 3 or 4 hours with Alpha, shopping for a prom dress. She must have tried on over 50 dresses at two malls. The dress she finally picked out will surely stop a few hearts, especially when you add the updo and silver, high-heeled sandals. We tried to talk her into lower heels, for comfort's sake, but she feels that a girl should take full advantage of having a boyfriend who is 6'4". She makes a good arguement. Yesterday, she practiced walking around the house in the sandals, looking all DaisyDuke in her short, shorts and 6 miles of leg.

Saturday night I met Cindy and Angie for dinner and margaritas. That was so fun, but next time I'm going to get a big girl marg, like they had... mine ran out much too soon. Then I went home, watched most of the Jazz game and crraasshheddd!!! Whoever says that shopping is relaxing? They lied!

Sunday was the killer. It was beautiful weather so I mowed the lawn and did a bunch of tidying around the yard. Our house is on the side of a hill and there is a retaining wall on one side of the front yard. It has always looked a bit screwy where it ties into the street, so I decided to see what I could do. I thought it would be a matter of adding 2 blocks to the current configuration. Haha! Yeah, 12 blocks later, it's fixed. That doesn't sound like a big deal unless you take into figuration that the 12 blocks had to be toted from the back yard and then laid at least 10 times each, because by now you know me well enough to know that they had to be level 6 ways and perfectly aligned front to back. I am paying in my shoulder and butt muscles today. My fingers are raw from handling the blocks... yes, I do know I should have worn gloves but it was only going to be TWO blocks, remember? And my back is killing me, not because of the lifting, but because of the 2" slice of skin that peeked out between my tank top and shorts... that place where I didn't think to put sunscreen. And my feet are a bit angry because I recklessly dove into a full day of flip-flopping without properly breaking in my toe crotches. But enough whining! My body parts and I have been begging for spring to come and the weather to warm so we just need to buck up and take it like the woman we are... I am... whatev.

Never fear, though, the lovely weather is scheduled to end on Wednesday. Maybe it's good that it doesn't come all at once... gives me time to lick my wounds and do a little needlepoint. Ha... as if. Does anyone even do needlepoint anymore?

Later: I have now linked my dinner partners to their sites, so that no other innocent bloggers will be marked with the shame of having fraternized with crazy Jane. It was fun, but it went so dang fast.
One of the funny moments:
"OMG, I'm having a hot flash... can you tell?"
"Uh uh."
"Really? I mean, can't you feel that?"
The other two hold up their hands as if warming them on a fire.
"Nope"
"Not at all."

Anything you say can and will be used against you...

Thursday morning Love talk in Jane's kitchen:

Jane: There's the leash you were looking for.
(Jane opted not to help Homer look for the dog's leash last night, so he used the belt from her leather coat to walk the dog in an attempt to agitate and punish her for not finding the leash for him. Another time he used an extension cord.)

Homer, sputters: Uh.
(He wants to say 'How the heck did I miss that?' but that would be too much like admitting this was not Jane's fault.)

Jane: It was right there on the counter...

Homer: Well, it's supposed to be hung up behind the door.

Jane: ... where you always leave it... on that counter there.

Homer: Yeah, but you're supposed to pick up after me.

Jane , turns to hug Alpha goodbye and whispers: I'm going to kill him.

Alpha: Okay, just wait until Omega and I are gone.

Homer: Wait for what?

Alpha (smiles): You'll see. (reconsiders) No, you probably won't see... not if she does it right.
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Have a super weekend every buddy!
Don't even worry about Homer...