Whyld Weekend

Okaynotreally wild, but... oh, jeez, I don't have time for adjectives if you want the skinny.

First of all there was the high school homecoming football game... that our team lost. But the cheerleaders were spectacular. This one was my favorite :

And there was no homecoming rain for the first time in many years!
Then there was Saturday, which was basically Jane running ragged... looking for jewelry, a certain makeup and double-faced tape to keep the dress in place - all necessary prep for the dance on Saturday night. Doesn't sound like much but the jewelry thing was a pain. Omega was at her 'day activity' - part of the daylong date process. Okay, I did sneak in quite a bit of shopping for myself. I didn't buy much but I enjoyed looking.
Then there were the standard manis and pedis to cure, hair to curl, not makeup to do, though. Mom doesn't do the makeup. Omega is quite the picky pants about the makeup.

Look! It's Homecoming Barbie!

And then we took lots of pictures and the boys came and we took even more pictures and then we sent them off:

Awww... so sweet... off to dinner and the dance!

Then I heaved a sigh and prepared to do some serious relaxing... but cleaned house until about 11, when I thought I was going to bed. Turns out the neighbor's dog was barking obnoxiously, which makes it hard to nod off, so Homer decided to go check out the situation. Ten minutes later, Pepperann started barking. Yes barking. It wasn't very loud or practiced but it was persistant. She barked and ran frantically from me to the backdoor to me to the front door back to me barking "Get up,dummy! There's treachery afoot!" Seriously, I expected to find that Timmy had fallen down a well.

Eventually, I got out of bed and I turned on the front lights... nothing. I turned on the back lights... nothing. Well, except for that cop shining a flashlight in Homer's face. And the cop was yelling and Homer was laughing so I opened the door and asked what was going on. The cop asked me if I knew that guy. I swear I only hesitated for like a few seconds before admitting ownership. Turns out someone had reported the barking dog and when the cops showed up, here was Homer hanging over the fence and when the cop shined his flashlight on him, as the cop put it 'He looked like a deer in the headlights'. So I explained to the officer that the dog had been barking and Homer was trying to calm him because the dog likes Homer. The officer was pissed because he was shining the light in Homer's face and Homer was putting his hand up to block the light and the cop told him that if he didn't drop his hand, he was going to have to 'put him down'. Thus the cop yelling and Mr. Bad Judgment laughing at the cop.

After giving Homer severe stink eye, and telling the cop how to block the dog door so the dog would be trapped inside the house next door - hell, I wasn't going to get in the middle of the mess and risk getting 'put down' - I grabbed Homer and pushed him into the house - suppressing the urge to tell the cop he was mentally challenged.

Men, I swear! I'm sure they both were justified in their actions... the cop had no idea what kind of a nut he was dealing with... and Homer probably had every right to look surprised by a flashlight in the face, but I don't even want to think about what would have happened if the Princess hadn't sensed that there was a whole bunch of stupid going on outside.

Sunday was my big day. I went shopping for a clothes washer. Woo hoo. I'm only being slightly facetious. The old Kenmore has put in almost 25 years and it just ain't all that it used to be. I've been drooling over the new high efficiency models and I think I have my new laundry partner picked out. I looked at several retailers around town, who were selling basically all the same stuff but it was Leonard at the H'Depot that captured my heart, because he was the only one who mentioned that I would get $150 in rebates from my local utilities. I *heart* Leonard. I am hoping to *heart* LG very soon.

In other exciting Sunday news, Homer made some awesome shrimp fettucine for dinner, so... I may have to keep him for a bit longer.
And today the countdown begins... FIVE days until vacation! And, be jealous because it's a week-long chick-trip!
Happy Monday every buddy!

Freezer Love

Ever have one of those cumulatively crappy days
where nothing stands alone
as the single big brown stain on your day,
but by 5 o'clock you are exhausted
from trying to dodge every little annoyance that gets shot at you?
Like… say for instance, you get bike grease on your white linen pants,
your stapler jams - over an over again,
your husband sends you an irritating email,
your lunch order gets screwed up,
your water bottle jumps from your bike
SIXTY-THREE
actual blocks from home…
and springs a leak...
on top of the usual job-related irritations and
THEN
when you get home feeling SO hungry
you think you will truly DIE,
you discover that you are one bouillon cube short of dinner.
Yeah, JUST like that!

Well, don’t give up hope, campers.
Because just as you are sitting there,
crumpled in the corner holding your little empty Wyler’s jar
and wishing you were Samantha Stevens
so you could twitch your nose and conjure up a cube or two,
you may get an idea.
You might suddenly remember freezing a container of chicken stock a few weeks back!
And when you madly plow through your freezer,
getting more and more frustrated
because not only can't you find the broth
but you CAN find at least a half dozen single waffles,
37 yellow Italian ices,
some foil wrapped frozen mysteries, and no...
could it be?
Why yes!
Yes it is!
Something that has eluded capture for at least 3 months!
And suddenly chicken stock and dinner and all the day's bad things evaporate.
And when your daughter comes home and sees you sprawled on the floor
in front of the open fridge,
licking a wooden stick,
and she asks how your day was, you will smile and say
“Splendid!"
Because Jesus sent you a Dove bar.

Momma always said 'Fair only happens in September'

I was thinking:

Is it really fair to put the Republican National Convention on hold
because of Hurricane Gustav?
I mean, haven't those people down south suffered enough?
It seems like they should be allowed to miss a couple days
of extreme politicking for all their trouble.

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?