Stupid Hat

So I am meeting my sister-in-law for a night out. I always have fun going out with her because she attracts interesting, creative people. We meet in a bar where everything is a shade of brown, so the whole place has a kind of 40's feel. At some point she pulls out a hat she has been making to show me. It is very, umm, interesting. It looks like something Lady Gaga might wear, as far as the construction of it. It is made of flexible wire wrapped in fabric. It is circular in shape, so it wants to keep folding up on itself. It sort of holds its shape as long as someone is wearing it, but then it folds itself back into a flat circle as soon as you take it off. The coolest thing about it is the fabric, which is a pale greyish pink silk. The whole thing is pretty feminine, except for the fact that wires keep poking me in the side of the head. I laid the hat down, but then when it came time to move on to another place, K freaked out that I wasn't wearing the hat. She insisted that I put it back on. It was raining out, and I tried to fold it back up and put it away, but she was adamant that I wear it (as if it was doing anything to keep the rain off). When we got to the next place, she was very upset with me. "How am I supposed to sell any hats if I can't even get you to wear one?" I was thinking, but didn't say, that it might help to sell a hat if it actually looked like a freakin' hat. Instead, I tried to humor her by wearing the flimsy pink covered spiral for the rest of the night as we went from place to place. Not the funnest time I have ever had with her, and probably the first time I was the weirdest member of her entourage.

Grind on This

So I went to the dentist today for a routine cleaning, blah blah blah. No cavities, some sensitive spots, still grinding my teeth. I can't wear a mouthpiece because I literally chew it up and spit it out in my sleep. I have resisted getting a custom one because a) the geek factor and b) the expense, but the dentist doesn't push it. Instead, he asks if I have had anything especially stressful going on since my last visit.

Well, Dr. Brad, there's the fact that my husband lost his job last summer. He has been trying to get a business of his own up and running, some months with more success than others. In the meantime, I am covering all of the household bills, which now include health and dental insurance, but not B's orthodontic expenses. My job is OK, although sometimes my boss annoys the crap out of me. I cover her butt all the time and make excuses and apologies for her. I don't like looking helpless, which I fell this does, but I haven't got a better option yet. Working on it, secure in the knowledge that she probably wouldn't fire me even if I did nothing, because she knows I could get her in trouble.

I am driving a van with 207,000 miles on it and no idea when we will be able to replace it. The fan makes a screeching noise which I hide by cranking up the (high-quality factory) radio. I am not paying daycare and try to pretend I don't know where that money is coming from. I also cross my fingers every time it storms because we have random leak in our roof, in addition to all of the other assorted things that need done to our house. I would secretly wish for a tornado to come along if I didn't suspect that our homeowner's insurance is woefully inadequate.

The apartments are doing OK, although they are not exactly an asset these days. We are only spending money on the essentials and putting things off as much as we can. I am trying to think of a cool birthday gift/party for B that doesn't cost a fortune.

Aside from the money stress, one of my children managed to bring home head lice, which is a pain in the butt I don't need right now. I have been washing and treating everything in sight, trying to get rid of them before a whole baseball team gets them. And speaking of baseball, L and D's coach is all worried about what color of socks and pants do we want and do we want their names on their shirts, blah blah blah. I would grab her by the shoulders and tell her to shut her pie hole and let them actually practice instead of playing in the dirt, except she outweighs me by at least 50 pounds.

Add to that the fact that I have been just generally down for the last couple of weeks. I have really wished I had someone to talk to about all of this, but I have no idea who that would be. Facebook is useless, not close enough to my family members to tell them everything that is on my mind, and the couple of people I might otherwise open up to are busy with their own lives right now. So does that leave me unloading to my hair stylist? Nope, can't afford her right now. My dentist? To his question about stress, I just said "Mmmm, not really."

And I go out into the world with a big smile to show off my nice clean teeth, hoping no one notices that the smile doesn't quite reach the rest of my face.

Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down

Thumbs down first:
Rainy weather (wouldn't be bad if it wasn't 40 degrees too)
Head lice
Birds that keep trying to build a nest under the porch

Thumbs up:
Saturday went really well. I think everyone had fun.
It's confirmed - D is super smart :)
Got an unsolicited compliment from my boss, which almost never happens!
The Social Network

And this:



Heard it the other day. I have always liked this song, but almost never hear it played for some reason.

Oh yeah, and a big thumbs up to Butler!!!

Temptation

Did not give in to the temptation to text a former someone to tell him that the carnival is town :)

Did give in to the temptation to drink too much red wine last night. (does mixing it with black cherry kool-aid so I can drink in front of my kids indicate an alcoholic tendency or just my hypocrisy?)

Neither of these are the thing that kept me awake until 1:30, but I am not sure what did. Perhaps the thought that we might be selling the motorcycle? Not really my bike or my decision, but I will miss it if it goes. It's the best way in the world to be alone under the pretense of being together.

Just Say Yes

I have heard this song three times in two days:



Corny, but it is taking my mind off the f***ing computer virus I have been trying to remove since yesterday. (I know how how it happened and the guy is literally a dickhead.) Also keeping me from thinking as much about the happiness issue. If the computer starts cooperating again, I will post the link and the thought(s).

Google the Clown

Never trust Google. I just found out that googling my name brings up the fact that I was kicked out of clown school. This is only partially true. I was actually kicked out of not one, but three different clown schools.

The first time was not my fault. I was young and impetuous. I did not understand the time commitment or the discipline that was expected of me when I wrote that check for $300 to the Clown College of the Ozarks. Even though I was asked to leave CCO, I did not give up my dream of being a clown.

After a couple of years of dead-end jobs, I finally saved enough money to go to a real clown college. But fortune was not on my side - I kept botching even the basics as I tried to develop my clown character. On the day we practiced walking in floppy shoes, I fell down and broke my jaw. It was OK that I couldn't talk, as that fit my character. But the next week when we introduced our characters, all the make-up and frizzy hair in the world didn't hide the head gear I had to wear.

The instructor decided I might be better as a sidekick. Trying to get on the good side of my clown team partners, I offered my car for practicing to see how many of us could fit. Unfortunately, a Fiat really is just made for two people - one to steer and one to push. All of those other clowns were just dead weight, but that didn't keep them from voting me off of Clown Island like some kind of loser.

In my third attempt, I decided maybe I was meant to be a sad clown instead. Problem was, people aren't supposed to laugh at a sad clown, and I kept doing things that made people laugh at me, just not in a good way. I finally decided to take what I had learned in clown school and apply it to a new career.

What did I have to work with? A nice collection of plaid jackets and colorful scarves. A court order to quit lurking around places where children gather. The ability to maintain the same expression, no matter what ridiculous sob story or hilarious excuse people came up with.

And that is how I came to work for the IRS.

The Good and the Bad and the Alternative

BUTLER!!!
Tulips!!!

L and D's first t-ball practice is tonight

Sis Campbell's husband died yesterday, very suddenly, and I have been thinking about her family ever since.
My mom just called to tell me that Roger passed away yesterday.

Had a very strange dream that the event I am planning for Saturday had about a thousand people show up, when I am expecting maybe 50 at the most. Needless to say, I was not prepared and I woke up a bit anxious.

B had his first sleepover at Andrew-with-two-mom's house. Expect more on this topic in the future LOL

Daily Disaster

Yesterday when I came home, the tree trimmers had trimmed the neighbor's tree, AND DRAGGED ALL OF THE LIMBS ACROSS OUR YARD FROM BACK TO FRONT TO A STACK IN OUR YARD! It was a big tree, and granted some of the limbs were on our side of the fence, but the stack in our front yard looks awful.

So this morning, the tree trimmers were back. This time, a guy in the neighbor's yard was handing the limbs off to a guy in our yard, who was, you guessed it, dragging the limbs all the way from the back yard to the front. The stack now runs the length of the whole front curb.

I was already thinking the whole thing was pretty obnoxious, considering none of our trees needed trimmed, when I came around the corner of the house to the back yard. I would have taken a picture, except the lens on my camera wouldn't quite take in the picture that greeted me.

Apparently, after trimming the tree in the yard behind us, they tackled the one in the yard beside us. I guess their plan for this tree might have been similar to the plan for the other one, except it included cutting a major branch of the tree, about two feet in diameter. Judging from the nice smooth cut, things were going according to plan. Judging from the pile of debris embedded in what used to be a 14-foot snap set pool, the plan was immediately abandoned.

Whether or not they return to clean up without a few threats remains to be seen.

Strange Dreams

Last night's dream started with a hometown basketball tournament, complete with a fish fry, and ended with my pseudo sister-in-law and I being serenaded by some skeezy biker standing on a cafeteria table singing this song:



Stressful times right now, especially for a control freak who is in control of nothing, but I am pretty sure it was just a random dream.

Current Events Suck

Read about Charlie Sheen, make the jump to Alec Baldwin, waiver between breaking news of Lindsey Lohan and one of the Kardashian sisters, feel vaguely ill so I switch to the NCAA page to look at the Final Four bracket, realize it will take more time, go back to regular home page, you get the idea. I almost never give a flip about celebrity gossip or a lot of what passes for news, so why have I been wasting time on this?

Ahh, because the alternative is to keep scrolling with horror through the pictures from Japan.

I am not a conspiracy theorist or a predictor of the end times, but this year is sure shaping up to be a crazy one. Birds falling out of the sky on New Year's Eve, a serious of earthquakes, including those in the county that borders mine, massive unrest in the Middle East, political idiocy run rampant in the US, floods and tsunami, this year is hopefully not the precursor to the end of the world in 2012 as predicted.

And if it is going to end in 2012, please for the love of chocolate and all things holy, let it be before I have to listen to Michelle Bachman run for president.

I Need Coffee

Lies I have told purposely to children:

• I told B that Radio Disney, which is located in my office building, only broadcasts for a 5 mile radius. I was afraid if I let him put it on, I would have to listen to it the for whole hour on the way home.
• I told the neighbor kid, after repeated requests to swim completely naked in our pool, that the chemical we put in it would make his boy parts shrivel up and fall off.

Burning questions I have:

• How does putting someone's name and dates of birth/death on the back glass of your car help you remember that person?
• Should I be concerned that every time I see someone who looks a little weird, they look at me and say or do something that implies they think I am the strange one?
• In what universe does my asking you a general question about your health equal you sending me copies of your x-rays?
• Why have I spent the whole afternoon listening to this?

Yikes!

I thought I saw a vampire in the restroom at work today. She had dark hair, severely pulled back to show off her pale skin and red lips. I looked away before she flashed her teeth we could make eye contact and saw that she was wearing these:

In retrospect, she probably was less of a vampire than just another southern soul wishing so desperately for spring that she broke out the footwear a bit early and ended up looking like this:

Well, OK (Well, Crap, Part 2)

I did obsess a little, off and on, but now I am moving on. How did I manage that? you ask. Simple really. I do what stubborn, self-centered people often do - I took passive-aggressive action and revised history to match what I wish had happened. I may not have been right in the first place, but I am right now :-) And two months from now, you will have a hard time convincing me the whole thing wasn't my very own idea. Unless it doesn't work out, in which case I will do what stubborn, self-centered people often do - I will find a way to blame my epic fail on everything but my own laziness and insecurity :-)

Looking back, this post will seem either too vague, or too familiar, to pin down the event to which it is tied. As a reminder to myself about the context, I am going to say only "Script Frenzy". And for all the good it will do, I am also reminding myself to concentrate on the big picture instead of the details.

Well, Crap

I was going to waste a Friday afternoon doing the following:

• trying to think of a clever theme for an event
• coming up with post about my lame fascination with garden gnomes 
• tracking down the source of the song I heard yesterday 

Instead, I made the mistake of first being too curious, consequently discovering something where I should have left well enough alone, and spending the whole afternoon fending off a panic attack.

OK, so I am not really prone to panic attacks. That's hyperbole for focusing more on a personal issue rather than work, and because it happened in the afternoon, and I didn't get a satisfactory conclusion, I will spend the whole drive home obsessing about it.

And I really just wanted to find a cool pic of a garden gnome :-(

Random Thoughts of the Week

Spring! Tulip trees are in bloom, and the first jonquils are blooming across the street.
Feeling much better finally. No episodes today (so far) for the first time in three weeks.
Still kind of at loose ends, but holding on to the vague feeling that something good is just around the bend.
And I might as well say it, I have been thinking of Him a lot this week. I am not missing him in a sad way, just hard not to think of him because random associations keep popping up:

• he recently had a birthday
• last year at this time, I paid attention to NCAA Basketball in for the first time in about 15 years, just because he was paying attention to it. It's that time again.
• I have also been thinking about signing up for a fantasy football league (if they get things sorted out), and wouldn't mind have someone to talk to about it first.
• I heard what I thought might turn out to be my stripper song today, but it turned out to be more something someone would say to me rather than me to them (quit talking, start ...)
• read an email from Todd B that indirectly referenced him (and that I thought had been long-deleted, BTW. F***ing Facebook)
• Oh yeah, and L might be ready to buy a second rig. The first one he and B picked up in Kolona, IA, but I went to DC instead. This one is in California and might turn into a better road trip.

Mostly a good week though, and the promise of some better times to come.

Billy Goes to School

When I was in the 6^th grade, our teacher assigned us a show and tell project. This was no ordinary show and tell project. Over the next few months, each of us would be allowed to bring a pet to school. We would tell about the type of animal our pet was, and anything we wanted to tell about our pet in particular.

My presentation was months away. I had a dog. I wasn’t worried.

Over the next month, I realized that other kids had dogs too, and mine was nothing special. I really wanted my presentation to be special. I had a horse, but I doubted the school would allow me to bring a horse. My dad didn’t let us have indoor pets, so no hamster or turtle, and he despised cats. Other than a fat, lazy dog, who only knew one trick, what did I have?

I had Billy. Billy had silky black hair, and gentle brown eyes. He was fun and friendly and followed me everywhere. He would be a big hit.

That night, I asked my mom if she could bring Billy to school for my presentation. She asked when it was, and then said, “Sorry, I have to take your grandma to the doctor that day”. Yeah, right, Grandma goes to the doctor two, maybe three times a year. What are the odds she had to go on the same day as my presentation? But the odds were not in my favor. I would have to come up with another idea. I thought some more.

This was my first experience with the planning and logistics for a special event, and what an event it would be, if everything worked out. My plan hinged on three things: 1^st, my mom would have to be able to bring or take Billy to the school one way, if she couldn’t do both. 2^nd, a man named Dave would have to be willing to help. And 3^rd, the school would have to allow me to bring a goat to school. That’s right, Billy the Goat was going to school!

Believe it or not, the plan came together. On the day of my presentation, my mom loaded Billy in her Ford Bronco and dropped him off at the school. I knew he had arrived when we heard a commotion outside and someone saying, “OMG, a goat”.

Our school was long and narrow, with a covered breezeway along one side. In front of each entrance was a boot scraper. The boot scrapers were about this tall and this wide, with a strip along the bottom. I don’t recall ever using them for anything besides amateur gymnastics. I am pretty sure I had never seen one used as a hitching post for a goat.

When it was time for my presentation, the class gathered and went outside. Seems it was OK to bring a goat to school, but not in the school. I untied Billy and led him around while I told my classmates about goats. Then I let people pet him and ask questions. What does he eat? Everything. What does do? Not much, and no, he doesn’t know any tricks. Then I gave him some water and tied him up until it was time to go meet Dave.

Dave was what my parents referred to as a “hippy”. He was married to someone named Melody. She didn’t wear any makeup like the other moms did. They had a son. Most of the boys in my class had New Testament names, like David, and Steven, and Mark. Their son had an Old Testament name. Dave, Melody and Jonah could be seen driving around town in a green VW micro bus…when Dave and Melody were not behind the wheels of bright yellow public school buses. That’s right, Billy was riding the bus!

As we boarded the bus, it occurred to me that maybe Dave hadn’t actually asked for permission to let Billy ride. He motioned for us to sit right here, pointing at that seat no one likes. You know, the one right behind the driver where there is nobody to talk to, nothing to see, nothing to do except kick the panel between you and the back of the driver’s seat. “Keep him off of the seat and out of the aisle”, said Dave.

No problem. Billy was a pro. He didn’t try to hide under anyone’s seat. He didn’t bite anyone. He didn’t make a mess on the floor (unlike some people’s pets).

When I got home, I turned Billy loose. That night at dinner, my Dad asked how my project had gone. “OK”, I said. “What’s wrong? Will you get a good grade?” “Oh sure, it was all about the presentation. I did fine.”

Over the next few weeks, I sat through a few more presentations about dogs. I came to realize that Billy was no more special than an old dog. In fact, he was kind of a pain in the butt. He was meant to eat weeds and brush around our property. Instead, he mostly hung around the house, where he made a mess of the garbage and left hoof prints on my mom's car. But he was special in the fact that he was the only goat to visit our school, and got to ride the bus, no less!