IQ infusion at 10 am, please

i swear GNC or some organization of that persuasion was selling stupid pills in bulk on sale last week.

i swear the majority of people flying out of the greater bal-wash area this past week were hopped up on stupid pills.

i swear i speak english 99.9999999% of the time, so it can't be me that is the problem.

where did all the stupid people come from? really. i seriously need to know before i go back to work again tomorrow. we are talking about a bigger breed of stupid than usual. it's less responsive to the spoken language. it's more resistant to reason. and, (i have to know this also) how can i actually feel my IQ dropping after 10 am when the stupid people enter the airport?

when you see a rope stretched across an area, and right next to that rope is a kind of a doorway, and on the other side of the doorway is another rope..... where should you enter? i mean really? should we limbo? maestro... a calypso beat, if you don't mind. maybe that's part of the test. you can't get on the plane if you can't crawl under this rope. my money's on the magic doorway, personally. and then you won't have to push on grandma's head to get her ducked under the rope. i'm so not kidding. keep laughing.

the guidelines for carryon luggage are actually posted on the internet on every airline's website and the website for tsa. really. go look. unless you live under a rock, you know that there's some kind of deal with liquids and there has been some kind of deal with liquids since 2006. so you'd know to either not bring them with you at all or find a way to get the guidelines and figure out what you can and cannot bring. (and if you live under a rock, you probably can't operate a seatbelt, telephone, or a mouse and therefore shouldn't get on an airplane anyway.) now that you're in the airport with things you cannot have, you need to follow the rules and not argue with those of us that do not live under rocks and know the guidelines inside and out; especially those of us that have the power to take your airline tickets away from you if you threaten us with bodily harm. i need a supervisor and a law enforcement officer on lane two, please.

stop the x-ray machine, please. we have four options here for that duffel bag, miss. we can continue to try to balance that bad boy on top of two grey bins. or we could line up four little blue bowls and see if it fits any better on top of those. we could put the bag directly on the x-ray belt, since it clearly is too big for the bins and bowls. or lastly, we could stand two bins up on their edges and squish the bag in between them, kind of like making a box. i'm gonna go for option c, but that's just my expert opinion. you do what feels right to you, mmkay? roll the belt and let's see what she decides.

if you have a prescription from a doctor for an over-the-counter bottle of liquid, you pretty much need the little sticker part that says RX on it for it to be a prescription. if it came in a box with a sticker..... you pretty much need the box with the sticker. the phrase "prescription strength" doesn't cut it. buh-bye. in the trash. yes, even $20 tubs of butt-cream and $68 bottles of acne wash.

you can be angry. but do not be angry at me for your ignorance.

i told you not to wrap those presents. i totally wasn't kidding. no, i don't have any scotch tape.

"please take your large electronic items out of their bags." "put them into a grey bin all by themselves, lonely, alone, scared and afraid." "all by themselves means nothing on top or underneath." did i stutter? did i accidentally slip into swahili? what part did you miss? the pronoun? it was implied. it was you, plural, meaning all of y'all. if you take a laptop out of it's bag, and then put the bag on top of it........ wait for it........ this is good, i promise....... it, uh, looks to me like it's still in the bag, folks. that's why i said "all by itself." don't make me come out there and teach bin 101, using your laptop as an example.

honey, i'm wearing shoes. i'm not trying to take your shoes. you and your 8,122 bags are seriously clogging up my lane and i want you to move faster. here are your shoes. next time, i'd opt for slip ons, as opposed to those thigh-high lace-up jobbies. and what the hell is the deal with all the 2 year olds wearing metal-studded belts? yeah. it has to come off. it's made of metal. it can't come through the metal detector any more than your cell phone can. duh. do you have to put the belt back on the 2 year old right here? can't it wait until you get your junk together?

lordy lordy lordy, i go back again tomorrow.

pray my sarcasm wears off by then, or some peoples are gonna be flying outta here with their skin flayed off.

teaser

you may want a little alone time...i know i need some now.....

sipping hot chocolate, steaming in a tall ceramic mug, soft sage microfleece shrugged about my shoulders. thoughts of you fill my head. a long sip, savoring the heat and sweetness on my tongue; a long blink, savoring the heat and sweetness of your touch. longing for another stolen moment.

imagining your long fingers and wide palm gliding down my hourglass curve. the light grasp of your hand as it reaches my thigh. the anticipation of your fingers loosening their grip, but still in light contact with my trembling skin. one finger slides underneath the seam of my lace and grazes the very outer lips, hidden between my thighs. my breath catches; your finger presses. within those folds, you find a deep well of warm honey, the center of my passion. my eyes flutter as you thrust another finger inside and turn your hand just so; your fingertips alternate against a secret place while your thumb busies itself against my pearl. i writhe for you, breathy sighs escape me in my pleasure. i feel your grin against my thigh as you nibble, hot breath spilling over my moist skin. i shudder. i hold your head in my hands, threading my fingers through your hair and moaning as you add a flash of heat from your tongue to my swollen trembling.

sweet release breaks upon me, crashing from my core and rippling out to the ends of my toes, my fingers, each strand of hair on my head. ragged panting, i scream, quivering and tense, your fingers and tongue slowing with me. light kisses fall on my unsteady thighs, my pink and pulsing lips, my heaving breasts, neck and chin. my mouth devours yours, tasting my own slightly sweet tang as our tongues dance.

i shake myself from this reverie, a glance out the window at the darkening skies. you´ll be here soon enough. and then i won´t have to wait.

make mine extraordinary

soft rustling, crackling.
hiss of the broken seal
and rent plastic wrap.

cool square between my fingertips.
my tongue awaits the first
exquisite
taste.

cold pressed on lips,
teeth close firm.

*break*

gooey drip of caramelized
sugar escapes to rest on my
lower lip while decadent
creamy milky solid slowly
melts onto my tongue.

a slow minute, dissolving.


liquid silk spilling over edges.
luscious fingertips capture
sticky
dribbles.
warm tongue sweeping cold
sweetness into dark.

*slowly licking lips*

last morsel savored.
crinkled wrapper flutters
out of sight.

make mine extraordinary.
i’ll have ghirardelli, please.

november sunset

over my shoulder the cold of autumn
creeps in with clouds
covering chill, clinging
smokey skies at dusk.

fingerholes of sunset peer
through the thickness,
turning leaves burnt rust;
crimson crashing gold and ochre
tumbling from limbs onto
damp,dewy dying grasses.

sun settles herself
beyond the horizon.
clouds catching ever deeper
shades of slate and ash,
blending blues and blushing pinks.
speckled spatter-drops
trickle swiftly from the sky
and usher in the quiet nightfall.

pods

We’d lived near the water for some time when the children were struck with the idea to take a boat out of the harbor, and make a day trip of seeing what there was to see. We’d been to the Aquarium many times; in fact one of our sons maintained that going there for his every birthday was the best present ever – since he was two years old.

We looked up some information and found a relatively inexpensive day trip. It was a new kind of trip though. It was a program run by a local University. The Engineering students created not boats, but “pods,” while the Computer Science techs wrote code and programmed them to follow a specific route. The Marine Biology students mapped out that route and recorded information relevant to life, both plant and animal, that was likely to be seen along the way. Then they let the Marketing students do their work.

We arrived at the University’s “Jump Point,” they called it. We took public transportation in through the downtown area, like we always did. We stood in line and presented our online booking voucher, together with our Aquarium membership card for a deeper discount. As we waited for our pod with other groups of excited people on the covered docks, my nose twitched. It was brief, but I told my husband I would be right back. I stepped out of the shelter into the warm late summer sunshine, faced west, closed my eyes and breathed deeply. I could still smell it. My eyes popped open and I spun around narrowing my eyes, searching the horizon for the source of the smell that hit me like a brick in the hazy, summer heat. My husband gestured at me from our place in line to hurry back. I smelled thunderstorms. Not just regular ones, the storms that turned the skies green. My eyes searched to the skies for any sign of disturbance found a calm sea, bright blue arching up from the grey and dusty blue that stretched before me. My nose was raised in the Midwest, with the rest of me. I knew that smell. Nine times out of ten, I had the windows latched, all the furniture and toys in the back yard stowed, and the kids in the basement before the weather people here cottoned on to the danger and issued a watch. I knew; I don’t know how, I just did.

We discovered that we would have to be broken up into two smaller groups to more evenly distribute the weight of the six of us. I did not like the idea of being sealed into some kind of pod for hours all by myself – with the boys. Or the girls. The students assured me it was safe, taking our family out of line to show us a board of safety features, obviously created to soothe the fears of raging hydrophobes like myself. Daddy took the girls and I took the boys.

The interior of the pod was small, about six feet in diameter, and smelled of new rubber and salt water. The windows went all the way around except in two places; one about a foot wide which was the obvious anchor point for the sealed glass and the other was the curved submarine-like door which hissed as it sealed itself shut. The seats reminded me of classic diner booths; the boys could easily move about the pod and see in virtually any direction at once. I took note of the first aid kit, packets of small paper bags just the right size for puking into, and a tightly sealed bucket bolted to the floor in the center of the little round room. Upon lifting the lid, it became abundantly clear that the thoroughly scrubbed bucket was for the used paper bags.

We lurched sideways – forward –whatever. Five minutes out from the land, I could see the skies to the south of us were churning black. Something didn’t look right in those skies, although I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I tried to calm my gnawing stomach by chewing a hole through my left cheek. The boys were still jumping from seat to seat, literally crawling around me in their excitement. The calm voice of the narrator droned on about sea life under the water before maddeningly explaining that we were preparing to dive. Just then the little pod sloshed to a halt and paused. The recording stopped. I held my breath, as if I would have to hold it the whole time we were underwater. It waited a breath longer than I could, then lurched forward again, turning exactly 180 degrees. Back towards the coast.

At first I thought there was a malfunction. Or maybe we didn’t pay for the whole cruise, but I saw all the little black pods shuffling back to the shore all at once. A woman’s voice came over the sound system, not nearly as calm as the recording blathering about sea kelp. “Everyone has been ordered ashore by the Transportation Authority. Stay calm and do not attempt to leave the craft for any reason.” Leave the craft….why? And as I thought those words, as I spoke them aloud at the very instant I thought them, as my head turned south while the words tumbled from my lips, I already knew the answer. Waterspouts. Tornadoes on the water. Oh. My. God. That is what had looked different from so very, very far away. The rain was not just coming down. It was also going up.

I crushed the rising panic hard into my stomach; packed it into some kind of box and locked it down so I could deal with my sons. My younger one, the marine enthusiast, was starting to realize we weren’t going to dive anytime soon, and had already begun his protests. I told them there was a storm and we had to go back to be safe. My older son must have seen through my locked box, seen the panic in my eyes, because he looked directly south and asked in a very small voice if it was a bad storm like from when I was little. I could not answer him. I did not know how bad it would be and I could not lie to him. I scanned the little room once again and discovered a cubby in the seats for life jackets. Just four. That’s why we had to split up into two groups. I prayed my husband wasn’t just sitting there looking out the window and was fastening the girls into the lifejackets as well. I clutched my boys to me and we watched the skies tumble in.

The pod stopped moving at some point, but the water was so choppy we hadn’t noticed exactly when. Three little paper bags had already made their way into the little sealed bucket on the floor and my stomach was contemplating a fourth. I then noticed that we were the only pod left that I could see. That did it. I pressed the panic button – well it was labeled “For Life Emergency Only – Coast Guard.” A red light flashed above our heads on the top of the pod’s exterior, but we could see it reflected off the water and the raindrops trickling down the windows. We waited some more. I wondered where my husband and the girls were. My little son started crying. I closed my eyes on my own tears and cuddled him as close as I could around the bulk of the life jackets. I left my other arm around my other son, who had lain down with his head on my lap. We stared out at sea and waited.

The wind was picking up and I could clearly see two waterspouts to our south. One was far out to sea, but the other was massive and near the coastline. I could see that it was still some distance away, but not knowing the wind speed, nor how far down the coast it actually was, that distance was no comfort to me. The waves around us had little foamy caps on them. I was watching the little crests and humming softly to the boys when we were bumped. I craned my neck and the boys jumped up. There was a tug pushing us to shore. The relief spread from my crown all the way to my feet in one hot instant, and I felt very faint. I slumped down on the floor shoved my head between my knees and breathed. My frightened sons copied my movements, thinking that was what we were supposed to do. I supposed it saved them from thunking their heads against the glass with every nudge from the rescue tug. My stomach emptied once again and the boys made fun of me; at least they were back to normal.

The sight of the Jump Point as our pod turned in sight of land again was the sweetest conglomeration of molded metal, painted steel and spotlights I had ever seen. Bar none. They had trouble opening the seal on the hatch because of the increase in pressure caused by the storm. I screamed into the cracks to stand back – I would kick this door down if I lost both legs doing it. And kick I did. The boys jumped and cheered as I bustled them out of the pod, throwing our life jackets into the arms of the nearest person wearing a University Sweatshirt. A quick scan of the small number of people on the dock showed no other members of my family. Water sprayed into the covered dock from the open sea. The rush of the wind and water was so loud no one could even attempt to tell me where my family had gone, if they had been able to hear me ask. We all struggled against the wind, holding tight to the rails, down the metal stairs into a building. I glanced back over my shoulder some 50 yards to where we’d just been standing and watched our pod get flipped up and out to sea again as if it were merely a loose bottle cap on the side of a busy road. The rescue tug tipped onto its side and the edges of my world bled black, my last fleeting thought for the safety of my girls as well, as the Coastie behind me caught me and rushed the rest of us inside.

**********

and that is when i woke up. i couldn’t breathe. i put my head between my knees and inhaled until my lungs could hold no more. i exhaled slowly and picked at a thread from the bedsheet. the moonlight cast a mournful glow upon the trees outside my window. i stood slowly and made my way to the childrens’ rooms. i sat on each of their beds with them, kissing and holding hands, not waking them. and trying so very hard not to cry.

so no. i can’t go on a cruise yet. i still haven’t gotten over my fear of the water. i still can’t stand the thought of being too far from the land to “make it back” – even without the terror of the uncommon waterspouts. i just can’t.

half-gone

my shift was half gone when i realized that the sun had come up, i hadn't had a break, and i was suddenly starving. good thing i was tapped to go on break just then. and this is just pre-thanksgiving. next week should be REAL fun.

the day was half gone when i woke up from my nap at noon today, ready to get started on everything i have on the calendar for today, after work, that is.

my cold is half gone. well, prolly more than half gone; i'm just feeling tired and headache-y.

my brain cells are half gone because my dear darling dickhead of a husband thinks he's sick too and has decided to bury himself in bed, blaring dream theater's new album from his laptop for hours on end. it was blasting when i arrived home at 11, it was still going when i woke up from my nap at noon, and i imagine it never shut up the whole 2 hours i was at the cookie booth sale. it's still going. i've even shut the office door. i think he just turned it up. call me old, whatever, i listen to my music loud too, just not ALL THE DAMN TIME!!!! moderation is the key.

my patience is half gone, with trying to run a household in a fog half the week, not getting any help from dh or the kids, and the dog begging to be walked 24/7. ok, maybe not that much; maybe 14/7. she doesn't even move at 3:00 when i'm leaving for work. i'm trying to make things work, i just feel run-down and tired all the time and i wish i had a second or third pair of hands sometimes. like now. i need to walk the dog and make dinner, but i'm still freezing from being outside all afternoon and all i wanna do is join everyone else under blankies and veg.

*sigh*

off to make dinner. i guess the dog will wait until dishes are done.

with the onset of the major travel season spiraling towards us, i feel the need to blog about the top things i say daily in my job:

1) are you aware of the restriction on liquids, creams, and gels in carryon luggage aboard the aircraft? if you can pour it, dribble it, squeeze it, smear it, squirt it, gargle it, spray it, or gloop it, it is a restricted item. even if you purchase a bottle of water or juice in the airport, if you are on the outside of the checkpoint with said bottle, it goes in the trash. you can carry containers labeled up to 3.4 fluid ounces, so long as they can ALL fit into a quart size clear plastic zipper bag. we do not provide clear plastic zipper bags at the security checkpoint. they cost about $1.50 for a box of 50. make the investment before arriving at the airport. key word: LABELED. if the toothpaste tube says 8 fluid ounces and there's only 4 squirts of toothpaste left in the tube, it still can't go. period. if it's a 12 oz spray can of olive oil, it can't go. even if it's the uber-expensive proactiv -- facial care products, if the container states more than 3.4 fl oz, it's not getting on my planes. check it under the plane or prepare to toss it out.

2) please take all large electronic items such as CPAP machines, laptops, dvd players, and video game consoles out of their bags – completely out – and put them into a bin on their own. "on their own" means nothing on top, nothing underneath. if you place these items inside a bag or place items on top of them, they will have to be removed from the x-ray machine and re-run, causing a delay for all passengers, not just you.

3) please keep your boarding pass in your hand. your left hand, your right hand, both hands; doesn't really make a difference to me. don't put it in your mouth, please. that's just nasty. i must view your boarding pass before you can enter the secure area of the airport. if you leave it in your coat pocket or bag, someone has to stop the flow of customer traffic and hunt it down for you. keep it on your person.

4) please remove all metal objects from your body before walking through the metal detector. unless your cell phone is made of wood, it is a metal object and it will alarm the metal detector. if your belt buckle is the size of a dinner plate, yes, it will set off the metal detector. some underwire bras, coupled with closed loop bracelets or heavy earrings, will pack enough of a punch to require additional screening after setting off the alarm on the metal detector. my advice? let the boobs sag and pack the jewelry. it's a plane ride, not a fashion show.

5) if you have bags that can zip, buckle, snap, tie, velcro or somehow close themselves, please do not use a bin for these items. likewise, if your bag is so large that it doesn't actually fit into a bin, don't use one. these bags can be placed directly on the conveyor belt, flat on their sides.

6) all outerwear, heavy jackets, sweaters and hoodies must be placed through the x-ray machine. yes, even the babies' favorite stuffed animals and blankies. all footwear must be removed and x-rayed. footwear includes boots, running shoes, slides, mules, slippers, sandals and flip-flops. the conveyor belt is actually much cleaner than the floor - the one you're walking barefooted on because you decided against wearing socks in public for some ungodly reason. people got some smelly feet and you're walking barefoot through all that foot-funk. i suggest slip-on shoes or clogs and socks or those little medical footies.

7) do not attempt to put your child or pet into the x-ray machine because you don't want to "bother them" by removing them from their carseat or carrier. no exceptions. wake them up or book a later flight.

8) do not get special custom wrapping on gifts, hand carry them onto a plane, and then fuss at security when it must be unwrapped and viewed. we unwrap the prezzies as if they were for us. *rip rip tear!* we get so little joy. security is in no way responsible for reimbursing wrapping fees or re-wrapping prezzies at all. if it looks ugly on the x-ray, it will be opened. it doesn't matter what you say is in the box. it will be visually inspected.

9) for heaven's sake, pack light. you don't need a kitchen sink in your carryon. or a fan. or a wii. check it under the plane or ship it via commercial carrier to your final destination. if you think it will take too long to ship, you can most likely live without it for the duration of your trip. most, if not all delays at the security checkpoint can be avoided if you just pack what you will physically NEED on the plane.

these and many more travel tips are available at TSA's website or by looking up your departing and arriving airports for specific local information. this public service announcement has been brought to you by your friendly, neighborhood katerooni, the *fnc.

*i've been dubbed the fucking new chick.

brush

holy.

mother.

of.

socks.

i had to do a double take. then a triple take. i looked around the room. i stared hard into his face to see if i was really seeing this face. he wasn't much taller than me...maybe 5'9". he was wearing the darkened wraparound glasses. his unshaven face and intentionally mussed hair. his casual glance around the room. he was with another dude, well over 6 feet tall, hard edge to his face and wearing a faded blue tee sporting the union jack.

i got three words for you.

larry mullins. bono.

and me without a camera on my fourth day on the job. they noticed that i recognized them. and they noticed that i hadn't started jumping up and down and screaming. they both looked directly into my face as they gathered up their bags, put on their shoes and belts, and walked down the pier to their plane. bono nodded and winked as he turned away.

and me without a camera.

i swore on my grandmother's grave to my supervisor that i had just seen bono. she had a good look at him as he walked away. "a lot of celebrities come through here in early morning, hoping that no one's had enough coffee yet to notice them. it very well could be him. he has a nice face," she added.

and me without a camera. *sob*

un.be.liev.a.ble.

unbelievable.

it started last friday. not a couple of days ago....LAST last friday. yeah. i been busy. from the top, with feeling.

sometimes, the dog doesn't eat her breakfast. for whatever reason, she decides internally that she does not require sustenance at this time and does not eat. inevitably the puking starts about 2 pm. when my oldest had not yet arrived from middle school via her consistently-tardy bus, i tossed the dog in the car for the 1/2 mile trip down the road to the school so i wouldn't have to clean up cold vomit after picking up kids from school. although, in hindsight, as i drove down the road, i really would prefer cold vomit on a hardwood floor than warm sick on the van carpet. oh, yeah, and i forgot a bunch of stuff i needed to give another parent TONIGHT. so i drove around the block to get my stuff and aforementioned daughter had arrived. i dropped off the dog and left to pick up kids. when i returned, a strange woman walked out of my home.

my dog had bolted from the house, had been hit by a car and she and her husband "hoped i didn't mind" that they came in to bring the dog home. holy shit. $450 later, the dog is deemed "sore" by the vet ER doctor and we decline overnight observation (to the tune of an additional $1K.) saturday went a bit better, aside from the fact that the pain meds apparently took away the dog's ability to control her potty functions. we dealt. oh, and my husband bit his tongue. i prescribed a swipe of brandy on a cotton swab.

if you know me even partly well, you might know that i have a little anxiety problem. as in, when i get nervous or upset, my head shuts down everything except the "diarrhea" and "nausea" functions in my body. well, i was nervous AND upset about becoming a member of the working world again, after being barefoot and pregnant for most of the past 10 years. quite nervous.

sunday, i began orientation for my new job with the department of homeland security. please hold your applause until the end of the program. i learned that, not only will my first paycheck not come until 8 november, but i have to shell out money for a parking pass ($33 for the last 2 days of october plus another $33 for november) before i even get that check - oh, and i have to buy clothes too since the uniforms typically take 2 weeks. or longer. and at some point i decided to let a big fat nail puncture one of my tires. joy. now i have to drive the husband's POS car, while he finds someone to repair my tire.

my stomach calmed down by wednesday, but the training is pretty intense. i have been unable to eat breakfast since saturday. i managed to choke something down about lunchtime, to keep from passing out, but it was a rough few days, also taking into consideration that members of this class were subject to the airline restrictions on liquids past the security checkpoint - basically, we had to buy most of our lunches at the airport kiosks...prior to that first paycheck, of course.

we traded cars for a few days to get a check-up for the POS, to discover he has a major transmission leak. yay. meanwhile, my house is deteriorating before my eyes. this must be what it looks like when dh comes home from work and i've been playing on the computer all day. or maybe not. at least he's making dinner from the menu i made, following the recipes and getting the kids to school on time. no one's had a bath all week (because it's not on the list, see) and every night i come home, he tells me more vociferously how much he's glad i've done this part for the past 11 years. he's doing much better than i thought he would. but the fact remains.....he's doing maybe half of what i typically do each day. maybe.

the end of his tongue is now a gargantuan pus-filled glob and he insists that if he puts brandy on it (like i told him to do days ago) it will hurt. well, no shit, sherlock. it hurts because it's killing the germ-nest built there when you bit it and didn't immediately put a cotton swab of brandy over the cut. fucking duh. he walks around the house, acting like he's been hit by a car, taking frequent naps and complaining of the noise. dude has had the house to himself for 4 days, doing next to nothing and he's acting like he's been this powerhouse of activity and just can't stand the thought of one more domestic chore. matter of fact, friday's dishes are still stacked on the counter because i put my ass to bed early last night. and he did too. lightweight.

i am now a bundle of nerves. i am hemorrhaging money this week. and although i have put in 54 hours, we won't see the results of those hours for weeks. today is testing day. tomorrow is my first day "on the job." i went to bed earlier than i had the rest of the week (before 10:00, ladies...) and i woke at 2:30am. and 3:30am. and 4:30am. and 5:22am. the alarm was set to go off at 5:25 so i sat and stretched for a moment, deep calming breaths against the nauseous waves of panic rising in my gut. odd. the radio wasn't on yet. upon closer inspection, the alarm light was blinking. and no sound was coming out. i walked over and checked the volume and got the quiet "shhhhhhhhhhhhh" of radio static. the radio station was off-air. holy mother of socks. if i hadn't awoken 3 minutes early in a panic, i'd have slept late. yay stupid stomach, i guess.

on my way in to my last class today, the check engine light comes on in the POS car. i am only a few miles from my destination and i soldier on, praying that what ever is wrong, the car won't die on me before i hit the employee lot. it didn't. i nervoused my way through three bathroom trips (in three different bathrooms, even!) before the test began at 9am. i later found out that i aced both written portions and scored a 90 on the visual portion. please hold your applause until the end. our class had to finish up some mandatory updates to the curriculum we just passed and in the middle of it all, the entire system crashed. so now we get to come in, on our own time, off the clock, and finish it. more joy.

when i got home early, due to the system crash, i found out that the minivan (which i hadn't gotten to drive all week...i miss my van!!) has a busted rim. yes, i said busted. as in irreparable. tad was driving down the freeway and there was a manhole cover missing (on a highway???) and the tire busted and the rim is bent all to hell. yes, in fact, it was the tire we just paid to repair.

so now i have two shit-cars to choose to attempt to get my ass to work by no later than 4 am tomorrow morning. not one place would help us out. no one could help us find a rim, let alone install it, before close of business saturday. and no one is open on sunday.

i think i am going to cry. because hopefully, when i arrive home after my shift around 10am on sunday (and wash the one pair of black pants and one white shirt i own to take the place of the uniform that i won't have for two+ weeks), this ten-day-long-week-from-hell will be over. then we can start creating a new schedule to call "normal."

you can applaud now if you feel the need, or even remember what there was to clap about. i forgot.

Hercules

God help me, the child was sitting on my sciatic nerve. Again. I stood up, shook my leg and walked in a small circle around the waiting room to increase the circulation and tried to perch on the edge of the uncomfortable chair. That hurt worse and made the baby shift. It beat its head into my bladder and stuck one stubborn baby foot under my ribcage and pushed. I waddled up to the nurses station, kicking my leg out to one side again, thinking that I must look like some kind of deranged, plucked and stuffed Thanksgiving turkey.

"Hi, I'm going to pee on the floor here. Can I just pee in the cup and write on it with a Sharpie? Better yet, just look at the records from the past 8 months and the two previous normal pregnancies. Nothing is going on in there that shouldn't. Just write 'ditto'. Trust me. I just need to go. Now."

She took a blank label off of a stack, glaring at the printer out of one eye and me out of the other. I snatched the label out of her hand, as well as the pen, and ran at top speed for a 38-week pregnant woman with one leg. Well, one working leg. I sat down on the toilet, peed in the cup, sealed the jar and for the next five minutes, wrote my entire life history onto a military-issue one-inch by three-inch envelope address label. And then I took another five minutes to finish peeing. I told her I had to go. She was standing there waiting with my label stuck to the edge of her index finger when I got back, almost triumphantly. Whatever.

The appointment went like all appointments did. I peed. They stabbed my arm and wrapped number tapes around my girth. They had no idea when I was due and I had already used my one allowed ultrasound. One week the child was measuring big, the next week they said I had gained too much weight. (Way to go doc, I'm already feeling like a pregnant elephant. Let's play "Make the Hormonal Preggo Lady Cry.") We're all winging it here. Every single one of the doctors who had been assigned to me over the past 8 months had been deployed. I had no idea who was going to deliver this baby. The thought occurred that it might even be me.

We lived 79 miles from the nearest American base with maternity hospital facilities in the United Queendom. That is a two-hour drive on a good day with clear weather and little traffic, meaning NO farm equipment on the roads, and no lorries (tractor trailers) blocking all lanes of traffic going 10 kph to protest the staggering rise in the cost of petrol gasoline. We had used the nearest A&E hospital before, which certainly had a maternity ward and it was a mere 14 miles away. However, since we, and everyone else we knew, left the Accident & Emergency Centre in much worse condition than we arrived, we opted out of the National Health System. We decided that the risks were about equal in delivering a child in the car on the side of the road and delivering a child in a hospital that did not use an autoclave or any other sterilization equipment and had a blood poisoning record that would shock the settlers of this fine country.

So I packed my baby bag. I had the diapers and wipes. I had the gender-neutral homecoming outfits - two of them in fact. I had the freshly laundered baby seat, a new backpack diaper bag, and the receiving blankets that were just for this new little bundle. I packed my overnight bag. I had warm socks, jammies, a stress ball, toiletries, my teddy bear ready at the last instant and sweats for the grueling two-hour ride home. I had my kids go-bags ready. I had some favorite books and toys, a gift for each of them from their new sibling, and a pair of jammies and change of clothes each, in case of a middle-of-the-night or mid-afternoon run. And then I had the delivery bag.

An ER nurse friend of mine helped me assemble what I would need in case of an emergency delivery. I had an ironed sheet, folded and sealed into a zipper bag, likewise a few receiving blankets washed, dried, ironed and zipped up for sterilization. I had a pair of extremely strong scissors that could cut through denim and seatbelts. I had a big silver mixing bowl for fluid capture, washed and placed in a fresh plastic garbage bag. I had an umbilical cord clip for the baby. I had extra blankets and a freshly laundered stock of donated black towels (so they wouldn't stain.) I had flares and a gallon jug of water that had been boiled. I had a book on emergency deliveries with the chapter clearly marked and accessible with a binder clip. All this was carefully packed into a large paper bag and stowed in the trunk, "just in case." On the outside of the paper bag, I had written the on-call OB pager, the American military hospital OB line, and the base police, in case we decided we wanted an escort. I diligently kept my phone charged.

After one exhausting false alarm that began at 3 am in my 38th week, I got sick. Monkey-bad sick. I could not breathe for coughing. I could not cough without peeing. So I basically just walked around wearing wet pads. I kept a change of underwear and pants in the diaper bag, it was that bad. Exactly one week later, I timed the very strong contractions at seven minutes apart when I called the OB ward to tell them we were two hours out. We drove through the fine mist and gathering fog for 2 hours and 20 minutes. I was timing at four minutes by the time we arrived at almost 7 pm and there was a wheelchair waiting for me at the door. I mostly wheezed through my breathing, trying hard not to cough on anyone, but I was surrounded by hospital personnel. I had a temperature of 102 degrees, and I was already exhausted. I don't know what they put into the cocktail flowing into my arm, but the pain started to go away, and my breathing eased for the first time in days. They brought in a nice man with a long name who told me about a fabulous place called "Intrathecal." If I wasn't already married, he'd have been mine.

At 9:50 pm, there was an audible *pop* and the air pressure in the hospital decreased somewhat when I delivered a 9 pound 15 and 3/4 oz baby boy with blond peach fuzz and bright blue eyes. He wanted nothing more than to climb back into that nice warm place away from all the bright lights and cold February fog, and he screamed loud enough to tell the whole base. He was the only blond and by far the biggest baby of the five on the ward, so he quickly earned the nicknames "Hercules" and "Peach Fuzz." He knew my voice from the start. He screamed while they weighed him and I sang his name over the cacophony of instruments and vitals stats being flung about the room. He calmed immediately, but only when he could hear my voice; which prompted me to shush everyone in the room, so I could sing. Hey, I was high. Step off.

My little Hercules is now six and a half, and he is well on his way to success in first grade. He is still blond and his eyes have stayed the same remarkable icy-blue, unlike the other three kids, whose eyes changed before they hit one year. He is still louder than he really needs to be at times. But he is sweet, funny, smelly, handsome, quick to laugh, hard to please, and most of all, he's mine.



inspiration by mommymatter. verbiage by kater.

political activism in my driveway

In the past week, Congress has voted down three separate proposals that would have supported our troops and helped end the war. But Wednesday, the House did manage to join the Senate in condemning MoveOn.

When the only thing our elected representatives can agree on is to silence war critics, it's time to get louder.

Congress may not be doing its job. But that means it's all the more important for the 3.3 million of us to do ours. We need to make it crystal clear that we will not stand down or relent until the war ends.

So we're launching Americans for Exit, a powerful new project that will remind our representatives that those of us against the war are America—we're teachers, factory workers, lawyers, moms, dads, students, secretaries, and dog owners. We're 70% of the country, we vote, and we're fed up with the war.

Here's how it works: You send a picture of you which shows how you feel about the war. Then, you'll record a voice message to Congress. We'll put together a big unveiling, use your photos and words in an ad campaign and deliver them to your members of Congress. We'll make it impossible for them to ignore you.

It’s really easy and it’s a powerful way to send our message to Congress. I already joined in—you should too.

Click here to get started:

http://pol.moveon.org/photo

i sent in my pic:

and left my Congressman a message, too:

Congressman Sarbanes,

You seem to have lost your voice…at least the voice that is supposed to represent the people who elected you.

Can you hear me? Because I will not be silenced.

Your efforts and skills belong to the people of Baltimore County. We want the war to end. We want our families back. We want the lies to stop.

Step up and do your job. Can you hear us? Support Us. Support our troops. BRING THEM HOME.

now it's your turn....

what the hell was that thing?

did you hear that? that sonic boom around 5:20 EST....that was my head. it leapt clean off my body at some point and exploded. i shit you not. i'm still looking for my left eyebrow. let me know if it turned up in your yard or something. i look really weird with only one eyebrow.

it all began around 5:00. i had just finished homework with the lartian, which in itself is just short of a miracle because neither one of us ended up screaming or crying. i put a pound of bacon in the oven to cook.....yes, i put bacon in the oven, so sue me. i turned on the stove to start making french toast. i was whisking eggs and milk in time to the dishwasher-water noise, when i had the urge to look out the front window. i left the kitchen and rounded the corner of the dining room to find schmoo's best friend's mom on my front porch. apparently over the fork and water medly, i failed to hear her knocking. her son had forgotten his spelling book at school and they wanted to come in and do the homework real quick before dinner. um, okaaaaaay. so her older son sat down to do his spelling at my desk while her other 2 sons ran screaming through the house, causing my children to break into a loud frenzy and follow them. and then the phone rang.

it was the coordinating-chair-type-person for the scout pack-group-den-thing we are trying to join. a new one, not the over-zealous name-calling uber-christians. so now i am trying to write down contact information, dates and the *gulp* astounding price of becoming a boy scout, while seven children run around my home and oh shit!!!! i forgot to turn off the frying pan! i checked on the bacon while i was in there and mentally figured how much blood we might be able squeeze out of the proverbial turnip for dues and the required uniforms. after a twenty minute "we empathize with each other because we have many kids in many different scout troops" talk, i remembered the bacon again. it was half-burnt. and then someone let the dog out as i hung up the phone. have i mentioned that we live on a busy street and i have shit myself numerous times when people don't slow down for me to turn into my own driveway, let alone tap the brakes for an animal? fortunately the dog has grown a brain in the past couple of months and ran into the backyard instead of the street. unlike the visiting boys. i'm still not kidding.

schmoo's best friend's mom told her kids (and i quote) "this is the last time i'm going to tell you that we are leaving," no less than eleven times. yes, i counted. at 6:05, i was allowed to start making dinner again. with the help of my two older kids, who acted as butter-ers, cutters, and silverware fetchers, i managed to have food served and lips smacking by 6:15.

i am currently enjoying a stiff cocktail of cran-peach and smirnoff, heavy on the latter. no i will not do the dishes or share my drink. nyah.

pronouns and piggies

I took the kids to school today. I do it every day. I wasn't feeling particularly peppy, and I threw on some really old jeans with both knees blown out, a tank top and a black zipper hoodie, and flip-flops. I didn't even bother to run a brush through my hair, since I was planning on showering after I got home again. I walked a little way with the kids and there was a group of three dads talking and watching their kids go into the building. As I passed, one of them said, "Yeaaaaah. I could wake up next to that every day," to the delight of his pals, who were murmuring in agreement.

I smirked for a split second and then stopped, trying to determine if it was a compliment or a slam. I decided to take it as a compliment, but I was a little peeved that he referred to me as an inanimate object. I am anything but inanimate. The kids were well on their way to their classes and I had already said my goodbyes, so I turned back to confront the piggies.

"Hmmm. Part of the reason why you may not be able to wake up next to something akin to 'that' (gesturing to myself) might have something to do with your poor use of pronouns. I'm pretty sure 'that' is a gender-neutral demonstrative adjective. You were looking for the word 'her,' which is a feminine pronoun. Basic grammar, taught in elementary and middle school, can go a long way toward gettin' some."

And I walked away. His pals were dying with laughter. Whether at me or at their buddy who'd been 'told,' I don't care. I said my piece and I counted to three.

damn, i have a soapbox??

I have just finished reading The Worst Person in the World - and 202 Strong Contenders, by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. It's not a "new" book, but it's new to me. It probably didn't take much time to write; it is a collection of "Worst Persons in the World" from his nightly Countdown show. Not all are famous, but they have all said or done something so spectacularly stupid, that they warrant a place in at least one book with history in it. Documented factual history, that is, not something made up on-the-fly to get better ratings. With actual reports to back up the aforementioned history. Of some of the nominees, I am sickened. Just that.

I'd like to admit that I am a true Independent, one who votes not necessarily for a candidate because of the (letter in parentheses) behind their name, but who looks to the views and platforms for guidance. I'd like to say that I don't "take sides" on political issues because I believe, for the most part that both "sides" usually have it all bass-ackwards. (Damn I love that word.) But truth be told there is a dark place in my heart and psyche for the big Republicans. They could all go to that dark place and never return, and I would not miss them. Some Democrats, too. I listen faithfully to both sides until someone dredges up their biased religious views and ruins their objectiveness. I try to discount their silver-spoon-fed short natural history (because what percentage of our Representatives and candidates have actually lived in their constiuents' shoes - at least this constiuent's? Ha. That's a pretty small number that I don't have in front of me right now.) I do try to give every candidate a fair chance to tell me how wonderful they are; they just all fail miserably to convince me. They all have pretty tasty feet and nice-sized mouths. As Keith Olbermann points out every night.

The most sickening thing I thing I discovered in this book, is that I still hate Republican radio and TV talk show hosts. I was officially introduced to Rush Limbaugh in 1994, in the form of my supervisor's radio, which I was not allowed to turn off or even down during the morning show...which droned on for decades every day. I actually listened, hoping that he was going to say something positive, and tell both sides to the story - any story, but alas, it was not to be. About the middle of the third day, I started not listening, and my supervisor decided I was one of Them. A Democrat. Since I was not yet old enough to vote, it burned me that he would declare someone who disagrees with him to be completely against him. But I've gradually learned over the years that that's the definition of a Republican. No offense to any of my (R) friends out there....I'm just calling 'em like I see 'em...as Rush would say.

So here again, I am introduced to another madman of the mouth, Bill O'Reilly. I have heard some of the things he has to say, and know he is employed by the Fox "If It Isn't Far-Fetched Yet, We'll Make It So" News team, so basically, I've already named him as a Republican whack-job akin to Rush Limbaugh. And then I read some of the things that he has said, denied saying even though there are official transcripts proving his tongue-slippage, and recanting that he didn't say he said. Whew. Almost derailed my train there. I change my mind. He's worse than Rush. Except he's not tanked on painkillers. He's just normally that stupid.

People make mistakes. I make them all the time because my mouth moves faster than my brain sometimes. I have given out the wrong phone number, paid the wrong amount for a bill to the wrong company, given out the wrong dates of Girl Scout meetings, and I apologize quickly and profusely for any mistake I make. This guy, this person self-proclaimed to be a "fair and balanced" (TM) journalist, not only spouts off incorrect, unsourced and undocumented information, but will not admit when he's made a mistake nor apologize for his lack of journalistic research or tact. Sounds like another major Republican of which many disapprove.

The epilogue names Bill O'Reilly, oft-times known as "Big Giant Head," "Billo" or "Bill-O," "Falafel," "Papa Bear," and "Ted Baxter," as Worst in Show for the whole bleeding book. It seems Mr. Bill not once, but twice mis-quoted history on-air by declaring at least 84 surrendered American WWII POWs slaughtered by the Nazis, to be war criminals. Once could have been a mistake, twice in nine months using the same mis-quoted information is inexcusable, especially when no apology was ever made to the families of the slain servicemen. Sickening. And he's allowed to use his First Amendment rights to misquote all the history he wants. And wrap it up with a neat little bow and call it "journalism."

Bill, you make your News service, your political party and your country look the worse for wear. Not to mention continuing to look like a man walking around bent over with his head up his ass. How about coming down out of your own inflated head and giving us all a rest, eh?

inquisition

1 - who vacuumed up the blue plastic clothespin?
i'll rule out the 5-yo, 6-yo, and possibly the 8-yo, since the vacuum is quite heavy, and the clothspin is not in a postition where it could have been "pushed in" and forgotten. it did done got sucked there. that leaves the 11-yo and the 35-yo.

2 - how long ago was it sucked in?
i'm gonna go with....saturday, because i remember emptying a full cup o'hair the week before when i vacuumed the upstairs. there was a goodly amount of hair puppies backed up in the tube and the motor was burning hot, so i imagine it was one of the first things sucked up on saturday. the 35-yo vacuumed the couch and the upstairs before bringing the vacuum down to the 11-yo's bedroom. i used it last.

3 - do ya know how much damage a clogged hose can do to a $500 vacuum?
i remember thinking that it was very kind of someone to empty the cup for me when i was finished on saturday. my allergies have been acting up and i was glad not to have to do it. i now know that no one did such a nice deed. if i hadn't noticed that the cup was suspiciously empty after vacuuming up where the dog sleeps, we could have gone another FULL house-vacuum session and completely burned out the motor.

4 - why in the name of all that's oscar meyer would you feel inclined to vacuum up a clothespin??
it never would have made it past the beater brush - it had to go in through the nozzle. which means someone had to deliberately unhook the nozzle and aim it at a certain angle to suck it up. your back busted? can't bend over? wanted to hear it go clickety-clackety-thunk? yeah. that was funny, wasn't it?

5 - you know what's even funnier?
watching mommy dig the thing out. busting a nail, dribbling dust and hair puppies all over the floor i thought i'd just vacuumed. a large hunk of debris raining onto my hands, yet creating a fine mist cloud for me to inhale. sneezing into that dust cloud, but unable to hold my face (because it's full of dust and hair, you see) and then peeing my pants while walking and sneezing into the bathroom. fun. ny.

6 - would you like a demonstration of things that are small enough to fit in the vacuum?
hold out your finger. any which one you want. stick it in your nose. anything bigger than that hole must be physically picked up off the floor.

bend over and pick it up, you bum!!!

circle

i hide from the dark.

it seeks me out and
i shut my eyes to
its creeping shadow.
i turn my face from
its sharpened claws.
i blot the darkness with
muffled giggles and
sunny days.

still it comes.

i drop into exhausted
sleep to busy the dark
from my head.
but once i stop to
rest, it flows around me
seeping into the cracks
upon my soul.
it weighs me down
bleeding into my dreams and
splintering happy memories
until i spill the dark in
wet tracks down my cheeks.

then it begins anew and
i hide
from the dark
once again.

(insert expletives. they work best.)

we've all had baby-making sex. obviously. the "headboard-shaking, fall off the bed and keep going, don't answer the phone, if the neighbors heard that they need to shut the windows, oh my god more more more" sex. yeah. i thought you'd remember that. and when we were finished, we had to have something to eat. we always went to denny's for moons over my hammy and a chocolate shake. 3am, 5pm, noon, whenever. for me, that is a vague shadow of a memory from 11 years ago.

after we have kids, it comes down to "shhhhh for god's sake i just got them to sleep will you tone it down and just get it done" sex. at least mine did. for many many many years. i mean, things don't fit the same way after having a baby anyway, right? let alone four. i have no idea how it is for you-all, but i need a lift or tuck or a rubber band or something. i get a good hard shag still; we wouldn't be married if it wasn't good enough. it's not that. i just want the really good stuff back again.....now that i can appreciate it. i just want to come away (how punny) from every encounter, screaming his name like the chicks in my stories do. please? is it that much to ask?

well, i've been trying to figure out how to do just that. i have been asking questions of sex goddess gurus on a few different mommy sites, reading up on tips and techniques and experimenting. dh is loving this, let me tell you. he aids and abets my sex-quest with all due haste and no complaints. too bad i can't figure out how to get the dishes done at the same time. but i digress.

a fellow mom and sexpert mentioned to me to keep trying, that "you'll know it when you get there. you won't be able to miss it. when you do it just right it will curl your toes." no kidding. i've read the smut that goes, "she screamed in ecstasy" or whatever, and i think about how exaggerated that sounds. well, we figured it out last night. it curled not only my toes but everything in the vicinity, as well as the curtains in the next-door neighbor's dining room. i shit you not. it was all about "oh my god i can't put my knees together anymore, i don't care if i knocked over the water it will eventually evaporate, no i can't stop wiggling that's your fault i'm still shaking like that so good job already....." damn. we can't go to denny's; who's gonna watch the kids?? and i really really needed a hot sandwich on grilled sourdough with a chocolate shake chaser. i made do with a bowl of chicken noodle soup. at 1am.

oh, and i haven't stopped smiling yet today.

i got my boots knocked. bring it!

cornflower blues

for lars

i look into your eyes, boy,
and see in them reflections
of cornflower skies
of a hundred yesterdays
pooled into the blinking blues
that rest above your smile.

all the hopes and promises
that gather in your eyes
predict a future full of wonder,
captured happiness,
and a set of cornflower blues
of your own to gaze upon.

august musings

a number of years ago my grandmother died. i’m sure if i thought really hard or called my own mom i could hit upon the exact date, but i can’t be troubled. all i know is that she was born in the same month in which both of my daughters were born. i was never close with my grandmother. and although my mom would be heartbroken to hear that, i’m sure my grandmother would agree with it, and be satisfied with that statement.

you see, i learned at a very early age that my grandmother had Money. when i misbehaved while visiting or did something embarrassing at church (like all kids do), my mom would sit me down and tell me how i needed to behave so we wouldn’t be Written out of the Will. whatever that meant. i remember being so proud to show my grandparents that i could do a somersault on my own in the midst of all the oohing and aaahing over the baby learning to crawl. i bumped into a statue that was situated at the top of the stairs and down it went, losing its head. we left at once under the cold stare of my grandmother and my mom cried the whole drive home. we didn’t see them again until christmas, even though we only lived a few miles apart.

i learned to bring a book, say my polite hellos, answer the standard questions about school and retreat quietly out of the way, preferably far from anything breakable, which was rather difficult to do in her home. most of the time i spent outside on the deck or smushed into a chair in the family room in the basement. in other words, as far out of sight as possible.

christmases were much different. one night a year i was allowed to be excited, allowed to be a kid and jump around, eating chocolates and banging away on the piano keys. that one night each year was like stepping into someone else’s grandmother’s house. i remember the christmases fondly, if only because they were what should have been normal, i suppose.

when my grandmother died, we had just moved cross country from texas to maryland for the first time. we stopped along the way to visit and took a four generations picture with my infant daughter. she spoke to me more in that visit than she had in the previous twenty years of my life. apparently now that i was not planning on knocking the statue down the stairs, i was good enough to talk to. or perhaps she knew it would be the last time i saw her alive. i had just begun a job and we had no money to fly back to the midwest for a funeral. i didn’t even cry when i heard the news. she had been sick and she didn’t die unexpectedly. i didn’t feel a deep void; if anything i felt relief that i could no longer screw up bad enough to get kicked out of the will.

at some point i must have redeemed myself over the statue incident because she did leave a few things to me. i have a pair each of plain gold, diamond, and pearl earring studs and enough plastic costume clip-on earrings to start my own store, along with a pretty black hills gold pin and matching necklace. i think of her when i see the jewelry in its place in the box and my mom asked me recently why i don’t wear them. i couldn’t give her an answer at the time, but now i think i know why.

those trinkets really mean nothing to me. a woman whose love for her own daughters was so cold that any perceived slight would leave them cast out of the family to fend for themselves was no real family to me. a mother who could not stomach more than a brusque peck on the cheek and would brush away even the slightest signs of affection with a look of disdain similar to that of watching a drowned rat drip on the carpeting never could hold onto the love of a child. i acknowledge my kinship, as she did to me. that’s all that should be expected. buying my undying affection with a few earrings after a lifetime of sour looks seems cheap and wrong. and it plain didn’t work.

i plan to have the pearl and diamond studs made into rings or necklaces, whichever the wearer prefers. my sons will get the diamonds to present to their wives-to-be. my daughters will get the pearls on the eves of their engagements, and i will turn the black hills gold pin into a second necklace so that each girl has a piece of that as well, leaving me with nothing but the plain gold studs. after all, that seems more fitting for the plain, stark, no nonsense relationship i shared with my foremother.

set the night on fire

We dig on New and Exciting. The only problem with that is, New and Exciting is most often not Free; most of the time it is Downright Expensive. Imagine my surprise then, one Friday afternoon, when I stumbled across the information that a meteor shower would be taking place that very weekend. Not just any run-of-the-mill meteor shower, either. The Perseid shower of 2007 promised to have the best viewing in quite a number of years, due to the fact that the new moon would not detract from the meteors with the long, bright, multi-colored tails AND early morning viewers (around 4 am, to be precise) would be able to watch the rise of red Mars in addition to all the other technicolor mayhem in the atmosphere. Brilliant. And Free.

Nine pm Sunday evening was clear and not as hot as it could have been. After a dessert of ice cream bars, we gathered the Neat Sheet ™, a stack of inflatable ReadyBeds ™, citronella candles and a firestick, bug repellent, water bottles, a long tether for the dog, and the guitar and loaded up the minivan. Destination: the baseball fields behind the elementary school. It was the only open place we could think of that would be relatively darkened, but close enough to get home at a decent hour. The kids were excited at the prospect of “camping out” under the stars on this beautiful clear night and I had planned on telling them all about the meteors and how to spot them as the night grew dark enough.

Setting up in the almost pitch-black was harder than we expected, having only 2 citronella candles to use for light. Of all the things I thought of, “lantern” never once sprung to mind. Oh well. All the kids settled noisily onto their little inner-tube beds and squeaking and giggling, intently watching the sky and asking, “where are the comets?” literally every ten seconds.

The littlest little pointed “Hey the school’s on fire!” and I gullibly turned in the direction of the school reassuring her with a “No it isn’t silly, that’s just our cand- Oh, shit.” I was on my feet and dialing 911 on the cell phone before the rest of the kids had even turned to look. Running across three baseball diamonds (and their subsequent outfields) as well as the soccer field, I could see the lone silhouette of someone near the second grade wing. The school wasn’t just on fire, someone was setting it on fire. On purpose.

The blaze was half the height of the school. As I got closer, the flames fizzled out, but I kept an eye on the person walking the perimeter of the back of the school now. I still hadn’t crossed the soccer field and into the playground, but I was close enough to see the person was carrying a red gas can and pouring some kind of liquid onto the ground by the school. I could not yet smell what it was. I relayed all this information to the 911 operator, including my fuzzy and darkened description of what I could see of the person, which admittedly wasn’t much. I didn’t want to get too close, not knowing if he also had a weapon, so I stayed back far enough, holding my cell phone flat against my cheek to block the light and hoping he wouldn’t see me.

The Fire Department arrived first with one short blast of siren. Dude jumped ten feet into the air, dropped the gas can, and quickly walked towards the parking lot, doubled back and headed in the direction of the nearest trees. Right where I was standing. Then he saw me and took off. I ran to the fire truck, still on the phone with the police telling them which direction Dude was running. I showed the fire fighters the gas can and the scorch marks on the sidewalk and up the side of the school. They called in an Arson Investigation team and asked if I would stay and give a statement. The police called me back on my cell and asked me to meet them around the corner to ID someone. Damn I was tired of running, but away I went.

I didn’t think I could ID him. The clothes partially matched the description I gave, but I had told them I thought he was wearing a hat, because it looked like his hair was sticking out of the bottom of it. Dude here had a curly mop fringe going around the bottom edge of his hair…..could be him, but I never got closer than 50 yards. He was caught sprinting out of the trees right near where I lost sight of him though, really nervous and sweating like a pig from running. Dude claimed he was with two friends and they all split up because they thought they were being chased by a dog. While they were taking his info down, lo and behold, there went a meteor. I was asked to go back to the school to meet with the Arson team at that point. Man, can’t I get a ride with one of y’all????

I got permission to go let my husband know I was OK and that I would be up by the school for a little while longer. Then I sat and answered questions from the Arson team for a while. When no one was talking to me I had my eyes on the sky. Dammit, I was missing the show! You know, the meteors I actually came out here to see?? At some point, a call came through on the police scanner that a neighbor near the school saw a lot of activity going on behind the school and was worried someone might be vandalizing it back there. Ummmm, it was us. We all had a laugh at the caller who had just noticed that an investigation had been going on for an hour. Nigh about 10:30, the police finally got into contact with the two friends Dude said he’d been with all night. They hadn’t seen him since school let out. The police booked him.

I stumbled back one more time across the black fields in search of my family. I called “Marco?” several times, before hearing my husband’s return “Polo.” Both of the boys had already fallen asleep, the girls were hysterically exhausted and my dear darling abandoned husband was about ready to choke everyone, including himself in frustration. No they never saw a meteor, not even the bright one that I’d seen. They spent the whole time asking questions and fighting while Daddy tried to answer them. He tried to sing them songs and play guitar to pass the time and they kept shushing each other to the point that there was no point in continuing to play the guitar. He was tired, the dog was wired and we still had to wake the boys and drag them and all our stuff back to the car…..across three baseball fields, the soccer field and the playground. OK, so it wasn’t such a great place to choose after all.

But would the school have been damaged if we’d not been there? Possibly. Would the little bastard setting my school on fire have been caught? Most likely not. I just heard that we might be able to catch a glimpse of the last remnants of the shower next Monday morning. I’ll set an alarm and watch them myself this time. Too much New-ness and Excitement can be a bad thing.

i think i need a new t-shirt

I think I'll go shirt hunting when I'm finished here. A new-found confidence has been lit in me and I just had to share. And yes, I'm bragging. Nyah.

If we're lucky, we catch a man who loves us whether we're dressed to the nines or sitting in a dirty spit-up-stained three-day old t-shirt and sobbing over a seventh poopy diaper in an hour. If we're lucky. And those awesome co-procreators take a minute of each day to devote a comment on our beauty before kissing us on the way out the door. And that beauty consists of skunk-poop-morning breath, pre-shower and definitely pre-coffee rumpled in the bedsheets with the lights off. But they know what they see. Or they will compliment a less-than-stellar dinner because they appreciate the level of difficulty maintaining order in the chaos that is homework in the dining room while preparing dinner and getting ready for scouts. If we're really lucky, half of us get one of those guys with stars in their eyes, still seeing their blushing bride reflected in the cataracts and blue perms hunched over a walker 60 years later. I am one of those. And I am truly grateful for the outpouring of love my man has thrust upon me me in the past decade. At times though, it was more like one of those mustard yellow jumbo team thermoses of ice water being dumped on my head, but it was there and I clung to the fact that at least one person on the planet thought I looked nice enough, even when I put no effort into it whatsoever.

Entering the period of time known as the "thirty-somethings" has changed this perspective, only slightly. Dude, I just realized that I have spent the last decade in frump-mode and while my other female counterparts were perfecting the art of going out in public, I simply made do by not leaving the confines of my home for days on end. I have since decided to make myself look presentable, so that my tweenager doesn't gasp at the sweatpants and ratty t-shirt I wore the last time we went to the mall two weeks ago. Because, yeah, everyone will notice and think that's the only outfit I have. Yeah, uh, right. I'm doing it so I don't, um, embarrass her. *ahem* Slowly over the past two years I have been getting new jeans and cutesy shirts, I bought something besides running shoes for my feets, and I fired my ponytail. I have been walking, running and biking with the dog every night for two months. In other words, I declare myself suitable for the public eye.

And apparently they've noticed my efforts. Last night I was walking my faithful exercise-enducing canine surrounded by all four of my offspring when a car full of guys drove by, apparently went around the block and made a second, slower pass and they all yelled "MILF!!!!" and honked. I waved back as they sped up, a grin literally splitting my face. There's the love of your life telling you that you're beautiful when you think you're not, and then there's a car full of strangers agreeing with him. That feels a little different. So yeah, I need a new shirt, one that proclaims that yes, indeed, I am a Mother You'd Like to Ffffff...fjord.

"your attention please"

"All passengers with lost luggage please report to the lost and found office located on the lower level. Do not agree to take any baggage into the airport that does not belong to you. Do not allow anyone to place anything into your luggage. All unattended baggage will be subject to inspection and may be damaged or destroyed. Thank you."

I still hear the voice in my sleep. I used to work at the airport pre-9/11 and that recording repeated, calmly, just under every conversation, just over the muzak (tm), just enough to burn itself into my subconscious every five minutes of every day. I rose at 3:30 am to get ready and drive to work, take the shuttle from the employee lot, drop off at the Southwest Airlines (tm) ticket counter, walk under the ramming gate and through the silent walk-thru scanner. I helped open the checkpoint that allowed passengers to board their planes. I dealt with every kind of person you could possibly imagine, and I intend to do it again. Except the pay is now three times what it was in 1998. The people at Burger King (tm) were paid more than the passenger screeners. And people wondered why tragedies happened at airports and on planes.

Money is tight. So I applied for a job with the TSA. Fergus is fortunate enough to hold a position that encourages flex time. Meaning I could work Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and he could work 10-hour shifts four days a week, or simply go in later after the kids go to school and come home later at night. We won't have to worry about daycare now that kiddies are in school full time, and I will still be available during the week to volunteer at the school and work as a substitute too. This just might work.

I am excited at the possibility of getting this position again. I am so nosy. I plan to look at what you have stuffed in that bag. I plan on rummaging through your purse and telling you that the snacks have to go in the trash. I intend to wave a wand over your body and ask you to disrobe behind a screen if I cannot discern what is making that noise. I plan on using a polite but firm voice to make the procedure clear and if you have a problem with what I am asking, I will call the law enforcement and possibly get your ass kicked off your flight.

I am ready for the drug dealers with their drugs ingested and shit out again, wrapped in foil to look like sandwiches in a paper bag. I am ready for the women who refuse to open their purses and call me a racist because something looks suspicious inside. I am prepared for the travelling cowboy with a 14-foot leather whip with a barb on the end refusing to check his weapon at the ticket counter. I can hardly wait for the guy who collects "weird art" consisting of a belt made of live bullets soldered together. (who is insane enough to solder together live bullets anyway???)

Bring it on. Hire me. I am ready for my job again.

the beagle and the bee

trixie just had a bath. so we let her outside and, of course, she does the "ohmygodistink" roll in the dirt to wash off the clean smell. she was excited and happy, jumping and rolling and barking when something small caught her attention.

pounce!

tail wagging, nose sniffing, ears perking.

pounce! she did it again, tail in the air, pawing and snuffling at the ground. she was teasing the bees again. she pounces and chews at them and they buzz in her nose as she jumps away just in time. she gave two short barks, pouncing again and then leapt four feet into the air, taking off into a full run when she landed. we laughed, jeering at her, "see, they don't like it when you tick them off, silly girl!"

she barked and ran around the yard, sniffing the places in the fence where the rabbits leak in from other yards. we took her back inside so i could get started grilling.

i plopped the frozen burger patties over the flames, turning them to sear and sprinkling seasonings and minced onions on top. i went back inside and saw the trixter on the steps. she obviously wanted out to go play where it smelled reeeeeally good. then i did a double take. the left side of her muzzle was swollen up and puffy. she must have been stung!

tad googled "dog nose bee sting" and we did some quick reading. i grabbed a credit card and tried like hell to scrape across her muzzle to dislodge the stinger. but, uh, how do you find a stinger in a face full of fur that won't hold still for first aid?? next we made a baking soda & water paste and tried smearing it on ner nose. she very resolutely kept licking it off. next. i saw an entry suggesting benadryl, then cross checked it with four other veterinary sites. 1 mg of benadryl per pound of dog. the swelling was spreading up to her eye now. she was 30 pounds at her last vet visit......we have 25 mg tabs.....i went for it.

i gave her a pill stuffed in a bit of hot dog and she swallowed it down. the burgers burned while we dithered around, but i managed to scrape the charcoal off the one side, leaving them dry, but edible. i sat and held an ice pack on her wee nosie for as long as she let me, cooing and telling her how dumb she was for bee-teasing the whole time.

an hour later her nose was almost normal sized again and she was begging for a walk. i think the pain and the benadryl kept her from noticing as many rabbits as usual, and that was fine by me. this morning the swelling is completely gone. i'm just glad the little dork is feeling better. hope she learned that time.

gunpowder falls to the rescue

I know why my stomach hurts today. Money is tight. Things are not going well in the banking and billing department. There is nothing I can do to change the way things are headed until I can work at the school in the fall. Hopefully I can keep my stomach at bay long enough to resolve our money problems. We promised the kids a mini-trip every week this summer, in lieu of a large family vacation that we cannot afford. We were supposed to go bowling yesterday, but we have no funds. And I mean none. I can't squeeze a drop from the money machine and the kids watched the little box spit my card out without any money; their little faces fell. Damn.

I could mope and be miserable about it. But since I'm looking at the bigger picture today, I suddenly remembered something we could do for free. Out in the wild. I just hoped I could convince the kids to be excited about it.

There's a trail head for a HUGE state park ten minutes from our house. We donned water shoes and hats. I passed out icy water bottles. I gathered up a few small plastic tubs, the camera and our bugscope, and we headed for the trails. We hike a lot out here, so they recognized our destination as soon as we rounded a certain curve. By the time we parked, they were chattering on about getting to slosh through the creek. Usually we forget our water shoes.

We first noticed that the creek was low and murky. We talked in depth about the lack of rain and how that effects the water system. We watched a rather large (creeeeepy) spider wrap up a little something for its lunch. We caught a daddy longlegs and looked at his body through the bugscope. Did you know that daddy longlegs legs are fatter where they join to its body? We do now. We got to the end of one path, where we usually turn back, but today we plunged in and marveled at everything we got to see. We caught a few crawfish and watched them scurry in our plastic tub.

We also managed to track down this super speedy tadpole, and used our bugscope to see it's teeeny eeensy legs forming on its sides.

The dragonflies and pond skippers were too quick for us, but we snapped some awesome shots of two different species of butterfly, sunning on the rocks. I have not determined what kind of butterfly is above, but this is either the eastern tiger swallowtail or the appalachian swallowtail, below.


The Princess trying her hardest to catch those quick minnows...and catching lots of water in the process!

A sopping wet Hercules thoroughly enjoying his catch....of rocks! Would you like a taste? I can cook them to order!


King Schmoo of the creek says: no mere rushing water can knock me down! See how sturdy I stand in the water pouring off the rocks. Alright, ma, take the picture already.

Big Sister Bear, minnow catcher extrordinaire! She actually caught about 15 of the little buggers and let the kids hold them (in the buckets) and get pics taken. Those are some FAST hands!!


On the way back to the car, we happened to notice that our eight-legged recently-fed friend was no longer in its web. In fact, the entire web was missing as well. We could only surmise that it made a tasty treat for any of the robins or cardinals swooping in the trees nearby. Today I learned that I really had nothing to worry about on this excursion. They proclaimed this to be more fun (and more educational, one pointed out) than sitting in the bowling alley anyway. They had so much fun, they asked if we could make this our trip next week. Except next week, we'll need to bring a picnic lunch. Sitting back and watching the kids splash in the creek and looking at the big picture, things aren't so bad. We'll figure this money thing out. Then we can go bowling; that is, if the kids still want to.

finally getting to the fourth

I love the Fourth.

Unexpectedly, it pounces on me with the pop and crackle of fireworks and the dusty smell of phosphorus the last week in June. New Old Glories wave in the breeze from businesses and car windows. Buntings and variations of stars and stripes dangle from apartment balconies and dress up front porches. People seem to have a little more bounce in their step and I can be caught humming bars from John Philip Sousa or Francis Scott Key at any time.

When I was little, my dad always used to tell me that the fireworks were all for me. We'd sit in lawn chairs at my grandmother's house, sipping soda through straws, watching the neighbors put on fantastic displays of colored lights. The air grew thick with the smell I associated with birthday cake and, incidentally, our nation's freedom. I was crushed to learn in school that the fireworks were actually for the birth of America, not me, and that the displays had gone on for exactly 199 years before I was even thought of. But not all the magic was lost; I still pretend they are for me. *hmmph*

Even with all the excitement, we never went anywhere else for the Fourth. I never knew of parades winding through the streets of town. Never saw a community block party. Never stood on the curb catching candy, wearing red, white and blue while waving a flag at the fire engines. Never clapped for the local high school marching bands. We didn't go downtown where all the action took place. There were murderers and thugs and "bad people" there. I never knew what I was missing until I was married with kids of my own. And we finally discovered small-town America's Independence Day Celebrations.

Classic cars decked out in their finest, polished to literally glow in the summer sunshine. Marching bands with their fancy flag corps routines and the tuba line doing a kick step as they marched and played "Yankee Doodle." My kiddies sitting on the curb, clapping their hands in time with the music, nudging each other and saying, "Hey I know this song!!!" Fire engines, lights ablaze, with their families seated on the back of the truck, waving their flags to their friends in the streets. Boy and Girl Scouts tossing patriotic Tootsie Rolls and fake Americana tattoos and carrying their troop flags alongside Old Glory herself. Legions of American Legions displaying the progression of our flag from her days of thirteen prim stars in a circle on a field of blue liberty, all the way through the brilliantly billowing banner of today. Kilted bagpipers, fife players sporting tri-corner hats, social organizations, drama troops, dance companies….please excuse my excitement; this is all new to me.

And so the end of the parade trailed into early afternoon, when we went home for a picnic lunch and some swimming. Our plans were far from over because we still had to wait for nightfall before my favorite part began. We planned to attend the local carnival before the show, and those plans were dashed with the phrase, "the tornado watch remains in effect until 10:30 tonight…" My mid-western nose and I ran outside and sniffed the air. It was damp. Yes it would rain, but the light breeze didn't have that certain indescribable smell of danger. The sky was foreboding, but not the classic green tint that signals funnels dropping from the heavens. My nose and I decided we were safe. So we put doggie into her crate with soothing music and a running fan to dampen the terrifying booms that would be heard in the near future. We packed umbrellas and the Neat Sheet™, and left the house in a soaking rain. Halfway there (less than 5 minutes down the road, that is) the sun warily poked a few fingerholes in the clouds, giving a truly awesome sight of golden sun in a driving rain. By the time we paid the Boy Scouts for the use of their church parking lot, the rain had stopped and we fairly skipped the whole four blocks to the show. I secured a spot in view of the field and watched kiddies play on the school playground equipment. Every pattern of our nation's colors was visible in a crowd clutching beach towels, bedspreads, garbage bags and umbrellas under threat of more rain. Giggling children smelling of bug spray and cotton candy frolicked barefoot in the damp grass, waving sparklers. The live band played in the secured stage, making announcements for the event organizers. While huddling under five umbrellas, eating funnel cakes and snowballs, the band stated that the show would begin early because a storm cell was headed right for us. As if to confirm that, Mother Nature grumbled warily to our southwest. The display began in a hurry.

It was still light and we could make out the forms of the pyrotechnicians scurrying to simply set fire to the night before the rain hit. The result was loud, unorganized, brighter than daylight, and fantastic. I have never seen so many large-scale fireworks go off that close together and it was as scary as it was fun. The booms shook in my chest and drowned out the delighted screams of the kids. The thirty minute show was chopped to almost twenty minutes and as the last burst of color and sonic booms died away, down came the rain. Lightning flashed and thunder followed close on its heels as we gathered our shoes and umbrellas and made our escape under buckets emptying themselves from the sky upon the crowd.

In a sea of running people and umbrellas, I knew the kids would have trouble staying together. Mama Duck took the lead, holding tightly to the closure strap on the littlest little's umbrella and they all stair-stepped up to Daddy. "Keep your eyes on your siblings' shoes in front of you and DON'T BREAK THIS LINE!!" I ordered. The police shut down all traffic and believe it or not, everyone respected our little umbrella train. No one broke through the middle; in fact, most people hung just behind me as if I was the cow-catcher of this express or something. For some reason it made me feel tall. We made it to our car as the rain began to taper off a bit, but as we opened the car doors, the floodgates opened once more. We managed to find a back street that led in the direction of our home, but away from the police- and traffic-jammed streets. Laughing, soaked through the skin all the way to our bones and happy, we slopped out of the car and into our house, filling the bathtub with sopping clothes, shoes and umbrellas; home again. After toweling heads and tucking excited kiddies into beds, we crashed onto the couch in dry, clean pajamas and said, simultaneously, "Well, that was fun!"

I love the Fourth.

a slide show to accompany my story is right here.

an unlikely field trip

Anyone who has been invited to view the slideshow of our yard's face-lift will be able to note that we moved quite a lot of dirt, sod, rocks, brick, old concrete, rebar, railroad ties and a full cubic foot of broken glass (with the exception of the bottle from the local dairy back in 1950-something that we managed to extract whole). We ended up with a rather large pile headed for the dump. Due to the difficulty of moving so much debris, we decided to rent a local hardware store truck and caravan out to the dump and work together. The kids, never having actually seen a dump before, were ecstatic to go on the trip. "Why do we have to go? Can't daddy just do it alone? I don't waaaaaanaaaa!"

Mid-wail, the garbage truck pulls up in front of our house. The guys waved to the kids and asked their permission to take the trash away for us. For some reason, the hopper is always full when it gets to our house and they squish it (as it dribbles messily out of the truck into the street...) engine roaring, pistons skreeling, contents bursting. All three of them watched, wide-eyed as the garbage truck did it's thing. Oh, perfect. I snapped into teacher mode immediately. Before the smelly backside of the garbage truck was out of sight, I pulled out a dog-eared, well-loved copy of an awesome book: "I STINK!" by Kate & Jim McMullan. It describes in fascinating kid-like detail exactly what the garbage truck does. It lists the parts of the truck and the jobs of the sanitation workers and it addresses the most serious kid-inquisitive topic of them all: "what is in there and where is it going?" The book works it's way alphabetically from apple cores through zipped up ziti with zucchini accompanied by accurately watercolored drawings of the trash contents. NOW they really were excited to follow the trash truck to the dump.

Once there, we watched the trucks drive onto the scales to weigh how much trash they were bringing. We couldn't see the numbers, but the kids were fascinated by the ever-slightly-swaying platform. Next we drove past the place where you dump just wood and yard debris like tree branches, grass clippings, and leaves. From where we sat they could see the mulchers spewing piles of chopped and splintered wood higher than a bus and three times as long. We talked about how they recycle those things and re-use them to put wood chips on the playground at school. We continued around a curve and found the concrete dump. We unloaded most of the truck and the kids dutifully stayed in the van, watching out the open door as we added our cinderblocks and chunked concrete to the piles of flagstone, bricks and paving stones. We buckled the kids back in and followed a winding dirt road that kept going up, up, up....all along the left side we saw lots of grass and pumps used to alleviate the pressure of the building methane, I'm sure. At the top we reached the actual dump and the kids were thrilled to see an actual garbage truck emptying its hopper onto the ground. They watched as a bulldozer covered Mount Trash-O-Rama with dirt and let the next truck in to do the same.

They complained about the smell a bit and we reviewed what, exactly, we were smelling according to our book. All the way home they recited different specimens found in the book's trash cans and then they spun off to tell what they had most recently put in the trash can themselves. All in all it was an extremely successful morning. We finished our job, the kids had fun, there were no complaints the whole drive there or back, and they all volunteered to take out the trash when we got home. Normal, we are not.