bucket, anyone?

i am currently laying in the lap of luxury, laptop within reach, feet propped up bathed in a cool, rose-scented breeze tickling against my bare feet as i sway in the hammock. there'sonly one thing wrong with this picture, and unfortunately it is just so very wrong. nothing can drown it out, nothing can take it away and nothing can stop it. someone please tackle the tone-deaf mutant with the karaoke mike. my ears are bleeding. somebody get that boy a bucket to carry his tune in.

a neighbor across the street (one i don't particularly care for in the first place) is having some sort of teen party; an "instead-of-prom," a graduation open house, a birthday, or maybe just a loud party of no real significance. whatever the occasion, i have heard about enough of the off-key, off-rhythm, beatles, neil diamond and tom jones i can stomach for quite some time. how do the snot-nose brats even know these songs??? the noise bleeds into my home from well over 50 yards away'and nothing we do can shut it out.

now they are pathetically trying to rap, or maybe they are among those people who only read in a monotone and therefore can't sing outside a monotone whilst reading the lyrics on the little screen. they suck so bad, half the time i can't even recognize the tune, let alone the words. why oh why are the people who cannot sing to save their lives attracted so violently to the karaoke machine??? oh and don't get even me started on the feedback......mikes+speakers =badness!!!!!!

i can't tell if they have been drinking because the singing has been steadfastly horrid for going on 4 hours now. i would love to leave just to escape the noise, but i am pretty drunk myself. i had a coupla ciders just as they were warming up and ciders stay with me for quite a while. so here i sit listening to the mad combination of simon the dog next door howling along with fragments of - i'm really trying hard to identify this....it's been 2.5 minutes and i still haven't got it yet.....they've changed songs twice and i still haven't figured them out - i'll guess that last one had the temptations backing him up. even the birds have a panicked shrillness in their chirrups. we're all going insane, one sour note at a time......

know thy circulars

We had occasion to go shopping tonight. So we headed out to our local S*Mart, where they had a few things on sale that we needed. Things like retaining wall stones and underpants; you know, the basics. I usually look over the various and sundry store circulars stuffed into our mailbox every Wednesday and plan out which store can give me the best price on stuff I need. That meticulous study and list-making was a monetary necessity for a few years and now the habit has stuck, much to the delight of our bank account.

Fergus had already paid for and loaded up the stones and was anxious to take the van back home so he could get a drink of water. Alas, that was the one thing strangely lacking in our S*Mart. So he ditched me with the kids (volunteering to take the good one with him....I kept her for her entertainment value) while I got into the only open non-express lane behind a woman purchasing a butt-load of soda-pop and frantically flipping through the circular describing the "soap powder advertised as 2 for $5." She was adamant about that price. The store cashier was showing her the page where it was listed as $6.50 for one, but this woman wanted her 2 for $5. OK, yeah, that's a huge difference. I'd double check too.

Shopper-Lady decided to go back to the shelf and find the price there while Cashier-Lady went to get a supervisor to verify that the price was coded into the computer properly. I pried my childrens' hands from the candy once more and glanced through my basket. "I'm gonna guess....$165.00," I said to my daughter. "No, make that closer to $200. I bet we'll spend about $200 tonight." I pride myself on being able to accurately guess, but I love it when I end up guessing high. It makes me feel like I'm getting a better deal than I should for some reason. Yeah. I'm a doof.

Meanwhile, the Express Lane was drawing flies. I poked my head over the top of the candy bars and gum and asked politely if I could hop over even though I had 21 items. She held her hands over her head in a resigned shrug and told me that it wasn't her policy; if customers walked up to the Express Lane and I held them up with my huge basket-full, they'd be upset with her. So I had to stay put. I could feel my hair turning grey. I was going to grow old and die before I could check out. I was beginning to wonder if my fabulous deals were really worth it....

Shopper-Lady arrived back on the scene with a hang-dog look. She coulda sworn they were 2 for $5. They were 2 for $13. Which was $6.50 each. Cashier-Lady rang her up and kept loading the soda-pop into her cart when Shopper-Lady announced she'd rather just get one soap powder after all. So now we have to do a void. Lane Three is still clear and I can hear the computer tapping at the Customer Service desk, there are so few customers in the store.

A shoving match and the clatter of several pair of sunglasses returned my attention to the rugrats behind my behind. We picked up the sunglasses, explaining that we aren't supposed to wear all of them at once. Three customers arrived behind me. Lane Three was so empty, I could park my minivan there and no one would notice. The customers behind me were beginning to grumble when Cashier-Lady walked around to the swipe card reader because Shopper-Lady didn't know why it needed her zip code. Then the pen was out of ink, so Cashier-Lady needed to go get another one from Customer Service.

At long last the transaction seemed complete when Shopper-Lady said she wanted root beer instead of the soda she already had bagged in her cart. Cashier-Lady veerrryyy patiently explained that she would have to void the other soda and re-run her card through because the two sodas were different brands. Shopper-Lady thought that since they were in the same aisle and the same price she could just swap them out. After a short bit of hemming and hawing, Shopper-Lady decided to keep the soda she had and just add the root beer. Now she had to dig in her purse for 73 cents. Jeez Louise. And some other choice words....

I moved my cart forward as Shopper-Lady looked over her receipt. The price of bleach caught her eye and she started to haggle about the price when I snapped. I've been standing in line for 23 minutes. I'm done.

"Lady." I used my best Mommy Voice and plastered a visibly fake smile over my clenched teeth. "I will pay the difference of the bleach if you would kindly get out of line and go home so I can get my kids to bed sometime before midnight. I have cash in my pocket. I will buy the whole damn jug." The cashier about lost it. She had to be nice, but no such company policy had a hold on my tongue. The woman behind me snickered.

Shopper-Lady carefully folded her receipt and pressed a smile into her face saying, "Thank you dear. I can buy my own bleach. I'll take this up with Customer Service."

As I walked out with my receipt for $147 in my pocket, (YES!!) I noticed that there still weren't any customers in Lane Three. There were nine behind me. Somebody is going to get a letter tomorrow.

the end of a decade

What a Mother's Day.

Gorgeous, even with a bit of a chilly wind. Good friends, good food. One last hurrah with our bestest buddies of the past decade. *sigh* Definitely not-to-be-forgotten.

My best friend and her family is moving to Hawai'i next month. We were stationed together in the United Queendom for three years, and became very close friends. Then their follow-on assignment just happened to land them here - where we landed. So for the better part of the past eight years we have been virtually inseparable. We have decorated and painted each other's properties. We have inspired and been inspired by each other. We have watched each other's children meet milestone after milestone. First words, steps, pigtails, bike rides, days of school, arguments & make-ups. We have scrapped together, leaned on each other, baked together, vented about our husbands to each other, and most of all learned from each other. I'm going to miss her so much.

We all keep joking about next summer when my family will take a cruise to Hawai'i to visit them, but I have a deathly fear of water to overcome. And a big fat vacation fund to fund before that can happen. Our kids don't remember what life was before we met. In fact, five of the six kids in our two families were born during our friendship. We have slumber party weekends which involve all 10 of us sleeping under the same roof. Late nights with lots of laughs and cards into the wee hours. Early mornings with kids jumping on beds. Waffles and sausage breakfasts, picnic lunches, sledding in the winter, sunning in the summer, yard sales, trips to the zoo, and in general, lots of merrymaking.

We spent our last Mother's Day together (for a great long while at least), doing what we do best. Mothering together. Three split lips, BBQ chicken & hot dogs, backyard swings, blueberry pie a-la-mode, my school's spring carnival, tearing down a broken shed to get ready for a new one, water bottles, vanilla sprinkle cookies, burning up dried weeds and fallen winter branches, baseball, huddling quietly watching bunnies play tag in the grass, and a small dose of Dora & Mario Kart, all topped off with hot apple pie last night before they hit the road.

I'm gonna miss her. The rest of them too, but who else will come over and make stromboli and pies with me? Who else likes to do crafts, go on a hike, or read story after story with their kids instead of plopping them in front of the television? Everyone calls me Martha Stewart because I don't serve up instant life from a cardboard box. I make it up as I go and have developed quite a few home-grown recipes of my very own. She is like me so we made great friends. So now it's just me. At least for a few years 'til they come back home again. *sigh*

What a Mother's Day.

it was on sale

being the domestic engineer, my job description includes that of "menu planner" and "grocery-getter." so every coupla weeks, i sit down with a broken crayon and mostly clean dinner napkin from subway (eat fresh) demanding that the kids tell me what they like to eat. well, besides pizza, chicken nuggets, hamburgers and hot dogs. got those on the list already. then i go through the tedious task of writing down the ingredients to make said dinners. then i toss on a few lunch things and breakfast things and toilet paper and i have about a $300 list. if i have coupons, great. most of the coupons i see are things that i wouldn't normally buy anyway, like makeup and cat food and beef jerky.

b-o-r-i-n-g. yup. then i wait until all the younguns are in school. i do up my hair all nice and shave my legs. can't go into town looking like some sasquatch escaped from the beauty school. my husband says i'd look just fine in an old burlap sack, but the last time i went out to a store in a burlap sack, they pointed me in the direction of the church of god across the street and told me to stop by after i paid them a visit.

i was minding my own business. sticking to the list. i don't impulse buy very often. i was passing by the napkins when the bright red sign on the other side of the aisle caught my eye. well, we could use some, even though it isn't on the list this time. after all, it was on sale. and even if it wasn't, we all need to indulge sometimes, right? right??? the sign said 2 for $5.00. that still isn't record-breaking but it was way cheaper than usual so i picked some up. just 2. one for me and one for dh.

i trotted them out after the kids went to bed. i'm sneaky like that when i don't want to share. i popped the lid and scooped some out. the first spoonful was light, creamy, delectable. it was new and exciting. and sexy. i had that feeling of "have i been good enough for this?" naughtiness. the second bite was like rocking-the-headboard-knocking-things-over-take-me-right-here-baby-making sex. right there in my mouth.

it was haagen-daas caramel cone ice cream.

i don't know if i can ever go back to regular stuff. i guess we'll see the next time i pass the freezer case....

pining for "home"

The cloud creeps up on the setting sun. Stealthy. Slow. The sun is subdued and the evening sky deepens into an unusual dark. The winding summery breeze grows chill while shaking the new leaves on their branches. They look to one another in dismay in the still before waving uncontrollably under the black of cloud. The birds twitter quietly into their wings, hushing their young. Their silence seems to scream to hold on tight. Damp fills the air. The very ground seems to reach it's dry, weathered fingers, beseeching the sky for a sip of rain. I can feel the humid heat, teasing against my hot skin, aching for a drink from the cool moist air. It fills my nose; the smell of stream, the smell of cool, the smell of the utimate sign of summer. The smell of downpour.

The wind rushes through the leaves, the sound loud in the deafening silence from the birds. I hear the clack of giant raindrops, hurled one by one, crashing to the ground. Each drop makes a bullet hole in the dirt and kicks up a minute cloud of dust surrounding the wet. The water soaks into the ground as the dust settles around the crater, waiting for another. The rain splatters cold on my arm, again on my cheek, a third into my hair, sending a shiver down my back. To the west I can feel the change in the air pressure and turn to see the wall of rain heading towards me. The water flowing from the sky blurs the edges of trees in the distance, turns the sky a murky grey. The wind dies for a moment and i can hear the sssshhhhhhh of the rain growing closer.

In a blink I am soaking wet. The huge drops pelting every inch of skin and soaking through my clothes, making puddles into my shoes. I kick them off my feet and stand barefoot in a pool with my arms upstretched welcoming the rain. The water pours like a faucet down my hair, winding into cold rivulets, trickling down between my breasts and soaking into my jeans. The mud grows between my toes, as i turn slowly, churning the water and dirt into dark, sticky muck. Thunder rumbles far overhead, the sound tumbling over the soft contour of the grey- and black-streaked clouds. Branches are tossed about in the wind. Channels of water run through the cracked earth. Lightening flashes briefly throwing shadows into the mud and I dance jubilantly in the dark to the beat of the summer storm.

The drought has broken.

and with a busted cell phone to boot

We all look forward to spring, don't we? I am less than thrilled about the allergy meds 24/7, but if there's one thing i love, it's being out in the fresh air, no matter how much I sneeze. This spring has been particularly kooky with the cold winter chill still around and below average rainfalls; when it does rain, it comes in torrential downpours. With spring comes longer, warmer days and the promise of an awesome camping season. I love sitting around a campfire...I especially love the way my hair and clothes smell after an evening of starlight, moonlight and firelight. My Girl Scout troop is planning a trip this weekend, and I have a monster list of shopping to do today. No, don't leave. I swear this gets better.

So I'm out doing the grocery shopping thing with my windows cranked down and the music cranked up. The only thing to spoil my beautiful afternoon so far, is that it is going to end soon. Until now. A perfect afternoon can only be enhanced by sucking cancer from a little burning stick and blowing it around to share with everyone within 20 feet. Of course. I am soooo missing out on this one, so the guy in the car in front of me decides to help me out. A disgusting blast of cigarette smoke blows in through my open window. As I press the button to close off the attack of the stinking zephyr, I watch the jackass flip his butt (what an attractive name for something you put in your mouth by the way...) into the mulch and drive away.

At first glance, yes, someone dropped a butt and it was still smoking. One blink and it was no longer a butt. It became a burning pile of debris and it was headed underneath someone else's car. Holy mother of cows. I jumped out of my car (leaving the door open, how very foolish!!) and started stomping on the fire, which is now about a foot wide and has flames licking 6 inches into the air. Yeah. It took me longer to type that sentence than it did for that stupid asshat's cancer-stick to cause a major problem. I managed to stop the flames, but the mulch was still smouldering, so I ran to the trunk of my van to get some water. I always keep a liter of water in the car for any use but drinking. I have used it in the past to wash ice cream off of sticky cheeks and fingers (Baskin-Robbins napkins are soooo worthless, in case you didn't know). I have used it to rinse off scrapes at the playground, and to dump on hot softball players heads. Today I got to use it to play fire-fighter. Meanwhile the light has turned green, people are honking and trying to drive around me and no one else has seen the fire. So they think I'm just sitting here playing Chinese Fire Drill all by myself!!

I glugged the bottle into the smoking gutter until the very last drops dribbled out. I twisted the cap back on, vowing to refill the thing as soon as I got home. I just glanced at the bottoms of my shoes, and guess what? I need a new pair. As I'm sitting here telling my story, I can just barely detect a whiff of smoke on my clothes. Smells like teen spirit? Nope.

M for mild profanity

I have very recently come to terms with how very fool-hardy I can be at times. I try my hardest to make decisions that are the best for the family, but those decisions aren't always the the right ones. Reality flooded into my head this afternoon when I realized just what I had decided to do and didn't fully think through the consequences of my actions.

What would my baby, my little four-year-old do if I were injured in the back yard in the middle of the day and she had no idea? When would someone notice? At 1:00 when she didn't show up at school? At 3:00 when my middle schooler couldn't get in the door because it was locked and she didn't have her key? At 3:30 when the elementary school called first the house, then my husband's office when no one came to pick up the boys from school? After 5 pm when my husband arrived home to find my baby locked in the house foraging for food, my middle schooler frozen on the front porch and the boys in tow?

I need to stop and think more often.

I did a very stupid thing this morning and I do not intend to repeat it again. It's not news that the eastern seaboard is having issues with weather. One issue being the wind gusting around 60 mph. We had arrived home after midnight from our spring break trip to find that the winds had already damaged the shed. It was sitting at an odd angle and the sliding doors were actually hanging. Not a good sign, but what can you do at midnight in a storm? Nothing. I went out this morning to try to figure out a way to anchor the thing down and set the doors back on their tracks. Don't get me started on how to properly anchor a shed while it's being built....anchoring it to a proper floor is on the "to-do" list. I shouldn't have messed with the thing. While thinking and gathering up lawn furniture, the wind gusted, tipped the shed up and over it's contents. The shed then swooped up into the air and landed five feet from me (in the direction I was walking when it's movement distracted me) and proceeded to tumble across the yard and stop a foot from the opposite fence.

Shit.

I did what I always do when I don't know what else to do. I ran inside and called Fergus. Then ran back outside with the phone to stand on the shed wall to keep it from blowing further away and causing property damage to any neighbors. His advice: Since it's already on it's side, load the contents of the shed onto/into the shed and that will hold it down. Brilliant. Using pool noodles, I rolled/pushed the 300 pound shed as close to the foundation of the house I could. I found a heavy wrought iron candle hook spike and drove it into the ground almost two feet in an attempt to anchor it temporarily. I then wore my ass out dragging the lawn mower, bags of sand, six bikes, all the lawn furniture and tools and piling them higgeldy-piggeldy, yet distributing the weight as evenly as possible across the shed wall (which was now acting as the floor). The faster I worked, the harder the wind blew. The only thing that kept me moving long past the time I would have collapsed from exhaustion was adrenaline and the fear that if this fucker blew away and caused damage to any neighbor, our homeowner's insurance probably wouldn't cover it. The swearing and repetition of the words "higher premiums" and "no coverage" became my mantra.

One Aleve and a progress report to the husband later, I am getting ready to take the littlest little of them all to school and thinking seriously about taking a nap. I am worn out. But then...I've been jumping up and checking on the shed every 45 minutes to an hour to make sure it's still there. One hour down, seven more to go until the wind warnings are lifted.