Wednesday, August 31, 2011

I got the Blues

You guys, I am low. I got the blues, the contractor, construction blues. I am trying to clear my head by tackling some of the other 56 things on my to-do list so I can get to the bottom of my dilemma, but its not working.

I tried to exercise my way to an answer, but after a mere 15 minutes on the elliptical, I thought I was going to barf, so I sat down on a chair in the back yard and pet my cat instead. She was very soft and silky and appreciative, but, unfortunately, not helpful.

Then I sent some goodness into the universe by helping my mom track down the owner of the iPhone that she found on a hiking trail yesterday. She actually called me from the iPhone, which is in itself completely astonishing since this is a woman who has trouble with the remote control and doesn't have an ATM card. She thinks I'm a super genius for tracking the guy down, but really the people who invented the internet are super geniuses because that's how I found him. I thought some good karma might help me with my current situation, but so far, no.

Then I took a long shower. I didn't work up much of a sweat during my 15 minute work out, but I have a hot date tonight for my anniversary (15 years, dude.) so I thought What the hell? The steam did not sort out my problem, and I doubt the blow dryer will either.

Is there anyone out there who can jail break my brain and figure this out for me?!!!?

So all I'm going to do today is slog through my list of stuff I have to get done, like buy the biggest jar of maraschino cherries I can find for the neighbor kid's 9th birthday, and then read some of the third book in the Hunger Games series, and then cover my head with my blanket and stop answering the phone. Sounds like a plan!

Monday, August 29, 2011

First Day of the Rest of my Life

I didn't mention this because I didn't want anyone to call me on it or put on any pressure, but a few weeks ago, I bought a used elliptical machine off Craigslist from a man with the sexiest Italian accent I've ever heard. I made Rob go with me to pick it up because A) I needed him to load it in the car, and B) I couldn't guarantee I wouldn't come home pregnant.

The elliptical has been set up in the garage for a couple of weeks, and Rob has been using it in lieu of going to the gym before work and showering with strangers. I hadn't used it until this morning. I am the MASTER of excuses. First, I wanted to sleep in as long as I could while we were still on summer vaycay, and last week I had that headache that wouldn't go away, but there was no excuse this morning. I needed a shower anyway, so I thought What the heck?

I did 20 minutes. It kicked my ass. I am in the worst shape EVER. Its really shameful. I set such a bad example for my kid, its not even funny. While I'm writing this, I'm resting. I can't get into the shower yet, my knees are too weak. Its like I'm 80. Jeez. I suck.

But every fat-ass has their first day, right? Those people who have lost 200 lbs. had a first day of the rest of their life, right? I'm actually not setting a weight loss goal; I just want to get in better shape so that a flight of stairs doesn't leave me winded. So I don't get a sore butt from bowling one game. So I can weed my garden without taking ibuprofin for my back.

Day one: 20 minutes: nailed it.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Bullshit

Its the fourth day of school, and I'm ready for summer vacation to start. I just feel assaulted by school this year. There's so much noise and talking and people and kids and bikes and paper! It almost makes me want to home school, until I realize I'd actually have my kid around me all day and I'd have to teach her stuff. I'll teach her how to get me a coke and scratch that place on my back that I can't reach. She's on her own for the rest.

And, in addition to having elementary school standing on my neck, I have a headache, accompanied by nausea and simultaneous hunger, that wont go away. I'm on Day Three of popping advil (to no avail) and belching. Damn period. If only I weren't so afraid of menopause. But I guess it doesn't really matter if I'm afraid of it or not, right? Its clear that my hormones don't care about me, never have and probably never will. My hormones just stand there in their leather studded biker jackets and flip me the bird. I have the Bernie Madoff of hormones. They're thugs waiting to ambush me and steal my sanity and my waistline. They hold a gun to my head and make me take little blue pills. Never been on my side, those fuckers.

Where was I? Oh yeah: school. This is longest week ever, and homework hasn't even started. Neither has piano. Now Leila wants to try fencing, so I've got to get that bullshit going.

Isn't 'Bullshit' the best word ever? Its especially good when my dad says it with his German accent. Or when Leila says it. She hardly ever does, because she's a good girl and knows what language she is allowed to use and what language is only okay in song lyrics, but every now and again she'll blurt it out for no reason and I just laugh and laugh. I know I shouldn't, but its funny. Its like my friends daughter who, at the age of three, named one of her dolls Asshole. It was just too funny to correct. Isn't it nice that children exist almost entirely for our amusement?

Can you tell I have a headache and I want to throw up and eat a big sandwich?

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The Loop

There are some changes around the campus this year, and, even though I am done caring too much about the machinations of the school administration, there is one change that is affecting me, and I'm not digging it. I could care less about the changes that affect other people, but, as the Queen, this is the current object of my bitching.

The school closed what we affectionately called The Loop, a driveway of sorts into the school that looped around where you could push your kids out of the car while it was still moving and then drive on to your other pursuits. Problems arose when parents actually did this, and in the process, bumped into other cars, drove up on sidewalks where children were walking, made their own children play human Frogger with oncoming traffic, and came to blows with other parents. You may think I am exaggerating, but I assure you I'm not. Except the throwing-your-kid-out-of-a-moving-car thing; I only suspect that that happens, but more often than not, a mother lingers in the loop smearing sunscreen on her child in the back seat while other cars wait to drop off their kids, and thus the blows. Mothers Fighting Mothers is not a reality show I want to watch.

The principals took the radical step of closing the loop and making parents drop off their children at other locations around the school. White Pants and I thought of setting up lawn chairs where the driveway was closed and taking pictures of parents having complete conniptions. Leila and I walk to school, so I don't have any particular feeling about this either way, except that now I do.

Walking my child to school in the morning was, in all seriousness, the best part of my day. We're out in the cool morning, we're talking, the dog is with us, we're holding hands, we're saying hello to friends, just delightful.

Well.

The parents who used to use The Loop are naturally looking for other places to drop off their children, so they have crowded in to the little street approaching the school. What used to be a pleasant morning walk, is now an obstacle course where car doors are opening into us, bikes and scooters are whizzing past, and it is so crowded, I fear for my life. Not really, but I do fear for the safety of my dog, and I'm seriously considering not walking him to school anymore which would be a real shame for him and all of his fans. It is seriously like trying to navigate your way through a crowded airport. Like, seriously.

The best part of my day has been ruined! Don't they care about me and my needs? DON'T THEY KNOW WHO I AM???

I'm going to wait and see if the people in their cars decide that this particular street is a bad place to drop off their kids and proceed to one of the other designated locations. I'll give it a week. If it doesn't get better, I'm throwin' down. I'll make phone calls. Don't think I wont! I'll wear a sandwich board promoting the re opening of the loop! I'll write a letter to the mayor! Go ahead and push your children out of moving vehicles and get into fist fights if you want! I have to walk my dog!!!

Monday, August 22, 2011

Fourth Grade!

First day of school! Tra la la! Fourth Grade, baby! Woo hoo!

Yes, the summer is over. School has begun. If you asked me what we did this summer, I wouldn't be able to come up with a good answer. I could say, "We watched a lot of shows on the Food Network!" and that would be true, but not the message I want to send. Leila couldn't go to sleep last night, too excited, and was ready to walk out the door a half hour early this morning. That wont happen again until this time next year. I miraculously remembered how to put a cheese sandwich together, and pile things into a lunch box, while slinging frozen waffles. My powers of recall are really impressive!

The whole family walked to school together, and I think the dog was a little confused that we were up before nine, AND he was getting walked. He hardly knew where to pee. His powers of recall are not nearly as impressive as mine. So what if I forgot to put the cookies in her lunch, I'm still awesome!

In fourth grade, the teacher doesn't want the parents to dangle around the classroom, helping their kid get settled. Conventional wisdom is that nine year-olds are perfectly capable of putting their back pack in their cubby and finding their name tag on their own, but that doesn't stop all of us parents from crowding into the room and "helping." For many of us, it will be our only social interaction with other adults for the rest of the day, so there is lots of hugging and lingering.

I thought I was pretty good. Rob and I went in, but we just stood there like dopes and let Leila take care of business, and then we said goodbye. We didn't stay and chat, we didn't introduce ourselves to the teacher, and I didn't touch Leila's back pack. Its a little weird to just leave your kid with a strange woman and a classroom full of kids, even if the strange woman is the teacher, and your kid is at an age where, in other countries, she'd be carrying water five miles or working in a factory or harvesting crops or whatever.

Here was the best part, though. One of the other mothers came to me and said she was so happy that she would have me as her head room parent again, and I said, "Nope, not this year. Someone else's turn." Look at me, saying no! Not succumbing to the adulation (even if its only in my head) that comes with being head room parent! I'm so excited to not do it this year, and was even more excited to not go to the first day welcome coffee where I can learn about all the exciting volunteer opportunities awaiting me, buy a sweatshirt with the school's logo, and donate money. Me and White Pants walked our dogs instead. What a refreshing change!

Don't get too excited. I'm already on the docket for the Variety Show and some other stuff, so I'll be bitching about that soon enough. In the meantime, I'm going to go to the supermarket and buy some good butter, some Benefiber, and a spray bottle. I suppose I should come up with something for dinner, too.

And thus it begins...

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Drip, drip...

I want to give you an update on our construction project that you may remember me talking about a few months back. Well, we are about one inch closer to our goal. I'll be meeting with contractor number 6 today, and hopefully we'll get an estimate from at least one of these guys sometime in this century. I don't think anyone told any of the contractors in my county that there's a recession on. They all seem to be either swimming in work, or too busy fishing.

This has been so frustrating, and we've waiting so long, and the project I was going to do during the summer and be done with by the time we went back to school hasn't even started and we go back to school on Monday. I'll be lucky if we are done by Christmas. Everyone told me this would happen, but I thought, "how hard can this be?" Very hard, apparently.

In lighter news, I can't stop dripping stuff on my clothes. I keep going to the movies and dripping popcorn butter on shirts, and my new shorts have a big greasy shadowy stain on them. I am trying to dress a little nicer, forgoing my standard Tshirt and jeans for slightly nicer Tshirts and jeans, but I keep ruining everything. Would it be weird if I just walked around in an apron all the time? I wear one while doing dishes, and when my black cat wants to sit on me and purr and drool, and I often put it on when I'm going to eat something in front of the TV because I inevitably drip things on myself, so maybe wearing it to restaurants or the movies wouldn't be such a big stretch?

I have heard this the a problem confined to big busted women such as myself. The rest of you, with normal boobs, drip something off your fork and it drops onto the napkin that you have delicately placed in your lap, but for the chesty girls, it never makes it to the lap. I should carry disposable lobster bibs in my purse. Or dig out some of Leila's baby bibs and just put them on every time I eat something. Or eat naked, but I don't know how that would go over at the movie theater or my local eatery.

Does anyone have a sure fire way to get greasy stains out of clothes? And don't tell me to lay off the greasy food, because we both know that wont happen...


Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Dinohummers

Summer vacation is almost over and I can feel it. Today, Leila went to camp and I went to the movies. I was the only one in the theater, and I consumed a small popcorn, a small coke, and a whole roll of rollos. Oh, and I forgot to brush my hair or my teeth before I left the house. I am livin' the life, people! Don't be fooled by the fact that I sound like a complete loser!

I know it is time to re-enter a routine, to rev up the old engine, to volunteer my little heart out, to engage in social activities, to make nutritious meals, to walk the dog more than once a week, to start blow drying my hair again, to start getting up at 7 instead of 9, to stop watching so many decorating shows, to live my best life, to not waste a moment, blah, blah blah, blah blah. I have been somewhat hermetic this summer. Haven't seen a lot of my friends, haven't left the house too much, and I am dangerously close to embracing this lifestyle. I have been sloth-like. I've watched a lot of TV. But on the plus side, or the minus side, depending on how you look at it, I haven't cracked open a bottle of chardonnay in quite a while.

I have no idea where I'm going with this, except to say that this has to stop. The end is near, and I am gearing up by slowing down even more, so I think I'll read a magazine and take a nappy.

Yesterday, I went out on to my back deck and this hummingbird was hovering just in front of my face and just stared at me for, like, a while. More than two minutes. It just hovered in front of me, staring, making occasional chirping sounds. I moved from side to side to see if it would get scared off, but it just stared at me. It was so long that I got kind of bored and ready to move on to the next thing, but I waited it out, and eventually it buzzed away. My friend says that hummingbirds are reincarnated dinosaurs. So what does it mean that I was having a staring contest with a dinosaur soul? Are my arms about to get really short? I'm I about to go extinct? Is my skin in need of moisturizer?

I really need school to start...