Monday, February 28, 2011

Huh? Wha?

You know, there's is nothing like sitting on your ass for a whole week to make you tired.  I read three books, I rested, I relaxed, and now I'm exhausted.  I have a whole list of things that I need to do today, but I will be happy if I can accomplish two of them, and I've already gotten out of bed, so I have one to go.  I was kind of awake and on it yesterday, but today I can hardly keep my eyes open.

At least we're unpacked.  Mostly.  There are trips where the suitcases sit around the hallway for a week, and I'm digging make up out of the toiletry bag piece by piece for a while before everything is put away.  This time there are freshly washed bathing suits hanging in the bathroom, a pile of mail that still needs to be gone through, but that's about it.

I came back from dropping L off at school and decided to go back to bed until 10.  I woke up at 11, and watched TV, and I'm still trying to form a coherent thought.  I think I need to start by going to the vet's office and picking up Perry's ugly-ass blanket that was left there.  Then I need to hit the supermarket.  I don't need anything there, I just want to walk up to it and hit it as hard as I can because I hate the supermarket so much.  Have I told you that once my Dad "retired" my mom stopped going to the market and made him do it?  I think this anti-shopping thing must be genetic.  The moment Rob retires, I'm handing him a list and shoving him out the door with both hands.  If I never see the inside of another super market it wont be too soon. 

What the hell am I talking about?  I've got nothing.  Too tired.  No right to be tired, and yet...

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Don't hate me

Just in case you are sitting at home, biting your nails to the quick and losing sleep because you're worried about what has happened to me, fear not.

I am in Hawaii on vacation.  And while that may sound idyllic and wonderful, permit me to whine for just a moment.  (Oh, I know what you're thinking:  how dare I whine when I am on a tropical vacation sponsored entirely by my parents?  Well, you are absolutely right, sir, but whine I will.  Deal with it.)

The weather:  cloudy, rainy, and no trade winds to blow this shit out of here.  Humid, sticky.  But, still on vacation.

The place: No kitchen, just a wet bar, which sounds good, but I am getting mighty tired of bread, cheese and fruit.  I'm not in France, I'm in Hawaii, and I want something cooked, like a fried egg and some bacon. For dinner, I want sushi...  And another thing, I have never been to a place where the asses outnumber the chairs by the pool.  I went down there this morning early to reserve 5 seats, and sat there in the rain.  We have our seats, though, dammit!  I saw this once on Bernie Mac show, but I thought it was fiction.  Also, we are on a bay rather than the ocean.  What is Hawaii without ocean?

I managed to lose Rob's glasses on the beach yesterday.  Miraculously, I found them.  He couldn't help me look because HE COULDN'T SEE!

I vowed I would read my book club book if it killed me, and it almost did.  I haven't actually finished a book club book in months, so I sat by the pool reading about the plague.  You read that right, The Plague.  Good book, if you don't mind reading about corpses and puss and putrescence, while in Hawaii.

I admit it.  I am ashamed.  At least a little bit.  I really needed this vacation.  I really needed a prolonged period where I could sit on my ass and read and sleep and drink.  It really beats not reading, not sleeping and not drinking. It also beats doing dishes, ferrying children to and fro, picking up dog poo, and figuring out what's for dinner.

Aloha, see you next week!

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Flop, Smash, Repeat

I had my first mammogram this morning.  I was thinking that I would come home and have some funny stories to tell you about it, but I don't.  Flop, smash, repeat, done.  I wouldn't want to keep my boobs in that vice all day long, but for those 30 seconds, it was a piece of cake.

I made Rob an actual dinner last night.  We've been eating Trader Joes and take out for the past month, so I went all out and made him a nice dinner.  Didn't turn out as well as I thought it would.  Its been a while since I cooked, and I guess I kind of forgot how.  He didn't care, he'll eat anything.  I also did four loads of laundry AND folded it all AND put it away.  It was nice to do laundry because I had full loads to do and not just because we were all desperately out of underpants and towels.  My dryer is making a weird noise again.  I'm going to ignore it for as long as I can.  I just don't have the strength to deal with more appliance problems. 

A week from tomorrow, I'm off to Hawaii for much needed rest and relaxation and mai tais.  Until then, it will be a mad rush to get all my work done, get everything waxed, and eat all the food in the fridge.  I think I'll start that part now...

Monday, February 7, 2011

I'M FREE!

Its over!!!!  The Variety Show is over, and I have my life back!  My life looks like a complete mess right now, so I think I'll ignore it for a little while longer and hang out with you guys.

I don't feel right posting video of kids without their parents' permission, so I wont make you watch stuff, but let me tell you, these kids were ON FIRE!  The shows went off without a hitch.  I learned a tremendous amount (like how the chairs get to the gym floor, and that we actually have stage lights...) and the big question is whether or not I would do this again...  I really want to say no.  I mean, I REALLY want to say no.  My family and home so got the shaft in the last month, but when those little kids came off stage and I saw their faces and they hugged me and they were so euphoric and proud...  Well, that was pretty awesome and very rewarding.  So we'll see, I guess.

Here are some little tidbits.

1) 4th grade girls have a mean streak.  Watch your back.

2) All the girls had some make up on for their performances, and there was this one crew who had obviously been made up - I guess you could call it tastefully, even though I had some Toddlers and Tiaras flashbacks, - by a parent before the show.  They call me over mid show to ask if they can go back to the "green room" to touch up their make up.  I say no, your make up looks fine, you look beautiful, its almost your turn.  Fine.  I come back a few minutes later to find the older sister of one of the girls with a full make up kit, piling more make up on them in the dark.  Its not good make up either, its kid make up, all oily.  So I shoo the kid and her make up kit away, and get the girls back stage to await their star turn.  Unknown to me, the curtain puller sees them and told me later that they had lipstick on their noses and all over their faces.  She licks her finger and tries to get it off, and then sacrifices the sleeve of her sweater and tries to wipe a bunch of it off, and manages to get them looking like 85 year-old blind women who have put on their make up on a moving bus. In the dark.  Lesson learned: must email parents about make up and older sisters...

3) Parents are incredible, and not always in a good way.  It was all I could do to get the performers to stay in their seats and behave both before but especially after their performances, and the audience was asked to wait until the end of the performance to go congratulate their performers.  I swear, three times I had to tap a parent on the shoulder who was talking to their kid, handing them flowers etc.,  and remind them that someone else' kid was on stage now and could they please take their seat.  They would look at me like I was some kind of shrew!  My feeling was, if you wouldn't wander around the theater during the nutcracker at Christmas, don't do it at my Variety show.  It was hard enough getting kids to take their seats.  Some were just wandering around the whole time, and would glare at me when I told them to sit down and stay down.  Wonder where they ever got those attitudes from?

So that's all I have to say about the Variety Show for now.  I have a little time to clean up a little more, and then I'm off to a well deserved lunch and a manicure!  Being me is awesome.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

How I lost my cool and got a facial

Dudes, I am in the tall grass.  I have so much to do right now, I don't even know what I have to do.  And if that makes no sense at all, welcome to my brain.  But on another note...

1) This is how cool the internet is: a) I put in my post the other day about Oprah's Australia trip that I wanted a reader in Australia to give me an invitation to their house in Australia, and SOMEONE DID. b) I follow Steve Martin (that Steve Martin) on twitter and I tweeted him that my nine year-old wants to learn to play the banjo and what did he think, and HE TWEETED ME BACK.  His answer wasn't helpful, but that's not the point.

2) I locked myself out of my house yesterday.  Grabbed the wrong set of keys as I walked out the door, and the neighbor who has the spare key wasn't home.  So I tried a couple of windows thinking, they're cheap-ass old aluminum windows, one of them will budge.   Nope.  So then I remembered  the one other time we had to break into our house and how we did it, but it required me to get the ladder, and figure out how to open it since it is a new-fangled thing and I normally am not the one in my family who climbs ladders.  Then, I managed to get one window open, but realized that the ladder was too short for me to really hoist myself into the house.  I could lean into the window, at around my ribs, but there was nothing for my feet to push off of.  So I got off the ladder and started circling the house like a tiger on the outside of a cage who really wants to get into the cage, and all this time my dog is freaking out inside wondering why I wont come in, and I'm sweating like a pig from climbing up and down a ladder and forcing windows.  This same dog is unfortunately too short to get the other set of keys off the hook, and even if he wasn't, he doesn't speak much English as evidenced by the blank stare he gives me when I tell him to sit.

Finally, I decided that if I wanted to get in the house, I was going to have to go back up the ladder and figure out how to throw my body through the half open window.  I climbed back up, leaned into the window, and just started willing my body to go through.  I somehow made it far enough in so that my hips were resting on the window sill, my hands were stretched down to the floor like a push-up, and my legs were flailing around sticking out of the side of the house.  The heater vent is right under this window and it was blowing hot hair onto my already over-heated body, my hair was in my face, and my dog was now going completely apeshit and alternately barking in my ear and licking me, and I couldn't push him away because a) he would come right back and b) my head would hit the wood floor and I'd probably get a concussion.  So I stayed like that for a while, wondering between dog licks how I was going to get in the house without breaking my legs, and then I just went for it and wiggled the rest of the way in and fell on the floor.  I wasn't hurt, the dog and I were both relieved, and I went right outside and hid a spare key. 

I'm exhausted just thinking about it.  I think I have to sign off for this week until after the Variety Show.  I will give you the full low down next week.