What is Wrong with Me?

Today was the first day of school. Sniff. Sniff sniff. I will have to get over summer vacation being over. Unless I want to home school, I don't have a choice, and if I home schooled, Leila would read at a third grade level in eleventh grade and would need vitamin D supplements.

So, remember how I said I wasn't going to raise my hand for every dill-darned thing this year? (here's an example) Maybe I forgot to mention it, but my plan was to take a year off from any heavy duty volunteering. I gave up Walk and Roll to school, thank God, but now look what's happened! During the summer, one of the committees I'm on lost its chair person, and I thought, "I'll only do it if no one else volunteers by the time school starts." Well, somebody did volunteer, and I was disappointed! Then today, I was busy buying Leila a new school T shirt, and when I wandered over to the table where you can sign up to be a head room parent, I bumped into another mother from our class, and I tried to talk her out of it. I don't know where that even came from, but then it got even weirder: Some other mom had already signed up to be the head room parent for our class, and I was, again, disappointed. What is wrong with me?

I'd like to tell you, for the sake of an interesting post, that I threw a huge fit and screamed and cried until the other mother withdrew her name, and I am now the head room parent, but it didn't happen like that. Well, not exactly. I kind of dangled around the sign up table when most of the parents had split, and I struck up a conversation with the ladies running the table, who I happen to know, and I told them that I didn't think I cared about being head room parent until I saw that someone else had signed up, and now I was DISAPPOINTED. The nice lady told me that the person written down for my class had told her a long time ago that she'd do it, but she needed to confirm with her anyway, so why didn't she just tell her that, if it was all the same to her, there was another woman in the class (moi) that really wanted to do it.

Long story only a tiny bit shorter, I'm now the head room parent for Leila's class. In my mind, I keep seeing myself throwing elbows and tossing other mothers out of the way, as if there were some fight to the death for the last piece of bacon. God, I'm a controlling shrew. I'm kind of embarrassed. What the hell is wrong with me? Am I becoming one of those moms that everyone hates? I gotta calm down. I've gone 'round the bend.

In other news, and as an addendum to the last post, E said the funniest thing. We were talking about cheating husbands, and she said: "if G was going to trade up, do you really thing he would go for another 42 year-old mom? No! He'd find someone at least 10 years younger than me, with perkier boobs, who will have sex with him more than twice a year." I just love that.

Girl Talk

I went out with PTA ladies last night, sort of a last hurrah before school sets in. We will still have hurrah's, don't you worry; we'll make any excuse to have a glass of wine and talk about... periods.

My husband thinks that when girls get together, all we talk about is periods and nail polish. He doesn't really think this, but without sports or whatever he heard on NPR as topics of conversation, he is left to wonder what else there is. He doesn't realize that periods are the least racy thing we usually talk about, and that conversations about nail polish are very short, and usually take place between two women who aren't to the point in their relationship where they are comfortable talking about periods, or bras, or what's wrong in their sex lives. Once you've gotten there, anything is fair game.

But, last night we actually did talk about periods. We warmed up with other things first, like school, and teachers, and hot lunch and stuff like that, then, for the denouement, we talked about what our mothers, but more importantly our fathers said to us when we got our first periods. J didn't tell her mother that she had gotten her period for a year, and used toilet paper to make her own tampons. D's father gave her a card. E's father congratulated her and offered to take her out to dinner. My mom said "oh, shit. Do you know what to do? Yes? Let me know if you need any help." One woman's daughter asked her to not tell Dad, and she told her, "I will tell him, but you don't have to talk to him about it."

We were all agreeing that your dad acknowledging the onset of menses (ew) is mortifying in every possible way. But when I thought about it later, it occurred to me that, at that age, almost everything your parents do or say is mortifying. The real victim here is the dad. My dad never brought up my period to me, ever, and probably still to this day would rather die than admit that I have one, or that I have sex, or that I have boobs. Once as a teenager he told me my bra strap was showing, and I think we both shortened our lives that day. But it has to be terrible for the dads. Moms have a job to do in this scenario. We have to instruct, and talk about fallopian tubes, and give tours of maxi pads, and, make no mistake, we're dying a little on the inside, too. But dad's have nothing to hide behind. They know that something about this is momentous, and maybe they feel like they should say something, but, honestly, if you're a dad reading this, my advice would be to politely ignore what you have learned about your daughter. Politely ignore "breast buds" which has got to be the worst description of anything, ever, and continue your relationship as though nothing has changed.

Having said that, however, the few people I know who didn't have their moms around for one reason or another, and were informed about periods by their dad or their older brother, seem less traumatized by the experience than the girls who had mothers to embarrass the hell out of everyone. Maybe we're going about this all wrong, and moms should just stay out of it completely. We should let the dads handle it! I can just imagine how Rob would handle this. Actually, he would probably handle it just fine. Its just like me to find another job that I can pawn off on him; kitchen floor, garbage, cat box, period talk.

Beverigiz

OK, dinner has been cooked and eaten, and the two other people who live with me are off to test drive a tennis racquet.

Making dinner was about the most ambitious thing I did today. Actually that's not true, I made some phone calls to strangers and was charming, and that is a lot considering how tired I am after last night.

We went out to a fancy dinner for my friend's birthday, and I didn't drink that much, or eat that much (not at those prices) but I did stay up late and wear a beautiful bitch of a pair of shoes. The balls of my feet are still swollen. I took them off under the table of the fancy restaurant, but it didn't make a difference, I'm still hurtin' today.

So, I took a nap. I tried to get Leila to take a nap with me, but she just laid next to me and picked her nose and stuff like that, and you wouldn't believe how loud that is. Suddenly, started laughing hysterically for no reason, and was flailing all over the bed clutching her stomach. A little hard to nap through that too. She finally left and played by herself, thank God.

She's been playing restaurant. Hers is called Lilax, and she always wears her apron when she plays. She has a lunch menu and a dinner menu. Here's a sampling, see what you can decipher:

Ovecoto Sandwich, $2.61

Onin Sandwich, $8.95

Brocali Broo, $6.54

Apple frider, $7.00

Beach Plum, $9.98

Cockei Crispt, $2.12

and for Beverigiz, we have:

Mint Tea, $2.61

Shampain, $4.99

and Chardonnay, spelled perfectly.

The beverigiz are the same for dinner and breakfast, and that is fine by me. Who doesn't want a lovely chardonnay with their Banana Frider?

I don't have a lot of time today. Actually, I have no time. Man just came home. Talk to you later.

Footsie

I'm in a funk today. Funk funk funk. I am house bound with two little children who are locked in Leila's room playing Gabriella and Troy, which I think has something to do with High School Musical, which Leila has never seen. Actually, I just poked my head in there, and L is wearing her wolf costume from Halloween. So, what, she's Troy? All I know is, they're quiet, and they're not doing drugs.

I'm going out to a fancy dinner tonight for my friend's birthday. I don't have anything to wear, so I wearing that dress I go for my brother-in-law's wedding last summer. Its fancy and comfortable, but I'll have to wear high heels. I often lament the fact that I have impossible feet, and can't wear cute shoes. They're long and skinny (the only part of me that is) and they're kind of two different sizes (both huge) and I have the hardest time finding shoes. Feet have some fundamental design flaws. There's all these little bones in them, and not a lot of room for muscles, and they work harder than any other appendage. Today, I scrubbed them with a foot scrubber thing, and slathered them in thick foot lotion and put socks on. Which reminds me, I'd better take the socks off so I don't have sock indentations on my ankles when I put my fancy shoes on. I am not afraid to walk bare foot on the sidewalk, put the shoes back on when we enter the restaurant, and take them back off when I'm seated at the table. They're really pretty shoes.

So, I'm in a funk, and now I'm depressed about my feet.

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

I know I've already posted today, but, brothers and sisters, when something really momentous happens in my life, or when I achieve a heady goal, or when I behave in ways that I don't really understand, I have to share it with you first. You're welcome.

Friends, I can't actually remember the last time I did what I did today. Its been easily more than a year.

I mopped the kitchen floor.

I have talked a lot about the twice-yearly bathroom cleaning, and how I pick up my clothes from the bedroom floor once a week whether I can step over the pile or not, but I have never discussed the kitchen floor.

Like other rooms in my tiny house, my kitchen is also a hallway, and any debris on the bottom of any shoe walking through kisses the kitchen floor. In addition, you have the normal day to day spillage from doing dishes, or dropping spatulas, or toast landing butter side down. I don't want to paint too grim a picture; I do spot clean, and once in a while I drag a dry broom over the floor to move the dust and cat hair around, and its not like I have ants or roaches or flies or mice. (Ok, roaches are a cop out. We don't really have roaches in California. Suck on that, Florida, or other states that have roaches.)

Lately, though, specifically after having our good friends and their three kids over for dinner on Saturday, the floor has looked particularly foul. I had a child-free day today, so after I had dicked around on the computer, watched some reruns, eaten some creamed corn, I decided to either read my book, or mop the floor. God knows why, something strange must have come over me, I decided to mop the floor.

Years ago, Rob mopped the floor on mother's day. Not only did he mop it, but he used one of those Mr. Clean magic erasers on all the scuffs and other things that don't come off with the mop. It was a beautiful thing, and I told him that all I ever wanted for mother's day from that day forward, was for him to clean the kitchen floor. (That way, I knew that the floor would be cleaned at least once a year. I'm always thinkin'!) He actually did it for a year or two after that, but this year he didn't do it. That's how I know that its been over a year since its been cleaned. Isn't it funny that everything in my house only gets cleaned on special occasions? The bathroom on Christmas, the floor on mother's day, my sheets the few times a year after special occasions in the dark...

Let's see if Rob notices when he comes home. He probably wont, and after he's been home two hours I'll finally snark, Haven't you noticed that I cleaned the floor!? And he'll say, lying, I did notice, it looks great! Liar. He's never nearly as impressed with me as I think he should be when I actually clean something. I feel like a deserve a freakin' parade. But not on my clean floor. It has to last 9 month until mother's day.

Happy Monday! Tra la la!

Happy Monday, everyone! School starts one week from today. Ugh. I am starting to pretend I'm really excited about it because my mom told me that Leila is starting to worry when I say I'll miss her when she goes back to school. So, I'm starting to say things like, "I'm really starting to get excited about school, aren't you?" I think she can see clear through my curtain of BS.

Do you think its gross to pick a dogs eye boogers and feed them to him? Maybe a better question is, Do you think its appropriate, considering what else dogs choose to feast on, and where else the boogers might end up? Don't you think that if a dog could pick his own eye boogers he would totally eat them?

I don't really have much to write about today, so I'll do a Friday Five, just for fun:

1) What is so ugly, its kind of cute? Um, your mom?

2) What's the ugliest article of clothing in your wardrobe? Well, that depends: Are we talking about articles in current rotation, or the ugliest thing I ever wore, or something I currently own and don't ever wear? Let's see: The only thing I can come up with is My Arms. I have a lot of cute things that don't look cute because of my arms. I have some Keen sandals that look pretty darn ugly, but I generally don't make it a habit to acquire clothes that I think is ugly. This is a stupid question.

3) What's the ugliest car on the streets today? I don't like the Honda Element (Sorry, Ann) and this Cube thing looks ridiculous, and I've never liked the PT cruiser. The new Mercedes wagons are pretty gnarly, too, but I suppose I wouldn't turn one down if it was offered up.

4) Under what circumstances are you most likely to whip out your ugliest behavior? I plead the fifth on this one. It might be when I'm with YOU.

5) Which of the United States has the ugliest shape? Oh, for crying out loud. Or, for crine-owloud, as my mom would say. I guess I'd have to say the square states. They're just so... square. And florida: I mean, honestly.

Hm. Flat today. I'll try again tomorrow. Sorry for wasting your time, but thanks for making it this far!