Good Old Fashioned Vomit Story

So yesterday, E. and I had a plan to go to Costco and pick up some tables and supplies for the upcoming end-of-year PTA luncheon, and when I picked her up she looked ashen and pale and said she was having a bad bout of vertigo. She said she was fine to go, didn't want to let it slow her down, but she brought some big ziploc bags in case she had to barf. That should have been my first clue.

I am driving gingerly down the freeway, trying not to drive jerky, and I'm jabbering away about one thing and another, and E. is holding on tight to her plastic barf bag. We pull off the freeway, and E. readies the bag. I'm all, "Do you want me to pull over??!!" and she's all cool and like, "no its okay, I got it." and she starts puking in the bag. Poor little fanciest of the fancy white pants moms is booting in my car.

The first place I could pull over was a Kia dealership. I ran out of the car into the dealership and started shouting "Hello! Hello!" and there was no one there except for a dog who was curled up on his dog bed. Its a really good thing I wasn't in the mood to buy a car. I easily found the bathroom and the water cooler and went running back to the car (okay, walking fast. I'm not much of a runner) with wet paper towels and cold water. Poor E. is getting out of the car with her bag of puke, and that's when I start my sympathetic gagging.

I've told you about how the only person allowed to vomit anywhere near me is my kid. She has special dispensation, and magically doesn't make me gag along with her. But everyone else does make me gag. I can't be anywhere near Rob when he is sick. He has held my hair back so many times, but its a good thing he's got a buz cut because he is On His Own. So I'm really trying to be the nurturing friend, but its hard to do while you're gagging, like, "Do you need another wet towel? Haugh! Hack!" E. goes over to the dumpster and throws away her bag o' barf, and the color is already returning to her face. I ask her if she wants to go home, and she's all, "We're here now, lets just get this done." I would have been telling her to drive me to the nearest hospital and put me on an IV, but I have issues. It should be noted that not one little puke molecule got on my car. I rolled down the windows and E. said, "Sorry, does it smell?" and it didn't at all, but my brain thought it should, so I rolled down the windows.

Anyway, she's okay, but I'm still gagging, and finally I just start laughing because its so ridiculous and then it was all fine, and we had a good story. She soldiered on through Costco and Target and Old Navy and drank some diet pepsi, and I made her watch me eat an epic slice of pizza. If she could keep it down through that, she was going to be alright.

And that's what happened yesterday.

Lost

Something you may not know about me is that I'm a bit of a Lost junky, the TV show. Lately, I've been rewatching this season's episodes the morning after with two of my fellow Lost junkies, and then we read blogs about it and discuss it and just generally geek out. If we had been doing this for the past six years, it would be really sad, but we've only been doing it for a couple of months, so I feel okay about it.

Last night was the series finale episode, the big kahuna, and I stayed up way past my bed time to watch the whole dil-darned thing. I was too tired toward the end to feel anything but eager to go to bed, but when we watched it again this morning, I experienced the full emotional effect. I'm kind of wasted and heart brokeny right now, and its just A FREAKIN' TV SHOW. That must mean that regardless of what people are writing about the finale today, it had its intended effect on me. I kind of want to watch the last fifteen minutes again, but I don't think I can take it. I need to watch a comedy to shake off this melancholy. And maybe eat some cake.

Waaah haaaah haaaaah!!

You'll Eat It, and You'll Like It

Sometimes I don't post because I have nothing to say. Sometimes I don't post because I have too much to say, and don't know where to start, or whether what I think I have to say is worth saying.

1) Over the weekend, I asked St. Rob to please poke around under the kitchen sink and use his carefully honed deductive reasoning skills to find out why my sprayer didn't work, and why the water pressure in the faucet was so low, in spite of the fact that we replaced all our pipes last year. He told me the job would take five minutes, cleared out all the junk under the sink, and set to work with his collection of wrenches and plumbing implements all kinds of other stuff. The long and the short of it is, he broke the faucet. To be fair, we don't really know if he broke it all by himself, or whether it was already kind of broken and he just pushed it the rest of the way, but either way, we had to buy a new faucet. I really want to believe that he has manly DIY skills, but deep down, I know he doesn't. In my darker moments, I'm sure he broke the damn thing. If you need someone to do a pivot table in excel or research obscure legal codes, he's your man. To his credit, he installed the new faucet, and it has a fancy sprayer, and, for now, it works just fine.

2) I spent my morning cleaning the blinds in my house. I have 9 sets of wood slat blinds in my house, and they were absolutely disgusting. When you closed them, the dust would just fall off. So I found myself with nothing to do and St. Rob says Hey! Why don't you clean the blinds! and I'm all yeah, whatever, and he's all If you don't do them, I'm going to do them this weekend because they are seriously grossing me out, and you know how you hate it when I do the jobs that you say are your jobs on the weekend right in front of you, so just think about that. He threw down a gauntlet! He was a gauntlet thrower! Mercifully, he doesn't read this blog on a regular basis (he gets the live show, lucky bastard) so he wont know for a little while how effective his strategy was. In fact, I really shouldn't even write this. It'll go to his head and next week he'll be like, Hey! Why don't you clean the baseboards! and how about that kitchen floor! and I'll be all, What? I can't hear you! Bad connection! I'm going through a tunnel!

3) I had the best day yesterday. I came home from dropping of Leila at school, and it was raining and cold, and I thought to myself, I'm a little sleepy. So I got back in bed and watched a few hours of keeping up with the Kardashians, got up again at around noon, ate some Lucky Charms, puttered around, and went to pick up the kid. Ahhhhhh. I love those kinds of mornings. I almost deserve them. Especially in preparation for cleaning all these stupid blinds today.

4) And this is the last thing. The other night I was planning on making fish that was supposed to look like this:

It ended up looking like this:

Rob ate it anyway, even though it was the consistency of scrambled eggs. What a good sport, if not a DIY God.

Bride of Chucky

Did you feel like getting up this morning? I didn't. Apparently, Leila didn't either because when I went in her room to get her up, she was a total dick to me.

Should you be held accountable for your actions in the moments after waking, especially on a Monday morning, when its raining, and you're eight years old? I say yes. So I snapped, and decided that this was the morning she could figure things out on her own, that little brat.

I've had this idea in my back pocket all year. If she's a bitch to me in the morning about getting her up and to school, then she can get her own ass up and make her own way through the morning without me on her tail every single second, and we'll see how late she is. Then, she can march herself down to the office at school for a tardy pass. According to her, there is nothing more terrifying that navigating the school grounds on her own and going to The Office. I admit to being intimidated by the place where the school secretaries sit, and the principal's offices are, but I'm almost over it. I thought this was a perfect plan. The perfect use of natural consequences.

Problem was, she wasn't late at all, and she felt crazy guilty for snarling at me and I felt like a douche bag, so my dastardly plan failed. The only lesson I taught her this morning was that mommy's affection can not be counted on on a rainy Monday. Its just so hard to drag your own ass out of bed, only to be shit on by a child that looks all warm and sleepy and snuggly. Its like the freakin' bride of Chucky. Then she told me she thinks my bathrobe is boring. Its a bathrobe, kid, not a carnival ride.

So now its rainy and dark, and I want to climb back into my bed and sleep some more, but I have to figure out what's for dinner, and go to the grocery store, and do three loads of laundry, and return some emails and phone calls, and move on with my life. Happy effing Monday, ever'body!

To cure any Monday blues you may be having,

here's a pic of a cute puppy.

Is it working?

Pudgy Bunny

You know what Leila said yesterday? She had a friend over, and that friend saw an empty coke bottle on the table and she said, "Leila! You drink coke?!?!" and Leila's all, "No my mom does. She drinks coke every day, that's why she's fat."

I'll let that sink in for a minute...

I am deciding that my drinking of coke is like aversion therapy, and that I am ensuring that Leila will be a healthier adult than I am. Such a good parent I am, no?

For the record, its not like it was a 2 liter bottle on the table, it was one of those mini 12 oz bottles. Also, its not as it I'm suckin' on a coke all day, or that I keep an emergency six-pack in my car or anything. I try to limit my soda intake to 1 mini bottle a day, or less. Or more. Sometimes more, but not regularly. I also do not think my coke habit is the reason I'm fat. Its not exactly my weight loss secret either, but I don't think its what's pushing me over the edge. In fact, remember back when I stopped drinking soda for a while? I didn't lose an ounce. You want to know why I'm fat? I'll give you all the reasons: 1) I love to eat and I hate to exercise. 2) Eating out is my favorite sort of entertainment. 3) I have hormone issues (I know this sounds like I'm blaming some wayward glands, but its true. My hormones are all effed up.) 4) I think I have a thyroid issue, though nobody can find one. 6) I got my body-type genes from my dad's side of the family. Not good. I also got my dad's love of food and drink and sitting. And his boobs. 7) Cake.

The other day while I was taking my walk (yes, I WALKED. With my actual legs, while wearing actual sneakers. It was like exercise, only slower.) I spied the shadow of my ass and it was jiggling. Awesome.

So coke does not help, but it is not the root cause of my fatness. Suck on that, Leila.

Please Pass the Crack Pipe

I'm in a piss ass mood.

I've done my semi-productive housewifey thing: some laundry, some dishes, some grocery shopping, I walked the dog and myself, showered, shaved, blow dried, dressed, even put a little make up on. Now I'm done.

I'm going to park myself on the couch in front of the TV and eat jelly bellies 'til I puke.

Then later I'm going to pick up the kid and take her to the library so she can pick out some new audio books, and, you know what? Thank God! She has been listening to the same three audio books FOR MONTHS. She can recite all of them, and one is an unabridged 371 paged book. I don't even want to think about all the precious brain space that is being taken up by the memorized audio books. Probably the same amount that I use holding on to useless facts about Duran Duran (Nick Rhodes' birthday is coming up next month. I swear to God...)

AND ANOTHER THING! On Sunday morning, the morning that there was no man and no kid in the house, the morning I was going to stretch out in my bed and sleep in, on freakin' Mother's day, the lamest holiday EVER, next to Father's Day, my fabulous drip system exploded. Well, it didn't really explode, I'm just feeling a little dramatic today. The end of the black hose that all the little black hoses come out of, is bent over and wrapped in electrical tape, per the instructions of my buddy, Sarge, at Orchard Supply. At 6:30 a.m., the time the drippers are suppose to start dripping, the force of the water shot the electrical tape off and water was gushing all over my deck and making clackity clack sounds on the pavement below. It took me a minute to talk myself out of ignoring it, but I finally went outside, in my pjs, down to the water valve, and started pressing all kinds of buttons on the timer trying to get the thing to turn off. I was too sleepy to remember that I could just turn off the water. Genius. So now I'm all wet, its 6:30 in the morning, freakin' mother's day, and I'm wide awake. Shit.

Did I mention I'm in a piss ass mood?

Let 'er Drip!

I just can't get enough of myself right now. I am impressing myself left and right. I'm insufferable! I will now kiss my guns: (kiss noise, kiss noise)

Guess what I did today? In addition to frosting my mom's hair and washing the dog, I installed a new hose bib and A DRIP SYSTEM all by myself. And you know what else? IT WORKS! I just sat outside in a chair in front of my little herb-garden-in-a-barrel, and, voila! right at eight o'clock, it went on, and nothing is leaking, and its a freakin' miracle!

I'm so pumped on this project, and I have enough materials left over, that I am thinking of installing another drip system in my front yard tomorrow. It took less than an hour, so I could totally do it, and still hit two grocery stores and take a nap. I rule. I rule the free world!!!

I wanted to do it myself anyway, but with Rob out of town, it was the perfect time to test my skills. I haven't taken out the garbage or anything yet, but I installed a drip system, so the garbage can wait.

La la la! I am the best!