Future Therapy Fodder and Random Tuesday Thoughts

Having been out of the blogging loop, I return to discover Random Tuesday new and improved. I almost feel that I have to up my random- thought-game in order to compete with the fancy redesigned button. It’s comforting to know there’s still a ham on it. At least there’s solace in pork products.

• I forgot to pick my son up from school last week. It was kind of a low point. I’d been struggling to pinpoint what day of the week it actually was since school began and on Wednesday (when the elementary lets out an hour early) I was convinced it was Tuesday and that I had time to spare as my mother-in-law blabbed at me long distance. It wasn’t until my neighbor called 20 minutes after dismissal that I actually left. “You know it’s Wednesday, right?” Her daughter is in the same class as my son and I pick them both up in the afternoon. By the time I got to the school, the pick-up area had been sealed off and I had to park the van to collect my charges from the main office. Walking in through the double doors, my son’s face was the first one I saw. He was…barely holding it together. One look from me was all it took and he dissolved in to a messy heap of tears and boogers. I felt awful. He’s the last kid I’d ever want to forget just because he is the most sensitive and most likely to carry the emotional scar around with him in to forever. He sobbed for a good half hour. I made brownies. I might be the worst mother ever. Later when I tried to talk to him about it and ask what he’d been thinking while he waited with the other 30 kids whose mothers were also a little tardy, he said he’d been afraid I would never come. Never. No litany of terrible possibilities, just the prospect of sitting there in the office, hungry and tired and having to pee for all of eternity. I suppose that is scary enough, isn’t it?
  

• On the flip side, I have been compassionate enough to drive my daughter to high school in the morning so she can avoid some painful moments during the a.m. bus ride. It seems the disastrous crush of her life once again has a girlfriend that isn’t my daughter, thus pulverizing her dreams and spirits in one fell swoop. I don’t actually mind because it gives me a chance to sleep in an extra half hour and I get a peaceful 10 minutes during the drive back. Me and morning radio and a feeling of great satisfaction that I don’t have a job to commute to. Seriously. There are a lot of angry people on the road in the morning.
  

• I have a thing for garden gnomes. I haven’t always. My husband bought me one on a whim and now I have this blind urge to populate my gardens (read mulchy weeds) with pointy red-capped gnomes. (Perhaps it’s part of their ploy to take over the world one yard at a time.) My newest addition was on clearance at the former K-mart which became a Sears Essentials which is now reverting back to its Big K status. Most items were exorbitantly marked up. Cheap towels for $30 so they could advertise them at 70% off and sell them for what they were actually worth. The lawn ornament was an actual bargain and nearly forgotten on a shelf among barbecuing utensils. It wasn’t until I got home that I noticed my gnome looking a little spooked. He’s got a book open in his lap and a benevolent bunny at his shoulder, presumably listening in as he reads a happy forest fairy tale. Upon later examination, their relationship appears a bit more sinister. The gnome looks terrified, jaw agape as he stares fixedly out in the distance. A Big Bad Forest Something is coming for him and he knows he can’t outrun it. The rabbit is clearly an evil minion with his narrowed beady eyes. What do you think?
  

• I think grocery store personnel should undergo some type of sensitivity training when it comes to reusable bags. The baggers at the market I frequent always seem irked when I gently push over my fabric bag full of fabric bags. They pause, exchange meaningful glances with the cashier, barely containing their eye-rolls, then proceed to fill my bags beyond capacity in an effort to possibly dissuade me from ever inconveniencing them again with my superficial green efforts. Or maybe they just haven’t been properly informed as to how to fill the bags in order to maximize balance and achieve adequate weight distribution. Or maybe they’re just bagging groceries for crappy wages and hate their jobs and resent me for buying stupid reusable bags just to screw with their routines when clearly I don’t care enough about the environment if I’m buying my kids Fruit Roll Ups and store brand OJ.
  

• I just might have some issues.
  

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OMG Fancy new digs!

I Know These Things Are True and Random Tuesday Thoughts

• Real things my teen believed to be theatrical props and inventions:
  

1. Tumbleweeds were created to accentuate deserted locations, much like crickets were created to denote a lack of audience.
   

1. Multicolored light up dance floors are part of the elaborate scene used to brighten up the sets of 70s and 80s disco movies, not something real people “boogied” on.
   

• We took the kids to see Despicable Me on Saturday. It was good. Really good. Even the teen was prompted to say it was the best movie ever…although she’s pretty fickle, I’d venture to say it was the best movie she’s watched this summer. Aside from the indigestion we got consuming massive amounts of oily popcorn and cherry flavored Icees, my only complaint was about the previews. Before the actual previews began they had pre-previews with the lights still up. One being for the sequel to Nanny McPhee. After the pre-preview they gave the audience a summary of what we’d just seen literally seconds before, highlighting Nanny McPhee. Then the lights were turned down and the theatrical previews began, including the one for…Nanny McPhee Returns! Seriously? I know we were a captive audience, but shoving the same movie down my throat repetitively kind of has the opposite effect. Did anyone even watch the first Nanny McPhee? Did it really need to be followed up with a second?
  

   

• I have one flapping avocado on my tree. One sad dangling avocado after a spring boasting oodles of blossoms. It makes me sad. It better be the best damn avocado on the face of the planet.
  

   

• A couple of weeks back one of our neighbors on the opposite side of the block was robbed. My husband just happened to drive past the burglary in process as he was coming home from the dump. As a reward he had to fill out paperwork, try to identify the suspect, and get subpoenaed by the state attorney’s office. From what we’ve heard, the perpetrators are believed to be part of a larger burglary ring. It made all of us a little paranoid. A few nights later, while my husband was on shift, my daughter swore she could hear someone walking around in flip-flops outside her bathroom door. I was a little too chicken to investigate, so I locked it and let her use our toilet. I justified it by telling myself it was just leaves rustling. A thief would be smart enough to wear shoes he could run in, right? Although a crazed axe wielding lunatic might be a little more unpredictable. So far none of those have been spotted.
  

   

• I received my *gulp* business blogger cards in the mail yesterday. It’s going to be hard not feeling like a huge dork when I whip those out.
  

   

• Eek.
  

   

—–

I hear it is Tuesday. I have no way to confirm this.

Day Trips Through Crazy Town and Random Tuesday Thoughts

• So…you know how sometimes you have a rough day and your sunny disposition gradually erodes in to something barely above functioning, until you get that final two handed shove that sends you reeling over that precarious ledge in to Crazy Town? Me neither.
  
• While I was driving through Crazy Town though, I did manage to put a rather obvious dent in our stainless steel garbage can with my bare foot. I fixed it…with a hammer…no other trash receptacles were harmed in the making of this thought.
  
• We cleaned behind our refrigerator last week. Among the debris were magnets, pencils, children’s drawings, an unidentified rather large spill, and several unopened single serving boxes of Raisin Bran, all coated by a good two inches of dust. Spying something amiss, the nosiest of my children, my darling tween sidled up to inspect the wreckage. “EW!” she said, horrified. “That’s disgusting! I HATE Raisin Bran!” Apparently something about fiber and regularity really grosses her out.
  
• I recently received a wrong number call for someone going by the name of Tea Cup, or possibly Tee Cup, or maybe just T Cup. I’m thinking with a moniker like that, your employability options are rather limited. I’m guessing he’s not an accountant or say an HR manager. “Ah, you want to file a harassment complaint, you’ll have to talk to T Cup and fill out a form.”
  
• On Saturday, after a busy morning of not drowning in our local swimming pool, we decided to take our chances and hit the mall because it’s air conditioned and they have free parking. We left our car by Sears because it anchors the west side of the mall and it has two things our kids find endlessly amusing – escalators and Sealy Posturpedic floor models.
  

  
  

• Really, who needs the zoo when you can fake sleep on a row of pillow top mattresses that may or may not be ridden with body lice?
  
• Also, Sears has an overflowing bin of discount video games in the back corner of their electronics department. So, obscured by their aisle shelves and fixtures we dug elbow deep through the random offerings, hoping to find some overlooked treasure slashed to bargain basement prices. We got nothing, although my teenager, the compassionate doll that she is, wondered aloud, “I kind of feel like a hobo rooting through a dumpster.”
  
• Guess what we had for dinner? Mall food. Which is almost like rooting through a dumpster, no?
  
• While on the toilet reading a back issue of Popular Mechanics, my husband learned that scientists have already developed mosquito killing lasers that differentiate between the blood sucking female and the harmless male by measuring wing beats. Who doesn’t need one of these? Especially with encephalitis and dengue fever floating around and making me contemplate a bulk purchase of sterile, non-mosquito-invading protective bubbles for the family. Or perhaps an underground bomb shelter.
  

At a recent free art museum trip, this piece of art:

Reminded me of this, bit of movie genius:

Neither of which I’d want to stumble in to while preoccupied answering a text message.

—–

Avoid being eaten by toothy orifices and go here instead.

Random Bla Bla Bla a Little Past Tuesday with Little or No Thought

Last week I found this metal sign for my darling teenage daughter at the Blockbuster by our house.

It cost a whopping 50 cents.

It suits her, I think.

°°°°°

I seem to have developed an unquenchable thirst for $1 Cherry Icees from Burger King. The frozen, sugar laden concoction is the perfect remedy to the sauna like atmosphere we’ve been experiencing lately.

Also, they’re $1 which is only slightly less better than free.

°°°°°

So says the three-year-old:

Pointing at a black sports car in traffic
- “Holy crap, Mom, it’s a Transformer!”

Glaring at his brother in the seat next to him – “M is distracting me, he is just talking and talking and talking, blah blah blah blah! Argh!”

°°°°°

Sometimes when there is a live cockroach in your toaster oven, setting it to cook is the only viable solution.

Sometimes when there is a live frog residing inside your mop head, shrieking like your hair is on fire is the only sensible reaction.

°°°°°

I’ve honestly had little time for actual thought this past week. Summer kicks me in to survival mode, which means my brain goes into deep hibernation and becomes capable of performing only the most basic mothering functions. Feeding, chauffeuring, and shouting is among them.

Blogging, sadly, is not

Although I do manage to stand behind a camera and click the shutter at convenient intervals.

°°°°°

STRIKE!

This child, by the way, hates bowling.

°°°°°

FISH!

Biggest catch all day.

Only catch all day.

°°°°°

DUCKS!

Ravenous ducks being fed deli turkey.

There seemed to be something fundamentally wrong about this.

°°°°°

THUNDERSTORM!

We were not deterred.

°°°°°

OCEAN!

And searing sand, which we managed not to get a photograph of.

°°°°°

BALLS!

Because inside, I am an 11 year old boy.

Tell me it’s not worth a giggle.

°°°°°

Late to the party. Hope I don’t get turned away at the door.

Summer Spring Cleaning and Random Tuesday Thoughts

• We spent the first weekend of summer vacation cleaning out closets and toy boxes. We are the funnest parents ever, no? Going through the mountains of toys in the boys’ room, I was struck by a rather obvious reality – they have far too much crap. So much crap piled in so many layers that the crap at the top completely concealed the crap at the bottom which the boys promptly forgot they even owned. Every time I pulled something out from the depths of their toy boxes it was met with an enthusiastic “wow” or an awed “ooooh”. It was like Christmas all over again, except every time they walked away I’d put something else in the donate box. Then as soon as it was out of sight, it was out of mind. Seriously, my kids are like goldfish. “Pretty toy. Hmmm? What toy? Going to watch TV.”
• Other discoveries and observations I made:
  
  • When I say “clean your room”, what my son hears is “cram all of your junk under your bed, then when that area is filled to capacity, just jam the rest of your things in any available corner.”
    
  • Kid’s Meal toys are a waste of plastic, springs, and possibly toxic paints.
    
  • Transformers are not just “more than meets the eye”, they are also “impossible to transform without a diagram” and “too delicate for a child’s clumsy fingers” as well as “completely impractical to ever actually play with.”
    
  • I should really vacuum more.
    
• While my husband was tidying up his side of the closet, he came across a box of notes I’d written him in 1993 during my last semester of high school. Yes, it’s very sweet that he kept them, he is quite the sap. But sifting through those strategically folded pages of writing was a little painful for me, it was like reuniting with the teenage version of me, having to listen to her prattle before realizing she was a nitwit, then trying unsuccessfully to punch her in the throat. Okay, maybe she was a little funny, but four pages of college ruled note paper covered front and back in teeny tiny writing…nobody is that funny.
  
• A little twist in the summer school debacle…the boy my darling daughter has been pining over is actually in her math class, which he also coincidentally failed, along with several of my daughter’s friends. My husband thinks it was a clever orchestration on her part, sadly I think that would have involved too much thought and planning for our darling girl, who sometimes finds getting out of her PJs a little too harrowing for a day’s work.
  

Hula.

Huuuuuula.

Who doesn’t love a shaggy haired boy in a grass skirt?

-=-=-=-

Go forth, make random, drink coffee.

 

 

 

Keep Dreaming and Random Tuesday Thoughts

• Yesterday morning, predawn, while I was smack in the middle of a dream so vivid I could see the hair on Robert Downey Jr.’s arms and smell the soap on his skin, I was awoken by an 11 year old girl banging her way in to my bathroom, switching on the light, and announcing loudly that she’d had a nightmare…a nightmare she couldn’t remember… Half an hour later, as I was trying desperately to recapture the essence of my own dream, I was called to action by a 7 year old who’d thoroughly wet the bed. My bed. At that point I gave up on sleep and went for coffee, clearly Robert and I were not meant to be even in dreamland. Tragic really.
  
• This morning I dreamt our neighborhood was overrun by zombie hordes and we had to pile in to someone’s Winnebago to head up north to Tennessee for safety. Surprisingly enough this dream was actually allowed to continue uninterrupted.
  
• 
  ♪♫ I got it at Ross ♪♫:
  
• Okay, I didn’t get it at Ross…because it’s hideous, but you can. I’m fairly certain it’s still there. It even comes with a cassette tape price tag. It was pretty roomy.
  
• According to my three year old, who proclaimed so quite loudly as we loaded up in to the van the other day, “Mom, it is damn hot.”
  
• Well, I couldn’t disagree. It was damn hot. At least he used it properly.
  
• At Target, waiting for my daughter to try on some swimsuits in the fitting room, I noticed this exchange between two teenage girls.
  

  Girl 1 (exits the stall, holds out the skirt of the dress she was trying on): “Do you like it?”
  

  Girl 2 (exits her stall, wrinkles her nose then looks away): “Oh. No.”
  

  Girl 1 (sighs, walks over to the three-way mirror then examines herself for five minutes. Finally calls over to Girl 2): “So what do you think?”
  

  Girl 2 (shrugs): “I dunno. It’s okay.”
  

• Apparently it was one of those dresses that grows on you.
  
• I had a brief shopping excursion yesterday at Old Navy. Since I’m still holding on to a gift card from my birthday in March, I figured I’d step in and try on one of those swing skirts they keep advertising that look oh-so-adorable on the mannequins or the hanger or anyone with a long torso with legs up to her neck and unnatural Barbie-like proportions. The long skirt literally dragged on the floor when I pulled it up to my waist, the shorter skirt accentuated my hips and when layered with pretty much every top I tried on, made me look like a short, squat Inca woman. I was almost compelled to start weaving tapestries right there in the fitting room, but I managed to restrain myself.
  
• We cancelled our BJs Rewards Visa card. Because they’re dill holes. After a year and a half of paying off our balance consistently every month, they tripled TRIPLED our interest rate because we sent our payment in three hours late. They also charged us a $40 late fee that they were willing to reimburse us for. That they were going to rob us of $25 for every $100 we spent, they were unapologetic about.
  

—–

Here’s a quarter. Call someone who cares. Although I’m pretty sure a pay phone call to Canada might exceed the $0.25. If you can even find a pay phone, I can’t recall having seen one since like 1994.

There Can Be Only One and Random Tuesday Thoughts

• They are supposed to do well in pairs because guinea pigs are herd animals. Where in nature these chattering little nuggets of fur congregate and roam freely is beyond me, but wherever it is, I’m pretty sure my dogs would like to go there and enjoy the buffet.
  
• Also, the guinea pigs, who in theory should enjoy each other’s company because they are social animals, have turned their roomy habitat in to some sort of cage death match setting. We have two male pigs. One is called Patchy, the other Cloud. (Strangely enough Cloud has patches and Patchy is completely white. No, it is not meant to be ironic.) But these male pigs, who should in theory be enjoying eachother’s company have developed a seething hatred for one another. The fat guy (Patchy) is trying to muscle the other guy (Cloud) in to submission. We bought an igloo hideout for each, as well as separate water bottles and feeding bowls, thinking their late night scuffles could be solved with equality, but much like a prison setting, there is a power struggle going on for control of the yard. Just because they’re guinea pigs doesn’t mean they’re going to get along without question, right? Maybe Patchy has made some questionable decisions in his life that Cloud morally disagrees with. Maybe Cloud is just an insecure bully who blames his parents for his tendency to overeat. Either way, I’m afraid we’re going to wake up one morning and find one of them has fashioned a shiv out of bedding material and put an end to his little problem.
  
• Okay, I might be the one shanking guinea pigs, but seriously, in the middle of the night, those tussles sound very much like a strung out maniac busting his way in through our murder door and possibly launching a refrigerator across the room.
  
• Stupid guinea pigs.
  
• So in things not guinea pig related…
  
• Nope. That’s pretty much all I have.
  
• Oh, my neighbor’s son had a MRSA infection, but I suppose that’s more her blog fodder than mine.
  
• Although, here’s a little glimpse in to my crazy, since last week was supposed to be her week to carpool the kids to school, my husband thought I should switch up because he was a little worried about our first grader picking it up. My immediate reaction was “well, that will be awkward”. To which he replied, “really, you would rather spread MRSA to your son than avoid some social discomfort” and I was all “…” So I agonized about it and finally texted my neighbor around dinner Sunday night. She did not reply, so I texted again. Again she didn’t reply and me being the reasonable human mother that I am, obsessed about it All. Night. Long. Convinced that I’d made a mortal enemy of this once friend and that I’d incited a life long feud that would cause me infinite distress since our kids were in the same class together and every time I walked outside she might hurl obscenities at me or rotten fruit and she’d stop inviting us to birthday parties and my kids would be tortured with clear views of cotton candy machines and bounce houses and the smell of grilled meats and fireworks and then we’d have to move to another city except our house wouldn’t sell because the market was still doing poorly and we’d end up with a short-sale just to get the property off our hands so we could move to another county where our kids wouldn’t know anyone and they’d have trouble adjusting and my teen might turn to recreational drugs just to…
  
• Her cell phone was dead. She never got my message, when I walked over the next morning to tell her in person, her response was “sure, if that will give you guys some peace of mind, no problem”.
  
• I’m an idiot.
  
• Technology is unreliable as a source of reassurance.
  
• Tuesday Tip: If you spill an entire cup of coffee on your first set of pants for the day, then rip an obscene hole in the crotch of your second pair, this is fate telling you to get back in your pajamas and try again tomorrow.
  

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I expect there will be less guinea pig references HERE.

I Heart Complications and Random Tuesday Thoughts

• I think my bloggy mojo has been compromised yet again, but nobody wants to hear about how someone else’s brain just stopped working properly, especially that one reader who dropped me over the course of the weekend (how could you?) and in the spirit of not losing anyone else who might be on the fence I will stop my whine. Here.
  
• No. Here. Waaaaaaaaaaah.
  
• Work with me randomness. Maybe if you really, really believe, the randomness will come.
  
• Dammit, people, I cannot pull this off by myself.
  
• So my lovely teenage daughter has become a serial puker. Having a full lunch in the school cafeteria + sitting next to a certain boy on the bus ride home = copious amounts of vomit. It’s a little heart breaking. I always had a nervous stomach growing up, I mostly still do, but it manifests itself in other *ahem* ways. So what once started off as butterflies in her tummy has evolved in to something approximately the size of a pterodactyl, and I think this is increased exponentially by her fear that if she barfed once she will likely barf again. Thus far it has been a proven theory. It does not help that Busboy officially has a girlfriend and their affectionate displays are putting little anguish fissures in her tough exterior shell.
  
• Anyone have any tips on how to keep your cookies down?
  
• We went slightly insane over the weekend and added three more pets to our already crowded home. We promised our tween daughter and seven year old son, they could get pets if certain criteria were met, which they were. Our daughter wanted a mammal, possibly a guinea pig and our son had his heart set on a reptile. While we weren’t 100% ready to actually commit yet, we knew the acquisition was inevitable, then we got an unexpected call that someone was looking to ditch their pigs on account that their children had completely lost interest in them. They were being given free to a good home. With supplies. Minus the cage which the owner wanted to keep for…ready for this? Chickens. So we bought a fairly large cage and brought two fat guinea pigs home. I’m pretty sure they hate each other. They spend a lot of time clicking at one another, which in guinea pig apparently means “Back the hell up or I will cut you.” They are very cute and no one is more interested in their habits than the dogs, who frequently sidle up to the cage in a highly agitated state drooling and ready to pounce. Predator meet prey. Yes, we are full of bright ideas.
  
• We also got a corn snake, which not surprisingly is a pretty easy pet to own. If you don’t mind keeping frozen mice in your freezer and thawing them out in warm water once a week for your reptile to ingest whole.
  
• Some photos:
• 
  
• Helpful tip of the week: If you feel inclined to make a quick run to the grocery store in your sloppiest, loosest fitting, bloaty pants and hang-around-the-house-flip-flops, at least make an effort to apply make-up, because you will always run in to someone you know who looks far more put together than you.
  
• You’re welcome.
  

—–

The Un-Mom has her act together. Even if she doesn’t, I’m sure she’s much better at faking it than I am.

Hello Piggies and Random Tuesday Thoughts

• After getting out of the shower yesterday, a certain three year old demanded my attention.
  

  “MOOOOOOM! Grab my fingers.” He was poking his tiny digits underneath the gap in the door. Using his hand to cross over in to my brief sanctum and give a little wave.
  

  “I’ll be right out,” I assured him.
  

  After I exited he claimed my bare toes and gave me his version of “This little piggy…”
  

  “This little piggy was a caca. This little piggy had roast beast. This little piggy got hurt by a truck then fell off a building. This little piggy said wee-wee all the way home. And then the baby piggy had roast beast with the mommy piggy and a big daddy piggy that destroy the house.”
  

• ?????
  
• I made the mistake of feeding some ducks the other day in front of my house. They were eating bread right out of my hand, it was a sweet moment. Not so sweet is the fact that they’ve come back six times to hover near my front door and poop all over my entryway. Runny duck landmines I have to train my three year old to dodge and avoid while I raise my arms over my head and try to shoo away my new best buds that coincidentally have little fear and practically want to walk in to my living room. If ever you are inclined to feed your neighborhood ducks, DON’T.
  
• Several evenings ago at dinner, Journey came on the radio and my husband mentioned that one of his girlfriends in high school used to play them all the time while they were dating. I volunteered a similar experience which led to my enthusiastic dislike of the band in spite of the fact that I know most of the lyrics to their greatest hits album which can cause me to involuntarily break out in song when “Wheel in the Sky” begins playing. My teen was at the table with us when the strangest look came on her face,
  

“OMG I just realized you guys haven’t always been together, you don’t have all the same memories, you used to have separate lives.”

“Well, we’re not brother and sister, you know?”

“I know but it’s too weird.”

“Yeah, we used to be teenagers just like you and go to football games and concerts and South Beach and we went to high school in totally different parts of the city.”

“Ugh. I feel nauseous.”

What do you know? Parents were once people too…

• During the holidays I bought an US magazine subscription for $1 from an offer I got after purchasing some gifts through Amazon. I figured a buck for celebrity smut, why not? I recycle. I just received my last issue yesterday, if I renew now I can save 70%. For the record, US magazine might be the dumbest magazine I’ve ever read, it’s all celebrity pictures and blurbs and stupid polls about who looks better in an overpriced dress. I feel stupider every time I read it. That being said, it’s like magazine crack. I’m cutting myself off…yet how am I going to live without knowing how the Jon and Kate custody battle turns out or whether or not Justin and Cameron will get back together?
  
• Excuse me while I go burn some back issues of US and go wash my eyeballs.
  
• Yesterday afternoon I received a package in the mail. From Hawaii! It was filled with delicious goodies I won from contest over at Pseudo’s. I’m fairly certain everything in it is low cal. Come on, dark chocolate covered macadamia nuts, those have to be healthy right? If I can’t button my pants anymore I am blaming her.
  

• This kid decided to Bogart all the macadamia nut cookies too but I managed to rescue one (or five) from his clutches.
  

• All the rage for viewers age seven to eleven: it’s called Annoying Orange and is quite possibly even more brain gratingly annoying than Fred. If you don’t know who Fred is, be grateful.

—–

You know who isn’t annoying? The Unmom. 9 out of 10 bloggy readers agree. That 10^th reader prefers talking fruit.

Ambiguity and Random Tuesday Thoughts

 

• I may or may not have rubbed my van up against somebody’s red bumper yesterday while I was dropping my first grader off at school. The car was parked with its nose out in traffic and I was trying to squeeze around it to pull in next to the curb up ahead. I believe the car was empty. I mean, nobody chased after me waving their arms and shouting about how I’d taken a strip of paint off the front of their Chevy or whatever. That is, if I did actually rub up against it, I mean if I were to believe that line of red paint near the back tire of my silver van, I suppose you could assume that I might have…if red lines were to be trusted. Right?
  

   

• My depth perception kind of sucks in the morning.
  

   

• If the red Chevy driver comes after me with a machete and a repair bill you will be the first to know.
  

   

• Yesterday my teenager said she actually likes her family. She said, and I quote, “You’re pretty cool.” She followed it up with the acknowledgement that she is clearly lame for thinking so and the fact that she’d rather sit at home with us, than hang out with her school friends, is proof positive that she needs years of intensive therapy. I wonder if she’d be willing to say that on camera, so I can have evidence for when she goes back to ignoring me and cringing when I try to hug her.
  

   

• We are so cool. No take-backs. Well, I would be except for my Old Navy wardrobe, that goes without saying.
  

   

• Right before Easter I tried to go dress shopping at Ross, just to have something decent to wear to lunch at my sister’s other than the usual stay-at-home mom uniform of jeans or khakis and tee shirts. Sometimes it’s nice to dress like a girl. Whatever. I was quickly reminded why I hate shopping when I walked in to the fitting room. Full length mirrors and bad lighting are no friends of mine. Neither are plunging V-neck dresses that look adorable on hangers. That kind of cleavage display should be illegal. You know it’s bad when you walk out to show your daughter and she doubles over with giggles then averts her eyes.
  

   

• I wore slacks and a button down shirt to Easter. Looking like a girl is overrated.
  

   

• The husband and I attempted to start an exercise program last week, using a series of DVDs that may or may not have been copied from another copy by someone whose name I will not mention. On day two we came to the realization that said DVD series was attempting to kill us and possibly prevent us from ever using our arms again. I think when you suffer that kind of muscle fatigue and pain, they really should guarantee results after one day. What’s the point of feeling every single one of your screaming arm muscles if nobody else can even see them underneath your pasty arm flab? My body should really be more efficient in cannibalizing itself.
  

   

• On the plus side, it is kind of entertaining to work out with a partner. Our uncoordinated flailing, frequent wincing and primal grunting actually drove our seven-year-old to a fit of giggles that resulted in damp undies. You know you look foolish when your display makes a first grader pee his pants.
  

   

• My son’s first grade teacher took a stand yesterday against a bill that’s before the governor tying in her salary to student performance among other things. As of last Friday, all the teachers in the elementary school had agreed to call in sick as a protest against the state’s decision to pass the bill. Only about 30% of the teachers actually followed through. She was pissed. How exactly do you show a unified front when 70% of the other participants chicken out on you?
  

   

• The grackles are dive bombing my dogs again. I think they’re nesting in our avocado tree. Perhaps my dogs were once ferocious bird predators, but in their old age it takes them quite a bit of effort to even crawl out of bed. Between their arthritis and nerve issues, I think the last thing on their mind is devouring a fledgling. Although they might gum one to death if they find it just lying around.
  

   

Make Random part of your Tuesday? Or not. Whatever. Your loss.