Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

Because I live in Iowa, I take a lot of photos of farm related machinery and buildings. It's what we got here.

Today was my second full day of vacation. I could really get used to not going to work. Unfortunately, I need the damn paycheck and I got a decent raise this month, so I'll just enjoy my vacation and then suck it up and go back to work next week.

My sister came up today. Her kids were in daycare so she spent time with mine. She took me and the girls out for lunch and got to hear Coadster make fun of Stinky for sounding like a Valley Girl and then Stinky got mad at Coadster for being so mean. It was lovely. I had chicken parmesan because it's breaded, deep fried, and covered in sauce and melted cheese. What's not to like?

After lunch, we went to the mall to look at stuff and my sister did that thing she does when she comes up to visit that she thinks is so funny. Since she doesn't know anyone here, she likes to try to embarrass me. Today we were looking at dishwashers for her new house, when she just started dancing in the aisle at Best Buy. It was pretty funny. Since you probably all know by now that I have absolutely no shame, you won't be surprised when I tell you that I wasn't the least bit embarrassed. My daughters, on the other hand, walked away as quickly as possible. Later on, I decided not to take her up on her offer to get on the big workman's industrial cart and let her push me around the mall. Sure, it would have been funny, but would it be worth going to jail for?

After my sister left, I started in on a few of my projects. I'm at that point where everything is getting torn apart and sorted, but it's messy and seems overwhelming. My sister called me during all of it so I could hear her kids fighting over the phone. I suppose it's only fair.

During hour number two of organizing papers and wondering how many acres of forests were demolished in order for me to receive credit card offers, I had to take a break. Stinky was at a park playing night games with her friends, so Coadster and I went to run errands and to procure ice cream. During our adventure, Coadster got to briefly meet Mr. Dateman for the first time. This was her assessment of him: First, she said, "Finally," about getting to meet him and then she said, "He seems really nice." Her last observation was that he looked a lot younger in person than he did in the few pictures of him she had seen. In Coadster speak, that's a ringing endorsement.

Tomorrow might be a little more work than today was, but it is so great to have the time to take care of it all.

And No One's Gettin' Fat Except Mama Cass

Here are the farmer's market glads on my kitchen table.

I feel kind of bad for talking about this at all, because I know how hard it is for people to lose weight. But I still haven't even put on one pound since that one blog post where I told you my doctor gave me lease to eat as much fatty food as I wanted.

I'm sure it's like if I were to read your blog and on it you bitched about how much money you had and how you just didn't know what to do with it all and what a burden it was to be rich. I have no doubt that I would want to find out where you lived, travel any distance to get there, punch you in the face, and relieve you of said burden. It would make absolutely no difference how many hours you worked for it, or how much corporate bullshit you put up with (which I'm so NOT willing to deal with) to obtain your wealth, I would still resent the hell out of you anyway.

That having been said, I'm a little frustrated with my inability to gain weight. You can ask anyone who knows me, I eat. Yes, I probably run too much, but you can ask any of those same people who know me again, and they will tell you that not one citizen of this planet would benefit from me doing without my free high. So, now I've decided to bring out the big guns. That's right, butter, bacon and Krispy Kremes. There. That oughta do it. The gauntlet has done been thrown down, bitches.

Dreaming is Free

The only house we ever owned when I was a kid. (of course, it was government subsidized) I know you're all jealous of it's avocado green color. Guess which year in the early seventies it was built?

I dream about houses a lot. These houses usually get bigger and more complicated as the dream progresses. The rooms lead into other rooms that have strange shapes and odd colors. Sometimes, I have a moment of clarity when I realize that I'm already renting an apartment and couldn't possibly live in the house I'm walking through. Every once in a while, I'm sad that I don't own the house I thought I owned at the beginning of my dream, but usually I'm relieved that I'm not responsible for a home that keeps morphing and becoming more complicated and unmanageable by the minute.

Lately, I've been talking to Mr. Dateman about the possibility of me buying a house. Like my dreams, the conversations can either make me hopeful or stressed out. On the one hand, I love the idea of not throwing money away to a landlord, but I know that it would be hard to afford the kind of house I want in an area where I could comfortably live. I'm spoiled by living so close that I can walk to work and the girls can walk to school. I remember when we first rented our place, Coadster said, "Mom, it's perfect. It's on your running route." I don't know if I should be happy or worried that my girls are so aware of my need for routine. I'm pretty sure that any house I could afford to buy, would mean that I'd have to create a new running route altogether. Of course, I also know that anything I choose to do might involve making a sacrifice for something else, and if that sacrifice would mean I'd actually have my own bedroom, I could probably figure out a way to make it work.

In the Summertime When the Weather is Hot

Here is a rusted out piece of machinery in a garden in Kalona. I took this last year.

First, I want to say thanks to the people who gave me suggestions for a better Kinks Song to run to. I'll be taking care of that sometime this week.

Today I finally got my ass in gear early enough to make it to the Farmer's Market. Last year I used to go almost every Saturday around the same time. The girls would come with and we'd buy flowers to have for our table during our big Sunday dinner and get lots of good fresh veggies and look at stuff. Of course, it's always a big social thing too. On one of my "walk around downtown to get out of cubicle world during lunch" strolls this week, I ran into my old professor. He's now retired, but he used to be the head of the English department here and he taught my America in the 1930's class that I loved so well. Anyway, we used to run into each other a lot on Saturday mornings and we'd stop and chat and he'd talk about his wife and grandkids and we'd laugh about the differences between having boys and girls. So, when I saw him this week, he asked me where I'd been and told me he really missed seeing me. How sweet is that?

So, today when I woke up at a decent hour, (thanks to my sister who has young children and thinks everyone should be awake on Saturday mornings and calls me just to make sure I am) I made the trek down to Chauncey Swan parking ramp. Coadster came with and we went downtown first so we could go to the bank and take out some money. My friend A. was setting the outdoor tables at 126, so I stopped to talk to her and we made plans to meet for lunch on one of my days off this week.

We finally made it to the farmer's market and the guy selling gladiolas gave me a bunch extra for free. I saw many of my Saturday morning friends from last year and got to meet their new babies or boyfriends or girlfriends and caught up on tons of gossip. By the time we walked across to the Co-op and then made it home it was almost noon. I forgot that going to the farmer's market was such a big time commitment.

They Kick You in the Head and Send You Back to Bed

I know I always sound like such a total Gomer on here, but I finally figured out what my problem was this week. I have no idea why it didn't occur to me until this morning, because it's been an ongoing problem for most of my life. (and no it's not chronic geekiness) Uh, derrrr. It was sleep deprivation...Again. Don't ask me why the dark circles under my eyes, or the neediness, or the crankiness, or the fact that I couldn't find my attention span even after I put out an APB for it, didn't tip me off. I guess I'm not as self-aware as I thought I was. Finally, as I was falling asleep in my cubicle this morning, I figured it out and decided to go home early before I got so tired I was walking into traffic and giving my social social security and bank account numbers to those people who email me saying they're from Africa and they want to give me millions of dollars to get it out of the hands of their current dictator.

I left around ten. On my way out the door, one of the guys I work with told me he knew something was wrong with me yesterday when he was giving me shit and I didn't flip him off and call him a punk-ass bitch. People in my office start to really worry about my health when I'm not sassy - as well they should.

When I got home, I changed into my jammies and slept until around two. I woke-up feeling a million times better. I could actually hold a thought for over a minute and I cleaned, and then grilled the burgers I was too tired to cook on Tuesday. I ran my seven mile route and listened to my phone set on shuffle. (here are some songs I decided to replace today - The Kinks, Well Respected Man, The Yardbirds, Shapes, Elliott Smith, Memory lane - they're all too slow to run to)

So, now all I have to do is get through tomorrow, and I can start my one week, stay-at-home vacation. I can't wait. I'm going to try to do this thing where I clean and organize my house like I would if I were getting ready to move. (without the packing, that is) My goal is to get rid of my old clothes from high school and college and half of the papers in my file cabinet. Wish me luck.

I just drank a beer to see if that would help me get to sleep a little earlier tonight. I hate it when I'm tired and I still can't get to sleep. Hell, you better wish me luck with that one too.

I'm Working So I Won't Have to Try So Hard

So, basically, I had a bad day today. I think I woke up kind of out of sorts and work made it worse. By the time I got home, I was just feeling cranky and needy and all sorry for myself. I called my friend K. to whine and even though she had just slammed her finger in the screen door, she was awesome as usual. She wanted to know if I'd feel better if I came over and got my birthday present. Why, yes. I believe I would. Her dogs were really happy to see me and we had a good talk. (K. and I, not me and the dogs) Then Mr. Dateman called and I went over there for a while, and unfortunately for him, I brought my weirdness with me. Sorry Mr. Dateman.

Tonight I figured it would be safer to go back in time. I haven't posted old photos in quite a while, so I thought I'd bring some out. In the top one, my mom is by some big river somewhere. At first glance, I thought she was fishing, and I was about to be really surprised. I couldn't imagine my mom being all that into fishing. That's more my thing.

In a lot of ways, my mom and I were very similar. I got a lot of my traits, both good and bad from her. I inherited her sense of direction...Or lack thereof, I got her spazziness, and her music appreciation. I wish I had her comedic talent. She was one of the funniest people I've ever met and she could mimic almost anyone's voice. The big difference between us, is that she was super girly and I am super not. Don't get me wrong, I wear dresses and skirts and make-up and stuff. I just don't get a lot of womens' fascination with shoes and accessories and pedicures and manicures and why people pay others money to cut their hair, when you can all just do it yourself. When I was trying to get my shit together a few years ago, (thank god I gave up on that pursuit) I read this book on motherless daughters. One of the things it said, was that sometimes when girls lose their mothers before puberty, they don't get the girlie education and so I was glad to have a reason. I think the other part for me, was that when I was a kid, I hung out with my brother and our boy neighbors a lot. I spent tons of time catching lizards and playing army and building forts. So, anyway. Those are my excuses and I'm sticking to them.

My friend K. gave me the gift of a haircut by a real, live person who cuts hair. (what do you call them? Stylists?) She claims I'll love the woman because she's fun and loud like us. And she's from Sigourney, so we might have similar accents. This will be my first foray into formalized girliness in several years. I'll have to let you know how it goes. What if it makes me turn and I start drooling over handbags and wearing tons of perfume and actually trying to walk in shoes that hurt my feet? I guess it wouldn't bother me that much if I could wear them with one of my mom's cool old dresses from the sixties.

I Know You've Got a Mental Age of Ten

This was the picture I took at Mr Dateman's on Monday. My camera phone didn't do that sunset the least little bit of justice either. Stinky showed me how to e-mail myself the photo so I could post it. Thank god I have teenage daughters, or I'd be stuck drawing pictures on my cave walls and rubbing sticks together to make fires.

Remember how I didn't exactly promise you guys blow job and dildo jokes yesterday? Good, because it's not going to happen. After driving my girls back and forth to the county fair and obsessing over my music all night, all I'm capable of is posting some messages I either sent or received in the last week. I won't tell you which is which, on the grounds that it might incriminate me.

1. For sure! Beef Days @ 6:30. Bad Fathers after. Call me...Are you going out tonight?

2. I just saw a guy dressed as a wizard walking around. Then I remembered the Harry Potter hoopla. Next I saw a woman dressed all weird and realized she wasn't into the hoopla, she was just a hippie. Eh, tomato/tomahto.

3. Sweet! Oh yeah. I have some extra mashed taters. Would you and J. eat them?

4. Are you guys doing anything tonight? I'm feeling kind of restless and wondered if I could tag along if you were going to get up, get up and get busy. I promise to keep my drinking to a level where I won't try to say the word "pussy" every two seconds.

5. Did you get your haircut and new chest tattoo yet?

6. Speaking of Lemmy, (wait. You wrote Lemme) do you illegally download music?

Just Between You and Me

Tonight, Mr Dateman suggested I take a lovely photo of the bright red setting sun with my phone to put up on the blog, so I did. The only problem is that I don't know how to get it to a place where I can post it. So, until I can ask the girls, you get another photo of Stinky making dorky faces and flashing gang signs at YMCA camp. Ah, but she shore do make her mama proud.

Kids, I'm just tard - er, I mean, tired. I feel like I could sleep for a few days and still not be rested. Unfortunately for you, that means I might get a little earnest and introspective and maybe after you read it, we can all cry and have one giant group hug. Blech.

On Friday I was really bored and restless, so I thought I'd make a new Pandora internet radio station. For those of you who do not slave away in a cubicle all day building up your secretary spread, Pandora lets you list the name of a band or bands and it builds a radio station around that kind of music. It takes on a life of its own - kind of like musical sea monkeys. You can give me all the shit you want, but I was in the mood to hear Journey and Journey-like bands. My new Journey station was awesome. They played the best cheese from junior high and high school. I can't tell you when the last time was that I heard a song by April Wine, but I was happy when it showed up on my radio station on Friday.

Since there was absolutely no work to do. I played Mah-Jong and had WAY too much time to think. It struck me as odd that I got so nostalgic about high school when it was such a shitty time for me. After losing my third game of Mah-Jong, it occurred to me that I wasn't nostalgic for the horrible, real time I spent in my teens, it was more the world in my head that I wanted to go back to. Because I had to be able to function in a really unhealthy environment, I lived in my own little world a lot. Most of that time was spent listening to music and reading books and daydreaming about what my life would be like when I turned eighteen and could do whatever I wanted - or, if I met some friendly aliens who would help me with my plight and take my Aunt and Uncle on their space ship with all the rectal probes - or what would happen when I became the Centipede video game champion of the universe and I won millions of dollars worth of endorsements from Atari. Or whatever the hell else my poor sad brain fantasized about when I was in high school. (Believe me, you don't want to know any more details)

Then after I lost my sixth game of Mah-Jong in a row, it occurred to me that the coping mechanism that worked so well for me when I was in high school and powerless, messed me up later when I was an adult. When things got so bad and scary with my ex-husband, I lived in my own head and listened to music too. Since I was over eighteen, I could fantasize about winning the lottery and how I would take me and my girls out of our bad situation. The drag about it then, was that I was just numbing myself and sleepwalking, instead of thinking of any practical solutions. Finally, after a year had passed that way, I woke up and realistically looked at options and in another year, I got out.

See what I mean? It's all a little too Dr Phil for my blog, but it's what you get tonight. Maybe tomorrow, I'll be back in the mood to make more dildo and blow job jokes. I'm not promising anything, but I'll try.

Woke Up, Got Out of Bed, Dragged a Comb Across My Head

The girls on their last day of camp together. They almost look like they like each other, don't they?

Well, kids. It's too late for me to be awake on a Sunday night, but here I am. After all the craziness on Friday, I made a point to just chill the rest of the weekend. On Saturday, Coadster came back from camp for good and she was exhausted. Since I was still pretty zoned out as well, we went out for lunch and then turned into zombie girls and stared at all the CD's we wanted at record stores. I actually bought a Todd Rundgren and a James Gang CD. Which is pretty good, considering all the thousands of CD's I would buy if I ever trip over a trust fund or winning lotto ticket. Stinky was downtown with her best friend, and she called me every five minutes to tell me she ran into someone I knew and pass along their message to me. Was it only last week that I was declaring my love to my cell phone? Hmmm.

Saturday night I went over to Mr Dateman's and ate burritos and watched some of the first season of My Name is Earl. It was about perfect. I declared today a day of rest. I have no idea why I was so tired, but I got almost nothing done.

Next week, I have to work all five days. I know - wah fucking wah. Especially when I'm taking the whole week off after that. But even now, it seems like there will be a lot of running around tomorrow. After work, I'll take Stinky and her friend to the County fair and pick Coadster up from the booth where she's volunteering. She's going to babysit for my ex-boyfriend at six. I told him not to pay her too much, but it doesn't sound like he'll listen to me. Hopefully, I'll get to hang out with Mr Dateman in the evening and slow things down a little.

Okay, I just read this post and I think it wins the award for the most mundane and unfunny blog entry ever written. I guess all I can do is go with my strengths. Hey, at least I didn't have a grown man ask me to dress him the rest of the weekend.

You Have to Believe We Are Magic

I don't want you all to be too shocked or worried that I'm starting to get my shit together or anything, but I actually drank responsibly tonight. We were originally going to go to Solon Beef Days, and then never quite made it. Instead we went downtown, and it became a night of wizards and intrusive guys...So, maybe not that much different than any other night in Iowa City.

I probably wasn't in the right space to be out and about, but it was Friday and Stinky had another sleepover and I had spent all day with my co-workers and all evening with thirteen year olds, and blah blah and you've heard this whole thing from me before. Sometimes by the end of the week, I just need to hang out with adults I don't work with, to get a little perspective. I think what I really wanted, was to be invisible so I could watch people and listen to their conversations, but not have to interact. So, maybe I should have just stayed home and watched a movie, but I love my friends and I always have fun when we hang out.

After we were there for about an hour, some young boy plopped down at our table and started bothering my friend T. Eventually, he looked over and noticed me and did that thing where he pretended he knew me from one of his classes. He then admitted that he didn't know who I was and introduced himself. In these situations, I try to let the young drunk boys know exactly how old I am in hopes that it will scare them away. I told him that the last time I was in a class was almost twenty years ago. He called bullshit, so I brought out my driver's license. He told me he thought I looked amazing and I offered up my pat response when any drunk guy tries to schmooze me. It goes something like this: "Yeah, I get real pretty and real young looking when everyone else gets drunk." Of course, he protested and then when I went to grab my ID back, he kissed my hand. I don't know why certain guys think women will be charmed by that, but it is one of the biggest cheese ball maneuvers out there.

I figured it would be a good time to head to the bathroom, even though it would mean that the drunk guy would again turn his affections on my friend T. She wisely asked him to leave, and he was gone by the time I got back. Whew. Now, if you think the fun stopped there, you were wrong. It was almost midnight at that point and there were tons of kids and their parents standing in line to purchase the new Harry Potter book at Prairie Lights. I was hoping there would be more kids dressed up like wizards, but I was wrong. Of course, I knew some of the parents in line and it's always fun to come stumbling out of a bar, reeking of cigarette smoke and stale beer, when you encounter your children's friends' parents.

We made it to our last stop and wandered through the beer garden at the Picador. While some of our friends were chatting, another invasive drunk guy came over to me and asked me to help him put on his shirt. Um, okay, I guess. He tried to talk to me about the band that was playing upstairs and then stopped and asked me to help him buckle his belt. That was it. I think I said something like, "No thanks. I don't really do that for guys." (as if it was a such a common request that I had a moratorium on it) I was pretty much done at that point. I was tired, and too zoned out to be any fun for my friends and sick of drunk, invasive guys. Maybe I'll have to go out with my special jinx powers next time and mess up their computers and send dark clouds over all of their houses.

You Just Might Pick Up My Magic Sticks

Stinky tried to dye her hair blonde today. Even though she's half me and I am one pasty, pale Irish girl, her other half is Mexican and the closest she could get is reddish brown. She said she's going to try to lighten it up one more time tomorrow. We'll see what happens.

This week I've become a bit of a jinx. Believe me, I would much rather be a minx. (I'd be having a hell of a lot more fun) Apparently, though, you don't get to choose your afflictions in this life, they choose you. You think I'm being dramatic don't you. In what way have I become such a bane, do you ask? Well, let me tell you.

I've been a scourge to all computers I've come into contact with this week. I already told you about the issues I had with my home computer on Monday. Yesterday, I got a virus on my computer at work. From what the IT guy who worked on it for the last two days said, it was a doozy. Our IT guy is a total saint, by the way, and he kept trying to reassure me that it wasn't the very worst virus he's come across in his career, but it definitely gave him a run for his money. I had to sit on a file cabinet for the first three hours at work today and talk about movies and television shows with him, until he finally killed it. Thank god IT guys are geeky, so we had plenty of things in common. Dude, we could have talked about Transformers and the Transformers movie for the three hours alone. He has all his Transformer toys from when he was a kid, just waiting for his son to get old enough to play with them.

I've also been a bit of a weather jinx this week. On both Monday and Wednesday night, I went over to Mr. Dateman's house with nasty storms riding my ass there and back. Luckily, Mr. Dateman likes storms, so I was the only one breathing into a bag both nights. I didn't have to feel quite so guilty.

So, what do you think? Is this some kind of residual Friday the Thirteenth hex, or was I cursed as a baby to start wreaking havoc in my forty-second year? If I'm going to be this way for a while, I'd like to know so I could try to harness these powers to work for me instead of against me.

If I Don't Get Your Call Then Everything Goes Wrong

I took this in Hills last Summer.

Dear Cell Phone,

I know I put you off for a long time. I promise I wasn't playing that girl game of hard to get, I just really wasn't sure if I was ready for a relationship and I didn't want to string you along. You seemed really cool and I was afraid of hurting you. You have to admit, there is some hassle and money and time commitment when we're talking about getting involved. Frankly, I just wasn't sure if I wanted to be that accessible either.

Once my girls got old enough to start using their own cell phones, I was able to see that some of the freedoms I was worried about losing, would be replaced by other, very important liberties. Dude, you've made it so I'm not stuck at home waiting to hear from my girls. I can actually have a social life. I also had no idea that you possessed so many other attractive qualities. Sure, you look good and you do a great job communicating, but you've also really helped me get more organized. You wake me up even when the electricity goes out, you keep track of all my friends, and best of all you motivate me to run with your amazing Mp3 skillz. It seems like I owe you a HUGE apology for underestimating you and taking you for granted.

At the risk of dropping the L bomb, I'll stop just short and say, I really, really really like you a lot. I just hope I haven't screwed things up between us by my initial hesitation. If you give me another chance, I promise you'll have my full attention and devotion. I'll even try harder to get better at texting on you and stop writing wordy tomes to my friends and family.

Love,

Churlita

But You Grow Up and You Calm Down

Okay. I think my goal here was to take a couple of photos of myself on the eve of the beginning of my 42nd year before I went out. Then maybe I thought I'd take some "after" shots when I got home and had actually turned a certain age, but I was too drunk (thank god) to do the last part...Or possibly, I had spent too much time by myself on Sunday and it was making me a little loopy and I had no plan whatsoever for taking dork-ass black and whites of myself. Either way, here I am during my last hours of 41. Yeah, whatever.


So, check me out. I'm blogging from home. Sweet. All day on my birthday, the Mediacom people were telling me that it could take 24-48 hours for them to fix my internet. Even with my lovely hangover, I knew that was bullshit. Today I had to call three times and got disconnected once and was on hold (with the worst cheesy techno hold music ever) for what seemed like a couple of hours until I got the one guy who knew what was going on. He told me that my issue shouldn't take 24 hours, it should take about four minutes to fix. Really? He said he'd call me back when it was done, and damn if he didn't get back to me in ten minutes. The more I deal with tech support for any company, the more I realize that you have to keep calling back until you get that one girl/guy who actually knows what she/he's doing. Whew.

So, thanks again for all the birthday love. My birthday eve was super great and my birthday was fun too, I just had to pay the toll for the night before. I'm old enough to understand that it was all my choice, and in my mind, it was totally worth it.

Today it was back to the real world, and that was okay too. After my four day weekend, I forgot I had to bring a lunch and was forced to pay way too much for crappy food downtown. On my way to purchase said crap, I ran into Stinky and her friends. So, we all went together for our crap feast and I got to meet Stinky's new boyfriend who she met at camp. He has that whole sun bleached, blonde, skater boy/seventies surfer look that me and my girls all seem to have a weakness for. I made him shake my hand, not because I'm all formal like that, but because I knew it would make him really uncomfortable. And how fun is that? It almost makes me want to forget my lunch again tomorrow, to see if I can mess with him some more.

Rainy Days and Mondays

Dear Most Awesome Blog Readers,

This will be really quick. I woke up hung-over on my birthday to find that when the cable company shut-off my land line, they also stopped my internet. Awesome. Then they told me that what took a minute for them to screw up, would take them at least 24 hours to fix. Even better. So, I had to wait until I went back to work to get any internet access.

Thanks for all the kind birthday wishes and virtual cakes and stuff. I promise I will try to get to everyone's blogs in the next day or two. 'Kay? I also promise to write a better, more sober blog post than I have in the last couple of days.

Love,

Churlita

And I'm Getting Old

Good lord, but that's a lot of face for a baby. It's also nice to know, that I've never, ever in my life, been able to sit like a lady.

Kids, you know I feel really bad doing another one of these so close on the heels of the last one, but here it is. I guess my excuse is that it's my birthday goddammit and I can blog drunk if I want to. Today was pretty kick-ass and I'm not just saying it because I've had a few and everything seems awesome while I'm wearing my beer goggles. I do know, that whatever hour I drag myself out of bed tomorrow, probably won't seem quite so sweet.

Right now though, I want to hug the whole world, except some of those stinky rock boys who gave me and my friends so much shit tonight. Those would be the same rock boys who kept calling and/or texting us while we were at a friend's house wondering when we were going to come down to the metal show. Those boys will get theirs all too soon. Especially, our friend J. who called us the "hen clan". As in, "I'm surprised to see the hen clan out at a show on a Sunday night," or "the reason I called you guys the hen clan is because all we could hear after the band stopped playing was you guys cackling in the back of the bar." J. will soon discover that we weren't kidding when we said we'd all show up at his house at 2 on Monday afternoon to watch movies at his state of the art theater...And cackle as often and as loudly as possible.

So, yeah. I have a feeling that I haven't made much sense so far. I would encourage you all to blame that final free birthday beer I was served after midnight. And since I obviously misplaced my filter, I'm wisely taking some kind of pain reliever, with as much water as I can drink and passing-out. I'm sure I'll feel like getting up early and running in the morning. Right?

Breaking the Law. Breaking the Law

Hey, Kids. This will be quick because it's late and I'm tired. I want to thank all of you for your wonderful suggestions as to how to spend my day off. Especially Killer's "make your own cheap porn at home" ideas. Although it was creative and resourceful, I must have misplaced my whips and chains, so it just wasn't going to work for me today.

I did have a nice day, but it was still ruled by my stupid, dumb, annoying cold. It made me spacey and tired all day. At one point, I was driving in my car with Mr. Dateman and ran a red light. It wasn't even yellow, or pink or anything other than bright red. Oops. Luckily, Mr. Dateman lived to tell about it and possibly write some kind of cautionary tale about the dangers of riding in a car with me.

Later in the afternoon, I was going to run, but I was too wiped out. I napped until 4:30 and then finally ran. I knew I wouldn't be able to handle going out and drinking, but since it was my last night before the girls got back from camp, I wanted to at least do something.

I stopped by my friend K. and J,'s place to see if they wanted to go out to eat, but they were already grilling with my friend T. Because they are so awesome, they invited me to dinner and it was so much better than eating in a restaurant. T. split her steak with me and there was literally a trough of corn on the cob, and salad and potatoes and veggies and K. even made me a white wine spritzer. It was perfect for my cold because the lemon and lime were full of vitamin C. We had great dinner time conversation about this movie J. went to see at the Bijou about guys who have sex with animals. We joked about what a great first date movie that would be...Or not.

I went home around ten and watched "The Illusionist", it was a tad slow for someone who might have had a little bit to drink and was ready to fall into a food coma, but I made it all the way to the end and now I must sleep.

The end.

I'm the Kinda G That Little Homies Wanna Be Like

My friend K.'s neighbor was tuck-pointing her house last year, so I went ahead and photographed it.

Tonight I am standing on the precipice of a four day weekend. Don't worry, it's not making me dizzy and I won't pass-out and fall off of it. I'm just a little giddy is all. I turn forty-muthahfuckin'-two years old on Monday, and I thought I'd give myself the birthday present of time. So, it's happy birthday to me, (starring Melissa Sue Anderson) all over again.

I was a little worried earlier today, because my cold got all up in my grill and was sweatin' me and I was afraid all my vacation birthday time would be spent livin' in a Summer cold paradise. One of my co-workers told me that if my cold was still bad tomorrow, I should just come into work. Her reasoning was that if I was going to be miserable anyway, I may as well not waste a perfectly good day off. So, I went to bed the minute I got home and pretty much stayed there until around 9 o'clock when Mr. Dateman called me to make sure I hadn't been passing out in doctor's offices again today. I've got four minutes to go until midnight and so far so good.

So, I'm wide awake now and my cold seems to have chilled the fuck out, I have tomorrow off and my girls are away at camp. What an excellent way to head into Friday the 13th. I don't really have many plans for tomorrow, so give me some suggestions. If you had an entire day to yourself, how would you fill it? (please be aware that you would be on an EXTREMELY limited budget, so renting tons of porn might be out of the question)

Strange Days Have Found Us

Here are some yellow flowers in a sea of green.

Well, Kids. I had kind of a weird day today. It started out with me passing out at my doctor's appointment this morning. I'm one of those people who faints easily. My Doctor wasn't worried. She thought it was probably just one of those things where my knees locked and then I was down for the count. On the plus side...My blood pressure was back down again, from being too high a few months ago, and because I've lost so much weight lately, my doc gave me the go ahead to eat as much fatty food as I needed to get it back up. Woooo-hooooo!

As soon as I got to work, I found out my bosses were pulling us all out individually to talk to us about speaking to each other respectfully. We're like a huge dysfunctional family at my office and we flip each other shit all day, but we don't really mean it...Much. What? Just because I call John, Mr. Freakerman? At least I refer to him as mister. On the plus side...One of the women I work with said she'd bring duct tape for all of us to put over our mouths. You know, if we have to say something nice, we can't be trusted to say anything at all.

Things got better after work. I ran and listened to the songs on my phone. (there was some strange twist of fate, and it let me download 39 more songs into it before I got the error message again) I took a shower and then headed over to Mr. Dateman's place. We talked a lot of shit and he made me laugh like he always does...As an additional plus, Mr. Dateman reminded me to watch for deer on my drive home, and for whatever reason, I love it when he does that.

I have a bit of a cold, but I couldn't take any medicine for it last night because I was afraid it might raise my blood pressure. Tonight, though? Tonight, I'm planning to go get all hopped up on Nyquil and hope tomorrow isn't quite so friggin' weird.

What's the Buzz? Tell Me What's A-Happening

Hello, lily.

Today was my first full day sans girls. I thought I'd write a list of what my life was like without them. I figured it would help you all to feel better about your own lives in comparison.

1. Woke-up after hitting the snooze about 100 times and with only a few moments to put on clothes and rush out the door.

2. Heard a strange buzzing sound while I was getting ready for work and wondered if I hadn't accidentally let a large mosquito in my house the night before.

3. Sat at work all day multi-tasking by inputting info into my computer, eating Chex mix, reading blogs, checking Myspace, trying to figure out why I had another migraine and then realizing it was probably a result of my screwed up sleep schedule the last few days.

4. Walked home in all the heat and humidity and managed to make a neat little sweat patch where my tank top met my stomach. Pretty.

5. Tidied up a few things at home and heard the buzzing sound again. Wondered if it was the noise an air conditioner made right before it blew-up.

6. Quickly decided to drive to my friend K.'s house and check out the garden where I'd be safe.

7. Helped K. tie up our out of control tomato plants and then stood around watching her weed things, while I bitched about how hot I was. The humidity fucked up my hair so badly, that braids became my only practical hair choice.

8. Went into K.'s house and shared a fizzy-ginger-tea-soda like beverage and talked about boys. (I know, again with the multi-tasking)

9. Went to Mr Datetman's house and messed around with Google Earth Maps. We checked out our current abodes as well as the places where we used to live. We also took little virtual trips to other cities. Who says I can't afford a vacation this Summer?

10. I went home and got ready for bed. I heard the buzzing again and realized it was Stinky's cell phone in her bedroom set to vibrate. I wondered how long it would take for the battery to die.

I'm All Lost in the Supermarket

Here is a picture of some dandelions.

It's quiet in here...Almost too quiet. And now that I've said that, the Apaches should be attacking at any moment...Or maybe I watched too many Westerns as a kid.

Things are starting to calm down in my world - which is good, because I couldn't keep going at that pace for much longer. In fact, I gave myself a time-out on Saturday night and spent a nice, mellow evening with Mr. Dateman. While I dried out a little last night, I didn't really catch up on my sleep the way I wanted. So, today ended up being kind of weird and turned around because of the sleep deprivation.

I ran around with the girls at first and then finally picked up Coadster's friend and we headed to the YMCA camp. It was a hot day to stand in line for an hour waiting to get Stinky settled in her cabin. The good part about it was getting to see Coadster in action in her role as counselor in training. She was so sweet and helpful with the little kids and their parents. It still blows me away that anyone who shares my DNA could be that poised and mature. (there must be some weird recessive gene that skips a couple generations or something) After having to refill-out forms that were misplaced, I finally got back on the road around 3:30.

By the time I made it home, I was exhausted. I crawled into bed and didn't get back out until Colleen called me later in the evening. I stopped by my friend H.'s house around 9:30 and chatted one last time before Colleenyweenie goes back to New York.

I found myself at Hy-Vee, grocery shopping at 11 o'clock on a Sunday night. I was surprised at how many other people were there at that time too. It made me wonder if all these years I'd been missing out on some secret society of late Sunday night grocery shoppers, but I didn't see any special handshakes, so I don't think they were in cahoots or anything.

Now that my girls are gone for a week, Colleen's on her way to New York and things are finally calming down, I guess there isn't much else to do but go back to bed...Unless, of course, the Apaches show up, and then I guess I'll be busy defending the homestead.

Nights Like This Appeal to Me

Here is some stuff that got stuck in the grate by my house.

I thought I'd do you all a favor and keep a safe distance from another drunken blog post by waiting until this afternoon to write.

Last night I finally achieved my goal of integration between all of my friends and it was just as awesome as I suspected it would be. My friends K. and T. showed up and K. brought her boyfriend and everyone got along swimmingly. Stinky even had a whole hour where she wasn't hanging out with her friends, so she joined us downtown for a bit. Colleen was so funny around her. She couldn't get over the fact that Stinky was a teenager and wasn't going to make Colleen wear dress-up clothes and put on garish make-up.

After Stinky went home, we all decided to drink at the beer garden at The Mill. Of course, one of the bad things about me, is that my friends can talk me into anything after I've had a beer or two. My friends took full advantage of it last night. They got me to do my downs syndrome face and the butt dance in front of god and everybody. I'm not saying I'm proud of my behavior, I'm just simply relating what went down.

Another friend of mine gave me a Xanax to take for recreational purposes. I should have saved it, because I'm sure there will come a time when I'll need it for real, but he was adamant that I take it right then and there. I split it with someone else and we downed our halves with the Mexican beer we were drinking. (which, I'm pretty sure is exactly what any pharmacist would recommend)

About twenty minutes later, my friend said, "See? You've already stopped guffawing as much and you're not half as loud as you were." To which, I responded,

"Uh, what?" I wouldn't be surprised if last night starts a precedent for all my friends to show up with handfuls of Xanax or Valium to throw at me whenever I get too drunk and loud.

Well It's Late in the Evening

Here. Look at these pretty flowers and let them distract you from anything I'm about to write.

Oh, kids. I haven't done this for a while, but I'm blogging while I'm a little on the dee-runk side. I know it's a bad idea, but so was straightening my hair in July, and I did that tonight too. I'm a girl who likes to live on the edge. So, yeah. It's midnight and I just ate a bowl of Apple Jacks and I still have to get up and work tomorrow. So what. I'm sure I'll be quite the perky little princess around three in the afternoon tomorrow too...or not.

The thing about me, is that I always have such good intentions. Originally, my friend Colleen called me at work and we both kind of decided that we wouldn't go out. We'd both rest up and she'd get time to chill out from her trip and whirlwind visits to friends and family yesterday and today, and I would get some alone time. Ha.

I got home from work and went running. Stinky was at a friend's and asked me if she could have a girls' night until around 9:30 when they would all go to another friend's house to sleepover. No problem. I cooked up a pizza, they ate and then left dorky Myspace comments under their friend's accounts and watched a scary movie and traded their favorite lines from Team America. When I got a little too overwhelmed with all the thirteenyearoldishness of it all, I retired to Coadster's room. Then the phone calls started. First my friend H. called to say she was supposed to meet some friends at the beer garden at the Picador and she was going to drag Colleen along after all. Then I called my friend K. to try to get her to join us. I like all my friends to meet each other, because they all kick ass and I'm sure we'll have fun. I've been trying for the last year or two to get K. and Colleen to meet. Then Colleen called to say they were going to leave around 9:30.

All the thirteen year old girls cleared out of my house and I left to meet the other girls at the bar. My friend K. never made it, but we still have tomorrow night. Most of the people I sat with hadn't been to this particular establishment since it got cleaned up about a year ago, and at first, all they could talk about was how appreciative they were of the tidy new bathrooms. Our "only going out for one drink" turned into two or so and suddenly it was 11:30. Shit. On my way out, I ran into my friend BK who told me I should stay longer. When I whined about having to get up and work tomorrow, he laughed at me. I know he has to get up as early as I do, but I'm way older than him. I love pulling the old lady card, because nobody calls you on it.

Okay. I'm sure this is one of the most poorly written blog posts ever, but I'm half-drunk and it's late and I'm tired and I'm older than most of you. There. Was that enough excuses? I got a million of 'em...

You'd Think it was the Fourth of July

Here is a picture of my friend's daughter wrasslin' a stick away from a dog.

I went into today, not really having any idea what I'd do. I knew Stinky was going with her dad at some point, and that was it. It turned out to be a really fun day, it just felt like I lived three very different lives that didn't really have much to do with each other.

I woke up to my first life as a mom and spent some time talking to Stinky. I ran my seven mile route and was surprised how nice and breezy it was outside this morning. For lunch, Stinky and I picked up some food and ate outside at our little patio table (which is actually a driveway table, since we don't have a patio) until Stinky announced that she was full and too hot and asked if it was okay for her to go inside and get on the computer. I have to give her credit for humoring me for a little while anyway. Her dad picked her up around three and that's when I started my second life.

My second life was more like a flashback. I went out to the farm where I lived for a brief time and watched some bands play and hung out with old friends. Now that we're all getting older, there were a lot more kids and dogs running around than there used to be. At one point, my friend B. said, "Wow. I keep looking around and having weird flashbacks from years gone by." It kind of felt like that to me too, except there wasn't a mud wrestling pit, or half as many drunk people and the music wasn't as loud. It was more like Fourth of July lite.

In the evening I went to live in Mr. Dateman world for a few hours. We listened to music and then stood on his deck and watched fireworks from about six different towns. It was really cool, and the best part was that we didn't have to get stuck in traffic.

Now my holiday must end so I can get ready for work tomorrow. Wah.

Spread the Word Around, Guess Who's Back in Town

I got my first text message today by someone who wasn't my daughter. It was from a friend who was in town visiting and wanted to go for a drink. I had Stinky, so I couldn't make it, but I also kind of needed some shut-in time. I called tech support for Verizon to see if I could get my phone to take more songs, and all they could do was tell me to uninstall and reinstall their program and it still didn't work. I hate it when things don't work and it pains me that I'm such a nerd, but have absolutely no mad geek skillz. I gave up and watched The Notorious Betty Page instead.

In the next couple of days, my friend Colleenyweenie (as my girls so affectionately call her) will be in town from New York. Hopefully, Coadster will be able to see her this weekend.

My daughters have very fond memories of her from when she stayed with us about six years ago. At that time, she was just moving back from Japan and I was about a month away from ending a long term relationship. Apparently, we both had to blow off some steam, and boy howdy, did we. We went out and drank a lot. During the days, we would both be hung-over and lie on the couch with the girls, eating gross comfort food like tuna helper or grilled cheese sandwiches and soup and watching movies like The Goonies and Beetlejuice.

On the nights we didn't go out, we stayed at my place and had fashion shows with clothes Colleen brought back from Japan and Thailand, mixed with weird crap the girls had in their closets. Hmmm.

We also had dance parties where Stinky showed us her break-dance moves. That's Miss Electric Boogaloo to you.
I'm not sure what I was doing in this photo, but whether I was falling over, or wildly gesticulating, or doing the hokey-pokey, once again, I look like a total dork.

Since Colleen and I are in very different places in our lives now, and she'll be staying with another friend this time around, I'm pretty sure her visit will be way more mellow. The girls and I will just be happy to see her. Last year she gave Stinky a lecture about how she should listen to me and try not to grow up so fast and Stinky didn't roll her eyes once. Now that I think about it, Colleen might just be magic. If only she knew how to download music into my phone...

Oh, Uh-Oh Make it Magnificent ,Tonight

Sorry about last night's post. It was the migraine talking. I wasn't expecting it and stupidly let my meds run out except for half a pill. It helped me through the evening, but by the time I went to sleep, it came back in all it's hellish fury. I kept waking up because of the headache and I had this weird pain-high. It's hard to describe if you've never had it, but it gave me really vivid dreams and made me even more internal than I normally am.

Today I ordered my meds during lunch and took them as soon as I could leave work and drive to the pharmacy at the North Dodge Hy-Vee. I'm not sure if it was from lack of sleep or the residual migraine damage or the meds or a combination of all three, but I still felt super high tonight. I went to Mr. Dateman's and we watched part of a documentary called, Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie in high def. All the footage of bombs blowing-up was kind of horrifyingly beautiful in my altered state. Then when I was driving home, I turned the corner and the moon was coming up all blood red and looked almost exactly like this:

Except it wasn't completely full. (I didn't have a camera on me, so I had to steal this photo off of the inter webs) It startled me because it looked so much like the images in the movie. I was tempted to call Mr. Dateman and tell him to look out his window, but it was late and he had to get up early and I figured he'd probably appreciate it more if I didn't wake him up and he could just view it on my blog later on at his leisure .

Well I Tried to Make it Sunday, but I Got So Damn Depressed

I know last week I said something about maybe posting a photo of me relaxed and passed-out with an empty bottle of Jack in my hand, but I was really just talking shit. Alcohol doesn't really relax me so much, as make me that much louder. Instead, I'm finally posting this pic of the gigantic wooden nickel that I promised you ages ago.

Kids, there's no way to sugar coat this for you, I'm feeling kind of down today. It's not a full blown funk or anything, I'm just at that point where I have to eat that reality sandwich and it tastes like shit. Killer predicted this would happen in the comments of my post last week and because I can be overly optimistic, (read: delusional) I didn't believe him. Silly, silly me.

At first I thought I'd try to do something creative tonight, and then quickly realized I didn't have it in me. So, maybe I'll just do a little whine first, and then try to wrap it up by trying to be at least a little positive and, oh, just maybe try getting over myself. Jeesh.

Whine:

The last few days I've been running around trying to get Coadster ready for camp. There were papers to fill-out and clothes to buy and then wash and then more toiletries to purchase and then pack and since Coadster was at her dad's on Saturday night, there was also some one-on-one time where we watched a movie and lounged on our couch together on Friday night.

My landlord called last night to let me know that the inspectors were coming back to check and make sure the ten year old fire extinguisher had been replaced and the bathroom was repainted. Which means I have to go around and tidy up everything that we threw around while we were looking for suitcases and papers.

It's the first of the month, so I have to take care of all my bills. I already dropped my rent check off to the landlord along with my new phone number. Which reminds me, I still haven't cancelled my land line or sent out that gigantic group e-mail to all my friends updating my phone number.

Have I ever mentioned what a horrible procrastinator I am on here before? After reading this, I probably don't need to mention it, do I?

I have to go to the Verizon store and see why my phone is only letting me upload 100 songs on it.

I woke-up with a nasty migraine. I've been trying to ignore it all day, but it finally kicked my ass around four o'clock.

Getting over myself:

Coadster's gone and Stinky has been out most of the day. I've had a lot of alone time to get some shit done and to lie around when my head exploded. I try to make a big Sunday dinner every week. In between swimming at the quarry and going to the Jazz Fest downtown, Stinky invited one of her friends to eat with us. It helped fill the Coadster void.

The kid who was over on Thursday night with the really stinky shoes, (the kind that smell like stale cat piss) took his shoes off outside before entering my house today without me even having to ask him.

I still have 100 songs in my phone and running with music again after 20 years is seriously one of the best things ever. I can't believe I went so long without it.

I have real migraine meds, so even though the pain was intense for a few hours, my headaches don't wreck me for three days anymore.

The Fourth of July is on Wednesday. So, yeah. I can whine all I want, but I still don't have to work a full forty hours this week either.

Okay. Good enough. I'm sure I'll never completely get over myself, but at least I'm feeling a little better now.