I Wanted to be With You Alone and Talk About the Weather

Look what I found on the side of my house on Saturday!

Have you ever noticed how time consuming your life is? I'm always amazed how fast every weekend goes. This one started so great, but not exactly how I envisioned. The storms ended before I even got off work. Once I was home, both my girls asked if I could go pick up their friends. So, we did some driving around and then Stinky and her friend went to watch movies at someone else's house and Coadster took her friend (who's boyfriend had just broken up with her) to one of the school playgrounds to swing on the swings. I thought that sounded like a brilliant remedy for heartbreak.

I washed dishes, cleaned the kitchen and did some laundry, and then Coadster came home after cheering up her friend. We ordered a taco pizza and watched the movie, It's Complicated, which I thought was pretty damn funny. I had a couple of beers and then Stinky and her friend came home and we all went to bed. Perfect night.

Is it a good or bad sign when your weekend ends with a rainbow?

Saturday was crazy hectic, but really nice. Coadster babysat for a friend of mine who is almost done with grad school, but has three kids and a group project due and a husband who was out of town on business. So, Stinky and I went down to the farmer's market and then to the comic book store to get our free comic books and then to Prairie Lights to drool over books and then stopped drooling and ate lunch at Bruegger's Bagel Bakery. We went from there to buy very cheap flowers for the garden.

After we got home, I went for a run. I came back all full of runner's high and then proceeded to do a TON of yard work. I raked up five more HUGE bags of leaves and kept working on trimming up all the tree branches and putting them in tidy piles to burn in the fire pit. I got most of my flower beds turned over, so now all I have to do is rake and plant. FINALLY. After all of that I was exhausted. The mushroom hunting party ended up being a bust, so that was one less thing to do. Instead, I let my friend G. and C. talk me into going out for a bit on Saturday night. I warned them that my brain had exhausted itself and not to expect me to be able to think of the right words or to finish sentences or anything really difficult like that.

A long time ago when I was in college there used to be these crazy May Day parties at a house where Kurt Vonnegut lived when he was in Iowa City. So, someone organized a Facebook group to get a lot of those people back into town for May Day. C. and G. knew a lot more of the people than I did, but I was just happy to hang out with C. and G....Especially since C. was the one who wrote a great letter of rec for Coadster to get her scholarship. Anyway, it was nice, I drank my two beers and I was home around 11.

Today, I was going to spend the whole day planting, but of course, life got in the way...Again. Coadster said we should go to Walgreens to get very cheap grad party invites made. We ended up spending 5 whole dollars for 50. Nice. The only thing is that it took forever to get them made and then we got groceries, and then I was going to go running and THEN do some planting. Right as I was getting my running stuff on, a car pulled up in my drive way. It was my friends Stacy and Joanne. I love them and haven't seen them for a while. They came over to give me some wind chimes as a housewarming gift and they also gave me their gas powered mower. We have a push mower, but it doesn't quite get everything and doesn't work well when the grass is wet, so it will be nice to have both. Of course, they stayed a while and that was nice, but then right when I went to work in the garden, it started raining and foiled that plan. I'll just have to work on it during the week and be happy that I got to have a great talk with good friends who helped me identify a lot of the plants already coming up in my garden and after it stopped raining, there was a really pretty rainbow. Awwww.

I Felt the Earth Beneath My Feet

One of my favorite pics of the girls when they were younger. I like to caption it, "when there's only one pink plastic guitar".

So, originally I thought I'd finally have a night where I wouldn't have to go anywhere and I could just get a jump on the weekend cleaning. It would be so nice to have most of the big stuff cleaned by Friday, so I could spend my time this weekend on turning over soil and planting and doing some more work on the cupboards. But then remember that solo fest thing Coadster was in on Monday? The one she didn't want me to go to because she thought she'd be so horrible and she didn't want me to see her? Well, she was so bad, that she got a 1, which is the best score you can get and also got picked to sing in the honors recital tonight.

I was a little bummed that I wouldn't get anything done tonight, but I knew it was important to her that I saw her sing. She performed a Brahms piece called, "Die Mainacht". I've seen her sing solos that were pop music-y or jazzy, but I had never heard her sing a classical piece before. JAYSUS! She blew me away. She walked out on the stage all willowy and poised and self-possessed and sang that song in perfect pitch and tone and in German. (she's never even had a voice lesson because I could never afford them) It was one of those moments where as a parent you think, "Wow. How the hell did I create that? How, in spite of me, did she become that amazing?" It's almost enough to make a grown woman cry...Or at least tear up a little, in a VERY dignified way, of course.

Now, it's the weekend again. My house needs a lot of work, and I could care less. Every once in a while I need to check-ity check my priorities and tonight, I was shown for the 5,000th time what was really important...Always, my girls. So, it looks like I'll be doing some cleaning early in the evening on Friday, then I plan to eat pizza and drink a beer and finally watch Avatar, all to the background of thunderstorms outside my window. It sounds like heaven. Coadster has a high school film festival to go to and I have no idea what Stinky's doing. Her plans seem to change on the hour.

I thought Project Green was Saturday morning, but I guess it's the following week. The farmer's market opens, so I'll probably go down there and check out what they have and stop by the comic book store downtown. It's free comic book day, so I want to go get my share. Later in the day, I'll probably stop by my friends' morrell mushroom hunting party and bonfire. I won't stay long though, because I have so much to do and Stinky gets off work around 7'ish. There are some people in town who want me to go out on Saturday night, but right now that's looking pretty iffy. I'm still on my "staying out of bars" kick. I'm trying to get my socializing in at readings, or races or at mushroom hunting parties for now.

So, now it's your turn. Will you be watching movies during thunderstorms or tromping through the muck looking for fungus?

No Promises, No Demands

Here are the girls playing ball in our even older neighborhood - when we still lived above a bar.

Sooooo, I'm still working on packing. I seem to have run out of boxes, so I got to do fun things, like clean out the refrigerator and the freezer. Quit being jealous. I mean it. I guess tomorrow after work I'm off on a hunt for boxes. Everyone keeps telling me to declutter, but I love my books. I want my books. I NEED them. All of them...Even the ones I've already read. So, yeah. Tomorrow I'll just find me some more boxes.

I'm still trying to write little mini-posts, but have given up on responding to comments this week. I'll be back with a plethora of pithy comments and continue to cut everyone with my sharp wit (cough) again next week, when I'm in my new place. But this week y'all are off the hook...You can thank me later.

Don't Want to End Up a Cartoon in a Cartoon Graveyard

Stinky took this photo of some African daisies I planted a few years ago that want to take over my garden.

So, I came home from work and couldn't get my computer to open. Since my first instinct is always to spaz, I freaked and just assumed my computer was dead and that I'd have to figure out if I could afford another one and if I couldn't, I might actually have to talk to people in person during the week and not rely on a certain social networking site to provide me with a life and then the whole world would explode and all of humanity would die off, leaving nothing but rubble, dander, and feces to remember us by...Then I got a paper bag out of the counter to breathe into and collected myself a bit. Once I did, I realized that it was just that our mouse was dead. Ahem. It was the one we got with the computer, so it should come as no surprise to a rational person....So, Stinky and I took a little trip to Best Buy and bought ourselves a new one for cheap. I don't know if you're aware of it, but in the last 5 or 10 years they came out with these new fangled things called wireless mouses, and they sure are neat-o. In other words, I love my new mouse.

On the way to the mall, Stinky was prattling on and said, "So, I guess Ellen's mom has gone totally crazy lately..."

"Uh oh. Is she okay? What is she doing?"

"Well, she's making Ellen turn her computer off at 9:30 every night to read for an hour," Stinky explained.

"Scandalous!"

"No. But I mean, it's Summer. You shouldn't have to start doing homework for at least another month."

"Didn't you say Ellen slacked-off last trimester and got really bad grades? Her mom is probably getting all crazy trying to help her daughter do better in school next year. Damn. They ought to get her in a straight jacket, where she can't do anymore good for herself or others...." I said and could almost feel Stinky's eyes roll.

While we were at Best Buy, I did make a little purchase. I'm not sure if you've heard of it? It's called the Watchmen movie? I never got a chance to see it when it came out in theaters. It was the first graphic novel I ever read way back in the 80's and so I've always had a soft spot in my heart (and head) for it. I didn't get a chance to watch it tonight, but I'm taking a whole week of vacation next week, so I intend to spend an amazing day reading my new graphic novels by a pool somewhere and then watching my new graphic (from what I've heard about the large blue appendage) movie at night. I should be in geek heaven whatever day that falls on. Woot!

I'd Like to Rest My Heavy Head Tonight on a Bed of California Stars

So, tonight I thought I'd do the Saturday Scavenger Hunt one day late. Once again, this has been a crazy busy weekend, so I figured I'd just write about what I did on Friday and combine it with the Scavenger Hunt. Alien CG picked the word this week and he chose Alien, of course. It was a great word.

Remember how I took a half day off on Friday? Well, I ran and that was great, but then I took on a little project. Stinky had a bunch of canvasses that my friend Bob and his Wife Allison had stretched for her 9th birthday. She had started paintings on several of them, but never finished them. I asked her if she was going to or if I could take some Gesso and try to get them light enough to paint over them. She told me to have at it and I did.

By Friday evening, I had at least five canvasses to work with. I took the girls to a show at United Action for Youth where a bunch of high school bands were playing and went home to paint. The only time I've ever set foot in a painting or drawing class was when I was modeling for them in college, so the whole thing was kind of alien to me. I figured the best way for me to learn was by doing and taking the tiniest baby steps in the world. The first painting I did was of that photo I posted on here last week - the one my friend took of the Sequoias.

I don't pretend to know what I'm doing. I use Acrylic paints because they're less toxic and less expensive and easier to use. When I first flirted with the idea of trying to paint, my friend Sara came over and gave my girls and I a tutorial about all the ways you can use Acrylic paints and it was really helpful. I'm sure all my paintings will have a cartoonish or comic book quality about them, because that's what I know. Anyway, it was fun messing around with texture and color and stuff. I'm sure I'll do a lot more. I still owe Coadster a painting based on a photo I took of her years ago. I just wanted to get a few paintings under my belt, so I wouldn't mess hers up too badly.

So, that was my alien experience this weekend. Happy Easter to any of you who celebrate it, and happy 3rd Iowa City tornado anniversary tomorrow for myself and my neighbors who's lives were disrupted by it.

But I Got a Smile for Everyone I Meet

Here is a picture of food carnage from our neighborhood party.

The rest of my weekend went just fine. There was a little more to the story with Mr. B. He called me a couple of times on Saturday night and apologized for texting when he should have called, but ultimately, the end result between us was the same. I don't want to get into much more detail, because that pseudo drama really bores me and I don't want people talking a bunch of shit about him. Mr. B. isn't an asshole by any means, he's just going through some stuff. So, that's that.

Now, on to the next day. We had our block party on Sunday and it was hosted by my friend Bridget. She invited all kinds of people and I'm sure over 100 neighbors showed up throughout the course of the shindig or shingding, as my friend Joanne called it after she'd had a few to drink.

Here is a picture of someone trying to stop Bridget's dog from stealing hotdogs from little kids' plates.

Our neighbors are really great for the most part. We have some musicians and authors and tons of professors. In a town filled with pretension, our little block is surprisingly down to earth. At one point, a retired couple were on their way out and Bridget asked them why they were leaving already. The husband said, "Well. My Viagra wears off in 45 minutes, so time is of the essence." How hilarious is that?

Here are some neighbors under the little tent thingy eatin' and a-drankin'.

Bridget did introduce me to the "hunky" guy who was my age. She didn't tell him she was trying to get us together, and that was good. It was so much more casual this way. He seemed very nice and his kids are the exact same ages as my girls. He also didn't seem all that interested in me either. Bridget said he was pretty shy, but I think it really was a lack of interest. Which is totally fine. I'm defintitely not on a man hunt, and I like meeting people. Sometimes it's easier if there is no chemistry, because then it's safe and you can just be friends.

Today was a mellow day. The girls came over in the afternoon from their dad's. Stinky asked if she and I could do something fun, since Coadster had a showchoir workshop and then a potluck for that afterward. I told Stinky I'd take her to a matinee if she wanted. She definitely wanted. She said I could pick between seeing, The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2, Tropical Thunder or The Dark Knight. I thought it was funny that she even had to ask. She knows what a comic book geek I am. So, yeah. We saw The Dark Knight and I really liked it. I know everyone has already reviewed it, so I won't do that. Suffice it to say, that we were both well entertained.

Now, I guess I shoud hit the hay. I'll be going back to the real world of beige cubicles, paper pushing and answering phone calls tomorrow. Awesome.

Now Bo Diddly Didn't Stand No Mess

My friend Rory was getting all artsy when taking pics of us on Saturday night. I look a little befuddled there, don't I?

Okay, this one makes me a little dizzy to look at.

My big goal tonight is to go to bed as early as possible. So, we'll see how quick we can make this. I'm sure you'll all appreciate that.

The girls are supposed to go to their dad's on Monday nights, but for the last few months it either hasn't happened, or they had choir concerts or last week, Stinky needed me, so I haven't had the night off. It was all fine, except that tonight when they actually went to their dad's at 8, I really appreciated a few hours to do with whatever I wanted.

My friend J. emailed me this Sunday and said our friend C. might be back up from Fort Madison and wanted to know if K. and I wanted to meet them at the Vine for all-you-can-eat wings. We actually tried to organize this in May. Our friend J. has been so great about hanging out with us and watching the Steelers on Sundays in the Fall and Winter, that I figured we'd try to be cool about watching a St Louis Cardinals game with him in the Spring or Summer. The big problem with that, is that Iowa City is apparently Cubs territory, so the only time you can really go to a bar and watch the Cardinals is when they're playing the Cubs, and it didn't work out last match-up and the next time they meet is during the July 4th holiday.

So, we decided to say screw watching a Cards game and we watched hockey instead...Well, we kept an eye on the game and ended up paying more attention to our friend C. sweating and his legs spazzing because he ordered the hottest wings they had, and they were seriously kicking his ass.

Anyway, it was a nice mellow night. We all drank soda instead of beer and talked about such interesting topics as Bo Diddly's death, all the movies coming out based on comic books, the last time and the first time we tried psychedelics and if there was any way in hell we'd ever even think about dropping acid at our current advanced ages. The answer was a resounding hell no. The boys went to The Picador to catch Buckethead, and I made it home by nine. Perfect.

There's No Use Running Away

Please indulge me tonight while I get all nostalgic for the days when my girls were young enough that they didn't care when I dressed them up like comic book characters. Sigh.

So, I think I'm going through one of those phases. Those ones where I just kind of feel crappy in general. I was tired all day and then when I went running, I didn't get better. Normally, I feel icky after work, and then I go running and essentially wash the scum of work off of me and I feel so much better. Today, however, I felt worse during my run. I made it all the way to Scott Boulevard and had to walk for a bit. War's "Low Rider" and Wilco's version of "Burned" even came on and both of those should have spurred me along, but alas, they didn't.

Once I got home, I realized I was doing that thing again. Have you ever done this, where something in your house needs to be taken care of, but you're too tired or you just can't deal with details at that point in time, so you let it go, until you realize that you're expending more energy avoiding the detail, than just fixing it? That's what I've been doing with changing light bulbs around my house. I just turn on a different light, but now most of the peripheral light bulbs need to be changed too, and well, I guess I finally have to just fucking take care of my shit. Damn, I hate being the grown-up in the house.

Let's recap, shall we? I feel like crap and I'm too lazy to change my own god damn light bulbs. Plus, I keep wanting to make light bulbs one word, even though I know it's two. Gee, I'm a real catch. I don't know why I can't find a date.

Tonight, Stinky and I went to the mall to get a few last minute Halloween costume items. K. called me from Paul's Discount Store last night to see if we needed anything else besides, two packages of fake blood, two black and white make-up kits and a grotesque scar making kit. I told her I thought that should probably cover it from Paul's. Stinky needed to buy fishnets and a tiara for her costume. (she's going as a Halloween princess?) The bustier/corset never materialized, so I'm zombie Catholic school girl. I needed to get a black emo wig and some knee highs, which along with the cute, plaid, pleated skirt is one of the big reasons for my costume. Any decent wigs were sold out, but I did get some knee highs. I may have to settle for braids and just try to keep them out of the mess of the scar I'm going to try to have on my throat. Charming.

Since I looked as crappy as I felt, I was bound to run into a ton of people I knew. I saw my friend Andy, but almost didn't recognize him because he wasn't wearing a hat and I've never seen him outside of a bar, so he was totally out of context. I also saw this woman I used to work with at La Caca, and we talked about how mean we were to our co-workers because we were in such hell, we had no other options. Even twenty years later, a lot of the songs I made up about people were still pretty funny. Have I mentioned that I like to take songs and change the lyrics to suit certain people? I think everyone deserves their own theme song.

Now, I think it's best if I just haul my tired, crap feeling, lazy, dateless ass to bed, seein's how I'm going out tomorrow night and who the hell knows what kind of state I'll be in when I blog next. Good night and good luck.

p.s. I will try really, really hard to get some hideous Halloween photos to post on the blog tomorrow night.

I "Cloud Nine" When I Want to

Remember how random yesterday's post was, and I was so aware of it and made fun of my negative patterns and all? Well, apparently my self-diagnosed ADD knows no bounds and seems to be even worse tonight. It's okay. I know how I am, so I just put myself on lock-down tonight and saved the whole world from myself.

Unfortunately, I'm not considerate enough not to blog, so I'm going to be all over the place (as Evil-E said about yesterday's post) once again tonight.

1.) So, hey. You wanna see the notes I took at my last work meeting?:


Yeah. If it had been a meeting about how to draw cheesy cartoons at work, I would have been fine. Alas, I have no idea what the meeting was about. All I got from it, was that I needed to bring some different colored pens so I'd have more options for doodling.

2.) I've been kicking around the idea of getting a cell phone lately. Both the girls have one, but I didn't think I needed one because we still have a land line. I was talking about it with Mr. Dateman this weekend and he suggested that I get rid of my home phone altogether. Duh. I don't know why I didn't think of that myself. It would definitely save me some money. It will just take some work getting my new number out to everyone. I've had my old one since I split with my ex-husband over ten years ago.

3.) Since tomorrow is the last work day for me this week, I've been fantasizing a lot about what I'm going to do with my time off. Of course, I want to run a whole bunch. And now that I have our family season passes and my new swim suit top, I want to devote some time to lounging at the city pool reading comic books. There's nothing like it to bring me right back to Summers when I was a kid. They even play the local classic rock station, so the music is still the same.

4) WARNING: NERD GIRL ALERT - This point kind of goes with the last one, so I better make it my last. It's pretty sad when my ADD gets so bad that my randomness corrects itself. I'm going to the comic book store this week to get some more intellectually stimulating reading material. The last time I was there, the guy behind the counter was telling me about a new Hulk series. Then a week or so ago, some nameless/faceless guy on Myspace messaged me about the same thing. I've never been a big fan of The Hulk, but I do like to follow the advice of complete strangers, so I'm going to see if the graphic novel is out yet. I'm sure you'll all be waiting with bated breath.

Okay, okay. I better go. There are so many other things to obsess about before I go to sleep.

And My Affection, Well it Comes and Goes

Here are more wildflowers just chillin' and hanging out with some grain.

Hey, it's the first day of Summer, yo. Please don't punch me when I tell you that this will be the only week this month that I've had to work all 40 hours. Last Friday I took a half day off and ran and then went to the pool and stuck my feet in the water and read comic books. (did I tell you that already?) Anyway, it was awesome. The only problem was that I couldn't find the top to my swim suit. I used one of my daughter's, but it didn't really match, so I made a trek to the big scary maul in Coralville tonight. The mall is way less daunting when you go during the week when there's hardly anyone there.

So, yeah, tomorrow most of the people in our office are taking vacation. Much like being at the mall, work seems so much better when no one else is there. John will also be gone and even though he drives me crazy ninety percent of the time, I'll miss his bizarre sense of humor when I'm going out of my head with boredom at three o'clock.

John is one of those guys who used to be thin when he was younger, but has really blossomed in his forties. Today when we did that thing where you bump fists to give each other props, our rings hit. So, of course I had to say, "Wonder Twin powers activate. Form of..."

And John answered, "...Form of a big, fat guy."

"Okay. What would your superhero powers be as a big, fat guy?"

"Well, I would be able to eat three whole pizzas at one sitting..." John said.

"How would that help fight crime?"

"It wouldn't. I'd just have an excuse to eat three pizzas at one sitting without getting in trouble with my wife."

So, maybe instead of talking about superhero powers with John, I'll actually do something productive at work tomorrow afternoon, - like adding to my link list on my blog.