Life Ain't Always What It Seems, Oh Yeah

Here are some of last season's ferns against this Spring's...What are those? Daffodil plants?

I thought I'd try to maintain everything this week by spending as much time as possible cleaning and getting paperwork done every night. Sounds good, right? Sure. Until you get bludgeoned by bureaucratic bullshit, that is.

Remember how I paid H and R Block $89 to amend my old tax refund, so I could make sure I had the right paperwork and get my first time home buyer credit as soon as possible? Well, it got sent back saying I was missing the correct form. I was a little ticked off at H and R Block for not knowing which form to use. I called and asked them to rectify it and they told me to bring it all back in. I did that today after work. Turns out, we did send the correct form and we sent them everything they originally asked for, it's just that the IRS updated said form and then asked for even more proof of my new address. They wanted a current driver's license with my new address on it and then some bills sent to me with it as well. Luckily, my driver's license cracked in half about a month after I bought my house and it just happened to be updated. They wanted bank statements and paycheck stubs. Of course, that's all taken care of on-line now, because I was trying to be all environmentally conscious and save tress and all that good shit. So, neither of them show my address on them when I print them off. Bugger! We did everything we could do at H and R Block and the woman who was helping me told me to just find some bills with my current address on them, make copies and send them off with the new, updated form.

Jaysus! But they make a girl jump through some ridiculous hoops to get money that was promised. I do understand that there are scammers out there who are probably trying to cheat the government, so they don't want to make it too easy. I just wish they'd give me a lie detector test or something, instead of making me do all this stupid busy work. It really is one of my most hated things to do.

So, yeah. Anyway. I got most of that crap out of the way until they send it back again and ask for a signature in blood or whatever the hell else they think they need. I also cleaned the kitchen, paid some more bills, ordered tickets to see Coadster in the school play, and who knows...Maybe I'll get all crazy and fill out the census info tonight before I go to bed too.

It Comes to Us All. It's As Soft As Your Pillow

By the time most of you read this, it will be hump day. So, I thought this pic would be appropriate.

Hey, kids. I thought I'd do a little writing exercise tonight. This time I'm writing about giving plasma. Sounds neat-o, huh? I'm sure you know the drill by now. I just wrote this, so I know it needs a lot of work and feel free to point out anything that looks all janky to you:

You are now a commodity. You are questioned, measured, poked, and tested to make sure you will be good enough. Once you pass inspection, you are led to a room full of others like you lying in beds, hooked up to bags, which are in turn, hooked up to machines. You are instructed of everything you can and can't and some things you must do. You can bring a laptop (they offer free wifi), you can listen to an iPod and text or anything else you can handle one-handed. You can't eat or drink, but you must continually pump your hand while the product is being taken out of you. You also must stop pumping your hand once the product is skimmed of its plasma and whatever's left gets pumped back into you.

Even before you realize the girl next to you is droning on and on to someone on the other end of her cell phone, you hear one horrible song from whatever music stream they have going and quickly plug yourself into your iPod and open up your book. Some guy in a lab coat is preparing to start the IV. You say, "I have great veins, but they're really rolly, so you have to hold them down," to help you both out, and then you quickly look the other way. You don't like to watch the needle go in.

The iPod isn't completely drowning out the droning girl next to you, so you turn your ear to rest on the pillow to see if that helps. Doing this causes you to hear the sound of your own pulse. It's louder than you're used to. It keeps time to your music and counts down the seconds. Thump, thump. You pump your hand to it and almost forget to stop when the cycle is over. Your arm starts to feel sore and stiff and you wonder if that's how it's supposed to feel. You figure that the blood wouldn't pump right if there was something wrong, so you don't say anything. There is a shift change with those wearing the lab coats before you are done.

The new girl says they have all they need from you and starts to replace your fluids. You have done this once before, so you are prepared for the sensation. The saline solution they replenish you with is colder than your body temperature, and you cool down from the inside. A blanket or coat can't help warm you up and you start to shiver violently. Your arm is still sore and now you realize that it is much larger than it should be. You mention it to the girl who seems perplexed that they were able to still get the fluid they needed, since it appears that the needle pierced all the way through. It means that some of what your heart pumped out was wasted and seeped out into your body leaving you bruised and sore and swollen.

The new girl tapes an icepack hard to the inside of your arm and you think how strange it was to be totally unaware of what was going on inside your own body. It reminded you of when your daughter was younger and got so sick. You sat in your living room with her head in your lap gently dabbing her face with a cool cloth. You knew she wasn't well but you had no idea the battle that was going on inside her between her antibodies and the bacteria that had invaded her. You carelessly watched a movie while the bacteria launched a surprise attack and fought their way into her spinal chord fluid.

You leave the plasma center favoring your unbending left arm wondering what kind of internal wars everyone else around you might be waging.

Won't You Take a Walk Outside?

Here is a building by my office.

So, I have weird days at work sometimes - especially in the afternoon. I had one of them today. My job can be a bit tedious, and that plus the beige cubicle walls can close in on me making feel a little bored and isolated and restless. Luckily, it's pretty easy to wash the scum of the office off of me by walking home.

I ran after work and got really hopeful about the approach of Spring. It wasn't completely dark by the time I made it home from my run. FINALLY. It's still too cold to smell or feel like Spring yet, but the longer days will definitely help improve my mood.

Speaking of something that will put me in a better mood...I'm supposed to get my federal tax return back tomorrow. I'm hoping that it's all electronic and the fact that most of the federal offices were shut down for 4 days won't adversely affect me. I'm also taking my 3rd furlough day tomorrow. So, if things go the way I want them too, I'll have both time AND money for once. That's a combination I could get used to. Unfortunately, it will be very short lived.

The plan is for me to go running in the morning and do some work in the kitchen and measure some stuff. Then, since both the girls have their last hour at school free, I'm going to pick them up and we'll probably head to the mall (because that's what happens when you have teenagers). I'm going to price fridges and hot water heaters (party!) and then we'll go see a movie and then go to the Bluebird Diner to eat. My girls love it there and I know the guys who own it, so I feel good about supporting their business.

So, how is your weekend shaping up? Will you have money or time or both or neither?

Take a Minute to Concentrate and She Opens Up Her Eyes

Okay. Like everyone else in town, my internet cable was out all last night. I've heard that it's back up and running as of this morning, but I have yet to check it out. I guess it was out for part of the night before when I thought it was my modem as well. Mediacom sucks.

As you know, I can be a bit tenacious about obtaining or fixing something. If I think there is even a glimmer of hope, I will work the hell out of it. But if it's clear that there's no chance in hell I can fix or get the thing I want, I can finally just let it go. Which is what happened last night. I tried to get the computer to work, and then finally texted a friend to see if hers was working. She told me hers was dead too. So, I gave up, cranked up my music, cracked open a beer and cleaned my kitchen, and then read a book after that. Weird.

Oh, Simple Thing, Where Have You Gone?

Here are some stairs heading down.

All this recent talk of Father's Day and dad's and blah, blah, blah, got me thinking about my own history with dad type figures...Well, that and the fact that Stinky is having HUGE issues with her father right now.

If you couldn't tell by my sad, sorry dating past, I haven't had the best male role models growing up. My dad disappeared when I was four and the few memories I do have, were of him being on the emotionally distant side. Then at ten, my uncle became my legal guardian and he was violent and abusive, and mean in general. Not surprisingly, my relationships have been with men who were either controlling and angry or EXTREMELY emotionally unavailable.

I started dating the girls' dad when I was 22 and he was 35. At the time, it didn't occur to me how odd it was that a 35 year old man was still living the life of people my own age, or that I didn't deserve all the name calling and drama he was so fond of. Of course, I finally figured that out by the time I hit my thirties and had two very young kids.

I wouldn't change a thing, because it gave me my girls. I just feel bad that they have to deal with the bad decision in a partner I made when I was too young to know better, for the rest of their lives.

When the girls were younger, Coadster told me that even though she wanted to stay at her dad's house, she sometimes felt abandoned by me when her dad was on a tear. We solved that problem, by me calling during their dad's night and if he was behaving badly, Coadster would tell me she didn't feel well. He'd rather not have to deal with them when there was a possibility of them being difficult, so I would tell him one of them were sick and I'd pick them up and take care of them.

Lately, Stinky has been having real issues with her dad. She doesn't feel like she should have to put up with his swearing at her, calling her names and "borrowing" her babysitting and birthday money and not paying her back. I agree. She has decided not to go to his house for the rest of the Summer and reevaluate in the Fall. I tried a couple of times to get them to talk things out, but he got even more upset and sent her some horrible texts that would be appalling from a high school boy, let alone a man in his fifties. All I can do at this point, is support her in her decision. I try really hard not to trash their dad, because they love him and they are after all, half him. But I do want to make sure they know that all of that bad stuff he lays on them are his issues and he says those mean things to them because he is messed-up and unhappy. It's just a tricky, icky, sticky situation.

But I Don't Listen to her 'Cause My Head is Like a Sieve

Here is a sign I saw. Iowa City has a tendency to make weird, uptight rules for homeowners. Of course, those same homeowners usually aren't shy about voicing their disapproval. God, I love this town.

Okay, first and foremost I have to choose the Saturday Scavenger Hunt word this week. I haven't been very good at participating lately, so the least I can do is pick the word. I guess I'll choose....sign. Have we done that one yet? If so, let me know and I'll try again.

Kids, this week has been wonderful so far. Sure, the weather could have been better on Monday and Tuesday, but it has been so nice NOT to be crazy busy. I've been good about my hour a day cleaning project and I've had plenty of time to actually sit down and talk to the girls when we're not in the car driving somewhere.

We had a funny little conversation the other day. The girls were talking about being at their dad's house on Saturday night and how annoying some guy who lived next to them was being. He had lost his dog that night and I guess he just kept walking past their house, sobbing loudly and calling out the dog's name.

"Wait," I said. "Do you know if his dog was a Jack Russel Terrier?" The girls said it was. "Oh my god. That guy came up to me when I was walking home around midnight and asked me if I had seen his dog. Since I've heard that child molesters use that 'can you help me find my puppy' routine to steal kids, I assumed he was a creeper and ran away from him. Now, I feel kind of bad about it, but I didn't know..." Then my girls both laughed their asses off trying to imagine me running from some poor distraught dog owner.

Coadster is officially finally done with soccer. Her school lost at sub-state tonight. I think she's a little sad, but I told her we could play all the soccer she wanted in the lot behind our place. It's not as much fun now that she can kick my ass, but it sure wouldn't hurt me to work on my skillz.

Since it's obvious I'm being random tonight, I'll just keep it up. Tonight I went to the Sanctuary for supper club. I ordered the eggplant lasagna and it was really good. We had some new people show up too. I knew them both since they were Dubliners and one of them was Dexter of Degrees of Grey in Iowa City blog. They didn't know some of the other people, but I think everyone seemed to have a great time. Especially after we started talking about Cheech and Chong movies and trying to remember all the best stoner bits from them.

Tomorrow is the girls' last day of school and we all couldn't be happier about it. As usual, I'm taking the next two days off of work, so I'll have a four day weekend. Praise your deity of choice here. I can't wait. I just have to get through tomorrow. Hopefully, some high school kid will prank call me tomorrow like they did today. I picked up the phone and said "University of Blah blah admissions. How may I direct your call..." Then I heard someone crank up Kelis' "Milkshake" and a loud, booming, totally off-key male voice start singing along with it. Suddenly, a mom came on the other line and said, "Hello?" and I was instantly hung up on. Sweet.

And When Your Hands Get Dirty, Nobody Knows You At All

Here is a picture of me with my face all different kinds of distorted in the fun house mirror at the arcade at Hyde Pier.

Seriously, I don't know what kind of bizarre juju is hanging over our town this year, but it's getting pretty ridiculous. At work this afternoon, I got a message that there was ANOTHER lock-down at my daughters' school and both of the other schools they went to when they were younger. Jaysus! We live in Iowa for Christ's sake.

This time it was because of this creepy professor in town. He was accused of groping co-eds for the promise of an A+ and was suspended from his job. All of that was weird enough, right? Well, then we started hearing all this other shit, but like how this usually goes, it's all partial knowledge and hearsay and supposition and on and on like that there.

What I could figure out from all of it, is that the creepy professor wrote a suicide note and took off with his high powered rifle. The authorities (whoever they are) found his car parked at upper Hickory Hill Park and then at some point decided to put all the schools nearest to the park on lock-down for about 15 minutes. I called my girls and told them to stay away from the park, which is just two blocks from where we live.

Some people were saying that they weren't sure if the girls who accused the professor were telling the truth. As far as I'm concerned, once you take off in your white Ford Bronco, or head to the park with your high powered rifle, it's pretty evident that there's something real going on.

Here is a picture of the girls in front of the Hilltop Tavern, when we used to live above it.

Tonight we met at The Hilltop Tavern for supper club and everyone there was still talking about all the drama at the park just down the street. There was supposedly a SWAT team combing Hickory Hill and I wondered how a 66 year old professor was able to elude them all these hours. Sure, we also talked about other stuff, like our weekends and about how excited we were for NFL football season to start, so we could spend our Sunday afternoons at The Vine eating wings and watching men beat the shit out of each other, but mostly we were trying to piece all the afternoon's events together.

A couple of us girlies went back to my friend K.'s house afterward to hang out on her back porch. K. lives right next to the cemetery and park, where the creepy professor was said to be lurking. At first we talked about how little we understood men and all agreed that if you asked a guy why he did the things he did, he'd likely just say, "I'on'tknow." My friend T. wished they came with a manual, but I'm sure guys could say the same thing about women...Or else they'd just write us all off as crazy and not care about exactly why we do what we do.

Then we saw a helicopter fly over, and K. texted someone who was a little more in the know, who told her that they were using ultraviolet (I wrote ultra violet here, but I meant infrared. I'm leaving the original as further evidence of my dorkiness) lights to look for what they thought was just a body at this point. Not long after that, we heard what sounded like a gunshot coming from the direction of the park. It was kind of eerie. I went home pretty soon thereafter, and while I'm writing this, I have no idea what happened to the creepy professor.

I'll update you when I know.

You Never Do What You Know You Oughta

Coadster and Stinky, right after Coadster got her first shiner while she and her sister were jumping on the bed and Stinky's head hit Coadster's face. It was a proud, proud moment for the whole family.

Once the reality of not only having a baby, but a girl baby, sets in, a mother begins to contemplate her child's future - and stress-out hard. She worries about electrical outlets and bleach under the counter. She can see danger in big dogs, teenage drivers and scary, white van driving, child molesters. A mom will remember her own past and lose sleep thinking that someday, her daughter will have her heart broken by some pimply faced, testosterone filled loser who won't deserve her, and then that memory of getting suddenly sidelined by the group of girls, who the mother thought were her friends, rears its ugly head, and she thinks that maybe homeschooling isn't such a bad idea after all.

Last night Coadster came home early from her friend's house in tears. Apparently, there had been some weird drama and then there was an accusation and Coadster was left feeling confused and angry. I tried to find out what all the hub bub was about, and it all seemed ridiculous to me, but I do remember how all that shit was so intense when I was 15 too. Some girl was telling everyone that Coadster told her best guy friend who one of her girlfriends liked. Who cares, right? Coadster said she couldn't have even if she wanted to, because she didn't know who her friend liked.

I graciously offered to line up all those bitchy girls and slap them up Three Stooges style where I take my front hand all the way down the line and then switch to the backhand and get them all again.

"They're not worth hurting your hand over," Coadster said. Then I offered to make her some cinnamon toast and get every pillow and blanket we could find and lie around in my beautiful gigantic new bed, that I like to refer to as my comfort cocoon. I told her we could watch any movie she wanted and I'd rub her back. She was all for it, and fell asleep in less than an hour. Poor thing.

Today, after the dust had settled, and before we went to Coadster's show choir concert, she found out what really happened. It was actually only the one girl who was causing trouble, her other friends didn't even know what was going on. My friend K. calls those kind of girls, shit stirring bitches and I think it's a perfect description for people who cause that kind of drama for attention, or because they want everyone to be as unhappy as they are? I've never understood what causes people to stir up shit that way at someone else's expense.

Anyway, we got through round one last night. I have a feeling we still have several more rounds to go before the girls get old enough not to have to deal with that crap. Is it too late to start homeschooling?

How Could I Leave This Behind?

Here is some eggplant. It is very purple.

Let's see. We might be a little scattered and random today, but you shouldn't expect any less from me by now. Tonight was what it was. I found out some things that didn't matter and I was stupid to react to, but I had had a couple of beers and I'm a girl, so I let certain things bother me more than they should. Anyway, by the time I met my friends, I was in kind of a weird space. My girlfriends were great as usual and talked me down. My friend A. even told us about the game she and some of the women she works with played the other night. They would name three guys and they would have to say which one they would push off of a cliff, which they would have sex with once and never see again and which they would spend the rest of their live's with and why. Hey, now that's just some fun there. While we were laughing about that, my friend S.'s husband leaned over and said, "What? isn't there anyone you would want to set on fire?" And that REALLY got our wheels turning. That is, until we started making plans for Saturday night (after Stinky's party) for the Bijou where they will have a Guitar Hero tournament at 11 pm, right before the midnight showing of This is Spinal Tap. It could be just about perfect.

Now, as I promised, I will totally change the subject and tell you some things I saw downtown this week during my lunches and breaks.

Yesterday I walked by the Java House and realized that I knew pretty much every person sitting outside on the little patio. My first thought was, my friends are a bunch of slackers who don't have to work all day like I do. I'm so jealous. My second thought was that once it starts getting cold and I can't go outside during my breaks, I won't have much of a social life unless I start getting better about going out more. I'm really going to try harder, because I think I'm about ready to try to start dating again, and just think how much fun it will be to read about how uncomfortable I am during that whole process?

On Monday I was passing my favorite homeless woman who sits in front of what used to be Hills Bank, but is now a Cold Stone Creamery. She was having some kind of altercation with a gray haired, heavily bearded guy who had parked his bike right in front of her. She told him to get lost and he said, "I can be wherever I want to. I'm an American citizen, damn it." To which the homeless woman responded:

"No you're not. You're a pothead!" If you have to choose between being one or the other, I have a feeling I know a lot more illegal aliens than I thought I did.

The last quaint little thing I saw downtown yesterday, were two people trying to light a cigarette with the sun and a magnifying glass. What kind of a smoker, doesn't have a light, but does have a magnifying glass?

The Girls Smile and People Forget

Here is Stinky being Stinky and taking a photo of herself.


And here is me being like Stinky and taking a photo of myself.

Today I have been a little bit on the internal side - which means I tried very hard not to take an active part in the real world. Sometimes it's just better for me that way. Here are some random thoughts/observations that entered my tiny, demented, festering brain. Read on at your own risk.

1. When I took the deposit to the bank today, I saw some college looking guys get off the Cambus and seemingly, intently check out an older, heavier set woman. I thought, hey, if this is what the kids are hot for today, I might just be aging at the very rightest of times. As I got closer, however, I realized that the woman was having a very loud, very heated conversation with one of her other personalities (apparently, the disagreeable one) and the boys were just staring at her.

2. I vowed never to forget my lunch again after doing just that today. I had to forage for office food and made a lovely meal of cheese popcorn, trail mix and bite size Nutter Butters. My poor belly may never fully recover.

3. After walking about a mile home from work in the hot, muggy badness, I saw the ice cream truck parked right in front of my house. I got really excited, until I remembered that I had no actual cash on me. Don't think for a second that if the ice cream man would accept credit cards, I'd be above charging a Bomb Pop.

4. I stopped at my friend K.'s house on my way to buy charcoal in order to grill brats for dinner. I had to pick up some bowls that I had brought food over in. When her house mate opened the door, I thought I'd be kind and give him a heads up that I was "as fresh as a mother fuckin' daisy." He wisely stepped back a few feet after I entered.

5. Because it was so icky and sticky out again, I waited until later to run tonight. When I was almost home, a storm started a-brewin' and I turned my music up so I could drown out the sound of thunder and the hooting and hollering from the truckload of high school boys driving slowly past me. Cranking The Who's, Eminence Front while trying to outrun a storm and fielding calls from both of my daughters to make sure I was okay and that I'd remembered to unplug the computer, was actually fun. I know I've said time and time again that I hate drama, and normally I do - except when it's very contained and in my head and I can pretend that I'm running from the law in one of those crime dramas from the 70's, like Mannix or Streets of San Francisco.

And Other Peoples, They Have to Work

I know you'll all be surprised to hear that, for once, I don't have much to say tonight. There's a lot of shit going on in my head, (which is never good) that I don't know how to process right now. So, I'm thinking I'll leave it up there to fester and bubble up and turn a nice infected neon green color and hope it all clears up on it's own. That's healthy, right?

I made it through my first day back to work in a week. Mostly, I stayed at my desk and tried not to establish eye contact with any of my co-workers - because it is a proven fact that if you don't see them, they can't see you. I think I was pretty successful, because when I was leaving to go home at the end of the day, one of the women in the front offices said, "Oh, I didn't even know you were here today." I think tomorrow I'll try a cloaking device and continue to fly under everyone's radar. I'd probably be more successful if I weren't so damn loud...

Yeah, that's all I got. I could talk a little about what a jerk my ex was being to my girls and how frustrating that was for me, but it makes me tired to think about and worst of all, it's not the least bit funny, so I'll stop here. Night, night.