April Come She Will

My new battery powered porch lights I got for $12. They were very hard to find around town.

Ahhhhh. I finally get a three day weekend, and not a minute too soon. I'm taking my second to last furlough day tomorrow. Because the girls are still on Spring Break, and I don't have to get up early, I let Stinky have some friends over for a backyard fire. She invited some girls from her school and some boys from the local Catholic school. (one of them used to be our neighbor) Anyway, apparently some of the boys from Stinky's school, decided it would be funny to vandalize our guests' cars. Luckily, mine was in the garage. They didn't use eggs, like you'd think they would. Instead they used syrup. Awesome. All the party guests took their cars to the car wash, but one of them was a jeep with a canvas top and the owner of that vehicle got a little pissed. There were a few heated words exchanged, until I finally told Stinky to invite anyone she wanted to stay into the house to avoid anymore drama. Jaysus! but teenagers can drive a person to drinkin'.

Here's a close-up.

So, I would say that my three day weekend is not only necessary, but deserved at this point. What will I do with it? Um, I'm not exactly sure. I plan on getting a lot of errands run, my kitchen cupboards finally finished and get my place cleaned and organized. Word on the street, is that it's supposed to snow this weekend. I'm not surprised or even all that annoyed. It's Iowa in March. It's bound to happen. Plus, it will keep me inside and on task with my cupboards...Hopefully. I have no idea if I'll go out either night this weekend. I'm just going to go with how I feel or if someone asks me to hang out. We'll see.

How about you all? What are your weekend plans? Will you be recovering from teenage drama or will you be hibernating in the midst of a March snowstorm?

Hey There. Don't Pay No Mind. If You're Under 18 You Won't Be Doing Any Time

Here are some icicles hanging off of my house.

Okay. So, today is one of those good thing and bad thing posts. I know I always say that life is a weird mix of good and bad and sometimes the bad outweighs the good and others the good outweighs the bad but no matter what, you can always find both in there somewhere.

As usual, I'm giving you the bad first. I got a call at work near the end of the day from my daughter's high school. Apparently, some girl punched Stinky in the face. Awesome. This particular girl had been threatening both Stinky and Coadster for the last few little whiles. Turns out, she dated some boy and he dumped her at least 6 months ago. I guess she just couldn't let go of him. The boy in question has been one of Coadster's friends since grade school and was on her soccer team and was in the group of kids who all walked home from junior high together. The punching girl, didn't like it that Coadster was friends with him. She had a bigger problem with Stinky, because said boy like, liked her.

Anyway, Stinky told me the girl was sending her threatening texts and voice mails. I told her to save all of them. If there's one thing I've learned after leaving my abusive ex, it's document, document, document. I also told Stinky that if the girl tried to start something, just to ignore her and walk away. Which is exactly what she did. The girl didn't like that Stinky wasn't playing along, so she punched her in the face a couple of times and bent her glasses. I guess that's one way to get her attention. A bunch of guys pulled her off and Stinky immediately ran to the bathroom to cry (which is exactly what I would have done). A couple of her friends came in and took her to the principal's office. She showed him the texts and he reviewed the security camera footage, to make sure Stinky didn't provoke it or anything. Later, he told me she didn't even defend herself. So, maybe she listened to me a little too well that time. Oops. Now I get to feel like shit for the rest of my life.

I asked him if my girls were going to be safe going to school tomorrow and he said he promised it. This girl has been in and out of trouble for years, so the principal didn't seem the least bit surprised by this. Actually, he just sounded really, really tired. He was going to call the girl's foster parents next and make them bring her to school for a meeting. Stinky's pretty shaken up and it looks like she's getting a shiner. So, maybe that will make her look bad-assed enough that the next psycho tough girl will leave her alone.

...And now for the good news. After walking home for 35 minutes in the snow and crazy winds and stressing out about poor Stinky the whole way, I checked the mailbox and found Coadster's letter of acceptance for Iowa State. Hip, hip, hooray! She still has to arrange an audition to the school of music, but she's been admitted into the college of liberal arts there. I guess this weekend we'll be filling out a hundred million forms for housing, financial aid and other scholarships. Let the financial blood letting begin.

From the Midnight Sun Where the Hot Springs Blow

Here is our shed through the ice covered window.

*Here's an update: Everywhere around town is losing power. So, if there is no post tomorrow, you'll know why. The University just cancelled classes for the first time in like 10 or a hundred million years - I can't remember which. So, uh, yeah. Wish us luck.*

So, there's all kinds of talk about another ice storm. There are gloom and doom reports of downed power lines and deathly road conditions. My girls are counting on it. They're sure school will be canceled and have made elaborate plans for their friends to come over so they can go sledding at Hickory Hill park until they get too cold. They'll come home and leave a trail of cold, wet outer garments all the way to my bedroom where they will finally park themselves on my awesome new bed and play Guitar Hero with brittle, still frozen fingers.

I would love a snow day. For those of you who don't live in the land of the ice and snow, a snow day is a get out of jail free card in its best and purest form. It's too dangerous to travel to school, but for some reason, everyone can make it to the sledding hill just fine.

I'm kind of giving myself a blog post snow day. My friend Erik sent me those photos through the mail and so I probably won't have them until tomorrow. He sent one to my phone and it isn't one I'm willing to share with you. So, hopefully, there will be at least one or two that will be fun and not too heinous and I can write about the Santa Crawl with photos to illustrate the whole experience.

So, here's hoping you all a snow day that's bad enough to keep you from going to school and work, but not so bad that you still can't make it to the sledding hill.

All Of It Was Made For You and Me

Here is a picture of some feet and some shoes...Some very white shoes.

Kids, I just want to say, I know I done you wrong yesterday and I'm sorry. Can we still hang-out if I promise to be better about only using the same post once? It's just that I looked down the week and saw what was coming and I had to take Monday night to clean, or I knew there wouldn't be another chance. Does it help when I tell you my house is nice and tidy right now?

Okay, whatever. Let's just lay it all out for you. Tonight I had to pick girls up and then I went running and then came home and started making dinner, before I had to take girls to a volleyball game at the high school. I then had almost an hour before I picked girls up and then dropped other girls off at their houses and came home, cleaned my kitchen and got ready for tomorrow. See what I mean? It's all so crazy making, and I know it's what we all deal with in our own ways everyday.

Tomorrow will be just as busy, but the girls will be at their dad's house and he has his car fixed, so he can actually do some of the driving for once. Yeeeee Haaaaaaaw! What am I going to do instead? Well, I'm going to run around with girls, but just different ones. I'm finally going to cash in that rain check with my friend from last week for beer right after work. Then I'm going to leave that and meet some friends at George's so we can walk from there to Devotay to celebrate my friend T.'s birthday. Because T. was so awesome and fun on my birthday, I'm going to try really hard NOT to make happy hour evolve into sloppy evening. I hear it's all about moderation. I'll have to try that sometime.

Thursday night I may have to clone myself. Stinky is marching for the first time at the football game and Coadster has a cross country meet in Cedar Rapids. It would be great if their dad could have attended one thing and I could do the other, but he scheduled auditions for the play he's directing on that night without checking to see if it would work or not. That's all I'm going to say about that, because if I started, I might not stop. I think I'll have to skip Coadster's meet, since I just saw her run on Saturday and I don't want to miss Stinky's first marching band dealio.

Friday's kind of an open spot - which means I may do something, or I may just clean, dig around for sedatives and get ready for Saturday.

Saturday is Stinky's fourteenth birthday. Days like these were made for Valium. After last year, I originally said no more big parties, but then I caved. In my defense, she's been hanging with a different crowd these days - kids who are actually her age and don't seem to be the types to vandalize Taco Bell and bring all the plastic silverware and "Caution Wet Floor" signs to my house. Coadster will be at another DJ'ing gig in the Quad Cities and my friend A. won't be able to come over bearing wine like last year, so I won't have my people to help me. Actually, maybe days like these were made for a Valium, Xanax and beer cocktail.

Oh Yeah, It Was Electric, So Frightfully Hectic

Now, here is a photo I took last year of some fungus in my friend K.'s backyard. Who knew it could be so pretty?

Today all I can give you is a quickie. I've given it to you long and slow before, so I don't want to hear any of you calling me selfish or lazy.

I went to Stinky's last junior high band concert of the year. It was great to see all their progress and stuff, but mostly I sat in awe of the band director. Those wacky band kids were all as fidgety as I was, and you don't know fidgety, until you watch me try to sit for an hour and a half and listen to a bunch of almost recognizable songs where the timing keeps changing. Have I ever told you how much I love my daughter? Well, I love her enough to sit through her band concerts, and that's a lot.

Now, I have to attend to some shit around my house. The city inspectors are coming around to check on our apartment tomorrow. I cleaned the hell out of my place this weekend, so it looks nice and smells really good. The thing I have to do now, is straighten a few papers, (remember how I have that expanding paper problem?) check all the light bulbs, and unplug any three pronged outlet adapters. That ought to keep me busy for an hour or so.

There you have it. This post was quick and not as painful as attending a junior high band concert.

Has She Got Control of Me

Since Blogger has been so tempermental at night lately, (emphasis on the mental) I just decided to download a photo after Stinky's basketball game, and come back and write my post after the girls go to bed, as usual. Here is a picture of Stinky at the ice skating rink. As you can see, she wears her sunglasses at night.

On Friday I was crabby. I know, I know, I say that every Friday...Or maybe every day. Last Friday, I was even more crabby than usual, because after I went running, I put a pizza in the oven and thought I'd be able to eat, (and you know how much I love to eat) but Stinky called and said her bus was about five minutes away from school and that I should come and get her right away. I gave Coadster instructions about how and when to remove the pizza from the oven, which made her very nervous because she's afraid of burning herself, and then I took off to get the great, Stinky one.

They were not five minutes away from school. We live at least a fifteen minute drive from the junior high and I sat for another fifteen after I got there. I wasn't feeling very patient anyway, and then there was that pizza to obsess about too.

When the bus finally did pull in, I saw the coach stand-up and lecture the girls for another few little whiles. I had a sudden urge to just lay on the horn and let up for a second and honk again for as long as it took. Then, because I love to imagine completely inappropriate scenarios in my head, I had a wonderful thought. What if I spent one entire day behaving like the most vile thirteen year old in the world? How satisftying would that be?

In my Freaky Friday Fantasy, when my daughters' tried to wake me up in the morning, I could roll over and say, "@!#$%*&^%$!" and try to go back to sleep until they told me that if I didn't get up and go to work, I wouldn't have enough money to go to the movies and ball games and ice skating with my friends every week. So, after I finally dragged myself out of bed, I'd go to the bathroom where I would make a horrible mess with make-up and hair straighteners and curling irons and barretts and headbands, until I was dangerously late for work and then I'd give up and look exactly the same as I did before I started. I'd try to get away with leaving my house with my butt crack and too much cleavage showing and when my daughters caught me and made me go back and change, I'd stamp my foot and say, "God! You think this is bad? You should see the other girls at my job, they all look like total prostitutes." And I would be so envious of all those other girls.

At work, I would sit at my desk and instant message my friends all day and obsessively check my Facebook, calling out, "Wooohooo! I have 297 friends now!" anytime someone accepted my new friend request. And if anyone dared to call and ask for assistance from me, I would sigh heavily before and after I picked-up and make the fingers-closing-on-and-off-my-thumb, talky-talky sign with my hand the whole time they were blabbing.

"Can you tell me who I would need to talk to about changing my major?" They might ask.

"Uh, how am I supposed to know! Who really friggin' cares?"

"I'm sorry. Am I calling the right number?"

"Duh! Does this sound like the right number? Yeah, I didn't think so. Now, go find someone else to bug. I'm busy." I would hang-up and sigh again. Then I would say loudly to no one in particular, "Oh my god! This is so boring! Seriously, I could lay down and die right now, I am that bored."

Luckily, my Fergalicious Def ringtone would go off and I'd have to use up all my minutes texting and talking to my friends on my cell phone until lunch. The afternoon would go pretty much the same, but I would chew gum very loudly while I was being rude to customers on the phone and anytime my boss gave me a project to work on, I'd say, "Whatever," and roll my eyes before I did it.

When I got home from work, I'd go straight to the television or the interenet radio station and instantly change it from whatever the girls were listening to without asking.

"What's for dinner?" I might ask my girls and then I'd say, "Gross. Ew." To whatever they answered me with. Until the girls got dinner on the table, I'd be on the computer to instant message while talking to the same friend on the phone. I'd ask each person I spoke to who they liked and then they'd tell me and ask who I liked and then we'd tell each other how ugly and weird we thought the other's crush was.

By the time I went to bed, I would be so exhausted and full of self-loathing, I'd finally be able to sleep a full eight hours and I'd never complain about my life, ever again and I would understand so much better the hell my daughters are living, that I'd spend all my waking hours cutting them slack.

All I Want Now is Happiness for You and Me

Oh, Winter. I know I've talked so much shit about you in the past, and I'm sorry. You've also paid me back by making those below zero temperatures last week, so I know you've heard me. All those people who call you "Old Man Winter", have never experienced the wrath of a teenaged girl before. Old men can be cantankerous, but they do not have the energy to throw the kinds of tantrums you do.

Because everyone is sick to death of celebrity feuds, and I'm tired of harboring all this hate in my tiny blackened soul, I thought maybe we could settle our differences. It's not like we have to be best girlfriends and drink wine and make fun of Wife Swap together or anything. I was just thinking along the lines of peacefully coexisting.

Since I've become a bit of an expert on dealing with teenaged girls, I understand that I will have to make the first move and appeal to your vanity. So, I'll start by telling you how pretty you looked today. Seriously, that fresh snow really becomes you and it was the good kind, that you can make snowballs with. You also did a great job of evening out your temperature. It was in the upper twenties all day and you controlled your wind. (I don't want to make you feel bad, but you had a little problem with that the last few weeks)

Mostly, I just wanted to thank you for giving me such a great day. I even stepped out of my lair for a couple hours and took photographs and went running. When I got home, after all that exercise, I was still appreciating you because it felt so right and seasonal to take a hot bubble bath and then get out and drink tea while wearing my gigantic, very warm, hideously ugly, lounge clothes.

I hope you accept my apology and we are able to live happily and without incident for the next couple of months. Oh, and if you had anything to do with The Bears winning today, then my daughter thanks you too.

Love,

Churlita

Who's Gonna Drive You Home, Tonight?

Here is a picture of a trailer piled with junk and stuff.

I'm sure you're all sick of listening to me whine about how much driving around I do for my girls, but I'm going to whine just a little more. I drove over two hours on both Friday and Saturday. It's not just picking up and dropping off my own children, it's picking Stinky up from Rock and Skate at the mall on Friday night to find she had three other kids with her who all needed lifts home. I try to give all the kids rides who need them, because when I was in high school, if I was ever allowed to go out at all, I had to depend on everyone else for transportation. And, of course, all the kids live out in the country in totally opposite directions. Johnny lives just on the Missouri border and Sally lives closer to Illinois. (or something like that, but way less exaggerated)

It's not the driving that's so hard to take, but the conversations going on in the back seat. Usually, it's a big group of junior high kids letting their ADD flags fly. Sometimes it's amusing hearing which kids in school pick their nose and eat it in study hall, but mostly it's so disturbing, that if I weren't driving, I'd just put my hands over my ears, shake my head and say, "HowmanyhowmanyhowmanytimesdoIhavetosayhowmany" until the voices stopped.

This last Friday I was picking up one of Coadster's friends who just recently moved out to the country. On the way back into town toward the bowling alley, we were discussing how they dealt with living so far out of town.

Coadster's Friend: Sometimes I have to drive for my mom because she gets tired.

Me: Do you have your permit?

C's Friend: Almost.

Me: Well, at least it's only about a twenty minute drive. So, your mom gets too tired to drive in that time?

C's Friend: Well, actually...My parents are big partiers and usually it's just safer for me to drive us all home.

Me: Oh. Um, sure.

I'm not sure which scenario I should have found more alarming: if her mom had such bad narcolepsy, she couldn't drive for twenty minutes without falling asleep at the wheel or that her parents take their fourteen year old daughter out partying with them in order to have a designated driver.

Hey Baby I Like Your Pants

Lookee here! Stinky took a picture of the stained Elvis hat my friend S. from Minneapolis gave her when we were visiting in August.

I've been trying to think about something to write about all night, and nothing's come to me. I was considering doing a post about movies I've seen lately, or I was going to do a memory post and share one of the many beautiful and special events I've experienced in my life, but it all seemed like way too much work and I'm super exhausted from all that time I spend putzing around and obsessing about stupid shit, instead of sleeping. For a minute, I thought I might not post at all tonight, but then I spotted a note Stinky had written me a few days ago and I figured that would be something easy I could slap up on here. Because my readers are all so important to me, I like to just slap shit on the page for you and then go straight to bed.

For those of you who can't read teen scribblings, it says:


Hey,


I went to the mall.* My room's clean. (I'll call you)

Coadster I borrowed a pair of your pants $2.00 is for you.

Love, Stinky

* Please don't ask me why she underlined "Hey", "went" and "mall". Was she originally going to underline every other word and then got bored? Or was emphasizing the fact that she went to the mall part of some kind of junior high code like LOL or WTF, that I can't understand because I don't text message my friends all the live long day? It's another pubescent mystery.

The weird thing about this note was not that she rented her sister's pants, but that Coadster was really pissed off about it. She thought she should have been asked. "You got two dollars," I told her. "That's way better than being asked permission." If somebody wanted to pay me money to borrow my jeans, I would be thrilled... Hey, does anyone feel like going in on a pants rental business with me?

You Say You're Gonna Take Him. Oh, But I Don't Think You Can

One of their friend's took this photo of the girls on New Year's Eve. I love how over-exposed Coadster is in this. It's almost like someone was actually trying to be artsy.

I should probably warn you that I started this post with no idea what I'd write, so you can expect it to be even less cohesive than normal. Maybe if you did some drugs or didn't sleep for a couple of days before you read this, it would actually make sense.

Tonight is the first waking time I've had to myself since Thursday. Needless to say, this has been an extremely social weekend. Which doesn't mean it was a bad weekend, it's just that I'm a girl who needs hours and hours to process my experiences and when I don't get that, my synapses can't always be trusted to perform properly.

I went out on Friday and Saturday this weekend. I can't really remember the last time I went out both nights of a weekend. I met Ondine and company out at The Foxhead on Friday night. That was where I heard Saddam Hussein was hanged. It was strange to watch the coverage on the bar television set, it was almost like we were watching replays of sports highlights.

The nice thing about going out in Iowa City over the holidays, is seeing all the the expatriates who are back in town. Since I had to drive to Dubuque the next morning to pick up the girls, I was going to go home after all my friends left see a show at the Picador, but right around the same time, a bunch of other people I hadn't seen for a while showed up and I stayed for another hour. The not so nice thing about Iowa City is that whenever I go out, I'm reminded just how tiny this town is, by running into unwanted ghosts. If I weren't quite so socially retarded, these encounters (or hauntings, as I like to call them) wouldn't have to be so awkward. But, I guess getting spooked is a good way to know when it's time to go home.

I went to the early show at the Picador on Saturday night. It was a benefit, so there were tons of bands from all different genres playing. It was packed, especially since it was winter break and most of the students were out of town. In between bands, they had a guy dressed in a loin cloth diaper thing and a turban who ate light bulbs and lifted bar stools with hooks hanging from his earlobes. Lord knows, I'm a girl who appreciates good spectacle, but I get squeamish about watching that kind of thing and had to go downstairs for most of his performance. I can't even watch Cirque du Soleil because the contortionists can raise the bile from within me.

The odd thing about going out this weekend was the lack of alcohol I consumed. I had a migraine on Friday that I kept at bay by taking my meds, and I didn't want to induce it's ire again by imbibing any spirits. Usually, I don't think there's any reason to be sober at the Picador, (or what was once Gabes) but for some reason, I had a great time on Saturday and I even stayed until one a.m.

Last night, I stayed home with the girls and a few of their friends. All of Stinky's friends cancelled out at the last minute, so I drove her to some other girl's house to watch movies until 11:15. (so she could watch the ball drop on the East Coast)

Coadster had two friends spend the night and one who went home at 1 a.m. I found out later, that the girl who left early, had some champagne with her sister before she showed up. It's weird, because I haven't had to worry about the girls' friends drinking before this. Even if she had been sober, Champagne Girl would have annoyed me. She kept whining about some "bitch" who stole her man. I told her that if her man was worth having, no one could steal him from her. She didn't really know how to respond to that, so she just said, "You don't understand. She was my best friend before that..." Coadster stood behind her and gave me the sign to let it go and after she left, Coadster told me that Champagne Girl cheated on the boy first, and the "bitch" supposedly stole Champagne Girl's boyfriend after they were broken-up. I wisely went into Coadster's room and watched a movie after that. I've resolved not to discuss empowerment issues in relationships with half-drunk fourteen year old girls ever again in 2007.

It's Getting to the Point Where I'm No Fun Anymore

I am ever so weary and now I'm going to tell you exactly why. I did something that I don't recommend anyone do unless they are feeling mentally, emotionally and physically very, very strong - I got into a struggle of wills with a thirteen year old girl that lasted almost the whole damn day. Yeah, I know you're all admiring my bravery, but if I have to engage in another battle royale tomorrow, I'm sure I'll crack.

As those things go, it was all over something as ridiculous as making a certain slobby girl clean her damn room. It wasn't like I wanted it spotless, I just wanted it so that I didn't need to get a tetanus shot in order to walk through her room and kiss her goodnight. Stinky told me she didn't feel like it, so I laid it out for her; If she did her chores, she got cash, and if she didn't she got grounded. I gave her until the end of the day. She wasn't allowed to watch TV, get on the computer, hang out with her friends, go with me and Coadster to the mall or talk on the phone until it was done. So, for the first couple of hours, she colored in her Mythical Beasts coloring book. I went into her room and told her what she stood to lose if her room wasn't clean by the end of the day. She would be grounded for the rest of the week and if it wasn't done by the end of the day on Monday, she wouldn't be able to have her friends over for a New Year's Eve party. She said, "Whatever." and continued coloring.

I went running and when I came back, I found out she had jumped on the computer during my absence. She was then grounded for a week and on top of that, if she didn't clean her room, she would have to stay at her Dad's house for the next week where there are no snacks and almost nothing to do. During this conversation she said, "Whatever" about five times. When I asked her to quit saying that word, she switched to smugly saying, "Okay".

By three o'clock, Coadster and I got ready to go to the mall. As we drove away, I saw Stinky peek through the blinds to make sure we were gone. I quickly drove around the block and parked the car on the street and came back into the house. She had been dialing the phone, but threw it on the couch when she heard me enter.

Me: That's it. Are you going to do your chores or not?

Her: I don't know. I haven't decided yet.

Me: Well, decide right now. If you're not going to do them, I'm taking you over to your Dad's so he can make sure you don't do any of the things you're grounded from. If you're going to do your chores, you can stay here so you can finish them.

Her: I guess I could make an effort to try to get something done...

Me: No. You're not doing me any favors by doing your chores, those are your responsibilities. So, you either tell me you're doing your chores or not. You know how much I hate being a hard-ass. I really don't want to make you miss your party, but if you don't get your work done, you also know that I'm going to stick to what I said.

Her: It's just so boring and I don't care what my room looks like, so I don't see why I have to clean it.

Me: If you never do anything you find boring, you'll never work a job and I'm sure you won't care how tidy your space under the railroad bridge is either, but there won't be any place to store all your shoes there. Plus, if you don't do your share of the work around here, then I become your maid and you'll start having huge entitlement issues and nobody will want to hang out with you. So, we're not having all this conflict because I think it's a lot of fun; it's to make sure you grow-up to be a functional, compassionate adult with at least a little bit of a work ethic.

Her: Okay, okay. I'll clean my room and vacuum the living room.

Coadster and I went to the mall and Stinky's room was clean by the time we came back and not only was the living room vacuumed, she actually used the attachments to get behind the Christmas tree. It was so annoying that we had to go through all day drama for less than an hour's worth of work. The good thing about having two children, is that I've already gone through this stage with Coady, and I'm getting better at sticking to my guns and not screeching the way I'd really like to. It also blows me away that after living with me for thirteen years, they still think they can out-stubborn me. Silly teenage girls.

Here is a list of seven things I'd rather do than get into a battle of wills with a thirteen year old girl:

1.) Go to a crowded mall the weekend before Christmas.

2.) Eat a lardsicle.

3.) Get my eyeballs pierced.

4.) Have Baptists who don't know me come to my door after a tornado hits my house, and tell me it's my fault for all the sinning I've been doing.

5.) Go on a date with Rush Limbaugh.

6.) Drink hotdog water.

7.) Have a heart to heart talk with either K. Fed or Paris Hilton.