Christmas Season is Akin to Jungle Warfare

Its been a while and rightly so. I had the Furious Five for three weeks straight while FFB did his year end push. The holidays have typically been a sore spot for me. In the past I’ve busted my big ass to make sure everyone gets what they want or need and put a lot of thought into gifts. I work my ass off to cook Thanksgiving and make sure that the food is delish. However, I would frequently end up eating cold food while tending to others needs and often found myself watching people open gifts while I drink my coffee and look at my plethora of gifts that were purchased from the Dollar Tree or Big Lots. Needless to say its tough getting into the spirit. And I’m noticing my ability for saying witty things is lacking. But that will change after the first of the year.

With the conclusion of Turkey Day was the FFB travel marathon in which we had some issues. One kid got kicked off the bus for the week so there was additional driving required for that. Between that and basketball and taekwondo, the weeks were busy. The day the Bus Pariah got to go back on the bus he remembered a parent or guardian needed to sign his form. Well I’m neither so I successfully taught the boy that its OK to tell a white lie to get what you want and signed my first name with their last name. In my defense, I’m corralling 5 children and taking them places. I have no time to get Bus Pariah to school and then try to make it 20 minutes to my house in another school district to get my kids to school. You do what you have to in order to survive. Jungle Warfare 101, baby. That afternoon I got a call that he had a choir concert. The day before I was handed a warning letter from the before school program his littlest one is in about many of the same complaints and observations I have about the child. By the time FFB came home I was tired and a tad frustrated.

In between I did get a chance to get away to San Francisco with my friend Coco Chanel for a few days in which I managed to drink way too much in Napa and hurl all over the beautiful bathrooms at the Coppola winery. A week later I got a text from Coco Chanel letting me know it just dawned on her that at that very moment in time the week earlier I was barfing. I love her. She makes me laugh at myself. I laugh at her sometimes too. Especially when we’re ripping through downtown San Francisco on Segways. Fucking awesome dude.

Now we’re in the Christmas crush where the kids are insisting on telling everyone what they’re getting from Santa. Similarly, my littlest one is afraid of being mean because when we saw Santa on Saturday he told him to be nice or Nick wasn’t getting any toys. My ex called me to tell me that he called the house to talk to Tyler and he can hear Nick and my mom going at it in the back ground. Nick’s pissed because mom turned the TV off so he’d eat. Therefore he didn’t want his pancake and he didn’t want to talk to his dad who can hear the two of them yelling at each other. So, I played on that little boys fear that Santa was going to take his presents away for being naughty –something he expressed concern about on Saturday after we saw the jolly red suit. I had a co-worker call the house and pretend to be Santa and tell Nick he heard he was not talking nice to Grandma and that he’s watching Nick very closely over the next few days to make sure he listens and uses his manners like Mr. Hurd (taekwondo teacher) told him and that if he continues to behave the way he was this morning Santa was not stopping by the house on Saturday night. Got a call from mom right after he hung up that there was an abrupt 180 from Nick, but Tyler was not happy because Santa didn’t talk to her. So, I told mom to tell her that Santa was only calling the kids on the naughty list this year and she bought it. Score one for mom and her ingenuity. And her apparent willingness to lie to children…..

Its been a while since I checked in and its because shit's been busy yo.

Fire Marshall Bill for the most part is still trying to burn her house down. I discoverd she likes to put glue in the microwave so it flow's better. She likes to burn candles on their sides so they burn evenly. And then last night she wanted to get one of those huge propane heaters to put on her covered deck where the highest point is about 7 feet up. The scan she had last month came back negative, so it's just Chemo Brain. 

Thanksgiving was a blast. My sister and her family came up. We drank a TON of wine and forgot our troubles for a few days. I miss that bitch. Her and her hubby are going to fucking Tanzania in January. Just because. Africa. What a trip.

I started my third load of laundry just now. Today Tyler had two more teeth pulled and she has been freaking out hard core about the whole process. So this morning, she says good morning and that she's not gonig to the dentist, then leaves the room. Nick for his part chose today to come down with the stomach flu. So while I'm trying to get him cleaned up and situated, she's melting down. It took me about 1/2 hour to get her to take something that looks like the label said Hydrox something that makes her sleepy. We took her to a special pediatric dentist and after an hour there, they decide she's still to freaked out and lets SEDATE her. SEDATE like when you take the dog to the vet so his balls get wacked off. For his part, her dad did fine until she started getting the novocain shots. He'd had the same stomach flu Tyler had last week so today he was not only dehydrated but had no food in his stomach. He got up, took off down the hall and fainted. Good Christ. Paramedics came. They pulled her tooth and getting her out of sedation was tough. She cried most of the time.

Next week I'm on vacation. I get to go to San Francisco where it is above 40. Kids are staying home along with the laptop and FFB. Time to myself! YAY

Running around with her hair on fire. Or at the very least, a pot holder

This post is kind of depressing and for that, I do apologize. So if you don't want to be bummed while you're laughing I suggest you go some place else and wait for my next post.

As you know, my mom has Stage 4 Invasive Lobular Carcinoma. This is a cancer that starts in the milk ducts and metastizes into other parts of the body. Right now, its in her spinal column, her liver and her pelvis. She had a mastectomy last spring and started her second course of chemo in August after my niece got married. It sucks. Pretty much. We've been trying to have fun with it, but lately, I'm not really finding it humorous any more.

She's always been a little strange, my mom. I chalked it up to the fact that she's 39 years older than me so there's a huge generational gap. Over the last year, she's been forgetting things more and more, which I initially chalked up to age (she's 72), the fact she drinks martinis like prohibitions coming again, and what they call "Chemo Brain" where things get a little foggy. You'll have a conversation with her that she will forget you had the next day, and during that conversation, she'll tell you the same thing at a minimum of three times. My sister and I get so frustrated because this is a woman who knew what we were doing before we even thought about doing it. Now she keeps track on a calendar when she took a bath last. The other thing that really bugs is  you send her to the store with a list, and she doesn't come back with a fucking thing that was on it. One day I sent her for heavy cream and whole milk for mac & cheese. I got 1/2 and 1/2 and 2% milk. She said she read the list. Dad said she read the list. I figured she wasn't paying attention like usual. And of course she doesn't remember this incident.

So Wednesday night I get home from Nick's taekwondo class and had run out to check on FFB's boys. He was on a late flight home from Phoenix and I wanted to make sure they ate before he got home at 8:30. Mom had thrown some chicken nuggets in the toaster oven for Nick when I walked in the door. I was fixing noodles for Tyler and I started smelling something not right. My first instinct was to look around Nick who likes to make himself fart. No Nick, or Tyler who has the worst smelling gas of any little girl I know. I looked over at the toaster oven and it had smoke billowing out of it. "WHAT THE FUCK?" say I as I walk around and see FLAMES shooting out of the door to the toaster oven. I open the door and there is a crochet pot holder resting on the heating element. ON FIRE. ON FUCKING FIRE! 

So, add fireman to my long list of job duties while I live at home. Mom, for her part, got up from paying bills, looked at what was going on, shrugs her shoulders and initiates the following conversation:
"What happened Missy?"
"Mom, there was a pot holder on fire in the toaster oven! What are you doing?"
"I didn't put that in there. Did I?"
"Mom, holy shit, you are the one that put the nuggets in there!"
"Hmmm. I don't remember doing that."

She then turns around and proceeds to sit back at her desk to pay bills. My dad, who heard nothing because he's fucking deaf, yells up to her that Survivor is on. "OK. I'll be right down," she says. And sure as shit, she just gets up and plops her ass in her Lazy Boy leaving me standing in the kitchen with a smoldering pot holder, smoke wafting around me, and Cajun style nuggets.

So here it is three days later and I've discovered a few additional tidbits. My sister talked to her Thursday and was told to have a Happy New Year, mom said some weird random shit that my sister swears she was serious about, and that I'm a blabber mouth (DUH!). My dad mentioned that he frequently finds burners left on. And, mom still doesn't think what happened was a big deal. I've called her doctor and she goes in Monday for a CAT scan on her brain.

I told her I wanted to make sure it was still there,which made her laugh, and that was the point. Because really, I think that something else more sinister is going on up in that not-so-hairless-anymore head of hers.

The Boat Trip, The Boat Trip, The Boat Trip

My parent's belong to the American Legion in town. Great organization for retired veterans. They have a ton of friends and spend every weekend down there playing darts and doing what they can to rid the bar of its pesky beer and gin problem. My mom also has nothing better to do with her life but gossip about some of the people that are members (like us!). There is one woman who I know through my ex-in-law's that really is like a pimple on your underwear line-we'll call her Muffy. Really irritating and a relif when its gone. My mom, in a rare moment of clairity, tends to agree with me.

So the Auxiliary put on this Boat Trip for the Post, or they tried to. And at some point, the trip got cancelled for whatever reason. But because my mom doesn't remember things like yelling at my dad at 1 AM yesterday morning about him needing to march his ass into the Legion meeting and tell them _____, she doesn't recall the reason The Boat Trip was cancelled. However, her sources tell her Muffy was at the root of the problem. Her sources also tell her that Muffy and her friend Brunhilda were kicked out of the bar by the Auxiliary  - who doesn't have the kind of bar banishing power it thinks it does - for The Boat Trip Cancellation Snafu. Essentially the trip got cancelled by a Mystery Guest for not enough attendees, even though there were 30 or 40 people waiting down at the dock's for the boat.

Me: "how did Muffy get involved, again."
Mom: "She had the list."
Me: "The list of what?"
Mom: "the list of people going."
Me: "So she's at fault automatically? I don't like the woman, but it seems kind of concentration camp-ish to blame her for the whole thing just 'cause she has a list."
Mom: "Well, the Auxiliary sent her a letter telling her she and her friends can't come into the bar any more."
Me: "And that has what to do with cancelling the Boat Trip?"
Mom: "She had the list."
Me: "OK.... So who told you the trip was cancelled?"
Mom: "The club secretary. And I told her we weren't going anyway."
Me: "OK, so who told her the trip was cancelled?"
Mom: "I don't know. But Muffy got told in three letters that she couldn't come into the bar any more. The Auxiliary doesn't run the bar. The Legion does, so if anyone gets 86'ed, the Legion has to do it."
Me: "So, what did the other two letters say?"
Mom: "That she's not allowed to go into the bar. But the the Auxiliary can't do that. They don't run the bar."
Me: "Right...."

At this point I tell my mom that if she's going to gossip, she needs to remember the story and the players. As it is, she's just making shit up on the fly. What I did manage to take from this 20 minute conversation was that my mom said "Boat Trip" about 50 times. Like that Olympic Boat Center commercial with the woman saying "all they ever talk about is The Boat. The Boat, The Boat, The Boat," as she strokes her kitty....

Bee Stings and Head Bonks

When you have more than one, it gets a little bit crazy. As you’ve probably witnessed on any given occasion when my kids and I are around. Today was no exception. After fitting in a little “me” time at lunch, I come back to my office and start checking my voicemail. One is from the school secretary, but I notice that on my other line, it’s the school calling. Thinking its some catastrophic event caused by one or both of them since the school NEVER calls me twice in a row, I cancel my unheard voicemail to talk to the live person. It was the OTHER secretary calling me to tell me my son fell on the playground and hit his head and was in the nurses station. Is it bad? I ask. They tell me not really but it’s a head injury just the same so they’re keeping an eye on him. He told the nurse he wanted to go back to class, so I’m thinking OK, no problem. But I wanted to talk to him just the same. That cute little voice gets on the phone “hey mom.” And proceeds to tell me what happened and he wants to go home. OK. Get to the school and take care of checking him out of class. While I’m there, the secretary tells me that Tyler got stung by a bee on her lunch. Super. She’s been stung before so we weren’t too worried about it. When I get to his classroom, he’s eating his snack, but is out of his chair and getting his back pack the minute he sees me. Off to mom’s we go with him chatting up a storm the whole way. His head doesn’t hurt any more, he feels great. Figures. Kid, I have a meeting in 30 minutes. You’ve already made me late once. Now I have to take an extra hour off of work besides lunch. But, you’re mine and I love you, so whatever. We get home and I start going through his bag for the day and that’s when he tells me that Tyler took his glasses off of his face this morning and hid them. WHAT!!!!???? The $260 glasses I just bought are gone? Are you shitting me? I call the school and put out an APB on them. The secretary says she’ll check with Tyler’s teacher. I call their dad FUMING and asking him to have a conversation with her about that shit. I want to rip her arms off of her and beat her with them. So I sit and stew for a little while at the office and think of things I can do to try to teach her to be nice for once in her life. About 5 minutes after they get off the bus, I get a phone call. Glasses were put into a pocket on the back pack. Now I really want to rip her arms off but this time, I’m beating BOTH of them! Oh, and the voicemail that I never got to listen to? It was the one letting me know Tyler got stung by a bee.

Rabid Bitches

The Goonies, Kids Incorporated, Mickey Mouse Club, Ferris Buhler, whatever you want to call them, it was a bunch of kids getting together to hang out. Sometimes brilliant careers were launched: Britany, Justin, dude whose step mom is Barbara Streisand. Sometimes people faded into obscurity. Since they’re obscure and faded, I have no examples for you. Bottom line was when you watched them on screen they clicked and had a good time. Much like my best girlfriends J and E. E and I have been BFF’s since kindergarten and since we’re in our 30’s now we’ve noted occasionally that we’ve been friends longer than many marriages these days. J and I met at E’s wedding as we were bridesmaids together. We call ourselves the Butt Crack Bitches.

While the name really is not above board and sounds like some chick biker gang, we dubbed ourselves, along with two other girls, this wonderful moniker one cool fall morning while waiting for our ride to wine country. It was the butt crack of dawn and we were tired and without caffeine since our ride had the Starbucks hookup. Because of this we were very bitchy. Hence the name. Once we started having kids, we shortened it to BCB. And speaking of kids, we are all still butt crack bitches, but for an entirely different reason. Once content to get up at 5 AM to ride for 6 hours to Eastern Washington and drink wine all day pretending to know what tannins are and the difference between oak and steel aged chardonnay, we now rise at 5 AM for feedings, diaper changes, and elementary school.

Tonight was BCB dinner. Once a month we get together for dinner to catch up, drink wine, eat a shit load of food guaranteed to make you fat, celebrate our successes since no one else cares we got a cashmere sweater for $60,  and bitch about our significant others. Tonight was different. J told us that she is preggo with rug rat #2. E is already three months into her incubation of drape ape #2 as well. I am ecstatic for both of them. They are fabulous mom’s already. Plus now I’ll have two babies to snuggle and then give back.

I am melancholy however. Maybe it’s the wine from dinner, or the semi food coma I’ve put myself into from too much spaghetti and dessert. Or maybe I have a small case of the green eyed monster. I’m done having babies. I enjoyed being pregnant and didn’t have any issues, but my kids are finally independent enough that I don’t have to do everything for them. While that sounds selfish, it’s not meant to be. I love that they can make toast for themselves while I’m taking a dump. It saves time. Any way. I called FFB who is travelling – again – and we chatted for a bit after they left. He was winding dinner down so I gave him the Sports Center version that my friends are breeding and its cramping my style.

But it makes me a little jealous, and here is why. I always thought I’d have at least one friend to experience pregnancy with, and I didn't. It something that women bond over – child rearing, labor, money, and sex. It’s the four corners of conversation. Walk into a room full of women and I can guarantee that at least one topic is related to ONE of those things. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Anyway, it made me a little sad that I’m not going to have my own little baby #3 at the same time as my friends so we can all be miserable together. I imagined us three sitting together while our three kids who were born around the same time experienced the same things together: puberty, driver’s licenses, prom, graduation, weddings, and babies. And, I have to admit, for a split second, I honestly thought about doing it again, just so I could be part of that. The way they smell, all of the “firsts”, the snuggling, and (my favorite) when they fall asleep on you. But I can’t for one and immediately came to my senses for two.

I love my kids. I love FFB’s kids. I love my BFF’s kids. But there is something to be said for a Sunday afternoon where you can sit on the couch in your sweats and watch football while your kids fend for themselves because they are old enough to. Granted the kitchen usually looks like a pack of rabid dogs went through it.



The Butt Crack Bitches
E, J and Me



Shit my mom never said

About a week ago FFB was on the road for what I swear was three months but those around me say it was only four days. Lets just say when he came home, I was balled up in the corner of the walk in closet repeating "It puts the lotion in the basket." I knew I was in for it when I discovered his youngest had been eating pop tarts in bed whenever we're not home. One particular meal I had with the kids followed a particularly vicious fight on the trampoline between my daughter and my son in which I looked up from the kitchen window to see my daughter holding my son down and punching him in the garbage. Repeatedly. So I took it upon myself to tell the boys, that the penis punching has to stop. I thought that FFB's oldest was going to spew milk out of his nose. My mom never had to have that discussion with me or my sisters. E.V.E.R.

I also recently was bestowed with a new cell phone. I  use the word bestowed appropriately because it took me three months, a failed upgrade, and five phone calls to tech support for the frickin' geniuses at my cell company, whose name rhymes with T-Horrible, to realize that my POS was really a POS. Any how, it has this cool  app that will take dictation. After a few glasses of champaign at my friends Mary Kay party and $95 later, I realized I bought a product I'm not going to use only after I also dropped $100 on dance shit for Tyler. To minimize the damage I texted my friend Rox who moonlights as a Mary Kay non-Nazi. She asked me if I wanted to add some product my mom bought onto my order and I said the words "no, I just dropped $100 getting Tyler kitted out for dance." however, this "cool" new toy that I have translated it to "no, I just dropped $100 getting tyler k** it out for sale." The damn thing  comes in handy when I'm driving, but it doesn't use cuss words and apparently wants to sell my daughter. Which sometimes is a thought that crosses my mind.

Some things come out of your mouth as a parent that you never thought you would ever say.
"Don't call her "dude", call her grandma."
"Don't jump like that because you're going to slip and fall and hit your garbage on the tub."
"Get your hands out of the back of your pants when you're in public."
"Stop playing with yourself in grandma's chair. She doesn't want to see that."
"Stop licking the windows on my car. No, Chad is wrong. Its not funny."

Fail For Today

You know how you order the “spicy” salsa from one of those places in the mall knowing full well that tobasco is way hotter, so you take it back to work and toss a bunch of Tapatio on it so you at least have a little heat? Well, that really wasn’t the case today and I think I have burned off my taste buds.

Dam Dutch Brothers Anyway!

So I just got back on Monday night from a mad dash trip to my sister’s house. She’s about a 13 hour drive from my little home here in the PNW all the way in California’s version of the PNW. Lets just say my Sissy Poo Poo is closer to Oregon than San Francisco. BTW,  no self respecting Californian calls is San Fran. Anywhoo.

I spent 14 hours alone on Thursday driving down. I stopped for dinner at this Mexican restaurant on the way that I swear to GOD puts cocaine in their food. Every time I drive through this little California coastal town, I stop to eat. Its better than anything I’ve ever eaten. Coming back was a shorter trip because I didn’t stop to eat. I snarfed down fast food and coffee only to leave myself with the worst stomach ache that ensured my inability to sit up straight for at least a day.

My niece got married – which is the reason for the mad dash down and back. I love the kid like a sister – which is the only other reason that I made the mad dash.

My mom and niece.
Thanks to Chris Tuite Photography for the beautiful pic.

I forced my parents to leave the day before I did because my dad drives like a crazy idiot. He’s deaf, so he can’t hear my mom’s screams from the passenger seat. And to put it into perspective: they left around 5:30 Wednesday and got to my sisters around 7 on Thursday night. I left at 8 AM Thursday and got there by 10 PM. They stopped less and I know for a fact that I was only averaging 10 MPH over the speed limit through the three states I had to travel and only caught air in my car once. And that was CalTrans fault for making a slight change to the hill by Chazem Rd. on 299.

So, in 100 degree weather I cooked food for two days for 75 people for a wedding with about 35 people in attendance. My mother, even tonight, complained that my sister and I wouldn’t let her help. It’s not that we wouldn’t LET her help. It’s that there was nothing she could do easily from the arm chair her cancer ridden backside was resting in. It makes both my sister and I sad to see how she's changed just in the last 6 months. She's gained weight, loses her train of thought much easier, forgets everything and needs a cane to get around.  Her and I agreed to just enjoy the weekend with everyone feeling good since mom is supposed to start a new Chemo on Thursday. The last one wasn't very much fun, so this one we know won't be a picnic.

During the drive I noticed a lot of things like people who pick their nose. Who the fuck does that? Just because you’re in a car, doesn’t mean I CAN’T SEE YOU. You are not John Cena, so don’t pretend. In Washington, drivers suck. I never hit my breaks and lost the ability to use my cruise control more times than I did in my home state. They ruined my driving chi more times than I care to mention. In Oregon, the rest stops are gross. Rest areas are dens for germs and bad sanitation anyway, but they’re worse in Oregon. I’d rather pee on the side of the road and drip dry than enter one of their rest stops. In fact, going down, I purposely dehydrated myself so I would only have to stop once or twice. Coming back, not so lucky thanks to a stop at Dutch Bros. Dam them anyway.

How does that not go up your ass?

Two of FFB's kids are totally into wrestling. And by that I mean the oldest has a boy crush on the "U Can't See Me" dude. I really can't say that I blame him. I'm sorry but dude is JACKED and fucking hot. What else I find incredible is that there are all these jacked up guys running around in Speedo's playing grabass and at NO TIME do said speedo's ride up their ass or even move. I'm sorry, I can't walk three steps without having one side of my underwear slide off my ass cheek and into my crack. NOR do these guys show up with bruises and bumps the next day. Which I find a little hard to believe. Who do you know on this planet that can get tossed out of a wrestling ring into a folding table, get slammed in the back with a metal chair then picked up and spun around before being thrown at the announcers and not have a single mark on them during the next week's Monday Night Raw? Who? Tell me because really, if there is someone like that, they are aliens. FFB's dog put her paw on my leg and I wound up with bruises from her toenails. And what is with the oil and spray tan? I realize that the spray tan  makes you less reflective for the cameras and hides imperfections, but isn't it a little much? I equate oil and spray tan with a different kind of wrestling.

Opinions, Assholes, and Crap

I’m not big on putting my personal life out there for people to look at. I like a little anonymity with what goes on at home with the exception of some of the crazy kid shit that goes on. Privacy is nice and this is the internet after all. We all have our reasons for doing things and it drives me bug-shit crazy when I do something and it gets picked apart by other people. Yes I buy frozen spinach in the hopes that I will do something with it. I realize that the brick has been in the freezer now for three years but that doesn’t give you the right to bitch at me for wasting $1 three years ago.

Opinions are like assholes: everyone has them and many of them spew out ridiculous amounts of crap. I’m right in my heart and mind that the decisions I’ve made through the course of life are right for me. Now that I have the kiddo’s these decisions are weighed a lot more carefully and I base the major ones on how it affects them as well as me.

One decision made almost a year ago is one that a particular someone still thinks was wrong and selfish but the more time that goes by the more I realize that this person is completely wrong. But he’s entitled to feel that way. So this big ass rant comes to my mind this morning when I read an excerpt from J.Lo’s interview with Vanity Fair. I would rather read about what antics celebrities are up to rather than read about parents killing their kids, the debt ceiling, and our never ending quest to be the worlds Jehovah’s Witnesses. Anyway.

J. Lo said something that hit home for me. It was eloquent and summed up why I did what I did. "Sometimes we don't realize that we are compromising ourselves. To understand that a person is not good for you, or that that person is not treating you in the right way, or that he is not doing the right thing for himself – if I stay, then I am not doing the right thing for me."  http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/08/jennifer-lopez-september-cover.html

At some point well over a year ago, I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't be the person that someone I thought loved me no matter what wanted me to be. I was being asked to compromise myself to be who he wanted me to be. It wasn’t a selfish request on his part because I fully admit that I was asking him to compromise himself to fit into something I wanted him to be. Bottom line was that I left because we were both trying to get each other to be someone we weren’t and that’s not fucking fair.

He's 5 and already dilusional

Bath time is always interesting with the kids. T-Dawg likes to dance in the shower while singing something she heard on the radio. Usually Justin Barfer. Nick prefers a bath with his boats and will sit in the water until his wrinkles have wrinkles and proceed to fart around until I'm ready to scream.

The following conversation ensued tonight during the fart around time and after he started the bath by peeing in the water.

Me: "Dude, quit screwing around."
N: "I'm not mom. I'm shaking the water off."
Me: "Quit jumping around before you slip and fall and hurt your junk."
N: "I won't mom. My junk is made of steel."

They start so young!

She Just Legitimately Has No Taste and Doesn't Give A Shit

It dawned on me the other day I needed to get off my lazy ass and recap my most recent adventures! I was off work for a week and did nothing but work at home, which is always pleasurable – NOT! My sister and I have decided that our mother either is color blind or just legitimately has no taste and doesn’t give a shit. She decided shortly after I moved out the first time to paint the guest room this shade of pink that looks like Pepto. Couple that with the horrible magenta paint on all of the wood trim and doors, and you are now sleeping in a room that looks like the inside of your stomach. Repainting was my first project to tackle and it took me two days and almost three gallons of paint. The kids love it though. Getting them to decide on two colors wasn’t as hard as I thought and only took two hour long visits to the paint department at Lowe’s and Home Depot. Its been three weeks and I finally got the paint out of my hair.

Following the painting, it was yard work, but not much because it was starting to get warm finally and I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. The PNW is having an unseasonably cold summer. And by unseasonably cold I mean that I still put on a sweatshirt in the morning and some afternoons and the new $50 sunglasses FFB bought me don’t get worn much. But I mowed and weed eated and got a new border around one flower bed before it was time for me to leave for the actual vacation portion of my vacation. I had a ticket to Montana to meet Frequent Flyer Boyfriend’s (FFB) parents on their 700 acre farm.

 700 acres is small by Montana’s standards, but this is probably the closest slice of heaven I’ve seen in a long time. The farm sits in a valley complete with a creek and according to FFB and his dad, Lewis and Clark “rested a spell” at some spot on the property. It was truly peaceful and gorgeous and I can’t wait to go back. When the song says “amber waves of grain” it was this country they were talking about. The day I got there it was raining and 50 ish in PNW, which isn’t surprising. After leaving drizzily SeaTac my flight arrived in Big Sky Country an hour and a half later and it was flipping 90. I was in heaven. FFB, his three boys, mom and neice picked me up and off to lunch we went. Then to the farm to pick up his pops and off on the Harley we go to Lewistown to meet his brother. Coming home I opted to ride in the truck with his parents and gave the bitch seat to one of the boys. Glad I did too because it was windier than hell. But, I got the lowdown on the local hunting and farming from FFB’s dad and just really got to know them better.  On Friday we rode 4-wheelers up the ridge to see Tee-Pee rings left by Native Americans a few hundred years ago. These tee-pee rings are rocks that sat at the bottom of the tee-pee to keep the bottom on the ground. It amazes me that a farm with two boys (now men) managed to hold onto that piece of history for so long with dirt bikes and 4-wheelers crashing through. But I think FFB’s mom would have taken a switch to their asses if they would have fucked them up. While up on the ridge, you could see the foothills of the Rockies and several other mountain ranges where FFB’s dad likes to hunt. FFB then took me around town and showed me some of the “hot spots” of the town he grew up in. The Missouri river runs through town and there’s all these waterfalls plus its surrounded by mountains. The whole place is beautiful. I could do country life for a spell, but I’d miss my stilettos and martini’s so I wouldn’t last long in Big Sky Country. 

Looking down at the farm. No, that's not all of it.

The balance of the month has been nothing but work. My boss took a well deserved (and I’m not kissing ass when I say that) vacay to Vegas. Since I’m really the only one in our group that’s been there long enough to make everyone believe I know what I’m doing, I had more traffic than I usually do. However, she’s home. I almost wept when I saw she’d posted something on Facebook yesterday.

I wish the kid would have pissed himself

Walking through Haggens' today and Nick starts singing a song he made up. It is apparently called "Drunk Mom" and you just repeat that over and over in a sing song voice.

For the record I wasn't drunk. Nor am I now, although there is a glass of wine calling my name. I'm doing Weight Watchers (10 lbs down and counting) so booze is OK, but you really have to moderate and since I am competing with myself to see if I can go an entire week eating LESS than my daily points, I drink sparingly. I'm losing at my little competition anyway. But still.

What made it embarassing was that there was this guy who heard me ask him what he was saying because it sounded like "dumb mom" and Nick stops, smiles and says "Drunk Mom." The guy starts chuckling as I tell Nicky its not funny. Tyler asks me what is not funny, I say "nothing hon." Nick responds, "Its a song I made up and it goes 'Drunk Mom.'"

I wish the kid would have pissed himself instead.

Whatever floats your boat, I say!

The below transpired in an email conversation between myself and a co-worker whom I like to refer to as my brother from another mother only because it makes him mad and relives a time when we had this annoying woman working for us that used to call him that. I think she had a crush on him because she was always calling him pookie and honey and staring at his ass. Or lack there of because the brother is nothing but a back and a crack. BTW, the pic below is NOT my friend TJ.

For the record, he’s married (to a woman) with 4 boys. And while both of us are straight, we have several people we know who lead an alternate lifestyle of some sort. Whatever floats your boat, I say!

TJ: Heeeyyy!

ME: Why on EARTH do you have this? Is this some weird African American male bonding thing?

TJ:  LMAO I just found it, I swear to sweet baby Jesus, all wrapped up in his blanket, I found it

ME: Right. Look. I know you have "friends" and I'm really OK with your lifestyle choice. That whole "I love you too no matter what, son." It doesn't define who you are. I think that you'll be a happier person if you just admit to yourself what most of us already know. 

TJ:

ME: Apparently, you do too. Heeeyyyy!!

Your fat roll is hanging out

After a conversation with one of my BFF’s, Jessica M., she had suggested I do a blog. Supposedly these things are all the rage with crazy kids these days and she thinks I have some kind of knack for “witty banter,” which I’m sure you’ll find really means “snarky comments.”

Anyway, I digress. I like to write and, personally, I think I’m pretty damn good at it. Its therapeutic and a way to express what I’m really thinking because I’m too embarrassed and good mannered to say some of what goes on in my head out loud. Like the lady I saw at Target today. She’s walking into the wind and it’s blowing the bottom part of her blouse open so you could see her stomach hanging over her jeans. I wanted to tell her about it, but just kept walking. However, here on my blog, I can pretend to yell across the parking lot that “Hey, lady in the Hawaiian shirt! Your fat roll is hanging out.”

Moving on. Again. I’m in the process of updating my parents house. By the way, I’m one of those adults that moved back in with their parents to lick their wounds after a divorce. Which is why it’s their house getting new crap and not my own. So, my kids and I moved in like the Clampet’s only I don’t look like Ellie Mae and I have yet to strike oil while digging out the bulbs in my mom’s flower bed. The house is the same as it was when it was built in the 70’s right down to the harvest gold carpet and avocado green bathroom. Its disturbing that these people who birthed me can spend a few hundred at the casino, but can’t seem to save it for new shag and then sit in the kitchen over bad scotch and water and bitch about needing a new kitchen.. At any rate, it all started when I installed a bathroom light fixture and mentioned to Jess M casually (of course) that it would be cool to document the transformation of my old homestead. Which is in a psudo suburb, so its not really a homestead. And no I didn’t electrocute myself or make it so the neighbors garage door opens on its own when you flip on the light switch.

This “causal” conversation snowballed into a “And you could document the crap your kids do!.” Because, I’m sorry, not only are my two kids adorable, but they are freaking hilarious. Plus I’m dating a guy with three kids of his own, so my adventures truly are endless with the group of kids I call “The Furious Five.” Because I loved Kung Fu Panda and occasionally, they all make me mad but I love them. Jess M then goes on to say I could use it to document my life at home with my parents and how it might benefit some people who are going through some of the same things. I don’t know if she meant the thirty something divorcee living with her 70-something parents and two kids who works full time, goes to school part time and occasionally baby sits for her frequent flier boyfriend. OR if she was talking about how my mom has stage 4 breast cancer and I try hard to find some humor in the situation. My mom makes it pretty easy because she’s a crazy, wacky lady who wears rainbow clown wigs to the American Legion with my dad to play darts. And really making obnoxious comments to elicit laughter from people is how I deal with stress. Then we moved on to the crazy stuff we do as the babes. Like running through hotel landscaping sprinklers and “fried egg ta-ta’s” in the parking lot of a different hotel. We should probably stay away from hotels. Anyway. Most of our adventures are alcohol fueled and we just like to have fun together. Plus when we’re not together, all kinds of random insanity ensues and it always makes for a funny story.

Because that is what this is - a funny story. J