Pictures of my life in a thousand words . . . more or less.
Right up front, I’ll say it serves me right for watching shows like “The Real World-Road Rules Challenge: The Inferno” and “The Maury Povich Show.” Still.
A guy on “The Inferno” is named Darrell. You know, Dar’-ell. Darrell. As in Darryl Hannah. Only he called himself Dar-ELL, with the emphasis on the second syllable. Say what?
Then, I see a guy on the “Maury” show and his named is Leonard. You know, Leonard, like Leonard Nimoy. Only he calls himself Le-NARD. Huh? What?
The weeds are growing like . . . well, weeds and we saw a woodpecker in the backyard. Yesterday, a scraggly robin played in our backyard, tempting our cat to have him for lunch. A lone orange and yellow tulip blooms in the flowerbed. The grass seed will not sprout, which is probably because I haven’t watered it because we are constantly out in the backyard.
This morning, Babygirl and DaycareKid and YoungestBoy and I are outside. DaycareKid’s climbing the slide. Babygirl was running around and I was surveying the flower beds where I’d weeded yesterday. YoungestBoy says, “Hey, mom, want to play catch?” I say, “Okay,” and he tosses the ball high in the sky. Doing my best Ken Griffey, Jr. move, I sidestep and hop backwards and grab the ball. At the exact moment the ball dropped into my hand, I realized that Babygirl has sneaked up and was directly beneath where I was about to land.
In fact, she had fallen when I bumped into her and I was about to crush her skull with the entire weight of my body. I suddenly turned into Sydney on Alias and rotated in midair and came down hard on my hip and my hand without snuffing out the life of my precious little baby daughter. I still don’t exactly know how I didn’t land directly on her.
YoungestBoy yelled out, “Hey, cool! That was awesome!!”
Babygirl cried. Hard.
I picked up Babygirl, surveyed her for blood, found none. Took DaycareKid off the slide and came inside without another word to YoungestBoy. I knew he thought he was in trouble, but it was not his fault that I almost killed his sister. It was just one of those accidents–the kind my husband thinks are preventable–and I went in before I said anything I’d regret.
Babygirl was fine. The side of her head was red, I suppose from where she’s hit the ground. She looks okay now. I’m fine. My hand’s a little skinned.
A bit later, YoungestBoy knocked on the window and I went outside and he said in a resigned voice, “I know. I’m in trouble.” I said, “No, you aren’t. It was an accident. I just went inside because I was really scared because I almost hurt your sister. It wasn’t your fault.”
Get me a padded room, stat! Or at least get me an inflatable protective suit for my baby, one with a big old helmet so she can’t be hurt in any way, ever.
1) No pantyhose required. No dress code at all. I can wear my scuffy slippers all day, even in the back yard, if I want.
3) Occasionally, babies nap at the same time, the kids are in school and I have an unannounced break. Like now.
4) No obnoxious co-workers.
5) I can’t get fired.
6) I can doze on the job and no one notices, except for Babygirl who will then jab her finger into my nose.
7) Lunch is free, every day. Sort of.
8) If it’s an unexpectedly beautiful day, I can spend it outdoors.
9) My kids never have to go to daycare. I never have to pay for daycare. I never have to call in sick when the kids are sick. I never have to go to an office and worry about my sick kids.
10) No gasoline or car required to get to work.
Within this past week, a local 9 year old girl was kidnapped from her bus-stop after school. The abductor was a 32 year old man. He borrowed fifty cents from the child and called her parents with a ransom demand. Then he bound her with tape and put her face down in the back seat of the car and then proceeded to lead the police on a wild car chase down major freeways before he was caught and the child was rescued.
But that’s not what interested me.
A few weeks earlier, this same guy attempted to abduct a 63 year old woman in the same area. I saw her on television last night. She was one of those really beautiful woman who either aged gracefully or has a great plastic surgeon. She said she was walking her dog, Buddy, when this man jumped out of a van and pointed a gun at her head and told her to get in.
She said, “No.”
He repeated his demand and she said louder, “NO!”
And that, my friends, was the end of that. Apparently, the loser just got into the van and drove away. She reported the attempt to the police and gave a very good description and that’s how they realized that this guy was the same guy who kidnapped the girl. He confessed to the attempted abduction, too, after he was caught by the police.
This 63 year old woman is my new hero.
Just say “no.”
No, this is not an entry about sperm. Or salmon. It’s about me, as usual, unlike most everything else in my life.
Anyway, I find great humor in the fact that today, just tonight, two separate people mentioned how much they loved, loved, loved “Jersey Girl,” the movie that I saw and despised last night. Now, either something is fundamentally wrong with me (nah, not possible) or I truly am a movie snob or (and this is most likely) . . . the world as we know it is coming to an end.
BEANSTALKS
My kindergartener brought home a plant from school yesterday. His styrofoam cup was bursting with plants over six inches tall. He enthusiastically informed me that his was the biggest plant in his class. I said, “It is! Wow!” and he said, “Yes, because the teacher said to plant three seeds and I accidentally planted fifteen or twenty.”
He apparently did not get into any kind of trouble when his fifteen beans began to sprout. I wonder if his teacher laughed out loud like I did.
Did you ever wonder how grammatically sound are you?
Click here on this . . . Quizilla. . . and find out.
I did and this is what it said:
You are a MASTER of the English language!
While your English is not exactly perfect,
you are still more grammatically correct than
just about every American. Still, there is
always room for improvement…
You might want to skip this if the use of a swear word will sear your ears. Or if you think Ben Affleck is a worthwhile human being–no, I mean “actor.”
I went to see “Jersey Girl” tonight. How did I pick this movie? Well, I read one not-terrible review and it was the only show starting at 8:30 p.m., a time I could manage.
The movie theater I like is quiet on weekdays. Normally, I see other middle-aged folks there. Of course, tonight, I was seeing “Jersey Girl” and what middle-aged adult in her right mind would choose that movie? That’s what I’m asking myself now.
As I walk down the hallway to the theater with my bucket of popcorn (the main reason to see a movie, really) and my jug of Diet Coke, I realize I’ll be passing two teenaged (college-aged?) boys who are loitering outside theater number 5. I’m heading towards theater number 7. I find myself suddenly back in high school, having to pass boys who are just watching and making smart comments about girls like me who are obviously not cheerleaders or party-girls. I’m deep in my self-consciousness, walking by as briskly as possible, hyper-aware of my gigantic snack and my capri pants (should I even be wearing these in April?) and after I pass these two boys, one says, “Oh, that’s all right, don’t say hi to the nigger.”
Uh, excuse me?? One of the boys was black and had raucous hair. He was the one who made the comment.
I turned my head around, kept walking and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were talking to me.”
And then I entered the theater.
What a couple of numbskulls. Like I’d actually not speak to a strange-looking young man loitering with his friend because of his skin color. Good grief. I didn’t speak to them because I figured they were mocking my advanced age of 39 (although the ticket-counter boy asked if I was a student, which was clearly delusional on his part) or because I figured they were mocking my advanced weight, or I figured they were exchanging algebraic formulas. Okay, not that last one. But still. I was just trying to get past them without embarrassment.
I guess the only way not to be considered racist is to be vigilant about friendliness. Next time, I shall thrust my hand out and introduce myself to all young men who lurk in movie theater hallways. I shall ask them if they are having a pleasant day and I shall make small talk and compliment them on their oral hygiene.
Or not.
But the movie. Oh, the movie. Here are a few comments I am compelled to make.
1) Brain aneurysms caused by pushing a baby out during labor are rare. Have you ever known anyone to die during childbirth from an aneurysm? No. If a childbirth death was what they were looking for, perhaps they could have done a little research and had her hemorrhage to death. Or die from complications caused by an induction and epidural use.
2) Children are not smarter or more compassionate than adults. Since when are children the moral compass of the universe? When did children become the ones to teach lessons to really dense adults?
3) Using the word “shit” in a scene does not make it funnier nor more emotionally wrenching. Ever. It does make me think that the writers share one undersized brain which contains a tiny version of a vocabulary and one miniature sense of humor.
4) Liv Tyler would never be working in a video store, doing a thesis on porn. Why is porn so mainstream these days? Why is masturb*t**n the topic of a first date in a movie rated PG-13? Does this mean it’s appropriate for a thirteen year old to discuss? How did Liv Tyler even say her lines with a straight face?
5) Oh, back up a minute. Ben Affleck talks for paragraphs to a four week old baby, finally expressing his grief and loss over his wife . . . no one, nowhere would talk to a baby like that. A good actor would express all of that with his actions, with his eyes, with his expressions. Hello? Did you see Sean Penn in Mystic River? Sean Penn didn’t grandstand and say every word out loud so we would understand his emotion. He actually acted and we could sense his emotion. Stupid Ben Affleck didn’t even pick up the baby during his speech.
6) Uh, Ben? Sweetie? Rolling your eyes to the side as a main acting technique is not working. Purposely grinning with only one side of your unnaturally white teeth, not working. Levis . . . well, those are working, but don’t spoil everything by opening your mouth.
7) Movies which insert dramatic elements that don’t make sense deserve scorn. Ben Affleck running, literally running, through town to reach his daughter’s play in the nick of time . . . um, have you heard of detouring around a street closure? Have you heard of rescheduling an appointment so you don’t have a conflict?
8) Alcoholism is not a funny running gag.
9) Liv Tyler offering to have casual sex with Ben Affleck–and actually saying, “I just want to have casual sex with you . . .”–wrong, wrong, wrong in so many ways. Wrong in so many obvious ways.
10) People in movie theaters who clap and laugh out loud at this kind of movie make me think that civilization is, indeed, declining. I am a movie snob, I guess.
Two thumbs down. This movie was . . . well, to use the “s” word . . . stupid.
What a wacky morning.
First of all, Babygirl woke up at about 5:00 a.m. I nursed her and she went back to sleep, so I did, too. Then my husband got up early so he could take the youth pastor candidate and his wife back to the airport (about 45 minutes from us). I finally dragged out of bed at the last possible minute, showered and came downstairs by 7 a.m. No one else was awake.
I woke the boys at 7:20 a.m. Waited for DaycareKid to arrive. He always arrives before 7:30 a.m. At 7:30 a.m. on the dot, his mother calls to tell me he had a rough night and his daddy was letting him sleep in before he would drop DaycareKid off. She wasn’t sure what was wrong with him–she thought he was feverish but his temperature was normal and she wondered if he was constipated and had a tummy-ache.
At 7:40 a.m. YoungestBoy woke up and ran downstairs to watch his normal 7:30 a.m. show. He was upset that he missed ten minutes of it.
Someone picked up the boys for school at 8:05 a.m.
Then my husband calls. He’s at the airport, in the drop-off, no-parking zone and our car won’t start. And this is our “good” car, the 1993 Mercury Sable. (The 1992 Buick Park Avenue with 265,211 miles is now for sale. Anyone want a car?) Luckily, we belong to “Drive America”, some auto-service club connected with Union 76 that I joined just to get the free $20 worth of gas they offered. I have been meaning to cancel the membership, but haven’t yet. So, I called them and arranged for the car to be towed. My husband couldn’t do this because he didn’t have a pen in the car and couldn’t memorize the membership numbers and toll-free phone number and all. The woman from “Drive America” called him, though to confirm his location and we were all set.
Then Babygirl woke up.
A bit later, DaycareKid arrived.
Then, my husband calls to say the car started. Could I please cancel the tow-truck?
He took the car to a mechanic and called to report he was walking down the street toward a restaurant and that he’d have his secretary or friend pick him up and take him to his office. Then later, he called from his office to say that he and K. were going to visit J. in the hospital. Then later, he called to say he was going to someone’s home to look at free books (a minister is retiring). Later on, he called again to say that our friend will be bringing our boys home from school.
Babygirl skipped her nap today. Daylight Savings time has confused her.
She’s watching Teletubbies right now. There was a report today that said children who watch television between the ages of 1 and 3 have increased chances of developing Attention Deficit Disorder, which of course, makes me think 1) I am a horrible mother and the reason that TwinBoyB cannot pay attention in school and 2) Thank God for children’s programming. Without it, I would be insane. Yes, I use the television for a “babysitter” sometimes. So sue me.
Oh. And big news. During one of the ten jillion phone calls today from my husband, he mentions that he’s thinking about going down to the Humane Society to pick out a mutt for the kids. I am staying out of this. I want no responsibility or blame for picking out a “bad” pet.
Next week is Spring Break. My husband decided today that maybe he’ll take the week off. I wonder if his week “off” will be anything like his day “off” today?
Sore throat: Gone.
Baby: Crabby and sick? I couldn’t get her to stop crying this afternoon.
Dishes: Washed.
Emailbox: Empty.
Family room: Cluttered.
Living room: Couch cushions in disarray.
Laundry: Folded basket on couch, lightbulb burned out, dirty clothes, wrinkled clothes.
Eyes: Contacts now in for 15 hours. Optometrist would be displeased.
Kitchen floor: Disgusting.
Easter: Oh no, coming on Sunday!
Bills: Paid.
Checkbook: Balanced.
Children: Sleeping, apparently healthy.
Husband: Sleeping, exhausted from too much work. Driving youth pastor candidate and wife to airport at 7 a.m.
Cat: Missing, again.
Chocolate: Gone.
Newspaper: Unread.
Exercise: None.
Vegetables consumed: None.
Fruit consumed: None.
Backyard: Weedy.
Brain: Dim.
Bed: Waiting.
Babygirl slept until 8 a.m. today, so I did, too. That was a lovely start to a day which turned out to be dizzying. I went in circles, lopsided circles with a baby on one hip, trying to get stuff done. I sort of cleaned out the laundry room, including the grime under the utility sink and the stack of stuff balancing on the freezer. I cleaned the boys’ stinky bathroom. Then I tried to clean up the kitchen, but Babygirl refused to be put down and I can’t do dishes with one hand, so I thought I’d straighten up the living room, but got distracted by the laundry. And, of course, I have three boys to supervise. And the baby always wants something, even if it’s just an audience while she empties the dirty-clothes basket in the laundry room.
After lunch, my husband took the boys to the middle school ball-field, along with their twin friends, to play a little baseball. While he was gone, I went to Bargain Street Liquidators, where I heard they were having a $2.00 clothing sale. I found a pair of Liz Claiborne pants and pair of capri pants and a shirt for Babygirl and a little blue cardigan for her, too. I bought YoungestBoy a pair of sandals. I bought my husband a short-sleeved, knit shirt that retailed for $42.00–and I bought it for $2. I love a bargain. Of course, it was hard to pick through the deep bins to look at everything, especially holding Babygirl in one arm. She suddenly feels like a fifty pound sack of flour when I’m holding her while shopping.
She grew impatient with shopping, so I promised her a cookie and drove through McDonald’s to buy her one. And five more, too, which I somehow ate. What? How did that happen? I had five cookies for lunch. Very nice. Someone, please, slap me now.
We were home only a short time before the boys returned. And not just my boys–but their three friends, too. They had a wild time of playing hide and seek and running around in the yard and making a lot of noise. I cleaned out my dresser while they were playing and then came downstairs and sat in the backyard with Babygirl. The weather was so perfect–in the upper sixties, low seventies, I’d guess. My husband was at church, participating in the interview of another youth pastor candidate and his wife.
John came to pick up his kids at about 5:30 p.m.–by then, I was feeding everyone a nutritious dinner of frozen pizza and corndogs. At 6:00 p.m., TwinBoyB was in the bathtub, TwinBoyA was in the shower and I was vacuuming the living room, wondering how it was that I was busy all day, working all day, not sitting down all day–and my house was still a wreck! I was half-way through, thinking that I just might actually be ready to go to dinner at 6:45 p.m. when I suddenly realized green salad! I was supposed to bring a green salad to the dinner. Oops.
At 6:12 p.m., Babygirl was in her pajamas, YoungestBoy was in the tub and I was nursing Babygirl to sleep. She had no nap all day. By 6:25 p.m, she was asleep. My husband had arrived home and was washing YoungestBoy’s hair and getting him ready for bed. I went to the bathroom and did what I could to make my face presentable and to arrange my hair in some semblance of style. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate my natural curl?
By 6:35 p.m., I was ready and downstairs assembling a salad out of the Romaine I found in a drawer. I had only a carrot to add to it. Sad, very sad, indeed. I made salad dressing and we hurried out of the house, minutes after the babysitter arrived.
We were late for dinner, but not very. The youth pastor candidate and his wife made an excellent first impression and proved to be outgoing, competent, smiling young people. He was 23, she was 22, and I suppose we seemed so old to them, but I remember being 22 as if it were yesterday. The dinner was delicious, though it was very funny that the main dish was Chicken Divan, which involved a lot of broccoli, which my husband hates. He’s made a crack about broccoli before she pulled the hot dishes from the oven, so we all had a good laugh about it. He was in fine form, telling amusing stories and cracking jokes. The host couple are fifteen or twenty years older than us, in a different stage of their lives. They have a beautiful home, quiet and clean and gorgeous. I suppose in twenty years I might have a clean, quiet, gorgeous home. One can always hope.
My home is not clean now, but it is quiet. The kids are all asleep–or are faking. My husband went to bed after I reminded him that we lose an hour of sleep tonight. It’s 11:10 p.m., then, suddenly, boom! An hour gone! Tomorrow will be a long day because there are lots of meetings after church and tomorrow night.
But hey, my underwear drawer has been purged and now I will be able to get dressed without picking through through maternity underwear first.
Actual Unretouched Photo 