Blogging Against Disabilism Day 2008...Little Pitchers Have Big Ears

Hubby and I have always tried to be careful about what we discuss in front of the guys, because you never know what might be repeated at a future date (and at the worst possible time).

When we were kids, my older brother--the smartypants--fancied himself as the joke expert in the family. Whenever anyone ELSE would tell a joke, he'd retort, "That's as old as my grandma, and she farts dust!"

Needless to say, when Grandma came to visit and older brother was trying to entertain her with his wit, that exact phrase came back to haunt him when it popped out of my 6-year-old brother's mouth in response. Ouch!

Little pitchers and all...

Some months ago, my ex-husband asked for a copy of Little Guy's medical records and evaluations. His oldest in his second family was having some developmental issues and was being evaluated for Asberger's Syndrome (which is a form of high-functioning autism).

After zipping him off his copies, I talked about it with Hubby. I was a bit perplexed that ex didn't want a copy of Big Kid's records as well, especially since there have been many instances of ADHD being misdiagnosed as Asberger's and vice versa, and there is a strong family history of ADD/ADHD. In fact, many of ex's son's symptoms mirrored Big Kid's at that age----impulsivity, running amok, defiance, inability to sit still, lack of attention, etc.

We went on to discuss Big Kid and where he's at now at the age of 21. The med regimen he started last August has been a great combination---the new stimulant he takes for ADHD doesn't set off his bipolar and make him manic, and he hasn't had a rage attack in months. Fortunately (or unfortunately) it hasn't dulled his personality---he's still the same ornery, contrary cuss he's always been.

Or as we say from time to time between ourselves---"there IS no pill for a$$hole".

So Little Guy comes home from school the other day, and we chat while we're making dinner.

"Did you know that Hot Cutie (his girlfriend) has a disability?"

He was agog.

Well, Honey, so do you.

"You mean I don't have autism? I have a disability instead?"

Eek. This needed some sit-down time. I tried to explain that the term disability encompasses a wide range of conditions, while the term autism was more or less specific. He has autism, and so does Hot Cutie. His friend XXXX has a physical disability and uses a wheelchair. His brother Big Kid has a disability which is completely different (didn't want to get into all of the specifics so I left it at that).

Then I asked if he understood what I was trying to say.

He was thrilled that it all clicked for him and he nodded enthusiastically.

"I have autism and it's a disability. Hot Chick has autism and it's a disability. Big Kid has a disability too.

...Mom, does Big Kid have A$$holeberger's Syndrome?"

Aiiighhhhhhh!!!

Gonna go wash my mouth out with soap now.

Carol Brady would be so ashamed.

______________

I originially posted this on Disaboom a few months ago, but brought it back for Blogging Against Disabilism Day 2008. Check out some of the fabulous bloggers who are participating!

Sometimes You Just Got to Say....

This is the last week of school for Big Kid and I, and thankfully, my term paper is FINALLY DONE!! Big Kid has some things to wrap up, but he is on his own for that one. I'm done! Yippee!

And man, am I ready for a vacation.

From Doods. My Doods. I want to find some girls and go on a Dood-free weekend road trip full of drinking and debauchery and laughter.

But there's still too much to do. Maybe next month.

::sigh::

So I'll just pretend all my girlfriends are here and we're dishing (sorry guys).

Why can't I have one freaking thing to myself? One thing, I mean just one---that at no point has had somebody else's grubby fingers all over it? Other than tampons, I mean.

Let's talk about food, for instance.

Now mind you, I am not forcing anyone to diet, I'm not starving anyone, and we have a mighty full larder. I provide 3 squares and ample snacks. And I'm not talking about Little Guy, because amazingly enough, the kid asks first before he even pours himself a glass of milk. Then he offers to pour one for everybody else.

It's the other two galoots I'm bitching about.

For Christmas, a friend sent me a boxed set of specialty cocoas in tins. There were three 20 oz tins. I stored them on the coffee shelf in the pantry, and specifically told everyone "hands off".

A couple months later, we ran out of regular cocoa, and it was a snowy day. The guys were begging for a hot cuppa, so I broke open the boxed set and one of the tins and made them each a cup of cocoa. Then I put it all back in the box and replaced it on the shelf.

Not TWO WEEKS later, I was rearranging some things and moved the box. It felt awfully light.

All three of the tins were empty. And replaced back in the box so it wouldn't be noticed right away.

After a survey of the family counting the number of people who enjoyed MY gift of cocoa in the previous 2 weeks?

Little Guy: 1 cup
Me: None
Hubby: None
Big Kid: Why's everybody looking at me? The dogs know how to heat water in the microwave too, you know!

There were two days of ass-kicking going on in the Attila house.

You would think after the raisin incident (where Big Kid consumed 2 pounds of raisins meant for holiday baking in one night and thought aliens were laying eggs in his digestive tract when he crapped out a bunch of undigested gray rehydrated butt chunks the next morning) he would have learned his lesson.

Not MY boy! Hmph.

My hubby is almost as bad. His excuse? "I had a golfball lodged in my throat/anal fissures/toe fungus/pick your ailment, and the ONLY thing that would make me feel better was that special thing that you had hidden for yourself under the 12 pounds of cast iron and copper pots in that far cabinet where you store the pans you only use once every two years."

Ok, that's sort of an exaggeration. But seriously, the real story is just as heinous.

For example: When I make up a grocery list, I look at the sales and ask the guys what kind of cookies/ice cream/pudding/whatever dessert they want. They let me know what they want and it always involves chocolate.

Not too long ago, Snack-Pack pudding was on sale, and I had a ton of coupons. So I picked up about a dozen packages of what they unanimously asked for. Milk chocolate pudding. Dark chocolate pudding. Chocolate and caramel pudding. Mississippi Mud Pie pudding. Something for all of them. I also got ONE Snack-Pack (4 cups to a package) of tapioca pudding for myself.

Hey, it's my kind of comfort food. I'm not going to apologize. I totally pass over any chocolate dessert for a piece of fruit, but once in awhile a little tapioca goes a long way. I hid it on the second shelf on the right side of the fridge, and buried it under the dregs of a bag of wilted pre-packaged salad, a half-filled bag of baby carrots (which everybody but me hates), and put a jar of dill relish and like 6 packages of chocolate snack packs in front of it.

The very next morning (usually I get up at around 5am) I opened the fridge to get coffee creamer and noticed that everything had been messed around with on that particular shelf. I moved the chocolate snack packs, and the relish, and the wilted salad, and the half bag of baby carrots.

Underneath there was one little tapioca container left, lonely and bereft amongst all the packaging.

When Hubby got up, I confronted him. "Did you eat my tapioca pudding in the middle of the night?"

He was indignant. I had an upset stomach so I ate "some" to settle it!

Some? 3 out of 4 pudding cups is "some"? When does it become "most"? After they're ALL gone?

And um yeah. Everybody and their mother knows that sugar, fat and lactose is the BEST way to settle an upset stomach. Silly me. The Pepto is front and center on the medicine shelf, next to the Tums. You really had to dig for this particular remedy, though, didn't you?

Both guys wait until I'm asleep to go rooting around in the cupboards in the middle of the night. It doesn't matter what is just sitting there in front of their faces. Like cookies, pudding, chips, or ice cream (in the freezer). If it's something that takes an effort to find, or an ingredient I bought for something I have to make the next day for a meeting, a conference, a school party...well then it's a prize!

Is it some kind of leftover caveman instinct where they have to hunt to get it? Is snitching a mini-bag of slivered macadamia nuts now the equivalent of bagging a mastadon for the family table?

I'm simply amazed...really AMAZED that the two of these Doods haven't yet bumped into each other in the dark---one scarfing down Betty Crocker frosting with his fingers and the other stuffing his face out of a container of Philly Cheese pre-made Cheesecake filling. Seriously---it's like they take shifts!

And it gets gross.

When I make a dinner that has nuggety stuff (chicken nuggets, jalapeno nuggets, cheese sticks, etc,) I have to make sure that everything is perfectly proportioned and if someone isn't there to eat their share at that exact moment, it gets wrapped up. Otherwise, there are a couple of guys who meander through the kitchen ostensibly to "put their glass in the dishwasher--ha", or "throw away their napkin---ha" who think that whoever didn't get their meal at that exact moment won't notice that their original equally proportioned six chicken fingers have been reduced to two.

On that thought, last month, I had just warmed up a small plate of BBQ pork that I hadn't finished from my dinner from the night before. I backed up, almost stepped on the little dog, and spilled about 80% of it on the floor. Scooped the pork up and put it back on the plate. It was coated with grody kitchen floor detritus and dog hair. I stuck the plate on the counter, was wiping the floor (nothing like getting sauce tracked through the house), and somebody knocked at the door.

UPS guy. I signed for the package, opened it, dealt with it, and ended up grabbing an orange before running downstairs to my office to take care of a couple of things. Totally forgot about the plate with the dirty pork.

Came upstairs and saw the plate sitting there, but it was empty. WTF? Called Big Kid, and demanded to know where it had gone. Since there was only the two of us in the house.

Did you eat my lunch? (not like I was actually going to eat it myself---with all the hair and crap stuck to it I was going to toss it, but I was baffled and pissed off by the audacity).

He pretended to be shamefaced. "It looked so good I couldn't help myself". Uh huh.

Did you even look at it before you ate it? No he hadn't. All he saw was something he wanted and inhaled it. As if it had been prepared especially for him. Didn't even notice that it had a fur and oatmeal crumb coating.

blech.

A few weeks ago, I had coupons for Tyson's ready made strips that you can find in the lunch meat aisle. The store had a 50% sale on Tyson stuff, so I got a bunch of bags of pre-cooked and seasoned chicken and steak for about a dollar a holler.

I showed them to all of the guys specifically and said---"I've got meal plans for these. They are NOT FOR SNACKING!"

The next night, I was making the fixings for steak fajitas and opened one of the packages of steak strips. It had a bad, sort of fruity, and fermented smell---kind of what I'd imagine a corpse that had been in the water for a week would smell like. The expiration date was two months ahead, so I figured I'd take it back to the store for a replacement. Sealed it back up, stuck the bag in the back of the fridge, and used the rest, which was fine.

I was going to the store a couple of days later, and dug the bag out. It was almost empty. eek! I confronted Big Kid and he swore he hadn't touched it.

I called Hubby at the office.

"Did you eat the steak strips from that bag in the back of the fridge?"

Busted! Again, he was defensive. I had an uncontrollable tickle in the back of my throat and I needed to eat a couple of pieces of steak to take care of it!

A couple of pieces? The bag was practically empty.

"Did you SMELL it before you ate it??? What in the hell is WRONG with you?"

It smelled kind of funny, but I thought it was the special seasoning!

Oy.

I swear, I could take a half a cup of moist dog food, hock a loogie on it, cover it with chocolate sprinkles, wrap it up and hide in the back of the fridge, and it would be gone by morning.

Just because it is something they have to hunt for.

WTF is wrong with Doods?

Totally Verklempt...

Ok, you guys already know how I sneer at bad baby names.

As an example, Little Guy attended kindergarten with an adorable little girl named Felicia. We went to a school recital and were horrified/awed to find out that her name was actually spelled Phallicia. Either her mom had porn star plans for her in the future or was prepared to be absolutely despised once the kid got her hands on a dictionary.

And you also know what a big huge bug I have up my butt for the "tard" words----retard, f*cktard, slowtard, etc.

So a couple of days ago, I was minding my own damn business and had the Judge Mathis show on the tube while I was puttering around.

Took hearing it 3 or 4 times before I actually "heard" it.

One of the plaintiffs was named Tardenicia Monfort.

I just have no words. I'm utterly verklempt.

::Sniff:: ::Sniff::

April is Autism awareness month, and I'm very sad to say that a good friend is taking a (hopefully not permanent) hiatus from blogland to focus on the upcoming needs of her son who will be leaving school soon. Casdok has been a wonderful resource and an encouraging friend.

She posted this on her last entry (not sure if she is the author, so forgive me if I don't attribute it correctly), and I think it sums up the lives our children are living so very aptly.

I don’t want to be treated like a child.
I want respect.
I don’t want to be ‘trained’.
I want the opportunity to grow.
I don’t want to fester in a local day service, or in a home.
I want to be an active member of the community.
I don’t want pity or patronizing.
I want to be valued.
I don’t want neglect or abuse.
I want to feel safe.
I don’t want lack of resources to be an excuse.
I want a creative approach.
I don’t want institutionalised staff.
I want people who really care.
I don’t want people being complacent about my behaviour.
I want to be nurtured.
I don’t want special services.
I want opportunity.
I don’t want to ‘fit’ into existing services.
I want choice.
I don’t want to miss out because of risk assessment.
I want some fun.
I don’t want to be cured.
I want acceptance.
I don’t want charity.
I want integrity and dignity.
I don’t want to be disabled by society.

I just want what everyone else has.


I'm going to miss you, Friend. Don't be a stranger!

ATM

Asshat of the Week

If anyone has been following the story of the teen harpies who orchestrated and videotaped a beating of a classmate to put on YouTube, you'll have heard that the judge in the case has doubled the bond for the defendants. This week's Asshat award goes to the father of defendant Stephen Schumaker, one of the young men who stood look-out while the girls beat the snot out of another human being.

He's angry at the sheriff, especially for releasing the video to the public.

"'Grady Judd, our great sheriff, he made a mountain out of a molehill with all these trumped up charges for these kids,' he said."

Uh yeah, it's all the sheriff's fault that these pillars of society were stoopid enough to film themselves commiting a felony. Your kid is a hero. Asshat.


A special Richard Cranium award goes to that old media whore Dr. Phil.

A producer in his employ posted bail for one of the defendents, and then tried to order local reporters away from the jail, claiming that Dr. Phil had "exclusive rights" to the story.

Dickhead.

Busy as a Bee.....

I know I've been a neglectful blogger. I seem to be apologizing all over the place all the time. So I'll give a quick rundown.

Big Guy and I are finishing our last month of the semester. Lots of projects to finish, term papers to do, finals to study for. Little Guy is graduating from high school, got an 18th birthday party to plan, prom is next week, he's in the school musical so rehearsals to run back and forth for. Big Guy is signed up for vocational rehab, and finishing his rehabilitative driving lessons. We've tried to make all these appointments, but all the snow this week has put us behind.

Since Little Guy is reaching his age of majority, we've been running around getting services in place for him---SSI appointments, community board services, and yes, we've filed for guardianship, despite advice from some self-advocates against it. It certainly doesn't have to be permanent, but he's very vulnerable to people who might take advantage of him. I'm not going to argue about it with the self-advocates, because I understand where they're coming from. But they function enough to blog about their views. He doesn't.

We've got a "friend of the court" visit next week to check out our home for suitability and to interview him to see what his wishes are. I'm so nervous that I'm teaching the dogs how to curtsy.

On the plus side, I wrote about some personal woes a couple of weeks ago in The Suckage of Life, and want to say that the majority of this has been resolved---maybe not to everybody's personal satisfaction, but we all walked away from it feeling equally screwed---so the family love and affection is still intact. Big huge weight off my shoulders.

More later....

Have a great weekend!

ATM

Gahhhhhh!!!!

"For Mr Deaves the sexual relationship was 'absolutely fantastic'."

Somebody be like Moe and poke my eyeballs out.

Please.

I beg you.

Please.

Opening Up A Can of Whup-Ass

My friend Liesl has got her rantipanties on today, and she's on a roll.

Don't you just hate when people forward ignorant/racist/hateful emails to their 50 closest friends without ever checking the validity of them?

Passing on the stupid, so to speak?

I usually counter with a link back to snopes, if I'm feeling benevolent.

Liesl deconstructs this one, and kicks some asshat.

Stop by and give her a holler!

Stuck on Stupid

I know I haven't written anything in the last week or more, but between class obligations, work obligations and life obligations, I've been derailed by stupid. Or just bullsh*t. Take your pick.

First of all, for the last 10 years or so, Hubby and I have been under our own misguided notion that the original copy of our marriage license/decree was in a safe deposit box up in the big city. For reasons I'm going to leave unexplained, I need the original copy for a legal reason. Turns out that the 5 copies we had notarized back when we thought we locked up the original don't count as certified and we now have no idea what happened to the original. Gak!

So I went to an online service that is in our state that I used to get extra certified copies of the boys' birth certificates a few years ago. Otherwise, I'd have to take a trip up to the county where Hubby and I were married, and right now, I just don't have time to spend an entire day going back and forth.

After I put in all the relevant info, declared I was one of the parties, gave my credit card info including my stated and billing address (refused the 19.95 Fed Ex delivery, but accepted the free "regular mail" option), I had to answer some "verification for personal identity" questions.

What other property do I own? It gave 4 addresses plus a "none". I answered it correctly.

What cities in Colorado had I never lived in? It gave 3 cities I'd lived in plus one that doesn't even exist, and I picked the correct option.

What county have I never lived in? It gave 4 counties, plus a "none" option. I picked the correct option.

Have any of these people ever lived with you or lived at your current address? It gave 4 names plus a none option.

Well how in the hell am I supposed to know? I know the names of the people we bought the house from, but they weren't on the list. Do they think we keep a walking pedigree of the previous owners/tenants from the time the house was built? I clicked on "none".

And they rejected my application based on that. How freaking stupid is it?

We went to Little Guy's IEP meeting. Although he is graduating from high school this year, he is going to receive transitional services through the high school until he is 21.

We've been planning a huge graduation "do" for him. We'd already let all the friends/family know when his graduation was taking place, and many have bought plane tickets and gotten hotel reservations in anticipation for his day.

While we were compiling the "official" graduation announcements to send out, we noticed some fine print on them. "By ticket only". WTF?

Turns out that each graduate gets 7 tickets. When deciding on this venue (which isn't actually in our small town, and could have seated over a couple of thousand people if they held it at the high school like normal peeps instead of at some swanky auditorium down in the city) the organizers didn't inform the families that we'd be limited by tickets. Relatively speaking to the rest of the country, it's a very small graduating class----around 120. The rest of the tickets are going on first come, first serve at the front office on Monday. Limit 5 tickets per family.

Little Guy has 5 siblings alone. No, I didn't mistake my vagina for a clown car, but his dad has remarried and has had a second family. Additionally, Little Guy has 4 parents. 5 grandparents. 4 aunts and uncles (out of like 12) who have made plans to come. Close friends who marked out this date and have non-refundable plane tickets.

It's bullsh*t. As I said to the assistant principal at our IEP----"This is Little Guy's Day. The day the 'experts' said would never come."

He isn't going to ever get a chance to graduate from college. This is IT for him. So from out of all our friends and family who have already spent money on plane tickets----we have to decide who gets to go and who not? The rest can sit around in our living room and twiddle their thumbs? I think not.

Stupid. It's stupid.*
____________________________


*Yes we've planned a big graduation party for the day after (the graduation is at 7pm), but seriously, people are coming in to be there at his big moment. And he deserves to have them there.

Oh and P.S. I've got to either go up to the county in person to get our decree or apply by snail mail. So snail mail it is. :-)

Speaking of....

Ha!

Panties. Period.

Well since most of the men have been conspicuously absent from commenting (well, not Joe of the Dutch Oven fame, or Tom, who made a brief comment about veggies being evil before getting the hell out of here) on my last post about flatus, I thought I'd take advantage and ask a question that I've been dying to know.

Since it will prolly be a week or so before any of those guys are brave enough to poke their heads back in here.

You chickas have been really cracking me up!


I grew up with two brothers, so I never had a sister to ask. My parents were somewhat "older" when they adopted us---with me they were 35. Nowadays that's nothing, but when I was growing up, that was almost elderly. They were of a completely different generation than my friend's parents.

My dad was near the bottom rung of 10 kids, my mom was a total afterthought baby herself, so they were basically unattached to their parents' generation as well. They were both practically raised in Victorian households.

When I was about 8 my mom was so uptight with the whole sex thing that she gave us a book called "A Doctor Talks to 6-to-12 Year Olds" and said we could ask her questions later. Privately, one on one. Uh huh. Sure. Nowadays, it's easier to talk to your folks and others about this stuff. Hell who hasn't been on Maury? Back then for me? Not.

When I unexpectedly started my period a few years later, I happened to be at a "Dad" weekend (things had changed dramatically since we got the "book"). Dad was an "old" fart and left it all up to young Trophy Wife #1 to deal with.

She, of course, first ran out and bought me OB tampons, and handed them to me through the bathroom door. I was 11. When I wouldn't come out of the bathroom or stop crying (I didn't know what the heck to DO with them), she ran out to probably the only drugstore on the planet that still carried sanitary pads that had to be hooked into a belt. And bought the belt as well. Totally skipped over the shelf that had the ones that had adhesive and could be stuck into your own panties.

When I got home on Sunday night and told my mom, I got the big tearful "now you're a woman!" speech. Which was actually kind of nice. She bought me the right kind of pads, and a funny kind of cloth cigarette pack holder to carry one in. Oh, and she told me that if I got blood on my panties, or my sheets, or my clothes, that I had to scrub it ALL out in the sink with cold water before putting it in the laundry.

Yeah right.

When I think about all the time I spent over those years scrubbing and scrubbing after accidents (like who is regular the first couple of years or so---you usually find out you've started once it's already there? Or what if you roll over in the middle of the night and everything gets bunched up at the front or the back and you leak somewhere?), I started to think my Mom was some evil sadistic menstrual harpy. Really.

Mom was in a natural holistic phase at that point and wouldn't even give me an aspirin for cramps. Now I'm convinced that she was so prissy that she probably threw her own panties and sheets away, bought new ones and scarfed down valium by the bowlful (docs were handing it out like candy in the 70's) but told herself it was theraputic because she had a prescription. Just kidding. Heh. LOL

For those Buffy/Angel fans out there---that episode where Fred was scrubbing and scrubbing Jasmine's sweater until her own hands were bleeding gave me a big "Aiigghghhhh!!" moment. Not pretty.

So anyways, when I became an adult, I was done with all that. Yeah, if I had an accident, I'd do the obligatory soak in cold water, but I'd be damned if I'd futilely scrub and scrub. I'd have a few pairs of panties that had old stains, and instead of wearing pristine ones while on my period, I'd wear the stained ones. Heck, they were already stained, but they were technically clean and otherwise in perfect shape, so what's the big whoop?

That's when I started thinking about them as my Period Pants.

Now other than Hubby (who does his own laundry) the guys and I pretty much throw our dirties down the new laundry chute and do our laundry communally. Except for my Period Pants. I wash them separately with
some of my other stuff, and fold and put them away myself.

Until recently. We've been so busy that I had a load in the dryer when Hubby went to wash some of his own clothes. Sometimes, if there's something in the dryer, he'll bring it up and fold on the ottoman in the living room while we're watching TV as he waits for his own laundry to get done.

So he's pulling all my Period Pants out of the laundry basket (I was in the other room) while they're all watching The Simpsons (I was in the other room JUST to avoid it) and folding them in front of the guys, and they're like---ewwww! Mom!

From the other room, I said "What????"

Your underwear!!!!

That's when I saw what Hubby was doing. Gak!

We had to have a big family conversation about how I bitch at them for leaving skid marks in their undies for willfully not wiping their butts good enough, but I'm not being a hypocrite because sometimes I have an accident and these panties are around 4-6 years old. I can't begin to tell you how embarrassing this was.

Tell me, what do the rest of you do with them? Do you have Period Pants?

I swear, I'm just going to start being my mother and throw them away.

Rambling and Padambling...

A couple of years ago, I confessed that I'm one of those people who are gassy and sometimes inadvertently rips ass at the most inconvenient times. I have difficulty burping, and I guess the gas has to go somewhere, which is usually south. ;-)

Anyhoo, after the first of the year, I stuck ALL of us on Weight Watchers points plan. It wasn't really a New Year's resolution, but sort of a plan to make us all lose some pounds and get healthier.
The Big Kid and Little Guy don't follow it if they're out of the house, but there is no longer ANY processed junk here to snack on. I got one of those "choppers" that cut veggies into little itty bitty chunks and have been slowly replacing meat in low-fat sauces with vegetables, etc (you can hide them better that way).

I've lost 17 pounds since the first of the year (which has hardly made a dent, IMO), Hubby has lost a bunch, and Little Guy has lost a few. It's hard to tell with Big Kid, through all the layers of clothes he wears (his new thing is not to change his dirty clothes, but add a layer of clean on top of the dirty, which is an entirely different story for another day).

Oddly enough, while all the extra fiber in our diet has increased the number of ducks my guys are stepping on, my own barking spiders have inexplicably gone silent. Now I'M usually the one who gets spot-welded in the middle of the night. The dogs aren't afraid of me any more. For the first time, they come running to ME when somebody is blaming them for being the poofter or putting a hurt on their noses.

Except when I'm in the grocery store.

For some reason (maybe YOU guys can help me figure this out), the last 3 times while I was in our local store, my lower abdomen started churning and I had a sudden, painful, and urgent need to cut the cheese. Seriously! I don't think it's like extra walking or anything, because I've been out walking every time the sun is shining.

The first time it hit me, I squinched up my butt cheeks and made it five steps to the organic corner of the produce section (I was across the store from the bathroom and there was nobody around) and totally let fly before scurrying away.

I figured that if anything wilted, it could be blamed on the lack of preservatives or pesticides or veggie genetic engineering. Who knows---the last 3 out of 4 times I've bought organic veggies in a bag, I've found some kind of larvae in there noshing away. The best scenario would be that my natural gas suffocated them so the next person didn't get a live and wiggling surprise.

At least that's what I tell myself. ;-)

During the second visit to the store, the guys and I were standing in front of the Lean Pockets in the freezer section (which was fairly crowded with shoppers), and I was telling Big Kid---"the difference between Hot Pockets and Lean Pockets is the fat content, and no, I'm not going to buy any Hot Pockets, so if you avoid the nasty multi-grain ones, you're not going to find much of a difference in the taste. Pick one that you might eat already or not".

I'd just spent the last 15 minutes fending off loud and public whines from this 21-year-old who doesn't HAVE A JOB or contribute any way to the household, that ran along the lines of, "Why won't you buy me chocolate milk? I have a RIGHT to have chocolate milk if I want it! Why do YOU have to be so cheap?" or "Why can't you buy GOOD stuff like Fried Mozzarella Sticks?" or "You don't expect ME to eat GENERIC BRAND mandarin oranges/oatmeal/kidney beans/whatever do you? I'm not going to eat diet or generic crap! And why are you so CHEAP?" arrggghh

So we're standing in front of the Lean Pockets, he's still bitching and moaning, and I had sudden and massive cramps. The bathrooms were just up at the end of the aisle and over 1.

I took a step in the right direction, but that little solitary step unleashed the butt monkeys from hell. At that point, I figured that trying to rein them in would be futile and just let them run rampant. Prolly hit the Richter scale at about 7 out of 10. In noise, at least.

On to Plan B.

I turned to Big Kid in the middle of his "I'm not going to eat diet food, and why was I so damn cheap" rant and said loudly, "For God's sakes, if you have to fart that bad, can't you at least go outside? What in the heck is wrong with you?"

So while everybody in the freezer section was giving Big Kid the hairy eyeball I took the cart, and Little Guy and I ran like hell (with disgusted looks on our faces).

The 3rd time was just Little Guy and me. Big Kid was too embarrassed to show his face at our store after "his"--ahem--21-bun-salute. Luckily, when the cramps hit me, I was 10 feet from the bathroom. So I left Little Guy with the cart, locked myself in there and farted myself silly. Came out (no fan in there, so I left the door open to air it out) and got hit with another wave of cramps. Went back in and did it again.

Came out, and there was a lady waiting to use the facilities. Boy did I feel bad. Apologized to her in advance.
Since then, I'm sort of afraid to go back. I've been having Hubby drop by and pick stuff up. Is it some sort of psychological trained response like Pavlov's Dog? Any ideas?

The Suckage of Life

I know I haven't been around much posting or commenting lately, and I feel really bad about it. It seems to be my excuse de jour for the last few months.

The last couple of weeks have been particularly bad. You ever have those days when you just feel so overwhelmed by stuff that it's hard to just get out of bed each day and slog through the crap that makes up your life?

A lot of it for me has been the weather. It's springtime in the Rockies, which is the season when we get the most snow days. All the gray makes me feel gray inside too. I suffered from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) a lot when I was in my teens and early 20's, and I think it's just biting me on the butt right now.

I've had a lot of family stuff going on lately that's been consuming me. Not my hubby and kids but some other stuff that I've had to deal with. My dad died a little over 10 years ago, and I'm ready to close that chapter in my life and move on without a "things that ultimately have to be taken care of" list hanging over my head indefinitely. Mostly involving shared assets that my brothers and I put aside to "deal with later". I decided that it's time to finally deal with them now, since most of those "shared assets" have had to be financially maintained by myself (and hubby), and I'm ready to get out.

We're paying for 2 college educations, I'm getting zero return on some of this stuff as is---if I had set aside the "sentimental attachment" (not mine) and insisted we cash out years earlier, I could have even conservatively invested it in CDs or bonds and gotten some kind of return. But I think 10 years is enough for them to get their sh*t together, and I just want out.

So there's been some hard words exchanged, and it makes me feel very very sad and depressed. Hopefully most of it will be wrapped up in the next couple of weeks or so.

Sorry to be such a bummer.

Eyeball Rolls of the Week....

Where to start, where to start?

How about with Lisa Marie Presley. She's suing the Daily Mail for calling her fat thereby "forcing" her to announce her pregnancy sooner than she wanted to (she's due next fall).

Oh please. You're a public figure by choice, so not going to get a lot of sympathy here. You announced on TV that you had sex with Michael Jackson ferpete'ssakes, and THIS bothers you? Heh. You can't chase the dragon known as fame and cry when it turns on you.

The next eyeroll goes to Dr."Do As I Say, Not As I Do" Laura. She says that because Mrs. Spitzer wasn't willing to dress up like Miss Trunchbowl in Nazi boots and spank the Luv Guv with the BIG hairbrush, his $80,000 ho habit is her fault.

Ok, I made up the stuff about the big hairbrush. But Dr. Laura says Mrs. Spitzer doesn't "validate him" enough. Yeah. Validate this, you lying, cheating peckerwood.

Considering what a big crappy mess Dr. Laura has turned out to be as a wife, mother, daughter and talk show host, does anyone even listen to her any more?

I don't know which deserves a bigger eyeball roll....that MSNBC is quoting the National Enquirer as a news source or that the Enquirer is reporting that Star Jones is dumping her husband. Like nobody ever saw THAT coming.....

What's got YOUR eyeballs rolling this week?

Waaah!

Yes, I know, I've been MIA. I'm sorry.

First Hubby was finally cleared by his doctors to fly back east to visit his mom. Yippee! But because they haven't determined the cause of his blood clot, it just ratcheted up my anxiety over the idea that he might fall over the drinks cart on the way to the mini-bathroom with an embolism mid-flight.

He was supposed to fly back in last Tuesday night, but his original flight was delayed on departure for a couple of hours (they didn't have enough crew---believe it or not), so he missed his connecting flight home from Denver. He got there in time to catch the last flight out of Denver, but the airline inexplicably canceled that at the last minute. They said, "well, you can be on stand-by for the first flight out at about 6am", but it wasn't until he raised holy hell that they arranged to put him up at a local hotel.

By the way, he says the "sleep number" beds suck butt. But then again, he probably didn't know what his "number" was. He was able to get a seat on the second flight out in the morning and got home around 11am. Tired, stiff, feeling dirty (he didn't get his luggage overnight) and royally pissed off.
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While he was gone over the weekend we had a big snow-storm which sort of knocked out our cable-broadband-internet connection somehow. Of course, the cable company will never admit that it's their responsibility. Apparently every house in my subdivision has small children and/or dogs that somehow knocked each of our individual cables loose at the same time.

And after checking and rechecking every connection while on the 800 number with some customer service doink from another state (who first insisted we power everything down for 5 minutes as if we hadn't tried that 4 times before calling because this has become a habit), we were put on a list for service by the 1 cable guy who was on call over the weekend.

There is only one provider up here, so it's not like we can threaten to go somewhere else. However, I'm keeping track of the down-time to try to get it pro-rated off our bill, simply because it's happening more frequently.
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Big Kid and I also had mid-terms this week, so we've been studying like crazy. We both think we did well.
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Another Aerogarden Update! I have to get a new memory card for my camera, so there's no recent pic, but at 7 weeks of growth, I harvested about 20 snow peas. The supports that came with the package (weird insulated wires that you're supposed to wind around your fingers and stick into the seed pods) don't do poop to support the plants, so I ended up sticking 12-inch wooden skewers into the back plant pods and draping the front growth on top of the back. It looks ugly, but it's working.

You're supposed to "sex them up" for germination by sticking your hand in there and shaking them all around hokey-pokey style once there are blooms. I didn't even get a chance to do it. One day they had a couple of flowers, and the next they already had mini-seed pods. Since the first harvest, I've picked maybe 5 more pods, and there are another 20 or so buds just waiting to bloom in the next few days. I've got to refill the tank about twice a week now, because boy, they grow fast.

By the way---anybody know how you're supposed to harvest chives? That one pod has a lot of growth, but I've only snipped off a little bit. And how do you store it for future use? Dry it? Freeze it? gak!
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Ok, my personal Waaaah is done. From what I've read in emails etc, a lot of bad stuff has been happening to some friends around blogland this week. I'm so sorry, and will be down to visit pronto. :-(
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As a final note, I really thought that I've seen everything. Silly moi. For the man who has everything:

Here's something new. What twisted mind thought THIS up?


xoxox

ATM