Friday, August 24, 2007

TFB Spot

Maybe the name of this blog should be changed to the TFB (too freaking boring) spot, because I've got nothing.

Seriously, my sense of humor seems to have vanished. Maybe I'll look for it under the couch. Everything else makes its way under there with the exception of me when I'm cleaning. If nobody can see it, it doesn't count right?

The kids all started school last week on the same day. This is big for us. They were all three on different schedules. The oldest was on a traditional. The youngest was traditional but with different vacation times than the oldest. The middle child was on year-round school. Finally all the school districts decided to work together. Imagine that! All three kids will have vacation at the same time. (I think.)

It won't matter with the oldest. She graduates in June and I'm sure she will be wiping the dust off her feet and moving on to bigger and better things. Or maybe not. But she won't want to vacation with us, that's a given.

She is at that age where one wakes up excited in the morning. You never know when you're a young person if something fun might happen that day. Maybe you'll get invited to a party or meet a cute guy.

All the firsts in life are exciting. Then you get to my age and the only excitement consists of the toilet overflowing or finding a fiver in the pocket of somebody's pants when you're doing the laundry. whoopee.

Maybe instead of the TFB Spot, I should call this the Whiny Wanker Spot. Or maybe I should call it Blog by Schleprock.

Where was I? Yes, the kids are back in school.

Azure already brought home the first cold of the year and shared it with yours truly. Funny how she won't share her toys but she's quite generous with the germs. That's my girl.

I was supposed to go to Azure's and Sammy's separate back to school nights last night and I didn't. I am sick. It was hot. My nose was running and my shirt was stuck to my armpits. Not only did I not go, my mommy guilt failed to kick in. This is a positive step in my evolution, at least I feel that way.

Another psotive step in my evolution was going to community college yesterday morning and signing up for a night class. I'm number two on the wait list so I hope they'll take me. It's on Monday nights from seven to ten. Since I have trouble staying awake past eight-thirty, this should be interesting. On the bright side, it's not math. I finished college math ten years ago and remember not a bit of it. Sine, cosine, whatever!

It will be nice to start learning again. If I can tough out this class, I will have priority registation next semester. Maybe I'll even decide what I want to be. I've already changed my mind again since yesterday.

I have been rolling my eyes at Jasmine. She wants a job. Only she doesn't want to work weekends. She doesn't want to lift over fifty pounds. She doesn't want to work in a fast food restaurant. She doesn't want work to interfere with the school play she's going to be in.

She wants a job where she can get paid to breathe and spout stupid opinions. Unfortunately for her she wasn't born a Hilton.

Now I am going to change the subject completely. I never shared the story of the man I saw some months ago.

I was in the left turn lane. He pulled up into the left turn lane next to me. He had his windows down and some crappy music blasting.

When a person is 16 and still relatively immature, I can get the fact that they share their music with everyone. They can't imagine how anyone could not enjoy what they're listening to.

When a person is an adult, they are saying they don't give a crap if you like their music. You are going to hear it anyway.

When the light turned green, I took off pretty fast due to the fact I didn't want to hear his crap music.

Through a series of unfortunate traffic events, I ended up behind him sitting at a light. Now he had smoke coming out his window and his music assaulting my ears.

He then threw an empty plastic bottle of Mountain Dew out of his window right into the median. It seems the only trash allowed in his 1980's era Grannymobile was sitting in the driver's seat.

The final irony was his bumper sticker. It said Proud to be an American. Oh good grief. If only we could deport those kind of Americans to another county.

But really, who'd want 'em?

Wait, isn't Maxine that crabby old lady on the birthday cards? Maybe this could be the Madder than Maxine Spot! Or I could go short and simple and name it WAH. What do y'all think?

Maybe I'll go rub myself all over with bologna and play with Cecil. That might put us all out of our misery.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Kids, The Other White Meat

It has turned out that Boots is not our biter. It's Cecil.

Azure had a friend over last week. I put the dogs in the house while they played in the yard. Sammie let the dogs out.

Cecil made a beeline for the kid and started bouncing up on him biting him. The kid started screaming. Cecil got even more excited and started biting him more. I screamed at the dog and it was like he didn't even hear me. My husband and I ran in the yard and he grabbed Cecil.

I don't want my dog to hurt any more children and obviously this is a liability we can't have.

He needs to be neutered which we can afford. But he also needs a trainer which would run about six-hundred bucks. That we can't afford.

I know we have to do this. I'm also aware that I don't have enough time to spend with my dogs or my kids and three dogs are too many.

But I whelped this dog. He follows me around the house laying at my feet. Do I spend enough time with him? No. But the way he greets me in the morning, the way he looks in my eyes, all those things make me feel like a big betrayer.

And I'm sad.

He needs to be posted on petfinder soon. I think it's like pulling off a band-aid. It just has to be done. Oh, but ouch.

Saturday, August 18, 2007




There is nothing post-worthy here.

Life has been utter shyte lately. A good cure for the shytes is to take your kids someplace fun so I did.

We went to Fairytale Town in Sacramento. It met my main requirement. It's fully fenced. There was no way for Mr. Runs-a-lot to escape me and dart into traffic.

The kids had a great time. Mr. Runs-a-lot tried to escape when it was time to leave. I had the joy of lugging him like a sack of potatoes while he screamed his displeasure. At least I know he had fun.

Cheers.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Looks So Cute, Smells So Bad

It was the evening of July 25th. My husband turned on the shower for me. I ran down the hallway peeling off my clothes and he said, "Get the hell away from me!"

Perhaps I'll start at the beginning. I was giving a bath to Sammy when I smelled an ungodly stench. I looked around the bathroom for Cecil but he wasn't there.

The rest of the family began noticing the smell. It was beyond horrendous.

Now Mandy takes her job very seriously. Mandy's self-appointed job is to patrol the backyard and make sure that no other critters are in it. She chases squirrels, birds, lizards and the occasional cat. On July 25th Mandy caught herself a skunk.

Have you ever driven down the road and smelled a skunk? I'm telling y'all that's nothing. NOTHING!

When a skunk has sprayed in the immediate vicinity of your house, it is a stench beyond imagination. My husband compared it to being at ground zero when a bomb explodes, a bomb of rotting corpses. He called it peutronium.

Have you ever watched the old Pepe LePeau cartoons? The person who drew those had once smelled a skunk. I guarantee it.

Holy moly. I got Sammie out of the tub. I grabbed my purse to go to the store. Both girls insisted on going with me to avoid the smell. Only the funny thing was that we couldn't drive away from the smell. Even though the windows of my car had been up, the smell permeated the car. There was no escape.

We went into the store to buy some de-stinking materials. Then we came to another realization. WE smelled like skunk. I was laughing so hard I almost peed myself. Jasmine was beyond embarrassed.

Once we got home, I mixed a brew to clean the dogs with. Boots and Mandy were the victims, Mandy foremost. Cecil had been inside.

My husband gave me a mask for my face. I went in the garage and called the two very freaked-out dogs to me. They didn't want to hold still for their cleansing. Mandy was the worse. It was an eye-watering smell. I did the best I could and then I tackled Boots. After their "baths" I hosed them off in the backyard.

I told my husband to start the shower because I was coming in. When I came in, peeling off my clothes, he told me to keep the hell away from him. And there I was hoping for a back scrub.

Here's another tidbit that highlights my total ignorance. I always thought the smell of a skunk stuck to dogs because they had fur. I assumed the smell would wash off human skin. So I didn't wear gloves when I cleaned the dogs. Wanna guess whose hands smelled like piss for three days?

While I showered, my husband made hotel reservations. The house was unbearably smelly. There was no way we could have stayed home.

We drove to the motel. It was well past midnight. We stunk and our vehicles stunk. What an impressive family we were.

Everybody elsed showered once we got in the room. I went to the store again to see if I could find something to get the smell off my hands. It was fruitless.

The dogs still stink after countless baths and de-stinking. The backyard still stinks.

Do skunks even have natural predators? Can anything get around the stink to eat these.

I'm guessing not because it has been a banner year around here for the little buggers. I used to see them and think they were so cute. But just like a newborn baby with a soiled diaper, the cuteness fools you until the smell comes up and sucker punches you. GACK!

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Positivity

Ty challenged us to post the positive things about our lives on our blogs. So here goes.

We have a two-hundred dollar electric bill. I'm glad we didn't buy one of those big houses with vaulted ceilings or we would have an eight-hundred dollar electric bill.

The kids broke my treadmill. I will be forced to go to the gym and exercise therefore getting my money's worth for that pricey monthly payment.

My car has no air conditioning and the weather is beastly hot. It keeps me from going out and spending money because I refuse to drive around in this heat. Maybe the money we're saving can go towards a down payment on a car that doesn't look like it belongs to the Joads.

I'm losing muscle tone faster than Paris Hilton loses her panties. This motivated me to lift weights yesterday.

We're still waiting for the police to show up so the house is moderately clean.

My son has been pooping about four times a day. It's a good thing the diapers are free.

I have to get a dental crown this month. It's going to cost four-hundred bucks. If we didn't have insurance, it would be twice that.

The kids are bored and whiny. However, school starts in a week and a half.

Homeowner's insurance and property taxes are coming up. But my husband watered the money tree in the back yard and it's growing quite nicely.

There, I feel much better. LOL