cool beans

Note to self:

Next time you make salsa, wear some gloves. Also, take your contacts out before handling the peppers.

And also, write about making salsa before actually making salsa because burning hands are really not great for typing.

Note to everybody else:

I made salsa tonight for my family to enjoy over the long weekend. It’s hot enough to melt your face - or hands, apparently, right off. Good stuff, though.

I’m off to soak my hands in milk or something and pray my eyes don’t start burning anytime soon because my hands weren’t really burning when I took my contacts out. Ugh.



Happy Thanksgiving! Go eat something!

Things I didn’t get to write about and probably never will, but wanted to at least mention so I can remember them another time. Whew. Did ya get all that?

1. Beating my husband at poker - by BLUFFING! Ace high! You folded a pocket pair! Ahahahahaa! Neener, sucker.
2. Driving home a drunk person who insisted he was okay to drive even though he A)could no longer deal a hand of poker B)couldn’t figure out how to unlock the door C)believed I didn’t have his keys even though I had the key to his front door(?!).
3. Having an almost-clean house!
4. Taking down the sidecar crib.
5. Moving baby clothes into boxes to give away instead of saving for possible future baby.
6. Complete nervous breakdown over Items 4 & 5.

One thing I don’t want to write about but have been ordered to:

• My husband finally beat me at poker. Once. That ONE time. Whatever. You’re still a loser. Love you. Kiss kiss.

One thing I have to write so I feel better about that last thing:

• My husband helped me with a craft project. He’s a regular Martha Stewart, that one. Minus the money and criminal record.

In case there is someone left out there on Planet Earth who is lacking a gmail address, I have some invites.

If you’re going to take the plunge and buy that iPod you’ve been drooling over, you might want to make sure 1. you have something newer than Windows98 and 2. you purchase the actual model you want.

Or you’ll come home, unwrap the box, get so jazzed about using it you just have to play a game of Solitaire, set the date and time, finally read the instructions, and know the only thing this gadget will play is your breaking heart - because you are gizmo-challenged.

My back has been troubling me lately. For a while, it was sore but mostly just annoying and I was hoping it would go away. It’s gotten steadily worse and I have an appointment to see a chiropractor for the first time this afternoon.

Last night I was really suffering but there was a mountain of laundry to fold in my living room. I couldn’t just sit there looking at it. I had to fold it. So I wriggled my way out of the chair and onto the floor and instructed my six year-old to take her baby brother downstairs to play. I specified she should engage him in play until I told her I was done.

About five minutes before I was finished, they both came back upstairs. She insisted The Toddler wanted to come upstairs and I was too exhausted to fight. This is where things get ugly.

The Toddler and I wrestled for control of folded laundry piles. He dumped water on the kitchen floor. He sprayed himself with this stuff. I put him in the tub. Nearly lost my mind trying to get daughter to pick up her crayons and hair barrettes. Put daughter in charge of keeping toddler in tub. Hobbled downstairs to start one load of laundry. Noted oldest son had not put his jeans in the laundry room. Heard daughter screaming “NO! No! Stop that! That’s naughty! AHH! STOP!” Hobbled back upstairs. Found daughter in Lake Bathroom trying to sop up bathwater with toilet paper while toddler dumped water from the tub with the hair-rinsing cup.

Later, I had a some trouble with the oldest child lying to me about something really not worth lying about at all and then sobbing and insisting I’ve been mad not for just an evening but for a few days. If you’re thinking, “I bet that didn’t go over well” - you’re correct. It wasn’t one of my better mothering days, but to be fair, it wasn’t one of my kids’ better days, either.

GAH!

Heather - I want to write, but it’s been nearly impossible to find the time. Thank you for your comment. It’s motivated me to take a break this afternoon and record the good parts of my week and purge the bad ones.

We’ll start with the bad:

1. Unease at work this week. Seriously fretted over job security on Thursday.

2. House is still very untidy, unorganized, unclean, unholy.

3. My husband and I realized that suddenly a lot of bad things are happening around us.

4. See #1.

Now the good:

1. I still have a job to go to on Monday and my paranoia was probably just that.

2. I called the insurance company to see if they’ll cover replacing our carpet since we had that mercury problem.

3. Bad things aren’t happening directly to us. [Spits, knocks wood, locks family in fallout shelter.]

4. See #1

There was a fifth good thing last night, and that tips the scale to the good side, and that is…good.

Last night my sister and I went to a lovely little restaurant and enjoyed a lovely little dinner and wine tasting. The highlights were the squash soup, the salad paired with this wine, and my first taste of port. My sister is not crazy about wine, so I drank some of hers. I wish I hadn’t drank so much of her red - which I didn’t absolutely love, either - so I could have finished her port. (I thought it was this, but that’s not the label or bottle I remember. The label was much blurrier than that last night.)

Anyway, that was good good stuff. Unfortunately, I may have to wear my glasses when I’m going to be out boozing it up. Apparently I didn’t get my left contact deep enough into the well of the case and I sliced a bit of one edge off last night. Oopsie.

My husband and I are going to leave the children with their grandmother and we are going to a grown-up party tonight. Woohoo! Sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll!

Actually, we’ll be watching football, playing cards and stuffing ourselves with sloppy joes and booze.

In case I sound like a lush now, I AM! Hurray for drunk mommies! My husband and I have not decided what to drink Sunday through Thursday of this week and welcome suggestions. And donations. Please support your drunken blogger friends today.

Usually, I make my kids and their friends play outside because I believe children are supposed to play outside. Also, I am mean and I like a quiet house. And other kids have other germs. EW. There’s also that chance that if a child is playing in my house, the mother will come looking for him or her and will see the mess behind my front door. Oh, the horror.

Today, however, my daughter and her friends insisted it is just too chilly to play outdoors. They’re in here playing dress up with the clothes from my daughter’s drawers instead of the clothes designated for dress up. I’d complain and be all Mom-like, but they’re entertaining The Toddler. Whew!

As they were playing, I heard them talking about other kids from school. My daughter, who is missing her two front teeth and sounds just a little funny when she talks, said the following:

“J’s mom is really messed up. She smokes, she listens to loud music with really bad words in it and she lets him ride up front without a seat belt. All the time! They should be adopted sometime.”

Interesting. I don’t know who J is but now I’m DYING to find out. First grade is just so…scandalous!

I haven’t been drunk since the weekend The Toddler was conceived. I’ve had a drink or two here and there and felt tipsy, but not hammeredplasteredpissedup drunk.

Yesterday was one of the worst days ever at work. EVER. It totally sucked. So I decided that last night was a good time to break my 33-month run of relative sobriety.

Here are a few things I either learned or want to remember from last night:

1. If you are going to pretend to hump someone on the dance floor, you should really tuck your pockets in. If you are pretending to hump someone on the dance floor and your bright white pocket is sticking out of your too-tight jeans, I’m going to point and laugh.

2. If you are sitting at the next table and you see me pointing and laughing at someone, you should totally try to get on her. You see, when I point and laugh at someone UNTIL I’M CRYING, that means, “Hey attractive young man with nice shoes - you should be trying to fuck her. Yes. That one. Right there. Where I’m POINTING.”

3. If you have a giant whitehead on the back of your neck, please pop it before going out. Or I’ll gag thinking about it all day Saturday when I’m trying very hard not to throw up.

4. Also, shave your neck. You’re really cute from the front. And then the hair and the pimple. Gag. Gag.

5. Before going out for a night on the town, you should look at the Yahoo! Personals for your area. It makes the whole night seem a bit scandalous. Also, it’s a fun game. “How many can you spot first?” “Well, I’ve seen three so far. How about you?”

6. The Bartender will not put more rum in your Coke. Even if you ask for a drink with RUM in it.

7. We hate The Bartender.

8. When shopping for going-out clothes, you might see if the store has that top IN YOUR SIZE. They probably do. Try the next size up. Or three sizes up. Or admit that you’re shopping in the WRONG STORE.

9. As you’re walking through the crowded bar by yourself, you look so much cooler if you’re chugging your beer hard while you walk fast. Also, walk in a manner that says, “It’s crucial that I’m at another far away point in the bar RIGHT NOW.” It’s important to look important. In the bar.

10. The next day, realize that in wilder and stupider times, you have danced wildly and stupidly and thought you looked sexy and hot. Remember that you also have zero chance of scoring with that cute-from-the-front guy even if you were single and interested. Know it’s a very good thing The Bartender is a fuckwit who can’t make a drink, because if he could, you’d totally be throwing up from the memory of the throbbing neck zit. Gag. Instead of just gagging. (But continue to hate The Bartender.) Congratulate self on finding clothes that cover fatness but shop for cooler, fatness-covering garments. In appropriate size. Work on non-important, totally indifferent through-the-bar walking style. Practice in front of mirror if necessary.

Must find Advil. Hunt down coffee. Ingest Vitamin C. Now.

I spent more than an hour trying to get The Toddler to go to sleep tonight. Nothing was working, so I handed him over to his father to rock and cuddle night-night.

That didn’t work, either. He’s happy to be up and playing, but it’s very much past his bedtime and I’m not happy to have him up and playing. I need the hour after the children are strapped into their beds to regroup and rev up for tomorrow. That hour is never coming.

Ooh. Do you hear that?

I think he’s finally asleep.

Crap. He’s not.

This morning I had the following little nightmare:

I was desperate for a job and accepted a position with a mining company. At first, they seemed to be on the up-and-up and the Big Boss Man was very smooth and sophisticated and just plain cool.

As soon as I was hired on, I was given a gun. And then all hell broke loose.

I was to watch the workers in the field and it was my job to make sure they kept working. During my first two minutes on my first day in the field, a man stopped to wipe his brow and a shot rang out and ricocheted off some rocks and killed another man who hadn’t even thought about stopping.

I heard someone say, “Damn! Got the wrong one again.” and then chuckle.

So I told someone I trusted that I could live in the street and beg for change. And then I tried to escape. As I looked for a way out of the building we all lived in, I stumbled into the bedroom of Big Boss Man’s woman. She was watching him shower on a television. Not seeing me, she said, “There’s my man. Ooh, The Bishop is looking gooooooood today.” But as she was talking, she closed her eyes and didn’t see what I saw. “The Bishop” was shot in the neck. She opened her eyes and saw he’d gone off screen. Then a knock at the door. Someone calling her name. She suddenly saw me and hissed at me, “Don’t open that!” and ran.

I did, too. I ran up and down the stairwell looking for an exit. I found a pair of scissors and briefly thought I could use them as a weapon, but then decided I didn’t want to look like I needed a weapon. Every door was either a dead end or had armed men behind it. I was trapped.

Thankfully, that’s when I woke up.

I stumbled to the kitchen and poured myself a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles and logged on, hoping to shake off the terror of my bad dream.

And then I saw this.

Help me.