Natural disasters, your personal preferences

Depending on where you live in the US you're usually going to be near some sort of natural disaster area, even Hawaii is a volcano, everything in the north gets snow and as far as I'm concerned snow is a natural disaster. You've got the earthquakes in Cali, the entire tornado belt (don't people know God doesn't like mobile homes?) and hurricanes in Florida and all over the gulf. Everywhere you're going to deal with floods and/or fires. Really, no matter where you go in the US it's just a pick your poison type deal. You're going to have to suck it up and buy some sort of insurance on your house, or just get all insurance on your house, you might as well. You could be in the middle of the high desert and end up flooding, it does happen.
Yet we don't really expect some things. Take earthquakes. Being from So Cal I don't think anything of them. To me they are like foot massages. San Diego does not lie on a fault line. San Francisco is a fault line, as is the San Fernando Valley. Stay the hell away from these places people, trust me on this one. Yet people still ask me if the earthquakes freak me out. Oh hell no, unless you live on an actual fault line it's just a foot massage. No really it is! But these midwesterners are scared shitless of earthquakes and then they go out and chase tornadoes, WTF? I'm sorry come again? And the foot massages freak you out? Oh pulease.
So I'm flitting on CNN, because I have, for the 3rd time this week, had my work instrument take a header (really expensive high tech instruments do 1 thing very well, break. Often) and I come across this article:

Several earthquakes rattle Texas, Oklahoma

Hehehe, OK does anyone else find humor in this? Because I though it was friggin FUNNY. Not only is it like the tornado capital but it gets earthquakes too. KICK ASS! DOUBLE YOUR MONEY!
Yeah ok so I have a sick sense of humor and find a lot of it in other people's poor choices in living areas. Like New Orleans, hello, below sea level, get a life stupids! No pity for you. Yeah I know, I'm such a bleeding heart, not. That's why I chose the cities to live in that I have. Forthought people forthought!

The Great Cloth Diaper Hunt!

What the hell are you talking about Michelle? Yeah ya'll knew I had strange hobbies but this one is a little off kilter even for me since (obviously) I don't have any babies in my household. I would have mentioned a baby on my blog at some point right? Yeah I know but I have this friend you see (Danae) and she runs a mommy forum and she's all into the cloth diapering thing which I would be into also had I a baby (which I DON'T). She has a store too with her wares, Night Sky Kids and it's going to be part of The Great Cloth Diaper Hunt. Which is a once a year online treasure hunt.
OK so the prizes are cloth diapers and that type stuff that most of us non baby having people really don't give a rat's patootie about but me and Anna (the mistress of all treasure hunts) helped Danae out last year with and it was insanely fun. Emphasis on insane. And frustrating which just means they did a really great job of hiding that little icon you're supposed to find. It's a diaper but to us it looks like an owl so we just call it an owl. We were absolutely fiendishly looking for that owl on some sites. They have some that are 'extreme' and lemme tell you, it's hard finding that sucker. On one site I just had to float the cursor over everything until I noticed it turn from a pointer to a hand and that's where it was. It took awhile to find that one....
Anyway we are doing it again this year only this time Danae's store is participating so we are going to come up with her clues. How fun is that? Oh yeah, behind the scenes, where we get to move the icon around every week or so and confuse those people who are cheating and calling their friends to find out where we hid our little owl icon. Of course we are doing the same, we have a spreadsheet we are keeping track of where everything is because hey, spread the love! Anyway what are the chances of winning these things anyway? We found each and every one of the icons last year and did we win? Oh hell no but dang was it fun!
So if you're into treasure hunts as fiendishly as we are I encourage you to go on this one. It runs the month of November and yes, it'll take you the entire month but it'll entertain you for that whole damn month! That way you can also email me for hints (or just flat out say I can't find it, give me the answer!) and we can chat it up like I always seem to do with everyone that emails me. It usually ends up being a long email chain of so and so found such and such because there are so many different hints to get though one website. We make it work though and eventually we'll find it. Or it gets moved and someone else finds it for us!
So join in if you'd like, I'll randomly post updates of funniness even if you don't care, it's a highly amusing trek of where's Waldo like proportions plus you get to learn about a whole different world of greenie tree hugging cloth diapering (oh and mama pad wearing) peoples out there. Occasionally you get some other odd website too, like last year I think they had some website hosting site or maybe she made websites proper. I can't remember, regardless there are a lot of work at home mom types that do this so it's very cool. It's a nice way of promoting one's business too!

I hate to have to do this

but it's come down to it. I have turned on comment moderation. I now am having to approve comments before they come up. So if you comment and now notice that it doesn't automatically immediately come up that's why. I know, I know, it's irritating and offensive, it drives me nuts too but it's come down to it. There's this guy, a whackadoodle mental patient from Australia that apparently is off his meds that spams Pam (Sobriety is Exhausting) like 112 times a day and he's followed some of her readers around and now here he is. Oh and this other lovely scrawney ass lady that, quite frankly, just annoys me enough that I don't need her in my own little world of ME. And hey, since it's my world I can say that. As for the rest of you all that I know and love, feel free to criticize at will. I will always publish whatever you have to say about me. Why? Because you always come back and talk and converse. Creative criticism and discussion, I love it. People that do nothing but get their panties in a wad? Well I think they just need to get off the internet, it's too grown up for them, they need more therapy before going out into the big kid world. There are just those people out there and sadly, that's why Google made comment moderation.

3 1/2 days of Chemistry!!

I got to work for a whole 3 1/2 days, it was great! And then, nothing. Yeah the instrument broke, ah the life of a mass spectrometrist. This really should not be any big surprise to me, and it isn't. It was just so nice to be able to get to work again. I really do like being a chemist, it's an awesome fun job. When the mass spec isn't taking a shit. Damn instrument. For those of you that can't remember I was hired on around my birthday, May 28th, and they did not have a sufficient lab set up. So we had to get permitting done blah blah blah and I've been coming to work every day and clocking in just waiting around for them to get it all done. Almost 5 months later I get it set up and the damn instrument decides it's not going to be agreeable. Typical. So now I wait until a service engineer can make it out. It could be awhile but now you have me back again, flitting about the internet here annoying people at random...

Hey I like this early voting thing!

Have I been asleep all these years? Or did they not have early voting in California? I did vote. Every election I did vote. I voted by mail a few times but I did vote. I just don't ever remember there being an early vote option. Last week a co-worker told me to stop by my library on my way home and get it done so I wouldn't have to wait in the lines on election day. I had my husband do it on his day off (since his hours are JACKED) and he thought it was nifty so I went in last Friday on my way home. WAY easy and QUICK. Yeah won't be doing it old school any more. This way is definitely the way to go. GET OUT THERE AND VOTE PEOPLE. Early vote, vote by mail, do whatever you need to do to get it done but for the love of god get it done because if you haven't noticed the system as it stands needs some help and now is the time. Voice your opinion. Even if it is different than mine. Notice how I didn't give you my opinion? You won't hear it here boys and girls, I don't do political rants here. That happens on the hubby's blog. If I felt like putting out the effort on the useless pieces of crap that are running for office. I know, you have to vote for someone but damn the pickings get slimmer and slimmer ever friggin election I swear. If you want my opinions you can probably go to the link for Margaret and Helen in my side bar. That 82 year old woman is so dead on I love her, she rocks. Some day I want to get old and be just like her. Knowing my luck I'll probably piss somebody off long before I get old and they'll kill me. Most likely somebody I know though so I'm ok with that. At least then I won't have to listen to these moronic politicians anymore...

Did I ever tell ya'll?

Because my dh hears it constantly. I can't stand My Space. That system/area/what ever the hell it's called drives me nuts. Eons ago I tried setting up my own page and I just never got the hang of it. I just assumed I was an idiot and let it die. I had a friend walk me through making a background and had it look kind of right but it was such a pain in the ass. All I wanted was a space I could write in and put stuff up in. I don't know, maybe I'm just too old for it. It's a younger generation thing? Too much flashy shit on it and getting all your friends listed and scrolling down one side and all that crap. So somewhere out there I do have and old dead My Space page, I have no idea what it's called or what the sign in for it is. It's maybe 2 years old.

I have a friend who owns a paintball field and 3 paintball stores. They had a My Space page because all of their clientele are well, lets face it, children. Guess what happened? They got a virus from their My Space page and it ate their computer. It's like having a My Space page is like having unprotected sex with a bunch of college frat/sorority members, why? Dude, grow up and move on to a more stable system. I have another friend who just last week got a hold of me to ask me what other platforms are out there because her granddaughter had set her up on a My Space page and it was being hacked into. Gah! I said why the hell are you on My Space!? Yeah so she's having it shut down and is starting up something else on some other platform.

So why am I ranting today? Because I spent the morning flitting about on a bunch of My Space pages remembering what I had hated so much about them. They are so...high school...with their icon pictures that are more than half the time not even the people that are using them. The lists of 'friends' that scroll down 500 miles long, oh and the friggin backgrounds that I find impossible to read against if I am lucky enough to find something intelligible on the page that makes up a whole sentence much less a paragraph. It's like a patch of this a patch of that something stuck out here maybe more like an adhd kid on crack went at a MS Paint screen and had at it. The OCD in me can't make sense of My Space. I think for that reason I never even bothered looking at Facebook. So to this day when someone asks me if I have My Space page I so want to say to them something like, no I'm a card carrying adult. I look up words I don't know how to spell so I can actually spell them correctly rather than just sounding them out and putting them up and assuming other people know what I'm talking about. Talk about old school, I can spell, how novel....

Amazing what you can squeeze into a morning

Yeah it was D Day, the kid's Build A Bear birthday party at 11 am, the Fall Plant Swap at 9 am, and you know I still needed to get the cupcakes, and the pizza, dh had to remember to bring the camera and the drinks, oh and the kid right? It was a success, we got it all done.

I had him pull out the 2 roses I wanted out of my garden yesterday (he's a sweetie like that)so I could give them away. Why was I getting rid of 2 perfectly fine roses you ask? Well they didn't match my garden. They were hybrid teas, my others are David Austins. Plus Queen Elizabeth is just so...upright...she's like 10ft tall and 2 ft wide. She looks terrible next to everything else. And Rio Samba? Gads I have a no spray garden and every spring when her first bloom comes the thrips hit her so bad that there's a veritible cloud of them so thick you can't see the bush through it. I hack her completely down to the ground and 2 months later she grows back and the thrips are gone. Not my kind of rose, too much work. So out they went and my friend Patty had graciously offered to take the girls and give them a new home at her place. Oddly enough the dh said they were easily pulled from their holes and potted to be moved, suffering very little damage. Queen Elizabeth had to be cut down quite a bit, she was like 8+ feet tall and we were not going to try to stick that in the car but there was plenty of plant left. Of course I didn't even make it there until like 10 am, late much? It's a perpetual in my life. Good thing I don't live in the country, all my animals would be dead.

I left there pretty quickly after depositing the roses with their new owner and made my way back towards the party, hitting up 2 stores. 1 for the Halloween cupcakes the dd requested and a cheese pizza for the kids to eat. Oh and the plates and napkins too. DH brought drinks from home so between the 2 of us we had everything covered. Oh yeah this was waaaay easier than last year. So by about 11:30 I was able to get there and meet up with a group of gleeful girls putting some of the funniest combos of clothing on stuffed animals. We had a bunny with pants that couldn't be pulled up over his low low bunny tail so he had low rider pants on. There was a pink teddy bear with a red cheerleader outfit (color co-ordinate much?), dd's was a orange cat with an oddly sleazy wedding dress on. It came with a baby kitten that she put the blue garter around to make it look like a skirt (?). If you've ever gone to Build A Bear you'd know that the place has some of the cutest outfits you could ever come up with in ten thousand varieties. How in God's green earth these girls chose these is beyond me. We stood there watching them like 'OhhKaaaay, lookin goood' ahh the power of young kids and their style choice. It made them happy though so we just let them have at it.

Featured on the front page of Hooping.org on her birthday!

It's the dd's birthday today and she was featured on the front page of Hooping.org via my blog post! Of course I was working all day and I had no idea. I came and checked my email a few times and was wondering why in the world I was getting these comments on an older blog post but it took me until this evening before I was able too track it down. She was absolutely delighted and thinks they put her up there special just for her birthday. We're going with that one and not telling anyone otherwise.

Tonight we opened a few presents including the deluge of bento box goodness the lovely Anna Marie had sent us from San Diego (she LOVED the pink lady bug box) and all the cute little monkeys. She got a science monster making kit from us and got to vivisect the first monster she made (per her request), it was gross. Yeah, we bred a science geek, we're proud.

For those of you who love dogs

Frenchies in particular, this company has a frenchie, Mayor Jack Reynolds, as the office mascot and also the VP of Security & Integrity and he has made these little movie spoofs. Dang adorable. Cute little snippits and this dog, well, he's a frenchie. We think they are adorable, it's why we continue to create this poor deformed breed! Ya'll do realize they are artificially inseminated and c-sectioned right? This is the epitome of abby-normal breeding at it's finest. Enjoy, they are adorable little movies!

Alexander Interactive starring Mayor Jack Reynolds

D day is coming...

The kid's birthday is tomorrow and thank the gods that be we are not doing what we did last year. Were any of you around for that one? The one where invited like 15 kids over to the house? Told the families to bring the siblings too and we'd have a jumpy thing, pinata and food? Ended up with 68 kids and their parents? It was a BALL and wonderful and turned out great yeah not a parking spot to be had on the street. Amazingly enough didn't run out of food, everyone had a great time, we were the talk of the town. Lasted for hours and the kids loved it. Our kid was pissed because we didn't let her open her presents until everyone left but you know, her life is sooo hard. Pffft. Whatever. It was the party to end all parties. The dh and I managed to clean it all up within 30 minutes of everyone leaving too. I don't know how we pulled that one off but we are not doing that one again. No way man. This year we swore we were going low key and not cleaning the house oh hell no. The house is a mess and it is staying that way. Until like, forever or something. I am lacking in the motivation and I know the dh is too. Anyone keeping up with the Senator of Texas having a hissy fit over the TDCJ? Yeah welcome to my world you political prick. He is making life a wee bit hard on all the correctional officers of Texas so I know the dh is not at all motivated by the time he gets home. I suspect many of his co-workers are going to be quitting and jumping ship so it's going to get worse.

Sorry I got distracted, again. I'll have many more posts on that subject on days to come. You know I will. And they'll probably be angry rants, don't you love my angry rants? They'll probably be more of them on they hubby's blog too (check out over there, I've been having friends of ours guest blog for him, hehehe).

This year we are doing Build A Bear (on Saturday, not tomorrow). Ah the relief of paying some place to do it all for you. A set small number of children walk into a building and are herded by an employee and told what to do and there you go. So she is going with 5 other girl friends to put together some bears and do their thing there. No mess no fuss in our home and I don't have to bother setting up or taking down. Yeah it's worth it.

Pictures for you!

Why? Well because the hubby is at home snapping away and sending them to me randomly....



I will eat your camera.....

Movie review time!

Today the kid decided she wanted to go with her gf to a church thing so the dh and I took the uncharacteristic free time to go watch some gratuitous sex and violence on the big screen. Well mostly violence, I don't think there was any sex, just sexy mostly undressed women and drugs. Not for real drugs, manufactured not for real drugs.

The dh chose the movie and he picked Max Payne. He is a big fan of Max Payne the computer game. Unlike most men who like on line gaming with other people he prefers the ones that he can play and not have to deal with other people that get irritated with you flitting on and off or being on at certain times of the day. No he just wants to go and play at will when ever he feels like it. I don't play video or computer games at all, sadly I get vertigo. Really, it's amazing I can even drive a car. I am sometimes able to look over his shoulder and see what the games look like but not for long, the screen movement makes me ill. The kid isn't allowed to watch at all, Max Payne is much to violent a game.

The movie? Did not disappoint. Very violent, pretty pictures. Oh and the imagery, perfect, loved the hallucinations. Even the plot line was good and up with the times. Mark Wahlberg now that one I never thought would make a good actor. Boy did he prove me wrong. I have consistently been impressed with his acting capabilities and accomplishments. Yeah I know it's a loooong way from Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch huh? Don't even start, I didn't pick the movie I'm just saying he's come a long way baby. He's good enough in this movie to go see though, if you're into that type of movie that is. Good movie, great entertainment, go see it if you have a free afternoon with out an underage kid!

Jack's Frightmare Forest at Sea World's Howl-O-Scream

Which resulted in a most entertaining Saturday 11pm filled with the 6 yr old dd screaming
DADDY PICK ME UP PICK ME UP PICK ME UP AAAAAAAAACCCKKKKKK PICK ME UUUUPPPPP AAAAAAAAAAAAA
Which I loved. Damn it was funny. I am a big fan of Halloween, it's my fav holiday. I do have to physically restrain myself from hitting the ghouls they have dressed up and lurking and almost touching you whilst walking around. Really when at an amusement park or just out if someone comes up to you and touches you the instinct is fight or flight right? I'm 5'1", my legs are short, flight is useless so I've learned to just try to beat the crap out of people trying to leach on me. I am proud to say I didn't beat up any of the hired help at said theme park last night. It took considerable effort and restraint though. I did not want to spend my Saturday night waiting in a 2 hour line to get in to a haunted house. No really, I didn't. The dh for some reason had assumed I thought it'd be a great idea and I'd be all for it. I think he popped some of the dogs Prozac for lunch, I dunno. I do know he knows me better than that. Men. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be though, I figured it would be one of those typical jump out and scare you haunted houses, and they did have a lot of jump out and scare you people hidden in there but they were wonderfully creative about it. We were impressed and that's saying something. When it comes to Halloween stuff we're pretty hard to impress, we've worked them before and been to a bazillion of them. Like everyone else out there right?

The kid, well now, that's always going to be fun. She's just about to turn 7 this week, it's all new to her. We hadn't been through one with her yet and we hadn't been in this one so we didn't know if it would be too much for her. We let her watch some films that are a bit mature compared to what other parents let their kids watch so we know she's not a scaredy cat. We watch Japanese animation (not as conservative as American stuff, it's odd and obscure for those of you who don't watch that type stuff) and she watches it too. She watches Nightmare Before Christmas and that's a bit hardcore too but it doesn't scare her. But the haunted house, damn it was soooo funny to take her through it. It wasn't too scary at all. I could not stop laughing through the entire thing. Oh yeah, he daddy carried her the entire time just in case it was too much for her. At one point we thought it was almost the end and there was a clear space that looked like a pumpkin patch so he set her down. Yeah that was waaay cool. Turns out there were some people dressed in burlap sacks behind the hay bales to jump out and scare you. Hehe that's when she started screaming for her daddy to pick her up again. And he just crouched down with her and kept laughing for a bit so she could get a little of the experience. See now that is what Halloween is all about. Listening to small child scream in terror for their parents while their parents laugh at them.

I must say that going stupid late at night added to the experience. Their zombie/ghouls were FABULOUS, loved the costumes and the acting. They did a great job. They had one that was dragging a shovel, sounds like a simple prop but it was a great idea. The sound it made was creepy and scared the crap out of you in the dark. I wouldn't even bother going for the experience during the day. Nope, we're going to have to go next Friday or Saturday night again...looks like the kid is going to be pulling a couple more late nighters this month!

Bought music

How long has it been since I've actually gone into a store and purchased a physical cd? Awhile, let me tell ya. We've joined the modern age, we usually just get the occasional song on iTunes because really, who likes an entire album? People like one or 2 songs on an album so we might as well just get those 2 and shine the rest. The dh was flitting about the internet and found this new rendition of the soundtrack of The Nightmare Before Christmas, it has all those lovely songs that Danny Elfman wrote (love that man) redone by some interesting folk. Like Lock, Shock and Barrel's song Kidnap Sandy Claws is re-done by Korn. Oh hell yeah that's a good twisted song, excellent choice of artist. The Jack and Sally Montage is done by The Vitamin String Quartet, just lovely, and Amy Lee from Evanesence does Sally's Song, oh I love her voice. On an interesting twist, and I mean interesting, they had the Yoshida Brothers do Nabbed and it's a wild mix of classic Japanese instrumentation and hip hop music. I like it, oddly so does the kid. Hey if it can span that kind of generation gap it must be good right? All in all I say they did a great job with this one, if you are a fan of scores and liked the movie (yeah, it's an odd movie, we are an odd family) I'd totally recommend it.




Ooo and I bought a second cd too! This one was a stretch, we had no intentions of buying this one. We had to go to iTunes and listen to every single tract before we were convinced. We are both old skool Metallica fans from waaay back in the day. The last cd I bought of there's was St Anger, the one they wrote after their therapy sessions that saved the band. It sucked, therapy was the worst thing they could have done for their music. Could not stand that cd, it was the worstest. So when the dh heard the latest song on the radio and was all happy about it I blew him off. I was an unbeliever. I had to listen to every little snippit in iTunes before I got on board with buying it. Plus it goes for like $20 retail. Well it's on sale at Best Buy online, not in the store people. Like $11.99. OK I was game, so I got it. For the dh of course. I could have gotten it on iTunes for about the same price but he doesn't have an iPhone/iPod and he's the one that wanted the cd so I was being nice. I do that sometimes. Be nice. Shhh don't tell anyone, I try not to let that get out.

Thing to note, both these cd's, cheaper to buy them on line at Best Buy and pick them up in the store. I don't know why, you can't buy them in the store for the same price, it's stupid and retarded, makes no sense whatsoever.

Angry White Female

So the kid is in after school care. Just about every day I go to pick her up she has the same counselor, a young woman, comes to me to give me a report of some such when I arrive. She scraped her knee, she tore a piece of paper, blah blah blah, she needs a band aid. My dd is a DRAMA QUEEN, she gets it from her father. I know, I know, she should have gotten it from her mother but she didn’t. Anyone that knows her parents knows this, she got it from her father. It’s also where she got her fashion sense, good thing too because if she got it from me she’d never make through her high school years unless she joined the mens hockey team. No lie. God’s honest truth, he does her hair better than me too, he’s just fashion conscious like that. You can tell the mornings that he gets her ready, her hair is nice and she doesn’t have food on her face. Oh and she’s there on time. Hey at least I’m honest. I get here there eventually and she’s fed. And I make sure the cafeteria bill is paid she gets lunch. He actually makes her lunch all fancy the way she likes it. If she wants a homemade lunch when I take her to school she actually makes it herself, it’s amazing. Did you know 6 yr olds can make their own lunches? Necessity, the mother of invention, I’m tellin ya. Or rather bad mothers, they make for self sufficient children? Something like that.
But anyway, after school care, this time I had notification that the dd had been attacked. Yeah apparently some girl named Trinity had not wanted to share something and had grabbed my dd by the front of her collar and tossed her around. Damn that child was lucky my dh had not been there to pick the kid up, he would have been rabid. My dd was all forlorn about the matter, like woe is me. I, of course, asked her what they were fighting over, and she just mentioned some sort of thing that had been found by the kids, a glove of some sort of little consequence and was not a matching set and did not have an owner? Yeah, real important stuff to fight over, ahh elementary school yard brawls. She did mention that Trinity doesn’t like her at all though, interesting that she’s never mentioned this girl before. So I asked her what she did which apparently was nothing. We don’t have a terribly aggressive child. Unbeknownst to most of you I’m sure (hahaha) I’m a kind of dominant personality and I don’t tolerate much rif raf from the child or any one in my home for that matter. It does have it’s consequences, she doesn’t assert herself when push comes to shove. Now you get her in a public speaking situation and that’s a whole different matter. She’ll give you a lecture like nobody’s business. You’ll get the ”Excuse me, it’s my turn to speak” all nice and proper like a lady. Now what she needs to learn is what to do when pushed. When that person doesn’t listen to the excuse me it’s my turn to speak and you have to give them the what for. It takes a bit more social experience to learn what to do in these situations so I’m ok with the fact that she doesn’t know what to do yet. Personally these are the times where I shine but of course it’s taken me a good long while to get there and she hasn’t been able to see me at my bright and shiny moments. Or maybe loud and scary is a better descriptive for them. Regardless it takes a bit of flair and we are going to working on the girls social aggression skills for situations such as these.
When the dh got home that evening we told him about the Trinity altrication and he was flabbergasted, as I expected. So I told him maybe it was time to teach the kid some offensive/defensive skills and he agreed but then asked me if I was ok with the consequences. ? And so I was like what? Apparently he had been picked on as a youngin and his mom had told his dad to teach him the same thing (his dad was a Marine, he knew a few fighting skills) and the dh proceeded to kick but the next time a spat came up at school. Consequently he got in trouble at school. And his mom got upset. ? His mom, the pacifist. My answer tothat? Make your bed you’d better be ready to lay in it babe. If that happens to my kid I’m going to tell the school where they can stick it. Hell I’ll tell them just how far up they can stick it too. No honey I’m not worried about the consequences of teaching the kid to kick another child’s ass if she gets attacked. If I was there and had time I’d make popcorn and cheer her on, it’s not like the girls are actually going to hurt each other.

So we tried teaching the kid what to do if another girl grabbed her collar. Hah! Yeah that worked real well. Not. She’s not a very aggressive child, did I mention that? Yeah I sometimes wonder if there’s much of me in her other than a bit of facial features. She’s got her daddy’s body, his drama queen, his left handedness, a lot of his odd behaviors, stubbornness, quirks, did I mention DQ? And none of my aggression. None. Yeah we tried, didn’t show her anything really attack like just like push right here and she was not going for it. Kids everywhere are taking karate lessons and we can’t get ours to do a dang thing. Odd that she’s mine…

UPSIDE DOWN DOGS

iz gud

Upside down dogs

Guest posting on the DH's blog again

Don't you just love it when I reign over his parade?

Much too dark too early

Do you realize we're turning our clocks back later this year? Like in November? Oy and it's really dark out in the morning! Which tells me I just need to be getting up later right? Not possible when I need to get the dd to school at 7:40 in the morning, ugh. Here's the problem with that and it took me until this morning to figure out what the hell the problem was, ya'll are going to find this funny too.

I wash my face ever morning and night and I moisturize. Now before you think I'm one of those primping kinda gals don't even go there, I only wear make up and blow dry hair for 3 occasions: weddings, funerals, and graduations. Thank God I try my best to avoid all 3 at all costs. Most of the time I only go to my own of all 3 and hopefully I'll only go to that middle one of mine once and I'll be in ashes for that one so it'll be an easy primp right? So anyway the face washings, I wash and then moisturize with an eye cream and either a daily moisturizer with spf 15 or a night cream in the evening. The eye cream is the same for morning and evening. Well for the past few mornings I've been applying my night cream. In the morning. And then looking down and going, WTF? Why did I just put on night cream? Totally different jars, like completely. One is a pump and the other is a jar. Really hard to confuse.

This morning I've figured it out. It's friggin dark outside. Like hella dark. I'm awake and all, it's after my shower so I'm up but damn it all if it's not pitch black still outside and cold which my body is sooo not used to. I grew up in So Cal. Land of moderate slow change of temperatures and seasons. Well no real change of seasons really. Out here it goes from HOT to COLD. Friggin A man WTF? Moderation anyone? Nope, not here, this is the midwest. Or something, I dunno. Texas man I don't get it. We're starting our 3rd year here and you'd think I'd be getting used to it but it's like a slap in the face. A shocking reminder every time it happens. And then I think "Duh, Texas, not So Cal". It'll still be in the 80's during the day though, just 50 in the evenings and the mornings. It amazes me that plant life still survives in this weather. Shows a great deal of tenacity because if I had to live outside I'd just roll over and die. I just do not have that type of tenacity. It's one of the many reasons the dh does not bother asking me if I want to go camping. Ha! Yeah, no.

I don't dress up for Halloween

Why? Pure laziness. And poverty. If I had tons of cash to blow on a really cool outfit I'd only wear once I'd probably be cool with my own wedding too but if you'd just ask my dh you'd know I didn't groove on that whole shebang either. Why don't guys listen when you say the words "Elope to Vegas"? Anyway the costume, I know there are those who do it every year, that's nuts! If I had my choice I like the stuff that's done as a group, like when people do all of the cast of the Wizard of Oz or that type thing. I was flitting on the internet (as per the usual, duh) and remembered this seller on ebay, Wearydrearies, I used to love and my friend (the one with the clean desk) found her stuff on a website. Of course she had some stuff up that had a Halloween theme. Dresses she made like a pumpkin, Alice in Wonderland, Bat, yeah I love her raggedy stuff. Have for years. She's an artist, not really a seamstress but I'm sure she makes her living off of what she sells on ebay. Why you ask? I've never seen her dresses sell for less than $125. And if you order directly from her it's $200. YEGAK! Now you know why I've never owned a single thrashed dress from her. Yeah, I know, the clothing she makes is a bit odd but it's a style and I was all about the goth scene back in the day ya know. It's a bit left of center but center was never really something I aimed at anyway so I figure eh, what the hell right? Can't you just see me dressed up as a pumpkin? No? Yeah I didn't think so either.

The great desk debate continues

The opponent has posted. And as far as I can tell she can't win. She has too many hidey holes. She claims that doesn't help her and that it's more of a mesmerizing affect. Sure, right, whatever. Mine just looks like crap. I say I win. When the boss lady comes round and ignores your desk then it's obviously not a big mess. The boss lady comes by my mess and flinches. I tell her to hurry up and get MY DAMN LAB BUILT WOMAN. She doesn't like me much (I'm hella expensive and won't earn her money until I'm up and running), good thing there aren't any other mass spectrometrists in San Antonio to replace me with. Ha ha!

We did accomplish all we set out to do this weekend

Amazingly enough. That's the second weekend in a row. Of course we set our sights low which is a good thing since we are not the most productive of family in the world. This weekend it was the hoops and the decorations, exterior only. I'm not doing the inside. I'll be happy to clean the inside of the house. Someday. Hey, I folded no less than 5 loads of laundry yesterday. The dh washed both cars too, sadly it's raining today and will be raining all week too but that's ok, the roses need it. We wanted to get the dogs washed and that didn't happen, oh well. They don't mind I'm sure and we can still wash them yet. The Halloween decorations did go up, I didn't put up that disposable cotton webbing crap like I did last year, I hate taking it down. That stuff is a mess! A note on that blow up thing of 3 ghosts in a cauldron, we bought it last year at Walmart. The dh and I specifically wanted that one, we saw it on display at the store we first went to but they didn't have it in stock, they had a bazilion other Halloween blow ups in stock but not that one. Fine, so we went on the hunt to other Walmarts to find it. We took half a day to all the Walmarts in the vicinity to find that specific blow up thing, 5 Walmarts later we found it. Yup, fixate much? Not long after we found out that a neighbor friend of ours had their blow up pumpkin stolen out of their front yard. If there's any threat of anything getting swiped in our neighborhood again I may have to tie Jaynie up to the blowup and see if that deters the stupid people. He'd fix their little red wagon but good.

The desk debate....

So there was this bet that 2 friends had...something about who had the messiest desk at work. One had an honest to goodness desk job (payroll at a school district in the 8th largest city in the US) and had been at it for years, she should be high up in the ranking, no? Sure ok but the other friend, weeell she hasn't left her desk in months. Nor has she been given any drawers to put her stuff away in. Oh and she was moved out of one room. And is to be moved into another room at some unspecified point in time in the very near future so there's no motivation to actually clean up the stuff or any place to put it away to. Good thing the desk has wheels huh? Combine that with the fact that said friend has not been given any work to do. At all (yes they pay me good money to sit here and do NOTHING). The motivation to actually clean the desk and get nothing done has been somewhere between slim and far closer to umm, none. Usually the need to have a clean work space borders on obsessive compulsive. When there is no production, nothing gets done because there's nothing to get done. Sad but true. So the competition begins. I eagerly await the pictures of the payroll friends desk, I'll link it up when she gets the pics.
BTW if you're wondering what is on the floor there it's a plastic carton to carry glass soda bottles, I use it to put my feet up on because I can't figure out how to adjust the height of my chair. What you don't see are the other boxes piled around the desk waiting to go to my new space too, they spread out for a 5 foot radius around me. And the brown box next to the monitor and the Special K bars? It's from Aldrich Chemicals, yup chemicals I haven't put away yet. On my desk, next to my food. Yeah I am a cool chemist like that, breaking the law. OSHA would have rainbow kittens. Oh stop, it's just estradiol, they're still in the package and I've probably got more in my system that I do in the damn box. Once they finally build me my own lab I can put them away proper and have my own place here. I'm like a migrant non worker in the meantime. You know those guys that sit on the corner that wait for the pick up to drive by? That's me only I'm getting paid to sit on the corner. Oh and I have internet service so I can bother you guys.
Also this desk is actually located inside of the lab, specifically in the hallway. 4 feet directly behind this desk are 3 monster upright freezers so the a/c is cranked up and working overtime to compensate for the heat the condensers create. As I sit and type the plethora of snippy posts it's about 62-65 degrees at any given moment. Then people open the things and look into them like a gaggle of teens coming home pondering what they're going to eat, tanking the temp down to like 2 degrees with a draft. Now you know where they oddness comes from. Persistantly ass biting cold in this place I swear, I have 2 jackets when it's 90 degrees outside.

First hoop ever made

And wouldn't you know it I made a difficult one to boot. This little gem was made using white gaffers tape and ribbon. Yeah, ribbon. I was on a hoop website, Philthyhoops.com and noticed that their Philthy hoops were made using ribbon and since I am a quilter/scrapbooker/crafting person dang it all if I didn't have a boatload of that stiff hanging about. The ribbon I used for this hoop was left over from a diaper cake I made back in May, not that you could probably find the location of that particular ribbon in that monster massive 4 foot diaper cake. The point is that yeah, I got ribbon why not use it? Made the wrapping process a wee bit more complex for a first time hoop maker but yeah, it worked. Made a really cool looking hoop too. BTW, in the instructions for making a hoop they use a blow dryer to soften the tubing and put the connector on the ends, if you have a heat gun this goes faster (be careful with this thing, it gets HOT). This one is a smaller hoop, just a bit bigger than the Kid-O that the dd uses but it still works well for an adult, probably a 38"-40" hoop. I'll probably keep it just to see how well the ribbon thing holds up and if the taping can withstand a kid's abuse. I also put together (but did not tape up) a 42" hoop to take to a co-worker on Monday. She's the one that finally made me go ahead and start the hoop making venture. She wants to start hooping but didn't want to buy one on line, I knew I could make one no problem but when you buy all the irrigation line it comes in 100' lengths, enough for ~8 hoops. I don't need that many hoops for the kid and I. I mean we could probably justify that gluttony because when you go to a park and bring a bunch of hoops people will join in but the dh would still tell us we're nuts. He does this daily of course but we try to limit it, one must pick their battles.

Ask and ye shall receive

Gee mom I don't get it....




Well kinda. Trailboss mentioned that she likes seeing my dog pictures. Funny, her comment came through right as I was downloading pics for my next blog post. Which had nothing at all to do with the dogs but their nosey butts were all up in my bizznatch while I was trying to take the pictures. So here you go, my weekend plans with their royal nosey fuzz butts in the pics for your viewing pleasure. Well 2 out of 3, Jaynie was busy trying to get in bed up stairs because he thinks he's special. He is, like short bus Jerry's kids special, but special none the less. Anyway, on the schedule this weekend, we're pulling out the Halloween decorations from the attic (yet to be done, we'll get there), but more important, we're making hula hoops. Oh yeah, 100 feet of irrigation tubing and boat loads of gaffing tape in combination with a 6 year old. I don't know if it's going to work or not but hey, nothing like living life on the edge right? Tons of people have done it before me so it's not like we're reinventing the wheel, or hoop as it were. I'm following Jason's instructions, he's considered the guru of hoop making and the instructions seem ridiculously basic which almost makes me feel like I'm destined to fail. Intensely complex I can do, hell I kick serious ass at complex, the more the better. Basic I suck at, makes no sense whatsoever I know but that's just how I roll.

Saying good bye to summer, finally!

Well not really, its still in the upper 80s by 4pm but its cool in the mornings, like upper 50s and the is Texas so we'll take what we can get. At the beginning of summer we purchased a bubble machine for the kid and let her have at it, the dogs loved it. OK the big dog loved it, the Roxy could care less, being the grande dame, and the little dog having less than 1 brain cell, had no clue and just wanted back in the house. Such a lap dog. So on the plate for today, pics of the happy bubble day months ago at the beginning of summer. Thank god summer is almost over, now if the holiday season would hurry up and go away I'd be happy. I like Halloween and Thanksgiving (as long as my brain doesn't explode, again) Christmas can drop off the face of the earth and never been seen again and I'd be one very happy woman. It's the holiday that brings out the worst in people and with this recession it's only going to be a mega downer this year. Don't bother getting on my case about using the R word, denial won't make it go away. Go ahead and rip on me about being the Grinch, bring it, I'm used to it, it doesn't make me like the holiday any more than I already don't. December 26th is a good day, don't deny it, it's a day of relief just like April 16th, don't lie to me.







Corbin, trying to get back in and on the couch where he thinks he belongs...

Hey I got a troll commenting!

I must be getting popular. Or something. Oh shush and let me feel popular, it's good for my imaginary ego. Really now if that person thought my last post was negative they obviously have not read a damn thing I've written other than that last post. Moron, read more, speak less and maybe you'll sound like you have a brain cell in your head. Ohh did I just criticize a reader?! Maybe I'll scare them away! Oh darn, my bad. And they posted as anonymous, the weenie. Hahahaha damn I can't believe my hubby lets me out in public sometimes. Ya'll do know I've mellowed with age right? I used to be flat out mean, now I'm just considered mildly ornery. People you shouldn't hide from me, if you comment I always go find you and comment back, and I'm never mean, honest yes, mean no. Well unless you want me to be and yeah I take requests.

So BRING IT, I am so ready.

~~~~~~~~~~~~Giving it up~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now just look at that face? It's it just adorable? Little bastages, I swear the things you do for the little boogers. I've been volunteering with The French Bulldog Rescue Network for over 2 years now as a foster parent and Review crew person. We don't foster much any more for reasons I won't reiterate and I have some issues with the administration of said organization. Basically it's your typical large rescue organization, it's run by a bunch of women that behave like a sorority. Or like that popular group of girls in high school, do you remember them? The bitches? Oh yeah, looooved them didn't you? Yeah, me too. NOT. They have long lost sight of the good of the dogs and that bothers me and a few of the other volunteers too. One of my favorites being the woman in charge of the review crew, E. She's a grandmotherly type who has been around and in charge of the review crew for 3 years now and has honed and refined the system as we now know it. I help her out and back her up when she needs it, taught her Excel because she was doing it all by hand and driving herself insane poor dear woman.

So that you have an idea of what the hell I'm talking about let me tell you how it goes down, we have dogs that come in, owner surrenders, strays, rarely a dogs that comes in from a shelter (frenchies don't often get dumped), and they get fostered for a minimum of 2 weeks to be evaluated, while being fostered they go up on the foster page. Usually longer. We get them up to snuff and then they go up on the Available Page for a minimum of 2 weeks, sometimes longer if they don't get enough good applications come in. Some dogs are harder to place than others, behavioral/medical issues what have you. Old usually isn't a problem, these are highly desirable dogs. Once we get enough applications the dogs go on to pending and the applications are sent to the review crew (I'm one of those people, there are 12 of us across the nation) and we go over the applications.

Now here's where it gets kinda funky. There can be anywhere from 15-300 applications depending on the popularity of the dog. The review crew doesn't actually pick the home for the dog, all we really do is weed out the crap applications. The good applications then go on to the foster parent who picks the actual home and then the Board of Directors approves the home (and there's a lot of hoops to jump too, it's a loong process). Back in the day, before the present incarnation of the "Powers in Charge" of FBRN the review process was slooow, dogs would go up on the available page for MONTHS and people applying would give up and go buy a dog after waiting for waay too long. This was the main reason E took the job that she did. She went in and streamlined the process, made it so it worked and did the job and got it done. No one else wanted to do it and do it every single week all year long. She gets shit for it too. People quit on her, they don't turn in their picks for the week, they don't tell her that they aren't going to turn in their picks or that they are going to be late, it's bad. Then she gets complaints that the process is too slow, that it's biased, that it's not fair, so on and so forth. It's a blind process, none of us on the review crew have contact with each other and we don't know what each others picks are. Right so then she gets tired of this after while. Damn ingrates. It's not like any one says Gee thanks for the great job you're doing. No no they just bitch and moan and then demand that she do things their way. Which won't work and will jack the system. That works and took 3 years to get right. Hello people like we don't know what the hell we are doing and you do. Not your job back the fuck of. Ingrates. She does it for the dogs, not the sorority.

So the question them becomes, at what point do you give it up? When do you thrown in the towel and tell them to shove it up their collective sorority asses? Because for the last, oh year or so it's been a struggle. Probably longer than that but for the last year it's been really bad. She's a foster parent too, she takes a lot of the hard medical cases that no one else will (you know, the ones that wear diapers), she's been turned down too which is very interesting. They'll beg and plead for a foster home for these dogs, she'll volunteer her home and they'll tell her no thanks. Why? As far as we can tell she's not one of the cool crowd. I'm not either thank God, buncha bitches, they treat me like something nasty they've found on the bottom of their shoes. I'm used to it though and that's why I no longer put up my hand when they beg and plead for a home for a poor soul of a dying medical case dog that needs a foster home. Can I care for these dogs? Hell yeah, I was a vet tech for 5 years, you name it I can do it but I'll be damned if I'll put myself out for those ungrateful bitches. They'd probably just turn me down anyway. Just for being associated in some way with someone they don't like....
When did it become a social game for these women and not an animal rescue organization? Will you look up at that face at the top and tell me this? BTW that's Cactus Jack and if I were into puppies (and I'm not, hate them ,won't own one oh hell no puppies are monsters, I only adopt adult dogs) I'd be all over Jack. He was one of the 7 puppies that came from a group of 12 dogs that were confiscated from a puppy mill front that was involved in a drug bust. We get them from all kinds of places let me tell ya. As of today he has only been up a week, he goes pending (applications stop) next Wednesday so if you want that beautiful face go run now and apply. So far he received a piddly few number of applications and I'm totally disappointed. I know where he lives and I so want to go and baby snatch his ass out of there. He is with one of those women, you know, one of them....

$2.99 a gallon read it and weep

That's all it took to steal the dh's thunder. He called on the way home last night, right in the middle of me trying to get through the dd's reading lesson. Very irritating since we were already running late. And you know how hard it is getting her through her reading lessons that late at night. He was trying to brag about finding gas at $3.06/gallon. He was all like "Guess what I just paid for gas? $3.06" In a neeneerneeneer type voice. And I so vainly replied "Yeah well I got it for $2.99" Oh yeah I saw the green through the phone. Yup he was a nice shade of chartreuse and I could tell over that phone line. He was down right indignant complaining that I stole his thunder, he even wanted to know where. Like I would make it up or something. Puhlease people. When was the last time ya'll saw gas at $2.99 a gallon? Do you even remember it at that price? I sure as hell don't. Crying shame too. Well there are a scant few reasons to live in Texas, the school systems (in my neighborhood at least) and the price of gas (here, not in Galviston). I managed to fill my tank for a record low price and I drive a 4Runner. It's been awhile peeps let me tell you, it's been awhile.

I have taken over

Apparently one blog wasn't enough. I guess I have the need to blabber too much. Oh that was not a huge surprise to all of you? Good gosh almighty. OK so that wasn't such a big surprise, I'm alright with that. The dh just could not keep up with the blogging would. He found it to move at a pace to fast for him or something like that. He asked me a week or two ago to change the face of his blog, redo the banner or something like that. So I did. But he never posts and so it seemed kind of futile. Poor lonely blog. And well you know I never seem to suffer form a lack of posts here right? Yeah. So. On occasion when I have something to say and it can just as easily go up here or there I might just pop it in over there.

Ya'll do know that the dh and I have known each other for over half our lives right? Technically we met for the first time in the 7th grade. We don't remember it though, he transferred out of our english/social studies class before the end of the year. The only reason I know he was in the class is because I found his report card years later (he didn't do so well in that class, I kicked ass being much more scholastically inclined). We actually really met up when we were 16 so we technically count it as 20 years that we've known each other. We know each other well enough that our moods practically synch up. When we go home at night and want to watch a movie we are usually in the mood of the same thing be it an Emma/Sense and Sensibilty night or Bones episode kind of evening. Creepy but that's where we're at in life.

So when I say that I know which blog posts will go on his just as well as mine it's more like I can run across an article in CNN and either forward it on to him, have him write a blog post on it (which he will probably never get around to) or I can just write it myself and post it. Since it's been so long since he's posted everyone has given up on visiting his blog it's mine now. I am going in incognito, I figure if I do it right most people will never know the difference. Hell if I didn't put this post up the dh would probably not even know I was hijacking his blog, he never visits it either.

Religon through the eyes of children

And sadly since I was raised with out religion I could not have said it better myself. Heck I love this summation (a forward that was sent to me by an old friend that taught me a bible study class as an adult):

A child was asked to write a book report on the entire Bible. I wonder how often we take for granted that children understand what we are teaching???
Through the eyes of a child:

The Children's Bible in a Nutshell

In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, 'The Lord thy God is one, but I think He must be a lot older than that. Anyway, God said, 'Give me a light!' and someone did. Then God made the world.

He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren't embarrassed because mirrors hadn't been invented yet. Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden. Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn't have cars.

Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel. Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something.

One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.

After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat.

Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh's people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable.

God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then he gave them His Top Ten Commandments. These include: don't lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbor's stuff.

Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humor thy father and
thy mother.

One of Moses' best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town.

After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn't sound very wise to me.

After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore. There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don't have to worry about them.

After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of The New. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn too, because my mom is always saying to me, 'Close the door! Were you mom is always saying to me, 'Close the door! Were you born in a barn?' It would be nice to say, 'As a matter of fact, I was.')

During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Republicans.

Jesus also had twelve opossums. The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.

Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount.

But the Republicans and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn't stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead.

Anyways, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again. He went up to Heaven but will be back at the end of the Aluminum. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.



And there you have it blog world, the best summation of the bible I have found so far, sent to me by and old friend of mine that used to be a Jehovah's Witness. She decided to step down after becoming disenchanted with the system a few years ago and has been dealing with the backlash since then and that is saying something.
Don't you love how the kid translated those teachings though, how neighbors wives were 'stuff', I LOVE that. Makes you wonder if the bible school teacher actually told the kids that the word was wife or, if for the sake of ease of teaching they actually explained to the younger kid that the word was stuff. Ah the perils of living in a society that was based on Puritanism. Retarded. I had to move closer to the bible belt too didn't I, gahhh.

So we couldn't find the plug

For the portable DVD player that is. So the kid had to actually converse with her mother for that whole ride up and back to Austin yesterday. And listen to Linkin Park and whatever other angry white male music her mother listens too at any given moment. I do take requests though but she, oddly enough, didn't make any yesterday. Did I mention she still going through that 'Prattling' stage? She's kind of fading it out but it's still there, drives me insane. Her dad can handle it better than I can so I was not happy to see that we had no cord placed in the bag with the dvd player. No, not happy at all.

So off we went and interestingly enough, the prattling did not start. What did start was a string of a few interesting conversations. 3 that I'll go over here, ones that kind of move her into big kid world, and she's only turning 7 this month, what the hell? So I'll start off with the most 'benign' or rather the shortest to tell.

She started babbling on about "A clean house is a happy house" over and over again in the back seat. Of course I'm going what the hell is she talking about because that is the most freakish 50's comment I've heard in awhile and it sure as hey howdy hell did not come from my house. We don't use those sort of anachronisms there. Especially since we break all those type rules, we had the at home dad for awhile, I majored in college in a 'man's world major' and work at a career that is predominantly male. The dh was a kindergarten teacher and was driven out because the principal didn't think a man should be a kinder teacher. To say that we have a slight role reversal in our household compared to the 50's would be an understatement. The 7th or 8th time that statement came out of the kid's mouth I had to ask her where it came from, it was driving me nuts. She himmed and hawed then I asked her if she knew what it meant.

Oh now then the conversation got interesting. Why you ask? Because she actually was interested in the answer. Now this is what shows a bit of maturity to me. Before she could care less what others were saying to her. She would be like "Whatever' and just go about her business of playing make believe. No no she wanted to know what the phrase actually meant. And I got into it. I went into the fact that the phrase was an old phrase, that it was used to cover up and make pretty things that were bad and homes that were broken on the inside but looked pretty on the outside. Oh yeah, I went off. She learned the phrase from my mother's husband this past weekend, the psycopath. He came from an absurdly broken home, his father was one of those that, when the teen daughter came home knocked up, he beat her within an inch of her life and then tossed her out. Yup, as children they gave them enemas as punishment. To this day my mother's husband has no idea what a happy home is, I made sure the dd knew that the phrase was a cover up and he could clean the house all he wanted but Gunny (the name they chose for him since he used to be a marine and all the other grandfather names were taken) had no idea what a happy house was. His home was broken, always had been, always would be. She seemed oddly fine with this. She doesn't get along so well with him all the time, probably because he's a bit off. Kids are good like that, they know when someone isn't quite right and nothing a person can do can cover it up in front of a kid. So now she doesn't believe that a clean house is a happy house and is better settled in a better understanding that her feelings that Gunny just isn't the same as everybody else. Because he isn't. I like to make sure she knows that. I had to go through my teen years with everybody trying to tell me that it was just me being a difficult teenager and that there was nothing wrong with that freak of nature. So not true, there is something wrong with him. It's not me, it's him. A clean house is a happy house, like he would know what a happy house was. The things he teaches my kid, where do they come from?

And that was the short conversation, want to hear the longer ones? OK this one's funny. The dd has been recently hung up on not being rich. Because we aren't and we managed to buy into a neighborhood where a lot of the people are (small home in big home neighborhood, good buy). She has a classmate that she's known since preschool (going on 3rd year together now) and we've been to their house once for dinner. Notice I said once and we've never invited them over to our house. There's a reason why. That girl (I'll call her M to be nice) is a little monster. Total brat. She back talks to her parents, doesn't listen, hits them, throws temper tantrums, the whole nine. It's bad. They are extremely sweet people, highly intelligent, college grads, mom's a stay at home mom, no other kids. They over indulge her and she doesn't take them seriously. I would not put up with the crap that she pulls, oh hell no. But they do. All last year in kinder they would ask the both of us "Does your daughter like school? Because M doesn't like it at all!" Well fancy that... this came as no surprise to us. She was a monster in preschool, not like that was going away in kinder. The public school system is not there to fix all the behavioral problems you created at home. No, that's your responsibility as a parent, duh.

Anyway M gets N's and U's and S's just about every day at school. For those of you that can't remember those are behavioral daily grades such as satisfactory, unsatisfactory, excellent, and the like. The dd, during this ride, randomly asked me, and I thought this was funny (and bitr you'll appreciate this question, with your lovely co-workers), if any of my co-workers behaved badly every day or several times a week. And I just knew she was talking about this girl in class or the other 1 boy with the same behavioral issues. So I told her that no those kids don't make it to real jobs. The system weeds them out. If those kids don't shape up that 1 of 2 things happen to them. Either they end up locked up at daddy's work or they end up dead or getting somebody killed (and then locked up at daddy's work). She thought about it for awhile, asked a few questions and took it all in. I don't think she thought I was making it up, I think she knew I was for real. I explained how people that make life difficult just can't fit in. I did sugar coat it though, I didn't mention the quantity of morons that slip through the cracks. We'll have to wait until junior high at least for that lecture.

So then she points out that they have money. Oh yeah this is the good part. This is the discussion we have that "Yes but are they happy?" and wouldn't you know it she knew the answer? She said no. She knew they weren't happy, she saw it every morning. Every morning, every single day M's parents sit with her in front of the classroom before school starts. No other parent has to do that. None. No other kid has a melt down in front of class as often as M does either. But that makes life easier on me when I get to explain to her that money doesn't make you happy. The dd is so fixated on money right now I can't even begin to tell you how irritating it is to me. She got it from my mother and her husband, he decided that the dd needed to understand the value of knowing how to budget so he went through these weird lessons obsession on money. Anyway so now she knows that money doesn't make you happy because M and her family is miserable and M is a total raging brat that no one wants to be friends with. Sadly this makes my life easier. Welcome to my world, where miserable rich people with social ineptitudes make my parenting easier.

The third discussion I'm going to save for it's own separate post. Because this one is way too long and the third discussion is longer and funny. I got to explain natural child birth to an almost 7yr old suburban child. She didn't believe me. It was funny. Something about apple seeds giving birth, I didn't get that one but whatever.

Hoop thief, and other tales of motherhood

Yup, that's my hoop you see, and notice I am not in it. I got the child her own hoop, a lovely pink sparkly, glow in the dark Kid-O from Hoopnotica but no, that wasn't good enough. Nope, she wanted mine, the travel hoop. I'm not sure why, it's bigger (not her size at all), heavier, and, quite frankly, clunky compared to a regular hoop since it comes apart. Who knows, kids are like that. You sit down to eat and they are worse than dogs, they will steal the food right out of your mouth and it doesn't matter if you have made them their own plate of the same food they want yours.

Apparently same goes for a hoop, they want yours and it doesn't matter if yours isn't as pretty and doesn't fit. Whatever. I used hers for a bit and it works. A bit small for my hips but I made do. Plus the other people there always bring spares so I tried others out too. I'm going to break down eventually and buy a buncha irrigation tubing and tape and probably make a few of my own some day. If I buy one made by one of the other ladies they run about $45 a hoop so I might as well make my own right? I suffer from these issues, I get crafty because I figure I should make my own *insert name of what ever here*, be it cards, scrapbook, Ren Faire costume, quilt, hair falls (love those, so much fun to make), jewelry (I should take a pic of the bracelet I took a thousand hours to make, you guys will love it). It's something I'm terrible about, I will get crafty about just about anything rather then pay someone else to make it. Unless it requires some expensive piece of machinery, I will buy it from someone else then. Like the mama pads, I won't buy the press that puts the snaps in, not worth it.

Back to the Austin hooping trip, fun one this time, no stupid drivers or traffic, the kid had fun, there was an after hooping trip to Freddie's for food again (no entertainer this time, too late in the day) but the dogs were all there so the kid was still content. Oh and I didn't get pics but a few husbands came along (not mine, he was at work) and they were super hooping too, even on stilts...I know, no pics but I was hooping while they were. Maybe next time.

Oh and even more importantly I finally mastered the art of hip hooping! Hooping on the hips, not the waist, not so easy. Now this is a basic that has been eluding me for some time now and I have no idea why. Actually I have no idea why I can do it now. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention and that's all I needed to do. It was explained in detail on the instructional video but if you've ever seen the Hoopnotica girls, they are soooo skinny! They show their belly/hip region and point out where you should be pushing the hoop with your hips. But I can't tell because they have boy hips! Like 10 yr old boy hips. How in the world am I supposed to find the corresponding body parts on me?!?! Yeah, um, ah, no. I just could not find those parts. Rewind, play, try...hoop falls to floor. Repeat. And again. This was for like a month. Or two. Maybe 3, or 4. Skipped for a few months because it was kinda depressing, not like a complicated move or something, it was hip hooping for crying out loud. Now that I have it I am going to chalk it up to the fact that I was trying to figure it out using a skinny chick as an example and all the women I hooped with today are normal sized. Lord forbid...

On a lighter note, a movie review!

Yup, we figured we'd do something easy yesterday and picked something we couldn't go wrong with. Well sometimes the dh had been know to pick the occasional obscure movie that was complete and utter trash. One time he picked 3 in a row and he was banned from choosing a movie for a good year. I can't even remember all 3 of the movies, one was Ultraviolet and the guy walking out behind us after it was over was bitching about how he wanted those 2 hours of his life back. That was by far the most entertaining part of the movie. Oh it was so baaad.

But yesterday we decided on Appalosa, an Ed Harris flick. Can't go wrong with that one. At the very worst it might end on a sad note, like Unforgiven and all the other sad westerns. Of course westerns and country music are classically sad aren't they? Woefully going on about lost loves and the like? The movies always has either the hero or heroine dying at the end. Or both. Or both and all of their babies. Makes you just want to go out and marry a cowboy now doesn't it? Sorry, I digress. The movie, it was really good. And it was only a little sad. The good guys don't die (no, that's not much of a spoiler) and the heroine doesn't die but you don't really like her all that much either which is an interesting twist. Go Ed, he must have a few evil ex's or some other latent bitter feelings towards the female gender. Can't imagine why. A friend of mine always swears that 'Women are evil and Men are stupid'. OK Dan, if you say so. Stupid.

For those of you that love horses there are some cute ones in there, a very nice appy, at least I think it's an appy, paints are appys aren't they? I'm not up on my horse stuff, hell they change color names for dogs between breeds. Red for one is honey for another and lemon for the next, how stupid is that? Of course dog show people are freaks if you haven't noticed and those color names only make a difference to them. Anyway all the men in the movie look a little rough around the edges, which gives the movie a very realistic feel. They didn't sugar coat it and make it pretty, they made it a dusty real time western movie and that's what we really liked about it. Oh and it was funny! The language was not too harsh. I've seen some westerns where the language had so much swearing in it you lost the movie and I don't mind swearing at all so if it bothers me it's got to be a lot of swearing. Appalosa is a good move, if you've got the time go see it, it's worth the 2 hours. Plus it's got Viggo, all the ladies love Viggo right?

People are stupid

And I have less and less patience with them as I get older. Not that I can do any thing about it. Other than bitch about it on my blog. So I am going to bitch about it on my blog. Here's the news article:

All lanes of Interstate 35 in Buda are back open after a deadly accident last night.
At about 7 p.m. two vehicles collided – killing one driver and injuring his three passengers.
Daniel Guerrero, 41, of Kyle died at the scene.
His 11-year-old passenger (son) has a broken arm.
The other passengers were taken to an area hospital with other injuries.
DPS officials said Luis Mendoza-Baldelamar of Alba, Texas was weaving in and out of the northbound lanes of I-35, when he struck the Jeep Comanche, driven by Guerrero.
Mendoza-Baldelamar was arrested at the scene.

So one stupid person and his piss poor driving/judgement killed a dad, broke the kid's arm, wounded passengers and probably jacked a helluva lot of other people's evenings (including ours) because he wanted to weave in and out of traffic on a Friday night during rush hour. I'm sorry, raving fuck head what? I don't know what they are going to do to Mr. Mendoz-Baldelamar but bets have it, it won't be sufficient. He probably won't even be sent to anything as harsh as the dh's prison, whatcha wanna bet? All that hell and mayhem that useless excuse for a human being caused and he probably will only get a slap on the hand. Our justice system is messed up like that, loop holes bigger than the air space in president Bush's skull.

Intelligent people like my husband spend years in college and end up in a crap underpaid job in a max security prison and pieces of crap that kill people and ruin the other's lives on their Friday night joy rides get off relatively free. I would really love to be able to see what eventually happens to that man. I can't of course, it'll take to damn long. The system will drag on forever, he'll go into some holding pattern for a bit, get let out on bail, come up for trial in a few years, everything will gloss over, then get let off on some sort of probation some time in 2015 when they system gets around to him. Bitter much? Yeah I am.

We drove the hour + up to Austin (Kyle/Buda is essentially the south end of Austin) and reached it at about 7:30 when traffic came to an immediate halt. Just a total screetching halt. It's a 3 lane freeway at that point and there was no getting over (we were in the fast lane). No one was getting off, not even the people in the slow lane. We then sat there for over an hour. All of us. Friday night on the freeway. There was no firetruck that came by, no ambulance, no life flight, there were a few police though. I'm guessing (since we were in the north bound lanes) that all the real emergency vehicles came from the other direction (Austin), lord knows there isn't jack didly south of Austin until you hit San Antonio and that's an hour south. So we didn't even get the entertainment of watching the emergency vehicles drive by. Eventually they got us routed off of the freeway onto the access road but by then it was 9:30

Interesting note here, the news says that the accident happened at 7:40pm, the dh said that because of the way traffic came to a halt and where we were located he thought we just missed being in front of the accident. You know what that means to paranoid little me? To me that means we just missed being part of that accident. Yeesh driving in Texas is like a full contact sport. Now think about that though, we left the house at 6:30 to be in Austin by 8, got to the accident scene at 7:30, got shuffled off the freeway at 9:30, turned around and made it home by, oh around 10:30. The dh was way tired and not driving so great by that time. And damn we were dissapointed that we didn't get to see the show. All that driving and nothing to show for it but to be witness to some moron and his mass destruction to some poor man's life and his kid's broken arm.

There are some really fucking stupid people in this world wasting the oxygen that we breathe. Too bad the elections aren't addressing something more important like that. Or that poor 90 yr old lady that felt so desperate that she shot herself. What is this world coming to people? Really now, where are our priorities? It's headlines like this one that make me ask why do you news people think we care about that shit? That is so stupid, get with it people.