The Dog - The dog will be here until Saturday morning. No more crapping in the house (yet) and the children are still enjoying her. My older daughter and I were in our usual reading spot tonight on my bed and imagine my surprise when the dog came running into the room with one of the older daughter's stuffed animals and immediately began to hump it. I had to laugh, because I knew what the dog was doing, and my older daughter did not. Whew! That dog went.to.town on that stuffed animal, but it was cool because I understand that level of frustration. Not now (thank you, Guy #1) but I can feel where the dog is coming from. My older daughter asked why the dog kept bouncing around on her stuffed rabbit, and I could only say that she must just want to play (yep, that's what I call it, too). All was fine until the younger daughter started screaming about that was HER rabbit and she did NOT give permission for the older daughter to give the rabbit to the dog. And there we have it. Full blown bedtime drama. Shit. And even more screaming and crying when the younger daughter realized there was some dog spit on the rabbit. And then crying and sobbing from the older daughter claiming that she didn't know the rabbit belonged to the younger daughter and now the younger daughter is blaming her. Oooooohhhh, I have got to get these children in the bed.
Mrs. Second Grade Teacher - This woman has gotten on my last nerve, and then done it one more time. Wednesday = envelope day. Today's envelope was at least better than last weeks envelope grades. Two reading tests - one was scored at 100 (way to fucking go!) and one was scored at 56. Huh? How does that work? Does the teacher not see the freaking dichotomy here? Does the teacher even know what dichotomy means? What the hell is going on in that classroom anyway? And then some kind of rubric assignment on Ancient Egypt, which accompanied the Ancient Egypt test. The test score was 83, so that was good. The rubric score was a 70-something. Apparently the class worked on this booklet of information about ancient Egypt, and two of those days were when my older daughter was out sick. I asked my daughter about it and she said that the class worked on the booklet when she was out sick and she didn't get a chance to finish it because she wasn't given extra time. Mrs. Second Grade Teacher's name is about to become Mrs. Trick Ass Bitch Teacher. If that's true, if my older daughter was graded down because she was OUT SICK and wasn't given an opportunity to finish the work, then I have a huge fucking problem of the "I need to meet with this bitch's supervisor because that is just fucked up" sort. Honestly, the more notes I write this woman and the more phone calls I have with this cunt (yes, I know that's an extreme word to use here, but I have had it), the worse it gets. I'm beginning to think some of this grading is retaliatory in nature. I actually started to think that in January, but I didn't want to make that claim because I know that my perception of this woman is incredibly skewed. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. Again. Apparently that was my mistake. So another note will be sent to the teacher tomorrow requesting yet another phone call and if I don't like what comes out of the phone call (and I'm sure I won't) then I'm just going to call someone fucking else.
The Ex - I sent him an email last week letting him know that the older daughter has her follow up appointment with the orthodontist tomorrow. We went last March, and were given a one year pass of the wait and see variety. Well, a year has passed and the child has not lost one additional tooth. In fact, her teeth look like they've shifted into an even more uncomfortable position. The older daughter will need braces, because she got my teeth. By the time I was in fourth grade, I could have eaten corn through a tennis racket. Yes, it was really that bad. But my older daughter has it worse, because she has a cross bite and an over bite. Anyway, the email I got back from the The Ex asked where the orthodontist office was because he forgot. I mean, he was only there in person last year when the older daughter went. Of course he forgot. I emailed back and said it was at the dentist's office, adjoining. He emailed back and asked where that was. Holy fuck, are you kidding me? It's the same goddamn dentist he goes to. I guess that means he hasn't had his teeth cleaned since I moved out last April and stopped nagging him to take care of himself and make use of the dental insurance we had. I am so glad not to be in charge of his health anymore. He wouldn't go to the doctor for a checkup until I begged, and then wouldn't get the prescription for the high cholesterol medication filled until I begged, and then wouldn't take the medication unless I reminded him every day. Fine. Have a fucking heart attack. He wouldn't go to the dentist unless I begged, and blamed it on his childhood exposure to Navy dentists. Fine. Have all your teeth fall out. Ironically, he wanted to go to marital counseling about two years (or maybe it was three or four years, who knows?) before I dropped the bomb and I refused. I said it wasn't worth the co-pay and wasn't worth me taking time off of work for. He insisted again after I dropped the divorce bomb that we should go to counseling, and I said again it wasn't worth the co-pay or my effort, but he could feel free to go and see a therapist on his own. Enter The Girlfriend. Who is now dating someone with clogged arteries and not-so-clean teeth. Have at it, Girlfriend. Literally. But it will be interesting to see what the orthodontist has to say. I predict oral surgery to remove some teeth and then wait and see what happens.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Stupid Link of the Day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_flag_(LGBT_movement)
There's a joke in here somewhere, but I just can't seem to find it yet. Since nothing will turn me off like a hairy man, there's something trainwreck-ish and rubbernecky about me reading strange articles about the "Bear Movement". I saw a guy at the pool a couple of years ago, and he might have been the hairiest bastard I have ever seen. He had smeared white zinc sunscreen all over him, and his hair was all matted down and swirled around in the festering summer sun, and I threw up a just little bit in my mouth. Guy #1 has no idea how happy he should be that he's not hairy.
I find it interesting that there's a flag and a symbol for everything out there.
If I were to come up with my own flag, it would be... white. I would frantically wave the white Calgon flag, with a little flower in the corner, and hope that Calgon would come and take me away. Or maybe it would have the middle finger on it. That flag would say, "Fuck you, I quit." Maybe a can of hairspray. "I quit but let me make sure my hair looks good on the way out."
And good god, check this link out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanky_code
Scroll down the second chart. I was going to say the bottom chart, but in the context of the article, that really wasn't the right description. Okay, I work with some deviant people and I don't know anyone who does half of that shit. Okay, okay, so the cigar thing was done by a President, and god only knows what the Kennedy's were really doing, but flagging yourself with a Jolly Roger handkerchief? Can you even buy Jolly Roger handkerchiefs? My younger daughter told me the other day that she wanted to be a pirate when she grew up. I explained that her best bet would be to secure employment for a large federal government /military contracting company, or to go into that ubiquitous field of "International Security". But back to the handkerchief thing. I bet if some of the street gangs in America knew that a red handkerchief stood for fisting, they'd switch colors mighty damn quick. Or a navy blue handkerchief stood for the backdoor, we'd have a lot less gang crimes out there.
In fact, I think that most law enforcement working on gang suppression should find a way to print and laminate little "Hanky Code Cards" and hand them out during mass arrests and search and seizure operations. Homophobia shall conquer and triumph over the street gang criminality. This can work, I just know it. Seriously. I'm on to something here.
Somehow this whole Stupid Link of the Day just kind of disingrated into Stupid Shit. Ahhh, if only everyone could live in my head for a couple of days.
There's a joke in here somewhere, but I just can't seem to find it yet. Since nothing will turn me off like a hairy man, there's something trainwreck-ish and rubbernecky about me reading strange articles about the "Bear Movement". I saw a guy at the pool a couple of years ago, and he might have been the hairiest bastard I have ever seen. He had smeared white zinc sunscreen all over him, and his hair was all matted down and swirled around in the festering summer sun, and I threw up a just little bit in my mouth. Guy #1 has no idea how happy he should be that he's not hairy.
I find it interesting that there's a flag and a symbol for everything out there.
If I were to come up with my own flag, it would be... white. I would frantically wave the white Calgon flag, with a little flower in the corner, and hope that Calgon would come and take me away. Or maybe it would have the middle finger on it. That flag would say, "Fuck you, I quit." Maybe a can of hairspray. "I quit but let me make sure my hair looks good on the way out."
And good god, check this link out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanky_code
Scroll down the second chart. I was going to say the bottom chart, but in the context of the article, that really wasn't the right description. Okay, I work with some deviant people and I don't know anyone who does half of that shit. Okay, okay, so the cigar thing was done by a President, and god only knows what the Kennedy's were really doing, but flagging yourself with a Jolly Roger handkerchief? Can you even buy Jolly Roger handkerchiefs? My younger daughter told me the other day that she wanted to be a pirate when she grew up. I explained that her best bet would be to secure employment for a large federal government /military contracting company, or to go into that ubiquitous field of "International Security". But back to the handkerchief thing. I bet if some of the street gangs in America knew that a red handkerchief stood for fisting, they'd switch colors mighty damn quick. Or a navy blue handkerchief stood for the backdoor, we'd have a lot less gang crimes out there.
Somehow this whole Stupid Link of the Day just kind of disingrated into Stupid Shit. Ahhh, if only everyone could live in my head for a couple of days.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Dog Sitting
I've been dog sitting for the past half of a week, for my former neighbor's dog, because her husband is in the hospital and she just doesn't have time to deal with the dog. I'm not a dog person. I don't generally like dogs, and you may have garnered from a few posts prior that I care even less for dog shit.
I'd like to note that there is just one tiny little letter separating the words dog sitting from dog shitting.
I've been dog sitting and the dog has been dog shitting. Namely, in my house. Which I am less than okay with. The dog arrived last Wednesday night, and first thing Thursday morning, while I was in the shower, she left a little brown treat in the younger daughter's room while the younger daughter was sleeping. The dog then scampered down the hall to my bedroom and left the second half of the brown treat on my floor, and then merrily (I must assume) scampered back down the hallway and left a big puddle in middle of the hallway. Holy dog shit. Are you kidding me? I blame this on myself, because I thought I had time to jump in the shower quickety-quick before I took her out. Apparently not. I also realized upon stomping into the kitchen that I didn't put the cat's food bowl on top of the washing machine the night before and all the cat food was gone. I'll have to assume the dog ate the Indoor Delights Friskies and thus, left me some Indoor Delights.
So the dog and I had a little come-to-Jesus meeting, and then before everyone left the house on Thursday morning, the dog got put in her little pen that I jury-rigged in the living room.
And yes, this is the actual dog. By the time I get done with this whole post her name might be The Dog.
She's not crate trained and didn't come with a crate (hmmm....), but came with a baby-gate-playard kind of concoction. Got home Thursday evening with Guy #1 in tow since it was The Ex's night with the kids, and found that the dog can hold all of her bodily fluids if she's in her little pen. Awesome! Maybe this will work out okay. But then I was at work most of Friday (or pretending to be after my training class finished early and there was.no.fucking.way I was going back to work) and then out with Guy #1 for most of Friday night. I felt moderately guilty, because dogs actually need some attention. I spent a portion of Saturday in the house, and the dog was more than happy to terrorize Guy #1 because he's apparently scared of animals that look like overgrown mutant gerbils. Out and about again Saturday night and still no accidents in the jury-rigged pen.
Sunday morning. It was cold and sleeting outside, and I guess I rushed her through her business outside because maybe an hour after coming back in I found a little brown cookie in the younger daughter's room. Again, I blamed myself for not shutting the bedroom doors. I don't know why she only shits in the younger daughter's room. She hasn't done anything other than sleep in the older daughter's room. Sunday afternoon and she poops outside. Awesome! That second come-to-Jesus meeting must have really done the trick.
But uh-oh. What's that stuck on the hair around her butt? The dog has long hair. Long, thick hair. She's well groomed, and often smells like whatever kind of Avon shampoo my neighbor has been washing her with. Oh, god, is that a turd stuck on her butt? Holy fuck. It is. Oh my god. Fuck. She can't come back in the house with that thing back there, and she can't reach her own butt to clean it off. I guess that's the one good thing to dog sitting a slightly pudgy Pomeranian - when she sneak attacks me and licks me on my face I know that her tongue wasn't previously on her ass.
Anyway, back to the turd stuck in the hindquarter hair. I run in the house and can only come up with... Lysol wipes. Oh well, that'll have to do. I run back outside and put the dog in a mini-headlock and proceed to do nothing more than smear the dog shit all over her rear end. Oh fuck. Oh no. This is not working. Jesus Christ. Are you kidding me again? Pick the dog up and carry her at arms length into the house and then just stand there trying to figure out what to do. Well, into the kitchen sink because I don't know how to wash an entire dog. That's just too much for me to handle. And, Guy #1 was feeling neurotic about my bathrooms on Saturday morning and cleaned them for me, so there was no way I was going to put her into one of the tubs he just scrubbed. So the dog goes right into the sink and I get her into another headlock and try to adjust the water and squirt Dial hand soap onto her ass. Oh my god this is such a mess. Oh Jesus. Well, I certainly can't bring myself to actually touch this soapy, shitty mess I've created and I forgot that I have latex gloves in my bedroom (for doing my toenails, perverts, not the other stuff) so I just get a scrub brush and scrubbed the Dial hand soap around. I am now minus one scrub brush, by the way. Get the soapy, shitty mess off the dog with water that was probably too hot and then realize I have no towel handy to dry the dog. Oh well, I guess while I've got her here in this headlock I'll just take some scissors and trim up the hair back there so I won't have to go through this again. Who knew that Pomeranians have such thick non-trimmable ass hair? This dog might just be related to The Ex. Abandon all plans to trim the dog's ass hair and try to towel dry her with paper napkins. That too was unsuccessful.
Man, I needed a shot of tequila after all of that. Holy god. Actually, what the dog and I both needed a nap after that whole ordeal. But, not for me. Off to see the VCU game. Back in the pen, little fluff ball doggie. No problems Sunday night or Monday morning. At this point we've all kind of adjusted that the dog might be here for a while because my neighbor's husband is still in the hospital. The dog seems like she's enjoying us, the children are enjoying her and the cat lives in the basket on top of the dryer, right next to her food on top of the washer. No more Indoor Delights for the dog, that's for damn sure.
So, we continue on with the dog. I told my older daughter tonight, though, to quit asking me if the dog can come live here for good. The answer is a resounding NO. I'm a cat person. I want to feed the cat, put water in her bowl, scoop the litter box and have a lap available for her to climb in and get petted. I don't want to have to let the animal in and out and in and out and in and out one more time. I don't want to have to crawl around on my hands and knees with carpet cleaner, I don't want some jury-rigged pen in the middle of my living room and I don't want to have to chase a dog around around with Lysol wipes. The dog can visit, for short periods of time... but I'm a cat person. Big ups to the dog for reinforcing that.
I'd like to note that there is just one tiny little letter separating the words dog sitting from dog shitting.
I've been dog sitting and the dog has been dog shitting. Namely, in my house. Which I am less than okay with. The dog arrived last Wednesday night, and first thing Thursday morning, while I was in the shower, she left a little brown treat in the younger daughter's room while the younger daughter was sleeping. The dog then scampered down the hall to my bedroom and left the second half of the brown treat on my floor, and then merrily (I must assume) scampered back down the hallway and left a big puddle in middle of the hallway. Holy dog shit. Are you kidding me? I blame this on myself, because I thought I had time to jump in the shower quickety-quick before I took her out. Apparently not. I also realized upon stomping into the kitchen that I didn't put the cat's food bowl on top of the washing machine the night before and all the cat food was gone. I'll have to assume the dog ate the Indoor Delights Friskies and thus, left me some Indoor Delights.
So the dog and I had a little come-to-Jesus meeting, and then before everyone left the house on Thursday morning, the dog got put in her little pen that I jury-rigged in the living room.
And yes, this is the actual dog. By the time I get done with this whole post her name might be The Dog.
She's not crate trained and didn't come with a crate (hmmm....), but came with a baby-gate-playard kind of concoction. Got home Thursday evening with Guy #1 in tow since it was The Ex's night with the kids, and found that the dog can hold all of her bodily fluids if she's in her little pen. Awesome! Maybe this will work out okay. But then I was at work most of Friday (or pretending to be after my training class finished early and there was.no.fucking.way I was going back to work) and then out with Guy #1 for most of Friday night. I felt moderately guilty, because dogs actually need some attention. I spent a portion of Saturday in the house, and the dog was more than happy to terrorize Guy #1 because he's apparently scared of animals that look like overgrown mutant gerbils. Out and about again Saturday night and still no accidents in the jury-rigged pen.
Sunday morning. It was cold and sleeting outside, and I guess I rushed her through her business outside because maybe an hour after coming back in I found a little brown cookie in the younger daughter's room. Again, I blamed myself for not shutting the bedroom doors. I don't know why she only shits in the younger daughter's room. She hasn't done anything other than sleep in the older daughter's room. Sunday afternoon and she poops outside. Awesome! That second come-to-Jesus meeting must have really done the trick.
But uh-oh. What's that stuck on the hair around her butt? The dog has long hair. Long, thick hair. She's well groomed, and often smells like whatever kind of Avon shampoo my neighbor has been washing her with. Oh, god, is that a turd stuck on her butt? Holy fuck. It is. Oh my god. Fuck. She can't come back in the house with that thing back there, and she can't reach her own butt to clean it off. I guess that's the one good thing to dog sitting a slightly pudgy Pomeranian - when she sneak attacks me and licks me on my face I know that her tongue wasn't previously on her ass.
Anyway, back to the turd stuck in the hindquarter hair. I run in the house and can only come up with... Lysol wipes. Oh well, that'll have to do. I run back outside and put the dog in a mini-headlock and proceed to do nothing more than smear the dog shit all over her rear end. Oh fuck. Oh no. This is not working. Jesus Christ. Are you kidding me again? Pick the dog up and carry her at arms length into the house and then just stand there trying to figure out what to do. Well, into the kitchen sink because I don't know how to wash an entire dog. That's just too much for me to handle. And, Guy #1 was feeling neurotic about my bathrooms on Saturday morning and cleaned them for me, so there was no way I was going to put her into one of the tubs he just scrubbed. So the dog goes right into the sink and I get her into another headlock and try to adjust the water and squirt Dial hand soap onto her ass. Oh my god this is such a mess. Oh Jesus. Well, I certainly can't bring myself to actually touch this soapy, shitty mess I've created and I forgot that I have latex gloves in my bedroom (for doing my toenails, perverts, not the other stuff) so I just get a scrub brush and scrubbed the Dial hand soap around. I am now minus one scrub brush, by the way. Get the soapy, shitty mess off the dog with water that was probably too hot and then realize I have no towel handy to dry the dog. Oh well, I guess while I've got her here in this headlock I'll just take some scissors and trim up the hair back there so I won't have to go through this again. Who knew that Pomeranians have such thick non-trimmable ass hair? This dog might just be related to The Ex. Abandon all plans to trim the dog's ass hair and try to towel dry her with paper napkins. That too was unsuccessful.
Man, I needed a shot of tequila after all of that. Holy god. Actually, what the dog and I both needed a nap after that whole ordeal. But, not for me. Off to see the VCU game. Back in the pen, little fluff ball doggie. No problems Sunday night or Monday morning. At this point we've all kind of adjusted that the dog might be here for a while because my neighbor's husband is still in the hospital. The dog seems like she's enjoying us, the children are enjoying her and the cat lives in the basket on top of the dryer, right next to her food on top of the washer. No more Indoor Delights for the dog, that's for damn sure.
So, we continue on with the dog. I told my older daughter tonight, though, to quit asking me if the dog can come live here for good. The answer is a resounding NO. I'm a cat person. I want to feed the cat, put water in her bowl, scoop the litter box and have a lap available for her to climb in and get petted. I don't want to have to let the animal in and out and in and out and in and out one more time. I don't want to have to crawl around on my hands and knees with carpet cleaner, I don't want some jury-rigged pen in the middle of my living room and I don't want to have to chase a dog around around with Lysol wipes. The dog can visit, for short periods of time... but I'm a cat person. Big ups to the dog for reinforcing that.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Updates
Okay... So.... Ummm.... WHO THE FUCK DOESN'T LOVE VCU RIGHT NOW????? Yep, headed to the Final Four, after winning over top-seeded Kansas this afternoon by ten points. The game today wasn't as climactic as the game on Friday night, which was won by one point in overtime with about ten seconds remaining. So now there's all this chitter-chatter on facebook, of which I have contributed, VCU! Rams! There's all kinds of post-game analysis of what did VCU do right (they won) and what did Kansas do wrong (they lost), predictions of the VCU-Butler match-up, how long it'll be until Head Coach Shaka Smart moves on, what this means to Richmond, blah blah blah. Of all the pre-game predictions that I came across, the smartest and most succinct was from a blogging homeslice of mine who basically said that the Kansas team has a tendency to implode at the most inopportune time and today was that day.
I'm somewhat annoyed about the discussion of the bandwagon fans. If you're alumni, you're not a bandwagon fan. Either you or one of your relatives paid dearly in the form of tuition to be a fan, whether it's a diehard or sometime fan. Or maybe VCU paid your way in the form of a scholarship, or maybe the Feds paid your way in student loans that have since been defaulted on. Who knows and who cares? My little birthplace has a spot in the Final Four and I don't think that's ever happened before. We've seen almost-major-league baseball and hockey come and go, arena football teams float around (does Richmond even have one anymore?), a short stint with the women's pro basketball league, and we've watched all the Northsiders charge mad money every May and September to all the Nascar fans for the right to park in their front yards. Other than that, Richmond hasn't been represented much. So yeah, lots of bandwagon fans who aren't bandwagon at all - they just like seeing one of their hometown teams go big. And mad props to everyone on Friday night who at the end of University of Richmond game pulled off their UR t-shirts to reveal a VCU t-shirt.
After a consultation with the older daughter's psychologist, I'll be seeking an outside educational assessment from someone, yet to be determined, to figure out what's going on with her reading. He agreed that I probably can't count on the school system to step up at this point, and I understand that. They have to deal with the worst case scenarios first, and then work their way down. I have a feeling that my older daughter's reading issues are pretty minor in the grand scheme of the enrollment at her elementary school, which is about 990-ish students. But that's fine, because my personal enrollment is exactly two, so I'll step up where the school system can't. I haven't bothered to tell The Ex this yet, but since he can afford a new sports car to go with his new mid-life crisis, he should be able to pay for half. The only thing missing from his mid-life crisis is a baby, and I doubt he'll bother to get his nuts untied for that.
And, on the same vein, The Ex reported tonight when he dropped the children off that there was a problem this past Friday with Mrs. Second Grade Teacher having to address the older daughter twice in class for playing with an arts and crafts kind of thing she snuck into school. Apparently Mrs. Second Grade Teacher told the older daughter that she needed a note from her parents regarding the matter so that she would know that the older daughter told us about it. Here is the type-written note to Mrs. Second Grade Teacher from the douchebag that I married. Obviously I have replaced real names with my special little nicknames I use in my blog. Obviously.
"Dear Mrs. Second Grade Teacher,
My older daughter told me about an incident that happened in your class on Friday. It is my understanding that she was playing with some "arts and crafts stuff" during instructional time and that you took it away. I further understand that it was returned to her and that older daughter said she would not play with it any more. Older daughter stated that she broke her promise and continued to play with the "arts and crafts stuff" during class and that it had to be taken away again.
Older daughter and I talked extensively about how important it is to pay attention in class and also how important it is to keep a promise not to do something, especially after she was given a second chance. I believe older daughter has a full understanding that her behavior was unacceptable, and that by reneging on her promise she was actually lying. She understands that she made poor choices and that her behavior must be corrected immediately.
Please feel free to contact me if my discussion with her about this poor behavior choice is not immediately corrected.
Thank You,
Dickface"
And here is my hand written fantasy letter to Mrs. Second Grade Teacher that will accompany his type-written letter on the printer that I let him keep.
"Dear Mrs. Second Grade Teacher,
As you can see, it's March and this is the first communication you've received all school year from older daughter's father. Upon reading the letter, you will probably note that he is trying way too hard. I disagree with his claim that reneging on a promise is actually a lie, but he still has issues with the fact that I decided after taking my vows that he was really a complete dickhead and I really didn't want to be married to someone who would randomly demand that I perform oral sex upon him. But that's his issue and I pretty much told him that fact. I have also spoken with the older daughter, and probably in a more effective manner than her father, since he doesn't bother to get involved in much of what she's doing other than playing Wii, and she understands that she cannot take her "arts and crafts stuff" to school anymore, which she snuck in to begin with. Since you are such a shitty teacher, I've decided that just speaking with her is enough of a punishment, as the real punishment for her is having to deal with you day after fucking day. If you review her father's letter, you'll notice he's provided no contact information for you to get in touch with him. This is because he really doesn't care to be involved other than providing lip service, and because I haven't listed any of his information down on any of the repetitive school paperwork I've filled out. This is because I know he's not going to do shit. So if you have any other issues with older daughter, you can reach me in the normal fashion, which is to press Speed Dial #1. And upon reaching me, I will give you hell like I do every other time you've reached me.
Sincerely,
Mommy Extrodinaire"
Yep, that's my fantasy letter to Mrs. Second Grade Teacher. However, instead of sending in my fantasy letter, I will simply send his letter in with a sticky note from me on top that says "You can reach me on my cell at 123-4567 if you have any other issues. Mommy." Despite all else, Mrs. Second Grade Teacher knows who is actively involved in the older daughter's school work and school issues. A sticky note will suffice.
Had a great weekend with Guy #1. It was very rudely interrupted by reality, which came at about 5:20 this evening when I had to come back home and wait for my kids to get back from their weekend with The Ex. The Ex has started having The Girlfriend spend every weekend with him, even if the children are with him. And no, I'm not okay with this, but I've talked about it with the child psychologist and he's basically said that I can raise hell and go back to court and demand this and demand that, or I can just roll with it and continue to be the responsible adult in the children's lives. I've decided to just roll with it, because I don't want to deal with whatever The Ex might say to the children if I take him back to court, and because I don't think anyone would emerge victorious. All in all, I'm just having a really hard time of not falling into whiny mode of "it's not fair", because for real, it's not. The Ex doesn't miss anytime with The Girlfriend, but because I have not introduced Guy #1 to the children (and because they don't even know about him), I get to go for about nine or ten days without seeing Guy #1 and goddamnit, it's just not fair. I think I have done really well not falling into the pity party that lives in the back of my head, but it's been extra hard today. I'm so pissed that I'm the one who has to be responsible and has to be concerned about the children all the time. I'm pissed that I can't squeeze a little extra time in with Guy #1, and I'm pissed that Guy #1 also gets the short end of the stick. But I have to keep remembering that the children are the priority right now, and at the end of the nine or ten days will be Guy #1, waiting with a big hug. I can make it, I swear I can.
I'm somewhat annoyed about the discussion of the bandwagon fans. If you're alumni, you're not a bandwagon fan. Either you or one of your relatives paid dearly in the form of tuition to be a fan, whether it's a diehard or sometime fan. Or maybe VCU paid your way in the form of a scholarship, or maybe the Feds paid your way in student loans that have since been defaulted on. Who knows and who cares? My little birthplace has a spot in the Final Four and I don't think that's ever happened before. We've seen almost-major-league baseball and hockey come and go, arena football teams float around (does Richmond even have one anymore?), a short stint with the women's pro basketball league, and we've watched all the Northsiders charge mad money every May and September to all the Nascar fans for the right to park in their front yards. Other than that, Richmond hasn't been represented much. So yeah, lots of bandwagon fans who aren't bandwagon at all - they just like seeing one of their hometown teams go big. And mad props to everyone on Friday night who at the end of University of Richmond game pulled off their UR t-shirts to reveal a VCU t-shirt.
After a consultation with the older daughter's psychologist, I'll be seeking an outside educational assessment from someone, yet to be determined, to figure out what's going on with her reading. He agreed that I probably can't count on the school system to step up at this point, and I understand that. They have to deal with the worst case scenarios first, and then work their way down. I have a feeling that my older daughter's reading issues are pretty minor in the grand scheme of the enrollment at her elementary school, which is about 990-ish students. But that's fine, because my personal enrollment is exactly two, so I'll step up where the school system can't. I haven't bothered to tell The Ex this yet, but since he can afford a new sports car to go with his new mid-life crisis, he should be able to pay for half. The only thing missing from his mid-life crisis is a baby, and I doubt he'll bother to get his nuts untied for that.
And, on the same vein, The Ex reported tonight when he dropped the children off that there was a problem this past Friday with Mrs. Second Grade Teacher having to address the older daughter twice in class for playing with an arts and crafts kind of thing she snuck into school. Apparently Mrs. Second Grade Teacher told the older daughter that she needed a note from her parents regarding the matter so that she would know that the older daughter told us about it. Here is the type-written note to Mrs. Second Grade Teacher from the douchebag that I married. Obviously I have replaced real names with my special little nicknames I use in my blog. Obviously.
"Dear Mrs. Second Grade Teacher,
My older daughter told me about an incident that happened in your class on Friday. It is my understanding that she was playing with some "arts and crafts stuff" during instructional time and that you took it away. I further understand that it was returned to her and that older daughter said she would not play with it any more. Older daughter stated that she broke her promise and continued to play with the "arts and crafts stuff" during class and that it had to be taken away again.
Older daughter and I talked extensively about how important it is to pay attention in class and also how important it is to keep a promise not to do something, especially after she was given a second chance. I believe older daughter has a full understanding that her behavior was unacceptable, and that by reneging on her promise she was actually lying. She understands that she made poor choices and that her behavior must be corrected immediately.
Please feel free to contact me if my discussion with her about this poor behavior choice is not immediately corrected.
Thank You,
Dickface"
And here is my hand written fantasy letter to Mrs. Second Grade Teacher that will accompany his type-written letter on the printer that I let him keep.
"Dear Mrs. Second Grade Teacher,
As you can see, it's March and this is the first communication you've received all school year from older daughter's father. Upon reading the letter, you will probably note that he is trying way too hard. I disagree with his claim that reneging on a promise is actually a lie, but he still has issues with the fact that I decided after taking my vows that he was really a complete dickhead and I really didn't want to be married to someone who would randomly demand that I perform oral sex upon him. But that's his issue and I pretty much told him that fact. I have also spoken with the older daughter, and probably in a more effective manner than her father, since he doesn't bother to get involved in much of what she's doing other than playing Wii, and she understands that she cannot take her "arts and crafts stuff" to school anymore, which she snuck in to begin with. Since you are such a shitty teacher, I've decided that just speaking with her is enough of a punishment, as the real punishment for her is having to deal with you day after fucking day. If you review her father's letter, you'll notice he's provided no contact information for you to get in touch with him. This is because he really doesn't care to be involved other than providing lip service, and because I haven't listed any of his information down on any of the repetitive school paperwork I've filled out. This is because I know he's not going to do shit. So if you have any other issues with older daughter, you can reach me in the normal fashion, which is to press Speed Dial #1. And upon reaching me, I will give you hell like I do every other time you've reached me.
Sincerely,
Mommy Extrodinaire"
Yep, that's my fantasy letter to Mrs. Second Grade Teacher. However, instead of sending in my fantasy letter, I will simply send his letter in with a sticky note from me on top that says "You can reach me on my cell at 123-4567 if you have any other issues. Mommy." Despite all else, Mrs. Second Grade Teacher knows who is actively involved in the older daughter's school work and school issues. A sticky note will suffice.
Had a great weekend with Guy #1. It was very rudely interrupted by reality, which came at about 5:20 this evening when I had to come back home and wait for my kids to get back from their weekend with The Ex. The Ex has started having The Girlfriend spend every weekend with him, even if the children are with him. And no, I'm not okay with this, but I've talked about it with the child psychologist and he's basically said that I can raise hell and go back to court and demand this and demand that, or I can just roll with it and continue to be the responsible adult in the children's lives. I've decided to just roll with it, because I don't want to deal with whatever The Ex might say to the children if I take him back to court, and because I don't think anyone would emerge victorious. All in all, I'm just having a really hard time of not falling into whiny mode of "it's not fair", because for real, it's not. The Ex doesn't miss anytime with The Girlfriend, but because I have not introduced Guy #1 to the children (and because they don't even know about him), I get to go for about nine or ten days without seeing Guy #1 and goddamnit, it's just not fair. I think I have done really well not falling into the pity party that lives in the back of my head, but it's been extra hard today. I'm so pissed that I'm the one who has to be responsible and has to be concerned about the children all the time. I'm pissed that I can't squeeze a little extra time in with Guy #1, and I'm pissed that Guy #1 also gets the short end of the stick. But I have to keep remembering that the children are the priority right now, and at the end of the nine or ten days will be Guy #1, waiting with a big hug. I can make it, I swear I can.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Where I Went
March Madness. I generally never pay attention to March Madness, even though I love basketball. I blame a lot of this on just my general apathy of life when I was married, because The Ex hated sports, generally, and talked shit about everyone else who did like sports. I kind of let the sports fanatic in me die, maybe not a full death, but it was a decade long coma for sure. Since the girls started cheerleading, I've gotten back into sports, maybe spurred on by the many days and nights spent at the football field and on the bleachers of the elementary schools around the county, and maybe spurred on by me realizing it's okay for me to start embracing those things I really enjoy again. Writing, reading, yard work, and sports. But not hockey. Hockey is stupid. Guy #1 is taking me to Wrigley Field in August to see my first ever baseball game, which we'll watch from the shade behind home plate, and I am hoping that this will jump start a new interest in baseball, which I've never really been interested in. My grandfather loved baseball, and I'm hoping this trip to Chicago will help me to reach a higher level of understanding with him, even though my grandfather isn't around anymore.
But back to March Madness. Because I like to give specific details of myself out rather slowly, I've never mentioned where I went to college before, because it never seemed relevant to anything that I've written. Longwood, to be followed by VCU. Community college preceded Longwood, and I'll say that I spent exactly one year at Longwood and I hated every minute of it. When I was growing up, my mother basically gave me two choices of colleges to attend. Longwood or VCU. Longwood was the easy option after I finished community college, because I was living in Farmville at the time and it was the lazy choice. It was the choice I wasn't proud of, because even as a kid growing up in high school, I always considered Longwood to be that safe choice for everyone else that I grew up with, the college of choice when you didn't want to leave Farmville. Longwood was where you went if you didn't want to get out. And by get out, I mean that you were satisfied with life in Farmville and Prince Edward, satisfied to make that your world. I'm pleased to say I got out. It took longer for me to get out of Farmville than some of my classmates, but like everyone else who has gone to college elsewhere and "gotten out", I've never returned and I never, ever will, other than to run down to visit a friend here or there and maybe eat lunch at Macado's. And what's strange is that I've discussed this with some of my classmates from high school, and we've talked about who got out and who didn't. I'm not dissing anyone who has chosen to stay in Farmville and make that their community, because there is a sense of quaintness in living in Farmville. But to me, there's a sense of decay and Southside Virginia hopelessness that no amount of jazzing up the town with fancy lights or a Big Box Bookstore can ever begin to fix.
And so I got out. Ran an hour east to Richmond, and I haven't looked back since. Finagled myself into VCU, where I savored every bit of every other person who wasn't like me, because for real, I was tired of being around people who were just like me. VCU was where I was going to be exposed to people I had never been exposed to before, and VCU was where I was going to learn to truly think and do for myself, because the school was so large you didn't have anyone to hold your hand at registration and exam time. VCU was where a lot of the professors wore jeans and T-shirts and didn't really give a rat's ass if you went to class or not. It was your education you were working on, not theirs. VCU is the strangest and oddest assortment, a mish-mash of people from every walk of life who just seem to come together and make it work. A working mother of three who worked overnights in a Waffle House sitting next next to a Daddy's little princess who was Embassy-educated sitting next to guy from the local projects who got his GED in a juvenile correctional facility sitting next to a girl who carved a three foot tree trunk as part of her Art School portfolio sitting next to the grandson of a local supermarket magnate because he didn't care enough about family tradition to apply to the University of Richmond. This is what you got at VCU.
No football team, and I don't even know if they had a baseball team when I was there. VCU was basketball, baby, all basketball. VCU has always been all basketball, from when they played in the Franklin Street Gym, to the Richmond Coliseum to the new and fancy Siegel Center, where there's still some crazy homeless guy sitting outside on game day banging on a couple of upside down zinc tubs, calling everyone forth to the game in an unspoken inner-city kind of communication. VCU made the Sweet Sixteen this year, first time ever (I think) and has been vaulted out of the local and state spotlight into the national limelight. I'm not going to pretend to be a sport analyst, because I don't know enough to do all of that, but I know it's pretty fucking exciting to anyone who went to VCU, especially to those of us who went there when VCU wasn't shit and hadn't been gussied up with fancy brick pavers and fancy rams painted on the streets around the campus.
I didn't expect VCU to win last night against Florida State University. I expect a close loss, and it almost was. VCU squeaked by with one point in overtime, and less than ten seconds on the clock. A win is a win is a win, and it was a win, but not a domination like in the previous games of the tourney. But it was a win against an ACC team, something I never really expected. ACC teams, by and large, to someone who doesn't even know a whole lot about sports... power houses. Well-oiled machines, running around recruiting the best of the best. I am tempted to turn this into a David and Goliath moment, but I'm not because even I'm cognizant of the fact that I tend to do that. I'm trying in my head not to compare this to George Mason's road to the Final Four a few years ago, and just enjoy that my scrappy-ass alma mater is out there in the world, black and gold, with it's crazy ass funky band where the musicians wear sloppy looking jeans and VCU t-shirts, and the dance team doesn't do so much dancing. This is my VCU, and the VCU that I love. This is the VCU that I talk to my kids about, and try to convince them, at ages five and eight, that this is their only logical choice for a college.
Elite Eight tomorrow for the Rams. Can't wait.
But back to March Madness. Because I like to give specific details of myself out rather slowly, I've never mentioned where I went to college before, because it never seemed relevant to anything that I've written. Longwood, to be followed by VCU. Community college preceded Longwood, and I'll say that I spent exactly one year at Longwood and I hated every minute of it. When I was growing up, my mother basically gave me two choices of colleges to attend. Longwood or VCU. Longwood was the easy option after I finished community college, because I was living in Farmville at the time and it was the lazy choice. It was the choice I wasn't proud of, because even as a kid growing up in high school, I always considered Longwood to be that safe choice for everyone else that I grew up with, the college of choice when you didn't want to leave Farmville. Longwood was where you went if you didn't want to get out. And by get out, I mean that you were satisfied with life in Farmville and Prince Edward, satisfied to make that your world. I'm pleased to say I got out. It took longer for me to get out of Farmville than some of my classmates, but like everyone else who has gone to college elsewhere and "gotten out", I've never returned and I never, ever will, other than to run down to visit a friend here or there and maybe eat lunch at Macado's. And what's strange is that I've discussed this with some of my classmates from high school, and we've talked about who got out and who didn't. I'm not dissing anyone who has chosen to stay in Farmville and make that their community, because there is a sense of quaintness in living in Farmville. But to me, there's a sense of decay and Southside Virginia hopelessness that no amount of jazzing up the town with fancy lights or a Big Box Bookstore can ever begin to fix.
And so I got out. Ran an hour east to Richmond, and I haven't looked back since. Finagled myself into VCU, where I savored every bit of every other person who wasn't like me, because for real, I was tired of being around people who were just like me. VCU was where I was going to be exposed to people I had never been exposed to before, and VCU was where I was going to learn to truly think and do for myself, because the school was so large you didn't have anyone to hold your hand at registration and exam time. VCU was where a lot of the professors wore jeans and T-shirts and didn't really give a rat's ass if you went to class or not. It was your education you were working on, not theirs. VCU is the strangest and oddest assortment, a mish-mash of people from every walk of life who just seem to come together and make it work. A working mother of three who worked overnights in a Waffle House sitting next next to a Daddy's little princess who was Embassy-educated sitting next to guy from the local projects who got his GED in a juvenile correctional facility sitting next to a girl who carved a three foot tree trunk as part of her Art School portfolio sitting next to the grandson of a local supermarket magnate because he didn't care enough about family tradition to apply to the University of Richmond. This is what you got at VCU.
No football team, and I don't even know if they had a baseball team when I was there. VCU was basketball, baby, all basketball. VCU has always been all basketball, from when they played in the Franklin Street Gym, to the Richmond Coliseum to the new and fancy Siegel Center, where there's still some crazy homeless guy sitting outside on game day banging on a couple of upside down zinc tubs, calling everyone forth to the game in an unspoken inner-city kind of communication. VCU made the Sweet Sixteen this year, first time ever (I think) and has been vaulted out of the local and state spotlight into the national limelight. I'm not going to pretend to be a sport analyst, because I don't know enough to do all of that, but I know it's pretty fucking exciting to anyone who went to VCU, especially to those of us who went there when VCU wasn't shit and hadn't been gussied up with fancy brick pavers and fancy rams painted on the streets around the campus.
I didn't expect VCU to win last night against Florida State University. I expect a close loss, and it almost was. VCU squeaked by with one point in overtime, and less than ten seconds on the clock. A win is a win is a win, and it was a win, but not a domination like in the previous games of the tourney. But it was a win against an ACC team, something I never really expected. ACC teams, by and large, to someone who doesn't even know a whole lot about sports... power houses. Well-oiled machines, running around recruiting the best of the best. I am tempted to turn this into a David and Goliath moment, but I'm not because even I'm cognizant of the fact that I tend to do that. I'm trying in my head not to compare this to George Mason's road to the Final Four a few years ago, and just enjoy that my scrappy-ass alma mater is out there in the world, black and gold, with it's crazy ass funky band where the musicians wear sloppy looking jeans and VCU t-shirts, and the dance team doesn't do so much dancing. This is my VCU, and the VCU that I love. This is the VCU that I talk to my kids about, and try to convince them, at ages five and eight, that this is their only logical choice for a college.
Elite Eight tomorrow for the Rams. Can't wait.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Stupid Link of the Day
Hmmm, I might have a new column developing. Stupid Link of the Day. Check it out.
http://www.cocksox.com/
http://www.cocksox.com/
Are You Kidding Me?
I'll start this whole thing out with a completely random sidebar about Lent. I don't get the whole Lent thing. I mean, I get it in a textbook kind of way, but not a religious kind of way. I suppose that means I understand it theoretically, but I'm still foggy on the concept figuratively or maybe it's the other way around. This could be for two reasons: I was raised as a sometimes-Methodist, which meant that sometimes we went to church and sometimes we didn't. But when we did go, it was always to a Methodist church. I don't ever remember the Methodists giving anything up for Lent. I don't know why we never did that, other than maybe it required more than a sometimes-kind of dedication. I think it's to prove that we love Jesus or something about the resurrection. Again, we attended only very randomly so my knowledge is sketchy. I guess I started hearing people at work talk about what they were giving up for Lent. I think you're supposed to give up something that means a lot to you, or something that will be a real sacrifice. Guy #1, who is Catholic, told me he was giving up sex. Note to Guy #1: that was one quick epic failure. I've been a little disappointed no one has asked me what I'm giving up for Lent. Either these people really know me well or... they know me really well. I've got my answers all prepared. For Lent, I have decided that I will give up organized religion and proselytizing. I also plan to give up smoking crack, The Ex, and Suduko. Because that's how a sometimes-Methodist would roll with the Lent thing. We would only sacrifice the shit we don't do in the first place.
Today is Wednesday, which means that "the" envelope comes home in the older daughter's book bag with all of the stupid notices from the PTA on how they like to kill trees and send multiple notices home about the same thing, and all of the tests and quizzes from the last week, along with anything else that's graded. If my daughter gets a good grade, I am allowed to keep the test/quiz/whatever it is and file it in a three-ring binder so the younger daughter will get the benefit of studying for the tests and quizzes with the actual tests and quizzes. I felt like a fucking genius when I figured out last month I need to be saving all of that shit. Or, if the test/quiz/whatever it is has a bad grade, I get to sign the paper and send it back in, so the teacher will know that the parent has acknowledged that their child was an educational failure for the week. I know that's not really it, but that's sure what it feels like to me, since the parent is supposed to direct all of the homework and studying for the week. This sending shit back in with a parent signature is actually the school's documentation for when they refuse to pass the child up to the next grade and they can say that the parent knew about the bad grades. Children are not just passed up the food chain, because if they were, my younger would not be in a kindergarten class with the same little boy that my older daughter was in kindergarten with. Yes, it's that child's third year in kindergarten. And there also wouldn't be an EIGHT year old in my younger daughter's kindergarten class.
Last week wasn't a great week for my older daughter - she missed two days of school, one day because I was too sick to help her do homework the night before, and the other day she was legitimately sick. The math unit she was working on was subtraction, and honestly, subtraction sucks like division. I hate subtraction, and I know that it's possible to make it through college with minimal math skills because I've done it. In fact, I did it and still graduated one-tenth of a point off from graduating with honors. So me having this knowledge doesn't really help her, because part of me is thinking, let's just skate through this shit. But the other part of me is thinking, well, if I could actually do basic math maybe I'd have a fucking awesome career right now instead of just doing what I do for the guv. But anyway, educationally, last week was not our best week and I knew that when I opened the envelope full of a week's worth of tests and quizzes. And here's what I found:
Math chapter review - 62. Fail.
Math quiz on subtraction - 42. Fail.
Math test on subtraction - 41. Fail.
Word sort quiz (the new fancy way to say spelling) - 67. Pretty damn close to failing.
Dictation - 84. Holy shit the child got a passing grade.
Keep in mind this a 100 point scale, so anything in the 70 range and below is not good.
Ummm, are you fucking kidding me? By far, this is the worst envelope we've gotten all year. What the fuck happened here? Upon a closer review, it appears that my older daughter didn't even really try and she pretty much admitted this to me. Again, are you kidding me? I don't even know what to do with this, other than explaining to her in my not-so-nice-Mom tone of voice that she better start trying, because NOT trying is NOT an option. Regarding the spelling, she just totally blew four of the words off and didn't even write them down, and then admitted she wasn't paying attention during the test. Are you kidding me? I know they don't have Jersey Shore playing on TV during the spelling test, so where the fuck was her brain?
We have an appointment with her psychologist tomorrow and I'm letting him look at this stuff, because something is just not quite right here. We have struggled our way through second grade, and I'm scared of what third grade will have to offer. I take some solace in knowing that everyone else who's child has gone through second grade has discussed their child struggling too, and Mrs. Second Grade Teacher even admitted during our last parent teacher conference that test taking skills are not taught until third grade. That doesn't even make good sense to me, especially since the second graders take graded tests and quizzes throughout the year. My other issue has been that my older daughter was placed into a remedial reading group in November due to low reading scores, and if her reading is so bad that she has to be placed into a remedial reading group, then how realistic is it to expect her to read the tests accurately?
Something is not right here. When I went to the parent-teacher conference in January and asked about an assessment for a possible learning disability, I think I got a little blown off, but just a little bit. I got the distinct impression that the reading specialist and Mrs. Second Grade Teacher don't think there's a problem, and let's just wait and see. I also got the impression that if the problem were considered to be severe, it would have already been recommended. I'm sorry, but my child is not going to be the one to get blown off. I asked about having an independent assessment done, and that suggestion was immediately pooh-poohed with an "That's really expensive." I think that the issue is that if I get an outside assessment done, and if the outside assessment says something the school doesn't like, I've effectively fucked them because then they will have to acknowledge there's a problem and then they will have to do something. And this isn't one of those Munchhausen situations, which I think most teachers probably assume anyway. I wanted to explain to Mrs. Second Grade Teacher that I don't really want any attention from my child doing poorly. I want them to determine if there is a problem and then work to do something about it. Not wait and see. I just don't know how much longer I can deal with my daughter looking at a word in a book and calling it a whole other word that isn't even in the damn book. I don't know how much longer I can deal with my daughter reading words that aren't there, and how much longer I can deal with her sometime-inability to pay attention in class. I don't know how much longer I can deal with the inconsistent grades, and not knowing if the school is really and truly doing everything they can to make my daughter's education a worthwhile endeavor.
So I'll be talking with the child psychologist tomorrow to see if I can figure out how to get an outside assessment done for reading disabilities, possible ADD and whatever else might be going on in her little brain.
Today is Wednesday, which means that "the" envelope comes home in the older daughter's book bag with all of the stupid notices from the PTA on how they like to kill trees and send multiple notices home about the same thing, and all of the tests and quizzes from the last week, along with anything else that's graded. If my daughter gets a good grade, I am allowed to keep the test/quiz/whatever it is and file it in a three-ring binder so the younger daughter will get the benefit of studying for the tests and quizzes with the actual tests and quizzes. I felt like a fucking genius when I figured out last month I need to be saving all of that shit. Or, if the test/quiz/whatever it is has a bad grade, I get to sign the paper and send it back in, so the teacher will know that the parent has acknowledged that their child was an educational failure for the week. I know that's not really it, but that's sure what it feels like to me, since the parent is supposed to direct all of the homework and studying for the week. This sending shit back in with a parent signature is actually the school's documentation for when they refuse to pass the child up to the next grade and they can say that the parent knew about the bad grades. Children are not just passed up the food chain, because if they were, my younger would not be in a kindergarten class with the same little boy that my older daughter was in kindergarten with. Yes, it's that child's third year in kindergarten. And there also wouldn't be an EIGHT year old in my younger daughter's kindergarten class.
Last week wasn't a great week for my older daughter - she missed two days of school, one day because I was too sick to help her do homework the night before, and the other day she was legitimately sick. The math unit she was working on was subtraction, and honestly, subtraction sucks like division. I hate subtraction, and I know that it's possible to make it through college with minimal math skills because I've done it. In fact, I did it and still graduated one-tenth of a point off from graduating with honors. So me having this knowledge doesn't really help her, because part of me is thinking, let's just skate through this shit. But the other part of me is thinking, well, if I could actually do basic math maybe I'd have a fucking awesome career right now instead of just doing what I do for the guv. But anyway, educationally, last week was not our best week and I knew that when I opened the envelope full of a week's worth of tests and quizzes. And here's what I found:
Math chapter review - 62. Fail.
Math quiz on subtraction - 42. Fail.
Math test on subtraction - 41. Fail.
Word sort quiz (the new fancy way to say spelling) - 67. Pretty damn close to failing.
Dictation - 84. Holy shit the child got a passing grade.
Keep in mind this a 100 point scale, so anything in the 70 range and below is not good.
Ummm, are you fucking kidding me? By far, this is the worst envelope we've gotten all year. What the fuck happened here? Upon a closer review, it appears that my older daughter didn't even really try and she pretty much admitted this to me. Again, are you kidding me? I don't even know what to do with this, other than explaining to her in my not-so-nice-Mom tone of voice that she better start trying, because NOT trying is NOT an option. Regarding the spelling, she just totally blew four of the words off and didn't even write them down, and then admitted she wasn't paying attention during the test. Are you kidding me? I know they don't have Jersey Shore playing on TV during the spelling test, so where the fuck was her brain?
We have an appointment with her psychologist tomorrow and I'm letting him look at this stuff, because something is just not quite right here. We have struggled our way through second grade, and I'm scared of what third grade will have to offer. I take some solace in knowing that everyone else who's child has gone through second grade has discussed their child struggling too, and Mrs. Second Grade Teacher even admitted during our last parent teacher conference that test taking skills are not taught until third grade. That doesn't even make good sense to me, especially since the second graders take graded tests and quizzes throughout the year. My other issue has been that my older daughter was placed into a remedial reading group in November due to low reading scores, and if her reading is so bad that she has to be placed into a remedial reading group, then how realistic is it to expect her to read the tests accurately?
Something is not right here. When I went to the parent-teacher conference in January and asked about an assessment for a possible learning disability, I think I got a little blown off, but just a little bit. I got the distinct impression that the reading specialist and Mrs. Second Grade Teacher don't think there's a problem, and let's just wait and see. I also got the impression that if the problem were considered to be severe, it would have already been recommended. I'm sorry, but my child is not going to be the one to get blown off. I asked about having an independent assessment done, and that suggestion was immediately pooh-poohed with an "That's really expensive." I think that the issue is that if I get an outside assessment done, and if the outside assessment says something the school doesn't like, I've effectively fucked them because then they will have to acknowledge there's a problem and then they will have to do something. And this isn't one of those Munchhausen situations, which I think most teachers probably assume anyway. I wanted to explain to Mrs. Second Grade Teacher that I don't really want any attention from my child doing poorly. I want them to determine if there is a problem and then work to do something about it. Not wait and see. I just don't know how much longer I can deal with my daughter looking at a word in a book and calling it a whole other word that isn't even in the damn book. I don't know how much longer I can deal with my daughter reading words that aren't there, and how much longer I can deal with her sometime-inability to pay attention in class. I don't know how much longer I can deal with the inconsistent grades, and not knowing if the school is really and truly doing everything they can to make my daughter's education a worthwhile endeavor.
So I'll be talking with the child psychologist tomorrow to see if I can figure out how to get an outside assessment done for reading disabilities, possible ADD and whatever else might be going on in her little brain.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
This Started Out As...
A little post about stuff I like, since I waxed poetically yesterday about shit I don't like. I thought I should probably have a little list of stuff that makes me happy to offset the list of shit that makes me not-so-friendly. But then, of course there's always a "but then...", I stumbled across The Ex's facebook page for his dumbass band with his dumbass friends, and saw that he has his first 'gig' scheduled for a Friday night in April.
Well, given his propensity to schedule stuff when he is supposed to have the children, I immediately ran over to my calendar, where I've already figured out our weekend schedules through August, and checked out that day in April. Of course he has the children that weekend. Why in the fuck would he even begin to think about actually spending any time with his children? I suppose I'm the moron for even assuming he would want to spend any time with his children, considering he only sees them every other weekend and one night per week until 8:00. And he keeps asking to switch that one fucking night because he has other stuff going on. He called the other day and wanted to start switching the night in April because he has something else to do on the pre-arranged night. I asked him why couldn't he schedule the other stuff around the children? And he replied that that's exactly what he's doing. Incorrect answer, douchebag. In fact, the only correct answer would have been to say that he needed to jump in a goddamn time machine and take that question back out of the atmosphere of my brain.
I guess I can assume he's going to figure out the week before, maybe a couple of days before THE weekend that he's got this stupid-ass 'gig' that he's double-booked, and he's going to call me to make some kind of arrangement, because I doubt he's going to be able to take our younger daughter to her Friday night gymnastics class. I hope the people who succeeded in raising a complete douchebag are going to be available to help him (meaning his parents) because I'm not going to fucking do it. I am so tired of my children getting short changed from him I don't even know what to do. I am tired of him acting like the victim, I am tired of him acting confused about when his weekends are (every other weekend, motherfucker!) and I am tired of everything else taking priority over the children that he very willingly helped create.
And this is the shitbag I'm going to send my children to live with this summer. I keep waiting for the call from him saying that he doesn't think he'll be able to have the children this summer because he's got too much other stuff going on, and I keep wondering if the children will be at his house for three weeks or so and then he'll call, full of manipulation and douchebagginess, and claim that the children miss me so much that they'd rather be with me. I suppose we'll see. I've got about two months left until I pack the children up for summer and I'm not really looking forward to it.
In fact, I'm feeling so incredibly far into the realm of PMS (because this all ultimately connected to my menstrual cycle) and passive-aggressiveness that I might just make a WHOLE LOT of fake facebook accounts so I can post stupid shit on the wall of his band. Stuff like: You SUCK! Man, you guys are ugly AND sound bad! Don't quit your day job! Those 102 people who like you must be relatives! Hey, can you please post more sexist comments because they are AWESOME! Tiny dicks rock out! I've heard better music at a Special Olympics recital! And, to go back to the old standby, You SUCK!
I think I missed my calling as a professional heckler. I'll let you know how it goes.
Well, given his propensity to schedule stuff when he is supposed to have the children, I immediately ran over to my calendar, where I've already figured out our weekend schedules through August, and checked out that day in April. Of course he has the children that weekend. Why in the fuck would he even begin to think about actually spending any time with his children? I suppose I'm the moron for even assuming he would want to spend any time with his children, considering he only sees them every other weekend and one night per week until 8:00. And he keeps asking to switch that one fucking night because he has other stuff going on. He called the other day and wanted to start switching the night in April because he has something else to do on the pre-arranged night. I asked him why couldn't he schedule the other stuff around the children? And he replied that that's exactly what he's doing. Incorrect answer, douchebag. In fact, the only correct answer would have been to say that he needed to jump in a goddamn time machine and take that question back out of the atmosphere of my brain.
I guess I can assume he's going to figure out the week before, maybe a couple of days before THE weekend that he's got this stupid-ass 'gig' that he's double-booked, and he's going to call me to make some kind of arrangement, because I doubt he's going to be able to take our younger daughter to her Friday night gymnastics class. I hope the people who succeeded in raising a complete douchebag are going to be available to help him (meaning his parents) because I'm not going to fucking do it. I am so tired of my children getting short changed from him I don't even know what to do. I am tired of him acting like the victim, I am tired of him acting confused about when his weekends are (every other weekend, motherfucker!) and I am tired of everything else taking priority over the children that he very willingly helped create.
And this is the shitbag I'm going to send my children to live with this summer. I keep waiting for the call from him saying that he doesn't think he'll be able to have the children this summer because he's got too much other stuff going on, and I keep wondering if the children will be at his house for three weeks or so and then he'll call, full of manipulation and douchebagginess, and claim that the children miss me so much that they'd rather be with me. I suppose we'll see. I've got about two months left until I pack the children up for summer and I'm not really looking forward to it.
In fact, I'm feeling so incredibly far into the realm of PMS (because this all ultimately connected to my menstrual cycle) and passive-aggressiveness that I might just make a WHOLE LOT of fake facebook accounts so I can post stupid shit on the wall of his band. Stuff like: You SUCK! Man, you guys are ugly AND sound bad! Don't quit your day job! Those 102 people who like you must be relatives! Hey, can you please post more sexist comments because they are AWESOME! Tiny dicks rock out! I've heard better music at a Special Olympics recital! And, to go back to the old standby, You SUCK!
I think I missed my calling as a professional heckler. I'll let you know how it goes.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Stuff I Don't Like
First day back to work after a long week off spent being miserable with the flu, and I'm feeling a little grumpy. I didn't start feeling normal until about eight minutes ago, and the day is over. Can I feel normal eight minutes into my day instead? Actually, I know I can't. I'm a night person, and when the sun goes down I start waking up and feeling like I'm just hitting my stride. So unless I start waking up every day at about 8:20 pm, I won't ever feel great eight minutes into my day.
But in the vein of being a recuperating grump, I thought I would provide a little list of shit I don't like. Well, there's really an enormous list of shit I don't like, but it's hard for me to keep track of so I'll just go with a little list of stuff that's been floating around in my head.
In no particular order:
1. The little happy family stick figure decals that are stuck all over the back of minivans - Okay, these things are just gay. They started out cute, but now they're just gay. Please stop, soccer moms. I don't care what kind of job your old man has, I don't care that shopping is your favoritist hobby (evidenced by the shopping bags dangling from your stick arms) and I don't care how many kids you have and what they like to do. Don't care about your pets, either. In fact, if I were a criminal, I would probably find a way to use your stick-figure demographics to my advantage.
2. Dog shit - I think I covered this one a few posts back, but I have such a loathing for dog shit that it really deserves a second mention. I would like to think that most normal people would dislike dog shit, but I'm obviously wrong due to the millions of Americans who own dogs and have dog shit in their yards. I opened the front door the other day, and at the very edge of my yard next to the street, some woman was letting her dog shit in my yard. I just stood there and stared while she gave me that sheepish shrug and then wandered off with her dog. I hadn't seen her before, because if I had, and if I knew where she lived, I would have gotten my shovel out and carried her dog shit to her yard. For real, if I hadn't been actively dying of the flu, I would have yelled at her to pick up her fucking dog shit. This is the Southside. I don't feel the need for manners all the time.
3. The time of the year when I can't buy Cadbury Eggs - Cadbury Eggs do a lot for making me not-so-much of a bitch. If someone gave me a Cadbury Egg to eat whilst their dog shit on the edge (but just the edge) of my yard, I might be little more tolerant. Nah. I totally wouldn't be. Dog shit in my yard is dog shit in my yard. There's no making that better.
4. Boils - The skin kind of boil. I know that there's some fancy technical name to this, but I live in the South and we call it a boil. I've had a boil exactly once in my life, and I continue to be amazed that something the size of a pencil eraser can cause that level of systemic pain. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit I've even had a boil, because I always thought boils were something that a little old black man who lived in a tar paper shack would have, and his wife would then throw some turpentine on it and dress it with with raw pork fat and boiled cabbage. This is what happens when I read John Jakes - too much imagination for even me to handle. I dressed mine with a cloth band aid, because those band aids don't fall apart in the shower, and when the boil had healed, I ripped the band aid off, because those band aids don't come off easy, either, and with the band aid I ripped off a neat little rectangle of my skin. So technically, I guess I know what a boil and subsequent debriding feels like.
5. People who make more money than me and bitch about being broke - Especially people who don't have kids. I always want to throw my checkbook at them and tell them to walk in my shoes for a few months. Creative bill paying at it's best. But I also made the decision years ago not to chase money, because if you chase money, no matter how much you have, it's never enough.
6. I'm still pretty agitated that I'm listed as the defendant on the divorce paperwork - But this was financially my best decision, because The Ex was the person who had to pay the money to have the paperwork drawn up and I just paid my attorney to review it, and I'm sure I came away with the cheaper deal. I am also the second ex-wife of his who has been listed as the defendant, so at this point I have convinced myself that if anyone were to ever notice that, they would then immediately infer that the real problem in both of his marriages was him.
7. Mrs. Second Grade Teacher - This woman has been the bane of my existence since school started in September. My older daughter reported that school was great today because Mrs. Second Grade Teacher was out sick. I nastily thought to myself when I heard that this evening, hmmm, maybe I should send some extra homework home for that bitch to do so she'll know how it feels. I hope she has the exact strain of flu that I had. I'm not real big on Mrs. Kindergarten Teacher either, but I can't spread my animosity too thin, so I'll just continue to focus on Mrs. Second Grade Teacher.
8. Stupid reality shows like Dancing With The Stars, The Bachelor, etc. - Gay. Nowhere near as good as The Real Housewives of Anywhere Except Atlanta And Miami. I've changed my mind. Not just gay, but super gay.
9. Not having a digital camera - Getting all of those pics off of my half-crappy little cell phone is a big old pain in my ass.
10. Sexually transmitted diseases, addiction and morbid obesity - Not that I've had any of the three, but what a complete bitch to have any one of them. Here's to not catching something yucky whilst eating Little Debbies in a crackhouse. And I don't like to be distracted while I order my food, either.
But in the vein of being a recuperating grump, I thought I would provide a little list of shit I don't like. Well, there's really an enormous list of shit I don't like, but it's hard for me to keep track of so I'll just go with a little list of stuff that's been floating around in my head.
In no particular order:
1. The little happy family stick figure decals that are stuck all over the back of minivans - Okay, these things are just gay. They started out cute, but now they're just gay. Please stop, soccer moms. I don't care what kind of job your old man has, I don't care that shopping is your favoritist hobby (evidenced by the shopping bags dangling from your stick arms) and I don't care how many kids you have and what they like to do. Don't care about your pets, either. In fact, if I were a criminal, I would probably find a way to use your stick-figure demographics to my advantage.
2. Dog shit - I think I covered this one a few posts back, but I have such a loathing for dog shit that it really deserves a second mention. I would like to think that most normal people would dislike dog shit, but I'm obviously wrong due to the millions of Americans who own dogs and have dog shit in their yards. I opened the front door the other day, and at the very edge of my yard next to the street, some woman was letting her dog shit in my yard. I just stood there and stared while she gave me that sheepish shrug and then wandered off with her dog. I hadn't seen her before, because if I had, and if I knew where she lived, I would have gotten my shovel out and carried her dog shit to her yard. For real, if I hadn't been actively dying of the flu, I would have yelled at her to pick up her fucking dog shit. This is the Southside. I don't feel the need for manners all the time.
3. The time of the year when I can't buy Cadbury Eggs - Cadbury Eggs do a lot for making me not-so-much of a bitch. If someone gave me a Cadbury Egg to eat whilst their dog shit on the edge (but just the edge) of my yard, I might be little more tolerant. Nah. I totally wouldn't be. Dog shit in my yard is dog shit in my yard. There's no making that better.
4. Boils - The skin kind of boil. I know that there's some fancy technical name to this, but I live in the South and we call it a boil. I've had a boil exactly once in my life, and I continue to be amazed that something the size of a pencil eraser can cause that level of systemic pain. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit I've even had a boil, because I always thought boils were something that a little old black man who lived in a tar paper shack would have, and his wife would then throw some turpentine on it and dress it with with raw pork fat and boiled cabbage. This is what happens when I read John Jakes - too much imagination for even me to handle. I dressed mine with a cloth band aid, because those band aids don't fall apart in the shower, and when the boil had healed, I ripped the band aid off, because those band aids don't come off easy, either, and with the band aid I ripped off a neat little rectangle of my skin. So technically, I guess I know what a boil and subsequent debriding feels like.
5. People who make more money than me and bitch about being broke - Especially people who don't have kids. I always want to throw my checkbook at them and tell them to walk in my shoes for a few months. Creative bill paying at it's best. But I also made the decision years ago not to chase money, because if you chase money, no matter how much you have, it's never enough.
6. I'm still pretty agitated that I'm listed as the defendant on the divorce paperwork - But this was financially my best decision, because The Ex was the person who had to pay the money to have the paperwork drawn up and I just paid my attorney to review it, and I'm sure I came away with the cheaper deal. I am also the second ex-wife of his who has been listed as the defendant, so at this point I have convinced myself that if anyone were to ever notice that, they would then immediately infer that the real problem in both of his marriages was him.
7. Mrs. Second Grade Teacher - This woman has been the bane of my existence since school started in September. My older daughter reported that school was great today because Mrs. Second Grade Teacher was out sick. I nastily thought to myself when I heard that this evening, hmmm, maybe I should send some extra homework home for that bitch to do so she'll know how it feels. I hope she has the exact strain of flu that I had. I'm not real big on Mrs. Kindergarten Teacher either, but I can't spread my animosity too thin, so I'll just continue to focus on Mrs. Second Grade Teacher.
8. Stupid reality shows like Dancing With The Stars, The Bachelor, etc. - Gay. Nowhere near as good as The Real Housewives of Anywhere Except Atlanta And Miami. I've changed my mind. Not just gay, but super gay.
9. Not having a digital camera - Getting all of those pics off of my half-crappy little cell phone is a big old pain in my ass.
10. Sexually transmitted diseases, addiction and morbid obesity - Not that I've had any of the three, but what a complete bitch to have any one of them. Here's to not catching something yucky whilst eating Little Debbies in a crackhouse. And I don't like to be distracted while I order my food, either.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Stupid Shit I Look At When I'm Sick
Stupid stuff I look at on the internet when I'm too sick to go to work, but recuperated enough that I can actually walk and stay upright for most of the day. Maybe I'll give my commentary after each item, and maybe I won't. Thank god for the history thingy on my internet because most of this shit is so stupid it's already left my brain.
And not in the order of the clicking:
1. Amazon - "The Official Filthy Rich Handbook" and "True Prep: It's a Whole New Old World". I came across this after I read an article in Virginia Living in the sick waiting room of the pediatrician's office today detailing the new prep, complete with models from our very own men's single-sex college right near where I grew up (and where I never, EVER behaved badly) and their more delicate (although those girls can usually drink pretty hard) counterparts from one of the women's colleges within a two hour drive. All of the models were wearing preppy clothes and posing like an Abercrombie ad. All first names were unisex. None of them looked like they might be partaking in student aid. I like that Amazon has taken some of their books and put some of the pages on a PDF-type format so you can review/read prior to purchase, but I felt like I would have gotten more out of that particular kind of viewing if they had put ALL of the pages on the PDF-type format so I could have just read the entire book for free without having to inconvenience myself by going to the library or the Big Box Bookstore. Gas is too expensive to be running back and forth to the library. And for some reason I always feel like going to the library is a little to liberal for me. I don't know why, but I'm just unsettled by the whole loaner thing.
2. Blogger - My blog, of course! Duh. Not editing, just reading obsessively and adding,more,commas. I,love,commas,can't,you,tell? I like to think that I make the comma work for me, not the other way around.
3. Wikipedia - Holy god this is a long list, and really quite indicative of the odd mish-mash of stuff going through my head at any given point in time. Here goes: Ax Men. Beaver Hunt. Bell's Palsy. Bob Guccione. Chex Mix. Collegiate secret societies in North America. Diavik Diamond Mine. Elaine Benes. Farmville, Virginia (the guy I graduated from high school with and who gave me the stash that got me suspended for six weeks is no longer listed as a notable resident), Gloria Steinem, Legionellosis, Rachael Harris, Playboy Bunny, Playboy Mansion, Seven Society, The Lady of Rage, Wikipedia, Zach Galifianakis. Okay, so with Wikipedia one click leads to another leads to another and before you know it a whole freaking three hours is gone and you're only less-than smarter for it.
4. facebook - self explanatory. What did I do before facebook? Oh, right, I had a life.
5. Google - But I didn't Google myself. Today.
6. J. Peterman - This is how I ended up on Elaine Benes in #3. Trying to figure out what catalog that was.
7. Overrated Children's Gymnastics Place - This is the place that I would not be using now for the younger daughter if I didn't have a credit on my account from when the older daughter broke her arm last spring.
8. Spiegel - Wow! That stuff on clearance is really cheap, considering it's Spiegel.
9. Williamsburg Marketplace - Secretly, I'm a snob when it comes to my home decor. I can't afford any of this shit now, but a girl can plan. Hello, super-gorgeous pineapple trivet! I'll be back for you another year!
And there you have it. This is what I do when I'm cooped up in the house half-sick with a whole-sick child. I am still pleased with the fact that I have managed to quit craigslist cold turkey. I guess that's what keeping the company of an occasionally nekkid man will do for you.
And not in the order of the clicking:
1. Amazon - "The Official Filthy Rich Handbook" and "True Prep: It's a Whole New Old World". I came across this after I read an article in Virginia Living in the sick waiting room of the pediatrician's office today detailing the new prep, complete with models from our very own men's single-sex college right near where I grew up (and where I never, EVER behaved badly) and their more delicate (although those girls can usually drink pretty hard) counterparts from one of the women's colleges within a two hour drive. All of the models were wearing preppy clothes and posing like an Abercrombie ad. All first names were unisex. None of them looked like they might be partaking in student aid. I like that Amazon has taken some of their books and put some of the pages on a PDF-type format so you can review/read prior to purchase, but I felt like I would have gotten more out of that particular kind of viewing if they had put ALL of the pages on the PDF-type format so I could have just read the entire book for free without having to inconvenience myself by going to the library or the Big Box Bookstore. Gas is too expensive to be running back and forth to the library. And for some reason I always feel like going to the library is a little to liberal for me. I don't know why, but I'm just unsettled by the whole loaner thing.
2. Blogger - My blog, of course! Duh. Not editing, just reading obsessively and adding,more,commas. I,love,commas,can't,you,tell? I like to think that I make the comma work for me, not the other way around.
3. Wikipedia - Holy god this is a long list, and really quite indicative of the odd mish-mash of stuff going through my head at any given point in time. Here goes: Ax Men. Beaver Hunt. Bell's Palsy. Bob Guccione. Chex Mix. Collegiate secret societies in North America. Diavik Diamond Mine. Elaine Benes. Farmville, Virginia (the guy I graduated from high school with and who gave me the stash that got me suspended for six weeks is no longer listed as a notable resident), Gloria Steinem, Legionellosis, Rachael Harris, Playboy Bunny, Playboy Mansion, Seven Society, The Lady of Rage, Wikipedia, Zach Galifianakis. Okay, so with Wikipedia one click leads to another leads to another and before you know it a whole freaking three hours is gone and you're only less-than smarter for it.
4. facebook - self explanatory. What did I do before facebook? Oh, right, I had a life.
5. Google - But I didn't Google myself. Today.
6. J. Peterman - This is how I ended up on Elaine Benes in #3. Trying to figure out what catalog that was.
7. Overrated Children's Gymnastics Place - This is the place that I would not be using now for the younger daughter if I didn't have a credit on my account from when the older daughter broke her arm last spring.
8. Spiegel - Wow! That stuff on clearance is really cheap, considering it's Spiegel.
9. Williamsburg Marketplace - Secretly, I'm a snob when it comes to my home decor. I can't afford any of this shit now, but a girl can plan. Hello, super-gorgeous pineapple trivet! I'll be back for you another year!
And there you have it. This is what I do when I'm cooped up in the house half-sick with a whole-sick child. I am still pleased with the fact that I have managed to quit craigslist cold turkey. I guess that's what keeping the company of an occasionally nekkid man will do for you.
Struck Down
I have been struck down by the flu, and I think my older daughter might have it, too. The last time I had the flu was in 2001 and in my mind's eye, it seems like that bout was much worse than this one. I also think I recovered more quickly. It's Friday and I've been sick as shit since Monday, and the doctor at Generic Urgent Care Center said I would be contagious through the weekend. I had gone to my doctor on Wednesday, where he glanced at me and promptly told me I had bronchitis. An easy and likely enough diagnosis, being that I smoke, but according to the doctor yesterday, a misdiagnosis. As much as I like getting a quick appointment with the old Cannuck, I guess it's time to switch doctors.
We don't do flu shots. I have never done flu shots and this round of flu-ness won't change my mind. I'm suspicious of all of these vaccines, and it's not required by law for my children to attend school. I think that there's something to be said for allowing our bodies to develop their own defense mechanisms, and besides, the flu shot is generally only good for one or two strains of flu, and by the time the flu makes it around through my job, the elementary school and before-and-after school care, who knows what kind of convoluted strain I'll end up with. End result is that I could get the flu shot and still get the flu, so why bother with the shot? Maybe my body worked up such an awesome immunity from the last bout of flu I had that it kept me flu free for the past ten years.
Of course, the vaccines that I would gladly take haven't been created yet. I would gladly take vaccines for tuberculosis, Hepatitis C, HIV and cancer, not because I'm out there randomly having unprotected sex in crackhouses while I snack on lead paint, but because all of those things aren't so easily heal-able. But they don't have vaccines for that stuff yet, and prefer to funnel millions of dollars each year into flu vaccines that are only good for one year and that don't even work against all the different strains of the flu.
Now that I've been up and moving about for the past several hours, I'm actually feeling more human than I have since Monday, even though I'm not completely up to snuff yet. The weather is warm and a slight breeze is blowing, so I've thrown open the windows to blow the bad sickness stuff out of my house and hopefully bring in some healthy springtime stuff that will blend nicely with the Mountain Scent Lysol I'm spraying everything down with. I have a little residual dizziness, but I'm not sure if that's a lingering effect of the flu or chemical inhalation. My older daughter is camped out on the sofa watching TV and I plan on camping out on the other sofa with a couple of books, and we'll have a nice relaxing day. With the flu.
We don't do flu shots. I have never done flu shots and this round of flu-ness won't change my mind. I'm suspicious of all of these vaccines, and it's not required by law for my children to attend school. I think that there's something to be said for allowing our bodies to develop their own defense mechanisms, and besides, the flu shot is generally only good for one or two strains of flu, and by the time the flu makes it around through my job, the elementary school and before-and-after school care, who knows what kind of convoluted strain I'll end up with. End result is that I could get the flu shot and still get the flu, so why bother with the shot? Maybe my body worked up such an awesome immunity from the last bout of flu I had that it kept me flu free for the past ten years.
Of course, the vaccines that I would gladly take haven't been created yet. I would gladly take vaccines for tuberculosis, Hepatitis C, HIV and cancer, not because I'm out there randomly having unprotected sex in crackhouses while I snack on lead paint, but because all of those things aren't so easily heal-able. But they don't have vaccines for that stuff yet, and prefer to funnel millions of dollars each year into flu vaccines that are only good for one year and that don't even work against all the different strains of the flu.
Now that I've been up and moving about for the past several hours, I'm actually feeling more human than I have since Monday, even though I'm not completely up to snuff yet. The weather is warm and a slight breeze is blowing, so I've thrown open the windows to blow the bad sickness stuff out of my house and hopefully bring in some healthy springtime stuff that will blend nicely with the Mountain Scent Lysol I'm spraying everything down with. I have a little residual dizziness, but I'm not sure if that's a lingering effect of the flu or chemical inhalation. My older daughter is camped out on the sofa watching TV and I plan on camping out on the other sofa with a couple of books, and we'll have a nice relaxing day. With the flu.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Trying To Get Unstuck
I have gone back and re-read some of my old posts, looking to perfect them, as usual, and I am struck by some of the negativity and bitterness that I seem to be emanating. I need to find my humor again, and not get so wound up in I-hate-my-ex-husband bullshit and all of that. I need to get unstuck from this blackness I seem to be toting around, which is hard, considering I'm laying out of work for the third day straight on sick leave and the guv people I work with don't seem to understand how my sick leave works (old school, baby, which is I call in sick, and then I use my sick leave in eight hour increments without needing to report to other guv people because I have 800-plus hours of sick leave, but whatever) and also considering I'm watching something on TV about the black plague (should that be capitalized?) because I just don't want to watch Beverly Hills, 90210 again. Holy god, I must be sick if I can't bring myself to watch that. I was sick enough on Tuesday that I let my older daughter watch two full hours of The Real Housewives of Orange County, but I justified that to myself by watching it with her and then explaining that's not a very nice way to act. I also justified that by saying to myself that at least it wasn't the Bad Girls Club, or whatever that show about Hustler-Beaver wannabes is.
I need to enjoy that spring is upon us, spring is sprung and my ornamental cherry tree is blooming, and my dogwoods will be blooming and I'll finally know what color the blossoms are, since they had already bloomed and dropped their blossoms when I moved in last year. I need to be grateful that I don't have to pay taxes after all, and that I have sick leave to begin with. I need to be grateful that I have food in cabinet and food in the refrigerator, and that I have health insurance. I should be grateful that after a pseudo-start to my diet, this stuff I have seems to have knocked some weight off of me. Of course, driving my children around with an empty plastic grocery bag on my lap in case I puke is not quite the way I pictured my diet going, but I decided I would just pretend I'm bulimic and that kind of made it all better. Except I didn't binge beforehand because the thought of food makes me want to puke in and of itself. Maybe I should pretend I'm anorexic, then. I know if I drink any more Gatorade I'm going to die. I didn't like Gatorade to begin with - I like it even less now.
I need to quit whining and bitching and just get my ass unstuck and find my funny again.
I need to enjoy that spring is upon us, spring is sprung and my ornamental cherry tree is blooming, and my dogwoods will be blooming and I'll finally know what color the blossoms are, since they had already bloomed and dropped their blossoms when I moved in last year. I need to be grateful that I don't have to pay taxes after all, and that I have sick leave to begin with. I need to be grateful that I have food in cabinet and food in the refrigerator, and that I have health insurance. I should be grateful that after a pseudo-start to my diet, this stuff I have seems to have knocked some weight off of me. Of course, driving my children around with an empty plastic grocery bag on my lap in case I puke is not quite the way I pictured my diet going, but I decided I would just pretend I'm bulimic and that kind of made it all better. Except I didn't binge beforehand because the thought of food makes me want to puke in and of itself. Maybe I should pretend I'm anorexic, then. I know if I drink any more Gatorade I'm going to die. I didn't like Gatorade to begin with - I like it even less now.
I need to quit whining and bitching and just get my ass unstuck and find my funny again.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Sicker Than Dog Shit
I am officially sicker than dog shit. I don't really like dogs, other than a few here and there, and I definitely don't like dog shit, especially in my yard. I mean, there's other stuff sicker than dog shit, but I don't want to compare myself to some of the sick stuff out there, and I don't want to make fun of some of the seriously sick stuff, like radiation or rape-as-a-war-crime. So I'll just go with dog shit.
Bronchitis is what I've been diagnosed with, although Guy #1 has me questioning my doctor now because the doctor didn't take any blood to check any of my levels, only listened to me breathe twice, didn't take a urine sample, so on and so forth. This is the danger of dating an firefighter and EMT, I suppose. Yes, my doctor is Canadian, so there is some stuff that he will probably cut corners on, like my health, but I can get an appointment on the same day with no wait! Where else can you do that in the metro area? And no receptionist triaging on the phone when I call! But I am sure that as soon as Guy #1 reads this, he will point out that there is probably a correlation between the level of care received and the fact that I can always get an appointment right away. I actually feel like this might be pneumonia, which I've had before and thought was going to kill me, but I'm hoping this isn't it. The pneumonia was bad enough, but then I got extra panicky about drowning in myself every time I was drifting off to sleep and that certainly didn't help. I've taken two doses of my medication and don't feel much better. In fact, I feel worse. Chills, horrible body aches and pains, fever, developing the runs (which I think is from the Gatorade I've been drinking because Guy #1 squeezed my fingernails and told me I was a little dehydrated).
But I'm going to make it. Monday the school called and I had to pick up the older daughter because she was sick, and I was headed that way, myself. I was PISSED when we got home and she informed me that Mrs. Second Grade Teacher sent homework home to do that night. Okay, if you're too sick to be at school, wouldn't you think you'd be too sick to do homework? So, because I was feeling like dog shit, we didn't do the homework and I let her stay home on Tuesday. I am pretty sure she could have gone back to school with no problems, because she never ran a fever, but we didn't have the homework done. Uber aunt brought dinner over on Tuesday evening and did the homework, and she went back to school today. And Mrs. Second Grade Teacher sent home extra homework tonight. I was tempted to staple all the extra homework together with a picture of my ass right on top of it, and circle which dimple on my ass she can kiss. But I'm pretty sure that won't go over well. And the younger daughter had a note in her book bag saying that kindergartners will start having homework next week, too.
Simply fucking awesome. I'm lucky to get two and a half hours of time with my children every night (not counting the Mondays I have to work late and my mom babysits, and every Thursday night when the children are with their father until eight o'clock), and the quality of that is questionable because I'm trying to cook a halfway decent meal, clean up the kitchen, direct the homework without actually doing it myself, back up book bags and lunchboxes, and get everyone into bed by eight-thirty. I know this will get easier as they get older, but damn. Guy #1 is of the opinion that I need to call The Ex and explain to him how fucking sick I am and tell him in no uncertain terms that he needs to step up to the plate, and I absolutely refuse. When we were married and I got sick, I felt guilty that he had to handle everything. This was probably because I knew he wasn't doing the job as well as I would have, and probably because he made me feel guilty by asking shit like, "How much longer are you going to be sick?" or "I would have done such-and-such but I thought it would just be better to leave it for you because you do it so much better than me." So this is the first time I think I haven't actually felt guilty about being sick in years, and it feels good. I am not going to invite this man back into my life to make me feel guilty. I would rather crawl into the kitchen on my hands and knees to pack up lunches than ask for his help.
So maybe an update in the next few days. Love to everyone for their thoughts and offers to help out.
Bronchitis is what I've been diagnosed with, although Guy #1 has me questioning my doctor now because the doctor didn't take any blood to check any of my levels, only listened to me breathe twice, didn't take a urine sample, so on and so forth. This is the danger of dating an firefighter and EMT, I suppose. Yes, my doctor is Canadian, so there is some stuff that he will probably cut corners on, like my health, but I can get an appointment on the same day with no wait! Where else can you do that in the metro area? And no receptionist triaging on the phone when I call! But I am sure that as soon as Guy #1 reads this, he will point out that there is probably a correlation between the level of care received and the fact that I can always get an appointment right away. I actually feel like this might be pneumonia, which I've had before and thought was going to kill me, but I'm hoping this isn't it. The pneumonia was bad enough, but then I got extra panicky about drowning in myself every time I was drifting off to sleep and that certainly didn't help. I've taken two doses of my medication and don't feel much better. In fact, I feel worse. Chills, horrible body aches and pains, fever, developing the runs (which I think is from the Gatorade I've been drinking because Guy #1 squeezed my fingernails and told me I was a little dehydrated).
But I'm going to make it. Monday the school called and I had to pick up the older daughter because she was sick, and I was headed that way, myself. I was PISSED when we got home and she informed me that Mrs. Second Grade Teacher sent homework home to do that night. Okay, if you're too sick to be at school, wouldn't you think you'd be too sick to do homework? So, because I was feeling like dog shit, we didn't do the homework and I let her stay home on Tuesday. I am pretty sure she could have gone back to school with no problems, because she never ran a fever, but we didn't have the homework done. Uber aunt brought dinner over on Tuesday evening and did the homework, and she went back to school today. And Mrs. Second Grade Teacher sent home extra homework tonight. I was tempted to staple all the extra homework together with a picture of my ass right on top of it, and circle which dimple on my ass she can kiss. But I'm pretty sure that won't go over well. And the younger daughter had a note in her book bag saying that kindergartners will start having homework next week, too.
Simply fucking awesome. I'm lucky to get two and a half hours of time with my children every night (not counting the Mondays I have to work late and my mom babysits, and every Thursday night when the children are with their father until eight o'clock), and the quality of that is questionable because I'm trying to cook a halfway decent meal, clean up the kitchen, direct the homework without actually doing it myself, back up book bags and lunchboxes, and get everyone into bed by eight-thirty. I know this will get easier as they get older, but damn. Guy #1 is of the opinion that I need to call The Ex and explain to him how fucking sick I am and tell him in no uncertain terms that he needs to step up to the plate, and I absolutely refuse. When we were married and I got sick, I felt guilty that he had to handle everything. This was probably because I knew he wasn't doing the job as well as I would have, and probably because he made me feel guilty by asking shit like, "How much longer are you going to be sick?" or "I would have done such-and-such but I thought it would just be better to leave it for you because you do it so much better than me." So this is the first time I think I haven't actually felt guilty about being sick in years, and it feels good. I am not going to invite this man back into my life to make me feel guilty. I would rather crawl into the kitchen on my hands and knees to pack up lunches than ask for his help.
So maybe an update in the next few days. Love to everyone for their thoughts and offers to help out.
Monday, March 14, 2011
10 Years, 10 Months, 24 Days
I am divorced. Officially, last week, the day after The Ex did depositions. Who the hell expected the Court to be so efficient that the paperwork would be signed off the following day? Must be a slow time of the year for divorces, what with the real estate market picking up for the spring. Actually, I am sure that has absolutely nothing to do with it. But really, I know how the court system work and this seems like it's Reno-expedient.
Counting the separation, the total length of time of my betrothal was 10 years, 10 months and 24 days. Sounds more like a prison sentence. I guess the separation can be considered my good time counted towards an early release. I guess I served about 85% of my time, in accordance with the Code of Virginia, give or take a little. The Ex called today to discuss the check he dropped off at daycare for the psychologists co-pay, and when the connection got a little fuzzy and I said I couldn't understand him, he made sure to mention he was up in my "old stomping grounds" and the cell reception was bad. Okay, dickface, it's not my old stomping grounds, it's where I grew up. The fact that I had texted him earlier about our older daughter being sick today apparently didn't register because he didn't ask about her and has not yet bothered to call back to see how she's doing. I thought that as time went on, and as the separation lengthened, I would come to despise him less and less. It's not happening. I am finding that I really despise him even more, especially for not being the father that I really thought he would be. I despise him for being selfish, I despise him for doing the things that he is doing to our children, and I despise him for just generally being a piece of shit.
I talked with my former neighbor today, my Other Mother, the neighbor who still lives right across the cul-de-sac from The Ex, and she explained why my older daughter is sick. He was washing his new sports car this weekend and let the children run around and play and splash barefoot in the ice-cold water from the outside spigot. So I suspect that my older daughter caught some kind of chill, because she generally feels bad, is flushed but is not running a fever, leading me to believe this isn't some kind of infection. That's cool, because like the potato project, Mommy will take care of this, too.
What struck me about the actual knowledge that I am divorced was how anticlimactic the entire thing was. The Ex told me over the phone it was finalized, which made me hate him even more because I wanted to get that information from anyone but him. I texted a girlfriend at work and had her look it up on the secret-squirrel-guv computers and she texted back, yes, I am a divorced woman. And that's when how anticlimactic the whole thing struck me as. From an ugly separation, the ugliest of which were accusations of kidnapping and the police getting involved, to sitting at home with a sick child and having that bastard nonchalantly mention he was in my old stomping grounds and that I should expect something from his lawyer in the mail because it was signed off on. I think I can safely say that his race to the alter has really begun in earnest now. I've thought about seeing if I can get some kind of private online pool going and email all of the Team Steph and coordinate a little something on his next date of matrimony. But really, he's not worth the effort, so I'll just fantasize about that.
Divorced. I'm still not sure what to make of it other than I'm sadly relieved it's over.
Counting the separation, the total length of time of my betrothal was 10 years, 10 months and 24 days. Sounds more like a prison sentence. I guess the separation can be considered my good time counted towards an early release. I guess I served about 85% of my time, in accordance with the Code of Virginia, give or take a little. The Ex called today to discuss the check he dropped off at daycare for the psychologists co-pay, and when the connection got a little fuzzy and I said I couldn't understand him, he made sure to mention he was up in my "old stomping grounds" and the cell reception was bad. Okay, dickface, it's not my old stomping grounds, it's where I grew up. The fact that I had texted him earlier about our older daughter being sick today apparently didn't register because he didn't ask about her and has not yet bothered to call back to see how she's doing. I thought that as time went on, and as the separation lengthened, I would come to despise him less and less. It's not happening. I am finding that I really despise him even more, especially for not being the father that I really thought he would be. I despise him for being selfish, I despise him for doing the things that he is doing to our children, and I despise him for just generally being a piece of shit.
I talked with my former neighbor today, my Other Mother, the neighbor who still lives right across the cul-de-sac from The Ex, and she explained why my older daughter is sick. He was washing his new sports car this weekend and let the children run around and play and splash barefoot in the ice-cold water from the outside spigot. So I suspect that my older daughter caught some kind of chill, because she generally feels bad, is flushed but is not running a fever, leading me to believe this isn't some kind of infection. That's cool, because like the potato project, Mommy will take care of this, too.
What struck me about the actual knowledge that I am divorced was how anticlimactic the entire thing was. The Ex told me over the phone it was finalized, which made me hate him even more because I wanted to get that information from anyone but him. I texted a girlfriend at work and had her look it up on the secret-squirrel-guv computers and she texted back, yes, I am a divorced woman. And that's when how anticlimactic the whole thing struck me as. From an ugly separation, the ugliest of which were accusations of kidnapping and the police getting involved, to sitting at home with a sick child and having that bastard nonchalantly mention he was in my old stomping grounds and that I should expect something from his lawyer in the mail because it was signed off on. I think I can safely say that his race to the alter has really begun in earnest now. I've thought about seeing if I can get some kind of private online pool going and email all of the Team Steph and coordinate a little something on his next date of matrimony. But really, he's not worth the effort, so I'll just fantasize about that.
Divorced. I'm still not sure what to make of it other than I'm sadly relieved it's over.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Taxes, Cheerleading (Again) and Some Bullshit With A Potato
Round #3 of taxes with my poor mother. Despite what I would classify as a lack of parenting skills while raising me, my mom can do some taxes. I was all ready to mail my taxes off last week, along with a check that I was trying to figure out how not to bounce, because really, how efficient can the guv be with checks coming in the mail? Will it be deposited the next day or next week? Of course, that's the mystery in paying for anything with a check. I've discovered that with my debit card, there's a function similar to a check payment (which means it won't come out instantaneously), and that is called credit. If I want the money to come out right away, I will use it as a debit card. If I want the money to come out in a few days, maybe four or five days, depending on the store, I will use my card as a credit card. This is all new to me because I never had a debit card when I was married - I used the checkbook of that ill-fated joint checking account. So anyway, taxes. After accidentally stumbling upon a finance article whilst Yahooing this week (hell, yes, I Yahoo), I worked up the numbers in my head of the Making It Work deduction and realized that I just might not have to pay the feds after all. Back to mom's house to actually work it up on paper again this weekend, since I don't have a printer anymore. I am pleased to report that I will now receive a refund from the feds in the exact amount of $15.18. You have probably never seen someone get so ecstatic over fifteen freaking dollars. But whatever, because I don't have to pay with money I don't have. Thank you, Yahoo, for having that article on your finance page flash before my eyes on Tuesday morning. I don't think I can thank you enough.
The end-of-season basketball and cheerleading banquet was this weekend. The Ex sent the kids with his girlfriend since he apparently had to do a karate test or something. There was a movie that I can't remember the name of and one of the main characters always pronounced karate funny, and that's what I always think of when he mentions he's going to test for a belt or something. What I want to tell him is that I could care less about the karate or taekwondo thing, and it doesn't impress me. What would impress me would be if he were to actually show up at a parent-teacher conference or do the potato project (that I will discuss later). So The Girlfriend shows up 25 minutes late with the daughters and being that she doesn't have children, she looks totally mortified at the craziness of this banquet. I was polite, invited her to get something to eat and drink and found her a place to sit. She explained that she was late bringing the girls because she didn't know it would take so much time to round them up from playing and get them ready, although it was obvious to me a hairbrush had not touched their hair in the "getting ready" process. I felt badly for her because it took me about three years to figure out if I want to be somewhere on time with the children I need to start about two hours in advance. I think she's been thrusted into the weekend stepmother role and she doesn't quite know the ropes yet, kind of like taking a kid in middle school and dropping them into a PhD program. I try to remember that it's not her fault she's been lulled by The Ex's bullshit. I was there, too, once. I can empathize. At some point The Ex showed up and I noticed that he's gained some weight, and I felt an immense gratitude that I will never feel his hairy belly rubbing on me again. I didn't have a chance to pull my older daughter aside to talk to her about Friday night, but I asked her tonight what the deal was. She was upset that my younger daughter clocked her in the forehead.
A potato project was sent home in my older daughter's book bag on Wednesday night, and it basically says that the students have to decorate a potato "friend" and then come up with ten descriptive words that they will use later in the week for a writing assignment. Well, this was her weekend with The Ex, so I gave him the project assignment when he dropped the children off on Thursday night. This was for several reasons: I wouldn't have the children this weekend to do the potato project and we won't have time on Monday or Tuesday nights before it's due on Wednesday; The Ex is always saying he wants to be involved in projects and school work (which I know is complete bullshit because he doesn't even open the book bags on the weekends he has the children); and I wanted to see if he could actually rise to the challenge and get the project done. So he knew about the project in advance, had the assignment sheet and would have the children this weekend.
He texted about five minutes before the children were due to be home this evening and said that they didn't have a chance to do the potato project. Can anyone define pissed? That was me upon receiving that text. The older daughter comes bounding up the front porch steps with the potato in a plastic sandwich bag. He explains they didn't have time to get it done because the older daughter needed to learn the words to our national anthem, which was the other assignment I sent home with him on Thursday night. I waited until both the girls were in the house, and basically implied that he's worthless and don't worry, this is yet another thing I will take care of. He didn't even bring the assignment sheet back, so I insisted he go home and get it and bring it back, because I will take care of making sure the project is done. Did I mention that I told him that I would take care of this?
What remained unspoken were all of the other areas he has failed in, too. No need to beat the man to death. With one little brown spud, he's proven yet again that he really doesn't give a flying fuck. So the potato decoration has started, and we'll get it finished in time to be turned in on Wednesday, and I will also get the children's hair cut for picture day on Thursday, since I had asked him to do that, too.
To review, here's what I asked him to do for HIS children this weekend:
* Get their hair cut for picture day on Thursday. NOT accomplished.
* Take them to the cheerleading banquet. BARELY accomplished and wouldn't have been if it weren't for The Girlfriend. He gave me the option of picking them up and taking them to the banquet, but goddamn, it was his weekend and I already had to be there early to help set up for the pie sale. How about you step up, motherfucker?
* Give me a co-pay check for the older daughter's psychologist appointment on Tuesday morning. NOT accomplished.
* Learn the words to the national anthem. We'll review this in the morning on the way to before and after school care to see if she learned the words or not.
* Potato project. NOT accomplished.
* I had also hoped he would feed the girls dinner before bringing them home tonight. Not a requirement, but just kind of, feed your children, dickface, because that's responsible thing to do. NOT accomplished for the younger daughter because she was too busy playing Wii. That's okay, Mommy handled that, too.
And so we will start another week tomorrow. A week where NOT accomplished is NOT an option, at least for me.
The end-of-season basketball and cheerleading banquet was this weekend. The Ex sent the kids with his girlfriend since he apparently had to do a karate test or something. There was a movie that I can't remember the name of and one of the main characters always pronounced karate funny, and that's what I always think of when he mentions he's going to test for a belt or something. What I want to tell him is that I could care less about the karate or taekwondo thing, and it doesn't impress me. What would impress me would be if he were to actually show up at a parent-teacher conference or do the potato project (that I will discuss later). So The Girlfriend shows up 25 minutes late with the daughters and being that she doesn't have children, she looks totally mortified at the craziness of this banquet. I was polite, invited her to get something to eat and drink and found her a place to sit. She explained that she was late bringing the girls because she didn't know it would take so much time to round them up from playing and get them ready, although it was obvious to me a hairbrush had not touched their hair in the "getting ready" process. I felt badly for her because it took me about three years to figure out if I want to be somewhere on time with the children I need to start about two hours in advance. I think she's been thrusted into the weekend stepmother role and she doesn't quite know the ropes yet, kind of like taking a kid in middle school and dropping them into a PhD program. I try to remember that it's not her fault she's been lulled by The Ex's bullshit. I was there, too, once. I can empathize. At some point The Ex showed up and I noticed that he's gained some weight, and I felt an immense gratitude that I will never feel his hairy belly rubbing on me again. I didn't have a chance to pull my older daughter aside to talk to her about Friday night, but I asked her tonight what the deal was. She was upset that my younger daughter clocked her in the forehead.
A potato project was sent home in my older daughter's book bag on Wednesday night, and it basically says that the students have to decorate a potato "friend" and then come up with ten descriptive words that they will use later in the week for a writing assignment. Well, this was her weekend with The Ex, so I gave him the project assignment when he dropped the children off on Thursday night. This was for several reasons: I wouldn't have the children this weekend to do the potato project and we won't have time on Monday or Tuesday nights before it's due on Wednesday; The Ex is always saying he wants to be involved in projects and school work (which I know is complete bullshit because he doesn't even open the book bags on the weekends he has the children); and I wanted to see if he could actually rise to the challenge and get the project done. So he knew about the project in advance, had the assignment sheet and would have the children this weekend.
He texted about five minutes before the children were due to be home this evening and said that they didn't have a chance to do the potato project. Can anyone define pissed? That was me upon receiving that text. The older daughter comes bounding up the front porch steps with the potato in a plastic sandwich bag. He explains they didn't have time to get it done because the older daughter needed to learn the words to our national anthem, which was the other assignment I sent home with him on Thursday night. I waited until both the girls were in the house, and basically implied that he's worthless and don't worry, this is yet another thing I will take care of. He didn't even bring the assignment sheet back, so I insisted he go home and get it and bring it back, because I will take care of making sure the project is done. Did I mention that I told him that I would take care of this?
What remained unspoken were all of the other areas he has failed in, too. No need to beat the man to death. With one little brown spud, he's proven yet again that he really doesn't give a flying fuck. So the potato decoration has started, and we'll get it finished in time to be turned in on Wednesday, and I will also get the children's hair cut for picture day on Thursday, since I had asked him to do that, too.
To review, here's what I asked him to do for HIS children this weekend:
* Get their hair cut for picture day on Thursday. NOT accomplished.
* Take them to the cheerleading banquet. BARELY accomplished and wouldn't have been if it weren't for The Girlfriend. He gave me the option of picking them up and taking them to the banquet, but goddamn, it was his weekend and I already had to be there early to help set up for the pie sale. How about you step up, motherfucker?
* Give me a co-pay check for the older daughter's psychologist appointment on Tuesday morning. NOT accomplished.
* Learn the words to the national anthem. We'll review this in the morning on the way to before and after school care to see if she learned the words or not.
* Potato project. NOT accomplished.
* I had also hoped he would feed the girls dinner before bringing them home tonight. Not a requirement, but just kind of, feed your children, dickface, because that's responsible thing to do. NOT accomplished for the younger daughter because she was too busy playing Wii. That's okay, Mommy handled that, too.
And so we will start another week tomorrow. A week where NOT accomplished is NOT an option, at least for me.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Not So Stupid Stuff in My Head
Yes, it's true. In addition to the stupid stuff in my head, I also have not so stupid stuff in my head. Here goes:
The Japanese Tsunami - I've had to call a moratorium on my news boycott for this one. I think this is because of our perverse desire to see horrific things happen to other people, ala rubbernecking. Really, that's all the news is, electronic rubbernecking, which is one reason why I don't watch the news. At this point in time, I probably won't donate any money, because I don't have any extra money to give, but if I change my mind it will be solely because I know the Japanese are pretty self-sufficient and won't immediately begin to demand foreign aid and then when the foreign aid is sent, they won't bitch about why didn't we send more. I think the ability to survive the first nuclear holocaust has proven them to be self-sufficient, and so, I'll wait to see what happens. For some reason this whole thing just kind of reinforces in my mind how dangerous cruise ships are what with rogue waves and such. I fully expect that the liberal media organizations in our country will find a way to blame the tsunami on our last President. Other than that, I'm annoyed that all of the major news channels on cable seem to have somehow managed to synchronize their commercials, because my plan of action last night was to watch a channel until a commercial came on, and then flip to the next channel and repeat. But they all had commercials on at the same time. Damnit! You are messing up my non-stop coverage. I'm also somewhat disappointed about how the news has been dumbed down, or maybe it's always been dumbed down for the masses and I'm just smarter than the average person. I mean, who doesn't know what the Ring of Fire is? Or maybe this is just a filler. Of course, I was always amazed when I would watch one of the late shows and they did "Man on the Street" kind of interviews where they would stop random people on the street and ask them the most basic of questions, like "Do you know what the Holocaust was or name the current Speaker of the House" And some of those people didn't know.
5.3 - This is the rating that was given to my blog by the editors of the blog site I recently signed my blog up on. You submit your blog for approval, and then professional editors review it for approval and also rate it. I'm a 5.3. I don't really have a problem being reviewed for content and appropriateness, but I'm a little annoyed with my end result. Specifically, I was rated on frequency of updates, relevance of content, site design, and writing style. Okay, I had a four month period of time when I didn't post. Sorry. Was working on the love life, not the write life. Relevance of content - probably the most subjective category, because people will blog about anything. I think the food blogs are the most annoying (and gay) to me. Who actually reads that tripe? Site design - sorry, I don't want to post a 350 word post about a finding a new restaurant in the city, and I don't want my blog to look like some fancy news magazine. I've come across a couple of good blogs to follow (that are highly rated) even though I wasn't really looking to begin with, but the writing is too short and leaves me with too many unanswered questions, and the sites look more like something a fancy ad agency has created. I just think that too much visual clutter takes away from the writing and is distracting, and if you're not going to write much, what's the point in having a blog anyway? Writing content - Yes, I know I'm not for everyone. But if someone can't get my writing and enjoy it, that's probably someone I wouldn't want to hang out with to begin with. Personally, I rate myself at precisely 8.798432. A suggestion on another site was to turn your blog posts into e-readers, which I may look into when I'm not feeling so internetically lazy. That might actually be more appropriate since I actually write versus blurt, which I think most blogs should be called. Blurts, because that's about all there is.
What is up with my daughter? - This is my weekend without my children. I feel like we've really settled into a great routine, all things considered. Summer is fast approaching and I really don't know how I will function without them being with me full time. I feel the anxiety creeping up on my slowly, but I know it will start to increase more and more the closer we get for them to go live with their father during the summer. My own personal tsunami of anxiety, to use a horrible analogy. I put them on the bus in our neighborhood yesterday and told them I would see them later today at the cheerleading banquet. My older daughter has started to pull away from me a little bit in public because she's getting to that age where it's not cool to hug and kiss your mom in public. We went to the school skate night earlier in the month and it was the best skate night ever for me, because she wanted to hold hands skating around the rink. But anyway, she won't let me give her hugs or kisses when we say goodbye in public and she generally acts relieved to be getting away from me. So imagine my surprise when she called last night. Generally, on a Friday night that she's with The Ex, I am the last thing on her mind so we don't talk on the phone. I know she needs her time with her father without me calling, especially when I just saw her that morning. But something was wrong last night. She was quiet and I could feel something wasn't right through the phone. When I asked what was wrong, she just said in the littlest voice ever, "I just miss you.", and then she started crying. Which immediately made me want to cry. This is not her norm. I don't know what happened, other than The Ex took the children over to the cheer coach's house to pack up pies for the sale at the cheerleading banquet, but I wondered if there was some bad-mouthing of Mommy going on, or if something else had happened. Of course she wouldn't be able to say because I could hear The Ex clearing his throat periodically through the phone so I know he was sitting right beside her. That motherfucker just cannot respect anyone's privacy. I told her we would find a quiet corner at the banquet to talk this afternoon and just have some Mommy-older daughter time for hugs and kisses. I absolutely hate that she has to go through this.
Best click ever - This is what Guy #1 told me last night, right before he gave me an awesome shadow puppet lip-synching show on the ceiling of my bedroom backlit by his cell phone. Keep in mind that we met on a dating site, and really, out of the eighty bazillion mouse clicks I've ever made, he might be my best click, too. I wish we could get paid a penny for every click because then I wouldn't have to worry about trying to find somewhere to get affordable tires and figure out how in the hell to pay for them. But that's neither here nor there. I think he's starting to get worried that I haven't introduced him to any of my friends or family, but I don't see them that often. My life is wrapped up in my children - I don't have time for much else, unless it's on facebook. I haven't seen one of my best girlfriends since the summer, the other one at Christmas, and I don't think I've seen any of my family other than my mother since Christmas. Holy bejesus, where does time go? But yeah, I like knowing that I'm the best click ever.
The Japanese Tsunami - I've had to call a moratorium on my news boycott for this one. I think this is because of our perverse desire to see horrific things happen to other people, ala rubbernecking. Really, that's all the news is, electronic rubbernecking, which is one reason why I don't watch the news. At this point in time, I probably won't donate any money, because I don't have any extra money to give, but if I change my mind it will be solely because I know the Japanese are pretty self-sufficient and won't immediately begin to demand foreign aid and then when the foreign aid is sent, they won't bitch about why didn't we send more. I think the ability to survive the first nuclear holocaust has proven them to be self-sufficient, and so, I'll wait to see what happens. For some reason this whole thing just kind of reinforces in my mind how dangerous cruise ships are what with rogue waves and such. I fully expect that the liberal media organizations in our country will find a way to blame the tsunami on our last President. Other than that, I'm annoyed that all of the major news channels on cable seem to have somehow managed to synchronize their commercials, because my plan of action last night was to watch a channel until a commercial came on, and then flip to the next channel and repeat. But they all had commercials on at the same time. Damnit! You are messing up my non-stop coverage. I'm also somewhat disappointed about how the news has been dumbed down, or maybe it's always been dumbed down for the masses and I'm just smarter than the average person. I mean, who doesn't know what the Ring of Fire is? Or maybe this is just a filler. Of course, I was always amazed when I would watch one of the late shows and they did "Man on the Street" kind of interviews where they would stop random people on the street and ask them the most basic of questions, like "Do you know what the Holocaust was or name the current Speaker of the House" And some of those people didn't know.
5.3 - This is the rating that was given to my blog by the editors of the blog site I recently signed my blog up on. You submit your blog for approval, and then professional editors review it for approval and also rate it. I'm a 5.3. I don't really have a problem being reviewed for content and appropriateness, but I'm a little annoyed with my end result. Specifically, I was rated on frequency of updates, relevance of content, site design, and writing style. Okay, I had a four month period of time when I didn't post. Sorry. Was working on the love life, not the write life. Relevance of content - probably the most subjective category, because people will blog about anything. I think the food blogs are the most annoying (and gay) to me. Who actually reads that tripe? Site design - sorry, I don't want to post a 350 word post about a finding a new restaurant in the city, and I don't want my blog to look like some fancy news magazine. I've come across a couple of good blogs to follow (that are highly rated) even though I wasn't really looking to begin with, but the writing is too short and leaves me with too many unanswered questions, and the sites look more like something a fancy ad agency has created. I just think that too much visual clutter takes away from the writing and is distracting, and if you're not going to write much, what's the point in having a blog anyway? Writing content - Yes, I know I'm not for everyone. But if someone can't get my writing and enjoy it, that's probably someone I wouldn't want to hang out with to begin with. Personally, I rate myself at precisely 8.798432. A suggestion on another site was to turn your blog posts into e-readers, which I may look into when I'm not feeling so internetically lazy. That might actually be more appropriate since I actually write versus blurt, which I think most blogs should be called. Blurts, because that's about all there is.
What is up with my daughter? - This is my weekend without my children. I feel like we've really settled into a great routine, all things considered. Summer is fast approaching and I really don't know how I will function without them being with me full time. I feel the anxiety creeping up on my slowly, but I know it will start to increase more and more the closer we get for them to go live with their father during the summer. My own personal tsunami of anxiety, to use a horrible analogy. I put them on the bus in our neighborhood yesterday and told them I would see them later today at the cheerleading banquet. My older daughter has started to pull away from me a little bit in public because she's getting to that age where it's not cool to hug and kiss your mom in public. We went to the school skate night earlier in the month and it was the best skate night ever for me, because she wanted to hold hands skating around the rink. But anyway, she won't let me give her hugs or kisses when we say goodbye in public and she generally acts relieved to be getting away from me. So imagine my surprise when she called last night. Generally, on a Friday night that she's with The Ex, I am the last thing on her mind so we don't talk on the phone. I know she needs her time with her father without me calling, especially when I just saw her that morning. But something was wrong last night. She was quiet and I could feel something wasn't right through the phone. When I asked what was wrong, she just said in the littlest voice ever, "I just miss you.", and then she started crying. Which immediately made me want to cry. This is not her norm. I don't know what happened, other than The Ex took the children over to the cheer coach's house to pack up pies for the sale at the cheerleading banquet, but I wondered if there was some bad-mouthing of Mommy going on, or if something else had happened. Of course she wouldn't be able to say because I could hear The Ex clearing his throat periodically through the phone so I know he was sitting right beside her. That motherfucker just cannot respect anyone's privacy. I told her we would find a quiet corner at the banquet to talk this afternoon and just have some Mommy-older daughter time for hugs and kisses. I absolutely hate that she has to go through this.
Best click ever - This is what Guy #1 told me last night, right before he gave me an awesome shadow puppet lip-synching show on the ceiling of my bedroom backlit by his cell phone. Keep in mind that we met on a dating site, and really, out of the eighty bazillion mouse clicks I've ever made, he might be my best click, too. I wish we could get paid a penny for every click because then I wouldn't have to worry about trying to find somewhere to get affordable tires and figure out how in the hell to pay for them. But that's neither here nor there. I think he's starting to get worried that I haven't introduced him to any of my friends or family, but I don't see them that often. My life is wrapped up in my children - I don't have time for much else, unless it's on facebook. I haven't seen one of my best girlfriends since the summer, the other one at Christmas, and I don't think I've seen any of my family other than my mother since Christmas. Holy bejesus, where does time go? But yeah, I like knowing that I'm the best click ever.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Accomplished!
Since I'm not quite as tired tonight as I was last night, I figured out the whole facebook thing. Actually, I think I am probably more exhausted tonight than I was last night, but I don't really care tonight because my plan of action for tomorrow does not include work. It does include Guy #1 and taking a nap. Maybe not even in that order.
My facebook page for my blog is up and running. So hit the little like button and you'll automatically like my blog on facebook. I think. I haven't tested it because I only have my account, and apparently you automatically like any page you create without an option for unliking, and my mother's account. I don't want to have my mother like it because then The Ex might see that on his news feed and get curious, especially since my mother is never on facebook. She has no idea how this stuff works and really doesn't want to know. I guess if I didn't bug the shit out of her on a weekly basis she might be inclined to learn, but why screw around with facebook when I'm calling her all the time? This reminds me my wedding reception when my mother had a few too many glasses of wine and tipsily told The Ex, "Well, she's your problem now!" I guess not, Mom. Ha ha! Joke's on you! I am pleased that I am continue to make her relieved she only had one child.
I've come to the conclusion that if you are trying to be somewhat surreptitious on facebook you really need a second account. And that would be the fake account that many of us have if we don't have a Mom who signed up and then forgot about it. As long as my mom doesn't develop an interest in facebook then I'm good, though I should probably tell her I friended her up with her cousin who then promptly sent her an email. Which I did not read. Love you, Mom. And my aunt can feel free to send another friend request, but my mom won't get it. I'll get it and then friend you up with her and she'll never know. To my aunt: You will get more conversation out of her at ballgames and such than you will on facebook. Because it's just me on my mom's facebook account.
Anyway, that's it for me tonight. I've got to get up early and pack the bag for the children to go to The Ex's this weekend. He's extra pissed that I reminded him about the cheerleading banquet this weekend, because he acted clueless about the whole thing when I mentioned it tonight. And this from the person that showed me the flyer and then said I needed to get my own flyer about it. His face got all squinched up in that I-forgot-to-do-something-and-now-I'm-pissed-and-am-going-to-try-to-guilt-and-manipulate-you-into-doing-it-for-me. I just stood there on the front porch and looked at him. And then he adjusted and said he would just have to drop the girls off because he wouldn't be there for the first hour of it. Nice, motherfucker. And I didn't offer to give him my flyer when he didn't know any of the details about the banquet, because he probably should have kept track of the flyer he already had. And yeah, that whole exchange felt really good.
My facebook page for my blog is up and running. So hit the little like button and you'll automatically like my blog on facebook. I think. I haven't tested it because I only have my account, and apparently you automatically like any page you create without an option for unliking, and my mother's account. I don't want to have my mother like it because then The Ex might see that on his news feed and get curious, especially since my mother is never on facebook. She has no idea how this stuff works and really doesn't want to know. I guess if I didn't bug the shit out of her on a weekly basis she might be inclined to learn, but why screw around with facebook when I'm calling her all the time? This reminds me my wedding reception when my mother had a few too many glasses of wine and tipsily told The Ex, "Well, she's your problem now!" I guess not, Mom. Ha ha! Joke's on you! I am pleased that I am continue to make her relieved she only had one child.
I've come to the conclusion that if you are trying to be somewhat surreptitious on facebook you really need a second account. And that would be the fake account that many of us have if we don't have a Mom who signed up and then forgot about it. As long as my mom doesn't develop an interest in facebook then I'm good, though I should probably tell her I friended her up with her cousin who then promptly sent her an email. Which I did not read. Love you, Mom. And my aunt can feel free to send another friend request, but my mom won't get it. I'll get it and then friend you up with her and she'll never know. To my aunt: You will get more conversation out of her at ballgames and such than you will on facebook. Because it's just me on my mom's facebook account.
Anyway, that's it for me tonight. I've got to get up early and pack the bag for the children to go to The Ex's this weekend. He's extra pissed that I reminded him about the cheerleading banquet this weekend, because he acted clueless about the whole thing when I mentioned it tonight. And this from the person that showed me the flyer and then said I needed to get my own flyer about it. His face got all squinched up in that I-forgot-to-do-something-and-now-I'm-pissed-and-am-going-to-try-to-guilt-and-manipulate-you-into-doing-it-for-me. I just stood there on the front porch and looked at him. And then he adjusted and said he would just have to drop the girls off because he wouldn't be there for the first hour of it. Nice, motherfucker. And I didn't offer to give him my flyer when he didn't know any of the details about the banquet, because he probably should have kept track of the flyer he already had. And yeah, that whole exchange felt really good.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
How Hard Can It Be?
Tonight's big project: trying to grow my blog. Sounds easy, right? NOPE.
Failure of the worst kind. I figured what I would do is get my blog its own page on facebook, which should be pretty easy considering the number of stupid pages out there that I see on an hourly basis. And then, I could just link my new posts directly onto my blog-affiliated facebook page and grow from there. Hey, like me? Send it to a friend, blah blah blah.
But here's the catch. I'm trying to keep myself relatively anonymous on the blog, which means I'm not linking up to my real facebook page. This is for several reasons: 1) I like to do shit in an incredibly complicated manner, meaning when I finally get it sorted out like I had planned in my head, I feel even smarter than I actually am because I know it's yet another occasion of me driving around my ass to get to my elbow, 2) I don't want any of my co-workers to know about my blog. This is for several reasons - I don't want to become the water cooler topic of the day, and even though I haven't mentioned my employer or my profession on my blog, I don't want to give anyone any ammunition, and lastly because I really don't want to hear the snarky comments from my co-workers about how often I'm getting laid. I figure if I wanted them to know all that, I would just send it out on an email to the whole office. 3) I have spent an inordinate amount of time on this blog bad-mouthing The Ex, most recently mentioning I hope he catches gonorrhea. Obviously, I would prefer that he not find out about my blog. I also don't want a cease and desist letter to come from his attorney, and I just prefer that my blog generally remain nameless. I think it might be more fun for the reader because then the reader isn't bogged down with remembering all of these names AND relationships, and no one gets bogged down with name-baggage, which everyone has to some degree or the other. I also think it makes it easier to pick up reading right on the current post because all I'm doing is naming the relationship, which hopefully means the reader will probably never wonder to themselves, "Who in the hell is The Ex? Mrs. Second Grade Teacher? What about Guy #1?"
This epic failure that I experienced tonight is almost similar to when I started my blog and then signed in using an email account that didn't even exist. To which I had to hurry up and create that account so it would exist and my blog name didn't end up being given away to some other unknowing person with the email account I had just signed up using but didn't actually own. If you can even own an email account, that is. Again, driving around my ass to get to my elbow from the brain. I'm smart and all, but making something super complicated in my head and then still managing to conquer it makes me feel even smarter. Like my taxes, of which the state tax filing was quickly pulled out of the mailbox the other morning when I realized I might have missed a deduction on the federal filing, thus maybe not making me as much in the hole to the feds. So I will be going over to my mother's again on Saturday morning for round #3 of tax preparation.
Back to facebook. I go to the pages section, pick out my category and create a page. I then immediately send the invite or whatever it is to the 31 friends I have (out of the 160-something) that already know about my blog. I realize I can toggle back and forth between my page for my blog and my personal page. Cool! And it doesn't show up as something I like on my personal page. Go to a different web browsing tab and log into my blog. View blog and hit the share button on the facebook icon under my most recent blog post about how I'm trying to get linked up on other sites. Uh-oh. A little error box pops up on facebook and says I must be using my page as me, personally, to be able to share that on facebook. What the fuck? Why? I don't want to do that, because I don't want my blog stuff on my personal facebook page. I want my blog stuff on the page I just fucking set up for my blog stuff. So then, I figure that I can just cut and paste a link to my blog right in the link section of facebook blog page. OH SHIT! It also cut and pasted the picture of me from my blog, which is very similar to the picture on my personal facebook. So either I can remove the pic of myself from my blog (which I'm not going to do because I'm kind of attached to it at this point) or I can figure out another way around this and still remain anonymous.
Jesus Christ, this is getting complicated. Okay, the problem here must be about all of these stupid permissions. So I toggle back and forth between my blog, my blog email, my personal facebook and my page facebook and try to change all of the permissions for both of the emails and the settings. I was feeling pretty slick by the time I got done, because I had just linked everything to everything else and so it was just a big, circular I-just-beat-the-system kind of moment. Go back to the blog page and hit the little facebook link and motherfucker, that same error box just popped up. Are you fucking kidding me? I just spent 30 minutes of my life changing everything and now it still won't work? Now I feel stupid because it just can't be this difficult and complicated. It can't be. Goddamnit, I'm just going to have to start all over. Deleted the facebook blog page and now I think that if I create a fake personal facebook profile with my blog email, and then create a facebook community page, then I can use that to link up to my blog site and it will be completely unaffiliated with me personally.
But I'm too tired for all this tonight. So shout out to the person who sent a facebook friend request to my anonymous blog email. As you can tell, I'm working on it. I suppose it would be easier to just come out of the blog closet, but then it wouldn't be as much fun and somewhere along the line The Ex would find out and that wouldn't be any fun, either. If growing my blog was as easy as growing my jeans size, I would be golden. But it's not, so I guess I'm just beige for right now.
Stay tuned.
Failure of the worst kind. I figured what I would do is get my blog its own page on facebook, which should be pretty easy considering the number of stupid pages out there that I see on an hourly basis. And then, I could just link my new posts directly onto my blog-affiliated facebook page and grow from there. Hey, like me? Send it to a friend, blah blah blah.
But here's the catch. I'm trying to keep myself relatively anonymous on the blog, which means I'm not linking up to my real facebook page. This is for several reasons: 1) I like to do shit in an incredibly complicated manner, meaning when I finally get it sorted out like I had planned in my head, I feel even smarter than I actually am because I know it's yet another occasion of me driving around my ass to get to my elbow, 2) I don't want any of my co-workers to know about my blog. This is for several reasons - I don't want to become the water cooler topic of the day, and even though I haven't mentioned my employer or my profession on my blog, I don't want to give anyone any ammunition, and lastly because I really don't want to hear the snarky comments from my co-workers about how often I'm getting laid. I figure if I wanted them to know all that, I would just send it out on an email to the whole office. 3) I have spent an inordinate amount of time on this blog bad-mouthing The Ex, most recently mentioning I hope he catches gonorrhea. Obviously, I would prefer that he not find out about my blog. I also don't want a cease and desist letter to come from his attorney, and I just prefer that my blog generally remain nameless. I think it might be more fun for the reader because then the reader isn't bogged down with remembering all of these names AND relationships, and no one gets bogged down with name-baggage, which everyone has to some degree or the other. I also think it makes it easier to pick up reading right on the current post because all I'm doing is naming the relationship, which hopefully means the reader will probably never wonder to themselves, "Who in the hell is The Ex? Mrs. Second Grade Teacher? What about Guy #1?"
This epic failure that I experienced tonight is almost similar to when I started my blog and then signed in using an email account that didn't even exist. To which I had to hurry up and create that account so it would exist and my blog name didn't end up being given away to some other unknowing person with the email account I had just signed up using but didn't actually own. If you can even own an email account, that is. Again, driving around my ass to get to my elbow from the brain. I'm smart and all, but making something super complicated in my head and then still managing to conquer it makes me feel even smarter. Like my taxes, of which the state tax filing was quickly pulled out of the mailbox the other morning when I realized I might have missed a deduction on the federal filing, thus maybe not making me as much in the hole to the feds. So I will be going over to my mother's again on Saturday morning for round #3 of tax preparation.
Back to facebook. I go to the pages section, pick out my category and create a page. I then immediately send the invite or whatever it is to the 31 friends I have (out of the 160-something) that already know about my blog. I realize I can toggle back and forth between my page for my blog and my personal page. Cool! And it doesn't show up as something I like on my personal page. Go to a different web browsing tab and log into my blog. View blog and hit the share button on the facebook icon under my most recent blog post about how I'm trying to get linked up on other sites. Uh-oh. A little error box pops up on facebook and says I must be using my page as me, personally, to be able to share that on facebook. What the fuck? Why? I don't want to do that, because I don't want my blog stuff on my personal facebook page. I want my blog stuff on the page I just fucking set up for my blog stuff. So then, I figure that I can just cut and paste a link to my blog right in the link section of facebook blog page. OH SHIT! It also cut and pasted the picture of me from my blog, which is very similar to the picture on my personal facebook. So either I can remove the pic of myself from my blog (which I'm not going to do because I'm kind of attached to it at this point) or I can figure out another way around this and still remain anonymous.
Jesus Christ, this is getting complicated. Okay, the problem here must be about all of these stupid permissions. So I toggle back and forth between my blog, my blog email, my personal facebook and my page facebook and try to change all of the permissions for both of the emails and the settings. I was feeling pretty slick by the time I got done, because I had just linked everything to everything else and so it was just a big, circular I-just-beat-the-system kind of moment. Go back to the blog page and hit the little facebook link and motherfucker, that same error box just popped up. Are you fucking kidding me? I just spent 30 minutes of my life changing everything and now it still won't work? Now I feel stupid because it just can't be this difficult and complicated. It can't be. Goddamnit, I'm just going to have to start all over. Deleted the facebook blog page and now I think that if I create a fake personal facebook profile with my blog email, and then create a facebook community page, then I can use that to link up to my blog site and it will be completely unaffiliated with me personally.
But I'm too tired for all this tonight. So shout out to the person who sent a facebook friend request to my anonymous blog email. As you can tell, I'm working on it. I suppose it would be easier to just come out of the blog closet, but then it wouldn't be as much fun and somewhere along the line The Ex would find out and that wouldn't be any fun, either. If growing my blog was as easy as growing my jeans size, I would be golden. But it's not, so I guess I'm just beige for right now.
Stay tuned.
Trying To Get Myself Linked Up...
Trying to get myself linked up on a couple of different sites and get a facebook page for my blog going. This won't be quite as easy as it would appear, being that I have elected not to share my blog with anyone I work with (I don't want to be the water cooler discussion of the day) or anyone affiliated with The Ex (because I've spoken poorly of his penis numerous times on here). So to the person that sent me a facebook friend request on my anonymous asshole email - shout out! - check my page out on facebook named.... wait for it... wait for it... Curls & Stuff. I've checked The Ex's friend list and hopefully you are not one of his friends who created a fake profile to lure me into friending you. I also hope to get myself linked up on a couple of other sites (NOT craigslist) and stuff, but this whole technology bit is a little difficult for me.
Stay tuned!
Stay tuned!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
More Stupid Stuff In My Head
Procrastinating about going to sleep, because, well, if I don't go to sleep then I won't have to get up in the morning and then I won't have to do all that shit that I need to do tomorrow. Like pack a bag to go to a conference and send my children off to my mother's for the night. But I'm only staying one night because the thought of being away from my children on school nights is giving me anxiety. I feel like this routine I've worked so hard to perfect since late August will be totally blown out of the water with if they spend more than one night with my mother. Or anyone for that matter. I'm totally fine with them going anywhere on the weekends, but week nights? School nights? I think not. I also think the separation anxiety I am having from being away for one school night is exacerbated by thinking they will have separation anxiety from me, although, I know realistically that's not it. What's really going on in my head is that I feel like their father has already fallen down on so many promises that if I am not there, they might worry I'm crapping out on them, too.
Taxes. How the FUCK did I go from being married and getting THOUSANDS of dollars back each year at tax time to owing the feds? How did that happen? I have six months of mortgage interest to claim, one child, daycare expenses, medical expenses, sales tax, anything my mother could find to itemize and I STILL OWE????? I am so incredibly pissed at myself for agreeing to let The Ex claim our younger daughter that it's not even funny. Greedy bastard. I guess that's the big fuck you I get for agreeing to him not paying child support, though in his defense (why do I even bother to defend him?) he does pay the younger daughter's child care and some other lightweight kind of stuff. But I'm still mad at myself. I suppose that's what ten years of being mistreated, harassed, stalked and condescended to will do to a person's willpower. I hope he catches gonorrhea.
My mother finished up the taxes yesterday and I signed the paperwork and was getting ready to slide the form in the envelope, seal it up and mail that puppy off. My mother says, "Um, you need to put a check in with that." I was like, "What?" She said I need to mail a check in with what I owe in with the actual tax filings. Huh? That is not how that was working in my head. In my head, I was going to mail the filing in, the guv people were going to review it for accuracy and mail me a bill for what I owed. I was then going to call the 1-800 number on the bill and work out a payment plan with the guv. Kind of like my student loans. I mean, they certainly didn't expect me to pay in full upon my college graduation. Why would taxes be any different? But apparently it is. So fuck again. I just won't mail that one in right now. We're not to the deadline anyway. But I did change my withholdings today. I changed from six exemptions to five, because I've figured in order to have money to feed my children, I'll have to crawl it back each year by one. I don't even know how I ended up with six exemptions to begin with, because I got a copy of my withholding form last week at work that I filled out back in 2005 after the younger daughter was born, and all of the numbers were right. That's the guv for you. Funny math and all where none of it adds up right on one form and all of it adds up right on another form and the two forms don't match when it's time to make the forms match.
I put a profile pic on my blog. It always pisses me off to read a book and I flip to the back cover to see what the author looks like and there's no picture. Hello, I want to know what you look like. Don't be recluse. I guess I need to do that, too. So until I change my mind, freak out and take the picture off, which might be tomorrow, here's what I look like, for that one person who reads my blog who might not actually know me personally.
The suspected East Coast Rapist has been caught. I got a little panicky last week after I saw one of the giant electronic billboards on I-95 with the profile up and I came home and looked it up on the web. I'm still on my news boycott, so I don't know much of what's going on if someone doesn't tell me or I don't see it on facebook. But panicky... I came home and immediately checked all of my windows, because my bedroom windows are low enough that when my children locked me out of my bedroom this past weekend, I ran around the back of the house with a screwdriver, popped the screen off and hoisted my younger daughter through the window to run and open Mommy's bedroom door. Thank god the window itself was already open because that would have required some additional effort on my part. But dropping my child in through the window... I didn't even have to hoist her up on my shoulders, I just lifted her up and dropped her in because the window is that low to the ground. I could have climbed in myself, but the neighbors were in their yard and I didn't want anyone to see how that worked. Of course, if the morons who lived in this house before me hadn't put an actual exterior door knob and locking mechanism on the master bedroom door, this would not have been an issue. My children already know simple lock picking, but we haven't gotten to the exterior locks yet. I was waiting until middle school to teach them about the tumblers.
But after I read about this East Coast Rapist, and I knew that however many victims they know about can probably be multiplied by two or three for the real count, I got a little panicky and rushed around and checked all of my doors and locks. Even though the chances were slim he would select my house, I know that there's another one right around the corner. Maybe literally, but I hope not. Kind of like when people get all riled up about school safety and scanning ID's of people going into the schools and oh my god, it could be a sex offender. Yeah, it could be. Probably won't be, but it could be. I always tell people that they don't really need to worry about a registered sex offender trying to get into a school because there's probably already one with full access to the school WHO HASN'T BEEN CAUGHT YET. But the stay-at-home moms and administrators never really like to hear that and their faces get all tight and squinchy when I say that. That's okay. I know it's true. Jut like all of the parents like to say there are no gangs in Midlothian. Sure. Maybe not like what you see on Gangland, but if there are no gangs in Midlothian, then who put the Gangster Disciple graffiti on the big Electric Company substation box across the street from the fancy new hospital with the bell tower and the marble lobby? Oh, wait, I forgot. GD stands for Growth and Development. My mistake.
And now, I've managed to waste an hour. Time to go pack up for this shindig tomorrow and try to make it through til Friday, when Guy #1 will come over and help me paint the kitchen, which was my big weekend project, except I'm so tired of running around doing shit for cheerleading that I really just kind of want a weekend of nothingness, interrupted only by the cheerleading and basketball banquet on Saturday afternoon that I need to finish making the Pie Sale signs for and bake some desserts. But if I go the painting route, which I won't because I just made up my mind I won't, I'm thinking I can paint and he can sit and watch because I'm kind of anal retentive about painting. Or maybe we'll just hop in the sack at three in the afternoon and see what shakes out. Holla!
Taxes. How the FUCK did I go from being married and getting THOUSANDS of dollars back each year at tax time to owing the feds? How did that happen? I have six months of mortgage interest to claim, one child, daycare expenses, medical expenses, sales tax, anything my mother could find to itemize and I STILL OWE????? I am so incredibly pissed at myself for agreeing to let The Ex claim our younger daughter that it's not even funny. Greedy bastard. I guess that's the big fuck you I get for agreeing to him not paying child support, though in his defense (why do I even bother to defend him?) he does pay the younger daughter's child care and some other lightweight kind of stuff. But I'm still mad at myself. I suppose that's what ten years of being mistreated, harassed, stalked and condescended to will do to a person's willpower. I hope he catches gonorrhea.
My mother finished up the taxes yesterday and I signed the paperwork and was getting ready to slide the form in the envelope, seal it up and mail that puppy off. My mother says, "Um, you need to put a check in with that." I was like, "What?" She said I need to mail a check in with what I owe in with the actual tax filings. Huh? That is not how that was working in my head. In my head, I was going to mail the filing in, the guv people were going to review it for accuracy and mail me a bill for what I owed. I was then going to call the 1-800 number on the bill and work out a payment plan with the guv. Kind of like my student loans. I mean, they certainly didn't expect me to pay in full upon my college graduation. Why would taxes be any different? But apparently it is. So fuck again. I just won't mail that one in right now. We're not to the deadline anyway. But I did change my withholdings today. I changed from six exemptions to five, because I've figured in order to have money to feed my children, I'll have to crawl it back each year by one. I don't even know how I ended up with six exemptions to begin with, because I got a copy of my withholding form last week at work that I filled out back in 2005 after the younger daughter was born, and all of the numbers were right. That's the guv for you. Funny math and all where none of it adds up right on one form and all of it adds up right on another form and the two forms don't match when it's time to make the forms match.
I put a profile pic on my blog. It always pisses me off to read a book and I flip to the back cover to see what the author looks like and there's no picture. Hello, I want to know what you look like. Don't be recluse. I guess I need to do that, too. So until I change my mind, freak out and take the picture off, which might be tomorrow, here's what I look like, for that one person who reads my blog who might not actually know me personally.
The suspected East Coast Rapist has been caught. I got a little panicky last week after I saw one of the giant electronic billboards on I-95 with the profile up and I came home and looked it up on the web. I'm still on my news boycott, so I don't know much of what's going on if someone doesn't tell me or I don't see it on facebook. But panicky... I came home and immediately checked all of my windows, because my bedroom windows are low enough that when my children locked me out of my bedroom this past weekend, I ran around the back of the house with a screwdriver, popped the screen off and hoisted my younger daughter through the window to run and open Mommy's bedroom door. Thank god the window itself was already open because that would have required some additional effort on my part. But dropping my child in through the window... I didn't even have to hoist her up on my shoulders, I just lifted her up and dropped her in because the window is that low to the ground. I could have climbed in myself, but the neighbors were in their yard and I didn't want anyone to see how that worked. Of course, if the morons who lived in this house before me hadn't put an actual exterior door knob and locking mechanism on the master bedroom door, this would not have been an issue. My children already know simple lock picking, but we haven't gotten to the exterior locks yet. I was waiting until middle school to teach them about the tumblers.
But after I read about this East Coast Rapist, and I knew that however many victims they know about can probably be multiplied by two or three for the real count, I got a little panicky and rushed around and checked all of my doors and locks. Even though the chances were slim he would select my house, I know that there's another one right around the corner. Maybe literally, but I hope not. Kind of like when people get all riled up about school safety and scanning ID's of people going into the schools and oh my god, it could be a sex offender. Yeah, it could be. Probably won't be, but it could be. I always tell people that they don't really need to worry about a registered sex offender trying to get into a school because there's probably already one with full access to the school WHO HASN'T BEEN CAUGHT YET. But the stay-at-home moms and administrators never really like to hear that and their faces get all tight and squinchy when I say that. That's okay. I know it's true. Jut like all of the parents like to say there are no gangs in Midlothian. Sure. Maybe not like what you see on Gangland, but if there are no gangs in Midlothian, then who put the Gangster Disciple graffiti on the big Electric Company substation box across the street from the fancy new hospital with the bell tower and the marble lobby? Oh, wait, I forgot. GD stands for Growth and Development. My mistake.
And now, I've managed to waste an hour. Time to go pack up for this shindig tomorrow and try to make it through til Friday, when Guy #1 will come over and help me paint the kitchen, which was my big weekend project, except I'm so tired of running around doing shit for cheerleading that I really just kind of want a weekend of nothingness, interrupted only by the cheerleading and basketball banquet on Saturday afternoon that I need to finish making the Pie Sale signs for and bake some desserts. But if I go the painting route, which I won't because I just made up my mind I won't, I'm thinking I can paint and he can sit and watch because I'm kind of anal retentive about painting. Or maybe we'll just hop in the sack at three in the afternoon and see what shakes out. Holla!
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