So Not Kidding

I came home from work and Lloyd met me in the driveway with his keys in one hand and his ginormous bag of pilot crap in the other hand. He hopped in the car as fast as he could, calling over his shoulder, 'Don't be mad when you go in the house; I was really busy today and didn't have time to do anything and I won't be home until te......' And boy, he was SO NOT KIDDING. I would post pictures but I am genuinely afraid of CPS on this one. Here is a partial list of the carnage:

-huge half-gnawed hunks of cheese in multiple locations

-raw egg wrapped in dirty socks inside a graham cracker box stashed behind the recycling bin

-dirty breakfast and lunch dishes on the table

-at LEAST eight pairs of shoes and boots strewn around the living room plus a few singletons

-rat in the compost (outside; it wasn't quite THAT bad)

-two sets of pajamas, soccer clothes and wet, muddy pants on the couch

-box of raisins smashed into the carpet

-twin peaks of laundry blocking the hall, Mt. Dirty and Mt. Clean

I worked for a solid 2.5 hours, which is pretty much unprecedented, and there were still bits of string and chopped up bits of paper on the living room floor, a container of snails on the counter with the lids off and the snails among the missing, school books and supplies covering the dining room table and floor, and rubber bands shaped like fairies and numbers spread up and down the hall. Oh, and a puddle of pee on the back porch.

I don't care what time he gets home, I am meeting him in the driveway with a taser in one hand and a giant beer in the other, and I am so not kidding.

Highly Illogical

Wow, my kid is so ILLOGICAL. Shane was busy 'making magic' in the bathroom when I called him into the living room to pick up the four thousand tiny pieces of string he had cut up earlier. I TOLD him he was going to have to pick it up when he was doing it, so he shouldn't have been SURPRISED, but somehow he was. String that is purposely cut into many small pieces must be eventually picked up. Everyone knows this, right? It's a clear consequence of flinging string around all willy-nilly. Then, he pitched this huge fit and screamed that he was too tired to pick up the string. So, I told him if he was too tired to pick up the string, then he needed to go to bed. Totally logical and sensible, right? He should have been HAPPY; he got to go to bed and NOT pick up the string. But no, he threw another full on tantrum and ripped his pajamas off. So I told him he could sleep naked. You'd think he would have been happy, since that's what he said he wanted, but no.

Then he wanted me to stay in there with him, but of course I couldn't, because I had to pick up the string. Clearly, if one has to be picking up the mess created by others, one can not also be laying in bed at the same time. Again, he failed to see the utter logic in this and screamed MORE, not less. And that's not the end of the insanity. He began hollering for an imaginary toy. It's a green squeaking toy shaped like a star THAT HE HAS NEITHER OWNED NOR SEEN. EVER. He calls it 'Squeaky' and CANNOT POSSIBLY LIVE WITHOUT IT.

How do people live like this? With this complete and total lack of reason and a propensity to rail ever louder, as if sheer volume will suddenly render an absolutely ridiculous and indefensible position rational. Oh, HOLY HELL. I just realized the intellect of my four year old bears more than a passing resemblance to that of Newt Gingrich. AND that little charmer Michele Bachmann. On the plus side, for me, at least the small boy will grow out of it.

Oh yeah, here is a picture of the 'magic' that was made in the bathroom, and damn if it doesn't remind me of the Ryan budget.

Dirty Thieves

DUDE! I am so tired of people stealing my brilliant ideas! Here, read this article about breast milk factories, and then LOOK, LOOK! I wrote the italicized post below in SEPTEMBER 2009, YEARS ago! It mentions how I had this great idea for a human milk factory but couldn't find any investors. I bet you guys are all sorry now! I was pretty sure I posted all the details of my plan but I can't find it. The basics were pretty simple: moms with extra milk would go to the factory, and it would have nap rooms, nannies, a thrift store, a grocery store, a library, a post office, a Target, a gym and all the other places moms would like to go but can't because of those damn screaming babies. Then, for each donated ounce, they would earn time to spend in the various amenities after dropping the kids off in the nanny room. Then the factory owner (moi) could sell the milk for a tidy little profit. It IS called liquid gold, after all. Perfect, right? A huge win for everyone. GENIUS! I guess I didn't have to repost the whole thing, but I do love a good Dick Cheney joke. I'm particularly fond of the kitten chomping part. Also it has a link to an entertaining article about out of work pilots.

Did you read the article? No? Maybe you're not as fascinated by breastfeeding issues and politics as I am. Just in case, I'll give you the gist: They totally copied me. OUTRAGEOUS! It's about this fantastic new idea for a HUMAN BREASTMILK FACTORY! There is no justice, I tell you!

September 2, 2009

After a long and distinguished career as an Air Force spouse, I will be retiring in the spring with the treadmarks from Uncle Sam's boots still on my ass everlasting gratitude of my country and a miniscule small barely adequate if I was a German Sheperd pension. We will be moving to the Puget Sound area, and Lloyd will have to find a job so we have food. Let's face it: no one ever got rich off the military. Except Dick Cheney, of course, and he only eats elderly nuns, crippled children and wide-eyed kittens. I hear he likes the kittens best because he loves to suck the juice out of their eyeballs and spit the skins at the crippled children just before he crunches their bones between his teeth. It's probably just one of those internet rumors, though. Like the one about my stripper pole. Sheesh, don't people have better things to do than make up ridiculous stories and spread them around the internet?

Anyway, Lloyd would like to work as a pilot, but we recently read a stories about these guys, so I'm not sure how well that's going to work out. I mean, only so many pilots can work the street corners in one town before they start having turf wars, right? I can just see them strutting down the sidewalks in their most enticing uniforms, pushing and shoving each other to get to the best prospective employers: 'Hey, Mister! Over here! I'll take you around the world! Satisfaction guaranteed!'

Major economic indicators at Osan (knockoff bag and pirated video sales) are strong and unchanged from the time of our arrival here. Back in Seattle, where the intellectual property theft that drives the economy is lost to the annals of history instead of parading itself on every street corner, apparently the conditions are not quite so rosy, and it might be a while before Lloyd finds a job. Before you get all huffy, yes, I could work and leave Lloyd home with the boys. We did talk about that but we agree that it's better if he works for money instead of me. Plus my main skills these days are tapping and producing milk, and there's not much of a market for those. But there totally SHOULD be. I have an awesome idea for building a human milk factory but I can't seem to find any investors.

In light of our upcoming reality, we are doing some things differently now. We're practicing for the days to come when we have to make Christmas presents out of empty beer cans and tape and play with boogers instead those spendy thrift store toys. We have stopped throwing away diapers after only one use, and for dessert we make the boys lick the old popsicle juice and applesauce spatters off the walls. And I only go to the thrift store on bag sale day. Oh, okay, that one's a lie. I would NEVER skip the thrift store just to save a little money.

But the big exciting change is meal planning. For every day in September, I have plans for both lunch and dinner. Some days I have complete meals figured out but I still have some holes to fill. People claim you can save tons of money on groceries by doing this because you buy just what you need to make your pre-planned meals instead of throwing things willy-nilly into the cart. I'm not sure who these 'people' are but maybe they're on to something here.

I'll keep you posted as September progresses. Tonight is lime cilantro chicken. I have no recipe, but I figure I'll just make one up and enter it in the Pillsbury bake-off contest and win the million dollars. Who knew meal planning could be so lucrative? I just need to incorporate some refrigerated dough of the appropriate brand and come up with a snazzy name. I think 'Island Chicken' has a nice ring to it. I could put it on sticks and bake it with the biscuit dough, sort of like a Cuban corn dog.

That's the news from the kitchen in Korea! And, Lloyd's your man if you're looking for a pilot to take you on a wild trip. In an airplane, I mean.

Vacation

I'm back! Did you miss me? Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?? Oh, good! Hi, Helen! Oh, great, there's Janelle and Lauren and Pam, too! Sweet! You guys want to see my vacation pictures? Hey! Where are you going?? Come back here right now! And you have to listen to my boring story, too.

So! We went to Sun Lakes Resort in eastern Washington. The weather was fantastic, after a brutally cold and wet spring here in western Washington. We went at almost the exact same time last year, which you can read about here. There is excellent geology there- channeled scablands from the Glacial Lake Missoula Flood, and miles and miles of Columbia River Basalt. There are marmots galore, and plenty of fish.

Also, there was a redneck wedding in the cabin next to us- I swear, there was a pregnant bride, loud nasally country music way into the night, a bunch of buck-toothed kids in overalls AND a fat guy on a Harley. Oh, and there was THE most monstrous child ever in the swimming pool. And not mine this time! You know how super fair-skinned red-haired people are either attractive (Damian Lewis) or hideous (Carrot Top)? This kid was of the ugly variety, and here is why I hate him:

1. He came up to us the second we got in the pool and demanded we give him our noodles RIGHT NOW;

2. He spit a mouthful of water on me and announced that he didn't like me; and

3. He screamed loudly that his mother wasn't there and no one was watching him.

Is it wrong to call a little kid an asshole? I think I might know why his mother left him alone in the swimming pool. Unless of course he is a lying little asshole and she was just pretending not to know him.

And, on a final note, you can thank Lloyd for the pictures- the camera battery went dead so he went all MacGyver and hooked up the camera batteries to the car battery with a wire coat hanger and charged them up good. You can see instructions for a similar effort here, just in case you're stuck in the wilderness with a dead iphone and need to get on Facebook.

The Government is Not Your Mother

I try to be a nice person, really I do.When people appear to be doing super moronic things, I try to remind myself that it is remotely possible that I don't completely understand all the circumstances surrounding what looks like sheer idiocy and that if I did, perhaps the idiocy would make perfect sense. Just the other day, for an example, I was at the thrift store when a woman went into a dressing room with a baby strapped into a car seat and a giant pile of clothes.

About thirty seconds later, the baby started screaming, then howling. Ceaselessly. The aisles outside the dressing room were full of judgypants talking about her mothering skills and what she should be doing instead. I thought to myself, perhaps that woman isn't as stupid as it sounds like she is. Maybe she hasn't been able to get to the thrift store for MONTHS and today is the only day she can go and maybe all her other clothes besides the ones she walked in here in are in tatters! Or maybe she is deaf and can't hear that baby bellowing at 500 decibels. Also, I tried to imagine what might make those people outside the dressing room act like such nasty, superior know-it-alls. Perhaps they don't like the way their own kids turned out. I think that's pretty likely, because they were all old ladies, as is so often the case in situations like this. Maybe they just don't remember how endlessly trying small babies can be when you are trying to do just one single simple thing. Compassion is my middle name!

So, I don't think I'm being overly harsh when I need to vent about how dumb some people are. As you know, there are some serious problems right now with flooding in the midwest and the aftermath of some extremely brutal tornadoes in the south. Now, everyone knows that if they live in a place where there is a potential for floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, blizzards, widescale power outage, drought, disruption of rail, roads, ports or water supply, they should have an emergency kit, right? And that is EVERYONE, that lives ANYWHERE ON THE ENTIRE EARTH. EVERYBODY, DO YOU HEAR ME? Everybody needs an emergency kit. There are many, many places where you can look to get ideas about what you need. But here are some things that should be total no-brainers: food, water, first aid items, any prescription medicines or other needed medical supplies, and cash.

Seriously, how misguided would someone have to be to NOT have these things? Oh, and how about INSURANCE? Everybody with any kind of functioning brain should know that they need to be prepared for emergency situations, because guess what? THEY ACTUALLY HAPPEN. Do people thing the government is going to help them? That is pretty hilarious, because my office doesn't even have money for printer paper, and it gets worse every day. No one wants to pay taxes to fund anything and then they whine like babies when the government is not there to bail them out. Well, plus DC wasted all its money bailing out Wall Street and Detroit, because it loves corporations and hates people, but that is immaterial at the present time and also it makes me VERY ANGRY and I am already having the worst Mother's Day ever, so I'll just go on with my point, shall I?

My point is that we must take responsibility for ourselves, which appears to be a novel concept to some folks. Below are some actual published comments from people affected by flooding and tornadoes. Certainly, these people are facing some problems, but if they'd done a little preparation, they would have much better things to do than annoy me on the computer, and we would all be MUCH happier. So please, I am BEGGING you, do not become one of these people. For the love of God, if you are diabetic and need blood test strips, HAVE SOME IN YOUR KIT! Have your own damn water, canned food and snacks. Is it that hard? If you do not have an emergency kit and plan, get one. RIGHT NOW. The end.

1. (facebook comment responding to a post with information about availability of medical supplies) now its posted after my wife almost went into a coma from her sugar because I could,nt find any test strips

2. (facebook comment) What is being done for Northern Alabama? My family is is a warzone like area on Sand Mtn and they have no communication. How are they being helped? Where is their relief aid?

3. (facebook post and reply)

From Tide: There has been a slight change in the location for Loads of Hope. We will begin washing TOMORROW MORNING @8am at University Mall 1701 McFarland Blvd East Tuscaloosa, AL 35404. Our plan is to be here until at least May 12, 2011 – loads are limited to two per family per day. Please share this post and help spread the word.

Thanks

(comment from the biggest moron on the face of the planet) WHAT?!!! limit 2 per family!! The Government needs to do better then that to help the people and community and Volunteers their should be a unlimited supplies!!! This is why I hate the government they say the are prepared now when a disaster strikes LMFAO their are not so prepared Step to it!!!

4. (newspaper article) Michalle Treadaway, who has been staying in her home even though part of the roof was torn off and the foundation was damaged, said she hasn't gotten much help from FEMA yet. When she called to report her damage because she had no insurance, she said the person she spoke to couldn't give her an idea of what to do next.

In the meantime, she has relied on the volunteers in town, who come by in cars, golf carts, ATVs and on foot several times an hour to offer her cold water, canned food and snacks.

"I'm worried when they go away, there will be nothing," Treadaway said.

On coats

Look at my living room! Doesn’t it totally look like the brown coat section at Goodwill exploded in here? But no, those are all Lloyd’s coats. For real. He took the boys to visit his parents for a few days, and you know me! I took full advantage of the opportunity clean and organize. Well, okay, FINE, really I laid on the couch in my underwear and drank beer. Of course, I went to Goodwill, too, but they kicked me out. Something about no beer allowed, blah blah blah blah. WHATEVER. So when I got home I decided to clean out the ‘walk-in’ closet in our bedroom. I say ‘walk-in’ instead of walk-in, because I suppose it’s theoretically possible to walk in there, if you were a midget. Or a Pomeranian. Or maybe a medium-sized goat, if it's skinny, but not one of those freaky jumping ones because it would hit its head on the shelf right off, and I definitely don't want another dead goat in my closet.

It has never been easy to get in there but it’s been getting progressively more difficult, what with the three feet of crap on the floor and junk piled willy-nilly on the shelves and draped over the hanger rods. But I was determined, because I deeply love a tidy closet. Also, I thought I might have stashed some extra beers in there, but unfortunately that turned out not to be the case.

I figured out the problem right away- it was the overly ample supply of brown coats. You might think I have something against brown coats, but you would be mistaken. I LOVE brown coats. My brown coats, that is. Lloyd’s, not so much. It would be okay if they were all different; I could understand that. But the brown coats in question fall into two categories: leather and hunting/outdoorsy. Boring, am I right? I’m really tired of boring, so I took them all out, along with approximately 43 helmet bags and 217 backpacks (tan, olive, and camouflage in varying sizes and configurations) and heaped them into a pile that the entire population of Cairo, Illinois could stand on to keep dry no matter how high the Mighty Mississippi gets. If you don't believe me, look at the picture again and this time, note the tiger for scale. It's not a full grown tiger, of course. I wouldn't want to exaggerate or anything.

At the present time, a smallish golden retriever could walk in and maybe even turn around, so that’s a big improvement, but I am not quite sure what to do with the enormous mound of coats in the middle of the living room. Let me know if you have any ideas! I’ll be on the couch in my underwear, drinking beer.