To the cashier at Babies R Us

You know what? I've been there. I worked in retail for 17 years, and I get that the job sucks. I also understand that first thing in the morning sucks. Know what else? I don't care.

I'm sorry I interrupted your conversation with the other cashiers this morning so that I could check out. I'm sorry you felt as if I was beneath your hospitality. I'm sorry you felt as if you had to be surly to a woman who had been dealing with a whining, misbehaving infant for the past 30 min while she searched high and low in the store for what she needed.

I think it's time you found another job. Really. One of the most important aspects of being a retail worker is your ability to put on a happy face and act better than Meryl Streep. Making your customers feel as if they'd just trodden in dog shit is not in your best interests. Because I got your name. Yep. Read your name tag. And the store's phone number is on the receipt...

Tipsy Insects

It's time for more Adventures in My Back Yard.

Yesterday I went on the deck to smoke and was witness to a race war in my driveway. There was a catbird on the gravel surrounded by three Brown Thrashers. Thrashers are larger, brown versions of catbirds. Same family. Regardless, the catbird was surrounded and displaying much like a teeny ostrich. He splayed his wings out, puffed his tail, and rocked back and forth to make himself equally as large as said ostrich. The thrashers were unimpressed, and continued advancing on him. I was a split second from screaming, "Are you a bird or what??" when the catbird apparently remembered this was so and took off straight up into the air to escape. The thrashers then went about their business, which was rolling in the sand in my garden.

The next thing also happened on a cigarette trip. I was on the deck and a swallowtail butterfly landed on my recycling bin. It then hopped down and perched on a beer can and began drinking the beer from the rim of the can (no, we don't rinse first, yes we suck). He hopped from can to can draining each rim, and then he promptly flew smack into the side of the deck.

The third thing actually happened overnight. I have caladium planted in the garden. Gorgeous, full, red caladium that were a stunning set piece in the garden. Caladium that currently have no leaves because some JACKASS DEER decided to use my garden as a buffet last night. He or she also tried gnawing on my lilac tree, but it apparently didn't taste as good because there's not much missing. Either that or the JACKASS DEER filled up on the caladium first and then used the lilac as dessert. Either way, this was the first time in my life I've considered sitting on the deck with a rifle to shoot Bambi between the eyes. I think I'll turn the sprinkler on overnights from now on and douse the JACKASS DEER when he or she tries to snack.

A new home?

Rich has found a home on four acres in the lake area for $128k. Yes. $128k. It IS a 12 year old doublewide, but we aren't proud. Given that a lot of doublewides put our current home to shame with all of their amenities, I think if this one proves to be a gem we can happily stick "Trailer Trash" hats on our heads and call it a day.

The reason the price is so low? Duke Power has a tower on the land that the home sits on. It's putting people off. I don't think we care. It depends. We'll do a bit more research first, but we're going to drive out today just to see if this is actually a pipe dream or a dream realized.

FOUR ACRES. No traffic. Fenced in half acre of yard for the dogs to run around. HUGE outbuilding. Carport. FOUR ACRES. You can't BUY four acres of land for $128k these days. But we might be about to.

Please please please let this all work out. Let us get a loan. Let us sell this house quickly. Please let this be The Thing to do.

UPDATE---

Yeah, so this is SO not The Thing to do. We drove through EBF Wake County, which is not terrible, but then we turned on a gravel lane that was exactly wide enough for ONE vehicle at a time. Also not terrible, although my truck would never make it with the suspension problems I have. We drove and drove, sometimes close enough to people's home that we could see inside their windows. We got to the very end of the lane and there stood The Tower. Close enough to the front door of the house to be hit with a rock. It was FUGLY, and I'm assuming that having electrical pulses being sent out that close to one's home isn't a great idea. Also, the neighbors were about 100 ft from the front door of the house. Um, FOUR ACRES and you put the house right there? That was a wee bit retarded. So after being accosted by an insane country dog who tried to eat the tires on our Jeep we beat a retreat. Both of us are disappointed, but we'll keep looking.

Koko

When I was 19 years old I got myself a kitten. She was 7 weeks old, and I got her at a yard sale. She was free to good home. I drove home with her crying in the back seat, and the very first night she punched me in the eye while I was sleeping.

She used to fit into roller skates, that's how tiny she was. My roommate and I would put her in a skate and cruise her around the hardwood floors.

When she was 9 mos old I got Clancy, another babycat, and Koko was VERY unhappy. Koko was a tortoiseshell you see, and they do NOT like other animals. I was unaware of that before I got Clancy. Now I know.

Eventually Koko and Clancy reached an accord, and lived for 15+ years together. Clancy used to torment Koko by staring at her and not touching her. You could almost hear 2 kids in the back of a car. "Mom! He's looking at me!" "So? I'm not touching you!"

Koko like canned food and water. She loved yarn. She loved curling up next to the space heaters and when I was lucky enough to have a fireplace she would camp out right in front of it.

Today I helped Koko cross from this world. She was 17 and ill, but it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. The vet, Dr Mullins, deserves a special mention, because she did a wonderful job with the actual procedure. But my babycat is gone, the last bit of my 20s is gone, and I'll never see that pissed off catface again.

She will be most assuredly missed, every day, for the rest of my days.

Yeah, that was stupid...

Disregard the previous post.

I was an utter moron for even typing it in the first place.

As of this moment the kid has been whining and crying in her swing for 31 minutes. Yep. THIRTY ONE minutes.

She woke up early this morning so I tried to put her down early.

I won't make that mistake again.

The Beast Who Does Not Sleep

Is sleeping. Every day. In her swing she takes a 1030 and 230 nap. EVERY DAY.

Now if I could just get her to sleep at night...

Update on The Book

Thanks to some decent napping on the part of my child, it took me THREE days to read The Book.

And it was FABULOUS.

Go buy it. If you've read the first 6, you won't be disappointed.

Convenience or Compassion?

I was supposed to have my 17 year old cat Koko put down this morning. She has hyper-thyroid disease, is wasting away, and has been crying in pain for weeks. I attempted to treat her thyroid with pills, but they made her sick and pilling her was a nightmare. I had decided that at the age of 17 it might be better to just let her go with her dignity intact.

Only, her dignity is gone anyway. She doesn't use the litterbox other than to hide in it because the other cats sense her weakness and torture her mercilessly. She won't allow me to show her any affection, preferring to hide away in the "cat bedroom" unless it's time to eat. She's absolutely miserable. So what's my problem?

Rich had to work today and tomorrow and I couldn't figure out how on earth I was going to be able to take a baby with me to have this done. This will be a very private moment between Koko and me, and I can't imagine a screaming child in the room for it. I had to call and reschedule for Thursday when Rich will be home.

The other trouble I'm having is that Koko is crying so loudly overnight that last night she woke Livvie twice. This is where the Convenience part comes in. I'm having trouble reconciling my annoyance with that with the fact that she is truly suffering. Am I doing this for her or for me?

It pisses me off that she didn't get the chance to just lie down and go to sleep one day and not wake up. It pisses me off to be the one to make this decision for her. Is she ready? Maybe not. Am I ready? Not especially. Can I bear to watch her suffer any longer? Hell no. Do I want her to wait for a crisis situation like Clancy, my Cat of a Lifetime had to? Screw that.

All I'm really saying here is that this sucks. The big one. And I'll always second-guess myself.

An Exercise in Futility?

Today I am getting my hands on The Book. I'm sure you know which book I mean, and if you don't you're living under a rock. Suffice it to say that with each of the previous 6 books it has taken me less than a day to read them. For this one, I'll be lucky if it takes me a month.

Which leads to the halfassed point of this blog. If ANYONE has the nerve to tell me what happens in said book, I will cudgel them to death. And I am NOT joking.

The Wiggles

Yes, I'm finally going to write about the creepy, Star Trekkie outfitted Australians who entertain our children. Oh, I know not ALL of our children, but I'd say that given how much money these guys have made (about a bajillion dollars) and how many DVDs they have out, a large portion of the tot population is zoning out on them.

We have their Wiggles Show episodes DVRd. This is because I'm too cheap to buy the DVDs. Also, they seem to have a lot more music on them, whereas the DVDs have a great deal of little talking bits, interviews with people and field trips and such. My only exception might be the Wiggles Safari, because they have a large bit with Steve Irwin, and I miss him desperately.

Livvie adores the songs. Us? Not so much. Some of them aren't too bad, and the music is usually very catchy. But the LYRICS. My God. A song called Calling All Cows contains the lyric, "We've got some news in from the city. They need some milk 'cause it's white and pretty." HUH? However, unlike some children's performers these guys actually do play their own instruments. We're even on a first name basis now. I know Greg (yellow) is in charge, Jeff (purple) sleeps, Anthony (blue) eats, and Murray (red) doesn't do a whole lot of anything except look somewhat skinny and a bit freaked all of the time. Oh, he's also their guitar man. Whatever dude. You're a bit odd.



They also have animated bits where everyone is bug eyed and full of leering teeth. If you never knew teeth could leer, I'm telling you right now that they can.

We watch upwards of 6 half-hour episodes a day, sometimes more than once. Given how annoying these are, it tells you quite a bit about what it does for my child. Even when she's not paying attention to the TV their music in the background seems to keep her calm and playing happily. And for this, as much as it pains me, I will always be grateful to the Wiggles.

And scarily enough, if they ever make it to our little corner of the world I'll take Livvie to the concert. Everyone always looks like they're having a blast.

Oh dear

I am not a shopper. I hate shopping. If I could get every single thing, including groceries, online or on ebay I would.

Today I had the urge to shop.

I had to run Livvie to Kohl's because she was outgrowing all of her PJs and had only 2 pair that fit her. It is a foul thing to take your child out of the bathtub and dress her in yesterday's PJs. So this morning I threw her 2 pair in the wash and ran her to the store. They were having a huge sale on Carter's, which is the only brand that won't shrink in the dryer for some reason, so I bought her 6 pair and then 2 pair of stretch pants. My kid is going to be all purple, all the time at this point, which is good because I can't stand pink.

On my way out of the store I happened to glance over at ladies' clothing. Brown. As far as the eye could see there were fields of different shades of brown. Brown is my black. It always has been. In fact, my closet used to greatly resemble six of the clothing racks I saw today. I had Rich's debit card. I paused. I struggled mightily with myself, staring at the peasant tops and cotton pants, looking at sun dresses and long flowy garments.

And then I remembered two things:

We're broke this week

and

I don't frigging work anymore. Where the fuck would I wear these outfits? I currently live in 3 pair of camo shorts and multiple super hero tshirts.

But for a blissful moment I imagined dressing like a girl, wearing makeup, sporting strappy sandals (or "sandles" as I saw at the grocery store yesterday), and having actual jewelry on. You know, more than my rings which no matter how hard she tries the kid can't manage to get off of me.

WTF??

Yes, another post about sleeping, or lack thereof.

Livvie just will NOT sleep. She's currently in her swing, crying, whining, and generally making it known to Wake County that mommy sucks for expecting her to nap.

I also expect her to let me get some sleep at night, but that's another story.

How do you get to be a person who refuses to sleep? Imagine sleep, if you will. Imagine getting drowsy, sinking into your blankets, letting your eyes close, and then finally going to sleep. Awesome, isn't it? Now why would anyone NOT want to feel that way? Why would a kid prefer to cry and carry on and give herself a headache rather than get some rest?

Every nap is a battle. She refuses to let me rock her during the day anymore. Driving her around town sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. The only thing that is surefire most days is the swing. The swing can hold up to 30 pounds of child, so I don't know what we'll do when she grows out of it. For now though, it's saving my sanity.

So lets hear it for the Graco Lovin' Hug swing. I might end up having the damn thing bronzed.

AFTERNOON EDIT: Now she's on hour 2 of a swing nap that involved no fussing whatsoever. I'll be damned if I can figure this kid out.

Brief

If you could have any job on the planet, what would it be?

And if you had that job, do you think you'd be happy?

I thought being a stay at home mom would be an amazing and fulfilling job. And it is. But the hours suck, and so do some of the benefits.

That's all for today. Feel free to tell me whatever you wanted to be when you grew up, especially if you actually became it.

Land of the Free

Home of the moronically stupid.

I like fireworks. I like going to large firework displays where trained professionals are setting them off for the enjoyment of huge groups of celebratory people.

What I don't like is when chuckleheads drive down to South Carolina and buy bagsful of them and set them off in their backyards. These things are illegal for a reason, fucknuts. And I'm not talking about the ground types that fountain and whatnot. I'm talking about the huge, cannon types that fire into the air and zoom god knows where to possibly set fire to someone's roof.

And yes, I'm talking about the ones that make my dogs go nuts and hide under furniture, make them scratch at the door to escape, and potentially wake up my sleeping infant.

Apparently the yuckyucks in the subdivision across the street weren't that wealthy, because they only managed to shoot off three cannons last night. Those puppies run about $25 each. Some people in the subdivision down the road though, they must have won the lottery. Theirs went on for 45 minutes.

Forty FIVE minutes of my soothing my dogs, who were listening to every other dog in a 5 mile radius going ballistic. FORTY FIVE minutes of my panicking that the kid that I JUST managed to get to sleep would be woken by my wigging dogs. And FORTY FIVE minutes of my hoping that wherever those showers landed, it wouldn't be our house.

Happy Fifth of July. I sure as shit hope it's all over.