~Ah Man~

I am overwhelmed.

When I signed on for all of my new life changes--the ones that are going in the direction that I dreamed my life would go--I did not consider a few important things:

1. A bathroom needs to be cleaned once a week. Minimum.
2. Laundry does not do itself.
3. I have to make sure three people eat three times a day. Everyday.
4. Kids in school have homework.
5. Pieces of paper that are brought to me from the mail, kids, spouse, bank and school all need to be filed somewhere.
6. Linoleum needs to be mopped.
7. Leftovers will never get eaten, nor will they be thrown away.
8. Kids do not floss unless a parent is present.
9. Cars need to be tuned.
10. Mother's should be called.

There's my list of ten area's in which I am totally failing; if I were honest I would add twenty more. The saddest part of the list is that it has to do with my inner-personal relationships and my personal worth as a wife and a mother.

I am making selfish decisions about my life right now. Usually I am fairly confident that I am moving in the right direction. But then I go another week without seeing my mother, and another night saying to my children, "Just do the dishes--it is YOUR responsibility. You are members of a working family--do your work!" I forget to touch base with my brother. I pass another evening when I do not say "Now I lay me's" with my children, and another night in which my beloved goes to bed without me. Another Sunday passes without my family in a pew, and another Wednesday goes by when I am not at the golf course with Mrs Jones. I miss my morning gossip/coffee ritual with Kim, and I haven't had my sister in my home so that she can watch her "Dirty Dancing" dvd in months. I haven't kissed my daddy, or sent my father an e-mail, or asked the lesbian's how things are simmering on the home front. I am not peeling enough vegetables, and the only clothes that I have ironed this week have belonged to me. When my children are crying I am more concerned about how to shut them up then I am with why they are crying. I haven't gone for a walk, or pulled a weed or mowed the lawn or written to Robin to see how life in Illinois is treating her. I don't call my sister's unless I need something from them and I haven't been to the bird refuge to see if the Pelican's are migrating.


Ah man.

This it the time of the month when I wonder if I am making the right decisions or if I am merely making the selfish decisions.

~Sup Dawg~

The children and I are back in school, and I got the job working for the Bengal Newspaper. It has been a pretty busy week, but I know it is only gearing up to get better. The first week of school is the woe-ing period. Class time is so sweet and fun, and the professor seems so laid back and understanding--and then the final day to drop the class arrives and the professor walks into class with a whip and he/she declares, "Alright bitches, get to work."

Ikeman's first day of school will be September 5th. He will be in preschool and he is already in love with the name of his teacher. He has only met her once, and he held my hand and kept his lips clamped tight for the entire exchange. He is in love with the idea of going to school, but the reality of doing it scares him. It also scares me. I have had his hearing checked and it is fine--but his speech is not what it should be. I am anticipating speech therapy for the boy and this makes me sad--he seems so perfect to me right now, why would we have to change him?

Kate got her first pair of glasses and her first violin and I am probably not allowed to say it--her first bra. She is tall enough that her head reaches to the bottom of my chin. When she and I go out together and people tell her that she looks like her mother, she blushes and says thank-you. The glasses that she picked for herself look very similar to my glasses, and she has started wearing a shell necklace that looks like my shell necklace. It pleases me that she is trying to emulate her mama. I am sure that the day is coming when she wants to be autonomous and so she will change everything about herself that she perceives is the same as her mother. She is already the antithesis of me in the areas of math. My daughter got the presidents award of academic excellences for her abilities in math; I can't multiply positive and negative numbers.

Jake is starting to look like the man he is going to be. He has lost all of his baby roundness, and he is getting tall. He is skinny and ripped, he likes to flex his stomach so that his ribs poke out and his six pack appears. He has his father's teeth and hair and attitude. He is my child that is most likely to share. If he has cash and his siblings do not, he gives them cash. If Kate's ice cream bowl is finished before his, he will give her a bite from his bowl. He is in the third grade this year and I wonder if he is as good at school as he is as home. And, God forbid--is he has bad?

Time seems to be pooling around me. I am always rushed, but sometimes I move at a leisurely pace. The important things are looming in front of me, but the little things are so much nicer to pay attention too. Last year at this time I was stressed about how I would handle school and my life. This year I added three jobs to that equation and I am sure that I will have enough time to do everything that it is important for me to do.

Five and Six and Seven years ago, I was lying in my bed napping my days away and dreaming of what my life would be like if I was a writer. I spent a lot of days sleeping and dreaming about what it would be like because I was too tired to get up and and find out. I found my reality of being a young mother so bleak--piles of laundry and mounds of dishes and stacks of diapers and overflowing garbage cans and kids clinging to my hands and legs and chest--that I took daily naps to escape my reality and float to the magical places where I was living in my dream of being a writer.

I want to thank all of you that have been reading my blog since I began blogging. It was your voices that told me I didn't have to just dream about it, I could actually do it. You are the wind beneath my wings dammit. If I hadn't found blogging and all of you--I would probably still be taking four hour naps every afternoon so that I could dream about how it would be.

Time may be pooling around me, but the list of things that I have committed myself to is pretty long. I am excited to see my name in print, I can't wait to write my paper about the Trobrianders and there are still fish to catch in Island Park. I have a lot of plans, a lot of obligations and a whole shit load of responsibilities.

I probably won't be writing here very often, but when I do write it will be something that I think is important for me to remember.

~It Is In Your Best Interest~

A while ago, a young lady called me and she said, "Can you keep a secret?"

I responded, "No. No I can not."

She proceeded to give her confidential information none-the-less, apparently it could not be contained. I would be true to my promise that I can not keep a secret and I would give it up now, except that the secret was such an average secret that I have already forgotten it.

But you should know this: My secret vault is chalk full. It can not contain one more tasty tid-bit. The stuff that I locked in there is secure, but no more information can be stuffed inside. Not an iota of anything gossipy should be passed to me.

I can't keep a secret.

I really can't.

Furthermore, if it is a secret you shouldn't be telling me (or anyone else).


I recently blurted a secret that shouldn't have been handed to me. (I blame the guy that gave me the secret for giving me the secret and thus ruining his own life. He should have known better than to tell ME.)

It went down like this: I am in the garage smoking with my beloved and some boys. (Twenty something boys with awesome back muscles) and I had this conversation with one such (hotish) young man.

HYM: I bought her a ring. My god, she is just my everything--we have been together for two years, we bought a house and I want to marry her.

Me: That is awesome! She rocks. She is so pretty and smart and funny--you are lucky to nail her.

HYM: I know, she is my whole life...I love her so much...blah de blah de drunken I love her so much blah...

ONE MONTH after this conversation, I ran into the happy couple at an event. I congratulated the bride to be on her engagement and she responded: "Huh? We are not engaged."

The fella with the ring has not presented it to her yet.

Oops.

How was I to know that the fella with the ring has balls the size of mustard seeds and he hasn't actually popped the question?

It is just another blaring reminder that I should not be presented with secrets.
Don't tell me any of yours. Really, I do not want another secret and you should know:

I am left handed and therefore I can not be trusted.

~Peek-a-boo!~

So, I was going to write a post titled, "Freako Suave and Mother Cerveza". It was going to be about my ex-husband who is getting ready to enter into a polygamous marriage with two totally hot chics.

But then I reminded myself that, "No! I do not write gossip at my blog!" and I decide to write about something else instead. (Though the Mother Cerveza things still holds true, as I have downed a few cerveza's this evening.)

First, I would like to entertain you with a few photo's of toys that my children own. (the peek a boo thing should be apparent; and so should the reason that my boys wake screaming in the middle of the night.)





Second, I am going to share a story with you that made my (current)husband say, "That's a pretty lesbian thing to do Deb."

An undisclosed woman arrived at my house (let's call her "mare") with her buddy (let's call her "wanda") and this conversation came up:

Me: Do you work out? Because, your arms are fabulous."
Wanda: No I do not, but people ask me that often.
Mare: Your arms are great, what size of bra do you wear?
Wanda: 38 C
Me: No way, I am a 38C, and I do not have a rack like that.
Mare: I am also a 38C
Me: There is no fucking way that we have the same size of tits.
Wanda: What kind of bra are you wearing?
Me: Victoria Secrets Ipex, and I got measured for it, so I know it is right.
Mare: Me too!
Wanda: I am wearing the Ipex also.
Me: No fucking way.
Mare: Look! (shows tag of pink bra.)
Me: Dude, check this out (shows tag of tan bra)
Wanda: (shows Ipex tag of black bra.)
Me: Okay, but--did you guys get fitted, cause there is no way that we are all the same size.

After that conversation, we went to the bathroom and stood in the mirror with a full frontal view of each of us.

And holy shit.

38C may be the right measurement for all of us, but we do not look the same. I assumed that when you were fitted for a bra that meant that your boobs looked exactly like everyone else with your size.

But no.

I felt like I had been transported back to the eight grade scoliosis test and I was the only girl in line who didn't need a bra. (Obviously we had this conversation after the pillow fight, but before the tickle war.)

My beloved thinks that ladies comparing tits is questionable, but as for me? Nah. Mare take tasteful nudes and has seen hundreds of areola. Wanda and Mare have been buddies since the third grade. I had no desire to cup or touch any of the breasts exposed.

I did have a desire to drink another beer and that night I reminded myself of the cardinal rule, "Must not drink then blog."

Tonight? Still not moved by breasts, but I am ignoring the cardinal rule.

~Better Than a Side Road~

I am currently in a house that is occupied by just my kids. It's quiet, ahhh. The trip to CO was uneventful. We drove through the night talking about Carl Marx and plagiarism with my cousin Dan, and the two men took turns driving. I guess they didn't want me to drive because I have a history of getting lost. Our stay in Colorado was most excellent, we went to a county fair and to the VFW to watch my Uncle play in a band. We stopped at the Garden of the Gods and all of my costumes worked as they were supposed to; the only problem is I only packed two costumes, and I was gone for four days. So I had to recycle. These means that I arrived at home wearing the same shirt I left in; except that it came home with food stains on it.

What I would most like to talk about today is Rest Area's--in the last month I have spent quite a lot of time in rest area's, and I am developing a rating system. Kansas is in last place, Idaho is in first place (based on cleanliness and services provided). Wyoming is hovering near the middle.

Wyoming doesn't have many rest area's. There are plenty of pull out spots with garbage cans, but not many facilities for the disposal of human waste. Well. At least female human waste, as men don't have a problem relieving themselves at the side of the road. The rest area's that Wyoming does have are very visually pleasing. There are picnic spots, and the toilets are clean looking and toilet paper is provided. The graffiti is mostly standard, though I did see a sticker on one door that pleased me enough that I took a picture. (Yeah, I was sitting on the stool while I was snapping this shot.)

The problem with the Wyoming rest areas is that they are equipped with self flushing toilets that are incredibly sensitive. So, if you were a woman having a hard time holding the hover, the toilet flushes many times and the toilet water spray--which goes much further than you think it does--mists the back side. I know this is true because it happened to me.

Ever since I had children, I have had a very picky bowel. I have a hard time evacuating the contents anywhere but in my own home. By the third day of traveling this can get uncomfortable. On the fourth day I get a narrow window of opportunity to make the deposit, and I have only one chance to get the job done. If anything interurpts me during the process, I loose it. (If you have ever had the urge to take a shit, and then lost it you know the agony of which I speak.)

SO, in Wyoming--trying to hold the hover--the toilet flushed and splashed me with water. As soon as the mist hit me the bowel slammed shut and suggested it wait til we get home. I gave up on the hover because after getting splashed by rest area toilet water, anything on the seat is already all over me. While sitting and trying to talk my bowel into giving it one more try a woman opened the door. Which caused me to jump, and caused the toilet to flush again and that was the end of that.

I got misted with toilet water, and I didn't even lay a rail.

It probably isn't fair to the Wyoming Rest Area Operators Union for me to give their effort a three out of five rating because I wasn't able to drop a duke. Unfortunately, I blame the self flushing toilet and not my own system.

I am trying to make nice with my own system.